Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 36

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Titles of a few countries

There is an ArbCom ruling on the title of the article for Ireland, the republic that occupies the majority of the island of Ireland. But there is no such thing for other similar countries, such as the Republic of Macedonia, the Republic of China (known commonly as Taiwan), the People's Republic of China, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Should the titles of these articles be hardcoded in the Manual of Style (or any other official policy)? A discussion had been kicked off at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Titles of a few countries. 61.18.170.243 (talk) 08:46, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Isn't Macedonia covered by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Macedonia), which mentions an Arbcom case?--Boson (talk) 10:32, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
It states
--Boson (talk) 10:35, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
How can the same principle for ROM and ROI be applied to other similar countries? 61.18.170.103 (talk) 15:00, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: clarifying PRECISION

The current situation

The Precision criterion is currently worded as follows:

  • Precision – Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously.

Note that it links to the WP:PRECISION section which starts out with the following statement:

When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided.

Note that this clarifies what "unambiguously" means: to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name.

Note also that the first sentence of WP:D defines disambiguation in terms of usage within Wikipedia:

Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles.

Why is this a problem?

Now, anyone can follow this chain of statements to ascertain the intended meaning, but if you just look at the precision criterion in isolation, it could be misleading. In particular, one could interpret it to mean unambiguously with respect to all usage in English, not just within the context of WP titles.

What's the solution?

Because of the potential misunderstanding/misinterpretation of the current wording, I suggest that we tighten up the wording about precision to be consistent with the accepted definition of disambiguation within WP.

What's the specific proposal?

I propose the criterion be updated to say:

  • Precision – Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously with respect to other Wikipedia titles.

And also the following clarification added at WP:PRECISION:

When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article title from other title uses of the topic name within Wikipedia, over-precision should be avoided.

Thoughts? Comments? Any objections? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:29, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Re WP:PRECISION, I suggest:
When additional precision in the title is necessary to distinguish anone article title from others uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided.
I don't think we're trying to distinguish titles but using titles to distinguish articles. Jojalozzo 21:31, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
I suppose a parallel approach can be used for the Precision goal:
  • Precision – Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identifyfor readers to distinguish the topic of the article unambiguouslyfrom that of others.
I think it is clearer if we include "readers". Jojalozzo 21:39, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
At first I was going to say good point, but after further thought, I don't think that's right. We use extra precision to distinguish the titles to avoid clashes due to the technical limitation of not being able to have two articles with the same title. We don't do it to distinguish titles for readers. Encyclopedias without this technical limitation use the same title for different articles. For example, Britannica Online uses Mercury for all of the articles about the following uses of that name.
They do include the chemical symbol in parenthesis for the element, but they do that for all articles about the elements, including those that don't need disambiguation:
So if it wasn't for the wiki technical limitation, I don't think we'd disambiguate our titles either. I don't think disambiguation in titles is done for readers at all. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:10, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Some history of the "Precision" provision

Historically, B2C's interpretation of what "precision" is about (the "intended meaning") is far off the mark of what precision has been about over the years. Back in 2002 it was terribly amateurish, but this shows where the idea came from:

Be precise when necessary

Please, do not write or put an article on a page with an ambiguously-named title as though that title had no other meanings! A reader may have found your article with a search, or accidentally, or in some other way that robs him of the context, so do him a favor and name your articles precisely. If a word or phrase is ambiguous, and your article concerns only one of the meanings of that word or phrase, you should probably--not in all cases, but in many--use something more precise than just that word or phrase. For example, use Apollo program, Nirvana (band), smoking pipe; rather than simply Apollo, Nirvana, Pipe. See disambiguation for more details on that.

By 2008 it was more concise, slightly mangled, but still the same concept (ambiguity as the opposite of precision):

Be precise when necessary

Convention: Please, do not write or put an article on a page with an ambiguously named title as though that title had no other meanings. If all possible words have multiple meanings, go with the rule of thumb of naming guidelines and use the more popular term.

In early 2009 when Kotniski didn't know what it meant, he changed it, still focusing on real ambiguity: "Avoid giving an article an ambiguous title (unless it is unlikely that the other meanings deserve their own article)." Then in April 2009 he changed it to

Be precise when necessary

Convention: Name an article as precisely as is necessary to indicate accurately its topical scope; avoid over-precision. If there are other articles with the same name, then the title should include a disambiguator in parentheses, unless the article concerns the primary topic for that name. If alternative common names exist for a topic, sometimes a less ambiguous option may be chosen in order to avoid the need for a disambiguator.

It was Pmanderson in June 2009 who added this about technical uniqueness:

Be precise when necessary

Convention: Name an article as precisely as is necessary to indicate accurately its topical scope; avoid over-precision.
All articles must, by the design of Wikipedia, have a unique name. If there are several articles with the same name, it may be that one concerns the primary topic for that name; if so, that one keeps the common name, and the others must be moved. The articles should be linked, to help readers get where they want to go, either to each other or to a disambiguation page, normally called topic or topic (disambiguation). If alternative common names exist for a topic, using them may be the simplest way to disambiguate; if not, add a disambiguator in parentheses. Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) and Wikipedia:Disambiguation.

When the "Deciding an article title" section got made in the turmoil of Sept. 2009, the locked version at the end of the month simply said:

Precise – Be precise, but only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously.

where that limitation "only as precise as necessary" derived as a toned-down version of Born2cycle's attempt to rewrite "precision" in the negative, to discourage precision instead of encourage it, as:

Precision. Good article titles are only as precise as necessary to indicate the name of the topic unambiguously.

Born2cycle further mangled it here to:

Precise – Article titles that do not simply reflect the name of the topic are more descriptive, but only as precise as necessary to identify the name or subject of the topic unambiguously.

Finally a fluff reduction by Rannpháirtí anaithnid made the ending version quoted above.

There was still also a separate section that said

Be precise when necessary

Further information: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) and Wikipedia:Disambiguation
Articles are named as precisely as is necessary to indicate their scope accurately, while avoiding over-precision. Readers should not have to read into the article to find which of several meanings of the title is the actual subject, but there is no virtue in excess. Wikipedia also has disambiguation pages to help readers find the meaning they want. When (as with Paris), the unmodified term has an overwhelmingly predominant meaning, we use the simple term for that article; see WP:PRIMARYUSAGE.
All articles must, by the design of Wikipedia, have a unique name. If there are several articles with the same name, it may be that one concerns the primary topic for that name; if so, that one keeps the common name, and the others must be disambiguated. It may be that using an alternative common name for a topic is the simplest way to disambiguate; if not, add a disambiguator in parentheses. The articles should be linked, to help readers get where they want to go, either to each other or to a disambiguation page, normally called topic or topic (disambiguation).

The next big change of meaning – Kotniski changed that latter section on Oct. 29 2009 to

Precision

Articles titles usually merely indicate the name of the topic. When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided. For example, it would be inappropriate to name an article "United States Apollo program (1961–1975)" or "Nirvana (Aberdeen, Washington rock band)". Remember that concise titles are generally preferred.

but then on Nov 9. Francis Schonken just pointed it off to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) instead, because he didn't like how Kotniski merged things (I don't totally follow).

going off in a new direction – on 17 Aug 2010, Kotniski replaced the "precision" bullet with this "disambiguation" bullet:

Disambiguation – For technical reasons, no two Wikipedia articles can have the same title.[1] Details on how titles are made unambiguous can be found in the Disambiguation guideline.

badly patched – in the subsequent flurry that ensued (and after a couple of typically ineffectual attempts by PBS to stop the policy thrashing, which was the same thrashing that planted the seeds of our recent month-long trouble), with help from Pmanderson they emerged merged, as

Precision – titles are expected to use names and terms that are precise, but only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously. For technical reasons, no two Wikipedia articles can have the same title,[1] so ambiguous titles are generally avoided; see further the Precision and disambiguation section below and in the disambiguation guideline.

sorry, I'm not copying all the links and stuff, but this merge is where it came to have two copies of the link to WP:AT#Precision and disambiguation, the "extra baggage" that I removed finally in 2012 the other day.

I don't think there's any point in the history where the concept of "precision" resembled what B2C now says it means (except for a brief transient in Sept. 2009 when he made it say that precision is to be minimized). Even if he's right that "I don't think disambiguation in titles is done for readers at all" (which I don't think he is), that's not an issue that belongs in "precision", just as it was not an issue that belongs in "recognizability". It is an issue peculiar to B2C, it seems, as I read the essay on his user page (User:Born2cycle#A goal: naming stability at Wikipedia). Dicklyon (talk) 07:13, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

I should note that until this change of a few days ago the wording of the precision criteria at least referred to these two other sections, making it easier for others to connect the dots and make misinterpretation less likely. I don't think returning the "extra baggage" would be an improvement, but what I propose addresses a problem created by this removal. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:13, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to this but it is a question I have: Why do we chose to use a word like Precision which is a science, engineering, and statistical concept (I looked that up on WP) to describe a characteristic (or desired outcome) of ambiguity, unambiguous, disambiguation etc. which are all terms about interpretation of language and have nothing what so ever to do with the statistical concept of precision. What is the advantage of that?--Mike Cline (talk) 22:02, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
I suppose it may be related to such vernacular usages as "to be precise", "Yes, precisely!", or the pricelessly redundant, "That's precisely right". Dictionary.com's antonym for "ambiguity" is "explicitness, clarity". Jojalozzo 23:14, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, the point of WP:PRECISION is that we only care about it in a technical sense - that each title technically refers to precisely one article - and that that is inherently required by the software. This too was explained in the "baggage" Dicklyon removed[[1] a few days ago, which makes it less clear in this regard too. Another reason to make the changes I'm proposing... --Born2cycle (talk) 00:19, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
The "baggage" was the duplicate link, plus the sentences that were accidentally merged from a "disambiguation" section back in 2010, which made it look like we only care about precision in a technical sense. See the history above. For the first 7 or so years of its life, "precision" suggested that "Articles are named as precisely as is necessary to indicate their scope accurately, while avoiding over-precision. Readers should not have to read into the article to find which of several meanings of the title is the actual subject." If you really want the other material, consider adding it back as a Disambiguation bullet like Kotniski did originally, but don't replace "precision" by it as he did; nobody liked that. The best way to fix the "precision" section is probably to make it about the reader's needs again. Dicklyon (talk) 07:15, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

'Precision' has more than just a statistical meaning. That wouldn't apply here anyway, because article titles are not statistics, and in any case that usage of 'precision' contrasts with 'accuracy'. (You can be extremely precise and completely inaccurate: the two are independent of each other. For example, if you shoot a gun at a target several times, and you land your shots in the same place, then you've achieved precision even if you completely missed the target. Likewise, if your shots clustered around the bulls-eye without being in the same place, then you were accurate but not precise.) The common usage of the term, however, is a near synonym with accuracy. As the OED says, 'precision' is "the fact, condition, or quality of being precise; exactness, definiteness, accuracy." Although most of their recent quotations reflect a mathematical use of the term, they have an earlier one (from 1824) which is germane:

Precision is the third requisite of perspicuity with respect to words and phrases. It signifies retrenching superfluities, and pruning the expression, so as to exhibit neither more nor less, than an exact copy of the person's idea who uses it.

Which seems to be basically what we want: enough to be clear, but no more than that. (The question being, enough to be clear in the context of the world, or in the context only of other WP articles.)

And 'precise':

  • Definitely or strictly expressed; exactly defined; definite, exact; of a person, definite and exact in statement.
Let us then put into more precise terms the question which has arisen.
  • Exact; neither more nor less than; perfect, complete: opposed to approximate.
A definition ‥ should be Precise, that is, contain nothing unessential, nothing superfluous.
  • Distinguished with precision from all others; identified, pointed out, or stated, with precision or exactness; the precise, the particular, the identical, the very, the exact.
The Protestants ‥ insisted upon the council's copying the precise words of that instrument.

I don't know if this is precisely what was meant by precision, or if another of our terms (explicitness, etc.) would be better. — kwami (talk) 08:12, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” Wayne Gretsky

We should be focusing on what we want out of precision and disambiguation, not the history of where we been. What's the desired outcome, the future. The past is irrelevant. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:17, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree we should be looking forward. The history, however, is a rich source of ideas that we have been through, and is also useful to counter claims that a proposed change is simply a clarification of intent; it shows whose intent is being clarified. Personally, I think we have some articles with such ambiguous titles that more precision would help them a lot; something like what the older "precision" versions encouraged, as opposed to the "only as precise as necessary" where "necessary" seems to be interpreted in a minimalist way, "only as precise as necessary to prevent WP name collisions". We get that view asserted in RMs sometimes, but I find it just keeps ambiguities from being resolved. Dicklyon (talk) 17:55, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

An alternative proposal

The section WP:PRECISE indeed starts with a hard-to-interpret sentence, which today attracted an editor to insert "not" into it, which left it no better and no worse. I made a change to clarify, and these were both reverted, so I propose it for your consideration here:

Although additional precision is sometimes necessary to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name, or to reduce ambiguity, excess precision should be avoided. ...

This restores a tiny bit of the concept that precision is to prevent ambiguity, a concept that was edited out some time ago, as the history above shows. It doesn't specifically define "excess precision", which is OK I think, and certainly better than defining it such that the only tolerable precision is the minimum needed to avoid name collisions. Comments? Dicklyon (talk) 23:47, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I think that bold edits of policy and guidance should be reserved for typos, refinements and clarification but while this wording probably is a clarification, it is also a significant rewording that could have unforeseen and unwanted interpretations. Perhaps BOLD on policy pages is best limited to minor clarifications.
  • "topic name" appears to be a way of referring to the title without saying "title" which raises the question as to what we are referring to.
  • I continue to think that we use titles to distinguish topics (concepts/articles) from one another not titles (text/words/phrases) from one another. Perhaps "discriminate" gets at that better than "distinguish".

Although additional precision is sometimes necessary to discriminate among articles with similar titles, excess precision should be avoided. ...

Jojalozzo 03:02, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree, it's complicated. In many cases, we discuss topics, titles, and prospective titles. We can work it out if we get agreement in principle. Dicklyon (talk) 05:16, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I am sorry to belabor the point, but we might want to try and write this without using the word precision. All the difficulty is the result of trying to relate the word precision and precise to ambiguity. There are really only four words we need to use to craft this idea--ambiguity, ambiguous, unambiguous and disambiguation. Perhaps if we could agree on simple wording without the words--precise and precision, we might begin to agree on the understanding as well. --Mike Cline (talk) 10:21, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I don't care about the policy at all; I just stumbled across the page and saw that sentence that looked like it was written by a five-year-old. This is really not that hard to clean up, guys. This revert just looks stubborn--my edit didn't change the meaning of the description at all, just got rid of what you have all admitted was a horribly written sentence. If you prefer to have a policy page with writing that no one can understand, then go ahead, knock yourselves out. rʨanaɢ (talk) 12:48, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Sorry about the revert; we had just been admonished for editing before securing a consensus, so that seemed like the thing to do. If someone wants to revert my revert, I won't object. Dicklyon (talk) 02:03, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Mike, "precision" used to mean something when it said "Name an article as precisely as is necessary to indicate accurately its topical scope." If you replace it by "ambiguity" only, you're going to have an even harder time, I suspect, defending against the idea that the only ambiguity that matters is actual article namespace collisions. Or would you put it some other way that captures some of the original concept? Dicklyon (talk) 02:03, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Dicklyon, I think there is an unnecessary collison of words here that is confusing--Precision versus Ambiguity. To demonstrate why I think this is happening, I'd like you to answer two questions in reference to this hypothetical example.
Consider an article title for an American sportswriter named John L. Doe. Consider these alternatives and their relative situation within WP: John Doe-there are 25 John Doe articles including:, John L. Doe-of which there are 5 of the 25 including:, John L. Doe (writer)-of which there are three sportswriters, two British and one American: John L. Doe (sportwriter) and John L. Doe (American sportswriter). Now answer these two questions without reference to Primary Topic or without reference to any of the terms derived from ambiguity--ambiguous, unambiguous and disambiguation.
  • #1 Are any of these alternative titles inaccurate or imprecise? If so, why are they imprecise in the WP context?
  • #2 If we assume that John L. Doe (American sportwriter) is the correct title, describe why it is more precise than the other alternatives.
Please answer these questions, without refering to any of the terms related to ambiguity. You may address them within my post if you'd like. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
The exercise merely illustrates a fundamental difficulty with article titles -- namely, that the criteria or objectives cannot be meaningfully evaluated in isolation from the others. To play along, some of the titles are less precise than others because they do not adequately distinguish the specific article to which they might refer. older ≠ wiser 15:13, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Bkonrad - I think you know that I for one am not advocating that this or any other criteria be considered in isolation. Far from it, I think it ought to be mandatory that all the criteria are applied and considered on every article title decision. But that's not what this discussion is about. It's about the appropriateness of the term precision to the objective of this particular criteria. We all know what that objective is, we are just struggling with the words that convey that objective in a meaningful way to 136,000 editors. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:03, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Answer: it's not a well-formed question. There is no need for binary attributes like "imprecise" or "inaccurate". In order of increasing precision, we can consider: Doe, John Doe, John L. Doe, John L. Doe (writer), John L. Doe (sportwriter), and John L. Doe (American sportswriter). Which one we prefer will depend on how precise we think we need to be to clearly identify the topic of the article, relative to other articles, other known or suspected John Does, and in light of other title criteria etc. If it comes out that John L. Doe (American sportwriter) is the answer, then there's probably a reason we thought that John L. Doe (sportwriter) was not precise enough, likely having to do with those words you want me to not mention. In this case, it seems unlikely to me that we'd go there without a good reason, like another known John L. Doe (sportwriter), perhaps a well known one whose article is called something different even, so not necessarily an article name conflict. If there really are other notable John L. Doe (sportwriter)s, then certainly that would not be sufficiently precise to clearly identify the scope of the article. But I think you know all that, so I'm wondering what you wanted me to say, and whether you're looking for some opinion, or some words you can use, or something to trip me up on, or what??? Dicklyon (talk) 16:32, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Not a trick question and you did well with your answer. You did highlight the one element of this precision-ambiguity conflict that I think is important. Precision is a continuum where something can be more or less precise that another entity in the continuum. Ambiguity on the other hand is boolean. An entity is either ambiguous or unambiguous in the context in which it is being evaluated. Precision implies a tolerance-a variation from some baseline. whereas ambiguity implies understanding--something is understood (clear meaning) or its not (meaning is unclear) in the context being evaluated. Take these three phrases: A big gallon jar, a gallon jar, a big jar. The first two are unambiguous, although A big gallon jar is overly disambiguated. A big jar is ambiguous. They all might be precise descriptions of a jar being described within context. I really think ambiguity is what we are trying to deal with here, not precision. We can't tolerate namespace conflict, but we also don't want to create article titles that are ambiguous. Therefore we have created a disambiguation style and mechanism that allows us to evolve ambiguous article titles into unambigous titles but also do not favor unnecessary disambiguation. Now if we could convey that concept with some precision, we'd be rollin. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:12, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm unclear on why you're thinking of ambiguous as binary, or how these examples support that. Dicklyon (talk) 17:20, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Using this definition of ambiguity--a word or expression that can be understood in two or more possible ways : an ambiguous word or expression , all the alternatives in the John Doe example are ambiguous (multiple meanings) until the John Doe (American sportswriter) alternative is considered. It is unambiguous because in the context of WP articles on people named John Doe who are American sportwriters, there is only one on an American sportswriter so the meaning is clear and unambiguous. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:25, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Are there two different types of Precision?

If I understand Mike's point correctly, I think he has a point. Precision and disambiguation are related, but I think they are distinct concepts. I have always though that Precision applied more to creating descriptive titles than it does to disambiguating proper name titles. Or at least it applies to the two types of titles in different ways.

To illustrate: We have an article that is descriptively entitled Christianity and Freemasonry... I have long thought that this was a very imprecise title for that specific article, because it does not really describe what the article is about. A more precise title would be Opposition to Freemasonry by certain specific Christian denominations. (Note: I am sure that there is a more concise wording that would be an even better title for the topic than the one I suggest here... I am making a point, so go with it). Now... Compare how I am using the term Precision in my example to how the term is used in Mike's John L Doe example, and you see how we are not really talking about the same thing... In both cases there is a need for "Precision"... but there is a different type of Precision that is needed. I think it would be helpful if we separate the two types, and in doing so we should probably use two different synomyms for "Precision". Blueboar (talk) 16:41, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Certainly, though I would have put it as two types of ambiguity – ambiguity in the interpretation of article topic and scope from title, like your example, and ambiguity in the sense of different articles with similar topic names (like Race would be ambiguous as applicable to several different articles like Race (classification of humans) and Racing). The history of precision above makes it clear how the concept has moved around, sometimes with distinct precision and ambiguity provisions for the different aspects, and sometimes not. I definitely don't want to see the former eliminated in favor of the latter interpretation. They became greatly confused when Kotniski replaced precision by disambiguation, and then got mixed together when precision got restored badly. It's time to sort this out. Dicklyon (talk) 16:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
I would say there is one type of Precision--Blueboar's example - see Accuracy and precision and one type of Ambiguity-my John Doe example. Trying to create one criteria with two separate meanings isn't smart when we expect 136,000 editors to understand it. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:19, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Whether the two examples are different forms of Ambiguity, or different forms of Precision... my point was that they are different. More importantly, in terms of applying policy they are dealt with in different ways. This needs to be pointed out in the Policy (at the moment it is not, and this is causing confusion). And to make the distinction clearer to readers, I would suggest that we use different terms when describing them and discussing them. Blueboar (talk) 17:27, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, and to be more clear, I am in total agreement with that. Older versions of TITLE (before 2009) made that distinction better. Dicklyon (talk) 18:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

If Precision and Ambiguity are distinct criteria then ...

So here are the two criteria—ambiguity and precision separately defined along the lines of Blueboar’s observations above. Just for consideration of the concept. (dictionary definitions for support only, not part of the criteria statements)

Ambiguity*: [Wikipedia article] titles are unambiguous in the context of the Wikipedia article space. Our disambiguation guidelines and naming conventions favor minimum disambiguation to remove ambiguity when two or more articles titles may have a title with multiple the same meanings.

  • Ambiguous: open to or having several possible meanings or interpretations; equivocal. [1]
  • Unambiguous: not ambiguous; clear [2]

Precision*: [[Descriptive] Wikipedia] titles are as precise as necessary to indicate accurately the topical scope of the article. Over-precision should be avoided as conciseness is important.

  • Precise: being exactly that and neither more nor less: a precise temperature; a precise amount. [3]
  1. ^ Ambiguous (dictionary.reference.com)
  2. ^ Unambigous (dictionary.reference.com)
  3. ^ Precise (dictionary.reference.com)

--Mike Cline (talk) 18:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Please help me out. Reading these two goals (unambiguity and precision) it seems that a title that meets the precision goal automatically meets the ambiguity goal since the appropriately precise title accurately (unambiguously?) indicates the scope of the article and since we do not have two articles with the same scope, there will be no ambiguity. Maybe an example would help me see the need for the unambiguity goal. Jojalozzo 19:38, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
I'll have some more thoughts later but you say: a title that meets the precision goal automatically meets the ambiguity goal since the appropriately precise title accurately (unambiguously?) indicates the scope of the article and since we do not have two articles with the same scope, there will be no ambiguity. But can you equally say the opposite, ie. a title that meets the ambiguity goal automatically meets the precision goal since the appropriately unambiguous title accurately (precisely?) indicates the scope of the article and since we do not have two articles with the same scope, the title will be precise? If we can say that then we have but one criteria. If not, we have two and need to distinguish between them. Since Accuracy has nothing to do with Ambiguity both these statements interpreted similarly are problematic. --Mike Cline (talk) 00:09, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
If Precision subsumes Ambiguity but not the other way around then we don't need the Ambiguity goal as long as we meet the Precision goal. Should we be considering situations where we will use titles that meet the Ambiguity goal but not the Precision goal? Jojalozzo 02:37, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The "ambiguity" item proposed here is a bit off where it says "when two or more article titles may have the same meaning". I suppose it means "when two or more articles could take the same title" or something like that? Anyway, it is not possible to not satisfy this criterion, right? So no matter what other criteria are satisfied or violated, this one will be satisfied, for technical reasons.

The "precision" item, on the other hand, is about specifying the article scope clearly (or accurately, or precisely, if you prefer). That's what precision was traditionally about, but it has been whittled away at, with the addtion of "avoid over-precision" in early 2009, to "only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously" later in 2009, to "merely indicate the name of the topic", and back; and now the proposal "only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously with respect to other Wikipedia titles" that explicitly wipes out precision as a consideration, because there's only title "ambiguity" to consider. I prefer to go back to where it means something, like the just proposed "as precise as necessary to indicate accurately the topical scope of the article", for descriptive titles or otherwise; sometimes names are particularly ambiguous, as names of things (esp. creative works) are typically made from words with other meanings. Dicklyon (talk) 05:31, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with anything that's been said, but a few thoughts...the technical requirement that titles be unique does not eliminate ambiguity. I may likely be misusing these terms in some specialist sense, but I think it may help: it is a technical requirement that titles be lexically unambiguous (i.e., consist of a unique sequence of characters), but it does not eliminate semantic ambiguity. To use an example for WP:AT -- are the titles Red Meat and red meat ambiguous? How about those titles where the only difference is a pluralized word or where there is a definite article thrown in? I think the notion of precision helps in addressing semantic ambiguity. older ≠ wiser 13:40, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
re: "a title that meets the precision goal automatically meets the ambiguity goal"... not necessarily. Consider two articles on different people named John Louis Doe... in both cases the title "John Louis Doe" would be a precise title. However since there is more than one article that could take this precise title, at least one of them (and possibly both) needs to be disambiguated. Now, we have choices for how to disambiguate... one valid option is add descriptive parentheticals to both titles, to make them even more precise: John Louis Doe (politician) vs. John Louis Doe (actor). However, another equally valid disambiguation option is to be slightly less precise with one title: John Louis Doe vs John L. Doe. This is OK because John L. Doe can be cosidered a precise title (while it isn't quite as precise as the fuller "John Louis Doe", it isn't imprecise). Blueboar (talk) 15:34, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
As I understand the concept of ambiguity and how normal people process words, I would say the Red Meat and Red meat were ambiguous as there is one set of words that have two meanings. Now because of type casing, they do not cause a namespace collision in WP. Until a reader goes to either of the articles, the reader does not know which meaning each title represents, thus they are ambiguous. On the other hand, Red Meat is precise for the article it entitles, as is Red meat. That precision can be verified by reading the article. In that regard, I think the precision aspect of a title is directly tied to the content of the article and is only of concern to the reader if the title of the article doesn't match up with the content. That is Blueboar's idea of precision. When evaluating the ambiguity of a title, one not need see the all the individual articles that the term might apply to. If the reader doesn't know what red meat means (all the meanings) it is ambiguous to the reader within the context of WP. Disambiguation resolves ambiguity, style doesn't. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:34, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Unambiguity

I think I am beginning to understand what Mike has been telling us. Precision in itself is an abstract concept and therefore meaningless in practice until we apply it to the measurement of a property, such as Unambiguity. As Blueboar suggests, we can also apply precision to Descriptiveness (which is very similar to, if not basically the same as, Recognizability). I think that the Precision goal is guidance for the process of applying Unambiguity to titles that are assumed to be already Recognizable and Natural - it explains how to (precisely) Disambiguate: by improving Natural, Concise, Consistent Descriptiveness without over-describing. Here's a draft that does not mention precision per se:

Wikipedia article titles have the following characteristics:

  • Recognizable – Titles are names or descriptions of the topic that are recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic.
  • Natural – Titles are those that readers are likely to look for or search with as well as those that editors naturally use to link from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English.
  • Precision – Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously.
  • Concise – Titles are concise, and not overly long.
  • Consistent – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles. Many of these patterns are documented in the naming guidelines listed in the Specific-topic naming conventions box above, and ideally indicate titles that are in accordance with the principles behind the above questions.
  • Unambiguous – Titles distinguish the topics of articles with similar titles by adding description (natural recognizability) with minimal effects on conciseness and consistency.

I put Unambiguous last because it is subservient to the other characteristics. Jojalozzo 05:24, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

That's pretty much what Kotniski tried on 17 Aug 2010. It was opposed. I would oppose it again. Precision is still a useful goal. Dicklyon (talk) 05:33, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Agree... I think we want precision and unambiguity. While they are related concepts... they are also distinct concepts. I the way forward is to discuss both... separately. Blueboar (talk) 15:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
I concur with Blueboar here, we need both Precision and Ambiguity criteria as they are two distinct ideas. Although precision or ambiguity could cover both, the single criteria would then be ambiguous as it would have two meanings. I remind us to remember we are crafting policy that 136,000 editors must understand and apply and invoke the words of Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:22, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
My position is that if a title is recognizable and unambiguous then it meets our precision goal. If it is recognizable but ambiguous then we add more description to disambiguate but not with a goal of more precision - that's a side effect of unambiguity. Therefore the goal of precision is always met by meeting the goal of unambiguous recognizability. Adding the precision goal just confuses everyone because they think they need to pay attention to something that is not there, separate from unambiguous recognizability. If I'm wrong I will probably understand best if you explain with an example. Jojalozzo 22:01, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
I have to disagree... a few sections above, I gave an example of an article title that I thought was imprecise: Christianity and Freemasonry. I don't think the problem with this title is that it is unrecognizable or ambiguous. The flaw is that it is not precise. I think a more precise title would be something like: Opposition to Freemasonry by certain specific Christian denominations. Blueboar (talk) 18:54, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree that's a good example. I wouldn't necessarily support a move, since the more precise title is so much less concise, but it's a good example of what precision means and the fact that it should be considered as one dimension in a tradeoff space. Dicklyon (talk) 19:24, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
(Oh, I agree my "more precise" title has a problem with conciseness. I wouldn't suggest it at an actual RM. I ignored consistency to make the point.) Blueboar (talk) 19:42, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
I also agree it's a good example because it illustrates Joja's point - precision beyond making the title recognizable and unambiguous is not something we try to do in practice. That's why we have Christianity and Freemasonry and not Opposition to Freemasonry by certain specific Christian denominations. This is also why precision has been defined for a long time in such strong limiting terms (only as precise as necessary to disambiguate from other uses). I'm okay with replacing precision with unambiguous. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:40, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm... I am tempted to actually start an RM discussion on that article. I am sure that someone could come up with a title that is better than both the current flawed title and my "suggestion" - but it would be interesting to to see how they arrive at that "better title"... how the broader community interprets the various policy points we have been discussing. Blueboar (talk) 19:58, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
B2C, is there any evidence in the history to support your statement of the reason for why we have such strong "limiting" wording? It seems like it was something that you pushed for, like when you changed ambiguity from being about topics to being about names here, but that got reverted. It seems that it kind of crept in; is there any record of why? The only thing you said on the talk page around then was "The problem is that these principles have no application to how most articles were named." Dicklyon (talk) 07:44, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
According to your presentation of that example ("it does not really describe what the article is about"), it fails recognizability. It illustrates my position quite well. Once we have made it recognizable, precision is satisfied. Jojalozzo 21:54, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
All article topics fall into one of two categories: those with commonly used names and those without. For those without, like this one, we have to come up with a title which is contrived. These are descriptive titles and the way our naming criteria applies to such articles is a bit different. For example, if this topic did have a commonly used name then this discussion would be moot, because recognizability would be met just by using the name, regardless of how literally vague it might be. But since this is a no-name topic, there is more room for adjustment and discussion.

I wonder if we shouldn't have separate criteria for topics with and without names. The criteria might be similar or even the same, but how we prioritize it is different, and maybe we should describe it differently. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah... once again we come to our underlying disagreement over the role that the "goals" play in this policy... you see them as being "criteria" - to be prioritized. I don't. I see them as the "broad principles" that underlie the policy - intentionally stated with no set prioritization (because which principle takes priority will be different from one article to the next). One of the differences between principles and criteria is that principles can overlap. However, they don't overlap completely... and because they don't overlap completely, each needs to be laid out and explained separately so editors will understand their nuances and how they should be applied. Blueboar (talk) 03:04, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Blueboar, although the criteria themselves may not need (or even should be) prioritized, I think we should be cautious about saying every title decision is random (my word) – your phrase: because which principle takes priority will be different from one article to the next. I fervently believe that if we are to have a functional titling policy that will guide us as we move from ~3.8M articles to ~-5-10M articles, there indeed must be some prioritization of policy application. The four elements we must apply are: sourcing, common name, ambiguity and style. I think sourcing takes priority over the other three. Common name is the next driver. Where we currently have conflict are with the relationships between common name and style and ambiguity and style. This is where we have to focus our attention. The current set of criteria as drafted work fine with these elements, but it is the relationship between the elements that needs focus. FYI, I think Opposition within Christianity to Freemasonry would be a nice alternative title. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:34, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

You are conflating terms and concepts that I think are better left distinct ... I am talking about not prioritizing between the five broad Principles (Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness, and Consistency - and I would add Unambiguity as a sixth broad principle). Which of these might take precedence over the others is determined on a case by case basis. Of course, ideally none of them take precedence over the others ... the ideal is to achieve them all at the same time. But when we do have to choose one over the others, the community is very inconsistent as to which. The reason for this inconsistency is that titles are chosen based on the context of a specific article topic. And every topic is unique and has unique issues that will affect consensus over the best title.
The other "elements" you discuss (Sourcing, Common Name, and Style) are a different kettle of fish entirely. These should be discussed at a secondary level ... as the methods by which we achieve the goals laid out in the broad principles. Sourcing/CommonName (which I think are really the same thing) and Style are how we determine which titles are Recognizable, Natural, Precise, Concise, Consistent and Unambiguous. Methods... not Goals. I would agree that when Sourcing/CommonName conflict with Style, we should follow the sources (the English Language is routinely inconsistent when it comes to style... so it is likely that the sources are actually following an "acceptable" style... even if Wikipedia's MOS prefers a different style choice).
As for your suggestion of Opposition within Christianity to Freemasonry... nice alternative. I will consider it if I ever get around to actually filing an RM. Blueboar (talk) 17:19, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
@Mike and Blueboar, You include Precise without explaining why we need it. From what I can tell it seems that you are applying Precise to correct a title that fails either Recognizable or Unambiguous. Other than that there is no standalone Precise goal. Please give me an example where all other goals are met but the result does not satisfy Precise. I think we should keep precision as a goal if we need it but as far as I can see it just specifies (in a backhanded way) how to achieve the Unambiguous goal by making the title more recognizable (and potentially less concise and consistent); it's not a goal in itself. Jojalozzo 02:20, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I do not agree with lowest priority of unambiguity. Just coming from a discussion about the correct title for trivial objects in algebra. The resulting title, "Zero object (algebra)", is less recognizable that any of its inbound redirects, not highly consistent (in the sense mentioned above), and absolutely unnatural. But it is unambiguous and devoid of all misleading connotations, unlike proposals of the previous generation. Though this case was exceptionally complicated. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:04, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I am guessing that the more natural, recognizable, concise and consistent options were proposed first. Only after those failed the unambiguous goal (and another article won Primary topic) did you choose the suboptimal wording. If so, that is why I propose putting Unambiguity last (in order of application, not priority) since it usually requires the most significant compromise to the other goals. Jojalozzo 02:20, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Balancing criteria that are expressed as continua rather than binaries

I think this is such a difficult issue to solve because many items in the texts being proposed are hard to pin down in yes–no terms. Among these items are "familiar", "precise", and "necessary". They beg questions such as how familiar, how precise, and necessary in what respect? While WP can get away with binaries in many of its policies and guidelines, wp:title doesn't seem to be one of them. This is why the nitty-gritty lies in providing editors who consult this policy with examples. I know this is something of a mantra of mine, but doesn't anyone agree?

Scoping most titles is uncontroversial, but a small proportion will always require case-by-case decisions or delicate judgements by individual editors/admins. When either is indicated, the criteria, to me, are best regarded as continua to balance against each other, rather than binaries, weighed against each other. In other words, the difficult, borderline, or controversial cases might benefit from considering a number of scaled criteria.

This has been part of the anti-canvassing policy for years, and seems to work well there. I've reproduced the table at canvassing below, and underneath it, a table I derived from it when discussing with Moonriddengirl last year the tangled set of criteria at play when deciding whether text is plagiarised. (We haven't yet taken this forward for broader community comment.) I suppose I'm fishing to see whether anyone here thinks this model might be useful for article title decision-making—adapted, of course, for the purpose.


Table at the top of the canvassing policy page

  Scale   Message   Audience   Transparency
Appropriate Limited posting AND Neutral AND Nonpartisan AND Open
↕ ↕ ↕ ↕
Inappropriate Mass posting OR Biased OR Partisan OR Secret


Derivative table for judging possible plagiarism

  Length of wording in question Closeness to the original Distinctiveness of original wording or meaning Attribution
Less of an issue Short Your own wording1 Not distinctive Fully attributed
↕ ↕ ↕ ↕
More of an issue Long Exact wording duplicated Distinctive Not directly attributed

1Excluding "non-creative" text.

Your comments would be welcome. Tony (talk) 11:47, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Tony, I think you're conceptually on to what I've been trying to convey for a while now. Our title decision policy, which in turn drives title decision process is indeed a continum--a holistic balance of the application of various criteria, which in isolation are not functional. In my view there are four elements of that continum that drive title decision making-sources, type of name, ambiguity and style. The source element is not a difficult element and neither if type of name (although determining a Commonname in any given context can be challenging). Ambiguity and style are the most problematic and can be difficult to balance. But they are, and should be part of every title decision. All four elements contribute to the ultimate title decision, not one to the exclusion of others. More later, but I think you are conceptually on track. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:03, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
I like the idea, too. The idea that things like conciseness and precision and recognizability, etc., get considered in a tradeoff space, where they may push in opposite directions, would be well illustrated this way. Dicklyon (talk) 23:51, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
We should also keep in mind the nutshell, which has been stable since 10 Sept 2009, and support it in this tradeoff space:
and derives from the original 2006 nutshell which also has some good points:
– Dicklyon (talk) 06:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

By the way, Kotniski made a relevant comment here in his edit summary: these aren't yes/no criteria you can *satisfy*, they are parameters by which you can compare different titles. Dicklyon (talk) 05:41, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

To be precise...

I just reverted the precision section as amended by Rjanag and Dicklyon to the version of earlier today (see diff here). We'd been doing a good job of not changing substance without consensus (for a couple of weeks, at least). Let's keep the streak going. Dick's additions make explicit the position that reducing potential title ambiguity, even where there is not an existing WP article of the same title, is a goal. This is a change from existing explicit guidance. Let's find out if there's consensus for that (and if I've misrepresented your position, Dick, feel free to restate it). Discuss.... Dohn joe (talk) 23:51, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I started that discussion just before you, at #An alternative proposal above. Dicklyon (talk) 23:53, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, how about that. :) Thanks for anticipating me, Dick. Dohn joe (talk) 23:55, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

bilateral relations

Currently our convention for bilataral relations in "[country 1]endash[country 2] relations", where 1 and 2 are in noun form and in alphabetical order. This is unsatisfactory for several reasons, not least because it contravenes COMMONNAME. If you look up the results in GBooks, you'll find that sometimes the only sources which use these phrases are republications of WP articles. Normally, English uses adjectival forms, although there are exceptions, where the adj. form is not common. And while alphabetical order is an easy way to avoid arguments, it often conflicts with the normal tendency to put the longer name last. Also, in some cases we use almost-full names of countries, but not the actual full names. For the US, for example, we use "United States" rather than "US" or "United States of America". This produces some really awkward titles: Bosnia and Herzegovina–United States relations, for example, or Saudi Arabia–United States relations, or Saint Vincent and the Grenadines–United States relations, when normal English is US–Bosnian, US–Saudi, and US – St Vincent relations. This format has evidently been too much in some cases; rather than People's Republic of China–United States relations, for example, the article is currently at Sino-American relations. In other cases we use the format "Relations between [country 1] and [country 2]", and even when we use the "X–Y relations" format for the title, we often switch to one of the other formats for the lead, because otherwise it would just be too awkward.

Although I wouldn't advocate following it blindly, a generally good example of usage is the US Dept. of State site here: click on the country, then click on the "Background Notes" link near the top (not every country has one), then scroll down to "U.S. Relations", and they have titles like "U.S.-BOSNIAN RELATIONS". (They don't use our punctuation conventions, but that's a minor point.) I give the US govt site, because the articles dealing with the US are probably the largest fraction of awkward names. Or just search GBooks.

At least "Relations between Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and the United States" would be natural English, even if a bit formal. (You might argue that the two "and"s makes that ambiguous, but that is equivalent to the argument for spacing around the en dash, and those have all been removed from the article titles.) And while my examples all involved the US, the problem is not restricted to it: Germany–Japan relations, for example, rather than German–Japanese relations. (I moved that one, but it might get moved back.) The latter phrase has 400 non-WP hits on GBooks, the former has 1 (or 3, if you count listings in an index). Is this s.t. we should address? — kwami (talk) 04:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

  • Comment. I've mentioned this to kwami but thought I should just briefly restate it for all. My main hesitancy with changing the current naming format for these is mainly because these names have been extremely contentious over the years. I believe it took about 6 years of on-and-off debates—some quite heated—to arrive at the compromise format that is now used consistently across nearly all bilateral relations articles. (The article Sino-American relations is actually being discussed for a rename to the format currently, and looks like it might be going to China–United States relations.) The two-part compromise was (1) We will use the name of country as it appears in the WP article name for the country; and (2) the countries will be separated by an endash and will appear in alphabetical order. To re-open this might be very messy and may stoke some old grievances, is all I'm saying. Good Ol’factory (talk) 08:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I sympathize, and if the result had been normal English, such as relations between A and B, I wouldn't care, but these names are almost ungrammatical in many cases. We have a format that's being blindly applied even when it's inappropriate. — kwami (talk) 09:25, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I don't know if "ungrammatical" is the word you are looking for, but I think I get your meaning. If anything is changed, I would like to see these go through the regular WP:RM process, since the previous names were arrived at through many years' discussion and they shouldn't be changed without going through some sort of formal process. I do feel it's a shame to have to re-open an issue that was problematic for so long and managed to finally wind down into an unperfect but decent compromise. Good Ol’factory (talk) 20:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Could you point me at where such a compromise was made? The last discussion I knew about on this issue was this RfC were there was clearly no consensus on what name form to use. I accept that many editors in this field would like to be, and think there is, a consensus for noun form but the one discussion involving the wider community that I'm aware of (the RfC) clearly showed there isn't. Has there been discussion since that RfC that I am unaware of? The text at Wikipedia:WikiProject International relations#Bilateral relations still represents the results of the RfC. Dpmuk (talk) 23:20, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
AFAIK, there wasn't a central discussion at a wikiproject or guideline talk page that can be pointed to as the governing discussion. The development of the compromise was gradual and quite ad hoc. There were a series of mass article move nominations in the past two years where discussions were of this nature. I also remember seeing a particularly lengthy discussion on a user's talk page. I wasn't really heavily involved in any of the discussions so I don't have them bookmarked and I haven't intensely looked around to find them. I'm just speaking off some recollections that have spanned the past 3 years or so. But I think it would be great if we could have a discussion about it somewhere that is more central, more structured, and more publicized. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Broadly speaking, I agree with kwami's point. Some of the current titles are very unnatural. I think we should pay more attention to readers' expectations, rather than consistency with an old compromise between editors. If it turns out that a more readable title provokes talkpage drama then we can always move it back in those specific cases; but we have to try, at least. bobrayner (talk) 10:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Naturalness is one of our key criteria... titles should not be unnatural. Compromising subjective opinions is one thing; compromising principles is quite another. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I would recommend Xese–Yese relations (or Xian–Yian relations) when those are natural, and Relations between X and Y when they are not. Phrases like Sino-American relations I also find acceptable, though I understand wanting a degree of consistency, so that's a case we'd want to discuss explicitly: Sino-American, Chinese–American, or US–Chinese ? Checking every one in GBooks for frequency could be a nightmare (esp. as some are so infrequent as to make a search statistically meaningless), so agreeing on a default pattern is IMO a good idea.

Phrasal country names need specific instruction, and are often idiosyncratic. It looks like the two Chinas are now agreed to be China and Taiwan in such cases, so that seems to be settled. The US and UK should be addressed: US and UK, or British and American ? (Or one of each?) EU or European Union or European? Saudi or Saudi Arabian? The two Koreas? Can we sum this up as "use a one-word name where possible" (maybe with specific exceptions)?

There is a natural tendency to put the shorter name first. Lengths being approx. equal, I suspect there may be a tendency to put an anglophone country first; here we have a possible conflict between 'world view' and 'common name'. Except when using affixed forms: then the anglophone country tends to be second, as in Sino-American. — kwami (talk) 22:34, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Alan Liefting

I suggest that anyone interested in the titling of articles should take a look at User talk:Alan Liefting. Liefting has recently taken it upon himself to make a large series of page moves peremptorily without warning or discussion, based solely on his own interpretation of "redundancy". Several editors have reverted his moves, which he has promptly re-reverted.

It appears that he is now undertaking a similar "clean-up" of categories. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:53, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

There is additional discussion at Talk:Glossary of music#Move from "Glossary of music terminology" to "Glossary of music" that may be of interest. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:02, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
One again, you are inaccurate in your statements and a check of edit histories will show that. I reverted two page moves done by one editor who had reverted my page moves. I only did the reversion because I felt that the outcome of the discussion favoured my opinion. After the other editor reverted by revert (are you following here still...) I left things alone. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 03:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I apologize for having misunderstood the situation. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:00, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Lemonade out of lemons

I've been involved in some pretty ridiculous discussions, and I doubt anything will ever beat eight years of obstinate resisting to the obviously inevitable Yoghurt → Yogurt move, but the discussion (using that term loosely) that has been going on here for the last month (Since Dec 21) might deserve second place. It has been so absurd that I've been inspired to write an essay about the kind of tactics used here to blockade a rather straight-forward change that should not even have been controversial. If anyone wants to review it, I would appreciate it! Here it is:

Thanks, B2C

Romanized Sanskrit Vs. IAST

At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Yoga#Article Titles Of Asanas, I've noted the our articles on asanas have a few naming schemes which are not the same across the board. Could I get some feedback/comment/advice/help to the best convention of titling for our asanas?

List of asanas and Category:AsanaCategory:Asanas lists our asanas. I am not sure if there may bet other asana articles not listed on these pages.Curb Chain (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

A test case for WP:COMMONNAME?

See Talk:Republic of China#Requested Move (February 2012), a proposal to move Republic of China to Taiwan. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:03, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Not a very good test case, since both names are very common, and therefore essentially equally supportable by COMMONNAME, and since one of the authors of the RM has taken it on himself to classify half of the "oppose" votes as "challenged", making it look like the "support" votes are way ahead. Why must people be so judgmental? I think the alt proposal of making Taiwan either a redirect or a disambig makes a lot more sense, given the sensitivity associated with moving away from the official name to the informal name. ("When there are several names for a subject, all of them fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others."). The TITLE policy used to say "use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things"; that would clearly be the current title, so why mess with it? Dicklyon (talk) 00:36, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
"Republic of China" is "very common"? Ask around at the office... I bet most people who hear "Republic of China" think of the People's Republic of China (better known as China), not the government of Taiwan. But usage in the NY Times [2] is more definitive. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:18, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Not as common as "Taiwan", but Google books finds it to be quite common nevertheless. There are thousands of books with "the Republic of China Taiwan", but it's hard to know of the millions with "the Republic of China" how many are actually referring to the ROC. I'm not going to take a position on that RM, as I am not familiar with the issues, and there are plenty of contributors already, but I disagree with your approach that commoness is about all that matters, and trumps other concerns. Dicklyon (talk) 02:03, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
"Republic of China" is not common in the least in 2012, that's just a fatuous comment. But don't let (lack of) evidence get in the way of your taking sides in a dispute that you by your own admission know nothing about, simply on the basis it seems, not for the first time in my experience, of who you find on the one or other side of it (if you know nothing, how are you so sure "both names are very common"?). And it's not hard to find out the basic facts btw - you could always just read the proposal and look at the sources cited, for example, while gasping at the lack of reasoning or sources provided by anyone opposing the suggestion. N-HH talk/edits 02:39, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Could we emphasize facts like this one more than the hostility please? Art LaPella (talk) 04:06, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Dick, no one at the RM on the oppose side is arguing ROC is commonly used. The only argument being made by anyone supporting the move is based on COMMONNAME. All of the opposes are based on ignoring COMMONNAME in favor of other considerations. That's why I said it's a test case for COMMONNAME.

Sometimes you come across like you just want to disagree with anything I say. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:24, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

My point is that commonness is the only consideration you push, but that there may be others that are equally worth consideration. So what you mean is that it's a test case for your concept of the primacy of COMMONNAME over everything else. I agree with you if that's what you're saying. My other point was that COMMONNAME shouldn't be read as trumping the other consideration, especially when there are alternative names, common but less so. Dicklyon (talk) 04:37, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
I suggest this is not an appropriate place to express one's opinion about another editor's behavior. Anyway, it's not what I push that matters, it's what consensus prefers that matters, of course. Give that, it is my observation that with very few exceptions (primarily in a few categories of articles where predisambiguation is the convention - but even that is not as prevalent as it was, say, five years ago), if a topic has a single obvious commonly used name for which there are no other uses on WP, or for which the topic is the primary use of that name in reliable sources, then consensus prefers to use that name for the title of that topic's article. I suggest this is because such a title is almost certainly going to be recognizable, natural, precise and concise, and it's highly unlikely for some other name to meet this criteria better, in aggregate. Do you observe otherwise?

That said, this particular case is somewhat unusual in that there are some scope issues, because ROC refers specifically to the government, while "Taiwan" refers to both the government and the geographical place (and there is some debate about whether it includes the surrounding islands). But this talk page is not the place to get into those details. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:17, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Dick, "the most common name of [the topic of that article] that does not conflict with the names of other people or things" is not ROC. It is "Taiwan", especially if we use the WP definition of "conflict" which dismisses relatively minor conflicts for a primary topic like Taiwan. That is currently an article about the geographical island, which should be disambiguated like Hawaii (island) or Hawaiian Islands because the primary use of "Taiwan" is for the state/island concept, just like Hawaii, Greenland, Iceland, Jamaica, etc. are. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:26, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Tom Brown

Some here might be interested in this proposal to move Tom Brown's Schooldays to Tom Brown's School Days. What if the present title is the way the book is most commonly referred to and the proposed title is that of the first edition? —JerryFriedman (Talk) 14:26, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Back to clarifying precision

A bunch of open proposals and discussions got archived for unactivity. I'd like to revise one...

It has been observed that the section WP:PRECISE starts with a hard-to-interpret sentence, which recently attracted an editor to insert "not" into it, which left it no better and no worse. I propose this replacement for your consideration here:

Although additional precision is sometimes necessary when a potential title has multiple uses, or to reduce ambiguity, excess precision should be avoided. ...

As I said before, this restores a tiny bit of the concept that precision is to prevent ambiguity, a concept that was edited out some time ago, as the history (see archive) shows. It doesn't specifically define "excess precision", which is OK I think, and certainly better than defining it such that the only tolerable precision is the minimum needed to avoid name collisions. Comments? Dicklyon (talk) 06:51, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

This is what it currently says in the first two sentences:

When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided. Be precise, but only as precise as necessary.

Regardless of what it may have said in the past, consensus today (and has been for some time) is that the only reason to add additional precision to a title is to avoid ambiguity with an actual use of that exact title on WP. Otherwise, adding more precision should be avoided.

I won't deny that the wording could be improved - I'm sure it could. But this proposal seeks to change the meaning to allow for unnecessary precision. I don't agree with it, and I don't believe there is much support for such a change, much less consensus support. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:37, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Given the contention that has arisen over this in the past, I would admonish both Dicklyon and Born2Cycle not to weigh in on this any further. Both views are clear, although opposed. Leave room for others to weigh in and decide. This is neither the Harvard Debating Society where points are awarded for good arguments nor is it an election where the most votes win. In the interest of continuing the harmony we've experienced on this talk page for the last few weeks, I would encourage both editors to allow (silently) others to speak, --Mike Cline (talk) 02:02, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I see you struck your advice after a complaint from Born2cycle. I agree with him that the tone and timing weren't great, but I appreciate the idea. You can see what happens, next section down, when he is not so admonished. Dicklyon (talk) 18:47, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Unambiguous goal to replace Precise goal

Precision is not a goal for determining a title. It is a means to achieve an Unambiguity goal. I propose replacing the Precision "goal"

Precision – Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously.

with an Unambiguous goal, something like:

Unambiguous – Titles distinguish between articles with similar titles by making them more recognizable without unnecessarily impacting other goals (see below).

(Currently the goals are nouns: Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Concisness, Consistency. I prefer adjectives. They are simple and descriptive: Recognizable, Natural, Unambiguous, Concise, Consistent.) Jojalozzo 02:43, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

* Support. Yes, if you look objectively at how our articles are actually titled, it's obvious that precision is really not something we try to achieve, but avoiding ambiguity definitely is. Good call. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:42, 14 March 2012 (UTC) Persuaded to change. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:15, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

  • The current version is good. A lot of article titles are not totally unambiguous (which causes ubiquitous {{about}} and {{for}} dab hatnotes), put these title are devoid of ambiguity to a reasonable grade, i.e. are precise enough. Not that a title precise enough is a stronger condition than so named "primary topic", although it is weaker than the total unambiguity. Changing wording to "unambiguous" may suggest that the guideline requires the total, undisputed unambiguity, which is not always practical.Incnis Mrsi (talk) 07:34, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Well, this comes down to whether your interpretation of "ambiguous" means that Paris is ambiguous just because there are other uses of the name. The point of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is that even though there may be other uses of a given name, one use is so predominant in usage that using that name to refer to that use is not ambiguous. That said, someone looking for one of the other uses might still end up there, so we have the {{about}} and {{for}} dab hatnote - but that does not mean there is ambiguity. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:33, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment - The problem here is that people are thinking that Precision and Unambiguity are the same thing, and that is not the case. Precision ≠ Unambiguity. They are overlapping, but distinct concepts (Precision does involve unambiguity, but it is also related to the concept of "Accuracy"). We need to talk about both. So... while I support the idea of adding Unambiguity as a goal, I oppose the idea removing Precision as a goal (that said, I would agree that we need to re-write the goal of Precision, to distinguish it from Unambiguity.) Blueboar (talk) 13:32, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
    • We don't need to talk about both. AFAIK, the accuracy aspect of precision is never a consideration in choosing a WP title. Do you know otherwise? Examples? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:33, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Same example I gave before... we recently changed the old title of "Christianity and Freemasonry" to its current title "Opposition to Freemasonry within Christianity" as the new title was more precise. The old title was weaselly and imprecise... the new title more accurately describes what the article is actually about. Blueboar (talk) 16:52, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Okay, yeah, you're right, in descriptive titles precision plays a role. Not in titles of topics that have names, however, which is the vast majority of our articles. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:55, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Well... in "proper name" titles, you can't get much more precise than the subject's name... so the goal of precision is met by deciding to use a name in the first place (We could have entitled the Barak Obama article with the descriptive (but imprecise) title: "The current President of the United States") However, there is the added complication that people and places often have more than one variation of their name... Winston Churchill... Sir Winston Churchill... Winston S. Churchill... Winston Spencer Churchill... etc. This is where the "only as precise as is needed" idea comes into play (Barak Obama vs. Barack Hussein Obama II- and where Recognizably might take precedence over Precision (Bill Clinton vs William Clinton)... and this is also where the goal of precision intersects with goal Unambiguity (George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Being more precise isn't the only way to disambiguate ... and it may not be the best way to disambiguate... but it is a way to disambiguate. Blueboar (talk) 18:45, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Is Paris "precise" in your view? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:46, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it is precise. Same with London, Moscow, and other major capital cities around the world. While we could make these titles even more precise by adding a country name ("Paris, France", "London, England", "Moscow, Russia") doing is considered overly precise, given the circumstances. That said, we do use further precision to disambiguate all the cities and towns that were named after these major ones (such as Paris, Texas, London, Ontario and Moscow, Kansas). Blueboar (talk) 22:33, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose – per Blueboar, I don't think we ought to give up the goal of making titles specify somewhat precisely what the article topic is. "Unambiguity" is automatic, anyway, in the way you use it, since the software won't let us name two articles the same thing. Dicklyon (talk) 18:50, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Maybe we're not using the terms the same way. What does "ambiguous" and "unambiguous" mean to you? Jojalozzo 00:48, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Partial Support - per Blueboar. Add Unambiguity, but keep precision. However, we need specific wordings for each in the proposal. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:15, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment/Request - As I see it, precision is a technique (not a goal) that achieves the goals of Unambiguous and Recognizable. We use precision to make a topic recognizable from the title and if it's still not clear how the topic differs from another topic (i.e. if it's ambiguous), we use more precision to make the title sufficiently recognizable that it's unambiguous. I think that if title meets Recognizable and Unambiguous then it, ipso facto, satisfies the Precision "goal".
I am often wrong, still learning about writing an encyclopedia and I welcome help in understanding these issues. I'd appreciate it if someone could provide some examples of titles that meet the goals of Unambiguous and Recognizable but are insufficiently precise or, in some way, do not meet the Precision "goal". Jojalozzo 00:48, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Why are there editors who claim that their articles follow Wikipedia:Article_titles but don`t

e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Big_Bang_Theory in violation of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_%28television%29#Episodic_television

Will there be a Pan-Wikipedia Television Naming Convention cleanup, or at the very least, full, self-consistency — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.94.204.129 (talk) 04:38, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

There have already been several move requests on this. The issue is that the IP thinks the scientific theory about the origin of the universe is more important than a TV show... He/she thinks that the title "Big Bang Theory" should point to the article on the scientific theory and not the TV show . Thus, he/she desires a parenthetical disambiguation for the title of the article on the TV show.
What he/she is not understanding is that the two topics are already disambiguated. The article on the scientific theory is at Big Bang (without the word "theory"). Please note that Big Bang theory (with the word "theory", but note the small "t" in "theory") is a redirect to Big Bang... even if we went with that title, we would not need disambiguation because the article on the TV show would continue to be at: The Big Bang Theory (with the word "The" and a capital letter "T"). This would be similar to our example of Red Meat and Red meat. Blueboar (talk) 13:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
I haven't been following this talk page very closely, so I don't know if this has been discussed here before, but I would interpret the IP's comment as indicating that readers are confused by this sort of disambiguation—and by implication as a proposal to reformulate part of this policy. I would interpret it as a proposal to include,in the section on precision and disambiguation, something conveying the meaning "Disambiguation or differentiation on the basis of 'unexpected' criteria (such as spelling, use of the definite article, capitalization, punctuation, or typographic attributes) should be avoided". --Boson (talk) 09:38, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to require no-diacritics names

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis/Tennis names#RfC: Can a wikiproject require no-diacritics names, based on an organisation's rule or commonness in English press?. This has also been raised at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#See Talk:Sasa Tuksar. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 18:36, 19 March 2012 (UTC) — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 18:36, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Diacritics in proper names are also being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Proper names 1#Diacritics. It really would be nice if similar discussions could at least be advertised in the same place. --Boson (talk) 20:03, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
Diacritics are essentially just a form of spelling variation... as such they are not really within the scope of this policy. Blueboar (talk) 02:43, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Year in the title

Your comments on Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(events)#Year_in_the_title will be appreciated. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 09:57, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Titles of Indian film titles

An issue has come up in regards to whether India is an English speaking country, and what bearing this has on article titles. It seems to me there isn't a thorough grasp on policy in the discussion, so it would benefit from some more informed opinions. The discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (films)#Titles of Indian film articles. Betty Logan (talk) 07:13, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

It does not matter whether India is an English speaking country or not... what matters is that there are many English language sources published in India, and these should be examined along with those published in other nations. Blueboar (talk) 17:52, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom warning

Yikes! A warning template at the top of a policy page? What an unfriendly way to welcome editors! A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:56, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

And it would be helpful it the warning contained a link to the ArbCom case. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:56, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
It looks like I found it.[3] Can we move the warning from the policy page to edit page? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:00, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
An arbitration clerk did that, so maybe you should ask him. Art LaPella (talk) 22:19, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I recommend that you boldly move it, and see if anyone balks. There's no sensible reason for the stop sign on a page that editors are supposed to refer to. Same on WP:MOS. Dicklyon (talk) 22:20, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I moved the template. Please revert if you disagree with the edit. - Eureka Lott 00:03, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Policy, or guideline?

In light of the continuing discussion at Talk:Fort Worth where people have various different feelings and interpretations about what our naming practices are or should be, I'm reminded that many of us had agreed that having this page be called "policy" is a bad idea. What do people think about relabeling it as a guideline? Dicklyon (talk) 19:08, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't remember any "agreement" on that. I think this should be a "Policy" page and not a guideline. That said, some of the things we talk about on this page are better presented as "best practice" guidance than "firm and fast rules"... and we could do a better job of distinguishing which bits are which. Blueboar (talk) 19:29, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. Anyone who disagrees with anything this page or any other policy page says should simply see if there is consensus support for his or her view, and, if so, try to get it changed. Trying to circumvent that process by weakening the policy authority placed on this page by community consensus is not only contrary to WP:CONSENSUS, but will only lead to more ambiguity and disagreement. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:31, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
  • I am of course opposed to this idea. This would put core titling principles like WP:COMMONNAME, WP:CRITERIA, and WP:UE on the same level as WP:USPLACE, a poorly thought out guideline that I have denounced vigorously over at the Fort Worth RM. Kauffner (talk) 03:19, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Support—I see utterly no substantive reason put by the two opposers above. Should we make a counterproposal that our style guides be made policy? I ask: what is the key difference, then? Tony (talk) 03:28, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
The key difference is that when there is conflict, policy trumps guideline/styleguide. It's like in U.S. law the Constitution trumps a specific law when there is a conflict. It's a critical distinction. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:03, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Tony1 as I wrote last time you raised this point in a section titled Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 32#retitling the "Naming conventions" on 11 July 2011:
Aide-mémoire from August 2008: Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 11#Discussion -- PBS (talk) 23:11, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment - We wouldn't be justified in making such a change based on this discussion. At minimum this would require a centralized RfC, e.g. at Village Pump (policy). If anyone here is serious about this then please escalate it now. Jojalozzo 23:37, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that the current title "policy" is a big mixed bag, with little or nothing at the same level as WP:V, WP:NPOV, and such policies. What is it that policy requires? It's clear why people who are in control of it want to keep it as policy, so they can claim it trumps other guidelines, but that seems to cause more trouble than solutions. It would seem more logical to work on the guidelines when there are differences of opinion, and either iron them out or leave some flexibility. The constant attempts to apply title policy as rigid prescription, ignoring what would work best for readers, isn't really helping anything. The USPLACE guideline, or example, seems to me like a good idea idea, but some say that we should ignore it because TITLE policy requires us to move Hatboro, Pennsylvania to just Hatboro. Dicklyon (talk) 01:33, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree, for what it's worth. Blueboar's first comment here basically admitted that it is a guideline anyway ("some of the things we talk about on this page are better presented as "best practice" guidance than "firm and fast rules""). Besides that, policies don't "trump" shit, regardless.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 04:10, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
I really hate it when I am quoted out of context... I said "some", not "all"... there are (other) things we talk about that are better presented as being "firm and fast rules". Many of our policy pages present guidance... as well as rules. Blueboar (talk) 12:59, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
It's a fuzzy line, certainly. I still think that your quote supports what myself and Dicklyon are saying though. The main goal of this page is to provide guidance, even if it does have some imperatives to it. Marking it as a "guideline" doesn't make those imperatives any less important, which is a common misconception that seems to crop up among those of us who really get involved in policy and guideline pages in my experience (which is what I was saying above: "policies don't "trump" shit, regardless"). Do you really put this page in the same category as the "Neutral Point of View" or "Verifiability" pages? I'm not talking about importance, but in character. (Here's a thought that just occurred to me: do we need another axis of categorization here? Maybe "Core", vs. "General" and "Specialty" policies and guidelines?)
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:01, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

ambiguity

At Talk:Discrimination based on skin color#Requested move, there is some disagreement over whether the "ambiguity" referred to in the "nutshell" summary of WP:AT means "ambiguity" in general, or specifically ambiguity limited to the space of Wikipedia article titles. That is, if the (made-up) word "killbar" had a number of meanings in English, but only one of those meanings has (or is likely to have) a Wikipedia article, is "killbar" an ambiguous title for purposes of this policy? Powers T 13:06, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The definitive definition for "ambiguous" can be found in the lead of WP:D: "Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles." My emphasis.

If people are interpreting it differently based on what's written on this page, then it needs to be corrected/clarified on this page. It makes no sense to work with two different definitions of "ambiguous" when deciding titles. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:07, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I've made some clarifying edits on WP:AT regarding the meaning of "ambiguous" and "unambiguous" that are consistent with similar clarifications at WP:PRECISION and WP:D. It's only reasonable to presume that those longstanding clarifications have consensus support, and we know from above that these terms are sometimes interpreted more broadly when they are not clarified accordingly. It's unfortunate to have this clumsy redundancy, but I see no other way to avoid misunderstanding. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:25, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Ambiguity on this page concerns the ability to distinguish article topics from one another. I suspect the discussion you refer to would be better informed by the guidance on "recognizability" and COMMONNAME. Jojalozzo 16:43, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Born... I am not sure whether I agree with your edits or not... but I do wish you would discuss changes before you make them. As to the specifics... I am not sure if I understand why ambiguity is an issue... I don't see how "Discrimination based on skin color" is an ambiguous title (whether in general or limited to the space of Wikipedia titles). It seems a perfectly unambiguous descriptive title that accurately reflects what the topic of the article is. Blueboar (talk) 16:45, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
JoJalozzo... I don't think WP:COMMONNAME applies... that provision relates to situations when we are choosing between two proper names ... but Discrimination based on skin color is a descriptive title, not a proper name. Blueboar (talk) 16:51, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying. I need reminding not to generalize that guidance. Naturalness covers that ground somewhat I think. Jojalozzo 17:32, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Blueboar, this talk page is replete with efforts to discuss first that go no where. That's the point of BRD - the "bold" edit is what gets interested parties engaged. I do agree the standards need to be much higher on policy pages. In particular, any policy page edit should be supported with high confidence that it is supported by consensus. I strongly disagree with reverting for no reason other than "this was not discussed".

As to Discrimination based on skin color - that discussion belongs on that talk page. The only aspect of it relevant here is the discussion about "ambiguous" means, particularly in the nutshell. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:01, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

  • All of this is born out of a dispute, which makes this discussion and the attempt to impose a change in policy (by editing the nutshell) look like nothing more than an attempt at point-scoring, to me. Maybe if this is shelved for some period of time we can re-address it under less confrontational circumstances.
    — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:05, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Please look at the situation a bit closer instead of judging by prejudice and ignorance. The main "dispute" at Talk:Discrimination based on skin color#Requested move is about whether to move that article to Colorism. So far opposition to that proposal is almost unanimous; only Powers seems to support it.

      However, one of the man who is opposing that proposal has opposed based on "Colorism" being "ambiguous" - and Powers has correctly challenged that particular reasoning. That side discussion, which is essentially irrelevant to the main dispute there, is what is relevant here and to the edits that I made.

      The idea that these changes were made by me to score points there is ridiculous, considering I'm opposed[4] to that move. Why can't we discuss these edits objectively without regard to that particular dispute? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:15, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

      • It's not prejudice or ignorance, I'm just trying to point out that yourself and others are in "the heat of the moment" over this issue. You've stated a position in a debate, and as a result of the discussion at that debate have come here and edited policy to support your position (the actual "oppose" or "support" in the dispute is immaterial), so I think that recommending you give this time to cool off and coming back to it later is the gracious position to take here. Even beside all of that, Bold and Revert have occurred, so now we're Discussing. If you really want to know my opinion, I think that it's a bit ridiculous to (re)define "ambiguous" here.
        — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:06, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
        • Ohms, I think you're over analyzing this. First, Born2Cycle was not involved in the move discussion prior to this and had no stated position on that topic prior to "com[ing] here and edit[ing] policy" (and when he did express a position, he was in agreement with the majority on the merits of the move request). Second, for myself, I came here not to get the policy changed but to try to obtain the opinion of frequent WP:AT contributors regarding whose interpretation of the policy's wording is correct. If I "give this time to cool off" as you suggest, the move request will close and there will no longer be a need to request clarification for purposes of informing the move request; on the contrary, I would prefer to get that clarification as quickly as possible given given how imminent the closure of the move request is. Powers T 23:31, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
          Maybe I am over-analyzing this (it wouldn't be the first time!), but see #Reverted undiscussed changes in midst of dispute immediately below...
          — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:03, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Reverted undiscussed changes in midst of dispute

(edit conflict)I am reverting recent changes that were not discussed first. It is inappropriate to modify a guidance or policy page in the midst of dispute that refers to it. Please rein in the impulse to adjust policy to resolve conflicts. Our recent Arbcom process taught us that changes to guidance and policy need special care and clear consensus. I think this sets a inappropriate precedent. Jojalozzo 16:43, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I made those changes confident that they are consistent with broad consensus, and without regard to the dispute referred to above (to which it is a peripheral issue at most), and explained why above. Can you please comment on the substantive merits or issues with the changes you reverted. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:04, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Process is important, especially on policy and guidance pages.
1) I am not confident that the changes reflect broad consensus. The fact that some editors think ambiguity might have a different interpretation than the one you assumed is broadly accepted is enough for me to want to verify it.
2) It is inappropriate to make changes, especially to policy pages, that directly impact an ongoing dispute.
Jojalozzo 17:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Regarding (2), that's great in theory, but in practice this point is really not relevant to that discussion, which should arguably be closed per WP:SNOW. I know of no "ongoing dispute" about this. Do you?

As to (1), in my explanation of my edits above, I quoted longstanding clarifications about the meaning of "ambiguous" from WP:D and WP:AT (specifically, WP:PRECISION). Do you believe consensus support for those meanings is in question? --Born2cycle (talk) 17:37, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

This response concerns me coming on the heels of the Arbcom decision. I fear we are moving back to the ways that got us into Arbcom in the first place. I do not see a need for making those changes without checking with the community first, especially since some of the language that was changed has been under extensive discussion and there is no consensus for how to correct the problems that we have already identified there. Likewise, I disagree that the dispute at Talk:Discrimination based on skin color#Requested move should be closed. There appears to be support for both sides, I respect their efforts to work it out, and I think it is unhelpful to change policy while they are working with it. Jojalozzo 18:07, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Support for both sides? There are only oppose !votes. Anyway, I am checking with the community now. You are part of that community. I'm checking with you. Can you please forget about that proposal and just focus on these edits to this policy without regard to that discussion? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:18, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
@B2C: I think it is likely that you know the changes may be considered contentious. There's not such a great rush that you can be so bold. If past behaviour is anything to go by, your expression of "confidence that they are consistent with broad consensus" could be a calculated move on your part to put in wording that conforms to your world view. I apologise in advance if I'm being too cynical. I would nevertheless ask you to kindly desist and leave changing the guideline to others not involved in pushing one view or another, when the discussion has run its course. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 08:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
No, there should be reason these edits should be contentious. The lack of any argument explaining an objection to them is telling. Are you suggesting only uninvolved admins should make actual edits to policy pages? That ArbCom case made no sense whatsoever. My edit/position under scrutiny there (regarding the clarification to responsibility) was ultimately shown to be supported unanimously by the community, just as I originally said. There was no reason for that edit to have been contentious, and it wasn't. Ultimately then and now the only contentious aspect about the edit was that B2C made it. There too there never was a substantive argument against the edit. Now again you and others are not talking about the change itself, but all these peripheral issues. It's really unfair, uncivil and disruptive to treat me (or anyone for that matter) like this. Why are you doing it? --Born2cycle (talk) 08:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
Yep, it's indeed a peripheral issue; but if more attention had been paid to peripheral issues, to form and due process, chances are the case would never have got to Arbcom. Yet you seem to be going hell for leather as if nothing has happened. Maybe you can judge for yourself if an admin is likely to come and administer a warning or block, maybe you can't. Perhaps you ought to play it safe, rather than continue to push the boat out? There can be a happy ending if you weren't so octane-charged. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 09:21, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
The reason that case when to ArbCom is because there was no substantive discussion about the edit itself, and there was all this discussion about the same peripheral issues now being discussed here. There was no point to it then, and there is no point to it here. Also, in that case, there were repeated edits to the policy page itself; that is not happening this time. Anyway, why don't you discuss the edit and proposal itself? --Born2cycle (talk) 09:28, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
Of course you're right, as you have been all along. ;-) --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 09:38, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
  • B2C, I've been out of circulation for a week and I haven't looked at the current imbroglio; but already, just from this thread, there's the same smell that led to the arbcom case. While I'll fight for your right to say that the case "made so sense whatsoever", could you pause for a moment to reflect on why you were warned and why there's a discretionary sanctions notice is at the top of this page now? No, on second though, don't: an extended tennis match on this is the last thing I want at the moment. You say, "are you suggesting only uninvolved admins should make actual edits to policy pages?" Well that would be better than the edit-first-discuss-later model that seems to be gaining a foothold again. I can't participate at this page until you take a more practical stance, more socially sensitive. Parts of this policy appear to be controversial at the moment, so any change should probably be announced and discussed here first. I mean no offence, and want you to continue to contribute to this page; but will you please agree to discuss before you edit the policy? Tony (talk) 10:08, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
    • YES. I agree to not make edits to this policy page before discussing them on the talk page. Now will you agree to actually discuss the changes when they are proposed? Can we now please discuss the actual proposal below? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:50, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: Clarification of ambiguity

The nutshell description on this page is currently:

Article titles should be recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources.

The summary description of the "precision" criterion under WP:CRITERIA is:

Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously.

WP:COMMONNAME currently states:

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

The use of "ambiguous" in these statements is, well, ambiguous. Taken in isolation, they can be interpreted in the narrow sense, with respect to being ambiguous with other Wikipedia titles, or in the broad sense, with respect to all other uses in English. However, whenever the term's meaning is clarified in policy and guidelines, it is clear that it is intended to be interpreted in the narrow sense. The opening statement of WP:D is:

Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles.

Also, WP:PRECISION states:

... when a topic's most commonly used name, as reflected in reliable sources, is ambiguous (can refer to more than one topic covered in Wikipedia), ...

One might think that having the meaning/scope clarified in those places is sufficient, but we have evidence that because "ambiguous" is used ambiguously in the places cited above, it is argued that it should be interpreted in the broad sense[5].

I therefore propose we clarify the meaning of the term in the above places to be consistent with WP:D and WP:PRECISION. Specifically, these changes are proposed.

Please indicate whether you support or oppose these changes, and explain why. If your opposition has nothing to do with substance but only with timing because this issue was brought to our attention during the just-cited dispute, please indicate whether you would support or oppose the changes a week ago, or, say, a month from now, and why. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:54, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

  • As I said above, this is a bit ridiculous. The phrase "Mountain out of a molehill" springs to mind. "Ambiguous" here applies to much more than disambiguation, and the dictionary definition is perfectly acceptable for those who need additional guidance. We don't need to provide definitions of every word given in policy.
    — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:10, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Then how do we resolve disputes where one side is based on interpreting a term used in policy using a broad/general dictionary definition, and the other side is based on using a definition specified elsewhere in the policy? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
      • How about getting an uninvolved party to come along and apply their reasoning and understanding of policy to determine how things should be settled on a case by case basis? (sound familiar?)
        — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:40, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
        • So every case should be subject to being decided by the whim of whatever uninvolved admin happens to come along? Sorry, but I don't think that's helpful.

          Policy should be clear enough so that reasonable people all interpret it the same way. If they don't, that in and of itself suggests the policy needs to be improved. Policy should be written and improved to discourage WP:JDLI rationalizations, not enable them. Leaving wording open and ambiguous to interpretation enables JDLI rationalizations. Is that what you support? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:04, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

          • And you probably make a good point about a policy being clear. However we have multiple policies and that is probably where the problem is. Each policy seeks to address a specific area of possible concern. So when you have an issue that is governed by multiple policies confusion can reign. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:43, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
          • I disagree with the "policy should be rigid" train of thought (even if specific issues may be good candidates to be give more rigid rules), and historically Wikipedia has as well. I think that this will be a long uphill slog to gain any sort of (lasting) consensus to go in this direction. I for one see nothing to convince me that making policy more rigid would be beneficial.
            — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:02, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
            • Vegaswikian, I agree in general that "when you have an issue that is governed by multiple policies confusion can reign", but in this specific case, regarding the intended meaning of ambiguity, every place that clarifies what it means seems to be consistent with every other place. In particular, WP:D and WP:AT (WP:PRECISION) say almost exactly the same thing. So I don't see how that concern applies to this issue, or to this proposal. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
              • Addressing the "every place that clarifies what it means" point, that's almost certainly true (you've looked, after all), but it also ignores the context that the word "ambiguity" is being used in. Of course, "ambiguity" only really has one definition... well, two actually, but their essentially the same... which is basically my point here. Context makes a bit of a difference here, so I'm basically suspicious of copying from a piece of another policy to this policy right away. (The second immediate strike against the specific edit that started this is that I don't think it's a wise decision to be adding parenthetical content to the nutshell, which should be as succinct as is reasonable.)
                — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:51, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

This constant push to neuter "precision" and "recognizability" in favor of "conciseness" is tiring. We should be going the other way, and seeking to have titles that provide more value to the reader, rather than just trying to avoid namespace collisions. Dicklyon (talk) 22:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Good luck. While support for that may be building, I don't think it is strong enough at this time to even allow it to be added as a consideration to the policy. Maybe a straw vote to see if the idea has any support? Vegaswikian (talk) 22:22, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
You may be right, but I miss the reader focus to titling; things like "Name an article as precisely as is necessary to indicate accurately its topical scope" and "article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity" that we had back in 2009. I'm not convinced there was any consensus involved in their neutering, just persistent hacking away at them by a few owners of this policy. Dicklyon (talk) 23:31, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
I tend to agree.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:15, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Ohms Law, no one is suggesting that "policy should be rigid" (let's not conflate clarity with rigidity). Dicklyon, no one is arguing that "precision" and "recognizability" should be neutered in favor of "conciseness". Why don't people address what is actually being proposed rather than what they imagine to be occurring in their minds? I tried to use very specific wording and justification in my proposal. Is it not clear? --Born2cycle (talk) 23:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

What part of "Precision – Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously" wouldn't be neutered by defining ambiguity as simply namespace collisions? Dicklyon (talk) 23:33, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Dicklyon, Wikipedia:AT#Precision_and_disambiguation already states that it applies when "additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name" and "where there is more than one existing Wikipedia article for another meaning of a desired title". It also reminds us "that concise titles are preferred.". Finally, it states that "ambiguous" means "can refer to more than one topic covered in Wikipedia".

If you believe limiting precision to namespace collisions neuters precision, well, then, precision is already neutered by your interpretation - and, so, this proposed change won't neuter precision any more than a veterinarian can neuter a castrated male dog. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:07, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

  • Comment - I think this discussion should be broadened to address the larger issues of what each titling goal means and how they all work together (questions like Dick's, above). It won't be resolved by piecemeal copy edits - that's how we got the confusing language we have today. Jojalozzo 23:53, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Jojalozzo - reluctance to clarify ambiguous wording to be consistent with more precise wording is what leads to confusion - the type of changes being proposed here is an antidote to confusion, not a cause of it. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:07, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
I disagree. Additionally, I think that following that train of reasoning for any length of time will (and has) lead to people being bludgeoned with policy, which I don't think is desirable.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:26, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
You disagree? You believe clarifying the meaning of a term to be consistent with other uses of that term within a given context (in this case a WP policy page, but it could be a research paper, an instruction manual, a textbook, an essay, or even a poem) increases confusion? If that's what you mean, can you explain how? And how does that reasoning lead to people being "bludgeoned with policy"? I agree bludgeoning with policy is not desirable - but I think more clarity in policy makes it less likely to be used for bludgeoning, not more likely.

The same principle applies with laws in the real world, by the way. Authoritarian police love ambiguity in the law, because the more open it is to interpretation, the more free they are to use it however they want in whatever situation they want. That's why in the real world I'm an advocate for clarity in the law, and in WP for clarity in policy/guidelines. The more we all agree about what policy is, the less debate, and bludgeoning, there will be. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:09, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that if you define ambiguity as simply namespace collision, then you'd need to use a different word in "precision." You can tell from older versions what the meaning was there, in statements like "article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity" and "Name an article as precisely as is necessary to indicate accurately its topical scope", and "Readers should not have to read into the article to find which of several meanings of the title is the actual subject", that the meaning of "ambiguity" has been repurposed ("repurposed" is quoting Arthur Rubin from an edit summary of one of times that he reverted B2C's repurposing of terms to neuter the provisions). I agree that B2C has already largely neutered these provisions; I'm just saying that I object to him finishing the job by formalizing the definitions to say that the new "precision" point has no bearing on anything ever. Dicklyon (talk) 01:19, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
Here's another of B2C's attempts to neuter recognizability and precision. And here he cuts the nuts off "consistency" for the same purpose. Dicklyon (talk) 01:36, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
How are these changes from three years ago relevant to this proposal, except as an attempt to denigrate the proposer here? --Born2cycle (talk) 01:48, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
They are illustrations of how badly wrong this policy has gone under your guidance in the last 3 years. Can we go back and start over? Dicklyon (talk) 02:08, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)B2C has neutered these provisions? Come on, Dicklyon, you can't put that on me. This statement, for example, is from August 2007, which I believe is before I ever made any changes to these pages: "Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic, making that term likely to be the natural choice of title for more than one article. In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to the different article pages that could use essentially the same term as their title."[6]. And yes, WP:AT already linked to WP:D back then when referring to disambiguation.

There has been an effort, of which I was part, to bring consistency in terminology across WP:AT and WP:D. This proposal is in that vein, to be sure. But what you're saying is completely different - you're challenging the meaning of "ambiguous" in the places where it is already clarified to mean namespace collision. If there is consensus support for that challenge, then I too will support it, but this reminds me of your challenge to my change to the recognizability wording, even after Greg L's poll showed it had unanimous support (see Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles/Archive_35#Poll:). --Born2cycle (talk) 01:40, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I oppose Born2cycle's proposed changes as inappropriately narrowing the policy. We might well reject a natural, recognizable, precise name for being ambiguous because, e.g., it is incomplete. (Consider "Clinton" vs "Bill Clinton".) These changes are not an improvement and do not accurately reflect the community's actual views on the subject. Avoiding disambiguation problems is the most important case covered by this item, but it is not the only case covered. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:41, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
First, thank you for addressing the substance of the proposal. Second, Nixon/Richard Nixon is a better example than Clinton/Bill Clinton because the community considers Clinton to be ambiguous in the narrow sense (it's a dab page), while Nixon is not (it redirects to Richard Nixon). But is that because "Nixon" is considered ambiguous in the broad sense? I don't think so. I think that's because the convention used in reliable sources for referring to people is "<first name> <last name>", and WP:NCP reflects that.

Anyway, I understand what you're saying in theory, but honestly don't see it in practice. I mean, if titles are supposed to be unambiguous in the broad/general sense, then I suggest all of the following actual current article titles are problematic: Paris (city or god?), Wine (beverage, color, software, film?) , Cold (temperature? virus?), Prehistoric Women (anthropological issue? film?), I Didn't Know You Cared (song? film? book?), 1670 Broadway (what?), She's Got You (song? film? book?), Amadeus (play? film?), Doctor Zhivago (book? film?).

That's just a list off the top of my head and with a little help from SPECIAL:RANDOM. The point is that titles that are ambiguous in the broad sense are the norm on WP - I don't see any evidence whatsoever that the community tries to make titles unambiguous in the broad sense, only in the narrow sense, specifically to avoid article title namespace collisions with other uses, taking into account the concept of primary topic and other WP:D considerations. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:47, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, there has been considerable disagreement, though little debate, about how to handle the ambiguity of Doctor Zhivago, which has at various times referred to the novel, the 1965 film, and the disambig page. Arguably, more English speakers would recognize it as the film than as the original book. I don't think there's any question that people will know the topic of Paris and Wine without reading into the article. And since there's a Prehistoric Women (1967 film), it's hard to see why someone would think a primarytopic claim for the 1950 film is justified; shit happens. And She's Got You doesn't have so much as a hatnote to She's Got You (EP), so I wouldn't hold that up as an example of anything but carelessness. Amadeus also deviates from normal practice, in the structure of the disambig page Amadeus (disambiguation) conflicting with the dubious PRIMARY claim. Some titles are ambiguous primarily because that's what the guidelines encourage (though I see no excuse for Cold). Certainly the guidelines are often invoked in RM discussions, so they influence titling as least as much as they reflect it. Dicklyon (talk) 04:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
The point is, just because Doctor Zhivago and the others are ambiguous in the broad/general sense is not a reason we don't have an article at each of those titles (not to mention that countless other similar situations). The ambiguity with which WP is concerned is ambiguity with other uses in the title namespace, and even there often articles are found at titles ambiguous in the narrower sense, when the article's topic is considered primary for that title.

BTW, the "considerable disagreement" about Doctor Zhivago is an example of "considerable disagreement" caused by lack of clarity in our policy and guidelines regarding title decisions. In this case the problem is caused by the ambiguity in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, because usage indicates one article (the film) while long-term significance indicates another (the book). Not only does WP:PRIMARYTOPIC suggest using two criteria, each of which indicates a different topic, but it also does not give guidance on how to resolve conflicting situations like this. This is why I advocate a clear/simple definition of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC based entirely on usage, and not at all on long-term significance, but consensus is definitely not with me on that one.

One can argue reader benefit based on either usage or long-term significance, but is choosing either title that much more beneficial to readers than the other? I suggest not. So we have disagreement, debate and consternation... to what end? Is there even an end? On the other hand, if we always only went by usage, then there would be much less (if any) disagreement and debate about such titles, and the readers would be no worse off. This is why I see only an upside to bringing in more clarity to titling policy and guidelines. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:37, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I have not been following this topic, but just now happened to wander by; and out of curiosity I typed doctor zh in the searchbox. My question is, when there is no obvious "primary topic", why try to choose one? Personally I would much prefer to find
  • Doctor Zhivago (film)
  • Doctor Zhivago (novel)
popping up as clear choices than the present
  • Doctor Zhivago (film)
  • Doctor Zhivago
that does pop up, and leaves me guessing as to what the undisambiguated entry might be. If it were me, I would write the guideline to say that when the primary topic is not absolutely clear and uncontroversial, disambiguate all entries. Milkunderwood (talk) 10:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
The title and disambiguation policies and guidelines were developed long before the auto-suggestion feature in the WP search box was implemented, and, because the search box is not the only way topics on WP are sought, its impact on search is often not considered. What you're saying is we should rethink and re-evaluate how and when we disambiguate our titles, taking this feature into account. I don't know if there is consensus support for that idea - but such a proposal probably belongs on WT:D, not here. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:36, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

As I believe is re-explained to you every time we have one of these discussions, it is not always possible to find a title that perfectly meets every single criteria. Nixon redirects to Richard Nixon, but the article resides at his full name, i.e., at the article title that cannot be confused with Nixon (film) or Nixon (album) or Nixon (surname) or any of the other items listed at Nixon (disambiguation).

The conventional "<first name> <last name>" pattern for names is the reason we chose to put the article at Richard Nixon rather than at Nixon (president). It is not the primary reason why we gave the article a non-ambiguous title in the first place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Tony's alternative proposal

  • I agree with what Dicklyon and Joja are saying. My own take is that some of the key principles in the policy are vague and open to interpretation per se, and that the sticky examples are really hard to resolve with the current policy "tools". I believe the policy should express the essentials (e.g. non-collision), and should go on to express a set of desirables that need to be balanced against each other. This sort of approach I suggested back in January, I think it was, with a large coloured diagram borrowed from the canvassing policy, with an analogue in a proposed approach to plagiarism determination – both of which involve nuanced balancing rather than binary decisions. Tony (talk) 10:49, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
    Well said. We need to avoid as much rigidity as possible with this policy, I think. Article titles are rather notoriously hard to fit into an algorithmic approach, which is where most of the conflict with them comes from I think. I understand the compulsion to make an attempt at reducing the conflicts that arise over names, especially when there are many similar discussions taking place over time, but I think that taking that compulsion much further than providing recommendations is a mistake. Actively attempting to prevent arguments does more to cause arguments than simply allowing them to occur naturally, in my experience.
    — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
    What do you mean by we "need to avoid as much rigidity as possible"? That unclear/vague guidance is preferred over clear guidance? How does that make WP better? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:53, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
    "need to avoid as much rigidity as possible" is exaggerated (eliminating all rules would accomplish that goal) but remember that almost all rules have exceptions. Art LaPella (talk) 21:11, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
    Yea, it's a bit exaggerated I suppose... although, against the backdrop of this proposal, I think that "exaggerated" is itself exaggerated (this train of thought is getting too "meta", dangit...). I'd actually like to see this policy page go in the other direction than this proposal, which is where Tony, Dick, and Joja seem to be leaning towards themselves.
    — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 21:22, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
    Can you explain how less "rigidity" (I think that's a misnomer, per IAR, and clarity in policy is the more accurate term for what we're disagreeing about here - you favor less clarity/more ambiguity in policy wording) in title policy improves WP, or why going "in that direction" improves WP? --Born2cycle (talk) 21:47, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
    Also, don't we agree that policy - including in terms of how much rigidity/clarity there is in the wording - should be determined by actual practice, not personal preference? The proposal I made is an effort to have the policy reflect better/closer actual practice in terms of how titles are selected with respect to "ambiguity". I suggest most RM closers will agree that in actual practice that the concept of "ambiguity" is interpreted by the community in the context of title selection in terms of title namespace... ambiguity with usage not covered in WP is generally considered irrelevant. This is what policy says where this is clarified; why not say it in the other place too, to make sure policy reflects actual practice as best as possible? --Born2cycle (talk) 21:54, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
    Well, part of the problem here is that I don't think that the edit which started this discussion added more clarity at all. It's somewhat hyperbolic to characterize my position as "you favor less clarity/more ambiguity in policy wording". Honestly, my impression is that you're out to get your way ("win") in this conversation, rather than have an open-minded discussion about it, and those kinds of comments are the primary reason that I feel that way. As for the explanation that you're ostensibly asking for, re-read Tony1's comment that started this indent chain, and my reply to it. I think that those are fairly clear statements, but if there's specific questions then I'll be happy to try and answer them.
    — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:05, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
    Do you think it's possible that your belief that I'm out to "win" rather than have an open-minded conversation is inhibiting us from having an open-minded conversation? Let's try to follow AGF, shall we?

    While it's certainly not atypical of me to use hyperbole to make a point, I assure you I'm not doing so here. Thank you for clarifying you're not advocating less clarity, but I don't understand why you think my proposal does not add clarity. Without the edits, it's not clear whether to interpret "unambiguous"/ambiguous in the narrow/namescope or broad sense; with the edits it's clear it's to be interpreted in the narrow/namescope sense. Isn't that more clarity?

    I've reread Tony1's comment and your reply to it. I don't see how that addresses whether the proposal adds or reduces clarity in the policy. It's also a lot of general statements that sound good in theory, but I don't see how to apply them in actual policy wording. The devil, as always, is in the specific details. And until you try to actually say what those details are, you're not really discussing anything practical about the policy. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:23, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Tony, your proposal Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles/Archive_36#Proposal:_clarifying_PRECISION before did get some support. And B2C's previous attempt to get rid of "precision" by reducing it to nothing but avoidance of namespace collisions didn't (see the section before yours in the archive: Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles/Archive_36#Proposal:_clarifying_PRECISION); toward the end of that discussion were some good ideas about restoring "precision" without the word "ambiguity" in it, which is one way to remove the interpretation question that B2C is worried about. But we'd have to decide what we want "precision" to be about. There was some support for the idea that the traditional (2009-ish) interpretation of "precision" is still needed, in addition to the "unambiguity" provision, though they overlap a lot. Dicklyon (talk) 22:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

No, Dick, WP works bottom-up much more than top-down. So, we don't decide what we want "precision" to be about - we must recognize and reflect in policy what "precision" is about in practice. We're not working with a blank slate and get to decide whatever we want. We're supposed to make our best effort to recognize and appreciate what actually goes on in title decision making on WP, and reflect that as clearly and accurately as we can in policy. It's never perfect, but the point is to get it closer and closer to reality, rather than further and further.

But unless and until you recognize that is our role, as long as you think our job is to make policy rather than reflect policy, we're going to have a very difficult time agreeing on much of anything. Perhaps that's the core of our disconnect? --Born2cycle (talk) 23:04, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with B2C that the current meta-policy is that policy changes do not drive practice. As I understand it, both a policy-reflects-practice approach as well as a new-practice-changes-policy approach are at play. To change policy we first get consensus on new practice by a) demonstrating alternatives to "how we've always done it" via strategic article space IAR* or b) developing consensus to try a new way without Bold edits. Either way, it's only once consensus is established that we have an authoritative policy.
*For me, the IAR option is just theory. I'd like to see actual examples of where the IAR approach was successfully used. Jojalozzo 00:54, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
Well, the way the AP list exception got into the WP:USPLACE guideline was via IAR. Originally all US cities were at City, State, except the original exception was New York City because New York City, New York was rejected per IAR as an exception (that was before me). Later, and I don't remember the order, but the state was removed from articles like Chicago and San Francisco per IAR and local consensus before the guideline was changed to incorporate the AP list exception. I'm not familiar with all the details, but the WP:NCROY naming convention seems to have softened (no longer as strict) over the years through a process of individual article changes, and then updates to the guideline.

In general, very little if anything changes top-down. Traditionally, the debate on these talk pages has always centered around what is actual practice, not so much what actual practice should e, though there is always a little of that too. That's why I say it's mostly (not entirely) bottom-up. My observations and conclusions about how change occurs on WP, and the inherent chicken-egg problem associated with it, are summarized in my FAQ, so I won't repeat it here. See User:Born2cycle/FAQ#Shouldn.27t_you_get_the_policy.2Fguideline_changed.2C_rather_than_try_to_subvert_it_one_article_at_a_time.3F. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:40, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

If policy is supposed to document practice, why is B2C always trying to rewrite policy to what he favors, even while admitting that resistance to his approach remains strong among people titling articles? See his essay User:Born2cycle#A_goal:_naming_stability_at_Wikipedia. I would say rather that practice varies, and that we should put best practices into policy; by best I mean the ones that make the experience best for the reader, which is what the criteria were about originally, as opposed to B2C's goal which is to reduce the amount of work editors have to do to decide what's best, by having decisions forced by policy. Dicklyon (talk) 01:45, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
That's the nub of things, right there.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:59, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
Dicklyon, what examples do you have of me ever (much less always) "trying to rewrite policy to what [I] favor[s]"? My changes, like to the recognizability wording in December, and now this change regarding "ambiguous", is always in accord with my best effort to reflect actual practice and consensus. That doesn't mean I'm always right! Of course! But that's certainly what I always try to do.

Beyond that, my main personal broad goal is to persuade a consensus of the community to agree on consistent rules to reduce the amount of dispute and discord involved with title decision-making. Of course what's best for the reader is of prime importance, but in most cases the difference to the reader between the choices being considered is irrelevant. Does it really matter to the reader if it's San Francisco or San Francisco, California? If it's Airplane, Aeroplane or Fixed-wing aircraft? If it's South Shore Line (NICTD) or South Shore Line? To illustrate with analogy, we use a power saw to get it down to choices that are acceptable to readers, then we get out a file, then coarse sandpaper and finally extra fine sand paper to get it down to the best choice based on our naming criteria and what reduces conflict and discord about titles. It's not a choice between what's best for the reader or what's best for the editors. They're compatible, not conflicting, goals. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:20, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The WP:PG procedural policy (Content changes) also reflects practice, no? So we can change it by developing consensus on talk pages or by conscientious IAR on policy and guidelines content pages. There is a discussion on the talk page to modify it to clarify issues related to longevity of policy content vs. its consensual authority. Maybe we need to do some similar work there related to what we are learning here. Jojalozzo 04:17, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Just for the record, someone else inserted the subtitle referring to "Tony's" proposal ... I don't mind, but hadn't intended that my opinion be so prominent. But since it's prompted significant commentary, here are the analogous diagrams I displayed back then:

Table at the top of the canvassing policy page

  Scale   Message   Audience   Transparency
Appropriate Limited posting AND Neutral AND Nonpartisan AND Open
↕ ↕ ↕ ↕
Inappropriate Mass posting OR Biased OR Partisan OR Secret


Derivative table for judging possible plagiarism

  Length of wording in question Closeness to the original Distinctiveness of original wording or meaning Attribution
Less of an issue Short Your own wording1 Not distinctive Fully attributed
↕ ↕ ↕ ↕
More of an issue Long Exact wording duplicated Distinctive Not directly attributed

1Excluding "non-creative" text.

I haven't thought properly about how this frame could be adapted to the current policy needs, and whether it would work. Tony (talk) 02:36, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Here's a way to present WP:CRITERIA with this type of table.

  Recognizability Naturalness Precision Conciseness Consistency
Better title Recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic Reflects what readers and editors are likely to expect. Conveys what the subject is actually called in English Precise, but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article without conflict other titles Concise; not overly long Follows pattern used by similar articles
↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕
Problematic title Not recognizable to someone familiar with the article topic Does not convey what the title is actually called in English Overly precise Overly long Does not follow pattern used in titles of similar articles

Not sure what value, if any, this might have. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:53, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

At least the contrast that you list for "precision" makes it clear that you view precision as a negative attribute, unlike the original intent which was that it was a positive attribute, back when we had things like "Name an article as precisely as is necessary to indicate accurately its topical scope", and "Readers should not have to read into the article to find which of several meanings of the title is the actual subject". And I think you know how I feel about how you mangled recognizability, too. Dicklyon (talk) 03:44, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
You don't seem to understand that how you feel or how I feel or how any one other editor feels is irrelevant here. What matters is what the community consensus is.

On the recognizability wording, Greg L's poll confirmed that the wording I originally tried to restore, and you reverted, but was eventually restored, was favored unanimously by the seventeen members of the community who participated in that poll. Yet you still refer to it as "mangled".

The same thing about precision - it's not that I view it as a negative attribute - that's how the community views it. If you don't believe the "only as precise as necessary" wording in the table, which reflects wording from policy, is an accurate statement of community opinion, then propose a specific change to the wording to reflect what you think community opinion is, and see if you can get consensus support for it. That's how the current wording got to where it is.

It would really help if you stopped looking at this from the perspective of your opinion or whatever you believe my opinion is, and started looking at what the community does and says in practice. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:20, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Both of you, please, wipe the personal slate clean and let's just concentrate on finding a way. I'm sure a lot of editors are getting sick of the personal thing. I certainly am. Tony (talk) 01:51, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Popular alternatives

If there are alternatives which are almost equally popular, how to select one to be the main title of the article? For example, two names refer to the same dish. Thanks. Mặt trời đỏ (talk) 19:20, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Is it true that the title is selected as according to the first author who created and/or significantly extended the article?
Does the number of Google hits help in this case? Thanks

Mặt trời đỏ (talk) 11:58, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

You probably mean vi:talk:Nem rán. If the article is written as "Nem rán" and there is no consensus about its naming, then it probably will be named "Nem rán" indefinitely – this does not mean forever, but until the consensus appeared. But it serves only as a hysteresis-like protection against frequent moves. Fundamentally, questions of authorship are not relevant to this matter and the decision should be taken based on some external (non-Wikipedia) criteria. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 12:18, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
There actually many similar cases, not only Nem rán, in which the alternatives are accepted and almost equally popular and no material discussing about which name is better. Thanks anyway. Mặt trời đỏ (talk) 13:14, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Interesting case: The Troll Hunter

There is an interesting case at Talk:The_Troll_Hunter#Requested_move. The problem here is that there are four different variants of the English title in use, and all of them seem to be reasonably widespread: "The Troll Hunter", "Troll Hunter", "TrollHunter", "Trollhunter". Google searches are inconclusive because if you exclude one search term from the search, you lose a load of results that list alternative titles etc. The sources in the article use a mix so it's not a straightforward case. Betty Logan (talk) 00:05, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

What purposes does an article's title serve?

I think we're not going to get much further until we agree on the reasons for titles. Currently the introduction to this page suggests two: "The title serves to give an indication of what the article is about, and to distinguish it from other articles." B2C says, above: "The notion that the purpose of the title is to pretty much say what the topic is has been repeatedly rejected over the years, and I would be very surprised if it had consensus support today." I find that hard to believe and am interested in to xis explanation. What are all functions that titles offer? Jojalozzo 19:34, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

You're right that we need to agree on reasons for titles.

Of course a title serves "to give an indication of what the article is about" - that's very different from "the purpose of the title is to pretty much say what the topic is".

For example, 4706 Dennisreuter (found using SPECIAL:RANDOM) gives an indication of what the article is about, to someone who is familiar with that asteroid, but it doesn't say what the topic is. The lead does that: a main-belt asteroid discovered on February 16, 1988....

If the title gave more than an indication of what the article is about, and pretty much said what the topic was, then the title of that article would be more descriptive, and would be something like 4706 Dennisreuter, asteroid discovered in 1988.

But we only use such descriptive titles that "pretty much say what the topic is" when the topic does not have a name commonly used in sources, or sometimes as a byproduct when additional descriptive precision is needed in the title for disambiguation. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:05, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

That's a good explanation. The distinction is quite significant.
Inexperienced users sometimes encounter titles containing parenthetical descriptions and mistakenly assume that we routinely include them (even when no disambiguation is required). For example, someone who's seen John Jones (footballer born 1916) might create an article titled "Waldo McNeal (footballer born 1970)" (despite the nonexistence of another Waldo McNeal article, let alone one about a footballer). —David Levy 21:28, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
It's an understandable mistake when an inexperienced user does it, and I think you've described why the misconception occurs. But what is in when when an experienced editor favors unnecessarily descriptive titles? --Born2cycle (talk) 21:34, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
That reflects disagreement with a basic Wikipedia naming convention (and the longstanding consensus on which it's based). —David Levy 01:49, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion:

An article title should be the term which a reasonable person would most likely use in seeking information about a topic.
Terms which are less likely to be used should be redirects.

I keep thinking of the White Knight's poem ... [7]

The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes.
That's what the name is called. The name really is 'The Aged, Aged Man.'
The song is called 'Ways and Means' but that's only what it's called, you know!
The song really is 'A-sitting On a Gate': and the tune's my own invention.

Seems to cover much of the "title" problem AFAICT. Collect (talk) 21:44, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I like it, but suggest a caveat for disambiguation:
An article title is ideally the term which a reasonable person would most likely use in seeking information about that article's topic.
More descriptive information does not belong in the title, unless it is needed to disambiguate from other titles, and terms less likely to be used for searching should be redirects.
--Born2cycle (talk) 22:03, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Certainly, I think we all agree that if you type in the term a reasonable person would most likely use in seeking information about that article's topic, and there's no other article you could mean, then you should get right to the article. That means that term should be either the title, or a redirect, as WP:PRIMARYTOPIC explains. However, look how much more useful it is to readers to have 4706 Dennisreuter as a redirect and 4706 Dennisreuter (asteroid) as the title – because when you get there, or when you see the title in a list (category, search result, whatever), so can recognize what it's about. Without that, you probably think it's a building named for its address, like the one in Denver. The simple "(asteroid)" is enough to clarify what the topic is, which I think is "necessary" from the point of view of the reader, and is not "excess precision" as "(asteroid discovered in 1988)" would be. Note that I am not advocating for unnecessary disambiguation; just for allowing reasonable recognizability and precision, in service of the reader. It in no way conflicts with the desire to support direct access from search or link by just "4706 Dennisreuter". In places where there is real ambiguity, or course that would be a disambig page instead; and if this asteroid were deemed to be the primary topic, it would still be better to have that as a redirect, and put the "(asteroid)" in the article so people who get there looking for something else will see immediately what topic they got to. In my experience, this is how it has usually been done, though I admit there's a largish contingent pushing for minimality and conciseness, too. Dicklyon (talk) 00:21, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
By the way, I've nominated it for deletion, since it clear fails WP:NOTABILITY. Dicklyon (talk) 06:16, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
What? In your experience articles like 4706 Dennisreuter are usually at more descriptive titles, like 4706 Dennisreuter (asteroid), even though there is no other use for 4706 Dennisreuter in WP? Do you really believe that? I wonder what you're thinking about, because my impression is exactly opposite of yours about this. As a test, call it the B2C Challenge, please repeatedly click on SPECIAL:RANDOM and let us know when you find five examples that fit that criteria, keeping track of how many times you had to click on RANDOM before you found the fifth. Let us know what those examples are, and how many clicks it took to you find them. I went through 12 clicks of no examples of that until I got to Michael Foster (Ontario politician), but that's not an example either since Michael Foster is a dab page. 30 more clicks and I still haven't found one. BTW, no fair giving us examples in which you were involved in moving the article to its descriptive title.

At least you admit "there's a largish contingent pushing for minimality and conciseness, too". I suggest largish is a gross understatement given the dearth of articles that are titled inconsistently with this. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

My view is perhaps colored by early experience, like 2006–2008; there were for example attempts to move Bath, Somerset to the more ambiguous and less precise Bath (city), but the community rejected that (proposals by Serge, B2C's name at the time). And look at the discussion of moving the well-known AP-list cities to omit state: in 2007. There were complaints that the discussion had gone on for five years already, and the community strongly resisted removing such information. About a year later they finally accepted the compromise on the AP styleguide cities (in 2008), and there was relative calm over that. But B2C says it "never made sense" (though he said back then that it had consensus), and continues to try to overturn this long-standing convention, like at the Fort Worth, Texas, RM. I don't see how this kind of minimalism helps the reader, or how it can be claimed to be a reflection of community practice or consensus. Dicklyon (talk) 01:12, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Your "this is how it has usually been done" statement seemed to be made in very general terms, about all kinds of articles like that asteroid article having more descriptive/precise titles than just the name of the topic even though disambiguation from other uses is not needed, not just about US cities which are a special case. Are you backing off that assertion now?

The Bath discussion was about whether to follow the Cork (city) example or that of other cities in Somerset - it had nothing to do with one being more ambiguous or less precise than the other, if I recall correctly. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:51, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

1. I must reiterate Born2cycle's inquiry. Are you suggesting that it's normal for us to append parenthetical descriptions to article titles when no disambiguation is needed?
As Born2cycle noted, a basic description belongs in the article's lead (where its absence constitutes a fundamental flaw).
2. Where, in your view, should we draw the line? In the above example, you argue that we should retitle the 4706 Dennisreuter article to explicitly indicate that its subject is an asteroid (which many people wouldn't realize from the name). But all sorts of subjects are unfamiliar to many people. Someone might not know what a colonoscopy is. Should we move the article to Colonoscopy (medical procedure)? Until recently, I'd never heard of a blackcurrant (and didn't deduce its nature from the name). Does that justify a move to Blackcurrant (plant)? To be on the safe side, should we just go ahead and include descriptions in all of our articles' titles? —David Levy 01:49, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I asked this ages ago. Is the title primarily for search optimisation (so the reader can pick the right article from a list of options when no other text is visible), or is the title part of the descriptive text of the article. If it is primarily for search optimisation, then WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is less than helpful (there's a huge long piece in the archives of this page about Steppenwolf as a search term, that already covered this).Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:31, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the title has ever been primarily to aid users in picking the right articles from a list of titles. Until the relatively new feature of search completion in the search box, the only place one might have ever been presented with such a list is when looking at categories. That said, titles are for search optimization in a different sense - helping readers get to the article they seek as quickly as possible. Primary topic in particular is supposed to be consistent with the principle of least surprise. For example, anyone who types in Paris would probably not be surprised to land upon the article about the city in France.

I also don't think the title was ever supposed to be part of the descriptive text of the article, except for those articles about topics that don't have names, like List of hotels in Manila.

To expand a bit on what David Levy said above, because we have titles that are descriptive because they require disambiguation, and titles about topics without names that require descriptive titles, people can get the wrong impression that titles are supposed to be descriptive. But in reality, they're just supposed to reflect the tag (for lack of a better term) that is most commonly used to refer to the article's topic in reliable sources. It's just sometimes we're required to use descriptive titles - but I don't think that has ever been a goal of titles. Using the most commonly used name of a topic as its article's title, whenever reasonably possible, aids searches (because articles are where they are expected to be). --Born2cycle (talk) 01:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, there certainly was a time when precision was a goal, and was encouraged and valued. See late 2007. Dicklyon (talk) 01:56, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
It's one thing to be written in policy in the past. It's another to be reflected in practice, for which there is precious little evidence. I await your answers to David Levy's questions above. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:34, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
I think we should not be looking for just the primary purposes of titles here but all the purposes. Serving as a search term is one of the purposes to which titles are put. Is there disagreement on that? Jojalozzo 02:57, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes, serving as a search term is certainly a purpose of titles, in order to make them easy to find. I don't think there is any disagreement about that; hence Collect's suggestion above. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Speaking for myself, as a search term is one of the most important purposes of a title, whether in WP's searchbox or Google, etc; and titles should always be devised with this in mind. I posted above here the example of searching for Doctor Zhivago, and suggested that "when the primary topic is not absolutely clear and uncontroversial, disambiguate all entries". Currently the original novel is not identified as being such, and the reader searching is left to guess by elimination of other possible choices. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:37, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Again, since WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is on WP:D, any suggestions or proposals to changing it belong at WT:D, not here. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:43, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Are we ready to agree on a list of title purposes? Is the following inclusive? Are there wording improvements?

  • Communicate a sense of the article's topic to someone familiar with it
  • Match natural or likely topic search terms
  • Distinguish the article from others

Jojalozzo 04:34, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

What is the point of the restriction "to someone familiar with it"? Isn't it a good purpose statement to just say "Communicate a sense of the article's topic"? Or is there a reason we'd want that goal to be so narrowed? Dicklyon (talk) 04:42, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Because we are not writing our articles in the title line. It is hard to know where exactly to stop describing what an article is about when assuming that the reader is not familiar with the topic. For instance is it enough to change the title of Special relativity to Special relativity (physical theory) to communicate what the article is about, or should it actually be called Special relativity (physical theory by Albert Einstein) or even Special relativity (physical theory by Albert Einstein which incorporates the principle that the speed of light is the same for all inertial observers regardless of the state of motion of the source). When is enough enough when trying to explain to someone unfamiliar with a topic what it is about? And what do we assume to be obvious and what do we assume needs explaining? I don't see how we are going to come up with clear answers to these questions.TheFreeloader (talk) 15:24, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Sometimes a bit of extra information is needed to clarify the topic; but not on Special relativity, I would think. It you need a hard and fast rule to draw the line for you, then you think like Born2cycle. I don't think that algorithmic approach serves readers well. Dicklyon (talk) 15:32, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
I don't know, if I had never heard about the relativity theory, I surely would think "special relativity" looked like a funny name, and I don't think I by any means would conclude that it had to be an article about a physical theory. I think I might just as well have thought that it was an article about some newfangled idea in philosophy. I am not sure how this question of when and how far to explain topics in titles is solved by pushing it from the general to the specific. As I see it this question would be possible to raise in all Requested Move discussion involving parenthetic describers in article titles. And where are people supposed to find the answer for this question when WP:AT does not even set out any guidelines for how to deal with this question. I am not necessarily saying that everything needs to be cut out in stone from WP:AT about how to title articles, but I think WP:AT does at least need to set out some principles which can serve as a framework for RM discussions.TheFreeloader (talk) 16:03, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Sometimes a bit of extra information is needed to clarify the topic;
As TheFreeloader noted, we don't write the article in the title line. The "extra information [that] is needed to clarify the topic" belongs in the lead.
but not on Special relativity, I would think.
I previously inquired as to you where you believe we should draw the line (and received no response). It appears that you have no specific criteria in mind, apart from the "Is it clear to Dicklyon?" test. —David Levy 16:32, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
It seems to me that some editors favor ambiguity in title decision-making policy and guidelines. They can't seem to explain why, and I can only imagine it is perhaps because they enjoy pointless banter in RM discussions based on tossing JDLI arguments back and forth ultimately resolved by counting !votes.

Well, to be fair, I think they imagine that these differences sometimes matter more than I believe they do. My point in favoring less ambiguity here is that ultimately when it comes down to questions like whether there is sufficient precision in a title, that it doesn't matter (either title is just as good for the reader), and, so, the more decisive our guidance is, the less debate there is about something that ultimately doesn't matter, which is a good thing. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:49, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

IMO, there are two basic purposes of a title. First, it should allow the reader to pick out the article he is looking for. That is to say, when the title appears in a list, such as a list of Google results, it should give the reader a cue that this is the article he is looking for. Secondly, the article title should tell the reader what the name of the topic is, what it commonly called in real-world English-language usage. I think it is safe to assume that the name of a subject in its most common form is more recognizable than a descriptive followed by a little "Wiki invented here" parenthetical disambiguator. But for those editors who refuse to believe this, we can run an experiment. Let's pick out a group of articles, change the titles back and forth between the two formats, and compare page views. "Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven)" was moved to "Moonlight Sonata" and back, so there is already a test case: "Moonlight Sonata" vs "Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven)". (Name-only titling beats explanatory titling by 14 percent, at least in this case.) Kauffner (talk) 04:49, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Seriously Dicklyon? Seventeen people gave 17 answers to that question in Greg L's poll. Answers like, "it assumes readers have a flying clue what they are reading up on rather than pandering to the MTV crowd with the attention span of a lab rat on meth. It should be “Boutros Boutros-Ghali”, not “Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egyptian dude)”. ".

In addition, David Levy gave an answer today. Did you read all that? If so, why are you asking? If not, please stop asking and read them, then take up your disagreement with each one of them.

David also asked you two related questions. Will you answer or evade them? --Born2cycle (talk) 04:58, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Joja, that's good, though I think the current "give an indication" phrasing for the first is better. Also, perhaps not originally a primary intentional purpose of titles, but certainly an implicit one unavoidable because it's true for the vast majority of our articles, is:
  • Convey the name of topic most commonly used to refer to the topic in reliable sources (for those topics that have names).
(I note Kauffner has suggested this as well). --Born2cycle (talk) 04:58, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Is that purpose in itself or a means of achieving the "communicate the topic" and "match likely search terms" purpose? I think it's the latter. Jojalozzo 16:39, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I think the main point of concern here is what "familiar" means, or perhaps more importantly, what people will interpret it to mean when quoting it to justify a move or edit war. I think we need to be clear that "familiar" shouldn't mean you already know what's in the article, or are familiar with the literature the article is based on. If your doctor gives you a diagnosis, and you come to WP to read up on it, you're familiar with the topic in an sense, but may know almost nothing about it. People look things up because they're ignorant, and IMO we need to target a likely level of familiar ignorance.

To accommodate that concern, I think when we say the name most commonly used in RS's, we shouldn't mean just the professional material that editors of the article read, but also introductory material: what is a beginning student of (chem/polisci/philosophy/etc) familiar with, when first exposed to the topic? (That's often when people come here.) What is someone peripherally connected with the topic in a non-professional capacity familiar with? If it's commonly known among those who really don't have a clue, if it's been in the news or entered, misunderstood, into popular culture, which name would ring a bell? And which dab would be needed to say, "no, not *that* X, dummy, this one." The most commonly used name will generally be the one used in trade journals, because they're the places it will be talked about the most. But their target audience is the experts in the field, not the general interested public, which is our target audience.

Sometimes I read a WP article on s.t. I already know a lot about for the sheer joy of reading a well-crafted article. But usually I look s.t. up because I'm ignorant about it, only familiar enough with it to know I need to look it up.

Would "Communicate a sense of the article's topic to someone interested in it" capture that balance, knowing enough to know you need to look it up, but not familiar enough to understand the professional lit, at least not before reading the WP article? — kwami (talk) 05:57, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Well said, Kwamikagami! This is exactly what I think of when I think about article titles. I think that it pisses off some editors that we think this way, but... really, who cares? Our articles are supposed to be for the readers anyway (and I know from personal experience, when I land at a page with a technical article title it's usually quite jarring). Anyway, "Communicate a sense of the article's topic to someone interested in it" sounds pretty good to me (I'd like to see it more in context, which is what I'll attempt to do immediately after posting this, but that looks good right now).
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 06:14, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)The "familiar" clause has been in there a long time - certainly long enough to provide plenty of real examples of problems, if it really causes any like the ones you hypothesize about here. Yet I don't know of any actual cases of title decision debates caused by conflicting interpretations of "familiar"; do you? As far as I know, "only familiar enough with it to know I need to look it up" qualifies as "familiar" is how everyone interprets it.

The clause in full is: "recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic." I think the "though not necessarily expert in" parenthetical caveat really helps convey that it doesn't mean usage in professional material. And remember, not only are introductory books considered reliable sources, but so are newspapers and magazines that use layman language.

I don't think "to someone interested in it" conveys the same meaning. Someone could be interested in something, yet have no idea what it is called, so the title would not be recognizable to them. Nor do we try to make our titles recognizable to a person like that. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:23, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

You're right, of course, about my wording, but I couldn't think of anything clearer.
I have come across such debates. I had a huge go-around about hyphenating names of melanomas. One contributor, who certainly knew his stuff, insisted we not hyphenate because the medical journals do not hyphenate. Yet introductory college textbooks often do hyphenate, because the meaning is clearer that way—especially when the word 'large' or 'small' is in the name but has no implication for the size of the tumor. Potentially extremely confusing. Based on COMMONNAME, and assuming COMMONNAME applies to punctuation (which I find dubious), we would need to drop the hyphen. And the familiarity argument was used as support: everyone familiar with the topic (i.e. oncologists and readers of oncology journals) drops the hyphens, therefore per WP:AT we need to drop the hyphens. But for our target audience, the disambiguating hyphen is clearly helpful: small-cell melanoma rather than small cell melanoma. — kwami (talk) 07:55, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Joja asked "Are we ready to agree on a list of title purposes?" If the proposed list has to include the most controversial clause in recent history, imported from "recognizability" wording into what you should be a clean-slate list of purposes, then the answer might need to be "no". Dicklyon (talk) 15:20, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

You still haven't answered David Levy's questions above, and now you refer to a clause supported unanimously in the this recent poll as "the most controversial clause in recent history". Are you participating in this discussion, or just trying to be disruptive? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:33, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
I think there is a preference for the current wording: "Give an indication of what the article is about". Is that acceptable? Jojalozzo 16:55, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Is that acceptable in what context? That wording in the intro is relatively recent (December 2011), and I was fine with it, until you started this section, which revealed that at least one person interpreted "give an indication of" to mean "to pretty much say what the topic is". Per this discussion we seem to have consensus that the two meanings are different and the distinction is critical. That suggests to me that the current wording needs to clarified in terms of that distinction, as explained by David Levy among others. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
I can't believe this is still going on. I'm becoming less and less impressed with the quality and volume of contribution from the leading contributor to this forum. Rip van Winkle would not be too disorientated by this continued discussion, and can happily go back to sleep for another 100 years safe in the knowledge that he will have missed nothing in the intervening period.

Much of the latest discussion seems recursive. There seems to be a simple unwillingness from B2C to understand what others have clearly identified as a problem. There is the recycled retort that there is no problem that needs fixing. Above, current policy is employed recursively to defend against any changes in said policy. The continuing defence seems to be "what's wrong with having a concise title when there are no other identically-named articles?" The B2C challenge only proves that many articles follow the way B2C prefers articles to be named. It doesn't disprove that it can be a problem for the prospective reader to identify the topic of interest to him/her when looking at the title which is the product of a questionable algorithm. Whilst one editor is contributing 60% of the wordcount, most of the editors presently assembled (and representing the 40% wordcount) don't see article titles as a binary function; they don't want article titles to be stripped down to just the provebial engine and four wheels; they may not need Recaro leather seats, but ther would certainly welcome a nice chassis. In policy terms, they just want greater facility to identify one topic from other similarly-named topics. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 17:44, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

It is your contention that adding words to a title increases page views? For myself, I assume that the most recognizable form of the name of a subject is the one that will attract the most readers. Is the idea to game the search engines by putting SEO in the titles? If it works, that would certainly raise ethical issues. Be that as it may, this is a testable proposition. We can create a list of titles to experiment on, move them around, and see what happens. No matter what the outcome, I would still oppose unprofessional-looking titles with parenthetical disambiguators and so forth. Kauffner (talk) 13:50, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
I am better able to keep up with a discussion when it's regularly re-anchored by concrete outcomes and implications. I would find it helpful to see alternative proposals along with theory. For example, if "someone interested in it" is problematic, what are some alternatives? Jojalozzo 18:15, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Here's a specific proposal to represent the change that B2C is asking for as an alternative to "The title should give an indication of what the article is about": "The title should give a tiny clue to what the article is about". Dicklyon (talk) 16:47, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia article titles [should] and do perform only two roles:

  • They function as the unique part of the URL that displays an article in a browser or serve as a link in a hyperlink.
  • They [should] faithfully reflect the contents of the article which they title.

My first observation about this discussion is that we will continue to “tilt at windmills” if we continue to try and describe anything about titles using some element of the user experience to do so. Utterly impossible and meaningless. At last count, there were ~2.7 billion internet users on a daily basis. WP historically is visited by ~13-14% of global internet users on a daily basis. Do the math (14% of 2.7 billion) = ~378 million users every day. Trying to describe a title in terms of how 378 million users ought to behave relative to the title is pure fantasy.

My second role above emphasizes this and puts the burden on the title. I favor the word “contents” over topic because a great many of our 3.9 million articles cover multiple topics or topics that can be interpreted multiple ways. On the other hand “Content” is “Content”. In my view, if a title Faithfully reflects the contents of the article then it is fulfilling its role for WP. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:41, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if it is optimal to say that the title should describe the content of an article. You gotta remember that the only (semi-)permanent thing there is for actually defining the topic of an article is its title. The content of an article may change over time, and an article may get skewed so as to mostly cover only part of a given topic. I don't think this means that in general the title and thereby the topic of an article should just be changed, as an easy fix for this mismatch. Rather the problem should, at least initially, be sought solved through rewriting the article so as better to reflect the way it is covered reliable sources. Of course there might be cases where the topic of an article has been set out wrong, but in general I don't think it is right to try to change horses midstream, and change the topic of an article when the initial topic has already been determined to be notable. Then rather start new articles and split off or merge content.TheFreeloader (talk) 19:39, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Agree essentially. Although I much prefer content over topic because it is much broader and less prone to debate. I essentially see WP articles as a partnership between the article title and the article contents. Both must support each other. All other considerations (NPOV, OR, etc.) aside, if any given article title faithfully reflects the content of the article, then in my view it’s OK. Who would complain? Indeed content changes over time and content for many articles on contemporary subjects or historically controversial subjects is dynamic. As long as the title is in good partnership with the content it’s fine. If not, either the title needs to change or the content adjusted. Its pretty simple and yet we continuely to add to the babel that makes it seem complex. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:14, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Well and my point is that I think it is usually content which needs to change. If the topic as defined by the title is notable, I think it is usually easiest to have the content change to suit that title/topic, be that through splits, merges or rewriting, as those processes will not require the discussion process which an article move usually does. Also, I think it is useful for the article writing process to not just have the topic of an article float around and get redefined all the time, as people add new random stuff to an article. I think it creates some stability to content creation that the topic of an article is allowed to stay the same throughout the history of an article.TheFreeloader (talk) 21:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
I just went through such an issue at Talk:Signal (electronics); an editor wanted to change the contents to better fit the title. Instead, I undid the move the put it there, which solved much of the problem. Sometimes it might be the other way around; just depends. Dicklyon (talk) 05:57, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Yup... "it depends" is absolutely right... we often get into debates as to whether the title is determined (or defined) by the topic or whether the topic is determined (or defined) by the title. Such debates miss the point... The topic and title should reflect each other. If there is a disconnect between the topic and the title, that disconnect needs to be fixed... but we have a choice as to how to fix it. Sometimes the solution is to re-title, at other times the solution is to re-focus the article's topic. And a still other times the solution is to do both at the same time. Blueboar (talk) 14:23, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Yup. And it's often hard for the title to reflect the topic when it's reduced to the minimum thing that the topic is commonly called. Like with Cold. Dicklyon (talk) 15:35, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I guess I agree with this point. I am really just objecting to the bias towards changing titles, which I think saying that the title of an article should "faithfully reflect the contents of the article" would imply. I think it is better to just stick with the notion that title should convey the topic of an article, although while keeping in mind that the topic of an article can sometimes change.TheFreeloader (talk) 18:02, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Two comments:

  • The problem with "contents" (rather than "topic") is that inexperienced and incompetent editors then propose page moves, with excuses like "Well, this promising stub currently only talks about treatments for the common cold being used in the US, so I think the title should be Treatments for the common cold in the US rather than Common cold. They can always move it later if it were expanded, and I'm sure that nobody in the world would ever be discouraged from expanding it if it had such a narrow title."
  • The fundamental problem with using likely search terms is that pandering to the lowest common denominator is not consistent with our goal of being a serious reference work. We want the article at Feces, not at Poop or other slang terms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:02, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
    • I agree with your first point re: contents vs. topic.
    • Disagree that pandering to the LCD is a fundamental problem with using likely search terms, primarily because for the vast, vast majority of articles the most likely term coincides with something that is appropriate to use as the title in a serious reference work. The poop/feces exceptions are so rare they can be handled by IAR. And I even question whether poop/feces is an example of this - as I doubt more people actually search for "poop" than "feces", and we define the most likely search term as that which is determined by looking at usage in reliable sources where surely feces is more common than poop. --Born2cycle (talk) 15:55, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
      There are lots of possible examples: Kleenex has more hits than Tissues, for example. Band-Aid has more hits than adhesive bandage. The most common search term is not necessarily the most appropriate title. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:23, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
This idea of B2C's that WP:IAR can be used as an excuse for making stupid rules needs to stop. If we craft rules sensibly, WP:IAR should be invoked rarely, when the circumstances are outside what was anticipated in writing the rules. Dicklyon (talk) 18:27, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Stop misrepresenting me - no words of mine mean or imply "WP:IAR can be used as an excuse for making stupid rules", or anything close to that.

Anyway, the rules are crafted sensibly and IAR is invoked rarely. Per the rules, not per IAR, and all appropriately, Kleenex, Band-Aid and Adhesive bandage are all separate articles, and Tissues is a redirect to a dab page at Tissue. I don't know why WhatamIdoing thinks these are examples of pandering to the LCD; none of them are.

What actual and serious problem are you guys trying to address? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:42, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Paying attention to others and avoiding circular discussion

Ohconfucious wrote above:

"The B2C challenge only proves that many articles follow the way B2C prefers articles to be named."

It's not what I prefer that matters, but what the community prefers. But, yes, the B2C challenge only proves that, but that is all it is supposed to prove!

The B2C challenge (use SPECIAL:RANDOM repeatedly to obtain a sample of titles from which common practice can be discerned) is designed to refute the assertion that descriptive information in parentheses added to the names of topics in titles for reasons other than disambiguating from other uses is the way "it has usually been done"[8].

If you want to concede that that is not the way it has usually been done, but contend that it should be the way it is done, that's a different argument, and one to which the B2C challenge is of course irrelevant. Ohconfucious also says:

"There seems to be a simple unwillingness from B2C to understand what others have clearly identified as a problem."

I understand very well what the problem is. I just disagree on its magnitude (I don't think it matters much at all), and, more importantly, don't think there is a solution that doesn't create much bigger problems than the one it's trying to solve. I haven't even seen a specific solution proposed, much less one proposed that would not be seriously problematic. This is the same issue raised by the questions that David Levy asked of Dicklyon (search for "David Levy" on this page), and which I've raised in the past every time I pointed out that the "devil is in the details" (search for "devil" in the archives), which remain unanswered. That's why we keep going in circles... the proponents of more descriptive titles keep ignoring this issue, no matter how many times it is raised, by how many different people. Yet we're the ones accused of not understanding and recursively defending against changes in policy.

Speaking of changes in policy, I explain how I believe policy change occurs at WP, and why, in my FAQ. Please see User:Born2cycle/FAQ#Change_guideline_first. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:52, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Assign purpose of matching search terms to redirects

Previously I proposed three purposes: Communicating the topic, matching search terms and distinguishing between articles. I think matching likely search terms could be assigned entirely to redirects if direct hits are not a high priority (which is fine with me). Then we can collapse to two encyclopedic purposes: 1) to give an indication of what the article is about and 2) distinguish the article from others. If we think it's clear (I'm not sure it is) that communicating what an article is about implicitly includes what it is not about then we only need the first of these. (I do not consider technical issues with name collisions and URLs to be encyclopedic.) Jojalozzo 20:28, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Grand Council

Are people happy with this title? Grand Council. Tony (talk) 06:53, 16 April 2012 (UTC)


Notice here is okay, but this fascinating discussion is not specific to WP:AT. Suggest having at Talk:Grand Council
Both the French and Venetian grand councils are more notable. But the articles for both are oddly titled now, and neither even gets an entry at Grand Council (disambiguation). Kauffner (talk) 08:42, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
I have to admit... if we go by the Principle of least surprise, this one should change. When I saw the link, I expected to be taken to an article that explained what a Grand Council is... in a generic sense... which then would link me to articles on the various specific Grand Councils through history (disambiguated so I know which was which). Blueboar (talk) 19:11, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Happiness is not our goal. Neotarf (talk) 19:53, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
See/discuss here: Talk:Grand Council#Requested move. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:55, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Title quality spectra

Inspired by B2C's table above, I see that a table with descriptions of both better and problematic goal satisfaction has the potential to offer editors more information than just the description of title characteristics for each of the goals as we have it now. The "problematic" row presents an opportunity to present an enhanced perspective on the "better" description. This is a common approach with examples in the MOS. As primarily an exercise and demonstration but also a strawman proposal, I have composed the table below with an extra "Unambiguous" column, adjective goals instead of noun goals, major liberties with B2C's "better" row, and an attempt to go beyond pure dichotomies in the "problematic" row:

  Recognizable Natural Unambiguous Precise Concise Consistent
Better title Recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic The most common English name of the topic (without colliding with another title), reflecting what readers and editors are likely to expect Clearly distinguishes the topic from that of other articles Satisfies other goals without unnecessarily narrowing its scope Uses as few words as possible Follows patterns used by similar articles
↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕
Problematic title Identifies the topic only for experts Unusual or very specialized name for the topic Has more than one common, natural interpretation Improper focus, defines topic too narrowly or too broadly Too wordy, hard to comprehend at a glance Diverges from standard patterns

I welcome feedback but would even more like to see how others to would express the goals in this "quality spectra" table format. Jojalozzo 00:57, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Comments. Nice work by both B2C and Joja. Already I feel I can come to a better understanding by looking at these tables. A few queries:

  • The Concise principle: The minimalist in me wants something like Minimizes wording (green) and Unnecessarily long (red). I'm presuming unnecessarily would mean, "gains decreasing returns for additional length in terms of the other principles, taken as a whole". If that's the case, I don't think it needs spelling out—certainly not within the table itself. This is probably how we should understand the polarities we're expressing for all of these balanced principles.
  • I think the wording of the upper table's red Consistency is clearer; the lower table says Diverges from standard patterns (patterns of what?). May I suggest an amalgam of the two? Diverges from patterns in similar article titles (red) and Follows from patterns in similar article titles (red)? Joja, does your red Concise wording blur two issues (length and comprehensibility)? The corresponding green cell is monothematic.
  • Unambiguous': I've always found "Precise, but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article without conflict other titles" (green) too wordy; the wording in the lower table seems to be more succinct. Joja, in the red cell, is there any reason for departing from the top table's Overly precise? BTW, I'd prefer Over-precise as standard formal English.
  • Recognizability': the red cell is likely to need much discussion. I'm starting to think our troubles have partly arisen from the conflation of two types of recognisability: one relating to a familiarity you'd expect of no one but those in a particular technical or research field (MS 1467) and one relating to the familiarity based not on technical expertise but on local assumptions among ordinary readers who, say, live in a particular city (Collins Street, when there are many streets of this name around the world, and French Quarter). That is to say, there may be a case for allowing WP to address experts in highly technical topics who are likely to recognise and search-box a title that means nothing to ordinary people, without clunky explanations in the title, while using a lower benchmark for non-technical topics. Just what to make of Fearghal Óg Mac an Bhaird, an Irish writer (could have been a town for all I'd known), versus Fortress Church, Târgu Mureş, which does spell it out in English but at the expense of length, I have no idea. Tony (talk) 02:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Concise red cell: I prefer Can be shortened without impacting other goals rather than Unnecessarily long (which I think is too concise). I agree that I've mixed in another goal there when it could involve others as well.
    • Consistent both cells: Diverges from patterns in similar article titles (red) and Follows patterns in similar article titles (green) works well for me.
    • Precise red cell: I think we should avoid repeating the goal adjective (i.e. Over precise). How about something on the lines of Unnecessarily limiting or Over restrictive? I also see that I have again conflated some goals, mixing in Ambiguous (i.e. imprecise) by including the "too broad" problem. The red cell highlights a stumbling block I have encountered in working with Precise since the problem is not Imprecise (i.e. ambiguous), as I unthinkingly included, but Over precise or Over restrictive.
    • Precise green cell: The green cell should be blank. Once we add the new Unambiguous goal, Precise is automatically satisfied by Recognizable, Natural and Unambiguous. However, we need to include Precise because we want to avoid Over precise (red cell). I propose we replace the term Precise by Loose, Nonrestrictive, Free, Unconstrained or Generous with Offers a liberal topical scope (green) and Overly restrictive (red). If people are attached to Precise (and I understand they are) we could replace Unambiguous with Precise (though I'd recommend against it).
    • Recognizable: I don't agree or perhaps don't understand. I think the Collins Street problem is ambiguity, not recognizability. Names like Fearghal Óg Mac an Bhaird that are uncommon in English speaking countries are still probably quite recognisable to someone familiar with (but not an expert in) the topic. I don't think there's a problem. Jojalozzo 03:44, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Here's a revision (see last three columns):
  Recognizable Natural Unambiguous Generous Concise Consistent
Better title Recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic The most common English name of the topic (without colliding with another title), reflecting what readers and editors are likely to expect Clearly distinguishes the topic from that of other articles Offers a liberal topical scope Minimizes wording Follows patterns in similar article titles
↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕
Problematic title Identifies the topic only for experts Unusual or very specialized name for the topic Has more than one common, natural interpretation Overly restrictive and narrow Can be shortened without impacting other goals Diverges from patterns in similar article titles
Jojalozzo 04:53, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks, Joja. I don't understand Generous as the title for a principle. I see that the titles are all adjectives, and would be best of consistent grammar; but does it mean Generous in scope? (I'd still be in the dark about what generous means, though.) I find the term scope or scoping clear and useful. Could "Overly restrictive and narrow" be changed to simply "Too restrictive and narrow"? Overly gets up my throat, for some reason. "Can be shortened without impacting other goals"—I find that to be rather binary ... with the assumption that the shortening either does or doesn't impact on other goals. Will you consider "Can be shortened with little or no impact on the other goals", thus maintaining the modal concept, that is, a continuum from positive to negative, rather than a blanket polar choice? Tony (talk) 05:01, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
    Yeah, I understand about Generous. I do mean Generous in scope in the sense of a generous cut in pants or a skirt. Ah. So the red cell is Narrow and confining! Would you understand Liberal better? (I prefer it to Generous but fear the political interpretation gets in the way.) Free is wrong because limits are critical. I'd welcome suggestions.
    I like your Concise red cell proposal, Can be shortened with little or no impact on the other goals. Jojalozzo 05:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
    I think I didn't make my reasoning clear. The green cell in the Precise column is unnecessary because it is redundant given that we have satisfied Recognizable, Natural and Unambiguous. But the red cell in that column is still necessary - we don't want titles that are Over restrictive or Over precise. By replacing the Precise goal with one that captures our intent when we prevent a title from being "Over precise" we are able to fill both the green and red cells in that column: Offers a liberal topical scope (green) and Narrow and confining (red) and the green cell is a new title characteristic that was implicit before but now can be seen as a goal we had not previously recognized. Jojalozzo 05:56, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that unambiguous and generous capture some of the intent of precise, but not all. See the old quotes. The title should be clear and unambiguous about what the topic is; that can usually be done in a way that's not narrow or restrictive (is generous), and is not about whether there are other articles with similar names (unambiguous in that sense). We tend to do this naturally, but sometimes the conciseness hammer removes the clues to the topic and leaves the title ambiguous (see typical PRIMARYTOPIC RM arguments, where some want to use an ambiguous name on an article and some don't, like current ones: Talk:Waterdeep (city)#Requested move or Talk:Whisky Galore (novel)#Requested move 2 or Talk:The Rats (novel)#Requested move). We've never pinned down what it means to be "not over precise" or "no more precise than necessary", but to me what's "necessary" is to define the topic. Dicklyon (talk) 06:29, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Many of the interpretations and notions reflected by the "old quotes" were rejected through consensus editing and discussion. If you think errors were made or consensus has changed to favor those interpretations again, then make the proposals. You can't just grab a statement from X years ago and presume it has consensus support today because it was in the policy then.

For example, the notion that the purpose of the title is to define the topic has been repeatedly rejected over the years, and I would be very surprised if it had consensus support today. Traditionally, the article lead defines the topic, not the title. Think of a dictionary definition, which has an entry (the word being defined) and the definition. In WP articles, the title is like the entry, and the lead is like the definition.

This gets a bit confusing because we do have titles about topics that don't have names, and so in those cases we sometimes use descriptive titles which can look like definitions (e.g., List of video games cancelled for Xbox 360 console). But we shouldn't let these exceptions cause us to believe that all or even most titles should be descriptive definitions of the topic. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:56, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I have made no claims about concensus, nor have I changed the policy to what I think it should be. But yes I think mistakes were made in changing the policy to what it is now, and I'm pointing to what it used to be as a representation of what seemed to work well in my first several years of WP editing, and which I continued to use while being unaware of how policy was being rewritten in protracted edit wars such as the big Sept/Oct 2009 mess. And I'm not meaning "define" in the dictionary sense, but using titles that are less ambiguous, and pretty much say what the topic is, e.g. by not overusing primarytopic claiming. Dicklyon (talk) 14:48, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Okay, allow me to rephrase. The notion that the purpose of the title is to pretty much say what the topic is has been repeatedly rejected over the years, and I would be very surprised if it had consensus support today. Traditionally, it is the purpose of the article lead to pretty much say what the topic is; it's not the purpose of the title. As can be quickly deduced by a few repeated clicks on SPECIAL:RANDOM, in practice, the purpose of the title is essentially to reflect how the topic is most commonly referred in reliable sources, save for the exception-complication of unnamed topics with descriptive titles I mentioned above. But we shouldn't let these exceptions cause us to believe that titles of articles about topics that have names used in reliable sources should be more descriptive in order for the title to pretty much say what the topic is. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:49, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

When I first started editing, I consulted these pages for a specific question and found them to be totally useless. Ordinary users do not have time to cogitate on thousands of pages of confusingly written specious jargon before putting finger to keyboard.

  • The principles should be simple and easy to skim. They should be written to enlighten the user, not to bamboozle, or to preemptively and authoritarianly bludgeon the user in order to prevent authoritarian bludgeoning, which does not assume good faith. They should not be written in jargon, or specialized Wiki-terms. The prose should be clean, clear, and if possible, graceful.
  • I bookmarked this some time ago, along with Dicklyon's "whither recognizability" summary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles/Archive_34#Taking_a_holistic_approach_to_Wikipedia_title_policy_.E2.80.93_Is_it_an_idea_whose_time_has_come.3F It contains some interesting nuggets: 1) "our titling policy is much too complex... as a result of... making a whole myriad of incremental changes... 2)"...we need to drastically simplify WP:Titles and the associated guidelines and MOS. And when I say simplify, I mean a reduction of at least 2/3rds of the collective Babel it contains now". 3)"Currently our five naming criteria—Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness, Consistency could be reasonably reduced to three, eliminating two that are nearly impossible to define let alone interpret and implement." 4)"I’d like to see...a defacto moratorium on WP:TITLE policy changes for the next 12 months. In the last 12 months there’s been over 500 edits to the policy page, who knows how much energy spent in discussion around those edits and all we’ve accomplished is a rearrangement of the dysfunctional Babel that is our titling policy."
  • "Consensus" has been invoked repeatedly, both here and in the recent ArbCom discussion. Ignoring for the moment the 'argumentum ad populum' dimension of that, which is not compatible with WP consensus policy, when you examine any particular situation more closely, particularly in light of Tony's canvassing paradigm above, there has rarely been overwhelming support for any one proposal. Titling policy deals in shades of gray.
  • Elsewhere, the "open-endedness of the naming criteria" has been noted. In the last year there has been an incremental reversal of this, as far as I can tell, without discussion.

There is no point in rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. We need to take a step back, and decide first what is worthy of discussion. Neotarf (talk) 10:34, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree and happily drop this smaller project for now, though I found it helped me to understand better what this policy is about and why what we have doesn't work that well. What are your proposals? Please start a new section. Jojalozzo 12:51, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Heh. You really know how to drop a bombshell. What are MY proposals? No one can do this alone, it has to be "we". But fair enough, I did bring it up. I'm horribly busy in RL for the next couple of days, let me think about it for a space and I will come up with something. Or if someone else starts it, I'll add my 2¢. For starters, in the U.S. we say "politics is local". The answers (or is it the questions) will probably come, not from theorizing, but from places like the micro-discussions in RMs, where the rubber meets the road. Neotarf (talk) 16:27, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

"Any third_rate engineer or researcher can increase complexity; but it takes a certain air of real insight to make things simple again." --E.F. Schumacher

Any creation that is the result of evolutionary change driven by consensus decision-making, as this policy page is, will almost necessarily suffer the problems that you've identified: too long, too complicated, confusing, conflicting, etc., etc. I mean, much of the same criticism applies to laws in the real world (just take a glance at U.S. tax law, for example). Of course if we appointed a genius dictator with absolute authoritarian power unhindered by a panoply of personalities with a variety of conflicting motivations and understandings, it would be possible to cull all this down to something that probably does not suffer these problems - but would it reflect consensus? And that's another thing - our goal is to provide guidance that is supported by consensus, but on many issues we don't have consensus... so part of the process is building consensus support. In other words, it's necessarily an ongoing process.

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" --Mark Twain

Certainly this policy, like others, suffers many problems and has plenty of room for improvement, but to dismiss the process of incremental evolutionary change that is hoped to be improvement as rearranging chairs on the Titanic is greatly exaggerating how bad it is, not to mention under-appreciating the momentum of the years of consensus edits and discussion behind it.

For better or for worse, bold edits and specific proposals that have consensus support is how policy is far from perfectly governed on WP, and probably always will be, or it would be a very different kind of project.

Whining about problems that are not discussed in the context of a proposal to solve those problems, hopefully without creating new ones, is rarely helpful or productive, and often bordering on disruption. That's not to say that problems without a specific proposed solution should never be discussed - it's possible that someone else will propose a good solution to a clearly specified problem - but in my experience most discussions that do that, like Mike Cline's Taking a holistic approach to Wikipedia title policy – Is it an idea whose time has come?, rarely go anywhere productive. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:27, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Still too busy in RL to give this proper attention, but will try to respond briefly.
This so highly insulting I hardly know where to begin.
1) First, if I am reading this correctly, Born2cycle is so unreceptive to my ideas that he simply dismisses them as "whining" and a "disruption" without bothering to give any rationales for disagreement, or indeed, any indication that he has even read them.
2) My third bullet point was specifically about the problematic nature of invoking the god of "consensus", yet Born2cycle blithely continues to worship at that altar, ritually invoking the word "consensus" seven times here, as he has so many times in the past. How about addressing the points I made?
3) It is clear that the titling policy does not work, and in the last year has gotten worse, thanks to sockpuppetry and other problems, yet Born2cycle does not seem at all concerned. Instead he is concerned about "under-appreciating the momentum of the years of consensus (sic) edits and discussion behind it." Maybe we need to step back and ask who and what the titling policy is for. And what's with the "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" quotation? -- does he think he will die if the policy is revised?
4) The assertion that discussions of problem analysis "rarely go anywhere productive", if unchallenged, can end up as a self-fulfilling prophecy. This kind of long-winded negativity can stall a group and is the exact opposite the type of brainstorming that a successful focus group does.
5) I question whether the time is right to discuss title policy. Perhaps it is still to close to the Arbcom thing and some of the editors still have hard feelings about that, but it is certain that anyone who steps into those murky waters will quickly find they spend 5% of their energy working on titling and 95% of their energy on resistance and distractions. I have been looking at RMs in order to get some idea of what goes into it, and I'm beginning to think that anyone who spends any time at all with titling will become either masochistic, difficult, or chronically angry. Neotarf (talk) 22:02, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
Neotarf, I'm going back to your original statement. The first two bullets are your opinion about problems on this page. I have no big disagreement with what you say, but I repeat - that's normal and should be expected given how this and other policy pages necessarily develop and evolve here.

The 3rd bullet, about consensus, I don't fully understand. But "rarely been overwhelming support for any one proposal" seems central to it, and yet we did have overwhelming (indeed unanimous) support for the change to the recognizability wording recently, despite all the controversy and even an Arbcom case that stemmed from it. And that's not that unusual. Over the last few years there has been consensus regarding the idea that policy is suppose to mostly reflect actual behavior, and most edits have been done in concert with that. Most edits, the vast majority, to this page, over the years, nobody objected to at the time they were made, nor later.

I really don't understand the predilection for open-endedness in titling policy and guidelines, at least I don't see how that benefits the encyclopedia. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:01, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

You've told that "unanimous" lie 6 times on the current version of this talk page. You should stop. The vote was only unanimous among those who accepted the question as a vote between two versions, when it was clear that a wider discussion was needed. Still is, and still hard to get that going with you being so dominant here. Also recall that nobody supported your interpretation of what the new wording means, an interpretation that you admitted to only after it was a done deal. Dicklyon (talk) 23:36, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
Lie? The choice was between those two versions. No other versions were ever even suggested, and haven't been since. There was a choice to object/abstain, of course, and if anyone wanted that to count as non-support they could have participated with, say, Abstain, or something like that. But of those who wished to have their !votes counted, seventeen participated, and all seventeen supported what is now the current wording, and most gave very specific reasons and explanations. It's not a lie to characterize 17:0:0 as unanimous support. I can't recall anything on this page ever receiving clearer/stronger support. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:49, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
A more accurate representation would be something like 17 in favor of that wording, and 5 or so who expressed some sort of opposition or neutrality while the poll was open, without !voting. That's still a very strong consensus for these parts. B2C - you don't need to (and shouldn't) claim unanimity to make your point. Dicklyon - you don't need to use inflammatory words like "lie" to make your point. How was that helpful? Dohn joe (talk) 23:59, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
Of those who chose to participate in the !voting of that poll, the decision was unanimous. That's just a fact. Unanimity like that is rare in such polls, and I think significant in this case. That's why I mention it. As to the 5 or so (I think that's generous) who expressed "some sort of opposition or neutrality while the poll was open", my objection to their position since mid December has been the same: they have no position can be articulated, much less supported or opposed. Really, it's the epitome of disruption. It's a shame Arbcom did not see it, but it continues today. Recently, David Levy (talk · contribs) has essentially asked the same questions I've been asking since December, and they too remain unanswered. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:22, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
In fact, this was one of many "polls", many of which did not pass the sniff test of Tony's sunlight paradigm, and was in fact an emergency measure imposed by an administrator to stop an edit war. 'An edit war.' Seems kind of an oxymoron to me to claim an edit war consensus. Continuing to repeat these "consensus" claims without responding either to my point about 'argumentum ad populum' or Tony's paradigm, plus the insistence that consensus (or the manufactured appearance of consensus) will remain etched in stone for all time, makes it hard for me to continue this conversation, if indeed it ever was a conversation. But of course if you consider revision of title policy to be a waste of time, you're entitled to your opinion. Neotarf (talk) 00:04, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Neotarf, please AGF. I'm sure your points are really clear to you. They seem mostly clear to me, and I'm discussing them to the best of my ability, but maybe I'm missing something. You don't seem satisfied with my replies. I'm sorry, but bear with me, please.

I don't know where you get the idea that Greg L's poll was "an emergency measure imposed by an administrator to stop an edit war", but Greg L is not an administrator, as far as I know. Perhaps you know otherwise. I believe Greg is just another experienced editor who wanted to get clarity regarding where consensus (sorry, but that is what he was trying to ascertain) might be on the central question at issue. The result of that poll supported the position I held since I first re-added that wording in mid-December. Anyway, I brought it up only because you said, "there has rarely been overwhelming support for any one proposal." I don't know what you mean by Tony's sunlight paradigm (I searched for "sunlight" on this page and in its archives to no avail), but if that poll didn't demonstrate overwhelming support for that proposal, then there is no such thing.

The only thing you said about "argumentum ad populum" is: "Ignoring for the moment the 'argumentum ad populum' dimension of that, which is not compatible with WP consensus policy", I'm not sure how you expect me to respond. I guess your point is that they're not compatible. Well, yes, argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy in debates about factual matters. But in title decision making, we're not trying to establish whether certain proposition are true or not, in which case holding polls would indeed by inappropriate. We're trying to establish what community opinion is, for which polling is quite appropriate.

What you mean by "the insistence that consensus (or the manufactured appearance of consensus) will remain etched in stone for all time" I have no idea, but I will say if that's what you think I'm doing, I'm not being very clear, or you're not paying very good attention, or both. But I suggest your lack of quoting the words of mine that caused you to believe that's what I meant is telling. I mean, if I believed that, why would I spend so time and energy trying to persuade others through discussion in order to build consensus? WP:CONSENSUSCANCHANGE, thankfully!

Upon review before Save page, it struck me perhaps you're under the impression that I'm saying those who favor more description in titles should not be arguing this because it's against consensus and consensus won't change. If that's not your impression, then please ignore the rest of this. But if that's your impression, then there has been a misunderstanding, I assure you. First, I'm arguing that policy should not change to say something that does not reflect consensus, or reflects consensus less than current wording. First you change consensus, then you change policy. I also am a big believer in changing consensus/policy bottom up - first you persuade others one minor proposal at a time, via WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, and then you establish a pattern which you can use to argue for a change in policy. What you can't do is say WP would be better with whatever, so let's just add this and delete that from policy.

But there is also the WP:IDHT consideration. At some point, when you've been shown that your position is clearly contrary to consensus, at least for now, you might back off a little.

But in this case, again, the real problem is the lack of a real position - what exactly would people like to change? What are the answers to David Levy's questions, etc.? If we had a real proposal, and these questions were answered, then we'd have something real to consider. Hope this helps. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:22, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

@B2C
What's with the "please AGF"? What exactly are you accusing me of and why are you doing it here? Shall we review what WP:AGF says, since you have been so quick to use it for accusations?

If criticism is needed, discuss editors' actions, but avoid accusing others of harmful motives without clear evidence.

Yes, I have criticized your continued citation of this old poll from January 2011. After all the comments you made about how many admins you had to approach to find someone who would attach importance to this particular poll, and after all the comments that other editors made about the circumstances of the poll, I'm quite surprised that you would continue to cite it, especially now, since the poll was way back in January. Please note that I have said nothing about your motives. I don't know why you keep bringing up this poll and I don't care; the poll is a dead horse.
You also need to stop accusing me of WP:AAGF--

In these cases admonishing someone to "assume good faith" is in fact assuming that they are not assuming good faith - the admonisher is ironically violating the very principle he or she is purporting to uphold, and is being uncivil.

Be careful about citing this principle too aggressively. Just as one can incorrectly judge that another is acting in bad faith, so too can one mistakenly conclude that bad faith is being assumed, and exhortations to "Assume Good Faith" can themselves reflect negative assumptions about others if a perceived assumption of bad faith was not clear-cut.

The first rule of WP:AGF: Don't talk about WP:AGF.
It has only been a few days since the last time I protested against these same baseless accusations on my talk page. At that time you changed two of my edits without leaving an edit summary and claimed it was "refactoring". But what does WP:REFACTOR say about what to do if someone objects to the "refactoring"?

If another editor objects to refactoring then the changes should be reverted.

Does it say you should run over to their talk page and make a sarcastic comment like "WP:AGF much?"? No, it does not.
Please, let's comment on the content, not on the contributor. We need to stay on topic, stay objective, and be positive (just to cite three objectives of the talk page guidelines WP:TALK), and be concise, to cite a fourth, so that we can move forward to discuss ways to improve titling. Neotarf (talk) 23:05, 20 April 2012 (UTC)


I think that this conversation needs a comment, to balance it a little. I broadly agree with what B2C is saying here. Sometimes on this page he seems to be in a minority but that is usually because he is saying things that others such as myself agree with, and to repeat them just adds to bloat. So I leave him to put forward a position that I think is broadly correct. It is a shame that some of the others who regularly and repeatedly argue against him (over precision etc) and have already made their positions very clear do not turn off verbose mode as do most who agree with him.
I was against the list of bullet points that was put into this policy some times ago. Not because most of them did not sum up what was here already, but because I thought the changes were brought in too fast and not discussed properly and because they did introduce unforeseen minor modifications to the policy. For example what they have done is to make it appear as if each bullet point should carry the same weight, which I think was a mistake.
Also there was one bullet point "Consistency" which was not in the policy previously and was introduced because of an ongoing disagreement over the flora guideline to help bolster the position of those who want all flora articles named after the scientific names. I think it was a mistake (to give consistency the same weight as usage in reliable sources) because it is used to justify using names that are not supported by common use in reliable sources, but instead rely on a previous Wikipedia editorial decision which may or may not have been made correctly using the policies of the day, but would be rejected by current guidelines and policies (for example there was a time when common name meant usage in all sources reliable and unreliable) -- consensus can change. For example the argument that Zürich Airport should be spelt that way because that article Zürich was spelt that way. I think that was wrong then, and it would be wrong now to argue that a company called "Flughafen Zürich AG" shoudl be called "Flughafen Zurich AG" because the city is now spelt "Zurich", such decision should be made on the usage in sources. -- PBS (talk) 08:40, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Interesting case: Inverter (logic gate)

The RM at Talk:Inverter (logic gate)#Requested move smacks of bad faith. People who know nothing of the subject are wanting to move this already-disambiguated topic to NOT gate, a name less familiar (even to people familiar with it), probably so that they can then try again to put Power inverter at Inverter by claiming there's no longer any ambiguity. At least, I'm unable to find any other theory for why they piled on from the other RM (Talk:Power inverter#Requested move). Is this kosher? Dicklyon (talk) 23:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

One of the opinions expressed is "Support. The need for disambiguation, and the desire for consistency with related articles, both point toward using a slightly less-common but equally well understood name for this construct. Powers T 16:08, 16 April 2012 (UTC)" which is relevant to my last posting to this page about the bullet point Consistency. -- PBS (talk) 10:33, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
Inverter already redirects to Power inverter, so the article was and is the primary topic for "inverter". The move of the logic gate topic, or the addition or subtraction of of other topics ambiguous with the title "Inverter", would not affect that, nor change the proper titling of the topic that is currently at Power inverter. Navigationally, it doesn't matter if the topic is at Inverter or Power inverter if the one redirects to the other. It would have to be some indication from WP:AT that the topic is better titled "Inverter" rather than "Power inverter" -- and that was contra-indicated in the last discussion. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:07, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
I have no interest in this debate or these topics. But I feel when you said "Inverter already redirects to Power inverter, so the article was and is the primary topic for "inverter"." you should have mentioned that its only been that way since April 15 when you moved the disambiguation page and pointed the redirect to inverter. - X201 (talk) 12:41, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
Striking the "was and" part. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:55, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Who disambiguates the disambiguators?

Let's suppose that there is a country with the long-form name "Republic of Smell." Further suppose that there are various nations named Smell, and that the Republic is neither the largest nor best-known of these. As you can imagine, the people of this nation found the name to be dissatisfying. So the foreign ministry decided to encourage the use of the form "Republic of Smell (Pleasant)". Can a ministry chose a disambiguator, or must these be chosen by a Wiki specialist properly credentialed in such matters? For a real world example, see here. Kauffner (talk) 10:06, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "a Wiki specialist properly credentialed in such matters" ... but I think you have a misunderstanding of how we entitle our articles. The decision as to whether to add disambiguation to an article title is not determined by governments nor by "Wiki specialists"... it is determined by community consensus and by applying the rules and guidance set out in our various policies. Blueboar (talk) 11:41, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

PRECISION - negative to positive

WP:PRECISION is currently defined as what Dicklyon calls a "negative attribute"; this is the first sentence:

When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided.

What about rewording like this:

A title should be as precise as necessary to distinguish it from other uses of the topic name, but no more.

Better? --Born2cycle (talk) 07:56, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I find that better. I struck out a couple words I found redundant; pls put back if you object. — kwami (talk) 08:03, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
👍 Like - I went ahead and removed the redundant words. --Born2cycle (talk) 08:10, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Precision has a role in defining the topic also, not just disambiguation:
A title should be as precise as necessary to identify the topic and distinguish it from other uses of the topic name, but no more.
Jojalozzo 16:31, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm not following. Can you provide an actual example where a title reasonably meeting other criteria is precise enough to distinguish it from other uses of the topic name, but not sufficiently precise to "identify the topic"? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:36, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
You said it yourself, "meeting other criteria". That's missing from your version. I tried to capture that by including what I think is the prime "other criteria", identify the article content (nod to Mike). One of the problems with the notion of precision in this section is that it's viewed narrowly as just a method for disambiguation. Communicating article content with some degree of accuracy is taken for granted as your response demonstrates. As Mike reminds us below, by Precision we really mean "getting it close enough" (or "reasonably meeting" in your words - I like "reasonably") whether it's disambiguation, communicating article content, or matching likely search terms. Jojalozzo 20:18, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
If we're talking about redundancy, why not: "A title should only be precise enough to distinguish it from other uses of the topic name."

So does this mean that "Vehicle registration tax" (it's actually the Irish one) is sufficiently precise? I'm not sure this is sufficiently reader-focused if it lets through vague titles like that one. Tony (talk) 04:30, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that one a few months ago, Tony. I went through and fixed all the links to Vehicle Registration Tax, and linked that to a better place. Dicklyon (talk) 05:59, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
Joja, "reasonably meeting other criteria" is implied in each criterion and is not restated explicitly in each one. The point is that the reason that, for example, Solar System is not at Solar is not because Solar is insufficiently precise, but because "Solar" is not the name of that topic.

This is why I'm asking for an example of a title that reasonably meets the other criteria for a given article, but, in your view, needs to be more precise. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:18, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Wrong word

The concept of Precision and WP article titles is a case where we continue to use the wrong word to describe what we really want. I’ve said this before and as far as I can tell, the definition of precision in the English language hasn’t changed. Precision is primarily a mathematic construct that derives from Accuracy.

  • the quality or state of being precise : EXACTNESS
    the degree of refinement with which an operation is performed or a measurement stated — compare ACCURACY
    the accuracy (as in binary or decimal places) with which a number can be represented usually expressed in terms of the number of computer words available for representation <double precision arithmetic permits the representation of an expression by two computer words>

Yet, we continue to try and define precision as something it isn’t to fit into WP titling policy. Why? Anyone that sees the words—precise, precision etc. isn’t going to understand them any different from how they are defined in the real world regardless of how many times we’ve tried to craft a new meaning on this page.

We are really trying to convey a sense of How much ambiguity should we tolerate in a title? (one perspective) or How complete should our disambiguation be for any given title? (another perspective). Why can’t we just say that? Precision implies (actually requires some baseline of accuracy) and accuracy is something we don’t demand in our titles, since Commonname is the driving source of titles. So why do we continue to use a word that we can’t explain and drives editors to strive for accuracy in titles when that’s not what we really want. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:14, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

The term precision is also commonly used with respect to language. Here's a good definition that seems to fit what we mean here (or used to mean, before it was neutered). Dicklyon (talk) 02:55, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Here's another book contrasting precision with ambiguity in language. Here's another. Dicklyon (talk) 06:08, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
According to Dictionary.com, an antonym of "precise" is "vague"... so in its broadest sense precise simply means "not vague". I think (hope) we can all agree that if a title is overly vague, it needs to be fixed. Blueboar (talk) 16:36, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm with Dicklyon and Blueboar on this one. There's no reason to presume the mathematical/scientific meaning of "precise" here. I think it's sufficiently clear that we mean precise as used in the following sentence: "I had fruit in my cereal" is less precise than, "I had bananas and grapes in my cereal." Precise is precisely the right word. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:18, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

What about descriptive titles?

We keep discussing Precision with "proper name" titles in mind... but what about descriptive titles? I think Precision is a very valid goal in determining acceptable descriptive titles. For example, we recently changed "Christianity and Freemasonry" to "Opposition to Freemasonry within Christianity" because the second title more precisely described what the article is actually about.

On a related note... Can anyone think of a time a descriptive title needed disambiguation?... perhaps this is where we can draw a distinction between the two concepts. Disambiguation (and how much is needed) relates to Proper Name titles, while Precision (and how much is needed) relates to descriptive titles. Just a thought. Blueboar (talk) 20:21, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Blueboar, I would contend that Opposition to Freemasonry within Christianity more faithfully reflects the content of the article than the previous title. It is a good partnership with what the article content says. It is not more precise because there is no absolute truth or baseline to measure from. Precision is the the degree of variance from some absolute baseline. No matter how many times we try to refine what the word means, its real meaning won't change in the mind of the average editor. --Mike Cline (talk) 02:38, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Even without objective ground truth, it seems to be clearly more precise. It specifies more narrowly what the article is about – but not too narrowly. Of course, if the scope of the article is really a lot broader than that, I could be wrong, but I'm assuming the change was at least reasonably aligned with the actual article content. The old title gave no clue to the topic, so was very imprecise. Dicklyon (talk) 02:57, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Most of our problems and confusion could be resolved by treating title determination for topics with names differently from title determination for topics without names.

Titles of articles about topics with names should simply be that name if the name does not conflict with other uses on WP or the topic is primary for that name, or it should be the name disambiguated. Articles about topics without names should be descriptive.

Much unnecessary conflict and confusion arises when we try to add descriptive information to titles of articles about topics with names when that descriptive information is not needed for disambiguation from other uses on WP. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:18, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

B2C, back when you were known as Serge, you got this feedback on that idea:

This whole proposal is flawed because of misguided notions of what constitutes somethings "name", because of misguided beliefs that "most common" is clearly defined and determinable, and because it is just bad-faith failure to accept the fact that Serge's repeated proposals along these lines do not have a consensus in support of them and are unlikely to achieve it. User:Gene Nygaard 05:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there evidence that there's any shift in thinking in your direction in the last 5+ years? Dicklyon (talk) 16:30, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
This is exactly the type of thing you've been asked not to do, so I'm not engaging. Focus on the issues, not on the people. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:20, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Without going into too much detail on the ancient history of this policy, this edit in June 2008 changed how the Naming Conventions were drafted. Previous to that addition many of the guidelines were put in place with rules that described algorithms that emulated the usage in reliable sources, because up to then "common name" meant in all sources not just usage in reliable sources. Hence the reference to consistency ("name her 'Mary I of England' not 'Bloody Mary' because although BM is the most common name NCROY (May 2008) says use monarch numeral of country so that it is consistent with other monarch articles"). So all conversations on this talk page and the talk pages of the policy's guidelines prior to June 2008 must be read with that in mind. If my memory serves me well, B2C took longer to support the change common usage in reliable sources than most. It is a benefit to us all that people are open minded enough to change their opinions. -- PBS (talk) 14:47, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
Thank you PBS, you recall correctly. I was persuaded by consensus. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:09, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Moving Trollhunter to Trolljegeren?

In the light of Talk:Trollhunter#Requested move and WT:RM#Strange move closure?, I would invite you to improve consensus in Talk:Trollhunter#Move back to Trolljegeren? Feel free. --George Ho (talk) 19:54, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Spaces in titles with slashes

I want to know what the consensus is for having slashes in article titles in terms of the spacing between words. I personally, don't think it is necessary. For example, Wilshire/Western (Los Angeles Metro station) redirects to Wilshire / Western (Los Angeles Metro station). I don't think the spaces should be present. Same goes for 7th St/Metro Center (Los Angeles Metro station), which redirects to 7th Street / Metro Center (Los Angeles Metro station). The difference of course is that "Wilshire" and "Western" are single words joined by a slash, while "7th Street" and "Metro Center" are two words. Should this make a difference? I also don't think so. Especially since the transit agency itself does not use spaces between the slashes.[9] I want to get some feedback here before I revert all the page moves to remove the spaces. –Dream out loud (talk) 19:57, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

What matters here is not people's personal preferences but what is observed in actual usage. I see in our own Slash (punctuation) article, that all of the examples don't use spaces. Anyone involved in moving those articles to titles with spaces should be notified of this discussion, but unless someone can come up with a good reason (based in usage/sources) for them, they should be reverted. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:32, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
I completely agree with your statement. I think it's important to keep in mind what's can be seen in actual usage. It's pretty uncommon to see spaces between slashes, so the lack of slashes seem much more appropriate. –Dream out loud (talk) 20:41, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
No, some of the examples do use spaces, and we quote two style manuals to explain why:
The Chicago Manual of Style (at 6.112) also allows spaces when either of the separated items is a compound that itself includes a space: Our New Zealand / Western Australia trip. (Compare use of an en dash used to separate such compounds.) The Canadian Style: A Guide to Writing and Editing prescribes "No space before or after an oblique when used between individual words, letters or symbols; one space before and after the oblique when used between longer groups which contain internal spacing", giving the examples "n/a" and "Language and Society / Langue et société".
This is a useful distinction for an encyclopedia, as it disambiguates what can often be unclear, and should be used for the same reason en dashes are used. It is common to have a phrase with a slashed word within it, but also to have two phrases joined by a slash. Lack of spacing can make the latter difficult to read. I oppose removing the spaces from things like 7th Street / Metro Center. However, there is no justification I can see for spacing Wilshire/Western. — kwami (talk) 20:45, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Except for an edit conflict, I would have just posted the same thing. Agree with Kwamikagami, Slash (punctuation) gives examples that support Wilshire/Western (Los Angeles Metro station) and 7th Street / Metro Center (Los Angeles Metro station) being treated differently. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:51, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Nobody mentioned our own guideline, which says something similar: "A spaced slash may be used: ... to separate items that include at least one internal space". Art LaPella (talk) 21:02, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
But should we consider the fact that all the maps, schedules, and station signage use the unspaced slash? –Dream out loud (talk) 00:26, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Okay, that's useful. But still, the title is 7th Street / Metro Center (Los Angeles Metro station), yet in the lead it says 7th Street/Metro Center, and I think 7th Street / Metro Center looks contrived. Just because it's allowed, does not mean we have to do it, nor even that's a good idea to do it. I don't see how the version with no spaces around the slash is more difficult to read.

The LA Times does not use spaces around the slash[10]; I still see no good reason for us to do it. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:59, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

That's a really good point too. The LA Times is probably one of the most reputable print sources in the world. This article doesn't use the spaced slash either (and you can also see an image of a station sign that omits it). If the LA Times doesn't use it, I don't see a reason to include it here. –Dream out loud (talk) 18:21, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
All publications have different manuals of style. The LA Times and Metro can print the names however they like. The Wikipedia MOS states that there should be a space for instances when a slash separates phrases. Since this is the case, I would argue for spaces in all station names with slashes in the interest of uniformity. Note that most other station articles follow this convention: Brooklyn Bridge – City Hall / Chambers Street (New York City Subway), University of Baltimore / Mt. Royal (Baltimore Light Rail station), Dome / GWCC / Philips Arena / CNN Center (MARTA station). – Zntrip 18:36, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Zntrip I love your attention to detail, but please think this through to its (bitter) end. The Manual of Style only applies to original content written for Wikipedia. In no way does it suggest we start styling direct quotes. For example, should we, as editors, make Think Different: "Think differently" because that's more grammatically correct? No, that's the name of the campaign and our job is to reflect reality, not recreate it in a "better" way.. If you wouldn't change Think Different, then why not? I could use the same argument - so it's just a subjective call on your (or any editors) part. Messy, messy. In this case, as the owner of the stations we're taking about does not use a space in the name, we must faithfully recreate what they have done and spell it the same way. Restyling everything for MOS is not only make-work, it actually introduces an element of individual subjectivity that would create exponentially morel discussion pages just like this. It's crazy talk! ;) Lexlex (talk) 19:15, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Titles of Wikipedia articles are not direct quotations (in general; I'm sure there are articles about some direct quotations that are the exception to this claim). The Wikipedia naming conventions and much of the manual of style apply to Wikipedia article titles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:28, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
So you're saying we should "fix" Think Different too? I'm not following you here. At all. Lexlex (talk) 21:32, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
I don't think I'm saying that, since I haven't given it any thought. OTOH, your note was about styling direct quotations, and I couldn't figure out what that has to do with styling article titles, which was the subject of this discussion. If it drifted since then and I glossed over it, sorry. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:13, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The question up for discussion is simply this:

"Should Wikipedia Manual of Style (MOS) rules be applied to article titles which: A) Are an exact transcription of the name of a person, place or thing; and B) Do not match the Wikipedia MOS?"

NO. This smacks of original research. Wikipedia reports, it does not invent. Lexlex (talk) 22:31, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Styling is OK. Some of the renaming we do is more bothersome, like the Franklin Avenue – Fulton Street (New York City Subway) which seems to be a made-up name as well as badly styled. Dicklyon (talk) 22:45, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Of course we do. This has been gone over many times. It's half the point of having an MOS. If a book title is underlined in a source, we still italicize it when we reference it. That's not OR. — kwami (talk) 23:03, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
I agree. We have a manual of style and we should follow it. We don't just copy and paste material with its native format into Wikipedia articles. And to specifically address Lexlex's point that "our job is to reflect reality, not recreate it in a 'better' way": it is simply silly to equate adding spaces around a forward slash with altering reality. We aren't changing the names of the stations by doing so, just like I didn't change what you said when I quoted you with apostrophes around the word better instead of the original quotation marks that you used. – Zntrip 23:34, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Doesn't seem like we came to any kind of consensus here. According to MOS:SLASH it lists times when "a spaced slash may be used", but the MOS doesn't state that it must be. Additionally, we haven't touched on the use (or lack of) a spaced slash between names that are only one word (i.e. Wilshire/Western vs. Wilshire / Western). The former seems much better formatted and the spaced slash seems completely unnecessary. –Dream out loud (talk) 19:22, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Permission to make a shortcut

I suggest it might be helpful to have a shortcut, e.g. WP:MATCHING, that links to consistency between articles in this MOS page, just as WP:CONSISTENCY links to consistency within articles. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:00, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I think you can do so boldly. I know someone else suggested a shorter shortcut than "CONSISTENTTITLE", but perhaps "MATCHTITLE" is short & clear enough? (I don't have a problem with memorable shortcuts regardless of length, either.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:31, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks JHJ. I will go with MATCHTITLE. Let me think a little first about the location. Thanks In ictu oculi (talk) 21:09, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
JHunterJ, after consideration I suggest WP:MATCHTITLE should link to Wikipedia:Article titles#Deciding on an article title, since a shortcut of some sort to "Consistency – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles." would be helpful given that WP:CONSISTENCY only links to "consistency within articles". In ictu oculi (talk) 10:13, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
What is the target section/paragraph of the proposed link? -- PBS (talk) 19:27, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

BLP names diacritics guideline proposal

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#non-admin suggestion - RfC on change to BLP policy to insert the wording:

BLP names diacritics guideline proposal
The names of living persons should be represented accurately, according to their nationality, with diacritics if Latin alphabet names, even when the majority of popular English language sources, for example sports sources, do not use diacritics.

I think this is a bad proposal, because its advice that would be inserted into another policy and it contradicts the advise given in this policy which is to base the names of articles on usage in reliable English language sources. I have some other specific objections to the wording, which I have expressed at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#non-admin suggestion - RfC on change to BLP policy and rather than discuss it here I would urge people to read the section at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons and express an opinions there in the hope of building a consensus. -- PBS (talk) 14:48, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

For everyone else's information...
I think that proposal is ancient history now. It won't pass at BLP although it has the support of the majority of editors, 90 of 100 in recent RM discussions, momentum has been lost, primarily due to the determined opposition of Philip himself and a couple of tennis editors who consider that diacritic European-language BLP names should be spelled inconsistently so that, per test case example, Frédéric Vitoux (writer), member of the Académie française, and Frédéric Vitoux (tennis) member of the Direction technique nationale of the Fédération Française De Tennis should be treated differently because the second Frédéric Vitoux only appears in English tabloid sports sources from his earlier professional career as male tennis No. 144 in the mid-90s. English tabloid sports sources don't use French accents like "é" (or at least didn't in 1996). No highbrow English source exists which confirms that this French Frédéric has accents on his name. Philip considers that use of French-language sources to confirm that the second Frédéric Vitoux's name does also have accents is "Original Research"
Rather than being some new heresy the purpose of the BLP proposal was only to reinforce the existing guidance of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) that when English sources are unreliable on naming conventions "If this happens, follow the conventions of the language in which this entity is most often talked about (German for German politicians, Turkish for Turkish rivers,.. )" good advice but advice which is ignored by a small group of sports editors who dispute that English language sports websites are less reliable on the spelling of e.g. Czech names than Czech newspapers. The existing legacy of BLP problems mainly dates back to the activities in 2011 of blocked User:Dolovis in resisting WikiProject Czech/Poland/Slovenia/usw. editors correcting lack of sourcing and spelling in "his" hockey BLP stubs. Perhaps if the guideline said "German for German politicians, Czech for Czech Extraliga players, ..." it might have had more impact. Users who create BLPs for German politicians don't need to be told to spell German names correctly. But that's by the by.
Anyway..
That aside, back to the suggestion here. The main WP:MOS states under Article titles "consistent with the titles of related articles." and likewise here "Consistency – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles." I am not the only one who has been using WP:CONSISTENCY shortcut incorrectly thinking it led to "Consistency – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles." a new shortcut would be beneficial to conveniently shortcut to the other consistency, "consistent with the titles of related articles." and likewise here "Consistency – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles." The only objection I can see to having a shortcut is if someone is actually opposed to what WP:MOS and WP:Article titles say about "consistent with the titles of related articles." It's an important and useful part of WP:MOS and does no harm to be more easily linked to. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:04, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
I love it..."that aside"... What a load of hooey you spread. What's sad is you believe it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:20, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Whoops I forgot to put in a new section header now fixed. Iio I suggest you move you aside up to the previous section to undo the confusion I created by not putting in a section header.
Iio if you are going to say things about other editors then please make sure that you get it right without ambiguity. "Philip considers that use of French-language sources to confirm that the second Frédéric Vitoux's name does also have accents is 'Original Research'. No what I said was It is not OK to use birth certificates as a source unless it has been published in a reliable secondary source ... It is not OK to use split sources for first name usage and second name usage ... (and) It is not OK to use foreign sources if a name exists in English sources ... -- PBS (talk) 15:01, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Hello Philip,
I'll ask the question again. If you've already answered it I apologise: Have you ever created a BLP for a diacritic-Latin-alphabet European living person?
Re above:
The arguments you are making are no different from hockey editor Dolovis and tennis editor Fyunck. You're putting them in slightly more coherent form and making statements about WP policy but the result is the same, knowing mispelling of BLP names because they are of marginal notability in English speaking countries and appear only in non-scholarly sources with low MOS.
As regards "It is not OK to use foreign sources if a name exists in English sources." please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) which clearly says that when English sources are unreliable on naming "If this happens, follow the conventions of the language in which this entity is most often talked about (German for German politicians, Turkish for Turkish rivers,)
As regards French-language sources, if you've been misunderstood you now have the opportunity to make yourself clear. Question: Do you consider that use of French-language sources to confirm that the second Frédéric Vitoux's name does also have accents is 'Original Research'?
As the link you gave shows what I said about "birth certificates" was merely "Beyoncé Knowles (per birth certificate, 1981)" it was simply a note that it wasn't a stage name. The statement "It is not OK to use birth certificates as a source unless it has been published in a reliable secondary source" is your opinion. WP:PSTS WP:IRS do not say anything either way on birth certificates. For your information, where they are online as in France a birth certificate is a legitimate and useful source as to a person's name at birth.
I think that covers that. I am pretty well finished with this subject if you don't mind. As I say you are not saying anything that the advocates of "Tennis names" haven't said before.
In ictu oculi (talk) 23:43, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Birth certificates are usually frowned upon because of the difficulty of knowing whether the birth certificate you're looking at for "John Doe" is actually for the correct John Doe. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:00, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Hi WhatamIdoing,
It's unlikely that two French people of the same name would be born at the same street address on the same day. But I'm not going to defend something I didn't advocate, I'm simply asking if there is any objection from anyone who isn't opposed in principle to creating a compliment to WP:CONSISTENCY that points to existing guidelines. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:12, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Nor is this relevant to any outstanding article as far as I know. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:55, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Consistency – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles

Other non-involved editors, please
I have proposed to create WP:MATCHTITLE to shortcut to Wikipedia:Article titles#Deciding on an article title, "Consistency – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles." as this is simpler than linking WP:Article Titles "Consistency – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles.". Are other editors (those who have not travelled here from arguing against Czech and French names) for or against creation of such a short cut. To my mind this would be useful for 101 things and the fear that it might be used to shortcut to the section by those in favour of consistency in cases such as Frédéric Vitoux (writer) and Frédéric Vitoux (tennis) shouldn't disallow the creation of a shortcut for more important uses. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:43, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Let me point out what this policy says immediately after the bit on consistency:
  • These should be seen as goals, not as rules. For most topics, there will be a simple and obvious title that will meet these goals satisfactorily. If so, use it as a straightforward choice. However, in some cases the choice is not so obvious. It may be necessary to favor one or more of the principles behind these goals over the others.
While Consistency is a goal, it is probably given the least amount of weight if it conflicts with other goals ... ie when one of our other goals (such as Recognizability) conflicts with consistency... we usually give more weight to the other goal and less weight to consistency. With that in mind, I think creating a shortcut would give the impression that we give consistency more weight than we really do (note - it would be the only one of our goals to be given its own shortcut). Also, a shortcut would focus people's attention on just one goal, when they should be reading and understanding them all. Blueboar (talk) 02:26, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
@IIO. There is already a shortcut to that section of this policy: WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. Why do you want a shortcut to point to one of the five criteria and not the others? We are supposed to weigh these five criteria in deciding on a title for an article. And "consistency" is at the bottom of the list, so it is the least important. By the way, if you cite naming conventions, then better do it properly. Quoting you: "please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) which clearly says that when English sources are unreliable" EOQ. That's not what that convention says, it says: "if there are too few reliable English-language sources...". This usually only happens for articles about topics that are barely notable. MakeSense64 (talk) 06:31, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Blueboar, MakeSense64 - with respect do you see the title "other non involved editors"? Your own objections to consistency with East European BLP names is known and noted, thank you. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:12, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
So, people who have got their say and disagree with you should stop commenting in your opinion? The others can keep talking? That's a convenient idea. Haven't you got more than your say on this topic already too? If you misquote policies or guidelines then anybody can point it out, no matter what they have said already. MakeSense64 (talk) 11:01, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Is there anyone who has an objection to a shortcut WP:MATCHTITLE to Consistency – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles."? Or indeed anyone who thinks a shortcut to Consistency – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles." would be helpful in some cases? In ictu oculi (talk) 07:42, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I object to creating WP:MATCHTITLE for the same reasons that Blueboar has given (We already have a linked called WP:NAMINGCRITERIA). I think that your argument about consistency is I think flawed. You give the example of Frédéric Vitoux (writer) and Frederic Vitoux (tennis), but what do those two people share in common other than a nationality and a first name? Arguing that both should have their name spelt "Frédéric" for consistency between articles (and not through usage in reliable sources) is pushing the envelope and a POV. -- PBS (talk) 08:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Philip,

7. Oppose. The proposal actualy say that the général rule "common English spelling" should be replaced with the "native spelling". Is this an English Wikipedia or an international one? I vote use the English language. Philip Baird Shearer 10:30, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am new to his discussion. You have been having your say for 7 years. Thanks. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:51, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
.

Is there anyone there who hasn't got a issue with European names and is willing to consider a shortcut to "Consistency – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles." on its own merits? This is actually WP:Article titles guideline, yes? Thanks. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

There is a shortcut (actually 2 of them) to that section of the policy already. As long as you fail to explain why a special shortcut is needed to one of the five criteria we are supposed to weigh, you don't expect other editors to see merit in your proposal, do you? So here are two simple questions:
  • What is so special about the concensus criterium that it needs to have its own shortcut?
  • What purpose is your proposed shortcut going to serve, that is not already served equally well by WP:CRITERIA and WP:NAMINGCRITERIA?

MakeSense64 (talk) 11:10, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

In ictu, what makes you think that I have an "issue with European names"?... and how is my opinion on them "known"? As far as I can remember... I have left exactly one comment that even comes close to discussing European names in the last year (here), and I don't really think that comment can be construed as my having an "issue" with them. More to the point, my comment above did not even mention the issue of European names... it spoke directly to your proposal to add a shortcut, and my concern that it would improperly give too much weight to one of the "goals" at the expense of the others. In other words, it says nothing about European names.
Your reaction and instant dismissal of any and all comments against your proposal makes me suspect that you are not really seeking neutral comments on your proposal... but are only interested in comments that you can use to support your views in an ongoing debate. If this is not the case, I apologize... but that is the appearance you are giving. Blueboar (talk) 12:08, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Hello Blueboar I'm not particularly concerned about "the appearance I am giving" I am concerned about the deliberate mispelling of living people's names because of reliance on tabloid British and American sports sources rather than using encyclopedic sources. I have spent too much time already talking to people on an AGF basis then to discover (because I am new to this subject area) that they have been battling against "foreign" names for "foreigners" for months or years. I did think your comment above that English was inconsistent not particularly helpful in the treating of French living peoples' names but it was recognizing your name from the Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(use_English)/Diacritics_RfC oppose votes that informed my comment about prefering to hear from someone who didn't already have a view. Like Jojalozzo below, which is fine. I'm going to drop this. I can see that there is very strong opposition here to promoting consistency between article titles and I will not pursue it. Cheers In ictu oculi (talk) 13:55, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
The thing is, that the difference between using diacritics or not (résumé vs resume) isn't generally considered a case of "misspelling" in English. In fact, my spilling chucker seems to think that the diacritics-containing version is the misspelled word (which I'll fix in a minute). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Hi WhatamIdoing, but we aren't talking about spelling English or English names. Spelling can apply to non-English names too: Jonathan Wilcox, Zawiah Abdul Latif Iceland 2007 Page 93 "Icelandic has a differentiated set of long vowels, which are spelled with an accent," As for English it depends on the word I think: per David Martin Writers guide 2011 Page 142 "Words in this group are often spelled with an accent mark over the letter e (é). attaché, blasé, ..", and if not "spelled" I'm not sure what verb one would use. But again we're not talking about English names, and "spelled" is also used when talking about spelling foreign names F. Elizabeth Dahab Voices of Exile in Contemporary Canadian Francophone Literature 2010 Page xii "Throughout this monograph, Québec will be spelled with an accent aigu and Québécois with two, in keeping with French orthography." Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:59, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose A shortcut to one of the less important criteria (or even any one of the criteria) is likely to lend it more weight than it is due. It will shortcut and distort the guidance. Jojalozzo 13:20, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Okay. So be it. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:55, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Some thoughts on consistency

The proposal made above has inspired me to think about how we present consistency as a goal. I think consistency is a goal... but... only in situations where it supports the other goals. It should not be a goal in situations that conflict with the other goals.

To give examples... take the case of our flora articles... here we have the issue that plants (and to a lesser extent animals) have both non-scientific names and scientific names. The non-scientific names vary from place to place (a plant might be called "Spikey Persimmon" in one local, "Pink Julip" in another and "Witch's hat" in a third). More importantly, the non-scientific name used for a particular plant in one local can be used for a completely different plant in another local (thus, the name "Yuckberry" may refer to two different plants). Thus, using the non-scientific name as an article title causes a problem with the goals of recognizability and disambiguation. However, this is not the case if we use Scientific names... the Scientific name of a plant is the same in all locations, without any overlap. The scientific name is recognizable everywhere, without conflict. Thus in the Flora articles we call for consistency (ie consistently using scientific names) because doing so actually supports the goals of recognizability and disambiguation.

However, in other topic areas, trying for consistency can actually conflict with the other goals. For example, We could call for consistency in the article titles for living people (perhaps mandating full names - "Jonathan Jones Doe" instead of "John Doe"). However, doing so would create a conflict with the goal of recognizability ("Bill Clinton" is more recognizable than "William Jefferson Clinton"). In such cases we almost always depreciate the goal of consistency in favor of recognizability.

To restate: Consistency is a goal, when it supports the other goals... but not when it conflicts with the others. Perhaps we need to make this clearer in the policy? Blueboar (talk) 13:11, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Consistency was used before June 2008 to justify naming conventions (guidelines) that recommended using a set of rules to emulate usage in reliable sources (as opposed to all sources), WP:NCROY and "Mary I of England" rather than more popular "Bloody Mary" being an example.
It was during the debate over flora that changes were made to the policy wording that introduced section currently called "Deciding on an article title" with the the bullet points (with out a proper discussion in my opinion). Consistency was put there because some editors at flora wanted to use consistency to justify placing all flora articles under scientific names even when other names based on reliable sources were clearly universal and more common. Since those days the flora guideline has been partially modified to use reliable sources, because of course the vast majority of cases the scientific name is the most common name in reliable sources. We have debated this particular bullet point several times, and I think that the last time I was involved was in August 2010. The wording then was:
  • Consistent – Using names and terms that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles.
and the suggested replacement:
  • Consistent – When other criteria do not indicate an obvious choice, consider giving similar articles similar titles.
-- PBS (talk) 13:55, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Yeah... what I was trying to do (since consistency has become an issue yet again), is to look at how we discuss consistency from a new perspective. Can we agree that Consistency is desirable when it supports the other goals... but not so desirable when it conflicts with the other goals? Blueboar (talk) 14:29, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Thinking along those lines I guess any objective "consistency" criterium will have to be based on "scope". For article titles of topics that belong to a same scope it may desirable to have some standard or consistency. Not rarely wikiprojects try to put that in their guidance. The problem is that most articles belong to several different scopes. Can we define something like a "primary scope(s)" for an article? If not then it will be difficult to aim for consistency within all scopes. Which scope will prevail? MakeSense64 (talk) 14:43, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

It looks like Consistency is already covered in this brief section WP:MOSAT, with naming conventions for flora as given example. It states that it should only be used if there are "clear benefits" outweighing the use of common names. This suggests to me that the "consistency" criterium gets invoked only when there is an existing naming convention that pertains to the article.

Is it fair to say that the naming criteria appear in approximate order of importance? So "recognizability" and "naturalness" are most important, followed by "precision" and "conciseness". "Consistency" is least important and only used when there is a relevant naming convention. If that is the case, then I think we better reorder the sections to follow the same sequence. So "Common names" and "Neutrality in article titles" come first because they are connected mainly to "recognizability" and "naturalness". The "Precision and disambiguation" and "English-language title" sections should come next, as they relate to the "precision" and "conciseness" criteria. The "Explicit conventions" section would then be next. Would be more logical and comprehensive imo. MakeSense64 (talk) 07:41, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

No, the intent was not to present them in order of importance (but I can see how people might think that). When we can not find a title that achieves all five of the criteria/principles/goals/whatever at once, then we must favor some over the others... but... which get favored and which get depreciated will be different from one article to another... it has to be this way, because each article/subject/topic will have specifics that are unique to that article/subject/topic. We are intentionally inconsistent when it comes to weighing these criteria against each other... to allow our editors flexibility to find the best title possible for a specific article/subject/topic. Blueboar (talk) 12:19, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes, and that's in conflict with what you said above: "Consistency is a goal, when it supports the other goals... but not when it conflicts with the others", which suggests prioritizing the criteria, at least such that consistency is prioritized lower than the other four. I agree with that. --Born2cycle (talk) 15:53, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
It looks like we agree that "consistency" is a bit less important. I think the "precision" criterium is also a bit different from the rest. It actually makes sense to apply that one first. We first look for titles that are precise , "but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously.". This will typically yield a list of suitable candidate titles that pass this precision criterium. And then we can look which of the candidate titles fits the other four criteria better. We do not try to maximize the "precision", if it identifies the topic unambiguously, then it is good enough. That makes this criterium different. After finding suitable candidate names we try to maximize recognizability, naturalness, conciseness and consistency. It would probably be useful if we could add some statements that clarify how to weigh these 5 criteria. It is not very evident from the current phrasing. MakeSense64 (talk) 08:43, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
I am not sure that we can clarify how to weigh the criteria. This is because every article title decision is unique, and has unique factors to consider. Choosing the most appropriate title for an article isn't something that can be broken down into a neat step-by-step process. It is (by necessity) a much more messy thing... a balancing act... in which we consider multiple factors, all at the same time. Blueboar (talk) 12:24, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
If that is the case then it is by definition ambiguous. And I thought we are supposed to fixed policies if they are ambiguous. If you are supposed to "weigh" five factors and there is no clear instruction whatsoever how to weigh them, then you can produce any outcomes by just changing the weighings. Then you can as well have no policy. And what are these "unique factors" to consider? If we can't put any words on it, then it is just up in the air... MakeSense64 (talk) 13:25, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Blueboar you wrote above "Can we agree that Consistency is desirable when it supports the other goals... but not so desirable when it conflicts with the other goals?" That implies a hierarchy and rightly so, consistency is left over from before the alteration of the policy to base article titles on usage in reliable sources. See both Flora and NCROY from just before June 2008 and compare the wording wording to those naming conventions today. Back then both made common names (as then defined) the exceptions to the rule, now they do not. Consistency is only desirable when it supports the other goals, but can be misused to push a POV. Take the article Zurich as an example. When the article title was Zürich consistency with Zürich was used as a reason for not following common English language usage for Zurich Airport. Now that the article is at Zurich using that as an justification for writing a new article on Flughafen Zürich AG and naming it Flughafen Zurich AG simply on the grounds of consistency with the article name of Zurich would be just as harmful given the guidance given in the rest of this policy. Given the alteration to the meaning of common name in 2008, and the subsequent alteration of both Flora and NCROY, I think that the qualification I mentioned before, (or similar wording) would be a step forward in simplifying this policy. -- PBS (talk) 10:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
I think "hierarchy" is probably the wrong word ... there certainly isn't any detectable hierarchy between the other four goals/criteria/principles (or rather there is, but the order of that hierarchy changes from one article to the next depending on the specifics of the case). Perhaps we should say that there is a difference between Consistency and the other four. Blueboar (talk) 11:56, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
BB, your words, "Consistency is desirable when it supports the other goals... but not so desirable when it conflicts with the other goals", clearly and correctly imply a lower priority for consistency relative to the other four. That suggests a hierarchy, albeit a very simple one.

And I couldn't agree more with what MakeSense says above:

If you are supposed to "weigh" five factors and there is no clear instruction whatsoever how to weigh them, then you can produce any outcomes by just changing the weighings. Then you can as well have no policy.

In other words, ambiguous policy simply fosters an environment for jdli arguments, because just about any position can be justified with an appropriately rationalized interpretation of the ambiguous policy. That's exactly what we should be trying to avoid. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:02, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Fwiw, here is an interesting "admin perspective", given in the context of a recent RfC : [11]. He seems to weigh "consistency" much higher than the rest. So, there we go. This just confirms that we can "weigh" the factors in any way we want, producing different outcomes. So what we get is something like the situation in which three people were asked to mix earth, water and fire without any further instructions. The first person simply mixed water with earth and threw a burning match in it, he got ordinary mud. The second one added a little earth in a lot of water and put it on the fire, he ended up making steam. The third person put a little water to the earth and heated it up, he produced ceramics. The outcomes differ completely depending on what "weighing" is given to each ingredient.
The only way to make a policy based on "weighing five goals" work in an objective way, is by stating some hierarchy or "sequence" that is to be taken. Ideally it should be clarified in a kind of "flowchart". Without it "weighing 5 goals" becomes a "carte blanche" that can be filled out in multiple ways. You just get mud, steam or ceramics depending on how you chose to "weigh". MakeSense64 (talk) 15:20, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
It sounds like you would weigh consistency of process, or consistency of whose weights matter most, over the more thoughtful approach that we've been using for years. Why do you want the policy to work in an "objective" way, when the problem space is clearly very subjective? Dicklyon (talk) 15:34, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Since my comments elsewhere have been invoked here, I thought I'd weigh-in. Consistency is not a vague thing. When a locus of anything is viewed collectively, there is either consistency among the members or there is not. Agreed, that the degree of consistency is always up for debate, but at some point the relationship between members becomes inconsistent. Consistency is clearly defined by these words: steadfast adherence to the same principles, course, form, etc.: There is consistency in his pattern of behavior. or agreement, harmony, or compatibility, especially correspondence or uniformity among the parts of a complex thing: consistency of colors throughout the house. I don't think this discussion is as much about weighting the different titling criteria, but instead is about reaching the best balance among the criteria for any given title. If one foreign name uses diacritics and other does not when both are within the same locus of members, those titles are inconsistent in form. If we want consistency to be one of our title criteria, then we should seek to craft guidelines and naming conventions that provide for consistency and not allow inconsistency. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:22, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

"... reaching the best balance among the criteria for any given title". But because "best balance" is almost totally subjective, that's just an invitation for JDLI arguments, or everyone mixing earth, water, and fire in a way that happens to favor the title they prefer for, as far as we know, never stated but totally irrational reasons. Given that in 99% of these cases the encyclopedia quality and reader experience is entirely unaffected by the title being one or another of those typically being considered, what is the point of all this? Why not just make the criteria less vague and more definitive? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
I think I agree wholeheartedly with Why not just make the criteria less vague and more definitive? If Consistency is one of the criteria, then there should be nothing vague about what it means while recognizing that at some point ignoring it will allow the persistence of article titles that are Inconsistent in form with others in their membership group. If we are willing to allow inconsistency on a regular basis, it shouldn't be a criteria. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:52, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Much as it may be desirable to alter the whole section, I think that is too larger change to contemplate at the moment. However I do think that we can clarify this one bullet point and I still think that the former compromise wording would be an improvement over the current wording: "Consistent – When other criteria do not indicate an obvious choice, consider giving similar articles similar titles." -- PBS (talk) 20:33, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
That works for me. Blueboar (talk) 20:40, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
👍 Very good. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:12, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I like the first part about being clear that consistency is lower priority than other criteria but if we're trying to make the criteria less vague, the second part doesn't do that for me. What do we mean by "giving similar articles similar titles"? Similar in form? Similar in word count? Similar in syntax? Similar in wording? Use the same wording and form but clarify critical differences? Jojalozzo 00:33, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
I actually fundamentally disagree with the wording from this aspect. If we are going to allow inconsistency based on the subjective application of other criteria, then we don't need consistency as a criteria because its meaningless. If consistency is not a criteria, then most naming conventions have no basis in policy, because naming conventions are all about establishing consistency within a broad topic area. MOS is all about consistency of form, but the wording as is basically says editors can ignore MOS and create titles that are inconsistent in form if they can justify that inconsistency with other criteria. Something is flawed here. --Mike Cline (talk) 01:11, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Well...Yes. When the other criteria/goals/principles (such as usage in reliable sources) indicate that a given title should be used, editors should ignore the MOS and project naming criteria. Doing so does not negate the MOS or Conventions - it simply means that the specific title in question is an exception to the MOS or project naming Convention. Once you realize that the MOS and project conventions are not inflexible "one size fits all" rules... once you accept that both the MOS and the project naming conventions can have exceptions... you realize that there is no flaw. Blueboar (talk) 11:36, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Two ideas emerge from the comment above. One, if exceptions are allowed, especially exceptions based on subjective (not objective) opinions of a few editors, that create obvious inconsistency, then Consistency shouldn't be a criteria in the policy. Two, then the question as to whether exceptions to the MOS/Naming conventions should be stated in the guidelines or should they just be ad hoc as your comments seem to suggest. Policies and guidelines that can arbitrary ignored through the subjective intrepretation of other vague policies and guidelines are essentially useless. I have no issue with there being exceptions to MOS/Naming conventions, but they should be objectively spelled out rather than whimsically created out of thin air. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:09, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
No one is suggesting a subjective, ad hoc application... the exceptions are objective... they are based on concrete things like usage in reliable sources, brevity, and the need for disambiguation. Blueboar (talk) 12:19, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
It may be sematics, but what I am suggesting is that creating these exceptions in a transitory RM process is subjective and ad hoc as there is no lasting record of the exception in policy/guideline pages. It allows any editor or clique of editors to subjectively interpret policy in an RM, even if those interpretations are contrary to other policies and guidelines. That's not the way to employ policies and guidelines designed to help editors build a better encyclopedia. It merely sustains vague, unclear and inconsistent policy application. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:42, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
[Edit clash with BB] Yes but no :-) Consistency goes back to the days when common name meant the common name in all sources, not common name in reliable sources. So editors who edited groups of articles such as ships, flora and royalty made up rules to try to emulate reliable sources, the best example of which is WP:NCROY. Now that the policy states common name means usage in reliable sources guidelines such as NCROY have been altered to first look at common names, but consistency is still useful as a supplement to Naturalness For example I know that there was a James II of Scotland and a James II of England, usage in reliable sources are not of much help in describing the "name that editors naturally use to link from other articles" because many of them are written about in histories in which context makes disambiguation details in those texts superfluous, eg Historical dictionary of the British empire: "James II fled to exile in France. A convention Parliament then formally offered the crown to Protestants William and Mary." So in consistency can help with deciding what style of disambiguation to use. Where consistency is a hindrance is in arguments of the type that says ignore usage in reliable sources and name him William or Wilhelm or whatever because that is the article title his the biography of his father/son or some other person is under, because once we ignore usage in reliable sources and follow our own rules we are breaching V and NOR. That is why I think the proposed wording will clarify the use of consistency and it allows guidelines such as NCROY to enhance this policy without this policy contradicting that supplementary guidance. -- PBS (talk) 15:47, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
But that is how article titling (and Wikipedia in general) works... article titles are chosen by consensus (given the limitation of Wikipedia's programming). We can say that, when reaching a consensus, editors should take into account the various goals/principles. However, we also need to acknowledge that any specific article title may have unique considerations (circumstances that are specific to that individual topic, article and title) that will affect that consensus... Sometimes those unique considerations will indicate that we should downplay (or even outright ignore) one or more of the goals/principles. Blueboar (talk) 14:49, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
I disagree with the author of this section and B2C. I think Consistency does and should have a greater weight than some of the other goals. I've been busy with other things, but I had assumed that the consensus that the 5 goals were of approximately equal weight wouldn't be altered without a centralized discussion. I agree that consistency is not good where it violates all of the other goals, and, if a name meets all the other goals, but is not consistent with articles on similar topics, it probably should be used. However, the same is true of all the goals; why single out "consistency". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:34, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Picking up on what Mike Cline said : "If we are willing to allow inconsistency on a regular basis, it shouldn't be a criteria." I think that makes sense. But, using "consistency" as the main criterium is also not as easy as it sounds. Because most articles belong to more than one "membership group". A given article can easily fall within the scope of 3 or more different Wikiprojects, and all the naming conventions (or naming guidance) they have put together will not necessarily point in the same direction. Deciding on an article title will then become a "voting contest".

Personally, I would do away with the "consistency" criterium and just state that: "naming conventions may apply". Not all our naming conventions are equal. We have "rigid" naming conventions and more "fluid" ones. Some are more like policies and enforced before anything else is considered (e.g. we would not consider any article title in Cyrillic), while others naming conventions are weighed as one factor among many others (so these conventions will by definition not be used consistently). Sometimes our naming conventions have inconsistency baked in. Take our naming conventions for Ireland-related articles WP:MOS-IE, neither English nor Irish names are used consistently, so this convention is consistently inconsistent.
My first suggestion to simplify the naming criteria would be to merge "recognizability" with "naturalness" and just call it "commonness". We are not writing wp articles about something if it is not mentioned in sources, so whatever our sources are writing about, they must be giving it a name. The most commonly used name or word will almost always be the most recognizable and natural term.
My second suggestion would be to merge "precise" with "concise", because we also clearly use them as a connected pair. We can often be more precise by using a longer name or description, but a shorter title is more practical. So we look for an optimum between two vectors that point in opposite directions.
My third suggestion is to drop the "consistency" criterium and replace it with "naming conventions may apply". So we can get a flowchart that show us what to do. E.g.:

  • (1) If one (or more) naming convention applies, then try to follow the naming convention(s). If the outcome is not clear then use #2 to select the best candidate.
  • (2) If no naming conventions apply (or if they disagree) then weigh "commonness" with "precise-concise".

Comments welcome. MakeSense64 (talk) 17:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I personally like the thrust of this because it leads to a simplification of titling policy and supporting guidelines. It would also eventually lead to the elimination of some of the gross inconsistency we now have across titling policy and guidelines. Commonname is good policy, and if we’d be a little more creative in our thinking, we could make a much easier policy to operationalize. I also like the idea of naming conventions for membership groups of articles. If naming conventions are articulated well, they can deal with disambiguation schemes, MOS issues as well as reinforce overall titling and other WP policies instead of having these guidelines scattered across multiple policy and guideline pages. As Makessense says, many articles may fall within the purview of multiple naming conventions, so some local judgment will always play in this. That said, by looking at titles from a broad membership perspective, instead of one article at a time, we should be able to eliminate a lot of the ridiculous and wasteful discussions we now have. A discussion, no matter how contentious about a naming convention has far more benefit to the encyclopedia and community in the long run that the same level of effort on one article title. Once a naming convention is essentially agreed upon for any given membership group, the entire community has a much broader point of reference to interpret and apply a title decision to any given article. I certainly hope this idea has legs. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:47, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Is the purpose of the policy to reduce/eliminate "ridiculous and wasteful discussions", or is the purpose of the policy to explain to editors how to choose the most appropriate titles for their articles? Blueboar (talk) 13:05, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Great question and I would answer yes to both. Volunteer editor energy is the revenue and only resource the community has to build and improve the encyclopedia. That resource is not infinite. When its wasted, regardless of why, it is wasted and cannot be recovered. Good policy should promote, support and especially not impede the most productive use of our volunteer resource. So that means that policy should be focused on eliminating wasteful, unneccessary discussion as well as helping editors get titles right the first time (which in fact helps accomplish the first goal as well). --Mike Cline (talk) 13:16, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Mike... No one forces our volunteer editors to participate in RM discussions. Most (if not all) of the editors who participate in such discussions do so because they want to discuss such things. Their energy is not wasted... it is freely given. Blueboar (talk) 13:47, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Blueboar, we have different perspectives on this. I see volunteers as a resource to be used wisely to build and improve the encyclopedia and help WM achieve its strategic goals. Others see WP as a playground (metaphorically) for their own enjoyment and as long as the playground provides enjoyment there is little concern on their part as to whether their participation is contributing to the strategic goals of the community or not. Having worked with many volunteer organizations, volunteer energy can indeed be wasted, no matter how freely the volunteer gives of their time. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:08, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Not to mention that you can also lose your volunteers, especially when things seem to be changed and decided on a rather arbitrary basis. Providing volunteers with clear and unambiguous rules of "the game" is an important part in letting them know that their time is being respected. I often see questions like "what is the harm or loss when...". Well, what you may lose is editors.. MakeSense64 (talk) 14:31, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I would think that creating overly restrictive "rules of the game"... rules that force ridiculous and unnecessary consistency on an article title would be more likely to lose us editors. Blueboar (talk) 14:41, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Why is there always a presumption that any constructive change to our titling policy that was intended to simplify and eliminate inconsistency (in policies and guidelines) would result in overly restrictive policy? I don't believe there is any significant evidence in the history of discussion on these pages that anyone is pushing for overly restrictive policy. I don't think anyone wants to create titles with a cookie cutter, but having a multi-tool that everyone could use and generate good results would be a good thing. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:49, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
{ec} I will agree that too much aim for consistency can lead us into an "overgeneralization" trap, in which we force consistency unto a topic just on the basis of it belonging to a certain "membership group".
But "clear" rules do not need to be "overly restrictive". Clear rules can also be less restrictive. Generally, many volunteers will still agree to work with restrictive rules as long as these rules are "clear" and up front. And if they don't like a restrictive rule then they are free to work on something else. What volunteers really don't like is when they are working on the basis of a rule, only to see somebody else come out to criticize or even undo their work on the basis of some other rule that was found elsewhere. WP has already become very balkanized in that regard. That burns out editors more efficiently than anything else. MakeSense64 (talk) 15:01, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
An I would be solidly in favor of having a few clear rules. The question is whether consistency should be one of those rules. I think consistency makes for a nice "rule of thumb" goal, but it makes for a piss poor "rule". There are too many situations where the most appropriate title will be inconsistent with others in the topic area. 16:02, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
As Blueboar mentioned earlier, there are "unique considerations" that may change the equation for specific articles or type of articles. That is one of the reasons why our current naming criteria are not more specific and objective. But these peculiarities for each article or type of article can be much better dealt with on the level of various Wikiprojects trying to create naming conventions for their field, since they know the peculiarities of their field. Once we put this put off to the naming conventions, we can have a more simplified and objective "broad" naming policy that doesn't require us to weigh five factors/goals (with nobody able to explain how to weigh them). A simplified procedure that leans more heavily on naming conventions will also be more easily understood by (new) editors wondering how to title their article. When in doubt, they can consult the naming conventions (or contact the wikiproject) most directly related to the topic of their new article, and otherwise chose a name based on "commonness" vs "precise-concise". In most cases they will find a good title.
The current naming criteria try to say too much (or include too much) and as a result end up saying little or nothing (leaving it wide open for all kind of interpretation). Sometimes (if not always) simplified criteria (in combination with common sense) will work better than criteria that try to cover every base or case. MakeSense64 (talk) 13:43, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I like this thinking. If indeed we started down this road, we could actually provide some guidance to projects to address all the relevant titling issues—MOS, disambiguation, commonname, etc. in their naming convention(s). Of course the substance of the naming convention would be contextual to the membership group, but any convention would always address all the relevant title policy interpretations in a consistent way. In a way we could create an MOS for naming conventions to ensure editors could easily interpret any naming convention they consulted. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:23, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I also like Makes' proposal because it simplifies the guidance and eliminates distinctions which we've been unable to clearly define or implement. However, if we are going to give precedence to local naming conventions then, like Mike, I think we need policy for ensuring the widest possible involvement in determining such conventions to avoid local consensus issues (see What's comment below) and to ensure that common/precise-concise continues to play a significant role in the determination of local conventions. Jojalozzo 16:36, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Just a reminder that advice from a WikiProject is just like advice from any other editor, not an official coomunity guideline (unless they made a WP:PROPOSAL and the community adopted it). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:37, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, but I think if we could develop an MOS for Naming conventions that was supported by a simplified WP:AT and covered all the titling considerations, then projects could take the lead in developing sound naming conventions that would eventually evolve into Wikipedia level conventions. I can envision a day where WP:AT is but a few paragraphs long and editors are referred to a long list of naming conventions to review in deciding a title. --Mike Cline (talk) 11:09, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Well, if you want to go that route, I think it was Blueboar who a while back suggested that the only policy is that titles have to be unique within the limits of the technology. I might add that titles should not exhibit undue POV bias. Beyond that, the precise form a particular title takes is a matter of convention. older ≠ wiser 12:00, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
NPOV names like Boston Massacre and Patriot (American Revolution) (Now theres's a NPOV name with a NPOV dab extension!)? Common name and NPOV do not always make comfortable bedfellows. I think we need to keep this conversation focused on consistency. -- PBS (talk) 17:11, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
True, but I did qualify POV bias with undue. My main point is for policy fundamentalists -- that the only absolute is that titles have to be unique, everything else is a matter of convention. older ≠ wiser 23:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes, uniqueness of the title is a key point. I find it interesting how some editors weigh in on that aspect. Watching how an individual can support the ambiguity of a title and yet argue for an article to be moved there knowing that this does not fix the problem. Or argue for consistency in naming when they want to be consistent with a handful of articles and inconsistent with thousands. On one hand we don't want to write something that causes confusion, but then we don't want something that is a formula that decides for us. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:24, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
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