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 14 | Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | → | Archive 20 |
"The page is supplemented by naming guideline pages, which explain and enhance this naming conventions page."
Enhance in what way? Does it make the NC page more beautiful, more profound, more interesting? Surely it's enough that they explain; but "expand on" or "provide greater details of" would be the usual way to express this relationship, wouldn't it? Tony (talk) 14:06, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
As is often the case :-( Blueboar has said what I am trying to say more clearly, in this case in a reply to Xander on the talk page of Wikipedia talk:Naming conflict -- PBS ( talk) 15:53, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
One question at hand is whether Common Names is an objective, a goal in itself, ranking with Consistency, say, as an inherent good. In one case, we can say:
in the other we can say
This is a hair-thin dispute; but it can be resolved. The test is this: If one asks, "Why use common names?", that can be answered in other terms: because readers will understand them. If one asks: "Why use terms readers can understand?", the only reasons are restatements: "Because we write to be understood". Intelligibility is an end in itself.
On this analysis, common names are a means, although a very useful means, and one we should normally employ. I deny, by the way, that using common names achieves consistency, or is indeed always possible; those who assert this should state what names they would give Henry IV of England, Henry IV of France, and Victoria of the United Kingdom (for bonus credit, what name should be given to Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden when she succeeds?) and then explain how the choices are consistent. This would imply that the ends it serves should be treated differently; I see no reason why, as in this edit (which did not last long enough to be seen), it should not be mentioned in the header - just not in the same list as the reasons for it. Discussion? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:00, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Born2cycle's distinction between common name and recognizable is useful. It is usually better to use a name than a descriptive phrase, even if the phrase is more informative. But this is an argument for "name", and says nothing about "common" v "recognizable". I really think "recognizable" is more fundamental than "common" (Why do we want a commonly used name? Because they are recognizable. The reverse does not hold.) This suggests that the solution may lie in "recognizable name".
Another option is to expand the "prevalence in reliable sources" section to say that we like these names because they yield what one would expect: a recognizable name in the right register—the old "shit" v "feces" argument. If recognizable is used in this context, it may not be worth quibbling over it in the other context.
Hesperian 23:42, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
The more I think about it, the more I think register is crucial here. Without a mention of register, "use the name most commonly used to refer to the topic by most English speakers" is simply false. Kotniski's "shit" versus "feces" argument gives it the lie.
It all comes down to the principle of least surprise. Yes, if readers are familiar with a name, they will expect us to use that name. But it is also the case that readers expect use to use a formal register. Ultimately "feces" defeats "shit" because "familiar", "common" and "recognisable" are all poor surrogates for the real underlying principle, which is the principle of least surprise.
Hesperian 00:07, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
The present Overview section is performing the function usually expected of the intro. If we got rid of the header, and the sentence It consists of this overview, some general principles explaining how the criteria listed here are achieved, and a set of conventions applied to articles as a whole, or those in particular subject areas. which duplicates the TOC immediately above it, we would shorten the page slightly and adopt a more standard format.
While this pales in comparison with the vital issues in the sections above, it may last longer. Comments? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:01, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
It is disappointing that, as Kotniski has observed, no one seems willing to use the draft page I created the other day. Can I remind users that treating the policy page like a sandbox is unacceptable. I intend to ask for the page to be locked if the instability continues.
Can we agree here to create another draft page and work on that? Possibly one with a talk page (rather than the incompetent job I did of creating the page) would be more helpful, so the discussion can move directly there. Tony (talk) 14:36, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm certainly not making the case for a local consensus somehow overriding a more broad-based one. If my comments come across that way, then I need to be more careful. From years in Requested Moves, I can testify that very many specific naming conventions have been broadly accepted. You're entirely right to point out that others have not. That's what we need to make clear. None of this is black-and-white. - GTBacchus( talk) 16:54, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
If this page is restored to the stable version it was in before the recent flurry of changes, then it would make sense to work on a draft. But leaving it in an unstable condition while we work on a draft indefinitely is not acceptable. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:11, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Strenuously disagree. At this point, edits to the policy page can be divided into two classes:
Neither is grounds for dumping a week of progress. Hesperian 23:25, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
This is a novel principle. It was not here at the beginning of the month; it has never been in this text, and is contrary to WP:POL, which says that policy overrules guidelines. What guidelines do do is advise which principle to follow when the criteria conflict, as they will - being distinct principles. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
It is usually a bad sign when you are the only person proclaiming the absense of consensus on some point.
That makes nine reverts in just over three days. I'm pissed off that we have actually been making progress on this page, and it is being disrupted by Xandar's repeated fly-in fly-out reverts, motivated by a dispute that has nothing to do with us. I've reported this to ANI.
Hesperian 01:27, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
As I look at the page at this precise moment, the first sentence says "The naming conventions page sets out our policy... It is supplemented by our naming conventions, guidelines which..." Something's clearly weird here. If "our naming conventions" specifically excludes the policy page, then we'd better change this page's present title. (Of course, you could argue that being titled "Naming conventions" means that it's about naming conventions, not that it is naming conventions, but that's highly misleading to everyone, particularly since the naming conventions are not the main topic of this page.)
To me, it seems natural that the word "conventions" should refer to the specific arrangements we've adopted (ships have to be titled this way, monarchs that way) rather than the general principles that are the focus of this page. So I would propose renaming this page to something like WP:Article naming, as I believe has been suggested before. But if we want to keep it at its present title, then something has to be done about that sentence.-- Kotniski ( talk) 08:04, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
PBS, can you explain to me why Wikipedia:Naming conventions is a convention, but Wikipedia:Naming conventions (comics) is not? After all, they both have conventions in their name. I could understand if you said "This is policy; the other pages are guidelines." But I don't know how to parse your assertion that "This is convention; the other pages are guidelines". Hesperian 13:22, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
I have reverted the change which took the page away from recognizable to predictable because predictable implies consistency and "descriptive names" coined by editors rather than names based on reliable sources. One of the things that goes out of the window with predictable names is precision, as editors tend to tack on words to names to make them into groups eg "Nazi German occupation of ..." even though there may never have been any other German occupation of the country making the word Nazi superfluous. -- PBS ( talk) 11:36, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
I see nothing in the overview that indicates the title of an article should be the name of the topic of the article, much less the name most commonly used to refer to the topic of the article. "Easy to find" makes a vague reference to the latter notion, but it hardly stands out the way it used to.
Perhaps that is the intent, but, if so, then this naming policy currently barely reflects how the vast majority of Wikipedia articles are actually named. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:02, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Exceptions are unacceptable, it is like having exceptions in one of the main content policies.
B2c I thought that "Convention: Name articles in accordance with what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize – usually the most commonly used name in verifiable reliable sources in English." was a convention that covered this. -- PBS ( talk) 19:15, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
What's the point of having a policy if unlimited exceptions are allowed? A few exceptions, on a per-article basis, (like Fixed-wing aircraft), are true and very limited exceptions (and allowable per WP:IAR if nothing else). That's one thing. But to have guidelines for any group of articles to override the general policy? That effectively nullifies the policy. The broad unlimited exceptions render "policy" to not even be a guideline, much less true policy.
The general policy should be broad enough to encompass, not contradict, any reasonable specific guideline. A contradiction (or need to "override") between general naming policy and any more specific guideline should always indicate a need to change the general to be broader, or to alter the more specific to be in line with the general policy. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:45, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
In other words, there are exceptions to the rule (on a per article basis), and there are rules that make exceptions the rule. I would think we would want the former, but not the latter. Yet when we have more specific naming guidelines that override the general naming policy, what results is exceptions are the rule, and the general policy is made essentially pointless.
We certainly want more specific guideline that clarify and expand on what the general guidelines are for a particular group of articles, especially to provide guidance on what to do when it is not possible to follow the general rule in some particular case for some reason. But I honestly see no point in even having general policy and guidelines if more specific guidelines contradict or "override" what the general policy and guidelines say to do even in cases where the general policy and guidelines can be followed. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:22, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
This meaning of precise, as per the current wording in the policy, is generally not reflected in Wikipedia article titles, nor has ever been:
Precision in article titles has only been emphasized in Wikipedia for the purpose of disambiguation, and only when necessary. For example, WP:PRECISION states:
The wording above goes way beyond that, implying that article titles should be more precise than is merely necessary to not be ambiguous with other uses of that name in Wikipedia, if the more precise title identifies precisely what the subject of the article is, while the precise (but not ambiguous) title does not.
Again, I obtain an example by clicking on WP:RANDOM. I got Point Lobos Ranch. Is this precise? Apparently, it's unambiguous (there is no other Point Lobos Ranch). But it still does not "precisely [identify] what the subject of the article is". Point Lobos Ranch, potential state park in central California would be more precise.
The notion that the title of an article should precisely identify what the subject of the article is is novel to Wikipedia, and has no place in this policy. If nothing else, it directly contradicts the very notion of a primary topic. The title of an article that is the primary topic for its name is inherently imprecise. There is nothing precise about the name Paris. Giving "precision" equal billing, if you will, to "recognizable", is not being consistent with the spirit of Wikipedia article naming at all.
In fact, the two goals of using a name and precision in article titles are inherently conflicted. Names are rarely precise; descriptions are precise. The very idea of applying precision to a name is absurd.
The only realm in which the precision and names are not in conflict, that I can think of, is scientific names of plants and animals. Coincidence? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:32, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
But precision has always been advocated here, and should still be. Born2cycle is tilting at windmills: Point Lobos Ranch is a proper name, and apparently a unique proper name - as such it identifies one thing in the universe, which is as much precision as anybody could reasonably require. The text he removed warns against excessive precision; his preposterous example is what is meant by that. Let me see if I can word it to guard against such a reader. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:16, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
I have removed specific in several places from the lead. From "specific guidelines", because guidelines also cover general points, and from in front of recognizable, because I do not think it adds clarity and could probably makes the statement less clear.
I removed "and describe situations in which specific priniciples may be considered less applicable than other principles" because it is already stated in that sentence more succinctly, with "advise on managing conflicts between them, expand on the general conventions".
I have also removed "common name" from the introduction. It is already mentioned in what is now the the first section, and repeating it in slightly different wording does not bring clarity to this policy.
These are all changes to the lead which ought to be a summary of what comes below. We do not have to place all the details into the lead, there is a lot of space further down to include specifics. -- PBS ( talk) 07:07, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
I have been told that song articles should take the name of the first artist who recorded it, no matter whose version is the most famous (e.g. Addicted (Cheryl Wheeler song), even though Dan Seals was the only artist to release it as a single). But what if the original and most famous versions have different titles, as in Wild One (Faith Hill song)? The song was recorded by a group called Evangline about a year before Faith's version came out, but Evangeline's was called "She's a Wild One." The Faith Hill version is the more recognizable version, so the article should have some form of "Wild One" as the title, and not "She's a Wild One." So should it stay "Wild One (Faith Hill song)" or "Wild One (Evangeline song)"? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ( Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 02:16, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
user:Xandar please explain this edit to the section "General conventions and guidelines" because over the last few days there has not been any editing of this section. -- PBS ( talk) 20:01, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
"Our readers are mostly not specialists; article names should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists."
I don't like "our" in a formal register such as this; actually, the first clause could go completely. Just what the second clause means in practice is hard to know, even if we use this argument on the talk page from time to time WRT each other. Third clause: so a skin-condition article has to be called "Red rash", does it? Tony (talk) 02:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
"Since these are distinct criteria, they can conflict with one another; in such cases, the questions about article names are resolved by discussion towards building consensus, always with these principles in mind."
Presumably they could conflict even if they weren't distinct; the logic ("Since") doesn't work. After the semicolon, it doesn't seem to add anything that WP doesn't already know. Tony (talk) 02:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
This sentence poorly articulates that once we have picked the most common title from all unambiguous titles in verifiable use which are reasonably consistent with our other articles, then there is no need for any spurious "extra" precision for its own sake. Moving "Germany" to "Federal Republic of Germany" or "gypsum" to "calcium sulfate dihydrate" gains us nothing in terms of reducing ambiguity, but probably reduces ease-of-accessibility in some sense. If a new wording could better illustrate this spirit, it would be an improvement. Knepflerle ( talk) 10:27, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
In fact we do manufacture standards solely to make our work of adding links easier. Whether we should is another matter; but we do. One has only to look at the various geographic locality conventions that advocate predisambiguation e.g. Meekatharra, Western Australia not Meekatharra. Therefore I agree: take it out the back and shoot it. Hesperian 07:05, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Done. -- PBS ( talk) 09:00, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Undone. The example provided by Hesperian is a good one. The article should have the title Meekatharra because that is the common name of the place and there is no need for disambiguation. If, for some technical editing reason, we need the link Meekatharra, Western Australia too, this may be provided as a redirect. For another example, consider the common usage Xxxxxx (disambiguation). This is written in full, rather than being abbreviated as Xxxxxx (dab) per our common internal usage. This may be less convenient for editors who have to type this long form, but it is clearer for readers and so we prefer it. Colonel Warden ( talk) 09:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic names)#Australia says "All Australian town/city/suburb articles are at
Town, State no matter what their status of ambiguity is.". This is a convention that I am on the record as disagreeing with. I have tried twice to overturn it, and both times failed dismally. I failed because the convention has strong consensus support amongst editors of Australian geography articles, and is universally applied there. It is beyond dispute that the decision to predisambiguate in this case is an optimisation aimed at editors over readers. Colonel Warden and I agree that this is silly; apparently everyone in this discussion does. But I know for a fact that many Australian editors think the convention is great. Therefore, though I wholeheartedly agree with the phrase "should be optimized for readers over editors", I doubt if it represents consensus.
Hesperian
03:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
From "Name articles in accordance with what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize" to "Articles are generally named in accordance with what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize" Oh so some articles can be named in such a way that it is obscure to most English English speakers. The older wording is clearer. -- PBS ( talk) 08:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
This addition: "This is not understood as a simple "majority rules" principle; for example, consensus does not favor the systematic use of American over British English." is not needed it is covered in WP:NC#National varieties of English. It just complicates a clear and concise paragraph. -- PBS ( talk) 08:46, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
However, we could at some point state the principle that WP:NC#National varieties of English instantiates - a combination of civility among editors and inclusiveness for readers; it's a good thing and consensus policy - but it doesn't follow from the six principles we have now. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
PBS, was it everything about my edit you disagreed with, or just parts? There were several changes, and it's not clear to me which ones bother you. Do you think the imperative "Name articles in accordance with..." language is good. It seems to me that there is quite a bit of input on this page that such a commandment is contrary to policy and practice.
What do people think about this point? - GTBacchus( talk) 15:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
My issue with "verifiable reliable sources" is that the sources are not "verifiable". Facts are verifiable IN reliable sources. My sense of semantics revolts at "verifiable reliable sources", and someone above in the RFC complained about it as well. It's just not good English. - GTBacchus( talk) 16:10, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
I still have trouble with the precise paragraph:
The related idea has always been "be precise when necessary". There was never any need for precision in WP naming except to resolve conflicts with other uses. The above implies much more than that, and for which there is very little precedence in actual article naming, AFAIK, much less any history in written policy or guidelines for it. Including the principle of precision - seeking precision beyond merely resolving conflict with other actual uses - sets up for needless conflicts. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:00, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
That's a little better, but even the first sentence has no basis: "Good article titles should indicate the subject and scope of the article". There simply is no precedence for that. Article titles indicate the name of the article topic, whether doing so indicates the subject and scope of the article is rarely if ever a factor. Then, if the name alone is not unambiguous, the title needs to be made more precise (usually with dab info in parenthesis) but in order to meet WP's unique technical requirement, not to indicate the subject and scope of the article. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:01, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
For example, assuming X is more commonly used to refer to a given topic than is X ScopeA, "It should be at X ScopeA and not at X because X could some day refer to X ScopeB (which currently does not exist) is an argument to make X a dab page and to create at least a stub for X ScopeB, not an argument to put the article at X ScopeA, redirect X to X ScopeA, and leave X ScopeB unused. If X ScopeB does not exist and there is no plan to create it shortly, and there are no conflicts for X, then the article in question should be at X, not at X ScopeA.
This is because any commonly used name of any notable topic that can be conceived should at least have an article stub, or a redirect to one. This is addressed in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC:
This is just a somewhat pedantic point; I'm not disagreeing with the above. - GTBacchus( talk) 07:49, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
The naming algorithm for most articles goes like this.
Many articles are named by Step 1 alone (that is, the obvious name identified by the original article creator is it), many more are named by Step 2. Only relatively few require going to Step 3, and only for Step 3 are the principles currently outlined on this page even relevant.
This algorithm needs to be reflected here at WP:NC, because this is how almost all, if not all, Wikipedia articles have been named, and continue to be named.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Born2cycle ( talk • contribs) [3]
Please enforce common names. Or at least common enough names when there are disambig problems. I think myocardial infarction and RMS Titanic are more common than people think, so they aren't good examples. - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) ( contribs) 02:53, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Hmmm...I always assumed that the algorithm was to choose a name you recognize, find where it's used in a blog, and call it a day.-- Curtis Clark ( talk) 03:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
I too agree with WAID, in principle. If the most commonly used name in question is not unique or primary (e.g., "heart attack"), then you use the commonly used name that is unique or primary with respect to that topic (e.g., myocardial infarction). That's all part of Step 1.
However, I must say, I just went to Heart attack expecting to find either a general article or a dab page. Instead, I found it simply redirected to Myocardial infarction. That's broken. If that redirect is correct, that implies consensus agreement that the primary topic for Heart attack is the topic of that article. And surely Heart attack is used more commonly to refer to it. If the most commonly used name, Heart attack, is truly primary for that topic, then the article needs to be moved to it ( Heart attack). If there is no primary topic for Heart attack, then Heart attack needs to be a dab page listing the topics to which it commonly refers. This is not the place to argue which way to go, only that either way would be consistent with WP naming policy and conventions, but the current situation is not. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 05:49, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
I mean, if you want some consistency, then you can't establish that by simply declaring the current inconsistency to be consistency.
What we have now in Wikipedia naming is mostly consistency, but quite a lot of inconsistency too. But, yeah, it's all relative. Consistency as measured by what standard? Relative to what? With lax or non-existent standards, just about anything can be considered consistent. That seems to be the way you want this to go... Let's loosen up the rules until all the current names are consistent with the rules, so nothing has to change. Never mind that leaves little if any useful guidance on how to name new articles.
But if we are going to have a standard, it's fair to ask, why? I suspect we agree that consistency for the sake of being consistent with some arbitrary standard is pointless. Striving for consistency with the chosen standard has to achieve some kind of benefit, or there is no point in having that standard, I think.
This is exactly why I advocate the "use the most common name" standard. By having articles named consistently with that standard, we achieve the benefit of having Wikipedia article titles identify the most common name used to refer that topic. I see that as a tangible and unique benefit - no other reference does that, and we can provide it without, ironically, violating WP:NOR. In fact, we mostly already do that, except for those categories of articles where well-meaning editors who did not value this WP benefit chose to name those articles differently. Why? To what end? What is the benefit achieved for the reader? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 01:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
For a long time I've been tossing around the idea of names that are official, canonical, standardised, etcetera. I think what it comes down to is that they are endorsed by some authoritative external body.
There can be no doubt that external endorsement carries weight in naming on Wikipedia:
Arguably the self-identifying names controversy raging elsewhere fits in here too. Those who are arguing for recognition of self-identifying names are essentially arguing that the fact that (for example) "Myanmar" is endorsed by the government and people of that country should count for something. And they bring further supporting arguments by recourse to the UN and other authorities; this fits in here too.
I think it is beyond dispute that many people consider endorsement by external authorities an important consideration when naming articles in fields where such authorities exist. Is this another principle, or is it a non-obvious application of one or more principles that we have already articulated.
Hesperian 02:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia strongly prefers secondary sources to primary sources [1]. Resources that define or specify "official, canonical, standardised" names, in the context of determining names that people are most likely to recognize, are arguably primary sources, and should be given far less preference than secondary sources, like usage in the NY Times or the London Times. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 05:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Regarding the case of bird names, the example Sun Parakeet/ Sun Conure comes to mind. A lot of principles have been thrown around in that debate, including COMMONNAME, reliable sources, reliable sources in one domain versus another, experts from the actual continent where these birds live versus experts across the globe, scientists who study birds versus people who keep them as pets, the moral acceptability of keeping them as pets, etc., etc., etc.
Just another example to chew on. Sometimes third-party endorsements, independently considered reliable, disagree with each other. - GTBacchus( talk) 10:44, 16 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 14 | Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | → | Archive 20 |
"The page is supplemented by naming guideline pages, which explain and enhance this naming conventions page."
Enhance in what way? Does it make the NC page more beautiful, more profound, more interesting? Surely it's enough that they explain; but "expand on" or "provide greater details of" would be the usual way to express this relationship, wouldn't it? Tony (talk) 14:06, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
As is often the case :-( Blueboar has said what I am trying to say more clearly, in this case in a reply to Xander on the talk page of Wikipedia talk:Naming conflict -- PBS ( talk) 15:53, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
One question at hand is whether Common Names is an objective, a goal in itself, ranking with Consistency, say, as an inherent good. In one case, we can say:
in the other we can say
This is a hair-thin dispute; but it can be resolved. The test is this: If one asks, "Why use common names?", that can be answered in other terms: because readers will understand them. If one asks: "Why use terms readers can understand?", the only reasons are restatements: "Because we write to be understood". Intelligibility is an end in itself.
On this analysis, common names are a means, although a very useful means, and one we should normally employ. I deny, by the way, that using common names achieves consistency, or is indeed always possible; those who assert this should state what names they would give Henry IV of England, Henry IV of France, and Victoria of the United Kingdom (for bonus credit, what name should be given to Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden when she succeeds?) and then explain how the choices are consistent. This would imply that the ends it serves should be treated differently; I see no reason why, as in this edit (which did not last long enough to be seen), it should not be mentioned in the header - just not in the same list as the reasons for it. Discussion? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:00, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Born2cycle's distinction between common name and recognizable is useful. It is usually better to use a name than a descriptive phrase, even if the phrase is more informative. But this is an argument for "name", and says nothing about "common" v "recognizable". I really think "recognizable" is more fundamental than "common" (Why do we want a commonly used name? Because they are recognizable. The reverse does not hold.) This suggests that the solution may lie in "recognizable name".
Another option is to expand the "prevalence in reliable sources" section to say that we like these names because they yield what one would expect: a recognizable name in the right register—the old "shit" v "feces" argument. If recognizable is used in this context, it may not be worth quibbling over it in the other context.
Hesperian 23:42, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
The more I think about it, the more I think register is crucial here. Without a mention of register, "use the name most commonly used to refer to the topic by most English speakers" is simply false. Kotniski's "shit" versus "feces" argument gives it the lie.
It all comes down to the principle of least surprise. Yes, if readers are familiar with a name, they will expect us to use that name. But it is also the case that readers expect use to use a formal register. Ultimately "feces" defeats "shit" because "familiar", "common" and "recognisable" are all poor surrogates for the real underlying principle, which is the principle of least surprise.
Hesperian 00:07, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
The present Overview section is performing the function usually expected of the intro. If we got rid of the header, and the sentence It consists of this overview, some general principles explaining how the criteria listed here are achieved, and a set of conventions applied to articles as a whole, or those in particular subject areas. which duplicates the TOC immediately above it, we would shorten the page slightly and adopt a more standard format.
While this pales in comparison with the vital issues in the sections above, it may last longer. Comments? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:01, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
It is disappointing that, as Kotniski has observed, no one seems willing to use the draft page I created the other day. Can I remind users that treating the policy page like a sandbox is unacceptable. I intend to ask for the page to be locked if the instability continues.
Can we agree here to create another draft page and work on that? Possibly one with a talk page (rather than the incompetent job I did of creating the page) would be more helpful, so the discussion can move directly there. Tony (talk) 14:36, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm certainly not making the case for a local consensus somehow overriding a more broad-based one. If my comments come across that way, then I need to be more careful. From years in Requested Moves, I can testify that very many specific naming conventions have been broadly accepted. You're entirely right to point out that others have not. That's what we need to make clear. None of this is black-and-white. - GTBacchus( talk) 16:54, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
If this page is restored to the stable version it was in before the recent flurry of changes, then it would make sense to work on a draft. But leaving it in an unstable condition while we work on a draft indefinitely is not acceptable. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:11, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Strenuously disagree. At this point, edits to the policy page can be divided into two classes:
Neither is grounds for dumping a week of progress. Hesperian 23:25, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
This is a novel principle. It was not here at the beginning of the month; it has never been in this text, and is contrary to WP:POL, which says that policy overrules guidelines. What guidelines do do is advise which principle to follow when the criteria conflict, as they will - being distinct principles. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
It is usually a bad sign when you are the only person proclaiming the absense of consensus on some point.
That makes nine reverts in just over three days. I'm pissed off that we have actually been making progress on this page, and it is being disrupted by Xandar's repeated fly-in fly-out reverts, motivated by a dispute that has nothing to do with us. I've reported this to ANI.
Hesperian 01:27, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
As I look at the page at this precise moment, the first sentence says "The naming conventions page sets out our policy... It is supplemented by our naming conventions, guidelines which..." Something's clearly weird here. If "our naming conventions" specifically excludes the policy page, then we'd better change this page's present title. (Of course, you could argue that being titled "Naming conventions" means that it's about naming conventions, not that it is naming conventions, but that's highly misleading to everyone, particularly since the naming conventions are not the main topic of this page.)
To me, it seems natural that the word "conventions" should refer to the specific arrangements we've adopted (ships have to be titled this way, monarchs that way) rather than the general principles that are the focus of this page. So I would propose renaming this page to something like WP:Article naming, as I believe has been suggested before. But if we want to keep it at its present title, then something has to be done about that sentence.-- Kotniski ( talk) 08:04, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
PBS, can you explain to me why Wikipedia:Naming conventions is a convention, but Wikipedia:Naming conventions (comics) is not? After all, they both have conventions in their name. I could understand if you said "This is policy; the other pages are guidelines." But I don't know how to parse your assertion that "This is convention; the other pages are guidelines". Hesperian 13:22, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
I have reverted the change which took the page away from recognizable to predictable because predictable implies consistency and "descriptive names" coined by editors rather than names based on reliable sources. One of the things that goes out of the window with predictable names is precision, as editors tend to tack on words to names to make them into groups eg "Nazi German occupation of ..." even though there may never have been any other German occupation of the country making the word Nazi superfluous. -- PBS ( talk) 11:36, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
I see nothing in the overview that indicates the title of an article should be the name of the topic of the article, much less the name most commonly used to refer to the topic of the article. "Easy to find" makes a vague reference to the latter notion, but it hardly stands out the way it used to.
Perhaps that is the intent, but, if so, then this naming policy currently barely reflects how the vast majority of Wikipedia articles are actually named. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:02, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Exceptions are unacceptable, it is like having exceptions in one of the main content policies.
B2c I thought that "Convention: Name articles in accordance with what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize – usually the most commonly used name in verifiable reliable sources in English." was a convention that covered this. -- PBS ( talk) 19:15, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
What's the point of having a policy if unlimited exceptions are allowed? A few exceptions, on a per-article basis, (like Fixed-wing aircraft), are true and very limited exceptions (and allowable per WP:IAR if nothing else). That's one thing. But to have guidelines for any group of articles to override the general policy? That effectively nullifies the policy. The broad unlimited exceptions render "policy" to not even be a guideline, much less true policy.
The general policy should be broad enough to encompass, not contradict, any reasonable specific guideline. A contradiction (or need to "override") between general naming policy and any more specific guideline should always indicate a need to change the general to be broader, or to alter the more specific to be in line with the general policy. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:45, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
In other words, there are exceptions to the rule (on a per article basis), and there are rules that make exceptions the rule. I would think we would want the former, but not the latter. Yet when we have more specific naming guidelines that override the general naming policy, what results is exceptions are the rule, and the general policy is made essentially pointless.
We certainly want more specific guideline that clarify and expand on what the general guidelines are for a particular group of articles, especially to provide guidance on what to do when it is not possible to follow the general rule in some particular case for some reason. But I honestly see no point in even having general policy and guidelines if more specific guidelines contradict or "override" what the general policy and guidelines say to do even in cases where the general policy and guidelines can be followed. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:22, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
This meaning of precise, as per the current wording in the policy, is generally not reflected in Wikipedia article titles, nor has ever been:
Precision in article titles has only been emphasized in Wikipedia for the purpose of disambiguation, and only when necessary. For example, WP:PRECISION states:
The wording above goes way beyond that, implying that article titles should be more precise than is merely necessary to not be ambiguous with other uses of that name in Wikipedia, if the more precise title identifies precisely what the subject of the article is, while the precise (but not ambiguous) title does not.
Again, I obtain an example by clicking on WP:RANDOM. I got Point Lobos Ranch. Is this precise? Apparently, it's unambiguous (there is no other Point Lobos Ranch). But it still does not "precisely [identify] what the subject of the article is". Point Lobos Ranch, potential state park in central California would be more precise.
The notion that the title of an article should precisely identify what the subject of the article is is novel to Wikipedia, and has no place in this policy. If nothing else, it directly contradicts the very notion of a primary topic. The title of an article that is the primary topic for its name is inherently imprecise. There is nothing precise about the name Paris. Giving "precision" equal billing, if you will, to "recognizable", is not being consistent with the spirit of Wikipedia article naming at all.
In fact, the two goals of using a name and precision in article titles are inherently conflicted. Names are rarely precise; descriptions are precise. The very idea of applying precision to a name is absurd.
The only realm in which the precision and names are not in conflict, that I can think of, is scientific names of plants and animals. Coincidence? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:32, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
But precision has always been advocated here, and should still be. Born2cycle is tilting at windmills: Point Lobos Ranch is a proper name, and apparently a unique proper name - as such it identifies one thing in the universe, which is as much precision as anybody could reasonably require. The text he removed warns against excessive precision; his preposterous example is what is meant by that. Let me see if I can word it to guard against such a reader. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:16, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
I have removed specific in several places from the lead. From "specific guidelines", because guidelines also cover general points, and from in front of recognizable, because I do not think it adds clarity and could probably makes the statement less clear.
I removed "and describe situations in which specific priniciples may be considered less applicable than other principles" because it is already stated in that sentence more succinctly, with "advise on managing conflicts between them, expand on the general conventions".
I have also removed "common name" from the introduction. It is already mentioned in what is now the the first section, and repeating it in slightly different wording does not bring clarity to this policy.
These are all changes to the lead which ought to be a summary of what comes below. We do not have to place all the details into the lead, there is a lot of space further down to include specifics. -- PBS ( talk) 07:07, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
I have been told that song articles should take the name of the first artist who recorded it, no matter whose version is the most famous (e.g. Addicted (Cheryl Wheeler song), even though Dan Seals was the only artist to release it as a single). But what if the original and most famous versions have different titles, as in Wild One (Faith Hill song)? The song was recorded by a group called Evangline about a year before Faith's version came out, but Evangeline's was called "She's a Wild One." The Faith Hill version is the more recognizable version, so the article should have some form of "Wild One" as the title, and not "She's a Wild One." So should it stay "Wild One (Faith Hill song)" or "Wild One (Evangeline song)"? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ( Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 02:16, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
user:Xandar please explain this edit to the section "General conventions and guidelines" because over the last few days there has not been any editing of this section. -- PBS ( talk) 20:01, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
"Our readers are mostly not specialists; article names should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists."
I don't like "our" in a formal register such as this; actually, the first clause could go completely. Just what the second clause means in practice is hard to know, even if we use this argument on the talk page from time to time WRT each other. Third clause: so a skin-condition article has to be called "Red rash", does it? Tony (talk) 02:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
"Since these are distinct criteria, they can conflict with one another; in such cases, the questions about article names are resolved by discussion towards building consensus, always with these principles in mind."
Presumably they could conflict even if they weren't distinct; the logic ("Since") doesn't work. After the semicolon, it doesn't seem to add anything that WP doesn't already know. Tony (talk) 02:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
This sentence poorly articulates that once we have picked the most common title from all unambiguous titles in verifiable use which are reasonably consistent with our other articles, then there is no need for any spurious "extra" precision for its own sake. Moving "Germany" to "Federal Republic of Germany" or "gypsum" to "calcium sulfate dihydrate" gains us nothing in terms of reducing ambiguity, but probably reduces ease-of-accessibility in some sense. If a new wording could better illustrate this spirit, it would be an improvement. Knepflerle ( talk) 10:27, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
In fact we do manufacture standards solely to make our work of adding links easier. Whether we should is another matter; but we do. One has only to look at the various geographic locality conventions that advocate predisambiguation e.g. Meekatharra, Western Australia not Meekatharra. Therefore I agree: take it out the back and shoot it. Hesperian 07:05, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Done. -- PBS ( talk) 09:00, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Undone. The example provided by Hesperian is a good one. The article should have the title Meekatharra because that is the common name of the place and there is no need for disambiguation. If, for some technical editing reason, we need the link Meekatharra, Western Australia too, this may be provided as a redirect. For another example, consider the common usage Xxxxxx (disambiguation). This is written in full, rather than being abbreviated as Xxxxxx (dab) per our common internal usage. This may be less convenient for editors who have to type this long form, but it is clearer for readers and so we prefer it. Colonel Warden ( talk) 09:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic names)#Australia says "All Australian town/city/suburb articles are at
Town, State no matter what their status of ambiguity is.". This is a convention that I am on the record as disagreeing with. I have tried twice to overturn it, and both times failed dismally. I failed because the convention has strong consensus support amongst editors of Australian geography articles, and is universally applied there. It is beyond dispute that the decision to predisambiguate in this case is an optimisation aimed at editors over readers. Colonel Warden and I agree that this is silly; apparently everyone in this discussion does. But I know for a fact that many Australian editors think the convention is great. Therefore, though I wholeheartedly agree with the phrase "should be optimized for readers over editors", I doubt if it represents consensus.
Hesperian
03:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
From "Name articles in accordance with what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize" to "Articles are generally named in accordance with what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize" Oh so some articles can be named in such a way that it is obscure to most English English speakers. The older wording is clearer. -- PBS ( talk) 08:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
This addition: "This is not understood as a simple "majority rules" principle; for example, consensus does not favor the systematic use of American over British English." is not needed it is covered in WP:NC#National varieties of English. It just complicates a clear and concise paragraph. -- PBS ( talk) 08:46, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
However, we could at some point state the principle that WP:NC#National varieties of English instantiates - a combination of civility among editors and inclusiveness for readers; it's a good thing and consensus policy - but it doesn't follow from the six principles we have now. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
PBS, was it everything about my edit you disagreed with, or just parts? There were several changes, and it's not clear to me which ones bother you. Do you think the imperative "Name articles in accordance with..." language is good. It seems to me that there is quite a bit of input on this page that such a commandment is contrary to policy and practice.
What do people think about this point? - GTBacchus( talk) 15:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
My issue with "verifiable reliable sources" is that the sources are not "verifiable". Facts are verifiable IN reliable sources. My sense of semantics revolts at "verifiable reliable sources", and someone above in the RFC complained about it as well. It's just not good English. - GTBacchus( talk) 16:10, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
I still have trouble with the precise paragraph:
The related idea has always been "be precise when necessary". There was never any need for precision in WP naming except to resolve conflicts with other uses. The above implies much more than that, and for which there is very little precedence in actual article naming, AFAIK, much less any history in written policy or guidelines for it. Including the principle of precision - seeking precision beyond merely resolving conflict with other actual uses - sets up for needless conflicts. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:00, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
That's a little better, but even the first sentence has no basis: "Good article titles should indicate the subject and scope of the article". There simply is no precedence for that. Article titles indicate the name of the article topic, whether doing so indicates the subject and scope of the article is rarely if ever a factor. Then, if the name alone is not unambiguous, the title needs to be made more precise (usually with dab info in parenthesis) but in order to meet WP's unique technical requirement, not to indicate the subject and scope of the article. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:01, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
For example, assuming X is more commonly used to refer to a given topic than is X ScopeA, "It should be at X ScopeA and not at X because X could some day refer to X ScopeB (which currently does not exist) is an argument to make X a dab page and to create at least a stub for X ScopeB, not an argument to put the article at X ScopeA, redirect X to X ScopeA, and leave X ScopeB unused. If X ScopeB does not exist and there is no plan to create it shortly, and there are no conflicts for X, then the article in question should be at X, not at X ScopeA.
This is because any commonly used name of any notable topic that can be conceived should at least have an article stub, or a redirect to one. This is addressed in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC:
This is just a somewhat pedantic point; I'm not disagreeing with the above. - GTBacchus( talk) 07:49, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
The naming algorithm for most articles goes like this.
Many articles are named by Step 1 alone (that is, the obvious name identified by the original article creator is it), many more are named by Step 2. Only relatively few require going to Step 3, and only for Step 3 are the principles currently outlined on this page even relevant.
This algorithm needs to be reflected here at WP:NC, because this is how almost all, if not all, Wikipedia articles have been named, and continue to be named.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Born2cycle ( talk • contribs) [3]
Please enforce common names. Or at least common enough names when there are disambig problems. I think myocardial infarction and RMS Titanic are more common than people think, so they aren't good examples. - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) ( contribs) 02:53, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Hmmm...I always assumed that the algorithm was to choose a name you recognize, find where it's used in a blog, and call it a day.-- Curtis Clark ( talk) 03:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
I too agree with WAID, in principle. If the most commonly used name in question is not unique or primary (e.g., "heart attack"), then you use the commonly used name that is unique or primary with respect to that topic (e.g., myocardial infarction). That's all part of Step 1.
However, I must say, I just went to Heart attack expecting to find either a general article or a dab page. Instead, I found it simply redirected to Myocardial infarction. That's broken. If that redirect is correct, that implies consensus agreement that the primary topic for Heart attack is the topic of that article. And surely Heart attack is used more commonly to refer to it. If the most commonly used name, Heart attack, is truly primary for that topic, then the article needs to be moved to it ( Heart attack). If there is no primary topic for Heart attack, then Heart attack needs to be a dab page listing the topics to which it commonly refers. This is not the place to argue which way to go, only that either way would be consistent with WP naming policy and conventions, but the current situation is not. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 05:49, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
I mean, if you want some consistency, then you can't establish that by simply declaring the current inconsistency to be consistency.
What we have now in Wikipedia naming is mostly consistency, but quite a lot of inconsistency too. But, yeah, it's all relative. Consistency as measured by what standard? Relative to what? With lax or non-existent standards, just about anything can be considered consistent. That seems to be the way you want this to go... Let's loosen up the rules until all the current names are consistent with the rules, so nothing has to change. Never mind that leaves little if any useful guidance on how to name new articles.
But if we are going to have a standard, it's fair to ask, why? I suspect we agree that consistency for the sake of being consistent with some arbitrary standard is pointless. Striving for consistency with the chosen standard has to achieve some kind of benefit, or there is no point in having that standard, I think.
This is exactly why I advocate the "use the most common name" standard. By having articles named consistently with that standard, we achieve the benefit of having Wikipedia article titles identify the most common name used to refer that topic. I see that as a tangible and unique benefit - no other reference does that, and we can provide it without, ironically, violating WP:NOR. In fact, we mostly already do that, except for those categories of articles where well-meaning editors who did not value this WP benefit chose to name those articles differently. Why? To what end? What is the benefit achieved for the reader? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 01:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
For a long time I've been tossing around the idea of names that are official, canonical, standardised, etcetera. I think what it comes down to is that they are endorsed by some authoritative external body.
There can be no doubt that external endorsement carries weight in naming on Wikipedia:
Arguably the self-identifying names controversy raging elsewhere fits in here too. Those who are arguing for recognition of self-identifying names are essentially arguing that the fact that (for example) "Myanmar" is endorsed by the government and people of that country should count for something. And they bring further supporting arguments by recourse to the UN and other authorities; this fits in here too.
I think it is beyond dispute that many people consider endorsement by external authorities an important consideration when naming articles in fields where such authorities exist. Is this another principle, or is it a non-obvious application of one or more principles that we have already articulated.
Hesperian 02:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia strongly prefers secondary sources to primary sources [1]. Resources that define or specify "official, canonical, standardised" names, in the context of determining names that people are most likely to recognize, are arguably primary sources, and should be given far less preference than secondary sources, like usage in the NY Times or the London Times. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 05:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Regarding the case of bird names, the example Sun Parakeet/ Sun Conure comes to mind. A lot of principles have been thrown around in that debate, including COMMONNAME, reliable sources, reliable sources in one domain versus another, experts from the actual continent where these birds live versus experts across the globe, scientists who study birds versus people who keep them as pets, the moral acceptability of keeping them as pets, etc., etc., etc.
Just another example to chew on. Sometimes third-party endorsements, independently considered reliable, disagree with each other. - GTBacchus( talk) 10:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)