Wikipedia talk:Article titles/precision

Precision and disambiguation

• When a topic's most commonly used name is ambiguous (can refer to more than one topic covered in Wikipedia), and the topic is not primary, that name cannot be used for the title of that topic's article and so must be disambiguated. This is often achieved by adding a disambiguating term in parentheses (or sometimes after a comma); however in certain cases it may be done by choosing a different form of title in order to avoid the ambiguity.

  If the topic has a name (some topics, like List of countries, don't have set names), then any alternative title should still reflect a name that the subject is commonly called in English. While a name may be chosen that is less common than the (ambiguous) preferred name, avoid choosing an obscure name, or making up a new name. Such an alternative name is used instead of the most common name as it is a natural mode of disambiguation in standard English.

  For example, the word "English" commonly refers to either the people or the language. Because of the ambiguity, we use the alternate but still common titles, English language and English people, allowing natural disambiguation.

  On the other hand, "mercury" has distinct meanings that do not have sufficiently common alternate names, so we use parenthetical disambiguation: Mercury (element), Mercury (mythology) and Mercury (planet). Note that the planet has the potential natural disambiguation title: "planet Mercury". However, although the phrase "planet Mercury" appears in some contexts, it is not what the planet is actually called.

  In summary: Use names that are commonly used in reliable sources; do not invent neologisms. For topics without names, like List of countries, more latitude is allowed to form descriptive and unique titles.

WP:PRECISION Consensus version discussion

Explain your edits to the consensus version here.

• What I'm trying to say with the last sentence --Note that the last of these has a potential natural disambiguator of Planet Mercury, but it is not used as an alternate title as that is not what it is commonly called -- is that "natural disambiguators" should still be what a topic is commonly called, not merely referred to. I refer to my brother as, well, "my brother", but that's not what he is called. Similarly, even reliable sources commonly refer to that planet as "planet Mercury", but that's not what it is called. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:38, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• Okay, Hesperian, I bet you could pare down this monster and still have it convey as much. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:44, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• Which is why I said it was just a noun phrase rather than an actual alternate title. It think that's on the right track, but just needs better language than I used before. By the way, having this trancluded and each person changing it and then explaining each change... this is not conducive and if we weren't far along and not many of us involved, would have killed the discussion. We might muddle through now, but I would personally shoot this format in both knees after a kidney punch.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:15, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• How is this less conducive than having multiple versions floating around in various comments? At least this way it's focused in one spot in a format we're all accustomed to - it's like we're all editing the same article. Plus, because it's a subpage, there is the history and the diffs that we also all know and love.

  On to substance - I'm not sure "noun phrase" tells us anything, because a noun phrase may or may not be something the subject is called. I'm tempting to say it has to be a name, but there was some objection to that in the past. One thing I tried to do at WP:How2title is distinguish named entities from unnamed entities. If we did that here, then we could say that named entities must have a commonly used named for their title, or the most common name must be disambiguated with parenthetic disambiguation. It's the unnamed entities, like List of countries in Asia, that have descriptive names that are not names. What we want to avoid is giving a descriptive title to an article about something that has a name, but that name (alone) is unavailable. We should disambiguate that name, parenthetically, not come up with a different descriptive title. How do we say that? --Born2cycle (talk) 05:27, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

• I added a couple of lines incorporating the above point plus something that Bkonrad said earlier, but it needs to be worked in better. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:33, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• Pruned/reworded some too. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:36, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• Is this an open party? I found this page, and tweaked the consensus version up there. I broke up a long sentence, and a long paragraph. I also changed a passive-voice verb to active, and made a bit of formatting consistent ("English" and "mercury", instead of English and "mercury".) I hope that's okay. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:55, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• Some tweaks, which my edit summary describes.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:43, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• All good improvements. There is an issue with the first sentence as it stands -- Where the name of a topic is ambiguous because it refers to more than one existing Wikipedia article and is not primary. The subject of the sentence is "name of a topic" which "is ambiguous". However, the name of a topic is not what is or is not "primary" - it's the topic that's primary. But that should be easy to fix. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:02, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• I just made some copy-edits to the first paragraph. Broke up a long sentence, chose a more appropriate verb... nothing controversial, I don't think. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:11, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• Per the explanation made at WT:TITLE#What it means to be recognized about problem with using "recognized name", I've made some adjustments too. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:15, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• Last sentence: For articles about topics without names, ... --Born2cycle (talk) 17:24, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• First sentence before: Where the name of a topic is ambiguous because it refers to more than one topic covered in Wikipedia, and the topic is not primary, ....

  After: When a topic's most commonly used name is ambiguous (refers to more than one topic covered in Wikipedia), and the topic is not primary, ... --Born2cycle (talk) 17:30, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

• Change "disambiguating word" to "disambiguating term" because it's not always just a word. One more paragraph break to set off intro of this. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:34, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• Before: If the topic has a name (some topics, like List of countries, don't have set names), then any alternative title should still reflect a name that the subject is commonly called in English. While we may choose a name that is less common than the (ambiguous) preferred name, we avoid choosing an obscure name, or making up a new name. If there is a natural mode of disambiguation in standard English, use that instead.

  After: If the topic has a name (some topics, like List of countries, don't have set names), then any alternative title should still reflect a name that the subject is commonly called in English. While we may choose a name that is less common than the (ambiguous) preferred name, we avoid choosing an obscure name, or making up a new name. Such an alternative name is used instead of the most common name as it is a natural mode of disambiguation in standard English.

• Are we ready to integrate this into the actual policy page? --Born2cycle (talk) 21:42, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
• I don't like something about the tone or tense or person of "While we may choose a name that is less common than the (ambiguous) preferred name, we avoid choosing an obscure name, or making up a new name." Thinking out loud.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:50, 19 July 2011 (UTC)