Jump to content

Wikipedia talk:Article titles: Difference between revisions

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Content deleted Content added
Line 82: Line 82:
:::::Blueboar, I'm afraid the comment ''"Instruction creep... no need to link... it's further down the page in the same policy."'' is exactly the wrong point. The whole point of this discussion is as said above that some users are '''unable to scroll'''. It's a long way down the same policy, and anyone misciting [[WP:COMMONNAME]] and reading "[[Bill Clinton]] (not William Jefferson Clinton) as "Bill Clinton has no accent", may not even know that Søren Kierkegaard is a person not a place (I'm serious). However if PBS suggestion '''[[Charlotte Brontë]]''' (not Charlotte Nichols or Currer Bell) was among the examples, that may remove the need for scrolldown assistance. [[User:In ictu oculi|In ictu oculi]] ([[User talk:In ictu oculi|talk]]) 03:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
:::::Blueboar, I'm afraid the comment ''"Instruction creep... no need to link... it's further down the page in the same policy."'' is exactly the wrong point. The whole point of this discussion is as said above that some users are '''unable to scroll'''. It's a long way down the same policy, and anyone misciting [[WP:COMMONNAME]] and reading "[[Bill Clinton]] (not William Jefferson Clinton) as "Bill Clinton has no accent", may not even know that Søren Kierkegaard is a person not a place (I'm serious). However if PBS suggestion '''[[Charlotte Brontë]]''' (not Charlotte Nichols or Currer Bell) was among the examples, that may remove the need for scrolldown assistance. [[User:In ictu oculi|In ictu oculi]] ([[User talk:In ictu oculi|talk]]) 03:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
::::::I have no problem with Charlotte Brontë as an example, as the diacritic there seems completely uncontroversial. Don't be surprised if half the readers don't recognize it as a person's name though. [[User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon]] ([[User talk:Dicklyon|talk]]) 03:32, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
::::::I have no problem with Charlotte Brontë as an example, as the diacritic there seems completely uncontroversial. Don't be surprised if half the readers don't recognize it as a person's name though. [[User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon]] ([[User talk:Dicklyon|talk]]) 03:32, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
:::::::However, to my great surprise, Google ngrams show that the form with a diacritic is much, much less common than the form without in all corpora (except French!); see e.g. [http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Charlotte+Bront%C3%AB%2CCharlotte+Bronte&year_start=1800&year_end=2013&corpus=15&smoothing=3]. [[User:Peter coxhead|Peter coxhead]] ([[User talk:Peter coxhead|talk]]) 06:13, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Revision as of 06:13, 31 May 2013

Template:DS Courtesy Notice

Idludu village

((idludu)), idludu village, sidlaghatta taluk, chikkaballapura district, karnataka state — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.212.1.102 (talk) 12:32, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

RfC at Talk:Wikipedia

There is an Rfc at Talk:Wikipedia#RfC: Wikipedia in italics? that may interest you. Please come and read the summary, then include your !vote if you would like to do so. Thank you in advance for your consideration. – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 18:43, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WP:COMMONNAME examples (again)

I have noticed that the number of examples given is creeping up again.
How many examples do we need?
Perhaps more importantly, what kind of examples do we need?
Perhaps we need to discuss why each example is given, and come up with a way to organize/group them. For example, "Caffeine", "Down syndrome", and "Guinea pig" are all science related COMMONNAMES "Bill Clinton" and "Lady Gaga" are both people related COMMONNAMES. Blueboar (talk) 13:14, 19 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Use commonly recognized names

I propose to rename the Wikipedia:Article_titles#Common_names section title to "Use commonly recognizable names in titles".

The current title, "Common names" seems regularly confused as to referring to vernacular or nick names ("common") versus formal names. I think what it means is: "Use commonly recognized names". — Preceding unsigned comment added by SmokeyJoe (talkcontribs) 01:11, 27 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There was a protracted squabble in Sept. 2009 (around here) about whether commonname was a goal, or a strategy in support of recognizability. I agree with you that it should be in support of recognizability, and that the current section title obscures that. Dicklyon (talk) 05:00, 27 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks. I had missed that. I think that "common name" can't be a goal without defining "common", and that if it needs definition is is a poor explanation. I meant to put "commonly" in the suggested section title (now inserted), not wanting to break continuity, or recognizability of the section for people expecting to find the old title. I also think the on-screen encouraged shortcut should be changed from "WP:COMMONNAME", given the tendency of many to assume the all-caps oneword is a sufficient summary of what it links to. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:05, 27 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WP:COMMONNAME - The original 4 examples

These were the original 4 WP:COMMONNAME examples when a list was first merged in:

The second in the original list was removed with summary "Pelé is not a good example as "Pele" without the squiggle is the common English spelling" - and reverted "the article is titled with the "squiggle" (accent))"

But is there any doubt that the "WP:COMMONNAME" for Edson Arantes do Nascimento does in fact include an accent?

Firstly we know it does (since it is Portuguese). Secondly in English Google Books:

So what is the problem with retaining Pelé (not "Edson Arantes do Nascimento") as one of the 4 original examples? In ictu oculi (talk) 10:42, 28 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

One problem is that your search omits American sources... try your searches with the word "Soccer" instead of "Football"... I suspect the results would be very different.
Another problem is that using Pele/Pelé as an example needlessly gets us into the "Great diacritics debate". While your hit count would support:
  • Pele or Pelé (not "Edson Arantes do Nascimento")
What you are really asking us to say is:
  • Pelé (not "Pele" or "Edison Arantes do Nascimento").
Which is not justified. Both Pelé and Pele get thousands of hits. While both are significantly more commonly used when compared to his real name, neither is significantly more common than the other when compared to each other. The choice between "Pelé" vs "Pele" remains unresolved under WP:COMMONNAME. That's why it is a bad example. Blueboar (talk) 13:22, 28 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just for the record, "Pele footballer -pelé" gets about 7.5 million web hits and Pele footballer -pele" about 2.1 million web hits. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:48, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Blueboar, I thought the purpose of WP:COMMONNAME was to establish commonly used names Bill Clinton (not "William Jefferson Clinton"), Pelé (not "Edson Arantes do Nascimento"), Venus de Milo (not "Aphrodite of Melos"), Guinea pig (not Cavia porcellus) not to act as some kind of guidance on using basic Anglo ASCII fonts? In ictu oculi (talk) 15:45, 28 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You miss my point. We don't want to use an example that involves three choices. Yes... both Pelé and Pele are more common than Edison Arantes do Nascimento... but there is great debate over the choice between Pelé or Pele. That choice is more complicated, and involves issues that have nothing to do with the basic concept of COMMONNAME. So, my opinion is that it does not make a good example for use in WP:COMMONNAME... we should not use either Pelé or Pele, because no matter which we use, it will get us away from explaining clearly the the basic concept behind COMMONNAME. Blueboar (talk) 18:06, 28 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Blueboar, But why would anyone even raise the "third" choice - which is no choice, and isn't mentioned. You raised above what was and wasn't missing from the WP:COMMONNAME examples, I'm saying that what was made missing in the removal of "Pelé (not "Edison Arantes do Nascimento")." was the possibility that a Non-basicASCII name could be a WP:COMMONNAME. As it stands the Pelé removed list looks unanimously basic ASCII, it could (and has) lead readers to think that only basic ASCII names are WP:COMMONNAMES. And yet en.wp 100% of Pelé, Antoni Gaudí, Teresa of Ávila, Søren Kierkegaard, François Mitterrand, Tomás Ó Fiaich (to cite those examples used in MOS guidelines) are non-basic ASCII, are none of these examples WP:COMMONNAMEs? Likewise, is Emily Brontë "(not Emily Jane Brontë)", since not basic ASCII, not a suitable WP:COMMONNAME?
PS - On a side issue (but related to your question) in many ways the example on WP:NCP Antoni Gaudí (not Antoni Gaudí i Cornet) is quite important in that en.wp departs from ca.wp and es.wp in not using matronymics. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:51, 28 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
But people do raise the third choice... Frequently. A LOT of Editors don't see Pelé and Pele as being simply two variations of the same name (a matter of ASCII typography) either of which could be the title... they see them as two distinct titles and want guidance on which to use. We intentionally don't give that guidance in WP:COMMONNAME, because we realize that often one is not significantly more common than the other (and thus not solvable through an application of WP:COMMONNAME). We leave that debate for WP:DIACRITICS to resolve (note: while the specific issue of Pelé vs Pele may not have come up, editors have gotten into huge debates over other, similar titles ... with both sides of the debate attemptinf to point to WP:COMMONNAME to support their arguments. So far, neither side has done so successfully - precisely because we have intentionally avoided framing the issue in terms of WP:COMMONNAME... leaving it for WP:DIACRITICS to discuss.) Blueboar (talk) 19:22, 28 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Blueboar, well my experience is that it isn't working. Wikipedia talk:Article titles is a "policy", Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) is a "guideline", therefore some users may read that the noPelé "policy" trumps the "Tomás Ó Fiaich, not Tomas O'Fiaich" guideline.
However as a aside, you know that of the circa 2-300,000, European accentable titles on en.wp 99.999% are in fact accented yes? (I'm just checking, some editors will deny this, but I wouldn't expect you would/do).
If you don't deny that, then are there none of those 99.999% of possible titles which are in line with WP:COMMONNAME? If you were asked to cite an en.wp non-basic-ASCII article title which is in line with WP:COMMONNAME which article would you cite? (I would cite Noël Coward FWIW). In ictu oculi (talk) 19:41, 28 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is a distraction from the point of COMMONNAME. The question of when and whether to use diacriticals can have its own place. The fact that this particular article full of guidelines is called "policy" may be a problem, but that's yet again a different problem from what we're discussing here. Dicklyon (talk) 21:06, 28 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Of course diacritics does have its own place on WP:AT - the non-anglicized titles Besançon, Søren Kierkegaard, and Göttingen are used since they predominate in English language reliable sources, while for the same reason the anglicized title forms Nuremberg, delicatessen, and Florence are used., but the fact that Søren Kierkegaard (not Søren Aabye Kierkegaard) can't be mentioned up in WP:COMMONNAME, means that WP:COMMONNAME is going to continue to be misused, misread, and mislinked. The reason we're having this discussion is some editors saying "'Oppose Søren Kierkegaard per WP:COMMONNAME" when Søren Kierkegaard isn't mentioned in WP:COMMONNAME Bill Clinton is. Dicklyon, you have seen that happening, yes? This may or may not be a distraction from the point of COMMONNAME. But the fact that WP:COMMONNAME doesn't even link or hint to the existence of non-ASCII letters when so many 100,000s of AT use non-ASCII letters is what? In ictu oculi (talk) 00:25, 29 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There was a time when there was a technical limitation on article titles when mentioning ASCII was pertinent to the debate but that was a long time ago, so Iio why do you use the term ASCII and not the "English alphabet" when discussing this issue? -- PBS (talk) 14:15, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Convenience/shorthand for the more complicated issue (where I wear two hats, one in university publishing, one in finance publishing) where cost decisions override technical as the main basis of MOS, although technical considerations still have a part. Please ask someone in academic publishing if you are not familiar with the issues. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" issue, it seems to me. By not including an example of a common name with diacritics, WP:COMMONNAME can be read to imply that diacritics won't occur in a common name used as a title. On the other hand, putting in an example with diacritics distracts from the point of the examples. How about putting in a parenthesised sentence saying something like "(For the use of accented characters in titles, see WP:DIACRITICS.)"? Peter coxhead (talk) 14:48, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If the feeling is that a accent mark is needed then why not just use one that meets the suggestion in WP:DIACRITICS "In general, the sources in the article, a Google book search of books published in the last quarter-century or thereabouts, and a selection of other encyclopaedias, should all be examples of reliable sources; if all three of them use a term, then that is fairly conclusive". Would a maiden name in place of the less common married name or pen name do eg Charlotte Brontë not Charlotte Nichols or Currer Bell? -- PBS (talk) 15:50, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
While I prefer Pelé (not "Edson Arantes do Nascimento") for page-history consistency, neverthelss would support PBS suggestion Charlotte Brontë (not Charlotte Nichols or Currer Bell) ...and it is possible that the double inclusion of the married name and pseudonym Currer Bell is particularly useful. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
NOTE... The appropriate and inappropriate use of diacritics is dealt with in the WP:AT policy... it is simply dealt with in another section (see WP:TITLESPECIALCHARACTERS). The diacritics issue is quite clearly explained there. There is no need to include it in the COMMONNAME section. Indeed, including an example with diacritics in the WP:COMMONNAME section will simply detract from the basic concept we are trying to explain in the COMMONNAME section (how we determine recognizably), lead to unnecessary arguments, and confuse new editors. It is a separate issue, and thus should be dealt with separately. Blueboar (talk) 15:26, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but this doesn't preclude putting in a link to where this separate issue is discussed, which is what I propose. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:44, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Instruction creep... no need to link... it's further down the page in the same policy. Blueboar (talk) 15:55, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but when editors follow a link like WP:COMMONNAME, how often do they read further down the page? (Rhetorical question!) Clearly there is a need to cross-link because editor have misunderstood WP:COMMONNAME to mean that diacritics shouldn't be used. It's not "instruction creep" to cross-link; it creates no new instructions. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:28, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Blueboar, I'm afraid the comment "Instruction creep... no need to link... it's further down the page in the same policy." is exactly the wrong point. The whole point of this discussion is as said above that some users are unable to scroll. It's a long way down the same policy, and anyone misciting WP:COMMONNAME and reading "Bill Clinton (not William Jefferson Clinton) as "Bill Clinton has no accent", may not even know that Søren Kierkegaard is a person not a place (I'm serious). However if PBS suggestion Charlotte Brontë (not Charlotte Nichols or Currer Bell) was among the examples, that may remove the need for scrolldown assistance. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have no problem with Charlotte Brontë as an example, as the diacritic there seems completely uncontroversial. Don't be surprised if half the readers don't recognize it as a person's name though. Dicklyon (talk) 03:32, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
However, to my great surprise, Google ngrams show that the form with a diacritic is much, much less common than the form without in all corpora (except French!); see e.g. [1]. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:13, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]