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SOME_article_titles_should_be_plural

See Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/archive5#SOME_article_titles_should_be_plural

Diacritics in minor planet names

Following a strong consensus outcome in this discussion, I propose that we establish a naming convention that diacritics are included in the names of articles on minor planets and named features of astronomical bodies, following the International Astronomical Union rules on this. This guideline is especially important as many significant astronomy sites don't use the diacritics for technical reasons (you'd be amazed how many observatory computers still run MS-DOS or DR-DOS and/or store their data using 7-bit ACSII), so Google is somewhat misleading.

Unless there is an objection raised to this process here (or someone beats me to it) I will add a proposed standard to Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Conventions under consideration. Andrewa 04:20, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I've added this to WP:UE, as that is the naming conventions guideline that (thus far) centralised info on use of diacritics. --Francis Schonken 12:25, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, that's helpful. I think it there should be some mention of it at Wikipedia:Naming conventions as well. I'd imagined an explicit mention of astronmical names names, but a section on diacritics pointed to WP:UE would be an alternative. Andrewa 02:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Issue removed from WP:UE by user:haukurth, with something I can only see as a "fake" argument, diff - I'm thinking I should start a WP:RfC on Haukurth, for disruption on wikipedia policies and guidelines, and wiki-stalking of myself. Andrewa, would you join me on this RfC? --Francis Schonken 11:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
I didn't notice that the idea of mentioning the asteroid names in the UE guideline had already been brought up here and met with some approval. We can certainly work some mention of it into the Use English guideline if that's what people want. Personally I think Andrewa's original idea of making a new convention is better and I would support such a convention as I supported the Gunlod > Gunlöd moves.
Alas, I did come here through checking Francis' contribution log (he wasn't commenting on any of the pages on my watchlist and it occurred to me that he might be addressing the issues we've been discussing somewhere else). I gather from his comment above that he would rather I did not look up his contribution log so I'll refrain from it in the future.
I still hope we can resolve our differences without resorting to the formal dispute resolution process. - Haukur 11:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I am (recent) member of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects and I would like to see the cited "guidelines" or "rules" by the IAU! Looking through its web site, I did not find any mentioning of diacritics in any "rule" ([1]). Instead, there is an ASCII based list of official names, which would violate that "rule" if it existed. I myself would keep the non-diacritic name as article title and have the name with diacritic in the text to describe the eponym. Awolf002 15:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for you input. But these issues were already considered at Talk:657 Gunlöd.
Let me quote the URL you give above:
Proposed names should be: * 16 characters or less in length * preferably one word * pronounceable (in some language) * non-offensive * not too similar to an existing name of a Minor Planet or natural Planetary satellite.
So you're quite right, there's no mention of diacritics, either way. See however the USGS Astrogeology Research Program URL given in the previous discussion and we find IAU rule 10: When more than one spelling of a name is extant, the spelling preferred by the person, or used in an authoritative reference, should be used. Diacritical marks are a necessary part of a name and will be used.
The list you mention appears to be in ASCII for technical reasons, as are many others. Again, this was dealt with previously. Andrewa 23:04, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I read the given USGS page and was confused. These rules are about naming planetary features, not minor planets. How did you decide that this is applicable to this discussion? I can be persuaded to go both ways with diacritics, but I still do not see any IAU rule for minor planets that could guide that decision. Awolf002 23:20, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Good point that I had overlooked!
So, are there any rules? It would surprise me greatly if they weren't the same for Astronomical bodies as for the features of those bodies. But you're right, we should look further.
I am personally quite happy to go either way on this. My feeling is that either convention will do quite well, just so long as the other name is a redirect, but that it's vital to have these redirects, as both the ASCII and the diacriticised names are in common use. My agenda is simply to make and document a decision, either way, so we don't need to have this discussion repeatedly, and can get on with the job of writing the encyclopedia.
We've had an unproductive diversion into WP:UE, where no consensus seems likely on anything, even on whether WP:UE is relevant to this or any other specific discussion. Hopefully we don't need to follow the circles that people have been running in for a year down there! Andrewa 23:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed! We should just find a policy that is as close as possible to the IAU intentions and use redirs to cover all the bases. I will scour through the IAU's web site to see if there is more info available, otherwise we just stick to what we have and write a proposed policy to "fix" things. Awolf002 00:17, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Parentheses

Someone once mentioned to me that the naming guidelines said that unless an article fell into one of the categories mentioned, or had other articles of the same name it could be confused with, that the guidelines were to remove any parentheses. I've been trying to find this in the various guidelines but I can't. --maru (talk) Contribs 18:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

In general, it's best to use a qualifier between brackets in a page name for disambiguation purposes only.
I know, we had Islamofascism (term), which stayed at that name after a WP:RM vote recently, but that was far from an "unanimous" vote, and my feeling is that many wikipedians would feel reluctant to extend the technique to other examples.
Neither Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision), nor Wikipedia:Disambiguation seem to call for anything in the sense of passing subliminal messages on a topic via the page name - rather explain the issue (whether misnomer, or political (in)correctness of a term or whatever) in the article in a NPOV way, than trying to pass that info via the page name. --Francis Schonken 09:23, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Alright. Thanks for the reply- I was thinking partially of Islamofascism, as I was, err, involved in it, but mostly I was thinking of how I made Inquisitorius into a redirect to Inquisitorius (Star Wars). --maru (talk) Contribs 01:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Indian Honorific Names

Hi, I am trying to determine the appropriate name for the main article for the 68th Sharkaracharya (pontiff) of Kanchi. The article Chandrasekharendra Saraswati contains a redirect to the article Kanchi Mahaswamigal. Chandrasekharendra Saraswati is the personal name of the pontiff, just as "John Paul" would be the personal name of Pope John Paul II. It is also the name of 7 other Shankaracharyas. Kanchi Mahaswamigal is an honorific title bestowed upon him. It refers to a great learned religious teacher of Kanchi.

To appreciate the issue, note that Mahatma Gandhi is the main page for that person, and Mahatma is an honorific meaning "Great Soul", not a personal name. Similarly, there is a main page for A.C. Bhaktivendanta Swami Prabhupada. "Prabhupada" is an honorific meaning "One who serves at the feet (of God)".

My inclination at this point, to make naming consistant would be to have the main page be named "Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Kanchi Mahaswamigal", and have both Chanrasekharendra Saraswati and Kanchi Mahaswamigal contain redirects to that page.

Please advise regarding your opinion of the correct way to do this.

Also, I note that there is no section in the Naming Conventions page for Indian names, nor for Tamil names, which follow a somewhat different pattern than North Indian names. Should such a section be started?

--BostonMA 16:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

There are several ways this could be approached:
--Francis Schonken 18:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

See also Portal talk:India#Naming conventions on Indian people --Francis Schonken 08:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Short titles

I think we should insert somewhere into the conventions a note to the effect that short titles are preferable to long titles, since it's pretty much the expected norm and de facto policy. But Francis disagreed with me that the intro was the best place to put it. What do the rest of you think? --maru (talk) Contribs 01:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Move to delete 99% of all Lists and Categories of Jews

Please read the sixteen point introduction at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession#Move to delete 99% of all Lists and Categories of Jews: Sixteen reasons why this should become a fixed Wikipedia policy and related discussions at Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession#Proposed amendment: remove all Jewish-related lists. Thank you. IZAK 11:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Street Naming

I've just recently begun a project to make articles for all of Paris' notable streets. I was trying to come up for a suitable naming model to follow, and I've been scratching my head at it for a few days now. The names of many of Paris' streets are common to many of France's cities and towns, not to mention in other Francophone countries, and to avoid future conflict it seemed a good idea to put the name of the city after the street in brackets, as in "rue Sainte-Anne (Paris)". Actually my original proposition was to also put the name of the country in brackets - "rue Sainte-Anne (Paris, France)". It was suggested to me that this would be taking it too far.

It was also brought to my attention that in page naming, brackets are only used for disambiguation. What I guess I was actually proposing (without even thinking to disambiguation) was pre-disambiguation - Wiki is still relatively small (as far as I know) for subjects such as these, but I was thinking to the future when other cities will have their "notable areas" articles too.

Does anyone have any suggestions or prior experience with a problem such as this? I would really like to know what options I have - and I don't want to start into something that will make a lot of work for someone later. Thanks for any input. THEPROMENADER 22:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not Rue Sainte-Anne, Paris - for places (but I'm not sure that includes roads) I think there are more examples of having the city behind a comma (and not between brackets).
Examples: Victoria Square, Birmingham, Victoria Square, Adelaide, Bloomsbury, London, etc...
Although there's also Queensway (London) and other examples with bracketed disambiguator in Category:Streets of London - note that there are only very few London streets needing a disambiguator, although many of them would be street names also available in other cities/towns. The idea is that you only add the disambiguator when there would be ambiguity with an *existing* wikipedia article.
Yeah, and for Paris, I don't think that - except for the Wim Wenders film - there would be confusion with Paris, Texas if you use a French street name, so no need to add ", France". --Francis Schonken 08:02, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
The comma seems the best solution, and more than a good enough one to get this project going - thanks a mil.
THEPROMENADER 12:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Page Titles and POV

What is the convention for naming things and events where there is clearly a division in POV and cultural bias. For example (and this may seem silly), the Vietnam War is known as the American War in Vietnam. To me, naming this the Vietnam War appears to be a violation of NPOV (see this and this). How do we reconcile this difference? And how can we use the Google test without perpetuating the bias? - Spaceriqui 04:33, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Another example, Yom Kippur War see Talk:Yom Kippur War

See Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial#Article names. --Francis Schonken 07:43, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
I see that, but how about when there's clear alternatives, that are NPOV? which takes precedence... NPOV or Common Names? -Spaceriqui 18:45, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
In the case of the Vietnam War; the name Vietnam War should dominate on the English Wikipedia; as that is what the conflict is called throughout the English-speaking world. Interestingly enough; on the Vietnamese Wikipedia, it's called Chiến tranh Việt Nam (which I imagine translates to "Vietnam War") rather than the Vietnamese equivalent of "American War". Certainly, the Vietnamese Wikipedia should use whatever name is most commonly used by Vietnamese speakers. (It may be the case that the Vietnamese Wikipedia is primarily used by expatriate Vietnamese; due to official disapproval of Wikipedia by the Vietnamese government.) --EngineerScotty 21:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for new naming convention: Latin party names

A discussion is currently going on at Talk:Labour Party (Mexico) concerning translations of its party name. In that back-drop I'd suggest the following naming convention. There are a variety of political party names with similar generic meanings (Labour party, Workers Party, etc.). The usage is, however, generally carries a clear political connotation. I propose the following scheme for translations.

  • Partido Obrero - Labour Party
  • Partido de los Trabajadores - Workers Party
  • Partido del Trabajo - Party of Labour
  • Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores - Socialist Workers Party
  • Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores - Workers Revolutionary Party
  • Partido Obrero Revolucionario - Revolutionary Workers Party

Some comments concerning this scheme:

  • Parties called 'Labour Party' in English (like the British, Israeli, Norwegian, etc.) are generally translated as 'Partido Laborista' in Spanish newspapers and litterature. However, to my knowledge there is no party in the Spanish-speaking world using this name, so there is no immediate risk of confusion.
  • In the case of PST/SWP, POR/RWP and PRT/WRP these are names commonly associated with the Trotskyist tradition. In all cases groups exists using these names both in the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking worlds. It is clear that the usage of names correspond to international naming convention within that political movement. Of course, PST could literally mean 'Workers Socialist Party', but there is no usage like that in the English-speaking world. The name 'Partido Obrero Socialista' would of course cause a challenge to the scheme, but to my knowledge there is no country were there is both a POS and a PST.
  • The convention would hold for French, Portuguese, Catalan, etc. I'm not sure about Italian myself, comments would be appreciated on that issue. --Soman 15:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Sporting tours

What's the best pattern for sporting tour titles? The Category: British and Irish Lions tours are of the form "<Year/s> <team> tour to <touring location>", eg, 2005 British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand. For cricket there is a form "<Team> in <location> in <year/s>", eg, New Zealand cricket team in Zimbabwe in 2005-06. The only other rugby tour I'm aware of is "<Year/s> <team> tour", ie, 1981 Springbok Tour. This last one seems hardly adequate as the location is not mentioned (not to mention the capitalisation of Tour). Use of the word "to" in the Lions tours strikes me as peculiar. In the days when teams travelled by ship they were something of "tours to" but these days (and back then) "tour of" seems more appropriate. Should we have a consistent pattern across all sports? Nurg 06:30, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

See also wikipedia:naming conventions (numbers and dates). What the most appropriate names of the "events" or representation of "teams" are, I couldn't say, what follows regards only how years are represented in the title:
PS: The above examples are merely about wikipedia pagename formatting, whether these examples would qualify in terms of Wikipedia notability criteria I couldn't say. --Francis Schonken 08:52, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Naming conventions for disambiguating television shows

I started a discussion of disambiguation of television shows at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation to hopefully establish a convention for naming television shows. (Sorry for the wrong placement) any input you have would be appreciated. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 17:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

A draft version of a new poll to determine naming conventions for television content is available for comment. Relevant comments are here and here Voting for a new convention will begin on January 25, 2006. Thanks for any input --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 22:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The poll (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television)/poll has begun. Please vote until February 15. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 05:46, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The proposed TV naming convention is now a guideline, though is still as always under improvement. Your comments are appreciated. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 15:41, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposed overall policy

I haven't seen this one before. I have seen instances of it (such as use of common English names for things), but how about adapting, as an overriding principle:

Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists.

In other words:

  • What is convenient for editors (whether individual editors, WikiProjects, etc.) should take a back seat to what is convenient for readers.
  • In particular, renaming of articles (or adapting naming conventions) for the convenience of macro/template writers is discouraged.
  • As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, rather than specialist literature, everyday common names should be used for things where possible. Thus, black widow spider over Latrodectus mactans, Hurricane Katrina over Atlantic Tropical Cyclone 11 (2005) (or whatever storm number it was), etc.

--EngineerScotty 21:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, sounds good. Can go in Wikipedia:Naming conventions intro as far as I'm concerned. First I thought this would be stuff for wikipedia:naming conventions (common names), but no, it's definitely broader than that. Would work as an over-all principle I gather. --Francis Schonken 07:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

"X and Y"

Sometimes 2 related but distinct ideas are discussed under a single article. Some such articles use the form "X and Y" (e.g. Acronym and initialism, Weak form and strong form) while others use only one name in the title and mention the other in the intro (e.g. content word redirects to function word, which is its opposite). Should there be a policy for such cases? Where there are 2 concepts, I think it makes sense to use "X and Y" as title, with each as a redirect, unless one term is overwhelmingly more common. (If there were more than 2 concepts, I wouldn't favour "X and Y and Z" but I guess there would be a genus name to cover all the species.) Joestynes 08:31, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that certainly seems sensible to me - any guideline should remind editors to create redirects at both single terms (obviously), and at the alternate order (e.g. initialism and acronym - which I just created to follow my own advice) so that anyone who knows the terms are combined into one article doesn't leave redlinks typing it from memory. As long as that's done, this scheme seems preferable for cases where the two terms are equal in status and usage level. One thing to consider is should there be a guideline on which order the terms come in - should it be alphabetical, "whichever feels natural", just completely arbitrary, or...? - IMSoP 12:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
This alternate order issue is also relevant to things named after a number of people. For example I'm think specifically of the Euler-Bernoulli beam equations (common name) which is more properly (but more rarely) called the Bernoulli-Euler beam theory and sometimes the Galileo-Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. Just something else to consider in writing this guideline.--Yannick 19:14, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Naming convention for Companies and Businesses

Can someone develop a naming convention for companies (I will help)? Clicking on just a few links in any of these lists will show how inconsistent the naming has been

Just a few of the problems

  • Inc. vs Incorporated
  • Co. vs Company
  • Corp. vs Corporation
  • Company Name vs. Company Name Incorporated

There doesn't seem to be any consistency in any direction and a naming convention would definitely help. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 21:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The simple solution is to use the correct name for the company. That can be interesting in some cases. One company I worked for was offically Corp. and not Corporation. So any policy would need to cover that. For easy of readers, it might be best for the article titles to drop the qualifier (Inc, company) since most people don't know what it is. Vegaswikian 22:10, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that would be one solution, but the "correct" name is not always the one chosen for article titles. Sometimes the most common usage is used over official usage South Korea North Korea. Honorifics and titles are removed for the title (King, Sir, Duke, Saint) though they may be the "correct" name. Middle names are usually not included in titles. In these cases the official name is given in the first sentence. I've been busy with the TV naming convention, but I guess I can start this one up after this. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 05:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Don't forget the use '&' or '=' in the name for some entities along with others. I know everyone wants to replace the '&' which is correct, with 'and' which is the guideline but doing that changes the name of the company. When you have the time this would be another mess. I'm still busy with the 'U.S.' stuff and some IATA cleanup. Vegaswikian 23:11, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

A draft poll for company naming conventions

A new draft poll to establish naming convention guidelines for companies and businesses is available for comment until February 10. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 17:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies)/poll

Voting has begun and will continue until March 5. Please resolve this lagging issue. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 22:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Policy v. guideline

Does it make sense that this page has a "policy" notice at the top, when AFAICS all the detailed sub-pages it points to are only declared to be guidelines? Palmiro | Talk 15:16, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

For more info on policy and guidelines, please see Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, which explains why certain rules become policies. Thank you!--Urthogie 16:43, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
...and see above Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/archive6#Guidelines or policy? – the same question was asked, and got some answers. --Francis Schonken 17:18, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Theres your answer, Palmiro.--Urthogie 23:05, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
So am I to take it, as per Steve Block in that section, that "conventions on the main page are also guidelines, rather than policy"?
This arises from a disagreement between Urthogie and me on how to apply the "common names" guideline, in particular; I consider that the summary on this page has to be interpreted in the light of the detailed guideline; Urthogie has a different interpretation and considers (if I've understood correctly) that the detailed guideline is not to be taken into account because this page is policy. Palmiro | Talk 19:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Which article(s) is the disagreement about?
Re difference between policy and guideline:
  • a policy means that a very large part of the wikipedians recommend to do something a certain way;
  • a guideline means a large part of the wikipedians recommend to do something a certain way.
This makes a "policy" a little easier to enforce, and a little harder to change, than a "guideline". But unless you're successful in changing the guideline, I don't see a difference why "common names" should be applied when it would be a policy, and not when it's a guideline: that would be a false presentation of the guideline idea.
Further, and that's something I'd like to add to what I wrote in #Guidelines or policy? above, there's a paragraph in the intro of Wikipedia:Naming conventions I definitely think sums up the naming conventions policy:

Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

That's policy in the full meaning of the word. Note that also here "exceptions" are not made impossible: the paragraph starts with "Generally, ..." which always implies the possibility of exceptions.
Note that in a previous section on this page (see #Proposed overall policy) it is proposed to add following sentence to the policy formulation:

Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists.

I supported that idea for the expansion of the policy part of naming conventions, how d'you think about that? Would that make the discussion you're involved in now easier? --Francis Schonken 19:42, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd agree with Palmiro on the discussion if the pages were policy. But they're not. If you get them to be policy, then you'll be correct- until then I'm going to go to work on improving those guidelines. Thank you--Urthogie 21:51, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity: I still don't know which page name(s) you and Palmiro were discussing about. Would you care mentioning?
Did you consider Wikipedia:Naming conflict? Would that be of any help?
Re. changes to NC guidelines: I'll probably comment on them after I know what all this is about. --Francis Schonken 08:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Voting is currently going on at Talk:islamist terrorism. Please vote, thanks!--Urthogie 18:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Coats of arms

Is there a naming convention for articles on coats of arms? Is there some reason why nearly every article in Category:National coats of arms has the word "Arms" capitalized? Unless someone can point out some good reason to disobey the general convention of using lowercase in titles, these all should be renamed. dbenbenn | talk 01:35, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Because it is a Proper Noun? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Help me understand "Avoid non alpha-numeric characters used only for emphasis"

Does this apply to using italics in article titles? For example, I need to how to correctly title this article: The Smurfs and communism or The Smurfs and communism  ? BTW, I'm not trying to be cute. This is a real point of confusion, about a real article! ike9898 16:01, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

"Avoid non alpha-numeric characters used only for emphasis" was something put together by User:Xaosflux (see above Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/archive6#"..." articles.), you can always ask this user.
Although not specifically mentioned at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions), trying to trigger italics in a page name with two accent marks seems not to work: [[''The Smurfs'' and communism]] does not make a link to an article named "The Smurfs and communism", instead it shows as ''The Smurfs'' and communism in article text.
Further, I think there was a recent AfD or something like that (or maybe I saw it at WP:RM, I don't know any more) about an article connecting "Smurfs" and "communism": saying that ''The Smurfs'' and communism doesn't work technically, is not the same as saying that The Smurfs and communism would be a good idea! --Francis Schonken 17:18, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I authored that section, in a resposne to articles that started with characters other then A-Z or 0-9, when used for no reason other then to bring attention to the article or it's name. Additionaly it dealt with various other issues linking, indexing, or the searching of articles. This was originally proposed to ward off article names such as ***The Smurfs and communism, when generally used to attempt to have them listed in odd places (such as at the begining or end of alpabetic listings). This section also deals with puting quotation marks around things that really don't need them in the title. The goal of this section is not to change the fonts used, although as Francis Schonken said above, it doesn't work. Nothing of this goes to stating what the content of the article should be, and an article title of The Smurfs and communism or References to communism in The Smurfs, etc are all fine article names, quotations or italices are not needed around the title, as the capitilization provides sufficient information as to the context. Please feel free to Talk Page me if you want more of my thaughts on this. xaosflux Talk/CVU 04:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

U.S. Roads naming conventions

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways/U.S. state highway naming conventions for the proposal. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:28, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Please note that if this is a proposal for a naming convention per se it should a) be marked as such, and b) be placed in a standard, centralised NC location, not a wikiproject subpage. On the substance of this, there's clearly a need to have some sort on unified discussion of this, as at present what tends to happen is that renames come up on RfM, CFD, and TFD, and typically get no consensus either way, with the result that the status quo of various inconsisent names remains in place. OTOH, a fresh naming convention seems redundant to me, as this is already covered by existing NCs: here and here. The names in question are are not proper nouns, and not "otherwise almost always capitalized", and thus should be lower-case. It's therefore problematic to propose a further naming convention that'll essentially just say "use the general rules", though I wouldn't quite rule it out either, as this seems to be difficult to resolve otherwise. Alai 07:18, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
However, here we are requesting the opposite. We are requesting that the phrase "California State Route" should always be capitalized, whether it is part of a article name, a list name, a template name, a category name, or a stub name. This is because the phrase is "California State Route". The capitalization indicates that we are referring to the specific classification. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:06, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Lenght of a name

Isn't there some guideline that short names are preferable to long ones (not abbreviations)? See Talk:Polish-Lithuanian-Muscovite_Commonwealth#Article title for the context of my question.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 07:47, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

well, the common name is preferred, which is usually short. Unless needed to be made longer for precision.
I started "Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders" a few days ago. Didn't see a way to make that one shorter. --Francis Schonken 10:11, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Geographic names

Seems like the discutants have run out of steam. Unless there are other comments, we will probably move for some formal voting soon.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Ohio schools

How does a convention get from proposed to accepted? I proposed Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Ohio school districts) in April 2005. Nobody has objected or commented to it since. I'd like to be able to cite it as official policy as we have a number of articles being created on Ohio schools. (See Category: High schools in Ohio for example). PedanticallySpeaking 16:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I did post notice of it on the talk pages of several Ohio education related articles. I'm reposting it with notice on the pages you suggested. PedanticallySpeaking 16:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I slightly reformatted Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Ohio school districts), as a proposal. Hope you don't mind. Might I suggest to start comments at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Ohio school districts)? --Francis Schonken 16:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Still a suggestion: there's the WikiProject about Schools: maybe an idea to leave a note at Wikipedia talk:Schools (and/or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools): some of the people of such projects might be interested to get involved. --Francis Schonken 17:20, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Sierra Leone Krio people

I'd like a second opinion on a discussion going on at Talk:Sierra Leone Krio people. Another editor believes that in order to distinguish from peoples with names similar to "Krio people", it is a good idea to call the article Sierra Leone Krio people. I think that Krio people would be correct, with a leading disambig line for any peoples they might be confused with. NickelShoe 04:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Geography of Poland - terminology (proposal)

I started a vote on naming of Polish powiats and gminas. Anyone interested is welcome to vote Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Geography_of_Poland#Vote--SylwiaS | talk 04:00, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Brunswick/Braunsweig

Why do we have articles at both Braunschweig and Brunswick-Lüneburg? A google test shows a 10 to 1 preference for "Brunswick", but I'm not sure how the vote on that page went... Borisblue 15:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Highways proposal

I've started Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Numbered highways. I'm not sure about the exact process, so if it needs to be submitted anywhere, someone should do so. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 20:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi SPUI, the last paragraph of the intro of wikipedia:naming conventions reads:

If you wish to propose a new naming convention, do so on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, whilst also publicising the proposal at Requests for comment and the Village Pump, as well as at any related pages. Once a strong consensus has formed, it can be adopted as a naming convention and listed below.

--Francis Schonken 07:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
It's not ready for that. Right now it's just being worked out. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 20:56, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Words as words

I just saw the article Pronunciation of Celtic which I assumed from the name was about the Phonology of Celtic languages but is actually about the English word "Celtic" and whether it can be pronounced with an initial /s/ or /k/ sound. Is there any convention for highlighting that a word in an article title is the word, not its reference (use-mention distinction). There is football (word) but that's because football is a separate article. Joestynes 16:12, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) should be able to help you. But I suppose it's too general to be of any practical help.
So, question: what would you propose would be the best page name for the content now on Pronunciation of Celtic?
Then, if it makes sense, use the "move" tab, and move the page there.
Then, if you think you've done something that might help others later, if they encounter a similar issue, you might consider expanding/improving Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) a bit. --Francis Schonken 08:44, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Colleges and Universities

Have Infobox University become the standard for college and university pages. Withen the template, on the location line, instead of having City, State abbreviation Country (ex. Akron, OH USA) have it all written out with a comma between the state and country. I dont know if this has already had a convention but I feel it needs to be changed. American Patriot 1776 19:36, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

the "Naming conventions" series of guidelines & policies does not deal with formatting of text on pages (including infoboxes), that's rather the topic of the WP:MoS ("Manual of Style") series of guidelines.
There's Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities - what I see from that page is that they're involved in working on the type of templates you speak of, developing a sort of MoS on that. Maybe drop your question/suggestion at the talk page of that WikiProject.
If you'd like a more general description of how formatting of City/State/Country sequences on wikipedia pages should be, you'd have to look in the MoS (and its subpages), I'm sure you'd find something there.
Re. page naming, I still found these naming conventions: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places)#States in the USA and Provinces of Canada (specifies "State abbreviations" not being allowed in Wikipedia article names) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names)#United States and Canada --Francis Schonken 22:30, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Naming convention for Dutchmen

I don't know if this is the right venue to discuss this, but I have noticed two problems with the naming convention on wikipedia for Dutchmen whose family name starts with the word "Van" (eg Marco van Basten):

  1. The letter "v" in "van" is invariantly spelt with a lowercase; however from my knowledge and experience many Dutchmen do have names with a capital "V" in "Van".
  2. When being categorised "van" would invariantly be treated as part of the given name (ie Marco van Basten would be categorised by means of, say, [[Category:A.C. Milan players|Basten, Marco van]]). However from my understanding the word "van" is part of the family name, not give name (ie "Mr. Van Basten", not "Mr. Basten").

Please let me know where shall we have the above issues resolved. Thanks. --Pkchan 16:54, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

P.S. The above has also been posted at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#Naming convention for Dutchmen.

PPS: That's where the discussion is too; it led to a little expansion of Wikipedia:Categorization#Category sorting --Francis Schonken 20:11, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Kingdoms, phylums, classes, orders and families

Do we have a convention about whether kingdoms, phylums, classes, orders and families should be capitalized? Is it different for each? I've only found information on genus and species. If they are only one word, it does not matter for the name of the article, as the first word is always capitalized, but there is the matter of whether to capitalize the name within the article, such as Lepidoptera. -- Kjkolb 01:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

All taxa above species should be capitalized. Genus and below should be italicized. Derivitize words should not be capitalized. Eg. Humans are in the Hominidae family. Humans are hominids. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:28, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Naming issue at Flag of Western Sahara

Hi there! I posted this at WP:RFC/P, but was hoping I might get some additional interested people here. There has been an ongoing argument at Flag of Western Sahara about the name of the flag.

Western Sahara is a region claimed by Morocco and a government in exile of indigenous people, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Both parties control a portion of the territory and both claim the whole of it. The flag is the flag flown by SADR, but it is generally known as the "Flag of Western Sahara", mainly because Morocco does not recognise the term Western Sahara (calling it Moroccan Sahara), so there is no other flag which also might bear the name. There have been extensive discussions about comparisons with Flag of Tibet, and Flag of Taiwan, but up until now no conclusion.

To break the stalemate, a vote has been proposed here, and we would very much appreciate any and every input. The more the merrier!

Thanks and greets, The Minister of War (Peace) 08:55, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

page overflowing with section stubs

Anyone agree with me that this page needs to be reogranized so its not just a bunch of section stubs? Perhaps make one section that links to the subsections? Just looks like a mess right now.--Urthogie 13:08, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean the talk page or the project page?
Anyway, don't think a "big bang" approach would be a good idea for either of these pages. Incremental improvements for the project page are always possible (I still did some this morning). --Francis Schonken 15:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
The project page. Look at its table of contents:
    * 1 General conventions
          o 1.1 Lowercase second and subsequent words
          o 1.2 Prefer singular nouns
          o 1.3 Redirect adjectives to nouns
          o 1.4 Use gerund of verbs
          o 1.5 Use English words
          o 1.6 Use common names of persons and things
          o 1.7 Be precise when necessary
          o 1.8 Prefer spelled-out phrases to acronyms
          o 1.9 Avoid the definite article ("the") and the indefinite article ("a"/"an") at the beginning of the page name
          o 1.10 Use of "and"
          o 1.11 Do not use an article name that suggests a hierarchy of articles
          o 1.12 Be careful with some special characters
          o 1.13 Avoid non alpha-numeric characters used only for emphasis
    * 2 Other specific conventions
          o 2.1 Aircraft names
          o 2.2 Animals, plants, and other organisms
          o 2.3 Books - literary works
          o 2.4 Broadcasting
                + 2.4.1 North America
          o 2.5 Categories
          o 2.6 Chemistry
          o 2.7 Chinese
          o 2.8 Comics
          o 2.9 Elections
          o 2.10 Film titles
          o 2.11 Government departments, ministers etc.
          o 2.12 Historical names and titles
          o 2.13 (Ice) hockey
          o 2.14 Identity
          o 2.15 Initials
          o 2.16 Ireland and Irish names
          o 2.17 Isotopes/Nuclides
          o 2.18 Japanese
          o 2.19 Korean
          o 2.20 Languages, both spoken and programming
          o 2.21 Legislation in the United Kingdom
          o 2.22 Lists
          o 2.23 Literary works
          o 2.24 Manuscript names
          o 2.25 Mormonism
          o 2.26 Music
                + 2.26.1 Pieces of music
                + 2.26.2 Album titles and band names
                + 2.26.3 Operas
          o 2.27 Numbers and dates
          o 2.28 Organizations (such as political parties)
          o 2.29 People
                + 2.29.1 Monarchs and nobility
                + 2.29.2 Ancient Romans
                + 2.29.3 Western Clergy
          o 2.30 Places
                + 2.30.1 City names
                + 2.30.2 Country-specific topics
                + 2.30.3 Specific countries
          o 2.31 Russian names
          o 2.32 School names
          o 2.33 Ship names
          o 2.34 Slovenian vs Slovene
          o 2.35 Stub templates and categories
          o 2.36 Time (dates, periods, etc.)
          o 2.37 Ukrainian names
    * 3 Conventions under consideration
          o 3.1 Airports
          o 3.2 Arabic names
          o 3.3 Companies
          o 3.4 Computer and video games
          o 3.5 Currency
          o 3.6 Czech names
          o 3.7 Diacritics (on standard letters)
          o 3.8 Ethno-cultural labels in biographies
          o 3.9 External links
          o 3.10 Geographic names
          o 3.11 Hebrew and Israeli names
          o 3.12 India and Sri Lanka (people)
          o 3.13 Military units
          o 3.14 New Zealand placenames
          o 3.15 Non-standard letters
          o 3.16 Numismatics (currencies, coins and banknotes)
          o 3.17 Ohio School Districts
          o 3.18 Polish monarchs
          o 3.19 Roads and Highways
          o 3.20 Sexuality
          o 3.21 Subnational entities
          o 3.22 Suffix
          o 3.23 Television (industry and programming)
    * 4 Conventions currently archived
          o 4.1 Provinces
          o 4.2 More issues
    * 5 See also

Utterly useless, and filled with section stubs.--Urthogie 17:19, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Alas, if comparing with 

    * 1 General conventions
          o 1.1 Lowercase second and subsequent words
          o 1.2 Prefer singular nouns
          o 1.3 Redirect adjectives to nouns
          o 1.4 Use gerund of verbs
          o 1.5 Use English words
          o 1.6 Use common names of persons and things
          o 1.7 Be precise when necessary
          o 1.8 Prefer spelled-out phrases to acronyms
          o 1.9 Avoid the definite article ("the") and the indefinite article ("a"/"an") at the beginning of the page name
          o 1.10 Use of "and"
          o 1.11 Do not use an article name that suggests a hierarchy of articles
          o 1.12 Be careful with some special characters
          o 1.13 Avoid non alpha-numeric characters used only for emphasis
          o 1.14 Categories
          o 1.15 Lists
          o 1.16 Stub templates and categories
    * 2 Specific conventions
          o 2.1 Animals, plants, and other organisms
          o 2.2 Books
          o 2.3 Broadcasting
                + 2.3.1 North America
          o 2.4 Elections
          o 2.5 Film titles
          o 2.6 Isotopes/Nuclides
          o 2.7 Languages, both spoken and programming
          o 2.8 Legislation in the United Kingdom
          o 2.9 Music
                + 2.9.1 Pieces of music
                + 2.9.2 Album titles and band names
                + 2.9.3 Operas
          o 2.10 Numbers and dates
          o 2.11 Organizations (such as political parties)
          o 2.12 People
                + 2.12.1 City names
                + 2.12.2 Country-specific topics
          o 2.13 Russian names
          o 2.14 School names
          o 2.15 Ship names
          o 2.16 Slovenian vs Slovene
          o 2.17 Ukrainian names
          o 2.18 Others...
    * 3 Conventions under consideration
    * 4 Conventions currently archived
    * 5 See also

This even more disasterous, so I revert to previous. --Francis Schonken 19:55, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Don't just revert, discuss first. Thank you,--Urthogie 19:58, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Don't force unilateral elaborate changes. Discuss first. Thank you, --Francis Schonken 20:06, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I put your proposal at Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Urthogie's rewrite - I propose we take it from there. --Francis Schonken 20:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Foreign organisations/trade unions

Hi! Upon writing the article Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden, I realized there didn't seem to be any proper naming standard for foreign trade unions. What are the naming conventions for non-english organisations/trade unions? As of now, there seems to be a lot of different styles:

etcetera. To me, it seems that the most common style is to keep it in it's original language or translating it directly to English. A standard should be established, or, if one exists, should be applied! I, for one, am in favor of keeping the original language in the title. Jobjörn 11:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Corrected language error; see also #Suggestion for new naming convention: Latin party names above --Francis Schonken 12:14, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Ooops. My mistake - it was late ;) Further, I do not see how #Suggestion for new naming convention: Latin party names could be applied to said trade unions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jobjörn (talk • contribs)
Both Confederación Nacional del Trabajo and Confederación General del Trabajo (Spain) relate to romance languages (misnamed "Latin" by User:Soman). My only suggestion was to maybe contact Soman (e.g. on his/her user talk page), (s)he was working on similar issues - "parties" are not really companies/businesses, neither are "trade unions", otherwise I'd have suggested to take a look at the developing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies). I have no clue how far Soman got with his/her proposal (didn't see no NC guideline or update to the general NC page resulting from his/her suggestions yet). --Francis Schonken 13:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, I contacted Soman before I asked my question here, as he moved Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden from Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation. He asked me to ask here. Jobjörn 14:19, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Sorry, I see now my reply wasn't really helpful. (new suggestion:) Why not start Wikipedia:Naming conventions (organisations) or something in that vein? I started Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish) just recently, but I suppose that's not really what you're looking for. However, feel free to extend that guideline proposal, if you'd be primarily interested in solving the issue for Swedish organisations. --Francis Schonken 14:46, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't propose using the exact parameters for political parties as trade unions. TU names are often not translated in international context, or they use English names that are not direct translations of their original names. --Soman 13:16, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

caps mid-word

When cleaning up random pages I came across Garmin ique, but the actual company name is "Garmin iQue." It makes sense to move the page to Garmin iQue, but is it okay? Akrabbim 02:01, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

If that's the name, then that's what the title should be. NickelShoe 02:36, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Absolutly, iQue IS the correct form. Qyd 21:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
FYI - when a capital letter appears in the middle of a word, it may sometimes be reffered to as camelCase. - UtherSRG (talk) 21:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Using diacritics (or national alphabet) in the name of the article

The discussion below has been copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Using diacritics (or national alphabet) in the name of the article - 07:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I came to the problem with national alphabet letters in article name. They are commonly used but I have found no mention about them in naming coventions (WP:NAME). The only convention related is to use English name, but it probable does not apply to the names of people. National alphabet is widely used in wikipedia. Examples are Luís de Camões Auguste and Louis Lumière or Karel Čapek. There are redirects from english spelling (Camoes, Lumiere, Capek).

On the other hand, wikiproject ice hockey WP:HOCKEY states rule for ice hockey players that their names should be written in English spelling. Currently some articles are being moved from Czech spelling to the english spelling (for example Patrik Eliáš to Patrick Elias). I object to this as I do not see genaral consensus and it will only lead to moving back and forth. WP:HOCKEY is not wikipedia policy nor guideline. In addition I do not see any reason why ice hockey players should be treated differently than other people.

There is a mention about using the most recognized name in the naming conventions policy. But this does not help in the case of many ice hockey players. It is very likely that for American and Canadian NHL fans the most recognised versions are Jagr, Hasek or Patrick ELias. But these people also played for the Czech republic in the Olympics and there they are known like Jágr, Hašek or Patrik Eliáš.

I would like to find out what is the current consensus about this. -- Jan Smolik 18:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The only convention related is to use English name, but it probable does not apply to the names of people - incorrect. "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things" - Wikipedia:Naming :conventions (common names). Raul654 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I mentioned this in the third article but it does not solve the problem. Americans are familiar with different spelling than Czechs. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, since this is the English Wikipedia, really we should use the name most familiar to English speakers. The policy doesn't say this explicitly, but I believe this is how it's usually interpreted. This is the form that English speakers will recognize most easily. Deco 19:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Well it is wikipedia in English but it is read and edited by people from the whole world. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

There was a straw poll about this with regard to place names: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)/Archive 3#Proposal and straw poll regarding place names with diacritical marks. The proposal was that "whenever the most common English spelling is simply the native spelling with diacritical marks omitted, the native spelling should be used". It was close, but those who supported the proposal had more votes. Since, articles like Yaoundé have remained in place with no uproar. I would support a similar convention with regard to personal names. — BrianSmithson 19:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm the user who initiated the WP:HOCKEY-based renaming with Alf. The project Player Pages Format Talk page has the discussion we had along with my reasoning, pasted below:

OK, team, it's simple. This is en-wiki. We don't have non-English characters on our keyboards, and people likely to come to en-wiki are mostly going to have ISO-EN keyboards, whether they're US, UK, or Aussie (to name a few) it doesn't matter. I set up a page at User:RasputinAXP/DMRwT for double move redirects with twist and started in on the Czech players that need to be reanglicized.

Myself and others interpret the policy just the same as Deco and BrianSmithson do: the familiar form in English is Jaromir Jagr, not Jaromír Jágr; we can't even type that. Attempting to avoid redirects is pretty tough as well. Is there a better way to build consensus regarding this? RasputinAXP talk contribs 19:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you misread my statement above. My stance is that if the native spelling of the name varies from the English spelling only in the use of diacritics, use the native spelling. Thus, the article title should be Yaoundé and not Yaounde. Likewise, use Jōchō, not Jocho. Redirection makes any arguments about accessibility moot, and not using the diacritics makes us look lazy or ignorant. — BrianSmithson 16:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Tentative overview (no cut-and-paste solutions, however):
  • Article names for names of people: wikipedia:naming conventions (people) - there's nothing specific about diacritics there (just mentioning this guideline because it is a naming conventions guideline, while there are no "hockey" naming conventions mentioned at wikipedia:naming conventions).
  • wikipedia:naming conventions (names and titles) is about royal & noble people: this is guideline, and *explicitly* mentions that wikipedia:naming conventions (common names) does NOT apply for these kind of people. But makes no difference: doesn't mention anything about diacritics.
  • Wikipedia talk:naming conventions (Polish rulers): here we're trying to solve the issue for Polish monarchs (some of which have diacritics in their Polish name): but don't expect to find answers there yet, talks are still going on. Anyway we need to come to a conclusion there too, hopefully soon (but not rushing).
  • Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics), early stages of a guideline proposal, I started this on a "blue monday" about a week ago. No guideline yet: the page contains merely a "scope" definition, and a tentative "rationale" section. What the basic principles of the guideline proposal will become I don't know yet (sort of waiting till after the "Polish rulers" issue gets sorted out I suppose...). But if any of you feel like being able to contribute, ultimately it will answer Jan Smolik's question (but I'd definitely advise not to hold your breath on it yet).
  • Other:
    • Some people articles with and without diacritics are mentioned at wikipedia talk:naming conventions (use English)#Diacritics, South Slavic languages - some of these after undergoing a WP:RM, but note that isolated examples are *not* the same as a guideline... (if I'd know a formulation of a guideline proposal that could be agreeable to the large majority of Wikipedians, I'd have written it down already...)
    • Talking about Lumiere/Lumière: there's a planet with that name: at a certain moment a few months ago it seemed as if the issue was settled to use the name with accent, but I don't know how that ended, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects, Andrewa said she was going to take the issue there. Didn't check whether they have a final conclusion yet.
Well, that's all I know about (unless you also want to involve non-standard characters, then there's still the wikipedia:naming conventions (þ) guideline proposal) --Francis Schonken 19:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Note that I do not believe no En article should contain diacritics in its title. There are topics for which most English speakers are used to names containing diacritics, such as El Niño. Then there are topics for which the name without diacritics is widely disseminated throughout the English speaking world, like Celine Dion (most English speakers would be confused or surprised to see the proper "Céline Dion"). (Ironically enough, the articles for these don't support my point very well.) Deco 20:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Sticking diacritics, particularly the Polish Ł is highly annoying, esp. when applied to Polish monarchs. It just gives editors much more work, and unless you're in Poland or know the code, you will be unable to type the name in the article. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) File:UW Logo-secondary.gif 20:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Redirects make the issue of difficulty in visiting or linking to the article immaterial (I know we like to skip redirects, but as long as you watch out for double redirects you're fine). The limitations of our keyboards are not, by themselves, a good reason to exclude any article title. Deco 20:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Deco, I should rephrase what I said. I agree with you that some English articles do require diacritics, like El Niño. Articles like Jaromir Jagr that are lacking diacritics in their English spellings should remain without diacritics because you're only going to find the name printed in any English-speaking paper without diacritics. RasputinAXP talk contribs 21:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I checked articles about Czech people and in 90 % of cases (rough guess) they are with diacritics in the name of the article. This includes soccer players playing in England (like Vladimír Šmicer, Petr Čech, Milan Baroš). And no one actualy complains. So this seems to be a consensus. The only exception are extremely short stubs that did not receive much input. Articles with Czech diacritics are readable in English, you only need a redirect becouse of problems with typing. This is an international project written in English. It should not fulfill only needs of native English speakers but of all people of the world. --Jan Smolik 22:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Very many names need diacritics to make sense. Petr Cech instead of Petr Čech makes a different impression as a name, does not look half as Czech and is much more likely to be totally mispronounced when you see it. Names with diacritics are also not IMHO such a big problem to use for editors because you can usually go through the redirect in an extra tab and cut and paste the correct title. I also don't see a problem at all in linking through redirects (that's part of what they are there for). Leaving out diacritics only where they are "not particularly useful" would be rather inconsequent. Kusma (討論) 22:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, "Petr Sykora" and "Jaromir Jagr" are not alternate spellings; they are incorrect ones which are only used for technical reasons. Since all other articles about Czech people use proper Czech diacritics, I don't know of any justification for making an exception in case of hockey players. - Mike Rosoft 01:13, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Man, I feel like the bottom man in a dogpile. Reviewing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), there'sWhat word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine? Making the name of the article include diacritics goes against the Use English guideline. The most common input into the search box over here onthe left, for en-wiki, is going to be Jaromir Jagr. Yes, we're supposed to avoid redirects. Yes, in Czech it's not correct. In English, it is correct. I guess I'm done with the discussion. There's no consensus in either direction, but it's going to be pushed back to the diacritic version anyhow. Go ahead and switch them back. I'mnot dead-set against it, but I was trying to follow guidelines. RasputinAXP talk contribs 15:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
There are many names, and even words, in dominant English usage that use diacritics. Whether or not these will ever be typed in a search engine, they're still the proper title. However, if English language media presentations of a topic overwhelmingly omit diacritics, then clearly English speakers would be most familiar with the form without diacritics and it should be used as the title on this Wikipedia. This is just common sense, even if it goes against the ad hoc conventions that have arisen. Deco 18:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Czech names: almost all names with diacritics use it also in the title (and all of them have redirect). Adding missing diacritics is automatic behavior of Czech editors when they spot it. So for all practical purposes the policy is set de-facto (for Cz names) and you can't change it. Pavel Vozenilek 03:18, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming policy (Czech) --Francis Schonken 11:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

and: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey) --Francis Schonken 17:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

There are those among us trying to pull the ignorant North American card. I mentioned the following over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey/Player pages format...
Here's the Czech hockey team in English compliments of the Torino Italy Olympic Committee [2] Here they are in Italian: [3], French: [4]. Here are the rosters from the IIHF (INTERNATIONAL Ice Hockey Federation) based in Switzerland: [5].'
Those examples are straight from 2 international organizations (one based in Italy, one in Switzerland). I'm hard pressed to find any english publication that uses diacritics in hockey player names. I don't see why en.wiki should be setting a precedent otherwise. ccwaters 02:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Over at WP:HOCKEY we have/had 3 forces promoting non-English characters in en.wiki hockey articles: native Finns demanding native spellings of Finnish players, native Czechs demanding native spellings of Czech players, and American stalkers of certain Finnish goaltenders. I did a little research and here are my findings:
Here's a Finnish site profiling NHL players. Here's an "incorrectly" spelt Jagr, but the Finnish and German alphabets both happen to have umlauts so here's a "correct" Olaf Kölzig. Who is Aleksei Jashin?
Here's a Czech article about the recent Montreal-Philadelphia game [6] Good luck finding any Finnish players names spelt "correctly"... here's a snippet from the MON-PHI article:
Flyers však do utkání nastoupili značně oslabeni. K zraněným oporám Peteru Forsbergovi, Keithu Primeauovi, Ericu Desjardinsovi a Kimu Johnssonovi totiž po posledním zápase přibyli také Petr Nedvěd a zadák Chris Therrien.
Well...I recognize Petr Nedvěd, he was born in Czechoslovakia. Who did the Flyers have in goal??? Oh its the Finnish guy, "Antero Niitymakiho".
My point? Different languages spell name differently. I found those sites just by searching yahoo in the respective languages. I admit I don't speak either and therefore I couldn't search thoroughly. If someone with backgrounds in either language can demonstrate patterns of Finnish publications acknowledging Czech characters and visa versa than I may change my stance. ccwaters 03:45, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I support every word Ccwater said, albeit with not as much conviction. There is a reason why we have Wikipedia in different languages, and although there are few instances in the English uses some sort of extra-curricular lettering (i.e. café), most English speaking people do not use those. Croat Canuck 04:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I must make a strong point that seems to be over-looked: this is not the international English language wikipedia. It is the English language wikipedia. It just so happens that the international communty contributes. There is a reason that there are other language sections to wikipedia, and this is one of them. The finnish section of wikipedia should spell names the Finnish way and the English wikipedia should spell names the English way. The vast majority of english publications drop the foreign characters and diacritics. Why? because they aren't part of the English language, hence the term "foreign characters". Masterhatch 04:32, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree in every particular with Masterhatch. The NHL's own website and publications do not use diacriticals, nor does any other known English-language source. The absurdity of the racist card is breathtaking: in the same fashion as the Finnish and Czech language Wikipedias follow their own national conventions for nomenclature (the name of the country in which I live is called the "United States" on neither ... should I feel insulted?), the English language Wikipedia reflects the conventions of the various English-speaking nations. In none are diacriticals commonly used. I imagine the natives of the Finnish or Czech language Wikipedias would go berserk if some peeved Anglos barge in and demand they change their customary linguistic usages. I see no reason to change the English language to suit in a similar situation. RGTraynor 06:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized. I intentionaly wrote the names without diacritics. I accept the fact that foreigners do that because they cannot write those letters properly and use them correctly. There are also technical restrictions. I also accepted fact that my US social security card bears name Jan Smolik instead of Jan Smolík. I do not have problem with this. I even sign my posts Jan Smolik. But Wikipedia does not have technical restrictions. I can even type wierd letters as Æ. And it has plenty of editors who are able to write names with diacritics correctly. The name without diacritics is sufficient for normal information but I still think it is wrong. I think that removing diacritics is a step back. Anyway it is true that I am not able to use diacritics in Finish names. But somebody can fix that for me.
I do not care which version will win. But I just felt there was not a clear consensus for the non-diacritics side and this discussion has proven me to be right. As for the notice of Czechs writing names incorectly. We use Inflection of names so that makes writing even more dificult (my name is Smolík but when you want to say we gave it to Smolík you will use form we gave it Smolíkovi). One last argument for diacritics, before I retire from this discussion as I think I said all I wanted to say. Without diacritics you cannot distinguish some names. For example Czech surnames Čapek and Cápek are both Capek. Anyway we also have language purists in the Czech republic. I am not one of them. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized -Fine we'll use the spellings used by the IIHF, IOC, NHLPA, AHL, OHL, WHL, ESPN, TSN, The Hockey News, Sports Illustrated, etc, etc, etc.
This isn't about laziness. Its about using the alphabet afforded to the respective language. We don't refer to Алексей Яшин because the English language doesn't use the Cyrillic alphabet. So why should we subject language A to the version of the Latin alphabet used by language B? Especially when B modifies proper names from languages C & D.
My main beef here is that that the use of such characters in en.wiki is a precedent, and not a common practice. If you think the English hockey world should start spelling Czech names natively, than start a campaign amongst Czech hockey players demanding so. It may work: languages constantly infiltrate and influence each other. Wikipedia should take a passive role in such things, and not be an active forum for them. ccwaters 20:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized Great, in which case for Czech Olympic pages, especially on the Czech Wikipedia, spell them as they are done in the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, in the NHL-related articles, we'll spell them as per customary English-language usage. RGTraynor 08:05, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I wish I understood why User:ccwaters has to be rude in his posts on this subject. "Stalkers of Finnish goaltenders" isn't the way I'd describe a Wikipedia contributor. Also, since you asked, Aleksei Jashin is the Finnish translitteration of Alexei Yashin. Russian transliterates differently into Finnish than into English. Of course you must know this, since you have such a habit of lecturing to us on languages. As for diacritics, I object to the idea of dumbing down Wikipedia. There are no technical limitations that stop us from writing Antero Niittymäki instead of Antero Niittymaki. The reason so many hockey publications all over the world don't use Finnish-Scandinavian letters or diacritics is simple laziness, and Wikipedia can do much better. Besides, it isn't accepted translation practice to change the spelling of proper names if they can be easily reproduced and understood, so in my opinion it's simply wrong to do so. Since it seems to be obvious there isn't a consensus on this matter, I think a vote would be in order. Elrith 16:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Alas, a Finnish guy lecturing native English speakers on how they have to write Czech names in English (not to mention the lecturing regarding the laziness) is but a variation on the same theme of rudishness.
So, Elrith, or whomever reads this, if the lecturing is finished, could you maybe devote some attention to the Dvořák/Dvorak problem I mentioned below? I mean, whomever one asks this would not be problematic - but nobody volunteered thus far to get it solved. Am I the only one who experiences this as problematic inconsistency? --Francis Schonken 21:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
So is "Jagr" the Finnish transliteration of "Jágr"??? On that note, the Finnish "Ä" is not an "A" with "funny things" on top (that's an umlaut), its a completely separate letter nonexistent in the English language and is translated to "Æ". "Niittymaki" would be the English transliteration. "Nittymeki" or (more traditionally "Nittymӕki") would be the English transcription.
In the past I've said our friend's contributions were "thorough." I'll leave it at that. There will be nothing else about it from me unless asked. ccwaters 21:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
My opinion on the Dvořák/Dvorak issue is that his name is spelled Dvořák, and that's how the articles should be titled, along with redirects from Dvorak. Similarly, the article on Antero Niittymäki should be called just that, with a redirect from Niittymaki. You're right that it is a problematic inconsistency, and it needs to be fixed.
The only reason I may sound like I'm lecturing is that there are several people contributing to these discussions who don't understand the subject at all. Ccwaters's remarks on transliteration are

one example. It isn't customary or even acceptable to transliterate or transcribe Finnish letters into English; the accepted translation practice is to reproduce them, which is perfectly possible, for example, in Wikipedia. Niittymaki or anything else that isn't Niittymäki isn't a technically correct "translation". The reason North American, or for that matter, Finnish, hockey publications write Jagr instead of Jágr is ignorance and/or laziness. Wikipedia can do better that that.

However, since this discussion has, at least to me, established that there is no consensus on Wikipedia on diacritics and national letters, apart from a previous vote on diacritics, I'm going to continue my hockey edits and use Finnish/Scandinavian letters unless the matter is otherwise resolved. Elrith 04:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi Elrith, your new batch of patronising declarations simply doesn't work. Your insights in language (and how language works) seem very limited, resuming all what you don't like about a language to "laziness" and "ignorance".
Seems like we might need an RfC on you, if you continue to oracle like this, especially when your technique seems to consist in calling anyone who doesn't agree with you incompetent.
Re. consensus, I think you would be surprised to see how much things have evolved since the archived poll you speak about. --Francis Schonken 23:14, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
My 2 cents:
1) This should NOT be setteld as a local consensus for hockey players, this is about how we name persons in the english wikipedia. It is wrong to have a local consensus for hockey players only.
2) I have tried to do some findings on how names are represented, it is wrong to say that since these names are spelled like this normally they should be spelled like this, many wrongs does not make it right. So I did a few checks,
If I look at the online version of Encyclopædia Britannica I get a hit on both Björn Borg and Bjorn Borg, but in the article it is spelled with swedish characters, same for Selma Lagerlöf and Dag Hammarskjöld, I could not find any more swedes in EB :-) (I did not check all..)
I also check for as many swedes as I could think of in wikipedia to see how it is done for none hockey swedes, I found the following swedes by looking at list of swedish ... and adding a few more that I could think of, ALL had their articles spelled with the swedish characters (I'm sure you can find a few that is spelled without the swedish characters but the majority for sure seams to be spelled the same way as in their births certificates). So IF you are proposing that we should 'rename' the swedish hockey players I think we must rename all other swedes also. Do we really think that is correct? I can not check this as easily for other countries but I would guess that it is the same.
Dag Hammarskjöld, Björn Borg, Annika Sörenstam, Björn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog, Selma Lagerlöf, Stellan Skarsgård,Gunnar Ekelöf, Gustaf Fröding, Pär Lagerkvist, Håkan Nesser, Bruno K. Öijer, Björn Ranelid, Fredrik Ström, Edith Södergran, Hjalmar Söderberg, Per Wahlöö, Gunnar Ekelöf, Gustaf Fröding, Pär Lagerkvist, Maj Sjöwall, Per Wästberg, Isaac Hirsche Grünewald, Tage Åsén, Gösta Bohman, Göran Persson, Björn von Sydow, Lasse Åberg, Helena Bergström, Victor Sjöström, Gunder Hägg, Sigfrid Edström, Anders Gärderud, Henrik Sjöberg, Patrik Sjöberg, Tore Sjöstrand, Arne Åhman, so there seams to be a consensus for non hockey playing swedes? Stefan 13:33, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
I also checked encarta for Björn Borg and Dag Hammarskjöld both have the Swedish characters as the main name of the articles, Selma Lagerlöf is not avaliable unless you pay so I can not check. I'm sure you can find example of the 'wrong' way also, but we can not say that there is consensus in the encyclopedic area of respelling foreign names the 'correct' english way. Stefan 14:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
This seems like a very constructive step to me. So I'll do the same as I did for Czech, i.e.:
  1. start Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish) as a proposal, starting off with the content you bring in here.
  2. list that page in Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Conventions under consideration
  3. also list it on wikipedia:current surveys#Discussions
  4. list it in the guideline proposal Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics)#Specifics_according_to_language_of_origin
OK to work from there? --Francis Schonken 15:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Works for me :-) Stefan 00:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Tx for finetuning Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish). I also contributed to further finetuning, but add a small note here to clarify what I did: page names in English wikipedia are in English per WP:UE. Making a Swedish name like Björn Borg English, means that the ö ("character" in Swedish language) is turned into an "o" character with a precombined diacritic mark (unicode: U+00F6, which is the same character used to write the last name of Johann Friedrich Böttger – note that böttger ware, named after this person, uses the same ö according to Webster's, and in that dictionary is sorted between "bottery tree" and "bottine"). Of course (in English!) the discussion whether it is a separate character or an "o" with a diacritic is rather futile *except* for alphabetical ordering: for alphabetical ordering in English wikipedia the ö is treated as if it were an o, hence the remark about the "category sort key" I added to the intro of the "Swedish NC" guideline proposal. In other words, you can't expect English wikipedians who try to find something in an alphabetic list to know in advance (a) what is the language or origin of a word, and (b) if any "special rules" for alphabetical ordering are applicable in that language. That would be putting things on their head. "Bö..." will always be sorted in the same way, whatever the language of origin.
What I mean is that "Björn Borg" (in Swedish) is transcribed/translated/transliterated to "Björn Borg" in English, the only (invisible!) difference being that in Swedish ö is a character, and in English ö is a letter o with a diacritic.
Or (still the same in other words): Ö is always treated the same as "O" in alphabetical ordering, whether it's a letter of Ötzi or of Öijer--Francis Schonken 10:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

For consistency with the rest of Wikipedia, hockey player articles should use non-English alphabet characters if the native spelling uses a Latin-based alphabet (with the exception of naturalized players like Petr Nedved). Why should Dominik Hasek be treated differently than Jaroslav Hašek? Olessi 20:48, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

If we are using other encyclopedias as litmus tests, we don't we look at a few hockey players: Dominik Hasek at Encarta Dominik Hasek at Britannica Jaromir Jagr at Encarta Teemu Selanne in Encarta list of top scorers

Last argument: We use the names that these players are overwhelming known as in the English language. We speak of Bobby Orr, not Robert Orr. Scotty Bowman, not William Scott Bowman. Ken Dryden not Kenneth Dryden. Tony Esposito, not Anthony Esposito. Gordie Howe not Gordon Howe... etc etc, etc. The NHL/NHLPA/media call these players by what they request to be called. Vyacheslav Kozlov used to go by Slava Kozlov. Evgeni Nabokov "americanized" himself for a season as "John Nabokov" but changed his mind again.

ccwaters 22:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Dvořák

Could someone clean this up:

Article/category name without diacritics
Category:Compositions by Antonin Dvorak
Category:Operas by Antonin Dvorak
Cello Concerto (Dvorak)
String Quartet No. 11 (Dvorak)
String Quartet No. 12 (Dvorak)
Symphony No. 6 (Dvorak)
Symphony No. 8 (Dvorak)
Symphony No. 9 (Dvorak)
Violin Concerto (Dvorak)
Page name with diacritics
Antonín Dvořák
List of compositions by Antonín Dvořák
Symphony No. 7 (Dvořák)

I'd do it myself if I only knew which way the wikipedia community wants it... --Francis Schonken 10:53, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I've been bold and renamed the articles to use diacritics in the title, since they already use them in the text. I've also slapped {{categoryredirect}} tags on the two categories: a bot should be along shortly to complete the job. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 14:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Tx!!! - I'll remove Dvořák as an exception from Wikipedia:Naming policy (Czech)#Exceptions --Francis Schonken 15:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Województwa vote

A vote on which translation of the Polish word województwo should be used in Wikipedia articles has started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography of Poland#Województwa vote. Ausir 13:01, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Workers Party

In several cases political parties with names like Workers Party, Socialist Workers Party etc. have been moved to Workers' Party etc. While the apostrophe is grammatically correct English, it does not correspond to the actual usage of the names of these organizations. In cases like the US or UK Socialist Workers Parties, apostrophes are never used on posters, leaflets, etc. Thus I propose that the apostrophe is scrapped in wiki article names as well. --Soman 13:24, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Help needed with respect to parenthetical disambiguation

I recently moved all the articles in Category:California state highways from "California State Route X" to "State Route X (California)", as the name of each route is "State Route X", not "California State Route X". (For instance, there are 26900 vs. 148 matches for each on the Caltrans website.) I am currently in a revert war with JohnnyBGood and Gentgeen, among others, who keep moving them back to the incorrect names. I would appreciate some help, to at least make them understand that a few people does not make consensus. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 19:51, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Those are not the consensus defined names. Also the state and local news agencies often refer to them as CASRs... Also all of SPUIs controversial edits were made against conensus and his so called "edit war" was initiated by him with six editors in full opposition to his edits which I might add he also refuses to discuss. He is violation WP:CON.JohnnyBGood 19:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
"Also the state and local news agencies often refer to them as CASRs." Excuse me? 1 vs. 231 Google News results for "California state route" and California "state route". --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 19:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Spui,

Above (#Highways proposal), about a month and a half ago, you announced the start of a guideline proposal: "I've started Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Numbered highways. I'm not sure about the exact process, so if it needs to be submitted anywhere, someone should do so."

To which I replied,

Hi SPUI, the last paragraph of the intro of wikipedia:naming conventions reads:

If you wish to propose a new naming convention, do so on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, whilst also publicising the proposal at Requests for comment and the Village Pump, as well as at any related pages. Once a strong consensus has formed, it can be adopted as a naming convention and listed below.

You again: "It's not ready for that. Right now it's just being worked out."

Since that moment I didn't see any highway naming proposal turn into guideline; can't even remember to have seen any announcement at RfC or VP (did I miss something)?

At first sight this seems a big leap: "not ready for publication", and the next thing one hears is that you start implementing your proposal (without there being a consensus for it) as if it had been promoted to Naming Convention.

Wouldn't you guys better first sort out which of the two competing proposals (Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways/U.S. state highway naming conventions or Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Numbered highways is going to end up in Category:Wikipedia archives/Category:Wikipedia rejected proposals, and which is the one proposed as Naming Convention, before starting to move articles around? I'd be very grateful! --Francis Schonken 21:47, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

This is an application of existing conventions for disambiguation. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 23:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Wrong! This is you thinking your opinion on interpretation and application of existing wikipolicy is of greater importance then a Wikiproject and mulitple other wikieditors. This has turned into an egotrip pure and simple. Your flippant comments are perfect evidence of that. As is your blatant disregard of other many other editors opinions in the matter... JohnnyBGood 23:27, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
(@SPUI:) If it was a part of existing guidelines, why would you need to start Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Numbered highways anyway? Then it can be archived straight away...
Note that "Permission to edit-war/move-war" is no part of extant guidelines. Might I advise to have a look at wikipedia:naming conflict, and if that wouldn't bring a solution nearer, maybe consider WP:RM (btw, that also might help making clear which of the two alternate "highway" NC proposals is most likely to be broadly supported) --Francis Schonken 23:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
The proposal was mainly about establishing a consistent naming within each system, a different issue. WP:RM really doesn't get much input from outside the people already involved. I know what naming conventions say about these, but others refuse to listen to reason, and listing it on RM won't do anything to fix that. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 23:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
No listing on RM will get a final approval for it one way or the other... JohnnyBGood 23:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
No shit, isn't that what I just said? --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 23:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
No. You said listing it there would do nothing... which is dead wrong.JohnnyBGood 23:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Eh, I misinterpreted your lack of punctuation. However, it won't give a final answer, as I explained - only those that are already involved will vote. Oh sorry, I mean "vote". Because OMG WE DON'T VOTE ON WIKIPEDIA. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 23:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


Anyway, I still suggest: Either: work with existing NC guidelines, which means going to WP:RM with articles about which there is difference of opinion on how existing NC guidelines need to be applied;

Either: go through the usual motions for promoting a sensible naming scheme to naming convention. These "motions", are, as I already mentioned twice above:

[...] the last paragraph of the intro of wikipedia:naming conventions reads:

If you wish to propose a new naming convention, do so on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, whilst also publicising the proposal at Requests for comment and the Village Pump, as well as at any related pages. Once a strong consensus has formed, it can be adopted as a naming convention and listed below.

These recommendations are as valid for individual wikipedians taking an initiative, as for members of a WikiProject. --Francis Schonken 00:00, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Reverting the NC page. We're still working on it. Here what SPUI is doing is declaring his viewpoint correct and applying it without consensus. We've started a Med Cabal page regarding this. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Religious Organizations

Currently, there is an unending controversy at Roman Catholic Church about whether the article should be named Catholic Church, Catholicism, or stay as it is. Currently, Catholic Church redirects to Roman Catholic Church. Catholicism, which in popular use refers to a specific system of beliefs, is in fact a discussion about the small-c meaning of "catholic" (universality). Confusingly, that's exactly what our article on Catholic is also.

The problem is, the Catholic Church, which calls itself: "The Catholic Church", is institutionally constituted of several dozen dependent "particular Churches": the Ukrainian Catholic Church, the Byzantine Catholic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, the Coptic Catholic Church, the Greek Catholic Church, etc., and, alas, the Roman Catholic Church. But the distinction between the Churches is not by any stretch of the imagination an insignificant or negligible ecclesiastical issue, especially when you're writing an article about, inter alia, the structure of the Church! Of course, the Roman Church is the largest, and has the most "members", and the Bishop of Rome is immediately the head of it. But the Bishop of Rome also occupies a higher office: that of Pope, by virtue of which he is also Supreme Pontiff of all the other particular Churches. For more, see here [7].

So it is factually incorrect to equate Roman Catholic Church with Catholic Church. Many of us have repeatedly requested to move the article. But the waters are muddied because some Protestant Christians claim to believe in a small-c "catholic Church", albeit in a less institutionalized sense than the Pope and we Catholics believe it. In any event, they claim that making Catholic Church the main article would effectively endorse the Church's exclusivist claim to be "the" Catholic Church. (Despite the fact that we equate the two anyway by redirecting.)

A compromise that I offered was overwhelmingly rejected. (It consisted of moving the article to Catholicism--since that seems to suggest a system of beliefs rather than "universality" or small-c catholicity--and dictionary.com supports me on that.)

So this incorrect (and frankly insensitive) status quo continues. I don't believe it's proper for any religionists to use articles on Wikipedia to support or oppose a POV. By naming the article Catholic Church, we would not be endorsing that Church's claims about itself. We would simply be naming it by what it is called! Naming it something that it is not called suggests a POV. And launching into discussions of the "ambiguity" of various terms like Catholicism, Catholic, etc., also suggests a POV. Most people, when searching for those terms, are simply not looking for an article on (what is properly called) catholicity -- and you'll notice there's no article for that.

Anyway, I noticed the article Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the other day. According to our other article, Latter Day Saints, "Latter Day Saints consider themselves to be 'saints' in the earliest Christian sense of the word, meaning members of the original church that they believe Jesus organized before his death in the First Century, AD." It occurred to me that, as a Catholic, I believe this very thing--about the Catholic Church, but emphatically not about the LDS Church! Should we change the title of the article because other religions make exclusivist claims on the concept of Latter Day Saints? If not, then neither should we name the Catholic Church based on analagous objections.

We would have to rename our Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Mormonism or Joseph Smith's Church or something like that. But that is absurd. We should stay out of ecclesiological debates and simply name religions after the names they claim, and by which most people know them.

Similarly, if there was a political party that called itself The Best Party, and other parties not identically named also claimed to be "the best party", then should we disambiguate The Best Party article? Of course not. We should name organizations by the names they claim for themselves. If there are two that claim the exact same name, then we can disambig.

I am asking for a naming convention that would ensure consistency here. I look forward to reading your comments! --Hyphen5 03:00, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Hyphen5 is correct about the redirect already equating them and the article should either be moved or a disambiguation page should be created. It should be a disambiguation page unless almost all searchers and linkers would be looking for the Roman Catholic Church. In that case, the Roman Catholic Church article should be moved to Catholic Church and link to a disambiguation page should be put at the top. However, since it is called the Roman Catholic Church a significant percentage of the time in formal writing, I suspect that "Catholic Church" is sometimes ambiguous. From the sources I looked at, Catholic Church refers to other churches, such as the Eastern Catholic Church and the Old Catholic Church, and to Christians as a whole. There are also the Catholic Churches within the Catholic Church in Rome mentioned above. -- Kjkolb 05:50, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
FYI - Eastern Catholic Church is an umbrella term for all particular Churches within the Catholic Church, except the Roman Rite. So, Eastern Catholic Church refers to what I was talking about. Old Catholic Church, as I understand it, is not affiliated with the Pope. I do think that the overwhelming proportion of people who type "Catholic Church" into Wikipedia, or any search, will be looking for that Church of which the Pope is head. Therefore, Roman Catholic Church should be moved to Catholic Church. --Hyphen5 06:25, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
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