Wikipedia talk:Official names

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Coming out

This proposal is a very scoped-down version of User:Andrewa/systematic names, which remains a discussion ground and may never be proposed in its entirety. But I think that this part of it might be helpful.

At the very least, IMO it would be good to have it either approved (as ammended as part of this process of course) or rejected, as part of that ongoing discussion.

If it's approved, that would be even better of course. Every day some new proposal is posted at WP:RM that ignores this basic implication of WP:NC, and these discussions tend also to be the ones that get quite lengthy. Equally common are requested moves to correct unilateral moves to an official name from the common name, probably all of them made in good faith. Typically, when you look in the article history the unilateral move has an edit summary of moving to the correct name or similar, and was done by a relatively new editor or an anon.

Or, perhaps I'm wrong in my interpretation of WP:NC. Finding that out would be equally helpful if so. Andrewa (talk) 22:28, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have raised this at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Official names, see this previous version if it's been archived. Andrewa (talk) 23:58, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Discussions to which this proposed naming convention is relevant

Please add to this list. Please sign the all postings, as I haven't put a sinebot deny on this page and don't intend to, so it will otherwise add an unsigned template to your post. Andrewa (talk) 21:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin#Requested move: University College Dublin - National University of Ireland Dublin -> University College Dublin: Oppose - its a long title, but whatever the university might want to present themselves as they are not a "university college" anymore. In other words, the official name should be preferred over the common name? Andrewa (talk) 21:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Talk:Burma#Survey. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Talk:Baltimore Shot Tower. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:24, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Talk:Sailor Moon SuperS: *Really Strongly Oppose The title cards and all related offical material clearly have it as SuperS, not Supers. The offical title is always the most accurate.--Lego3400: The Sage of Time (talk) 17:28, 3 March 2008 (UTC) Andrewa (talk) 15:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Official names in other languages

Official names used only in other languages have no relevance at all.

This will be much more controversial than you imagine. (It's also not true, strictly; if there is no English name at all, the local official name is the default, perforce.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmmm... Thanks for the comment. But I must wonder how know what I imagine? (;->

Because I know what I imagine, and I would have worded much more cautiously. But you may just be -er- braver than I am. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a good point regarding other languages. I think the situation you describe is one in which the topic has never been previously described in English, but has been in other languages. (But it's not strictly that there is no English name at all; As soon as an article is written in English, then the topic has an English name.)

Also if English usage is hopelessly divided. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree that the local official name is the default. Why should that be? Hmmm. Perhaps a separate guideline is required?

What else? But see the lengthy discussion of this point at WP:NCGN. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There may be no default. There may be instances when current guidelines give no help as to what the article should be called. We'd expect these to be rare and slightly bizarre circumstances... such as this. Andrewa (talk) 11:27, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See my attempt at weakening this clause. Andrewa (talk) 23:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PS I like your changes so far... all distinct improvements IMO. Andrewa (talk) 23:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ta. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Purpose?

I note with some alarm that the primary contributors to this site were also involved in the debate over at Talk:Burma#Requested_move. In fact, the timing of this article's creation is on the same date as the opening of the RM. Pmanderson, in particular, was noted to actually refer to this article as a "correct, if unofficial, statement of our policies and pracrice"[1].--Huaiwei (talk) 19:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's because, spelling error excepted, it is. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:44, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Then we shall see if this proposal gets accepted at all. It is certainly disturbing that political motivations has now spilled over into policy-making.--Huaiwei (talk) 19:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It was too late for that when the single purpose accounts for both Chinas discovered Wikipedia space; but I acknowledge the threat of disruption. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:58, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have no political motivations. See User:Andrewa/creed for my motives. Andrewa (talk) 02:36, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For what it is worth, my motivation here is to ensure that English is used to communicate with English speakers. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look at the timestamps of the Revision history of User:Andrewa/systematic names and you'll see that there's nothing sinister linking this to the Burma/Myanmar debate. And I wasn't even involved in the last round of Burma/Myanmar. And surely, it's not surprising that two of the users who are active on WP:RM are involved in this proposal?

See, for my history with this, User talk:Andrewa/systematic names; I was brought back here by the citation at Talk:University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin#Requested move, at which I !voted. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose is listed at Wikipedia:Official names#Purpose of this guideline. It's honest. Please assume good faith. Andrewa (talk) 02:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, this proposal is much more relevant to Republic of China than it is to the Burma/Myanmar discussion. No one's suggesting we name that article "Union of Myanmar". :-) -BaronGrackle (talk) 17:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Guideline?

This has been stable for a while. Is it time to put it up to WP:VPP to see if it should be a guideline? It's too useful to dwell in limbo. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It probably is... Although I keep meaning to add more examples. The two main areas in which I've found exceptions so far are aristocratic titles, and firearms. Andrewa (talk) 04:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Medical terms

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles) in a nutshell first bullet point reads: Article titles use the scientific or medical name. WP:NC does link to it so I don't know why I didn't see that before, it's a major departure from WP:NC as far as I can see, and probably the most important I've yet seen.

Some explanation and description of this departure would need to go into this proposal before it became an official guideline. Andrewa (talk) 12:43, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Big Ben

Interesting move discussions at Talk:Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster. Essentially, the official name has, once at least, been preferred over the admitted common name. The arguments supporting calling the article Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster rather than Big Ben seem to directly challenge WP:NC. Andrewa (talk) 13:28, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ancient Egypt

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Ancient Egyptian). Its status is a bit vague, it's been labelled as a naming convention for over a year but only the relevant Wikiproject has discussed it and WP:NC doesn't link to it. But it does specify that systematic, rather than common, names should be used. Systematic naming has also prevailed in the naming of the Tomb of Tutekhamen of course. Andrewa (talk) 13:28, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus can change

See Talk:Erasmus University#Requested move for a very interesting discussion. Andrewa (talk) 09:50, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Essay, at least

There seems insufficient interest to make this a guideline, so I've reclassified it as an essay, following the example of the snowball clause. Comments welcome of course. Andrewa (talk) 17:59, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anime and Manga

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (anime- and manga-related articles)#Article names and disambiguation. Interesting... it appears to prefer official names. Andrewa (talk) 13:33, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge in alternative essay

Resolved

– Pages merged.

A draft essay outline exists at WP:OFFICIAL (the real name of which is too long for anyone). It doesn't cover anything new and should either be merged here (if anything is salvageable) or simply redirected here. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 03:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, Also the article is trying to say that Official names shouldn't be used. Bread Ninja (talk) 20:12, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This essay may be out of date

This essay is somewhat out of date... the essay relies heavily on (and quotes) WP:NC, and that page has been changed significantly since this essay was written (the most obvious example... it isn't called "WP:Naming conventions" anymore... it has been renamed WP:Article titles). For this essay to be relevant, it will need some updating. Blueboar (talk) 12:52, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. I don't think the underlying policy has changed, but some important parts of the wording quoted here have changed, and as you say the title of the policy page.

IMO it's still useful... every week WP:RMs are raised in exactly the circumstances that the page was drafted to address. Andrewa (talk) 07:41, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to promote to guideline

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I'm closing this discussion per a request at WP:AN. Consensus is that the essay should not be promoted to a guideline. Sandstein 07:33, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Official names is a heavily cited page, especially in requested moves, that is already treated as a guideline. It is a well-written supplement to Wikipedia:Article titles#Common names, where it is already referred to. The thesis of this page—that official names aren't necessarily the best article titles—is indisputable as a matter of broader consensus. I therefore propose promotion of this essay to guideline status. --BDD (talk) 22:25, 11 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It is well written & useful, useful in a guideline context, and something that needs to be covered. On the other hand it's on a very very very narrow topic for being a guideline itself, and is more of an expanded side-note to the naming guideline. North8000 (talk) 23:40, 11 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It's a nice page which I don't object to - but what is the actual problem that making this an official guideline would solve, with specific examples of where and why this status is needed? - David Gerard (talk) 07:58, 12 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – Isn't this really just a subcomponent of Wikipedia:Article titles? In which case, why not just make it a section of the latter policy? Regards, RJH (talk) 14:50, 12 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Essay" appears to be the correct classification because this page explains policy in an easy to understand way, but does not actually set any policy. That is, it does not contain any information that a proper reading of existing policy does not already cover. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:10, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Yep - David Gerard (talk) 19:20, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Agreed. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:59, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Notwithstanding my feelings on the content of the essay itself, I agree with the above three editors. While the essay discusses present WP policy on preferring common names over official ones, at present it only explains why that is the case, rather than explicitly setting new policies/guidelines not already covered elsewhere. Someday this might make a good guideline, but it needs some work before that can be the case. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 17:13, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Agree with above comments - there's already a policy. IMO we don't need more pages on the issue. If it adds new information or clarification to the existing policy page, it should be appended there. Using an "essay" to justify a page move, for example, shouldn't be encouraged, IMO. Nor should a proliferation of more narrow "guideline" pages when a policy page on the issue already exists. MathewTownsend (talk) 15:34, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree we should reduce the number of "guideline" pages rather than increase it. This page is perfectly good as an "essay", what will improve by upgrading it to guideline? The policies are what we should stick to, and "essays" are very useful to clarify how the policies are applied (or can be applied) in various specific situations. All too often we have policy pages and guidelines pages covering the same ground, and not rarely contradicting each other here and there. The result is that for example in RM discussions you will not rarely see 5 or more different "guidelines" being cited, and all kinds of "innovative" interpretations being coughed up for them. We should never underestimate people's ability to misinterpret written "rules" and "principles", no matter how well they are formulated. If we just had core "policies" supplemented by various "essays", things would become more clear on WP. But who wants things to be "clear" on WP? MakeSense64 (talk) 05:29, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - WP:PRAC - you'd think our mission was to write the world's largest and most intricate collection of red tape - David Gerard (talk) 07:21, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Don't have much to say that hasn't already been said. This is ideal as an essay. -DJSasso (talk) 14:55, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per WP:CREEP. This page should be merged into WP:COMMONNAME which says the same thing with better context. Warden (talk) 12:09, 18 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - More guideline creep. Wikipedia is complicated enough for newcomers already and we have gotten along tolerably well without microregulation such as this. Carrite (talk) 15:42, 18 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This is fine as an explanatory essay. As a guideline it would be redundant. We really don't need a proliferation of overlapping guidelines to increase the complexity that so bewilders newcomers until they learn to ignore it like the regulars do. ~ Ningauble (talk) 21:17, 18 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose because we already have a policy for this. If there is some significant aspect of this essay that is not in WP:COMMONNAME then a discussion could be started on Wikipedia talk:Article titles to include it there. I don't see it as helpful to create a guideline to substitute for a policy as that is a step backwards. If people are linking here rather than WP:Common name, then it may be that WP:COMMONNAME needs an overhaul to make it clearer. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 23:20, 18 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose because it's a summary of the actual governing guidelines. Gigs (talk) 13:50, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Already covered in Wikipedia:Article titles. Let's avoid guideline creep by keeping this page as an essay.--SGCM (talk) 15:32, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. We have far, far too many guidelines. Perhaps we should develop a guideline on when new guidelines should be created. Ironholds (talk) 22:24, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, merge instead. I have no problem with merging this into WP:COMMONNAME, but it shouldn't be separate from WP:COMMONNAME except as an essay. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 15:52, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Warden put it beautifully. --Dweller (talk) 12:34, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not necessary, since the essay summarizes the MOS (which is policy). All the best, Miniapolis (talk) 14:03, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per Warden, et al. Suggest gaining consensus to modifiy WP:COMMONNAME to include mention of this essay's basic points as the path to working them into policy/guideline material. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 18:59, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

Information and help pages

This aspect of the official name policy still seems to be the single one most often ignored in RM proposals and discussions. So it would be good to make this page more prominent in some way. That seems to have been the motivation for suggesting it as a guideline, but I agree that this would not be an improvement. We are not talking guidelines here; This is policy.

The merge proposal seems to have no sponsor, and it doesn't seem a good idea to me at all. That will just get us back to the situation that existed before the page was created. A step backwards.

But it should be more authoritative than as essay. Perhaps an information page or help page? Andrewa (talk) 19:48, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note also that the page currently has more than 250 incoming links. [2]

Promoting it to an information page seems to require only adding Template:Information page to replace the essay template, which automatically puts it into Category:Wikipedia information pages.

But on closer examination, it gives it no more authority, just clarifies its purpose, and in that nobody speaks I'm tempted to just do it. Andrewa (talk) 06:46, 4 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Talk:PrankvsPrank/Edit Warring

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:PrankvsPrank/Archive 1#Edit Warring. Ross Hill Talk to me! 23:09, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can the article make a clear statement on the Wikipedia definition of official name?

That's all. Thanks. Greg Kaye 19:59, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To me the page seems quite clear on this already. (And BTW, it's a project page, not an article.) Andrewa (talk) 01:58, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

rcat and template

The creation of a new template:R from official name (currently itself a redirect to a more general template) is underway, with creation of a new corresponding rcat. However there is no reason not to use this template name already. Then when the new template and rcat go live, the redirects already so tagged will automatically get the new more specific message, and be included in the new rcat. Andrewa (talk) 01:43, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is a change of official name a prima facie case

Some of the comments at Talk:Nokia phones beta labs#Requested move 3 December 2017 at least hint that there may be a new consensus that, despite what this essay says, a change of official name may be a prima facie case for an article move to the new official name.

I think this needs discussion, and perhaps eventual change to the guidelines and/or policy if this is indeed current consensus. I'm not opposed to any such changes, I just think we need to be as consistent as possible in this, in order to save time and (particularly) reduce the confusion and frustration new editors encounter. Watch this space and TIA Andrewa (talk) 16:30, 25 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, leave it to you, Andrewa, to come up with another tough nut to crack. I remember when I first began to close requested moves. I would just record my decision, moved., not moved. or no consensus., and I'd move on. After my third or fourth close, an editor came to my talk page and asked me to explain my decision. So I did. The editor accepted my explanation and asked if I would be kind enough to add my explanation to my decision in the already closed RM discussion. I was happy to do so and have been mostly doing so ever since. The trick seems to be to word the explanation in such a manner that it won't be construed as a supervote. Perhaps if we insert a brief blurb in this section of the closing instructions? Such a blurb probably should be as terse as a closer's explanation should be. Do you have any other ideas about how to fix this? Paine Ellsworth ^put'r there 17:03, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've thought for a while we should have a template to subst in such cases, along the lines of another baseless nomination but with the personal attacks removed.

Apart from that, not yet. Frankly, I think that neither Amakuru in their rather scathing comment nor you in your closing comments had thought this through as much as I have.

But I think the best thing I can do for the moment is to take a back seat on such RMs (which are quite common) and watch and see how things develop. We've already had one which I might have challenged and didn't (I hope that sin of omission is not pointy), and it went through as unchallenged with no evidence of any valid case or other investigation. I expect we will have many more. I could be wrong.

These renames don't affect the reader experience significantly. If we had a naming convention that said Names of articles an organisations, whether sporting clubs, TV channels, corporations, whatever, should be the current official name of the organisation, with redirects from past official names and past and present common names and stuck to it then there would be no negative editor or reader impact at all, in my opinion. And perhaps we should do that. It has enormous advantages. (Trouble is I don't think we'd have a hope of getting it through. Again I could be wrong.)

But at present, these RMs do make Wikipedia a more confusing and frustrating place for editors (and particularly new editors) IMO, by blatantly ignoring what are very simple and commonsense guidelines and procedures.

It's not the newbie's fault for proposing these when they've seen others succeed, or for regarding other guidelines and policies as optional when they realise how slack we are. It's ours for not helping them come up to speed. Andrewa (talk) 21:00, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Question for Amakuru

The most direct comment is although there are often cases where common usage doesn't follow an official name change, in my experience they are the exception rather than the rule, and I don't agree that nominations like this one are automatically invalid. It's up to us as experienced RM regulars to check the validity of the case if the nominator does not do so. [3]

That is by Amakuru so I will ping them first. I'm not for one moment saying such nominations are automatically invalid (that would be an oppose and speedy close), I agree that they should be investigated. But in my experience, an unopposed RM is often closed as move with no further investigation, and some admins have in the past followed and recommended this as the correct close. That's why (not being at the time ready to do this investigation, and with the RM being an already challenged technical request and already at RME with no further comment from the challenger) I posted an oppose. I'd hope that it would not have been closed either way without evidence of investigation, and it wasn't. (In fact the result was good.)

But my question for you is, would it have been valid to close this as move? My problem is, at least some admins think it is. Andrewa (talk) 09:40, 26 December 2017 (UTC) (Ignoring the automated notice that says it's been moved of course, that came later.) Andrewa (talk) 09:40, 26 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Andrew, I will come back with a fuller answer shortly (I'm travelling at the moment and don't have a lot of time), but to answer this last question, for me it goes without saying that no move should ever be closed as "move" (or indeed as "not moved") with no votes on it whatsoever, if the closer does not do any fact checking of their own. That applies to official name changes and any other move request under the sun. Without a discussion, the closer should assess the validity of the case. If it seems invalid, post an oppose. If it seems valid, go ahead and close as moved. If some people are moving automatically without checking, then that's a slightly separate problem, and I guess your oppose would check that to some extent, but I think there's a red flag that needs addressing there. I'll get back to you on the wider question in the next few days. THanks — Amakuru (talk) 19:00, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So. Amakuru, are you really Tom Hanks in disguise? or was that just an Adlerian slip.

Happy travels and New Year, as well! Paine Ellsworth ^put'r there 05:29, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Several problems with this.

If the closer does this checking and documents it, then the close becomes a supervote. (That's not always a bad thing.)

But often, the closer does not say whether any checking has been done, see this very recent example.

If it has been done, then it's not obvious... leading to the confusing but obvious impression that none was necessary, which makes Wikipedia a less newbie-friendly place among other problems.

If it hasn't been done, then I would agree that the move should not go ahead. My question is, how should it be stopped? Andrewa (talk) 11:31, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But the big question is

The big question as I see it is, should primary sourcess (or maybe even less) be accepted as sufficient evidence of a change of name, in the face of no other evidence? If unopposed and unsupported nominations are closed as move, that's effectively what we're doing. We will always, for example, have requests from organisations that we reflect their latest corporate image engineering, or for another example that we rebrand a sporting arena to follow its latest corporate sponsorship.

I have personally dealt with many of these in the past, and the official names essay is a reflection of the consensus that I think I see reflected in those discussions and of course in the official policy and guidelines.

But comments by Paine and Amakuru could be seen as supporting a change. And it may not be a bad thing. I also see a possible consensus in the wider community (reflected in our readership) that the official name is always ipso facto the correct article title. And if there is such a consensus, then the principle of least astonishment would suggest a change of tack by ourselves. But it's a very big change.

Or they may even be part of what I've called the senility of Wikipedia. Andrewa (talk) 01:14, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

More examples

I've taken a deep breath and !voted oppose on a couple of (to my mind) baseless RM listings that had elapsed and might have been closed as unopposed had I not done so. [4] [5] The second is particularly interesting owing to the comment saying that the move should be delayed a few days but should then take place immediately.

Amakuru and Paine Ellsworth, any comments on these two RMs? Andrewa (talk) 18:20, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that both opposes are good calls on your part. And I think that context has a lot to do with whether or not new/official names should be used for article titles. To me, that is the reason that it's been so hard to find a cut-and-dried way to give guidance to editors on the subject. An example would be Talk:British School of Osteopathy#Requested move 20 December 2017, which was first closed after 17 days and one relisting as "not moved". At that time there were two supports and one oppose. The first call was not a good one, because there was no consensus to not move and a very rough consensus to move the page. I would have called it "no consensus", myself. There was an MRV (Amakuru was a participant) that reopened and relisted the debate. I closed it a little more than a day after the second relisting, because consensus to move to the new name had been achieved.

So, say I'm an alumnus of the school and I type the name I know (the old name) into a search engine. A former-name redirect takes me to a page with a name I don't know. There in the lead sentence of the article in boldface type (to diminish reader astonishment) is the old name of my school. Other former-name titles persist in the public eye and in reliable secondary sources long after the name changes. So does this mean that, when it comes to official names, WP:COMMONNAME appears to be (even more than usual) something of a numbers game? say, a few alumni vs. a huge fan base? (What also comes to mind were the Myanmar vs. Burma seemingly endless debates several years ago.) Seems very hard not to judge these on a case-by-case basis. Paine Ellsworth ^put'r there 01:32, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a kind of interesting example: Talk:LyricWiki#Requested move 6 January 2018. That one was moved by an editor from the old name of "LyricWiki" in June 2016 to the new official name "LyricWikia". Then in May 2017, another editor moved to the next official name change, "Lyrically". I've worked with songs on Wikipedia and always knew this company as "LyricWiki". And when we go to their website, their name there hasn't changed – still "LyricWiki". To make things even more difficult for editors, their web address is http://lyrics.wikia.com/wiki/LyricWiki – "lyrics.wikia.com" – oy. Paine Ellsworth ^put'r there 15:03, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that this is a relevant and excellent example. I'd call it perfect!

Endorse the close and move.

But look at the !votes (which include some from reliable RM regulars) and compare them to what wp:official names currently says. They are not consistent. This is more evidence that there is a new consensus that a change of official name should, in some circumstances at least, lead to an immediate change of article name, without waiting for evidence that the common name has also changed.

If so, this suggests to me that WP:NAMECHANGES should be changed to reflect this new consensus.

And it's only because there appears to be this new consensus that the close is valid. The historic consensus (represented by wp:namechanges and other policies and guidelines) would suggest no move, and most if not all of the support !votes could be discarded on the grounds that they are personal opinion and/or contrary to policy. Andrewa (talk) 00:55, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure that it's happening often enough to call it a new consensus; however, it might be worth testing with a RfC on the policy's talk page. Worst-case scenarios like LyricWiki where editors boldly changed to the official name added in with your examples where RMs receive little attention might be enough to prove the point. On the other hand, editors might just say that those examples show that the policy (community consensus) should be considered somewhat flexible in regard to official name changes. Probably would make for an interesting debate. Paine Ellsworth ^put'r there 12:55, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's a three-way choice really, either we follow the rule (which quite clearly applies here), or we update the rule to cover what's actually happening, or we delete the rule and let it go case-by-case. A rule is only helpful if people follow it, and they'll only follow it if they want to... that's part of our being what Bill Hybels calls a volunteer rich organisation.

(I suppose the fourth choice is to let it fester like an untreated wound, confusing and discouraging new editors and old alike, to me that's not a good direction. We will need to deal with it eventually. Sometimes a delay is good to build consensus, but that should be with the intention of fixing it.)

See User talk:Andrewa/Rules, rules, rules for more on this. Andrewa (talk) 05:33, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Seems that the 4th choice is the one that's being followed. Whether it be inexperienced editors who haven't yet come across the policy and guideline, let alone the supplements, among the mountains of policies and guidelines and supplements and essays, etc., or it be experienced editors who do know better but they rejoice in IAR, OR just someone like me who's staring his 70s right in the face and who does forget things from time to time. I've always believed that "rules are meant to be broken" but only if you have very good reason to break them. Perhaps we should try to find a suitable combination of your above choices? Maybe combine #1 with #3? A rule is only helpful when it is bubbling over with clarity in its every application, and our official names rule may be wanting in this respect. Paine Ellsworth ^put'r there 16:29, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We should also keep in mind that since we are a "volunteer rich organisation", that brings home the fact that the Wikipedia project is a community effort of staggering proportions. And every editor has their own set of tinted glasses with which they read all the project pages. If it's not crystal clear to them, then their interpretation, however faulty, will prevail. Paine Ellsworth ^put'r there 16:36, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

To editors Andrewa and Amakuru: Here's one at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Cue sports#Respect for official organization names that I remembered reading but couldn't remember where. It's an organizational guideline that pretty much smacks the face of WP:NAMECHANGES. Makes me wonder how many more limited-scope guidelines and subpages there are that might support a consensus to change the policy? Paine Ellsworth ^put'r there 00:48, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch! As far as I can see it's not an official naming convention, which would be both linked to from the sidebar of wp:AT and listed at Category:Naming conventions. Am I missing something?

This is another big area, in that there's nothing to stop a Wikiproject or even a single anonymous user from creating page sections or even whole pages that look like official naming guidelines but aren't, and they may not be challenged and flagged as a proposal for a considerable length of time. By the time they are so flagged, they may already be supported by many examples which have followed the proposal. Andrewa (talk) 03:10, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The "cue" guideline is linked to from MOS:ORGNAME in the See also section of the MOS. Apparently, it is cited as an example of general naming-style procedure. Paine Ellsworth ^put'r there 21:07, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This sort of local project guideline can remain if nobody particularly objects to its outcomes, and in the case of cue sports it may happen to make some sense. If particular names are disputed, though, WP:AT is what would be followed, and WP:NAMECHANGES are part of that. As a policy, it reflects the long-term consensus of the community better than any local consensus. — Amakuru (talk) 22:23, 12 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relevant RFC

Please see Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Should Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility) override WP:COMMONNAME in all cases?, a recently opened RFC which is relevant to the subject of this page. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 00:25, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion on fandom-based over-capitalization

FYI

– Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#The endless "fan-capping" problem
How are WP:OFFICIALNAME, etc., failing to get the point across? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:37, 23 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relevant RfC on official names as tiebreaker

You may be interested in the following discussion: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)#RfC: Tiebreaker for native vs. translated name. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:18, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Name changes

We say on this page:

Where an official name has changed we do give extra weight to secondary sources published after the change, see WP:NAMECHANGES. But this applies only to secondary sources, not to primary sources such as journal articles that simply repeat a press release announcing a name change.

But that isn't what WP:NAMECHANGES says:

Sometimes the subject of an article will undergo a change of name. When this occurs, we give extra weight to reliable sources written after the name change. If the reliable sources written after the change is announced routinely use the new name, Wikipedia should follow suit and change relevant titles to match. If, on the other hand, reliable sources written after the name change is announced continue to use the established name, Wikipedia should continue to do so as well, as described above in "Use commonly recognizable names".

In quoting the policy we seem to have amended "reliable" to "secondary". I don't think this is right: primary sources should be treated as reliable to the extent that they normally are, which means they should be used with appropriate caution and not dismissed entirely. I suggest amending "secondary sources" to "reliable sources" to match the policy being referenced and deleting the following sentence.

I should perhaps mention that I was prompted to raise this by Andrewa's comment here.Havelock Jones (talk) 09:39, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Agree this needs clarification.

But perhaps it is the policy that needs clarification. Appearance of the new name in primary sources can be taken as a given, whenever for example a corporate rebranding takes place. Do we really want to make a name change immediately this happens? That doesn't seem right at all to me.

Raised at Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Use of primary sources to justify a name change. Andrewa (talk) 10:51, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Let us take an example of a horse race, or a competitive professional football cup, or the name of a football stadium. In each case the official name may well include the main sponsors name for a year or two before it changes again to incorporate a different sponsor. Usually the article title used reflects that used in reliable secondary sources, not that of the primary source who controls the event. This is for the simple reason of the section "Use commonly recognizable names" in the Artitle Title Policy so it is Epsom Derby not the Cazoo Derby. The use of reliable secondary sources in the AT policy and not all sources is a deliberate choice that has been throughly discussed in the policy's talk page and fits in with the content policies such as the WP:PSTS section in the No original research policy.

In practice in listed company names this is not an issue because money talks. As soon as an listed company changes its name it will be reflected in the financial press (reliable sources) unless it is a very well known company which has a shortened name that is commonly used (eg IBM; and even then it would be unusual due to natural disambaguation (eg Rolls-Royce Holdings. — PBS (talk) 20:59, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the wording in WP:NAMECHANGES read as a stand alone was not as clear as it could have been, and so I have clarified it. It is actually a subsection of the link to the section at the end of the paragraph "as described above in "Use commonly recognizable names", and when read in contest "reliable sources" in the whole section actually means "independent, reliable English-language sources". To read it any other way would introduce the ambiguity you have highlighted here. — PBS (talk) 20:59, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I gotta say, by rigidly sticking with temportary sponsored names, as with Kia Forum, we leave ourselves open to a lot of future work every time the name changes in the future. Consider The Virgin Tour, which ran in 1985 has a full list of 40 dates and venues. Should we really be changing all 40 of these venue names every year or two, at the whim of a sponsor, which gives an arena a name nobody uses? Some tours have over a hundred dates! In the case of Kia Forum, aka Great Western Forum, aka LA Forum, aka "The Forum presented by Chase" (I swear I'm not making this up), it's simply called The Forum. Period. Looking at The O2, which is ridiculously confusing, and needs disambiguation right at the start, this went through something like 3 different names in 4 years. These should at most be limited to an "also known as" section. By keeping neutral article names, we avoid the confusion and unnecessary work of changing it all the time.

Conflict between WP:OFFICIALNAME and WP:NCCORP

FYI

– Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

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