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Naming criteria section wording

All right, can we get this sorted out. What, specifically, does anyone propose changing about the wording of this section (the one titled WP:AT#Deciding on an article title). Apart from re-adding the clarification that was confirmed in a discussion above, that recognizability should be stated as applying to people who are "familiar with (but not expert in) the topic". Are there any other proposals about this or any other of the wording?--Kotniski (talk) 10:28, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Possible wording (quite major change)

Trying to rewrite the section so as to be more accurately and informatively descriptive of the process, I came up with this totally reworded version:

The title of an article is often simply a name of the person or thing which is the topic of the article (examples). In many such cases the name is accompanied by an additional descriptor (disambiguator), often in parentheses, to specify it more precisely (examples). In other cases a descriptive title is used, indicating the topical scope of the article (examples) or describing what the article is (examples: List of..., Timeline of...).
For most articles there will be a simple and obvious title. However, in some cases the choice is not so clear – there may be several possible titles, each with advantages and disadvantages. The critera most commonly applied when selecting article titles are recognizability, naturalness, appropriate register, conformance to reliable sources, conciseness, precision, consistency, neutrality, and sometimes others. The principal ways in which these criteria are applied in practice are described below.
When a name is to be used as an article title, the main criterion is the "common name" principle, described in the following section. A name is selected by which the subject is commonly referred to in reliable English-language sources, thus ensuring recognizability to general readers who are familiar with the subject, while also indicating how the subject is likely to be referred to in an encyclopedic register (such as within Wikipedia articles). However, when there are several more or less equally recognizable names available, it is not obligatory to choose the commonest name – the choice may also take account of other factors, such as the criteria listed in the paragraph above. In particular, a consistent form of name is often applied for subjects of the same kind – this can be determined by examining titles of similar articles or by consulting the specific guidelines in the box to the right (but it is not obligatory to follow these conventions when there are good reasons to do otherwise).
To decide whether a name needs to be accompanied by a disambiguator, the usual question asked is whether the article subject is the primary topic, or only topic, for that name. If the subject is the unique or the primary topic, then no disambiguator is required – the article title can be the plain name (example). Otherwise, a disambiguator should be added – this usually goes in parentheses after the name (example), although in some cases a more natural or conventional method is used (examples: commas, kings). In a few areas it has become established practice to add descriptors routinely, whether or not disambiguation is required (example); information on such cases can be found in the specific guidelines.
If a disambiguator is required, then it is chosen with regard to the general criteria for article titles. Excessive precision is avoided. For more information see the precision and disambiguation section below and the disambiguation guideline.
When a descriptive title is used for an article, it is no longer so important to use a precise form of words commonly encountered in sources, but the general criteria are again applied. The title should be a clear, concise and sufficiently precise indication of the scope of the article.
When there is disagreement about the best title for an article, editors attempt to reach consensus on a solution. This is commonly done through the Requested Moves procedure. If no consensus can be reached, the article is usually left at its established title.

This way we say more about how the criteria are actually applied, without appearing to define a closed set of criteria (or to lay anything down in stone). Any thoughts?--Kotniski (talk) 12:07, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Um... I am not sure what is meant by the term "register". Explain? Blueboar (talk) 15:22, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Register (sociolinguistics). I.e. titles should be in an "encyclopedic register" (or "tone", or some similar expression). Faeces rather than "shit", to take our familiar extreme example.--Kotniski (talk) 14:06, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Kotniski, thank you for this thoughtful start at a revised approach to naming criteria. It's a lot to think about; let's hope we have a chance to proceed deliberatively, and see if it can be tuned up to something we can all accept. A few reactions:

  • I'm not sure that getting rid of the bullet list of bold criteria is going to be effective; the "wall of text" will be very offputting to most editors who look at it, and hard to form a concise internal model of, so it will likely be ignored a lot. Maybe that's OK, as it's mostly ignored already, and just referred to when RM discussions come up.
  • The recognizability thing being limited to the "subject" pokes at the current dispute; the "subject area" was one suggestion to soften it a bit. I'm glad you dropped the silly parenthetical about experts anyway.
  • The "main" status of "common name" is awkward where it is, since it's applicable to the case of "names" as it says (proper names, as WP:COMMONNAME says), but appears to be much more general than that; it's prominence is sometimes a problem that leads to hit-counting arguments.
  • Recognizability in the service of commonname seems like an odd narrowing of its role, too. What about recognizability of titles that are not names? Or clarity of subject from titles? For example, on the Las Vegas dispute, everyone recognizes "Las Vegas", but who can tell if the article it titles might be about the city, or about the vacation destination known as the strip, or both? Can disambiguators have a sanctioned role in this kind of recognizability?
  • The endorsement of alternative specific naming convention in certain areas is likely to be controversial; there's a flare-up about that in the NYC subway station naming going on now. I'm not sure where I stand on it, as I think their conventions make a lot of sense there, but I don't generally like the locally-consensus style approach. This will need some though.
  • The nutshell says a title should be unambiguous, and the lead says it should precisely identify the subject. Yet attempts to make that true of a title are often resisted on the basis that ambiguity is OK if there's no other article in conflict, and the precision is not really needed except minimally in some sense. Does this new approach do anything to address this discrepancy, or to shift the "balance of power" between the factions? That needs to be looked at, since if we change anything, one side is likely to use the new text to rewrite the lead and the nutshell to reduce that they say about avoiding ambiguity and about precisely identifying the subject.

Thanks again. Dicklyon (talk) 16:38, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

To answer your points: (1) I don't object to making the text more readable by having some bullets in there. But I'd rather it were the different types/elements of titles (names, disambiguators, descriptive titles) that were bulleted, rather than the criteria - we want to get away from the idea that there's a closed set of criteria and nothing else is allowed to be considered. (2) I think the current "dispute" over the wording of "recognizability" is way overblown and I didn't consider it much when writing the above - in any case the precise wording is open to discussion. (3) I'm not sure what you mean about "common name", but I've tried to reflect what seems to be its actual status in move discussions, in my experience - it seems to be the main, but not the sole, consideration when selecting names for use in titles. A caution against hit-counting could be included, though that's already addressed in the policy section specifically about common names. (4) For better or worse, I think existing practice is not to add "disambiguators" purely for recognizability (though I didn't intend to write anything that would forbid doing so). (5) I don't always like the zealous application of local naming conventions either, but experience shows that they can have a significant effect on titling choices, so it would be wrong to leave them out of the description. (6) I'd happily rewrite or (preferably) lose the nutshell; in any case I'm not trying to shift any "balance of power" over any issue - just describe current practice, for which see (4).

You (and other recent arrivals at this page) seem to be particularly concerned with one aspect of article titling - it seems you would like to add descriptors "for recognizability" in certain cases where they are not currently used because they are not needed for disambiguation - perhaps you could phrase some kind of proposal in this matter (since I think it would certainly represent a change to current practice), and we could have a separate discussion about that? --Kotniski (talk) 11:19, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Kotniski - Thanks for taking the initiative here. Although I don't have any disagreement with the stuff you wrote above, its major flaw is that is describing a process, not stating a policy. Our policy pages should be clear, concise, and as much as practical, unequivocal. Maybe we need a Wikipedia Title Adjudacation Process page that interprets application of the policy. But everytime we start describing How to on a policy page we open the door for senseless discussions in the name of policy when in fact editors are invoking as gospel one interpretation of policy application to the ignorance of the complete policy.--Mike Cline (talk) 17:12, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Well yes, but we don't really have a policy (we could well drop the policy tag from this page in fact). Pretty much everything about article titles is negotiable. We don't serve the reader by pretending that we have a policy when we don't. What I wrote above is more or less what I would say to someone who wants to know what he should call his Wikipedia article or has doubts about what some article is currently called. It's only a rough draft, obviously, but I think it's a more helpful way of summarizing the topic than just giving a list of abstract criteria that you'd have to be a mind-reader to get anything concrete out of.--Kotniski (talk) 14:06, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
I share some of the concerns stated here, but also favor resolving the V1 vs V2 recognizability wording issue in the current version before we address something like a total rewrite of the criteria section. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:22, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

"When a name is to be used as an article title, the main criterion is the "common name" principle, described in the following section." I thought the whole point for calling this policy "Article titles" (I was in favour of a rename for this policy but never expressed a preference for this name!), was to move away from stating the title was a name. This sentence seems to be self defeating for those who agreed to the move, as it places the emphasis back on the article title being the name of the subject.

"In many such cases the name is accompanied by an additional descriptor (disambiguator), often in parentheses, to specify it more precisely (examples)." This sentence does not work as it does not explain the conditions for which an "additional descriptor" is acceptable. This clause "recognizability, naturalness, appropriate register, conformance to reliable sources, conciseness, precision, consistency, neutrality," lumps in even more than we have at the moment. what is "appropriate register"? What does "conformance to reliable sources" mean and how does it differ from "recognizability"? What does "consistency" mean and does neutrality mean that "Boston Massacre" is out? It is not for names, but for descriptive titles that neutrality is important, something not mentioned in the sentence "When a descriptive title is used for an article,..." . -- PBS (talk)

About the first point - it says when a name is used, i.e. there are situations where the title is a name, and there are situations where it isn't. In the first case, we usually apply the "common name" principle. I don't see any terminological difficulty with that. About the particular criteria listed, if we want to specify more precisely what each of them means, then we can have a separate section in the policy for each one, where we can explain it at length. I agree that neutrality tends to be an issue only for descriptive titles; that could be emphasized. And "lumping in even more than we have at the moment" is entirely deliberate - what we have at the moment implies that there are these five allowable criteria, which was never anyone's intention (didn't even GTBacchus, who came up with the criteria, recently say that he regretted doing so precisely because it had been misinterpreted as a would-be full and authoritative list?)--Kotniski (talk) 14:30, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

New version of proposal

[Moved to new section: #Naming criteria section again below.]--Kotniski (talk) 09:47, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Mike Cline's ideal title policy criteria

If I were a wiki-god, this is how I'd simpify the basics of our titling policy.

Wikipedia Article Titles - Naming Criteria

Article titles are subject to WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:RS policies, guidelines, specific topic naming conventions and elements of WP:MOS. Article titles reflect what reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject by. Although all WP article titles are unique, there are always potential alternative titles for any given article and the following title criteria collectively, along with consensus discussion when necessary should guide the selection of article titles. {{Policy shortcut|WP:CRITERIA|WP:NAMINGCRITERIA}}

# A WP article title should be precise as practical based on use in reliable sources

  1. A WP article title should be as concise as practical based on use in reliable sources
  2. A WP article title should be as unambiguous as practical
  3. A WP article title should be consistent with other similar titles
  4. A WP article title should faithfully represent the content of the article using common English as demonstrated by reliable sources.

end of proposed policy

Discussion This drastically simplfies our titling policy, puts the focus of the policy on the titles, not predictions or prognostications about how millions of readers are going to deal with a specific title. It puts the burden of title selection on use in reliable english language sources. You'll note the section heading change to eliminate Deciding an article title which actually describes a process, not a policy., and changes it to a policy statement. It eliminates the need for the Babel of how-to essays that follow, most of which should be turned into essays and removed from the policy page. It is clearly supported by current practices of WP:COMMONNAME, WP:DISAMBIGUATION, WP:MOSCAPS, WP:ENGVAR, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, WP:RETAIN, WP:REDIRECTS, et. al. It would be a blessing at WP:RM where title disputes could be rationally discussed based on clear criteria and not the emotional crap that editors bring to the discussion because they see the world differently than another editor. Much of the procedural information on the policy page could stay, but eliminating all the conflicting how-to guidance would be a significant improvement. A policy page should clearly state what is the Policy, not because our policy is actually so unclear and inconsistent we have to write a lot of how-to essays to explain it. I would challenge anyone to point our how the above proposal (conceptually) would adversely impact the 3.9 million articles we already have on WP and adversely impact the creation of the next 2-3 million articles in the coming years. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:47, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Here's the concept in a nutshell:

In Wikipedia, there are no perfect titles, only titles that meet our naming criteria. Mike Cline, December 31st, 2011, Bozeman, Montana

Mike, I like your approach. Thanks for articulating it. A couple of reactions:
  • The "reliable sources" bit needs some thought. What does it mean to be "precise as practical based on use in reliable sources"? Precision seems to be more about ambiguity in the context of wikipedia. Take the Las Vegas dispute again; reliable sources are mostly going to refer to both The Strip and the city as "Las Vegas", so that seems precise enough in the context of sources; but in a context where we cover both extensively in separate articles, it's not precise enough. "Precise as practical" might be OK, but conflicts with the previous "precise as necessary", which may get you come pushback from some camps.
  • "concise as practical" is similarly a bit unclear to me; how does the practicality relate to reliable sources here?
  • I like what you've done with "consistent" and "represent", but we should consider recent or current cases and see how they would be applied, and see if they help.
Thanks for advancing the conversation. Dicklyon (talk) 17:21, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
The use of: as practical based on reliable sources is an accession to the brutal fact that every article must have a unique title. Although one alternative for a title may be more precise or concise than another alternative, any given alternative may not 1) meet the other criteria, or 2) has already been used by another article. As long as the best alternative is supported by sources, it meets these criteria. The Bill Clinton comparision is a good example here. Sources support both Bill Clinton and William Jefferson Clinton. The Bill version is not imprecise and it is more concise than William. But if someone suggested W. J. Clinton is should be considered imprecise because sources don't support that even though from a letter count, its just as concise as Bill Clinton. I think the other thing that is really important here is that these criteria cannot be view individually in isolation of each other, but as a collective. Every WP title should meet all four criteria as smoothly as possible. I do agree that a change like this will take a bit of interpretation and transition, but that should be the result of the policy change, not part and parcel of the policy.--Mike Cline (talk) 17:39, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Is this, then, a proposal to redefine precise as "what reliable sources use"? That's not precision, in any definition I know of the term. JCScaliger (talk) 03:43, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, but I don't find this proposed version much better than the present one (except that it's shorter, so anyone reading it will waste less time doing so). Someone who doesn't know how WP articles are titled still won't be any the wiser after reading this. After reading the first paragraph of this policy, the reader ought to know the basic facts about Article Titles: we use common names, we use disambiguators when necessary (and what they are), we use descriptions for topics that don't have names, we use sentence case (oops, forgot to mention that in my version), there are various other criteria that may be considered when choosing between candidate titles. Any list of abstract criteria alone is pretty unhelpful, and is even misleading since it implies that you're "not allowed" to consider anything else. --Kotniski (talk) 14:17, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
It is interesting that now we are actually discussing whether or not WP:Title should be a policy page or not. As of right now, it contains snipets of policy, some guidelines, and some essay type stuff. If it is a policy page, i.e. what someone can actually invoke as policy, then it should be clear, concise, and essentially unequivocal. For policy pages we say: This page documents an English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow.. When we venture into the realm of guidelines we say: This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Use common sense in applying it; it will have occasional exceptions. and This page documents an English Wikipedia guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.. When we reach the stage of How To essays, we say: This essay contains comments and advice of one or more Wikipedia contributors on the topic of XXXXXX. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Consider these views with discretion. Essays are not Wikipedia policies or guidelines. When we combine elements of all these types of guidance into a single page and call it policy, we give license to the lunacy and Babel that surrounds contentious title changes. If everything about titles can be invoked as policy, then we have no policy, just a bunch of words. I don't find any fault with the Process things we need to tell editors about when it comes to titling, but I do think that calling everything policy is really lame. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:09, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I would make this page into a guideline. The only reason I remember being given for its being a policy is that it has more "general" application than a lot of the more specific "Naming conventions (xxx)" guidelines, but I don't really think that's too significant. I would adopt an arrangement parallel to that used for the MoS - rename all the other NC pages "Article titles/Xxx" (i.e. as subpages of this one), and then classify everything as a guideline (except for any pages that don't deserve to be).--Kotniski (talk) 15:59, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
(1) It is inappropriate that this page be "policy". I agree with Kotniski on that.

(2) I like some of the things in Kotniski's proposal, but it skirts around the issue in a few critical ways. It could be tightened up and bullets and inline headers used for user-friendliness.

(3) Mike's proposal will cause a lot of interpretation problems: what is "practical"? What if RSs are in conflict, either between themselves (common) or with WP's in-house style?

(4) I've got to say that examples are critical in conveying the title guideline. We could do worse than to workshop some examples ourselves, on this talk page, to get a sense of where the boundaries should lie. Tony (talk) 13:20, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Tony, you say my version skirts around "the issue" - presumably you mean the issue of "redundant disambiguators" (or whatever they are to be called) as I referred to in my reply to Dick above? Could you perhaps make some kind of explicit proposal on this issue, as I suggested there? Once we know exactly what it is we're supposed to be deciding, we could reach some kind of consensus position on it, which would then be incorporated into whatever formulation of the guidance we end up choosing.--Kotniski (talk) 15:30, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
This page has been policy for a very long time. I have given reasons in the past why it should remain so (and in the past Tony1 has agreed with some of them). But the major reasons are. Unlike almost every other aspect of Wikipedia pages have to have a unique name, so there needs to be a basic policy on how to manage that process. Having one central policy supported by a host of guidelines, makes it much easier to coordinate them and have one central clearing house for ideas. "Policies explain and describe standards that all users should normally follow, while guidelines are meant to outline best practices for following those standards in specific contexts" (WP:PG]]). If this is a guideline then what standards is it outlining? At a practical day to day level it helps administrators with processes like WP:RM due to the additional authority that policy carries, when they reject a move that has a local consensus not based on following this policy (see WP:CONSENSUS). If instead all of the naming conventions were to be considered as equal grist for the mill then admins would have a far harder time justifying their decisions when closing WP:RM debates that went against the local consensus than they do now. -- PBS (talk) 02:26, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think it carries that weight in practice (mainly because this page doesn't really say anything concrete). If people come to a local consensus to use some title for an article purely on the grounds that it conforms to some sub-guideline (like German battleship Bismarck), then the admin will respect that. If this page somehow forbade such titles, then it might carry some weight as policy, but of course it doesn't forbid or require anything concrete - it mainly just describes and suggests. In fact I think the WP:Disambiguation guideline is treated as more authoritative than this page, when it comes to relevant aspects of article titling.--Kotniski (talk) 14:41, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Mike Cline’s arguments make a lot of sense to me. If someone still disagrees with his logic, can someone please provide an example of a title that—in their opinion—could be improperly crafted were Mike’s proposal implemented as he proposes. The example titles can be either entirely or partially fictional. Greg L (talk) 23:58, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Consistency is a bad reason for naming a page as it tends to reinforce both earlier decisions both good and bad so encourages consistency for consistency sake. This goes against the principles outlined in consensus (that it can change and hence the reason for the original name may go against more recent policy and guideline advise). Zürich Airport is such an example where consistency (with Zürich) was used to ignore usage in reliable English language sources. As was the retitling of the battles of Zurich, which were moved from "battle of Zurich" to "battle of Zürich" not based on the usage in sources but in the article title of Zürich. We use naturalness so that we have the name Tony Blair rather than Blair, Tony etc (See my posting above on 23:12, 30 December 2011 for more details). PBS (talk) 02:26, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I see. I agree with your stated objective, PBS. I take it that Mike’s #3 point is something you don’t support. It looked sensible on the surface, but your explaining what it means in its application helps immeasurably. It is easy to agree with Article titles should respect authority, value diversity, and love puppies. Getting to the bottom of how editors are trying to hide their hidden agendas behind the apron strings of goodliness is an altogether different matter. Greg L (talk) 03:03, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Greg, it's not Mike's logic, but what I see as the impracticality of the wording, which uses terms that could mean anything to anyone. If Mike or someone else can nail it down, then we might be able to judge. Unfortunately, I do believe it's impossible to express this in only a few words, as noble as that aim might be. Kotniski, I don't know the answer yet, but that doesn't stop me gagging on many titles I encounter that I know are intrinsically misleading or unhelpful to readers. Again, I call for a workshop on this page, where we can all grapple with some concrete examples. Tony (talk) 06:05, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes, I think I agree with Tony about Mike's version - there's nothing expressly "wrong" with it, but since it could mean pretty much anything, there's nothing really "right" about it either. It wouldn't add much to anyone's understanding of the topic, nor would it provide any guidance that could be usefully followed in any concrete situation. (The same criticism applies to much of the present wording of the section as well.)--Kotniski (talk) 14:20, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Responses re above and slight change in proposal

You’ll all note that I made a slight modification to my ideal criteria above. I have been encouraged by all the comments so far. As far as the adjusted criteria goes, you’ll see I whacked Precision and replaced it with what we really want (actually must have)—unambiguous titles. If it is ambiguity that we must avoid, then let’s be clear about it and not camouflage it with a word like Precision.

I don’t disagree with Kotniski or Tony who worry about interpreting a simplified policy, but whatever interpretation is needed, it should be separate from the actual policy. We already do a reasonable job of interpreting the basics of our titling policy, but have confused that interpretation (which should be in the form of guidelines, MOS and essays) with the actual policy. What we continually failed to recognize as we’ve tweaked this policy in the past is that every WP article title has a context all its own. That context is made up of the article’s content, its broad subject area, whether the article is from a traditionally contentious subject area, the quality and quantity of reliable sources on the topics, and whether the article is really about a subject where English isn’t the primary language, et. al. It is impossible to address all the complexities associated with a specific title context with comprehensive how-to guidance. When we try and label such guidance as policy, it fails miserably when the context changes.

An approach to articulating policy and interpreting/applying it on the same page

It would be a novel approach, but an interesting one to combine both policy statements and guideline statements (all clearly delineated on the same page) under the title WP:Article Titles.

It might look something like this:

This page and section documents an English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Changes made to it should reflect consensus.

  • Very clear, concise, essentially unequivocal statements like I proposed above

This section documents English Wikipedia article title guidelines. These are generally accepted standards that editors should attempt to follow in applying the policy above, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.

  • All the various guideline and how-to stuff listed here with the focus on how-to interpret and apply the above policies to the most common titling situations in WP.
  • Much of this guideline section would flow in summary style, linking to other guidelines, MOS, naming conventions and essays.

A What if?, not How Do We Do It? approach

If for the sake of discussion, that we’d agreed to put aside concerns about How would we go about interpreting and applying the simplified policy above?, how could we evaluate the potential for this simplified policy? Right now, there are ~3.9 million article titles within the English Wikipedia. If each and every one of those titles met the proposed criteria would anyone be disappointed. In other words if title #1 through title#3,900,000 was as concise as practical, was unambiguous as practical, was consistent with related titles and faithfully represented the content of the article using common English as demonstrated by reliable sources; would anyone be disappointed? I would sincerely like to hear from any editor who would be disappointed or unhappy if article titles met these criteria, regardless of how that was accomplished and why they feel that way. On the other hand, if no one would be disappointed or unhappy, then we are not quibbling about the proposed policy, only struggling with the methodology and words needed to interpret and apply it in the most common of titling contexts. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:52, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Again, these statements are not demonstrably wrong, but that's the problem - they are all so vague that everyone would interpret them in different ways. Laying this down as policy would just lead to entirely unnecessary discussion about how to interpret it in particular situations, where that discussion would be more usefully focused on whether a proposed title satisfies Wikipedia's actual, concrete titling practices and its purpose as a reliable and useful reference work.--Kotniski (talk) 09:23, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Names of individuals

This issue frankly crosses so many style guides and policies that I've brought it up here (even though it concerns multiple issues of the manuals of style).

In the past several months, I have dealt with extreme opposition to proposed moves for articles on individual people. Per WP:MOSCAPS, names of individual people appear to be exempt from capitalization rules so long as the person's name is written in all lower case letters (WP:MOSCAPS#Mixed or non-capitalization), but names that are parsed in all capital letters are apparently forbidden under this style guide (because all-caps are only for acronyms), as well as WP:MOSTM. At some point in one discussion I've had on this page or on another (or perhaps in setting up the exception for k.d. lang at MOSCAPS), it was stated that individuals' names are not subject to MOSTM because they are not trademarks. I've brought this up before at WT:MOSCAPS but that discussion has never resolved

And time and time, again, I have been told that WP:COMMONNAME automatically excludes the use of any names preferred by the subject (if we are dealing with individuals), and someone wrote up WP:OFFICIALNAME to cover that. Why should the English Wikipedia not use a name (or name form in the means of stylization) because of our own internal policies and guidelines? I understand that the Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam issue exists, but bringing that up just starts a slippery slope fallacy. If we allow titles such as will.i.am and k.d. lang, then there is no reason that MISIA or Ke$ha should be invalid article titles.—Ryulong (竜龙) 09:58, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Don't forget to move Prince (musician) to 15px! If we don't cater to every celebrity publicity naming stunt, can we look in the mirror and call ourselves an "encyclopedia"? Yes, it may be possible to live in a world without DJ OZMA, YUI, MISIA, "melody.", CHARA, Se7en, and P!nk, but only DJ Ozma, Yui, Misia, Melody, Chara, Seven, and Pink. But I say that such world would be a poorer place. So I am recapitalizing my user name in solidarity: kAuFfnEr (talk) 12:36, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Prince is not known by that symbol any more so we need not have to worry about his page. And Kauffner, your comments are not adding anything to the discussion and it appears you are merely antagonizing me by seeking out the various discussions I have started because of our conflict over the titles of Misia and Yui (singer) last month (because you had no freaking clue what a "stylization" was). I am pointing out that there is a disparity in what Wikipedia currently accepts as acceptable article titles for individuals, where all lower case names are allowable, per bell hooks and k.d. lang, but this same leeway is not given to individuals who are known by names parsed in all capital letters, mixed capitalizations, or with characters that exist on a standard QWERTY keyboard such as the exclamation point, the period, or the question mark. Instead of dismissing the whole argument and being unnecessarily disruptive by changing your signature and pointing this out, it'd be better to provide arguments as to why I am wrong.—Ryulong (竜龙) 20:13, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Maybe Kauffner's approach of making light of the problem is not satisfying you, but I think I agree with him that letting the style of the encyclopedia be so driven to what Tony1 calls "Eye Poking" style would be inappropriate. In all cases, these names are trademarks, and subject to our style guidance on such. Dicklyon (talk) 20:40, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Why then allow for lowercase exceptions? That's called a double standard.∞陣内Jinnai 21:05, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Dicklyon, a person's name cannot be a trademark. And even if I'm wrong, Jinnai makes a point. It's a double standard to allow all lower case variations, but completely forbid all capital variations, alternating capitals variations, or variations that use punctuation marks.—Ryulong (竜龙) 21:10, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
How is a performer's name not a trademark? And what's wrong with a double standard? Dicklyon (talk) 06:23, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Because it is his or her name. And a double standard is inherently wrong. It's not necessary to say that "bell hooks" is OK, but "MISIA" or "Ke$ha" is wrong.—Ryulong (竜龙) 09:05, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
If an entertainer’s name is used in its stylized form principally by only by select entertainment organizations like MTV and the entertainer’s own “worship me” web promotional site, that is one thing. But if the individual’s name is near-universally spelled a particular way by traditional RSs, then Wikipedia should follow the RSs. We don’t have to love that Apple named it “iPhone”; we just accept that is what it is. We have no more business mis-spelling an individuals name under the pretense of doing *very nice English prose per our own style guide* than we do making pronouncements like Mount Rainier is properly pronounced “Mount Ren-YAY” because we wikipedians know our “English stuff” and are smart-smart-smart. Weirder-yet examples can be addressed on a case-by-case basis, like when Prince legally changed his name to an unpronounceable glyph combining the symbols for male (♂) and female (♀) and then trademarked the symbol as an album cover so people couldn’t write or pronounce his name. In that particular case, one can just spell it “Narcissist”. Greg L (talk) 00:28, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. And that's why MOS:TM says "choose among styles already in use (not invent new ones)". Dicklyon (talk) 00:46, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
Unless the “invented new ones” are near-universally spelled that particular way by traditional RSs—even if the *new* way meets with the disapproval of wise wikipedians. But your point is well taken. Driving down to the practical effect of "choose among styles already in use (not invent new ones),” that means we would find that the *new* way was—as I wrote—invariably being used only by select entertainment organizations like MTV and the entertainer’s own “worship me” web promotional site. Greg L (talk) 00:49, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S. But I might take that back. I see that The New York Times spells it “Ke$ha”. Nonetheless, our article on her, “Kesha” looks very encyclopedic. I would say that it is not about “double-standards” but is all about not straying from encyclopedic practices and turning Wikipedia into a billboard for entertainers without a compelling and very good reason to do otherwise. So long as “invented new ones” is used within the intended scope and not taken to extremes, that sounds like a good guideline to me. In the real world, things are seldom black & white; shades of gray must be dealt with. Greg L (talk) 01:16, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

P.P.S. And I see that The New York Times spells it “K.D. Lang”. So I am utterly mystified why our article is titled “k.d. lang”. Now I can see what others mean by “double standard.” I can only assume that a bat-shit-crazy, rabid following on that article established a local consensus in violation of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. I wouldn’t touch an RM on that article with a ten-foot pole; my writing style comes across as “The Man” and I’d be blocked for twelve years for something like ending a sentence with a preposition.(disclaimer) Greg L (talk) 01:23, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not so happy with all-lowercase names and trademarks, either, but they are in use, and are less eye-poking and somewhat closer to normal English than the all-caps and some other styles, so MOS:TM allows them. It's a standard, not a double standard. Dicklyon (talk) 01:34, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
Nice try. MOS:TM covers things like “Rolex” and “REALTOR”®. It does not encompass vanity capitalization like “k.d. lang”, which is not a trademark issue. Nor does MOS:TM have a preference for “less eye-poking” lowercase over uppercase (as REALTOR® amply demonstrates). Which case (upper or lower) has absolutely nothing to do with this. Ryulong is entirely correct; “k.d. lang” it is a double standard because we don’t spell it “Ke$ha.” What Ryulong doesn’t probably appreciate is that Great Wrongs™®© are seldom an institutionalized, intentional act but are invariably the product of the combined efforts of 5 to 20 editors active on a local issue who are clueless as to Wikipedia’s many guidelines. It’s tough getting sufficient regular, outside editors to weigh in on an RM or RfC. On an article like “k.d. lang”, the call would go out and a hundred editors and I.P.s would descend upon the land and drown out any reasonable discussion. So there is no point even trying. Greg L (talk) 01:43, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
How is a performer's name not a trademark? See these books on trademark law and the artist business: [1], [2]. Dicklyon (talk) 01:52, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't know about the "clueless to Wikipedia's many guidelines" part is. Because in my attempt to suggest that Kesha be moved to Ke$ha, people are quoting MOS:TM as a reason as to why the page should not be moved. And on a semi-related subject, a move for the comic book/animated series Bakuman to Bakuman. is also an issue of MOS:TM, when I am entirely certain that punctuation at the end of titles is fine when it's anything but the full stop.—Ryulong (竜龙) 02:16, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia’s articles on these artists are biographies and Wikipedia is an encyclopedia—not an agent, promoter, or MTV. Wikipedia looks best when it observes most-encyclopedic literary practices and that is undermined when some articles use non-traditional “see me” vanity/stage capitalization. Is anyone here suggesting that Wikipedia is somehow obligated to use the stage/vanity spelling “k.d. lang” for the biography on her but there is no need to do so for “Misia, who prefers the stage/vanity spelling “MISIA”? Ryulong is quite right: they should clearly be treated the same. But I disagree with his perceived remedy: start using even more stylized stage names. In short…

Encyclopedic biographies should generally not use vanity or stage-name stylization and capitalization. My preference would be to do an RM and make it “Kathryn Dawn Lang” and all else redirects (K.D. Lang, k.d. lang, etc.). The first sentence would say just what it currently says: Kathryn Dawn Lang, OC (born November 2, 1961), known by her stage name k.d. lang, is a Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter…

I see no sensible reason why Kathryn the entertainer gets to have a biography title using her stage name but Misia does not. Note that this would have to be an entirely separate issue from performers widely known by nothing other than a normally-capitalized stage name, such as Rock Hudson. Still more shades of gray (*sigh*). But I would say that Misia, Kesha, and Rock Hudson are correct, k.d. lang is not. I can simply not discern any logic that would justifiably treat Misia different from ol’ Kathryn. Furthermore, my position has the virtue of suggesting only one of the four articles mentioned here are fouled up. Now…

I’m done here for the day. WT:Article titles is still disfunctional for trying to get anything done because so many editors lose an RM or RfC somewhere and come here to change the rules of the game so they can get their way across the wiki‑land. Just trying to get an editor to fess-up and explain what his or her proposed wording means in real life… as a practical matter, is like pulling teeth. Above, I had one or two editors say they didn’t know what the difference was between two proposed guidelines; they were reverting each other out of shear habit. Well, I’m going to start making sure editors have to lay their cards on the table and rexplain precisely what they are driving at with real-world examples. For some, that would force them to reveal their hidden agendas. So shoot me for saying what I think is true; that’s what’s going on here—by the boat load. Greg L (talk) 02:45, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Yep, all true. They have trademark-styled names, and we are an encyclopedia. Our style guide says to avoid REALTOR®, TIME, KISS, but to do iPod, eBay, etc. That's what it is; those who don't like it should know where to go to try to get a new consensus on it developed. Dicklyon (talk) 03:01, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, maybe one more post by me today. I see why Ryulong speaks of having WP:TM thrown at him. WP:TM is misapplication. The fallacy here in your argument is that biographies on individuals who happen to be entertainers means that biographies must necessarily be encumbered by trademark restrictions. There are limitations to using Rock Hudson for commercial purposes. But when doing an encyclopedic article on a biography mentioning the individual’s name, then “Rock Hudson” is his name. Vanity stage names with stylized spellings entered into the search field should simply redirect. I suggest biographies on entertainers merely use the artist’s commonly known name as most often used by the RSs in the non-trademarked fashion. That would be a most-encyclopedic practice for biographies. Thus, it would consistently be Kathryn Dawn Lang, Misia, Kesha, Prince (musician), and Rock Hudson; not k.d. lang, MISHA, Ke$ha, and Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. Greg L (talk) 03:20, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by "trademark restrictions"; the only restriction is to not necessarily adopt their weird trademark styling if there are more normal stylings of their names available to choose instead. We do still show in the lead how they style it normally. It looks like we agree. Dicklyon (talk) 03:30, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
"Rapper Young Buck may lose his stage name as his assets are liquidated and his name trademark is one of his assets."[3] So it seems that a stage name is a trademark. If you want to rap under the stage name "Young Buck", soon to be former Young Buck may have just the right deal for you. Kauffner (talk) 14:57, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

This is exactly why we have WP:Ignore all rules. Our style guidelines are just that... guides to good writing and style. They are not "Laws" that must be adhered to in every single situation. Remember that there are going to be exceptions to every rule. We should follow the excellent advice laid out in our style guidelines most of the time... but we also must accept that there are going to be times when what is said in a MOS simply does not fit the situation. I also draw your attention to one of my favorite essays - Wikipedia:The rules are principles. Blueboar (talk) 15:01, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I often find that WP:IAR is never given the weight it should in discussions. It's one of our central policies, but whenever I propose that it be applied in any of the situations where I've attempted to propose a page move, I am told that I apparently need more of a reason to apply it in that case. Despite being a policy, it is constantly trumped by guidelines which have become so rigid that no leeway is allowed anymore.
And there has yet to be a reason as to why lower case stylizations in the vein of will.i.am and k.d. lang are OK, but all caps stylizations in the vein of MISIA or DJ OZMA (which Kauffner has started a move proposal for to move it back to "DJ Ozma") are not.—Ryulong (竜龙) 17:54, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree that there is an inconsistency between allowing all lower case and not allowing all upper case... but that is a style issue and not a matter for policy. If you have a problem with a specific style guideline, go discuss it at the guideline talk page and work it out. As a matter of policy, we don't really care about capitalization all that much. From a policy standpoint it really does not matter whether the article is at DJ OZAMA... DJ Ozama... or dj ozama. I think all three are fairly equally recognizable, natural, precise, and concise (consistency isn't an issue in this case)... but if one is used more often in sources, that one is probably best used here. Blueboar (talk) 20:09, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
But seeing as it regards the title of the article, it goes here, does it not? Why are these style guides supplanting the article titling policies? And where the heck did you get "Ozama" from? It's "OZMA", not Bin Laden.—Ryulong (竜龙) 21:13, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
I mean, look at Talk:DJ OZMA#Requested move: DJ OZMA → DJ Ozma. Kauffner has cited WP:ALLCAPS, WP:MOSTM, and WP:CAPS in his argument, none of which even come close to covering the case of an individual's name, a fact which was also brought up in the August requested move but Kauffner seems to ignore it.—Ryulong (竜龙) 23:58, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
Personally, I'd put KD Lang at the same capitalization that we use for E. E. Cummings. Will.i.am, on the other hand, might be a useful method of disambiguating the page, since we already have a page at William.
On the all-caps issue, there's a general standard (in the real world) that all caps is not used when the name is pronounced like a word. So it would be IBM and HIV, but Misia and Aids. This rule is particularly common in British English. This typical approach probably explains why all caps is so much less likely to be accepted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
“Aids” and not AIDS? It’s an acronym. And our article has it capitalized correctly. Maybe you meant Ayds. Greg L (talk) 21:06, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
Nope, I mean Aids, the common acronym for the disease caused by HIV. British style guides like this one do not maintain the capitalization of "pronounceable" acronyms. So in UK publications, you'll see it referred to as "Aids", unlike American publications, which print the same thing as "AIDS". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

On names as trademarks

See this book and this book. Note that a name, if it signifies an individual, can be registered as a trademark; and a name used in trade or services is a trademark (or service mark) whether it is registered or not. If it's too ambiguous enough, or not famous enough to signify an individual, then it can't be registered. Dicklyon (talk) 01:08, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

  • So what, Richard? So entertainer names can be trademarked. That does not mean anyone can pull Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trademarks out of ones sheath with a Three-Muskateers “Ah-Haaaa! Got you!” and everyone has to shrug and go home; not unless the rest of the community thinks the guideline is a good fit for guiding and limiting the scope of what article titles are judged suitable. If so, we can transplant some of MOS:TM’s teachings to WP:AT. If not, we are perfectly within our rights to arrive at a consensus that adopts all, lots, some, little, or none of MOS:TM when developing guidelines governing article titles. I’m all for starting with a simple screen for titles:
  1. Does the article title look studious and encyclopedic,
  2. Is it factually correct the way most well-educated readers understand the subject matter,
  3. After a redirect from popular street vernacular, does the actual title best adhere to the principle of least astonishment, and
  4. Do the spelling, diacritics, or capitalization diverge from conventional, high-quality, real-world English-language practices as exercised by the most-reliable English-language RSs.
This wouldn’t have to be so difficult if WP:AT wasn’t a battleground for disaffected editors who lost a battle somewhere else and came here to exact a win at all cost (making other editors feel compelled to come here and sandbag the place against the rising floodwaters of discontent). I keep finding a repeating pattern where my take on matters would result in the fewest changes to existing article titles. Just pardon me all over the place for patting myself on the back, but I see that as validating my take on matters to a certain degree. Greg L (talk) 04:01, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're going on about, Greg. My point is just that our guidelines on treatment of oddly rendered trademarks and company names applies equally to other kinds of trade names. Why wouldn't it? What's wrong with choosing the less eye-poking alternative like DJ Ozma, or Kesha, as it suggests? Of course, if you're proposing a way to change WP:AT to make it more clear, or make it give different results, I have no objection to you clarifying that proposal. Dicklyon (talk) 04:12, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
I am saying that only Wikipedia’s Five Pillars overrides and limits the scope of what we may do here. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trademarks is a guideline; it is neither prescriptive nor proscriptive as to what we decide to put here in WP:AT. MOS:TM has some good stuff. I agree that “REALTOR” should not be the capitalization for an article title. I also think it is exceedingly non‑encyclopedic to have “Ke$ha” or whatever her name is. Greg L (talk) 04:17, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
May I ask how it can be non‑encyclopedic if it's her name?—Ryulong (竜龙) 04:23, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Enough has been written on that here and the needle on my This-Is-Crap-O-Meter just pegged past “80”. You know full-well why it is non‑encyclopedic and I’m not going to go around in circles with you, Ryulong. You’ve been told numerous times why our article on her (titled “Kesha”) is properly encyclopedic and Wikipedia is not encumbered by a duty to stylize its titles with eye-popping vanity stage-hyped adornments. She can stick a big glossy banner reading Ke$ha on her ‘I-love-me’-wall in her living room if she choses; Wikipedia is not obliged to follow suit. As the article says, her name is Kesha Rose Sebert and it is stylized Ke$ha. We can all read here so please desist with that “it’s her name” business; it’s tedious. Note too that my position on Kesha doesn’t mean I defend other stylized stage-hype names to which you can point and claim “double-standard” or name-bias or whatever grievous insult you perceive. I’ll have none of that wikidrama. Greg L (talk) 04:56, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure what non-encyclopedic means, either. To me, the issue is just this encyclopedia's stated policies, guidelines, and style advice. Dicklyon (talk) 05:00, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Any good encyclopedia. If Encyclopedia Britannica thought she was more notable than a bucket of warm spit and actually had an article of their own on her, it would be titled “Kesha Rose Sebert” and all the other stuff would redirect. Greg L (talk) 05:04, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
At allmusic.com, she's Kesha and Kesha Rose Sebert; but they give her the dollar sign in the title. Different style. Dicklyon (talk) 05:16, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Hey. You got me there. I wonder how Beavis & Butthead would spell it? Greg L (talk) 05:21, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Fine. Then I am trying to get rid of the unnecessary policies and guidelines that are in place that prevent article titles like "Ke$ha". If that's how 34 million websites write the name while only 2 million or so write it the other way when referring to the woman, then why should we be part of that 2 million when the other 34 million include the Grammy organization, Billboard, several other music publications, the New York Times, etc.? Similarly, per the DJ OZMA discussion, why should the English Wikipedia base its style guide on the style guides of a minority of the sources merely because they are the only English language ones?—Ryulong (竜龙) 07:48, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
When you start getting result numbers in the millions, you can count on it being at least 99 percent ghosting. The New York Times usually calls her "Kesha". See here, here, and here. Our readers do the same. Check out Google Insights. (Bar graph on the right.) BTW, I am continuing my war on clownishly capitalized and punctuated celebrity names with k.d. lang. Kauffner (talk) 11:49, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
The NYT also uses "Ke$ha" as I pointed out in the RM there, and your "war on clownishly capitalized and punctuated celebrity names" seems to be going through its Waterloo on k.d. lang.—Ryulong (竜龙) 23:26, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The guidelines should say something like "In the case of the names of individual people, the correct spelling and pronunciation is whatever s/he says it is". That's all. It's simple, and it's true. Like it or not (geez I hate the name "Key$ha"), that's the way it is. Chrisrus (talk) 06:28, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Our standard on this, for Ke$ha and k.d.lang alike is The most common name for a subject, as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources, is often used as a title because it is recognizable and natural. The last time a move discusiion on k.d.lang came up, the edtiors were convinced that k.d.lang was prevalent - and it is certainly more common than many funny spellings. If you want to change either of them, the simplest way is not to conduct a "war" between the opposing points of view here; go argue the facts on the talk page. JCScaliger (talk) 01:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Ridiculous title

Everyone happy with Extended Access Control? Just what our readers make of it in a category list is beyond me. Tony (talk) 10:25, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the title... but I do have to ask whether this topic is really notable enough for its own article? It strikes me as something that should be included as a section in a larger topic (rather than being an article on its own) but I am not sure what that larger topic would be (maybe Biometric passport?) Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
This seems another case of these "generic sounding" titles, right? Presumably there wouldn't be any objection to it if it the thing had some kind of "obviously unique" name (though still unfamiliar to the population at large), like that chemical that was offered as an example in an earlier thread? If the passport people had decided to call this system "Quibblemoggle" rather than E.A.C., would there still be an objection to using that word on its own as the title of the article? --Kotniski (talk) 16:03, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be much support here for disambiguating beyond what is necessary for distinguishing between different wikipedia articles, for better or worse. But I think we can probably get consensus for lowercasing this title, if you're willing to pick your battles. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:54, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
I think that readers familiar with the subject will know what it is, and readers specifically looking for it (e.g., due to it being mentioned in something they were reading) will know that it's what they're looking for. I see no need to change the article title (beyond possibly changing the capitalization). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:24, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd downcase it. Several scholarly articles and books do so, indicating that the caps are not necessary. Dicklyon (talk) 05:02, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

But what about adding a disambiguator (I assume this was Tony's original point, since he referred to incomprehensibility in category listings)?--Kotniski (talk) 09:29, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
I'd probably expand the scope, make it more generic, and put the ePassport application in an example section. There's not enough here to justify a whole article, but if we keep it as such, then yes a disambiguator and a separate primary topic article would make sense; even if the primary is a redlink for now. Maybe also merge with Basic access control and make Information access control mechanisms or something like that. These same terms and concepts are used in other systems (e.g. cell phones). Or finesse the problem by merging the Basic and Extended articles into an ePassport access control article. There are many ways out of this mess. Dicklyon (talk) 07:41, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
So restricting ourselves to discussing matters that affect article titles - assuming this article is kept as such, what do you think the "separate primary topic" for Extended Access Control would be? --Kotniski (talk) 11:24, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Caps and titles

Colleagues, please note this new thread at MOSCAPS concerning proper nouns, proper names, and other matters relating to an amendment of the lead of that guideline. Your contributions to discussion would be appreciated. Tony (talk) 14:04, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

How to handle Scoot

I was doing some work on the UK internet directory Scoot and discovered that I couldn't move it to correspond with the rebrand from scoot.com to Scoot which occured several years ago. This usage is a trademarked brand name. The Scoot article is about the Singapore Airline subsidiary Scoot Pty Ltd. And then there's English language usage. How should this be handled ? -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 21:45, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Are you familiar with the standard approaches to these kinds of "overlapping" names as explained at WP:DAB? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:10, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Naming criteria section again

A new version of my proposal above - with bullet points and a few minor changes.

There are three basic forms of article title:
  • Titles which are a name of the person or thing which is the topic of the article (examples).
  • Titles which consist of a name (as above), accompanied by an additional descriptor (disambiguator), usually in parentheses, to specify it more precisely (examples).
  • Descriptive titles, which indicate the topical scope of the article (examples), or describe what the article is (examples: List of..., Timeline of...).
For most articles there will be a simple and obvious title. However, in some cases there may be several possible titles, each with advantages and disadvantages. The criteria most commonly applied when selecting article titles are recognizability, naturalness, appropriate register, conformance to reliable sources, conciseness, precision, consistency, neutrality (mainly for descriptive titles), and sometimes others. The principal ways in which these criteria are applied in practice are described below; further information about some of them can be found in following sections of this policy.
  • For article titles which are names, the most commonly applied criterion is the "common name" principle, described in the following section. A name is selected by which the subject is commonly referred to in reliable English-language sources, thus ensuring recognizability to general readers who are familiar with the subject, while also indicating how the subject is likely to be referred to in an encyclopedic register (such as within Wikipedia articles). However, when there are several more or less equally recognizable names available, it is not obligatory to choose the commonest name – the choice may also take account of other factors, such as the criteria listed in the paragraph above. In particular, a consistent form of name is often applied for subjects of the same kind – this can be determined by examining titles of similar articles or by consulting the specific guidelines in the box to the right (but it is not obligatory to follow these conventions when there are good reasons to do otherwise).
  • To decide whether a name needs to be accompanied by a disambiguator, the usual question asked is whether the article subject is the primary topic, or only topic, for that name. If the subject is the unique or the primary topic, then no disambiguator is required – the article title can be the plain name (example). Otherwise, a disambiguator should be added – this usually goes in parentheses after the name (example), although in some cases a more natural or conventional method is used (examples: commas, kings). In a few areas it has become established practice to add descriptors routinely, whether or not disambiguation is required (example); information on such cases can be found in the specific guidelines.
  • When a descriptive title is used for an article, it is no longer so important to use a precise form of words commonly encountered in sources, but the general criteria are again applied. The title should be a clear, concise and sufficiently precise indication of the scope of the article.
When there is disagreement about the best title for an article, editors attempt to reach consensus on a solution. This is commonly done through the Requested Moves procedure. If no consensus can be reached, the article is usually left at its established title.

Comments welcome. For previous discussion see #Possible wording (quite major change) above.--Kotniski (talk) 09:47, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

"additional descriptor (disambiguator)" and additional descriptor and a disambiguator are two different things particularly given the change that Tony1 and others have been recently been pushaing for on this talk page. What does "encyclopedic registe" mean? What does "(examples: commas, kings)" mean? NPOV applies for descriptive titles and needs a mention with that last bullet point and not as "neutrality (mainly for descriptive titles)". "on a solution" do you mean a final solution? "on a solution" is not needed, better would be to substitute it with "based on the AT policy and its guidelines".
"In particular, a consistent form of name is often applied for subjects of the same kind" this is very bad for all the reasons I have listed before, it reinforces previous good or bad decision (and goes against the idea that consensus may change). Why of all the other options have you extracted this one for "In particular" emphasis? -- PBS (talk) 01:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, "(examples...)" just means that we'll add examples later; this is just a rough draft. We can play with the wording of disambiguator/descriptor. Encyclopedic register means faeces not shit, etc. (can't define it completely, but we all have a notion of what it is). Not sure neutrality is a consideration only for descriptive titles (for example we recently had James VI and I chosen partly on that basis). Not insisting on "on a solution". I emphasize consistency because it seems, in my experience, to be the main motivator behind decisions to depart from common names (and I mention it partly in order to qualify it).--Kotniski (talk) 07:24, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

bishojo, bishoujo or bishōjo

I was asked some time ago by Jfgslo to bring this kind of thing up if it ever occured again here, ie someone trying to use WP:MOS-JA to trump WT:TITLE, specifically WP:COMMONNAME. Currently at Talk:Bishōjo game#Request move JRBrown is attempting to imo do just that inspite evidence that the term is used by a variety of sources with different spelling. Rather than argue for the other potential alternate spelling that is also commonly used, bishoujo, he is trying to keep the status quo because scholarly sources, and only because scholarly sources, do not have a clear usage. His other argument is that vecause neither bishoujo nor bishojo can be shown to be the dominant one we must use the clearly (when all RSes are taken into account) the least common one, ie the current title in direct defiance to WP:COMMONNAME.∞陣内Jinnai 17:50, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

But seeing as you're arguing over how to write 美少女 in English, WP:MOS-JA most definitely takes precedence over WP:TITLE.—Ryulong (竜龙) 20:12, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
No. TITLE is POLICY for article titles; MOS-JA isa GUIDELINE which coms under the guideline WP:MOS which cedes articles titles to TITLE and its related naming conventions (which the latter cannot trump TITLE). In no way can a guideline EVER trump policy; if it conflicts, unless you can convince others to change policy, the guideline shouldneeds to be altered to conform. In all the discussions here and at MOS-JA, no one has convinced that Japanese is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo special that it needs to be made an exception to.∞陣内Jinnai 22:57, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
You are discussing how to write 美少女 in the English alphabet. I do not see how WP:MOS-JA is not involved, other than the fact that you do not like how the fact that it is preventing you from moving anything with 美少女 in the title. There is no common standard English language form for the Japanese word 美少女, so we should not make that determination just because you think "bishōjo" is not allowed under the titling policies.—Ryulong (竜龙) 23:52, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
I am not discussing how to write it in the article. I am discussing how to write it as an article title. We should not be having guidelines trump policy. There is 2 clear dominant romanizations of 美少女, bishojo and bishoujo. I have given plenty of evidence for this and everyone tries to cite MOS-JA in an attempt to ignore the policy here at WP:TITLE as though it doesn't exist.∞陣内Jinnai 02:17, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
So now you're just trying to discount the fact WP:MOS-JA can be used as an argument against your move because it is not a policy.—Ryulong (竜龙) 07:19, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Ou is very rarely used except in glossing. Common English usage is either o or oh. But I've only seen oh at the ends of words & personal names. — kwami (talk) 05:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

That ou is used in wapuro which is more commonly used for anime/manga/video game centered translations, but its not universally applied ever there.∞陣内Jinnai 21:55, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

There’s “wrong”, and then there’s “D’Oh!”

This is a little off-topic for article titles, but then, we don’t have to pretend that Wikipedia is a place where everyone is obliged to behave as if the rod up Wikipedia’s butt has a rod up its butt.

I thought this article in The Washington Post: “Mitt Romney’s misfire on the national anthem” was interesting. It seems The Washington Post is holding Mitt Romney’s feet to the fire for goofing up some historical facts and suggests Mitt Romney’s source may well have been Wikipedia. Romney has been stumping with this tidbit:


The article explains that many other countries salute their flag with a hand over the heart. And then it goes on to mention yet another goof in Mitt’s quote with the suggestion that Wikipedia—which had it wrong—might have been the source for Mitt’s goof. Here is an excerpt from the 927-word article in The Washington Post:

Ellis credits the inclusion of the “Lincoln salute” to the lobbying work of Gridley Adams, then head of the United States Flag Foundation. Adams was especially upset that the original version of the law said the U.S. flag always needed to be on a staff or hung flat against a wall — which had hurt flag sales. (Adams had promoted a flag that could be hung on a hook.) Ellis suggests Adams “seriously misled” Congress about whether the Lincoln salute had even been discussed at a 1924 flag conference that helped determine much of the flag code.

Roosevelt’s role, if any, appears to have been minimal, notwithstanding a Wikipedia entry that, without citing a source, says he was responsible for the shift. (Roosevelt, after all, also had signed the first piece of legislation, which mandated the Bellamy salute with the pledge.)

The error was fixed (∆ edit, here) by an I.P.

I don’t know which looks worse for Wikipedia: having hundreds of poor souls waltzing into a computer store saying “I’m looking for a computer with at least 512 mebibytes of RAM,” or Mitt putting shoe leather in mouth on camera. Greg L (talk) 22:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

We're never going to be a reliable source; the best we can hope for is that 80-90% of what we say is nearly right.
FDR was a little busy in 1942; Congress took credit for the flag code, and presumably their staffers wrote it. But the change of salute is explained in the Washington Post and our text before the edit: the Roman/Fascist/Nazi salute was out of fashion.
But what blood shed in foreign places? The Flag code was passed in June 1942, Guadalcanal (according to WP) started in August, North Africa in November. JCScaliger (talk) 23:02, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Well... Both Hawaii and the Philippines could be considered "far off" places. And a Lot of "our sons and daughters" had spilled blood in both locations before June '42. Whether FDR mentioned any of this as a reason for changing the flag salute at some point - I have no idea. It does seem like the kind of statement he might have said (it was war time), and so I can understand people (such as Mitt) believing he did say it. It may be incorrect, but it isn't that horrible a blunder.
I sometimes think there must be something in the constitution that requires politicians to put shoe leather in mouth on camera... both Republicans and Democrats do it so often that it really should not be surprising. However, the press (and opposition candidates) do love to play "gottcha", don't they. Must have been a slow news day. Blueboar (talk) 23:20, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
As little as 80 percent, JCScaliger? (darn). OK, find the non-factual bit, below:
  1. When I was 12 years old, I could walk into any and all taverns and bars during business hours and no one had a problem with it.
  2. I helped save President Regan’s life during the Hinkley assassination attempt.
  3. I watched a plane crash in which the pilot died.
  4. I stood about twenty feet from industrial-strength man-made lighting.
  5. During an African safari, I ate giraffe meat.
If just one of the above five is incorrect (20% error rate), then that makes it difficult to put much credence in the totality. Greg L (talk) 23:38, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
I enjoyed reading this. But maybe it's a good one for WP:VPM? This megapage tends to pretty much skid off topic without additional encouragement from Mitt... Just my 2 trillion wishful cents, MistyMorn (talk) 23:36, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Sure. No fun allowed. Let’s go back to serious stuff that gets people named in an ArbCom action. Why not? Right on! (see my “rod” comment, above).  ;-) Greg L (talk) 23:38, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Why misconstrue? No way I'm against fun! Just suggesting move the content to WP:VPM. This is already a very long page to navigate. For me, OT = stress (especially within sections, which admittedly wasn't the case here). My measly 2c, MistyMorn (talk) 23:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Vous pouvez vous déplacer. Je suis simplement un char français. Greg L (talk) 23:53, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Ce qui est un "char français", s'il vous plaît? Milkunderwood (talk) 00:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Urban Dictionary: Also a self-deprecating French colloquialism conveying humility or contrition. I trust MistyMorn understood. Greg L (talk) 00:13, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
If you are suggesting that we should move Pledge of Allegiance --> The article that the Washington Post said Mitt Romney got his wrong information from... I suppose it could be considered Recognizable by those who are "familiar with the topic". And it would be "accurate". But, push comes to shove: Oppose - not Concise. see... you can have fun and stay on topic Blueboar (talk) 00:07, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
<snerk> JCScaliger (talk) 01:41, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Protected

Maybe I'm missing something. We're back to edit warring over the interminable discussion above, but the reasons given refer back to the original & apparently inconclusive poll. Has there been a mediated discussion somewhere that has been closed in favor of one wording or the other?

If there's an uninvolved admin out there who feels the issue has been settled, please select the appropriate version and unprotect if you like. — kwami (talk) 04:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).
I shall be inquiring for one at WP:AN; I would prefer an admin who was not quite so frequently agreeing with Noetica. (I believe there is a gadget which shows when editors have edited the same page; does anybody remember what it is? I do not regard the poll as inconclusive; this is confirmed both by consulting it and by the call for a recount. Those may be justified, although I doubt this one is; but when are recounts demanded by the prevailing side? JCScaliger (talk) 20:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
WP:AN#Uninvolved admin, please. Note that this is not ANI; we have had enough drama. I would prefer an admin to come here, close the poll, unprotect, and we could then, for example, discuss moving the key phrase here to a separate paragraph. If people want drama, that can be arranged too. JCScaliger (talk) 21:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Remarkably, Born2cycle still claims to have "won" the discussion that he derailed by turning it into a polarizing vote and stacking it with votes he inferred from others. I still think we should discuss it, but not until he agrees to back off and allow that. Dicklyon (talk) 05:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Remarkably? We've been waiting for weeks for, someone, anyone, to present an argument supporting V2 over V1. No one has presented anything to that effect. Nothing. In the mean time 9 different editors have written substantively supporting V1 over V2. How long are we supposed to wait?

Based on their edits, Kotniski and JCScaliger were done waiting. This is ridiculous. Noetica edited the article three times today reverting each time from V1 to V2, including reverting two different editors, in a matter of hours today:

  1. [4] Noetica (talk · contribs) makes edit #1 02:22, January 12, 2012
  2. [6] Noetica reverts JCScaliger 18:47, January 12, 2012
  3. [8] Noetica reverts B2C 20:28, January 12, 2012
Is that a 3RR violation, or what? Instead, Kwami locks the page at V2 and doesn't even warn Noetica. What the hell? --Born2cycle (talk) 06:21, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
No, it is not a 3RR violation. Why would it be? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:38, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
(ec) How is 3 reverts a violation of WP:3RR? And I'm sorry I wasn't around to notice and revert you myself. Dicklyon (talk) 06:39, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
If you want an argument for why that status-quo is better than your "V1" version, here's one. You're using the phrase "to someone familiar with the topic" (and its parenthetical qualifier) to support your position that any extra clarity, that would make the phrase familiar to people outside of people familiar with the topic, is of absolutely zero value when considering tradeoffs with such things as conciseness. To the extent that I understand your purpose--wanting to not put any value on recognizability beyond a minimum--I disagree with your purpose. To the extent that you are warring to change policy in support of that purpose, I will do what I can to reduce your impact. But we don't have to make it a fight. We've had a start at discussing other ways to frame the naming criteria. Your desire to reduce them to a mechanical algorithm seems like not the best approach. So stop "waiting for, someone, anyone, to present an argument supporting V2 over V1" and start helping us, or at least allowing us, to find a good way to actually improve on the status quo, taking into account why we object to the direction you're trying to take it. Dicklyon (talk) 06:39, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
I forget a 3RR violation technically requires 4 reverts.
So, your argument is you don't like the V1 wording because it supports the position that you know happens to be mine, and doesn't support yours? What kind of argument is that? Never mind that the V1 wording accurately reflects how we title our articles, and always have? Never mind that nine different editors expressed support for this point weeks ago? --Born2cycle (talk) 06:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't like your wording because it moves from the status quo in a direction that seems to be designed for a purpose that I object to; I'm not saying that was Kotniski's purpose in penning it, but it does seem to be yours in pushing to restore that provision that never got discussed before it was temporarily part of policy. Is that a problem? And why do you keep counting expressions from before we attempted to open a serious discussion on the issues, which we've still barely scratched? Born2count? Dicklyon (talk) 07:06, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
It's not my wording - it's the wording that was in place for years until it was inadvertently removed in 2011, and nobody who noticed realized the implications.

So your objection is your perception of the motivation of the person who first tried to restore the wording, and not substantive to the wording itself. Thank you for clarifying that your argument is baseless and not substantive. Yes, that's a problem.

For at least most of us, the discussion was serious from the moment it started at #Clarification of recognizability lost. Why do you discount the expressions of those who participated and favored V1 over V2 -- Born2cycle, Kotniski, EdChem, PBS, Kai445, Powers, WhatamIdoing, JCScaligera, Enric Naval -- as not serious? Just because you didn't take the discussion seriously (and you apparently didn't) doesn't mean we didn't. Did we do or say anything to support your position that we weren't serious? --Born2cycle (talk) 07:17, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Didn't I just acknowledge that Kotniski penned it and that I take no issue with his motives in doing so? Yet it's you who is pushing for it. So stop pushing, and get back to discussing. I looked over the conversation since the attempted RFC, and while I may have missed some, here's what I see: speaking against your "V1" as too narrow or too wordy or something: Dicklyon, Noetica, Onconfucious, Ohms_law, Tony1, Blueboar (and I'm not claiming anyone is saying the status quo version is so great, just that yours is bad); speaking in terms of possible support for a compromise: WhatamIdoing, JCScaliger, SamBC, Kotniski; less clear position, but willing to discuss: PBS, Jinnai, Mike Cline, Art LaPella, Greg L, Brews ohare; apparently just want your change: Born2cycle, LtPowers, Enric Naval, Kai445. So if you stop looking at it like a vote, it's clear that there is a lot of interest in doing better. That's something we can build on. Dicklyon (talk) 07:47, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Let me make my position clearer: substantively, I find the content of V1 necessary; it is the test we do in fact use. My suggestion was that it could easily be a paragraph of its own with a link; this would permit the key phrase to be moved there, slimming the first section; but that is purely stylistic. I do not agree that V1 was or is novel; it was established wording until a few editors showed up demanding an entirely novel system of unnecessary disambiguation. JCScaliger (talk) 20:45, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

If you think Noetica, Onconfucious, Ohms_law, Tony1, Blueboar all said anything substantive against V1 or in favor of V2, you're going to have to spell it out, because I don't see it. You're the only one who mentioned the word "narrow" in that RFC discussion, and no one said "wordy", so I don't know what you're talking about.

At least we agree no one said the status quo (V2) is great. A few like Blueboar aren't so crazy about V1 either, but the nine I listed did favor V1, and nobody favors V2.

I'm sure there is more to discuss, there always is, but in the mean time we have established consensus favoring V1 over V2. So why the reverting? Why the disruption? --Born2cycle (talk) 08:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

It's possible that I erred in my characterizations or interpretations. Noetica's objection seems to be more about precipitous changes without consensus than about a particular version, and I don't mean to try to speak for him. Similarly, I'll let the others clarify if they see fit. Dicklyon (talk) 08:10, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
You guys (Dicklyon, Tony1 and Noetica) have been playing these delay tactics since Dec 21. From the moment I made the change and started a discussion section about, all you've been willing to do is edit war, and talk about the need to discuss, without actually discussing anything substantive. Enough! --Born2cycle (talk) 08:13, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

To Dick: (after ec) If you look at the RfC above (i.e. where people actually addressed the issue), you'll see overwhelming support for the version that you rather misleadingly attribute to B2C, and virtually none for the one that the page has again been protected under (that you rather misleadingly describe as the "status quo" version). This whole thing, though the issue itself is quite trivial, makes a mockery of the idea that Wikipedia policy represents consensus - it's clear that all that matters is who's most prepared to edit-war and who's best friends with (or best able to pull the wool over the eyes of) an admin.--Kotniski (talk) 08:07, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I like how, if I protected it in the version that had been stable for the previous six months rather than in the one you wanted, it must have been due to (1) corruption or (2) stupidity. That doesn't provide me much confidence in your characterization of other editors. — kwami (talk) 17:38, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Well OK, laziness is another option. It's easy to see which version has been stable for the last n months; it takes a bit more effort to look at the talk page and discover that editors who have been addressing the topic (rather than creating noise and smoke) have clearly decided it should be changed back. I know most admins tend to do the same kind of thing as you did (for any of the three reasons mentioned); I would have expected better from you.--Kotniski (talk) 07:38, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
If you understood the underlying issue -- the implications on actual title decisions of the difference between the V1 and V2 wordings -- and looked at the edit summary and associated discussion of the change that created the wording that was "stable for the previous six month", you would realize that that stability couldn't mean much, because those who made the change obviously did not appreciate these implications, and once the change and implications were realized, the only relevant argument made here (now by 10 people including Eraserhead1 below) was that to restore the V1 wording. Noetica, on the other hand, fully well understands these implications, which is why he wants to keep this wording, because it favors his contrarian view. That you've shown no sign whatsoever of realizing any of this does indicate some kind of visual blockage, especially considering how many times I've pointed this out to you, and your continued insistence that you don't see it (literally your words). --Born2cycle (talk) 00:14, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Version 1 is clearly better, we don't want to use more technical names if they are only known about by experts. We are aiming at a general audience here. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:39, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Eraserhead, you seem to have it backwards; the status quo or V2 version does not encourage "more technical", nor appeal to experts. It leaves recognizability broad, rather than restricting the value of it to only people who are familiar with the subject. For example, to use a perennial example, it encourages Bill Clinton over William Jefferson Clinton, even if everyone familiar with him knows that WIlliam Jefferson Clinton is his more precise name; the extra recognizability to even people not familiar with him can be traded off against the more precision of using his exact and less ambiguous name; on balance the short name wins here, partly because it makes the title recognizable even to people not very familiar with the man. We don't want to enable the argument that says that that extra recognizability is of no value when it extends to people outside of those who are familiar with the subject, which is exactly the way that Born2cycle tends to use it. Therefore, to the extent that I understood your comment, it seems more like you support V2. Am I correct? Dicklyon (talk) 16:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't understand what point you're trying to make. You say the V2 wording encourages "Bill Clinton over William Jefferson Clinton". I don't see how either wording encourages either name since both versions seem equally recognizable to me. Are you even suggesting that V1 would encourage the reverse in this case? If so, why? If not, how is this case even relevant here?

"We don't want to enable the argument that says that that extra recognizability is of no value when it extends to people outside of those who are familiar with the subject". Nobody I know wants to say it's of "no value"; certainly I don't. That's a straw man argument.

But you're living in an alternate universe if you think "extra recognizability ... when it extends to people outside of those who are familiar with the subject" has ever been a factor in deciding titles in WP (except maybe in a few isolated cases now and then). Any 20 clicks on SPECIAL:RANDOM will produce probably at least 10 examples of articles with titles for which additional descriptive words would make the titles recognizable to more people outside of those already familiar with that article subject, yet we don't have that extra description in those titles (unless it's also needed for disambiguation, meaning disambiguation from other uses within WP). That's proof that we don't title our articles for people unfamiliar with the subject to be able to recognize them from just the title.

Now, we know you want to change that, but you don't have anything close to consensus support for such a change. You don't even have anything coherent for what exactly you're proposing. In the mean time, you, Tony and Noetica keep filibustering to prevent us from fixing the written policy on recognizability to match actual practice. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:19, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Or to put it more briefly: Most people who know anything about the recent history of the United States call him Bill Clinton. So should we. V2 fails to encourage this, and was proposed and insisted upon by those who would like to make "explanatory" titles mandatory. JCScaliger (talk) 23:00, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
OK, I think we can agree that one of us is very confused. Since I'm missing the point of what you just said, maybe it's me. How does V2 not encourage "Bill Clinton" more than V1 does? And who are you saying proposed and insisted upon it? It seems to have been created (proposed) by Ohm's law, and as far as I can tell, nobody is insisting on this version. Dicklyon (talk) 23:09, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
JCS, please review the first post at #Clarification of recognizability lost for the history of the recognizability language. If you read the edit summary and associated discussion linked there, it's obvious they were just trying to simplify language without changing meaning, and did not realize what they had changed, and no one noticed and realized the implications until months later when I created that section. That change was not proposed or inserted "by those who would like to make 'explanatory' titles mandatory", but they are the ones who are insisting it stay V2 and not be changed back to V1. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:31, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't see a difference between V1 and V2 on the "Bill Clinton" vs "William Jefferson Clinton" title decision. Whether or not we restrict our consideration to those who are familiar with him, people are probably slightly more likely to recognize "Bill Clinton" than the formal name as referring to him. That is, people unfamiliar with him are probably no more likely to recognize one or the other as referring to any U.S. president, much less that one.

However, V2 would favor "Bill Clinton (U.S. president)" over "Bill Clinton" - because that would make the title recognizable ("Oh, Bill Clinton the president") to those who, like a certain 11 year old I know, might not be familiar with who this person is. And that's why we need to restore V1, because we're not moving Bill Clinton to Bill Clinton (U.S. president). --Born2cycle (talk) 01:08, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

The reason why the title of the article in question is Bill Clinton and not Bill Clinton (U.S. President) is that there is no need for a parenthetical disambiguation. There is only one Wikipedia article about a notable person with that name. If, at some point in the future, an article is written about some other notable person named "Bill Clinton", then we might have to disambiguate the title of the article on the US President... but until then, No. Blueboar (talk) 15:58, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Exactly. But the problem is that V2 arguably favors Bill Clinton (U.S. President) over Bill Clinton, and (to choose another example by clicking on SPECIAL:RANDOM) V2 favors Peace, Love & Truth (album) over Peace, Love & Truth even more, even though there is no need for a parenthetical disambiguation in either case.

I mean, the current title, Peace, Love & Truth, is fine per V1, because it is recognizable to anyone who is familiar with that album. But to anyone who is not familiar with that album (including me until a few minutes ago), "Peace, Love & Truth" is totally unrecognizable, but at least we would recognize Peace, Love & Truth (album) as being an album. By the way, per V2, Peace, Love & Truth (Lennon-Ono compilation album) would be even better. That's the problem with V2 - it's totally open-ended - the more recognizable the title, to anyone, the better.

V1 might not be perfect, but at least it's not inaccurate with respect to most titles on WP like V2 is. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:47, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't see how V2 "favors" Bill Clinton (U.S. President) over Bill Clinton (or Peace, Love & Truth (Lennon-Ono compilation album) over Peace, Love & Truth). Explain please. (note... I am not saying V2 is better than V1... nor that V1 is better than V2... I just don't understand how the examples being cited fit into that debate) Blueboar (talk) 19:08, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
I'll explain in terms of the album, because it illustrates the point better. Also, to review:

Version 1/original (adapted from May 2011 wording): Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?

Version 2/current: Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?

In general, recognizable means "able to be recognized". In the specific context of WP titles, a recognizable title means the topic of the article is able to be recognized from the title. I presume no one disagrees with this. I mean, what else can "recognizable" mean in this context?

For someone familiar with the album, they will recognize an article titled Peace, Love & Truth must be about that album, but someone who is not familiar with the album will not (I, for example, had no clue, and had to read the lead of the article to find out what it was about). However, that someone who is not familiar with the album will recognize that an article titled Peace, Love & Truth (Lennon-Ono compilation album) is about a Lennon-Ono compilation album named Peace, Love & Truth. Therefore, Peace, Love & Truth (Lennon-Ono compilation album) is recognizable even to those unfamiliar with the album, but Peace, Love & Truth is not nearly as recognizable, because it's recognizable only to those who are already familiar with the album (which fully satisfies V1, but the longer and more descriptive title satisfies V2 much better).

Because that article is at Peace, Love & Truth and not at Peace, Love & Truth (Lennon-Ono compilation album), V1 is a much more accurate reflection of the role recognizability plays in titling our articles than is V2. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:50, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I still don't understand your argument. V2 says the title must be a recognizable name or description... it does not say it must be recognizable by every living person on earth.
What it probably should say is:

Would the typical Wikipedia user find the candidate title a recognizable name for, or description of the topic?

Call this V3 if you want to. I would follow this up with a nod to WP:COMMONNAME by saying something along the lines of "If there is more than one recognizable name or description, Editors should try to determine which name or description is likely to be the most recognizable (by looking at frequency of usage in reliable sources). Blueboar (talk) 03:14, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

suggested edits

I would propose in the lede:

  1. change "serves to give" to "gives"
  2. delete "simply"
  3. change "since" to "as"
  4. change "what the subject is called" to "the terms used"
  5. change "When this offers multiple possibilities, editors choose among them by considering several principles:..." to "Editors choose from all the possibilities offered by examining titles of similar articles, and seeking a short, understandable and recognizable title."

Hoping to make this itself a more readable lede. Collect (talk) 15:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Neither version 1 or 2 is satisfactory

TL;DR, I'm afraid. But my first instinct is to say that both are too vague and open to interpretation (we need to negotiate examples for the poor editors so they can get the gist of where the boundaries lie). 1 relies on the definition of familiarity and expertise, which mean different things to different people in different topics and areas. Version 2 avoids these definitional problems and merely shifts the vagueness to another level (the more general).

Version 1 also suffers from a category problem: it conceives of article-title specificity solely in terms of familiarity and expertise at the expense of the ability of anyone, expert or non-expert, to identify a topic without being misled. It skirts around this problem of how the principle of primary title produces highly unsatisfactory results in some cases (although not all cases).

So this interminable arguing over which version should stand is beside the point: we need to think more deeply about the issue. Tony (talk) 04:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps, but unless you have a specific V3 to propose so that we have something to actually discuss, this is just more disruptive filibustering from Dick Noetica Tony. In the mean time, we have at least 10 people now -- Born2cycle, Kotniski, EdChem, PBS, Kai445, Powers, WhatamIdoing, JCScaligera, Enric Naval, Eraserhead -- who have stated that V1 is most accurate in terms of reflecting how recognizability is used in deciding titles, and nobody who has even argued that V2 is accurate at all. Now, why are we still at V2? --Born2cycle (talk) 06:33, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, yes, neither version is satisfactory - the format of the whole section (which I and most others fully supported when it was introduced, since it was a great improvement over the logical mess we had before) is not, on reflection, satisfactory. Anything that phrases the article-choosing process in terms of vague criteria that "need to be balanced" is actually missing out the essential information on what is actually done in almost every situation. This is what I've tried to address in my proposal above, which would, I suggest, be a profitable focus for discussion.--Kotniski (talk) 07:16, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
  • My preference is for a more explicit version of #1 with examples of how the principle it embodies is implemented. IMHO, it would have wording added as follows:

• Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic? This is to say, titles should contain parenthetical or comma-delimited disambiguation only when needed to avoid confusion with like-titled subjects assuming the reader has some facility with the subject matter. For instance, it would properly be Bill Clinton and not Bill Clinton (U.S. President) and it should *properly* be Collins Street and not Collins Street, Melbourne. Both the preceding titles are sufficiently clear inasmuch as they 1) assume the reader has a pre-existing intention to learn more on that particular subject, and 2) the subject matter can reasonably be considered as referring to a ‘particular one or ones’ assuming that topics must be sufficiently notable to merit inclusion in an encyclopedia. In accordance with this principle, it should be Gone with the Wind (film) to distinguish it from Gone with the Wind (musical).

FYI, it seems clear to me that our current disambiguation page (Collins Street) was borne out of wikilawyering-to-make-a-point. None of those red-letter articles-in-waiting seem to be the least bit notable. A Google search shows there is but one notable “Collins Street.” As for the other ones, Wikipedia is not Google Map. Greg L (talk) 03:06, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, this is the sort of thing we ought to be aiming at - actually explaining stuff instead of writing in vague abstracts. Though possibly this much verbiage is too much for the opening paragraph, which has to address other matters as well - it maybe better to do as in my proposed version, i.e. give the basics here, and link to a later section which deals with it in detail.--Kotniski (talk) 11:23, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Also the matter of parentheticals tends to be associated with the "precision" criterion rather than the recognizability one - but as I've alerady proposed, I don't think we should be dividing this paragraph up according to the criteria.--Kotniski (talk) 11:25, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I think you and I are in general agreement, Kotniski. I didn’t get the above proposal pregnant so it and I aren’t engaged or anything like that . If you know best how to take bits and pieces of the above and use them more appropriately in the guideline, I’m all ears. Greg L (talk) 03:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).
    • Quite reasonable wording; however, taking the proposal, making everything after "This is to say" into a new section, and introducing an internal link would be much more readable. If all the questions were done on this scale, the introduction and summary would be eight long paragraphs. JCScaliger (talk) 05:04, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I have no feel for the dynamics on this talk page. Why not wait for the necessary amount of time for further input and, seeing no objections, revise as you think best. The worst that can happen is that someone reverts and then claims that our behavior here suggests genetic flaws and that you and I should have better chosen our parents. Greg L (talk) 05:21, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

A couple of thoughts about WP:Commonname

One of the benefits of closing a lot of RM discussions is that you begin to see trends in the application and interpretation of policies and guidelines across many articles. In the case of our English language, common name policy, it is not so much the policy that is misinterpreted or misapplied, it is the actual determination of What is the common name at any given point in time? that gives us the most trouble. We provide some guidance on how to use Google to determine the common name, but based on the wildly divergent results editors say they get in any given discussion, that guidance isn’t serving us well. Pile on all the other biased logic and rationalizations that editors bring to RM discussions and determining the English language common name for any given subject can be very tedious, and essentially unproductive. Unproductive I say, because it is consuming valuable editor time that could be much better applied to the improvement and creation of content. So, as we move from 3.9 million articles to ~5-10 million articles in the next 10 years, I asked myself how could we improve the application and interpretation of our common name policy? To think about that, I made three assumptions:

  • There is an English language common name for every article (understanding there are a lot of exceptions here in science and purely non-English language subjects, etc.)
  • The English language common name can reliably be determined through Google searches of reliable sources.
  • The English language common name should be the article’s title unless there’s overwhelming rationale to the contrary (also understanding that other titling criteria are equally considered)

If we accepted these assumptions, how could we improve the process?

  • Outsource the Google search – some editors are very sophisticated in their ability to use Google for researching common names. I think that skill comes from experience. I also think that if we could find a way to generate consistency in searching that eliminated all the biases and rationalizations that editors bring to discussion, the process would be much cleaner and more productive. Imagine a WikiProject Common Name whose sole purpose was to search and make an unbiased common name determination on any given set of choices. An editor who initiated an RM based on Common Name would submit the name choices to the project and the project would return an unbiased verdict. The RM would use that verdict along with whatever other rationale there was for the move to guide the discussion. All the unproductive, inconsistent and biased Google results would not dominate the discussion. Just like any other project, members would determine the best methodology to return unbiased results and manage the workload.
  • Establish better policy re common name changes overtime – It is a fact that names change over time. Sources on notable entities that have existed for a long time will show a bias for a name that existed for the longest period, regardless of what the most current name of the entity is. Although our guidance does address this to some extent, it’s not really unequivocal enough to help. I don’t know exactly what the right answer is, but the question comes down to:
  • Do we determine Common Name based on the lifetime of the entity to the current time? (i.e. maybe 100 years of reliable sources) or:
  • Do we determine Common Name based on a much, shorter, more contemporary period of time? (i.e. maybe only the last 10 years of sources, or only sources since a name changed.)

These aren’t easy questions, but we must begin to find a way to make our titling process more efficient and productive. Maybe these ideas can help. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:19, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting ideas, Mike. I see the RMs somewhat differently (biased by the ones I choose to pay attention to, no doubt). It seems to me that for 99.9% of articles, there's no issue, as the first name that an editor thinks of is likely to be the common name, and uncontroversial. Still, I agree that we spend too much time arguing. I worry though about theories that we can solve such problems by more strict centralized rules for titling; this is what User:Born2cycle tries to do, according to the essay on his talk page; the result seems to be more long-winded disagreeements, not fewer. And COMMONNAME is often invoked in issues where it is not really applicable. We have fairly stable central style guidance on things like capitalization, hyphens and en dashes, etc., yet users often want to override those by saying their sources do it differently; that's a case where the name is not in dispute, just the styling, but COMMONNAME gets invoked as an argument. And I think everyone would agree that Moonlight sonata is more common than Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven), yet we have a contentious RM going; clarifying COMMONNAME wouldn't help that kind of mess, would it? How many RMs do we have where COMMONNAME, or the difficulty of getting an unbiased count, is really the issue? Dicklyon (talk) 17:29, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Regarding names that have changed... I know that some people want to have simple, one size fits all "rules" that will resolve all debates, but this simply is not realistic. I don't think we can have a simple, one size fits all rule for this, because the facts of each case are always going to be unique.
I would certainly agree that we should give more weight to usage since the change occurred... but this does not mean we should ignore or give no weight at all to older usage. There is usually a tipping point at which sources written since a name change will out-weigh the sources written prior to the change... but where that tipping point falls will be different from subject to subject. In debates, I think the question should be "Have we reached the tipping point in regards to this specific subject?" This question takes most (not all) of the heat out of RM debates... as it focuses the discussion on timing, as opposed to "what is correct". Blueboar (talk) 18:22, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think I am advocating a one size fits all policy but rather a better articulation of the very process you describe above. If we could make the tipping point idea much clearer in policy as well as generate an unbiased assessment as to when that occured for any given pair of alternatives, we could make RMs much less contentious, and less bias laden than they are today.--Mike Cline (talk) 19:08, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Dicklyon, regards Moonlight Sonata, that's really not an issue of What the English language common name is. It is really is the classic delimma we've created with our titling policy--what criteria trumps what other criteria and when? There's no answer to that, the policy is all over the map and that's a bigger issue. I don't know how many RM discussions are unproductive because of the vagaries of Common Name and its application, but there's are enough from my view that changing the process would be a big improvement. The current RM--Kolkata is kind of a poster child for my idea above, as is Turkey–Kurdistan Workers' Party conflict [9]. A process that would generate an unbiased decision as to the English language common name, would be a big improvement from our current process. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:32, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure that there will ever be any satisfactory algorithm for this. Identifying "the common name" involves too many imponderables - which sources are (most) reliable? how much more weight do we give to recent sources, or more "encyclopedia-like" sources, than others? And then there are the other imponderables involved in deciding whether the common name is actually the best title for the article. It would certainly save us a lot of time and exasperation if we could answer titling questions just by asking a computer, but I don't think it's ever going to happen. --Kotniski (talk) 20:37, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Dicklyon wrote: "I worry though about theories that we can solve such problems by more strict centralized rules for titling; this is what User:Born2cycle tries to do, according to the essay on his talk page; the result seems to be more long-winded disagreements..." Since we don't yet have "strict centralized rules for titling" (much less anything close to deterministic algorithm for titling), there can be no result of such. The long-winded disagreements are a result of not having more determinism in our rules. By definition, if they were more deterministic, the less there would be to argue about. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:27, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
That begs the question: what is so wrong with argument? Blueboar (talk) 01:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps nothing, Blueboar. Can you show some bits of the current guideline that you would modify, along with the proposed modifications based upon your teachings? Greg L (talk) 03:29, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
What is so wrong with argument? Nothing is wrong with argument per se, but pointless argument is, well, pointless. If our "rules" (i.e., policy, conventions, principles, criteria, guidelines, MOS, etc.) are such that a plethora of titles can be reasonably justified for many articles, we are guaranteeing a situation in which titles will be debated endlessly. The alternative is that we improve the rules incrementally so that they become more deterministic, so that with time titling in WP becomes less and less of an issue. Personally, I would like to see the number of title issues brought to RM to drop from about a dozen per day to a dozen per week or maybe even a dozen per month. Thus RM discussions would take up much less time and resources so all that energy can be focused on improving content. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:46, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Of these assumptions,

  • the first is doubtful; there are many subjects with two or three contending names about equally common (to say nothing of articles with no common name, for which we must find a descriptive title).
  • The second is wrong; google results are indicative, not decisive; they are prone to many errors even as a sampling of the corpus of writing in English, and there is no way to consistently limit them to reliable sources (Google scholar helps, but not enough; there are too many non-journals in it.)
  • The third is an extremely controversial position (for more, talk to Born2Cycle, who holds it). The other points (or Greg's points below) are reasons not to use the most common name.
FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).

Bill of Rights–like set of proposed principles

I think that to make any progress here, we need to take a few steps backwards and agree upon fundamental principles upon which WP:AT can be based. I propose that we need to rally around (develop a consensus in support of) the below fundamental principles that contributing editors would ask themselves when choosing an article name:

  1. Does the article title look studious and encyclopedic?
  2. Is it factually correct the way most readers who are expert in the subject mater understand it?
  3. Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?
  4. After a redirect from popular street vernacular, does the actual title best adhere to the principle of least astonishment?
  5. Do the spelling, diacritics, or capitalization diverge from conventional, high-quality, real-world English-language practices as exercised by the most-reliable English-language RSs?

I’ve seen over and over and over that editors here tend to make proposals in the abstract that would sound swell in the Roman Senate but which tend to induce suspicion in other editors who fear sneaking agendas to POV push. It’s my intention to flesh out any of the above five items with example titles chosen to show what is proscribed and prescribed (or discouraged and encouraged for those who don’t fear coming across as wikilawyering); precisely as I did two sections above. For instance, the interaction and meaning of three of the above points could be expanded later in WP:AT with specific examples like this:

Points #1, #2, and #3 above in combination mean that we best serve the interests of our readership by titling the article Rock Hudson rather than Roy Harold Scherer, Jr..

But first, I propose we see what other items might be added to the above; see which ones are uncontroversial; and which ones are worthy of Turkish-prison butt-stabbings, ANIs, and ArbCom tongue amputations.

I am hopeful that with this approach, we can have an amicable working relationship. Greg L (talk) 03:58, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

In short, you propose to rally consensus around what we now say (excluding the recent and controversial revert warring by a single editor).
FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).
It may be useful to have examples here, or in a guideline; but examples in the policy tend to become embarrassments as reality changes around it. One former example in the text (for what is essentially your #2) was that we prefered the accurate tsunami to the more common tidal wave; well, the Boxing Day Tsunami came along, and by now "tsunami" is more common, so it was taken out. JCScaliger (talk) 04:42, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
  • JCScaliger: Examples are important because when we stare at this text for hours and hours and debate it, it seems perfectly clear. But some of the guidelines aren’t all that clear to newcomers and novices (and even rather experienced editors who shy away from our guideline pages). Examples of what to do and what not to do are exceedingly valuable because they essentially say “Here is what we mean.” Examples are part of Education and Communication 101 and our policy pages tend to not have enough of them. As for examples becoming outdated: there are plenty of bright people on this page; it is not at all difficult to come up with scores of timeless examples. Greg L (talk) 04:50, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Not really that easy. The examples we have are largely collected from actual discussion, and nobody has come up with a replacement for tsunami. A guideline with examples and cross-links would be useful; but examples tend to become frozen - somebody introduces them to "settle" a debatable title, and then argues that "policy has decided this." You should recognize this problem from other and less fortunate guideline pages. JCScaliger (talk) 04:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
  • On the issue of examples becoming outdated, you and I will have to agree to disagree. As for the use of examples being the source of disagreement and causing gridlock: no shit. But the alternative (talking in flowery but entirely nebulous generalities) is pure garbage. I’ve seen editors arguing over some text here and no one could explain to me what the practical difference was between them. Omitting examples on Wikipedia’s guideline pages have been a way to avoid coming to a true consensus by crafting near-worthless, ambiguous text that could be interpreted to mean what anyone wanted it to me. That has to end. Requiring example text will require that chameleons (they exist on this page now) come out of hiding and man-up. Greg L (talk) 05:08, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
    • You ignore the problem with tsunami; it didn't run into (or cause) problems because of differences over policy; it ran into a question of fact. Most examples will.
    The practical difference which has caused the present protection is simple. A handful of editors want unnecessary disambiguation like National Tax Agency (Japan) or Elton John (rock star) on then grounds it will be clearer to the totally ignorant, and they think the simplified text will make it easier to argue for their version. I'm not sure either half of this is correct, but that is the practical difference.
Examples would not have helped. I don't think anuybody have thought Bill Clinton (U.S. President) would ever have been something we would need to discourage; there's no sign of a demand for it at WP:RM. JCScaliger (talk) 05:35, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Are you just drawing me into wikidrama so I get into the saddle even prouder on your side of this? We seem to agree on the objective. Your poo-pooing using examples like “Elton John (rock star)” just proves how that example would have been a valuable one since Elton John is what it properly ought to be… and is. That some editor thought it ought to be “Elton John (rock star)” doesn’t impress; all sorts of people have ideas that don’t gain traction with others. All that impresses me is a clear consensus and even clearer guidelines. I’m not exactly in a mood for caving to editors who fancy that the best tactic to get their way is to be tendentious beyond all comprehension. The best response to *bad* ideas is *better* ideas. Bring ‘em on. And then let’s be perfectly clear about what we mean. Greg L (talk) 05:48, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
There's no need to worry about the Bill Clinton title; if you think there is, use that one as an example. As for National Tax Agency (Japan), that makes more sense; a number of editors preferred that, since "National" is so ambiguous without a country, and since other countries have national tax agencies, whether WP has an article on them or not. It's interesting that you say "The practical difference which has caused the present protection is simple. A handful of editors want unnecessary disambiguation like National Tax Agency (Japan)..." I don't remember anything about that coming up in the huge lengthy discussion. Interesting. Dicklyon (talk) 06:21, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
That's largely because the editors who want the unnecessary disambiguation stayed aloof from the discussion, preferring to get their way by... well we know how. (This does not apply to you, of course.) If this "unnecessary disambiguation" issue is still the elephant in the room, then we really need to hear (finally) some concrete proposal as to what type of article name ought to have such disambiguation; then we might be able to make some progress on it, and incorporate the result into whatever wording we decide on. At the moment, though, we don't as a rule do "this kind" of disambiguation (except in a few subject areas where we always do, as I've indicated in my proposed wording), so any wording we come up with will have to reflect the fact that we don't, since that's the current practice.--Kotniski (talk) 11:46, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
If it's the elephant in the room, let's bring it up. My latest real-world example: can anyone imagine what the topic of 2nd Avenue is, without the disambiguator? Take a look at the article and the recent talk section about moving it. What names would be suggested by various old and new naming guidelines? Dicklyon (talk) 16:15, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Having a disambiguation page at 2nd Avenue is correct as there are a number of existing topics ambiguous with the title and none are obviously the primary topic. There was never any discussion in which evidence of a primary topic was presented. This really has little bearing on cases where there is no other existing topic that is ambiguous, and yet some claim that disambiguation is nonetheless necessary. older ≠ wiser 16:29, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, at least one editor who has commented above about disambiguators has brought this up on my talk page: User_talk:Dicklyon#2nd_Avenue. The argument is partly in terms of primary topic, and partly in terms of there not actually being any other article competing for the exact title "2nd Avenue". Pretty much like the arguments in National Tax Agency and Catholic Memorical School, that disambiguators should be forbidden if they're not absolutely required by having another article that wants the same name. The TV channel was moved in 2007 to 2nd Avenue with edit summary moved ETC 2nd Avenue to 2nd Avenue: It is only known as 2nd Avenue now. Dicklyon (talk) 17:07, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't see the similarity. 2nd Avenue (disambiguation) has existed for some time now listing existing ambiguous topics. For Catholic Memorial School, no one has explained what the disambiguation page would contain. As it is, it remains a redirect to the disambiguated title, which is just plain dumb. As for National Tax Agency, I'd have no complaint with moving that article (to me, either Japanese National Tax Agency or National Tax Agency (Japan) would be acceptable) and redirecting National Tax Agency to Revenue service. The last appears to be warranted by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government and legislation). older ≠ wiser 18:33, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
This hardline primary topic or the highway practice needs to allow for the disambiguation of clear cases where the item by itself is extremely unsatisfactory; like this one. Tony (talk) 23:18, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Like which one? There were three just mentioned. And if you or anyone can articulate beyond vague intuitions what you mean by clear cases where the item by itself is extremely unsatisfactory, then there might actually be something to discuss. older ≠ wiser 23:47, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

There is no magic formula for determining the best article title. This is because every article is unique. When it comes to adding a parenthetical disambiguation, There are some situations where such disambiguation is clearly necessary and helpful - I think we are all agreed that in those situations we should disambiguate... and of course there are situations when disambiguation is neither necessary nor helpful - I think we are all in agreement that in such situations we should not disambiguate... however, there are also situations when disambiguation may not be necessary, but would be helpful - in such situations we actually have a choice as to whether to add it or not. Some times the answer will be "Yes, disambiguate", but at other times the answer will be "No, don't disambiguate". How do we determine which is which... we discuss it and try to form a consensus. Forming a consensus is often a very messy process... consensus building often involves working our way past disagreement. It involves heated debate and even outright argument. That's OK. It's how the system works. Blueboar (talk) 14:43, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

But can you give an example of a situation where parenthetical disambiguation is not needed to distinguish the title from any other, but has still been determined to be a good idea?--Kotniski (talk) 18:02, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I’m with Kotniski. Of course there are blue-text prescribed example titles and red-text proscribed example titles we can use to illustrate a principle. If there are grey‑area or contentious (battleground) examples, such as “National Tax Agency” (which seems a really poor example given that there is a National Tax Agency in Spain), then let’s use obvious and high‑quality examples upon which a consensus can be had (which means that we don’t need 100% agreement from all editors—even if they are tendentious). Everyone: Please offer up *good* examples rather than battleground examples that you obviously knew were bones of contention before and had to know would be bones of contention again. Under “making progress” in the dictionary, I can’t imagine that one of the key elements is “raise old issues that went nowhere before.” I see no point even suggesting example article titles to use here when it is already clear the title is probably incorrect and is no‑doubt controversial. I’ve already suggested titles such as “Elton John” (v.s. “Elton John (musician)”), which has the virtue of being correct to start off with. Do I have to hand out {{trouts}} to unhelpful posts here? Others here are more expert on what are the battleground issues here and should easily be able to find example titles around which we can rally and form a consensus. Greg L (talk) 18:50, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
I think you're trying to come up with a one-size-fits-all-there-are-no-exceptions-to-the-rule which is not how things go. Bluboar has it right. Clarify what can be clarrified and give some gudiance for when things might not be so clear cut. Examples are nice, but have the tendancy to be overused and quickly become outdated as policy/guidelines change.∞陣内Jinnai 20:49, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Length of the title

Thread retitled from "Lenght of the Title".

There is no information nowhere. At least I couldn't found.

  • How many characters can there be in a title?
  • Which article has the longest title?

--98.199.22.63 (talk) 02:37, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions), the maximum is 256. I don't know if that maximum is attained anywhere.--Kotniski (talk) 07:21, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
As I remember, the "maximum number of characters" technical restriction was a determining factor in settling a WP:Official name debate several years ago... the issue was what to entitle our article on the governing body of a Masonic organization: and we settled on "Supreme Council, Scottish Rite (Southern Jurisdiction, USA)". A few editors wanted to use the full "official" name of the organization, which is: The Supreme Council (Mother Council of the World) of the Inspectors General Knights Commander of the House of the Temple of Solomon of the Thirty-third Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America - but the debate was quickly settled when it was pointed out that it was not technically possible to use the "official name" ... it would put us over the max. Blueboar (talk) 17:15, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
Here is a list of some Wikipedia articles with long titles.
Treaties
Words
—Wavelength (talk) 17:23, 20 January 2012 (UTC) and 20:34, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
I am revising the heading of this section from Lenght of the Title to Length of the title, for more effective archival searches. This revision is in accord with WP:TPOC, point 12: Section headings. Please be attentive to spelling, especially in section headings.
—Wavelength (talk) 17:58, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

This should be addressed at Wikipedia:Policy on the length of article titles that are exceedingly long or which are contrivances intended to attract untoward attention to themselves or are self-referential in nature so as to humorously make a point. Greg L (talk) 22:59, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Recognizability wording Poll/RFC

withdraw RFC/poll since no one was participating in the poll

Well, the previous RFC expired without ever being closed[10], and several related discussions since then started up and died out without anything getting resolved. How to move forward?

In this RFC/poll I propose we consider four main options regarding what to do, if anything, about the recognizability wording under WP:CRITERIA. I'm also asking for clarification about what everyone thinks on several related issues discussed recently on this page. I've tried to frame it all so everyone feels this is a fair and reasonable approach, without biasing towards any particular outcome, except that which has consensus support.

There are really two issues to consider:

  1. Regarding the to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) clause: whether the recognizability criteria is intended to mean that the topic of the article is to be recognized from seeing just the title...
    • to as many readers as reasonably possible? Or...
    • to only those who are familiar with (but not necessarily expert in) the article's topic?
  2. Whether the recognizability clause, or the criteria section, or the whole page, needs a more major change/revamp beyond issue #1, and, if so, whether the wording should be V1 or V2 while the more major issues are being discussed.

Version 1: Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?


Version 2 (current): Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?

Q1: Please select which one of the following actions you believe would be best for WP:

  • A) Adopt the shorter recognizability wording of V2 - this is accurate.
  • B) Adopt the longer recognizability wording of V1 - this is accurate.
  • C) Adopt the shorter wording of V2 because V2 is more accurate and/or better than V1, but continue discussing because V2 is not fully satisfactory.
  • D) Adopt the longer wording of V1 because V1 is more accurate and/or better than V2, but continue discussing because V1 is not fully satisfactory.

Q2: Please also select which of the following two statements you agree with more:

  • a) To help readers identify topics from just looking at titles, the recognizability wording should be be enhanced/nuanced/expanded somehow to allow for adding precision in one form or another to the titles of topics that have names, perhaps especially for those names/titles that look like "ordinary phrases" (for lack of a better term), even when the title in question is not ambiguous (has no other uses on WP).
  • b) The recognizability wording should remain consistent with no unnecessary precision, even for topics with names that look like "ordinary phrases". When the name of the topic is not ambiguous (has no other uses on WP), the title should be just that name.

Q3: Finally, especially if you answered C or D above, please also add any/all of the following as appropriate.

Please indicate your opinions in the #Poll Responses section just below - explaining your reasoning is not required but would probably be helpful. Also, let's try to keep discussion separate, in the #Discussion section below. Thank you! --Born2cycle (talk) 01:25, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Poll responses

Please use this section only to indicate your answers to the poll questions, Q1, Q2 and Q3.


Kotniski statement and discussion

  • We should enact the clear result of the previous RfC (plus comments made on the same topic by other people since) and put back the wording about "to editors familiar with..." It seems bizarre and plain disruptive that anyone could seriously object to doing that (and a waste of time discussing that particular matter further). But of course I think we should take the whole section out and replace it with something along the lines I've proposed - it's not helpful to readers to give vague criteria instead of concrete explanation of what we do - and it's also misleading to imply (which was never the intention) that we have a sacred list of criteria that are the only ones permitted to be considered.--Kotniski (talk) 14:29, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
    • I don't agree. The whole page needs to be looked at in terms of precision and ease of comprehensibility by the poor editors at large, who have had to cope with a lack of clarity, disorganisation, and far too few examples. This should be discussed globally; that is, we should agree on the big picture before launching in (as I've noticed you've been doing, Kotniski) and unilaterally changing major tenets. Tony (talk) 15:04, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
      • So what is it you don't agree with? I'm also in favour of reversing the recent unsupported change to the "major tenet" (though I wouldn't describe it as that much of a tenet), and I'm also in favour of revamping the whole page (starting with the first section, for which I've already made a proposal). --Kotniski (talk) 15:24, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
      • Tony, the notion about avoiding unnecessary precision (a.k.a. "predisambiguation" or "preemptive disambiguation") is not limited to this page. It's infused throughout WP:D as well, specific naming convention pages like WP:TV-NC ("editors should avoid preemptive disambiguation"), and most importantly in the actual naming of our articles. TV series and episode names are particularly relevant (not that they're the only ones) here because so many have names that appear to be normal phrases, certainly not recognizable to be the name of some particular series or episode of some TV series (e.g. The Practice, Whatever the Case May Be, ...In Translation, The Ghost Network, etc.)

        So, isn't what you're suggesting not "just" looking at this whole page "in terms of precision and ease of comprehensibility by the poor editors at large", but looking at how we guide folks to name our articles in practically every related aspect on WP, as well as actually changing the titles of perhaps the majority of our articles? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:03, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Guys, based on what you've written here, I would expect Kotniski's poll response to be something like:

Q1: D Q2: (I'm not sure) Q3: c

And Tony's something like this:

Q1: C Q2: a Q3: The whole page needs to be looked at in terms of precision and ease of comprehensibility

Based on Dick's replies below (and of course what he has written before), I would expect his poll response to be similar to Tony's, and Blueboar I'm not sure at all, but I think he's leaning a bit more for C than D, with emphasis on the need to change it to something better (answering "a" to Q2). The point is at best we can only guess what each other's positions are - this poll is designed to make it more clear for each other, so we can see where we are and if we have consensus on anything. But you need to respond to the poll for this to be helpful. It's just an idea. Obviously if no one wants to do it, it's not going to help. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:38, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Could it be a surprise to many that the abovementioned rfc was never closed? The discussion was heated, circuitous, and was not helped by one or more participants' walls of text and endless wikilawyering. Also, what admin would want to get involved in this topic area knowing full well the angst caused to one of their well-respected fellow admins that incidentally caused him to burn out and bow out of WP for good? --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:56, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes! We agree the previous discussion had problems... that's one of the reasons I started a new one (now that that rfc expired). hope it's okay I moved this thread to the Discussion section --Born2cycle (talk) 02:12, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

On Q3, yes, we need to follow up on discussing other approaches before voting on the polarized approach. It seemed clear before that for such discussion to proceed, we would need to see a significant backing off of Born2cycle's ownership issues on this page. Dicklyon (talk) 04:39, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Do we have consensus for needing such discussion? That wasn't clear to me, which is why there are options C and D for those who favor that, so we can find out. As to me backing off, I am. Not participating actually, except to answer questions/issues like this. How's that? --Born2cycle (talk) 06:54, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Framing the question as you did in a new RFC is not backing off. Dicklyon (talk) 06:56, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Oops. I thought I covered everything that has been discussed on this page. What did I miss? Don't you favor C? --Born2cycle (talk) 08:01, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think you missed anything ... its just that I don't fine any of the choices discussed so far to be optimal... so I am looking for an option E.
To my thinking, the concept of recognizability can be summed up as follows: What title would result in the most number of readers saying "ah... this should be the article I am searching for" when they search for something.
Now, in figuring this out, there is no step-by-step process... yet there are some things we can do to help. We need to think about all the names/descriptions that a reader might use when searching for an article on the topic. These names/descriptions can form a set of "potential titles". Any of these "potentials" would be recognizable to at least someone. The trick is to figure out which potential would be recognizable to the most number of readers. So... from this set of "potentials", we can look to see if one of them is used by a significant majority of sources (ie we look to see if there is a WP:COMMONNAME.) The name/description that is used in the most number of sources is likely to be the one that is most recognizable by our readers.
Of course, sometimes there is no single WP:COMMONNAME. There may not be one single name/description that is used by a significant majority of sources. In which case, the principle of recognizability can not be used as a final way to determine the title... the best we can do is use it to narrow the set of potentials, while we look to the other principles to determine the best title.
What I would looking for in an option E would be language that gets all this across... but in nice, short, punchy language. Blueboar (talk) 15:23, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
My proposal (#Naming criteria section again) says "...A name is selected by which the subject is commonly referred to in reliable English-language sources, thus ensuring recognizability to general readers who are familiar with the subject, while also indicating how the subject is likely to be referred to in an encyclopedic register (such as within Wikipedia articles). However, when there are several more or less equally recognizable names available, it is not obligatory to choose the commonest name – the choice may also take account of other factors, such as the criteria listed..." What do people think about that? --Kotniski (talk) 15:28, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Could you clarify what an "encyclopedic register" is? Blueboar (talk) 16:36, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
People keep asking me that - obviously this use of "register" isn't as familiar as I thought. It means the type - level - of language that would be expected in a serious reference work. Nothing too slangy, journalese-y, etc. How do we say this in a way that people will readily understand?--Kotniski (talk) 16:53, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).
Encyclopedic tone may be more readily understood. JCScaliger (talk) 19:59, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

But the thing that seems to be concerning those who refuse to accept the result of the previous discussion (if one can sift out the occasional statement of substance from what they've written) is not related to the issue of choosing names at all - it's about the issue of disambiguation - there seems to be a view (though no-one who supports it seems willing to articulate it clearly) that we should add "redundant" disambiguation in some cases where we currently don't. This seems to be the issue addressed by B2C's second question. If I'm right that this is the elephant in the room, then let's concentrate on getting that issue sorted out.--Kotniski (talk) 15:37, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Regarding "redundant" disambiguation: I tend to opine against such titles in RM discussions (I have yet to see an example where I think such disambiguation is needed)... however, I can accept that there could be a situation where such disambiguation might be considered helpful, and we should remain open to this possibility. In other words, while "redundant disambiguation" is usually not necessary, I don't think "redundant disambiguation" is wrong. My call... the policy should remain silent on the issue. Don't encourage it, but don't forbid it either. Not ever titling disagreement can be (or needs to be) settled by policy. Some decisions are best settled by reaching a consensus of editors - on an article-by-article basis. Blueboar (talk) 16:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, we could just delete the whole policy, if we're going to take that approach (indeed it's already been suggested that it should be classed as a guideline rather than a policy). But if this page is going to answer any questions at all, then a prime candidate for inclusion would be a fundamental aspect of our titling practices that has (virtually) no known exceptions. We don't need to expressly forbid redundant parentheticals (do we expressly forbid anything?), but people reading this page have the right to know that they're not what we do. Unless we can find some agreement that they should (sometimes) be what we do. --Kotniski (talk) 16:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm... I am not at all sure I agree with you in characterizing this as "a fundamental aspect of our titling practices". The issue of "redundant parenthetical disambiguation" really does not come up all that often... and I don't think most editors really care about it one way or the other when it does. But perhaps I am missing something... could you explain why you think this is fundamental? Blueboar (talk) 17:27, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, someone might look at a few articles titled "John Smith (cellist)", "Sue Brown (flautist)" etc., and assume that these parentheticals are added as a matter of course, and decide to title a new article "Magungo Batungo (pianist)", when in fact "Magungo Batungo" would suffice. It wouldn't matter that much, admittedly, although titles like this are spotted from time to time and tend always to be moved uncontroversially to the undisambiguated name. In any case, the reader who has noticed that some "ambiguous" titles are disambiguated and some aren't deserves an explanation - these parentheticals are a frequent (and probably the most surprising) part of our article titles, and we need to present clearly and upfront the basic principles that govern their use and non-use. --Kotniski (talk) 19:14, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
What is wrong with someone entitling a new article "Magungo Batungo (pianist)"? I would assume that they were simply exercising an abundance of caution ... by disambiguating "just in case" there were other Magungo Batungos out there. If the disambiguation is not needed... no biggie - we can come back and change the title later.
Indeed, I would rather have editors disambiguate when it is not needed, than have them not disambiguate when it is needed. Blueboar (talk) 21:30, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
See my FAQ:User:Born2cycle/FAQ#How_do_readers_benefit_from_avoiding_unnecessary_predisambiguation.3F.

More importantly, if someone can simply move such a title to the undisambiguated title as non-controversial, the basis for such a move should be documented. If it's not, then it's more likely to be controversial. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:15, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Really nothing on this page is a biggie. If someone called their article "Batungo, Magungo – A Pianist" it wouldn't really matter that much; we could change it to match the standard formatting. But we shouldn't be suppressing basic information about how we create and format article titles just because a few people have a vague idea that in a small minority of cases we might wish to vary it a bit. In fact a worse "mistake" (that beginners also make) is to add a disambiguator to a clear primary topic just because they're creating an article that makes it ambiguous (move "France" to "France (country)" just because they're starting an article called "France (pop group)", that sort of thing). If this page is going to be of any use, we really need to explain the basics before going on to anything more subtle.--Kotniski (talk) 11:42, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).

Which wording is a change has been one of the chief questions at issue since the RFC. Begging this question will only inflame the controversy further; I have therefore supplied neutral wording. JCScaliger (talk) 20:12, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

  • I and others above have attempted to suggest that titles of certain laws be subject to this automatic "redundant disambiguation", but this suggestion has been summarily dismissed using old and tired arguments about notability and the whatnot of the most common name variant. One particular concern of mine is that it is well known that many countries around the world have similar issues, and would pass laws bearing very similar names within their own jurisdictions. While such names are routinely common and unique in said jurisdiction, they are utterly ambiguous and meaningless in the global context, and it can be of much greater service to readers if these names were disambiguated with country names as specific identifiers. So can we at least add a qualifier in the body of the policy as to the desirability of this specific type of disambiguation? --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 23:47, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
This is a solved problem; it's one reason most of our articles on laws use the short title and date: Reform Act 1832, rather than First Reform Bill. If that fails to disambiguate, we can add (Country) if two countries pass legislation of the same name in the same year. (I see it was moved from Representation of the People Act 1832, on grounds of recognizability.) JCScaliger (talk) 02:33, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Many laws have years attached to them: countries have been known to make a law and amend it some years later, appending a year to disambiguate. But it hardly helps in cases where, as I mentioned above, different countries having similarly sounding names for laws having similar scope. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 13:10, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Request to Kotniski

Kotniski, a couple of things I'd like to request. First, stop appealing to a "previous RFC" that you know full well was subverted and remained completely unresolved. We're trying to get to a framework for discussion (and this re-opening of the same polarizing question by Born2cycle is not helping). Second, please review for us the context of what you were thinking when you penned the phrase that you so like. Did it have something to do with disambiguation, as you seem to be suggesting above? What problem was it addressing? Or when did it come to be seen as having some bearing on disambiguation? What discussions, if any, were associated with that notion? Dicklyon (talk) 22:17, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Subverted? What?? It was a perfectly normal RfC, satisfactory in every way except apparently that it produced a result that you don't like. And I've already explained many times what this phrase is intended to mean - it means that we don't try to make titles recognizable to people who have no idea, or only a vague idea, of the subject's existence (which, in the case of the vast majority of articles, means the vast majority of readers). We don't say "Jack Burf (the actor in the Marmite adverts)" or things like that. This is really such an uncontroversial and standard principle that I really don't know what the objection to it is supposed to be; nor do I know why we are still wasting our time discussing this relatively trivial, already settled issue when we should be addressing the far more serious problems this page has.--Kotniski (talk) 11:33, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Maybe we're talking about a different RFC? I'm talking about the one that Born2cycle took over and turned into a polarized vote that he stacked with the comments of other, which was then abandoned by those of us who were trying to get to a discussion instead. It was made clear that discussion was impossible with Born2cycle running the show, which is why I object to him doing the same thing again. Dicklyon (talk) 20:03, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
I totally agree with you; the problem is we're both involved editors, and the only uninvolved admin (Kwami) who has weighed in has said he doesn't see consensus in that RFC discussion. I had it listed for closure at WP:AN but nobody would close it, and it's now expired and has been deleted from the list. This is why I started this new poll, which I designed to be as reasonably comprehensive and objective as I could. But if nobody wants to participate, it can't help. Dick has said it's polarizing - but is it any more polarizing than any other poll? I mean, polls are supposed to nail down what people's positions are - in that sense they're all polarizing. If there is something unusually polarizing about this one, I don't know what it is. What else can we do? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:46, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
I think the only "polarizing" aspect of it is that it turns out that nearly everyone disagreed with Dick. This is an interesting new line of argument - if almost everyone is in agreement over something, then clearly the discussion has been "polarized" and is therefore illegitimate, and we should consequently follow the wishes of the tiny minority. (Though argument doesn't really enter into it at all - whatever is said here, Noetica will always revert back to his preferred version, his "uninvolved" (hah!) admin friend will protect that version and threaten everyone else with blocks, and we will go on and on pointlessly talking about the same thing and achieving nothing...)--Kotniski (talk) 08:28, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Born2cycle, here are the number of posts by editors here on this page as of this writing:

  1. Born2cycle: 98
  2. Kotniski: 74
  3. Dicklyon: 72
  4. Greg L: 38
  5. JCScaliger: 30
  6. Blueboar: 23
  7. Ohconfucius: 9
  8. Kwami: 6

Well, if one wanted to be “Number one”, you’ve got it… in pure edit count, anyway. If you truly posses great facility to use facts, logic and reason to explain something to people who apparently just can't get it, (∆ edit for this claim, here), perhaps you might lighten up on keyboard pounding (there is no requirement that others admire your writings as much as you apparently do) and allow your logic to persuade instead of making everyone have to scroll further. There’s clear evidence here that if you were to back off with your edit counts, probably a full half of everyone else’s edits would disappear since a lot of us here find ourselves compelled to respond to your saying the same thing over and over in a vain effort to merely stem the tide of all your keyboard pounding. Greg L (talk) 01:09, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Don't know why this tangent has been gone off at. The RfC I was referring to is the one where people were asked whether they preferred the wording that included the words "to readers familiar..." or the wording without it (or some other wording); everyone was free to comment, and virtually everyone who did so said they preferred the wording that contained those words, and gave reasons why. Most of those commenting outside the RfC have expressed the same view. No cogent reason has been given, as far as I can see, as to why the other version might be preferable. So I don't see why on earth we shouldn't just put back the wording that nearly everyone wants, and start discussing more important things. --Kotniski (talk) 07:44, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Kotniski, accusing admin Kwami of breaching wp:involved policy, and Noetica of teaming up with him, is not something to take lightly. Do you have evidence of wrongdoing? They are not "friends" in the sense I think you mean. Tony (talk) 13:31, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
I've been discussing it with them on their talk pages, to the point where it isn't worth doing so any further. But the fact remains that a clear decision made freely by numerous editors has been overruled for no good reason, and this distraction is holding up proper full discussion on reforming this page.--Kotniski (talk) 13:41, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, I prefer "to readers familiar...". It assumes readers have a flying clue what they are reading up on rather than pandering to the MTV crowd with the attention span of a lab rat on meth. It should be “Boutros Boutros-Ghali”, not “Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egyptian dude)”. Reading the above, I can’t tell who wants what and would need an NSA supercomputer running an artificial intelligence algorithm to go through it all. But if what I’m advocating happens to also be what B2C wants, ♬♩I win. ♬♩ :-)) Greg L (talk) 23:13, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

If I'm not missing anyone, you're now the eleventh editor --Kotniski, EdChem, PBS, Kai445, Born2cycle, Powers, WhatamIdoing, JCScaliger, Enric Naval, Eraserhead and now Greg L -- who has made a strong statement on this page in favor of including that wording, essentially for the exact same plainly obvious reason you just gave. In opposition all we've had is posturing by a few editors - no arguments or even substantive statements as far as I can tell.

Kotniski is so frustrated by what I refer to as Status quo stonewalling demonstrated here that he's announced he's taking a long break away from WP. I, for one, hope he changes his mind. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:31, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

There's a very clear RfC up there which makes it very clear who wants what (nearly everyone wants what you want, it turns out). But there's a small crowd who don't want that (for reasons that they aren't prepared to explain), and who have very successfully created a whole page worth's of smoke and noise to try to make out that this issue is Very Controversial (and have successfully fooled an admin into believing them). Anyway, I've had enough of all this - I'm taking a long (or permanent) wikibreak and try to find something more productive to do with my life than continually trying to present rational argument to people who aren't interested, in an environment where only the drama-mongers and edit-warriors are rewarded. (Sorry B2C, but I'm not changing my mind - and I might even suggest you do the same, since however unassailable your arguments you'll never win against these people - and does it really matter that much what Wikipedia titles its articles? I'm feeling a great sense of relief that I won't be spending tomorrow or the next day arguing with morons about trivia.) --Kotniski (talk) 23:42, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Well… that clarifies that. I’m tempted to record my voice as I breath from a diver’s mask and say “B2C: *I* am your father.” It would hurt my brain and further ruin my eyesight to confirm his tally. So I invite anyone from the other side of The Force to clearly refute what he just wrote and explain why there isn’t a consensus to add “to readers familiar...”. Greg L (talk) 23:46, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I have restored the text exactly as it was before the present wave of lobbying began.
  • The RFC is #RFC on Recognizability guideline wording. Seven editors commented; all who did were in favor either of the text that was here a month ago, or Dicklyon's variant on it. (Distinguishing between either or both, since Dicklyon proposed his alternative in the middle of the process, would be hard. If we get any more revert-warring, let's try the alternative.)
FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).
  • After that, I will consider whether I want to ask for protection, or for Mediation. Noetica was involved in the last three protections of this page, so it may not be enough. JCScaliger (talk) 00:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Long-time listener, first-time caller.... I've stalked this debate for well over a month now without weighing in. In short, I support both the "to readers familiar..." language and the reasoning behind it as expressed by so many on this page. As for the process, uff, what a mess. Sometimes I wish that WP were edited anonymously.... Dohn joe (talk) 00:35, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

  • I see that Kwamikagami reverted (∆ edit, here) JCScaliger. To Kwamikagami: Either there is objectively a consensus or there is not. If you dispute that a reasonable person would conclude there is a consensus for JCScaliger’s edit, then you should clearly state so right here, right now. If your objection is merely that JCScaliger can’t implement the consensus text because he is “involved”, then that isn’t good enough. I consider myself sufficiently uninvolved to make the edit myself; I had no idea who came down on what side of the issue until the last twenty minutes. Looking at the writings of a couple of editors here, who summarized the status quo, it appears there is quite clearly a consensus. It is on that basis alone (is there a WP:Consensus) that this should be made. Coming to this rather new, I am amazed at the tactics that have been employed here. There seems to have been water under the bridge underlying some editors’ motivations and none of that makes it incumbent on me to be swept up in everyone’s wikidrama. Greg L (talk) 00:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
    • And should have been a month ago!!! With Dohn joe now we have 12 in favor of the wording that involved admin Kwami just reverted: Kotniski, EdChem, PBS, Kai445, Born2cycle, Powers, WhatamIdoing, JCScaliger, Enric Naval, Eraserhead, Greg L and Dohn Joe. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:50, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
  • There has been too much wikidrama here that has turned this venue into the paradigm of Disfunction Junction. That has to end. Just because I have an opinion doesn’t mean I have to suspend common sense. There is clearly a consensus. I assume that JCScaliger’s edit properly represented the consensus text so I just restored his edit by reverting Kwamikagami’s reversion of JCScaliger. It is just so wrong to revert someone on the pretense that he is “involved”—even if that is completely true—if a consensus clearly and truly exists for the edit. Greg L (talk) 01:03, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Thanks for stepping up, Greg. A lack of resolve to end this nonsense by those of us in favor of the change is a big reason for why it has lasted so long (over a month!). I'm not sure about all the changes in that edit, but with a cursory glance I don't see anything obviously problematic in that.

      Kwami's claim has been that he can't see consensus in favor of either "faction" (his word) here, but he has repeatedly refused to engage in discussions with Kotniski or me about that finding. My argument has been to list all those who favored the wording, and assert that none opposed it with any substantive argument. A reasonable response to that would be to dispute those on my list, or to dispute the assertion by finding a substantive argument made in opposition to the change and listing those who support it. But he never did anything beyond repeating his claim that there was "no consensus". Very disappointing. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

  • Add another person who prefers the "to readers familiar" version (either the 2011 version or Dick's variation). Anyone could see there is a clear consensus for it, so can it please be implemented and not continually reverted for being "under discussion"? Stop filling my watchlist with this ridiculousness. Jenks24 (talk) 08:13, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I've been watching the drama here in utter disbelief at the obfuscation by some (and while I don't always like the manner in which B2B comports himself, his use of the term "stonewalling" is exactly right). Add my name to the list of editors who support the "to readers familiar" version. older ≠ wiser 12:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Article Title

Why are some music artists listed with their nicknames, while others are listed with their real name? What is the standard naming? See Ivan Shopov and Federico Ágreda, versus Gridlok and Deadmau5, for example. I propose Shopov and Agreda to be moved to their nicknames. Also, Xample could be moved to Loadstar (group) to include his partner Lomax. They're more notable together than alone. Gravitoweak (talk) 12:43, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Standard is just whatever they're best known as, more or less. I suggest you look at WP:Requested moves, and follow the procedure there for proposing renames of articles, for whichever ones you think should be renamed.--Kotniski (talk) 12:47, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Reptile and amphibian fun....

Hi all, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Amphibians_and_Reptiles#Article_naming_guidelines_redux. Please read carefully between options one and two. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:59, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

There appears to be a serious proposal there to entitle articles about all reptile/amphibian species with the scientific (ie binomial) name. IOW, cane toad -> Bufo marinus. Surprisingly, this proposal actually seems to have traction. This appears to be an example of a broader theme of "specialist" guidelines doing an end run around more "core" or "general" guidelines and policies. In various fields, I think specialists desire a consistent use of terms of art, rather than the more vulgar nicknames that wp:COMMONNAME might otherwise suggest using. Another example of this is at WT:NCM—a discussion almost entirely among music editors (afaict) about whether to use common names as discussed in this policy or to do something different. I think this was launched in response to arguments made at the (successful) Moonlight Sonata->Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven) move request. I think it is appropriate to post notices of such discussions here so they can receive broader attention from the common folk.
tl;dr: if you care one way or the other about whether king cobra is moved to Ophiophagus hannah (and I guess if it was a reptile, lion->Panthera leo—will this set a precedent?) you might want to mosey over to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Amphibians_and_Reptiles#All_scientific_names and weigh in. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:04, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Erik, I don't disagree with your suggestion that
"it is appropriate to post notices of such discussions here so they can receive broader attention from the common folk",
but I think it's useful to point out that
"the (successful) Moonlight Sonata->Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven) move request"
was a unique circumstance. This was not so much a "move request" as it was a "move back request" to the way it had been, unchallenged as Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven), for many years. Regardless of the relative strength of argument presented one way or the other, the initial move proposal to Moonlight Sonata was never posted for comment at any wider venue, and the move was granted on the basis of the initial proposal, a single support, and a single oppose. It only came to the attention of any wider group after this initial move was accomplished on the basis of 2:1. It then immediately attracted strong opposition.
I don't want to rehash all of the arguments here, but one of the major points was that many of Beethoven's works have nicknames, some very well known and others very obscure; and that redirects from nicknames to more formal series names made more sense. In that discussion I also pointed out that the original movant had already been unsuccessful, twice in a row, in attempting to move the article titles of all of Beethoven's piano sonatas, either all at once, or failing that, one at a time, to titles having nothing at all to do with common names, but rather on the basis of much longer titles as given on a specific recording of the piano sonatas, when these are not consistent from one recording to another. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:48, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Milkunderwood; that is indeed useful to point out, thanks. There are a lot of issues here, as there are with names of species, and I don't mean to imply that WP:COMMONNAME can solve all of them for us. I'm just pointing out that it seems like specialist editors, themselves experts in their field, may marginalize some of these issues that would be more important to general readers/editors, and that all should be taken into account. Our current system of wikiprojects and guideline subpages does not foster this. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Once again, whichever side of the fence you are on this issue, the problem is that WP:COMMONNAME is not fit for purpose. I've raised this specifically here. --Kleinzach 02:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
And once again, I still don't understand your complaint about COMMONNAME. I don't see anything at that discussion that has any bearing on what we are talking about here. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 00:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Clarifying ambiguity

See the previous discussion: Wikipedia talk:Article_titles/Archive 34#Ambiguous or inaccurate -- PBS (talk) 03:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Yesterday when I mistakenly thought things had settled down, I made the following edit changing:

A: Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources.

to this:

B: Names ambiguous with other uses covered on Wikipedia, or names that are inaccurate for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be most frequently used by reliable sources.

The point was to clarify that the meaning of ambiguous here is relative to other uses in Wikipedia, as clearly stated at WP:D: "ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles."

However, this edit was reverted. I'm discussing this already with the editor that reverted that edit at User_talk:Ohconfucius#WP:TITLE_revert, but I'm curious what others think about this.

Actually, I'm now realizing that even B is misleading since it ignores use of ambiguous names on articles about primary topics (e.g., Paris), which of course is very common. So maybe it should say this:

C: Names ambiguous with other uses covered on Wikipedia, or names that are inaccurate for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are generally not used alone as article titles even though they may be most frequently used by reliable sources, unless the article is the primary topic for that name.

What do you think? A? B? C? Or ??? Thanks! --Born2cycle (talk) 22:26, 24 January 2012 (UTC)


Okay, I'm stupid for falling into this one, but I'll bite.
If ever a firm policy was needed at Wikipedia, it would be something to the effect of
  • whenever an RfC is in progress on any talkpage, whether for an article or a project page, etc, no edits of the disputed text will be allowed until the issues are resolved and the RfC is closed.
That's what I think. And exactly what is going on with all these hidden sections, anyway? Milkunderwood (talk) 11:05, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
The comment used with the Hidden template explained the reason for it: to not divert from the other discussion, but that one is winding down, so I've removed it now.

Anyway, of course edits of text being discussed in an RFC should not be allowed. But the text I edited was not being discussed.

The text being discussed (not part of an RFC, by the way - there was one started about it last month, but it has expired) is the familiarity phrase in the Recognizability clause under WP:CRITERIA. The text at issue in this section is part of WP:COMMONNAME, and doesn't have anything to do with the familiarity phrase of Recognizability that has been at issue since Dec 21.

So, do you have an objection to the COMMONNAME edit itself? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:34, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I object to any edits whatever to a page or part thereof that's under general discussion with any connection to an RfC, whether or not the specific question has "expired". The edits apparently first made by Kotniski and edit-warred with Noetica should be outlawed - as should your own edits. Your "Who, me?" strikes me as being disingenuous. But then I think there's been a great deal of disingenuousness displayed throughout this entire page, by a number of different editors. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Are you serious? Have you looked at the #Poll: results? And I don't mean just counting the !votes unanimously supporting the position in favor of defining title recognizability in terms of familiarity with the article's topic - I mean reading and thinking about each response. If that doesn't confirm to you where the community consensus lies on the underlying issue of unnecessary/pre-disambiguation, and the reasons consensus is what it is on that issue, you need to read it again, and think about it some more. If, after all that, you still don't get it, then you need to ask some questions. And, if you can't see how the same principle opposing unnecessary/pre-disambiguation also applies to the edit that is the subject of this section, you either did not look at this edit seriously, or you have a lot of gall to accuse others of being disingenuous. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

B2C I think you need to read the previous section on this issue (Wikipedia talk:Article_titles/Archive 34#Ambiguous or inaccurate) as it highlights several additional misunderstandings about what this sentence can be understood to mean. -- PBS (talk) 03:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Guidelines trumping this policy

I've had this happen several times that people ignore this policy and cite the guidelines of WP:NC(UE), WP:MOS-JA and WP:NC(VG) (the latter of which spells out it is subordinate to this policy in the lead) as trumping concerns, specifically of WP:COMMONNAME when usually 2 names are common, but neither one can be clearly shown to have a "consensus" among RSes and a 3rd choice is chosen by default mostly because of macron use in MOS-JA stating that since neither one can be shown to be the "most common", we can't use either one.∞陣内Jinnai 18:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Are you asking a question, or for help, just venting, or what? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:37, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I am asking for help in trying to either get those guidelines changed or the simplier task (in theory) of changing COMMONNAME to make it clearer that we don't always need to have one name be the overwhelming dominate one and that if a title is clearly among the least used ones, it should be be defaulted to except under extradorinary circumstances (IE, WP:DR). That one of the more common names should be used in those cases.
Secondly, that for the purposes of an article name, quality of the RS shouldn't matter; the function of figuring out a title is not the same as making a quality article.∞陣内Jinnai 18:45, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Jinnai, WP:COMMONNAME says: When there is no single obvious term that is obviously the most frequently used for the topic, as used by a significant majority of reliable English language sources, editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best by considering the questions indicated above. (the "questions above" being the questions related to Recognizably, Naturalness, Precision, etc.). It sounds like the editors you are complaining about are actually doing what this policy tells them to do when there is no obvious common name... thinking about all the other provisions and principles that are discuss in this policy and reaching a consensus. Blueboar (talk) 18:52, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia talk:Requested moves#Bishōjo game. -- PBS (talk) 22:47, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Raw notion of primary topic is fatally flawed

The WP:RM list presents daily surprises: one live RM is Indigenous inhabitant. At least one editor, AjaxSmack, opposes the move to a less misleading title for our readers—I take it s/he is basing the argument on this occupation-zone mentality of primary topic. We are seeing more and more objection to the extreme cases of vague and misleading titles this unfortunate principle has been spawning; not only this, many people wonder why it's first-come first-served to allocate a (privileged) unmarked title, which too often turns out to be orders of magnitude less notable or well-known among English-speakers than other topics of the same name.

Ironically, some editors are attempting to both (i) change the rules to allow more capitalisation in titles, and (ii) retain the unconstrained primary topic principle. This is causing huge problems; take, for example, articles that beckon the reader as a generic topic but turn out to be on a proprietary product or service, or vice versa, seem to have a foot in both camps, and the angle of the text (often not just the opening) has to be recast before we can decide whether the title should be in title or sentence case (Dicklyon has kindly put in the hard yards in this respect for a number of articles in which there's dissonance between the case of the title and the theme of the article).

At the very least, the notion of primary topic needs to be tempered in certain situations (not that this list below would have fixed the ludicrous Indigenous inhabitants, but it would be a start):

  • Book and film titles where the title of the work alone could easily be confused with a generic meaning (given that the case is sometimes insufficient to convey this among many readers, or is wrongly used, which we all know is rather too common).
  • Financial instruments and institutions, and agencies of governance, whose names do not already contain their location. For example, Payments Council and Individual Savings Account are weirdly vague, even with their correct caps; United States Department of Health and Human Services is fine, but Department of Transportation presents problems); and we really need to clean up conceptual messes like Plain Green Loans, which reveals little that is useful in pinning down the topic in its google blurb, and appears to vie with both what should be a lower-cased generic item and a number of proprietary names of the same wording. What a mess.
  • Streets, suburbs, and other locations, where there is more than one in the world and the unmarked topic (i.e., without broader parenthetical location) is not clearly the obvious choice in terms of significant notability per se or in relation to the other contenders. French Quarter comes to mind, which conveys US-centric POV, in my view; as opposed to Wall Street, which is sufficiently notable to deserve the unmarked slot; that is the kind of issue that should be discussed at RMs, moving beyond the crude, unconstrained application of this primary topic algorithm, which may be simple and solve many instances, but is significantly flawed for a minority of instances. Collins Street, Melbourne would be unacceptably Australia-centric if forced by this one-size-fits-all algorithm to Collins Street – and no, in my view it's not sufficiently iconic among English-speakers as a whole to stand alone, such as Wall Street is.

Tony (talk) 11:40, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Just for the record, I agree fully with Tony's post here, and strongly believe in using parenthetical predisambiguation wherever there is likely to be ambiguity, whether or not Wikipedia already has a similarly titled article. There no "grasping at straws" here - it's just good common sense. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
What crystal ball shall we use to determine if there is likely to be ambiguity where there is no other existing article? older ≠ wiser 22:03, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
My answer will not only not satisfy you, but will confirm your doubts: I know it when I see it. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:28, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I think that's actually the most (only?) straightforward answer to that question that I've seen. Dohn joe (talk) 22:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
(after ec) The standard advice is to WP:Write the article first. Then assuming standards of verifiability and notability as met, then there might be something to talk about. In articles, we do not accept "I know this to be true"; I don't see why we should have a different standard for disambiguating titles. older ≠ wiser 22:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)LOL, Milk. That's probably the best reason I've seen. I appreciate your honesty regarding the vapidity of your argument.

Of course we could leave the issue open to subjective judgement on a case-by-case basis, but to what end, and what cost? In theory, we could just delete all the naming policies and guidelines, and name all articles based on case-by-case consensus of whatever everyone who happens to be participating thinks is best. But we recognize the chaos and consernation and never-ending dispute that would cause, so instead of we agree on rules policies and conventions by which we decide titles. That doesn't mean everything about titles is pre-ordained; much is still left to case-by-case subjective judgment. But, in general, we try to cut down on that where it's reasonably possible. And that's why the community decided to use a narrow interpretation of "ambiguity" in deciding when titles needed to be adjusted for ambiguity.

The determination of whether there are any other uses on WP of a given name is objective. So basing decisions on this specific question cuts down on a lot of disagreement and consternation. In contrast, determining "ambiguity" based on whether there are any other uses of the name on or outside of WP, past, present or future, is way more subjective, and, I suggest, much less clear than whether a given piece of material is "pornography".

Deciding titles like that would without question lead to many more arguments, and for what? So that titles could be more descriptive? Do users even look at titles enough for that matter at all, much less enough to justify the greater cost? --Born2cycle (talk) 22:54, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

What is problematic about Department of Transportation? It appears to be a good example of a "Primary topic" main article - an overview article to explain what a DoT (regardless of location) is and does... with a list of various State and Provincial DoTs (which are disambiguated where necessary). Granted, it could use some expansion (for example, some historical background would be nice), but that is not an article titling issue.
As for Plain Green Loans... This is an article on a specific company named "Plain Green Loans" so the capitalization is correct. If the article needs to better explain what Plain Green Loans is and does, that is resolved by improving the article text, not the article title. As far as I know, there is no need to disambiguate... there is no such thing as a plain green loan, nor any other company with that name.
In the case of French Quarter, I do think you have more of a valid point... enough cities have a section called the French Quarter that we could justify creating an overview article about the concept of French Quarters in general (outlining what a French Quarter is, what various French Quarters have in common, listing various cities that have a French Quarter, etc.) If we created such an overview article, then I could see using the non-disambiguated title for that article, and moving the current article (specifically about the section of New Orleans) to a disambiguated title. Blueboar (talk) 14:03, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
While there is no question that there are some articles that can be titled better, for the most part I think Tony's examples are grasping at straws. There is no need for Wikipedia to enshrine contrived ambiguity based on the vague intuitions of some editors. Collins Street at present is an abomination. It is not a disambiguation and is rather an entirely unreferenced collection of redlinks. French Quarter was discussed at some length, and if you are going to reject that as a primary topic, you might as well reject the concept of primary topic entirely and require titles such as London (England). In those cases where the title is actually ambiguous, the RM process does work, albeit slowly. But there's nothing unusual or wrong about that. older ≠ wiser 13:56, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
As a further example, let us consider Broadway... at the moment this points to a disambiguation page, and I think it is highly appropriate to to use it this way... sure we could have used that title for our article on the street in NYC (calling it the "Primary topic" or "main page"). We also could have used that title for an overview article on "streets named Broadway", or for an article on "Broadway" as a general concept in theater (as in "Broadway musical" or "off-Broadway play"). But we didn't. We chose to use it for the dab page.
The point here is that different projects and topic areas have chosen to go in different directions. We don't have (nor do we need to have) consistency in how we use non-disambiguated titles ... sometimes a non-disambiguated title is used for an overview "main article" ... sometimes it is used for the article on the most notable choice among several (the "primary topic")...sometimes it is used for a disambiguation page... and sometimes it is used simply because someone wrote an article before others did (the "first come first served" situation). All are acceptable. None is mandated. If someone has a problem with a specific title, or an idea on how to more clearly entitle a group of articles, we discuss it and go with consensus. And since consensus can change, it is OK if we change our minds at some later date. Blueboar (talk) 15:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
The part I wholeheartedly agree with you on, Blueboar older ≠ wiser (Bkonrad), is that “Collins Street” at present is an abomination.” There is only one Collins Street that is encyclopedically notable. All those redlinks on the disambiguation page are to utterly non-notable roads on which there will never rightfully be an article because Wikipedia doesn’t have articles on just any old road. I just now looked at Collins Street in Joliet, Illinois using Google “Street View”. There is a 1940s brick building with a trash can out front with graffiti on it. Wikipedia is not Google Map. #1 (to someone familiar) means “Collins Street” automatically means something to the reader when they type it into the search field because it is the name “most frequently used by English-language reliable sources to refer to the subject.” I just don’t understand why this simple principle has become so bogged down… Greg L (talk) 16:04, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
It was Bkconrad that noted that “Collins Street” at present is an abomination.”, not Blueboar. Anyway, I agree with that too. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Indigenous inhabitant is a bad example because it's arguably a candidate for deletion since it's utterly devoid of sources. Now, if there are reliable sources that consistently refer to the topic of that article as "Indigenous inhabitant", since we have no other uses for that name on WP, then yes, that's the title we should use. If we didn't, then we would be misleading our readers into thinking whatever title we gave that article is the more common way sources refer to that topic. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
It has been brought to my attention that not only do we have another topic on WP to which "indigenous inhabitant" refers, but that that is its primary topic: Indigenous peoples. So, Indigenous inhabitant (and Indigenous inhabitants) should redirect to Indigenous peoples, so Indigenous inhabitant does require disambiguation. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Try this in Google Map: 551 Collins Street in Joliet, Illinois, United States. Drag the “little person’ icon to the location to get your street view. I’d say that is very representative of that street, for which someone cleverly created our Collins St, Joliet redlink on the “Collins Street” disambiguation page. All those redlinks are contrivances to justify a comma-separated disambiguation where none was ever required. A simple Google Images search on "Collins Street" shows there is but one on this pale blue dot that is encyclopedically notable. I think “Collins Street” is the perfect example to use when further elaborating on the meaning of the principle. Greg L (talk) 17:09, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


    P.S. Although inter-editor conflict is seldom fun, this is what makes Wikipedia so terribly valuable in my life and interesting: learning. As an American, I had no flying clue as recently as a month ago what “Collins Street” meant. People often ask, “How the hell do you know that ?!?” If I say “If you edit on Wikipedia, you learn a lot,” my wife—if she is present—rolls her eyes in that “what a waste of time”-manner. So I just shrug my shoulders now. Greg L (talk) 17:17, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

side comment: Tony, I'm on the fence here on what you're really trying to do wrt "predisambiguation", but I don't see how our current primary topic regime supports indigenous inhabitant staying where it is. The PT guideline isn't *that* fatally flawed. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is the reason that article should be moved. So the example used to illustrate how flawed PT is, instead shows why we have it and why it's so important. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:40, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

A common theme

At the moment, we have multiple discussions going on at the same time... all relating in one way or another to the issue of ambiguity and disambiguation. There are so many proposals and changes being discussed simultaneously that I no longer can keep track of what is being proposed. It is all getting muddled together in my mind, to the point where I am experiencing "proposal overload"... and when that happens my instinctive reaction is to shut down and oppose everything, no matter what it is. I think others are experiencing the same. Can someone summarize the various issues and proposals?

On that note... I am curious as to why the topic of ambiguity and disambiguation is suddenly such a hot topic. Was there a particular incident or move decision that sparked this flurry of proposals off? There seems to be a common thread of concern about ambiguity running through all of the proposed changes... so I think there is a macro-issue for us to discuss here. But, every time I think I have identified exactly what that macro-issue might actually be, we get sidetracked by narrower sub-issues and the macro-issue gets lost in all the noise. So... is there a macro-issue? Blueboar (talk) 17:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

There are too many discussions... let's start another!

I know of only two active proposals... Greg's poll which is winding down, and #Clarifying ambiguity about the WP:COMMONNAME edit I made the other day which got reverted.

I believe the reason that ambiguity/disambiguation is so active lately is because of a certain small number of editors that has been very active in trying to get both policy/guidelines and specific titles changes in favor of adding more description than necessary to disambiguate from other uses to our titles.

Several of us have repeatedly tried to pin them down to make a specific coherent proposal explaining what exactly they would like to see, but I have yet to see one. Kotniski was so exasperated by their behavior that he has taken an indefinite break because of them. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Here's the background, Blueboar: Over the past several months, there have been a series of moves and move requests over the issue of what to do with generic-sounding titles, when they are unique titles within WP, or have determined to be the primary topic. Some editors feel that readers are better served when clues are added parenthetically to such generic-sounding titles. Others feel that no such "pre-disambiguation" is necessary. While not everyone is dogmatic about it, there has developed the feeling that there are "camps" or "factions" that have hardened around one position or the other. That issue of generic-ness and pre-disambiguation is the subtext to the thousands of words on this page - and exacerbated by hostile feelings among certain editors. Here are some of the most exciting examples of title disputes over the past few months that fall in this category:
There are more (many!), but that gives a sense of the background. Dohn joe (talk) 18:18, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, many more, including this active one, which I think is very revealing of the issue, and deserves a read by anyone trying to understand what's going on here:
--Born2cycle (talk) 18:58, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
While some editors tend to call this pre-disambiguation, that may not be the best term here. If you are using what has come to be know as a disambiguator for titling clarity, why should that be labeled as pre disambiguation? Labeling those discussions as pre disambiguation taints them and draws in unnecessary emotional baggage and old holy wars. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:41, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Tomato, tomahto, unnecessary disambiguation is unnecessary disambiguation. older ≠ wiser 19:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Well, no one until now has used the term pre disambiguation in this section, so I'm not sure why you're bringing it up here. But since you have, If the reason the disambiguator is being used or proposed is for disambiguating against possible future other uses of the title on WP, then that is pre disambiguation, by definition. And that is often the case in these situations. In fact, I believe that's the case in 3 of the 4 cases listed by Dohn joe. It certainly is at Colombiana.

Above, I used adding more description than necessary to disambiguate from other uses. But that is kind of unwieldy. Probably unnecessary disambiguation is best. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:57, 26 January 2012 (UTC) struck out error --Born2cycle (talk) 21:30, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

As the one who introduced "pre-disambiguation" to this section, I'd been using it as shorthand, but I can see that it does have negative connotations - and perhaps for good reason. The "pro-predisambiguation" editors don't see it as disambiguating against a potential future WP article - they see it as current disambiguation against other current or likely uses of the title. So I could see how that terminology might grate. (And "unnecessary disambiguation" is no better.) I don't know what an alternative term might be, though - any neutral-sounding suggestions? Dohn joe (talk) 20:11, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Extra-disambiguation as in extra-Wikipedia? Hyperdisambiguation? In all seriousness, I don't know, I think pre-disambiguation is ok, and I'm a supporter. Well, of a limited form of it anyway. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:50, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Personally I thought Tony laid out some pretty good commonsense situations for considering predisambiguation (I have no problem with that term) at Raw notion of primary topic is fatally flawed. I understand the problem that different people disagree about what is "common" sense, and the fact is that some calls are just intrinsically hard to make. It's certainly easier to draw a bright line as some editors are arguing for, but it can often create unnecessary confusion for readers; and I just think that applying common sense to try to avoid that kind of confusion improves both the encyclopedia and readers' ease of access to it. Milkunderwood (talk) 09:26, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Well of course, why would we want to do something silly like use relatively easy to determine objective criteria when we can rely on vague intuitions instead? older ≠ wiser 13:47, 27 January 2012‎ (UTC)
The thing is, determining the best title for an article frequently involves vague intuitions to some degree. Determining the best title is a very subjective process. Yes, we do lay out some objective criteria that will assist us in navigating that subjective process... but ultimately choosing the best title depends on that wonderfully wishy-washy and subjective concept known as consensus. Blueboar (talk) 15:09, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I completely agree. I did not mean to equate objective criteria with some sort of all-inclusive naming algorithm. And the key factor that you mention is "consensus" which implies informed discussion. Most of the time, RM discussions produce reasonable results. If a RM discussion determines that a term is ambiguous, even though at first glance there are no other articles on WP that compete for the title, discussion may determine that there is in fact ambiguity and disambiguation is appropriate (for example, discussion at Talk:Indigenous inhabitant is tending towards disambiguation; and Talk:Sundries determined a disambiguation page is appropriate). What I have a problem with is encoding a preference for unnecessary complexity based only on vague intuitions where objective criteria indicates otherwise. older ≠ wiser 17:24, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I am fully on board with the idea that Primary topic is a very flawed criteria, as is naturalness and recognizability because they don't put the burden on the title, but on guessing how millions of readers might percieve any given title. Guessing, conjecture, supposition, speculation and downright prediction is what we force editors to do when we ask them to base a titling decision on how millions of readers will react to some version of a title. I am awed by those editors who repeatedly invoke readers will .... They should be in marketing if they believe that what they saying is really true. On a comment Blueboar made above, in all sincerity on his part, it hints at the problems we've created for ourselves with the policy as it now reads. He includes this phrase in his opening sentence - determining the best title for an article ..... With five criteria, all apparently equal in stature there are 5 to the fifth possible iterations of those criteria for a single title = 3125. It is impossible to consistently decide a best or prefect title given the number of potential iterations of criteria application. If we all signed up to the notion that There are no perfect titles in WP, only titles that comply with our title criteria and that we created a simple, straight forward set of criteria that didn't require a nuanced interpretation or modification of policy everytime a given title was less than perfect in some ones opinion, we would be much better off. We don't need and won't ever be able to produce a titling algorithm that creates the perfect title, so why do we keep trying. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Then we would get complaints by anybody who disagreed with our criteria. What then? We do, I hope, read this thing; our reactions are useful. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:34, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Mike, I don't understand how we can best serve readers with respect to naming our articles so that they can get to the ones they are seeking as quickly and efficiently as reasonably possible, without "guessing" at least to some extent about what they're thinking (though I wouldn't call looking at ghits, page view counts and other evidence as "guessing"). Help us understand what you're saying in practical terms by way of example. The word "Obama" is ambiguous (see Obama (disambiguation). Do you believe that Obama should continue to redirect to Barack Obama as it currently does, or that the dab page should be moved to Obama, or what? Why? Thanks! --Born2cycle (talk) 20:12, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

B2C, redirects and disambiguation pages are a technique to deal with logical alternatives to any given article title/subject. The fact that Obama redirects to Barack Obama is perfectly fine as it doesn't impact the Barack Obama article one way or the other. On the other hand, if (and I say if because as of today its hypothetical) there was a famous and notable neurosurgeon named Barack Obama, the following titles (in in my view) would be perfectly acceptable Barack Obama (U.S. president) and Barack Obama (neurosurgeon) and there would/should be no logical reason to change them. When we start endless debates that millions of readers are really searching for Obama the president, not Obama the neurosurgeon we are engaging in pure guesswork, because I know of no empirical way to deduce what some one is actually searching for or how they got to the any given article. Google doesn't tell us that and WP page views doesn't tell us that so how can we know. We've got to guess, predict or conjecture. Not smart. We layered on so much unnecessary complexity in the current policy to the point of dysfunctionality. If it wasn't, this discussion page would be much shorter. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
@Mike Cline, that is a lot of hyperbole. I see very little guesswork involved in most naming decisions. older ≠ wiser 20:14, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Please point me to a naming decision that involves editors invoking Primary topic and reconizability where they provided rationale that readers are going to be confused or react a certain way to a title alternative and explain why you think that rationale didn't involve guesswork. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Examples of what I am talking about. RMs are riddled with these types of comments following support/oppose positions 'XXXXXX [is the name] they are probably what most readers are looking for', 'but a reader searching for it here, ie in an English language encyclopedia (as opposed to a XXXXX dictionary) is much more likely to be looking for the XXXXX: this is the primary topic.' None of this guesswork is ever supported with empircal evidence that indeed millions of readers of different countries, educations and culture are or would actually behave that way. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:20, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
If that is what you consider guesswork, then everything in Wikipedia is guesswork. If you have an idea for how it might be done better, good luck to you. But until you have some tangible suggestions, your complaint sounds a bit like whining. older ≠ wiser 21:52, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I guess (sorry), I opine the question above was too difficult to answer. As for ideas, I think I've been fairly consistent in my proposals and positions on this page. Plus I don't think of my comments as a complaint, but more an observation of the dysfunctionally of elements of our titling policy. I firmly believe that naturalness and recognizability serve no useful or meaningful purpose when it comes to WP titles and the ideas behind them should be scraped. Now since the above question was apparently too difficult to answer, I'll pose a simpler one. In the hypothetical RM to move XXXXXY to YYYYY based on commonname the following arguments ensue:
  • Comment Google shows YYYYY to have a 2% edge over XXXXXY, but both XXXXXY and YYYYY faithfuly represent the content of the article.
  • Comment, both XXXXXY and YYYYY are consistent with titles from similar articles and both XXXXXY and YYYYY are unamibiguous
  • Oppose, most readers will be confused by YYYYY and most readers are probably searching XXXXXY
  • Oppose, where I live everyone refers to XXXXX so most readers will probably search for XXXXXY
  • Oppose, YYYYY may be slightly most common but I know its confusing to readers
  • Support, XXXXXY is confusing to most readers, this article is easier for readers to find at YYYYY
  • Support, I find XXXXXY confusing as well and am confident its not what readers are typically searching for.
Now, imagine you are a closing admin. Because editors can say anything they want, whether it is true or not, how to you go about verifying which statements are true between the opposes and supports? Remembering that when we say readers we are talking about millions of people from a diverse background, interests, educations, et.al. Can someone answer this question for me? --Mike Cline (talk) 01:12, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
First, I would discount if not ignore comments of the pure opinion type ("X is confusing to most readers", without a reasonable explanation for what the confusion cause is), and arguments based on 2% differences in results with margins of errors much bigger than that. Instead of an extreme hypothetical, why not point us to an actual RM discussion that you think epitomizes the problem you're talking about. I mean, it's a real problem in practice, right? Not just hypothetically? In actual discussions, the far-fetched statements are often refuted. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
B2C, the ongoing RM at [11] contains two such statements. The nom believes readers are behaving one way, an opposer believes the opposite. There are other issues at play in that RM, but it does demonstrate that these types of statements occur. Above you state: without a reasonable explanation for what the confusion cause is is exactly why this is problematic. Because it assumes there is confusion (regardless of cause) when there is no empirical method to determine whether millions of readers are actually confused or not. When you apply a criteria to something and any answer is essentially correct because you actually can't support it one way or the other, that criteria is useless and will generate meanlingless results. What I would really like to see is some sort of empirical evidence to back up a statement like one of those in the Baden RM. If readers are searching for one alternative over the other, show me the evidence that they are actually doing that, not just guessing they are with vague intuition as Blueboar likes to call it. --Mike Cline (talk) 02:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Page view counts are useful evidence there. Hopefully my comment there will answer all your questions. I suppose someone looking for Baden-Baden might search for "Baden", but tough poop for them. There can't be very many of them because the dab page gets so view page view counts - if there were significant numbers looking for "Baden-Baden" by searching on "Baden", then they would be clicking on the dab page hatlink and the dab page view counts would be high; but they're not. That's empirical evidence. Not perfect, but much better than nothing. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:58, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:NCROY uses pre-emptive disambiguation . Is this a neutral term? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:34, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The only reference I could find there is this: "Monarchies which use a completely different namestock, such as Lithuania and that of the Merovingians, need not follow this convention; there is no disambiguation to pre-empt. " Isn't that a misuse? After all, the disambiguation used for European monarchs, for example, is not for pre-emptive disambiguation, but for actual disambiguation; actual disambiguation due to the ambiguities created by the common namestock. But even there PRIMARYTOPIC and common name apply... see Napoleon and Peter the Great. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:12, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Look for Henry IV. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:16, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Or Henry V... note that with both of these it was decided that there is no "primary topic"... the non-disambiguated title points directly to the disambiguation pages. (the titles "Henry IV (disambiguation)" and "Henry V (disambiguation)" are both redirects pointing to the relevant non-disambiguated disambiguation pages).
This tends to be the norm at the Royalty articles... because the Royalty wikiproject members have worked together and agreed on a consistent pattern. However, even they have exceptions to their strict consistency... consider this - The non-disambiguated title "Elizabeth II" points to the article on the current Queen of England, and the disambiguation page is entitled "Elizabeth II (disambiguation)". So even in that very consistent project, there is some inconsistency. That's OK. Blueboar (talk) 01:04, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Right, that's not pre-emptive nor unnecessary. The hallmark of pre-emptive disambiguation is when the non-disambiguated title is a redirect to an article with a disambiguated title, like in unique U.S. city names... Carmel-by-the-Sea, California is preemptively disambiguated (I mean, maybe another "Carmel-by-the-Sea" will crop up some where) since Carmel-by-the-Sea redirects to it. I suppose you can say that Anne, Queen of Great Britain is pre-emptively disambiguated since Queen Anne redirects to it. But that's not a clear-cut case because it can be argued that "Anne, Queen of Great Britain" is more commonly used in reliable sources, I believe. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Mike Cline you wrote above "naturalness ... serve[s] no useful or meaningful purpose when it comes to WP titles...." We use naturalness so that we have the name Tony Blair rather than Blair, Tony etc (See my posting above on 23:12, 30 December 2011 for more details). -- PBS (talk) 03:57, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Phillip, I know you are sincere about this, but the very example you use and how you use it demonstrates the dysfunctional nature of such criteria. First and foremost, no single criteria can determine an appropriate article title. We have on one absolute criteria--uniqueness. In the example you use, Tony Blair, you contend that in the absence of the Naturalness criteria, a title such as Blair, Tony would be acceptable. But that’s a real fallacy, because you are defending Naturalness in isolation, not within a holistic view of WP titles. When that’s done, and it’s done often, in RMs the discussion is highly dysfunctional. Tony Blair is the right answer because it is an acceptable title for the article, and naturalness had nothing to do with it.
  • Tony Blair faithfully represents the contents of the article on Tony Blair the former PM of the UK. (that meets the obscurely worded recognizability criteria)
  • Tony Blair reflects common usage in English language RS
  • Tony Blair is consistent in form with titles for other articles on people
  • Although Tony Blair is ambiguous, our disambiguation mechanism can and has dealt with that.
Now I got to Tony Blair very quickly and never invoked Naturalness which depends on predicting how millions of readers will see a title. If on the other hand I was proposing Blair, Tony, it would never be an acceptable title, because it fails 2 and 3 above (everytime). I do agree that every titling decision is not this easy, but we can actually make it easier by developing clear, measurable criteria that put the burden on the Title, not the readers.--Mike Cline (talk) 15:10, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Your say "reflects common usage in English language RS" in the case of TB it will, but for many minor historical biographies, the major sources are sources that place the surname first followed by the first names, so we do not follow the ordering of names in RS but use naturalness instead. With your argument about "is consistent in form with titles for other articles" I assume you mean consistent with other articles in Wikipedia. Let us suppose that someone writes new articles on a new sport and chooses to order the names surname, first-names (as is done in the RS on the subject), it could be argued that the ordering for that set of articles are consistent, and without naturalness how does one justify renaming them? Consistency within Wikipedia as a major consideration for deciding on names is a bad idea as it reinforces previous good or bad decisions and based on previous consensus which ought not to be binding as consensus can change. -- PBS (talk) 21:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
If the point of the "naturalness" provision is that we put first names first, we could say that instead (I don't mind keeping it if it has other benefits, but I'm unclear on what issues this particular criterion might get invoked on). Or don't bother saying anything about first name first, since there's no pressure from any quarter to do differently. Consistency helps here; if consistency is a consideration, then we should have to discuss when we want to make things inconsistent. If someone decides to make a bio with last name first, there will be a discussion, and it's unlikely there'd be much support for that inconsistency. Dicklyon (talk) 21:52, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
It is not just about names for biographies of European ordering, it also automatically takes care of the ordering for names in other regions where family name may come before given names. It also takes care of other things such as place names (For example we could describe places by State, region, sub-region .... United Kingdom, London, Southwark, Borough) -- See my previous post higher up the page at 23:12, 30 December 2011 (UTC) -- PBS (talk) 22:29, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think naturalness is nearly as problematic as Mike is trying to make it seem. older ≠ wiser 22:01, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't see much issue there either, but I do support Mike's idea of trying to write a more workable policy from a different viewpoint; let's see if we can get to something we like that way. Dicklyon (talk) 22:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Mike you write when talking about naturalness "(that meets the obscurely worded recognizability criteria)", yet further up the page you wrote "I firmly believe that ... recognizability serve[s] no useful or meaningful purpose when it comes to WP titles". -- PBS (talk) 22:29, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

break

Arbitration

FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).

This matter, now it is almost resolved, has become an ArbCom case; since I have, unavoidably, quoted some language here, editors may wish to consult Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Article_titles.2FMOS, even if they have no interest in sanctions. JCScaliger (talk) 00:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Now Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation -- PBS (talk) 02:12, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization Of Article Titles

I would like to see capitalization of articles "officially" changed for beauty & simplification. Let's capitalize every word of an article title, no matter what part of speech it is. This makes it easy to go directly to a subject without being redirected, or failing to find the subject at all.

It is utterly abhorrent to my eye to see miniscule leading letters in what is supposed to be an "Article Title!", especially when that word is a conjunction or preposition.

I know the current rules point to "The Chicago Manual Of Style" (WHICH USES ALL CAPS IN ITS OWN TITLE) and/or "A Dictionary Of Modern English Usage". But I don't care about them, they aren't authoritative to me, I did not grant them consent to rule my wiki, did you? I never even heard of those 2 books until a bot uncapitalized the word "Pit" in Conversation pit, which I recently created as "Conversation Pit". Trying to correct that ugliness led me here. Even if we choose to follow these manuals generally, let's ignore their awful rules on titles. Wikipedia is made for viewing on machine, not print, and leading caps for every word is much easier to read in any medium, but especially the screen. Shouldn't wikipedia have its own style manual that serves us & our needs anyway? Isn't the wikipedia supposed to be written in American, not English? We still have homonyms & irregular verbs in our language for crying out loud, so why should we use musty old print style guides anyway, when our language has not even been formalized yet?

Does anyone else agree (about caps for each word in an article title)? Can we get consensus? Does my plea need to go someplace else? Ace Frahm (talk) 22:26, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't support this idea. The English Wikipedia is written multiple English variants, not just American English. WP:ENGVAR has more information.
You might find it handy to know that the name of the style you want is called start case, not all caps. What we use now is sentence case, and the more commonly proposed alternative is title case. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:34, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Ace, I don't really understand why you are proposing start case instead of title case. Also, I don't think CMOS or the dictionary you mention have anything to do with why we sentence case our titles. I agree that it is odd that we use sentence case for our titles instead of title case. I think the main reason is so that links in running sentences will be easier to deal with, although I'm not sure I find this all that compelling—see WP:LOWERCASE. In any case, changing at this point is probably way more trouble than it is worth. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 00:46, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Start case can be easily implemented and maintained via bot, FWIW. But I suppose that's true for title case too, just more complicated because the bot has to know which words not to cap. Sentence case is the problem because you have to differentiate nouns in names (which you cap) from regular nouns in sentences (which you don't). --Born2cycle (talk) 01:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
If we went to all caps, we would probably need to parenthetically disambiguate to distinguish Red Meat from Red meat. (say: "Red Meat (Comic Strip)" and "Red Meat (Mammal Flesh)"). Not saying this would be better or worse... just saying it would have to be done. Blueboar (talk) 02:12, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
(All caps is RED MEAT ... ) Rich Farmbrough, 03:39, 29 January 2012 (UTC).
The current style, which was probably born out of the needs ErikHaugen mentions, has the advantages of simplicity, variety neutrality and consistency. Good enough for me. (And no, it is not supposed to me written "in American". And leading caps for every word is not more readable - there are readability studies available if you want to find out rather than make stuff up. Incidentally the word "Wikipedia" is capitalised ) Rich Farmbrough, 03:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC).
I support Title Case. Sentence is ugly, and I will continue to use Title Case for my sections and articles, and force some 'bot clean up after me.  The Steve  06:45, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
When I first arrived at Pickyweedia, I was very dismayed at the lack of "Title Case for Articles" (though "Title Case For Articles" isn't something that much of anyone anywhere would do). I've long since been swayed by the various rationales against it, the main ones being a) it implies that certain things are proper names when they are not, and b) it leads to a disambiguation mess of ungodly proportions. It's not even ungrammatical or "weird": Sentence case titling is used in the majority of scholarly journals, and while I don't know about majority/minority in this case, it's become extremely common in mainstream journalism in both newspapers and magazines. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 11:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Gerund titles

{{edit protected}} This article refers to Swimming as a gerund title, but since 2009 that has been a disambiguation page. That makes it an awkward example of a good gerund title. Request changing the reference to Swimming to Human swimming, until someone identifies a better example of a gerund title. – Pnm (talk) 21:41, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Would Running be better? Blueboar (talk) 23:09, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I second Pnm's suggestion except taking into account Blueboar's example of Running. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Running sounds good to me, and will work with the existing sentence just fine. – Pnm (talk) 04:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Request for edit, Poll

{{edit protected}} The community’s views as gauged by #Poll, above show a clear and consistent desire for the changes denoted in Ver. 1. ArbCom (noted above) is looking into editor behavior that made it difficult for a month to discern the community consensus (“long-term disruptive editing” according to the petitioner, Admin SarekOfVulcan). And as Arb Casliber wrote, “We'd review conduct.” ArbCom won’t be looking at whether the community consensus should be second guessed so there seems to be nothing standing in the way of honoring the community’s wishes in this regard. Greg L (talk) 05:26, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that we wait until the ArbCom case closes (so we can adopt any suggestions they may make). The world will not end because the policy has the "wrong version" for a few more weeks. In the mean time, here is a question to think about: Does this need to be framed as a binary "V1" vs "v2" choice? Could there be a third option? Blueboar (talk) 14:35, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
  • There certainly could be a third option, Blueboar. As you wrote in your 21:29, 29 December 2011 post well before the poll: To be honest, I don't like either of the versions...

    And we could consider a fourth option. And a twentieth. Note however, that the rules of the poll (the very first first “A” one in fact) specifically allowed editors to participate in the poll with a comment that they thought there should be some other option than just the two provided; it asked only that they not introduce other options to consider into the poll so as to not complicate matters. There was a notable absence in that poll of those who were apparently in the minority. Human nature being what it is, it is reasonable to suspect that these editors stayed away rather than go on record that they were part of an extreme minority responsible for the month-long deadlock via tactics like digging in their heels to frustrate progress.

    Despite the open invitation to participants to mention that there should be other options considered and that the provided options insufficiently captured the nucleus of the dispute, only one editor, SarekOfVulcan, expressed anything other than complete support for the basic principle embodied by Option #1 when he wrote while I'm not sure I agree with all the changes on that page, if we're just going with the above choices. The rest were rather clear that they agreed with the essential meaning and objective of the text in Option #1. A fair reading of the totality of the comments there would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the community strongly embraces the principle embodied in Option #1. And remember, WP:Consensus is defined not merely by mere nose count, but by considering the common message and voice of the accompanying reasoning.

    I mention this not to further advocate for getting the community consensus implemented before ArbCom concludes its proceedings looking into the editor conduct that frustrated progress here for so long (see my below response to Mike Cline), but to instead articulate that it frankly seems unseemly to suggest that a clear-as-glass consensus on what the community wants should be obfuscated by suggestions that since other options (the possibilities are astronomical) could theoretically have been considered, that somehow means those options should first be discussed before honoring the clearly-stated community consensus.

    I’m sorry if you felt all along that there should be another option, but the community’s wishes are clearly not in alignment with yours. And I’m sorry if you might feel put off by my disagreeing with you, but I thought I would respond to what I think is *bad* speech with *better* speech and state that I have a healthy respect on Wikipedia for honoring community consensus since embracing that principle cuts down on wikilawyering , stonewalling, and tendentiousness—not to say that you exhibited any such things.

    But if you had read the rules, and understood them, you should have jumped at the opportunity to participate in the poll, and had your voice heard to possibly influence others—even if your comment was to opine that there should be a third option considered. I feel that you forfeited your right to complain about the poll and its outcome after declining your opportunity to participate.

    And by “complain,” that includes cleverly suggesting with a rhetorical question that maybe a third option (yours, perhaps?) could be considered instead of honoring an exceedingly clear and lopsided community consensus. Greg L (talk) 21:25, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Concur with Blueboar, whether the policy page changes or not WP will continue. Lets wait till the ArbCom sets the course. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:32, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
FWIW, I'm more and more coming to the conviction that edits to policy and guideline pages should never be made willy-nilly by any editor, however well-intended, without first posting a proposal on its talkpage, and waiting for full discussion and consensus. Even what may appear to be innocent phrasing can subtly impact the interpretation of other statements on the page. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:47, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I couldn’t agree more. That was the problem with the disfunction for a month: editors were inserting clever, ambiguous, wholesome-sounding changes with little-to-no discussion and others suspected that the changes had hidden meaning or were “loaded” in some way. By the time the poll had been conducted, the crucial distinction of what the two camps were really driving at was sufficiently clear so uninvolved editors could weigh in on a properly moderated poll to establish what the community consensus was really about. Greg L (talk) 22:57, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
  • ArbCom will decide nothing for months. When they do, they are likely to consider the conduct of the editors, not substantive policy.
  • I cannot agree that requiring discussion before boldness is useful. The problem here was not the bold change by Noetica, it was Noetica's continual reversion to a non-consensus version. What should be prohibited is reversion.
FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).
If people had to come up with something novel every time, they would be induced to think about what they actually wanted to say; the endeavor to come up with satisfactory wording that would stick would induce concessions; and they might well stumble on acceptable wording by accident. That's what happens in articles; it should work here. Reversion is for obvious vandalism. JCScaliger (talk) 17:25, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not that simple folks. In this particular case Kotniski made a change on August 17, 2010 without discussion, but which had consensus support (as has been verified at #Poll: as well as in the commentary from December), while the change made in May 2011 did have a discussion, but was never-the-less not supported by consensus once it was brought to their attention. I believe that's because the goal of the change in May was simplification of the wording, and no one noticed that the result was a significant change in meaning.

Let's not throw out the baby with the bath water. BRD works when followed, but that includes the D part. If there is a real objection to a change, then go ahead and revert it, but then discuss it (presuming the bold editor seeks discussion/explanation of the edit and revert). I mean, if the reverter can't come up with a substantive reason to object to the change, while the bold editor can explain why the change is supported by consensus, why should it not be accepted? And that's what happened here last month. My edit was accompanied by a simultaneous explanation (as recommended by BRD), but those reverting refused to engage in substantive discussion about it. All they did was disruptively wave the "there must be discussion first" flag, without actually discussing. This point is fully explicated at User:Born2cycle/Status quo stonewalling. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:51, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

IMHO WP:BRD is just plain stupid when allowed on policy and important guideline changes. How'd you like if someone came along and changed the 15mph speedlimit sign in front of your kid's school to 45mph. It would certainly be changed back, but in the mean time those speeding dangerously through the school zone would be following policy. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm… I note, Mike, that rather than find out how WT:AT got effectively hijacked by a small group of combatants in a manner that made it virtually impossible for others to join in, your recommendation on the ArbCom evidence page (which seems to be the wrong forum anyway for proposing remedies) is to lock down WP:AT for 365 days. That seems to be akin to boarding up a school for a year because a gang of hoodlums were getting out of hand. I note also that you didn’t participate in the above poll. Is there a connection between these two observations? Would you be happy to see the current state of WP:AT stay just the way it is for one year? And please don’t come back with anything like “the world will not end if WP:AT doesn’t change” and other such arguments; I expect a serious answer to A) why the community consensus on a valid Wikipedia-related matter should not be honored, and B) why a venue like WP:AT should be locked down for an entire year rather than deal with the few editors who hijacked this talk page with tendentiousness, stubbornness, and wikilawyering. Greg L (talk) 18:40, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Greg, you are fiesty this morning. A couple of observations before I answer your questions. First, I've been involved in WP:Title for a while, well over a couple of years, and seen it evolve into the Babel it is today. I don't think it can be fixed with sound bite edits. Interestingly enough, I closed three RMs this morning on articles all of a similar genre. There was little discussion, maybe two or three editors, but I guess 2 or 3 out of 1000s does represent consensus. I moved all three articles. Two went one way, the other went just the opposite. So much for policy or consistency. What was distrubing about these moves, was the fact that all three articles were in poor shape, tagged for references, etc. All the volunteer energy expended to request, discuss and adjudicate the moves (not even with a consistent application of policy across 3 similar articles), and not one edit was made to improve the articles. When you can selectively apply inconsistent policy in a way that suits your local purpose, any answer is the right answer. In my mind, the moves served absolutely no useful purpose in the quest to build this encyclopedia. So to answer your second question first. I firmly believe that if WP:AT did not change one word in the next 365 days, there would be zero adverse effect on the building of WP, and every ounce of editor energy diverted away from debating changes that have zero effect on actual policy implementation, whould actually benefit WP. If you, or any other editor can convince me otherwise, I'd be happy to reconsider, but given the dysfunctional nature of the policy today, leaving it alone is probably the wisest thing to do. As to the first question, I have always found it difficult to believe (and accept) that a handful of editors that agree on a position, reflects Community consensus when the community of active editors is ~136,000. Local consensus, yes, but community consensus, no. And I strongly believe that policy and guidelines should be subject to wide community review, discussion and decision. One way to accomplish that is to leave the policy alone while the wider community reviews it. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:26, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Mike, if you look at pure !vote counts it's probably true that a local consensus is not necessarily a good indicator of community consensus. However, we're not supposed to do that, for precisely that reason. We're supposed to look at the arguments and reasons given for each position. If the arguments and reasons presented, even in a discussion of just a few editors, are much stronger one way vs. another, then I think that that strongly suggests community consensus is also in support of that position, especially if some of those arguments persuasively show that the community has shown support for that position in other contexts, like in the wording of other policies, or as demonstrated in the preponderance of a significantly large group of randomly selected articles. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:41, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Presumably you are referring to these three recently moved pages: San Bernardino District, Paraguay, San Alberto District, and Naranjal District. While I largely agree with you that the efforts of editors could be better spent on improving articles rather than discussing what title to use for them, I don't agree that these three represent inconsistency. For one article there was another article with the same name; with the other two, there were no other articles with the same title. The moves were quite consistent with existing guidelines and practices (despite the hand-waving by some). In the first case, the move was requested BECAUSE of the ambiguity (and the move discussion explicitly indicated a disambiguation page should take the base name). The other two move were directly the result of the irresponsible actions of Noetica to move the pages away from the base names and then forcing the RM discussion by reverting an editor that undid the unilateral and undiscussed moves. older ≠ wiser 19:48, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, but if I believed that Consistency trumped Precision, wouldn't they all be similar. My point here is that just about every move can be defended pro and con by isolating one's pet criteria during the discussion. That's a flaw in policy. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Oh, dear! Did my above post come across as “fiesty”? That certainly wasn’t my intention. I merely thought I would shed light where there was darkness by asking you to justify and clarify a novel suggestion of yours. And by “novel,” I mean one that undermines and flouts all that Wikipedia stands for.

Let’s talk about this philosophy you lectured to us about: I have always found it difficult to believe (and accept) that a handful of editors that agree on a position, reflects Community consensus when the community of active editors is ~136,000. Uhm… please accept it. To help you do so, I encourage you to read up on our exceedingly pithy Five Pillars, which is equivalent to Wikipedia’s Constitution, and WP:Consensus. You won’t find anything suggesting that a notable and high-visibility poll participated by a wide range of experienced editors that resulted in a 17:0 tally where there was uncanny commonality of opinion can’t reflect a community consensus because there are approximately 136,000 editors active on Wikipedia. Actually, given that there are a total of 48,297,314 registered users, your theory would suggest that it is impossible to ever discern a community consensus.

Please do advise when you find a policy page regarding how a consensus is arrived at on Wikipedia that backs up your novel views on the concept. You might also direct our attention to any policy page on Wikipedia suggesting that ArbCom’s proper response to disruptive editing would be to lock down a guideline page for an entire year. Since the odds of that last suggestion actually occurring is a number so close to zero that not even God can tell the difference, I don’t really need to belabor the point. Greg L (talk) 19:59, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

(after ec) @Mike Cline, it's admirable to dream of a perfect policy. I doubt it is possible for a policy to adequately address every contingency or that would satisfy all editors in all situations. We have a messy process. That seems to be the way of the wiki, and I'm OK with that. Expecting systematic consistency on a wiki where literally anyone is welcome to edit seems just a tad idealistic. older ≠ wiser 20:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Bkonrad, I does think you over state my dream. Its just that in my view, the gaps between dysfunctional-functional-and perfect are large indeed. Given the amount of contentiousness we manage to generate with the current policy, I would be much satisfied if we could find a way to close the first gap just a little. Now, back to editing articles. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Maybe this is a glass half-full/half-empty sort of thing. While discussions on MOS and some other policy/guideline pages are IMO mostly aggravating and repetitious displays of verbal egotism and brinksmanship that have few if any tangible benefits, I honestly think requested moves is an area where WP does function remarkably well. Apart from a handful of outliers, most requested moves do not produce much drama and for the most part produce reasonable results. older ≠ wiser 21:10, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Interesting idea. Our policy is functional, but just to keep it that way, we change every couple of days. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:54, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Bkonrad (older ≠ wiser) that RMs usually work pretty well; especially when the participants are blissfully unaware of the turmoil here. If people remember the policy from 3 or 6 years ago, that works just as well; better, in many cases. Dicklyon (talk) 22:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Mike Cline remarks that this page doesn't have the stability of traffic laws. No more it does; that's because it's not legislation; it's an effort to reach a consensus description of actual policy, which is what editors actually do when they think about it.

The reason Wikipedia has policy pages at all is to store up assertions on which we agree, and which generally convince people when we make them in talk, so we don't have to write them out again and again.
That's why Dicklyon is right to say that the memories of what the page said 6 years ago are good enough; unless the climate of opinion has changed, we should be saying much the same things. (If it has changed, the response will be "that's so 2006." ;->) This is why policy pages aren't "enforced", but quoted; if people aren't convinced by what policy pages say, they should usually say something else.
FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).
The major exception to this stability is when some small group, either in good faith or in an effort to become the Secret Masters of Wikipedia, mistakes its own opinions for What Everybody Thinks. This happens, and the clique often writes its own opinions up as policy and guideline pages. JCScaliger (talk) 03:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Then to clear up any misunderstandings among more anal people like me, WP:POLICY should be rewritten to say "if people aren't convinced by what policy pages say, they should usually say something else." while removing more normative language like "all users should normally follow". Yeah, I agree there shouldn't be so much drama about changing the details. Art LaPella (talk) 04:37, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
That would probably be an improvement. I backtrack a little because I wasn't thinking about NPOV when I wrote it.
There is the potential for a wonderful metaphysical argument about what if a consensus of Wikipedians came to disagree unresolvably with NPOV or Verifiability: would we throw everybody out, or change policy? (If we did have a purge, the editors would write a fork to their new understanding, so the difference would not be all that great.) This would probably be drowned in that. JCScaliger (talk) 23:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
If I disagreed with NPOV or Verifiability, I would continue to cooperate unless or until a consensus agreed with me. That is how I deal with policies and guidelines I disagree with now. If everyone else behaved likewise, no such metaphysical crisis would arise; we would demonstrate consensus first, change policy second, and change behavior third. Or maybe even third before second. Art LaPella (talk) 03:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
In response to the original topic, there is no reason to wait for ArbCom to futz around and decide something about user behavior or policy interpretation before we implement something with community consensus. The exact opposite is true. The community essentially tolerates ArbCom as a necessary-evil pile of legalistic bureaucracy that is against our community inclination to avoid having any; part of the "social contract" that makes this tolerable is that ArbCom doesn't get in the way of Wikipedian business as usual. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 11:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Wrong title

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
To avoid fragmented discussion, these topics are continuing at Talk:Tequila (song)#Requested move. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 05:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

According to the policy guideline page: "When a track is not strictly a song (in other words a composition without lyrics, or an instrumental that is not a cover of a song), disambiguation should be done using "(composition)" or "(instrumental)"." This is a request for an admin to complete the move of Tequila (song) to Tequila (instrumental). Hearfourmewesique (talk) 20:07, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

First a note for clarity... Hearfourmewesique is pointing us to WP:Naming conventions (music)... which is a guideline not a policy. The policy page (WP:AT) does not contain the instruction on song v. instumental. I am not saying we should ignore the guideline... I just wanted people to be clear as to what was being referred to.
That said... one could argue that the work in question does have at a lyric... The word "Tequila". Blueboar (talk) 22:56, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
It's an instrumental tune that uses a word as a sound more than a lyric. The article defines "song" as having sung lyrics. Hearfourmewesique (talk) 23:49, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
The idea that "Tequila" is an instrumental is very open to debate. The reasoning against this position is that the one-word lyric is "used as a sound effect" and "isn't sung". But this is nonsense; it's not some random noise like the samples popular in hiphop and in industrial music; the song's intent is to represent what it feels like to be loaded on tequila. And the word is sung: "Ta-quiii-la!" In cover versions, e.g. "Tequila Slammer" by Klute, this is even more apparent (and the article is about the song as a work, not just the original version). It's a song that is mostly an instrumental, with the most minimalistic lyrics. But it is still a song, with lyrics (well, a lyric; whatever). We are not in the business of making guidelines/policies that split hairs at a nanobot level. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 11:38, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Anyway, I find no such debate on the talk page, which has no archive. The article is at Tequila (instrumental), so I'm not sure what "move" Hearfourmewesique is talking about. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 11:49, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
The title Tequila (instrumental) is a redirect, pointing to Tequila (song). Hearformewesique apparently wants to swap the two (so that the article is at "(instrumental)" with "(song)" as a redirect), and cites the music naming convention as the reason. I think both titles are acceptable under the WP:AT policy, so it is really just a question of how to apply WP:Naming conventions (music) (a question which comes down to: Should the word "tequila" be considered a lyric or not?). That question can be settled through a formal Move request, where a community consensus can be determined. Blueboar (talk) 14:59, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Whoa - it's actually messed up. If you search Tequila the second suggestion is Tequila (song). But then if you go to the talkpage there, you are automatically taken to Talk:Tequila (instrumental), with the note "(Redirected from Talk:Tequila (song))". Then at the bottom of that page is a closed move request from misspelled "Tequila (instrmental) → Tequila (instrumental)". I haven't looked at the histories, but it must have involved another move at some point in addition to this closed request. (Edit: Without doing a thorough investigation, it looks like something of an edit war started by Hearfourmewesique on Jan 25.)
Aside from this problem, it seems pretty obvious to me as a neutral bystander that "Tequila" is in fact a "song", and that "Tequila (instrumental)" would refer to a different version that is purely instrumental, omitting the single lyric "Tequila" which occurs several times. Milkunderwood (talk) 07:25, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
OK... I have fixed the issue with the non-matching redirects. Regardless of whether the article should be at Tequila (song) or Tequila (instrumental), the talk page should match the title of the article. Since the article is currently at "(song)", the talk page should be at "(song)" as well. If and when the article is moved, then the talk page can move with it.
As for whether the article should or should not be moved... There is enough of a question here, that I think a formal contested move request discussion needs to take place. Blueboar (talk) 17:12, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
I have opened such a discussion. Let's see what the broader community thinks. Blueboar (talk) 17:31, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

There are two parallel discussions of this topic, at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music)#Songs and Instrumentals (now closed for new discussion, but containing a number of pertinent posts not otherwise duplicated) and at Talk:Tequila (song)#Requested move. Please post any further comments at the "Tequila (song)" talkpage rather than here. Thanks. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:57, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Some observations on COMMONNAME

Of all the Babel in our WP:Title policy, it seems to me that Commonname is the most desirable, and unequivocal element of the policy. In my view, it is actually the underpinning of two of the listed criteria—naturalness and recognizability. Those so called title criteria are merely rationale for commonname and should be thought about as such. In essence, the common name aspect of our title policy could be stated concisely in these two statements:

  • WP article titles should faithfully reflect the content of the article as supported by reliable sources
  • WP article titles reflect common usage of the article subject in English language reliable sources.

Then when someone asked Why?, the answers might reasonably be all the babel we now associate with naturalness and recognizability. All that rationale is actually irrelevant if someone already accepts the policy as being Common Name. All that babel could merely be relegated to an essay for anyone who wants to know the rationale behind common name. I suspect there is overwhelming and wide community consensus that Commonname is the dominate and preferred title policy for WP, so why don’t we just be clear about it?

After common name we still have to deal with ambiguity, conciseness, neutrality and style, but that’s a different discussion. But in the larger scheme of WP, commonname is the dominate WP policy on titles. Once a common name is agreed upon, the questions of ambiguity, conciseness and style are much easier to answer. The challenge for us then is how best to interpret and apply that concisely stated policy in a reasonably consistent manner. Here are some thoughts about that:

  • Step 1, demote the How to nature of Common Name to a guideline, a guideline whose purpose is to explain the generic processes by which a Common Name or Common Usage in English language RS is determined. (very much similar to notability). All that need remain in WP:Title is a concise statement and minimum rationale that Common Name is WP policy on titles with a link to the guideline explaining the generic process.
  • Step 2, clearly think through the Common Name determination process and address as succinctly as possible these scenarios:
    • What are the margins of difference between two equally common names that would warrant choosing one over the other?
    • What is the common name when the subject originates in an English speaking country?
    • What is the common name when the subject originates in a non-English speaking country yet is covered extensively in English language RS?
    • What is the common name when the subject originates in a non-English speaking country and has minimal coverage in English language RS and good coverage in foreign language RS?
    • What is the common name when the subject originates in a non-English speaking country, has coverage in English language RS, but because of geopolitical or other reasons is covered by multiple sources in different languages with English translations/transliterations based on differing foreign languages?

There may be other scenarios, but these are the most encountered. Also, I think each demands slightly different thinking to get to the correct common name.

The above ideas comes from the realization that the WP editor corps is growing with editors from or with cultural connections to non-English speaking countries, who speak and read English and desire to contribute to English WP on subjects originating in their native countries. Currently, I don’t think our Common Name methodology recognizes and accommodates this well enough. In the aftermath of a contentious RM, an editor wrote this (sanitized because the specific case is irrelevant): The common name in the English language is the [XXXXXXXX], it is referred to almost exclusively in [Country Y] as the [YYYYYYYYYY]. When you see the name [YYYYYYYYY] in the [English language] literature, if you care to look closer almost always the reference work will be a History of Y. [conclusion, those sources shouldn’t count because they weren’t reflecting an English speaking countries view of the subject] What I took away from that was that this editor either misunderstood , or didn’t accept common name as being derived from coverage in English language sources, not English language sources from English speaking countries.

I really believe that if we could begin simplifying WP:Title along these lines, we could eliminate a lot of misunderstanding and contentiousness that occurs in RMs. If we can do it with Common Name (a title policy that has wide community consensus), then it will make simplifying and clarifying the remaining issues—ambiguity, conciseness, neutrality and style—much easier. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:45, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I am a huge supporter of WP:COMMONNAME... however, there are enough qualifications, hesitations and exceptions to COMMONNAME that I don't think we can make it mechanical "rule". In fact, the only solid "rules" in this policy are 1) no two titles can be the same. and 2) when there is a dispute, the dispute is settled through the messy (and ill-defined) process known as "Consensus".
Now, a proper consensus is always achieved after discussing and considering a multitude of (often competing) factors... and I would agree that one of the factors that should be given a lot of weight in any discussion is whether there is a WP:COMMONNAME or not. Understanding WP:COMMONNAME is vital to understanding how we reach consensus over titles... but the actual policy is "article titles are determined through consensus". Blueboar (talk) 19:11, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
What an interesting notion: but the actual policy is "article titles are determined through consensus". But isn't that the policy for everything in WP? Not helpful. I am not looking for the mechanical, black and white here, but instead a way to simplify the babel. Please help! --Mike Cline (talk) 19:26, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
But there is no mechanical, black and white way to entitle articles... Titling articles is a non-mechanical process... a grey zone. We can lay out some broad concepts that editors should think about and discuss when figuring out the best title of an article should be... but we can not predetermine the end result of the discussion. Each article is unique, and the best title for that article is dependent on unique factors. It is impossible to have a one-size-fits-all set of "rules" on how to title an article. All we can do is outline the questions that (usually) resolve they typical title dispute... we can not predetermine what the answers to those questions will be, nor outline which questions are more important or will hold the key to resolving any specific title dispute. One dispute may be resolved by asking what is most recognizable... in another the dispute may rest on what is more precise... in a third the determining factor may be consistency.... and in a forth, the resolution may come from asking about something we don't outline. Every article is unique. Blueboar (talk) 20:15, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Come on, I said above that I am not looking for a black and white mechanical solution. But, I do believe your approach is equally useless, because you'll essentially said there's no policy based titling solutions, only a solution that a handful of editors resolve (actually that rarely happens because some admin has to come and chose sides). If our titling decisions are not policy based, then why do we have a policy? What I am saying is that we do make policy based titling decisions and we can certainly do a better job of clarifying what the actual policy is? Individual decisions will still be made by the community, but clarity will remove a lot of the contentiousness and wasted energy the current titling policy engenders. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, thinking about this more... I can identify some black and white "rules"... they include:

  • Rule 1 - Relax... the fate of nations does not depend on how an article on Wikipedia is entitled, nor will the world end because Wikipedia chose one title over another.
  • Rule 2 - There is no such thing as "the wrong title". One title may be considered better than others, but none are "wrong". The goal is to find "the most appropriate title for the topic".
  • Rule 3 - Determining what the most appropriate title may be is achieved through consensus. There is no one-size-fits-all process to this. To aid in achieving a consensus and resolving disputes, The guidance section of this page lays out several questions that should be asked and factors to be considered (see below).
  • Rule 4 - Titles can change. The process for doing this is described at WP:RM. If there is disagreement - first see Rules 1 - 3 and discuss calmly.

With these "rules" laid out, I would then set out a "GUIDANCE" section that would contain the bulk of the current page, and point to the various project specific conventions. Blueboar (talk) 21:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

My first thought is A) you overworked that “I’m an unflappable, Big-Picture©™® sorta dude” with your “Rule 1”; B) Your Rule “2” is too simplistic to be entirely true but because the exact definition of “wrong” is such a grayscale, your allegation is nonfalsifiable; C) I agree with your “Rule 3” and “Rule 4.” Greg L (talk) 22:12, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
OK... I may have gone over the top... but you get the point. :>) Blueboar (talk) 23:23, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).
Calling the heroin article Boston Massacre would be a wrong title; but how often is that going to come up? JCScaliger (talk) 23:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Common names

Considering it's a Wikipedia policy, WP:COMMONNAME is surprisingly imprecise. The WP article Common name is only about taxa or organisms in contrast to scientific names — WP:COMMONNAME's reference is much wider.

The nearest the policy gets to a definition is to say: "The most common name for a subject, as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources . . . [however] . . . ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject . . . are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources."

This is not over helpful, so most editors will turn to the examples. These are of completely different types:

  • Initials: H. H. Asquith (not Herbert Henry Asquith)
  • Nicknames: Bill Clinton (not William Jefferson Clinton)
  • Stage names etc.: Hulk Hogan (not Terry Gene Bollea), Snoop Dogg (not Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr.)
  • Traditional names: Venus de Milo (not Aphrodite of Melos)
  • Short official names: United Kingdom (not United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), United States Code (not Code of Laws of the United States of America), Rhode Island (not State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations)
  • Non-binomial names: Guinea pig (not Cavia porcellus)
  • Non-chemical (IUPAC/INN) names: Caffeine (not 1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)-dione), Heroin (not Diacetylmorphine)
  • English (not foreign language) names: Nazi Party (not Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

So according to the policy, common names include initials and nicknames, stage names and traditional names, short official names, non-binomial and non-chemical names, and English (rather than foreign language) names.

Of course we have many, many article titles that don't conform to this policy. For example, the norm for biographies is to use a short form of the official name, not the nickname, except in special cases. Using initials is rare. Stage names are sometimes used, sometimes not etc etc.

IMO the policy needs to be completely rewritten. The new version should give a basic and robust definition of 'common name', and explain the different types and make recommendations about how they should be used.

I'd be grateful for opinions about the general problems of this policy as it now stands. It would be interesting to know what level of inertia/resistance there is to overhauling it! (Specific proposals can come later if there is a consensus for change.) Thank you for reading this. --Kleinzach 01:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Written down or not, the predominate principle governing the titling of the vast majority of WP articles is to use the name most commonly used in reliable sources to refer to the article's topic. There are exceptions, of course, but they primarily come into play only when this main principle cannot apply for some reason. That's what WP:COMMONNAME is supposed to convey. The rest of WP:TITLE (and WP:D, plus the individual specific naming convention guidelines like WP:NC-TV), is for the exceptions. At least that's how I see it. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:28, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Kleinzach, I don't understand what the problem is. Why do you note that "Stage names are sometimes used, sometimes not" etc—do you feel that these inconsistencies somehow contradict the definition of common name that you quoted? Does the inconsistency bother you for some other reason? Would you please elaborate on what you are trying to do? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 01:33, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
I'd prefer not to elaborate — after all I have written a fairly long post already — to avoid confusing the issue. However I've been involved in two or three debates recently where people have based their arguments on different interpretations, or should I say assumptions, about what WP:COMMONNAME means. My view is that the present version is more of a licence to argue than anything else. --Kleinzach 01:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
This is the key part in my view: "The most common name for a subject, as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources, is often used as a title because it is recognizable and natural." I do think that section is too long. I just made a little tweak, but it needs a revamp. Too bad Kotniski just went on a break! --Born2cycle (talk) 02:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, without specifics there isn't much to talk about. If someone misinterprets it in a discussion, then you can talk about it there. A lot of times there is considerable debate about what the common name is—is it the name used by the most number of google hits? most often in "specialist" sources? dictionaries? whatever the NYT uses? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you are talking about Moonlight Sonata and the species capitalization kerfuffle. In the first case, it seems difficult to me how anyone could really argue that Moonlight Sonata is not the common name. There might be reasons to not use that title for the article—the top of the policy page does say "all editors should normally follow" not "all editors should always follow on pain of death"—but to say that Moonlight Sonata isn't the common name (as we use the term common name here on this policy page) seems like quite a stretch to me. There didn't seem to be any debate about whether it was the common name in that RM, so maybe my guess is off and this isn't what you were referring to. WRT common names of species, that is a wildly different use of the phrase common name—this policy doesn't attempt to discuss how common names of species should be styled. It only bears on that discussion insofar is it means we use the most common common name :)—it's lion, not king of the jungle or Panthera leo. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
ErikHaugen Could you possibly take what I have written above at face value? There are no hidden meanings etc there. I wrote a detailed explanation. Let me give you the main 'plank' again: " . . . the policy needs to be completely rewritten. The new version should give a basic and robust definition of 'common name', and explain the different types and make recommendations about how they should be used." I don't think the idea that WP policies should be well-drafted is such a difficult one to grasp, is it? --Kleinzach 01:31, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I would love to take it at face value—but like I said, I don't understand it and you don't seem interested in clarifying. I thought I might know what you were getting at, hence my last reply, but I can see that I'm not being helpful so I guess it will be best if I bow out for now. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Just to take the example given, Moonlight Sonata has always struck me as a throughly useless name from all orientations. To someone who knows nothing whatever about Western classical music, it says nothing; to someone who knows enough to know what a sonata is, it's uninformative, specifying neither the instrument nor the composer; to someone who does know music, it's an inappropriate way of specify some something that does have an exact and systematically derived name. A name is a conventional designation intended to identify something, not just refer to it, or to be the most popular one out of a selection of synonyms. We seem to use names in a much more restrictive sense, something to distinguish one article from another without necessarily giving any indication of the meaning. DGG ( talk ) 03:49, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
According to this book, "The Moonlight Sonata, Op. 27, No. 2 (C Sharp Minor) – There is probably no composition for the piano of any real merit, by any writer, which is so universally known, at least by name, as this sonata: Every one has heard of it, read about it, and most persons are more or less familiar with the music, or at any rate with portions of it, ... Dicklyon (talk) 04:43, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree Moonlight Sonata is a perfectly sensible article name: it's widely used by laypeople, and experts on music are likely to know what it stands for. Wikipedia is designed for laypeople, not for professors of music. You could theoretically reference cities in the USA by their longitude and latitude (it's unambiguous, it's systematic, and for an expert on climatography or geography the map ref tells you a lot about the city) but in practice that's completely useless. Titles should reflect the terms people want to look up; they don't exist to allow everything to be neatly classified into long lists. Simple titles also make wikilinking much easier. To sum up: if you need to search an index to find out what the title is, it's probably not a good title. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:37, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
DGG makes a remarkable comment: "We seem to use names in a much more restrictive sense, something to distinguish one article from another without necessarily giving any indication of the meaning. "

I agree in general but would say it slightly differently: "We use titles to identify the name most commonly used to refer the respective article topic, and to distinguish one topic from another, without necessarily giving any indication of the meaning."

While the title should be recognized as a reference to the article topic by someone familiar with the topic, for the uninitiated, it is the purpose of the article lead, not the article title, to identify the topic of the article.

An excellent list of reasons for doing it this way, from over a dozen different experienced editors, is available in the poll just above. If you disagree, please address each of those arguments/points in favor of doing it this way. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

When I started this discussion, I hoped it wouldn't go in this direction. We can all take our favourite positions on this side of the fence or the other. It's easy to repeat the arguments. The problem is that there is no 'fence' — no properly drafted policy for anyone to reference, either for or against. This is why we need a rigorous process focused on drafting rather than arguing.--Kleinzach 01:11, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Drafting what? You haven't identified a problem with the existing wording that others agree needs rewriting. Like Erik said, "I would love to take it at face value—but like I said, I don't understand it and you don't seem interested in clarifying. " --Born2cycle (talk) 02:06, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I realise you don't understand what I've already written. Perhaps it would be best if you AGF, have a look at Process is important, and then see how this develops. What I am trying to do is initiate a discussion that is not chaotic. I hope that is not too much to ask? --Kleinzach 04:16, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Without clarity regarding what it is you would like to discuss, it is asking too much, for chaos is all that can be reasonably expected in response to such a vague initiative. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:44, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposal

I propose dividing the present text (unchanged) into sub-sections. Would that be acceptable to everybody? --Kleinzach 01:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

In principle there is, of course, nothing wrong with doing so. We even have guidelines that demand it of article prose. But I see a lot of head-scratching above regarding just what it is you think is wrong with the present guideline. What sub-section do you want to create? Per WP:BRD you could just go do it, and see if people like it. Given the high level of tension around here, I think that would be unlikely to work. What I would suggest is something I've done many times, many places: Go make the change, then immediately self-revert. You can then use the diffs as examples. "[difflink Here] is what I'm proposing." — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 12:24, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
OK. That's reasonable. I think it will be much clearer if we go through it sub-section by sub-section — that was always my intention. But at the moment I can't do this because the page is protected. --Kleinzach 03:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Accuracy: A sixth criterion?

I was surprised to see an editor say, in a move request response: "To the best of my knowledge, article names don't have to describe the subject accurately."

It's true that "accuracy" is not specifically listed as a criterion here. But it seems obvious to me that inaccurate titles would be inappropriate. Sometimes, a loss of accuracy may be necessary to achieve other goals (like conciseness or recognizability), but surely having accurate titles is something toward which we should strive?

-- Powers T 19:04, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, we should always strive for accuracy (even in titles), but we also need to remember that people often disagree and debate whether something specific is accurate or not. Can you give an example of what you mean by an "inaccurate title"? Blueboar (talk) 19:13, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
The linked comment acknowledges that "precision" covers the case being discussed. I'd ignore it. Dicklyon (talk) 21:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, in this case, I mean titling an article as if it's about two people when it's really about the relationship between those people. Powers T 15:03, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm... this is a bit off topic... but I really have to question whether Wikipedia should have articles about relationships ... such articles, by their nature, rely heavily on opinion over fact, and are likely to be POV magnets. That may be what is behind the debate over the title... people may be using a debate over the title as a substitute for a debate over the scope of the article (ie, they may be arguing about the title when what they really want to say is that the article should be about the two people and not about their relationship). Blueboar (talk) 15:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
That's entirely possible. Still, if someone can reasonably say "there's nothing about titles needing to be accurate in WP:AT" and be right about it, it seems like a glaring omission. Or do we just count on the other criteria to add up to accuracy in the end? Powers T 19:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
See WP:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal for WP:Identifiability.  We seem to have a problem at Wikipedia where even admins are willing to say that WP:OR is acceptable for titles.  Inaccuracy is a subject much discussed at WP:V (see WP:Inaccuracy).  Titles have some problems that regular text does not, you cannot add a "citation needed" tag to a title, you cannot avoid using Wikipedia's voice with a title, and you cannot demote the information to a footnote.  Should titles, including redirects, be exempt from WP:V?  Unscintillating (talk) 21:44, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
OR is not be acceptable, even in a title... but most of these debates are not really about Original research, they are about original wording. (also, as I noted above, I suspect that many of these disputes are really based on disputes over the scope of the articles rather than the words used in the title). Blueboar (talk) 15:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
At WP:RM, the scope of the article comes up regularly in renaming discussions. Arguments about the name are based on what the content currently reflects and what it should cover. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Accuracy is not mentioned as a question; but it is mentioned: Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources.

It is not mentioned more strongly, as I see it, for two reasons:

  • Boston Massacre (which is discussed under neutrality), is also widely held to be inaccurate. But it is unquestionably overwhelming prevalent usage; and there doesn't seem to be even a requested move. Such cases are reasonably common - and having a rule against them would also lend strength to the perennial nationalist argument: "It's X! You can't call it Y; the Foobarian national council has declated it to be X, and that's the only thing that matters. Calling it Y (even if only one English-speaker in a thousand has ever heard of it as X) is inaccurate." (Or Greg's favorite horror story: "a megabyte has to be 1,000,000 bytes; not calling 1,048,576 bytes a mebibyte is inaccurate.")
  • Nobody has come up with an example to replace Tsunami, which was our canonical example of a title that was less common but more accurate and so preferred. (It's still preferred; but since the Boxing Day Tsunami, tsunami has also become common usage.) JCScaliger (talk) 22:11, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
So I took a look at the actual RM discussion in question, and I think that both LtPowers and Walter G were being sloppy when they referred to "accuracy" in their comments. There's no actual problem with the article title being accurate. The problem is whether the article is as precise as editors want it to be. (All non-geeks will need to review Precision and accuracy before proceeding.)
So the current scope of the article is about the relationship between two musicians. The question is whether the article title should be the more precise/pre-disambiguated "Relationship of Joe and John" or should be the more concise "Joe and John". Neither of these are actually inaccurate titles: the article is indeed about Joe and John rather than about Alice and Betty. However, one of them is more precise than the other, i.e., the longer title tells the reader (and future editors) that information about things other than their relationship should not be found on this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
I don't think it is an inaccurate title (it accurately describes the topic of the article: a famous headline consisting of those words) ... I suppose one could argue that it is an imprecise title. If you changed it to ""Dewey Defeats Truman" Chicago Tribune headline" the title would be more precise. An inaccurate title would be "Dewey's defeat of Truman (1948 Presidential Election)". Blueboar (talk) 03:49, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Once and for all: Poll to establish the consensus

I thought that since a number of editors who have normally shied away from WT:AT (Disfunction Junction) have recently joined in to voice their opinion, now is the time to strike while the iron is hot.

Since bad habits have developed that subvert the collegial atmosphere, I’ll establish some ground rules that everyone must abide by in order to participate in this poll. If someone objects to the rules for participating in this poll and chooses to not be bound by them, they are welcome to start their own poll.

The question is simple:

1) Do you support This version of the WP:AT, which bears this edit summary: 23:56, 23 January 2012‎ JCScaliger (talk | contribs)‎ (40,869 bytes) (Resatore text to Dec 21, before Noetica's continual revert war for a non-consensus text. Boldness requires novel texts and discussion.)

…which seems to be centered around this key bit of text:

• Recognizability – Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?

…which, for the purposes of this poll will be called “#1 (to someone familiar)”; or

2) Do you support This version of WP:AT, which bears this edit summary: 00:01, 24 January 2012‎ Kwamikagami (talk | contribs)‎ (40,913 bytes) (Undid revision 472889901 by JCScaliger (talk) Get someone to resolve this rather than edit warring)

…which seems to be centered around this key bit of text:

• Recognizability – Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?

…which, for the purposes of this poll will be called “#2 (not necessarily familiar)”.

The ground rules:

A) This is an up or down !vote; you are free to voice that you think the issue should be something else, but your vote may not further complicate matters by introducing a third (and fourth and fifth) option via such votes as • Comment This isn’t the real issue. The text we should *really* be discussing (because I like it a great deal) is…. If you participate here, it is to merely vote for one of the above options. If you find that to be a less-than-satisfactory question, please don’t respond to it.

B) You may have a total of 300 words, excluding your autosignature, in the “Poll” section. You may blow it all on your !vote, or you may spread your words around to directly respond to other editors’ !votes in the polling section. Discussion and debate belongs in the following subsections.

C) I will moderate the closure. That doesn’t mean I will “decide” anything; “consensus”, as clearly and fairly established at WP:Consensus rules all. It means only that towards the end of this, I might motion that the poll be considered indeterminate, or that it ought to be snowballed, or to opine that an 80% quorum of those who have previously weighed in makes a consensus clear, or… whatever. But there will be no jumping the gun by the regular partisans.

D) If anyone who has previously weighed in with an opinion on this exact issue is contacted to let them know about this poll, everyone who has done so must be contacted; no cherry-picking, which in this case would be canvassing.

E) I may add new ground rules within the common sense framework of trying to accomplish a poll without disruption to adapt to new circumstances, stonewalling, tendentiousness, wikilawyering, and all-around exhibiting a non-collegial interaction with others.

Greg L (talk) 19:37, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Poll:

FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).
See “Motion on moving forward from here”, below. Greg L (talk) 20:09, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.



Closing of poll commences on or after 26 January at 19:19 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) It assumes readers have a flying clue what they are reading up on rather than pandering to the MTV crowd with the attention span of a lab rat on meth. It should be “Boutros Boutros-Ghali”, not “Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egyptian dude)”. Greg L (talk) 19:19, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) seems like the most sensible way forward as it clarifies that its not just for experts, but for a reasonable person - seems a good balance. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:39, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) Start clicking on SPECIAL:RANDOM repeatedly and you will quickly find articles titled with names that are recognizable only to those familiar with the topic. Almost all exceptions -- where the title has more precision in it that makes the title possibly recognizable to those not familiar with the topic -- are to address ambiguity with other uses of that name on Wikipedia.

    We already support exceptions in specific areas with specific naming guidelines like WP:NC:CITY, and occasional special-case exceptions with WP:IAR, but to endorse regularly adding additional precision to titles of articles because their names are not recognizable to those unfamiliar with the topic, or because they might appear to be ambiguous with uses outside of WP, opens an enormous quagmire that would make deciding titles even more contentious than it already is.

    With #2, in cases where we agree on common name and primary topic and the title is therefore straightforward, there could still be contention on the issues of whether additional precision is needed to be make the title more recognizable to those unfamiliar with the topic, and, if so, what exactly that additional precision should be. To what end? It's simply not worth it. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:51, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

  • #1 (to someone familiar) Others have said it better than I could. Dohn joe (talk) 20:00, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) - while I'm not sure I agree with all the changes on that page, if we're just going with the above choices, the title should be as accurate as we can make it. Is the argument is here the difference between "The White Album" and "The Beatles"? If so, does including the "to someone familiar" wording help or hinder that decision?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:03, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) #2 is obviously going to be used to make all sort of disambiguations in articles that didn't really need them. For example, the proposer of #2 moved Public achievement to Public achievement (US civic scheme), when there wasn't any article with a similar name.[12] --Enric Naval (talk) 20:36, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) Policies should describe best practice. The moves mentioned above are unusual (so most editors don't agree with them) and not helpful to the reader. If we are going to disambiguate Boutros-Ghali, why stop at (Egyptian)? The same argument would add (Secretary-General) and Hague Academy of International Law. (The complaint that began this was that categories may be unclear; there is a work-around for anybody to whom this is a burning issue.) JCScaliger (talk) 22:32, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) providing that the caveat "(though not necessarily expert in)" is included otherwise we will tip too far the other way and invite the use of obscure jargon and acronyms as names over more generally recognised names. For example articles written for peer reviewed journals often use obscure jargon and acronyms as names because the target audience will be familiar with them. One only has to read this talk page to see how communities/groups develop their own jargon which I think is likely to be impenetrable to the lay reader on first reading this page. -- PBS (talk) 00:18, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) For many specialised topics, no title would be recognizable to a layman, short of copying the entire lede. However, that layman might well type in a technical term he read elsewhere but doesn't understand, hoping to find the article at that title. As well as recognizability, WP:AT advocates naturalness ("what the subject is actually called in English"), precision ("only as precise as necessary to identify the topic"), conciseness ("is it overly long?") and consistency. #1 is the better fit with those other aims. Certes (talk) 01:17, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) I haven't followed this discussion specifically, but as a principle it is generally agreed by most editors. --Kleinzach 01:37, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) per all those above. Jenks24 (talk) 03:14, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) as I have already indicated support previously. older ≠ wiser 12:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1. As I understand it, #2 would say we should use Matagami (town in Quebec) instead of Matagami, because someone might otherwise think that Matagami is a Japanese name . Because of that, I vote for #1. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) This wording settles the question of whether we create clumsy pedantic titles or streamlined ones. Binksternet (talk) 15:32, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) For the reasons amply outlined above and in the archives. I think we have a couple of people who need to learn WP:How to lose with a little bit of dignity and grace, or at least when to give up on an obviously hopeless cause. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) This seems closest to the principle of keeping titles as simple as possible, rather than recapitulating the article lede in the title. Franamax (talk) 22:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (to someone familiar) For the reasons stated above and because Wikipedia is primarily a general encyclopaedia, rather than a specialist publication. MistyMorn (talk) 12:33, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Motion on moving forward from here

The result was that there is overwhelming community consensus in support of this version of the WP:AT, which bears this edit summary: 23:56, 23 January 2012‎ JCScaliger (talk | contribs)‎ (40,869 bytes) (Resatore text to Dec 21, before Noetica's continual revert war for a non-consensus text. Boldness requires novel texts and discussion.)

A reading of the comments reveals a very like-minded community reasoning as regards keeping article titles streamlined with minimal parenthetical or comma-separated disambiguation. The details of the basic principle should no‑doubt be expanded upon and illustrated with example proscribed and prescribed titles. Editors who have been active in these debates over the last month now understand—for the most part, anyway—the core issue, but new editors coming to WP:AT for guidance when creating a new article could benefit with some “show me” examples of what the verbiage means.

Editors active in this area should be mindful to study the reasoning given by the various respondents to this poll and endeavor to work collaboratively towards the spirit of the common view.

How to move forward from here?

I motion as follows:

  1. That the contents of Wikipedia:Article titles be changed to the version desired by the community;
  2. That the shepherding administrator strongly consider keeping WP:AT locked for an indeterminate period of time—until it is clear that an atmosphere of collaborative consensus-building is consistently exhibited on this talk page.

Those who would like to second the motion may do so here. Greg L (talk) 20:09, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


I'm not seconding as I disagree with #2. I think part of the problem here is premature page locking by administrators who are not looking at what the disputes are really about, which exacerbates the problem. As this poll clearly shows, there is broad and deep consensus support for the edit I made back on Dec 21. An examination by an uninvolved admin of my original edit and the discussion at #Clarification_of_recognizability_lost should have lead to having that edit put in place instead of a page lock, and that would have ended all this nonsense weeks ago.

A similar situation now exists regarding what should be even less controversial at WP:COMMONNAME (see #Clarifying ambiguity). I don't want admins locking pages; I want them to recognize disruptive status quo stonewalling for what it is, and act accordingly.

Take out #2, or, better yet, replace it with a request that admins do what I just asked, and I'll second. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

  • As for your demand that #Clarification_of_recognizability_lost be simultaneously addressed with the subject of this poll, there’s a problem with that: it wasn’t an issue that was addressed by this poll. In your anxiousness to get everything you want now, you undermine yourself.

    Note that in #2, I asked the administrator to “strongly consider”; I rather suspect the administrator has mostly made up his or her mind whichever way to go already. Hissy fits about other editors’ behavior are unlikely to impress an administrator that a collegial collaborative writing environment is at hand. You might best take your huge *win* and not agitate so vigorously. Your current demands are rather like the prisoner in his jail cell strumming his drinking cup along the bars of his cell at midnight, shouting “Unlock the door! I won’t get into fights if butt-heads aren’t mean to me!” : it’s not a convincing message in its totality.

    If I were you, I’d intently read “Some advise to B2C,” below. Greg L (talk) 22:05, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The "page reflecting the status quo ante bellum" suggests the version without the "people familiar with the topic" clause, that is, back to the version that came in with a discussion in May 2011 – as opposed to the version that B2C inserted, that had never before been supported in any discussion, that he put in to try to win an argument. That's why I object; not that one is worse than the other, but because one shouldn't be allow to bully one's way around that way. A proper discussion can't happen until he backs off from this offensive offensive. Dicklyon (talk) 05:14, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, you're right - what I meant was, back to whatever it used to read ante the May 2011 bellum, when people started messing with it to suit their own tastes. But in either case, #1 is (to use your term) orthogonal to me, as long as #2 can be implemented. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:29, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
It's hard to take your comments seriously if you talk about the May discussion and change that way. Have you even looked at it? Dicklyon (talk) 07:00, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
No I have not. I wasn't even aware of this discussion until 25 January. My point is rather that, regardless of any specific phrasing on a policy or guideline page, no one should take it upon himself to jump in and make changes to the page without first having 1) posting a notice of intent on the talkpage, 2) making sure that the notice is brought to the attention of probable interested parties of whatever view including those probably in opposition, and 3) having a meaningful discussion about the proposed changes. Any and all changes made to a policy or guideline page without first having gone through this procedure should be considered void and illegal.
If I have the wrong date for when such changes - and reverts - first started, I apologize. This is a very difficult discussion to read and follow. I should say that you are one of the few editors here - there are a few others - with whom I've nearly always agreed. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:07, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I will say, though, that from the viewpoint of one who has been frustrated trying to search for articles, a consideration of Article titles in isolation from what information is given at the beginning of the lede is unhelpful and pretty meaningless for actual real-life searches, either at Google or here in Wikipedia's own searchbox. I also agree that Kleinzach's point concerning "common names" is integral to this whole problem, even though it may appear to some as being extraneous. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:33, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Flattery will get you everywhere. I believe the history is simple and not much in dispute, until after the December kerfuffel started. The phrase in question was originally inserted a year or so ago (I don't have the link handy) by Kotniski, with no trace of discussion on the talk page; nobody reacted. Then this discussion happened in May 2011. It was criticized with the comment And skip all this nitpicking ("readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in"... although not complete ignoramuses; while keeping in mind some of them may be ignorant but they hold the are not.....)). Then per the proposal and discussion there, the phrase was taken out; no repercussions; then we had a stable version based on discussion for 6 months or so. Then in early December, before discussion, Born2cycle put it back in while in an argument that recognizability had been cited in; and he started a discussion, but ... the rest is more in dispute. Dicklyon (talk) 23:29, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
In that case my own preference and recommendation would be to restore the page to its last incarnation made collegially, regardless of what it said at that point, lock it down, and proceed from there. That's what I had meant. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Why would you ignore the consensus of the community in preferring the wording that happened to be in place before May rather than the wording in place since May, as reflected in a very recent unanimous result? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC)


I support #2, but I don't agree with #1, because this poll's limited polarizing viewpoint has not yet allowed us to have the discussion to find the version best supported by the community. Dicklyon (talk) 00:16, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

How can a poll not allow you or anyone else from having a discussion about anything you want? --Born2cycle (talk) 02:10, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes. Looking over the poll comments, no one expressed concern that anything was polarizing, and no one expressed disappointment at the month-long process of gridlock amounted to insufficient time to discuss things. Moreover, you, Dick, ought to have voiced your views as early as possible in the poll if you wanted to have any influence; others might have considered your view and modified their comment or even changed their vote. In short, the community consensus is not in alignment with your wishes. Consensus is not 100 percent of editors in agreement and clearly isn’t so in this case either. Greg L (talk) 03:34, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I think I did express my concerns pretty well below. They were orthogonal to your poll and vote. It's like asking to vote, or influence the votes of others, in the Republican primary; irrelevant to my concerns. Dicklyon (talk) 03:42, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

How familiar?

I can't support this yet, because I have no idea how it should be interpreted. Can someone tell me what familiarity is in relation to Latin Quarter? Tony (talk) 03:29, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I would say familiarity in relation to Latin Quarter is that you know it refers to a section of a city (as opposed to being, for example, a type of coin)... you do not need to know that it actually can refer to sections of many cities, however, as you will discover this when you search the term. Blueboar (talk) 04:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

To one familiar with the Latin Quarter of Copenhagen, Latin Quarter might be enough, I suppose. Dicklyon (talk) 04:18, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

It would appear that this is the crux of the problem. If familiarity is not defined, then we could have endless edit wars over the appropriate level of familiarity. Take large cell tumour, for example. In introductory medical texts, they hyphenate. For the general public, it would be best to hyphenate as well. Otherwise, it sounds like it's a large tomour. (Which would you rather have, a large cell tumor or a small cell tumor ?) However, the phrase is almost always left unhyphenated in medical journals. I don't think dab'ing would cover this, because large tumor is not a topic. I can see the AT wording proposed here being used to insist that the unhyphenated form be used, because that's what those "familiar" with the topic use, despite the inevitable confusion that will cause among those whose only familiarity with the disease is that a friend or loved one has it. — kwami (talk) 04:19, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

To me that's a good example of where the narrowing that B2C wants is harmful. If we leave the familiarity maximally undefined by leaving it out, some editors are claiming that we mean recognizable to "everyone" or something like that. It seems to me rather that recognizability is just a generally good thing, to more people being better than to fewer, without any "cutoff" at "familiar". We're not trying to define an algorithm here (well, B2C is, but that's his trip). Rather, we are stating some of the values to consider. Conciseness matters, too. So does consistency. And precision. And naturalness. None of them trump the others, and none of them are reduced to zero, unless you have a clause like B2C injected to reduce familiarity to zero value in the particular argument that he was in when he inserted it (I've forgotten what that was, but it hardly matters). If we let B2C add a new clause to reduce a consideration to zero whenever someone cites it against him, we'll soon get to his ideal well-defined naming algorithm, I suppose. Is that the direction we want to go? Or can we follow the suggestions of several editors to rethink how we talk about recognizability, precision, conciseness, etc., with respect to what we'd like to accomplish, instead of this knee-jerk reaction followed by version polarization? Probably it's too late... if we're to have a serious discussion, we need to put the wikilawyering behind us, start fresh, swear off threats to take people to AN/I and RFC/U, try to get Noetica to re-engage in this talk page, and actually discuss before we vote. Dicklyon (talk) 04:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Like other examples presented here, that confusion can be solved by simply reading the first line of the article. For example Giant cell tumor of bone. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Wording#1 was in place a year with no issues with interpreting familiar or anything else before inadvertently removed in 5/11. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:54, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
There's nothing particularly wrong with the wording that Kotniski made up and inserted without notice or discussion; I don't believe he had any bad motives. And when Ohm's Law removed it, inadvertantly or otherwise, he did at least have a few people in a discussion talking about it with him and seeing what he was up to, and there was no objection. Neither version is particularly better than the other. The problem is what happened in December, when the recognizability provision was quoted in an argument with you, and you immediately marched in and changed it in an attempt to reduce its weight to zero in that argument. That's not OK. No number of editors saying that Kotniski's version is better can make up for the fact that you are inserting it in an attempt to win an argument by changing the rules. In this sense you would be attempting to set a precedent where none existed before, giving it meaning that nobody foresaw, in an attempt to get your way in a whole series of potential disputes that really hinge on a question that deserves discussion. But until you back off and swear to stop hauling people up on charges for resisting your outrageous behavior, this discussion can't happen. Noetica is boycotting this page because of you. Only you can make an attempt to fix that. Dicklyon (talk) 05:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
What??? Diffs please. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, you might have missed the subtle way he put it when he last edited this page almost a month ago. I have been more explicit in telling you that I'm waiting for you to back off. Dicklyon (talk) 05:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Here is Noetica's last comment, although "Diffs please" probably means Born2cycle disagrees with the previous post more completely, not just the part about Noetica's most recent departure. I read Noetica's last comment as implying, though not explicitly stating, that Noetica is taking a break because of Born2cycle. Art LaPella (talk) 06:00, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, Art, perhaps so. I had assumed that he recalled how he started this on 20 December. Tony had done this talk page edit saying "Erik, as I said at the top, 'I'm not so concerned about the caps as the impenetrability of the vaguer title'. The policy says: 'In discussions about page titles, consensus has generally formed around answers to the following questions: [1] Recognizability – Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?'". About 40 minutes later, Born2cycle did this policy page edit in which be changed the provision that Tony had just quoted, saying in his edit summary "Restore original meaning/wording which was, apparently inadvertently, removed in May 2011". Then he wrote a big talk page section about it, which you can still see at #Clarification of recognizability lost, in the wee minutes of 21 Dec. (UCT). The rest is what it is. He won't back off. Dicklyon (talk) 06:18, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
ps. I was not on Tony's side in that particular titling question. I fixed Life Safety Code (in this diff) to instead clarify its topic, so the problem would go away. I just didn't think Born2cycle should be allowed to decide when to give zero weight to a titling consideration, based on an old piece of text that had never had one good thing said about it. Since then, lots of people say they like it, but few of them are aware of the history or implications, and might be willing to reconsider if they knew they were handing over a win to such a cheat. Dicklyon (talk) 06:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
This issue was previously addressed and follow-up questions were ignored by you[13]. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:33, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I see you observed there that Tony had previously been OK with the "familiarity" wording. That should make it even more clear that the issue here is not the wording. It's your rewriting of policy in the middle of a dispute in a way that would attempt to establish precedent for reading it as supporting your interpretation. That's why it needed discussion, not an argument over which of two nearly equivalent versions. Letting a cheater win is never a good precedent. Dicklyon (talk) 06:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I wasn't rewriting anything. I was restoring what I thought it already said because it had said it before, was clearly supported by practice and consensus (as the poll results above confirms again) and history indicated it had been removed inadvertently. I wasn't "cheating". This is more ridiculous than I thought. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
  • (e.c.) Dick, indeed, the gap between editors here may in part be based on the desire of some to produce a catch-all simplified algorithm for article titles. I suggest that the rules need to express more detail and that while most individual decisions will be unproblematic, those that are contested need to balance a number of issues. It's the 10% of problematics that will take most of the explanation of the policy and most of the time required in decision-making. Again, how familiar? is a problem. We should discuss some examples either side of a putative boundary and come to a deeper understanding of how to advise editors on this familiarity criterion, rather than trying to bury it as a factor. Tony (talk) 06:40, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I have no strong opinion on the wording, but I totally endorse your call to explore it in open discussion. I still don't think we can even start on that until B2C tells us he is willing to back off. That means giving up any territory that he claims to have won in his cheat, swearing off his wikilawyering against us, retracting his recent threats, etc. Dicklyon (talk) 06:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Territory? Winning territory? If that's your paradigm that explains much. There are no owners on WP, no territories that belong to some more than others. There is only consensus. I suggest you start thinking in those terms. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Guys I suggest you agree to disagree, this discussion doesn't seem very useful. The above consensus is getting towards WP:SNOW. Additionally Dicklyon that is getting worryingly WP:BATTLEGROUND like... -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:28, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
If we go down the rabbit hole of what is "familiar" then why not down the rabbit hole of "recognizable" as well? Familiar means "Of things: Known from constant association; pertaining to every-day knowledge, well-known" (OED familiar,(6)), coupling that to "though not necessarily expert in", and using the reasonable person test that we have to use for all these words unless we are going to chase the white rabbit through the dictionary, then I think it is self explanatory. It is not as if this is something new conjured up by Kotniski Dicklyon, as it was around in a slightly different wording before s/he started editing the page: see a version from 17 July 2009. So I suggest that it is not a question of B2C backing off, currently the consensus is to have the sentence that includes "familiar". I think that the sentence which has now has gained a consensus in all the polls we have held since mid December should be put in place sooner rather than later. Once in place, if Tony1 can come up with a more suitable word than "familiar", then I will support using it but lets go with the consensus version and then discuss changing it, rather than sticking with a version that does not have currently have a consensus. -- PBS (talk) 10:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Let this be your final battleground

Can we please drop the metaphors of fighting for territory and of covert action; Dicklyon's edit above seems to be the first use of one of these, but "subvert/subversion" have been used three times now, and are beginning to creep into the common discussion. We are not conducting a war; if Dicklyon and Noetica are, they should seriously consider a unilateral suspension of hostilities. We are all supposed to be on the side of a better and clearer encyclopedia; that's policy.

These three allies are the only people I know who use this vocabulary regularly. I do not care for such a subculture. Please stop.

FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).

I do not know that Born2Cycle "cheated"; if he did, this is not the venue to discuss it - any more than it is the venue to discuss Noetica's career of exact reversions. This is not about power; really it isn't. It's about the encyclopedia. I do know that I disagree with the bloviated titles that were the protocatarctical cause of this poll; I do know that I support the language of familiarity (although, once this discussion is over, I would still support making it into a separate section). Many do likewise. JCScaliger (talk) 20:07, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Hear, hear! I would add that requests/demands that someone else "back off" are also indicative of battleground mentality. Good time to review WP:BATTLEGROUND. Good advice there. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:29, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Thank you to Eraserhead1 for pointing out WP:BATTLEGROUND, which I was not familiar with, but which does describe the situation. I used the territory metaphor to try to get B2C to understand how he comes across, but I'm sure it was a waste of bytes. Dicklyon (talk) 01:11, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for admitting to your WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality, which explains much. I'm sorry I come across like that to you, but that's not how I see it at all, and explains why I've been so baffled by your behavior. Yes, BATTLEGROUND mentality explains your reverting my edit because it was me who made the change, not because the change isn't a good one. Please stop doing that. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:48, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

From the reader's perspective

Editors, could I seek advice on these two google searches, in which not even the displayed opening of the lead under the hit-title helps to define the topic. These are just from an idle, random search:

Tony (talk) 08:11, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Click on the WP link at the top of the google results and read the lead - that will tell you what it is. If you're looking for either topic you're presumably familiar with them (or why would you be looking for them) and you will have found them. What's the problem? --Born2cycle (talk) 08:21, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
You keep undercutting Tony's arguments with common sense. I don't think that is allowed here. older ≠ wiser 12:28, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
He's not undercutting my comments. This is from the reader's point of view, not you'rs and not B2C's. I've yet to meet a google searcher among the public who knows what you're talking about. Tony (talk) 13:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
And I'm not sure what your point is. You seem to expect a title to contain within itself enough of a description that an unwitting passer-by would know what the subject is. But that is not the purpose of a title. Never has been, never will be. older ≠ wiser 13:39, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
We assume, perforce, that readers expect something like our notability policy; if they type in Fifth Avenue, they will not be surprised to find themselves reading about Manhattan (and an large majority of readers will be inconvenienced by a dab page, because they intend Manhattan); at least as synecdoche, it is known everywhere in the world. I certainly do; revising that assumption would require a much larger discussion than this one.
That being the case, it is a question of fact whether there is another notable Queen Street West in the world (presumably there are far less notable ones, as there are other Fifth Avenues - although not perhaps as many). If the answer to the question is Yes, somebody will eventually write the other article, and we will disambiguate; if the answer is No, we have no problem.
FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).
One trusts that this random search which has produced two Canadian streets is not intended to suggest that Toronto or Montreal are less important than New York City. JCScaliger (talk) 19:19, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
"I've yet to meet a google searcher among the public who knows what you're talking about". What I'm talking about is clicking on a link and reading the lead of the article. Google searchers don't need to even hear that, much less know what that means - they just do it. Again, what is the problem? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:07, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
You can't have it both ways. Enric Naval says, above, "Like other examples presented here, that confusion can be solved by simply reading the first line of the article." This argument is of no use to the reader who googles either of these items, for example, and is presented with nothing clearer by the opening that is included in the google entry. Should readers know that they need to click further at google to find out which Sherbrook Street it is? Or are they expected to fully download the article page to see whether they've wasted their time? Tony (talk) 09:13, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
The title of an article alone is not going to be enough, in general, to completely determine what the article is about. But I think that the vast majority of people who use Google know that they can click on the link in Google to see the entire article. There's nothing wrong with loading an article to see whether it is the one you want. It's like using an index in a book: the index itself does not say whether the page listed actually contains the information you want, it just says where to look. — Carl (CBM · talk) 10:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
There's a lot wrong with having to click and wait to load. If the disambig isn't in the title, it needs to be in the lede. Many users are burdened with slow loading, even if you aren't. Milkunderwood (talk) 11:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Right, Tony's criticism is more appropriately directed at poorly constructed leads rather than article titles. older ≠ wiser 12:36, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that we need to descend on WP:LEAD and instruct editors to write their leads in such a way that will compensate for the vague, misleading titles we dish up to google search pages? Tony (talk) 13:27, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with most titles. If you want to take the issue up at WP:LEAD and leave WP:Article titles in peace, I think widespread spontaneous celebrations might erupt. :) older ≠ wiser 13:39, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
And more unhelpful disambiguation. Kwami (the admin who protected the page), moving Swati (tribe) to Swati (Pasthun tribe), but there is only one Swati tribe, then moving all other Pasthun tribe articles for "consistency" (I have a few of them in my watchlist. Or moving Hashmi Syed (Nakokara) to Hashmi Syed (Nakokara) clan, where there are no other articles with that name, and when both Hashmi Syed and Nakokara are red links. Sigh.... --Enric Naval (talk) 18:50, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Ugh, he has moved dozens of tribe articles in the same way[14]. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:12, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Early exchange between editors

The following is an early exchange between editors before others added sub-sections to the poll. I’ve transplanted the thread to here in hopes that both editors will approve since it frees up some of their 300-word quota. Either editor is free to move this back up to the polling section. Greg L (talk) 12:53, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

This stuff is funny enough to be on Saturday Night Live

If a title is recognizable to someone familar with a subject then it must be unrecognizable to someone who is unfamilar with the subject. So given the fact that we have 3.9M articles and (who really knows) an average reader might be familar with 5000 subjects, then from that readers perspective, we have slightly less than 3.9M unrecognizable titles. This word recognizability to which we are assigning responsibility to millions of readers who we purport, speculate, conjecture, guess (or whatever other completely unsupportable with empirical evidence) verb we can use are going to react to any given title is the height of absurdity. You all can't even explain it to yourselves and yet you think 1000s of editors will immediately understand what you mean. Whatever wording follows this non-word recognizability will be meaningless in the larger WP community and be the source of endless, non-productive debate. It would be incredibly simpler if we just assigned a simple responsibility to the title itself: A WP title should faithfully represent the content of the article. When I was working in Europe in the 1980s, I would ask Germans that I met and worked with the following question: Have you ever seen the United States?, a great many would answer Yes, we have, my wife and I have been to Miami several times. They were no more familar with the U.S. than an illiterate worker in the Far East. We have got to stop trying to deduce how millions of readers are going to react to a title, and put the responsibility on the actual title itself--Title vs Content, title vs ambiguity, title vs MOS, etc. Funny stuff above. Off the grid for a while in the real-world of readers who must be familar with something. I'll ask a few if they've ever seen an unrecognizable WP title- you know those big bold, black letters at the top of every article. They are hard to recognize sometimes when I just wake up and haven't had that first cup of coffee. --Mike Cline (talk) 10:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you keep saying that recognizability is a non-word. From Webster's 1913: The quality or condition of being recognizable. And Merriam-Webster lists it as a noun form of the verb. Granted it may not be a very commonly used word outside of WP, but the meaning is not nearly as confusing as you try to make it out to be. older ≠ wiser 12:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
OK, mea culpa, it is a word, albeit obscure in most people's vocabulary as you point out. Still its the wrong word, the wrong assignment of responsibility to millions of readers and given the above discussion, I think your statement but the meaning is not nearly as confusing as you try to make it out to be. is a bit niave. If a dozen experienced editors can't agree on what it really means, its the wrong word when the expectation that 1000s of editors will understand it. --Mike Cline (talk) 00:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Also, if we adopted #2 , we would need a renaming to United States (North-American country).... --Enric Naval (talk) 12:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't understand... ... please explain why would we need to rename if we went with #2? Blueboar (talk) 16:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
"United States" is ambiguous... see United States (disambiguation). "United States" alone is arguably not recognizable as referring to the North-American country to those more familiar with it referring to the other uses listed there - adding the additional disambiguation makes it recognizable for everyone. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:04, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I understand the argument that the title "United States" could be considered ambiguous, but I still don't understand the logic behind saying that such ambiguity would require us to use the specific title "United States (North-American country)". There are other (far better) options that would resolve any ambiguity. The most obvious would be to use United States of America. That is not ambiguous at all. Blueboar (talk) 22:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think anyone meant that the specific title "United States (North-American country)" would be required by wording 2, just that some disambiguation of "United States" title would be required. And having to choose how to disambiguate a title that requires no disambiguation under the current system (and wording 1) is another disadvantage of wording 2 (assuming the rest of policy/guidelines were consistent with it rather than with wording 1 which they currently are). --Born2cycle (talk) 22:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
ah... my understanding was that Enric was saying the specific title would be required. ok... but couldn't "United States" be considered ambiguous no matter which version is chosen... if so, I still don't understand why people feel that choosing v1 would mean that we sould keep "United States" as the title but choosing v2 would force us to change it? How does "familiarity" change whether something is ambiguous or not?
Enric and B2C, you do your case no good with the ridiculous strawman United States. It is very recognizable to people all over, and not very ambiguous. Nobody would be so extreme as to read anything proposed as suggesting that it needs a disambiguator. Dicklyon (talk) 01:18, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
If a title is recognizable to someone familar with a subject then it must be unrecognizable to someone who is unfamilar with the subject.
As stated, this is a logical fallacy.
To give a counterexample, many physicians are highly familiar with certain diseases, but completely lost when you give an outdated name for them. You should expect your cardiologist to be highly familiar with vasovagal episodes, but you should not expect him (or her) to recognize the title Gowers' syndrome from a century ago. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:15, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Or to go the other way... As a historian, I am familiar with and recognize the term "Scrofula"... I am not familiar with and would not recognize Tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis (the only reason why I can put it here is that I just looked it up). Now, as far as choosing a title on this particular topic goes, we have one potential title that is recognizable by a historian, and another that is recognizable to a modern medical doctor. "Familiarity" isn't going to help us choose between them, because each potential title is recognizable someone who is familiar with the topic... but which potential title we are familiar with depends on our academic discipline. Blueboar (talk) 23:12, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Amen brother! If one were to look at Blueboar's example 'holisticaly one might conclude that either title--Scrofula and Tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis as article title both Faithfully represented the contents of the article. However when one applies the criteria WP titles should reflect common usage in English language reliable sources, one might (I didn't actually determine this) find that Scrofula was the most common usage. However looking at this holisticaly, when applying the criteria WP titles should be unambiguous and there is another article about a fungus called Scrofula, we might disambiguate to Scrofula (disease) and Scrofula (fungus). In this hypothetical there are no MOS or naming convention concerns, but if there were they could be dealt with simply. I fail to grasp why such a relatively simple decision about an article title cannot be conveyed in simple policy statements. As one of my Fortune 100 clients always likes to say--Keep it simple stupid-Don't try and boil the ocean --Mike Cline (talk) 01:02, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm told that there are two kinds of people: those who can tolerate and deal with ambiguity and uncertainly (usually progressive/liberal types, by the way), and those who can't (we call them Republicans, to put it in current political terms and risk pissing off half of you all). As a progressive, I am not bothered that recognizability doesn't give us much help in choosing between the two names for the disease in question. It's still OK to have recognizability as a goal, and it will often provide helpful input to the naming decision. Same for the "to whom" question: why try to pin that down? It will never to possible for all naming decisions to be made by policy alone, unless B2C gets his way, which would be sad indeed. Dicklyon (talk) 01:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
And I thought the IRA considered themselves progressive, or where you referring to a different type of Republican if so why no disambiguation :-) -- PBS (talk) 22:55, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Oh… do behave, Dick. You were doing fine until that last sentence. If you want to engage in “Well… I think *you’re* the poopy‑head” with B2C, take it to your or his talk page, please. Greg L (talk) 01:33, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Dicklyon, I will freely admit that I have no clue as to what you said above, but that's irrelevant. I do however have a question. Can you provide an example of an article title decision that was not based the our article title policy at the time the decision was made? I want to determine on what basis the decision was made, if it was not made on the (at the time) WP titling policy. It might prove instructive, because we may be missing something that should actually be in the policy that isn't. Please do that for me. Thanks --Mike Cline (talk) 01:36, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I hope I'm wrong, but I predict this question can be added to the long list of questions on this page posed to those favoring recognizability to the unfamiliar in our titles (for lack of a better description) that remain unanswered (no, I haven't compiled it in one place, but will do so if challenged). My theory for why questions like this remained unanswered on this page by these guys is explained here. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:38, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Blueboar, I agree with you that the choice between scrofula and TCL wouldn't be decided on the basis of recognizability, because both names are recognizable to people familiar with the subject. Tuberculous adenitis and King's evil are also "recognizable" options for that disease.
But just because a single criterion doesn't determine the title all by itself in every single case doesn't mean that it's not a useful criterion, and it's certainly not a good reason to require that the title communicate the contents of a page to people who know nothing about the subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Elaboration and examples can be added later

Note that before 11 May 2011, (∆ edit, here), the key passage used to read as follows:

* Recognizability – an ideal title will confirm, to readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic, that the article is indeed about that topic. One important aspect of this is the use of names most frequently used by English-language reliable sources to refer to the subject.

Elaboration like this may certainly be added later. Furthermore, we are free (and I welcome doing so) to add examples (or more examples) of prescribed and proscribed example titles into later, explanatory sections of WP:AT—like It is United States, not United States (North-American country).

However, now is not the time to work on such details. The purpose of the above poll is to establish what the community consensus is on the core issue and move on from there. Things are moving along splendidly; the community clearly welcomes the opportunity to put this one to bed and do so without fuss.

Along with the basic principle in bold that each poll response begins with, is the accompanying reasoning and views of that editor. Many of us tend to admire our own reasoning expressed in our poll responses, but we must respect and understand the reasoning of all the others in the poll in order that clarification, elaboration, and prescribed/proscribed examples can later be added. Greg L (talk) 13:14, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

No, we will never work this out without examples. Tony (talk) 13:17, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Why do you say that? A consensus seems to be forming without the examples in place now. As I wrote, the community seems to welcome the opportunity to establish the core principle. And by reading the reasoning of all these editors who are participating in poll—some of whom have avoided WT:AT altogether because of its tenor—we are better prepared to add examples and further revise WP:AT, which will always be in a state of revision. Greg L (talk) 13:21, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
One small problem is that no one can say how this "core principle" will be interpreted. Minefield for friction and uncertainly out there, I'd say. I hope you're will to take responsibility for dealing with that outcome, rather than thinking through the policy in terms of real examples.
I note also that no one has taken seriously my examples of cryptic, vague Google title entries that require readers, somehow, to know where to click to find out exactly what street, in this case, the topic is. If people can't see that that is highly unsatisfactory, we may as well give up and go home. Tony (talk) 13:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps because that question was answered, in my opinion. From the reader's point of view, why would he Google "Queen Street West"? Perhaps he lives there and wants to read more about it. Perhaps he is researching widening the street. Perhaps he is a real estate developer, and he wants to know if houses on that street are in an upper- or lower-class neighborhood. Perhaps he has seen it in an address, and wonders if it's north Toronto or south Toronto. But if he doesn't know it's in Toronto, then he is unlikely to know it exists at all, and he won't Google it. It's nice to confirm that it's in the right city, but everything can't be first. In this case, the first fact is that "Queen Street West" can be the name of a neighborhood as well as the street. Being in Toronto is second. Art LaPella (talk) 16:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Tony, maybe I'll go back and count how many times you've raised this same issue with these types of examples, each time it has been addressed, and questions have been posed to you about it, which you've ignored. You keep raising this issue as if there is a problem so obvious it doesn't need explaining. But there is no such problem. Editor after editor looks at these examples and reacts with, "So? What's your point?".

So, if there is a problem, then you're the only one who sees it, and you're going to have to explain it in a way that the rest of us can understand. Or, as Denzel put it (at 4:40-4:50), "Explain this to me like I'm a 2-year-old because there's an element to this thing that I just can't get through my thick head." And if you can't explain it to us like we're 2-year-olds, well, that's telling too. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Appropriateness of new classical music naming criteria?

In the same spirit that this question about the 'Common names policy' was publicized, I would like to request informed opinions on the appropriateness of WP:MUSICSERIES on the music naming conventions page. Thank you, MistyMorn (talk) 00:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Original wording of request was: In the same spirit that this question about the 'Common names policy' was publicized, I would like to request informed opinions on the appropriateness or otherwise of WP:MUSICSERIES? I feel that this new classical music titling guideline, which strongly prioritizes 'consistency and (more arguably) 'precision', was pushed through on the basis of local consensus without allowing time and space for consensus in the broader Wikipedia community. I have raised my concerns on the music naming conventions page, and really would be more than happy to withdraw from the fray if the discussion there is expanded to take in a wider range of informed 'consumer' feedback. Thank you

I don't know how "informed" I am, but I'm very definitely a "consumer" of information concerning classical music. I'm not a musician; I'm simply trying to catalog a large collection of recordings, and I keep looking here in Wikipedia for assistance. I have often been frustrated in trying to find articles, and without doubt, the way WP:MUSICSERIES is presently written greatly simplifies my work. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
There was a good consensus for WP:MUSICSERIES. It was based on WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. I understand that MistyMorn, a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias, believes that if a group of interested editors work on a guideline, it will necessarily be biased in some way because of their prior interest in the subject. This may well be an theoretically valid point of view, but Wikipedia could hardly function without interested people taking part. --Kleinzach 02:11, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Hmm. MistyMorn has made an identical posting here. --Kleinzach 02:25, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Hmm, Kleinzach. My posting was made in good faith.I followed advice to post at "WT:MOS or WT:AT or another appropriate 'core' guideline talk page" (having explained my reluctance to make the step myself, given that I am relatively unfamiliar with WP practices). WT:AT is clearly pertinent and I felt there was a rationale for eliciting at WP:MOS as well. Since the discussion on the music naming convention page is hard to navigate, I summarized some of the concerns that had led me to request further input. I now realise this was inappropriate and have revised the wording of the request accordingly. I'm not sure what can be done now about the dual posting. MistyMorn (talk) 09:48, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I also feel the need to rebut Kleinzach's claim that MistyMorn, a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias, believes that if a group of interested editors work on a guideline, it will necessarily be biased in some way because of their prior interest in the subject. This may well be an theoretically valid point of view, but Wikipedia could hardly function without interested people taking part. I think my point was clear: While guideline input from experts is essential, it needs to be complemented by input from non-experts who are also interested parties, ie 'stakeholders' (since it's not the just the writers who are interested in an article.) MistyMorn (talk) 10:28, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
We've already explained to you that many contributors at WP:CM are non-experts. I'm not a musician myself. Why do you insist on referring to everyone at WP:CM as experts? --Kleinzach 03:06, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
You two obviously have a disagreement to work out, but I want to state for the record that notifying relevant places like AT and MOS about discussions that are likely to interest the regulars there and whose input is probably more well-informed than average on Wikipedia article policies and guidelines, is not canvassing, unless it exhorts a position ("come stop this!" or "rally to the defense!"). It's absolutely normal Wikipedia procedure. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 11:35, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:NCM had sections on common names and on disambiguated names all along. Don't these two sections cover everything? This new section throws away our usual naming criteria of common name, naturalness, and recognizability and substitutes an indexing system. As far as organizing CDs goes, we could create a "Classical Music by Number" article or category. This article can be used as a model. Kauffner (talk) 05:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

  • Is this still about Moonlight Sonata? if so, by some other well-established method should cover it, making that a possible way of titling the article. (Moonlight Sonata is tolerably well-established.) If the section is being quoted against that, then you have a conduct problem, not a policy problem. JCScaliger (talk) 17:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, typing “Moonlight Sonata” into the search field and being taken to Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven) is a satisfactory balance of the test criteria I consider germane to determining proper titles, which are as follows:

  1. Does the article title look studious and encyclopedic?
  2. Is it factually correct the way most well-educated readers understand the subject matter?
  3. After a redirect from popular street vernacular, does the actual title best adhere to the principle of least astonishment?
  4. Do the spelling, diacritics, or capitalization conform to conventional, high-quality, real-world English-language practices as exercised by the most-reliable English-language RSs?

I’m not seeing a problem with Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven) since it is a redirect from a common name wherein the redirect is encyclopedic, adheres to standard music convention, and in this particular instance, astonishes no one. Greg L (talk) 17:02, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

P.S. JCScaliger’s Is this still about Moonlight Sonata? is a valid and crucial question that highlights a chronic problem around here. Whether or not this particular case is about “Moonlight Sonata”, it is still true that far too often, editors talk in the wholesome-sounding abstract and no one can figure out what they’re driving at and what their real objective is. We all end up talking cross‑purpose, completely waste our time, and outsiders who aren’t up to speed on the minute-by-minute blow-by-blow between disputants have no flying idea what the real nugget of the issue is about. This being evasive and abstruse deprives us of greater community input and makes it nearly impossible to discern a consensus. Man up and explain what you’re really trying to accomplish with some specific examples, please. Greg L (talk) 17:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Take it easy there. In this case, having followed the minute-by-minute blow-by-blow, I can confirm that MistyMorn does actually seem to be questioning WP:MUSICSERIES—or at least the way it was worded at the time—and how it relates to COMMONNAME, just as he said in his original post here, and not the Moonlight Sonata issue in particular. MM was even neutral in that RM. With that said, I agree that examples are almost always helpful. Moonlight Sonata is a good one here, there are others we could use, for example Eine Kleine Nachtmusik which was subsequently added to the wording at NCM. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 22:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
I am taking it easy, you ol’ calm voice of reason. ;-) I stated my preference and then, in the post script, I stated that we need more examples being used here so we don’t have outsiders guessing at what people are driving at. As to one of your examples, is there a consensus that “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” (a German-language name in an English-language encyclopedia) is preferable to “Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major, K. 525 (Mozart)”? Or even “A Little Serenade”? Greg L (talk) 23:18, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I fully agree that when establishing a set of guidelines, it's important to take the time to consider examples and possible issues arising. I've invited comment on a series of examples that I think are broadly similar to Eine Kleine to help explore how the recent changes to WP:MUSICSERIES function in slightly different contexts. The named Vaughan Williams symphonies may be relatively uncontroversial. Apart from one possible exception, they don't really touch on the controversy regarding cases—of which Moonlight is just one—where the common name is also a nickname. MistyMorn (talk) 13:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

And I would like to stay out of the atomic-level details of guidelines governing the selection of titles for music articles. One thing I have become acutely aware of is that the Internet emboldens everyone (wikipedians are no exception) to express that they have an opinion even if they knew nothing whatsoever about a particular subject matter five minutes earlier. The greater one’s self esteem, the more individuals tend to prolifically pound their keyboards without fully understanding the subject matter.
Whether the specialty is psychology, mathematics, programming, linnaean hierarchy, dog breeding, fish species, or music; I believe it is best for us generalists to sit back and let the specialists figure out the details for their particular specialty. Towards that end, I think it is best if we have input from a wide segment of the community so we can establish the fundamental principles at WP:AT governing the vast majority of titles. But then WP:AT needs to butt out and let the specialists have Wikipedia follow the way the real English-speaking world practices the art within any particular discipline.
The notion is bankrupt that any single set of style guidelines can bring harmony across all the English-speaking world’s disciplines (achieve cross-project consistency). Improperly pursuing that end does our readership a great disservice. The proper role of any encyclopedia is to educate its readership on a given topic and properly prepare them for their continuing studies elsewhere on that topic. We fail our readership if we send them down the road talking and writing “weird” (in unconventional ways) in front of a gathering of experts in that discipline. I can just see it: “Why do you write it and say it that way??” some expert asks. “Because I read it on Wikipedia,” comes the response. (*knowing smiles*)
It can not be clearer that arguments that amount to “Wikipedia is a single published entity that needs a single set of rules governing all matters of style across all disciplines” is tantamount to “Let’s have readers submit college papers and walk into meetings all fat, dumb, and happy but completely at odds with the way the experts in a particular field practice their art.” Wikipedia reflects real-world practices and must not try to change the way the real world works—even if that shocks the conscience of wikipedias who really really like the metric system or have a great disdain for uppercase letters, or… whatever detail a particular wikipedian has a jones over. Just because these well-meaning editors desire to change how the way the real world works, think Wikipedia ought to be exploited as an agent of change in hopes our weirdness will gain traction, and know how to navigate their way to this page and dig in their heels when they don’t get their way, is no reason the entire system here has to break down just because some editors can’t accept “no”’ for an answer. Greg L (talk) 15:52, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Are you making a general comment, or is all this directed at my brief pointer? Fyi, I do have some professional experience of working on guidelines, and I didn't like what I saw here. I've also loved music all my life. Thank you in advance for the understanding, MistyMorn (talk) 16:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Sorry; mine was a general comment and wasn’t in the least a criticism of your conduct and endeavors on Wikipedia. Wikipedia needs experts like you rather than your average young generalist (their numbers are great). Wikipedia has had its instances where a local consensus was at odds with a community consensus on a larger scale, but I had (and have ) no reason to think you have had a hand in any such things by way of music titles. If you have suggestions where the general principles on WP:AT are at conflict with what the music pros think is best in that discipline, please advise. Greg L (talk) 17:22, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying. I'm glad the comment wasn't aimed at my gf contributions, however inexpert. Although I agree the recent changes to WP:MUSICSERIES are a step in the right direction, it seems to me that this local guideline is still at odds with WP:AT if common names that are universally understood in the 'real world' like Moonlight, Waldstein, Hammerklavier, Kreutzer, Eroica, Pastoral etc etc are effectively banned from titles on 'scholarly' grounds (and by saying that I'm not supporting The Moonlight Sonata as a title). IMO, MUSICSERIES still seems to aspire to be a classification system (however simplified) rather than a titling guideline. Unlike some of the main proponents of MUSICSERIES, I think that WP:COMMONNAME is an excellent criterion across Wikipedia, classical music included. But since commonname usage appears extremely controversial locally, I was trying to take a few small steps to explore some of the less heated aspects in a bit more detail. This move was partially in response to your own demand to focus on specific examples rather than abstract theorizing (and why I posted the last pointer here). Regards, MistyMorn (talk) 18:20, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
I duknow when it comes to music. I personally think common names have a place for the article titles of some songs when that name is near-universally used by music aficionados in conversation. My litmus test would be that if a conductor at an orchestra was talking to an orchestra member and told him of a particular song he wanted to play next, that is the name that would be a best fit. If it is the “Pastoral” (one of my very favorite compositions), then I think that is perfectly encyclopedic. But I would also have no problem with “Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)” so long as Pastoral (song) redirects properly, which it doesn’t because it takes me to “Head (The Jesus Lizard album), which makes no sense given how weak the association is. Greg L (talk) 03:10, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
You are thinking of "Pastoral Symphony" (not song)—which does redirect correctly to "Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)". GFHandel ♬  03:33, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether Greg deliberately spoke of "article titles of some songs" - (oh, please, no; not this same straitjacketing of classical together with popular music) - but in fact this is a valid point. Someone who wouldn't have a concept of "classical" music if it bit him on the leg picks up a reference to "Pastoral" somewhere, knowing nothing other than it is "music". But within Wikipedia, the system works. If I type nothing but pastoral into the searchbox, it returns a list of 10 suggestions, none having to do with music. Then as soon as I type a space and an s, it suggests, in sequence, Pastoral Symphony (which will take me to Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven), then Pastoral state, Pastoral staff, Pastoral (song), Pastoral Symphony (disambiguation), Pastoral sonata, Pastoral support, and Pastoral Symphony (Vaughn Williams). With appropriate redirects, anyone ought to be able to find anything in Wikipedia. There's no reason why a redirect couldn't be added to the Jesus Lizard page, if this is thought to be a problem.
In the meantime, I've never yet seen a better or more lucid explanation of the general article title problem than Greg's post of 15:52, 4 February 2012, above, and I very much hope he will crank it up into a full-blown essay so that it doesn't disappear into an archive of this page. It has long seemed to me that the real problem is that WP naming policy is a procrustean bed for specialties like classical music, or for instance ornithology, where a field of study has developed guidelines that best suit their specific needs, and then here at Wikipedia they get pushed and pulled to fit into schemes that are not just foreign to them, but in their experience simply don't work as well. But then I also have my own bête noir concerning encyclopedic tone as Kotniski tried to describe it. I truly believe that if we are attempting to be authoritative we should also try to sound authoritative, and not "dumb down" to the lowest common denominator of readers. Redirects do all the work, and the wording at the start of an article's lede assures immediate easy access to any and every wanted article. More properly formal article titles are noticed by most users, and do serve a valuable purpose in at least offering to a reader a concept of how the topic fits into a more general scheme, rather than reinforcing his/her limited view of the article in isolation. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

By the way, while I don’t know diddly about music notation, I do know my Beethoven Symphony No. 6. For decades, my favorite part has been the 1st Movement- Allegro Ma Non Troppo and I am especially fond of the part roughly 1:22 from the end of the movement; I think it is pure genius.

FYI, I also tried Pastoral (symphony) and Pastoral symphony, since the parenthetical form for adding specificity is an exceedingly common wiki-convention. But that didn’t work either. Having it be “Pastoral Symphony” seemed a bit out of the blue (no parenthesis). It’s easy to add more redirects.

The issue I think we are arguing about here is what is the best primary title to use for this song. And towards that end, my main message point is that WP:Article titles would best convey the fundamental principles covering article titles and should let the specialists in any field apply those principles as they see fit. I propose fundamental principles:

Editors active in specialty subjects on Wikipedia, when choosing an article title, the following basic principles should apply (in my opinion):
  1. The article title should seem netural, studious, and encyclopedic.
  2. The title should be a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic.
  3. It should be factually correct the way most well educated readers who have an interest in the field understand the subject matter.
  4. After a redirect from a common name, the actual title should best adhere to the principle of least astonishment.
  5. Where experts and aficionados who are active in the field usually refer to the subject by a common name—both in writing and verbally, the common name is often best.
  6. The spelling, diacritics, or capitalization conform to conventional, high-quality, real-world English-language practices as exercised by the most-reliable English-language RSs.

The music specialists (and the physics specialists and the computer programming experts, etc.) would simply take these general principles and apply them as they see fit in their specialty. Greg L (talk) 19:42, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Just to clarify that my specific question regarding "Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)", the one commonly known as the 'Pastoral', has absolutely nothing to do with redirects (relevant though such questions are), 'songs' (a complete misnomer here), or specialist musicological details. It is just one possible test case among many about whether these local guidelines are in keeping with Wikipedia policy. As I wrote elsewhere: "It seems to me needlessly unfriendly to the broad Wikipedia readership to omit the common name (Moonlight, Waldstein, Appassionata, New World, Pastoral, Pathetique, etc, etc) altogether from the title (as distinct from redirects). I am asking whether WP:MUSICSERIES is in keeping with Wikipedia naming policy. I felt the guideline was 'pushed through' based mainly on local consensus (some proponents seem to feel strongly that that was actually a good thing). In brief, is WP:MUSICSERIES a valid local guideline, or is it a fudge?" IMO, that unanswered question is relevant to readers of this centralized policy page. MistyMorn (talk) 20:32, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Duknow. It’s hard to get sufficient generalists to march from here into a specialty venue where, once one sets foot, the natives tend to circle the wagons and can vastly outnumber those whose Wiki‑theology ain’t “straight” and smite all who trespass. If you don’t believe me, just try getting something sensible accomplished at “Lesbian” (disclaimer), “Race and intelligence”, or any of our terrorism-related articles. It took me three entire months of consensus building and infighting just to get Wikipedia to stop routinely using retarded terminology unused in the real world like The Dell Inspiron came with 256 mebibytes of RAM and start using the terminology the rest of the computing planet used. Sometimes it’s better to just walk away and let ‘em play in their corner of the playground and not presume to dictate to them what the real rules of Four square are like. Greg L (talk) 22:04, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Maybe the criteria about accepting a project naming proposal could be as simple as, does it help the general readers? If not then reject, if it does, then we can use it. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:12, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Isn't preferring a name used in reliable sources that's "familiar to our readers" a key rationale for WP:COMMONNAME? MistyMorn (talk) 23:07, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
This is precisely why Kleinzach has been trying for a long time to point out the deficiencies of WP:COMMONNAME. Most of this discussion here is simply wikilawyering. Again, I heartily endorse Greg's new posts and specifically his well-thought-out six enumerated basic principles. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:29, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
WP:COMMONNAME is current policy (and one which seems to enjoy widespread community consensus, pace Kleinzach). Pointing out an issue of level of consensus is not wikilawyering. MistyMorn (talk) 12:00, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Judging by the frequent references to WP:COMMONNAME, it certainly is a popular policy, but it is also a major source of disagreement because of its (unstructured) vagueness. I am sure no professional publishing house would include anything like it in its manual of style. While I have my own view on the issue of article titles, I think that any clarification of the policy (pro or anti my personal position) would be better than the present amateurish and divisive version. --Kleinzach 02:52, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
And I'm arguing that the WP:MUSICSERIES local guidelines deserve improvement. That's no criticism of the original authors: it's normal for guidelines to be discussed and improved. I think that improvement process already began with the Eine kleine Nachtmusik changes and can usefully continue. That's why I've opened another test case with Beethoven's Pastoral. MistyMorn (talk) 22:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, gosh - this the fourth parallel discussion of this topic that I've now found so far. See

Are there more I haven't found yet? Milkunderwood (talk) 22:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The main discussion about Beethoven's Pastoral as a test case to try to improve WP:MUSICSERIES is:
Please discuss that specific question there. Thank you. MistyMorn (talk) 23:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Poll to plan for future discussion on Recognizability

Our previous discussions (starting with Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 34#Clarification of recognizability lost) and polls (Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 34#RFC on Recognizability guideline wording, WT:AT#Recognizability wording Poll/RFC, and WT:AT#Once and for all: Poll to establish the consensus) left us with insufficient information about what people really intend with respect to the venerable recognizability provision in TITLE. Now that things have quieted down, I'd like to try this alternative framing, so that the people who supported the "familar with" wording, and others, can clarify whether they intended by that to support what Born2cycle and Kotniski seem to be trying to change the recognizability provision into; or not. I expect some will support option 1 here, and some will not, which will give us more information.

Some history of the evolution of recognizability can be found at User:Dicklyon/Whither Recognizability?; feel free to follow up and find more history if it matters to you.

The choices:

These texts are intended to be suggestive of intent for what recognizability should mean, not proposals for final wording.


1) Something like this bit of text, intended to explicitly represent what I think Kotniski and Born2cycle were trying to get at in restricting recognizability to people familiar with the topic:

• Recognizability – A title is judged to be recognizable if it is the most commonly used term for a topic in reliable sources; recognizability of a title to readers who are not already familiar with the topic is not a goal, and should not be used as an argument in favor of a title.

…which, for the purposes of this poll will be called “#1 (Post-Modern)”; or


2) Something like this bit of text, copied from this May 2008 version of the policy, and approximately representing what was stable since 2002, representing the alternative idea that we do try to make titles recognizable to a large number of people, as a top-level consideration that must be balanced with other considerations such as conciseness:

• Recognizability – Article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity.

…which, for the purposes of this poll will be called “#2 (Vintage)”.


3) Prefer a compromise somewhere in between these two texts; supporters of this option support the idea of discussion to find wording for a good middle road, not particularly close to either of the two extremes proposed above. Feel free to use your 300 words to elaborate. If there's an intermediate old version that you particularly like, this would be a good place to quote it or link it.

…which, for the purposes of this poll will be called “#3 (Compromise)”.


4) None of the above, or something completely different, such as not having a recognizability provision. Please use some of your 300 words to elaborate.

…which, for the purposes of this poll will be called “#4 (Something different)”.


The ground rules:

A) It's a poll, not a vote. It's informational, not binding on anything. Leave positive support comments only please; you are free to support up to two options (subject to the same total comment length limit), and to voice other concerns without limit in the discussion section below the poll, but your comments may not further complicate matters by introducing additional options into the poll structure once it starts. If one of your votes is a "second choice", label it as such. If you participate here, it is to support one or two of the above options. If you find that to be a less-than-satisfactory question, please don’t respond to it. If you feel you really must support three of the options, get over it (if you register support for 3 or all 4 items, I'll remove one or all and let you know).

B) You may have a total of 300 words, excluding your autosignature, in the “Recognizability poll” section, on your own statements only. Responses to the statements of others will be removed. Discussion and debate belongs in the following discussion subsection.

C) I will moderate the closure. That doesn’t mean I will “decide” anything. I intend to keep it open long enough, to collect enough information, that others can use it to get a sense of what the feelings are here. Everyone should feel free to cite and interpret poll results.

D) Please feel free to canvass for outside opinions, but if you do so then mention in the discussion section who you have invited, so we can have an idea how wide the invitation list is.

E) I may add new ground rules within the common sense framework of trying to accomplish a poll without disruption to adapt to new circumstances.

My thanks to Greg L for his poll framework, rules, etc., which I have cobbled here. Dicklyon (talk) 00:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Recognizability poll

Please leave these stubs here. Copy one or two and add your positive comments and signature.

  • #1 (Post-Modern) – ...
  • #2 (Vintage) – ...
  • #3 (Compromise) – ...
  • #4 (Something else) – ...

(see the section above for descriptions of the numbered choices)

  • #2 (Vintage) – I like the 2002–2008 recognizability provision best, as it reflects a lofty goal based on readers, rather than someone's interpretation of how to get there; that's why I made it a choice, anchoring one end of the spectrum. Dicklyon (talk) 00:16, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #3 (Compromise) – 2nd choice; I think there's a range of possible interpretations of recognizability that we can consider in an attempt to converge on a good consensus; an open discussion that acknowledges the history and current concerns will be productive. Dicklyon (talk) 00:16, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #1 (Post-Modern) (see below) – As annoyed as I am with all the endless and strenuous wikilawyering all over this page, there's no doubt in my mind that titles should reflect best practices, and not be dumbed down for those who are unfamiliar with the topic. Redirects and disambiguations do all the work of guiding the unfamiliar to a wanted article. It has been argued that readers never look at article titles, and I do not believe that. Some readers may not; but for those who do, a properly formal title as established by editors familiar with the field helps to put the article into a broader context. My objections posted above have been concerned with editors taking it upon themselves to edit the policy or guideline itself when the topic was under discussion. (Edit): Or making changes without prior discussion. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:10, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Leaning towards #2. I think I understand the intent behind the first version... but I am concerned that the "... familiar with the topic" language could be misinterpreted to mean we should ignore WP:COMMONNAME in favor of "Official names". I am certainly open to #3 or #4, but would need to see specific language first. Blueboar (talk) 03:51, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #4 (Something else) – Abandon Naturalness and Recognizability in favor of what they really mean—Common Name. As policy statements, these suck. They provide no useful guidance for title decisions. They may be useful for explaining why we use Common Name, but don’t contribute to the title decision process. In RMs, whenever someone chooses to argue Naturalness or Recognizability as a policy basis for a title decision, the only way they can defend it (and do defend it) is with Common Name—what is the common usage in English language RS. If that is the case, why don’t we just say the policy is Common Name? The current language seems like this scenario: A new resident moves into the neighborhood and asks: “What’s the speed limit on this street”, his neighbor replies: "The speed limit is a moderate rate of forward motion designed based on the local road conditions, the demands of a residential neighborhood and acceptable to both residents and authorities.” The new guy asks: “so how do I know what the speed limit is?” “Oh! That’s easy, look at the sign, its 25mph.” Common Name isn’t as black and white as 25 mph, but Naturalness and Recognizability are vague and useless as policy statements. I would replace them with the following language:
    • WP article titles should faithfully reflect the contents of the article
      WP article titles should reflect common usage (or the common name) of the subject based on reliable English language sources.
    Once we accept Common Name, policy statements about Ambiguity, Neutrality, Conciseness, and Style would fall right in place. Everyone argues that titles are determined by consensus and there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. I agree, but I don’t agree that consensus somehow is easier because we’ve littered this policy with a bunch of useless and conflicting [Babel].--Mike Cline (talk) 10:15, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I'll take a bowl of #2 (Vintage), with a #3 (Compromise) topping, please: Version #1 (Post-Modern) is clearly yet another attempt by special interests to force geeky specialist practices and preferences on everyone. This missing of the general-audience encyclopedia forest for the specialist jargon trees problem is increasingly common on Wikipedia, and in one case has caused seven years and counting of rampant editwarring and disruption. There is a reason that the concept "albinism" is at the article Albinism, not science/medicine jargon terms like Achromatosis. That said, unless there is a clearly strong preference in generalist literature for one term (Heroin) while the specialist literature uses something impenetrable or unrecognizeable (Diacetylmorphine), there isn't any reason not to use what the specialist literature uses, especially if there is anything vague, ambiguous, misleading, obsolete, debunked or otherwise incorrect about the common usage. It is true, and important to the issue, that redirects work and work well. If the heroin article were moved to the diacetylmorphine name, no one (unless perhaps on a heavy dose of that substance) would be confused or freaked out. But #1 is unacceptable; it's another way of pushing the "specialist sources are more reliable about their specialty in every possible way, including style matters" nonsense. No one believes this but the specialists; clearly, generalist reliable sources are more reliable about style, regardless of topic, for a general publication. General, not specialist, style has to win out in a general encyclopedia for a general audience when the two conflict, pretty much by definition. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:20, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #3 (Compromise). A possible concept would be "recognizable to someone who is looking for the article" (not people familar with the subject of the article, but people familiar with the topic in which the subject is contained). #2 is much better than #1, and no one brought this up in the WP:COMMONNAME discussion, so it would be disruptive not to consider it. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:38, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #4 (Other) That is, the text unanimously supported by the last poll, Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic? The wording may be improvable (say a section of its own, mentioning reliable sources expressly), but this is about the idea.
    • Number 1 is another algorithmic approach, not a goal, and many people disagree with the algorithm; nobody supports this wording, not even the two editors blamed for it. #2 is untestable, does not consider reliable sources, and tends to lend support to the unsound argument: "there are more Indians/Americans/whatever than other kinds of English-speaking people, so we have to do it their way." This is presumably why it was changed. #3 is a compromise between two undesirable options. JCScaliger (talk) 21:59, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #3 (Compromise) first choice. I like Arthur Rubin's suggestion that a title be "recognizable to someone who is looking for the article". We should not be surprised if many titles are not recognizable to random passers-by in the street who are unfamiliar with the subject. older ≠ wiser 22:15, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #4 (Other) Second choice. I also very much agree with JCScaliger's comment above. The phrasing unanimously endorsed in the poll above is considerably better than version #1. #2 is just too vague and nearly impossible to assess. older ≠ wiser 22:15, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #4 (Other) per Kotniski and as resuscitated by JCScaliger; my objections were procedural. Commentary in my previous vote for #1 still stands. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:25, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #4 (Other) Support the wording as agreed in the last poll that only closed on the 26th of last month: #Once and for all: Poll to establish the consensus (so the opinion of all those who do not express an opinion here should be weighed into this poll) the wording is:

• Recognizability – Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?

-- PBS (talk) 00:59, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

  • #4 (Other) (edit conflict)As has been stated and restated countless times since Dec 21, by Kotniski, EdChem, Kai445, Greg L, Eraserhead1, Dohn Joe, SarekOfVulcan, Enric Naval, JCScaliger, PBS, Certes, Kleinzach, Jenks24, Bkonrad, CBM, Binksternet, WhatamIdoing, Franamax, Mistymorn and Milkunderwood at discussions at /Archive_34#Clarification_of_recognizability_lost, /Archive_34#RFC_on_Recognizability_guideline_wording and #Poll, because while the title should be recognized as a reference to the article topic by someone familiar with the topic, for the uninitiated, it is the purpose of the article lead, not the article title, to identify the topic of the article - consensus supports: "Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?". --Born2cycle (talk) 01:13, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #4 (Other) No wonder I couldn’t find the previous 17:0 poll’s “#1 (to someone familiar)”; it had been turned into “other.” Was “Model T” not available? Inquiring minds want to know. PBS and JCScaliger are right: this poll is *pointy* indeed. At least it wasn’t “#1 Orange juice”, “#2 Apple juice”, “#3 Breakfast blend”, “#4 Chinese dioxin”. After a month of discussing this, enough has been said on this issue. Debating the same tired thing until the heat death of the universe is not anyone’s idea of fun. Greg L (talk) 03:43, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #4. This is an unnecessary bit of wiki process that is wasting time better spent improving articles. The recent poll was perfectly clear and perfectly satisfactory: "Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?." That's the wording I'm sticking with because it works. Binksternet (talk) 07:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I vote for "Recognizable to someone familiar with the topic, but not necessarily an expert"(whatever number that is). Meant in the sense that I am familiar with what a dandelion is, but I do not recognize the name "Taraxacum", because I'm not an expert in botany. (WP:NC (flora) really does need to be changed).TheFreeloader (talk) 12:19, 9 February 2012 (UTC) {That means “#4 (Other)” Greg L (talk) 16:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)}
  • I am responding to a note from Dick on my user talk page. My very strong preference is #4, and specifically for the wording of "title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic". I find the wording of #1, which I suspect Dick intended to be more or less equivalent in content but with a hateful, anti-reader tone, to be so needlessly and inappropriately offensive that it makes me doubt the sincerity of his claims to want to know what people actually think would be the best wording for this section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #4 (Other) We already had support for using the familiarity clause in Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#Once_and_for_all:_Poll_to_establish_the_consensus. This makes us choose between a clumsily worded familiarity clause and a wording that doesn't have that clause. I am sorry, but this is the stuff that politicians pull off to kill proposals they don't like: hoping that we reject a clumsy wording of the clause so he can claim support for killing the clause in its enterity. This is disruptive. Implement the wording that already got consensus and start sanctioning people who keep throwing blocks in the road. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:24, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #4 (Other), as per others. Sorry I can't get more excited about this. MistyMorn (talk) 17:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #4 (Other), the variant #1 of January poll. Also, I specifically object to addition of any phrasing which may imply that so named recognizability is the main, or most important criterion in WP:AN ("Article naming should prefer what the greatest…" or so). It is one of the criteria listed, among others. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:40, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • #4 (Other). Feels like deja vu all over again. I do have to say that I'm intrigued by the "recognizable to someone who is looking for the article" language suggested above. But the "familiar with...not expert in" language conveys the right idea. Dohn joe (talk) 17:55, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment trying to apply WP:COMMONNAME to this guideline is flawed. A simpler way of achieving this objective would be to abolish this guideline outright in favour of COMMONNAME – which, BTW, is not what I am advocating. None of the wordings proposed (including the current 'live' one) seems to strike me as achieving any meaningful distinction or is likely to 'get the job done' in reducing potential (and not crystallised) ambiguity in titling inside WP. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:46, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussion of recognizability poll

PBS, thanks for your comments. I did pass the idea by the three drafting arbs of the current title/caps disruption case, to make sure that they wouldn't see it as disruptive. All three said it looks good (Actually, Casliber gave me some suggestions that I implemented, but also said he'd look at it more later; so maybe I jumped the gun. If he objects we can decide what to do about it.). The "point", if you want to call it that, is to determine more finely what the intent was behind the various votes in favor of the "familiar with" thing. As you'll recall, a number of editors never got a proper chance to discuss ways to deal with the history or the concerns, as it got too quickly turned into a V1 vs. V2 vote. Some of the comments on the V1 votes in Greg's poll suggested that there were actually a range of points of view behind those votes. That's what I'm trying to bring out by slicing it differently; think of it as "extreme V1" versus "moderate V1" and other points of view. Maybe we'll learn something. Give it a try? Dicklyon (talk) 01:08, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
What happened to the mantra that consensus can change. It seems to drive our dysfunctional titling policy to everyone's satisfaction. If someone doesn't like a title they'll propose a change, regardless of how stable any given title has been. No rational policy reason required because our policy essentially allows anyone to suggest a different title is better than the current title and we we've given them dozens of conflicting ideas to support their particular position. Let dicklyon have his poll. I bet if we brought in a 100 diiferent editors, we might get a different answer.-Mike Cline (talk) 01:25, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm finding it helpful to even clearly understand the debate. The previous discussions were WP:TLDR, and coming from me that's saying a lot. While I have no gift for concision personally, a summarization like this is genuinely useful to get the "100 different editor" opinions you desire, because most of us are not going to wade through the raging mess that has preceded this. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
For a summary read #Once and for all: Poll to establish the consensus and for more detail read User:Born2cycle/DearElen -- PBS (talk) 00:40, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

*This "poll" is disingenuous and disruptive. Born2cycle and Kotniski were perfectly clear about tbeir first preference: the language that stood before an accidental edit late May and the ongoing disruptions by Dicklyon and his friends: Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic? PBS expressly supported this at the last poll. It is not here; certainly the garbled #1, with its prejudicial label, has very little relationship to it. JCScaliger (talk) 21:44, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The "prejudicial label" "Post-Modern" was meant to signify that it is not the latest version or proposal, but derived from it. Sorry if that was unclear. Dicklyon (talk) 04:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
I tried to be perfectly up-front about my intent, which was to see how the supporters of the Kotniski/Born2cycle version divide up when things are sliced differently. It appears that there is little support for the extreme interpretation, which is what I thought Born2cycle and Kotniski were aiming for. If that's the case, it's good to know, and there's no reason anyone needs to be upset about it. We've also elicited a range of attitudes that didn't come out clearly in previous polling. Let's see what else we get. And what's this about an "accidental" edit last May? I guess you didn't look at the history that I linked. Dicklyon (talk) 22:52, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
I want what I've been saying for a month I wanted; several of us seem to. I remain perfectly prepared to discuss wording of that substance. My understanding of the history between 2008 and May 2010 is in my comment above. JCScaliger (talk) 23:08, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Response to SMcCandlish:

    • If I look up heroin, I would be like to be sure that I'm reading about heroin, not a class of morphine compounds which may include it (unless the redirect was vandalized). If the lead were adjusted to the title diacetylmorphine, I might have to read into the third section to be sure which one of these possibilities the article is. JCScaliger (talk) 22:48, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Dick, I suggest not conflating opposition to a particular clumsy wording with opposition to the interpretation associated with that wording. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:20, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


People to invite.

Several people who responded to Greg's poll haven't been heard from in this one. If nobody objects, I'll invite them: Eraserhead1, Dohn Joe, SarekOfVulcan, Enric Naval, Certes, Kleinzach, CBM, Binksternet, WhatamIdoing, Franamax, MistyMorn. Dicklyon (talk) 04:13, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, done; and I added Ohms law, who has also been involved but not in Greg's list. Dicklyon (talk) 05:24, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Refactoring

Be aware that not every editor will agree with your refactoring or even of the refactoring concept in general. Provide links to the original, uncut version, so others can check your changes, and if necessary go back to the original to clarify what an author actually said. This combination of refactoring and archiving will often prevent complaints that information was lost. Make it explicit that you have refactored something so no one is misled into thinking this was the original talk page.

I find that I am one of the editors that does not agree with the general concept. Since the first poll was diverted into charges about Noetica's equally contestable refactoring of B2C's edit, this undiscussed and unilateral refactoring seems particularly unwise. It also deprives my comment of its necessary context. JCScaliger (talk) 18:53, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Your objection is noted. The groundrules said that in the poll section you should comment only in your own section, and other responses should go in the discussion section, so that we'd end up with a clean list of opinions. You can perhaps solve the problem, and clarify the context of your comment, by quoting what you're responding to. Dicklyon (talk) 02:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Please stop this disruptive behavior. Does anybody else regard Dicklyon's presence on this page, his ill-posed poll, or his refactoring, as an asset to Wikipedia? JCScaliger (talk) 18:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Dicklyon seems intent on proving a point while under the scrutiny of ArbCom. The point being demonstrated however, may be one he didn’t intend. Given the way things have unfolded and the perception from several editors here that his poll seems *pointy*, his best move IMHO, would be to {{archivetop}} this whole thing. Greg L (talk) 20:42, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Just trying to get a more clear understanding of what people are thinking. Looks useful so far. Dicklyon (talk) 05:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Motion to close poll

In response to 05:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC) post: That is fine, Dicklyon, if you are curious about something. Often, such edification can be accomplished by leaving a post on individuals’ talk pages. However, polls under circumstances like this, where…

  1. The project page is still locked down due to editwarring and disruption,
  2. There was already a poll (17:0 for particular wording) showing there was wording for a guideline that met with community satisfaction
  3. ArbCom got involved because of disfunction on this talk page
  4. The sponsor of the poll is embroiled in complaints on the evidence page at ArbCom,
  5. Given the latest trend in the poll after editors figured out what the “other” option meant,
  6. And where a number of editors here have opined that this is a “WP:POINTY”, “WP:DISRUPTIVE”, “disingenuous”, “unnecessary”, this issue “has been stated and restated countless times”, and this “is an unnecessary bit of wiki process that is wasting time” means…

…Too many people perceive that your effort to discern nuances of the community’s views by seeing what happens when “things are sliced differently” is neither helpful nor—as you say—“useful”. In short, a significant number of editors who are experienced in this issue have opined that this poll amounts to WP:REHASH, which is tendentious editing. Thus, in my opinion, it is time to accede to those concerns; I see no point to persisting at this.

I invite other editors to opine whether or not they share my views on this matter. Greg L (talk) 16:19, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree. At this point, I can only see this as endless rehashing and attempts to ignore the unanimous support on the previous poll. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:27, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
With the policy page locked, and Born2cycle backed off some, it seemed like a OK time to get some actual discussion going. I understand that not everyone is interested in discussing, or agrees, with me on that. Dicklyon (talk) 18:55, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Very well. You want to persist. I had used the {{archive top}} to snowball the obvious community sentiment (perma‑link here) under the following reasoning in the header:

Given the latest trend of this poll after the community finally understood that “Other” encompassed the consensus view from the previous poll, and in light of the strong sentiment in the community that this poll violates WP:REHASH, it is time to WP:SNOWBALL this. I’m doing this to spare the community further disruption.

As the sponsor of the previous poll, this closure could itself seem *pointy*. Nonetheless, I don’t mind being WP:BOLD when it seems amply clear that there is exceedingly little enthusiasm for even having this poll, let alone persisting with it.

If any other editor feels this closure is unwarranted and continuing with it benefits Wikipedia, please feel free to revert me.

…and then you—not anyone else—took me up on the offer and reverted (∆ edit, here). Had I been in your shoes, I would have waited for someone else to step in and do that. But then, I’m clearly not you.

I must say that now that B2C has backed off, your persistence at flogging this dead horse notwithstanding that a handful of editors have now opined that this is not helpful is starting to make User:Born2cycle appear darn reasonable—even if he is loquacious beyond all comprehension.

I think I’m going to butt out of this now and see if anyone else in the community has a better way of dealing with your insistence on rehashing a settled issue. Greg L (talk) 20:17, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I have already asked Ellen of the Roads to implement the wording from the last poll, see User_talk:Elen_of_the_Roads#Please_implement_the_consensus_wording. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • OK sorry guys, misunderstanding on my part. I had to take a couple of days out, and then I thought you'd sorted it out among yourselves. It's 1 am here , but I will get to it tomorrow. In the meantime, if you've already said it, consider it said and no need to add to it. If anyone hasn't opined, speak now or forever hold your piece. Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, "sorted" might not be quite right yet. There are between 11 (confirmed in my poll) and about 20 (including sock JCScaliger) who want to implement the Kotniski/Born2cycle wording; and perhaps 8 (if they don't tell me I'm wrong) who don't think so, or don't think we've done all we can to reach consensus. So, yes, we all agree that we're outnumbered in our opposition. I don't know why Greg, Enric, and some others are in such a rush to avoid discussion. I thought that was Born2cycle's job. Oh, well. Anyway, this thing that Greg says about "a guideline that met with community satisfaction" is certainly not acknowledging the real situation. In spite of all that, I'm quite happy that my survey has clarified that the supporters of that language are NOT in favor of the extreme interpretation that I offered as an option. Dicklyon (talk) 02:03, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
If the “eight” editors whom you allege harbor views that are contrary to the consensus view truly had felt they had meritorious arguments, they should have participated in the poll. That they elected to instead shove their hands into their pockets and slink away rather than stand up and articulate persuasive reasoning shows they felt their arguments were weak at best.

We simply can not permit further stonewalling via tactics such as avoiding high-profile efforts at consensus building and then have you claim that those who hid in the shadows actually had really really really good arguments that could only be heard during the poll if you had kneeled, fervently wished for nice sounding words, and let their silent words resonate with your spirit. Such tactics can not be rewarded with arguments that still more discussion needs to occur until either A) the holdouts get their way, or B) the heat death of the universe puts an end to this.

The above 17:0 poll (which enjoyed significant “outside” attendance) was not only terribly lopsided, but there was consistent and thoughtful commonality to the reasoning accompanying each vote. Moreover, the latest poll reveals nothing new. This is not complex and the proper response to put an end to the disfunction here is clear. That is to honor the consensus view and then get down to the business of discussing how to expand upon that consensus view (or modify it since consensus can change). Greg L (talk) 19:22, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Why no action on implementing community consensus

Hey, I haven't followed the long discussion on this topic, so just a quick question. If there already is a consensus for changing the wording of the criterion to "recognizable to someone familiar with the topic, although not necessarily an expert" then how come it has not been changed yet? What is holding this back? Office action, arbitration decision?TheFreeloader (talk) 18:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Alright thanks. I must say though, this area seems to me to be somewhat outside the area the arbitration committee usually is concerned with (as defined here). I mean, I know they to some extent have in the past been involved in deciding on content, but being involved in the creation of policy, that seems to me like new territory for them.TheFreeloader (talk) 18:52, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
There's also no rule that normal editing has to stop merely because someone's complaining to ArbCom about a given line in a policy. The arbs know how to find old versions, and in the extremely unlikely case that they expressed an opinion about what the page ought to say, then we could change the page again. I see no reason to have this sit for weeks (or months) with a clearly anti-consensus version (as proven by overwhelming support in multiple discussions) while ArbCom goes through its lengthy process. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree with you both. Greg L (talk) 20:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. This seems well outside Arbcom's scope. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:06, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
That's all true. The lock isn't coming from the arbs, and they haven't expressed an opinion about it. The locking admin, or another, could unlock the page or do the edit if they wanted. On the other hand, it's also true as Greg pointed out above that "ArbCom got involved because of disfunction on this talk page". I understand that Greg is not wrong in blaming both Born2cycle and me, perhaps among others, for that disfunction. And he doesn't like my recent attempts to get some discussion going during the relative calm of the lock and time that B2C took off. But I try anyway.
Now, with JCScaliger, sock of Pmanderson, out of the way, maybe we'll even be able to talk a bit more easily. It's not yet time to focus on conclusions. My poll is bringing out some ideas worth considering and discussing. The fact that nobody took the other side in Greg's poll should not be interpreted as meaning that they all agreed on the intent. I am actually quite delighted to see that none of them agree with what I took to be B2C's intent, to use this narrowing of the recognizability provision to mean that "recognizability of a title to readers who are not already familiar with the topic is not a goal, and should not be used as an argument in favor of a title." (or if they do agree with that intent, so far they haven't said so). If we can build on that clarification—to restrain B2C from doing that he seemed to be doing by jumping in the rewrite policy while in the midst of a discussion in which it had been cited, with the apparent attempt of excluding a recognizability argument in a situation relevant mostly to people not already familiar with the topic—then maybe we can converge on something that everyone will be OK with. Or not... – Dicklyon (talk) 20:17, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I concur with the opinion that it is time to implement whatever consensus is now. Unless there are new arguments, in is not good to perpetuate this limbo. Even if there are new arguments, their discussion may start from a fresh starting point. Kaligelos (talk) 20:42, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
The page block is going to remain as long as people keep edit warring.
As for whether there is a consensus for changing the wording of the criterion to "recognizable to someone familiar with the topic, although not necessarily an expert"... I am not completely sure that there is a firm consensus for that. I get the sense that a lot of people were unhappy with the current language, but they were just as unhappy with the language being proposed to replace it. I know that was my reaction. While the page is blocked, we should start floating third, forth and fifth options and begin the process of compromising until we find something that everyone is happy with. If we can do this consructively, then the admins will unlock. Blueboar (talk) 23:54, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
No. Your entire second paragraph is just more of the same digging in heels and stonewalling and disruption that got us to this state of affairs in the first place. There certainly is a consensus; just not one you like. Your call to disregard the clear-as-glass community consensus and keep on debating until there is a consensus that meets with your satisfaction is not in the cards. Please familiarize yourself with WP:Consensus and advise where it suggests that “consensus” “means 100% of editors—particularly User:Blueboar—are in complete agreement”; it’s not there.

Dicklyon’s clever attempt to recast the very nature of the question by slicing and dicing the issue so the previous poll’s consensus view was slapped with a diminutive “Other” option in hopes no one would notice its absence and it might be trampled like the gladiator during the chariot race in Ben Hur clearly was not a successful strategy and didn’t go at all well. So…

No, we should certainly not engage in still more debate on this issue before implementing the wording the community clearly prefers. To do otherwise would just reward tendentiousness and stonewalling. Even this God-foresaken venue will once again have to start abiding by the letter and spirit of WP:Consensus. Greg L (talk) 00:06, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

And how do you know that people will keep edit warring when the page remains locked? Wikipedia is a project which has to work on some degree of trust. I also do not like that the notion that article locking should be used as a way to influence the decision-making process of the community. I think most people here would agree that a consensus has been reached here. It's not the job of administrators to step in and directly or indirectly overrule such a decision.TheFreeloader (talk) 00:11, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
I don't know; maybe so. But even if you count all 17 from Greg's poll as agreeing that consensus has been reached, I can still see at least another 8 who would disagree with that assessment (but I don't want to try to speak for them, so I won't list them). Does it hurt to consider other ways to work this out? Dicklyon (talk) 00:17, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes; it hurts. The community is sick and tired of the disruption your persistent WP:REHASHING induces. Give it up. But I’ll sit back and let you prove your detractors right about whether you have been a significant source of wikilawyering and stonewalling around here. It rather amazes me how people will continue to dig their own graves. Greg L (talk) 00:22, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
I would like to see who those 8, who you claim do not see a consensus here, are. As I see it there are only two, you and Blueboar.TheFreeloader (talk) 00:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
User:TheFreeloader, there was a minority crew of holdouts who decided to hang low during the poll and not memorialize the fact that they were part of the stonewalling crew. In short, they elected to not participate in the poll. Exhibiting a willingness to participate in a poll and articulate a reasonable-sounding argument that might persuade others is one of the central elements of consensus building. If a high-profile poll is conducted that brings in widespread participation from editors who had previously stayed away from this venue, and the holdouts who had been stonewalling and preventing progress merely slouch, stuff their hands in their pockets, and walk away, then that proves that they knew full well that their arguments were not sufficiently pursasive, or didn’t have sufficient numbers, or both.

This wasn’t my first rodeo on Wikipedia; I know how to conduct a poll. I foresaw that someone might try to claim that they couldn’t participate because the poll was an up-or-down vote on two options. So I made sure it stated right in the first rule that everyone was free to opine that the options were too limited and it should be something else. My poll was crafted to focus like a laser on consensus building, cut through the crap, pull the rug from under tendentiousness, foster a sense that outsiders could finally weigh in and be heard without being drowned out, and expose those arguments that were weak. The current holdouts forfeited because of lack of merit to their position.

Trying to now torpedo the current consensus by stating that certain people somehow didn’t have an opportunity to participate is nothing but sour grapes. In the military, it’s called “So sad – too bad.” On Wikipedia it’s called “wililawyering” which is disruptive and mustn’t be rewarded. Greg L (talk) 00:49, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

No willylawyering. Ever!Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Willylawyering? Is that anything like a cockfight or pissing match? Heh. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:19, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

As an outlyer who thinks this battle over the wording of a dysfunctional criteria is an utter waste of time because both versions are essentially meaningless and useless as policy, I am struggling to find a rationale for supporting one side or the other. It might be useful Greg and Dicklyon to explain why WP will go to hell if one or the other side in this debate doesn't get their way? Its like two children fighting over an ice cream cone in the heat the summer. If they fight long enough, the ice cream melts and nobody wins. Well IMHO, nobody wins in this scenario because the Ice Cream has already melted. --Mike Cline (talk) 01:16, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Whether or not you agree with the 17 people who participated in the poll (and the new numbers reinforcing that message in Dicklyon’s), you will have to respect it. If you wanted to influence others on this matter, you should have participated in the poll. I never suggested that Wikipedia will “go to hell”, as you say, if it goes this way or that. What does go to hell is the fun of engaging in the hobby of being a wikipedian when the collegial interaction in a collaborative writing environment breaks down. And it breaks down when intransigent editors don’t respect a consensus and edit warring and all manner of bad conduct makes this place so dysfunctional that the page has to be locked down and an ArbCom action started. Sad indeed. Try reading Wikipedia’s Five pillars; you’ll see that “consensus” is an important principle underlying all that occurs here. It’s not about the wording; it’s about restoring order and doing what’s right—respecting and honoring “consensus” is a major factor of that. Greg L (talk) 01:24, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Excellent retort Greg. You have confirmed that is this a battle over the supremacy of Consensus, the actual efficacy of the policy is irrelevant. It is interesting that you chastise me for not participating in the poll, but confronted with this rule--your rule #1, what choice did I have? This is an up or down !vote; you are free to voice that you think the issue should be something else, but your vote may not further complicate matters by introducing a third (and fourth and fifth) option via such votes as Comment This isn’t the real issue. The text we should *really* be discussing (because I like it a great deal) is…. If you participate here, it is to merely vote for one of the above options. If you find that to be a less-than-satisfactory question, please don’t respond to it. In other words why are you chastising me for not participating when you very clearly with the above wording told me not too? --Mike Cline (talk) 01:43, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Your argument is nonsense and merits no further response than this: The wording is not irrelevant to the 17 people who participated in the poll. Please don’t be so quick to poo-poo that inconvenient truth as if you are the only “Big Picture©™®”-sorta dude on this planet possessing the unique capacity to see that there is *actually* no difference between the two versions. The consensus view is against your reasoning, as well as your wishes. You could have voted “this”, “that”, or “something else”. Goodbye for the rest of the day. Happy editing until next time. Greg L (talk) 01:51, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
I thought that was actually a pretty good strategy in defining a poll and setting the rules, so that the answers would be relatively simple to interpret. I tried to do the same, with a different framing, but by including an "other" option I was hoist on my own petard. All those people would presumably have just not participated (or at least not according to the rules) if I had omitted that option. I'm just not as clever as Greg. That's why I don't play chess; I can hardly see a move ahead. Dicklyon (talk) 02:07, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, if this is a meaningless fight, then why keep it going by not letting whatever is agreed on be implemented. People will remain on high alert here until this consensus decision gets implemented. I do think it is quite ironic the amount of disruption on the talk page locking down this policy has caused, seeing as the protection was intended to reduce disruption.TheFreeloader (talk) 01:38, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Of course WP will not be greatly harmed if one side or the other gets their way; but do we even agree on what the two sides are? It seems that the side of Greg and some others is to cut off debate and stop talking, as opposed to some of us who want to use what seemed like a calm to discuss ways to find a better option. Obviously, neither outcome is terrible, though I still think that letting B2C win something that he started in such a bad way would be a bad precedent. People should know that they don't get to rewrite policy right when it has been cited in an argument that they're in. That's my main beef. Now that he has said he didn't really mean to completely devalue recognizability to people not already familiar with the topic, we have a point of commonality to work with at least. Why not give it a try? Dicklyon (talk) 01:40, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
And since TheFreeloader would like to see my list of eight, here they are; I don't want to try to speak for them, but I counted based on what I thought they'd feel about this, based on their previous statements on this page, so I hereby invite them to add a comment here, or correct me if they agree that consensus has been reached (they might very well agree, even they oppose it). Anyone who feels they should be notified of this, please feel free:
– Dicklyon (talk) 01:55, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, that list does look quite dubious, looks to me like you are grasping at straws there. But more important, I really think it is quite objectionable if the main reason you have for not wanting this to go through is that Born2Cycle happens to support it. Arguments based on who else happens to support something must come very deep down on Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement. I think it is bad wikiquette to hold grudges like that, and I think it is POINTy to hold the whole community hostage because of a personal vendetta like that.TheFreeloader (talk) 02:24, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree it's "dubious". Six have spoken for themselves in the survey, and I'm only guessing from what they said that they don't agree we have achieved consensus. I haven't heard from the other two on this page recently, but they've been accused of agreeing with me too much, so maybe. And I forgot about Ohconfucius and Ohms law, who are maybes, too. Maybe they'll say; maybe not.
From day 1 it has never been about B2C happening to support it. It's about him initiating it the way he did, to move policy to his side in an ongoing argument. If we can once get back to a semi-stable situation in which he is not rewarded for his misconduct, and discuss it, then if people want to go that way I would be much less concerned. As it stands, I remain very concerned, especially as he continues to deny the reason for the previous rewording, referring to it as "inadvertant" even though it came right out of a discussion in which that very wording was what was being criticized (the May 2011 discussion). Dicklyon (talk) 02:36, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
FWIW, I (bkonrad) have expressed a position in the most recent of the interminable polls above. I liked Arthur Rubin's suggested compromise "recognizable to someone who is looking for the article" and also the "recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in)" phrasing. Either would be preferable to the "vintage" version. older ≠ wiser 13:57, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
I have no problem being including on that list just up above. I'm going to make a "new argument" (that I know of - I didn't plow through every word of the TL;DR wall of text on this issue), per Kaligelos, above. I could live with "looking for", though it's a bit tautologous (it's not like we name things on purpose to make them hard to find!). But the "familiar...not necessarily expert" wording is too WP:CREEPing and smacks of the begging the question fallacy and putting the cart before the horse. This has come up many times before in many contexts. E.g., at WT:DAB we came to the conclusion that disambiguations like "Jane Smith (painter, 1902-1987)" were a stupid and "reader-hateful" way to disambiguate, because people are coming to WP to find out Smith's birth and death dates, not because they already have it memorized. We cannot presume that any given reader knows jack yet about the topic they're looking for. It might be something they overheard on CSI. It might be something that came up in a text book that presumed prior knowledge that the student didn't have. Maybe it was something dimly remembered from a bar/pub argument. Or whatever. You don't know, and I don't know, and the closer we get to trying to predict what knowledge the reader already has the closer we get to failing as a general-purpose encyclopedia. If this issue has already been addressed, I'd appreciate a quick precis. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Recognizability - a third option

OK... I have stated that I would prefer a third option. Here is a suggestion:

  • Recognizability - Is the title a recognizable name for, or a recognizable description of the subject or topic? If the title is a proper name, is it one that is commonly used by reliable sources when they refer to the subject? If different sources use different names, look to see if one stands out as being used significantly more often than others - if such a name can be identified, that name should be used as the title (see WP:COMMONNAME, below). If the title is descriptive, would someone searching for the topic recognize the title as referring to the topic?

This is by no means a final proposal. Think of it as an initial draft of the direction I think we should head. Please comment. Blueboar (talk) 03:28, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

That seems like a good step to me. A little wordy, but the words do serve to clarify how the concept applies to different important situations. It doesn't take a position on recognizable to whom, which is OK by me, but might meet with resistance from some of our wiki-friends. Dicklyon (talk) 06:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Is there a reason to specify "whom"? Blueboar (talk) 13:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I am afraid this proposal conflates another criterion into it: " is it one that is commonly used" - sounds familiar? Also, for descriptive titles the problems are completely different. Concluding: thoroughly disagree in all and in parts.
At the same time this example shows that this "list of 5" diverges from actual policy content: "Common usage" is not the same as "recognisability" nor any other of "several questions" . How about recalling the wikipedia:Summary style, inverted pyramid, etc., and review the whole structure? Kaligelos (talk) 16:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Also, as you know, better is an enemy of good. Nothing prevents us from updating the current bad definition with the consensual improvement while eternally pursuing the ideal.Kaligelos (talk) 16:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Actually, I think we have a more fundamental disagreement... you see, I don't think of Recongizability as a "criterion" at all... it isn't a "rule" to be followed or enforced... I see it as a broad "principle" - a goal to be aimed at. Common usage (as expressed in WP:COMMONNAME) is a subsidiary concept that under-pins that principle (and others). It's how we determine what is recongizable.
Another way to think of this is: Recognizability is the goal... Common usage is the method by which we achieve that goal. Blueboar (talk) 17:39, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Your logic makes sense... But again: take look at Naturalness – What title(s) are readers most likely to look for to find the article?. Just the same, we may say her as well "naturalness is a goal" and "common usage is a method" . This our dialog reaffirms my suggestion: review the whole structure of principles. In particular, clarification of "goals vs. methods" may make sense to be added into the policy. And this reaffirms my vote of opposition here: it is bad to mix and merge the definitions of "methods" into definitions of "goals", because, as you and me seem to agree, one method may undepin several goals. Kaligelos (talk) 19:32, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
BTW, the policy does not say that Recongizability is a "criterion" or a "rule". As I read the policy, the criterion or the rule is only one: reasonable application of "answers to several questions" in murky waters, keeping in mind that in different situations the "questions" have different weight. In other words, these principles must be discussed when straightforward rules or crirteria do not work. In still other words, these "questions" are the "rules of the engagemeent", not the "rules of selection". Kaligelos (talk) 19:40, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
I have no problem with a broader review and rewrite of the entire policy (in fact, I think that would be a great idea)... I was simply addressing the more immediate issue of rewriting the current Recognizability section and attempting to resolve the current edit-warring battle over "who's version has consensus". Blueboar (talk) 20:01, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
There is a consensus by any usual measure of 17 to 0. If the words need tweaking we should start with that as the base line. If it takes this long to rewrite one sentence then what chance of a complete rewrite? Compete rewrites tend to be done by well intending cliques, I would remind you of WP:Attribution (poll) saga and the upset that caused. -- PBS (talk) 23:55, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
I think that "Recognizability – Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic" is an adequate description of what Recognizability can be briefly described as. I do not think that the more verbose version you have given above is as good because it introduces ambiguity take for example "If different sources use different names, look to see if one stands out as being used significantly more often than others". What about the "not necessarily expert in" just because it is commonly used by experts does not mean it is recognisable to someone who is familiar with the subject but not an expert in it. -- PBS (talk) 23:55, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

a side discussion on Recognizability and Naturalness as goals

Thinking a bit about Kaligelos's comments... I do think that Recognizability and Naturalness are related. In some ways, they may even be the same goal... but for different types of article titles.
I am thinking that Recognizability really relates more to titles that contain proper names, while Naturalness really relates more to purely descriptive titles... cases where the topic being discussed does not have a set "name" (ie where there is no common name or terminology to recognize). In these cases, we have to string together a phrase that refers to the topic in a natural way... something that when a reader searches for the article they say "ah, yes... this is probably what I was looking for". Thoughts? Blueboar (talk) 23:13, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Recognisability is to do with common name. But many encyclopaedias although using he common name, then index on some form of logical ordering, or even use ids and then link to the article with the equivalent of Wikipedia's redirects. Wikipedia does not do that because it uses "Naturalness" which is primarily to do with word ordering (so that article titles can be directly linked from the text in another article). Praise-God Barebone could be under the article title Barebone, Praise-God and Paris, Texas could be ordered "State, provinces, town" for disambiguation purposes as in Texas, Paris rather than "town, province, state" ordering them as they are naturally/usually ordered in English. -- PBS (talk) 23:35, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Another approach to examining the uselessness of recognizability and naturalness as policy

When one evaluates titling decisions and especially contested titling decisions in our RM process, it is very rare to find Recognizability or Naturalness invoked as a policy reason for a title change. So following the mantra that many of us subscribe to, that policy should follow and document practice wherever possible, I decided to think about this differently. What are the major choices we’ve made as a community relative to article titles, and what were the alternatives to those choices that we’ve essentially rejected through policy statements and practice. If we could agree on that, we might be able to agree on the most functional policy wording to convey that practice to the rest of the community. So the following list displays in my view the choices we’ve made and the alternatives we had. It is organized by priority. In other words, think of it as a policy ladder where a previous choice has precedence over and informs the following choices. I have bold faced the choices I think the community has made. I’ve intentionally left out neutrality as it requires some special thinking which can be addressed later.

  • Sources (What is the source of the title wording?)
    • As supported by reliable secondary sources
    • As contained in Original Research, primary sources, etc.
    • Pure fantasy, made up names, fanciful constructions, et. al.
  • Type of Name (Names of most things have alternatives and those alternatives can be characterized as follows)
    • Official Names (names issued by official organizations, entities, etc. these might be scientific names, legal names (people and entities), government names, etc.) – Organization X is the official name keeper and it determines that XXXXXX is the official name. (most restrictive and least encyclopedic)
    • Authoritative Names (Names that an authority on a subject uses. Authoritative names are usually found in sources that are scholarly, or at least come out of some type of structured, disciplined process) – John Doe is the authority on subject XXXXXXX and says XXXXXXX is the name used for this subject. An authoritative name may be an official name, but an official name is not necessarily the authoritative name. (less restrictive and more encyclopedic than official names)
    • Common Names (Names that are most widely used by all types of sources—official, unofficial, authoritative and general media). (least restrictive and the most encyclopedic for a generalist encyclopedia). A common name may indeed be official or authoritative, but it is the commonness that is the important characteristic.
  • Ambiguity (Names may or may not have some level of ambiguity)
    • Uniqueness – (Demanded by the Wiki software)
    • Little or no ambiguity (Titles require enough detail to leave no doubt as to what the subject of the article is about. The more articles that exist with a related title, the most disambiguation information must be added to the title to ensure no ambiguity between articles exists. This represents the idea of detailed disambiguation.
    • Moderate ambiguity (Titles should contain sufficient detail to allow readers to make informed navigational and search decisions, but without ensuring that every navigational or search decision is unambiguous. (This represents our current practice of reasonable levels of disambiguation).
    • High levels of ambiguity (Titles require only sufficient differentiation to make them unique, as long as titles are unique, it doesn’t matter whether or not there is serious ambiguity of titles among a bunch of related articles.) This represents the idea of Primary topic and skimpy, overly concise disambiguation.
  • Style (What is the visual form that we like to see in our titles)
    • Rigid consistency – All titles must conform to rigid style standards to include parts of speech, capitalization, punctuation, abbreviation, structure etc.
    • Moderate consistency – Basic style standards are delineated through MOS and naming conventions and should guide the visual form of our titles (literally and comparitively), but not in a rigid, one size fits all way.
    • No consistency – Basic style standards are irrelevant, anything goes.

So there is only one question that I seek an answer from the rest of the community. Does this list accurately reflect the choices we’ve made as a community and community practice regarding titles?--Mike Cline (talk) 17:29, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

With regards to primary topic, no. Current practice (with a few exceptions) is to disambiguate only where necessary. If there is "serious ambiguity of titles among a bunch of related articles" there is no primary topic. older ≠ wiser 17:40, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
So maybe current practice lies somewhere between moderate ambiguity and lots of ambiguity? Which is OK if that's what we want. But IMHO, Primary Topic as a practice results in serious ambiguity and drives some associated bad behavior, but thats periferal to my question. Thanks --Mike Cline (talk) 17:48, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
From the way you describe it, I think you may misunderstand primary topic. older ≠ wiser 18:24, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
I think I understand it perfectly. Primary Topic is really grounded in Common Name but is discussed under precision which is really all about dealing with ambiguity. When we designate something as Primary it actually becomes more ambiguous. For example John Doe, John Doe (singer) and John Doe (architect). In this case John Doe is 10X more common than the others and the primary topic, but John Doe is really John Doe (author). John Doe as a primarly topic is very ambiguous when compared with the other John Does. As I said above, this may be perfectly acceptable with the community, but there's baggage associated with it. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:38, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
I find your explanation rather confusing. It appears you disagree with the very concept of primary topic. I think that may be a different discussion altogether. If you take that to the logical conclusion, why have the article at London when there are so many ambiguous topic with that title? older ≠ wiser 18:58, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
I do think Primary Topic has some baggage with it that makes it less than good policy, but as you have said and I concur, that is another discussion all together. We currently have practice that deals with ambiguity. But what we don't have well thought out is where in the process of deciding an article title does the ambiguity discussion kick in. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:03, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The purpose of the policy

I think I see why we are having difficulty agreeing on language here. I think we have a disagreement over the basic purpose of the policy. I have been focused on this from the point of view of giving instruction that applies to initial article creation - "How to come up with the best title when you are creating an article". Others are looking at it from the point of view of RM - "How to settle disputes when titles are challenged". Realistically we need a bit of both, but this difference is impacting the "tone" and word choices we are using. Blueboar (talk) 19:45, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Blueboar. Excellent observation. I would argue that well written policy would address both situations equally well. The only difference between the two is that at the time of article creation, the title decision is the 1st title decision and the only alternative titles in play are those that might be in the head of the article creator. Once an article has been created, content and sources added, changes, etc. over time, alternatives to the original title come into play. Those alternatives are dealt with through page moves and RM discussions. The policy governing the title decision whether it be the 1st one or a subsequent one should be the same. I think where we struggle is that we are finding it difficult to separate policy statements from implementation process. Even if the policy for titles was as simple as I proposed in discussions well before this, there could (and probably should be) different implementation processes for new articles than there are for RM type decisions. I could envision WP:AT structured something like this:
  • Title Policy (These are clear, concise, prioritized and unequivocal statements and used to make policy based title decisions)
    Deciding a title for a new article (This is a guideline describing the best way to determine an acceptable title for a new article. This is not a policy statement, but a process description on how to implement the policy above in a new article title decision)
    Resolving alternative title discussions (Again, this is a guideline describing the best way to determine an acceptable title for an article where editors are proposing alternative titles. This is not a policy statement, but a process description that aids editors in reaching policy-based consensus when alternative titles are in play.)
The way it is now, so much that is written on the policy page isn't really policy, its process description that get invoked as policy. That is very dysfunctional but not difficult to fix if editors would just realize thats whats going on.--Mike Cline (talk) 21:24, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm... not too bad... I would add one structural element before your "Title Policy" section:
  • (Lede) - 1) Definition of "Article title". 2) Attributes of a good article title
This would, to some degree, be a philosophical statement... explaining why we have created the "rules" which are to follow... something that would lay out the goals behind the rules. We need to state the goals so that editors understand why we have the rules that we do.
Such a statement would greatly help when it comes to combating instruction creep. We need to avoid the impression that "the rules" are more important to policy writers than the goals behind the rules. Too often, policy writers that focus on "the rules" tweek and expand them to the point where they no longer have any real connection to the goals. Yes, policy does need rules, but when writing rules we need to ask: "How does this rule help achieve the goals we have laid out". By stating the goals first, we would also help clarify when it might be appropriate to make an exception to a rule (if, in a specific instance, a rule would prevents us from achieving the goals of the policy, we should ignore the rule.) Blueboar (talk) 14:33, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Blueboar, I do think it is important to explain Why a particular policy or set of policies exist. However care must be taken ensure those explanations do not undermine or lend undue equivocality to the policy. Care must be taken to ensure that the wording in an explanation is taken out of context and invoked as a policy that's not really what the policy says. First and foremost, policy should be clear, concise, measurable and unequivocal. It interpretation should be easy. On the other hand its application is always contextual. In the case of WP:title we essentially have 5 policy buckets that must be prioritized and harmonized to ensure interpretation is clear and that contextual application is easy. You titled this thread The purpose of the policy. If I were to answer that in a single sentence, I would answer it this way: The purpose of WP:AT policy and associated guidelines is to ensure that the great majority of WP article titles are appropriate for the article and an encyclopedia without undue expenditure of editor energy to achieve the desired level of Appropriateness. The policy should not be about Perfect or Best titles, because the cost to achieve that is too high. I certainly hope others will join in this discussion because as of now, you and I are in sync. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:24, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
I think we are almost in sync. We are expressing things a bit differently, but are mostly in agreement. I think the problem with the policy as it is currently written is that the 5 points (recognizability, naturalness, etc.) have been written about in a way that makes readers think they are "rules"... when they should be stated as being "goals". I don't think we should abandon them... but we should make it clearer that they are goals... attributes that a good title will have... and not rules. Once we make that clear, we can go on to note that because recognizability is a goal, we have come up with a "rule" to help us achieve that goal... WP:COMMONNAME.
Our one remaining disagreement (or at least what I think may be a disagreement) is your idea of trying to prioritize the 5 attributes (ie say that one is more important than the others)... I don't think that is possible. They are all equally important. Yes, sometimes they do come into conflict, and so we need to choose between them. But, which attribute should take precedence is a decision that will be different from article to article... it depends on the specific article and its unique circumstances. It is a determination that has to be made on an article by article basis, not at a policy level. Blueboar (talk) 16:10, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
I think we are in conceptual process disagreement not policy disagreement. The nature of that disagreement is also clouded by the introduction of process elements that don't bear on the question. Your statement: But, which attribute should take precedence is a decision that will be different from article to article... it depends on the specific article and its unique circumstances. It is a determination that has to be made on an article by article basis, not at a policy level. is indicative of that. Indeed all title decisions are made by consensus, or at least the absence of opposition on an article by article basis. That is not in dispute, at least on my part and clearly not on your part. But that discussion should have some structure, and I believe indeed some of these policy elements do have precedence over the others. Given the four buckets I list above--source, type, ambiguity and style, I think the precedence is clear. Think about this generically, not a 1 in 3.7M example. 1. Would we ever sanction titles that cannot be supported by reliable sources? I think the answer is clear. No. Therefore source (RS) has precedence. 2. Would we ever adopt an ambiguity or style solution to a title that required the use of Official names?, No, we default to Common Names because that gives us the greatest latitude and most number of encyclopedic alternatives for a title. Common Name (you'll note I have said Common Name as a general policy, not The Common Name as a specific alternative) has precedence over ambiguity and style. 3. Would we adopt a style for a title that ignored the requirements of disambiguation? I don't think so? I hope you see what I am saying here. The final title determination may have to consider all four elements to reach consensus, but that is not done in isolation of one element nor in the absence of some structured relationship between them. It would be like (actually in current practice is already like), telling the editors in an RM discussion that we are going to decide this title based on MOS only, all the other policy elements of the title aren't relevant--sources, commonname, and ambiguity, so lets figure locally what we think the best style is for this article. This is one area we have to be in sync on because if we aren't we aren't going to get very far. Four to the fourth is 256. That's way to many permutations of policy element to generate an appropriate title. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:49, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Going forward - note from the admin who has the page locked

This page was locked to prevent a content dispute becoming disruptive, and since then there has been discussion.

I'm not convinced this discussion has resolved. We had a totally worthy poll, in which a number of people voted for option one, and a similar number of people said that the problem was something else. Particularly in light of the discussion that has just started above, I think they are probably right. There are two areas where guidance is needed:-

  1. how to decide what you should call an article when you create it
  2. what factors should be significant if there is a dispute

The answer to 1 can be of the form "a name you think people/most people/people who might be looking/English speaking people/people familiar with the topic will recognize", because it's down to the article creator.

The answer to 2 has to create the basis for a community discussion, and since "because I think so" seldom creates much light in these discussions, would probably be better based on something that might be evidenceable eg "use in reliable sources/search engines/government publications/what it says on the tin"

Having said all that, and recognising that

  • "Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?" and
  • "Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?"

... or indeed any other variation in these words, is only really saying to the article creator "do you think this is recognizable..."

So however it's worded, that criterion will pretty much always only guarantee you get the word the article creator uses for it, and it is the rest of the criteria that control whether he uses that first response.

So...is there actually any point in arguing about which set of wording is used. "What's that wet stuff off the coast of Normandy?" "C'est La Manche." Is that "a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?" "Oui." Of course it is - if the someone is a Frenchman. It's the rest of the criteria that determine that the article is English Channel, and there is a redirect from La Manche.

With this in mind, if I unlock this article and GregL makes his change, will the rest of you instantly revert him. Or will you continue the sensible discussion to disambiguate "what to call your article" from "what criteria to use when there are disputes as to article titles".Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:42, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Elen, where have you been all my life? Nicely said! --Mike Cline (talk) 13:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Quoting Elen: With this in mind, if I unlock this article and GregL makes his change, will the rest of you instantly revert him. Or will you continue the sensible discussion to disambiguate "what to call your article" from "what criteria to use when there are disputes as to article titles". Interesting question.

    Note the *reasoning* in the above “this, that, or neither” poll. Most of the 17 editors there, many of whom had previously avoided this page because it wasn’t friendly and functional, exercised care to accompany their !vote with thoughtful reasoning. According to Wikipedia:Consensus#Consensus-building by soliciting outside opinions : Responses indicating individual explanations of positions using Wikipedia policies and guidelines are given the highest weight when discerning a consensus. That page also says this:

In determining consensus, consider the quality of the arguments, the history of how they came about, the objections of those who disagree, and existing documentation in the project namespace. The quality of an argument is more important than whether it represents a minority or a majority view. The arguments "I just don't like it" and "I just like it" usually carry no weight whatsoever.

Greg L (talk) 23:36, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Much of that reasoning was presented in my comment associated with the change I originally made, and in the comments made in support of it[15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24].

All that was stated within 24 hours of my edit and explanation, and no substantive reasons opposing the change were presented then (or since), which was back on December 20, 2011. That alone should have been more than enough to establish that we had consensus support for the change. But here we are almost two months later and still talking about whether it should be implemented. That fact that a few editors can employ status quo stonewalling techniques to hold a page hostage like this, for so long, contrary to consensus clearly established and re-established, is one of the reasons people leave Wikipedia[25]. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:42, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

But it isn't all about you, you know. Consensus is an odd thing, sometimes it really takes a while for everyone to figure out where they are at, and calling it stonewalling, holding a page hostage and things like that really isn't helpful in the long run. I am going to unlock the article. I do expect the change GregL worked on to be made. I do not expect anyone to revert it instantly. Hopefully, folks can continue the larger discussion about the policy, because that strikes me as a valuable thing to do, having got to this point. Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:40, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I have real life that puts food on the table and creates a financial mechanism to prevent my wife’s Visa-card balance from increasing to one Googolplex. I don’t watchlist pages and have limited time to come to WP:Article titles to see if it is unlocked or not. So it doesn’t have to be me who makes the change. Anyone may make the required edit after the unlock. It is this version of the WP:AT, dated 23:56, 23 January 2012.

From thereon, we clearly need to have genuine discussion and Five pillars‑compliant consensus building as the guideline page is further improved.

Moreover, I would greatly appreciate it if editors here didn’t call this “Greg L’s change” or “Greg L’s edit.” If anything, I would prefer it be called “the GEBDSEPCKJOCBWFM edit,” after the 16 non‑PMAnderson‑sock editors who took care to offer insightful reasoning for why they unanimously support #1 (to someone familiar). Greg L (talk) 02:34, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Elen, of course it's not about me. I know consensus sometimes takes a while to figure out. But in this case there was no question at all from the outset. Consensus support for the edit that I made on Dec 21 precisely because I was confident it had consensus support (but I also explained this on the talk page simultaneously) was established by every single editor who commented substantively about it (in support, unanimously) within the first 24 hours of my making the change.

Sometimes words like stonewalling and hostage have to be used to help others understand that that is what is going on. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:58, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I realize that B2C doesn't consider my articulated objections to be "substantive"; fortunately, my main objection—that he inserted it during an argument to further his position that recognizability to peope not already familiar with the topic is of no weight in naming considerations—has been been considerably reduced by the unanimous rejection of that interpretation by those who responded to my poll. Procedurally, it still sucks that we couldn't just reset his policy change made during an argument that it affects, then discuss and go on from there. But at least we did get some discussion of alternative approaches started. And Greg, if we name your change for those of us who "unanimously" opposed it, the acronym will be a little shorter and easier to remember. Or we just call it what it is, the Kotniski/B2C version, as facilitated by Greg L. Dicklyon (talk) 03:09, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, personally I prefer to think of it just as Kotniski's version, without the "B2C as facilitated by ...". What I've objected to all along is the idea of anyone just jumping in and making substantive changes to policy or guideline pages without prior notice or discussion, or during discussion without consensus. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:09, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
WTF??? If you object to that, why did you support the version that both Kotniski and B2C inserted, on different occasions, each without prior discussion, over the version that came out of the May 2011 discussion? See User:Dicklyon/Whither Recognizability?#Aug. 2010 – planting the seeds of dissent and User:Dicklyon/Whither Recognizability?#The Dec. 2011 flareup. – Dicklyon (talk) 05:18, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, this issue never even came to my attention until 26 January 2012, and this page was already hugely bollixed up - not only with a lot of innocent-sounding filibustering that I found objectionable and offputting, but also with multiple polls that kept asking questions that were differently phrased. I don't much care for either of the wordings; but of the two versions that we're supposed to choose between, as far as I understand it, I prefer Kotniski's. I don't know and don't care who "started it". While it may be technically legal to make edits to a policy page without notice, discussion, and consensus, it's bad form. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, you should be sorry. You state a principle you believe, yet you fall for the false dichotomy that B2C and Greg presented to distract people from the actual issue. Thanks for showing up and further gumming up the proceedings with noise based on ignorance of what's going on, like Greg did. Dicklyon (talk) 06:12, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
(Tacky response deleted) Milkunderwood (talk) 07:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I too prefer "Kotniski's version", because he was the one who came up with the wording in 2010 which was obviously inadvertently removed in May 2011. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:46, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
If you keep calling it "obviously inadvertently" I'm going to have to keep pointing you at the May 2011 discussion, where those words were explicitly criticized and removed. See User:Dicklyon/Whither Recognizability?#The May 2011 correction. – Dicklyon (talk) 05:18, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
As you should know, I read that May 2011 discussion prior to making the the 12/21 change which started all this, and pointed it out and discussed it in the talk page comment which accompanied the change. As I explained almost two months ago, "I don't see the question of "recognizable to whom?" being addressed there. ". It was dismissed as nitpicking, implying it's not important, not that it's wrong. That's why I say the removal was inadvertent. The import of that clarification -- addressing to whom the title is to be recognizable -- was clearly not realized.

Further, after I brought the discussion to his attention[26], Ohm's Law (who had made the May 2011 edit) clearly indicated he too did not realize the significance, and verified that the goal of the edit was "simplifying what was being said"[27], not changing what was said. Again, since they changed the meaning of what was said without realizing it, that's inadvertent. And this directly supported what I surmised in my original comment: "It appears they did not understand they were changing the meaning of the criterion by implying it needs to be broadly recognizable to meet the criterion, rather than simply be recognizable to those familiar with the topic, which is a huge change. ".

Much consternation would have been avoided had you read and addressed what I originally explained regarding the Dec 21 restoration of the Kotniski wording. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:12, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Dick, even if I believe a change is made inappropriately because I believe the issue in question is in dispute (which wasn't the case here), I still feel obligated to provide a substantive objection to the change in question, per WP:REVEXP. Otherwise it might look like I'm using a procedural excuse to justify reverting a change that I prefer for no substantive reason, and I provide no way for others to know which it is.

But beyond that, in this case, one editor after another who did comment on the change substantively, in the first 24 hours and every week since then, favored it, and most explained why in some detail.

By the way, your poll rejected no interpretion - it showed a preference for one wording over another. Since the other wording - the one you claim is rejected - is not contradicted by the preferred wording, there is no evidence that it was rejected as an interpretation. In fact, since it's consistent with the preferred wording, there is evidence that it's supporting (not as wording for the policy, but as correct interpretation of what happens). Not to mention that the words used by many participating in the discussions since Dec 21, including Greg's poll, indicated preference for the Kotniski wording because of agreement with the interpretation you claim was rejected in your poll. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:46, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

If that's where you stand then I must still strenuously object to the change. I think most users would have read where the poll choices were introduced with "These texts are intended to be suggestive of intent for what recognizability should mean, not proposals for final wording. 1) Something like this bit of text, intended to explicitly represent what I think Kotniski and Born2cycle were trying to get at in restricting recognizability to people familiar with the topic: * Recognizability – A title is judged to be recognizable if it is the most commonly used term for a topic in reliable sources; recognizability of a title to readers who are not already familiar with the topic is not a goal, and should not be used as an argument in favor of a title." Everyone had their chance to support your interpretation, yet they distanced themselves from it. Do we need another poll to clarify that before committing to a next version? Dicklyon (talk) 05:18, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
It's not about me or where I stand. It's about where consensus clearly is and has been all along. The fact is that while some might object to the absolute wording, or something like that -- e.g., Blueboar is concerned that " '... familiar with the topic' language could be misinterpreted to mean we should ignore WP:COMMONNAME in favor of 'Official names'" -- nobody there expressed explicit disagreement with the essence of what your #1/Post Modern wording says. More importantly, people other than you, Noetica and Tony generally don't argue that titles should be recognizable to those who are unfamiliar with the topic, or that making titles recognizable to those unfamiliar with the topic should be a goal. And the reasons it shouldn't be a goal have been explained multiple times. Most importantly, again and again clear consensus in favor of the Kotniski wording has been established and re-established, so regardless of what you or I think about how much or how little the meaning of your #1/Post Modern is consistent with consensus opinion, the Kotniski wording should go in. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:57, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Going forward? How about this. Implement the wording already. Then make a poll about "do we really really really want to give no weight to recognizability by people unfamiliar with the topic?" Then tweak the wording according to the proposals there. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:09, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I thought I did that already, though I got nothing but shit for it. Didn't that interpretation (my choice 1) get unanimously denied? I guess you better ask again. Maybe you need to avoid using text in a quote box that someone could interpret as a literal rewriting proposal this time; mine gave B2C the leeway to say in his victory speech that he was only voting against the wording, not the question asked in the poll. Dicklyon (talk) 15:48, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Sub header inserted, about more frequent archiving for a bit

  • As at 07:47, 13 February 2012‎ this talk page stands at ‎(437,479 bytes). Please, for accessibility’s can the gap between archiving be cut to 7 days for a bit? Meanwhile, as at 13:42, 24 January 2012‎ the project page, which is Protected, stands at (40,913 bytes). And the wiki goes on. NewbyG ( talk) 09:15, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Really stepping in it here, but, can't ya all agree to just have whatever redirects as are necessary?. Hmm maybe I am *not* getting wp:Primary? Sorry NewbyG ( talk) 10:23, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
You got it. The whole encyclopaedia would work just as well if the articles all had sequential IDs instead of titles, and you either put all the variant titles in the lede or created redirects for all of them. This is just so many angels, dancing on the head of a pin...LOL. As for archiving, I daren't go near the bot - it just goes off in a sulk if I even look at it. Feel free to improve the situation as you see fit. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:22, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
At 06:55, 14 February 2012‎ MiszaBot II took 16 thread(s) (older than 7d) to Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 35. wt:Article titles is now down to (235,384 bytes). Archiving is on track, thanks user:misza for *your* prompt work. NewbyG ( talk) 12:08, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Warning from the admin who had the page locked

The page is now unlocked to registered editors. The minor change in wording that has been discussed to death can be made, and I will regard a reversion as edit warring. Other changes must be discussed first. Damage to the project is caused by edit warring on policy pages, not by having policy locked to a version that might perhaps be worded slightly better.

Constructive discussion is not achieved by polarisation, and - even if article titles doesn't end up under discretionary sanctions - if I see further aggressive, polarising, personalized debating, I will not hesitate to impose blocks and start proposing topic bans. There is no reason not to discuss calmly and agree next steps - no-one has family history going back to World War I on this topic. And remember, the encyclopaedia would work just as well if the articles had no titles just IDs, so to a great extent all this argument is irrelevant. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:11, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Just to be crystal clear here, is the minor change in wording that you're talking about the one that was decided on at #Once and for all: Poll to establish the consensus? Jenks24 (talk) 10:20, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, that's the only change that's been made since the unlocking, so I guess my question's been answered. Jenks24 (talk) 11:56, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes it was. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:11, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

At my peril

I am glad to see some movement here. The use of present tense is important when articulating goals. It has a proven track record in political, government, military, business and a myriad of social/cultural endeavors. The distinction between “Acceptable” and “Good” is more substantive and ultimately has to be a determination by a much wider WP community. I am going to introduce (probably at my peril) some thinking that I’d like everyone in this discussion to at least consider. Policy drives process that consumes energy and generates results. Regardless of endeavor or enterprise, it is the results that matter. But results always consume energy to achieve. In the case of WP, the results that matter are more content, more quality content, more editors and a much wider scope, geographically and culturally of content and participation.[28] A WP title decision as a result is just one small piece that contributes to the larger body of results. Where I think we fail as editors and “policy leaders” in trying to achieve those results, is a failure to take into count the “cost” of doing so. WP as a 100% volunteer enterprise has a unique income statement and balance sheet if you will. Our revenue is the time (hours) volunteers donate to the enterprise. Our expenses are exactly equal and immediate. We can’t bank any of our revenue because it is spent immediately. For every volunteer hour donated, that volunteer hour is immediately consumed by the enterprise. There is no profit or loss on our income statement. From a balance sheet perspective, it’s the equity line that’s important. Equity in our results terms means-- more content, more quality content, more editors and a much wider scope, geographically and culturally of content and participation. Our goal, as is the goal of every enterprise to some extent is to grow the equity on the balance sheet with the least amount of wasted energy or expense.

So how does that thinking impact WP:Title. There are three equations here. 1. How important is a WP article title to achieving the overall enterprise results we want? And 2. How much energy are we willing to spend to achieve the results we want? And 3. Are there ways in which we can reduce valuable volunteer energy expended on title decisions and free it up to more directly impact enterprise results? This is why I personally think “Acceptable” is a better alternative that “Good”, but that's a more detailed evaluation yet to come. To close, if anyone would like to take a few minutes to read this: Stay out of the Balkans, it’s a little essay that discusses these ideas a bit more metaphorically. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:11, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Mike, I definitely agree on the present-tense wording, and I deeply appreciate your efforts to lead us to a new and better way to work together here. I'll do my best to support this new way of working. Dicklyon (talk) 18:06, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
This makes a lot of sense to me Mike and I'm pondering the implications. I do not think the goals wording is finished but I also do not want to lose any small progress we might have achieved by waiting while we discuss other improvements. Would you be willing to separate this discussion from my proposal in hopes we can come to agreement there and then address your suggestion on its own? Jojalozzo 19:07, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

 Done --Mike Cline (talk) 20:16, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I too am with you on the present tense point. But I'm not sure I agree there is substantive difference between "acceptable" and "good" - in many contexts they are synonyms (something that is good is acceptable - not good is unacceptable).

However, if I understand you correctly, 3 -- Are there ways in which we can reduce valuable volunteer energy expended on title decisions and free it up to more directly impact enterprise results? -- is what I was addressing in something I wrote at the ARBCOM event, here. In particular: " In order to avoid everyone wanting whatever they want and nobody ever being able to agree, we choose to have policies, guidelines and conventions to introduce determinism into our title decision process. In general, in terms of reducing disputes and debates, more determinism in our title-determining rules is better than less determinism." Do you agree with that? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:44, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I do agree, and recently asked another editor to think just that with this post:

Observations on titling process from two RMs-I was working through some RMs this morning and stumbled on two (and closed two) that are a bit illustrative of the points I was trying to make in these two discussions at WP:AT [29] and [30] . The first RM [31] walked us through a logical sequence of policy based evidence. What would have made this even more useful would have been subsequent evidence or at least acknowledgement of ambiguity and style issues. (Apparently there weren’t any in this RM). The second RM move was about ambiguity. No one actually addressed what reliable English Language sources said the common name was. Had they done so, it would have been evident that Orientale Province was a common English language name for this subject. As the closer, I did this review but it would have been much better in the RM process had the nominator and participants done so. When I closed this with a move to Orientale Province, I actually had a style question in my head--Should this really be Orientale province to comply with our WP style? I didn’t pursue it, but had it been addressed in sequence by the nom, the overall discussion would have been more effective for WP in the long run. The substance of these two RMs is inconsequential, it was the process that intrigues me. I am asking you to consider these two random examples from this standpoint. If we can begin to think about the whole titling process—new titles or title changes in a holistic way, then the words we use to articulate, explain and implement policy will be much easier to craft and should result in clearer, more concise, and effective policy and guidelines. Let me know what you think.

— Mike Cline (talk) 14:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
That was an observation and question I had yesterday, but it fits well into your more deterministic approach. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:39, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

LLC in title

Should article titles exclude "LLC" from the end (eg, Marquette Rail, LLC vs Marquette Rail? C628 (talk) 02:16, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, "LLC" and similar suffixes should be omitted from article titles unless they provide disambiguation. The relevant guideline is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies):

The legal status suffix of a company (such as Inc., plc, LLC, and those in other languages such as GmbH, AG, and S.A.) is not normally included in the article title (for example, Microsoft Corporation, Nestlé S.A., Aflac Incorporated, and Deutsche Post AG). When disambiguation is needed, the legal status, an appended "(company)", or other suffix can be used to disambiguate (for example, Oracle Corporation, Borders Group, Be Inc., and Illumina (company)).

—David Levy 02:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. C628 (talk) 21:02, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Whither Recognizability?

Now that we have a productive discussion going on wording details, it would be good to have a shared understanding of how to interpret the change that Born2cycle got put into the "recognizability" provision, following Kotniski's earlier change (as described in User:Dicklyon/Whither Recognizability?#Aug. 2010 – planting the seeds of dissent)

My poll #Poll to plan for future discussion on Recognizability found zero support for the proposed extreme interpretation of the Kotniski/B2C wording as "recognizability of a title to readers who are not already familiar with the topic is not a goal, and should not be used as an argument in favor of a title." So I noted that "my main objection has been been considerably reduced by the unanimous rejection of that interpretation by those who responded to my poll."

However, in his victory speech, Born2cycle alleges that

... your poll rejected no interpretion ... In fact, since it's consistent with the preferred wording, there is evidence that it's supporting (not as wording for the policy, but as correct interpretation of what happens). Not to mention that the words used by many participating in the discussions since Dec 21, including Greg's poll, indicated preference for the Kotniski wording because of agreement with the interpretation you claim was rejected in your poll.

I believe he may be partly right that some do support his interpretation, but they just didn't want to support that alternative in my poll. My poll, in attempting to get an assessment of who stands where on the issue, came up wanting; perhaps my additional interpretational phrase "A title is judged to be recognizable if it is the most commonly used term for a topic in reliable sources" was too distracting or was what some rejected. So maybe we can just go more directly and ask, who supports, and who rejects, B2C's interpretation of the Kotniski/B2C recognizability wording that was recently inserted into policy after the page was unlocked? Feel free to answer or discuss in any way you please, or to ignore if you think the wording speaks for itself and need not have a shared interpretation associated with it. Dicklyon (talk) 22:17, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Your comments here is why I wanted that poll or yours hatted. Please stop it. IMHO this section just as pointy and disruptive as your poll. I suggest that it is hatted as it does nothing to help with the constructive engagement that has been taking place on this talk page since the page was unblocked. -- PBS (talk) 22:16, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Are you saying you wanted the poll closed because you were afraid that it would show that nobody supported B2C's interpretation? Or what? Why do you think it's disruptive to try to find out what the opinions and interpretations of other editors are? Dicklyon (talk) 23:31, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
The poll that I suggested hatted, forced people to reiterate the position they had expressed less that a month before for fear that you would use non participation as a justification for saying that consensus had changed. The net result was lots and lots of text that did not bring clarity. As you did not simply list the version of wording unanimously supported in the previous poll people were forced to use your option four with qualifications. The qualifications meant that it ballooned up into huge amounts of text with little clarity.
The whole point of that poll was to see how supporters of the previous wording would divide on how they interpreted it. My objection to B2C's policy mod has always been not about the wording, but about the intent. You have a better way to get at that? Dicklyon (talk) 03:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
In my opinion the way you have constructed the first paragraph this section is based on an assumption of bad faith ny B2C and as such it is not going to advance development of this policy page. You are asking "So maybe we can just go more directly and ask, who supports, and who rejects, B2C's interpretation of the Kotniski/B2C recognizability wording that was recently inserted into policy after the page was unlocked?" Why his opinion and not any of the other 16 who participated in Greg's poll under scrutiny? As I said this section like the poll should in my opinion be hatted as it take up lots of space and does not help develop consensus. Now if you want to reply to this comment, to get in the last word then please do, as I will not reply if you do and I hope no one else will. -- PBS (talk) 03:08, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
B2C was the only one who rejected the result of my poll. He's the only one who has asserted the extreme interpretation. That's why I wanted to know if anyone else sees it his way. Apparently not. Dicklyon (talk) 06:40, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I didn't reject the results of your poll. I rejected the conclusion you drew, and explained why, from the results of your poll. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:22, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
OK, then I should have said "B2C was the only one who rejected my interpretation of my poll. He's the only one who has asserted the extreme interpretation."
So I'm asking if anyone agrees with you on either part of that, or would like to provide an alternative interpretation of the results of the poll. Dicklyon (talk) 18:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Article title decision practice RFC draft

I am very pleased with the discussions above that we are actually developing some productive consensus around some key points of contention. We have a long way to go but are headed in the right direction. Many of the regulars here and on other policy/guideline talk pages have always claimed that policy/guidelines should document and follow practice, not necessarily dictate it. To that end, I think an important step in our journey to better WP titling policy, is to actually assess what the wider community believes the practice is. To that end, I have drafted an RFC as a subpage of this one: RFC-Article title decision practice. Its purpose is not to derail or stifle the discussions above, but instead add some additional data that we can use as we improve this policy on WP titles. It is not yet a live RFC, but my intent is to make it live within the next 24 hours. Additionally I intend to advertise it at Centralized Discussions, all projects that have naming conventions, MOS talk pages, RM and New Page Patrol talk pages. I hope it generates a lot of response from a wide range of editors. In the short term however, I would appreciate anyone participating here to provide any feedback that might improve the RFC wording. Thanks --Mike Cline (talk) 19:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

In some cases I think SPECIAL:RANDOM is a better tool for determining actual practice than is polling some self-selected subset of the community. For example, on the recognizability question (recognizable to whom? Those familiar or others too?) if you click on SPECIAL:RANDOM a few dozen times, you will find articles that fall into the following categories:
  1. The topic of the article is probably recognizable only to those familiar with the topic from the title.
  2. The topic of the article is probably recognizable not only to those familiar with the topic from the title.
2a) The reason for the broader recognizability is a need to disambiguate this title from other uses of that title in WP (that is, extra precision in the title, which makes it recognizable to those not familiar with the topic, is to disambiguate from another use in WP).
2b) The reason for the broader recognizability is not a need to disambiguate this title from other uses.
The idea is to click on SPECIAL:RANDOM a few dozen times, and categorize each title into 1, 2a or 2b. I suggest the results will always be dominated by 1 and 2a, and titles that fall into category 2b will be relatively rare. If so, this would be strong objective evidence supporting the claim that the current "Kotniski" wording better reflects actual practice than does the May 2011 wording.

Similar tests based on RANDOM could be devised for other questions. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:18, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

[EDIT CLASH] People only claim that "policy/guidelines should document and follow practice" if the policy/guidelines follow what they think is best. I can list lots of such cases, but taking one I was not involved in which demonstrates it well: The MOS debate on linking dates. Nearly every article had linked dates (because the MOS advised it). Then some editors got together and decided it was a bad idea, and hay presto, today because of the change in guidance dates are no longer linked in most articles. policy/guidelines are part of a feedback loop and often "practice" goes back to someone (or a group) decide to add something and then argue for its retention, justifying it that there is no consensus to remove it. Because many editors (particularly those who do not edit policy/guidelines and their talk pages) do not realise how they work, they rely on them and so what they say tends to be what becomes practice. This is very much reinforced when bots or AWB scripts start to make hundreds/thousands of changes based on a rule in the MOS. -- PBS (talk) 22:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
That might be an indication that substantive changes to guidelines should only be implemented after demonstrating that there is broad community support. older ≠ wiser 22:57, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
But it works the other way as well we have all sorts of restrictions on how things should be done and often they are based on an edit placed into a guideline years ago with next to no support. But try to remove it and people who approve of the restriction argue that there is no consensus for removal, even if only less than a handful are involved in the discussion. -- PBS (talk) 03:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Quite right, with this page being a prime example of the extraordinary turmoil even relatively minor changes can cause. I've little expectation that it would actually happen, but I've suggested before that the MOS (and by extension other non-foundation policies and guidelines) should be stripped down to only those elements that have demonstrable consensus. The rest can go into essays on "how I think everyone should write". older ≠ wiser 03:43, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
PBS, my favorite example of that is the bot-generated renaming of all U.S. cities into the City, State format, whether they needed disambiguation or not. It's true that in certain cases like that so-called actual practice does not necessarily reflect broad community consensus but, rather, it's the result of work by bots launched by a small group of editors with a strong view, but, I believe those are relatively rare exceptions. Most actual practice is the actual result of individual editors doing consensus-supported stuff, and when it's a broadly accepted practice affecting most articles, it can be reliably observed in any sufficiently large sample of RANDOM results. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:32, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Interesting stuff, but I want to know what the general editor corps thinks our title decision policy is. There are 136,000 active editors that aren't bots or special randoms. Bots and Special Random don't create new articles or participate in RM discussions, and even if they did, I don't really care what their opinion might be. Can a bot have an opinion? --Mike Cline (talk) 23:55, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I strongly recommend we slow down here and get the current language in better shape before we take anything to the wider community. The goals are a mess right now. If everyone here agrees to go with Born2Cycle's proposal above, I'd like to see that instituted and then take this RfC live. Otherwise I think we'll have a lot of distracting nitpicking about grammar and such rather than the discussion we are looking for. Jojalozzo 00:11, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Mike, Facts > Opinions. I'm not knocking the RFC idea; just saying you can look at the raw objective data too to answer many questions about actual practice, which is arguably more reliable than opinion. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Jojalozzo, I don't think I am asking anyone to interpret existing language or future language. The RFC isn't about the current language, it is about what the average editor thinks our titling policy is. Its the average editor who creates new articles and on par participates in RM discussions. I also assume its the average editor who makes unilateral page moves not requiring admin intervention. I just what to know what they think. If that informs our discussions, wouldn't that be a good thing.? --Mike Cline (talk) 00:40, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I think we can expect people to check out current titling guidelines while they are considering their responses and to inform their responses. I have been advocating for a clean up without substantive changes so we can have the kinds of discussion you wish to initiate with a decent version of the current guidelines. IMO, we're rushing into an RfC with our pants down. However, I can see how the poor condition of the guidelines could motivate participation in the RfC, so let's proceed with clean up discussion and RfC in parallel. Jojalozzo 02:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I am a little concerned about the way the questions are presented as a sort of multiple choice, where it is obvious what is the "right" answer. The problem is that the "right answer" covers the "normal" case ; so one's first thought, for each question, is to select the answer "The choices highlighted above faithfuly reflect the title decision practice of WP". There are a number of problems with this, for instance
  • The normal case is often obvious, and guidelines are superfluous
  • What is thought of as the normal case might actually be typical of only a minority of articles.
Just to take the first question as an example:
  • "Sources (What is the source of the title wording?)
    • As supported by reliable English language secondary sources
    • As contained in Original Research, primary sources, etc.
    • Pure fantasy, made up names, fanciful constructions, et. al."
My first thought would probably be to answer: Yes, the highlighted choice is how it works. My second thought, however, is to remember that I often work on topics related to non-English-speaking countries and have encountered many discussions about locations, people etc. that are notable but where there are insufficient English language sources to establish an English name. Actual practice seems to be to not follow the highlighted choice when it clashes with other considerations (which may not be listed here). It would not surprise me if I heard that the majority of the people and places in Wikipedia do not have an established English name ("established" in the sense used by lexicographers/linguists), except insofar as normal practice in the English language community is to treat foreign names as accepted English names. In other words, de facto, non-English sources are the real basis for the article title. This is not normally a problem, since the foreign name is usually indistinguishable from an English name. It becomes a problem when the foreign name contains diacritics, for instance. I do not want to discuss particular examples, but rather the general problem of getting correct answers to the questions we (and the readers) think we are asking. I am not sure how this is best addressed, but asking about specific naming disputes might help, since it is during disputes that it becomes clear what the guidlines actually say, how different people interpret them, what contradictions there are and what inadequacies they exhibit. --Boson (talk) 01:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Boson, you raise valid issues. However, I am asking these questions with 3.7M existing articles in mind and a potential for ~2-5M new articles in the next 10 years. Does the occasional article title derive from purely OR or a primary source, of course. But general practice would suggest that we demand article titles to be supported by reliable secondary sources. I've personally evaluated, closed or relisted RMs for the last five months. I've also created 475+ new articles. I think I understand what actually drives article title decisions. The questions are formulated from that experience. Whether they are the right questions or not is a legitimate issue. Whether or not they reflect every possible exception to 3.7M examples is not. --Mike Cline (talk) 01:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
On these lines, offering only a single practice in each category obscures actual practice, especially where more than on practice occurs with similar frequency. There is also a lot of leading in this RfC, where the highlighted choices are explained as beneficial, more encyclopedic, less encyclopedic and even said to be common practice. It has a rigged feel that many may find objectionable. I recommend a more neutral approach throughout. Jojalozzo 02:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
While I don't think it is intentional, the poll currently seems designed to elicit a confirmation bias. I'm not sure what can be done to remedy the situation, but I don't see that the poll as currently framed would produce credible results. older ≠ wiser 03:50, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I too found it impossible to answer due to the mixture of practices. Not that it feels rigged, but that it's hard to answer, and therefore will be hard to analyze the results. Actual practice includes a lot of newly-named articles, never reviewed (that's mostly what you'll see with RANDOM, I think). It might be better to look at practice as reflected in RM results; how are such thoughtful discussions typically concluded? Of course, even there practices will vary. At some point, we want to offer guidance on the "right" way to decide such things, not just represent the mixture of what's done. In the current survey, it's likely that votes for the bold items will mean this is what someone likes when it's done, and votes for other options will be indications of dissatisfaction with those. Dicklyon (talk) 03:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Since you ask for only one response, don't you need a fourth response which would combine the second and third, i.e. that "Some (but not all) of the highlighted choices above faithfully reflect the title decision practice of WP and there are one or more important title decision practices missing"? Jojalozzo 02:19, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Excellent point. I will ad a fouth option before i go live. Thanks --Mike Cline (talk) 03:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not going to be able to say much because of my RL work stress-out at the moment. But in relation to this edit, could I make a few points?

  • "overly long"—Not a nice wording. Can it be "unnecessarily long"? But then, if a title is concise, surely it's not unnecessarily or overly long ... so why are both phrases necessary? This is wobbly in terms of language logic.
  • "Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles."—OK, but engvar currently allows US spelling for one article and UK spelling for a sibling article in some cases. Is this going to work?
  • In terms of expression, "Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously." would be better as "Titles are usually only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of an article unambiguously." Does the shorter version lose anything?
  • "Titles are those that readers are likely to look for or search with as well as those that editors naturally use to link from other articles". Better as ""Titles are those that readers are likely to look for or search with, and that editors naturally use to link from other articles." I presume this interfaces with redirects, but they're not mentioned. I'm a bit confused. An American reader will look for a title using US spelling, which may be a redirect, but not the (real) title. "... those that editors naturally use to link from other articles."—unsure what the purpose of this clause is; I don't understand what it means (and does it skirt around the piping of links?). Are (i) what readers are likely to look for or search with, and (ii) what editors naturally use to link from other articles ever different?
  • "Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English." To clarify my understanding, could someone give an example of a case where a title is not what the subject is actually called in English? (I note the "usually", which seems to allow for exceptions, and the use of "actually", which often bothers me in text—but it might work here ... unsure).

Sorry if I'm being daft in not understanding a few points. Tony (talk) 16:00, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate everyone’s input above and am confident the RFC will generate the results I want (and I think results that we will find useful moving forward). Many of the comments above are typical when we think tactically instead of strategically. That’s OK because it’s normal. A couple of the comments impressed me in different ways.

  • However, I can see how the poor condition of the guidelines could motivate participation in the RfC, so let's proceed with clean up discussion and RfC in parallel. Jojalozzo 02:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC
    • “In parallel” is thinking strategically and will result in faster, more effective change. By contrast, acting serially, one careful step at a time, significantly reduces the probability of success.
  • While I don't think it is intentional, the poll currently seems designed to elicit a confirmation bias. I'm not sure what can be done to remedy the situation, but I don't see that the poll as currently framed would produce credible results. older ≠ wiser 03:50, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Not that it feels rigged, but that it's hard to answer, and therefore will be hard to analyze the results. Actual practice includes a lot of newly-named articles, never reviewed …” (Dicklyon (talk) 03:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Thinking and acting strategically requires everyone to understand (and essentially accept) the goals. Goals have to be clear, concise, measurable and desirable. One of the methods to help achieve that in what I call FastTime is open planning—involving as many brains as possible in developing and aligning to solutions. That’s what this RFC is, one big open planning session where anyone who chooses to provide an input can. Their inputs won’t be judged or discarded and everyone’s should be respected. We won’t know whether or not the resulting input will be hard to analyze or even useful or not because in the world of Strategic thinking, we never pre-judge the results, because the results are always credible in some form or another. I was looking for a concise external source to convey this open planning idea and found this: [32]. Read the paragraphs labeled Transparent operations.

Again, thanks for the input. Perfect is the enemy of good. The RFC may not be structured perfectly, but it should provide us some interesting viewpoints. It will go live later this morning. I look forward to everyone’s input. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:26, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

"A good title will"

Is there a reason that the Recognizability goal has "candidate title" but the others do not? I think it would be better without "candidate".

Generally I think the goals would be best described using parallel terminology/construction. The context is: "A good article title will have the following characteristics:". For the subjects we have "The candidate title", "The title", "Consensus titles", "A good title", "A good title". For the verbs we have "will be", "will be" "usually use", "will be", "will follow". I propose we use "A good title" and future tense for all five goals:

  • Recognizability – The candidateA good title will be a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic.
  • Naturalness – TheA good title will be one that readers are most likely to look for to find the article. It will be the one that editors most naturally use to link from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English.
  • Precision – ConsensusA good titles will usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously. For technical reasons, no two Wikipedia article titles can be identical. For information on how ambiguity is avoided in titles, see the precision and disambiguation section below and the disambiguation guideline.
  • Conciseness – A good title will be concise, and not overly long.
  • Consistency – A good title title will follow the same pattern as those of similar articles. Many of these patterns are documented in the naming guidelines listed in the Specific-topic naming conventions box above, and ideally indicate titles that are in accordance with the principles behind the above questions.

Jojalozzo 04:03, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd also like to copyedit the Naturalness goal to read: "A good title will be the one that readers are most likely to look for to finduse to search for the article." Any objections? Jojalozzo 04:09, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The naturalness one isn't improved that way, and it's a real misfit. The others are about properties of a good title, but that one specifies "the one", using a rationale that doesn't even make sense. What one searches for and what one calls the article can be separate in a lot of ways. Consider films like The Graduate; it's easy enough to find by searching for "graduate" which is what people likely will do; but we're not going to name it that. Or to consider a current RM, on Nocturnal penile tumescence, it has been argued that people are more likely to search for "morning wood"; but we're not going to name it that, if all the sources call it the other, which is a perfectly understandable English phrase that's a lot easier to recognize for what it means than the slang term is (to readers familiar with the topic or not). And "It will be the one that editors most naturally use to link from other articles" seems to be designed to deny disambiguating or clarifying parentheticals; this certainly doesn't represent very well the realities that we have in WP. Maybe something like: "Naturalness – A good title will resemble what readers are likely to look for or search with to find the article." Dicklyon (talk) 04:36, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
I am not proposing any substantive changes, just cleaning it up. If you want to propose changes in definition of the goal, then please do that in a separate section. Jojalozzo 05:04, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
👍 Like --Born2cycle (talk) 05:15, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
OK, but your suggested change from "one" to "the one" seems like a change in goal. Same with changing "likely to look for" to "likely to use to search for". Dicklyon (talk) 05:18, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
And as for the "precision" criterion, that's another one that has been severely mangled and repurposed, starting with the same Aug 17 2010 Kotniski edit that mangled "recognizability". He basically took it out at that point, where it previously said "Precise – Using names and terms that are precise, but only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously." I haven't tracked where all it went from there, but at some point it came back with the "For technical reasons" bit attached, which suggests that "only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously" is to be interpreted as "only as precise as is necessary to prevent name collisions". That was never the intent before, and should not be the intent now. Who put that in there? Ah, here, it was all with the next two days: [33], [34]. Both PBS and PMA tried to undo what Kotniski did, but K prevailed; see the discussion section that followed his edit (since he didn't give any clue ahead of time). Dicklyon (talk) 04:46, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Joja, I presume you're proposing leaving the other two naturalness sentences as is, yes? With that clarification, which I think addresses Dick's well taken point, I have no objection. The point of naturalness is we prefer Bill Clinton to William Jefferson Clinton (both are recognizable, but the former is more natural). --Born2cycle (talk) 05:15, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm unclear on what you're saying is a well taken point and what you're saying you don't object to. The middle sentence, "A good title will be...the one that editors most naturally use to link from other articles" still has the problem of denying reality. It suggests that all titles with parentheticals, and many others, are "not good". Dicklyon (talk) 05:21, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
  1. I presume Joja is proposing that naturalness end up looking like this:
    A good title will be the one that readers are most likely to use to search for the article. It will be the one that editors most naturally use to link from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English.
  2. Your well-taken point is: "What one searches for and what one calls the article can be separate in a lot of ways."
  3. If naturalness was described solely in terms of searches (the first sentence), then your point would be a strong argument for changing it. But, since it has the other two sentences, I think that addresses your point well enough, so I don't object to any of Joja's proposal, assuming my point #1.
  4. As to your argument about the middle sentence (links) having "the problem of denying reality", yes, titles that require disambiguation are "not good" in terms of naturalness. I mean, there is nothing "natural" about the "(entertainer)" part of the Madonna (entertainer) title. That's why we prefer not disambiguating when reasonably possible; that's one reason we recognize and value primary topics. because it means we can at least use the natural title for the article most likely to be sought. But sometimes it's not possible to use the pure natural title, and we have to disambiguate. So it is.

    Anyway, all this is irrelevant in this discussion because it's what it currently says and Joja is not proposing changing it. However, if we were considering a change, we might think about conveying that in disambiguated titles the naturalness criterion/goal applies only to the undisambiguated name portion. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:02, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. To clarify my point: I object to the appended "copyedit" part of his proposal only. But while we're working on it, I'd change the other "the one" to "one" also, so it will be a more sensible description of a property rather than sounding like a prescription. Dicklyon (talk) 06:20, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
B2C: Yes, my proposal was to change the first sentence of Naturalness. I see now that adding "the" could be a substantive change so I withdraw that part of it. I proposed that addition because "most" is not logical/grammatical without "the". Instead I propose removing "most" to make it read correctly. My proposal there would be:
  • Naturalness – TheA good title will be one that readers are most likely to look for to find the article. It will be the one that editors most naturally use to link from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English.
I would also suggest removing "most" in the second sentence and if there's no objection I'll do that too but I'd would rather see that section get cleaned up than engage in a discussion of policy at this point. Jojalozzo 13:20, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree with removing "the" from the proposal and with including the removal of "most" from the text as described immediately above by Joja. older ≠ wiser 13:45, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I too oppose introduction of "the one", or any other language that implies that only one title for each subject can be a "good title". Hesperian 06:24, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Come to think of it, I'm opposed to the general direction this is heading in. The assertion
"A good title will be one that readers are most likely to look for to find the article"
is logically equivalent to its contrapositive:
"A title that readers are not most likely to look for to find the article is not a good title."
I don't agree with the contrapositive, and therefore I cannot agree with the proposed assertion. Hesperian 06:29, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
I think the latest proposal to remove the word "most" changes the logical implications. older ≠ wiser 13:45, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

A couple of thoughts from someone teaches Strategic thinking and execution out in the world where we get paid to get people aligned around successful execution of well articulated goals. When you articulate a Goal, you should never use future tense, because then the goal is never achieved, its always in the future. Abandon the wills and replace with is or equvilent present tense. Goals should always be stated in present tense form, so that individuals can visualize success. Second, "a good title" implies "best title" or the goodest title and leads to endless discussions as to which alternatives is better. In fact, it gives license to create alternatives on a whim that someone thinks is better than the current title. Replace "good title" with acceptable title. If the statements read: An acceptable WP title is ... then editors can immediately visualize what characteristics a title should have to be "Acceptable". --Mike Cline (talk) 14:26, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the suggestion regarding tense, I'm not so sure about substituting acceptable title for good title. There may be any number of "acceptable" titles for an article, and for articles where passions are involved (for whatever reason), editors are going to discuss which of the many acceptable titles are better or worse. I don't think policy should preclude that nor even discourage it, though it should provide some recommendations for evaluating the various claims and means of establishing which one out of the many will be the title. older ≠ wiser 15:06, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
@Bkonard: IMO, adding "the" only emphasized the logical implications but did not change them and I agree that removing "most" does change it. If leaving it illogical is what it takes to to get it cleaned up, I'll accept that. However, I'm not clear if you are objecting to the change in meaning or just noting it. (see my response to Dick below) Jojalozzo 15:27, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
@Joja, I had in a separate comment agreed with both removing "the" and "most". older ≠ wiser 15:57, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Ah yes. Sorry for the oversight. (BTW, do you go by "older" or "wiser"? Jojalozzo 16:10, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Mike: I agree about present tense, but wanted to make minimal changes in hopes of actually getting something done instead of protracted discussion. I was not proposing the final wording, just a clean up of what we have. However, perhaps it is useful to make a few adjustments at this time, knowing we can change it again once it's a little better written:
A good article title will havehas the following characteristics:
  • Recognizability – The candidateA good title will be a recognizable is a name or description of the topic that is recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic.
  • Naturalness – TheA good title will beis one that readers are most likely to look for or search with to find the article. It will be the as well as one that editors most naturally use to link from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English.
  • Precision – ConsensusA good titles usually uses names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously. For technical reasons, no two Wikipedia article titles can be identical. For information on how ambiguity is avoided in titles, see the precision and disambiguation section below and the disambiguation guideline.
  • Conciseness – A good title will beis concise, and not overly long.
  • Consistency – A good title willfollows the same pattern as those of similar articles. Many of these patterns are documented in the naming guidelines listed in the Specific-topic naming conventions box above, and ideally indicate titles that are in accordance with the principles behind the above questions.
Dick: I also prefer removing "most" from Naturalness because it makes it easier to combine it with other goals. Using the superlative means a) either that goal wins or it loses since there is only one title that can meet such a goal and b) there may be no title that meets both the reader goal and the editor goal so the two incompatible subgoals may render the overall goal moot. Can we leave the discussion of Precise and other final wording for later? I can think better when I'm not distracted by poor writing and illogic. Jojalozzo 15:27, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Hesperian: I may be mistaken, but I think removing "most" from the Naturalness goal addresses your objection. I think a contrapositive without "most" would be: "A title that readers are not likely to look for or search with to find the article or that editors do not naturally use to link from other articles is not a good title." Jojalozzo 15:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
I am happy with the latest proposed wording. Hesperian 02:01, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Joja, thanks for your efforts on this. I agree that those are much better. Dicklyon (talk) 18:07, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
👍 Like. And I think good is better thanacceptable. After all, where we can even make the distinction, we prefer good titles to merely acceptable ones, don't we? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Although I much prefer Acceptable over Good we as a community cannot give old words new meanings because that confuses the hell out of everyone. So to level set:
good: adjective, better, best, noun, interjection, adverb [35]
As an adjective
1. morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious: a good man.
2. satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree: a good teacher; good health.
3. of high quality; excellent.
4. right; proper; fit: It is good that you are here. His credentials are good.
5. well-behaved: a good child.
(I'd say that only #2, 3 and 4 fit a WP title, where #3 is the most expensive to achieve)
acceptable [36]
As an adjective
1. capable or worthy of being accepted.
2. pleasing to the receiver; satisfactory; agreeable; welcome.
3. meeting only minimum requirements; barely adequate: an acceptable performance.
4. capable of being endured; tolerable; bearable: acceptable levels of radiation.
(I'd say #1, 2, 3, and 4) are all OK when it comes to WP titles #3 is solely dependent of the quality of the requirement. If the minimums are high, then the result is OK)
The question we must then ask which is the better term in terms of cost to achieve? (See At my Peril below). We won't resolve this now, nor do we need to. But recognizing there is a cost to the terms we use, is a first step. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:00, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Wrong section? Jojalozzo 21:34, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Not really, just responding to B2C above. Don't let it get in your way as we are on track here.--Mike Cline (talk) 21:43, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Okay, I think I'm following. You're saying that since more titles will qualify as "acceptable" than as "good", there is less cost associated with defining it this way. Yes?

I think the opposite is true. The more general and less specific the criteria are, then the more room for (costly) pointless debate we have. If the criteria is more specific and less ambiguous, then there is less to debate about.

For example, say we are deciding between two titles A and B. We agree both are acceptable, but only A is "good". If the criterion says "good", then we have nothing to debate - we just go with A. But if the criterion says "acceptable", it gives us no guidance on whether to go with A or B. How do we decide? A costly debate...

So if I am understanding you correctly, we agree on the goal - make title decision-making less costly; but we disagree on whether making the criteria less specific (merely "acceptable" rather than "good") helps or hinders achieving that goal. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:56, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

We are making progress as I support a more deterministic approach to reduce the need for costly debate, we both agree that that is a reasonable goal. I don't think that "acceptable" = not "good". I think "acceptable" will mean whatever standard we want it to mean (whatever it is, it ought to be clear, concise, measurable and reasonably unequivocal), but when there are multiple alternative titles that meet that standard, moving titles between alternatives is not cost-effective if they all meet the standard. The problem I have with "good" is that it always gives license to moving titles to "something better" which can result in costly debate. And when those debates are over and you add up all the costs--time, alienation, bad behaviors, whatever, we generally find that all we did is move from one acceptable title to another and didn't actually improve the content of the encyclopedia. --Mike Cline (talk) 22:16, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
We are making progress. Very interesting. So for years I've been thinking that the more the criteria help us narrow down to the one good/best/perfect title, the better, as there will be less to debate about.

But you're saying something quite different (thought not necessarily opposite) - you're saying that there may be any number of "acceptable" titles for a given article, and as long as the current title is one of those acceptable titles, and there is no good reason to move it from using that title (e.g., it's the only acceptable title for some other article), then we should leave it as is. I'll have to think about that. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:57, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, "acceptable titles" balances the needs of sourcing, commonname, ambiguity and style. In fact if our guidance is holistic, the first title decision(s) by the new article creator and new page patroller should result in an "acceptable title" from the get go. Without getting into a debate over style, here's an RM that took nearly two hours to move all the titles, fix double redirects, and a couple of history merges. All for the change in one letter in the title from lowercase to uppercase. Several of the articles were in very poor shape from a content perspective, but energy spent on RM discussion and making the moves was more important than improving the content. Additionally, several of the articles had actually moved twice previously between upper to lower, lower to uppercase. All energy spent without actually improving the content of the article. In my view of "acceptable", once an article title reaches our standard of "acceptability" it stays there unless there's a very strong external stimulus--new sourcing, etc. that says we need to regenerate a acceptable title using our "acceptable title" criteria.--Mike Cline (talk) 23:17, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


No. Acceptable is a binary concept: an on-off switch. A title is acceptable or it is not, with no middle ground. It is not our intent here to say that a title that lacks any one of these properties is unacceptable.

Goodness is a continuum. The degree of goodness of a title is determined by the extent to which the title has the properties outlined above. This is what we want: guidance on how to compare titles and decide which is better.

Hesperian 02:06, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Let’s kill the adjectives for the time being

As can be seen from the discussion above the use of acceptable or good as adjectives describing a title are problematic because of the wide range of interpretation they engender. So the following is the same language without the “acceptable” or “good” qualifier. If we can agree on the language without the qualifier, then once we agree on the overall principles involved with the difference between “Good titles” versus “Acceptable titles” we can decide whether or not the qualifiers are really needed, or can those principles be dealt with differently in another part of this policy.

A good WP article title will havehas the following characteristics:
  • Recognizability – The candidateA WP article good title will be a recognizable is a name or description of the topic that is recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic.
  • Naturalness – TheA WP article good title will beis one that readers are most likely to look for or search with to find the article. It will be the as well as one that editors most naturally use to link from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English.
  • Precision – ConsensusA WP article good titles usually uses names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously. For technical reasons, no two Wikipedia article titles can be identical. For information on how ambiguity is avoided in titles, see the precision and disambiguation section below and the disambiguation guideline.
  • Conciseness – A WP article good title will beis concise, and not overly long.
  • Consistency – A WP article good title willfollows the same pattern as those of similar articles. Many of these patterns are documented in the naming guidelines listed in the Specific-topic naming conventions box above, and ideally indicate titles that are in accordance with the principles behind the above questions.

--Mike Cline (talk) 17:18, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Very good, though we might also consider saying it consistently in plural/general terms:

A good WP article titles will havehave the following characteristics:
  • Recognizability – The candidategoodtitle will be a recognizable Titles are names or descriptions of the topic that are recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic.
  • Naturalness – Thegood title will beTitles are those that one that readers are most likely to look for or search with to find the article. It will be the as well as onethose that editors most naturally use to link from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English.
  • Precision – Consensus good titles Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously. For technical reasons, no two Wikipedia article titles can be identical. For information on how ambiguity is avoided in titles, see the precision and disambiguation section below and the disambiguation guideline.
  • Conciseness – A WP article good title will beTitles are concise, and not overly long.
  • Consistency – A WP article good title willTitles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles. Many of these patterns are documented in the naming guidelines listed in the Specific-topic naming conventions box above, and ideally indicate titles that are in accordance with the principles behind the above questions.
--Born2cycle (talk) 17:31, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Actually, the plural form allows the community to look at titles and title decisions holistically instead of on an title by title basis. If adopted this wording as a rationale for title policy sets up the transition to our actual titling policy which I believe is a balance of sourcing, commonname, ambiguity and style. Nice touch. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:39, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
I like dropping the adjective. At first glance, I find the singular somewhat easier to parse, and in terms of usability, I think it might be easier for the uninitiated and those uninterested in policy wonkishness to apply guidance framed in the singular. Pluralizing seems to add a layer of abstraction. older ≠ wiser 17:46, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Pluralizing is a definite improvement that generalizes the guideline. The abstraction encourages an open perspective. Jojalozzo 18:06, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Singular or plural is okay with me. Hesperian 00:58, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I wish to test for consensus. Are there any objections to going with Born2Cycle's proposal, not as final wording but a minimal-change clean up? Jojalozzo 03:59, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I had removed the "For technical reasons..." sentences from the "precision" item already. Is someone wanting that back, with its redundant link and all? As for the plural and the removal of "good", I'm ambivalent. I sort of liked "A good title is..." (without the WP) but I won't object if others like this change. Dicklyon (talk) 04:30, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Go for it, but let's say "Wikipedia" not "WP". Hesperian 05:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Merging B2C's version with Dick's recent shortening of Precision (lack of objections to his change suggest including it here) we'd have:
    Wikipedia article titles have the following characteristics:
    • Recognizability – Titles are names or descriptions of the topic that are recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic.
    • Naturalness – Titles are those that readers are likely to look for or search with as well as those that editors naturally use to link from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English.
    • Precision – Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously.
    • Conciseness – Titles are concise, and not overly long.
    • Consistency – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles. Many of these patterns are documented in the naming guidelines listed in the Specific-topic naming conventions box above, and ideally indicate titles that are in accordance with the principles behind the above questions.
One last chance for objections. Remember this is not final wording, just clean up so we can review a cleaner version. Jojalozzo 15:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

 Done Jojalozzo 18:28, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Why "to someone familiar with the topic"?

Forgive me if I am making everyone repeat themselves, but I am still unclear as to why we are restricting article titles to those that are recognizable to "those familiar with the topic". I am not challenging the statement or saying that we should change it... but I would like to better understand the intent behind the restriction. Blueboar (talk) 16:57, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I think ultimately it comes down to concision and practicalities in the naming process. By using the name of the topic that those familiar with the topic would recognize it by reduces the choices of what to use for the title down to one (or close to it) for the vast majority of articles. If we didn't limit it to that, the choices would be expanded almost without limit. That would mean even more time and resources spent arguing about titles, if you can imagine that.

That's why we have The Running Man and not The Running Man (book) or The Running Man (Stephen King novel) or The Running Man (Stephen King science fiction novel) or The Running Man (1982 Stephen King science fiction novel first published under the pseudonym Richard Backman), etc., etc. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:32, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I should add that while there is no goal to make our titles recognizable to those unfamiliar with the topics, there is also no explicit goal to avoid making titles recognizable to those unfamiliar with the topics. That is, if additional precision is necessary to disambiguate from other uses in WP -- the only reason we add additional precision to titles -- and that happens to make the title recognizable even to people unfamiliar with the topic (e.g., people unfamiliar with the film Paris, Texas would recognize it as being a film from its title, Paris, Texas (film)), that's perfectly acceptable. We just don't specifically go for that effect. Making a title recognizable to those unfamiliar with a topic is never a goal in deciding titles.

Because of disambiguation requirements, some of our articles, like Paris, Texas (film), do end up with titles that are recognizable to those unfamiliar with the topic, and that might give some the impression that we do that purposefully, but we don't. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:42, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that that is a fair statement of B2C's purpose in supporting this wording; he has been consistent in wanting to use the "recognizability" provision as a tool for getting less parenthetical or disambiguation information, which would indeed often be helpful in making titles recognizable to more people. But historically, this is nothing to do with what the recognizability provision was about. It's just his way of limiting its use. To me, it's orthogonal; this is not the place to have the parenthetical debate (a debate in which I have not taken a position, contrary to his frequent claims). Dicklyon (talk) 18:50, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
B2C's example seems to be more an issue of "Precision" than "Recognizability"... after all, all of the potential titles he lists would be recognizable to someone familiar with the topic of Steven King's book. However, there is actually a different problem with recognizability in his example... is the title recognizable to someone who is not "familiar with the topic"?... or recognizable to someone "familiar" with a different topic? If you are "familiar" with hip-hop and not "familiar" with the works of Steven King, then "The Running Man" would be the the most "recognizable" title for The Running Man (dance). Indeed, I could easily see someone arguing that the undisambiguated title "The Running Man" should point to the article on the dance and not to the article on the book, as more people are likely to recognize the title as a reference to the dance than as a reference to the book. (Note - I am not saying the argument is valid... I have no idea whether the dance is more recognizable than the book or vise versa ... I am simply noting that I could see someone familiar with the dance and not the book making the argument).
Actually, I think this is a case where the unadorned - undisambiguated title should point directly to the dab page... as the title refers to several things that don't have a common connection... ie there is no "main article" that is the logical "recognizable" recipient of the unadorned title.
Can we come up with an example of a situation that would fit the "familiar with the topic" restriction that does not involve disambiguation? Blueboar (talk) 18:58, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. I got an edit conflict when extending my comments (below now). Dicklyon (talk) 19:03, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
(ec) On the other hand, The Running Man is not a good example of his point, standing as it does alongside The Running Man (film) and the various other books, stories, TV series, etc. listed at Running Man. How is someone going to recognize it as the book when it's so ambiguous? This is actually a PRIMARYNAME question, not a disambiguation, precision, or recognizability question; he often confuses these. Dicklyon (talk) 19:03, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
(ec)Dick, the recognizability provision was always implicitly about making our titles recognizable to those "familiar with" (or likely to be seeking) the topic of the article. This is obvious from any objective observation of a few dozen randomly selected articles.

The Kotniski caveat which Blueboar is asking about simply made this explicit to prevent anyone from believing that we strive to make our titles recognizable to anyone other than those who are familiar, and to prevent anyone from arguing for unnecessary precision in titles on the basis of recognizability. For example, without the Kotniski explicit caveat, one might argue that a given title is "too vague" and so needs more precision to be more recognizable [37]. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:08, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

B2C, where is the evidence that your interpretation was ever "implicit" in the recognizability provision? And I'm quite certain that Kotniski never gave his reason for the change as making it explicit, since he never commented on the change at all, other than to say that he was offering it for consideration and that it was OK to revert it, and then to say that it's not OK to revert it after PBS reverted it a couple of times (see). Dicklyon (talk) 19:36, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Again: " This is obvious from any objective observation of a few dozen randomly selected articles." That's the evidence supporting the fact that that is how recognizability is interpreted and applied in actual practice. Kotniski's wording simply reflects that, which he might not have said at the time of making the edit, but certainly had many, many times since. So have many others. I don't understand why you keep asking this. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:44, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I keep asking because I don't believe your unsupported assertions; your inference of policy intent from random article titles is nonsense, in my estimation; I've pointed out before that many article titles are recognizable to many more people than are familiar with the topic, and I argue that's not a bad thing. If Kotniski has said what you claim, show us where; or others (besides yourself); I have showed you that Kotniski said nothing around the time that he made the change. Dicklyon (talk) 19:49, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I don't see why it matters to you whether Kotniski said it at the time of the edit or any other time. If you can convince me that it really matters to you, then I'll take the time to dig up those statements.

I've acknowledged repeatedly, including just above, that many titles are recognizable to more people than are familiar with the topic. I've never argued such broad recognizability in a title is a bad thing. I've only argued that it is a common side effect of disambiguation, not a goal in and of itself.

As to policy intent, policy intent is largely about reflecting accepted practice. We can "reverse engineer" what actual practice is by looking at how articles are named, and I suggest looking at random ones only to be objective (in particular to avoid cherry picking). Of course this only works if you look at sufficient numbers (a few dozen).

I've never said that we should look at articles (randomly or otherwise) to ascertain policy intent. I've said that we should look at articles to ascertain actual practice, in order to help determine what policy should say.

Put another way, how many articles can you find with titles that make them recognizable to those unfamiliar with the topic, and are not so because of additional descriptive information added to the title for the purpose of disambiguation? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

No, it doesn't really matter to me what Kotniski said. I just wondered if there was any basis for your implicitly claim, or your "The Kotniski caveat which Blueboar is asking about simply made this explicit to prevent anyone from believing..." claim, both of which you have so far failed to support. Dicklyon (talk) 07:12, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm also wondering if anyone else besides you believes or supports the theory you just described in those paragraphs. If so, maybe they can help try to explain it to me. Dicklyon (talk) 07:15, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
I did as you suggested, looking at random articles, for ones "with titles that make them recognizable to those unfamiliar with the topic, and are not so because of additional descriptive information added to the title for the purpose of disambiguation". I immediately found Cactus longhorn beetle; is that what you're talking about? It's recognizable as a beetle, and a particular kind at that; the info that makes it recognizable is just its name, not anything extra. But I don't understand the point of the question. Maybe this is isn't what you meant. Then I found Chris Soumokil, recognizable as the name of a person; then several more obvious person names. Then Sanafir Island, recognizable as probably an island. Then International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion, recognizable as a journal (might not have been recognizable under a short name like Injury Control and Safety Promotion if it happens to be called that). Dicklyon (talk) 07:28, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Guys, you're missing my point. Forget the other uses of "The Running Man" (which indeed make it about WP:D and primary topic). Even if the King novel was the only use of "The Running Man", without the Kotniski caveat in the recognizability criterion, one could argue that "The Running Man" is a "generic sounding" phrase that is "too vague", and needs to be made more descriptive for recognizability.

That's why "we are restricting article titles to those that are recognizable to "those familiar with the topic"" (though titles that needs to be disambiguated from other actual uses in WP may inadvertently end up being more recognizable). --Born2cycle (talk) 19:20, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok... but I am still not understanding why we wouldn't strive to make our titles recognizable to everyone? Sure you can over do precision or disambiguation... but I don't see what that has to do with the concept of whether the title is recognizable? Both "The Running Man" and "The Running Man (book)" seem equally recognizable to me.Blueboar (talk) 19:30, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
To me, the concept of Recognizability has more to do with choosing between Samuel Clemens vs Mark Twain. We go with Mark Twain because more people are likely to recognize this particular author's pen name than to recognize his real name. It is more likely that people will search for the article using his pen name. That's what recognizability is about. No? Blueboar (talk) 19:38, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

A better example would be The Control of Nature, which I recognize as one of my favorites, and which doesn't have a corresponding film or anything like that. Dicklyon (talk) 19:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Blueboar, what an opening. We don't use Mark Twain instead of Samuel Clemens because more people are likely to .... We use it because it is an 80:1 advantage common name. Pretty simple, the reason people recognize it is that it is vastly more common than the alternative. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:51, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Um... That is not backed up by a look through the archives of that article... there is a lot of discussion about which name is more familiar or recognizable. not much discussion about which is more common. (in fact, I think the article choice took place before WP:COMMONNAME became policy. In any case, I think you are confusing the method for the concept. The goal is to choose the most recognizable name... looking for the most commonly used name is the method by which we achieve that goal(ie the method by which we determine what is recognizable.) Blueboar (talk) 04:32, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Blueboar, no, they are not equally recognizable. The Running Man (book) is recognizable as an article about a book to anyone; The Running Man is not recognizable to be about that to anyone unfamiliar with the book. So, The Running Man (book) is more recognizable, but, unless (book) is needs for disambiguation, we prefer the shorter title. In terms of recognizability, we only are concerned with making sure people familiar with the topic will recognize what it is. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I think another example would help bring clarification. To a certain degree it depends on how some one is searching for information. We can not anticipate why someone is looking for a subject. Take for example the battle of Battle of Quatre Bras. If someone is looking for battles in 1815 one might be tempted to add Battle of Quatre Bras , 1815, if someone is looking for the battles that Wellington commanded the Battle of Quatre Bras, 1815, Duke of Wellington --Oh but that is descriptive! So make it non POV-- Battle of Quatre Bras, 1815, Duke of Wellington, Prince of Maoscow Who was the prince of Moscow? --lets not get started on that but we could end up with thier name and full titles in there-- But someone else might be looking for the battle under "What was the battle before Waterloo?" Battle of Quatre Bras (1815, Duke of Wellington, Prince of Moscow, the British/Dutch battle before Waterloo, but not the only French battle before Waterloo. The point is that we can not anticipate all the possible ways someone unfamiliar with the topic will be searching for it and might describe it, so we assume that someone is looking for it because they are reading something (or watching a film, news, etc) that is likely to be using the same title as Wikipedia uses, ie the name is based on "someone familiar", because even if the person searching is not familiar, it is not unreasonable to assume that they are looking for it, because they have had contact with a source where the author is familiar. However we do not assume that they are trying to find the article having read a research paper on the subject, as that research paper, written for other experts, might use a different name from that used in other more general sources written for the man on the Clapham omnibus (and it is not an unreasonable assumption for the editors of Wikipeidia to make that someone with access to and reading the research paper would usually know that).-- PBS (talk) 23:24, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I can't see how ratholing like that clarifies anything. Battle of Quatre Bras is recognizable as a battle, even though I've never heard of it. The Running Man, on the other hand, I would not recognize as anything, and if I was familiar with the book and the film I still wouldn't have much clue. The levels of ambiguity and recognizability are far different. Dicklyon (talk) 00:25, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Apparently the ambiguity of The Running Man is too distracting. How about Gerald's Game? I presume you also don't recognize it as anything. Yet it fully meets the recognizability criterion when the criterion includes the Kotniski caveat. But without the Kotniski caveat, the argument can be made that the title would meet the recognizability criterion better if we put more description in the title. Yet we don't do that, which is why the recognizability criterion is more accurate with respect to actual practice with the Kotniski caveat. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:04, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Alternatively, one could recognize that other considerations, such as conciseness, also have a role in determining practice, and are more likely to be the explanation for such cases. There's no real need to hobble recognizability. Your insistence on tying it the parethetical/disambiguation issue is tiresome. Dicklyon (talk) 04:56, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Dick, the recognizability criterion is no more "hobbled" by the Kotniski caveat (to those familiar) than the precision criterion is "hobbled" by the "no more precise than than necessary to disambiguate from other uses in Wikipedia" caveat. In both cases it's about clarification not hobbling.

We all recognize that we are supposed to balance all of this criteria when deciding a title, but it provides better guidance on how to do that with such clarification than without. Otherwise, in a situation in which we're trying to decide between titles A and B, where criterion #1 favors A and criterion #2 favors B, those favoring A will simply cite #1 and those favoring B will cite #2 and we just have a pissing match. Isn't that what we're trying to avoid? Why not add clarification which is consistent with actual practice where appropriate?

Now, some clarification is obviously implied and doesn't need to be stated. We could clarify conciseness by saying "not so concise as to make the title obscure", but everyone knows that. I can't even imagine anyone seriously arguing for a title so concise that it is obscure. But we know people will argue for making titles more descriptive to make them more recognizable, even when the current title is already recognizable to people familiar with the topic. You keep saying there is no reason to "hobble" recognizabilty by "tying it the parethetical/disambiguation issue ", but the very situation that prompted me to notice that the Kotniski caveat was removed shows that we need this clarification in there. And consensus is quite clear on this point, so your insistence to the contrary is what is tiring here. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:58, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Hows abouts

  • Try to someone who is likely to be searching for that title or topic...
For instance (1) NewbyG ( talk) 18:37, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
That probably works too. Will think about it. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:44, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
"for that title or topic" would make more sense as "for that topic", since any title will be recognizable to someone searching for that title. Dicklyon (talk) 18:50, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
For literate, educated people, we aren't using our language very well here. First, I have no clue as to what "Familar with the topic" means let alone trying to use the phrase to justify disambiguation or style guidelines. I was working through RMs this morning. Prior to reading the article Macanese pataca I was completely unfamilar (had no clue) with the term, now I consider myself casually familar with the term and would recognize it if encountered elsewhere. So does familar with as used, imply familarity with the subject before ever reading the WP article? Is there any degree of familarity required? A banker from Macau would be intimately familar with Macanese pataca whereas I, after reading the article have a casual level of familarity. There's a lot of ambiguity associated with "familar with". Even if we defined it unambiguously, I would question whether or not it was the best language to achieve the goal of a reasonable balance between ambiguity, style and conciseness in our titles. I can think of a lot more straightforward language in that regard. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I think shifting focus to someone looking for the topic rather than on expertise or familiarity helps. Mike, in your example, some might want the title to be something like Macanese pataca (currency) as an indication to the unfamiliar what the subject is about. older ≠ wiser 19:17, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Before all the debates, I understood "Recognizability" to mean two things... 1) when choosing between a potential title that lots of people will recognize and a potential title that few people will recognize ... go with the one that is more recognizable. (Choose "Lion" over "Panthera Leo" for example) 2) when choosing between two relatively recognizable titles, go with the one that the most number of en.wikipedia readers will recognize (ie English as first language users). Perhaps we need to get back to this basic concept. Blueboar (talk) 19:21, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. It even explicitly said "Article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity" for many years. Dicklyon (talk) 19:29, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Without belaboring this (or getting into the good, better and best title discussion), the moderate level of disambiguation you added to the title eliminates the need to even worry about familiarity or ambiguity of strange terms like this. In this case Macanese isn't the most common term, reliable sources say Macao pataca (currency) would be the correct name from a common name standpoint but it faithfully represents the content of the article, is not excessively disambiguated but enough to know its article about currency, and it meets our style standards--a nice balance of all four elements of a title--sourcing, type of name, ambiguity and style. No one "familar with" or no one "searching for" could disagree with that, but we didn't need that to get there. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:33, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Dicklyon's wording above is much more straight forward and would be improved by this slight rewording: "Article titles should reflect what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable level of ambiguity". Puts the burden squarely on the shoulders of the title, not millions of diverse readers. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:38, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I am worried that this will lead to all articles carrying a disambiguation. Which is certainly against current practice. For example, in Category:Russian_writers, 99% of the names are not familiar to English speakers and would get "(writer)" appended to it. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:43, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
We do box ourselves into uncomfortable corners. It is difficult, but we have to find wording that actually means something and gives us the strategic results we want. Your concerns are valid. But if I was an average English speaking reader and went to Category:Soviet emigrants to the United States instead of Category:Russian writers, wouldn't it be useful to have that (writer) disambiguation so I could separate the actors from the writers from the hockey players, etc. without having to look at every article? Unfortunately we know way too little about what our readers really want. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:43, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
That line of thinking is reasonable, only if you also consider London (United Kingdom) as the correct title by such reasoning. Otherwise where and how do you draw the line when a title is not unambiguous. older ≠ wiser 22:13, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Exactly. And this has been pointed out over and over repeatedly on this talk page. No one has ever argued that more description to a title -- taken in isolation -- is a bad thing. The problem is... well, we're going around in circles. See my first posts to the section above where Blueboar asked his question. And yet people keep asking things like "isn't more description/disambiguation useful"?, without addressing those points. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:26, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Well you guys do all seem to be getting on much better. Can I pose a question. When you're talking here about being recognizable, are you all specifically referring to the situation where I search for Steppenwolf, and Acmesearch serves me articles about the Herman Hesse book, the band, the Hawkwind track ("my eyes are convex lenses of ebony, embedded in amber"), the theatre company that Gary Sinise co-founded, the film, the jazz album, etc, and I'm trying to work out which one I want. Or the situation where I'm using the Wikipedia search engine. I ask this because if I use Google/Bing/Yahoo, I get (in sequence) the wikipedia article on the band, the wikipedia article on the novel, the band website, the theatre company website, the band on YouTube (Google only), the film on IMDB, and the band on Last FM. If I search on Wikipedia I get taken to the disambiguation page (incidentally, someone needs to fix most of the articles which hatnote to Steppenwolf (disambiguation) which is a redirect).

Google returns the disambiguation page at the bottom of page 2. Yahoo and Bing don't return it at all. I say this because if someone was trying to find out what the hell a Macanese pataca was, the Wikipedia article is top of the list on all the search engines, and if he puts it into the Wikipedia search, it'll take him straight to the article. I submit therefore that the problem might be better focussed on search optimisation than on whether once you get to the article you recognise what it says in the heading. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:38, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

No, this isn't really about disambiguation. Hesperian 00:16, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
(after ec) A couple of observations. Much of the recent to-do was about, for instance, whether a particular title was recognizable when viewed in a category listing. SEO may ne worth considering, but that involves more than only the article title, some that editors can affect (such as the introductory lines which typically appear in search results) and some beyond our control (such as the algorithms used to rank results). Second, it is correct for the hatnotes to link through the redirect at Steppenwolf (disambiguation); see Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Links to disambiguation pages. older ≠ wiser 00:19, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
If it isn't about search optimisation, why is it important that the title is recognizable? I had no idea what a Macanese pataca was before I looked at the article. It didn't stop me looking at the article. If I come across a completely unfamiliar term, I stick it in a search engine and see what comes back. If I was looking for the currency of Macau, and searched for that phrase, I'd still get Macanese pataca returned as the top article. I'd still get it if I searched for Macau Pataca (and I'd get taken straight to the article if I used the Wikipedia search, because there is a redirect. I think that last line from Links to disambiguation pages ought to be engraved at the top of the whole article titles page "redirects are cheap and are basically transparent to the reader." So you could call the article Macanese pataca, Macau pataca, Macinese currency (pataca), Pataca (Macinese currency) or any combo, and I can still find it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:22, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Elen, nice set up for a point I will continue to make over and over again. We have got to begin to focus on the bigger picture—the strategic goals of the WMF and WP. Those are clearly spelled out in Wikimedia Strategic Plan Summary and can be summarized succinctly as more content, better quality content, more diverse participation and diversity of content from demographics clearly under-represented in today’s editor corps. I would at least like everyone participating here to acknowledge that they’ve read these strategic goals. But more importantly, we need to begin to examine the role that a WP article title contributes to achievement of these goals. A WP article title is merely a small tactical piece of a much larger enterprise, and although tactics are important, they should always contribute to, not detract from achievement of strategic goals. The great majority of these discussions are about fine-tuning our tactics but without actually connecting the impact of those tactics to the strategy. We have to turn that around. We could have 3.7M perfect titles and 3.7M crappy articles. I think if we had a choice, and we do, we would much prefer 3.7M good articles and perfect titles don’t much matter. Folks, read the strategy and let’s starting connecting our tactics to the achievement of that strategy. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:53, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing me to that document, Mike. Among the [[seven highest priorities for Improve Quality is: "Develop clear and concise quality labeling to support readers." Am I wrong to interpret "labeling" to include article titles? Jojalozzo 18:40, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
No you are not wrong. The reader experience is part and parcel of quality content. But my understanding of that element of quality is "quality [of the article] labeling" is that the WMF want to provide readers a better indication of the "quality" of each article--ie FA, GA, stub, etc. Of course the title is part of that. What's important here, and I am pleased that you read the strategy, is that we begin to connect our tactical choices about titles to achievement of the whole strategy. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:57, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
D'oh. That makes sense. [The rest of this is off topic a bit, so anyone who doesn't care about the strategic plan can stop here ] <rant>Unfortunately, it also means the plan has no tactical approach to improving the quality of content or titles beyond a program for expert assessment and review. While the plan calls for stabilizing the physical and organizational infrastructure and the addition of expert input, it does not mention shoring up the soft infrastructure that supports the editorial community. If the plan is executed as proposed we'll have a large influx of new editors many with marginal English language skills. These new editors will be unfamiliar with policy and guidelines and have difficulty comprehending them and the job of correcting and managing the results will primarily fall on the shoulders of the volunteer community (for a precursor see the [India Education Project]). Given our cowboy culture ("anybody can edit! cool! BRD forever! what policy? IGNORE ALL RULES!"), the lack of editor education and the ragged state of policy and guidelines, I think this is a recipe for massive upheaval, volunteer defection and overall project decline. In my view, it's a major oversight that support for, or at least coordination with, our editorial infrastructure (administration, policy, guidelines, education) is not included in the plan. I understand that the Wikimedia Foundation is separate from the editorial community and our infrastructure is our business, but most of us will have little time for adding to or improving content if WM implements this plan to create a great influx of new editors and we're not ready for it.</rant> Jojalozzo 21:17, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Yours is not the first rant about the things you talked about. Alot of those concerns (and many are serious) were raised during the development of the strategy last year (it was an open, consensus based process). But I think its tough to argue with the overall strategy--more content, better quality content and more diverse participation. They present very real challenges to the WP community. The sum of all knowledge doesn't end at ~3.7M articles and our current editor corps may be part of but won't be the entire volunteer editor corps of the future. But the way to succeed is to always connect the tactics to the strategy to ensure you are using your resources wisely and getting what you want. Challenging, yes. Essential, yes. Sun Tzu said it best. Strategy without tactics is a slow route to victory. But tactics without strategy is the noise before the defeat. I vote for victory. We are starting to focus on the right things about titles in this discussion. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:36, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

identify not define

Submitted for consideration:

Recognizability – A good title will identify the topic to someone familiar with it, but need not define or explain the topic to someone unfamiliar with it.

Hesperian 00:16, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I think this is on track but "identify to" is an awkward construct. There's also a temporary consensus to use present tense (which makes more sense in context) without the adjective. Perhaps: "A title allows someone familiar with the topic to identify it, but need not define or explain the topic to someone unfamiliar with it." Or, more my style, "A title allows someone familiar with the topic to identify it." Jojalozzo 03:34, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
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