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Allow duplicate article titles

I've been harboring a rather radical idea for a while, which would require a minor technical change and potentially a minor policy change, the bottom line being:

Article titles may be duplicated (non-unique), and distinct from page names (URLs). (as in e.g. Wikidata or Britannica)
Following the technical change, no article should be immediately moved, nor the AT policy immediately changed.

This technical change would allow that the articles located at Mercury (planet) and Mercury (element) both have the same title displayed at the top of the page, Mercury. Their unique (disambiguated) page names would appear only in page URL, possibly in the search box, and maybe somewhere in a subtitle for convenience of editors.
This would allow hiding our artificial disambiguators from the readers, particularly ugly ones such as John Smith (English footballer, born June 1983) or Sarah Brown (wife of Gordon Brown) -- both would be titled by their COMMONNAMEs "John Smith" and "Sarah Brown", and disambiguation handled mainly by WP:short descriptions (from the reader's perspective). I foresee that such a change could alleviate the persistent flood of primary topic challenges and requested page moves. Note that we would not want (or allow) gibberish page names such as Q78923714.

Technical details
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I'm not sure whether the current MediaWiki supports the proposed setup, or if some additional coding would be necessary. Judging on Wikidata, the capability is already there. Check out mw:Extension:Display Title (I have not deep-dived there). Additional accompanying technical changes should include:

  • WP:Short descriptions should be prominently displayed as some kind of subtitle, to assure readers that they're on the right page
  • Changes to behavior of DISPLAYTITLE. For example, the default behavior would be that the title is obtained by automatically stripping parentheses, i.e. Mercury (planet) would automatically get the title Mercury. In the rare cases where parentheses are desired, one would have to invoke DISPLAYTITLE, e.g. {{DISPLAYTITLE:It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)}}</nowiki>
    • WP:Canonical part of the title should be redefined to allow parentheses stripping in DISPLAYTITLE. For example, Mercury (planet) may have {{DISPLAYTITLE:Mercury}} or {{DISPLAYTITLE:''Mercury''}} but not {{DISPLAYTITLE:Venus}} (to prevent page-title vandalism).
    • DISPLAYTITLE should permit (but not default to) stripping WP:COMMADAB: {{DISPLAYTITLE:Apple}} may be applied to Apple, Inc.. Also, {{DISPLAYTITLE:Ambrose}} for Ambrose, Georgia would be a valid title, but it should be employed only if we amend WP:USPLACE to prefer that.
  • Search box should mandatory display short descriptions, as in the current mobile view or the desktop Vector 2022 skin (if I remember correctly).
  • Actual full page names should appear in a smallish font somewhere in page header or subtitle, for editors' convenience (we ought to know how to wikilink a page).

Eventual (but not immediate) policy changes, subject to further consensus, may be:

  • Redefinition of WP:Primary topic. We should disambiguate whenever in doubt, i.e. a primary topic would have to be much more prominent than its namesakes than it is by the current criteria.
  • We may discourage some of WP:NATURAL disambiguation, since it would not be mandatory to really disambiguate titles.
  • Since we'll have prominent short descriptions, we may want to deprecate {{about}}.

Before I jump the gun and go tothe Village pump, I'd like to test the waters here and hear the concerns and proposals first. No such user (talk) 09:23, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

RFC notice: BC or BCE, AD or CE in article titles

Please see the RFC which is currently going on at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Article titles for years: BC/AD or BCE/BC. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:46, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Should the two "Newman University" article titles be changed?

We have articles about two institutions titled "Newman University." One is Newman University, Birmingham and the other is Newman University, Wichita. There is also a disambiguation page at Newman University. Should the titles of those two article be changed to place the location in parentheses? I ask only because I'm not terribly familiar with this particular policy. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 00:01, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Parenthetical disambiguation should not be used if there is a more "natural" alternative. The format used for these articles is quite common, I think it is fine as it. See Anna University of Technology and Christ's College for other examples. MB 01:08, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick and helpful response. Please consider modifying this policy to make that clear; I read it several times and am a very experienced Wikipedia editor but that was not clear to me nor is it how I would interpret what the policy currently says. ElKevbo (talk) 05:08, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 November 2022

I know there are lots of hatnotes, but please add another one:

{{This|the policy governing article titles|technical information about article titles|Wikipedia:Page name}}

I was surprised to find that this was a policy; I figured a page called "Article titles" would provide technical information about titles, and it took a while to find the page that did provide that information. 175.39.61.121 (talk) 03:29, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

 Done A good argument against this edit is that Wikipedia:Page name is linked to in the very first sentence, but considering this is a page that only editors are going to see (who are typically used to our detailed project-space pages), I think it better to have the possible confusion cleared up quickly at the expense of 5 hat notes. —Sirdog (talk) 06:27, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
A relevant guideline against its includsion is WP:RELATED:

Disambiguation hatnotes are intended to link to separate topics that could be referred to by the same title. They are not intended to link to topics that are simply related to each other, or to a specific aspect of a general topic

Is there much in the info page that is not already in the policy, or that a "see also" wouldn't suffice?—Bagumba (talk) 10:37, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Hmm, I feel like the intended to link to separate topics that could be referred to by the same title applies in this situation, no? The primary reason the IP wanted this edit request added is because they believed Wikipedia:Article titles would give technical information on page names and didn't, and I can definitely see how someone would come to that conclusion. Nor would I say the 2 pages are simply related, as one is about how to name an article procedurally and another is about how the names of pages work on Wikipedia at a more technical level. —Sirdog (talk) 23:27, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I was more looking at the part: They are not intended to link to topics that are simply related to each other, or to a specific aspect of a general topic Wikipedia:Article titles#Special characters delves into some technical aspects already that directly affect title naming.—Bagumba (talk) 01:09, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Corporate name changes

(I don't know where the best place to post this is, but WP:NAMECHANGES redirects here, so I figured I might post it here.)

When is the exact time a company's article (and its related pages) should be moved to reflect its new name? Oftentimes, companies only announce the date on which they are set to adopt a new name, but not the time that the change is set to take place. So, should it be:

(a) 12:00 AM at the company's headquarters
(b) 12:00 AM at the company's parent company's headquarters
(c) 12:00 AM at the company's "topmost" parent company's headquarters, i.e. the parent's parent's parent
(d) 12:00 AM UTC, i.e. Wikipedia time
(e) when the stock market where the company/parent company is listed opens, e.g. 9:30 AM ET for NASDAQ

I ask this because Warner Bros. Discovery recently announced the rebranding of DC Films to DC Studios, which is set to take effect on November 1, but DC Films (the company) and Warner Bros. Entertainment (its parent) is headquartered in Hollywood while WBD (the parent's parent) is headquartered in NYC. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:23, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

When a source uses the new name as technically, no source, no name change. More generally, not sure a hard and fast rule is needed nor desirable. The company changes names, someone notices and updates accordingly. Slywriter (talk) 01:03, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
Well, first, I wasn't necessary advocating for a new guideline, I was just seeking guidance because WP:NAMECHANGES doesn't give any suggestions and I have seen editors express confusion about this in the past. I don't think no source, no name change is correct, if a previous source said "Company XYZ will rebrand as Company ABC next Monday" then we do have a source that indicates Company XYZ will rebrand as Company ABC on Monday. A source that comes out on Monday saying "Company XYZ has rebranded as Company ABC" isn't needed, and in some cases such a report may not happen, so it may take days until we actually get a reliable source that uses the new name. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:30, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
InfiniteNexus, it seems clear to me that the language in WP:NAMECHANGES is pretty clear. Is there anything about Sometimes the subject of an article will undergo a change of name. When this occurs, we give extra weight to independent, reliable English-language sources ("reliable sources") written after the name change. If the reliable sources written after the change is announced routinely use the new name, Wikipedia should follow suit and change relevant titles to match. If, on the other hand, reliable sources written after the name change is announced continue to use the established name, Wikipedia should continue to do so as well, as described above in "Use commonly recognizable names". Is there any language that you need clarified? Cullen328 (talk) 04:49, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
Yes. Since the guideline makes no mention about page moves, I'm going to assume that moving a page to its new name on the date it is set to do so is permissible. If there is any contention regarding the move, editors can examine sources and evaluate whether the page should be moved back. So my question is, what time should a page be moved? InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:57, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
When the name changes officially is irrelevant. The “trigger” for when we change the title on WP is when the new name becomes the COMMONNAME which is determined by usage in relevant reliable sources. For an American corporation, for example, once the WSJ, NY Times and/or local news sources are using the new name, then we follow suit. Asking what time we do that is missing the point. —-В²C ☎ 06:31, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
And if sources already begin referring to a company as its new name before the date at which the name change is set to take place? InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:34, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
If it’s the major reliable sources, then yes. Obviously it’s a judgment call about when the threshold is meant, and that’s decided by consensus, but the point is it’s usage in RS that drives the decision, not when the official name changes. —В²C ☎ 21:39, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
InfiniteNexus, your reply indicates that either you did not read or you did not understand the link that I provided. At least your comment that the guideline makes no mention about page moves, I'm going to assume that moving a page to its new name on the date it is set to do so is permissible is evidence of a deep misunderstanding. A page move, after all, is the only way to change the title of an existing article. So, it is unnecessary to mention page moves in such a guideline, just as it is unnecessary to mention hammers every time you talk about nails. We move pages about renamed topics to a new name only after the preponderance of reliable sources entirely independent of the topic start using the new name. Cullen328 (talk) 06:53, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
If that's true, then this guideline seems counterproductive. It makes sense to apply this logic to people or abstract concepts, but not companies and products. With the latter, the institution which owns the name will see that the name change is reflected across the board, ALL sources will follow suit 99% of the time, and it would be considered erroneous to refer to the company/product by its former name. That's not the case with the former, where oftentimes not everybody will recognize the name immediately so WP:COMMONNAME should be the deciding factor. And for the record, I have never seen anyone wait to see whether sources widely adopt a new name before moving a company/product, because it's expected that this will be the case. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:34, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
You are free to argue that in the case of business names distinguishing (objective) official name from (subjective) common name is practically moot and unproductive. But that’s not the current policy. —В²C ☎ 21:56, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
  • I don’t remember the specific details, but I do remember a case where a local amusement park changed ownership. The new owners changed the park’s name… but no one used the new name (even the media continued to use the old name except in paid advertising and official press releases). A few years after that, a third owner took over - and decided to go back to the original name.
Our article on this amusement park followed common usage, not the official corporate name changes.
The point being: while it is rare, there are times when the only people to use an “official” name are those paid to do so. The rest of the world ignores them, and so do we. Blueboar (talk) 00:58, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
You said it yourself, that was a small local business and a very rare case. We shouldn't be basing a guideline off of a one-in-a-million scenario. And like I said, even if someone moved that page to its official name when sources do not do the same, there's no harm in reversing the move after an RM discussion! That being said, all this talk about WP:NAMECHANGES is tangential to my initial question, but I don't think I'm going to get an answer, so never mind, I guess. InfiniteNexus (talk) 03:21, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
It's not uncommon for a company's legal name to differ from its commonly used name, typically due to a corporate restructuring. It's also not unusual for a company to promote a specific branding for its company name that doesn't end up getting widely used. isaacl (talk) 21:29, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
Concur with Issacl on this one. For example, it took almost a decade in the 2010s for people to get into to the habit of saying FedEx Office rather than Kinko's when talking about print/copy shops. Even now I still have to catch myself, and it's disappointing for me and anyone else who grew up relying on Kinko's for desktop publishing services to see how the company is a shadow of its former self. For several years, Wolters Kluwer tried to rebrand a certain line of well-known red casebooks to Wolters Kluwer, but many lawyers still referred to them as the Little, Brown books (anyone who entered law school before 1996) or the Aspen books. Then a private equity firm bought out Wolters Kluwer's legal education business in 2021 and rebranded the entity back to Aspen Publishing. --Coolcaesar (talk) 21:53, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Using years of birth and death for WP:NCPDAB

I am posting here instead of the talk page of the corresponding page since this is more actively watched. In the section where it talks about using the birth date of the person when there isn't a good qualifier to use. For example: Charles Hawtrey (actor, born 1858) and Charles Hawtrey (actor, born 1914). In my experience, there seems to be very few articles that use these qualifier. Why not Charles Hawtrey (1858-1923) or Charles Hawtrey (1914-1988)? On articles about royalty, I see a lot of articles that the form John Smith (1842-1903). Example: Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796–1817). I am hoping to get some input regarding how these titles should be used and hopefully develop better conventions on what to do with these titles. Interstellarity (talk) 21:13, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the general advice that birth and death years should be avoided as disambiguators. However, common-sense exceptions should apply, for example in cases where the subject's occupation/title is rather obvious, but they have a namesake of the same occupation/title. Thus, I find Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796–1817) prima facie eminently reasonable – such title implies there were other princesses named Charlotte of Wales.
I unsuccessfully argued for such exception at Talk:Eli Lilly (industrialist, born 1885) – there were only two notable Eli Lillys, the grandfather and the grandson, both of the same pharmaceutical company, and adding "industrialist" to the title was in my opinion totally lame. No such user (talk) 08:23, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Do we need to disambiguate on differences in number format?

There is an existing video game at Hades 2 and a recently announced one that is Hades II (currently a redirect). Hatnotes will obviously be used to point back and forth on these, but is the different between "2" and "II" sufficient to distinguish titles or should these be disambiguated further (which for video games will be by year)? Masem (t) 21:38, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

WP:SMALLDETAILS, which is part of article title policy, says that hatnotes are sufficient for disambiguation in a case like that. My take is that it is against policy (WP:CONCISE) to use parenthetical disambiguation when there is already sufficient natural disambiguation. Hatnotes are an important, and often sufficient, disambiguation method; we must resist the urge to include part of the short description in parentheses after any article title that could be confused with another: this is exactly what hatnotes are for. Mdewman6 (talk) 21:46, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
Perfect, just making sure we don't need to do that. Masem (t) 21:49, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Essay regarding issue of Foo redirects to Foo (bar) articles

I finally put together some text regarding this issue at Draft:Base names should not redirect to disambiguated pages, since the topic seems to keep coming up every once in a while at WP:RFD or WP:RM, and citing WP:QUALIFIER doesn't seem to satisfactorily get the point across. Open to any suggestions before I move to project space. Cheers, Mdewman6 (talk) 03:11, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Clarifying "also commonly called" but not "obscure" in NATURAL

Apparently there is significant disagreement about how common is "also commonly called" and not "obscure" as intended by WP:NATURAL:

Using an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title, is sometimes preferred. However, do not use obscure or made-up names.

See: Talk:Electric_battery#Requested_move_25_December_2022_--_Post-close_discussion. --В²C ☎ 16:34, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm wondering if it would help to specify in NATURAL that for a name of a topic commonly referenced in everyday life to be used as a title it has to be commonly used in widely read publications (i.e., general news), not just in obscure scholarly sources. --В²C ☎ 17:14, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes something along those lines but I wouldn't restrict it to everyday things as not using significantly less commonly used names should apply to all topics not just obscure ones but yes I think this would be a step in the right direction. Unlike "French language" (which is commonly used in everyday speech and sources like Britannica) in a way it is part of the term rather than just an independent modifier but almost no one uses the term "electric battery". Natural disambiguation often goes along the lines that a topic will be called by a shorter term where the context is clear such as saying just "French" when the context is clear the language is used but sometimes saying "French language" in a generic context. In contrast almost no one says "electric battery" even in a generic context and if they do its likely they are using "electric" as a modifier just like we put a term in brackets like Battery (electric) because "electric" isn't part of the name its an independent modifier. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:13, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
The point of restricting to everyday things is that specialized topics are likely referenced only in specialized sources, so it’s okay if there are no references in general news sources. But for everyday subjects there should be references in general news sources with the natural name in question. I think there is an important distinction there. Does that make sense? —В²C ☎ 18:44, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes that does make sense, with obscure topics there will often only be specialized sources which often can be used but for everyday topics we should pay more attention to non-expert sources and as most readers will be general interest readers our titles should generally match that. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:54, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes the goal of this statement is to ensure the title is recognizable, but "obscure scholarly sources" is so vague that it could cause confusion. Technical/scholarly sources certainly can and should be considered when determining titles. What specific change to the policy are you proposing? VQuakr (talk) 19:13, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
You keep saying the goal of this statement is to ensure the title is recognizable. Why do you think that? That’s not what it means. The goal is to reflect common usage. If a title is recognizable but not commonly used it’s not meeting the threshold. Reflecting common usage is important because we don’t want to imply or suggest a name for a subject when it’s not commonly used. I’m not proposing any specific change, yet. I’m first seeing if there’s consensus that, frankly, your interpretation is missing the point. If so then the wording needs to be clarified accordingly but I’m not yet sure exactly how. —-В²C ☎ 23:57, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
@Born2cycle: no, the goal our article titling policy is absolutely not to reflect common usage. It is to identify the title that best meets the 5 criteria; "common usage" is not one of those criteria. Common usage is a means to an end (because a commonly recognized name "generally" will also meet the 5 criteria), not the goal. VQuakr (talk) 00:08, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Semantics. The goal of reflecting common usage stems from the five CRITERIA, of which recognizability is one. In any case, NATURAL specifically calls for using names as titles by which the subject is "commonly called", and directly states to "not use obscure" names. Lots of names for many of ours subjects would be recognizable, but we don't use as titles because those topics are not commonly called by those names. That is, recognizability is a necessary but not sufficient characteristic of a NATURALly disambiguated title. --В²C ☎ 05:45, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
No, not semantics. Cart vs. horse. Recognizability is a goal; using a common name is a tool to achieve that goal. If it's not a good tool for a specific situation, we use a different tool. An "obscure or made up name" would be something like electrochemical cell or accumulator. In our example electric battery isn't obscure at all and it's not a made up name; it's a logical phrase to disambiguate the ambiguous word "battery". Maybe the subsection should be updated a bit to make clear that such a term is acceptable and consistent with WP:DESCRIPDIS? VQuakr (talk) 09:32, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Parenthetical terms *have* to be last?

There are articles at both Delta Phi Epsilon (social) and Delta Phi Epsilon (professional). There are also a large number of Greek Letter Organizations with List of XXX Chapters articles or redirects. For an article or redirect for a chapter list for Delta Phi Epsilon (social) is List of Delta Phi Epsilon (social) chapters acceptable, or should it be List of Delta Phi Epsilon chapters (social). The first seems more parallel with the article, but the second seems more parallel with the dab term being last.Naraht (talk) 14:43, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

List of Delta Phi Epsilon social chapters seems much better to me. Disambiguation needed carry through to child articles per WP:CONSISTENT, and the flow of the list article seems more amenable to WP:NATURAL disambiguation. VQuakr (talk) 17:30, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
From the standpoint of someone who works on that type of article (welcome to WP:FRAT) , it doesn't seem correct. The two Delta Phi Epsilons are completely separate organizations sharing *nothing* except a name. We do have articles that look like List of Mu Mu undergraduate chapters and List of Mu Mu graduate chapters, but there, it is two types of chapters for the *same* organization.Naraht (talk) 18:45, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
  • To be honest, I think listing the chapters as a section within the main Delta Phi Epsilon (social) article (as we currently do) is fine. There aren’t that many local chapters and so I don’t see a need for a separate list article.
Plus there is the bonus that Keeping the list as a section within the main article avoids the awkward titling issue all together. Blueboar (talk) 19:45, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Should footwear article titles be singular or plural?

Should footwear article titles (shoes and socks) be singular or plural? Please weigh in at move requests here and here if you care. —  AjaxSmack  05:02, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Clearly singular per WP:SINGULAR. A single instance of trousers is still trousers, but a single shoe or sock is nonplural. VQuakr (talk) 22:55, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
It depends on the item… no one talks about a single galosh, but sometimes people do talk about a single boot. Blueboar (talk) 01:06, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Concur with Blueboar. --Coolcaesar (talk) 14:55, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
@Blueboar: as noted in the move discussion, there are indeed sources that refer to a singular galosh. I can't say I've ever used the singular IRL. VQuakr (talk) 16:50, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

COMMONNAME (and NAMECHANGES) and recency of sources

In a current renaming discussion at Talk:East Timor (target: Timor-Leste), User:Srnec opined "Sources from before 2020 (or 2000, or 1975) aren't going to disappear. They should still get a say, albeit of ever decreasing weighting." Has consideration been given here in the past of the extent to which recency comes to play in assessing the weight of sources considered in a WP:COMMONNAME determination?

Srnec offered one view, and it makes sense insofar as people come across names in old sources as well as new ones; if English speakers read about a place more often in texts from the 1940s than they do in contemporary media, then isn't what they call the place likely to be influenced by the other sources? Another view would be that only sources within the past X months should be considered, to answer the question: what are reliable sources now calling this place (without regard to whether these are the only sources that potential visitors to Wikipedia in search of further information about this place are reading).

A summary of the dichotomy here: are we more concerned with what, out in the wild, is currently being written or what's currently being read? And, certainly, there may be perspectives on this beyond those two.

If there's a strong enough feeling one way or another, should it be capture in the guideline?

Your thoughts? Largoplazo (talk) 01:52, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

IMO, without getting into the specifics of this particular case, the pertinent policy here is WP:NAMECHANGES, which is essentially an extension of WP:COMMONNAME. Basically, if something undergoes a change in name and reliable sources consistently use the new name (or perhaps, more often than not use the new name), then the article title should be changed to reflect that, because the common name should be the current common name. In other words, there isn't a long-term use criterion like there is for primary topics; if something has had an entrenched name for 200 years, it doesn't mean we have to wait decades before determining a name change has actually "stuck". Redirects exist for users searching alternative or former names. But the burden is to demonstrate this change in use has occurred, otherwise we must default to the reliable sources that support the existing name until there is enough evidence to support the change. Mdewman6 (talk) 02:08, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
I've just updated the title of this section to incorporate NAMECHANGES. The same question pertains to that guideline. For example, it seems to me that it took a long time after the Burmese regime of the time replaced the name "Burma" with "Myanmar" for the latter to be picked up to any great extent. I can't say how long it was but let's say, for the sake of argument, that Burma predominated until 20 years after the official change. So, 20 years after the offical change, are we still giving full weight to 19-year-old sources? Or zero weight? Or something in between? Largoplazo (talk) 02:13, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
Namechanges says to give extra weight to current/recent sources. How much is of course unclear and unquantifiable. I think the crux of it, in practical terms, is that there needs to be enough evidence of a change in use to convince a majority of users in an RM discussion and reach a consensus for a proposed change. Many name changes become the obvious new commonname rather quickly, other names changes have no effect on the common name, and some cases are more gradual or unclear. I guess in those tougher minority of cases, we just have to try to reach consensus as we normally would in any case. I don't think there is a quantifiable metric that proponents (or opponents) of a move can point to and hang their hats on. Just the nature of the beast. Mdewman6 (talk) 02:21, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
Namechanges doesn't say to give extra weight to current/recent sources. It says only to give "extra weight to ... sources written after the name change". Which is almost tautological: Of course we aren't going to look at sources from before the name changed. But, among sources following the name change, it says nothing about relative weighting of the oldest and newest sources and all the sources in between.
What I'm trying to do here is establish what the appropriate basis is around which to form a consensus. It does no good if some people think that old sources count a lot and others think they don't count at all. If there's a meta-consensus, here, that a particular approach is the advisable one, then we don't have to keep having these meta-arguments in every individual discussion. Which is why we have guidelines at all instead of leaving every Wikipedia discussion to start from the ground up. We have WP:COMMONNAME, for example, so every time someone argues "But this is the official name", we can say "That isn't the applicable criterion!" instead of having to start out from first principles to decide among the group whether the official name is relevant, or whether it's even the only relevant factor. It's annoying to have COMMONNAME and NAMECHANGES when both of them have a big hole as to what they mean. Largoplazo (talk) 04:01, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
You are going to get a lot of pushback as to what is a "current" source. You mentioned "2020 (or 2000, or 1975)". While I would agree that current sources have some extra weight for certain common name issues, I certainly would not limit it to 2020 and forward for equality. In looking at common arguments, sources within the last five years tend to have equal weight... and then it would tend to diminish back in time from there. Saying that something three years ago is too old to be equal with something from 2021 starts to smack of WP:RECENTISM and editors will jump on that fact in their arguments. There's also historical articles where the old common name will always be the better fit throughout, like what we do with Kyiv/Kiev. Trying to write a rule on time period weight will be tough given the varying nature of all our articles. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:30, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
Right, my use of 'current' wasn't the right word- by current I meant after a putative name change as opposed to before. If a name change occurred 5 or 10 years ago, and there is belief it is the common name, it shouldn't be difficult to find RS to support that claim, and I think any RS, be it from last week or 5 years ago, could equally support that. We just have to be careful about very recent name changes, as the use of the new name might appear in some RS, but that may not mean the new name becomes established. Anyway, I am not sure how to make WP:NAMECHANGES more clear. Perhaps what instead would be helpful is an essay with some examples from RM discussions illustrating various types of real scenarios and how consensus was formed. Mdewman6 (talk) 23:58, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Parenthetical disambiguation for all topic articles

Washington (state) is obviously disambiguated from all the other people and places with this name at Washington. But there are dozens of articles related to the state that I don't believe actually need this parenthetical disambiguation, for example List of lighthouses in Washington (state) doesn't need a disambiguation from another other List of lighthouses in Washington. The latter is now a redirect after User:Thrakkx moved it and 21 other articles to include (state). In several cases they also converted the original name to a dab page like List of high schools in Washington, but I don't think this is necessary either as "Washington, D.C." already has a different name (in some cases the title has "District of Columbia"). A hatnote would also work. Should there really be a parenthetical for all pages related to a main topic that has one or can that be just those that need it? Reywas92Talk 18:52, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Mostly quoting myself from the discussion on my talk page:
There are nearly 100 articles where this disambiguation existed before my edits, including History of, Music of, Government of, City government in, Law of, Legislative districts, Cannabis in, List of federal lands in, List of newspapers in, Economy of, List of people from, Vehicle registration plates of, Same-sex marriage in, Capital punishment in, List of earthquakes in, Wind power in, Scouting in, United States presidential elections in (and all of its year-specific articles), COVID-19 pandemic in, Outline of, and Index of Washington (state)-related articles. Also, basically every single category about the state of Washington.
Nearly all of these articles have a Washington, D.C., equivalent and so disambiguation is clearly needed for the ones I changed myself. I think it's clear that other editors have concluded, implicitly or otherwise, that every other article needs it too. Obviously there are minor exceptions, such as List of counties in Washington, since Washington, D.C., does not have counties.
Washington, D.C., may already [have] a different name, but in the opening sentence of its article, we state that it is also known as just "Washington". Thrakkx (talk) 19:00, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
It is inappropriate to have List of lighthouses in Washington (state) and leave List of lighthouses in Washington redirecting there per WP:MISPLACED (disclaimer: I wrote this essay, and just published it to be able to point to it in this comment- so consider it an explanation of my point of view). So, it should either be moved back to the undisambiguated title, or become a disambiguation page. However, what would it be disambiguated with? There isn't a List of lighthouses in Washington, D.C.. If there are any lighthouses in Washington, D.C., surely the state would be the primary topic and anyone looking for lighthouses in D.C. could be served with a hatnote. As for List of high schools in Washington, there is nothing wrong with the set index/dab page created, but an argument could certainly be made that the state is the primary topic, so this seems ripe for discussion via a requested move. All of these should be considered on a case by case basis whether there truly is no primary topic between the state and the city, or whether the a hatnote to the analogous D.C. articles is sufficient. Mdewman6 (talk) 19:09, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

"Allegations of _____" titles

Sorry if this is addressed elsewhere but I didn't find it--is there a policy on how allegations of titles are managed? It makes for poor sorting alphabetically when so many disparate articles regarding allegations are not titled with the subject first.

Similar issues with "interpretations of", "analysis of" etc. SmolBrane (talk) 19:33, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

The DEFAULTSORT magic word (see Help:Magic words § Behavior switches) can be used to specify a sort key for these aricles when shown in category listings. isaacl (talk) 22:12, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

WP:CONCISE

Full disclosure: I came to this page again from a discussion at Talk:May 1968 events in France. This edit by me is not related to any of the arguments from that discussion, however. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:14, 15 November 2019‎ (UTC)

OK.Herostratus (talk) 01:46, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

RfC notification

There's a RfC regarding article titles for boxing matches at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Boxing#RfC about replacing "vs." and "v" with "vs" in boxing match article titles. – 2.O.Boxing 11:04, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at WT:MOSJAPAN § Why doesn't Wikipedia respect Japan?

 You are invited to join the discussion at WT:MOSJAPAN § Why doesn't Wikipedia respect Japan?. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:02, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Proposed naming convention for Census pages

In Category:Censuses by country, there are a number of page titles used. For example:

There should be a standard form, whether [Year country/demonym census] or [Year census of country]. There should possibly also be a standard to use lower-case. The former is more succinct, and similar to that used for Wikipedia:Articles on elections. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 06:03, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Underscore

WP:TSC states that underscores cannot be used, but Category:Articles with underscores in the title seems to indicate otherwise. Should we reword this guidance, clarifying that the only limitation is that Wikipedia equates it with a space, thus "Hello_World" is the same title as "Hello World"? Hoof Hearted (talk) 12:31, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Personally, I think the existing guidance is fine. Because of the way Wikipedia handles spaces, there are also knock-on effects that impact the rendering of titles with underscores. For example, multiple consecutive spaces or underscores get collapsed into a single space; this means that, for instance, the album You're Not As _____ As You Think has its title rendered as simply "You're Not As As You Think" in the page URL. Meanwhile, spaces are removed entirely when they begin or end a title, which affects the URLs of titles such as Building a Better ______ (rendered as just "Building a Better"). Given these limitations, I think it's best to continue treating the underscore as fully unusable for technical reasons. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:37, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Well, the URL will get rendered differently, but the text at the top of the article will show the correct underscore(s). I understand discouraging its use, but I feel it's incorrect to say you cannot use an underscore – because, the underscore can be and is used. Even so, I'm willing to let sleeping dogs lie, just wanted to put it up for discussion. Hoof Hearted (talk) 17:42, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
The title in such articles is made to display through use of DISPLAYTITLE. And as described in headnote for Category:Articles with underscores in the title -- the purpose of the category is to allow mechanism for bots to avoid replacing the underscores in links. older ≠ wiser 19:43, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Now I see. I didn't realize DISPLAYTITLE was being used. I agree there is no problem with the current guidance. Carry on! Hoof Hearted (talk) 20:34, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Google limits length of titles in search results. Big difference in page views

This info could be mentioned in WP:CONCISE section.

Hundreds of people a day apparently look up "incarceration rates" or similar in Google search. A clear and shorter Wikipedia title effected a 4-fold 2-fold immediate increase in page views when reverting back to a shorter title:

See:

--Timeshifter (talk) 05:44, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

That's an interesting result. But there are a lot of benefits of a concise title beyond SEO, and I don't think we need to enumerate them in this guideline, in the interest of keeping it, well, concise. Colin M (talk) 13:58, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
Actually, on further inspection, I think you might be misreading the data. I think the apparent drop in pageviews is mostly a consequence of that pageview template not including views via redirects. If you compare views for the two titles, the loss in views for the original title after the rename is at least partly accounted for by the gain in views for the new name. You can also take a look at the views for the original name with the "Include redirects" box checked in the pageviews web UI. There's still a bit of a drop, but it's far less dramatic than a 4x decrease. Colin M (talk) 14:07, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

It still looks like a big jump in views. A 2-fold increase. That may not matter to you. Maybe you edit Wikipedia for the pure joy of wikitext, and not because it is an encyclopedia reaching vast numbers of people with easy to access, understandable info.

But I think others, many others, will disagree with you. And so a few lines in WP:CONCISE will help Wikipedia reach more clueless Trump and QAnon supporters (for example) who will more easily find accurate info. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:17, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

I started a discussion here:
Template talk:Annual readership#How are redirects counted in page views?
--Timeshifter (talk) 10:54, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
  • I have removed the added text: "Concise titles are recognized easier in Google/Bing search results too since title length is limited there. This increases the number of people reading the article". This is a policy page of substantial importance to the project, and should not be changed without discussion and community consensus for that change. I'm not sure that we as a project should formally consider the vagaries of search engines, nor that we should name specific companies. BD2412 T 11:42, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
BD2412. I was being bold to see what opinions were on the change. It seemed like no one else was paying attention.
I was wondering myself whether I should use "Google/Bing". But I wanted to be clear about what I was talking about. I am not talking about Wikipedia search. And since the large majority of page views on almost any site (not just Wikipedia) come from those 2 search engines I lean towards being clear.
WP:CONCISE says: "The goal of concision is to balance brevity with sufficient information to identify the topic to a person familiar with the general subject area."
What "persons" are we talking about? Are we not talking about the vast numbers of people looking for the best info on any topic? And are not those people mainly coming from Google/Bing? Look it up. It's true.
And is not Wikipedia usually the best place to go to first to start studying a topic? So let's make it easy for them. The page title needs to be clear enough in the first part of the page title. Because that is what shows up in commercial search engines. Maybe that is the phrase we can use: "commercial search engines"? --Timeshifter (talk) 13:46, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
There are places to be bold. Editing policy pages is not so much one of them, considering that if a dispute over the added line arises in the future, any editor can point to the edit making the change and observe that it was added without consensus and therefore has no effect. I have seen exactly that happen in discussions more than once. With respect to the change itself, the precise wording also requires discussion, and it is better to get it right than to rush it. BD2412 T 13:58, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
BD2412. I agree. But I waited 10 days without getting further discussion, and didn't want this to end up in the archives, and have to start all over again. I figured it would get reverted, but at least somebody would discuss it, and give me an idea or two. Now please take off your admin hat, and tell me what you think.
After further thought I think an example needs to be in WP:CONCISE. I didn't explain just how long the previous title (now a redirect) was:
List of countries and some dependent territories and subnational areas by incarceration rate.
versus the current title:
List of countries by incarceration rate
It is like the Fiona Apple album title example.
Many people may not know that there are thousands of "by country" or "Lists of countries" etc. pages. Imagine if they all started to converting to "List of countries and some dependent territories and subnational areas by..." titles. Their combined page views would be halved according to the previously discussed example. "By country" pages get a lot of page views. I know because I have long edited Help:Table and see those pages frequently.
--Timeshifter (talk) 14:46, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
I don't know that we necessarily need to invoke the functioning of external search engines to justify those results, particularly when the companies that control those search engines can change their parameters and methodologies at any time, and particularly when the introduction of AI-powered search engines is profoundly changing how they operate. For a more engaged discussion, I would suggest proposing this addition at WP:VPP. BD2412 T 14:51, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

I noticed on your talk page this quote: "It is The Reader that we should consider on each and every edit we make to Wikipedia."

I would think the page title then is the most important factor in many cases in getting those readers here.

I don't know if I have the energy for a long WP:VPP discussion. I didn't think my request was such a big deal. It's obvious to me, but I deal with list pages with tables a lot. I use Google a lot to find them. I forgot to link to those thousands of "by country" pages. See:

I should clarify that the vast majority of page views on big sites come from Google/Bing/etc.. That's one reason they are big sites. Smaller sites may not necessarily be getting as large a percentage of views from commercial search engines. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:38, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

While this is doubtlessly important, I'm not sure if the rationale for WP:CONCISE is super-necessary to put in here. Maybe, though. Red Slash 21:11, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, Red Slash. I do not understand what you are saying. Could you elaborate? --Timeshifter (talk) 15:44, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Changing policy on the transliteration of Korean names

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Korean) § Changing of naming conventions. :3 F4U (they/it) 01:34, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Correct title for a planned article to avoid ambiguity

I'm planning an article (not yet even ready for a sandbox draft) about an incident involving an airplane flight in New York City on September 11th, 2018. The flight in question was from New Delhi, India, and scheduled to land at JFK, ultimately being lucky enough to be able to make a safe landing in Newark (a suburb of New York City across the New Jersey border). The flight involved is Air India Flight 101; unfortunately, this airline and number match a more notable aircrash in 1966. What should the title of the new article be? Animal lover |666| 14:10, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Disambiguate the lesser known flight (the 2018 one) with the parenthetical (2018). Its full title should be Air India Flight 101 (2018). You would then leave a hatnote at the top of the other article directing people to the lesser known flight {{for|the 2018 flight|Air India Flight 101 (2018)}}. I hope that helps. --Jayron32 17:18, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion based page names

We have a missing article list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion based on topic names from the Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion, with odd formulations such as Africa, North: History of Dress; Ancient World: History of Dress. It seems like these Missing encyclopedic articles contains many improper page names. I think perhaps the Missing encyclopedic articles needs pruning and purging of bad page names? These names are showing up at WP:AFC/R for redirect creation -- 64.229.90.172 (talk) 19:45, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

I would suggest striking the unsuitable titles using <s>bad entry</s>. Some just are using the wrong kind of style, but others might be OK as redirects. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:32, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Editorial change: replace Rhode Island example

Since the state changed its official name at some point, and thus the name referred to in the example is historical, consider replacing the example with one that doesn't need a potentially confusing clarification. Ideas: Llanfairpwllgwyngyll rather than its longer variants, many examples of Foo rather than Republic/Kingdom of Foo, Turing Award rather than ACM A. M. Turing Award. 73.223.72.200 (talk) 22:50, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Please look at this RM

A few more editors with a good understanding of WP title decision-making weighing in here would be good for the community: Talk:Mike_McCartney_(footballer)#Requested_move_6_May_2023. Thanks. --В²C ☎ 06:29, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

I want to change the title of my article in progress

But how? Help, please? TCFLightyears93 (group chat / contributions) 18:31, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

@Tcflightyears93: If you're talking about Duck Life, you should be able to click on the "Move" link near the top of the page, and then give it whatever new title you like, and click on the "Move page" button. Station1 (talk) 18:47, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks a million! TCFLightyears93 (group chat / contributions) 18:50, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Name for Brewster, your thoughts needed

There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:Owen Brewster about his common name. Please comment.--User:Namiba 17:08, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

slang or casual usage?

It seems to me that in some cases, what might be considered a WP:COMMONNAME is actually more slang or casual usage. Right now, I am thinking of how to reply to a name change proposal. I believe we should not necessarily use slang names, unless they are especially common. Gah4 (talk) 21:54, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Which proposal? or at least an example? Blueboar (talk) 22:24, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
I was hoping to ask generally, but it is this one: Talk:Subnetwork#Requested_move_28_June_2023. Gah4 (talk) 01:39, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 July 2023

In the "Non-neutral but common names" section, please change "should anticipate what readers will type as a first guess and balance that with what readers expect to be taken to" to "should anticipate what readers will type as a first guess and balance that with what readers expect to be taken to", i.e. do not italicise "what readers" in the second half when it's not italicised in the first half. 2001:BB6:47ED:FA58:D999:8C1F:CA47:4F8B (talk) 10:44, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

 Done Lightoil (talk) 12:40, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

RFC on stadium naming policy

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Withdrawn by proponent. – .Raven (.talk)

For a long time with regard to the name of sports stadiums with sponsored names, it has generally been an unwritten rule on sports stadium articles (particularly in UK football and rugby related ones) that these names are not used for the title unless the stadium has never had a non-sponsored name to avoid Wikipedia being seen to endorse commercial entities. Henceforth, I wish to formalise this by proposing that a section be added to the Article Titles policy stating:

  • "Where stadiums and arenas have been named after a sponsor, the original non-sponsored name shall always be used for the title (regardless of WP:COMMONNAME) unless the stadium has never had a non-sponsored name in its history." The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 08:09, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose, as this would have plenty of laughable results like FedExField→Jack Kent Cooke Stadium (although it's debatable whether FedExField or FedEx Field is the common name). There's no reason for stadiums to be an exception to COMMONNAME and WP:NAMECHANGES. Star Garnet (talk) 09:33, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Support in principle, but no support for hard inflexible wording. Support recognising that sponsored names are a version of promotion, and that collusion by the commercial media to promote sponsored names renders the commercial media non independent. To avoid the insidious pervasive commercial pressure, give more weight to noncommercial media. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:40, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
    I assume the premise is that there is no COMMONNAME due to inadequate quality sources. COMMONNAME is the first preference. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:56, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose making a policy. Use the WP:COMMONNAME when there is doubt. —Kusma (talk) 09:52, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose. If a sponsored name is the most common name it is the proper title, period. That's fundamental and general Wikipedia policy that applies to everything. The unwritten convention has long been a violation of titling policy and should never have be "enforced". Trying to do that is actually far more POV-pushing than just using the common sponsored name. It not only should be written into the policy, it should be stopped permanently. oknazevad (talk) 15:40, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is tough policy to endorse because there are so many different scenarios with stadium names. This is best left up being handled on a case by case basis by using WP:COMMONNAME. Nemov (talk) 13:31, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose - First, I think the premise of the proposal (that there is an “unwritten rule”) is inaccurate. Yes, there are times when we ignore an official name change (and thus continue to use an “old” pre-sponsorship name for our article title)… but that is not due to any objection to the commercial nature of the new (sponsored) name, but because the old name continues to be in COMMON usage (despite the official name change). So… as others have said, leave this to WP:COMMONNAME. Blueboar (talk) 13:48, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
  • I see where the wind is going for WP:SNOW so I will formally Withdraw the RFC according to the rules here. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 15:34, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose Since it doesn't say Closed, I add my oppose. I suppose I disagree with sponsored names, but that isn't the question here. Gah4 (talk) 21:49, 28 June 2023 (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.

For ideas on how to deal with situations where there are several competing foreign terms, see "Multiple local names" and "Use modern names" in the geographical naming guideline. Such discussions can benefit from outside opinions so as to avoid a struggle over which language to follow.

(emphasis added by me) The link in the second sentence points to WP:RFC. This seems like a very clear case where the link should point to WP:RM, as that's where article title disputes are handled at first. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 04:13, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:CONCISE. Should "estimated" be added to most list article titles?

WP:CONCISE. See RFC here:

Someone recently added "Estimated" to that article title. I find that many list/table articles explain in the article and/or article references about the level of estimation involved, and how the data was acquired.

Does it really need to be in the article title too? The current article there, and its references, already explains that they are estimates. The main reference there (at the reference site) explains their sourcing. Many data points in list articles are based on surveys, for example. Editors can add as much detail as they want in an article about the reference methodology. We need to keep article titles shorter if we want them to be understood in the truncated titles that major search engines present to readers. See my previous talk section here. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:26, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

I think it rather goes without saying that percentages of anything at a national level will always be "estimated". BD2412 T 04:12, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
"Someone", being me, did not make the argument presented here. Nowhere will you find that I made such a suggestion. Instead, where articles are presenting data this is largely gathered via surveys and proxies, it should note that they are estimates in the title, as many similar articles already do. The vast majority of 'list' articles are not based on estimates - that is trivially verifiable and obvious. Adding 'estimated' to list article titles where the data presented is not estimated would be bonkers. It's worth pointing out that before I worked on the article, it nowhere stated that the data presented was estimated. We aren't supposed to assume that general readers know that it 'goes without saying' that X, Y, or Z obtain under some circumstances, and not under others. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 06:50, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
Whether it is many or most list articles that are estimated is not my point. My point is that WP:CONCISE encourages shorter article names. You can't put everything in the article title as WP:CONCISE, and its longer article, points out. Many list articles start with a table of countries, states, etc.. Then more and more details are filled in by editors over time concerning the references, estimation methods, questions from notable sources on the quality of those sources, etc.. Few articles start out perfect. See the previous talk section I was involved in here:
#Google limits length of titles in search results. Big difference in page views
--Timeshifter (talk) 12:30, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
"Whether it is many or most list articles that are estimated is not my point." yet the title of this section you created suggests that that is the argument. The majority of 'list' articles are not lists of estimates; again, this is trivially verifiable. Where an article's content is based on surveys and proxies, then it's appropriate - it's misleading to title an article as an emphatic when it's not. Filling in more data in a table doesn't change that the values are still estimates. In the case of firearm ownership, the estimates range from 'maybe close' to 'wildy disparate'. This inquiry should be retitled, since it's misleading, it should instead be something along the lines of "Should "estimated" be added to articles where it's not obvious to the general reader that the data isn't strict?" cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 23:11, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
I agree the word "estimated" should not be in most list article titles. Estimation can be addressed in the body of the article itself. Rlendog (talk) 14:03, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Most? Absolutely not. Most list articles are not even numerical, where the word "estimated" wouldn't be appropriate at all. In this one article title? Possibly. Discuss it on the article talk page, and reach a consensus. --Jayron32 14:14, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
  • No , even if they are not exhaustive. Wikipedia is a work in progress. — xaosflux Talk 14:27, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Well, actually, User:Anastrophe's point is well taken. First of all, to clarify -- it's a little obscured -- almost all lists are like "Mountains over X meters tall in Antarctica" etc. There's no guessing there. Second of all, when a list is based on estimates, it's taking away crucial info from the reader, almost misleading the reader you could say I guess (I woudn't go that far myself) to not say so. And no, some non-negligable number of readers are not going to suss right off that of course the data is estimated.
Well taken, but still... the main function of a title is to get the reader where she wants to be, and no more than that. I don't think anyone is going to find "Number of frogs in Lake Oneida" confusing where "Estimated number of frogs in Lake Oneida" wouldn't be, for navigation purposes. Either is going to get them to the article they want. By all means the fact that its estimated should be made clear right off, first sentence or soon after. If the article doesn't do that, the solution is to add it, not change the title. Herostratus (talk) 00:04, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
I am so used to editing "by country" and "by state" data lists that I don't see much else. There are thousands of them, and many are based on estimated data. So that is what I am referring to.
--Timeshifter (talk) 04:08, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
  • No to the general question. If WP:RS generally add qualifiers like "estimated" to specific lists, these may need qualifiers here as well. In many such lists, the data quality will vary greatly from country to country, which will need to be explained in the lead, but usually I would not expect the title to be sufficient to understand the data quality issues. —Kusma (talk) 08:01, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, unless we can say with a high degree of confidence that we have the correct rounded value. Our readers would generally expect rounding when handling big numbers, but we should not give them a false sense of correctness. Animal lover |666| 13:29, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
    • Per Herostratus: "By all means the fact that its estimated should be made clear right off, first sentence or soon after. If the article doesn't do that, the solution is to add it, not change the title." Plus some list articles have non-estimated values for some countries, but have estimated values for others. Or highly accurate estimated values for some countries, and much less accurate estimates for other countries. And many other variations. Putting "estimated" in the title does not present a full picture. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:21, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
  • No to "estimated" in titles. Lots of statistics are estimates. It doesn't add anything significant without saying who made the estimate or how it was made. That's for the article body, not the title. The search intitle:"estimated" only gives 26 hits and most of them are redirects or terms with "Estimated" in the name. There are a grand total of two article titles using "estimated" to say the content is estimated: Estimated number of civilian guns per capita by country and List of estimated best-selling Italian music artists. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:29, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
  • No it just needs to be explained in the text. Also the word "known" does not have to be in the title. After all we only write about what is known. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:24, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
  • No Unless it is especially not obvious, I would not add estimated. Even if it was exact when written, it will be wrong soon after, and we wouldn't go changing the title for that reason. We would not name an article Percent of households with guns by country on June 28th, 2023 for example, though it might be more accurate. I believe we are allowed to round, even if WP:RS have more (too) exact values. Gah4 (talk) 21:44, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
  • No, although for the record, I think that it would sound better to say "Proportion of..." rather than "Percent of..." in articles such as the one referenced above. I would reserve "estimated" for situations in which there is a particularly high degree of uncertainty. Mover of molehillsmove me 00:16, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
  • No/It Depends - Would the titles of some list articles be better if we used “estimated”? Perhaps. Would the title of most list articles be better? No. This is something we do not need a rule about. It can be discussed and decided on an on an article by article basis. Blueboar (talk) 00:39, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
  • No, per sentence two of AT policy (what it's about; distinguishes it from others) and WP:CONCISE. Nothing is gained by overloading the title with descriptive detail that belongs somewhere in the article, perhaps the first sentence or soon thereafter, as suggested by Herostratus. Mathglot (talk) 20:28, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
No The topic of these articles is the number or percent. That the info we have on these topics consists of estimates is beside the point. We don't rename the article on Mexico "Some high-level information about Mexico". Mexico is the topic; the title just needs to identify the topic as such and doesn't need to describe the nature of the information being offered about it. Largoplazo (talk) 20:54, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Clarifying titles on articles about words

Generally, Wikipedia is not a dictionary. However, sometimes it does have articles about words (as distinct from the concepts they represent). Currently there's a discussion on Talk:Cisgender about the problem that – despite the short description "Gender identity descriptor" – some editors are editing the lead to discuss the concept, while the rest of the article is about the word as such. @Mathglot: tells me I should bring my own suggestion here, because it may have wider applicability:

May I throw another hat (=idea) in the ring with the rest? Consistently adding "(word)" to articles about words not concepts, might be a good way to indicate the real topic to both readers and editors. It would also make for a quick way to point out misunderstanding: "The article Cisgender (word) discusses that word (e.g. its definition[s], etymology, usage, history) rather than the concept it represents." – repeat elsewhere with only the article named changing.
Alternatively, make that sentence a banner or hat using {{SUBST:FULLPAGENAME}}.

The first part seems to me consistent with other titles that add "(book)" or "(film)" where, absent those additions, the title might be taken as referring to a person, place, or event. In this case, I am suggesting it even though there is no other article to disambiguate it from, just to reduce misunderstanding of the referent. Broadly, the same might apply to any other meta-references besides words, to satisfy WP:PRECISION.

As for the second part: the more general template is:
{{about|what it IS about|some other usage|where to find that other usage}}
– .Raven  .talk 19:41, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

I think your suggestion about adding a disambiguator like (word) (or 'term', or 'expression', depending on the article) could be very helpful in articles about words. The vast majority of our 7M articles are about concepts not words, and so it's not surprising that the very few exceptions cause confusion among editors, and this would be a helpful modification to the WP:Article title policy that will help prevent that. The article LGBT, for example, is entirely about the word, its history, evolution, variants, and so on; despite the hatnote and italic title, there have still been numerous good-faith attempts to alter it to discuss "LGBT" as a concept. These edits are essentially due to a misunderstanding of the use–mention distinction on the part of these good-faith editors, but that is hardly surprising, given the subtlety of the topic. Following Raven's suggestion at the Cisgender article would result in a title of "Cisgender (word)", which would likely avoid most of the confusion. And if and when it was time to change the focus of the article from word to concept, the title would help clarify the situation, and require a title change, as well it should. I support this proposal. I think that the article title policy should be modified to add wording about this. Mathglot (talk) 21:58, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

One of the biggest misunderstandings in Wikipedia is the false dichotomy that regarding this there are only two things:

  • Topic that inherently exists, and words are merely a way to give it a name
  • Exceptions where the article is clearly and flatly only about a word

While the title of the page and section sort of hide it, Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary#When a word or phrase itself may be an encyclopedic subject explains (with examples) that many topics exist in the "gray area" in between. Please read...It's just two short paragraphs and makes my main point here. It gives several examples where the word somewhat "creates" the topic by grouping things that don't otherwise have a common name. And I think that this is a very important area to gain recognition and handle. One way or the other, I think that the end result is that these articles need to recognize that they are covering the term and usually not the place to cover that which is created/grouped/renamed by the term. North8000 (talk) 20:38, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

> "... these articles need to recognize that they are covering the term and usually not the place to cover that which is created/grouped/renamed by the term."
Yes, thank you! I would amend this only to add "editors of" in front of that, to clarify who can/should recognize that.
And my proposal was meant to help editors (and readers) recognize that. – .Raven  .talk 21:43, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
I agree with North8000 about a false dichotomy. In a way, I think the false impression of a dichotomy is the result of looking at snapshots in time, rather than an evolution, which is a better representation of what happens with certain topics that start out as a neologism and eventually evolve into a well known term with plenty of discussion about the concept. It's not an either-or, it depends when you look at it.
The article "Cisgender" is a good example. In the 2000s, the word started to be mentioned in blogs such as this 2002 post about cisgender Emi Koyama's blog, and gradually became adopted and used in context, such as in Julia Serano's Whipping Girl. For quite some time, that's all they were, mentions or uses as an adjective in context, but nothing like a discussion about the concept that would pass GNG. Since, then, there's been more coverage; the last article section on normativity and privilege seems to have some of that (to the extent that the refs are not just dictionary defintions); whether the concept of "cisgender" now has enough in-depth coverage to be considered WP:Notable for a standalone article is a subject for discussion at Talk:Cisgender and not here.
But the point is, that the rare neologism that deserves an article about the word itself, as described in the policy section that North8000 draws attention to, often evolve, and ultimately the concept may become notable as well, and it could either evolve to become a separate article, or more likely in most cases, it becomes the new topic, with the previous content being encapsulated in a new, #Terminology section. Until that happens, an article about a word needs some way to highlight that the word is the topic: the content of the WP:LEADSENTENCE is one way to do that, the italic title per MOS:WAW is another way, and .Raven's proposal would be a very helpful addition, and likely would be more effective than either of the other two methods. Mathglot (talk) 23:09, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

I think that one thing that fuels the problem is the widely accepted mantra that Wikipedia articles can't be about words. While that is a useful mantra most of time (because we aren't a dictionary) it obscures the fact that there are times when we need to recognize that the article should be (only) about the term. Most of the time we fail at that, partially because the title taken literally is about a real world topic, albeit inherently though a POV lens and usually a grouping created by the lens of the term. And of course, sometime politics affects whether or not we succeed. An article which does a really good job at this is Gay agenda . Although the topic is prima facie about gay related initiatives, the article recognizes that it needs to be about the term and is not the place to cover gay related initiatives, and successfully limits itself to coverage of the term.

So I think that the proposal here is a step in the right direction. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:30, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I had forgotten about Gay agenda; it's a really good example of this, and you're right—it does a much better job than most "word" articles at sticking to the topic. Nevertheless, I'd excuse an editor (especially a newer one) from diving in and adding material to the lead that wasn't about the word—and the proposal under discussion would help to avoid that. Mathglot (talk) 07:04, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

This is also covered at WP:Wikipedia is not a dictionary#When a word or phrase itself may be an encyclopedic subject (shortcut: WP:WORDISSUBJECT) which in my view probably should reside on this page, with a summary there. Mathglot (talk) 04:54, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Oops, I see you already linked that section of WP:NOTDICT above. Mathglot (talk) 06:05, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Attempt to turn this discussion into a proposal

In an attempt to turn this discussion into a proposal, it would be to add:

A typical article is on a topic which exists independently of the title and the where title is merely used to identify it. At the other extreme are topics which clearly need to be only about a term. For example, an article about a racial slur is clearly not the place to cover the race which is the target of the slur and covering that race in that article would tend to promote legitimacy of the slur. The "gray area" in between is when it appears to be about a topic, but where the topic is created by the term and does not exist as a separate and distinct topic without the term. Usually this creation is done by grouping, renaming and applying a certain "lens" to topics that are covered elsewhere. Those articles should be treated in the same way; the coverage about a word, phrase or concept should treat it as such. The article is NOT the place to cover the topic which is the object of the term. The main coverage of the topics that were modified, grouped or renamed by the "lens" is typically elsewhere in Wikipedia. World music, Political correctness, Gay agenda, Lake Michigan–Huron are examples. In many cases, it's best to clarify this by including "(term)" or "(word)" or "(concept)" in the title.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:42, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Agreed; just need to see what the scope should be and how to word it. Agree with "(term)" or "(word)" and some of the other parenthetical disambiguators (see examples of current usage below), but I would consider that except for the handful of word articles, all the rest of our 6.7M articles are about a concept, so concept is the unmarked term in the domain of Wikipedia article title types, and hence does not require a disambiguator. Mathglot (talk) 05:45, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

BTW the linked articles show various degrees of success and failure at following this concept. North8000 (talk) 13:50, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely, as do many others; see examples below. Mathglot (talk) 05:45, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Examples of current usage

I didn't realize that use of "(word)" as a parenthetical disambiguator is already in practice, and it's not the only one; there is also "(term)", "(slang)", various parts of speech such as "(adjective)", "(pronoun)" and "(interjection)", and various other disambiguators:

Articles about a word which use a parenthetical disambiguator

Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of articles that are about a word, and which have a parenthetical disambiguator in the title

(unstyled links; proper italicization (DISPLAYTITLE) not shown):

Many articles about a word also have another page with the same title, minus the parenthetical disambiguator, which is an article about a concept:

(unstyled links; proper italicization (DISPLAYTITLE) not shown):

Sometimes the shorter title is a disambig page:

On the other hand, that usage is by no means universal. Here are some articles about a word, that do not use a parenthetical disambiguator:

Articles about a word which do NOT use a parenthetical disambiguator

Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of articles that are about a word, and which do not use a parenthetical disambiguator

(unstyled links; proper italicization (DISPLAYTITLE) not shown):

And there are any number of other articles which say they are about a word, but then reading the article, it's hard to say if they are or they aren't; these articles might need some work to clarify what the actual topic is, and an {{unfocused}} maintenance template to be added until they are: Dark Ages (historiography), Sede vacante, Straight-acting, and many others. (I waive TPO for the purpose of adding more examples to the lists above; if you have good examples to add, feel free to do so.)

The current usage appears to be somewhat arbitrary, and seems to indicate that some kind of update to the policy to provide guidance on how to handle such articles should be made; see the subsection above. Mathglot (talk) 05:37, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I think that this is an important and worthwhile effort. There's no one perfect place to do it, but doing it here is as good as anywhere and helpful even if covered elsewhere. North8000 (talk) 20:08, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Differentiating places

As sometimes two different places in completely different areas can have the same name, I would use parentheses, right? However, I am unsure if I am supposed to put the city, subdivision, or country inside of it, if there is a specific preference. (e.g. Should I use Cool House (North Carolina) and Cool House (California) or Cool House (Asheville) and Cool House (Fresno)?) DarkNight0917 (talk) 03:52, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

DarkNight0917, the standard is to use a comma, not parentheses, when disambiguation is needed for place names. See for example, Paris, Tennessee and Paris, Texas and Paris, Virginia. Like parentheses, a comma is also recognized and processed properly by the WP:PIPETRICK. As to whether to use it at all, it would depend on things like WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:COMMONNAME, which is how you end up with the article entitled "Paris" being about the city everyone expects when you talk about "Paris", and not one of the others listed above.
Getting back to your original question about what item to put in the disambiguation position, my interpretation of it would be to put what reliable sources generally put in that position, which for places in U.S. states, is normally the state name, as states don't normally have two communities with the same name. For the rare exceptions and how to deal with them, see for example, Tuckahoe, Suffolk County, New York and Tuckahoe (village), New York. Mathglot (talk) 20:24, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

added comment to CONCISE

For initialisms/acronyms such as NASA and DNA. I tried to reflect current usage, but if this is not what we want to advise, please revert. Perhaps wording of when we decide the acronym/initialism should be a dab page, but that should presumably be covered by our dab policy. — kwami (talk) 21:57, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Hey kwami. The guidance at WP:AT#Avoid ambiguous abbreviations has been around a while. Do you think it's sufficient? If another mention is needed in CONCISE, I'd favor a reference/internal link pointing at the existing section. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 22:01, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
Maybe a cross-link ('for using acronyms and initialisms as titles, see X')? My question as a naive reader was whether initialisms and acronyms would even qualify. I followed a link to CONCISE and didn't see the section on abbreviations. — kwami (talk) 22:05, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
Cross-link sounds fine to me. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 00:27, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Question regarding a studio album

What would be the preferred title for the album 101²? The cover art is ambiguous and appears to read "Highway 101²", but the album label and spine both call it just "101²". However, I've also seen it listed as: "Highway 101 2" (Virgin Encyclopedia of Country Music, Grammy database), "101 2" (Billboard), "Highway 101, Vol. 2" (Allmusic), "Highway 101-2" (various news articles around the album's release date), "Highway 101²" (Discogs), and just "2" (Arizona Daily Star review). What would be the preferred method of rendering the album's title in this case? Should it be deferred to the album's rendering of "101²", or is there some other nomenclature quirk I'm missing here? Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 16:41, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

RFC at the royalty and nobility naming guideline

Some input at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(royalty_and_nobility)#RfC:_Should_the_guideline_explicitly_accept_Elizabeth_II,_Carl_XVI_Gustaf,_etc_titles? would be appreciated. Thanks! Surtsicna (talk) 07:52, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

RfC about capitalizing after dash or colon

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#RfC on capitalization after a colon or dash – This is principally about our own article titles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:07, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

WP:TITLECON, "ministers-president" or "minister-presidents"?

For the sake of consistency on Wikipedia, I think there should be a ruling on which method to use:

Ms-P
M-Ps

Both forms are probably correct and/or permissible, but they're applied arbitrarily to their respective article titles. Woko Sapien (talk) 15:47, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

The singular-plural in German is Ministerpräsident→Ministerpräsidenten, and "minister-presidents" pulls twice as many results as "ministers-president" on Google Scholar. Three times as many if you add " of". So I'd lean pretty heavily towards minister-presidents. Star Garnet (talk) 17:46, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Mass move/translation of foreign-language titles to English

Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film § Mass move/translation of foreign-language titles to English.

Hi there, I've posted this on the WikiProject Film page, but it didn't generate much interest, so I thought I would ask here as well: I've recently noticed that User:Artemis Andromeda has been moving/translating numerous foreign-language television and film titles to English. Many of these are obscure, so it's not clear to me in what language they are more commonly known to English readers. The editor in question has been somewhat reticent on the subject, as can be seen here: Talk:07 Come In#Name change, so I thought I would try and find out whether these types of moves are approved/recommended, or if a stop should be put to the activity. Thanks! Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 03:56, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 September 2023

Here's part of DIFFCAPS: 

Plural forms may in certain instances also be used

Please change it to: 

In certain instances, plural forms may also be used

This has an identical meaning, but by moving "in certain instances" earlier in the sentence, "may also be used" reads more easily than if it's split. 123.51.107.94 (talk) 23:23, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

 Done — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 00:50, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

WP:DIFFPUNCT

How did that get into WP:AT? In ictu oculi (talk) 07:38, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Interpretation of a naming exception for articles on groups of entities

May I draw your attention to the issue raised at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (plurals) § Can we clarify when plurals are appropriate? and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (plurals) § Interpretation of the exception for articles on groups of entities? The issue was raised two years ago but received no reaction. Apparently no one is monitoring that page.  --Lambiam 07:53, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Corporate naming rights for venues

The sale of naming rights for venues is creating a revolving door of renames. For some locations, this has already become a trainwreck, and will only become worse for all participating locations. Most venues where naming rights have changed several times have clear specific common names that people use. I suggest an update to the policy that emphasizes these common use and ongoing names rather than have Wikipedia chase venue renames to provide companies advertising. - Darker Dreams (talk) 06:42, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

This already happens in many cases as a result of Consensus in individual RMs, e.g. City of Manchester Stadium instead of "Etihad Stadium". But in general, the policy of WP:COMMONNAME is what should apply here and we shouldn't codify something at the policy page which contradicts that. If the rest of the world uses a sponsored title then so should we, it's not our job to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS or deliberately avoid using the name everyone uses just because you think it's "advertising". Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 07:05, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
There is a bit of distaste for allowing Wikipedia to promulgate commercial promotion in naming rights. WP is not here to RIGHTGREATWRONGS, that is right. A better argument, to avoid revolving doors, is to avoid Recentism in decision making. Wikipedia is not supposed be be current affairs, but to be timeless. If a stadium has had a noncommercial name for sixty years, and ten different commercial name aliases, there’s an argument to use the long term stable name. SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:31, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
Those are the easy cases, but if a stadium has never had a non-commercial common name (No, a name used as a one-off because of a conflict of sponsorship rules doesn't count), then WP:NAMECHANGES mandates recentism, with the article title updated with each new sponsorship. Iffy★Chat -- 16:31, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
Indeed it does, and the so-called "distaste" at promulgating commercial promotion is nothing more than that. Recentism is in fact the guiding principle here, rather than something that we avoid in naming decisions, and if reliable sources routinely use a particular name with the older one not used any more, then we shuld also follow suit.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:42, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
Recentism is in fact the guiding principle here? No, Recentism is NOT a guiding principle. The principle is to refer to quality sources. NAMECHANGES means that recent sources might be better sources, because, obviously, pre-namechange sources won’t know about the namechange.
Recentism is to be avoided. Wikipedia should try to be timeless. An article on a stadium should cover the lifetime of the stadium, not its current status and this weeks games. NAMECHANGES is a good rational to excuse the citing of recent sources while disregarding old sources, for the specific question of deciding the COMMONNAME. SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:44, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
NAMECHANGES mandates recentism? No that’s not quite right. NAMECHANGES says to give more weight to sources after the rename. Sources after the rename may continue to also use the long term non commercial name. This would be a case of a stadium having two names. If both are being used, there’s a choice to be made. If unaffiliated sources continue to use the non commercial name, after the so-called name change, the old non commercial name might be better. Wikipedian distaste shouldn’t be decisive, source use should prevail. SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:54, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
Even a relatively small venue local to me, The Podium (sports facility), is currently using The Podium Powered by STCU (see the official site). I'm just grateful they didn't expand the STCU part out of the acryonym. Agree with @Amakuru that we should stick to the WP:COMMONNAME, though this does become problematic with places like Seahawks Stadium > Qwest Field > CenturyLink Field > Lumen Field for example which beyond the initial title have always been referred to by the commercial venue name. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:59, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Another way to say it is that a using a moniker that keep changing is not a good way to identify a topic for a Wikipedia article. North8000 (talk) 14:58, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't know the solution. BTW for Chicago White Sox field it became 2 articles Comiskey Park and a second one under this week's name that nobody uses Guaranteed Rate Field . North8000 (talk) 15:04, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
In the case of the White Sox ballparks, there's two articles because why're two entirely separate buildings. The old Comiskey was demolished after the new ballpark was built across the street. oknazevad (talk) 05:44, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
The way that our standards work tends to be, in practice, an ENGVAR issue. Do European/Australian/etc. news outlets regularly use the sponsored names of stadia that have unsponsored names? In North America, they do. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 05:41, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Proper names from foreign languages

There's a new article at Mariborski radio študent (topic in Slovenia), and I'm unsure of how to handle this proper name title. Slovenian, like some other Central European languages, seems to have sentence-case proper names. UE doesn't apply here as this isn't a topic covered in English. What should be done? Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 05:39, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

As with other languages that do this, present the non-English name in the format used in the originating language, thus: Mariborski radio študent. And capitalization questions about article titles are better posted at WT:NCCAPS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:10, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Leftover subpages?

I saw one of these mentioned at an AFD (not nominated itself), and noticed there were a few others that look like they're trying to be subpages: [1]. This doesn't seem like a proper titling scheme, and I have no idea what should be done, so I figured I'd just post here in case someone wants to take a look. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 18:03, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

I've moved the four articles to titles that avoid the slash. Thanks for pointing them out. Station1 (talk) 02:56, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
Yep, I was about to suggest the same, though "List of urban areas in the Republic of Ireland 2002 census" would be more WP:CONCISE than "List of urban areas in the Republic of Ireland for the 2002 census".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:52, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
I have no objection to that. Station1 (talk) 05:31, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Proposed titling guidance for orders of battle (MOS:MIL)

G'day, there is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Military history#Proposed article titling guidance for orders of battle that may be of interest. Please have a read and add your views, and hopefully a consensus can be achieved. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:49, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Ukrainian places)#Centralization re: decommunization of names

Please see subject discussion. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:28, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Naming convention for TV series season articles

A proposal at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#Move TV seasons from parenthetical disambiguation to comma disambiguation may be of interest to watchers of this page and additional input is welcome to generate consensus. older ≠ wiser 16:04, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles#"Marque" and WP:PEACOCK

A discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles regarding the word "marque" and a proposal to replace it with "car brand" may be of interest to watchers of this page and additional input is welcome to generate consensus. Thank you. Andra Febrian (talk) 07:51, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Conflict between WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NCCORP

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (companies)#Use of comma and abbreviation of Incorporated. This covers more than the thread name implies, including a general need to update that guideline, which hasn't had substantive changes since 2009.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:43, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

WP:DIFFCAPS

Time and time again, RM discussions have rejected DIFFCAPS arguments; most recently this Talk:Canada_Goose_(clothing)#Requested_move_10_December_2023 Canada Goose/Canada goose discussion which appears to be going nowhere. I believe it's quite clear that the policy, as it is written today, is not being followed. If the policy does not have the support of the Wikipedia community, then it needs to be rewritten. There's also been some discussion in the past regarding this, see here. How can we improve this? 162 etc. (talk) 08:34, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Nah. There is nothing inconsistent about that goose result and DIFFCAPS. The general approach is that whatever readers might type in the search box, they are guided as swiftly as possible to the topic they might reasonably be expected to be looking for; the overwhelmingly more common search target for the string "Canada Goose" is the bird, because of the over-capitalization habit common to most (though not all) ornithoscopic and ornithological publications. small details are usually sufficient to distinguish topics; "usually" does not mean "always", and just a single word being capitalized is generally the weakest kind of case in which to try to invoke WP:SMALLDETAILS, because capitalization norms in English barely exist in informal writing, with literally millions of people convinced (by exposure to advertising and bureaucratese) that things should be capitalized just to "signify" them and somehow important or noteworth, or to otherwise get attention. However, when renaming to a less ambiguous page name can be done without wandering from WP:CRITERIA, such renaming should be considered, and the very first example is use of parenthetical disambiguation, exactly like Canada Goose (clothing). And a well-known concept may still be the primary topic for a variant or incorrect spelling, even if a much less well-known subject uses that spelling, which is precisely the case with the Goose-related RM.
In short, it is important to actually read policies and guidelines closely and to think about their meaning and application, before invoking them much less proposing to change them. Pretty much every word of that policy section is directly against your interpretation of the situation, and the policy material is not out of step with actual community best practices (at least not in this regard).
The previous discussion you linked to and this Goose case do not relate in any way; the 2020 thread was about whether we should remove the entire section (or just the point about capitalization, and I've leaned in favor of that myself) on the basis that such small differences may be unreliable indicators of what a reader is actually looking for, especially as texting and instant messaging erode punctuation, capitalization, and other norms in everyday use for a substantial number of readers. I.e., the gist of that thread boils down to a proposal to require more disambiguation. So, if that old discussion had proceeded in the way you seem to wish it had gone, then not only would the Goose case here have turned into exactly the same WP:SNOWBALL on the basis of WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT, that snowball would have formed faster and harder because of an elevated level of parenthetic disambiguation being enforced.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:14, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
Exactly what SMcC says. Nobody has "rejected DIFFCAPS", they just actually took the time to read DIFFCAPS rather than just assuming all titles can be differentiated by capitalisation without any thought. DIFFCAPS actually says "The general approach is that whatever readers might type in the search box, they are guided as swiftly as possible to the topic they might reasonably be expected to be looking for". In the case of Canada Goose, that is self-evidently the bird. I would be astonished if I typed that in the box and reached a page about a clothing manufacturer. For other cases, however, e.g. the cited case of Iron maiden vs Iron Maiden it is perfectly fine to differentiate by capitalisation, and that's what DIFFCAPS is getting at. In all cases, the primary topic has to be established though.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:25, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
I've certainly read the policy - specifically where it says that "small details are usually sufficient to distinguish topics". I'd argue that "usually" is not accurate in the case of DIFFCAPS - there is a very high bar set, and Ice Cube / Ice cube type disambiguation is the exception. I also don't believe that somebody searching for Canada Goose "self-evidently" wants the bird - Canada Goose (clothing) gets thousands of hits per week, it's safe to assume that there are people out there expecting to find it when searching "Canada Goose".
Grey Goose (vodka) is another example from earlier this year - there was no consensus to move the article to Grey Goose, despite having 3x the pageviews of Grey goose/Anser (bird). In this case, somebody searching "Grey Goose" "might reasonably be expected to be looking for" the vodka, not the bird.
I'm not suggesting that we reopen these discussions, or that they were wrong - the community has spoken, and that's fine. However, I'm still of the opinion that they go against this policy as it is written today. I'm also not saying that DIFFCAPS needs to go out the window completely. Even a slight rewording, say "small details may be sufficient to distinguish topics", would better reflect the community consensus. 162 etc. (talk) 17:59, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
WP:DIFFCAPS is not the issues here. Small details usually are sufficient to distinguish topics. They are not sufficient where two topics can share the same capitalization, even if it is not obligatory for one of them. BD2412 T 18:14, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
>"They are not sufficient where two topics can share the same capitalization, even if it is not obligatory for one of them."
Nowhere is this stated in the policy as it is written today. I also note a comment from an earlier reply, "just a single word being capitalized is generally the weakest kind of case in which to try to invoke WP:SMALLDETAILS." Again, nowhere is this stated in the policy.
WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY, WP:CREEP, WP:COMMONSENSE. It is not possible for our policies and guidlines to write down every single thing the community generally agrees on or leans toward, or we would have a body of documentation about the size of the U.S. Code. It simply is not required by any rule or principle that every kind of edge case and every possible consideration must be "stated in the policy as it is written today". This simply isn't what policies are for or how they are built.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:29, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
100% agree with User:SMcCandlish. Also, it defies logic that if both a vodka and a bird are demonstrably referred to in sources as "Grey Goose", with that capitalization, that WP:DIFFCAPS would even enter into the conversation. BD2412 T 15:19, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
A policy is "a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow". If the policy, as it is written today, was actually followed, Canada Goose and Grey Goose would have been slam dunks. Clearly, the community believes that more scrutiny is needed, specifically when it comes to differences in capital letters. My question remains: How can we improve the wording of this policy so that it actually reflects the community consensus? 162 etc. (talk) 18:42, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
Slam dunks in what sense? I'm not clear on what point you're trying to make.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:29, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
If it will make this just go away, I wouldn't have any problem with changing the wording from "usually" to "often". That is certainly accurate, and is arguably more accurate than "usually". It's not that 162_etc. has no point at all. (However, their ranty "the sky is falling" approach, mired in bureaucratic thinking, is not helpful or likely to come to any better resolution than such a one-word tweak.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:29, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
I've made the change. 162 etc. (talk) 18:51, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Second-round RfC on titles of TV season articles

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#Follow-up RfC on TV season article titles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:54, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Clarity on WP:NAMECHANGES, is primacy considered?

Currently, WP:NAMECHANGES states that we analyse whether sources routinely uses the new name, but what if both the new and old are used by a source. As a new name many sources include the previous name for their audience. Like "K'gari (Fraser Island)" here. If a source puts the new name first in primacy, is it classed as one supporting "K'gari", or is the inclusion of Fraser Island still indicate the old name is still needed as the more common one still? (therefore the source not used for supporting "K'gari")

So if a source uses both names, does the order of such be used as support for one or if they still use the old name, even secondarily, that it isn't to be considered until they use the new name alone. Basically is "routinely" to be interpreted as "primarily" or "solely". Unless there is some other criteria. DankJae 16:37, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Moving what is presently MOS:ACROTITLE into a naming-conventions guideline

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#"Acronyms in page titles" is mis-placed in an MoS page. In short, the material needs to move to a naming-conventions guideline, but which page?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:19, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

US-centric common names, or names that only mean something nationally

Note: I, the original poster, moved thread to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (events) since it is the more relevant guideline. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:30, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal to resolve nomenclatural confusion between split long lists and parenthentically disambiguated page names

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (lists)#Fixing disambiguation confusion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:49, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Diacritics and non-English characters

How strict are we being about characters that aren't normally used in English these days?

For example, should Mānuka honey (the Māori word is pronounced something like a thoroughly anglicized Monica; it doesn't represent the long a sound that most Americans will expect) use the macron, or should the page title by Manuka honey without it? Should Gylfi Þorsteinsson Gíslason use the Icelandic Thorn (letter) or the English transliteration or be at Gylfi Thorsteinsson Gíslason (which I think is the standard transliteration)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:32, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

I think the answer is that it should really depend on the norms of the source language, vis à vis its borrowing into English. As someone who's cleaned up plenty of diacritics used in a maximalist fashion, I do feel bad when I remove their use in the context of languages where they are both commonly seen in English-language sources, and important if one wants to unambiguously represent the original vocabulary in the English loanword—though of course, their utility is inherently limited, as this is an English language encyclopedia.
I think the major thing that's become increasingly clear is that it's largely no longer a rendering issue: the vast majority of devices used by readers are capable of displaying these characters. Remsense诉 00:48, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
WP:COMMONNAME ought to be the applicable guidelines. On the theory that, as a consumer product, its common name is influenced and/or reflected by its labeling, I looked through a list of manuka honey products on Amazon (US) and it was split, so that didn't help. As for any name with "Þ", I'd say the vast majority of English speakers wouldn't know what to do with that if they saw it, let alone know how to write or print it, so it seems unlikely that the native form is the one we should use here, just as we list the Chinese Communist Party general secretary under Xi Jinping, not under 习近平; nor, for that matter, under Xí Jìnpíng, since English speakers don't by and large reflect Mandarin tones in their rendering of Chinese names and words.
On the other hand, "é" is largely familiar to English speakers, found in words like "café", "née", "divorcée", and "naiveté" (sometimes "naïveté!"), and thus "Beyoncé" is commonly seen and is the title of that singer's article here. Largoplazo (talk) 00:59, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
I suggest we apply the same criteria as MOS:CAPS; consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources. BilledMammal (talk) 18:05, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Common name dilemma

In the article tolon'omby, I have an issue: the current title is said to be the name with broader geographical usage in Madagascar, but the name savika, which is said to be local to the region of Madagascar where this article's topic originates and is most practiced, is the name more commonly used in literature. The French and Malagasy Wikipedias use Savika as their article titles. Neither name is uncommon in literature. Zanahary (talk) 01:31, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Italic title or not?

Another editor recently italicized the title of the article Cult. I disagree. Debating by edit summaries, and by discussion (Talk:Cult § Italics or not italics for title) has gone nowhere. I think the other editor is reading WP:ITALICTITLE and MOS:WAW too literally because the Cult article starts out, "Cult is a term". However, the article covers far more than just defining a word (unlike how Orange (word) does). Though the article also discusses "cult" as a word, it mainly discusses far broader concepts (my opinion from browsing the article). Also comparing to the previously-discussed-here article Gay which is quite comprehensive though still focused on discussing the word as a word—the article Cult is not focused in like manner.

I'm interested in input by those who frequent this policy article and have more experience in how WP:ITALICTITLE has been applied in the past.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 03:25, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I can see how ITALICTITLE can be interpreted to support their argument, but I don't believe it should apply to the 'words as words' section of ITALIC. I'd advocate removing the link from ITALICTITLE to ITALIC:

Use italics when italics would be necessary in running text; for example, taxonomic names, the names of ships, the titles of books, films, and other creative works, and foreign phrases are italicized both in ordinary text and in article titles.

I realize there might need to be some additional work done to make that an all-inclusive list (not just ships, but air and spacecraft; court cases; some mathematics), but I think it's currently overbroad and, to keep it meaningful, should be reserved for a limited set of circumstances. Star Garnet (talk) 04:31, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
@Star Garnet: I think I see. So you're recommending not italicizing titles of "words" articles, as well as "clarifying" the current ITALICTITLE wording. Here's an idea, how about where WP:ITALICTITLE currently links to the entire section MOS:ITALICS, change it to be more clear which of the ITALICS subsections ITALICTITLE it is meant to include.
For example,
  • include the sections: Names and titles, Foreign terms, Scientific names
  • and exclude the sections: Emphasis, Words as words, Quotations, Variables
Clarifying something like this might well help to reduce all the talk page 'asking' while not needing to have an exhaustive list at ITALICTITLE (because all the detail is already exhaustively covered at ITALICS).   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 18:42, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes, I believe that something along those lines would be a good outcome. Star Garnet (talk) 19:29, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
@Grorp My opinion: The article is about cults, not about the word cult, though it has a section about the word. The article title identifies the subject of the whole article, not just the subject of a section. So treating the title as words-as-words would imply that all the material that's about cults themselves is off-topic. I don't see how it can possibly belong in italics. Musiconeologist (talk) 14:33, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, that should have gone on the article's talk page. I'll just note here that even dictionaries don't generally italicise the titles of their entries, every one of which is about a word or phrase. Musiconeologist (talk) 15:58, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I checked the 3 discussions as mentioned in the footnote "h" [2], and no one was arguing for or against "words as words". They debated ship names, book titles, and foreign words. Examples such as "orange", "gay" and "cult" were not even on anyone's radar. The result of the discussions was to make this edit to WP:ITALICTITLE which is substantially similar to what we see today, but without the wikilink to MOS:ITALIC. Even in the flurry of microedits in the week that followed, a link to MOS:ITALIC was not part of the paragraph at the time (September 2010).

However, 4 months later (December 2010), an editor made an edit which inserted the wikilink to what is now known as MOS:ITALIC but no one seems to have noticed it at the time. A month later, that editor was indef blocked for disruption (nonresponsive, and too many edits too fast, such as using an indiscriminate bot). They reverted his last 300 edits [3] which wasn't enough to catch this one. (That editor was averaging over 300 edits per day!)

I can conclude, therefore, that "words as words" was never intended to be included in the meaning of ITALICTITLE through consensus process. Possibly the link to MOS:ITALIC also wasn't intended, and certainly there was no active consensus to make the edit.

I recommend the wikilink be removed. It might well reduce the number of "asks" on this talk page, and might reduce some of the debating on individual pages. At any rate, removing the wikilink would be closer to the original consensus results.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 07:58, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

@Star Garnet: I just re-read your original comment and that's what you said, too. (blush) I missed that, but we both came to the same conclusion in separate ways.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 08:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
@Star Garnet: Do you think we should make that change (remove the wikilink)?   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 13:12, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
I'd certainly be on board, but I don't know how wide of consensus would be needed for that change. It wasn't added by consensus, but it's stayed for over a decade. With that said, nobody else watching this page seems to have a strong enough opinion to chime in. Star Garnet (talk) 20:22, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I strongly feel that no change is needed here or to MOSITALIC. The change is needed in any article that begins "Foo is a term for..." Articles should almost never start that way. "A cult is a..." That's how you start that article. "Orange is a colour..." etc. Italicising words as words is very useful and taking that out of the MOS would be highly detrimental to so many articles. Primergrey (talk) 00:45, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

@Primergrey Strongly agree. Without it, people will be "correcting" italics to quote marks, or to roman type with no typographical indication at all, and anyone who wants to use italics that way will have a constant battle on their hands to keep the text properly formatted. "Some instances of the word word were in italics and some weren't, so I've made them all the same". Or you write "In that sentence, a plural is singular" and it gets turned into "a plural is singular" and subsequently has its grammar erroneously repaired . . . Musiconeologist (talk) 16:28, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Feedback requested at Talk:Ahomisation

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Ahomisation#Neologism as title. Thank you. Mathglot (talk) 03:14, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

8½ or 8 1/2

I saw that the Fellini film 8½ has "½", which seems to be a special character, and the title should be 8 1/2. Am I wrong? I was surprised to see that there has never been a discussion to move it. I consider myself pretty keyboard-savvy but don't know of a way to make ½ when browsing the Internet. EDIT: Same concern with 9½ Weeks. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 15:41, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

1) For navigation, just use 1/2 – it will redirect anyway. 2) To type ½ on a desktop – use Compose key, on some mobile keyboards – long tap on the digit 1, in Wikipedia source editor – "Special characters → Symbols". —⁠andrybak (talk) 16:39, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
Gotcha, and I found a more direct answer: MOS:FRAC mentions that Ranma ½ is okay to have, so that logic applies to these films' titles too. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 17:05, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Capitalisation of Titles

I have been warned that this topic will not be well received. I have worked for decades in Quality Management. Wikipedia The Free Encyclopaedia. Is a title and you have therefore capitalised it. Why do these same rules not flow through the site? All page titles should be capitalised, no? My example was Chinese Water Torture. This should be capitalised as the page title, but continually when in use as it describes a specific person, place, organisation, or thing? I thought that this describes the rules well? https://writer.com/blog/capitalization-rules/ I haven't gone to edit anything as I await advice or concuss from the administrators. This is my first time here so hope I have done this correctly? Thanks. 2A0A:EF40:833:2101:5446:6A9:57E3:A13 (talk) 19:14, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

One principle I recall from quality management (which, by the way, you had no reason to capitalize!) is that it often doesn't matter which approach an organization chooses to accomplish something as long as it chooses an approach and sticks to it. The approach at MOS:NCCAPS is the approach used for titles (and section headings) here. Largoplazo (talk) 20:22, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
My thoughts from a document design perspective:
  • Capitalisation within article titles loses information. In some cases, the information which distinguishes between two different articles. So it's undesirable for that context. Readers need to be able to see the difference between a word used as a common noun and the same word used as a name. For example (I've not checked whether their articles both exist) a red dwarf and the TV comedy Red Dwarf.
  • Different capitalisation conventions apply for different things. The way a book title is treated on its title page might differ from the treatment of a chapter title, a section heading within a chapter, etc. Maybe the chapter title is all in in uppercase at the start of the chapter, but lowercase in running heads within the chapter where it serves a different purpose. Library catalogues use sentence case for book titles regardless of what the book itself does, but bibliographies typically don't. And so on.
  • I don't like the capitalisation of The Free Encyclopaedia, but I don't think it's being used in the same way as an article title, more like a slogan or name or trademark, so I don't really see a clash of style.
—The important thing is that each kind of text is consistently presented, and is clearly distinguishable from other types of text when necessary. (If it's done well, the reader will be unaware of it and simply find it easy to navigate and read the text.) Musiconeologist (talk) 21:22, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
The disparate treatment between the title of the website and the title of things within the website is comparable to the use of italics to denote book or magazine or album titles versus the use of quotation marks to denote chapter or article or song titles. It's actually normal to use contrasting styles. Largoplazo (talk) 22:26, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
Exactly—maybe also comparable with designing a book cover or title page differently from its contents? It's all part of making things which are different look different. (For myself, I'd like book subtitles to be in sentence case to distinguish them from the titles, but we don't do that one IIRC.) Musiconeologist (talk) 23:03, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Feedback requested: Change of title for Adolphe Schloss page

On the talk page for Adolphe Schloss I am suggesting that the title be changed to 'The Schlosse Collection'. Presumably this would mean it would no longer come under the biographies heading. If you have an interest, please comment on the talk page. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 09:08, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

add TITLEVAR clarification, justifies "local names"?

Hi, I've seen arguments being made that WP:TITLEVAR means that article titles should use local names such as at Talk:Iarnród Éireann. That we should only consider Irish sources, and for cities in India, only consider what Indians use not the rest of the English-speaking world. I think this is an incorrect interpretation, we should consider the overall WP:COMMONNAME, regardless of where the source is from, not give one source preference to another.

So if TITLEVAR is only about spelling/grammar (I assume it is), can it be clarified to (adding "spelling"):

If a topic has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation, the title of its article should use that nation's spelling variety of English

or some other clarification. As it's being used to against the overall WP:COMMONNAME across all English-language sources.

Unless their argument is correct, and we should use only local names? If so then that should be clarified too. DankJae 13:16, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

  • TITLEVAR says "If a topic has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation, the title of its article should use that nation's variety of English" - if in Indian English usage a city is referred to in a particular way that is different to British English that appears to be an example of strong ties to a national variety of English. With Irish English, Irish Gaelic words have been incorporated into general Irish English usage. English is a very diverse language, and incorporates some significant differences in English-speaking countries such as the United States, India, Ireland and the United Kingdom. I don't think varieties of English is purely a centre/centre, labor/labour or organisation/organization issue. AusLondonder (talk) 13:47, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
    "variety" purely refers to varieties of English, standard differences in spelling, grammar etc, I don't think that applies to alternative names. It gives Defence vs Defense. I do not think TITLEVAR means "ignore overall common names, prioritise names used in the variety of English used". If it does, surely it should be added to WP:COMMONNAME, "use the common name per local sources", but it doesn't, it just says "English-language sources". Of course, if all sources overall use the Irish name then we should too, but not limit it to "we should only look at Irish sources, any foreign source is irrelevant".
    Even if you're correct, TITLEVAR can benefit with clarifying that, article titles should use the national standard name over any alternative international name. DankJae 14:37, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Delete naturalness

Of the 5 criteria, recognizability is mentioned 3 times, precision 12, concision 8, consistency, 7, naturalness only once, in the criteria list. Each has a section except naturalness. There are references to 'natural', but they are tied-up with recognizability, or another criteria. Recognizability is the dominant criteria through common name; it's a minority of cases where the other criteria come into play, right? I can't think of one example where 'naturalness' becomes the decisive criteria, superceding recognizability i.e. where having only the 4 other criteria would ever create a problem. i can't think of where a recognizable name is unnatural. Recognizability seems to make naturalness redundant. If so, then good to delete to simplify, Tom B (talk) 23:12, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

@Tpbradbury: one case where "naturalness" is often invoked is avoiding the need for parenthetical disambiguation. For example, the orchid genus Calypso cannot be at Calypso, which is a disambiguation page. It could be at Calypso (plant), but as the genus has only one species, Calypso bulbosa, this is considered to be a more natural title for the article. Monospecific genera needing disambiguation are regularly at the sole species. See WP:MONOTYPICFLORA and WP:MONOTYPICFAUNA. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:56, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Hi @Peter coxhead, thank you, that's natural disambiguation? Which is in the precision section. This is my point, discussion around naturalness always ends up falling under one of the other criteria. Calypso bulbosa is a precise title. There is no article on the genus so no title needed, but if there were it might be the precise: Calypso (genus). There is no natural or naturalness section on the policy page, unlike all the other criteria. What is concise? Keeping things short. What is natural? We can still keep all discussion of natural, and simply delete naturalness from the top section, as it is never used by itself or is ever the decisive criteria, thanks again, Tom B (talk) 10:36, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
@Tpbradbury: "natural disambiguation" might be in the precision section, but it's not precision. There's nothing more precise about Calypso bulbosa than Calypso (plant). (By the way, "Calypso (genus)" isn't used because of consistency; there are many cases of animal and plant genera having the same name, so for consistency and hence predictability we use an disambiguator based on the type of organism involved.) The material needs some reorganization, so that the 5 criteria are discussed more precisely. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:28, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
thank you, yes we should take it out of the precision section then! where should we move it to? Bulbosa is more precise, about one species, than 'plant'? You talk consistency: again, we immediately fall into discussing a different criteria because naturalness is so vague, Tom B (talk) 13:18, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Oppose deleting naturalness. Naturalness is so obviously important, and so easily understood, that it does not require lots of word, and does not attract controversy. Not everything recognisable is natural, not by a long way. SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:11, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
if it's so important why is there is no section on it? and if so easily understood why are multiple editors saying they don't understand it? can you give one example where it is the decisive criteria overriding recognizability? Tom B (talk) 09:12, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

The fact that our criteria overlap (and reinforce each other) is not a problem. They are all still things that we should consider when deciding on an article title. It may be rare for “naturalness” to outweigh the others, but we should still take it into consideration. Blueboar (talk) 12:49, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

thank you, overlap is a problem per wp:avoid instruction creep, which suggests I explain my opposition. I oppose this one criteria, as there appears to be no situation where it is needed. Decisions on titles can be more easily solved by editors using their best judgment, to apply the other 4 criteria. If naturalness rarely outweighed the others I would keep it and have a section explaining it. But there is no example where that is case? In the Calypso example Peter helpfully provided, that is more easily solved with just the other criteria, we don't need 'naturalness' which has no section defining it. Would deleting it affect any decision, apart from speeding them up? It looks like a consensus is building that the policy page needs tightening-up at the very least! thanks again, Tom B (talk) 13:38, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Looking at the moves page, there might be about 1,400 move discussions annually. If we assume simplifying would save only 1 minute on average, as it rarely gets brought up, except as a distraction, that would save 24hrs, or 3 days editing. More conservatively, let's say it takes 5 minutes on 5% of moves i.e. 70 moves, that still saves 6 hours, or a days editing. A small change but worth it! Tom B (talk) 13:55, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
It may help to explore the archives to see why “Naturalness” was added to the criteria in the first place. A quick scan shows extensive discussion around August of 2010 (archive 29)… but there may be earlier discussions of the concept before we decided on calling it “Naturalness”. Blueboar (talk) 16:29, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
good idea. i see you've been involved in discussions @Blueboar and @Peter coxhead for years! it got added on 19 Aug 2010 replacing 'common usage' [4]. There don't appear to be earlier discussions.
from the start everyone has found 'naturalness' confusing, even the person who inserted it! Examples:""Naturalness" (Yuck!)" "Naturalness and commonality also are fuzzy and tend to change". "I don't get this naturalness thing either - can you give an example of a title which is "natural" in a sense that isn't just a synthesis of common, recognizable and consistent?". Reponse from the person who inserted it, "Naturalness is largely the countervailing force to consistency and precision. But if I come up with a clear example, I'll let you know." But no example. "Why did "common usage" become "naturalness"? It's really not helpful to replace something that is discoverable and quantifiable like how is something named in things that one can read and cite (i.e. "common usage") with something that lacks a definition, i.e. "naturalness", about which people can argue but without a framework to discuss, characterize or quantify "naturalness" among alternative article titles. Could the advocates of "naturalness" speak to why it is an improvement over "common usage"?" There was no clear response. There was a long discussion in 2015, with several examples in which naturalness is never the decisive criteria: [5]: "if a title is in fact the common name (in English) of the subject, then it already automatically meets the naturalness criterion, by definition. It would actually be safe to entirely remove the clause."
I agree: naturalness is just duplicating recognisability and should be deleted. there can't be an example where a recognizable name is unnatural. "Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize. Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English." They're the same thing, in fact the end bit of naturalness is identical to recognizability. No one has come up with an example where they ever differ? I'm not proposing to remove any reference to 'natural', simply to remove the duplicate criteria from the top or just merge them: "The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, though not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize. One that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English", Tom B (talk) 22:43, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
I think the main difference is that “COMMONNAME” (ie “Recognizability”) is determined by what sources use, while “Naturalness” is determined by what is used in the running text of other Wikipedia articles (avoiding the need for piped links). Blueboar (talk) 23:40, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
I think the case of descriptive titles helps to highlight the difference between recognizability and naturalness: because descriptive titles are used in cases where there isn't a standardized name for a topic, COMMONNAME (and thus recognizability) becomes essentially inapplicable. However, it's still essential to craft a natural title to help readers reach their destination.
Based on this, I think we can articulate the general distinction between these criteria. Recognizability mainly targets the question of "if the reader sees the title, will they know what the article is about?" By contrast, naturalness targets the similar (but not identical) question of "if the reader is searching for information on a topic, what terms might they look for?" As an example, let's consider the descriptive title of Sennacherib's campaign in the Levant; why do we use this instead of, say, Sennacherib's campaign of 701 BC? They're comparably precise, the year-based title is slightly more concise, and both would likely be recognizable to someone familiar with... the subject area. This is where naturalness comes into play: the location of the campaign is more salient than its year, and accordingly, it seems safe to predict that readers searching for this topic will look for a title that distinguishes the campaign by location. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 03:10, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
thank you, particularly for an example and attempt to define naturalness. To you the location is more salient and maybe readers familiar in the area. I notice you use the word salient, rather than natural or naturalness, perhaps salient would be better? Also, "look for", is recognizability. We either need to merge, delete, rename, or improve the definition so it's distinct from recognizability, with its own section. No one's come up with an example yet where deleting would make things worse. in the above example, recognizability alone solves the whole thing, Tom B (talk) 09:32, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
"what is used in the running text of other Wikipedia articles", that's consistency! Tom B (talk) 09:35, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
Not quite. Consistency says that we should consider entitling articles on similar topics in a similar way… so, for example, if there was a question on how to entitle a bio article about a British peer, we would examine how other articles on British peers were entitled. This, however, might be different from how we refer to a specific peer in running text (which would be the “natural” title). We would have to weigh the consistent title against the natural one. Blueboar (talk) 14:08, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
thank you, we would weigh the consistent, natural and recognizable ones, and then go with the recognizable one, as Commonname is dominant. there is a natural disambiguation sub-section in the precision section, so, again, it sounds like you're talking about precision? The policy currently says the natural "title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English", how is that different from recognizability please? Can someone come up with one example where natural/ness trumps recognizability? Tom B (talk) 14:42, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Question

Q related to this bit from WP:POVNAME: An article title with non-neutral terms cannot simply be a name commonly used in the past; it must be the common name in current use.. (italics in source; not mine.) Do the italics here imply "the title should be a standout common name"? 104.232.119.107 (talk) 06:14, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I think your reading is essentially correct, yes. To my eye, the main thrust of the italics is to convey that - if there are multiple titles in common usage - the more neutral title should be preferred unless the non-neutral name is clearly more common than the other options. (The passage also draws a distinction between current usage and older usage, but I don't think that directly relates to the meaning of the italics.) ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 13:32, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. I feel like the italics are a little subtle; I copy+pasted them over to a different discussion and I didn't notice that the italics didn't show up, meaning that this subtext was almost missed.
I think that nuance could be made more explicit. Taking a go at it: "An article title with non-neutral terms cannot simply be a name commonly used in the past, it must clearly be the most common name in current use". 104.232.119.107 (talk) 17:35, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Possessive vs preposition

Are we cool with both of these title patterns?

The latter sounds more encyclopedic to me, but I'm reluctant to move the first page based on vibes alone. Jruderman (talk) 22:21, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Use of italics for translations of religious texts

Per WP:ITALICTITLE: Italics are not used for major religious works (the Bible, the Quran, the Talmud). Does this exception apply to translations of said works? Currently, the titles for translations of the Bible do not seem to be consistently italicized. Here is a sample of the titles of some translations, and at the end I include some translations of religious texts other than the Bible for additional reference:

Title Italicized? Notes
American Standard Version ☒N
King James Version ☒N
New International Version ☒N
Amplified Bible checkY
The Bible: An American Translation checkY
Beck's American Translation ☒N
Bible in Basic English checkY
Ferrar Fenton Bible ☒N Official name "The Holy Bible in Modern English" is italicized in lead.
God's Word Translation checkY
The Hebrew Bible (Alter) checkY
International Standard Version checkY
Jerusalem Bible checkY
Lamsa Bible ☒N Italicized in lead.
The Living Bible ☒N A paraphrase, not a translation of the Bible.
The Living Torah and Nach ☒N Individually, "The Living Torah" and "The Living Nach" are italicized in lead.
Matthew Bible ☒N Italicized in lead.
The Message (Bible) checkY A paraphrase, not a translation of the Bible.
Taverner's Bible ☒N Official name "The Most Sacred Bible whiche is the holy scripture, conteyning the old and new testament, translated into English, and newly recognized with great diligence after most faythful exemplars by Rychard Taverner" is italicized in lead.
Statenvertaling checkY Bible translation into Dutch.
NBV21 ☒N Bible translation into Dutch. I must say that I did create this article myself, but I have not received any comment on not italicizing the title.
Vulgate ☒N Bible translation into Latin.
Luther Bible ☒N Bible translation into German.
Targum ☒N Bible translation into Aramaic.
The Koran Interpreted checkY Quran translation
The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary checkY Quran translation
The Study Quran checkY Quran translation
The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition checkY Talmud translation; Only "Steinsaltz Edition" is italicized in lead.
Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is checkY Gita translation
God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita checkY Gita translation

―Howard • 🌽33 21:05, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, I don't know of any existing policy that directly addresses this question, but my instinct would be to adopt the following approach: if the title is the title of a specific work (e.g. for Bible in Basic English), it should be italicized. If the title is instead a descriptive title that simply indicates the edition of the text (e.g. King James Version, Ferrar Fenton Bible) or its historical context (e.g. Vulgate, Luther Bible), my instinct would be not to italicize it. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 13:39, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
If there is no policy for this, then it might be prudent to begin an RFC. But for now, let us assume your description. What is meant by specific work, edition of the text, and historical context? As far as I am aware, the King James-, Fenton-, Vulgate-, and Luther Bibles are the names for specific works. ―Howard • 🌽33 16:38, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
In my opinion, a translation should only be italicized if the work is referred to with a lowercase "the" if not at the beginning of a sentence. For example, when the King James Version is mentioned in the middle of a sentence, then it is written "the King James Version", so then "King James Version" is not italicized. However, when The Study Quran is mentioned in a sentence, then it is written "The Study Quran", so then "The Study Quran" is italicized. ―Howard • 🌽33 16:49, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
Another way to frame what I mean might be, "if the title was the one under which the work was published, that title should be italicized." To use the King James Version as an example: according to its article, the KJV was published under the title THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Teſtament, AND THE NEW: Newly Tranſlated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Tranſlations diligently compared and reuiſed, by his Maiesties ſpeciall Cõmandement. The "King James Version" isn't the official title of the work, but a moniker assigned to it after the fact, and for that reason I don't believe it should be italicized. (For a similar case from another field, consider the Beatles' White Album: the article uses italics when stating the album's official title, The Beatles, but it doesn't italicize the "White Album" nickname.) This distinction - official titles used by a work's creators/publishers vs. unofficial descriptors that emerge from later scholarship or the general public - is what I would consider to be the main determining factor for whether a given title should be italicized.
Your suggestion about the capitalization vs. lowercasing of a preceding "the" is also a useful indicator, in my opinion, but I would argue that it's a side effect of the underlying official/unofficial distinction rather than a fully separate factor. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 19:17, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for elaborating. It appears to me that this is a clear guideline, but still I will need to edit many article titles so that it is applied consistently, which may incite further discussions. I must note that for albums it does not appear to be clear either, considering that for all self-titled Weezer[a] albums, their respective monikers are italicized in the lead but not in the title.
  1. ^ Weezer (Blue Album), Weezer (Green Album), Weezer (Red Album), Weezer (White Album), Weezer (Teal Album), Weezer (Black Album)

―Howard • 🌽33 19:31, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Naming convention for "subarticles" of histories, with time spans in parentheses

In a requested move discussion that was just closed, it was concluded that there is a well-established and widely used naming convention for "subarticles" that cover particular time spans within a larger history topic, using names like History of Foo (1753–1892), with the time span identified inside of parentheses similar to a disambiguation term. This is not about a "Foo" that existed only between 1753 and 1892 that needs to be distinguished from other Foos that existed during other periods of time, but rather about the period of the history of Foo from 1753 to 1892. The time spans look like disambiguation terms, but that's not what they are – instead, they are a fundamental part of the identification of the topic. This is not about a topic called "History of Foo", it is a timespan-based subset of the entire history of Foo. Examples include History of the United States (1776–1789), History of Poland (1918–1939), History of Canada (1960–1981), History of France (1900–present), History of Russia (1894–1917), History of Germany (1945–1990), and History of the People's Republic of China (1989–2002). The RM discussion can be found at Talk:History of the United States (1776–1789)#Requested move 16 June 2024. The suggestion to rename these to remove the parentheses, as in History of Foo from 1753 to 1892, was rejected. There is a substantial number of articles that use this convention, but I am not aware of anywhere that documents it as an accepted article naming convention on Wikipedia. Should this convention be described somewhere in WP:AT or in some other naming convention description? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 23:01, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

This proposal seems sensible to me - maybe Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates) would be a good place to include such guidance? ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 13:38, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps in WP:NCDURATION? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:52, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
See this diff, inserting "Articles that cover an interval of the history of a longer-duration topic are often entitled as their main overall topic suffixed with a parenthesized indication of the time period, such as History of Canada (1960–1981) and List of One Piece episodes (seasons 15–present)." —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:04, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Caret in article title

Does caret [^] can be use in titling an article or not? 98𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙴𝚁𝙸𝚄𝚂 [𝚃𝙰𝙻𝙺] 10:40, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

There are two possible questions here. First: is it possible to use the caret in an article title? The answer here is yes; it's not one of the characters that the MediaWiki software prohibits from titles. However, the second question is: should a caret be used in an article title? The answer here is, basically, it depends. Generally, titles aim to describe their subject in the plainest English possible: that is to say, non-alphanumeric characters are generally avoided, and stylizations are generally removed (for instance, we use Toys "R" Us instead of Toys "Я" Us). For that reason, there's often not a compelling reason to use a caret in an article title. However, there are occasional exceptions; for instance, if the title of a work uses a caret, and that caret is used in the majority of independent sources discussing the work (see WP:TITLETM), it may be appropriate.
If there's a specific article where you'd like to use a caret in the title, let us know what it is and we can give more specific advice. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:21, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
The article I want to create with caret is Ar^c, the debut extended play of ARrC, which like you said that it is used in the majority of independent sources. 98𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙴𝚁𝙸𝚄𝚂 [𝚃𝙰𝙻𝙺] 14:31, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
Could you also take a look at this discussion I open first at Wikipedia:Help desk#Caret in article title? 98𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙴𝚁𝙸𝚄𝚂 [𝚃𝙰𝙻𝙺] 14:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Tiltes of works of art

Is there a guideline about article titles for foreign works of art: books, films, paintings, etc. Especially in the cases when there is no "official" or commonly used English translation or if there are several English translations. --Altenmann >talk 21:39, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

The closest thing to a unified guideline about this topic would probably be Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) (WP:NCUE), which includes sections on how to approach topics with competing English translations or no common English translation in the first place. However, NCUE is a more general titling guideline that is not about the titles of works specifically. For more topically focused guidance, your best bet is probably to look up the titling guideline for the relevant category of work and identify the most appropriate section therein. For instance, WP:NCBOOKS#Title translations and the following section address titling guidance for foreign books; WP:NCFILM#Non-English language films covers films; and MOS:ART#Article titles features a brief discussion on how to handle non-English names for works of visual art. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 13:42, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Zero-width non-joiner in article title

The article Chauha‌n contains a zero-width non-joiner character between the second "a" and the "n", the article Chauhan does not. Could somebody knowledgeable please look into resolving this? There is also this redirect. Paradoctor (talk) 22:18, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I think I've taken care of the Chauhan issue (caused by sockpuppet hijinks). As for the redirect ([6]), I guess it's harmless since it's pointing to the right target, but you're welcome to RfD it if you want. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:33, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Thanks. Paradoctor (talk) 22:39, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
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