Wikipedia talk:Article titles

Article names for events which are primarily about a person

Sorry for slightly convoluted title!

There is an AfD currently underway for Samantha Orobator. As part of that discussion there have been some suggestions to rename to something like Case of Samantha Orobator. I'm a bit undecided as to what the correct naming should be. On the one hand, the article is not a biography as such, in that it is specifically about a person in relation to a specific event. On the other hand, most people searching would probably just look for the name of the person.

In terms of other articles, I note that for Madeleine McCann, the article is called Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, with redirects to that page.

I was just wondering if there was a consensus for how to approach this type of situation. Quantpole (talk) 12:43, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Generally, if a person is only notable for one event, then the article should be named after the event, not the person, and be structured to emphasize the notability of the event over that of the person.--Aervanath (talk) 18:09, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Slash in name

It's not that clear if the / symbol is allowed. Please see my comments at Talk:Good_cop/bad_cop#Name.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I've commented over there, too, but in general there shouldn't be a problem with it, as long as it complies with the rest of the naming conventions.--Aervanath (talk) 18:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

A related issue is # in the name, which does seem to be a problem. See Talk:Bam Margera Presents: Where the#Name. Any advice welcome, and perhaps WP:NC#Special characters needs some expaansion. Andrewa (talk) 09:51, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Copied from Talk:Good cop/bad cop#Name

I think this article should be renamed to remove the / symbol from the name. See Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Avoid_non-alphanumeric_characters_used_only_for_emphasis and Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Subpages.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I think there is a good technical reason for not using / as it creates a sub-page. -- PBS (talk) 17:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Those two policies just say "page names should avoid beginning with non-alphanumeric characters" and "do not intentionally use slashes to make subpages". Is the "good technical reason" still an issue, in modern Wikipedia? (An article like AC/DC doesn't appear to have any hacks or warnings on it.) --McGeddon (talk) 17:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Good point, I've asked at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Slash_in_name.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Subpages are disabled in the article namespace, so the use of the / character is not a problem. As long as "Good cop/bad cop" is the WP:Most common name (as opposed to, say, "Good cop-bad cop", with a hyphen), then there is no reason it should be a problem. (Note: I'm not actually suggesting which one is more common, I'm just using it as an example.) Cheers,--Aervanath (talk) 18:01, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Copied from Talk:Bam Margera Presents: Where the#Name

Wikipedia:NC#Special_characters doesn't mention # but it should. Unfortunately, # is used to identify anchors within the page, that's the problem here. Unsure what the best solution is here, but it's not RM. I'll pursue further, the request is not lost! Andrewa (talk) 09:39, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

You could use ♯ instead of #. --Zundark (talk) 10:13, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I've now done this, as it's better than the truncated title anyway. --Zundark (talk) 10:20, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I've made the problems with the use of the special characters more explicit in the Naming Convention.

At the moment the advise given at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Characters totally forbidden in page titles is "However, it may be necessary to spell out the character (e.g. Gtk Sharp instead of Gtk#) or use another substitute" we could add to that "like '♯' for of '#'" Should we add Zundark idea? It seems to me that it may cause more problems than it solves as most people will not have access to ♯ on their keyboard when entering searches in search engines (and would probably not notice the difference unless it was pointed out to them), but after brief check with Google, Google seems to substitute one for the other as it does with many other similar characters (Could someone please verify this?). What do others think? --PBS (talk) 15:34, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Aervanath are subpages also disabled from article talk pages? Should we mention in the naming convention that "/" in a name is depreciated unless reliable sources also use "/" in a name. --PBS (talk) 15:34, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Subpages are not disabled in the article talk namespace. I've thought about the possibility of this causing issues before, but I haven't come across any cases where there actually was an issue.--Aervanath (talk) 07:43, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

See Talk:AC/DC and Talk:AC/DC/Archive 1 they lead to the talk page of talk:AC. So AFAICT if the article AC and its talk pages were moved it would impact on the talk page Talk:AC/DC and all other subsidiary pages. -- PBS (talk) 19:36, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Slashes break Wikiblame, nothing that breaks Wikiblame should be allowed! Please. :-) Dougweller (talk) 20:28, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I see the problem PBS has pointed out. I think the reason it's not an issue on Good cop/bad cop is that there is no Talk:Good cop, so the software doesn't treat Talk:Good cop/bad cop as a subpage of anything. I have filed bugzilla:19032 to see if the developers can develop a hack to get around this issue.--Aervanath (talk) 12:51, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Indefinite articles within titles

What's the preferred way of dealing with this? Currently there's a debate at the Talk:Gay icon page over naming of gay icon-related articles. At present, we have two ways of naming these articles (eg: Madonna as gay icon and Judy Garland as a gay icon), and no one seems to be able to agree or state definitively which should be preferred and why. Exploding Boy (talk) 21:41, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I definitely prefer the form without "a". Maybe it's just my taste, but it seems we shouldn't be using unnecessary articles in titles.--Kotniski (talk) 19:46, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Since the article is about Madonna as a gay icon, the title should clearly be "Madonna as a gay icon". --Zundark (talk) 21:05, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I agree with Zundark, but is there any particular rule about this? Exploding Boy (talk) 23:34, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Isn't this covered by the "use common names" policy? --Zundark (talk) 08:47, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

That syllogism doesn't hold - the articles about dogs and the Baltic Sea are not called Dogs or the Baltic Sea. --Kotniski (talk) 07:38, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but I didn't mean it that literally: I was just trying to express why "Madonna as gay icon" isn't a viable title. It's because it's not normal English. --Zundark (talk) 08:47, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

the "gay icon" part is a nominal predicate. In English, these have to be supported by the indefinite article

• He is a teacher.
• She is an idiot.

It is impossbile to leave out the indefinite article in this construction unless you are using telegraphic style. In other languages, this is different for some subtypes of nominal predicates, eg German "Er ist Lehrer" (He is teacher), where the article does not show up. The question boils down to whether we want to use telegraphic style in headers or not. There are arguments for both positions. For instance, we leave out the definite article "the" per WP:MOS. It is = = early years = = not = = the early years = =. Jasy jatere (talk) 11:57, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

But "early years" is a little bit different, plus it's a sub-heading. To me, "X as gay icon" sounds like a newspaper ("X reflects on status as gay icon") rather than an encyclopedia, especially an online one where we don't have to worry about conserving ink and paper. Exploding Boy (talk) 14:52, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

as I said, the question is whether wp should adopt "newspaper style". For some reason, this is done with subheadings. Those reasons could apply to the title as well, or not Jasy jatere (talk) 16:47, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Ducati

Currently Ducati redirects to Ducati Motor Holding. Ducati is by far more in compliance with easily most recognized name and use the most common name than is Ducati Motor Holding, and I see nothing at WP:NCCORP that indicates WP:NC policy should be overridden here. The current name seems like an obvious case of unnecessary precision to me. Since Ducati already redirects to the article, there is no ambiguity issue.

As this is potentially controversial, I'm inclined to make a formal WP:RM request, but thought I would do a quick sanity check her in case I'm missing something with respect to company names. Am I? Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:03, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be fairly sane here, as far as I can tell. For comparison, see IBM. which is far more widely used than International Business Machines Corporation.--Aervanath (talk) 19:47, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Style considered harmful in article names

It is English style to name things simply. This reads great (which was Strunk or White's original idea), but I fear often leads to articles with "interesting" titles but are intrinsically pov. Let me take cases that may seem amusing: "French kissing" implies something the French do or know or originate. There is a built-in implication that the French are better at, well something, anyway. I agree that it is simple and interesting.

Another example is "Spanish flu" or "Asian flu." While there may have been health vectors from those places, history has often named diseases after countries or places they didn't like or were even enemies (e.g "German" measles, "French pox").

My point in all this is that there are simple, one word (maybe two or so) subjects that can only be named one way: France, arithmetic, Bill Clinton, etc.

There are larger classes that get us into trouble. I propose inserting the general topic first, the specific target second. So in my joke example above (I'm not really seriously considering doing this, just for example only), the title would be "Kissing by French people", "Flu vectored from Asia". We have had many articles, which I don't want to list here to avoid spilling over boundaries, that would have been easily solved by using these guidelines for titles. These also, BTW, imply the possibility of other articles which the original titles didn't do. Do Swedes kiss? Did a flu bug ever originate in the US? (written before reading subsection above on swine flu BTW).

Unstylistic, but npov.Student7 (talk) 18:29, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I would oppose such a change. (KISS principle) --PBS (talk) 20:39, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I would oppose such a change because it would violate naming policy (use the most easily recognized name and use the most common name) in each instance. In most cases it would also amount to unnecessary precision. Naming policy evolved from conventions and guidelines that were developed for good (usually self-explanatory) reasons. I see no justification to throw all that out. I do not see the "trouble" you think we currently get into. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:15, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

While we should be concerned with having a neutral point of view, calling something by the name it is most commonly known by and referred to by the majority of English speakers is about as neutral as you're going to get, so I'm afraid I see no need for this change.--Aervanath (talk) 06:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

These names often reflect a distinct media (US media, BTW) bias. In the worst cases, they are not even close to being encyclopedic. "OJ Simpson scandal" "Monicagate", etc. Student7 (talk) 01:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Strengthen COMMONNAME

Currently the text of COMMONNAME reads (emphasis added):

Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, title an article using the most common name of the person or thing that is the subject of the article (making the title unique when necessary as described in the following section and in the disambiguation guideline). The naming conflict guideline may help resolve disagreements over the right name to use. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded.

I object to the bolded portion because it essentially guts the provision; anyone who writes up another naming convention can override it. I propose a change to the following wording (emphasis indicates added portion):

Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication Title an article using the most common name of the person or thing that is the subject of the article (making the title unique when necessary as described in the following section and in the disambiguation guideline). If it is not obvious what the most common name is, then other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions should be consulted to determine the best name for the article. The naming conflict guideline may help resolve disagreements over the right name to use. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded.

I believe this would bring it more in line with the injunction to use the name that "the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize", and reflect the principle that "The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists." The current wording gives far more leeway to specialists than it does to the general audience, and should be changed to remedy this. I am open to other suggestions on wording that would convey the same general intention. Cheers, --Aervanath (talk) 20:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm opposed to this, as written, although perhaps too much credence is presently given to WikiProject conventions. The royalty naming convention has reduced some edit wars, and the place naming convention was reducing edit wars until [an editor] started acting as if the US place naming convention was a nullity. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Redacted, per request.   Will Beback  talk  23:14, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not derogatory, but the name of the editor isn't relevant to this discussion unless he participates. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not derogatory? Did you mean that comment to be complementary? --Born2cycle (talk) 01:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There are three basic views about this issue.

1. Model 1. The first is the model in which WP:NC serves as a default (what the rules are if no more specific rules apply), and that more specific naming conventions can override and contradict what the WP:NC default rules say.
2. Model 2. The second view is the model in which WP:NC defines the fundamental naming rules, and that the more specific rules only apply when the fundamental rules don't provide sufficient guidance, in particular whenever "it is not obvious what the most common name is", or to provide guidance for how exactly to disambiguate when disambiguation is required and only when disambiguation is required.
3. Chaos. The third view is that we use both models, sometimes following the first, sometimes following the second, mostly depending on how the "consensus" addressing a given naming issue happens to be leaning at some given time.

In a sense, the third view is correct, because that's we have today, but the result is an endless source of dispute about naming because of the conflicting models.

This proposal to strengthen COMMONNAME goes a long way towards adopting Model 2.

It should be noted that there would be probably be very little change to royalty names if this change (or the full adoption of model 2) was put into effect. This is because most members of royalty do not have a clear "most commonly used" or "most recognizable" name, and so even with Model 2, the more specific royalty name guideline would provide the same guidance it does today.

It should also be noted that this is true about many other categories as well, such as plants. For example, the vast, vast majority of plants do not have well-known commonly used names, and, so, even with Model 2, the plant-specific WP:NC (flora) guidelines would specify how to name them. Only with respect to well-known commonly used plant names would their names be determined by the fundamental WP:NC rules. In the case of areas well thought-out guidelines like TV episode names there would be absolutely no change, since they wisely already "disambiguate only when necessary".

While both models lead to some inconsistencies, there are much fewer with Model 2, at least with respect to well-known topics. In both models each area has its own guidelines about naming within a given area, and nothing says they have to be consistent with each other, but at least in Model 2 all well-known "primary topic" uses of each name are named consistently per the main WP:NC guidelines. Only names that require disambiguation due to relative obscurity (because they are not primary, or because they are so obscure that there is no obvious name per fundamental WP:NC rules) are named per the more specific naming guidelines. Model 1 does provide intra-consistency of naming within a given area, but little or no inter-consistency among names in disparate areas.

So, in the name of reducing confusion, conflict, dispute and inter-inconsistency with respect to naming articles in Wikipedia, I support this proposal to strengthen COMMONNAME. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

In the interest of reducing confusion, I suggest we should more clearly adopt model 1. The history of the confusion created when specialized guidelines were ignored in favor of WP:COMMONNAME make it clear that merely strengthening it would cause added confusion. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Let's not incorrectly attribute the confusion created by the current chaos to Model 2. The chaos confusion/contradiction exists to this day, and more clearly adopting model 1 would not help. Cities in most countries, per their specific guidelines, are disambiguated only when necessary, while in the U.S. all cities except those on the AP list are disambiguated whether they need to be or not. Model 1 does nothing to address this confusion/contradiction; in fact it encourages it.

With respect to U.S. cities, the only reason the confusion/contradiction exists is because a majority insisted on make U.S. city names an exception to WP:NC. Contrast this with WP:NC-TV, for example, which states: "when disambiguation is required, use (TV series)", and add the series name in parentheses only if there are other articles by the same name. In other words, disambiguate only when necessary. Simple. No confusion. No contradiction. If every specific naming guideline said this, there would be no confusion or contradiction at all.

Model 1 guarantees confusion and contradiction, like the inexplicable differences between articles within WP:NC (flora) (assume dabbing required and use the practically-guaranteed-to-be-unique but obscure Latin name) and those within WP:NC (fauna) (considerable priority given to most commonly used/recognizable name). By adopting Model 2 we would eliminate this confusion and contradiction. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Model 2 for me (hence I support the original proposal). It's a question of balance, but generally speaking, cliques of specialists shouldn't be allowed to make their own little rules that override a fundamental community principle.--Kotniski (talk) 06:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)