Wikipedia talk:Article titles

Desperate need to include more examples in the policy

Parts of it are like a maze: there's a discussion now here as to whether to italicise the titles of opera articles. People just don't know the answers. At WP:TITLE, I find it hard to make my way through Wikipedia:ITALICS#Italic_face (referred to from here); "Do not enclose titles in quotes" (what about the name of an aria within an opera?); this—"Use italics when italics would be used in running text; for example, taxonomic names, the names of ships, the titles of books, films, and other creative works, and foreign phrases are italicized both in ordinary text and in article titles", and the fact that many many article titles do not observe this. I'm confused.

What about a carefully chosen set of brief examples woven into the text, so editors can understand? Tony (talk) 13:09, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

For example, is this correct? Australian_Idol_(season_7). Tony (talk) 07:58, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Good point about the examples; now practice re italicization seems to have settled down, perhaps we should add some. I believe Australian Idol (season 7) is the right form for that title (as we follow the same italicization principles as we would in running text).--Kotniski (talk) 08:06, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Pity italics looks so crappy in the article-title format. Tony (talk) 11:00, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Accuracy and tsunami

• The ideal title for an article will also satisfy the other criteria outlined above; 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. For example, tsunami is preferred over the arguably more typical, but less accurate tidal wave.

Tsunami is no more accurate than tidal wave.. In Japanese tsunami means "harbor wave", but obviously tsunami are not limited to harbors. This is a bit pedantic, but encyclopedias are supposed to be pedantic, right? Can we find a more accurate example of a more accurate name? Further, tsunami is replacing tidal wave, so the assertion that the latter is more common is probably no longer true.   Will Beback  talk  03:53, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's pretty clear to everyone now that "tsunami" is the common name anyway; and given what you say about the original meaning of tsunami, that makes it a totally inappropriate example all round. I've commented it out - can we think of a genuine example of the phenomenon that it was supposed to be illustrating (that we have a certain tendency to avoid titles that would be tinged with inaccuracy)? I've suggested William IV of the United Kingdom in the past ("William IV of England" is more common, but seen to be less correct) - can anyone think of a better one?--Kotniski (talk) 06:51, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Tsunami doesn't mean "harbor wave" in English, which is the only thing that's relevant. Tidal wave implies wrongly that it has something to do with the tides, like a tidal bore (a true tidal wave). — kwami (talk) 03:51, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

If one lives on the east coast of England particularly on the Thames estuary, it is tidal waves caused by tidal and storm surges that are potentially a major problem and are the leading edge of a much longer lasting surge of water than occurs in a Tsunami. The effects of such storm and tidal surges also felt in other countries that border the North Sea particularly the Netherlands (See Storm tides of the North Sea). A major difference is that unlike a Tsunami triggered by a local quake there is usually about a 12 hour warning of the problem. -- PBS (talk) 19:30, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Unlike other big waves caused by typhoon or bad weather, tsunami does not damage ships off shore, but damages harbors and land. That is why it's called harbor wave. You know, the wave gets more devastating when it comes in gulfs, bays, coves, and harbors. It's an accurate word to Japanese people. Watch this 5km offshore tsunami video shot by the Japan Coast Guard on March 11. [1] Oda Mari (talk) 15:59, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

The point is, "Tsunami" is no longer uncommon, and so is a bad example of what we are trying to say. Not sure I like the idea of using a nobility name as the example (the titles for royalty/nobility articles are often contentious)... I would prefer something more obvious, but I can't think of one off the top of my head. Blueboar (talk) 16:04, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

How about Coccinellidae, instead of ladybug (or ladybird)? Mlm42 (talk) 16:22, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Other examples could be found in the article Misnomer. Mlm42 (talk) 16:24, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

The use of Coccinellidae is not defensible on this ground; it is no more accurate than Ladybug. The only jusrification for the obseure scientic name is that it evades the Anglo-American dispute (and I'm not sure that's enough). A bad example; there may be no good ones, in which case the paragraph should be removed; it's another atab at "follow reliable sources", which didn't wuite make it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:09, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

(Some would argue that Ladybugs are neither ladies, nor bugs, but anyway..) How about Meteoroid (or Meteor) instead of shooting star? I think "Shooting star" is the common name, but it could be misleading because they aren't stars. Or maybe Ulnar nerve instead of the more common funny bone (which isn't a bone). Mlm42 (talk) 16:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Advice needed

At Talk:Nirmala_Srivastava#2011_proposed_rename_of_article there has been protracted circular discussion over whether the use of Indian-language honorifics is justified by wp:COMMONNAME. Additional perspectives would be helpful. LeadSongDog come howl! 03:48, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Daughter-in-law elect?

It seems, according to some people, that this policy delegates all matters of the punctuation of those names to guidelines at WP:MOS (see the "See also" section at the end of WP:TITLE). News to me; the See Also link links only to one section of MOS, which has only an - incomplete and inaccurate - summary of our section on special characters.

Did someone intend such a claim by making the link? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:25, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Naming wars: the only way out

This new subsection at Talk:Mexican-American War presents ten summary points for a protracted dispute. Recommended reading: for editors interested in the ways style guidelines at WP:MOS and policy here at WP:TITLE are received at talkpages of articles, and for admins who might be looking to close the two relevant contested requests for move (RMs).

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 23:35, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

This policy would take precedence over the MOS regarding debates over hyphens vs. dashes (since this is policy and that is "just a guideline". Our primary policy statement is to follow common usage as indicated by the sources. If the sources indicate that something should be spelled with a dash (or a hyphen, or a tilde, or some other bit of punctuation) then that is what we should do in our article title. If this can not be determined, then go with project or even local level consensus as to which is best. Blueboar (talk) 17:26, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

The question is whether TITLE was intended to cover matters of formatting and style. If our sources use title case, do our articles need to as well? (We have a whole list of exceptions here.) I would like to see that point addressed here: Is the MOS invalidated by TITLE? and if we should use the same form in the title and in the text, is the MOS invalidated in the text as well? — kwami (talk) 22:40, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, exactly. Blueboar, you can't have it both ways. Let's create chaos among WP article names by removing any mention of title vs sentence case: we should fight it out (war after war) in terms of what people's pet "sources" do. Who is going to put the motion? Tony (talk) 02:15, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

If and when the MOS and TITLE conflict, then the MOS needs to change. MOS is a guideline while TITLE is policy. Blueboar (talk) 04:05, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

If they conflict. That's my question. — kwami (talk) 07:33, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that in most cases "common usage" refers to the words, to either the name used by that article or the other alternative names at the end of the lead. For the question on whenver a name is the most common or not, "Mexican American war", "Mexican-American war", "Mexican–American war", "Mexican/American war" or whatever are all the same name. Which style to use, is a question that each source would answer using their own style choice, and so should do us MBelgrano (talk) 13:35, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the first one "Mexican American war" would imply something different (a war among Mexicans that are now American); some type of dash is necessary to indicate a two-sided aspect to it. But yea, to the average reader, they could likely care less on the exact punctuation as long as they got to this page when searching for it and it explained what the war was in legible English. The edit-warring and discussion on being exact about the "proper" punctuation is wasting a lot of hours with minimal benefit to the work. --MASEM (t) 13:44, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Masem, you're right that it's wasting a lot of time, but a lot of editors are keen that Mr Anderson's continuing war against the style guides not succeed, since it will cause chaos on many article talk pages, not just this one. There is a much wider issue at stake here. I again ask why we don't trash the style guide's rule about sentence case in section headings, since most sources use title case. Tony (talk) 14:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Apples to oranges. Section titles are generic aspects of articles, and thus I expect our MOS to provide consistent advice for it. "Mexican-American" is a term of the art specific for historians, and in such cases we should review the sources to determine how best to present it. --MASEM (t) 14:53, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. Our policy is quite simple really... When it comes to choosing a title, we follow the sources - even if that goes against the MOS. Blueboar (talk) 15:07, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

• I don't buy Masem's elitist argument about art and ownership by historians. I wouldn't trust historians with a barge-pole in matters of language: if they trusted themselves, I'd be out of a job, since they wouldn't hire me to get it right for them. And while we're on this policy vs style-guide thing, which Blueboar seems to attached himself to: WP:TITLE explicitly says not to change a title from one controversial form to another. WP:TITLE says nothing about preferring hyphens to dashes in titles. It does, indeed, defer to MoS in several respects. Have you read it? Tony (talk) 15:10, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
  • MOS, like every other policy and guideline on WP (save for BLP and NFC) have only the strength of consensus backing them. MOS conformity is not a strict rule system (WP has no rules), though clearly consensus agrees that general principles on article layout and construction be used for consistency. But every fine detail cannot be prescribed by the MOS and at the end of the day, if consensus agrees that a "violation" of the MOS is a better presentation of the text than the MOS gives, then so be it. The MOS needs to be envisioned as an ideal approach but with common sense exceptions, just like any guideline on WP is treated. --MASEM (t) 17:13, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

His opinion doesn't really conflict. MBelgrano says this is a matter of style, not of naming, and thus under the purview of the MOS rather than TITLE. Masem says we should have a title consistent with our sources, but both formats are consistent: historians variously use Mexican American War, Mexican-American War, Mexican–American War. Since the first two are mildly ambiguous and the last fits our MOS, the last is the best choice: It's supported both by academic sources and by the MOS. — kwami (talk) 17:16, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Except that consensus from the discussions I've seen, though arguing both the dashed formers are used, believe that more sources end up on the first one, and thus, by their discussion, favor the ndash over the mdash form. Let me take the exaggerated case: say that editors trying to resolve a title find 100 sources: 99 of them favor form A, one favors form B, and B happens to be the form that our MOS suggests is appropriate. This would be a clearcut case that if the editors agree with following the sources that deviating from the MOS makes sense. Now, if the same situation but 50 sources supported A, and the other 50 supported B, likely consensus would agree with staying consistent with the MOS solution. Everything in between is going to be a matter of consensus and sources. I don't know exactly where the Mexican-American war falls in terms of sources, but again, the ultimate decider is going to be consensus, taking into account what the MOS says. --MASEM (t) 18:50, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Disjunctive en dash is minority usage. But that's true everywhere except for numbers. It's a stylistic choice adopted for greater precision. But I don't think we should be inconsistent just because we use different sources for different articles. For example, sources on a topic might use roman numerals for dates, but that doesn't mean we need to use roman numerals for dates in that article. For another, we might find that the majority of sources hyphenate "Mexican-Americans" but the majority (of different sources) space "Asian Americans". Do we want to therefore hyphenate one and not the other? Do we want a hyphenation debate over every single X-American article? Better IMO to simply choose one style for the encyclopedia. — kwami (talk) 20:40, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

To be really fair, you ought to compare with "Asian-American war" or with "Asian-American noun", when the noun is not a person. Otherwise, you are comparing apples with oranges. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:03, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Let's put it this way: is there a real dispute in the sources about this? Are there any authors out there that specifically claim aloud to use hyphen, tilde or whatever, specifically opposing the other options? Does any author consider "Mexican-American war" a legitimate name and "Mexican–American war" a faulty one? (or the other way) Because if it is a non-existent dispute, then there is no dispute. Verifiability does not go as far as requiring us to use the same style rules than our sources, we should manage the topics of style with our own set of rules of style (the MOS, and I'm saying "rules" in a broad way) MBelgrano (talk) 18:57, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

No, there's no dispute in the lit. This is purely stylistic, not a naming dispute. — kwami (talk) 20:40, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I regret to see that Kwami is inventing his facts; he is also inventing policy.

• Searching for Mexican American War turns up a large number of well-printed books. It is very difficult to find any where the book does not use a hyphen; Google's OCR occasionally fumbles.
• Looking through a selection of style guides (I started with the ones at WP:MOS#Further reading) will show that the only ones to endorse this use of a dash are Oxford English. This is doubly doubtful for this article, which should be in American; Oxford University Press does not consistently comply with its own style guide.
• MOS also does not support what Kwami prefers; WP:HYPHEN 3 says that compound adjectives are hyphenated.

Kwami and Tony have been forum-shopping for the rule they made up all over Wikipedia. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• I also see that Kwami has been revert-warring for what he would prefer policy to say. Since the pre-existing wording is based on very long-standing wording at WP:ENGLISH#modified letters, I have joined those who have reverted his expression of minority opinion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:47, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

But the wording of WP:ENGLISH you cite also represents a minority opinion that has been maintained there by edit warring - the majority (and actual practice) come down very much on the side of using modified letters even in cases where a numerical majority of English-language sources don't use them.--Kotniski (talk) 06:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

No, they represent a majority opinion which generally prevails over all but the most extreme nationalism; they are a simple application of The term most typically used in reliable sources is preferred to technically correct but rarer forms, which you wrote, IIRC. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:12, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

In recent discussions on, say, François Mitterrand, it was shown conclusively that (a) most English sources don't use the cedilla; (b) most editors (and they are not generally speaking "nationalists" in any shape or form) prefer that Wikipedia use the cedilla. Other discussions have given similar results. So the view that we have to slavishly follow whatever style happens to be used by a majority of English sources (or even "reliable" English sources) is rather a minority one, and certainly not consensus.--Kotniski (talk) 06:07, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Not what I see. The argument seems to be rather that a majority of the actual sources do use François; Google's OCR problems miscount the hits. Neither claim is surprising. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:27, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I have referred readers to the articles on en dash and em dash, instead of WP:ENDASH and WP:EMDASH. The recent wave of undiscussed changes by Tony, Noetica, and Kwami is mostly their pique that the recent discussion over Mexican-American War preferred this policy over the guidelines at WP:MOS. However, it also revealed that they disagree with the rest of us (CWenger, Headbomb, Wareh, Hans Adler, and so on) as to what WP:DASH says. It seems undesirable to incorporate so ill-constructed a guideline into policy, no matter how much three dedicated editors want to. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

AstroHall history

The Astrohall was built at about the same time as the Astrodome, by a developer/investor (name in unknown) as a Dental Industry Display and Meeting Center. The 250,000 square feet included small permanant display areas, office space and 100,000 sq ft of open exhibit hall.

The intended use never ocurred and the building remained essentially empty until purchased by an Houston investor, Candace Mosler. After another year or so, Ms, Mosler realized that her business manager was unable to locate tenants and she retained my company, Edward Bankers & Associates, to manage and lease the building.

We were able to lease the larger display areas to various engineering firms when they quickly required large space on short term rentals.

Longer term occupancy was initiated by a division of Shell Oil Co., which eventually leased the entire building, creating a "state of the art" computer center in the exhibit hall area. Shell eventually built a new building and vacated this building. By that time I had sold the management company and I have no knowledge of subsequent activities.

Several references in the Wikipedia article give the impression that there were a number of sports and other venues held in this building. Design, especially ceiling heights would have precluded such use.

98.199.217.84 (talk) 17:04, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

pi → π?

The move is being proposed at Talk:Pi#Requested_move. The issues are to some extent unique, so it might be of interest here. — kwami (talk) 09:18, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The italics issue (article titles)

The 'italics issue' (the italicization of words in article titles), which was the subject of an Rfc here last year, is being reviewed at the Village pump (policy). (There have also been some discussions at the Music project and Classical music project). It is likely that there will be a new Rfc aimed at establishing a much wider consensus.--Kleinzach 07:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Accent-like characters

Accent-like and quote-like characters (e.g. ʻ, ʾ, ʿ, ᾿, ῾, ‘, “, ’, ”, c, combining diacritical marks with a "space" character) should be avoided in page names.

Come to think of it, why? There is a case for saying these are never natural; but if so, we don't need this; it's already said. There is a case for ruling out quotes, so that articles on short stories aren't under "The Cask of Amontillado"; but this doesn't mention true quote marks at all. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

En dash: harmony with MOS, and links from policy to relevant guidelines

I have edited the mention of dashes in the section Special Characters, to restore neutrality with respect to the en dash. (See recent discussion above, and at several other pages.) This is the non-prejudicial version that I have put in place:

• Provide redirects to non-keyboard characters: If the use of diacritics (accent marks) is in accordance with the English-language name, or other characters not present on most standard keyboards are used, provide a redirect from the equivalent title using standard English-language keyboard characters. In particular, provide a redirect from the equivalent hyphenated form to any title using an en dash (for guidelines see WP:ENDASH and WP:HYPHEN, at WP:MOS); even though many keyboards have dashes, many don't.

(This may well have been altered by another editor as I write.)

I call for comment on this. Wikipedia can only benefit from links to central, highly relevant guidelines from policies. Punctuation is addressed thoroughly for the Project at WP:MOS; so where policy touches on punctuation, link to that resource. The guidelines WP:ENDASH and WP:HYPHEN at WP:MOS are long-established, stable, and subjected to close scrutiny at the relevant talkpage (WT:MOS). If it is alleged that they include anything inadequate or unfounded, the place to address that is WT:MOS.

It is also unhelpful to prejudice the issue (for a wider political purpose) by repeated asseverations concerning WP:COMMONNAME. Of course it applies; it's there at the top of the page. Including special mention of what is "customary" for the en dash in the section on special characters was never discussed here, as far as I can tell. Usage of the en dash is amply covered at WP:DASH, and does not need supplementing by undiscussed and agenda-driven mention here.

Our policies and our guidelines need to be in harmony. If it is alleged that they are not, let that matter be discussed here also.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 23:15, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

At the moment, WP:ENDASH is disputed, and protected. One reason for this is that Noetica and the two other revisers here disagree with a majority on what it actually means. There have been two move requests on this subject at Talk:Mexican-American War; their view has not been upheld by either; the response has ranged from accusations of admin corruption to this assault on the present policy.

In general policies should not defer to guidelines; least of all should they do so when the guideline is disputed and unclear. In this case, Noetica's novel wording would do so by displacing recognizability and naturalness, two consensus goods.

When guidelines disagree with policies, the general solution is to change the guideline. That's why we have two levels. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I really would prefer not to personalise this, but in reply to PMAnderson's personalising points (even in the articlepolicy page here, after his latest editing!) it is unavoidable:

• If WP:ENDASH is disputed (which is itself debatable), it is disputed by PMAnderson more than anyone else. I have invited him to open a general discussion of that guideline more than once, but he does not do so. He has preferred to raise the issue at specific talkpages for articles in discussion of requested moves (RMs). That has been a chaotic and time-wasting way to deal with guidelines for our millions of articles.
• If WP:ENDASH is protected, that is only because all of WP:MOS is protected – for reasons that have nothing to do with WP:ENDASH. PMAnderson was party to the disruption that brought that protection on, about six weeks ago. Subsequently he was blocked for a week, and has done nothing towards resolving that initial dispute since returning.
• No one is suggesting that policies should "defer to guidelines". We might as well say they should not "defer" to WP articles, like Dash. But that is what PMAnderson prefers to link to, rather than to our own central and consensual guidelines. His dissenting does not undo the consensus long enjoyed by WP:ENDASH and WP:HYPHEN.
• The view that policy and guidelines conflict is unsupported. Let the details be discussed, as I have suggested above.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 23:49, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

On the contrary;

• a majority dispute Noetica's interpretation of WP:DASH: Headbomb, Wareh, Hans Adler, Enric Naval...
• The claim that I have not discussed at WT:MOS is inconsistent with the claim I have opposed it; it is also inconsistent with my edit history (how many edits have I made there in the last week?)
• In xer last post, Noetica claimed that we need "harmony between policies and guidelines," and that justifies xer innovation on this page; now xe claims that there is no support for the view that "policies and guidelines conflict." Unless they conflict, why does policy need to be changed?
• I have invited him to open a general discussion of that guideline more than once Sheer invention; show diffs, if you can.

Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:00, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

On the contrary:

• PMAnderson has posted in a vague scattershot way on the issue at WT:MOS, and at several irrelevant locations. Development of guidelines needs to be systematic and centralised, with sound motivation and an open mind.
• Mine is no innovation here. It simply counters this partisan and devious innovation (I'm sorry to have to say) by PMAnderson. That innovation was never discussed, as far I can see.
• For my invitations to move discussion to a central location, see my consistent plea for that (and for orderly, conciliatory compromise!) at Talk:Mexican-American War, of all remote outposts for the development of core punctuation guidelines. See also the ongoing RM saga at Talk:Battles of the Mexican–American War. That should be enough evidence of my calling for centralised, well-advertised, and systematic discussion, for a start.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 03:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

It looks like this particular disputed started in this Jan. 27 diff where PMAnderson added text to say "such characters should only be used when they are customarily used for the subject in reliable English secondary sources", with respect to non-keyboard characters. Sounds innocent, but since since he's trying to change policy to support his campaign to stamp out en dashes, we should really examine that campaign on its merits, in an appropriate forum. As it stands, he says our MOS is contemptible. I think it's fine as it is. Furthermore, the particular terms he's talking about, Mexican–American War, is not hard to find in good English sources with the en dash; but he seems to want it to be be a vote instead of a logical choice based on a usage guide. I think we're better off leaving it in the form that has worked for a long time. Dicklyon (talk) 05:30, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

• • Brought here by this non-neutral invitation, a WP:CANVASS violation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

PMAnderson, see the guideline Wikipedia:Canvassing#Appropriate_notification, which covers my post to User:Dicklyon. He is a fellow expert on these things; surely he appreciated my notifying him of the discussion here. He was also involved in related matters, as you well know. I am glad to see you supporting a guideline. We could quibble over its details. My suggestion? Let's not. –_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 23:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

In other words, he shares Noetica's preferences; Noetica therefore feels entitled to leave him messages requesting him to post here against "creeping disruption". Noted.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:45, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

My general suggestion a moment ago was "let's not". It still is. But especially, do not misrepresent me. As anyone can read, I made no request that he post here. I'm a little surprised that he did, because he's busy writing a book. I'm busy too. Please stop your creeping disruption of the policy discussion here. –_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 23:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

• • • As it stands, it is contemptible: a page opposed to Wikipedian consensus, not based on general usage, containing unsourced original research; it has a standing disagreement over what the very sections linked to by Noetica's solitary edits mean. I am not alone in this view; see WT:MOS#When should someone deviate from the MoS?, or indeed most of its 120 pages of archives. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with PMA on this issue: follow the usage in reliable sources. At a practical level it is far better that pages that need a hyphen or dash are always created with a hyphen, because given the limitation of English keyboards that is what the majority of people will search on. Then create a redirect with en dash or make a bold move to an en dash versions (those moves that are controversial will be reverted and a WP:RM can be used to decide the issue based on this policy and its guidelines). My thinking here is fail safe. If a page is created with an en dash, a version with a hyphen may not be created, in which case the page may not be found using a standard keyboard search.

What is done in the MOS is not directly relevant to this policy as the MOS is a content guideline and should not be used to justify article titles contrary to this policy. -- PBS (talk) 08:42, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Philip, those are worthwhile considerations. But note:

• MOS is a guideline for articles, and that includes the styling of their titles where that styling does not conflict with WP:TITLE. There is no suggestion from any of us MOS specialists to change that. In fact, I introduced this section with "harmony with MOS" at the head.
• Surely we think the forms chosen for the title and for the body of the article must match, right? It is then unwieldy and unworkable to have policy governing one decision entirely, and a set of guidelines the other decision. It cannot be that a spurious technical difficulty arising just for titles settles the forms used within articles.
• Making hyphen-equivalent titles for redirects is easy; there are editors already dedicated to such work, and it is an ideal activity for bots. Trivial, compared to many bot tasks.
• In all sorts of cases it will be uncontroversial to "follow the sources" and have an en dash (Lilliput–Brobdingnag rail services must have an en dash, all agree). So any difficulty working with en dashes must arise anyway. But as I say: it would never be a practical difficulty. It's en dash, remember: not "♠".
• If we strove explicitly always to follow every detail in reliable sources, including punctuation in all of its minute specification, there would be chaos. No publisher ever does that. First, which are reliable sources? And if they conflict (as they usually will) on exact styling of punctuation? And if they are internally inconsistent (as is extremely common)? Every question of precise styling must be thrashed out minutely at thousands of related pages, with no central principle to shorten the inevitable churning of opinion. MOS is designed to help, with centralised consensual guidelines; and it fulfils that task very well in all but a few cases. And of course when militant partisan ideology rears its head.
• It must be stressed once more: if the MOS guidelines are imperfect, we want to hear about it. We want to work out an optimal, workable solution together. That's why we have WT:MOS.
• There has been a genuine tension on this present issue. It has not helped that people dig their heels in. The usefulness of the Project is paramount. I for one would accept it, if policy determined that en dashes were utterly banned from article titles, by consensus. But then, that would not meet standards of best practice anywhere else; and the forms within articles would inexplicably differ from forms in titles. Not useful to the reader; seriously misleading. And a decidedly shoddy look for Wikipedia.
• The policy (as I show it above) is now very certain, with a harmonious and understandable connection to closely relevant guidelines. It is restored, to be unencumbered by recent manipulations. It represents a perfectly natural relation between policy and guidelines. We would need a compelling reason to upset it and to forfeit the obvious benefits such harmony and certainty can bring. We have not seen a compelling reason.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 09:37, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

A quibble about: "Surely we think the forms chosen for the title and for the body of the article must match, right?" - Not necessarily. A good example... in the TITLE we don't use abbreviations (example: Saint James vs St. James)... but that is not the case in the text. Blueboar (talk) 13:42, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, there are many cases where we don't match the title. However, it is a common argument that we should, so it can be problematic. — kwami (talk) 19:37, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

• Please note that Noetica is now in violation of WP:AN3, having introduced WP:MOS to this policy four times in 24 hours, three of them before beginning this discussion. If this is not removed, I will consider what other measures are appropriate to end this non-consensus addition by a faction. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:35, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Anderson's edit war was 5RR, so any block should of course apply to him as well, or maybe only to him. One of his edits was also WP:POINTy,[2] which on a policy page is in itself a blockable offense. — kwami (talk) 19:35, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

• STOP... there is enough "blame" on all sides to go around. It does not matter who is edit warring more than who... or who started it. Both sides on this issue are being pointy, and both sides are edit warring. Knock it off. Blueboar (talk) 19:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Please Stop Edit Warring

I am tired of the edit warring over the hyphen/dash issue. Given that there are ongoing and still heated debates in several locations (here, WP:MOS, WP:ENDASH etc.) it is clear to me that we don't have a clear consensus on the issue (despite the fact that both sides of the debate are claiming there is one). I have therefore taken the BOLD step of removing all mention of the issue from this policy until the debates are settled. It is better to say nothing on the issue that to have it contently change back and forth. Blueboar (talk) 18:51, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh very well. This removes the suggestion that pages titled with dashes have redirects from the typeable form with hyphens; but that may not be consensus either, since Noetica objects in the (rare) case that titles use the long em dashes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:58, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

NOTE... my removal is intended to be TEMPORARY... it is not intended as support for either side in this debate. The debate over this issue is now infecting multiple policy and guideline pages. That has to stop. You need to centralize the debate. Since it does impact multiple pages, I think the best place for that discussion is the Village Pump policy page. I would suggest that you and Noetica jointly draft a summary of the debate (so that those of us who are not familiar with it will understand what the debate is about) and post it there. Each of you need to state your case as best you can, and then step back and let the wider community decide. Either that or take it through Dispute Resolution. But stop edit warring over it. Blueboar (talk) 19:15, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the note about redirecting from hyphens actually is long-standing consensus, but it's also implied by the existing text and is just common sense, so we don't necessarily need it. — kwami (talk) 19:35, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that a note about redirecting hyphens has been in the policy for a long time (the specific wording has changed a few times, but the over all intent has been consistent)... However, that long standing language has now been challenged. Because of that challenge, what we need to determine is whether there is still consensus for the long standing language.

We all know that consensus can change... so appeals to long-standing consensus need to be supported by evidence that what was once consensus still is consensus (and it works the other way as well... claims that consensus has changed also need evidence to support them). So the first question that we need to determine is this: has consensus changed on this issue or not? Blueboar (talk) 20:09, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The long-standing consensus version

Actually, I was wrong about PMAnderson starting the current thrashing here. His edit was actually a reaction to this diff in which Tony1 changed the long-standing consensus version:

• Provide redirects to non-keyboard characters: If use of diacritics (accent marks) is in accordance with the English-language name, or other characters not present on standard keyboards are used, such as dashes, provide a redirect from the equivalent title using standard English-language keyboard characters.

to try to clarify that dashes are not necessarily not present on standard keyboards; I think that point is pointless, since it brings up the issue of whether a character is "present" if you have to know what to type with the "option" key to get it. In spite of Noetica's attempt in making the neutral version that has now been put back in as "policy", I think it would be better to go back to the long-standing consensus version. I don't think anyone really objects to it, they want to warp it in various ways, and this is not the place for that until we decide on a direction. If any clarification is needed, I think it would be that we mean "ASCII" keyboard characters, as opposed to "English-language", since many standard English-keyboard characters like hyphens and apostrophes and dashes such don't have much to do with English language. It really does mean ASCII, doesn't it? Or is there some other relevant standard that I'm not aware of? Or maybe it meant English-keyboard characters, or English-language–keyboard characters, as opposed to English-language keyboard characters? Wouldn't it be nice if we could be clear on what we mean? Dicklyon (talk) 02:15, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. The only problems with that text are verbal; this policy tries not to call our titles "names", because that leads to the "we must use Our Version; it's the subject's name" argument, which produces interminable ethnic disputes.

We mean characters on virtually all standard (anglophone) keyboards; this is not ASCII, although it is fairly close to "printable ASCII"; we don't want to include bells and deletes in these "typewriter redirects." Many readers can't get dashes with option keys either; we should not assume everybody has a Mac because some of us do. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:36, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, the original version (quoted by Dicklyon above) makes this debate much clearer in my mind... It has nothing to do with the MOS. What underlies the policy statement is the concept of "searchability". When an article Title uses a character that our readers might not have on their keyboards, it makes it difficult for readers to search for and find the article. It is OK for the Title to contain such characters, but to aid searching we advise editors to provide a redirect that uses characters that readers will have on their keyboards.

Since (apparently) not all keyboards have dashes, we tell editors to provide a redirect that uses a similar character (one that is on their keyboard) ... which happens to be a hyphen. Blueboar (talk) 14:25, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

ASCII is not really appropriate because UK keyboards have a £ symbol instead of a # above the number 3 (see British and American keyboards) coupled to that difference in the days when UK printers only printed the ASCII character set there was usually a surface mounted block switch used to print a £ sign instead of a # sign (and to toggle changes for other county's settings). In other words the ASCII symbol was modified for the British market, but the internal value was still 0x23. In the UK almost no one would call the "#" symbol a pound sign they would call it a "hash" and apart from for telephone menus (and computing programming usage) it is almost never used (Number sign). Most English language computer keyboards do not have a en-dash key (they have hyphen and underscore). -- PBS (talk) 15:31, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposed new language, based upon long-standing language

• Provide redirects if the article title contains non-standard keyboard characters: Sometimes the most appropriate Article title will contain diacritics (accent marks), dashes, or other typographical characters not found on many standard keyboards. Such titles are (with limitations) acceptable. However, because the characters are not found on standard keyboards, they can make it difficult for readers to search for and find the article. In such cases, editors are asked to formulate redirects using appropriate standard English-language keyboard characters.

We can play with the exact wording, but I think this better explains the issue. Thoughts? Blueboar (talk) 15:48, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

It looks good. Slightly tweaking it: "Provide redirects if the article title contains non-standard keyboard characters. Sometimes the most appropriate title will contain diacritics (accent marks), dashes, or other typographical characters not found on standard English-language keyboards. This can make it difficult for readers to search for and find the article. In such cases, please provide a redirect from a version of the title that uses only standard keyboard characters." SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 16:00, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

SV tweak is fine with me. Blueboar (talk) 16:06, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Fine by me; the major difference from Blueboar's is the "limitations" Blueboar mentions, and they're in the previous bullet point. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:16, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Seems good, though maybe a little wordy. Also, "ASCII" is just fine: non-printing characters cannot be used in a title anyway, so they're irrelevant. Same with #: in the previous paragraph we inform the reader that # cannot be used in titles, so it doesn't matter if it isn't found on UK keyboards. (Actually, I think it is, just not in the same place.) The ASCII characters not restricted from titles altogether are 0-9, a-z, A-Z, space/underscore, and !"$%&'()*+,-./:;=?@\^`~. All are available on UK and US keyboards. If we link ASCII, we won't have to then define what we mean by "standard keyboard". I'd tweak it to:

Provide all-ASCII redirects to articles with non-ASCII characters in their titles. Sometimes the most appropriate title will contain diacritics (accent marks), dashes, or other typographical characters not found on most English-language keyboards. This can make it difficult to search for the article directly.

— kwami (talk) 00:47, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I think fewer people will be confused by "non-Standard keyboard characters" than would be by "ASCII characters". Blueboar (talk) 00:59, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

This proposal is precise, but far from accurate; at a minimum, it would need to be amended to "printable ASCII character"; we do not want all 128 of them. And leaving #, and [, and ], to be excluded by implication, when they are indubitably part of ASCII, is bad writing. If we need a definition (we never have), we can link from "standard keyboard" to British and American keyboards. Unless some Commonwealth country lacks a symbol found on all those layouts, that will cover the matter, and lead to the same set Kwami intends ASCII to suggest. (This line leads to mentioning that [] can't occur in article titles in this paragraph, but I don't insist on it.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:39, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by that objection. Can you give me an example of a page title with a non-printable ASCII character that we would need a redirect for? — kwami (talk) 19:01, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

But I agree with search for articles directly, and suspect Kwami is right to omit SV's last sentence; telling them what you told them has merits but may not be necessary here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:55, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I therefore propose a merge of the last two versions:

Redirects and characters not on a standard keyboard. Sometimes the most appropriate title will contain diacritics (accent marks), dashes, or other typographical characters not found on most English-language keyboards. This can make it difficult to search for the article directly. In such cases, please provide a redirect from a version of the title that uses only standard keyboard characters."

This removes the redundancy in a different way; I will accept any non-substantive tweak. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:58, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

That looks good to me. Dicklyon (talk) 22:41, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I have no objection. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

No objections here. Blueboar (talk) 01:22, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

What has MOS to do with article titles?

All this began when two editors asked why Mexican–American War, as it then was, had a dash in the title. There was the usual unproductive conversation at the talk-page WT:MOS, but there was no evidence as it was that MOS actually required it. There have since been two move requests at Talk:Mexican-American War, both closed with it ending with a hyphen, and other bizarre and WP:LAME events, including the claim that one closing admin was corrupt, and the claim that delegates all matters of punctuation tp WP:MOS because of the see also linking to a different section of MOS.

Since that didn't fly, three editors have come here to rewrite this policy to their liking. I am not convinced; I hold what we have always held.

1. This is a policy; MOS is a guideline. Policies do not defer to guidelines.

   MOS does not (and should not) refer to the titles of Wikipedia articles except in the (badly dated) section to which we link, a summary of this policy.

2. Our chief consideration in titling articles are recognizability and naturalness. Both involve titling articles by what the subject is actually called (that assures recognizability, and is one of the benefits of naturalness); this includes the jots and tittles of punctuation. All this is long-standing policy here.
3. We do diverge from WP:COMMONNAME, but only for reasons which do not apply to this issue; an en dash is no shorter than a hyphen, and it is unlikely that it will disambiguate.
4. WP:DASH is currently challenged; it bears {{underdiscussion}} tags. It is not consensus; there is no evidence it ever was; many editors actively dislike it. If we were to link to any section of MOS, it should not be this one. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
5. There remains the question when to create redirects from hyphenated forms. So far everybody has agreed this should be done when the actual title has an en dash [–]; it makes equal sense on those rare occasions when the article title has an em dash [—] (articles on books with em dashes in the title, for example); but because these are quite rare. it makes little practical difference. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:37, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

In fact it was you who placed the {{underdiscussion}} tag there three months ago, despite the fact that most of that guideline is not widely disputed and has not even been under discussion for a long time now, but now, because the MOS is stuck in the "wrong" version, it's stuck there. By all means, feel free to discuss the role of MOS in WP:TITLE, but please don't use your own personal agenda to destabilize and de-legitimize it through your own agenda-pushing. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:23, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

It does not matter who placed the tag... if a policy/guideline provision is under discussion, the tag is appropriate. This particular provision obviously is under discussion (in multiple locations). While PMA may have started the discussion, he is hardly the only editor to have questions or concerns about the provision in question. Blueboar (talk) 15:55, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

And it was under discussion well before I placed the tag, indeed well before I joined the discussion; the original threads have now been archived (into MOS archives 118 and 119), but there has been a thread ever since. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:12, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

This policy has a section on special characters which says 'Provide redirects to non-keyboard characters'. The dash characters are non-keyboard characters so we should have a redirect for them. The MOS describes what dashes are about, this policy does not. There is no deference needed in any direction or conflict or anything that I can see. Dmcq (talk) 23:26, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

However, this page has a method to decide whether or not to use a dash for any given title: follow the usage of reliable sources.

MOS really doesn't; their section on dashes is so long and vague that there was a recent dispute on what it actually means: half-a-dozen editors thought it said A, and three thought it said B. The minority has come here to change this policy, in part because an appeal to usage was a tie-breaker. Hence the dispute here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:54, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Show us where the MOS is vague. That can be fixed by using precise language.

This policy does not concern itself with formatting and style. — kwami (talk) 18:59, 9 April 2011 (UTC)