Wikipedia talk:Article titles

Ambiguous or inaccurate

PMA when you made this change on 22 August 2011 I think you made an inadvertent change in meaning, or at least it can be read that way.

Before there was as sentence:

The ideal title for an article will also satisfy the questions 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. Hidden comment BETTER EXAMPLE NEEDED For example, tsunami is preferred over the arguably more typical, but less accurate tidal wave.

It is clear from this sentence that ambiguous or inaccurate is referring to the bullet points in questions outlined above. But then it was a stand alone sentence at the bottom of the section. Now it is in the first paragraph:

Titles are often proper nouns, such as the name of the person, place or thing that is the subject of the article. The most common name for a subject is often used as a title because it is recognizable and natural; one should also ask questions 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 a discussion of neutrality in titles, see below. 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 problem is that by extracting the phrase "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". Which after all comes after a semicolon, it can be used to support the "correct" name and ignore the common name. See this posting in an RFC at Use English. Now I happen to know that this is taking part of a sentence out of context, but I suggest that we either move the sentence back down the section, or we rephrase it to make it clear that we are talking about Precision and Conciseness --PBS (talk) 22:34, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

The before and after both present considerable problems. Mr Anderson is not permitted to respond to your question, so please take this into consideration when thinking of directly addressing him here. Tony (talk) 10:31, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

I did not know that. So what do you think should be done? -- PBS (talk) 10:48, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

News to me too; I am inhibited from discussing technical aspects of English. Septentrionalis PMAnderson

• PMA is prohibited from discussing issues around the technical use of English. I think it is safe to ask what he meant by his edit, as the guidance under discussion is about what the subject is normally called. I appreciate Tony's concern that this discussion may descend into an argument about phrasing - which would violate the technical use of English ban for certain. I will keep an eye on here, if people are concerned.Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:13, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

The second version has two semicolons without having parallellism. There seems a clear solution, which also may address the problem which brought me here (this move discussion, in which the nominator quotes consistency as though it were the whole of the policy); break after "questions outlined above".

None of the questions decide article titles by themselves; in particular, ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are sometimes avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources.

JCScaliger (talk) 04:35, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

As for the substance, while the two semicolons are clumsy (my fault), I don't think trying to fine-tune implications works; too many readers understand them differently. What do you want this to convey, Phillip? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:27, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

When linked to the old tsunami example it was less likely that phrase "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." could be extracted to justify using the "correct" name (because the common name is "inaccurate"). In the context of the paragraph that is not what is meant so because this phrase can be extracted an used that way I suggest that we amend the sentence so that this phrase can not be extracted in this way. The sentence needs to be clearer, and probably more succinct, eg (as a first draft improvements welcome):

We decide on the common name through the frequency of use in reliable sources. Titles are often proper nouns, such as the name of the person, place or thing that is the subject of the article. A common name for a subject is often used as a title because it is recognizable and natural, but the consideration should also be given to the other questions outlined above in the section "deciding on an article title".

I have also added in a definition of common name as the phrase pre-dates the introduction of reliable sources into this policy. But it is not my major concern at the moment removing "inaccurate" is, so if anyone objects to the definition, then just remove it from the proposed word change. --PBS (talk) 20:13, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that the phrase, "We decide on the common name through the frequency of use..." is such a good idea. That might be read as something like, "We decide to use the common name whenever we can find one that is used frequently..." What we actually mean here is something closer to, "If multiple options for a title exist, we decide which of these options is the most common name for a subject according to the frequency of use..."

I suspect that we do sometimes reject names because they are "inaccurate". For example, some medical conditions have changed names over the years, usually because the initial name suggested a specific etiology that was later proven wrong. We might also reject a title as "inaccurate" due to being out of date (e.g., a business changed its name). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:51, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it can be read that way. Suppose, as is almost always the case, there is only one statistically significant name then it is not a choice between, multiple options. Multiple options is the exception rather than the rule (and is covered in the phrase because the phrase begs the question "What if there are multiple common names?" as it is quite possible to have a "frequency of use in reliable sources" that throws up more than one name, but it is still the "frequency of use in reliable sources" that defines common name[s]).

As for the inaccurate that should be dealt with in a different way. There was a realllllllllllly lllllllloooooonnnnng debate over this some time ago,It all started with the renaming of Roman Catholic Church to Catholic Church where some wording in the old Naming conflict guideline conflicted with WP:AT. Both on the talk page of that guideline and on the talk pages of WP:AT. eg see these sample sections 1 and 2. using "Muhammad Ali" and "The artist formerly known as Prince", what you need to do in those cases, is shorten the time sample (to after the announcement of the name change). If Wikipedia had existed when Cassius Clay change his mane to Muhammad Ali, we should wait until there is significant coverage in reliable sources from the time that he made the change, before making the change here. Now in most cases when a person or an organisation changes its name this rapidly reflected in reliable sources, but we should not change the name just because it is "inaccurate" if we follow that line of reasoning then all articles would be under their "correct" name and not their common name. -- PBS (talk) 22:45, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

No, I did read it that way the first time, so it can be read that way. Perhaps you mean that you didn't intend for anyone to interpret it that way? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah. Here we come to the point of the tsunami example. There was a long period when both tsunami and tidal wave were common enough to be recognizable, but tidal wave was statistically more common (the reason we no longer have it is that the period may have ended). In this case (and it's a shame we haven't found another), the weight given to the somewhat more common name was overridden by the utility of having a name that wasn't acknowledged by reliable sources as wrong.

Philip, would your concern be met if that were worked into the language? The point about tidal wave being regarded by sources in general as inaccurate might resolve some of the abuse here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:41, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Fair point, perhaps a rewrite along the lines I've given and an additional sentence to cover the point of incorrect as mention in reliable sources. BUT it will have to be worded carefully as there is a danger that if one source says a name is incorrect then it will be used to justify a name that is technically correct in the opinion of a small minority of reliable sources, but not commonly used that way in most reliable sources. For I am sure it is possible to find a reliable source that says Big Ben is only the Bell, some pedants will use such a source, if this policy is loosely worded, argue that the Wikipedia article should therefore be under Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster (even though many reliable sources note that "The name Big Ben is often used to describe the tower, the clock and the bell but the name was first given to the Great Bell.". (BTW if one lives in the Netherlands or London its tidal waves that are the concern not tsunamis.) -- PBS (talk) 02:12, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Seems to me the problems of phrasing perhaps arise because we still haven't completely got away from stating things as "if...then...else..." conditions or would-be algorithms, rather than acknowledging that there are simply various factors that may be taken into account when deciding on titles (probably more than the five bolded ones we list in the opening section), and that these are weighted and balanced in any given case to provide what we hope to be a satisfactory answer.--Kotniski (talk) 10:02, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Not sure that I agree with you, on that. As no one seems to be springing to the defence of he current wording, unless there are any objection in the near I will drop my proposed first sentence until there has been further discussion but implement the second one. To cover the second point I would suggest that we add a sentence about name changes.

"If a person or an organisation changes name, then more weight should be given to name used in reliable sources published after the name change than in those before the change".

-- PBS (talk) 04:00, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Or "thing"? Product name changes are not uncommon. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Although I understand your point, a thing can not change its name, so would you like to propose some alternative wording that includes things? If not I'll go with the former and changes can be made once the text is in the policy to incorporate the changes in the name of things. -- PBS (talk) 07:47, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

If the name of a person, group, object, or other article topic changes... would cover things. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:00, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Born2Cycle you reverted out the inclusion of this paragraph

We decide on the common name through the frequency of use in reliable sources. When there are several common names for a subject, it is perfectly reasonable to select as an article title the name that best fits the other criteria in this policy. If the name of a person, group, object, or other article topic changes then more weight should be given to name used in reliable sources published after the name change than in those before the change.

With the comment

Revert. Strongly disagree there is consensus support for this change, certainly not mine. The MOST common name is given preference, and policy should continue to reflect that. Please discuss first such a radical change.

As you can see it has been discussed. What exactly is it in the wording I introduced that with which you disagree, or perceive there to be a problem? -- PBS (talk) 08:56, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• These long and convoluted threads are hard to follow. Even when I think I understand what the issue is, it sometimes turns out that editors are citing this or that policy to buttress their point but their real reason for opposing/supporting is based on something else. So will someone please precisely explain what the debate here is exactly about? I’ll see if I can help to reach or contribute to a consensus. Greg L (talk) 01:43, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

  @Septentrionalis PMAnderson: Your editing restrictions (detailed at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions#Placed by the Wikipedia community) are quite clear. You are Topic banned from WP:MOS and discussions anywhere on the project concerning the Manual of Style or technical aspects of the use of the English language anywhere on the project, including his own talkpage, for a period of one year. So what is your rationale for weighing in here notwithstanding that? Is there a tacit understanding with someone in power that you can weigh in on these types of discussions if you can behave yourself? Or are you seeing how thin the ice is by simply walking out on it with your arms outstretched? I personally find my own views on wikimatters are typically extremely well aligned with yours; more so than most other editors on these types of pages. But there will be precious little slack cut for you if you revert to your old ways. Please explain your presence here. Greg L (talk) 02:22, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

This last comment does not exactly help keep the section succinct and would probably have been better off on PMA's talk page, but to answer your question please see the comment by Elen of the Roads (who implemented the ban) near the start of this section. -- PBS (talk) 03:26, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

• My comment is appropriate in both places. I’ve seen Tony recently remind PMA on his talk page only to see PMA promptly delete Tony’s post and then do as he pleased in debate venues like this. (So much for leaving a “little pinky-out” notice on PMA’s talk page.)

  As was amply demonstrated at Talk:Yogurt, PMA’s inflammatory manner of contributing would result in flamewars. Only after someone pointed out there at Talk:Yogurt that PMA wasn’t even supposed to be weighing in there did one editor write what amounted to “Oh… well if I had known that in the first place, I wouldn’t have taken the bait.” Ergo, since few editors new to discussions start from the very top and catch every post, it is appropriate and helpful to remind both PMA and the community that he isn’t supposed to be here anyway—as I just did, and rightly so.

  There is probably no single ideal way to get PMA to comply with his editing restriction and it is obvious he is intent on testing the limits and wants to push them back. Given that he knew he was treading on thin ice at Talk:Yogurt and still managed to tick off some editors, I personally see no point to just pretending he has no editing restriction, ignoring that he is being provocative in places he is not supposed to be, not letting others know that they needn’t take the bait, letting him slowly devolve into his old habits, and finally letting a shoe drop at at ANI. ANIs are ugly and an utter waste of the community’s time if they can be avoided with a polite but direct reminder that it is not too much to ask that an editor abide by an abundantly clear and unambiguous editing restriction.

  But, thank you PBS, for reminding me that it would be helpful to provide a fuller accounting here of just why it is so hard to reign in PMA. Perhaps you might try your hand at reminding him of his editing restrictions on his talk page; maybe you will have better luck. Happy editing. Greg L (talk) 04:05, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Born, the fact is that we don't always use "the MOST common name", especially if "the MOST common name" is used by less than half the sources (which happens not infrequently when more than two alternative names exist), but my bigger concern is that you seem to be engaging in sloppy reversions. Do you actually have something against the idea that "If the name of a person, group, object, or other article topic changes then more weight should be given to name used in reliable sources published after the name change than in those before the change", or was this just a mindless reversion of a good change, that you're now going to correct? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:32, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

My objection is this line: "When there are several common names for a subject, it is perfectly reasonable to select as an article title the name that best fits the other criteria in this policy." Two of the five criteria support selecting the name most commonly used in RS: Recognizability and naturalness. Therefore the way this statement can be interpreted is that it's "perfectly acceptable" to pay no mind to those two criteria, and simply select based only on conciseness, preciseness and consistency.

Example: Say A is more natural, more recognizable, more concise and just as consistent with similar titles as B, but B is more concise. Even though A is favored by 3 of the 5 criteria, and a wash on a 4th, this statement suggests that choosing B is "perfectly reasonable" because, ignoring the common name criteria, B is favor by one of the remaining 3 criteria, and so is A. I don't think that reflects actual practice. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:43, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

To illustrate my point with a real example, consider Talk:David_Owen#Requested_move where David Owen → David Owen, Baron Owen was proposed by Jimbo himself, and part of his argument in favor was to discount WP:COMMONNAME because simply following it in such a clear-cut case "is at odds with long-standing consensus" for "other factors" to be considered. Consensus clearly disagreed with that argument, at least there, and it I thought that to be typical, not an aberration.

Now, if there are multiple common names and none is clearly the most common, then, sure, we use other factors (i.e., consistency, concision and precision) to decide. But if one name is clearly the most common, then usually it's favored, and it's not "perfectly reasonable" to pick one of the other common names because it best fits the other criteria of the policy. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:39, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that I'll just chip in with one observation that I believe B2C will recognise from elsewhere... it's problematic to suggest that it's generally possible to determine the "most common", as there are instances in which it can't be determined with great confidence, due to a bias towards finding online sources. This can mean a bias towards certain regions (due to earlier widespread internet adoption or fuller digitisation of sources) or to sources that are more recent (or, theoretically, sometimes to older sources because they are out of copyright). It's only really fair to operate on the basis of the most common name if it is absolutely uncontroversial (and not just seen by some editors as uncontroversial). SamBC(talk) 23:13, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

There are certainly the situations where the answer to the question of the most common name is controversial, but that's not a reason to not use such a name. That is, if the other factors indicate it should be the title, the controversy over it being the most common should not be a reason to not use it.

But in the vast majority of cases we don't have such a controversy about most common. My concern with the proposed wording is that it would seem to discourage using the most common name in situations where there is no controversy about that, like in the David Owen example I just gave above, but other factors (like consistency) indicate another title. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:04, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that WhatamIdoing's changes put in most of what I was saying anyway. But it only touched one third of it. The other two were the addition of:

• "If the name of a person, group, object, or other article topic changes then more weight should be given to name used in reliable sources published after the name change than in those before the change."

and the second issue was what to do about the sentence "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." because in at least one occurrence of a guideline discussion this has been used to justify using the "correct" spelling, eg a persons name in their passport as opposed to the name used in reliable secondary sources. (See this posting in an RFC at Use English). If reliable sources meant documents as opposed to for example experts then changing the phrase "used by reliable sources" to "used in reliable sources" would bring clarity to the sentence, but would that be acceptable as the reliable source could be an expert publishing in what what would otherwise be an unreliable source. -- PBS (talk) 06:09, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, Born, what I read above is that you're either being sloppy or lazy and reverting 100% of changes even if you only disagree with 30% of what was done. So as soon as this page is unprotected, I expect you to go back and restore the text you deleted despite (1) it being discussed here and approved with no objections, and (2) you personally having no objection to it. And I hope in the future that you'll quit behaving in such an uncollegial, uncollaborative, and destructive manner. If you disagree with part of a change, you should only remove that part. Only clueless newbies and bad editors revert things they agree with merely because they happened in the same edit as something else. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:07, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Use of Japanese

A guideline proposes using English in titles: Wikipedia:Article_titles#English-language_titles. I've been having a problem with Japanese articles. Most recently with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fumi-e. A closed discussion, incidentally. Quick! Before looking, what is Fumi-e? If you had to look first, it is not in general use in English.

Three problems here. Two are similar. Both English and Japanese are "language sponges" trying to adopt new words from other languages, quite contrary to the norm. The third is that Japanese are much closer in time to their feudal period than European cultures. They believe them totally unique, though there are English words quite capable of describing them. The other day, I tried to introduce "liege lord" to a Japanese-Anglophone editor. He found, instead, a band with that name, perhaps not realizing it was named after a common English-related feudal expression.

I lost the Fumi-e argument after one day of allowing editors to contribute. Several were editors on the article itself and hardly neutral. Right now we have hundreds, if not thousands of non-place articles with Japanese words that have not entered English and for which there is an English equivalent. I'm looking for support here (not votes. Too late for that!  :). Student7 (talk) 13:51, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a general problem, but I honestly can't see your point on Fumi-e. What normal English concept should this be covered under, exactly? SamBC(talk) 23:55, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Gōzoku another. Tell me what it is before you look it up please. That will show that it is in common use in English. The question is not: "is there currently a term for gozuku in English?" Which appears to be the question asked above.

BTW, had to copy term since I don't know how to get a long O on my keyboard - part of my Japanese training, apparently.

The question is "Will the use of English prevail when translating Japanese terms into English. i.e. will Wikipedia be used to introduce terms into English that were not there earlier.

The question of course, for Fumi-e: did religious zealots ever ask presumed "heretics" to spit on a cross or an icon, desecrate a Koran, or whatever? The "necessity" for the blatantly Japanese-only term of Fumi-e presumes that religious questions of this type never arose in English-speaking countries. Or in Europe and translated into English. Otherwise, why would we be forcing a term on an English reader that s/he had never seen before. Student7 (talk) 01:22, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Your arguments might begin to be slightly convincing if you could actually tell us the English terms that you would use instead of these Japanese ones (i.e. if you proposed to rename these articles to specified titles, or merge them with specified existing English-titled articles). Proposing deleting them seems rather pointy and the wrong way to go - if that were done, the information might be lost altogether.--Kotniski (talk) 06:58, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

They are not English, nor in common use as English. The question is not whether "snartlefarb = a cane for beating kangaroos in Bohemia" is a "better" word that one in English, but whether the general public would recognize "snartlefarb!" They wouldn't. Therefore no article on snartlefarb, no matter how "efficient" the term might "seem." "Seem" BTW, implies WP:OR judgment, which is out of place in making the decision. Student7 (talk) 15:00, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

We don't generally title articles according to what the general public would recognize, but (rather) according to what people who are familiar with the subject would recognize. There are vast numbers of obscure subjects covered on Wikipedia - most of them don't have any name that the general public would recognize, because the general public have no idea that these concepts even exist. So we have to use the obscure names that the specialists use. Whether the obscure names are adjudged to be "English" or "foreign" is neither here nor there. --Kotniski (talk) 16:45, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Does not concur with MOS:JAPAN which limits words to those than have entered the English language. Student7 (talk) 15:58, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Don't know where you're seeing that.--Kotniski (talk) 16:32, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

That's just it. I'm not. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gozoku . http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fumi-e . But I am supposed to since there is an article name and it is not a place or proper name. Student7 (talk) 21:05, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood Kotniski's question... where do you see MOS:JAPAN limiting words to those that have entered the English language? Blueboar (talk) 21:50, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't see an example for fumi-e. There are a few others such as miko which have been translated in numerous texts as "shrine maiden". But neither term is exactly mainstream.∞陣内Jinnai 00:08, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

@Student7: see my response in the thread below. You seem to be imagining a rule that has simply never existed - there is absolutely no rule or custom, nor would we wish there to be, that every Wikipedia article title has to appear in English dictionaries (even excluding defined categories such as places and proper names).--Kotniski (talk) 08:40, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

And to continue: your comments at the gozoku discussion seem to indicate that you think Wikipedia is inappropriately "introducing new terms into the English language" in this way. Well, not really - Wikipedia is not an English dictionary, so by titling an article "gozoku" we're not saying that there's an English word "gozoku". What Wikipedia is is a compendium of reliably sourceable knowledge, that uses the English language as a medium to convey that knowledge. In situations where that knowledge can't be accurately conveyed using established English terminology (remember that the sources don't have to be in English), we do what English writers often do - use the available foreign-language terminology (preferably indicating that it is foreign, e.g. by italicizing, and providing an explanation of what it means, which we are often able to do conveniently using wikilinks).--Kotniski (talk) 08:51, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I must not be understanding this complaint. Is the complaint:

1. the title needs to be translated (to what?), or
2. subjects whose titles can't be rendered conveniently in English do not deserve articles on the English Wikipedia?

I don't have a lot of sympathy for the complaint that the average English speaker won't recognize a given title. We have an enormous number of articles for which a recognizable title is simply impossible (nearly all articles in Category:Asteroid stubs, for example). We would like the most recognizable title, but in some cases, zero of the available titles are going to be recognizable to anyone except a specialist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I was sticking with Japanese (as opposed to La Traviata and other European borrow words) because it was "easier" to argue. As pervasive as unfamiliar Japanese is in Wikipedia, the presence of European languages is much worse. It was easier to argue that fumi-e would not be recognized by Anglophones and never would be and wouldn't be needed either. A bit harder to argue the extremely pervasive French, Spanish and German words scattered throughout the articles which are easily understood by college educated Anglophones. Like "tres bien" or "dosvedanya" or "adieu" etc.

People seem to love the very unfamiliar Japanese because English is a "language sponge." But it is not our job to introduce these words without due process which hasn't been demonstrated. Not everyone understands them. It smacks of elitism.

I just edited "troisieme" from an article someone translated from French. I doubt that it meant "third" in the usage that was presented, but rather something else unfamiliar to the reader. (I expect that other editors there will help). The trouble when you start using foreign words/languages: it's a bit hard to know where to draw the line. The current bar to unfamiliar non-English words is way too low IMO. Student7 (talk) 21:44, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

The current "bar" is that we do whatever the English-language sources do. Translating a title just to make it be in English, when all the sources refuse to translate it, is a WP:NOR violation.

Recognizability (whether an Anglophone reader has any hope of recognizing what the word represents) is only one principle among many. In many cases, the translated word is actually less recognizable: even a complete English monoglot has a chance of recognizing that La traviata is the name of an opera and that a tsar is a kind of king. We should not rush in to translate where our sources refuse to do so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:47, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I feel like the man from AA in a bar trying to recruit! No one will admit that alcoholics even exist! If fumi-e isn't a stumbling drunk, I don't know what is. Having said that, it is true that a word may be needed to describe such artifacts and, being English, we will probably discover an acceptable term in another language.

But automatically assuming that one-word (foreign language) hits are automatically superior to "two word" (English language) hits (it depends on the two words selected. Don't have that problem with the one word) is not crisp logic IMO. Student7 (talk) 17:51, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't care how many words are in the title. I care which words are in the reliable sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:29, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

And if they are all Japanese RSes? While it would be unusual, there is nothing against policy about that.∞陣内Jinnai 16:14, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Then one follows WP:ENGLISH#No_established_usage_in_English-language_sources, which in such a case would use the Japanese name (assuming the reason that all of the RSes are in Japanese is because it's a Japanese-related subject). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:20, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Just a quick note... Christies auction house] (one of the more prestigious auction houses in the US) appears to accept and use the Japanese word "Fumi-e" to describe these objects (although it also uses the word "Icon")... so at least one reliable English Language source uses the term. So I am not sure that WP:ENGLISH#No_established_usage_in_English-language_sources applies in this case. Blueboar (talk) 13:19, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Weakening the wording of WP:ACRONYMTITLE

Of late, I've been involved in a few page move discussions (most notably for USB, which is currently at DRN) related to WP:ACRONYMTITLE. In my opinion, the present wording is overly strong and doesn't reflect the general consensus on titles (particularly WP:COMMONNAME). Suggested rewording of the section in WP:NAME:

Avoid ambiguous abbreviations

Abbreviations and acronyms are often ambiguous and thus should be avoided unless the subject is known primarily by its abbreviation and that abbreviation is primarily associated with the subject (e.g. NATO, laser, USB). The abbreviation UK, for United Kingdom, is acceptable for use in disambiguation. It is also unnecessary to include an acronym in addition to the name in a title. For more details, see WP:ACRONYMTITLE.

And the corresponding line in WP:ACRONYMTITLE:

An acronym or initialism should be used in a page name if the subject is known primarily by its abbreviation and that abbreviation is primarily associated with the subject (e.g. NATO, laser, USB). In order to determine the prominence of the abbreviation over the full name, consider checking how the subject is referred to in popular media such as newspapers, magazines, and other publications.

Thoughts? As it stands, the wording plainly doesn't reflect the way moves are being closed, as the community seems to prefer WP:COMMONNAME to override the "avoid" stance unless there's genuine cause for confusion. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:58, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with this. There is no real good reason to be avoiding acronyms in general. If they are ambiguous and not the primary topic, then of course consider using the full name. But I don't think there should not be made any special exceptions from WP:COMMONNAME for acronyms.TheFreeloader (talk) 16:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I would agree with this proposal. It seems that WP:COMMONNAME is not only more strongly supported but actually works better. It seems unhelpful to name articles not according to how they are best known. I think the policy should be that, unless there is an issue with ambiguity (ie, the common names of two equally notable/common/searched for objects are the same), an acronym is an acceptable common name and title. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 19:49, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I think we need to be careful here with swinging the pendulum too far. USA is a very common acronym for United States of America and the primary use of USA acronym in general. However, I do not believe that article would be better served by changing the country name to an aconrym and it would be hotly cotested if COMMONNAME were to apply. I'd say it would have to very clear that the acronym was more common before it should replace the word usage. If its close or unclear, it should not.∞陣内Jinnai 20:09, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes, I hadn't thought of that. I think the distinction between USB and USA is that people understand United States of America and use the name America as commonly as USA; with USB, the term Universal Serial Bus is not so well known, nor is any variant other than USB used. A policy would have to encompass that nuance, I think. That is, if policy is the best way to deal with the issue. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 22:04, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. Even if "USA" is the dominant name for the subject, it is not strongly so next to the alternatives. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:21, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure if we need to change the policy. USB is like NATO, overwhelmingly referred to by its accronym... so it is already covered. Blueboar (talk) 23:56, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that both the current and proposed wording support USB rather than Universal Serial Bus, United States of America rather than USA, and NATO and Laser over whatever they stand for. So I don't have a problem with the change, nor the current wording. Practically speaking, I don't see a difference.

Does anyone know of a case where the proposed wording would indicate a different title from the current wording? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:41, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

"USA" is a bad example, without recognizing that "USA" is already outlawed (or whatever word satisfies the "it's only a guideline" people) at the "US and U.S." paragraph of MOS:#Abbreviations. Art LaPella (talk) 02:07, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Huh, I'd never noticed that before. It's interesting that you mention it now, because the folks at Meta (who are working on the revised terms of use for all WMF sites) are unhappy with "United States". It turns out that "USA" is unique, but "United States" is distinctly ambiguous for a substantial number of Spanish speakers (since it can refer either to the United States of America or to the United States of Mexico). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:37, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The thing is, in several cases people have argued that the wording prohibits the likes of "USB" (another recent example which subsequently passed unopposed was OLED). Weakening the wording a little would hopefully prevent situations where people make arguments based on a reading of the guideline which is stronger than intended. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:24, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I have to oppose this strongly, except for acronyms that have been reassimilated into the language as simple words (scuba, radar, laser). Already it is far, far too frequent for editors, especially newer ones, who outnumber the experienced ones, to use only the acronym when referring to something they know and just assume everyone does. I've sometimes fixed that error 5 times in one day, without even looking for them. The change suggested here would turn this annoying trickle into a flood, and it would be very problematic, because the editors who do this often either link only to an acronym that ends up being a disambiguation page or they don't link at all, leaving later editors to guess where they're trying to point. Given that the acronym will redirect to the full article title, or to a necessary disambig page, there isn't any utility at all to putting the article at the acronym name. Especially for something like NATO. It's instantly and undeniably useful to have the real, full name be the title, since you see the title and the acronym expansion and now know what it means. If it were normal to have the articles be at the acronym, in many cases stub articles on such topics would be written without expanding the acronym anywhere at all. The current system isn't broken in any way, so don't "fix" it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 01:43, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I avoided commenting on this one but I'm inclined to side with SMcCandlish on this, and I'd go as far as to say I think the guideline needs strengthening, not weakening. I think there's a fine line in what constitutes a different name for the purposes of WP:COMMONNAME. I didn't participate in the vote but I agree with the move of People's Republic of China to just plain China because they're different names, and one is the far more commonly used one. But I would treat acronyms differently - an acronym and its expanded version are fundamentally the same name, just being rendered differently. NATO and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation should be treated at a fundamental level as the same thing with respect to article titles, and as SMcCandlish mentioned, the latter is far more appropriate for an encyclopedia title. USB being there instead of at Universal Serial Bus sits very uncomfortably with me here. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 22:28, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Almost no one calls it a Universal Serial Bus, even among the more tech inclined. USB is the name that has entered the lexicon, not Universal Serial Bus.∞陣内Jinnai 18:40, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Variations on precision

Related discussion on using qualifiers when not needed: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation#Using qualifiers when no ambiguity exists -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:39, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

hopelessly vague title

Can anyone give one good reason that National Tax Agency is not National Tax Agency (country name)? The title is a translation into English, too. This is where previous practices relying on "primary topic" are becoming ludicrous. I arrived there from a category list. Tony (talk) 02:47, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I would certainly move it to NTA (Japan) or Japanese NTA, regardless of whether there is another article with that title. — kwami (talk) 02:59, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

One good reason is that it's its name.[1] Another is that nothing else on WP has the name, to the best of my knowledge. This has nothing to do with "primary topic". It's the only topic on WP using that name. Station1 (talk) 03:29, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

National Tax Agency (Japan) would be the epitome of unnecessary disambiguation. It would be unnecessary because National Tax Agency is its name, is natural, precise, concise and consistent with other titles. There is no basis in policy or practice to disambiguate this title. As has been explained countless times to you guys, the purpose of an article title for a topic that has a name is not to describe that topic, but to reflect its name.

I should also add that if the article was at National Tax Agency (Japan) it would wrongly imply that there are other topics in WP whose name is "National Tax Agency", and this one is not the primary topic. That would be misleading. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:04, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Extremely inconvenient for readers and editors. So uniqueness trumps clarity, does it? This is a ham-fisted, easy-peasy policy we've allowed to fester into bad, misleading google hits. Tony (talk) 05:14, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Since "clarity" about what the topic is for people unfamiliar with the topic has never been something that titles are supposed deliver, yes, uniqueness and conciseness trump clarity. For every topic there are two types of readers - those familiar with the topic and those who are not. If a reader in the latter group stumbles upon a title, the title is not supposed to tell him what the article is about - only the name of the what the article is about. Why is this so difficult to accept for about a half-dozen of you? --Born2cycle (talk) 05:27, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Sheer blind impenetrable legalistic rule-mongering. Of course it is desirable that the title should suggest the topic in a helpful way. By the reasoning of the small coterie of zealots who serve WP:xxxxxx rather than the readers, we might as well give each article a serial number as a title, instead using English words. (Yeah yeah: I know that is against policy.) Nothing seems to jog people out of this weird obsession with parochialism and obscurity. Such a waste of potential; such a detriment to the Project. Noetica^Tea? 06:43, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The alternative is creating bottomless quagmires of dispute. Take this example... Sure National Tax Agency (Japan) is more descriptive than National Tax Agency, but National Tax Agency (Japanese tax collecting agency) is even more descriptive. Which should we use, and why? Based on what criteria? We already have criteria, and that criteria indicates National Tax Agency. What you're proposing is a change to the criteria. Fine, propose that. But I honestly don't see how you could change the criteria to allow for more descriptive titles without creating that quagmire. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:31, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

B2C, I'm not sure where you're going with this example. Why would anyone suggest National Tax Agency (Japanese tax collecting agency)? I don't even see how it is more descriptive, let alone how it could be a serious contender. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 08:12, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Is that so? Then you are, equally honestly, incapable of thinking the issue through. No one is suggesting such lengthy qualifiers as that. In the present case, "national" already marks the agency as unique for a certain nation. The only question facing our worldwide readership is this: "Which nation?" And rather than spend seven characters to show that information, you opt for retentiveness at all costs. Such an attitude is normally a manifestation of some deep-seated psychological need. In the oxygen-rich world of actual readers, it withers and good sense prevails. Here, where a certain narrow rule-boundedness wins favour, it has been allowed articially to thrive. A pity. A pity we can't clear the area of fundamentally misguided binary thinking: my way, or a "bottomless quagmire".. At least learn this, beginners: "criteria" is the plural and "criterion" is the singular. Noetica^Tea? 08:35, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

You supported Tony1 on this issue back in October, and moved a page after I mentioned it in the then current discussion. history: Financial Management Standard. -- PBS (talk) 09:33, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

While I generally dislike redundant disambiguation, I find it more of a good thing in cases like this, where the "name" on its own is really just a generic description. (It's not really "the" national tax agency, it's just "a" national tax agency which happens to be the only one that Wikipedia currently titles with those exact words.)--Kotniski (talk) 08:49, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm with B2C on this. Does every article on Wikipedia about British place names now have to have nation attached to them? eg Moreton-in-Marsh --> Moreton-in-Marsh, England or should it be Moreton-in-Marsh, United Kingdom? Because as far as I can tell that would be the logic of this suggestion.

Tony1 has raised this issue twice in the last 3 months see also Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 33#Article specificity (17 September) and Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 33#Motion of no confidence in WP:PRECISE and WP:PRIMARY TOPIC (8 October) and it was rejected both times. Has enough time passed for this to be discussed for a third time? -- PBS (talk) 09:21, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I definitely see where Tony and Noetica are coming from, but I think it would start us down a slippery slope where suddenly everything that has a title that isn't universally known must have a qualifier added to it. I also find it interesting that these discussions usually display our systematic bias. Or would you guys also support tacking "(United States)" onto Internal Revenue Service? Jenks24 (talk) 09:44, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

There could be a difference, though, between the ways we treat "real" names and translated names.--Kotniski (talk) 09:52, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Their Web site says "(c) Copyright National Tax Agency Japan". In the preface of the English-language version of their annual report, it says "National Tax Agency, Japan". So that's what I'd suggest as the article title. The title should approximate what people in English-speaking countries would actually call the subject. Whenever this agency appears in non-Japanese RS, there is something that tells you it is Japanese: Japan's National Tax Agency, Japanese National Tax Agency, etc. Article titles perform the vitally important function of providing the common or most useful name of the subject. They should not be expected to be unambiguous, to identity the nation-state an entity is located in, give an individual's career, or leap tall buildings in a single bound. Kauffner (talk) 10:44, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Kauffner's last comment.

I agree with Noetica's comments.

Kotniski, some good points.

B2C, it's not just that the way it's been set up, this uniqueness trumps clarity thing. In fact, it's worse than that: it's that uniqueness as a WP article title, as a topic that is treated in a WP article, trumps clarity and utility, both in WP categ. lists and more importantly on google search displays. For example, there can be scores of vehicle motor taxes, but the one WP means is that in Ireland. Very irritating to have to travel to the article to learn this. And the response from these realms: "Oh ... but it's the only article we have on vehicle motor tax, so finders keepers." I don't buy it. Truth is, a more nuanced, explanatory policy is required to avoid these most unsatisfactory effects.

Jenks, the "slippery slope": yes, I understand your concerns, and I too have done thought-experiments that have shown the dangers of title-bloat. So what I'm asking is that we get together and work out real examples of where the boundaries lie so we can develop guidance that allows these "National Tax Agency" tragedies to be fixed where this can be done with minimal extra characters, but so that for the overwhelming majority of cases the policy still insists on the discipline that produces brevity, succinctness. Tony (talk) 14:29, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree about the "finders keepers" thing is a problem. I went to The King's Academy, but not The King's Academy (maybe the subject of that article is extraordinarily significant and this is a bad example, but my point remains). I think there is some balance we should be able to find here. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 15:30, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, in the past, I was inclined to support the arguments in favor of pre-disambiguation of topics in specific domains for the sake of consistency, such as television episodes. It made sense to me then that the title of an article on a topic of relatively specialized interest would benefit readers by clearly indicating what type of specialized thing it was. However, pre-disambiguation was soundly thrashed in the ensuing discussion and that has been the law of the land since. I've come to accept that and support the position that unless there is ambiguity within the context of Wikipedia, then no disambiguation is necessary. However, at times I can sympathize with Tony and other's view about topics where some relatively obscure, generically named topic becomes the primary topic by default by virtue of being the only topic with that name. However, what happens to the undisambiguated title in these cases? Unless there are other topics that treat the subject sufficient to create a disambiguation page, the undisambiguated base name will redirect to the disambiguated title. So for example, if readers search for or link to National Tax Agency, they would still go to the article on the Japanese agency. So how does having a disambiguated title help such readers? And in article text, links to disambiguated titles are most often piped such that most readers would not see the dismabiguated title until they click on the link. In sum, I find Tony's irritation at having "to travel to the article to learn" that the topic is on a specific subject to be unconvincing and a poor reason for changing policy. Finder's keepers is also a red herring. If other encyclopedic topics are later created, then principles of disambiguation apply. Unless one of the topics is the primary topic, the titles would then need to be disambiguated. This happens all the time as part of how Wikipedia develops. I do not think we should be using crystal balls to try and guess which topics might possibly one day in the future have an article written on the subject that would require disambiguation. older ≠ wiser 16:04, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Like --Born2cycle (talk) 17:41, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

older/wiser—you're missing the point about finders keepers. "finders keepers" is not a good name for it, I think, so that is understandable. I don't think anyone is saying that when a new article is made that the dab can't be created then. That isn't the point. The point is that if the topic is not the primary topic for the term, then it seems odd to name it differently just because we don't yet have articles for the other topics for the term. So, in the case of someone searching for my high school, they'll find an article about a different high school. Sure, they can figure out pretty fast that it isn't the one they were looking for. But Wikipedia is saying that this is the "The King's Academy", and my HS is not the main one. Now, I suspect that the Japanese "National Tax Agency" is in fact the "National Tax Agency" (ie, really the primary topic for the term), so I don't think it's really a problem that National Tax Agency is about the one in Japan. But generally, I don't think it's best to only disambiguate when there's "ambiguity within the context of Wikipedia". ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:41, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

But that is exactly the issue -- what process of divination shall we standardize on to try and guess which topics might possibly one day in the future have an article written on the subject that would require disambiguation? If there is only one article with an ambiguous title, no disambiguation is necessary within the context of Wikpedia. As the need arises when new articles are created, then existing articles can be disambiguated appropriately. This is standard operating procedure, and aside from occasional lapses (which will happen regardless of whether guidelines say to do it one way or another), there have been few significant problems. older ≠ wiser 20:07, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Again, you're missing the point. Even if no other The King's Academy ever gets an article, the problem remains. Not having the disambiguating parens implies something about the subject—that it is the primary topic of this term. In almost all cases, the common name for the subject either has a clear primary topic or several topics with articles; in those cases, what we do now is fine in general, I think. I'm talking about topics of marginal notability, for which there are many subjects with the same name. When considering an article like The King's Academy, no divination is required to determine whether it is the primary topic or not. Note that WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, if taken literally, supports what I'm saying, although I kind of doubt that was intentional. My claim that no disambiguating parens implies primacy on its own could be debated, of course. If we think it's true, though, then articles like this should have disambiguating parens even though we don't need to disambiguate with other WP articles. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 22:52, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

All it implies is that Wikipedia has no other article that competes for that title. Period. If there is no other article, then the base name would still be a redirect to the disambiguated title and that would do little or nothing to help anyone. If the article were located at The King's Academy (Coulby Newham) (or something similar), most readers would still click on links where the only visible text is The King's Academy (which might be a piped link or might be a redirect) or they would enter that into search and would be none the wiser until reaching the article. Currently the only competition for the title is a partial title match at King's Academy, which is disambiguated by hatnote. While it might satisfy some abstract notion of fairness, it would not actually help readers looking for one or the other to force them to go to a disambiguation page with only two entries. On the other hand, if you wanted to write articles for other schools with the name, or even create a list article identifying all such schools, then there might be something else to disambiguate. But as it is, having an undisambiguated title mean only that there are no other topics with that title in Wikipedia. older ≠ wiser 23:19, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

If you're missing something, then so am I. Erik, please explain what you would expect/prefer to see... nothing (redlink) at The King's Academy? A dab page with one entry? What? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:03, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure; I guess a dab page. It would have at least two entries at this point, though. In general, I think the answer to your question might be a dab with a link and possibly some red links. I don't think this question is the interesting one here, though. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 02:09, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

At the top of this section Tony wrote, " I arrived there from a category list. ". Per Bkonrad's explanation (excellent, BTW) this issue doesn't matter, except for the one context of category lists. But let's look at these; this particular article belongs to four cats.

1. Category:Tax stubs - for editors only
2. Category:Japanese government stubs - for editors only; category name itself provide descriptive context
3. Taxation in Japan - category name itself provide descriptive context
4. Revenue services - only context in all of WP where this is even an issue

I concede that for the specific context of certain category lists (general categories; specific categories provide the necessary context themselves), having more descriptive titles would be helpful. But that's the only upside there is to this, and its very limited - the main downside I see is that it would complicate our already all too contentious title decision process by adding another consideration into the mix that would apply to any topic with a unique name that is not widely recognizable to the public in general... something like... make the title sufficiently descriptive so that people unfamiliar with the topic can get a reasonable idea of what the topic is from just the title. The complications are:

1. How do we decide whether a given title is widely recognizable with just its name, or whether it needs additional descriptive information in the title?
2. If we do decide a given title needs additional descriptive information, how do we decide what that is? How much description is enough?

Further, as Bkonrad notes, there is strong consensus in the community against adding such information even for cases where #2 is not an issue because there is a convention for what the descriptive information should be (e.g., for TV episode names it is the TV series name in parentheses).

Kotniski's and Kauffner's argument for this particular case aside (special case translated names and treat them as descriptive; "Japan" is part of the name used in RS to refer to this topic, which is not an argument to add descriptive information, but to better reflect usage the most common name used in RS), I think #2 adds a lot of burden to the process for little benefit. Further, a point I keep repeating but is never addressed, there is a benefit to the reader when we disambiguate only when necessary - and that is that we inherently convey information about how the name is used in RS. That is, if we always disambiguated government agency names with the name of the country, then, for example, readers would not have an inkling of whether "Internal Revenue Service" is a name unique to the U.S. agency, or whether it's commonly used in other nations. Under the current system because it's at Internal Revenue Service, and not at Internal Revenue Service (United States), that tells us something about usage of the name "Internal Revenue Service" in RS that we would not convey if we systematically predisambiguated names that were not ambiguous with other uses.

In short, we all get where you're coming from, but what you're advocating is a solution to a little problem (improve usefulness of certain general category lists); a solution that creates problems bigger than the little one it's addressing. So, unless Tony, Noetica, et. all can come up with new arguments, I'm with PBS. Enough already.

--Born2cycle (talk) 17:41, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

One solution, specifically for categories, is to have a redirect from National Tax Agency (Japan) and place the category tag on the redirect (and a hidden comment on the article itself, to avoid duplication). This will serve those readers who navigate by categories without inconvenicing the rest of us. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:53, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The unsatisfactory thing about this solution (which I know is used on various articles for various reasons) is that the category then doesn't appear at the bottom of the article itself. You really need to have the duplication.--Kotniski (talk) 17:57, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Not really; but you are right that you need an open comment, which could be a template. "Category X appears on page Y, which redirects here." Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:36, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Ideally we would be able to specify a display name in the reference to the cat, something like

[[Category:Things|title + description to display in category list]].

--Born2cycle (talk) 19:30, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. We use that syntax now to imdicate that we should alphabetize the cat using that key; displying the key should be a simple fix. Anybody want to go to bugzilla? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:12, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Would it help if we made an article on Spain's "Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria" and called it National Tax Agency (Spain), as it's often translated? Dicklyon (talk) 00:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The agency gives their English-language name as, "Spanish National Tax Agency", so it's not a problem. Kauffner (talk) 04:31, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The "Spanish" there is a disambiguation, not a translation. There's no España in "Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria". Dicklyon (talk) 16:08, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and if you could show that it's reasonably often referred to as "National Tax Agency" in reliable sources, then that's enough to move National Tax Agency to National Tax Agency (Japan) and create a two-entry dab page at National Tax Agency. That's how it works. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:12, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think there's a huge difference between a name that's unique because it's not used for anything else, and a name that's unique because no-one has yet bothered to write a WP article on its other uses. In the first case a reader will most likely be looking for the article we have, but in the second case they will often be looking for something else. "National Tax Agency" does not imply Japan; the fact that we only have it for Japan is simply a quirk of WP. If other countries use the phrase IRS then we should dab that name as well, unless the others are obscure, in which case we can make do with a hat note. But the Spanish NTA is no more obscure than the Japanese one, and we should reflect that regardless of whether we have an article for the Spanish NTA. Our titles should reflect external reality, not just the chance existence of a WP article. — kwami (talk) 01:17, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

It does not fit in with Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Many subjects of biographies have the same name, but we do not make the assumption that every subject of a biography name is not unique and pre-emptively dab them. The problems it would solve for the future changing of links etc, are most likely outweighed by the initial debates of whether the first instance is then most notable (so does not need disambiguation), or whether there is another person with the same name notable enough to be included. The whole point of the current system is KISS. -- PBS (talk) 02:12, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:CRYSTAL ball concerns our avoidance of predicting the future in the real world, not of the practicality of assuming that other WP articles will be necessary, even inevitable, that might have used exactly the same title. Now I see that that someone has moved Quota Elimination (WTO) to just Quota Elimination. That will be more useful in a google search. Tony (talk) 02:57, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:CRYSTAL is not what I was referring to except by way of allusion. The point is that unnecessary disambiguation requires a determination by an editor that a topic is ambiguous, even though there is no evidence for such ambiguity within the context of Wikipedia. This runs squarely against WP:Verifiability. Without evidence of ambiguity within the context of Wikipedia, it is inappropriate for an individual editor to determine that a topic requires disambiguation simply because that editor knows it to be true. older ≠ wiser 03:15, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think we should bring higher principles like verifiability into this; this is the kind of editorial decision we make all the time (is X the primary topic for Y? is the mention of Y in article Z enough to warrant a hatnote at X? etc.), and isn't the same as including unsourceable statements of fact in articles. (And if policy forbids redundant disambiguation, then all those Americans who insist on including the state name in all their place-name articles, and the peerage and royalty and shipping buffs who do similar things, must be well out of order - would that it were only so.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:28, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying, but when there are no clear indications of ambiguity I'm extremely skeptical that we should be naming articles based on an individual editor's intuition that something is too generic a title for a specific topic. If discussion, preferably with input from diverse points of views and with evaluation of credible evidence rather than only likeit/dontlikeit opinions, makes a determination, that is just fine. older ≠ wiser 13:44, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The credible evidence can be presented at move discussions even if the other topics of the term do not have wikipedia articles. There are no problems here wrt WP:V. Maybe we only want to disambiguate w/in WP anyway, but we don't need to just because of V. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:22, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Personally I think it reasonable to declare the primary topic for "national tax agency" (however capitalized) to be Revenue service. But that doesn't solve the problem we've seen in some such cases in the past, where some obscure country (sorry, but some things are obscure to the bulk of our English-speaking readership, whether or not you want to call that "systemic bias") has a government agency or department with some generic-sounding but probably unique name (department of fishing and horticulture, or something a bit along those lines - I don't recall the exact situation). I seem to recall that in such situations consensus has quite often been that we should include the country by way of "disambiguation", not because there's real ambiguity, but because the name "sounds too generic" otherwise.--Kotniski (talk) 09:05, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

PS One such discussion was at Talk:Census and Statistics Department (Hong Kong). No consensus was reached, though a majority supported keeping the "redundant" disambiguator. Though I notice there's something of a mixture in the way such articles are titled.--Kotniski (talk) 11:45, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

And is that such a bad thing? I know we seek consistency between articles to aid navigation, but not at the expense of other principles such as naturalness and recognizability. Blueboar (talk) 12:18, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

In this case I don't see any higher principles being applied; it's just that editors happen to have decided to go one way in some cases, the other way in others.--Kotniski (talk) 12:21, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

That discussion referred to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government and legislation), a backwater Naming Convention I hadn't come across before. But it does appear to address the specific situation here. Kotniski also may be right that national tax agency should redirect to revenue service. While I'm no fan of the royalty naming conventions, I think where there are conventions with defined scope of application, reasonable rationale, and some modicum of consensus, I really don't see much of an issue with using more specific names as the title. Personally, I'd prefer to see such cases use natural language forms rather than parenthetical, but that may just be a preference. The implication is that while natural language form might not be the most common form, it is a name that is actually used for a subject. Parenthetical disambiguators are almost never a part of the real world name of a subject and are purely a Wikipedia contrivance -- and within the context of Wikipedia, a parenthetical disambiguator generally indicates there is one or more articles at the base name, but that is not necessarily true with natural language disambiguation. older ≠ wiser 13:44, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

• There should be some scope to insert a country-name after departments and organisations that are described with an apparently very generic title. This is an international project. Of course they don't bother to put (HK) after it in HK itself (although many organisations there are likely to have the name of the jurisdiction embedded within them (from memory, for example, The Hong Kong Port Authority). I'd be inclined to do it on a case-by-case basis, and to use the shortest possible character length (Internal Revenue Service (US)), Car registration fee (UK)). We shouldn't be hostage to whether or not a body embeds the jurisdiction within its title. Our readers' needs are the same in either case. There must be a way of minimising the cumbersome and avoiding country names altogether in some cases. Isn't it a case of establishing what the balance is between familiarity to readers of en.WP and the clutter? Nor do I think our readers and editors should be hostage to whether a title is unique among WP article topics, or is unique in the real world. For example, it's very awkward that while we're allowed Fringe benefits tax (Australia) because there are also articles on the NZ and Indian equivalent taxes, we're not allowed to know where Bank account debits tax comes from. (What does Encyclopedia Brittanica do?) Tony (talk) 12:29, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

"There should be some scope to insert a country-name after departments and organisations that are described with an apparently very generic title." If there should be that, than should there also not be some scope to insert a country-name after place names that are not universally well known? Should there not also be some scope to insert the TV series name after every TV episode name? If not, what is the distinction? If so, are you suggesting that we predisambiguate all place names, TV episodes, and a myriad of other articles, too? Or are you drawing a line somewhere? If so, what is that line, and where is it?

Please convince us that you understand what you are suggesting by being clear on what exactly you're seeking; please answer these questions as completely as possible. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:15, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, I think that if you look at UK building articles, you will find many that include the location, even when disambiguation is not needed. But is adding the location disambiguation? Or do we just like to classify it as disambiguation since it is comma separated? Examples include St Botolph's Church, Heene, St Cyprian's Church, Hay Mills or St Berres' Church, Llanferres. This is just one type of example. If you look at various move discussions over the years, you will find comments rising above the background noise that favor the inclusion of information that either identifies the location of something or to give some idea what it is (say a fish or a plant). Sometimes these points get consensus. More often, they run into the the red herring of we don't pre disambiguate or someone waving the WP:PRECISION flag. But does WP:PRECISION really say that we can't include correct valid and helpful information that unambiguously identifies the topic? If so, they we need to rename a large number of articles. However if the policy is not followed in practice and does no harm, should the policy be tweaked after a discussion? Vegaswikian (talk) 19:51, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes it does say that, and it should. The bad example given in the policy ("United States Apollo program (1961–75)") contains nothing incorrect or invalid, and the information will be helpful to some people; but there is no stopping on that road short of making the entire article into the title. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:51, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Note that this section lists four other Churches of Saint Botolph, three of which have articles. The fourth might well - and there's still Boston itself. Any of them could be titled St. Botolph's Church; that's actual ambiguity, which needs disambiguation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

That just means we need a dab page to justify the extra precision for that one. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:16, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

A dab page would be useful; but we need to disambiguate whether there is one or not - because we have several articles; so also for St. Cyprian's Church, Hay Mills and St. Cyprian's Church, Sneinton. It would take a very obscure saint indeed to have only one church in the world; not even St. Berres manages - there's one in Llanferres, but all the towns in France called Saint-Brice have the same patron. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:35, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

This illustrates another problem with predisambiguation - the undisambiguated base name is often neglected and remains a redlink. When this is pointed out it can be easily remedied, of course, but that's beside the point. The point is it's an inherent systemic problem with employing that approach. People are likely to overlook properly handling the base name, and years can go by before an editor becomes aware of it and fixes it.

And, yes, adding additional place information to a title is predisambiguation if the article could be at the plain base name, by definition.

The inclination to want to make a title more descriptive is understandable, and certainly achieves local consensus support in some cases, but I see no broad community support for the practice in general. It has even fallen out of favor to some extent in some categories of articles, like WP:NCROY, which arguably once was the bastion epitome of predisambiguation. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Sigh. It would be nice to have a disambiguation page at the base name, but if nobody notices we don't have one, nobody has been harmed. If you type in St Botolph's Church into our search engine, you will get six possibilities.

These are two competing non-solutions "fixing" a non-problem. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:00, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

While red base names are not a problem for searches, it is a problem for disambiguation bots as they check links against disambiguation pages! If I put some text into a page and it includes a red link to a church I assume that no article has been written about the church not that there are half a dozen about different churches one of which may be the one I want! I assume the same with links to biography articles, because up to now the usual way is to write an article and then move it if later if a disambiguation is needed, or a hat note is added if the name is the primary one. -- PBS (talk) 03:49, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

FYI... Since it was raised, I have created a dab page for St Botolph's Church. Blueboar (talk) 16:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The problem with predisambiguation that I brought up and the ramifications of which PBS explained with greater clarity (thanks!) is easy to dismiss precisely because it is so insidious. The article about St Botolph's church was created in 2002[2], but apparently as Boston parish church. However, it was moved to St Botolph's Church, Boston in 2007, [3], which means the St Botolph's Church redlink that Blueboar just finally fixed, and all the associated problems with it to which PBS refers, has been there for over four years. St Botolph's Aldgate has also been around since 2007. These redlinks are very difficult to find because it means undisambiguating every disambiguated title to see if anything exists at the base name.

This is just one example that happened to be raised in this discussion, but there are undoubtedly a plethora of them. Any proposal that encourages more predisambiguation just exacerbates this problem. Let's not make matters worse. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

And confusing title clarity with the red herring of predisambiguation is probably a larger problem. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:44, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

There is no confusion. We're talking about the same thing... additional precision in the title beyond just the name of the topic, if you will. The motivation for adding more precision to a title might be for clarity or it might be for disambiguation, but, mechanically, if the additional precision is not needed for disambiguation, then, by definition, it is predisambiguation, regardless of whether it's being done to add clarity or to anticipate a need to disambiguate in the future.

Ultimately, this is just a matter of semantics... how does what we call it create a problem at all, much less create "a larger problem" than the redlink one PBS and I have described? --Born2cycle (talk) 23:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Parenthetical disambiguators used for context

Catholic Memorial School redirects to Catholic Memorial School (West Roxbury, Massachusetts). A move request failed, even though similar moves have been treated as completely non-controversial in the past. If this were a case where "Catholic Memorial School" was ambiguous, the failure of the move would be understandable. But that was not what was argued -- and in fact, the base name continues to be a redirect, not a disambiguation page. Rather, the argument was that the parenthetical provided necessary context.

We have absolutely no tradition of using parenthetical phrases for anything other than creating a unique page title. If we are going to start using them to provide context to the casual reader, we must update our policy documentation accordingly. Alternatively, if we are not going to start using them in that way, we need to re-inforce that determination and make it much more clear, as it apparently is not currently.

-- Powers ^T 01:28, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it would be nice to nail this down in the guideline if it is being interpreted this way; see above: WT:AT#hopelessly vague title ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 02:02, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

That's outrageous. As far as I can tell, there are just a few users who tend to support adding or retaining unnecessary disambiguation in titles like this (see section above). When only a few participate in these moves, four is more than enough to sway local consensus. That particular one needs to be reopened and relisted and tagged as an rfc, or a new discussion needs to start. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:15, 20 December 2011 (UTC) updated to not refer to anyone specifically. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:41, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

The discussion has been re-opened. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:46, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

What are you talking about? I don't see any recent comments of mine on any other RMs that could lead you to say that I am "behind this movement to add or retain unnecessary disambiguation in titles." Or necessary disambiguation, either, for that matter. Are you just reacting to my recent complaint about your own disruption in RMs? Dicklyon (talk) 05:35, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, perhaps I have you confused with someone else, but if my mind is not playing tricks on me, you have favored more descriptive titles when more concise titles were unambiguous within the last year. Do you deny this? Apologies in advance if I'm mistaken about that. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:47, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't deny that I sometimes favor less ambiguous titles; I'd have to see examples of what you mean to say if I've done what you say. In any case, I'm not part of any "movement". I do look at RMs and comment on some of them. Dicklyon (talk) 06:02, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, never mind. Sorry. I've updated my comment above to not refer to anyone specifically. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:41, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

OK but it's still not clear what you're claiming is outrageous, or why you re-opened this particular RM that clearly didn't have consensus to move. Dicklyon (talk) 06:44, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

It wasn't I that re-opened it. In light of the discussion above where consensus is clearly against predisambiguation, it's outrageous to retain a predisambiguated title supported largely only by those who support the predisambiguation position in the above section. That's not reflecting community consensus. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:49, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah, so B2C was recalling my comments at Talk:Crime_Patrol_(TV_series)#Requested move, which had nothing to do with "retaining unnecessary disambiguation in titles", but was a "primarytopic" discussion. I admit that I have been generally opposed to a number of claims of "primarytopic" where some decent disambiguation makes more sense. As for who re-opened it, it was B2C who asked for it to be re-opened, after it had already been relisted to get a wider sampling of community consensus. It seems odd to be accusing those who participated for the low participation. As for outrageous, I think it's to be expected that sometimes the particular article decisions may seem to be not well aligned with the articulation of general principles; that not's really outrageous, just means that there's still work to be done to reflect the consensus practices in the guidelines. It's not always going to be easy. In the disambiguation question, the issue of what's "unnecessary" may be tricky, possibly depending on whether one considers the universe of existing WP titles, or the universe of topics that readers are likely to be interested in, for example. What's "unnecessary" to one may be "useful" or "crucial" to another. Dicklyon (talk) 05:50, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Dick, this !vote comment of yours in opposition to Crime Patrol (TV series) → Crime Patrol is an example of supporting the "movement to add or retain unnecessary disambiguation in titles." In this case "TV series" is the unnecessary disambiguation because it's the primary topic. You even argue, "there's no need to claim a primary topic" because "Crime Patrol" is not "universally known". No need? Really? Because it's not "universally known"? I'm sorry, but "universal recognition" has never been a factor to be considered in deciding whether a given topic is primary or not. All that matters is recognition relative to the other uses of that name. It's the same argument because it's not really a primary topic argument; you're saying primary topic should not apply because it's not "universally recognized" - you're arguing that the unnecessary disambiguation should remain for the title to be more descriptive regardless of what WP:PRIMARYTOPIC says...

This argument of yours is similar in principal to what you said at Talk:Catholic_Memorial_School_(West_Roxbury,_Massachusetts)#Requested_move: "Unnecessary deletion of useful disambiguation." That's inverting what WP:PRECISION says, which is to avoid unnecessary precision, where "necessary" means necessary for disambiguation from other uses. It doesn't say to avoid deletion of precision that is not necessary for disambiguation; it implies the exact opposite of what you're arguing. And it has nothing to do with any other meanings of "necessary" or "unnecessary" as you try to imply it is when you say above, "What's 'unnecessary' to one may be 'useful' or 'crucial' to another.". I will also note that back on December 6th, LtPowers (talk · contribs) grouped you along with Noetica and Tony as "the opponents of this process [to remove unnecessary disambiguation]"[4], so I'm neither the first nor the only one who has noticed.

You're free to argue anything you want, of course, but to me this is an example of arguing a fringe position, directly opposed to policy and consensus-supported practice, that you and a few others support. And if you keep doing it without persuading anyone beyond your group of 3-5 editors pushing this POV, at some point that becomes disruptive. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:01, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

And you are free to call my opinions part of a "fringe position" and part of a "movement" and "outrageous". I see it more as just some reactions to the questions at hand. How you can call it "disruptive", in light of all the disruption you cause yourself, is more mysterious to me. Dicklyon (talk) 06:09, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't repeatedly argue in favor of positions that are clearly contrary to policy and broad consensus support. You do. See WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT: "... sticking to an unsupportable allegation or viewpoint long after the consensus of the community has rejected it, repeating it almost without end,... Such an action is disruptive to Wikipedia. Believing that you have a valid point does not confer upon you the right to act as though your point is accepted by the community when you have been told that it is not accepted." Consider yourself told that the point you, Tony and Notica keep repeating -- essentially, that WP would be improved if titles of articles about topics that are not universally recognized were more descriptive (a.k.a., disambiguated when the disambiguation is not necessary for disambiguation) -- is not accepted by the community. Thank you. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:19, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

You're ranting again. Whatever you think I've done that's not quite right, I certainly am not doing it "repeatedly". Am I "sticking to an unsupportable allegation"? Tell me what, if so. Has the community rejected my contention that the TV series is not the primary topic for Crime Patrol? Maybe if you lump me with others making similar points it feels like "repeatedly", but then, maybe that's a reflection of some reasonable part of the community? Dicklyon (talk) 06:33, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Dick, you're either being coy, or you're not understanding your own words, much less mine. You did not contend that the TV series is not the primary topic (which is an untenable position anyway given the overwhelming page view count ratios). You argued that since "Crime Patrol" is not "universally recognized", there is "no need" to claim a primary topic. That's the position -- that "universal recognition" is relevant to title determination -- the community has rejected. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:41, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

If that's what you're complaining about, that's quite different from what you were accusing me and two others of above. But I don't buy it. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC includes the words "There is no single criterion for defining a primary topic." This gives me some latitude, I hope, for having an opinion separate from your counting-based position. You may recall that I've referred to you as "Born2Count" on more than one occasion, which you've admonished me about, but here you are again promoting "page view count ratios" as the critical factor in determining a primary topic. My point is that WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is clear in saying that there's not alway a primary topic. We don't need to pick one. Just because a recent TV show is getting most of the hits doesn't make it primary (does it have "significantly greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term"? I doubt it.). The disambiguation is necessary. Dicklyon (talk) 06:57, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Now you're arguing it has no primary topic - but that was not your argument over there. Anyway, this discussion should be held over there. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:58, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I think it's consistent with what I said there: "there's no need to claim a primary topic in cases like this where several things share similar names." The guy was claiming that the TV series should be the primary topic. I argued that it's ambiguous, so we don't need to pick a primary topic. But feel free to pick on the different wording if it makes you feel superior. Dicklyon (talk) 08:04, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I argued that it's ambiguous, so we don't need to pick a primary topic. That makes no sense. The concept of primary topic only applies when there is ambiguity. We look at the different uses of the given ambiguous name, and decide which one, if any, is primary. To say we should not claim a primary topic for a given name because the name is ambiguous is like saying we should not ride a bicycle because it has wheels. Ambiguity is a reason to look for a primary topic, not a reason to not look for one. --Born2cycle (talk) 11:03, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Life Safety Code

• I see now that Life safety code (US fire protection) has been moved to the oh-so-clear Life Safety Code. I'm not so concerned about the caps as the impenetrability of the vaguer title. Tony (talk) 07:11, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
  • As you know, it was a revert of your unilateral move to the predisambiguated title for which there is no consensus support. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:30, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Titles are allowed to be vague as long as they're unique, recognizable, concise, natural, consistent, and accurate. Powers ^T 16:12, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

    Do you realize this is a discussion about changing that guideline? Tony's point is to note a disadvantage with the status quo; reiterating what the status quo is does not seem like an effective response. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:18, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Right, Tony and some others want the title of an article to incorporate context they feel is necessary for article titles they intuit to be ambiguous. However, there is no specific proposal as to how to do so consistently or what the scope for applicability might be. As such, in a general sense such abrogation of well-established practices is baseless. older ≠ wiser 16:42, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Like. To emphasize: "there is no specific proposal as to how to [incorporate context they feel is necessary for article titles they intuit to be ambiguous] consistently or what the scope for applicability might be". As such, there is nothing even to discuss here. In fact, these discussions without such a proposal, and move proposals (not to mention unilateral moves) based on the premise that there is such a proposal and it has been adopted, are all very disruptive. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:00, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Considering I started this discussion, I object to you calling it disruptive. Powers ^T 00:13, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry! I meant the ongoing discussion to which yours evolved, about changing our conventions, not the one you started. I've created a subsection to clarify this is a separate discussion. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:20, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Erik, no, I wasn't aware this was a discussion about changing the guideline. Considering I started this discussion, though, I think my opinion might hold a bit more weight in such matters. Powers ^T 00:13, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

• • Tony, do you really think this one should be lowercase? It is not a set of laws, as the title might make you think. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:18, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
    • Erik, as I said at the top, "I'm not so concerned about the caps as the impenetrability of the vaguer title". The policy says: "In discussions about page titles, consensus has generally formed around answers to the following questions: [1] Recognizability – Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?" Tony (talk) 06:31, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I think you've gone astray on this one, Tony. Maybe a suitable alternative fix would be to set the title Life Safety Code in italics. As a title of a copyrighted work it's really not different from Moby-Dick: the title of a book. The italics would serve to indicate that, rather than have it sound like an ambiguous generic, which is how you treated it. The article as recently hacked also needs to be fixed; it's written like it's about the trademark, which is lame; it's better to say what it's about, which is the document. Besides, if it were a generic, it would be hyphenated: life-safety code. Dicklyon (talk) 06:44, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't mind italics, but that face doesn't show through at category pages—it's been reserved for the occasional section link, which I find a questionable priority. Can someone tell me what purpose category pages serve? I've reverted the recent changes to the policy pending talk-page consensus. Tony (talk) 07:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

"The central goal of the category system is to provide links to all Wikipedia articles in a hierarchy of categories which readers can browse, knowing essential, defining characteristics of a topic, and quickly find sets of articles on topics that are defined by those characteristics." Powers ^T 18:56, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Surely you're not claiming that people looking for the Life Safety Code will fail to recognize "Life Safety Code" as a title pertaining to that topic? Because that's what the Recognizability criterion means. Powers ^T 18:56, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Clarification of recognizability lost

Above, it is being argued (in essence) that a title like Crime Patrol, since it is not universally known, does not meet the "recognizability" criteria, and, so, should have more precision (or predisambiguation) in order to be more recognizable to readers and editors unfamiliar with the topic.

The recognizability criteria question is currently stated as:

Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?

However, a few months ago, and for many years, it said this:

an ideal title will confirm, to readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic, that the article is indeed about that topic.

This fundamental change was made in May of this year [5], with edit summary "Changed Recognizability point based on discussion on the talk page".

The change was discussed by 3 or 4 editors on this page, now archived here. However, I don't see the question of "recognizable to whom?" being addressed there. It appears they did not understand they were changing the meaning of the criterion by implying it needs to be broadly recognizable to meet the criterion, rather than simply be recognizable to those familiar with the topic, which is a huge change. The long-standing original wording emphasized that titles don't need to be "universally recognized" to meet the criteria, but only have to be recognizable to those familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic. I see nothing in that discussion to indicate that the change in meaning by the removal of this qualification was intentional, and, so, I think we need to re-insert them.

So, I've essentially restored the original wording and meaning to be this:

Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?

--Born2cycle (talk) 07:13, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

discussion about revert

non-substantive; personal attacks; violation of AGF

I see I've already been reverted. Sigh. What on Earth could be a reasonable objection to this restoration of a long-standing clarification? --Born2cycle (talk) 07:18, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't part of that change, but it's what has been the status quo for a while, it seems. I cited the recognisability principle above, and a few minutes later you changed that part of the policy (apparently because it doesn't suit your purposes?). Let's have a debate involving more editors, please. Tony (talk) 07:20, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Perhaps, like some of your previous attempts to rewrite guidelines, the main objection is that it's motivated by an ongoing dispute in which you have a dog. That dispute might be a good motivator for a discussion, but maybe not for just letting you have your way. Dicklyon (talk) 07:22, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Do either of you have a substantive argument against the restoration that is not an ad hominem attack on the proposer of the restoration? --Born2cycle (talk) 07:25, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll rephrase: Perhaps the main objection is that it's motivated by an ongoing dispute in which you have a dog. That dispute might be a good motivator for a discussion, but maybe not for just letting you have your way. Also, I think it's rude to change something back just because you missed the discussion when it was happening. Also, I think your focus on "recognizability" is missing the point of my objection about "primary topic". I just think you're barking up the wrong tree here; and if there's a reason to change that, we should be invited to consider it first. Dicklyon (talk) 07:31, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course Tony's citing of the stripped criterion motivated me to make this change. It brought the issue to my attention - that those important words of clarification had been stripped out. Why? I wondered. So I researched, found no good reason for their removal, restored it, and explained it above. What's wrong with that?

I didn't change something back just because I missed the discussion when it was happening. I changed it back because the discussion that I missed did not explain why it was removed.

And, by the way, Tony you were part of the discussion that lead to that change: Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles/Archive_32#Recognizability. In fact, you supported wording similar to what I just restored. You suggested, "an ideal title will confirm that the article is indeed about that topic to readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic." Notice how that too still included the "readers who are familiar with" clarification. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:35, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I will presume the absence of the expression of a substantive objection to the restorative change is evidence of an actual absence of a substantive objection to the restorative change, and so will restore it again. I will interpret further reverts without substantive objection, at least by others involved here, to be nothing but disruption, and will take action accordingly. You can't just revert without a good reason, especially non-controversail longstanding wording that was inexplicably removed. Again, I'm not changing anything; I'm just restoring longstanding wording and meaning that accurately reflects how recognizability in title decisions has always been interpreted, and still is. If you disagree with that, then yes, please revert, but also explain why you disagree. Thank you. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:50, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Not a safe presumption. I haven't even looked at what you're proposing or what it's implications are beyond the fact that it seems to bear on an argument that you are presently in. It's your process that I object to. Dicklyon (talk) 08:09, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

B2C, my impression corresponds with Dicklyon's: "Perhaps, like some of your previous attempts to rewrite guidelines, the main objection is that it's motivated by an ongoing dispute in which you have a dog. That dispute might be a good motivator for a discussion, but maybe not for just letting you have your way." Again and again we observe you unsatisfied with some perfectly normal process or decision, and then scurrying to get policy or guidelines changed to shore up your position for a renewed attack. You're pretty quick on your feet, and a smooth talker; so people may not notice at first. But you won't always get away with it. Sometimes you'll get lucky when you approach an admin for a reversal or a review. The current RM at Talk:Catholic Memorial School (West Roxbury, Massachusetts) was first relisted, and stayed open for more than two weeks before admin Mike Cline closed it: no consensus to move, and the current title does no harm. You had not taken part in the discussion, so you asked the closing admin to revert the close (!). Amazingly (or not knowing your history of such self-oriented requests), he did just that. You then suggested that the votes of three editors you see as consistently arguing against your position at RMs be "discounted" (!!).

The pattern is becoming clear. You are not really in favour of following policy or guidelines, or of consensus. You are in favour of policy and guidelines following Born2cycle. You have not followed the established procedures when you sought to close RMs as a non-admin. You have not accepted the judge's verdict after due discussion. You have not respected all consensually settled provisions for titles. It is one thing to favour a selection of provisions and suppress others; but another to leap to change when you feel an urge for change, so that every provision bears your stamp.

Some editors have by slow forbearance earned the respect of their colleagues, for their even-handed work toward development of guidelines and policy through collegial discussion. You are not among them. The way to achieve such trust is to be trustworthy. People are right to react defensively against changes you make without due discussion. You have tried too many tricks in the past. I am an optimist about human nature and the possibility of change, so I don't rule out reform in your case. But I think "the community" (whose support you continually and loudly assume on the most spurious grounds) does not yet see that in you.

I will support the wording for recognisability as it now stands, until I see considered, slow discussion for a change that will work in the interests of readers better than the present wording.

This is not improperly ad hominem (unlike your specific mention of me and two other experienced and knowledgeable editors as to be "discounted"); it is prudence in the face of real danger to core policy.

Noetica^Tea? 08:15, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

For crying out loud, you have the time and energy to generate this ad hominem rant, here, but don't have the time or energy to take a few minutes to give the proposal/change I made a serious look and give us your take on it? I'll just say you're way out of line on a bunch of what you say here - but if you have an issue with my behavior take it up in an appropriate forum, like my talk page. Not here. This is not constructive, to say the least. --Born2cycle (talk) 08:31, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Administrator assistance requested

non-substantive to the proposal

Stumped regarding how to proceed constructively, I have requested administrator review and assistance, here: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Uninvolved_admin_-_please_take_a_look. --Born2cycle (talk) 08:34, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

If you want to be productive, you could do as we suggested; stop edit warring the guideline change, make a proposal, and wait for some discussion. Good night. Oh, and don't forget to notify the people from the previous discussion, whose change you want to undo. Dicklyon (talk) 08:58, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

 Done This is so simple and straightforward, I really don't think it's necessary. If you would bother to read the proposal instead of blindly objecting that would be clear to you. Anyway, from what I can tell, only three users were involved in the discussion before the change was implemented, and I've notified each of them. [6] [7] [8] --Born2cycle (talk) 09:36, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that by inviting people into this ongoing big mess, rather than starting with a clean proposal, you've doomed the discussion to continued confusion. Dicklyon (talk) 16:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Recognizable to people familiar...

The bit about "recognizable to people familiar with the subject", I think, was lost accidentally at one point and ought to be restored. We don't expect titles to be recognizable to people who have no familiarity with the subject at all (most articles on Wikipedia are about things that most of us have never heard of; we don't generally worry that the titles we choose are consequently unrecognizable to large swathes of the population).--Kotniski (talk) 09:15, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Exactly. Believe it or not, that bit is all that is at issue here (I think some other changes - inconsequential tweaks - also got mixed into the reverts), and it sure seemed straight-forward to me. --Born2cycle (talk) 09:20, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Ah, sorry, just noticed the link to the archived discussion given above, so the change wasn't entirely accidental. But still I don't think the 2/3 editors who made that change really understood the intent of the wording that was removed. We don't add stuff to article titles to try to make them recognizable even to people who are ignorant of the subject (we don't say Fred Smith (actor, you know, the fat one on Eastenders), or anything like that).--Kotniski (talk) 09:23, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

There is simply no need for haste of that sort. Obviously, the matter is sensitive through and through. Nothing is lost by waiting. I have restored the version that was in place for many months, until a few hours ago. Now, let's see some testing of consensus. When (and if) there is consensus to change the text of the crucial wording of a main principle in policy, we can agree to do it.

Noetica^Tea? 09:30, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Why exactly are you in such a rush to restore the other version, then? If this is a major change, then you can surely see from the discussion that led to it (linked above) that there was never anything like full discussion of the original change? We are really just restoring the version that really did come out of a major discussion process some time back. It was never anyone's intention to change titling policy completely, by requiring that titles somehow be recognizable to everyone.--Kotniski (talk) 09:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Kotniski, on what basis do you have consensus to make this sudden change to the policy page? Tony (talk) 09:45, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Like I say, it's not a sudden change, it's just undoing a change that was made a while ago without proper discussion (or apparently any particular understanding of the consequences). I mean, either the change makes little difference (it's just a wording tweak without any significant change of meaning - in which case, why are we worrying about it); OR it really does represent a significant change to the meaning of the policy, in which case the removal of the words obviously wasn't properly discussed on that basis. --Kotniski (talk) 09:47, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not in a rush to do anything – except to get people not to be in a rush. The provision sat quietly in place as part of core Wikipedia policy for months. Many editors would expect the wording to stay as it is now (rather stably), unless there is slow and careful discussion to change it. With wide consultation if necessary.

Noetica^Tea? 09:52, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

(e.c) Response to Kotniski: Is that the way it works? Born2cycle sees me quoting something from WP:TITLE that he turns out not to like, and unilaterally changes it without notice of more than one minute after posting about it here? There's too much aggressive action going on, such as his recent request for the re-opening of an RM that didn't go his way. I don't recall whatever change was made to WP:TITLE, but if you and/or B2C want to change the current version, you need to discuss it here first. Tony (talk) 09:54, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

non-substantive

This section is now something like three pages long, and none of you three who are reverting the change have said a single substantive thing about the change. There are now two of us who favor the change, and willing and able to discuss it, three of you who are reverting it, but not discussing it. Am I missing something? --Born2cycle (talk) 09:59, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Well if you're quoting from the policy as it is now, and he's claiming that it would be more accurate to quote from the policy as it was then, then that implies there definitely is some difference in the interpretation (i.e. the policy actually was substantially changed). And since there was no indication in the discussion that led to it that any substantial change (as opposed to removal of verbiage) was intended to be made, then I think we have to go back to the original until the matter can be sorted out. --Kotniski (talk) 10:00, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

non-substantive

B2C: "Am I missing something?" Yes. Some of us have more to do than jump frantically to meet whatever challenge you might like to throw up for discussion, in the split second that you choose. Lay the topic on the table, make a summary case, and sit back. Allow editors to come in and have their say in an orderly way. Then (politely and rationally, after more than 30 seconds of thinking) respond. Occasionally change your mind. Occasionally learn from others who have experience (of directly relevant professional work, of Wikipedian ways, and of the world at large) that may differ from your own. More to do? Yes. For example, I'm going to bed now. Some of us sleep. Not to the same clock as you do.

Noetica^Tea? 10:22, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

On the substantive issue (and noting that I couldn't be less interested in the background dispute), it is ridiculous to suggest that titles need to be recognisable to those totally unfamiliar with the subject. To give an example, the esomeprazole article is so-named because it is the pharmaceutical name for the compound; it is the recognised name, as would be expected by those with medical or pharmaceutical training. The article isn't at Nexium (the trade name, like a lay-person might expect), nor at (S)-5-methoxy-2-[(4-methoxy-3,5-dimethylpyridin-2-yl)methylsulfinyl]-3H-benzoimidazole (the IUPAC name, like a chemist (not a pharmacist) might expect). It certainly isn't at "drug for treating heartburn", an arguably "recognisable ... description of the topic" for a passer-by with no familiarity with the area. As another example, my FA article on rhodocene... I have no doubt that lay people would not recognise the name, nor be able to describe the topic, but I am sure that the article title is appropriate because it would be recognisable to anyone familair enough with chemistry to know about the topic. Please, a suggestion... restore the sensible clause regarding topic familiarity and then find something to do that is more worthy of your time. EdChem (talk) 10:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

esomeprazole as a name is highly unlikely to stand for anything but a single entity. Fine, but this is where the notion of expertise is being confused. An article, say, on Financial institutions duty that stands for the one in Zimbabwe (where the tax people might well use lower case, as the Australian Taxation Office does for taxes) is not satisfactory: it's likely that most readers and editors will wonder how many of these taxes of the same or similar name exist in the real world, even if no others have nabbed the title "space" first off. Not many people will search for esomeprazole, but Financial institutions duty is likely to come up in a lot of searches. Tony (talk) 10:27, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

So what are you saying? That if a topic has a name that is likely to be used to search for something else, then the title of the article for that topic should be expanded to be more descriptive and unique, even if that something else is not a topic for which we have an article in Wikipedia (we already handle the cases where we do have an article for that something else)? The problem is, if we don't have an article for that something else, how do we decide it is a something else? With what criteria? --Born2cycle (talk) 10:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, I think if any change in practice is to be considered here (I don't think anyone's proposing adding disambiguation to unique but specialized names like esomeprazole), it would have to be based on a different treatment of names that "sound generic" (like financial institutions duty). Generally speaking we don't do redundant disambiguation (except in particular topic areas where groups of editors have decided they want to make their own rules, like U.S places - that's a different topic), but there does seem to be a certain sympathy for it in these "generic-sounding" (for want of a better word) cases.--Kotniski (talk) 10:45, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

(e.c. x 2) Tony, we are talking about whether recognisability should be recognisable to anyone or to someone with familiarity of the topic. Whether an article on FID would be expected to be generic or specific to a single country seems to me to be unrelated to whether the title is suitable recognisable. I would like make FID generic (or with a list, like finance minister) and FID in Zimbabwe (or similar) for the specific case, but I don't see it as a recognisability issue but rather one of precision. EdChem (talk) 10:47, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

• I refuse to wade through a wall of text of ad hominem attacks and people telling other people to "slow down". It's ridiculous and unproductive. I've read the policy before and after the change. It looks clear to me that it needs to be reverted back to the way it was. EdChem makes some nice points, and I agree with them 110%. As for Tony's reply, if people are looking for related articles, we should categorize them together and use "See Also" judiciously, not mangle the title with overdisambiguation. -Kai445 (talk) 16:14, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Just throwing in my opinion here, as the discussion would appear to be looking for substantive points about the actual point in question. I agree that we should generally be concerned about recognisability for those with some familiarity with the subject, as the proposed change suggests. On the other hand, I also agree that some title could do with "pre-disambiguation", if for no other reason than that they will appear in category pages that do not provide enough context for anyone to have any idea what they're referring to. From a point of view of user-friendliness, it would seem sensible to think about the degree of confusion such category listings will produce. For example, the pharmaceutical names are rather unlikely to appear in a category (other than meta stuff) that would lead to insufficient context, but taxes, legal instruments, national organisations... they could possibly do with contextualisation. Now, an idea technical fix would be to add a meta field to articles that would appear next to the title link on category pages, but that not being an option right now, contextualisation of the title should be considered on a case-by-case basis. It should be unusual, but not forbidden or presumed so strongly against as some seem to want. Of course, where a particular item is well known in the English-speaking world, that would not be expected to need such contextualisation (such as the FBI, say). This, I feel, strikes a balance between the principles that we have already outlined, and a basic principle of user-friendly presentation. SamBC(talk) 17:15, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

You've clearly expressed the problem and goal, as have Dicklyon, Noetica, and Tony1. As always, the devil is in the details. How do we express and convey this in this policy without creating a situation in which article title discussions are even more contentious than they already are? Or are the benefits of having a few titles predisambiguated sufficient to warrant the additional consternation? I, for one, believe it is not.

Speaking of details, do you object to returning the original words about recognizability to the policy as proposed here? --Born2cycle (talk) 17:28, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

The original wording is clearly superior; it's a shame that was removed without full discussion of the implications. Powers ^T 19:03, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the previous wording was superior, but to be so it has to include the parenthetical "(though not necessarily expert in)". -- PBS (talk) 20:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

RFC on Recognizability guideline wording

We need to have a thoughtful discussion of the wording of the title guideline at Wikipedia:AT#Deciding_on_an_article_title concerning recognizability. It was changed last May in this diff (at which the old and new versions can be compared) after this brief discussion, and now there are suggestions to change it back, or perhaps change it to something different (it was subsequently rephrased as the current question form "Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?" so that's also an option). This RFC is a subsection of a section about it, but reading and responding to that argument may be counter productive, so let's have a focused discussion here instead. Please say which version you prefer, and why, or suggest something better. The "Compromise" discussion below may also be relevant. Let us proceed at a moderated pace; be not quick to counter, so we can see where we stand and collect some ideas. Dicklyon (talk) 21:48, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

See #Clarification of recognizability_lost for the details of the specific proposal, but the two versions of the wording in question are:

Version 1/original (adapted from May 2011 wording): Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?

Version 2/current: Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?

--Born2cycle (talk) 00:13, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• The following comments favoring Version 1/Original were made within the last 24 hours just above:
  • "We don't expect titles to be recognizable to people who have no familiarity with the subject at all " --Kotniski (talk · contribs):
  • "It is ridiculous to suggest that titles need to be recognisable to those totally unfamiliar with the subject." --EdChem (talk · contribs)
  • "I agree that the previous wording was superior, but to be so it has to include the parenthetical '(though not necessarily expert in)'" PBS (talk) 20:09, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
  • "It looks clear to me that it needs to be reverted back to the way it was." --Kai445 (talk · contribs)
• --Born2cycle (talk) 00:13, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
• Version 1/Original We generally do not try to make titles recognizable to everyone, just to those familiar with the article topic. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:13, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• Alt version – I see problems pointed out with all those versions, so here's another idea, adapting comments from DGG below: Dicklyon (talk) 00:27, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Version 3/mix: Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic, to someone familiar with the subject area?

• Comment. As noted below, I don't understand where this alt wording would make a difference, and "topic" is much more specific. In many cases it may not be clear what the "subject area" is. I see no point in bringing in this ambiguity. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Uh huh. If you don't understand something, ask, think, take your time. Reflect on the fact that other people are endowed with intelligence and insights also. Other people also have a sense of proportion and fair procedure. Watch a bit, and learn.

I think all the issues concerning this provision need clarifying. It is not a simple matter of patching up the wording with minimal depth of discussion. I am unwillingly to spend much time on this right now; but it certainly needs to be done. Editors use this part of the policy at RMs as if it were Holy Writ, and according to their own sectarian interpretations. Big reforms are needed.

Noetica^Tea? 02:01, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• I'm not really sure what the kerfuffle here is about, and I'm even less sure that I care. The only comment that I have is that the change back in May (right?) was made with an eye to simplifying what was being said. If what you're trying to add to a policy requires a long winded explanation (which the "old" version is certainly an example of), then that seems to be a good indication that something is wrong with either the approach that is attempting to be taken or that something is wrong with the advice in general. Anyway, it looks like y'all are hashing this out just fine, to me. Have fun arguing at each other.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:56, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I presume this confirms you did not intend to change the meaning of the policy with that edit. Though apparently no one realized it at the time, many of us now believe the edit did substantially change the meaning, or at least made it likely to be interpreted in a very different way (to mean that we try to make titles familiar to everyone, not just those familiar with the respective topics). Do you have any objection to the Version 1/Original wording? Do you have a position on the scope of "recognizability" that is at issue here, and how these two versions convey that? Thanks! --Born2cycle (talk) 02:02, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
• Version 1/Original. This version retains necessary clarity that was lost with the revision. Without the caveat, it renders the task of naming articles nearly impossible, as it requires the titles to be recognizable even to people unfamiliar with the topic. That will produce unnecessarily complex and lengthy titles. Powers ^T 01:59, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

The idea that it means "everybody" is just silly. Did you read the prior discussion? They directly addressed the idea that this extra bit of verbage seemed unnecessary. You can disagree with the conclusion, but it doesn't help to trivialize the question this way. We seem to have no more trouble titling articles than before under this guideline. Dicklyon (talk) 02:10, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not silly at all to assume others interpret it to mean "everybody". That's exactly how Tony interpreted it, apparently. Above, at #Life Safety Code, he quoted the current wording to support his concern that Life Safety Code was too vague. Too vague for whom? The most reasonable answer to that question is everyone; certainly not those familiar with (but not necessarily expert in) the topic. That's the problem... it's too easy to interpret to mean everybody (or nearly everybody). --Born2cycle (talk) 02:23, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• Version 1/Original or Version 3/Mix, but not Version 2. Since we get occasional complaints that "I didn't recognize it, so it's not recognizable", it seems useful to specify who ought to be recognizing the title. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:35, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
• 1 or 3 for now. Perhaps in the long run we should try writing a paragraph on the subject, and return to 2 as simplest, with a link to the paragraph. On the underlying dispute, I oppose the unnecessary disambiguation involved in National Tax Agency (Japan); adding disambiguation for consistency (as in some of the examples above) is best discussed in the section on overall reformulation below. JCScaliger (talk) 23:28, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
• Version 1/original, article titles are supposed to be short. Making all titles recognizable for everybody would force us to create convoluted titles. For example, moving Public Achievement to Public achievement (US civic scheme), (move discussion). I think that removing the "expert" bit in version 3 makes the definiton of "familiar" too vague. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:48, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why these are special cases. Check for usage of "Crime Patrol" in reliable sources. If it is used to refer to both generic and specific topic, then the phrase is ambiguous. If there is a strong bias towards a particular topic, then the phrase has a primary use. Follow standard procedures: deploy disambiguation pages, hatnotes and redirects as required. There is nothing here that isn't handled neatly by the broader policy, so why introduce wording that treats it as a special case? Hesperian 01:03, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Consensus clearly supports Version 1 over Version 2

As if it wasn't obvious before, it should certainly be clear now to even the most obstinate supporter of unnecessary disambiguation that Version 1/Original has consensus support, and Version 2/Current does not, as it always has. There is no justification whatsoever for continuing to have the policy reflect Version 2 rather than Version 1. Does anyone (besides perhaps Noetica, Dicklyon or Tony1) disagree with this assessment? --Born2cycle (talk) 02:07, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

• You seem to be discounting or trying to dismiss certain views in arriving at your conclusion. Noetica, Dicklyon or Tony1 are all part of the community and have a right to have their views considered with equal weight. Anyhoo, taking your premise, I think there are far too few expressions of opinion for anyone to say that that is the case. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:17, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

The trouble is just that there hasn't been any airing of ideas, or discussion of problems. I made a midway proposal that got some support, but B2C has stacked the discussion so we don't have much way of gauging community reaction. I have not yet expressed a preference, because it's not yet clear what the issues are. I don't recall Noetica or Tony expressing a preference, either, other than a preference that B2C not railroad through his change in the heat of a related argument. As I said, I'm willing to give it up, unless people like you come up with a way to turn it back into a productive discussion. Dicklyon (talk) 02:26, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

To make it productive, I think we have to stop focusing on that particular sentence in the policy (which is anyway hardly relevant to the substantial matter under dispute), and discuss what really seems to be concerning us, namely that some people would apparently like to introduce a principle that "generic-sounding" names (perhaps someone can phrase it better) ought to be disambiguated even if there's no other specific topic to distinguish them from. Arguing about the sentence is a silly distraction, though nearly all the substantial views expressed seem to support the longer and better-estabilshed version, so it seems clear enough (without prejudice to any continuing discussion about the pre-disambiguation thing) that that's the version that should be restored.--Kotniski (talk) 10:55, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

If we went back (in the archives, not just the current page) and compiled all the times they tried to bring up this issue -- that "generic-sounding" names ought to be disambiguated even if there's no other specific topic to distinguish them from -- we would have a good case for tendentious editing. Each time they bring it up, in one form or another, specific questions are asked about how exactly to implement it, and this is never answered. In each case, they bring it up, they are questioned, and they drop it. We're not idiots. We understand generally what they want, and, that, on the surface, it's not an outlandish idea or anything. But as I keep saying (well, this is the third time on this page - search for "devil"), the devil is in the details, and nobody has been able to articulate anything close to something that could be reasonably implemented in policy, or consistently carried out in practice. In the mean time, they're using this "let's talk about (without talking about it)" approach to filibuster against this proposal. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:07, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Ohconfucius, I'm not discounting anything. Noetica and Tony have yet to say anything substantive in objection to Version 1, or in support of any alternative. All they've objected to, repeatedly, is lack of discussion. Well, discuss already if there is anything to discuss! Dicklyon to his credit at least expressed some objection to Version 1, but even then all he said was, "I see problems pointed out with all those versions". Do you have any idea what those alleged problems are? I don't either. And neither does anyone else, apparently. I'm not discounting any of this because there is nothing to discount! Even Dick is conceding this is not a productive discussion, though he blames me for that... for "stacking the deck" (never mind that that has not stopped plenty of non-substantive discussion like this - why should it inhibit any substantive discussion?). Speaking of substantive discussion, now I'll go and respond to your latest below, which I just noticed. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:18, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I was referring to problems pointed out in the previous discussion that moved us away from that version. You should review it. Dicklyon (talk) 18:26, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Please quote what specifically you're talking about. All I see is a discussion about simplifying the meaning with no intent to change meaning, and no direct mention of the specific words in question here, or the impact of removing them. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:42, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

One of the editors there wrote "If you say it is 'slightly winged' from "article titles should be the most recognizable description of the topic", then why don't you just say so, plain and simple? And skip all this nitpicking ('readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in'... although not complete ignoramuses; while keeping in mind some of them may be ignorant but they hold the are not.....)) ... In other words, my original question may be narrowed down to: What does the discussed definition include important beyond the boldfaced quote..." I haven't seen a good answer to why we want that wording in there; being familiar with the topic seems way too narrow, for one thing; that's why DGG's suggested "familiar with the subject area" seems like a sensible compromise. For example, a person familiar with chemicals will recognize a chemical name even if he was familiar not with the particular chemical. Dicklyon (talk) 20:13, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

No, I think it's familiarity with the specific topic that we mean - if there's an obscure footaller called John McHaggis, we title his article John McHaggis, without extra information (unless disambiguation happens to be needed), despite the fact that most of the world's football buffs will never have heard of him and so will fail to recognise his name. --Kotniski (talk) 20:36, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Abandoning this RFC

It is remarkable that an effort to resolve this issue has been hijacked for partisan purposes in such a flagrant way. At an RFC we ask the community to comment in slow, orderly, and respectful fashion. We work together to structure the discussion to tease out all issues; we wait to see whether our "opponents" (or rather, colleagues) have points to make that did not occur to us. We do not flood the attempt to achieve this with selected comments from an earlier discussion.

I will not participate in such a mockery of an RFC. I thank Dicklyon for starting it. Carry on with it, or finish it, whoever wants to. I have more productive things to get on with.

An RFC like this can have no respect from the community, and any "consensus" purported to arise from it will be worthless. Expect more orderly initiatives later. ArbCom had to supervise many weeks of action to get WP:DASH sorted out. In that case, the content was endorsed by the community, and some useful clarifications were added. No one wants all that fuss here; but the way to avoid it still seems to elude certain editors. I seriously doubt that the community accepts the provision that we have been concerned with here, along with its neighbours. Probably not more than a couple of dozen very active editors, who invoke them in pursuit of a very particular agenda. Still, that's just my considered opinion.

Threats to take editors to WP:AN/I (see edit summaries) do nothing toward respect and cooperation. Let's do without those in future.

Noetica^Tea? 02:41, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I tried to counsel him on his talk page (User_talk:Born2cycle#RFC) to no avail. I warned him that a fourth revert of this removal of his improper refactoring of the comments of others would violate 3RR; he did it anyway. Should I report him for 3RR and risk getting the lot of us blocked for edit warring? Or give it up like you're doing? I'll think on it... Dicklyon (talk) 02:47, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

And he also takes on the authority of deciding which parts of the previous discussion are substantive, and which are not, blanking the parts he doesn't want people to be distracted by, even while copying his favorite bits into the focused RFC. You've got to admit, it takes balls. Maybe AN/I makes more sense than the 3RR report. Dicklyon (talk) 03:17, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

3RR, being a simple, "mechanical" decision, is usually less drama-oriented than ANI, but ANI is not unreasonable because of the breadth of behavioral concerns. I'm just not sure that it will actually resolve the disputes. It could easily have the effect of spreading it to another page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:39, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Multiple people complained about that section being difficult to navigate. So I tried to hide the parts I genuinely felt were not substantive. I really wish you guys would take a big gulp of AGF, because comments like "he also takes on the authority of deciding which parts of the previous discussion are substantive, and which are not, blanking the parts he doesn't want people to be distracted by, even while copying his favorite bits into the focused RFC" indicates to the contrary. For example, if you think my hiding was incomplete, why not hide the parts you think are not substantive that I missed, or unhiding the parts you think were substantive that I hid, instead of reverting the whole thing? --Born2cycle (talk) 03:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Selecting hiding, by a deeply involved and controversial principal in an argument, is a really terrible idea. Why can't you see that? And repeating controversial biased/biasing actions after they are objected to and reverted is also contrary to movement toward resolution; and obnoxious. Did I say obnoxious? Dicklyon (talk) 03:51, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, please. Initially, I hid a large section that was obviously non-substantive. You complained and reverted; part of your complaint was that I didn't hid everything that was non-substantive. So I tried again, this time trying not to miss anything. Again, instead of just whining and complaining, how about helping clean up that section by hiding the parts we all agree are non-substantive (you know, where actually talking about the proposal is substantive)? --Born2cycle (talk) 03:59, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Besides, it's not like the hide template (ah hem) deletes anything. Everything is still visible with just one quick click on the "show" link. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:02, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I have registered my complaint at AN/I, and asked for feedback. I don't see how it can be possible to recover from this toxic mess. So whatever; if people want to take it back to some old wording instead of trying to work out an improvement, I'll stay out the way (whether due to a block or otherwise). Dicklyon (talk) 03:56, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

"Take it back to some old wording"... your intent to frame its previous incarnation in a negative light is ridiculous. The old version is the improvement, where the 'current' incarnation is concerned. If the hidden sections are the ones where people are bitching and whining instead of discussing the issue, I'm in favour. -Kai445 (talk) 17:57, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Recognisability: plotting a compromise pathway for readers and editors

I baulk at this title: Financial Instruments and Exchange Law (it's a Hong Kong law, actually), and Professional Evaluation and Certification Board (New York, actually).

In the thread above, the term recognisable is being bandied about as though it's easy to define. Why do I get the feeling this is on purpose, to make article titles as unrecognisable as editors please. There are several reasons we need to spell out some instances where locations can be included in titles:

1. many titles are almost useless in category lists and even in google searches;
2. at the moment, there's inconsistency on this count, no matter how loudly a few people might bellow here;
3. we're making a lot of trouble in the years ahead when more articles will be added that will vie for the same title "space".

I suggest that some exceptions be included—for example, when a financial instrument, organisation, or (workforce) position could refer to multiple topics, it's permissible to add the name of the location in parentheses after the wording, in short form where possible (HK, NY, US, UK, etc.). Tony (talk) 10:09, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Again, the longstanding practice has been, for many good reasons, that the only requirement of titles in terms of recognizability is that the title should be a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic. This is not a difficult or complex issue. --Born2cycle (talk) 10:11, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, "for many good reasons" isn't a debating tool. Can you explain? Second, where are the boundaries between non-familiarity, familiarity, and expertise? This is the burning question. Tony (talk) 10:21, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I think EdChem explains it quite clearly, just above. --Born2cycle (talk) 10:28, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

No, he's confusing expertise with notions of uniqueness. Here's another issue: Verified Audit Circulation. Given the widespread over-capping only now being addressed in WP's titles, what are we to make of this? Any guesses? Ah, it's a corporation. Right. Tony (talk) 10:30, 21 December 2011 (UTC) PS And could someone explain the meaning of this, which I just found in a prominent part of the policy? "Consensus 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." How does "Verified Audit Circulation" identify the topic of the article unambiguously? Tony (talk) 10:36, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I admit I had no idea what Verified Audit Circulation was. But here's the thing... So what? You present this as if it's an obvious problem. What's the problem? State it as clearly as you can... The title Verified Audit Circulation does not make it possible for someone unfamiliar with it (most readers) to recognize it to be a company. The problem with that is ________ (fill in the blank).

As far as how "Verified Audit Circulation" identifies its title unambiguously... it does that because there is no other topic in WP to which that name refers. This is explained in detail at WP:PRECISION, including this statement: "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), and the topic is not primary, that name cannot be used and so must be disambiguated." Here you see "ambiguous" is clearly defined in terms of other topics covered in Wikipedia. It is in that sense that unambiguously is intended to be interpreted in "identify the topic of the article unambiguously". --Born2cycle (talk) 10:52, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

• How does this play into utility in category lists? Tony (talk) 11:19, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
  • In many cases the category itself provides sufficient context, but in some cases having a more descriptive title would make category lists more useful. What's your point? --Born2cycle (talk) 12:23, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
    • So you agree that the context of category lists presents significant problems for the examples I've cited here? Who uses category lists, anyway? I'm genuinely interested to know whether it's readers or just editors. Tony (talk) 13:31, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
      • Categories as currently implemented and utilized are an abomination. Many categories use a strictly hierarchical attribute-based structure (that is, an entity in the category is of a type described by the category). Other categories define membership based more loosely on having some association with the topic of the category. These are two very different sorts of categorization schema that, IMO rather confusingly, share the same mechanism. But apart from that, I've about given up on categories largely because of the obsession with making the categories so specific that it makes navigating the category tree painfully tedious and confusing. older ≠ wiser 14:08, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
        • Bkonrad, I must say I've never delved into the business of categories, and have rather accepted them as part of the furniture for all this time. It disturbs me to hear you say this. Is it a widely held view? Is there a possible solution? Is it also entangled with the debate about the specificity of article titles? Tony (talk) 14:51, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
          • My opinion is my own. The problems with the competing schema are well-known. How widely my estimation is shared I couldn't say. I have only been keeping the intermittent tabs on categorization discussions. I think many regular categorizers would prefer that categorization follow the hierarchical "IS A" model. In the past there had occasionally been some discussion of implementing a separate mechanism for associative tagging, but I'm not aware that has gone anywhere. But even within the strictly hierarchical tagging schema, the lack of an easy to use mechanism for viewing the aggregate collection of pages with subcategories of a category or of viewing specific intersections or unions of categories really limits the usability of categories. For example, if I am interested in examining townships within a U.S. state, currently these are sub-categorized by county. There is no way that I'm aware of within the mediawiki software to view all the townships within a state by categorization -- instead, it requires tediously navigating to each and every subcategory. There is at least one tool, CatScan, and possible others at toolserver, but these are not readily available for typical readers. Of course there are list articles for some such views, but not being able to do this with categories seems to me a limitation on the usefulness of categories. Someone else has already mentioned earlier on this page, the suggestion to have some sort of DISPLAY_TITLE attribute for categories to display a title different from the article title. IMO, that would help to address another limitation of category usability. older ≠ wiser 15:34, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
            • Categories are a substandard tool, I certainly agree with that. I think they're something the developers created at one point a long time ago and then more or less gave up on. If they were slightly more cleverly/flexibly designed (the DISPLAYTITLE idea is just one of the improvements that users seem to recognize but no developer considers worth working on) they could be genuinely useful. (I'd like to see an expandable category tree structure in the left-hand side-bar of each article, but given the change-phobia of Wikipedia that's probably just a dream.) I don't think we should make major changes to our article-titling practices just to try to make categories a bit less useless (though I admit I like to see similar articles in a given category titled in a uniform way, if there's no reason other than random variation why they should be different).--Kotniski (talk) 18:19, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
              • Re "expandable category tree structure". This is part of a debate that took place computer science in the 1970s between the hierarchical database model and the relational database model. The hierarchical model was largely rejected in favour of relational model, so it is not surprising if the developers consider further development of categories sticking plaster programming. -- PBS (talk) 20:57, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow, I couldn't be more opposed to this. I do not have time right now but I will elaborate. Just placing this here to give a prod to not change any language precipitously.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:02, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

To what are you opposed?Kotniski (talk) 18:19, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I assumed he was referring to the final paragraph/sentence of Tony's opening comment in this section, but it would be good to verify. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:29, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh deary me. Please refer to my comment of a couple of minutes ago in the section above - the general sense of it fits here as well. SamBC(talk) 17:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Verified Audit Circulation sounds like a generally used term of art within its sphere, but instead it refers to a specific company. I did not expect this, and nobody who happens to be unfamiliar with the company could be expected to know. Even if one is looking for the company, a reasonable qualifier , like (company) is helpful. (I am, for example, familiar with the concept of audited circulation figures for publications, but I've never heard of the company & unless I'm mistaken, it is not the major company in the field--and even if it is, the article does not say so.) Similarly, if one is looking for a law with a rather general title, one is normally looking for either a comparative study of such laws, or the law in a particular jurisdiction. A heading such as[[[Financial Instruments and Exchange Law]] is useless--unless that jurisdiction happens to be Hong Kong, one doesn't know if there will be any information there. If one is very familiar with a law of a similar title elsewhere, confusion will also occur. enWikipedia covers the world,so things which are likely to be meaningful only in a particular part of the world need specification, which should bethought of as different for disambiguation. Here's an example:redirects to [[Securities Regulation in the United States]--specifies exactly what it was about and anyone who wants to know about the general concept or about the law elsewhere, which will probably be about half the users, will know to go elsewhere (not that many of the other articles have been written). But unfortunately the general term Securities law redirects to just this article, which is a useless and incorrect redirect at least half the time--this may be another problem, but its part of the confusion about the need to identify subjects. We are writing an encyclopedia not as a work of logical organization, but as something to be of immediate use to real world users. It doesn't matter if the qualifiers are sometimes unstandardized; it matters that the exist. The proper term I suggest is that the title must be clear to someone with a basic knowledge of the subject field. I don't expect Euler identity to be comprehensible to someone totally unfamiliar with mathematics--and even if it is, the article won't be of much value to them, but even here it would help if it was qualified as (mathematics), because though a mathematical may immediately realize Identity is used in a special way, others will not. A related article Euler's formula needs to clarify in the title whether it's mathematics or chemistry.Not doing so helps nobody. The principle is that Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, not a specialized one. DGG ( talk ) 00:17, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course those of us unfamiliar with "Verified Audit Circulation" wouldn't know it's a corporation from just looking at the title... so what? In what contexts besides maybe in some kind of category list, would it matter? I mean, either you're looking for it, and so know what it is, or you run into it in another article which almost certainly provides the necessary context, as in, "While John Doe was CEO of Verified Audit Circulation, ...". What's the problem?

I also don't see the distinction to which you refer in practical terms. Can you (or someone) provide an example of a title what would be recognizable to someone familiar with the topic, but not to someone "with a basic knowledge of the subject field", or vice versa? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:44, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• Oh, I now see what the problem is and where potential difficulties may arise. B2C points to the need for context. It's counter-intuitive to need to rely on context, because what happens in most cases people doing web searches for 'audit circulation'? This is where WP:AT fails. The reader will see this WP article among the first GHits, but will be disappointed by the result; they will not know that WP does not have an article on the subject they are searching for, and so are misled and may feel deceived. The corporate name in this case really ought to be qualified or dabbed because it sounds too generic, same applies in the case of laws or government agencies or bureaux where the jurisdiction is not in the title. Web searched may not necessarily be aware that the use of capitals here denotes a proper noun because Gsearches are case insensitive. However, if it's made clear from the outset that an article actually refers to "Verified Audit Circulation Corp" or "Verified Audit Circulation LLC" or whatever the legal form is, they will know not to waste their time clicking on that link. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:36, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• But it does not fail because in the example you give the Google search also returns the first sentence of the article "Verified Audit Circulation is a U.S. company that conducts circulation audits of both free and paid print publications and of traffic figures for websites". I had this discussion over Oliver Cromwell see Talk:Oliver Cromwell (died 1655)#Move. But it does mean that the first sentence has to get in the most relevant points (as is done in the first sentence of Verified Audit Circulation). Perhaps to help navigation from search engines this could be suggested as desirable in the the policy. -- PBS (talk) 20:26, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• So, I believe you're saying that in the case of relatively obscure topics with names that are likely to be used as search strings, the title should be disambiguated. Well, then, we've reach the same point here as I did with SamBC above (where it stalled). At this point I say... As always, the devil is in the details.

  Specifically, how do we express and convey this in this policy without creating a situation in which article title discussions are even more contentious than they already are? How do we determine whether a given name is sufficiently likely to be used as a search string to warrant this special treatment? How do we decide what exactly that special treatment should be in each case? And, perhaps most importantly, how does this really change anything?

  In the current situation, someone searching with "audit circulation" -- the first ghit, by the way, at least for me, is the website of Verified Audit Circulation - verifiedaudit.com -- might come upon our article at Verified Audit Circulation. They will realize it is not their article seconds later after reading the lead.

  Now, how would the situation change if we followed one of your suggestions, say by moving the article to Verified Audit Circulation Corp? Well, the same user would end up at the same article, with a slightly different title. They will realize it is not their article a few seconds later after reading the title and/or the lead. I'm sorry, but I really don't see a big difference here. In fact, at least in the current case they are likely to realize that WP has no other article named Verified Audit Circulation, but in the suggested situation, being at Verified Audit Circulation Corp is likely to wrongly suggest to them that there is another article named Verified Audit Circulation. So at best, it's a wash, and it's likely to make matters worse. Please explain how this would be an improvement. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:27, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• I believe I already explained it above, it lies with anticipating readers' expectations. The current way titles are configured for generic-sounding names (no, I'm not talking about relatively unique names such as 'Intel' vs 'Intel Corp') potentially leads the searcher/reader to fall on the wrong article more often than not. You seem to believe that it doesn't matter but I think it does. Still using the above example, amigo, if you can't see the difference, then perhaps the problem lies with you and not with me. At present, a Gsearch for 'Verified Audit Circulation Corp' doesn't show the WP article, whereas the WP article for the company shows up when searching for 'audit circulation'. So it is a problem, n'est-ce pas? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:52, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• No, I really don't understand. I'm not denying the possibility that the problem lies with me - I might be having a dense moment. If so, I just need a clear explanation of what you're say, and I'll get it. Believe me.

  You say "the current way" "potentially leads the searcher/reader to fall on the wrong article more often than not". Please explain how changing the name of the article currently at Verified Audit Circulation to Verified Audit Circulation Corp would even affect the likelihood of users searching with, say, "audit circulation", reaching this article, much less make it less likely. If you believe the same article, when moved to Verified Audit Circulation Corp, will be less likely to show up in the "audit circulation" search results simply because of the title change, then you don't understand how google searches work. First, Verified Audit Circulation will remain a redirect to the article. More importantly, google will "learn" where the new article has been moved. Remember, it's reporting results largely based on article content, not the article title... we can move the article to Red fairies in Volkswagens, and google will still find it. I think you're assuming the title in general, and even a minor change in the title, affects search results much more than it actually does.

  You say, "a Gsearch for 'Verified Audit Circulation Corp' doesn't show the WP article". Right. So what? Who is going to be searching with that string? What does that show?

  You also say, " whereas the WP article for the company shows up when searching for 'audit circulation'." Right. Again, and why do you think that will change if the article is moved to Verified Audit Circulation Corp? People will still be searching with "audit circulation", and the article now at Verified Audit Circulation Corp will be just as good of match, and will show up the same spot (all other factors held equal) in the search results.

  What am I missing? --Born2cycle (talk) 07:35, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• Also, note that both Google and WP results don't just present a list of titles - they also display snippets of the article lead, so it's easy to see what the article is about without relying solely on the title, if that's what you're thinking. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:57, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• OK, now let me use some other examples to illustrate how I believe article titles ought to be named: cases where the terms are generic or names common, our policy ought to mandate disambiguation from the outset. It would have the advantage of clarity, and the dab page would be a first stop where namesakes can be listed whether there is an article or not. Red links can serve the purpose of inciting users to create articles of notable instances. The principle seems to be well applied in cases such as Peter Jones and Paul Smith, both of which are disambiguating pages notwithstanding very prominent examples (Peter Jones (department store) and Paul Smith (fashion designer)). As I am myself a minimalist, I believe that simplicity is good, but oversimplicity can be a disservice to readers by the ambiguity it creates. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:46, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, let's add you to the group of editors — along with Dicklyon, Noetica, Tony1 and SamBC — who want articles with "generic sounding names" to be predisambiguated (disambiguated even when there is no conflict with any other uses of that name in Wikipedia).

Like I've said four times now (search for "devil" on this page), the devil is in the details. How do we express and convey this in this policy without creating a situation in which article title discussions are even more contentious than they already are? How do we decide whether a given name is "generic sounding", or not? How do we decide how to disambiguate it if there are no other uses to disambiguate from? That is, Cork (city), for example, is disambiguated with "city" because it is the only use of "cork" in Wikipedia that is a city... but we need to have other articles to know that. If there were other cities named Cork, the "city" would not be an appropriate disambiguator (unless it was the primary use relative to the other cities). If there were no other uses at all of "Cork", then it could just be at Cork. Our whole system of deciding how to disambiguate is based on looking at other uses in Wikipedia; so how do we decide how to disambiguate when there are no other uses?

Finally, and most importantly, what problem is solved by introducing all these complications? How is Wikipedia improved if we start predisambiguating titles of articles about topics with generic names?

Now, what typically happens in these discussions when they get down to these nitty-gritty questions is... the discussion ends. Over and over, and we never get anywhere. That's the point.

With regard to Peter Jones and Paul Smith, there are over a dozen other uses of each in WP, and we've decided that among them there is no primary topic. That's a separate issue, one that we're accustomed to handling. The issue we're talking about is disambiguating something even when there are no other uses in WP. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:32, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Do not speak for me, or assume that I will support the same approach as some others, even if we agree more often than not. And if you want to see discussion, try limiting your own posts to no more than about 20% of the total, instead of your typical 40%. It's not reasonable to expect others to answer every one of your questions when you have such a history of dominating discussions and not listening or allowing others to help frame or lead the discussion. Dicklyon (talk) 18:44, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Queries that may be related to the above

Colleagues, it seems useful to gather here a few imponderables that might have a bearing on our discussion above. I approach these from a position of ignorance. Please add to this list, anyone, article titles that might help us to sort out what to do.

• Pension administration (US). This is as I found it. Do the current rules disallow this kind of specificity in a title? There seem to be no other contenders for the title "space", but I'd find "Pension administration" impossibly vague.
• Unit Investment Trust. No "(US)", and close by the first one in the same category list. Now given the caps, I clicked on this one thinking it was a formal title (of a company?), and when I saw the opening phrase I almost clicked away:

  "A Unit Investment Trust (UIT) is a US investment company offering a fixed (unmanaged) portfolio of securities having a definite life."

  Ah, but read on, way past the opening text that would appear in a google search entry: if you missed the opening "A", you'd fail to understand that it's actually a type of investment company. I'd rather have the "class of ..." or "type of ..." up-front at the opening; this is part of a larger problem that occurs when articles are not themed clearly as generic or titular, and it brushes up against the practices of naming titles. So I suppose it should be downcased per MOSCAPS, although I've had to mount an RM to have it moved (sigh). Chaotic casing and unclear openings are not helping the recognisability issue one bit. Another little issue is that the UK equivalent is called Unit trust, as it notes at the top in tiny print. I find this rather unhelpful to the readers.

• Payments Council: I have a real problem in the field of finance, banking, tax, accounting, where the titles might sometimes be unique (on WP anyway) but conceptually are unhelpful, even frustrating.
• Banking Code. Hmmm. I've read this short article and I still can't work out what it is, exactly. Tony (talk) 12:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Dohn Joe, I trust you will not launch in and change the first one while this issue is being discussed (as you've done previously when I've raised examples here). Tony (talk) 10:59, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Is this a new game? Guess the article content from the title? Or is the game to find articles with a poorly written lead? Sounds like fun! Let's see what gems Random article bring us. Here are several that I have no idea what the topic is by looking only at the title: Tatra 57, Old and in the Way, or how about Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility -- which Mount Pleasant is that? Or might it be the facility in Mount Pleasant, NC with a different name? Or might it even be an arcane way to refer to Sing Sing, which was built in the town of Mount Pleasant, New York? Or how about Bacabeira? Is that a place name? Or a biologic taxa? Or maybe a nickname for a footballer? The point is that few expect an article title to summarize article content.

I'll grant that the lead to Unit Investment Trust is poorly written, though that alone is no reason for renaming. I'd agree with renaming as Unit investment trust since it is not the formal name of any entity. It might even be that a merger with Unit trust is appropriate. You note the tiny print of the hatnote, but unless you've modified your CSS, the size of the hatnote text is the same as the article text and hatnotes ARE one of the methods for addressing ambiguity on Wikipedia.

You say that Pension administration (US) is as you found it -- but you moved that page on Sept 28 from Pension Administration.

In principle, I don't have that much of an issue if a generally supported naming convention recommends pre-disambiguation in some circumstances, such as Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government and legislation) or Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility) or WP:USPLACE. These define the scope of applicability and provides guidance for consistent application. I very much oppose the notion that a fundamental principle of Wikpedia's article naming practices needs to be changed. older ≠ wiser 14:02, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Tony, how many times will you bring up the same point, and elicit the same explanations, like Bkonrad has taken the time and energy to do, again, here, which you will not address, only to bring it up again and again and again? Enough!. If you just repeatedly raise the same issue and don't engage in constructive dialog, you're just being tendentious and disruptive, by definition. See WP:TE. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:59, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• UIT – I worked on Unit Investment Trust a bit; it needs to be downcased still. It's nothing to do with the US. If we had all these generics in lower case, maybe we'd have a better chance of understanding upper-case terms as names; but we're still a long way from getting there, so I agree that the extra disambig can sometimes be an important clue; we should not expunge those just because we can, title-ambiguity-wise. Dicklyon (talk) 22:53, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

This appears to be a rare occasion I agree with you, Dick ;) Unit investment trust should be downcased. Pension administration (US) is an inappropriate title, the Wikipedia norm for this type of name would be the descriptive title 'Pension administration in the United States'. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 23:18, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Here's another weird one that seems to be enforced by the current practice: Basic Safety Training. It's downcased in the article text, BTW. Tony (talk) 13:11, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Like many articles, it is capitalized where it should not be. Yet other articles are not capitalized, and ought to be. Neither of these is "enforced" by anything. Tony has spent some time usefully decreasing the first set of errors; but this campaign is now increasing the second set about as fast. Please do this one and stop. JCScaliger (talk) 21:22, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

And get a load of this: Electronic Filing System ... um ... Singapore judiciary got its hands on this article title "space" first, so finders keepers.

Folks, our articles generally fall into one of two categories: Those with names and those without names for which we have come up with a descriptive title. I suppose we're talking about what some perceive to be a gray area - topics with names that look like descriptions. But, here's the thing -- if it's the only use of that description-looking name in WP, we still use its name as the title of the article. If there ever is another article about a topic that uses that name, or an article for which that name is an appropriate descriptive title, then we disambiguate. To say that we should always disambiguate "such titles" brings us back to the devil that is in the details" I keep bringing it up (and I won't again - just search for "devil" on this page). --Born2cycle (talk) 18:52, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Taking a holistic approach to Wikipedia title policy – Is it an idea whose time has come?

Having been following WP titling policy for several years and more recently actively participating in the RM process, I am convinced that our titling policy is much too complex to be applied effectively. I don’t think the complexity is intentional, but comes as a result of our failure to take a holistic view of titling policy while making a whole myriad of incremental changes to a variety of policy, guidelines and MOS related to titling. Add on top of that is the litany of advice from WikiProjects laying out naming conventions for particular categories of articles and we have a proverbial Tower of Babel when trying to apply all this to any given article title. Think about it. We have WP:NAMINGCRITERIA—Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness and Consistency. On top of that we can invoke WP:COMMONNAMES, WP:POVTITLE, WP:PRECISION, WP:DAB, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, WP:MOSCAPS, WP:DIACRITICS, WP:EN and WP:ENGVAR. (I suspect I missed a few and intentionally didn’t list all the project level naming conventions). All these can and do trump each other when applied to individual articles. Imagine a new editor trying to avoid running afoul of all these conflicting rules.

There are several truths associated with WP article titles—every title has to be unique (all 3.9 million of them), every title probably has a logical alternative, and for every title, there is probably at least one editor who vehemently disagrees with it and has a better alternative. For some reason, editors become emotionally attached to their favorite alternative titles and the selective rationale for them. That emotion leads to a lot of unnecessary incivility and contentiousness over article titles. Over the next ten years, the probability that WP will have 6 million + articles is high. That’s 2 million new titles and millions more alternatives. There’s another truth associated with Wikipedia article titles and the things editors say about them is that it is pure fantasy to think that any editor can proclaim how millions of readers are going to behave if a title isn’t precisely the way they believe it should be. Everytime I read readers are going to do this or readers are going to do that in a move discussion, I cringe at the lunacy of such statements. Readers don’t visit WP for titles, they visit WP for content and our titling policy doesn’t recognize that. Yet, we continue to debate (and expend valuable volunteer energy) the silliest title changes when that energy would be much better spent improving content.

Here’s a little metaphor to explain my point a bit more graphically. Imagine we had an article entitled Dog Shit and in reality, from a content perspective, it is metaphorically a pile of crap—no sources, bad lead, bad prose, bad formatting, etc. Someone thinks there’s a better title for the Dog Shit article—alternatives (Dog shit (MOSCAPS)), (Dog feces (Precision)), (Dog poop (POVTitle)), (Dog crap (Commonname)), and my favorite (Hundekot (because the crap was taken by a German Sheppard)). We could select anyone of the alternative titles (although Hundekot would be a stretch), but in the end, the article’s content would still be a pile of crap (metaphorically at least) because an article title (no matter what it is doesn’t make up for bad content).

If anyone has got this far and wants to invoke WP:TLDR, don’t. Sometimes you just have to listen first, before evaluating an idea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike Cline (talk • contribs)

Proposal for a proposal

I believe we need to accomplish two things relative to article titles. One, 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. Two, we need to change the focus of titling discussions (including our formal processes) in a way that not only stabilizes titles, but makes titling an afterthought when compare to the imperative of creating and maintaining good content in WP. I have an idea as to how we might do this, but I want to point out how we might simplify our naming policy. 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.

• Recognizability (not a real word) doesn’t say what it means. What is means is: Article titles should be representative or reflective of article content. (i.e. We wouldn’t name the article on Cleveland, Ohio Chicago, IL)
• Naturalness is not definable or interpretable – its lunacy to think we can deduce what millions of editors think. Giving license to that lunacy in policy is a colossal mistake. This one goes.
• Precision is another criterion that should go. Precision is essentially impossible when there are multitudes of alternative titles. What is more precise—Water or H2O? This criterion has spawned all sorts of Babel with PRIMARY TOPIC, COMMONNAME, etc.
• Conciseness is a criterion that is easy to understand and interpret. Some titles are more or less concise than alternatives. Some level of conciseness is desirable and easy to determine and our policy doesn’t need to be The most concise title
• Consistency, which I believe, is the single most important criterion and unfortunately the most ignored in the sea of Babel around titling. We should be able to establish reasonable naming conventions for different types of articles, use and enforce those conventions.

So how do we go about simplifying our titling policy and associated guidelines and MOS without disrupting the encyclopedia? It won’t be easy, but if we take an objective look at it, it would be possible. I’d like to see a couple of things happen.

• Establishing 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.
• Establishing a WikiProject Titles (or some other venue) that can systematically and rationally take a holistic examination of our titling policy. (We have 3.9 million examples to work with). This might take a year, but a project like this could recommend changes in policy and process that would not only simplify titling, but would refocus titling processes to put the emphasis on good content versus titling for titling sake.

In my view, the key ideas here are simplification and content taking priority over titles. We can’t do that without taking a reasoned, systematic, holistic look at this. Sustaining and incrementally modifying the current state of Babel that is our titling policy will not bode well for us as we generate the next 2-3 million articles. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:41, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you in principal, but disagree on some of the important details.

In a sense I agree that "consistency" is most important, but there are two ways "consistency" is commonly interpreted, which I refer to as the narrow and broad sense of "consistency". The narrow way is the interpretation intended in the listed criteria on this policy page - for articles to be named consistently with other similar articles. This is why it's often not given high priority, because doing so often conflicts with other criteria and is often considered less important (New York City, not New York City, New York, Catherine the Great, not Catherine II, etc.). The broad interpretation of consistency is that all titles should be consistent with the broad naming principles of Wikipedia - this makes titling more predictable and less contentious.

Recognizability and naturalness are really just attempts to explain the underlying reasons for using common names - and using common names is a fundamental guiding principle in the vast, vast majority of our articles' titles.

In addition to consolidating and simplifying this policy and all the related guidelines, I think the main missing piece is a method for how to prioritize, or at least weigh against each other, the various "rules" when there are conflicts. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:53, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I think you exaggerate the problem - for the vast majority of articles, there is no dispute over the right title. But I agree this whole page could be rewritten (again) to make it clearer how titles are chosen in practice. Although any attempt to describe the process "holistically" will mean admitting that there we tolerate certain inconsistencies just because editors in certain subject areas have made it a matter of faith that they need to do it differently and will not agree to standardize (place-names in the U.S. with redundant disambiguation,and so on).--Kotniski (talk) 18:58, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Consistency is the least useful. Its use reminds me of the old WWI marching song "We're, here, because we're here, because we're here, because we're here" (to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne"). The justification for keeping Zurich Airport at Zürich Airport was because Zurich was at Zürich and guess what one of the arguments for keeping Zurich with dots was because articles like the airport article used them. I think consistency is a problem because it is easy to be seduced into seeing consistency in data sets that does not exist (Martian canals). While consistency has its place, it should be subservient to common name (it took a long time to get that agreed at WP:NCROY and WP:FLORA), and also to a lesser extent to the other bullet points. -- PBS (talk) 21:08, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Consistency is important, but PBS does make an important argument of what can happen if its placed too high up. People will end up locking things into one form or another because another page uses it. I still believe he goes too far by saying its the least important.∞陣内Jinnai 21:58, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

The trouble with consistency, as B2C has intimated, is that people who insist on being "consistent" in certain areas actually end up causing inconsistency. This is most obvious in the case of place-names - people try to enforce religiously the conventions that have been worked out for places in particular countries, on grounds of "consistency", but because these various conventions are not uniform, we actually end up with inconsistent titling between places in different countries.--Kotniski (talk) 10:27, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, Recognizability does mean what it says. Why do we use United Kingdom and not UK, which may well be now rather more common? One minor reason is the slight ambiguity with the University of Kentucky. Another is tone, which is not one of the questions (although I would call it Naturalness if pressed). But surely the chief reason is that most people will more quickly recognize what article they are at? JCScaliger (talk) 00:21, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Naturalness is the most important of the criteria; why would you recommend removing it entirely? The important thing is for readers to be able to find the article they're looking for as quickly as possible, and using the most natural title possible is the best way to ensure that. Powers ^T 04:07, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think consistency is the most important, but it's important. And just because naturalness and precision are hard to define doesn't mean we'd be better off to ignore them. I pretty much agree with the comments on recognizability and conciseness, but it's less clear where that should take us in re-expressing the guidelines. I think the problems we get into are about trying to find narrow interpretations of these points, or to apply one over another, rather than be open to what's a better title for a particular article. Dicklyon (talk) 04:34, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

"Recognizability – Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?"—there was never consensus for this. Tony (talk) 02:05, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

If you've worked out where it came from, or where we can find discussion about, let us know. Dicklyon (talk) 05:55, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

It was part of what came out of a massive discussion and reconstruction process some time (2 years??) ago. The discussion thread above seems to show that it is still generally supported. Of course, this page is still structured in a less-than-straightfoward way and could be much improved, but I don't think there's any special problem with this phrase - it just means that we want an article title to be recognizable to the sort of person who might be looking for that article (i.e. someone who has heard of the topic - otherwise why would they be looking for it? - but isn't an expert in it - otherwise what would they be expecting to learn by looking it up on Wikipedia?)--Kotniski (talk) 10:01, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I see it was your words that we're arguing about; this 17 Aug 2010 diff. There had been language before about how the title was more for the general reader than for the experts, which I think is more along the lines that Noetica is concerned about. That was removed as "fluff" in this 25 Sept 2009 diff; taking it out of the familiarity clause may have been part of the present disagreement. Dicklyon (talk) 23:57, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

How to start

As with many discussions, it is possible to wander off into abstraction where debate can circle about until everyone despairs over any advance. Maybe it would be helpful to identify a particular example, or a class of examples, where some problem has arisen and discuss that to see whether any general principles come out of it.

For example, we presently have Coriolis effect as the title of an article with a redirect from Coriolis force. In terms of Google searches, the latter is the more common terminology: is a Google search a definitive selection criterion?

From a different stance, Coriolis force is a force, not an effect, technically speaking, so maybe the more precise usage is a criterion?

We also have Coriolis effect (perception). In this field there is no ambiguity: Coriolis effect is always used, never Coriolis force, and in fact, the Coriolis effect has nothing to do with the Coriolis force of physics, and it is related to rotation in a completely different way. (It's related to the construction of the inner ear.) So in the case of these competing definitions, do we take the unambiguous usage as paramount over an ambiguous usage?

Is the solution to use Coriolis force for the physical force, and a disambiguation page for Coriolis effect subdivided into Coriolis effect (perception) and Coriolis effect (physics)? Is the solution in this instance amenable to generalization?

Any thoughts? Brews ohare (talk) 18:29, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I suppose it depends what we think the primary usage for "Coriolis effect" is (what, if anything, do we think a clear majority of readers are looking for if they type in "Coriolis effect"?) If we don't find either of the two meanings to be primary, we go for a disambiguation page (though that's not a particularly helpful solution when there are only two topics). At least, that's the way it's handled according to existing principles - are you suggesting that these be modified in some way?--Kotniski (talk) 18:34, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

It's highly conjectural what the majority of readers are looking for. The majority of medically minded readers or airplane pilots are looking for Coriolis effect (perception), The majority of physics readers are looking for Coriolis force. By about two-to-one google searches favor Coriolis force. My solution would be to use Coriolis force for physics and Coriolis effect for perception with a For...see note at the top of each page referring to the other usage.

My basis would be that Coriolis force is unambiguously physics, and Coriolis effect has a clear meaning in perception, although it can be confused with physics. So some physics readers will be subject to an inconvenience, but not the majority, and medical readers will be unencumbered.

I am unsure how to formulate the general principles that apply here.

Of course, that leaves aside the politics of dealing with the ruling clique at Coriolis effect.Brews ohare (talk) 18:48, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

This search on "Coriolis effect" that excludes poetry and includes "ear" produces 164,000 hits; this search that excludes "Coriolis effect" and references to poetry produces 92,300 hits and this search for "Coriolis force" that excludes "Coriolis effect" produces 319,000 hits. I conclude that the majority of readers use "Coriolis force" to find "Coriolis force", and the majority of those using "Coriolis effect" are looking for "Coriolis effect (perception)" and only a minority group use "Coriolis effect" to find what is actually "Coriolis force". Brews ohare (talk) 19:31, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

It's tidy, but I don't follow the logic of your counts. If you look at books, it seems apparent that the physics (esp. geophysics) topic is primary for Coriolis effect. Dicklyon (talk) 20:14, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I suppose the "logic" at issue here is how to set up a search, assuming that it is agreed that a search is a useful way to evaluate a choice of titles. I find that this Google book search on Coriolis effect excluding poetry and perception produces 91,300 hits while this Google book search arranged to include perception has 1380 hits. On the other hand, this Google book search on Coriolis force that excludes poetry and perception comes up with 325,000 results. So I conclude again that most readers of WP use "Coriolis force" to search for Coriolis force, while about a third as many search on "Coriolis effect" for this purpose. A much smaller number search for "Coriolis effect (perception)" using Coriolis effect, and of course, they are not looking for Coriolis force.

So based upon Google book searches we end up with Coriolis force as the practical title, and two choices for Coriolis effect: have it refer to the perception (a convenience for medical readers) or have "Coriolis effect" redirect to Coriolis force with a For...see for medical readers directing them to Coriolis force (perception).

The fundamental question, though, is whether Google searches are to be the main determinant in this way, or Google book searches, and if so, how are such searches to be constructed (it is an art). Alternative to Google searches, or supplementing them, one can try to use some other rationale like connection to fields where the terms are unambiguously used, or minimal disturbance to readers, or something.

As another wrinkle, isn't it common in WP to use titles with parenthetic end-qualifiers as members of a family of such titles distinguished by different parenthetic back ends in conjunction with disambiguation pages? Brews ohare (talk) 21:37, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Recognisability: the "restored" version is not well founded; what to do next

[Editors, please comment after this post, not within it. Noetica^Tea? 23:44, 26 December 2011 (UTC)]

I have been looking through the archives. I see a great deal of discussion of the fundamental questions and principles (or of what preceded them) in late 2009. But I see no agreement on the wording that has now been put in place for recognisability. I find no endorsement of that by the community, or even any well-notified attempt at wide consultation. It is possible that I have missed something that should stand out as obvious in those reams of dialogue. I hope someone will point it out for us. So far it seems that the present wording was invented by Kotniski in this edit of 18 August 2010, and not addressed specifically in the ensuing discussion (though some called for a closer consideration, and caution in supplanting long-established wording: see this archived discussion). [Amended after Dicklyon's new information, above.–N]

It is interesting that Kotniski has supported Born2cycle's reversion to an earlier version. It is, as it turns out, Kotniski's version. Kotniski's edit summary: "let's not get silly about this - this is the wording that (a) is longer established, and (b) is the one the majority clearly support". Majority support? Hmm. Let's not get silly about this, indeed. [Added after Dicklyon's new information, above.–N]

The wording Born2cycle has now removed was discussed by five editors (not "two or three"), in a section specifically dedicated to it, from 20 to 22 May 2011. See Recognizability, in Archive 32. The result of the discussion was a reversion (in this edit) to the core of the provision, without any complex qualification:

Recognizability – article titles should be the most recognizable description of the topic.

That text was soon simplified (see edit), with a reference to the discussion I have just linked:

Recognizability – article titles are expected to be a recognizable name or description of the topic.

This developed into the question form that has stood until supplanted in recent days:

Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?

The participants in that open and well-labelled discussion:

User:Kaligelos

User:Ohms law

User:Tony1

User:Pmanderson

User:WhatamIdoing

In the months that followed there was extraordinary action, involving attempts to present relevant portions of the page by transclusion from another page (by Born2cycle, with heavy resistance from others), and the linking of an essay by Born2cycle (also resisted, and not currently implemented).

Born2cycle has placed transclusion features (against objections) that persist in the present version of the page. One regrettable side-effect of an earlier attempt: when we consult certain earlier drafts of the page (this one for 15 July 2011, for example) we are misled. The current text concerning recognisability (and adjacent provisions) is displayed in that dated draft, not the text that was in place at the time.

It is plain to me, at least. The evidence suggests a bad case of WP:OWNERSHIP. It is extremely difficult to plot the development of the page because of those unilateral shifts, and what might be regarded as smokescreens and distortions of history. Equally, it is perilous to claim that there is consensus for any historical version under such conditions of documentation.

The extended chaotic discussions above this section are cause for concern. There was a unilateral restoration of a provision claimed as "consensual" and in place "for years" (though see my critique), countering a later discussed changed that stood for seven months. There were appeals to WP:AN and to WP:ANI, where Born2cycle was counselled to go back to the page and wait for discussion; and another admin proposed that he absent himself for a week from this page. He did not even acknowledge those suggestions (though he had sought advice); he pressed on with a campaign for his wording here, and diverted attention at WP:ANI to those who opposed the speed and belligerence with which he pursued that course. Some editors have endorsed the restoration; but the discussion has been laughably shallow and narrow; and an impartially presented RFC has been hijacked, against the possibility of broad consultation and quiet consideration.

As I write, Born2cycle's last edit of the page (soon after the WP:ANI section had been archived) restored his favoured text and removed the "under discussion" tag. Almost simultaneously, though, he continued the discussion with a reply to Dicklyon, and an invitation for Dicklyon to continue the discussion: "Please quote what specifically you're talking about."

Now, this is not a page for discussing user conduct. But it has been impossible in recent times to separate such conduct from content development, such is the domination of one editor here. I do not call for sanctions or penalties; I just want the history of these core policy provisions to be clearer. If anyone can add clarifying facts, or fill in missing episodes, that would be useful too.

What to do next? I can only speak for myself. I have not addressed content in the recent discussions, because conditions were plainly against calm deliberation. I have pointed that out consistently. That is how things remain. I propose that we put this issue aside to be dealt with later.

A core, contested provision on the page has no demonstrated consensus. It cannot be claimed as representing a status quo in future discussions.

–Noetica^Tea? 23:44, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow, the history around July 14-15 is indeed rather confused and amazing, with Born2cycle repeatedly warring in his templated version of the provisions over repeated objections from Blueboar and others. But when I look at the transcluded template history, it seems to not exist until July 19. Did it get deleted and come back, or what? That hack sure does make it hard to understand what old versions looked like at the time. As for Kotniski's 17 Aug 2010 introduction of the currently controversial wording, I find nothing in the talk page related to it at all. Dicklyon (talk) 05:41, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow. Well my 2 cents is that I think recognizability as it is worded in the pre-Kotniski version and moreso Kotniski version is the issue itself. It seems to trump almost every other criteria when it should be of those one of the lesser ones as it isn't (by the pre-Kotniski edit version based on reliable sources. COMMONNAME should apply primarly to RSed items. Actually, easy-to-find and recognizable should probably just be merged. They basically say the same thing but one we rely on credible sources and the other we ignore them which goes against stuff like WP:RS and mostly use google hits which are far from perfect even when narrowed down.∞陣内Jinnai 06:45, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

You are all making one hell of a fuss about something that really is very trivial. All the sentence is doing is documenting the very well-known fact that we don't add extra information to titles to try to make them "recognizable" to people who aren't familiar with the topic at all. (We don't put "(footballer)" after the name of every obscure footballer, for example - we only do it if disambiguation is needed.) It's been like that on this page for ages, and didn't require discussion when it went in, because it isn't controversial. The RfC above confirms that this version continues to be supported. So what exactly is the problem? I certainly don't see a need to mark that whole section with a "neutrality" (?!) tag, when the dispute (insofar as there is one) concerns just one sentence, which is already marked as under discussion.--Kotniski (talk) 08:26, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Some of it is simple rephrasing of prose, but other prose changes change the meaning substantially.∞陣内Jinnai 18:11, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Some of what?--Kotniski (talk) 21:00, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

• Recognizable - that one did not have the idea that it was "readers who are familiar". It was only that the names appear in RSes.
• Easy to find (i think became commonness) which did not have any burdern on RSes nor did it try to push that "easy to find" aka commonnness is akin to COMMONNAME, the most often cited part of this policy.
• It removed precision entirely (being common or recognizable does not mean something is precise. Take, FE: Role-playing video game. It is not the common term (Role-playing game is and will never be avialable for that article because its broad-topic article), its not exactly all that recognizable though it is used by a few reliable sources, but it is precise. Instead Precise was replaced with disambiguate note that moved the text from the lead to where it would be. Moving the text there in and of itself is not inherently a malicious move as it could make it more clear, however, removing precise does appear to be a major change in policy that came under the guise of "not having any other meaning not covered" when there was no debate on that.
• Consise - dropping the note that disambig portion is also part of consise is a major change as without it there could, and have been, arguments that the disambig part isn't really a part of the title.
• Consistency change would have done better to give an internal link on the page, but I don't think there was any major changes here.∞陣内Jinnai 21:26, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

As to what to do next, like I say, I don't see any problem (except for the fact that a few editors have suddenly and coincidentally arrived at this page to make a fuss about it) with the particular "recognizability clause" (it's only descriptive, anyway - "consensus has generally formed around the following questions"), but we might take advantage of this sudden surge of interest in this page to make a new, more comprehensible draft of the policy - I'm sure we can describe the process by which we arrive at article titles in a more simple manner than this page does at the moment.--Kotniski (talk) 08:33, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

It could also be argued that it was an attempt to sneak a major change in under the guise of a copyedit or clarrification edit. I'm going to assume that was not the case and if so, you shouldn't mind debating the changes and their merits since it has been brought up for discussion.∞陣内Jinnai 21:26, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

You know, we just had an RFC on this very point. A substantial majority preferred the present wording; nobody who didn't come in to complain about this was convinced. Vast amounts of Wikidrama were produced.

Now, in an editor who didn't insist so loudly, elsewhere, that consensus is required to change even a guideline (much less a policy), I would be more persuaded that this is simply a variant definition of consensus; hut not here. Please drop this, together with the unnecessary and unpopular disambiguation it is in aid of. JCScaliger (talk) 21:46, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

With respect, JCS, you seem not to understand what is going on. Have you fallen victim to Twitterdom, so that you no longer read sustained argument? You write:

"You know, we just had an RFC on this very point. A substantial majority preferred the present wording; nobody who didn't come in to complain about this was convinced."

Did you not notice that the process (started correctly by Dicklyon, with a call for new input and moderation) was immediately subverted by unilateral tabling of selected old input and a call for a most spurious "status quo" to be accepted without further question? Did you not notice that this disruption occasioned action at WP:ANI? I am surprised. After all, you were there yourself, complaining about those who deplored the subversion of due process at this page. (Review the discussion at ANI here.) If you are partisan and have some relevant history, just declare it. Then we'll all understand.

Recognisability, as it is presently constructed (after resurrection to an earlier state over objections that have not been met), is just one of the ill-considered provisions that need review on the page. Obviously some are uncomfortable with that; and they hasten discussion and belittle any objections to keep their rather convoluted version in place. That has nothing to do with discovering consensus.

This page, and this talkpage, could do with the sorts of reforms we have seen at WP:MOS and WT:MOS. Things are much calmer and more respectful there, since the cessation of earlier hostilities, and a move away from sharp practice. Till that is achieved, WP:TITLE is flawed. Nothing can be done about that unless we respect Wikipedian norms for collegial development of policy.

Noetica^Tea? 23:13, 27 December 2011 (UTC)