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Guidance for articles about multiple nearly synonymous topics

Upon rereading this page, I noticed this:

Encyclopedia articles should begin with a good definition and description of one topic (or a few largely or completely synonymous or otherwise highly related topics[3]), ...

Everything else on this page refers to a single concept and a single topic. This parenthetic remark is the only references, besides the clarifying footnote, to the possibility of having an article about a number of (highly related) topics.

How about providing some guidance, or at least some examples, on how introductions and titles of such articles should be handled?

I request this because such an article would seem to be incompatible with the other criteria on this page, including:

1) "Wikipedia articles should begin with a good definition and description of one topic".

2) "Each article in an encyclopedia is about a person, or a people, a concept, a place, an event, a thing etc.;".

3) "an encyclopedia article's name can usually easily take many different equivalent forms".

I already mentioned Atheism above, but Libertarianism also has had chronic similar problems with never-ending debate about what the intro should say due to differences in opinion about what the different meanings are, and they should be prioritized, etc. Some guidelines on how to structure these articles about multiple nearly synonymous yet distinct topics.

Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:30, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It depends what you mean by concept. A general concept can include multiple things, so the concept can encompass ideas associated with multiple synonymous terms. But on the other hand, it has been noted that there is no such thing as truly synonymous terms, they all differ in history or emphasis in some way, but in the context of an encyclopedia, where we're really covering a subject area, it's desirable to cover the meanings together.- Wolfkeeper 14:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
How you merge them together, there's no magic wand. I had a lot of problems with network neutrality for example. Sometimes you more or less have to synthesise something together (while making sure that it's still verifiable and agreed by consensus); sometimes it's very difficult.- Wolfkeeper 23:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Demotion

I'd like to float the idea of demoting this page to a guideline, and I'd like to discuss it in the general context of how creation of policy works on Wikipedia ... we're having a relevant discussion at WT:POLICY at the moment involving some of the same people involved here, so I'll continue there. - Dank (push to talk) 16:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Neologisms

There's been a suggestion that parts of WP:NEO should be merged here, since it is often used as an exclusionary criteria. Discussion is at Wikipedia_talk:Notability#Proposal_to_merge_relevant_parts_of_WP:NEO_here Gigs (talk) 18:15, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Based on the discussion there, and the lack of objection, I have performed the merge. Gigs (talk) 18:08, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
That didn't work, you changed the text during the merge in major ways; so I've undone it.- Wolfkeeper 18:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Unless you tell me what part you object to, I can't fix it. It was mostly a copy and paste, very little was changed. Gigs (talk) 18:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
You took a guideline that said that articles on neologisms were practically never acceptable and turned it into one that said that they only sometimes weren't allowed (i.e. nearly always were). That's a complete rewrite of the intention. To be honest, I haven't even found where you got the text from.- Wolfkeeper 18:41, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
You think I made it weaker? Heh, I figured you were upset because you thought I made it stronger. All of the text is from WP:Avoid neologisms, with some minor edits from myself and other editors that were done during the discussion process. Gigs (talk) 18:43, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
A lot weaker. This policy basically says that terms aren't acceptable (pretty much at all) as topics for articles (although of course all titles of articles are terms that help identify the topic), I guess you specifically cut out the bits that referred here that preclude nearly all articles on neologisms (as opposed to the underlying neologistic idea which isn't banned at all here).- Wolfkeeper 18:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I still don't have a problem with the merge, providing the intention is maintained.- Wolfkeeper 18:53, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, it wouldn't make sense to cite this policy from within this policy, so it's natural that I removed those parts. Can't we work forward from what I had? I'd argue that neologistic ideas are "banned" as well, since they are WP:OR, but we don't need to address that directly here. Here we should be concerned with articles on neologistic words and phrases. Gigs (talk) 18:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Why don't you add a proposed text here, and we can discuss it?- Wolfkeeper 19:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
This policy does not say that "terms aren't acceptable (pretty much at all) as topics for articles". That's your own interpretation, that nobody has agreed with in 2 years of discussion, and that numerous admins and editors have objected to, at length.
That said, discussing the specific text to be merged is fine. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:26, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Certainly we can discuss it the specific text. But Wolfkeeper can't be allowed to stonewall progress over a few ideosyncratic quibbles.--Cúchullain t/c 19:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Neologisms

Articles on neologisms are commonly deleted as these articles are often created in an attempt to use Wikipedia to increase usage of the term. As Wiktionary's inclusion criteria differ from Wikipedia's, that project may cover neologisms that Wikipedia cannot accept. If you are interested in writing an article on a neologism, you may wish to contribute it to that project instead.

Some neologisms can be in frequent use, and it may be possible to pull together many facts about a particular term and show evidence of its usage on the Internet or in larger society. It may be natural, then, to feel that Wikipedia should have a page devoted to this new term, and this is sometimes but not always the case. To support an article about a particular term or concept we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term or concept, not books and papers that use the term. An editor's personal observations and research (e.g. finding blogs, books, and articles that use the term rather than are about the term) are insufficient to support articles on neologisms because this may require analysis and synthesis of primary source material to advance a position, which is explicitly prohibited by the original research policy.

Neologisms that are in wide use but for which there are no treatments in secondary sources are not yet ready for use and coverage in Wikipedia. The term does not need to be in Wikipedia in order to be a "true" term, and when secondary sources become available, it will be appropriate to create an article on the topic or use the term within other articles.

In a few cases, there will be notable topics which are well-documented in reliable sources, but for which no accepted short-hand term exists. It can be tempting to employ a neologism in such a case. Instead, use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English if possible, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title.

A couple of suggestions:

Perhaps just this is all we need here:

Neologism

"Articles on neologisms are commonly deleted as these articles are often created in an attempt to use Wikipedia to increase usage of the term. As Wiktionary's inclusion criteria differ from Wikipedia's, that project may cover neologisms that Wikipedia cannot accept. If you are interested in writing an article on a neologism, you may wish to contribute it to that project instead. In a few cases, there will be notable topics which are well-documented in reliable sources, but for which no accepted short-hand term exists. It is desirable to use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English if possible, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title."

Although arguably we don't need anything at all, if the article is about a neologistic term then it violates the rest of this policy anyway, and whether the title of an article is a neologism or not isn't really a question for this policy, that's WP:Title. Still, it may be worth specifying that they're (at best) not generally welcome, may help I suppose.- Wolfkeeper 22:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

That leaves out probably the most important part: We need sources about the term or concept, not merely ones that use the term or concept. Gigs (talk) 13:11, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Gigs has a good point. Maurreen (talk)
That just comes under verifiability though.- Wolfkeeper 23:16, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
In theory yes, in reality, we need a bigger cluestick for people who don't get it, which is what WP:NEO is/was. Like you said, in a perfect world, WP:NEO would be redundant. But it's a common enough case that we needed to write it down. Gigs (talk) 01:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Heads up: Craic is under afd for being a neologism

You will need to be careful about any and all changes to NEO while it is proceeding to avoid the appearance of gaming the policy. But I'm sure none of you would ever indulge in such a thing anyway (cough), perish the thought.- Wolfkeeper 16:27, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Very convenient that it was you that created the AfD, eh? --NeilN talk to me 16:29, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Wolfkeeper's comment here exposes this as a bad-faith nomination initiated for no other reason other than that he doesn't like the way the policy discussion is going here. Not a good move.--Cúchullain t/c 17:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Not at all, if anything it's the other way around, you would have less incentive to beg the question here after the AFD (whichever way it ends up going, since the AFD would set a precedent at least for your article, if kept), but nothing stops you carrying on here after the AFD concludes.
But it's irrelevant anyway, long-term. As it stands, whatever the AFD says, the craic article won't survive in that exact form in the long term (a few years). Articles usually get rewritten encyclopedically eventually.- Wolfkeeper 19:58, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

"Is defined as" is an equivalently poor writing example to "refers to"

In a comment on this page a few days ago User:WhatamIdoing made the following statement (my emphasis in bold):

It's worth remembering that we have more than one goal. An article (even one that is entirely about the word in question) should be more than just a definition. It should also (ideally) be well-written. "___ is defined as..." or "___ refers to..." is usually a lousy, unnecessarily verbose writing style, even if the subject itself is a perfectly valid, encyclopedic article. See the #Handling problems section, especially the paragraph that runs "sometimes, a Wikipedia article (particularly stubs) will be badly written."

Please note that WhatamIdoing specifically refers to "___ is defined as" as well as "____ refers to" as example of an article that is not well-written. I agree. To this end, I propose making the following small change.

In the Fixing bad articles section is the following sentence:

Simply replace the cumbersome phrasings such as "is a term for", "is a word that means", "refers to", with the very simple "is": "A dog is an animal with the binomial name Canis lupus."

I propose changing it to:

Simply replace the cumbersome phrasings such as "is a term for", "is a word that means", "refers to", "is defined as", "is commonly described as", etc., with the very simple "is": "A dog is an animal with the binomial name Canis lupus."

That is, I propose specifically adding "is defined as", "is commonly described as", etc., to the list of examples of poor wording constructs that should be avoided. Objectively, I grant that this addition would seem unnecessary, since it would seem obvious that "is defined as" and "is commonly described" are as poorly written constructs as is "refers to" in the same contexts, but I know that at least in one case others don't see this.

In fact, I made a change like this a few days ago, and no one objected, until someone involved in the controversy at Atheism, after realizing that I was the one who made this change, reverted it today (without discussion, I might add, and with only the following "justification" listed in the change comment: "there is big disagreement in talk:atheism").

As is often the case, there is a particular situation which creates the impetus for general change. In this case it comes from Atheism. But, as this is what we should always do, I remind everyone to focus on the more general question of whether, objectively, "is defined as" (and "is commonly described as", for that matter) is just as good of an example of the kind of construct that should be avoided in article introductions as is "refers to", and for the same reasons. This is what I said in the comment when I added the change originally: "another example of cumbersome phrasing that should be avoided: "is defined as"" (contrast that to the extreme bias expressed in the comment associated with the revert to the change, noted above).

To answer this question I think we have to step back and consider what's wrong with "refers to".

The first sentence of this section clearly states;


I submit that what's wrong with "refers to" is that it is not part of a "relatively short but discrete explanation of what the subject of the article is". That is, for any sentence, "X refers to Y", a better construct is "X is Y". Similarly, "X is Y" is also better than "X is defined as Y" and "X is commonly described as Y", for the same reasons. This seems blatantly obvious to me, but others don't seem to see it, so I would like to add this clarification to this section. Any objections, particularly from anyone not involved in the discussion at Talk:Atheism?

Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:38, 22 April 2010 (UTC)


"Is defined as" is not about the term but the concept. Whether you think it is poor writing or not (it isn't - sometimes the only way to be clear and accurate you are talking about the definition is to plainly say so), this page is about "not a dictionary". As such, it has no business presenting anything that does not directly relate to not a dictionary--JimWae (talk) 04:08, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
I will repeat here because you glossed over it a bit: it was you who inserted "is defined as" into WP:NOTDIC because of the dispute at atheism -- despite opinion here to the contrary in response to the RFC. Then somebody quoted it. Finally it got rightfully removed. This is becoming disruptive to 2 pages now.--JimWae (talk) 04:11, 22 April 2010 (UTC)


The impetus for inserting a change is irrelevant to the question of whether the change is appropriate or not, which is where the focus should be. Please keep it there; doing otherwise is what is disruptive.
By the same flawed reasoning, "refers to" is not about the term but the concept.
If "is defined as" is not poor writing, then neither is "refers to".
Let's consider today's featured article as an example:
  1. Earth is the fifth-largest planet of the eight in the Solar System. (current actually lead).
  2. Earth refers to the fifth-largest planet of the eight in the Solar System.
  3. Earth is defined as the fifth-largest planet of the eight in the Solar System.
  4. Earth is commonly defined as the fifth-largest planet of the eight in the Solar System.
On what grounds do you reject (2) but not (3) or (4)? Trying to draw a distinction here is asking How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?, and completely ignores the point made on this page:


I agree that this issue is not really a "not a dictionary" issue, but the topic is discussed on this page (where it states this is not a dictionary issue), and the guidance is given here, so the discussion about it is appropriate here. After all, we're talking about a specific wording change to this page. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:44, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Because the first sentence or so is supposed to define the topic of the article, 'Earth refers to the fifth-largest planet of the eight in the Solar system' is pretty much defining the topic as the word Earth, not the planet. So the article would be talking about the word, and would cover the usage of the word. For an example of what can happen if you have articles on words consider football (word) and football. That's the kind of thing this policy is trying to actively discourage. You've actually got two articles with more or less the same topic; they're very probably correctly considered WP:Content forks, and it seems unlikely that they're a good idea. Content forks when you have word articles are massively common; I believe that encyclopedias were actually specifically invented to minimise the amount of content forking, as minimising content forks allows much more depth on the topic and permits the content to be kept correct far more easily.- Wolfkeeper 23:08, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't see the distinction. Let's assume that "Earth refers to the fifth-largest planet of the eight in the Solar system is pretty much defining the topic as the word Earth". Then isn't Earth is defined as the fifth-largest planet of the eight in the Solar system also pretty much defining the topic as the word Earth?
I mean, it's the word Earth that refers to the planet in the former, and it's the word Earth that is defined to be the planet in the latter. No?
JimWae argues above that "Is defined as is not about the term but the concept". Well, if "is defined as" is not about the term but the concept, then why isn't "refers to" not about the term but the concept?
In English 'refers' always takes a term as a subject that is doing the referring. Defines can take either a term or a thing as a subject.- Wolfkeeper 02:18, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
The concept known as Earth is defined as the planet ...
The concept known as Earth refers to the planet ...
What's the basis for the distinction? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:00, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
FWIW it's worth knowing that some people's brains work very visually, and others work very linguistically. People with highly linguistic brains won't see much difference, for them 'Earth' is just a word, whereas for a visually oriented person, it's a big round globe with blue oceans. Note that this is not an intelligence thing at all, it's just a different way of thinking. That you have to ask this suggests you have a very linguistic brain.- Wolfkeeper 02:18, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
There's also the thing that 'Earth is defined as the fifth...' is actually ambiguous, it's unclear whether you're defining what the big round blue thing is, or the word Earth. I think in that particular case, you're probably defining the word 'earth', so that should be avoided. But if it was an abstract thing, 'Perjury is defined as telling lies...' that would be OK, as would 'Perjury is telling lies' which is shorter and to the point. But 'Perjury refers to', refers to can only take Perjury as a word.- Wolfkeeper 02:18, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
The sentence 'The concept known as Earth refers to the planet ...' would probably be OK, but long-winded because the subject of the sentence (and the article) would the concept that refers, it's really what you define to be the topic that matters.- Wolfkeeper 02:23, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
  • minor point for this page: Sometimes it is not clear that the "is" is the "is" of definition - unless such is stated
  • major point: If it's not a NAD issue, the NAD page has no business introducing such a "rule" --JimWae (talk) 04:51, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

If any regular contributors to this talk page (who are not involved in the Atheism discussion) have an objection to the above proposal, please let us know, otherwise I will incorporate it after a few days. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:35, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it is reasonable to include those alternatives (here as well as at WP:REFERS), and also reasonable to remember that what is frequently bad writing style may be perfectly appropriate in specific, unusual circumstances (e.g., if common use differs substantially from expert use). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:07, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Hi, if you're excluding contributors participating in Atheism discussion, please exclude yourself as well and avoid changing the page. Regarding your examples and arguments. They work if there is no disagreement for a definition. You must also check if they will work if authors give some concept different definitions. --windyhead (talk) 20:23, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm not excluding anyone. Just wondering if there is any legitimate objective objection to the proposal. Is that what the last two sentences in your comment are supposed to comprise? Frankly, I don't understand what you're saying, much less how they explain an objection to inserting the words I'm proposing to insert. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:39, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
By 'legitimate' objection you mean what exactly?- Wolfkeeper 23:08, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
I think 'defined as' is acceptable in leads because it doesn't necessarily refer to the title as a word or term; for abstract concepts like 'atheism' you may or may not want to have a complicated definition.- Wolfkeeper 23:13, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Wolfkeeper, but with all due respect, you're answering a different question from the one I'm asking. I did not ask whether "defined as" is acceptable in leads.
Let me put it this way. Do you think "refers to" is acceptable in leads? After all, it doesn't necessarily refer to the title as a word or term either, and that's your reasoning for "defined as" being acceptable in leads.
But my specific question is whether "defined as" is substantively different from "refers to". The proposal above is predicated on the assumption that the current statement is reasonable and supported:
Simply replace the cumbersome phrasings such as "is a term for", "is a word that means", "refers to", with the very simple "is": "A dog is an animal with the binomial name Canis lupus."
Are you okay with this statement, despite the fact that "refers to" does not necessarily refer to the article title as a word or term? Or are you contending that "refers to" does necessarily refer to the article titles as a word or term? --Born2cycle (talk) 23:52, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Since "defined as" is not a NAD issue, the NAD page has no business being the only page to make a "ruling" against "defined as". That's instruction creep. --JimWae (talk) 00:29, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm OK with this, so far as I know, this is necessarily so, I don't know of any common counterexamples. Can you give us one?- Wolfkeeper 02:05, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Offhand I don't know of any examples from article leads (for good reason, they are avoided), but the following statement serves as a common counterexample.
Gravity refers to the means by which objects with mass attract one another.
That statement is not necessarily about the word gravity. Of course, it might be interpreted as being about the word as follows:
The word gravity refers to the means by which objects with mass attract one another.
But it could at least as easily be interpreted to be about the concept of gravity:
The concept of gravity refers to the means by which objects with mass attract one another.
The point is, "gravity refers to ..." is not necessarily about the word. It could at least as easily be about the concept.
So, if the "refers to" construct was used in an article lead, it would not necessarily refer to the article title as a word or term. But it could easily be interpreted to do so. That's the objection to using the construct in leads. Same with "defined as".
So, again, what's the distinction? What is the objection to the proposal of adding "defined as" to the list of constructs that should be avoided in leads? --Born2cycle (talk) 03:13, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
To the scattered questions above: This policy is disputed at the moment. Wolfkeeper interprets it to mean that encyclopedias should almost never have articles "about words", and hence is giving information based on that premise. Almost everyone else here disagrees. (See further up this page, and the last 3 archives of this page, for extensive examples). This policy's specific current wording, and Wolfkeeper's advice, should probably be taken with a grain of salt.
There have been a few proposals to update the policy, in the near future.
As WhatamIdoing suggests, for the moment use the advice at WP:REFERS, as a slightly clearer explanation. Or, just look through the contents of Portal:Contents/Overviews#Religion and belief systems, and adapt from the many examples there. -- Quiddity (talk) 06:59, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm aware of the policy, but I don't see how that's related to this specific proposal regarding something the policy says about bad wording. I would appreciate if you would reread the proposal at the top of this section and indicate your opinion only about that. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 14:53, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
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