Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Proposal/Draft

Naming conventions are Wikipedia's policies on how to name articles. The conventions are supplemented and explained by the conventions of specific fields. This policy should be interpreted in conjunction with other policies and not in isolation. In particular editors should familiarise themselves with the three core content policies Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

Principles

The overarching principle of our naming convention is

Choose the article title that most readers of the article would expect to be used by the encyclopedia that we aspire to be.

Essentially, we choose the title that best accords with the encyclopedic values that we uphold. These values are :

Accessibility: The ideal title should be recognisable to as many readers as possible.

Correctness: The ideal title should be correct and accurate.

Precision: The ideal title should precisely identify the topic and scope of the article.

Neutrality: A neutral point of view is a cornerstone of Wikipedia. The ideal title will not imply that the article takes a position in a dispute.

Consistency: Related articles should have related titles.

Stability: Once a title has been chosen, it should not be changed without good reason.

In general, the convenience of our editors is not one of our values when it comes to naming articles. However, in some fields where ambiguity is very common, article titles are preemptively disambiguated—that is, all articles are given a disambiguation suffix, whether ambiguous or not—in order to simplify linking.

These values may conflict with each other, in which case we must seek the best compromise title. For example the book commonly known as Gulliver's Travels is actually entitled Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. The latter name is clearly the correct name, yet the former name is far more accessible. Thus there is a conflict between the values of correctness and accessibility; in this case the argument for accessibility is more compelling than the argument for correctness. To address this use a redirect, so that the article is at Gulliver's Travels with the correct title Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World redirected.

Accessibility

The ideal article titles should be accessible to as many readers as possible. This principle is often phrased as "use the most common name" or "use the most easily recognised name". Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what English language reliable sources call the subject.

The importance of this value varies according to the inherent accessibility of the topic. For topics that are themselves highly accessible, it is fundamental; this explains why our article on the United Kingdom is at the concise title United Kingdom rather than longer "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". For highly specialised topics, on the other hand, accessibility may not be as important as correctness and precision.

One implication of this value is that article titles generally should use English. If there is a choice between an anglicized and a native spelling, follow English usage; for example Göttingen but Nuremberg.

Correctness

In situations where there is a single correct name, and all other names are incorrect—for example the title of a book—it is often desirable to use the correct name as the article title.

Example: Though widely known as The Black Album, the actual title of Metallica's fifth studio album is Metallica. As a result the article is located at the correct title, suitably disambiguated: Metallica (album).

Example: Though widely known as Gulliver's Travels, the actual title of the book is Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships. Since the shorter form is much better known, correctness yields to accessibility in this case: the article is located at Gulliver's Travels.

Example: Though most people would use the term gravity rather than gravitation, in strictly scientific terms only the latter term is correct; thus the article is at gravitation.

It is important to distinguish between correct and standardised. Just because the nomenclature of a field has been standardised does not mean that only standard names may be accepted as correct. The degree to which a departure from standard nomenclature is to be considered incorrect must be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Example: According to standardised comet nomenclature, the official name of 'Halley's Comet is "1P/Halley". This does not, however, imply that other names such as "Halley's Comet" and "Comet Halley" are incorrect.

Precision

Ideally, an article's title should give the reader a good idea of the topic of the article. Imprecise and ambiguous titles fail to do so.

Ambiguity arises in two ways:

• A title may refer to multiple distinct topics, such as when multiple notable people share the same name; for example George Bush.
• A title may refer to a single topic that may be scoped in more than one way. For example many of our articles on body parts have titles that could refer to either the body part in general, or the human body part; for example it may not be clear from the title breast whether the article refers to mammaries in general, the human breast, or the female human breast. The title breast is thus imprecise.

When a title lacks precision, there are three possible strategies:

1. If other values demand that the title be used regardless of its imprecision, then the imprecision may be accepted. This occurs, for example, when an imprecise term has a well-known primary topic.

   Example: Australia refers to a country, a continent, and a movie, among other things. However it is undisputed that the primary use of the term is for the country, so the country article is located at Australia regardless of the ambiguity, and other topics with that name are required to make room for it.

2. Choose a more precise title.

   Example: The name George Bush is ambiguous, and there is no primary topic for it, so our article on the 43rd president of the United States is located at the more precise George W. Bush.

3. If it is clear that an ambiguous or imprecise title is nonetheless the best title, then the ambiguity or imprecision may be eliminated by disambiguation.

   Example: Georgia may refer to a country or a U.S. state. Neither is a primary topic for the name, and in neither case is there an acceptable alternative name that is more precise. Therefore the name Georgia is used for both, with a disambiguation term added: Georgia (country) and Georgia (U.S. state).

Neutrality

The neutral point of view is a fundamental Wikimedia principle and a cornerstone of Wikipedia. With respect to article titles, it means that the ideal article title should not imply the taking of a position in a debate.

With respect to descriptive titles, neutral article titles are considered very important because they ensure that article topics are placed in the proper context. Descriptive article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality.

Example: Theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia was moved from "Portuguese discovery of Australia" because the latter name might have been interpreted as presenting this contentious theory as fact.

With respect to proper noun titles, it is important to recognise that the use of a biased name may not imply endorsement of that bias. There are many examples of biased names that have become very widely accepted and used, to the extent that their use is merely a convention.

Example: Black Hole of Calcutta. The name is biased, but no other name for this event exists. Use of the only name available cannot be interpreted as taking a position on Indian colonial affairs.

Example: Battle of Pinjarra. A small (but not fringe) minority consider the name offensive, on the grounds that it obscures the real nature of the event, which is alleged by them to have been a punitive massacre; they advocate the name Pinjarra massacre. Notwithstanding these arguments, the name Battle of Pinjarra is so well known, and so widely used, that its use is merely following convention, and cannot be considered an endorsement of the name's alleged bias. Furthermore the only alternative is even more biased. The argument that this title lacks neutrality is therefore not very compelling, and easily overcome by the name's superior accessibility.

A special case relating to neutrality of titles is that pertaining to national varieties of English. All national varieties of English spelling are acceptable in article names. American spellings need not be respelled to British standards, and vice versa; for example, both color and colour are acceptable and both spellings are found in article titles (such as color gel and colour state). However an article title on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the variety of English appropriate for that nation.

Consistency

In some areas it is considered important to maintain consistency across a large collection of articles. An example is that of royalty and nobility; this is an immensely complex area, where people may be entitled to use many names, and many names are ambiguous. As a result, the titles of our articles on royalty and nobility are governed by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles). This convention ensures accurate, precise and unambiguous names, but may result in uncommon names; hence Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, not "Queen Elizabeth", "Elizabeth II" or "Queen Elizabeth II".

Other areas where a consistency-based approach has been adopted include our articles on ships.

Example: For reasons of consistency and precision, articles about ships that have standard prefixes include those prefixes in the article title. Hence RMS Titanic not Titanic.

Even where a consistency-based approach has been adopted, exceptions are commonly made for topics that are very well known under some other name. For example Wikipedia:Naming conventions (astronomical objects) has adopted the official designations as the titles of comet articles, but makes exceptions for extremely famous comets.

Example: The very well known name Halley's comet, not the relatively obscure standard designation 1P/Halley.

Note that consistency is one of several values, the relative importance of which varies on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, unless a naming convention is explicitly adopted, an article's title should not be used as a precedent for the naming of any other articles.

Stability

The purpose of an article's title is to enable that article to be found by interested readers, and nothing more. In particular, the current title of a page does not imply either a preference for that name, or that any alternative name is discouraged in the text of articles. Editors are strongly discouraged from editing for the sole purpose of changing one controversial name to another. If an article name has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should remain. Especially when there is no other basis for a decision, the name given the article by its creator should prevail. Any proposal to change between names should be examined on a case-by-case basis, and discussed on talk pages before a name is changed. However, debating controversial names is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Wikipedia. An incomplete list of controversial names includes: Roman Catholic Church vs. Catholic Church; BC/AD vs. BCE/CE; Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia vs. Republic of Macedonia vs. Macedonia; Palestinian Arabs vs. Palestinians vs. Palestinian People. There are many others.