Wikipedia talk:Article titles

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Names of counties of Texas

Why do the article names for counties of Texas follow this format: "Bexar county, Texas"? Shouldn't it be just "Bexar county"? AfricaTanz (talk) 15:42, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

As there doesn't seem to be another Bexar County, per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, I'd say so. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:53, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

See WP:USPLACE. --Orlady (talk) 16:17, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

That's merely a guideline developed by consensus, which would allow any Wikipedia project to do the same, i.e., adopt an unusual article naming convention. AfricaTanz (talk) 20:14, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I believe virtually all United States counties are so named (County, State). Omnedon (talk) 20:31, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes. And the consensus (or more accurately, the lack of consensus to change or remove the guideline) has been repeatedly established with pretty wide participation beyond any single Wikipedia project. older ≠ wiser 20:35, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

See the WP:CRITERIA section of the WP:AT policy... where it talks about consistency being a key principle. A majority of place names in the US are duplicated over more than one State (thus requiring the State name to be added to the article title as a form of disambiguation). Because this is so prevalent, it becomes more consistent to include the State name in our title, even when not needed. Your typical Wikipedia reader (ie our audience) has come to expect the title of articles on US places to include the name of the State. Blueboar (talk) 20:48, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

That consistency principle is not followed for articles relating to other countries. Why is the USA a special case? AfricaTanz (talk) 20:52, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

They are a special case because of the amount of duplication in place names between States. That isn't something other nations have to deal with as much. Blueboar (talk) 23:04, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Maybe they are the ones who should join the US's method instead of the other way around. --Golbez (talk) 21:04, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I am trying to convince some peope of that right now but getting nowhere. They prefer "Rombo" to "Rombo district, Tanzania" or the equivalent. They argue that the latter is too complex. I think the former is user unfriendly, especially because it is a Kiswahili word. I think people don't like my proposal because it's coming from me. AfricaTanz (talk) 22:31, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that would be good in so many ways. However many editors like to see articles at the primary name and don't agree with including more information in the article name, even if the vast majority of readers have no idea what the title is about (Rombo anyone?). One main argument is consistency. Yet, fully disambiguation place names produce the most consistency with the fewest exceptions. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:48, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Isn't the Rombo a ballroom dancing style? That's what many people will think. But who cares about them.... Two additional words in the article title would hurt nobody except those obsessed with questionable rules and who have never heard of WP:IAR. AfricaTanz (talk) 01:56, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

• Scintillating further reading on this point can be found in this super exciting discussion. Be forewarned: it's not for the faint of heart. AgnosticAphid talk 23:55, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:USPLACE appears to fall foul of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, but I assume that it would be fruitless to try to change it. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:50, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

• I always thought WP:USPLACE applied to cities (or as it says there, settlements). It's pretty well established, through multiple discussions, that US cities are titled Cityname, Statename regardless of whether the city name is unique. This is not just because the US is a big country; it is because Americans virtually always say the names of cities this way; it is the WP:COMMONNAME for US cities. And there are enough people who feel passionately about this that it will not change - not for cities. IMO there is no similar reason for counties to be named this way (and Omnedon is correct; all US counties are currently titled Countyname, Statename). But counties are not "settlements", to which USPLACE applies, and it is not customary to Americans to say the names of counties in this way. As far as I am concerned USPLACE applies to cities, not counties, and I would have no problem with renaming all unique county names to drop the state name - so that well known counties like Los Angeles County as well as lesser known ones like Stanislaus County or Placer County stand alone. (No doubt this opinion surprises the people with whom I have passionately contended about keeping USPLACE for cities - but it shouldn't. In fact I have often teased those people, asking them why they don't go after the county names if they are so committed to eliminating "unnecessary disambiguation", but they never responded.) --MelanieN (talk) 00:38, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Again... the issue here is how much weight to give the principle of Consistency, and how best to apply it. There are a lot US Counties names that are used in multiple states (Take a look at Essex County as a good example)... the articles on these counties need to have the State name attached to the title for disambiguation purposes. Of course, there are also many articles on counties that do not need this disambiguation (if the county has a unique name). When assessing for consistency, we have to compare the relative size of each group. If the number of articles that do need disambiguation overwhelms the number that don't need disambiguation, then we can say: "Adding the State name to all the titles (even when not needed) makes the titles more consistent." Blueboar (talk) 17:32, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd bet there is no data already existing about how many county names need disambiguation versus how many do not. AfricaTanz (talk) 18:04, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

For counties beginning with A, 11 need disambiguation out of 84. That's 13 percent. That does not argue for putting the state in every county name. AfricaTanz (talk) 18:09, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

For counties in California (which may not be typical), 9 out of 58 need disambiguation, or 15%. --MelanieN (talk) 18:53, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

In California, it does appear that many of the counties have unique names. Not surprisingly, many of them have a Spanish origin, which will not be at all common in many other states. In my experience, some states were more original than others in applying names to counties, cities, townships, et cetera, perhaps for a variety of reasons. California's history and proximity to Mexico probably had big influences on their naming choices. Omnedon (talk) 07:13, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I believe I can gen that up with a script I wrote to aid with township disambiguation. It could easily be modified for counties and uses census data. I will try to do that this weekend. For the record, I entirely agree with Blueboar's statement about consistency. Omnedon (talk) 18:11, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Even given those numbers, consistency is an important issue. With such a large group of articles, I feel it would be confusing and counterproductive to name some articles in one way (County, State) and others in another way (County). I don't see how this would help either the reader or the editor. Omnedon (talk) 18:14, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Based on a check of California's 58 counties, it appears that all the uniquely-named counties already have a redirect page under the county name alone. Just FYI. --MelanieN (talk) 18:24, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

If 13 percent is beyond your threshhold, what exactly is your threshhold? AfricaTanz (talk) 18:32, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, how did you produce a list of U.S. counties starting with "A"? older ≠ wiser 19:01, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Index of U.S. counties. AfricaTanz (talk) 06:37, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. It can't be relied on for a comprehensive evaluation of ambiguity though. It omits historical counties as well as non-U.S. counties. older ≠ wiser 12:32, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, but what we're talking about here are U.S. counties, I think. AfricaTanz (talk) 12:49, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but the need for disambiguating U.S. counties is not limited to U.S. counties. That is, there might be only one U.S. county with a particular name, but there may be a county in another country with the same name. For example Antrim County. older ≠ wiser 14:18, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

I was wondering this, too. If you counted 11 of 84 names that need disambiguation, that means that more than 13 percent of counties starting with "A" have the same name, since more than 11 counties have the 11 names. AgnosticAphid talk 20:34, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

I would say the threshold would be higher than 13%... but I suspect that if you did a complete survey you would find it higher. A look at two other States shows a higher percentage...

For New York... 41 out of 62 counties (66%) need disambiguation.

For Ohio... 64 out of 88 counties (73%) need disambiguation.

It would be interesting to find out which State has the largest number counties who's names need disambituation. A lot of the duplication seems to be repeated use of the names of Founding Fathers and Revolutionary War heroes, with the names of various American Indian tribes running a close third. Blueboar (talk) 21:46, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

I have downloaded the USGS data for the nation and put it into SQL. Of the 3036 entries in the database with a class of "Civil" and a name ending with " County", there are 425 names that are used at least twice. Just for fun, here are the top five:

Lincoln County: 23

Jackson County: 23

Franklin County: 24

Jefferson County: 25

Washington County: 30

A total of 1692 counties, or about 56%, would require disambiguation. Omnedon (talk) 01:04, 17 June 2013 (UTC) Separately from these statistics, I would also argue that since a county is a subdivision of a state, its official name would be (to take the initial example) "Bexar County, Texas". Yes, technically this concept could be extended to the nation, planet, solar system, et cetera -- but the existence of a county depends on the existence of a state, and counties are frequently referred to with the "County, State" form. In addition, including the name of the state better satisfies the titling requirement of conciseness, since a concise name is both short and descriptive (not just short). There are 50 states and thousands of counties, so it's not concise to simply say "Bexar County" in the context of an encyclopedia. Omnedon (talk) 01:29, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I just do not believe your 56 percent figure. For counties beginning with A and B, the statistic is nowhere close to even 25 percent. Counties, cities, etc. are all creatures of a legislative body. Why counties should be uniquely treated is very weird. Aside from that, the official name of Bexar County is just that - not Bexar County, Texas - regardless of what a county owned website might say. Of course it is more concise to say Bexar County than the alternative. One word shorter. 33 percent more concise. AfricaTanz (talk) 05:19, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

So, you believe I am lying? Blueboar has already stated that it is 73% in Ohio. Counties are not uniquely treated -- cities are treated the same way with the exception of those on the AP list, per WP:USPLACE. How do you conclude that the official name is Bexar County? And the definition of the word "concise" is not simply "shortest". A concise name is brief and comprehensive. It conveys much in few words. "Bexar County" conveys little by itself. Merely adding the state conveys much more. Omnedon (talk) 07:05, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Further, here are the top 10 most-duplicated county names in the US:

1. Marion County - 17
2. Monroe County - 17
3. Montgomery County - 18
4. Clay County - 18
5. Madison County - 19
6. Jackson County - 23
7. Lincoln County - 23
8. Franklin County - 24
9. Jefferson County - 25
10. Washington County - 30

This adds up to 214. That's more than 7% of the total number of counties in the United States right there. Some names are used much less frequently: of the 425 total duplicated names, 241 are used only twice. But that's still 482 articles that require disambiguation, or nearly 16%. It all adds up. Omnedon (talk) 07:33, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Something else to keep in mind... The need to disambiguate is not limited to repetition between US States... We have to check internationally as well... for example, while there is currently only one "Ontario County" in the United States (Ontario County, New York} there is another in Canada (Ontario County, Ontario). Blueboar (talk) 19:33, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Another example: Although there is only one Loudoun County and only one Loudon County, I imagine that many users looking for one of these articles appreciate the fact that the article titles clearly identify the state, so they don't have to visit the article to tell which spelling is the correct one for the county they are looking for. --Orlady (talk) 14:43, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Your 25% figure from above overlook the fact that you counted the numbers wrong, as I pointed out. You seem to have counted the number of names that are duplicated, but the relevant question is the number of counties with those duplicative names instead. There's 12 Adams County-s alone, so clearly more than 13% of A counties have the same name as another county. AgnosticAphid talk 20:45, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

County names continued

We are getting a bit off track... I don't think anyone is saying that we should not disambiguate those counties that need disambiguation... the question here is whether it is helpful or harmful to add the state names to those counties that don't need disambiguation. That's where issues like consistency and precision comes into play. Given the high number of counties that do need disambiguation, does it become more consistent and more precise to always add the state ... even to those counties that don't need it? I certainly think so. Blueboar (talk) 15:17, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I certainly agree. Otherwise I feel it would be confusing for both readers and editors to have, essentially, two different naming standards within a group of thousands of articles. In very rough terms, it would be half and half. Applying the same convention to all articles makes it very easy and consistent, and it is also common usage. Omnedon (talk) 15:20, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

There will be non confusion. It's not two different naming standards. It's one naming standard (use the shortest non-ambiguous common name) and one disambiguation method when needed (append state name when ambiguous). This method is used throughout most of Wikipedia with the glaring exception of U.S. place names (except neighborhoods of incorporated places which do not have a Wikipedia-wide standard it seems). --Polaron | Talk 18:31, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

One name would be required for some counties, another for other counties, and there would be 1600+ of one and 1300+ of another. It's much easier in this situation to use the "County, State" for all of them, so that the name is always predictable. Omnedon (talk) 19:25, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Agreed: given that so many would have to include the state regardless, it's reasonable to simply always include state. ╠╣uw [talk] 13:56, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

I believe that the original reason for the format the way it is is because why back when, many of the American place name articles and their titles were generated by a bot, so it became the de facto standard for American place names. This suited the rest of the project for cultural reasons. Americans often add a location to a place name. This is seen and heard in Hollywood movies: for example when the hero arrives in London and the screen shows Big Ben, a black taxi, a red double decker bus, and, in case anyone does not recognise those icons, text that reads "London, England". Other dialects of English do not usual do this as standard, the default name is the commonly used name in that dialect (so I think "national varieties of English" also has to be considered along with consistency as altering the Wikipedia customary naming of American counties is likely to have an impact on other parts of the project). -- PBS (talk) 13:38, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

You seriously believe that a few unnamed Hollywood movies is evidence of American culture? That's ridiculous, as is what bots allegedly did 15 years ago. AfricaTanz (talk) 00:46, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I would guess from your reply that you have nor read How to Win Friends and Influence People. Are you familiar with the diplomatic term "facts on the ground" or the old British marching song "We're Here Because We're Here because We're here". Decisions made in the past affect current Wikipedia policy and guidelines. For example if the decision had been made back at the start of the project to use official names, then that would probably be what was used today. If it had been decided to place biographies under "surname, given names" (as they are in categories and many other reference works) that is probably what would be used today. As to American culture, I used the cinema example as that is widely known for people who do not know any Americans (I assume most Americans know other Americans), are you arguing that it is uncommon for Americans to qualify names in that way? -- PBS (talk) 15:35, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

I believe that PBS is right on target with his comment on usage. As a natural born USA-American, I can confirm that the movies have it right. My fellow Americans generally use the city-plus-state (or county-plus-state) locution (e.g., "Louisville, Kentucky") when referring to places that aren't close by and aren't universally recognized. In contrast, I have observed that acquaintances from the UK almost always give just the city name when referring to their home cities -- even when far from home. [This can have amusing results when they are speaking with Americans who hear (for example) "Manchester" or "Birmingham" and interpret the name to mean (for example) Manchester, New Hampshire, or Birmingham, Alabama.] --Orlady (talk) 19:24, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

In most cases names are unambiguous if you are using them in the sphere where your usage is known and understood. Once you leave that sphere and the term can become ambiguous. For a world wide encyclopedia, we should strive to avoid the unambiguous names. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:08, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Bear in mind that movies that show locations are supposed to convey the actual location. Encyclopedia titles have no such requirement. Context is the function of the first sentence of an article, not its title. --Polaron | Talk 18:36, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

• I think the consistency component of wp:at is really quite beneficial when it comes to counties, Louisianan parishes, Alaskan boroughs or census areas, and cities (with the exception in wp:usplace of major metropolitan cities listed in the AP Stylebook). Having a hodgepodge of over 3,100 articles with the only consistency among their titles being determined based on whether they are random enough would seem to be a big step backwards. user:j (talk) 01:05, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Somehow, the consistently inconsistent has devolved into a virtue. The policy is to DB article names only when necessary, which leaves a hodgepodge of article titles for most geographical areas except for the only remaining superpower. But that's perfectly fine, right? Because the USA is the USA and Hollywood movies sometimes put text like "London, England" on the screen. This whole thing is absurd. AfricaTanz (talk) 03:26, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I presume you now accept that over half of the US county articles must be disambiguated anyway, right? Can you point to a similar situation in other nations? Omnedon (talk) 14:47, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Your presumption is incorrect. What other nations need is irrelevant. AfricaTanz (talk) 21:48, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Are you saying you still believe I have presented incorrect figures? If so, please do the analysis yourself and let us know what you find. Omnedon (talk) 21:57, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

• Stick with WP:USPLACE, for towns, counties and cities (all official place names). Neighborhoods, census designations, statistical locations, and localities simply use the simplest disambiguation. Apteva (talk) 16:37, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Hillary Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton?

Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton#Requested move 6 (June 2013)

What does policy mean by “spelling”?

Where WP:TITLETM says to use standard formatting “unless the trademarked spelling is demonstrably the most common usage” (emphasis added), does this apply solely to letter spelling, or does it also apply to unusual punctuation and other non-alphabetic characters? Or is it open to interpretation? —Frungi (talk) 02:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

For further info, as it says, see MOS:TM. This section has been unchanged, or nearly so, since it came in via a merge in Oct. 2009, in this edit. Before that, it's harder to trace to see how it evolved to the way it is. Dicklyon (talk) 02:56, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It was pretty much the same in the original draft of that merge, but reading the page history and discussion I can't figure out where this was merged from. In any case, it said "Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks)" from the start. At that time, the MOS:TM page had no mention of "spelling". Dicklyon (talk) 03:32, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd be more concerned about where "demonstrably the most common usage in sources independent of the owner of the trademark" came from. That's never been part of MOS:TM. It looks like Kotniski make it up when he made this section, and nobody has ever really looked at it. I don't think it represents typical practice, since we pretty much always use an English-like rendering of trademarks even when weirdly stylized ones are in common use (k.d. lang being the rare exception to MOS:TM that corresponds more to the current wording here). Dicklyon (talk) 04:31, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the history. Too bad it doesn’t really give any insight on what exactly was meant by the word. And that’s an interesting point about the “common usage” bit; do you think there’d be much resistance to a proposal to remove it? I mean, if it doesn’t reflect actual practice, it doesn’t belong, right? —Frungi (talk) 06:40, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

most commonly recognised. Preferred, not Must

I would like to clarify "most commonly recognised". In places, over the years, editors have often asserted that policy is that the title must be the most commonly used title. I think that has always been a mistake. While policy has been, and states, that the most commonly recognised title is preferred, that is soft language. The hard language, which I don't seem able to find, is that the article must be a commonly recognised name, for the topic.

Of course, for many ambiguous subjects, the most commonly recognized name may be claimed by different topics, if we allow for separate audiences for separate topics. The policy preference sometimes can't be maintained, but alternative (disambiguated) titles must still be commonly recognizable.

Does everyone agree with this? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 15:44, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

So it must be a commonly recognized name, not necessarily the most commonly recognized (though this is often preferable). No objections from me. (Full disclosure: I’m currently involved in a move debate that a change to this policy could affect, but I don’t believe it’s affecting my opinion here.) —Frungi (talk) 16:11, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I would oppose this since it would go against naturalness and recognizability. Besides the exceptions that are mentioned in the section it seems best to use the most commonly used name since that is an objective way to determine the article title. --GrandDrake (talk) 02:59, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree. WP:COMMONNAME says "Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural." But that preference in support of the recognizability criterion has to be considered and weighed against the other criteria. It's not a "must". Dicklyon (talk) 03:09, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

[I]t seems best to use the most commonly used name since that is an objective way to determine the article title. Really? Most commonly used where? In books that Google has so far digitized? On the web (where a title previously used in Wikipedia will have been replicated multiple times)? In the sources used for the article? In the most reliable sources? Only in non-specialist sources? If there is one, in the English-speaking country to which the article most relates? If there is no such country, in the US, since the majority of native English speakers live there? In publications by international bodies? There's no "objective" way to determine what is the most commonly used name in those cases where different names are used in different kinds of source. Many of the most intractable arguments are precisely about what kind of source should count (e.g. the argument about capitalizing the English names of birds).

More generally, this view is part of a general desire on the part of some editors, sincere and understandable but mistaken, to remove the need for consensus among article editors and replace it with fixed rules. It doesn't work, and attempts to do so just create rancour and drive editors away. WP:AT requires editors to balance a number of excellent principles; where the answer using different principles is different, such balancing can only be achieved by discussion. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:07, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Peter coxhead you ask "Most commonly used where?" but that is answered by "as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources". The rest is detail better handled in other sections or in the naming conventions. For example your question "Only in non-specialist sources?" that has to be weighed by "Deciding on an article title" under Recognizability – "... someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject will recognize". -- PBS (talk) 18:31, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Of course what you write is correct. But my comments were directed at the idea that there is an objective test. There is not. There are rules of thumb for what is a "reliable" source, but it has to be judged by the topic. The phrase "familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in" has to be worked out in specific cases – it has very different meanings for an article about a pop singer and an article about quantum physics. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

• I think it would be best to specify that the reliable sources have to be reliable for information about the topic, not just generally reliable. I would also very much like the policy to say explicitly that simple quantitative considerations (e.g. ngrams or google hit searches) should be avoided, or at least treated with skepticism. For example sometimes we have entities that used to be called one thing but now no-longer is called that in reliable sources, but the older usage persists for example in placenames and literary works named after the older usage, but which do not in fact constitute reliable sources for the topic, although they are reliable for their own usage. These sources that are then not about the topic being discussed will boost the older usage in quantitative measurements, skewing the results.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:32, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I think we should have some specific examples, and perhaps a template. We could create something that would generate Google scholar, book, news searches, ngrams, etc, for comparison purposes. In some cases, one COMMONNAME will dominate across all of these platforms (Deadmau5 was a great example of this), while sometimes it is contested (such as Cote d'Ivoire vs. Ivory Coast) - on that, it depends on which sources you use - African news sources? Encyclopedias? CIA World Fact Book? NY Times? BBC? etc. In such cases, where different sectors have different rankings of commonname, then it should probably be dropped, and other criteria used to determine the best name. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:50, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME needs copy-editing.

WP:COMMONNAME has been tweaked quite a bit lately. I am sure this is all a result of properly discussed and well thought-out consensus decisions. But it has left WP:COMMONNAME somewhat battered and quite hard to read. It really needs to be made into prose again, rather than a collection of loosely connected clauses that it has become now. One idea might be to first have paragraph explaining the basic idea of what COMMONNAME is, and afterwards another explaining the exceptions to it. This might also avoid some of all the repetitions that the policy text has now.TheFreeloader (talk) 19:08, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I suggest you try out any changed wording here first. The tweaks are the result of some discussions and consensus-building; it's important that the meaning isn't changed in the course of "copy-editing". Peter coxhead (talk) 11:10, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I would be opposed to any change in meaning of the following sentences: "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. This includes usage in the sources used as references for the article." I do not think that the meaning of those sentences should be changed since they support the characteristics of naturalness and recognizability. --GrandDrake (talk) 01:38, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Looking at WP:COMMONNAME, contemplating copy-editing by paragraph (P) and sentence (S):
P1.

S1. Information of no take away value?

S2. A topic may have multiple viable titling options.

S3 . “Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources)” This simplifies without loss to “Wikipedia prefers the name that is most prevalent in reliable English-language sources”
“as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural” A rationale for the previous. Rationales for policy go in supporting essays.

S4. A self-reference. No information value.

I suggest reducing paragraph 1 to its current actual information content: “For an article title, Wikipedia prefers the name that is most prevalent in reliable English-language sources”

P2

S1. “Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title” An “official” name is not necessary the best article title. Will be repeated at P3 S6. It then restates P1.

S2 The sources used to count usage must include the references sources. Implies that unused source may also contribute.

S3. Prefer new names over previous names (doesn’t apply to dead royal consorts?)

S4. Pointer to “National varieties of English” which will then point to the MOS

A weak paragraph high in redundancy. S1 is better stated by P3 S6 & P1. S3 requires the guidelines for any actual help. S4 is a pointer without unique information.
I suggest Rebuilding P2 from S2 and and P3 S7.

P3.

S1 See preceding section, Recognizability.Naturalness Precision.Conciseness.Consistency.

S2 Avoid ambiguity and inaccuracy.

S3 Avoid non-neutral; see next section

S4 You may weigh how common against problems.

S5 Avoid vulgar and pedantic

S6 Fine sentence, might be better reversed.

S7 Check other encyclopedias

While a good paragraph, consider the following: Group the three “avoid” sentences. Reverse S6 ("the preferred name may or may not be an official, scientific, birth, original, or trademarked names") and move it to P1. Move S7 into P2 S2. Drop S1 as redundant.
--SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:18, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Following the above notes, I would come up with:

For an article title, use a commonly recognizable name. The preferred name is usually the most prevalent name used in reliable English-language sources. This preferred name may or may not be an official, scientific, birth, original, or trademarked name.
In determining the prevalence of a name, consider the usage in the sources referenced in the article, and you may also consider other reliable sources. Also consider the choice made by other encyclopedias.
The most prevalent name used may be discounted in favor of another of significant but lesser prevalence, due to problems such as: ambiguity, inaccuracy, non-neutrality, vulgarity or pedantry.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:52, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

The problem with copy editing a policy section is that very often without intending to a copy edit changes the nuance of a paragraph. Also as has been thrown up by the WP:RM at "Talk:Hanged, drawn and quartered" the current prevalence of "name" in this section can confuse some and so the word title may be a more suitable option (although that has its own problems). One of the reasons why this policy was moved from "naming convention" to "article titles" was to get away from the idea the the title of the page was the correct name of the subject of the article. -- PBS (talk) 18:36, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I do realize that this isn't easy. That's also the reason why I initialized this discussion here, rather than just try to do it on my own. But I don't think that just because something is hard, it shouldn't be done. I think we can all agree that the section needs to become easier to read and more coherent, while maintaining the substance of its current form. So I guess we could make it a bit of a summer project to try to achieve that.TheFreeloader (talk) 19:18, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

That's not a bad suggested new version. I was worried at first seeing the "rationale" being thrown out, but it came back in the new first sentence as "use a commonly recognizable name". I still worry that the case is overstated in "The preferred name is usually the most prevalent ..." since that implies the recognizability "usually" trumps all the other title criteria. I'd be happier with "often". As for the recent inclusion of "sources referenced in the article", that's a complete distraction, part of the recent hackery whose purpose remains hard to discern. Dicklyon (talk) 23:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

It would be good to see this done as the current wording isnt clear to all readers. I agree with Dicklyon in that the source names used are a distraction only, we wouldnt give weight to names in old sources if the name had been changed at some point. And common sense would dictate that sourced names be included in any discussion where it wasnt necessarily clear as to what would be preferred. -- Nbound (talk) 00:44, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

On “usually” versus “often”. It is definitely “usually” if you count all articles equally. Maybe if you count by page views, drawing more on popular terms and less on specialized topics, then it may be less than usual that there is no reason to not use the most prevalent name used. If you count titles discovered by following RM listings, well that is highly biased towards cases with problems. Is this policy intended for people naming new articles, or is it intended for participants in contested RM discussions? I think it should be the first. Policies should not begin by assuming expert readers.

Does recognizability trump all other criteria? No... I think “recognizability” is a low level test that is very hard to throw away, but “most recognised” is easily discounted if there is a particular problem.

On “Sources referenced in the article” or “includes usage in the sources used as references for the article” as currently worded, I quite like the notion that the most important sources are the sources referenced. It motivates improving the referencing before initiating a RM discussion. I find it frustrating to wander in to a RM discussion on an article with poor referencing, with inadequate references to give a feel for how others discuss the topic.

On the use of “name” or “title” or “subject” or “topic”. Yes, “name” occurs too many times, and I think rewording to use “title” would be better. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:05, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

For the first part of the suggested text, how about:

For an article title, use a commonly recognizable name. The preferred name title is usually the most prevalent name used in reliable English-language sources. This preferred name which may or may not be an official, scientific, birth, original, or trademarked name.
In determining the prevalence of a name, consider the usage in the sources referenced in the article, and you may also consider other reliable sources. Also consider the choices made by other encyclopedias.

My problem with this part:

The most prevalent name used may be discounted in favor of another of significant but lesser prevalence, due to problems such as: ambiguity, inaccuracy, non-neutrality, vulgarity or pedantry.

is that I think it needs to refer back to the need to balance the "five characteristics" and not risk introducing different issues. So I would suggest:

In balancing the five desirable characteristics of an article title, the most prevalent name used may be discounted in favor of another of significant but lesser prevalence.

Even this isn't quite right, because in some cases a very uncommon name has been chosen (e.g. Fixed-wing aircraft to avoid a choice between "Airplane" and "Aeroplane"). Peter coxhead (talk) 09:43, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Do you know of any other examples of "in some cases a very uncommon name has been chosen"? At one time Airplane and Aeroplane did redirect to Fixed-wing aircraft, but no longer. Airplane is now an article to which Aeroplane redirects. So it's no longer the case that we use Fixed-wing aircraft in order to avoid having to decide between Airplane and Aeroplane.

Even if there are other examples, I suggest they are so rare that that they fall under WP:IAR, and there is no need to account for them in COMMONNAME wording. --B2C 20:52, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I hadn't realized that had changed. I don't know any examples quite like this one used to be, but Association football wasn't chosen because of it's prevalence. I agree that it's a mistake to try to cover all possible weird cases. I guess what I meant was that "significant but lesser prevalence" should perhaps just be "significant prevalence". Peter coxhead (talk) 21:19, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree that we need a rewrite. I have long thought that the section should try to better tie COMMONNAME into the 5 basic principles articulated in the CRITERIA section. COMMONNAME is really more about method than it is about result... Examining what the real world outside of Wikipedia uses when discussing the subject/topic, and following the most commonly used usage is how we determine what title will best achieve the desired balance.
One thing we need to make clearer... COMMONNAME is not a matter of simply counting google hits and seeing which variant is in the majority. Quality of sources needs to be factored in to the equation as well... if there is a clear commonality among the higher quality sources (referring to a topic as "X"), that can outweigh a larger commonality among sources of lower quality (referring to the topic as "Y"). Or to put it another way... if all the high quality sources call it "X", we should follow those... even if there are more low quality sources that call it "Y".
I also think the rewite could do more explain that, sometimes, there is no COMMONNAME... and tell editors what to do when a COMMONNAME can not be determined. This happens quite often. We need to say that when a look at the sources shows no significant difference in usage between two or three names... any of them would be acceptable as a title... and that they need to look beyond COMMONNAME to determine which to use. Blueboar (talk) 13:24, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

In general, I agree with your points. I think it's particularly important to mention the quality of the sources. I've encountered an argument which can be crudely paraphrased as "that's a high brow term which I didn't know, so it isn't a COMMONNAME". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; titles should be encyclopedic.
So can you suggest specific changes to the wording? Peter coxhead (talk) 14:01, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Not yet... what I am thinking about is more of a complete rewrite... something that would require a lot more than a simple tweak or added sentence (and thus a lot more discussion). So I want to do more thinking to make sure I do it right... I am hoping to find language that I think clarifies the concept of COMMONNAME... explains the nuances we have been discussing... and does it all clearly and concisely - without changing the underlying meaning of the policy. Not easy, nor something to do quickly. Blueboar (talk) 14:41, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree, a rewrite that better relates to the criteria is needed. Too often people invoke COMMONNAME in support of a counting argument. I'd be careful about how much emphasis we put on high-quality sources, though, as some interpret that as meaning specialist sources; it's better to put more emphasis on high-quality sources written for a non-specialist audience. Also, we should make it clear that even very significant differences in commonness are OK when choosing between names; we often choose a less concise and less common name to improve precision (e.g. Dwight D. Eisenhower over the more common Eisenhower, even though he is primarytopic for that more concise very common name (though the precision criterion has been twisted to discourage doing so). Dicklyon (talk) 16:16, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

The WP:CRITERIA were reverse-engineered from policy stalwarts like WP:COMMONNAME, thus yielding naturalness and recognizability. I agree it's a good idea to rewrite COMMONNAME in those terms.

As to quality of sources, I agree it's important to distinguish general usage from usage in reliable sources, but trying to refine quality of sources beyond that opens the door for more disagreement of the "my source is of higher quality than yours" kind. Then we have to talk about quality of sources and how to discern among sources in that respect. I'm pretty sure that's not currently documented anywhere (and I suggest for good reason). I don't think we want to go down that path, and probably should even guide against doing so. Usage in reliable sources should be our guiding light, period. --B2C 21:03, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Disagreement over what counts as a reliable source is one of the major factors in the most intractable disputes over article titles. Not to offer any guidance at all is surely just a cop-out, reducing the usefulness of WP:AT. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

But back in 2008, the common name page included discussion of exceptions for enhanced precision, cleaner disambiguation and/or solution of naming conflicts, which might lead to article names that are rather "the most obvious" than strictly spoken "the most used". Also Other exceptions are contained in the Manual of Style. Most of that got dropped from the modern COMMONNAME section, which is why it has been left sounding so autocratic and is so often misapplied by being considered in isolation. Dicklyon (talk) 21:46, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Peter, guidance about what counts as a reliable source is documented quite extensively at WP:RS. Are you suggesting we should duplicate/fork that here?

Anyway, I do agree on providing guidance about that (whether it's by deferring to WP:RS or adding some clarification here too). My objection is to trying to subdivide the category of reliable sources into higher and lower quality reliable sources, and giving more weight to "higher quality" reliable sources than to "lower quality" reliable sources. That just seems like a can of worms. Plus, when we're determining what is most natural and recognizable, what difference does it make whether the reliable sources we examine are of the caliber of the New York Times, or that of the the SomeSmallTown Gazette? These are all published sources that are, in aggregate, likely to reflect the very usage that determines what is most natural and recognizable, no? --B2C 23:57, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, quality of sources already has to be assessed when determining due weight for different viewpoints in articles. Although that is usually done by considering technical sources, while COMMONNAME probably has to consider sources aimed at laypeople (if available). I don't know if this makes it harder than otherwise to evaluate the quality of sources. It might be.TheFreeloader (talk) 02:52, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

The considerations for determining DUE WEIGHT don't apply to COMMON NAME. The whole point of looking at usage in RS rather than usage in all sources is to exclude biases that might be reflected in unreliable sources like Facebook, discussion forums, and blogs. Once we weed that out we're good. No need to go beyond that in terms of classifying reliable sources by quality. 💋 --B2C 04:19, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

What counts as a reliable source for different purposes differs. For example, WP:MEDRS rightly lays down very strict criteria for sources supporting medical claims; basically it only accepts review articles in medical sources. But if you are deciding on the title of an article about a disease, such sources should be given low weight; they are too specialized for this purpose. WP:RS and the like are not concerned with what counts as a reliable source for the purpose of deciding on an article title.
Dicklyon has made some good points; I hadn't realized how different COMMONNAME used to be, and spirit of the 2008 version does seem better to me. The present version is too "narrow"; its main message seems to be "never mind the quality, feel the width" (or to be more precise, "measure the width"). Peter coxhead (talk) 06:52, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

B2C, why does there not need to be further classification of sources? I think the suggestion to especially look at high quality sources has been in the policy text for quite a long time, and taking it out of the policy text would be a change in the policy which would need justification.TheFreeloader (talk) 11:42, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

For editors' information, there's a vigorous Requested move debate currently going on at Talk:Moctezuma II which encapsulates many of these problems. The Aztec ruler is known to leading English-language scholars active in the field as "Moctezuma"; but he has traditionally been known as "Montezuma", which therefore scores highly on metrics, and is likely to be the form most searchers will use. WP:COMMONNAME has been cited in support of the proposed move. GrindtXX (talk) 12:07, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and the close is now being discussed at Wikipedia:Move_review/Log/2013_July#Moctezuma_II exactly because the close seems to rest on the idea that WP:COMMONNAME means that "layman's sources trump specialist sources", instead of COMMONNAME being based on the usage of reliable sources for the topic. I am considering making an RfC to clarify the policy in this regards.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 11:37, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I would change "rest on the idea" to "assert" I think this is important to resolve. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:45, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I have given this some though and I think that having a summary paragraph at the start of a policy section is a bad idea. This has recently led to a log debate over the OR section WP:PSTS. The problem is that people tend to spot the differences between the initial summary and the body of the section, and this leads to more strife than it alleviates. While some styles of documents benefit from a summary, a contract or a treaty usually do not have paragraphs that summarise content as it is easy to see that such a paragraph can lead to confusion. -- PBS (talk) 16:35, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

PBS, this is an easy to agree with post, but what exactly are you talking about? Are you suggesting deleting the text we are discussing copy-editing? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:47, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Sunn band's naming

Sunn (band) → Sunn O))) may be of interest to you, considering it revolves around several issues on policies and guidelines. See talk:Sunn (band)#Requested move 2 -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 04:53, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Hope to introduce new guidelines on Chinese/Korean/Japanese surnames

There is an on going discussion, but I think changing the guideline is beyond the scope of that. What I am proposing here has these grounds:

1. using pure English titles makes it even harder to look up as an encyclopaedic term.
2. multiple characters have the same/similar pronunciation.(dozens of homonym, homophones)

The current guideline states to always use transliterations, but obviously it is creating more problems than it tries to solve. Illiterates of the block letter language and new learners will have trouble looking up the correct word, even if they have the correct character in hand. The block letter languages makes use of visual parts to help users to recognize the words, instead of just using the pronunciation of it. The proposal of giving the characters a meaning is also completely useless, since the same character can have multiple meanings yet multiple characters can also have the same meaning in English.(say, 靈, 魂 and 魄 can all be translated to just "soul" or "ghost") and there are a lot of surnames that has long dropped they original meaning to begin with.(some are simply location names, or even a word made up as a reward from the emperor). It will be much more reasonable to have a disambiguation page for the homophones, but yet the pages itself should use the block character itself as a better indication of what the page is about. Seriously, as a person who understands Chinese, I find it impossible to understand what surname character I am looking for with the current "X (surname character meaning Y)" type of naming, and find it rather offensive, since the names may not even be originated as what word the page currently used at all. As an example, Lee does not neccessarily mean plum, according to a few legends, it originated as 理 "reason", which is a homophone, but had to change the writing due to being chased down by authorities, and others relating it back to Laozi gets connection of it meaning "tiger" in his dialect(which is also the coat of arms of a certain tribe of the Lee family). It is quite obvious that whoever proposed the change has little to none understanding of the Chinese language. In a purely vocal description of the character in Chinese, it is usually stated as 木子李 "Lee, Wood+Son"(notice the written parts consisting of the two characters, instead of "plum". It is more often that the given names are related to the meaning instead of the surname. (Especially in some areas, we don't even call plums as 李 anymore, since it it an homophone of 梨 pear, people in Hong Kong for example call plum "布冧", which is a transliteration of plum) I believe the guideline was created because we want more user friendly titles, and a direct approach to that is to make sure the naming is in English so users can type in the name easier. However, in this case, it will make the search much harder. Using the original character in the title gives these advantages:

1. Recognizability
2. Natural
3. Precise
4. Concise
5. Consistence (once made public)

Which is what this guideline looks for. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 10:20, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. This is the English-language Wikipedia. Use of non-roman characters in article titles fails on recognizability for the vast majority of our readers, not to mention WP:ACCESS problems. This is a complete non-starter. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:32, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, we should be following what English-language sources refer to things as. No English-language source will use Chinese characters. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:50, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

• • 'comment Please think of this in a more practical way, not making things more difficult than it needs to be. Also, see WP:NONENG and your ignorant in accademic papers —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 10:53, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
• Comment - to aid searching, I could see allowing non-English language characters to be used in a redirect ... but I would avoid them in the actual title of the article. That should be in English. Blueboar (talk) 12:41, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

No problem with that. There are already redirects of this nature. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:43, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

• • Question why would we want to use a title that no body will use just because we have to coop with a guideline that did not take into account the practicality? WP:BURO if we insist on the current guideline, it seems to be just a plain bureaucratic decision since it got no practical purpose other than serving the bureaucratic needs. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 14:10, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose There was a long discussion at Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit")#Requested move where there was no consensus to move to a title using Chinese characters. I explained my reasons in some detail there. Briefly, in the English Wikipedia, it must be possible to type either the article's title or an "obvious" equivalent on any standard English keyboard.
  What I mean by "obvious" is best explained by examples. There's no great problem with diacritics in titles. Consider Brontë family; there's an obvious non-diacritic redirect, Bronte family. Hence we can arrange for "Brontë family" to be easily reachable by typing only visually equivalent ASCII characters. The same applies to the multiply character in hybrid species. Consider Musa × paradisiaca; there's an obvious redirect using an "x" at Musa x paradisiaca. Again we can arrange for any title using a multiply sign to be easily reachable by typing only a visually equivalent ASCII character. But suppose the title contains 李. There's simply no way someone not able to read Chinese and using a standard English keyboard can reach this article via its title. This is unacceptable in the English Wikipedia.
  By all means have a redirect for those who can input Chinese characters, but not the article title. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:32, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
• Comment This is just WP:forum shopping as far as I can tell. There have been repeated discussions of this issue, e.g. at Talk:Li. There's never been a consensus to use Chinese characters in article titles. It's time-wasting to raise it again here, in my view. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:44, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Reply There is also no consensus to move it to the current title as well, no discussion at all. And obviously the other pages that were moved were all using the Chinese characters for a long time. I'd say this is a very bad practice here, you moved it without discussion, and insist there's no consensus to move it back. No, there's no consensus to move it in the first place, the move itself is without consensus, and performed by people with little expertise in the language itself that do not even know that the surnames carries different meanings than the one used. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 16:05, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
  • PS about WP:ACCESS, as I've stated above, the new naming method used (X as the meaning of Y) is less likely to be used and understood by common users. it got a worse accessibility than the Chinese characters. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 16:16, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I didn't move anything. You don't deal with the point I made at all. Any naming system that includes characters that can't be input by a monolingual English speaker with an English keyboard and which can't be read to such a person by a screen reader if they have a sight problem isn't appropriate in the English Wokipedia. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:25, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Due to conciseness, consistency, naturalness, and recognizability. As for precision it only requires that the article be sufficiently precise to unambiguously identify the article's subject and that can be done without using other languages. --GrandDrake (talk) 23:39, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Deadmau5 in WP:COMMONNAME?

Considering the facts that (1) the Deadmau5/deadmaus debate ended in the decision that Deadmau5 is correct, and (2) because that decision hinged on the WP:COMMONNAME policy, and (3) because this decision is and already has been used as a rationale for changing the titles of other pages, such as Tech N9ne, which was recently moved from "Tech Nine", might it be a good idea to add "Deadmau5, not Deadmaus" to the examples in the WP:COMMONNAME policy? I think it would be very helpful to editors.

Please let me know what you think. Thanks. MidnightRequestLine (talk) 20:18, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

No, this is a controversial addition to policy, and, actually goes against most of the guidelines. It is more of a common sense exception than the rule. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:06, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Inadequacy of current WP:UE guideline with regard to Chinese names

WP:UE currently states that: "Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, such as Greek, Chinese, or Russian names, must be transliterated." However, this causes a problem with three states in ancient China (named 黎, 郦, and 厉 in Chinese) that all transliterate as "Li" in English. To further complicate the issue, three different surnames have originated from these states, and are also transliterated to "Li". The three surnames currently reside at Lí (surname), Li Surname (郦), and Li (surname meaning "whetstone") (recently moved to this wrong title), respectively. This mess has resulted in lengthy discussions on several related pages, especially at Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit").

The obvious solution is to use the original Chinese character as disambiguator, but that has been challenged on the basis of WP:UE. However, after two weeks of endless discussion, no viable alternative has been provided. The root of the problem is that it's the very transliteration mandated by WP:UE that causes the ambiguity, when multiple distinct Chinese characters transliterate into the same English spelling. I propose that we amend the guideline to allow disambiguating using the original language when ambiguity results from the mandated transliteration itself (but only as a last resort when other workarounds cannot be found). The same problem also occurs with numerous other Chinese surname articles. -Zanhe (talk) 23:15, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think WP:UE applies for terms in parenthetical disambiguations. I really see WP:UE as an extension of WP:UCN (telling editors to look at what English language sources are doing), and I think WP:UCN only applies to the main part of the title, the part which isn't in parenthesis. And WP:NATURAL and WP:DAB which do regulate these disambiguation terms do not include anything on this matter. So I think this matter will have to be settled over at the naming conventions for Chinese-related article, WP:NC-CHINA, where some general rule for these kinds of situations can be made.TheFreeloader (talk) 00:06, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Think of our audience... the typical reader of the English language version of wikipedia does not understand Chinese characters... so adding a Chinese character will not help the typical reader to disambiguate between the various topics. The disambiguation has to be done using English. Blueboar (talk) 01:51, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, otherwise we might as well disambiguate by adding an arbitrary string of unique characters. older ≠ wiser 02:04, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

It's easy to say we have to use English only, but after two weeks of endless discussion, no viable alternative using English only has been found. See analysis of alternatives below. And I think it's inappropriate to equate the names in the original language with arbitrary strings. -Zanhe (talk) 09:44, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

No, but for a reader such as myself who doesn't read or understand Chinese text, the symbols are quite worthless to me. I think a useful, even if ugly, disambiguator is more valuable than an elegant one that few readers will understand. Resolute 15:47, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Clearly neither solution is optimal. The (surname meaning "X")-disambiguator is rather cumbersome and clumsy. The Chinese character is hard to remember for people who do not read Chinese, and may not be able to render on all devices. But seen from the position of someone looking up a surname, I think the Chinese character is better, since the (surname meaning "X")-form presupposes that the person looking the article already knows what the name means, something one might very well have turned to the encyclopedia to find out. The Chinese character, on the other hand, only presupposes that the person who looks up the article has the Chinese character for the name at hand, something I think is more likely.

But in the end, my point is that this is just not the right venue for this discussion. WP:UE has, in my reading of it, no objections to raise to either solution. What WP:UE would speak against is to try to make the Chinese character into a natural disambiguation, since then the average English reader would have absolutely no idea what to expect the article to contain. It would also fail the naturalness criterion, since I find it hard to imagine that an English-language text aimed at non-Chinese speakers would ever just use the character without specifying its meaning. I could however quite readily imagine either of the two parenthetic disambiguation option being used in an English-language text.TheFreeloader (talk) 02:30, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Are there academic publications in English that discuss the different surnames (by sociologists, for example)? If not, or if such publications' method of differentiating the surnames prove inadequate for Wikipedia, how about, for example, Li (surname. Falling tone, 厲: "whetstone")? It seems that meaning, character, and tone are the 3 most likely ways an English speaker would have had the type of Li explained to him/her. I expect that meaning is probably the one that a non-Chinese speaker is most likely to remember, and would therefore be the most useful, but some readers might have a written version of the name at hand for comparison.--Wikimedes (talk) 03:37, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

That would be a good way to do it. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 06:10, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry but no. That's equivalent to a title like John (name meaning toilet). See more detailed reasoning below. -Zanhe (talk) 09:27, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

No it isn't. This is misdirection. The origin of the name "John" is not from the toilet, and even if there were multiple meanings of the name "John", we would most likely cover them on the same page "John (name)" rather than split to separate articles, as the etymology would not be apparent when reading the name "John", much like the etymology is not apparent to an English speaker when reading the name "Li". --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:45, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

"The origin of the name John is not from the toilet": of course not, and that's exactly the point: the origin of Ji is not concubine and the origin of Li is not whetstone. And are you saying that Lee (English surname) and Lee (Korean surname) need be merged? -Zanhe (talk) 10:04, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't necessarily disagree with that suggestion, but it's not too much of a problem as it's clearly delineated. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:45, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, the different Chinese names are also clearly delineated in the original language. It's only the process of transliteration mandated by the policy that causes the ambiguity. That's why the policy needs to be amended to address that deficiency. -Zanhe (talk) 12:52, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Many English publications that need to deal with large lists of Chinese names put the Chinese original in parentheses. For example, see the article titles of Biographical Dictionary of New Chinese Entrepreneurs and Prominent Indonesian Chinese. -Zanhe (talk) 11:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

On the other hand, covering all the surnames Li in a single article would probably be a lot easier and avoid lengthy naming discussions that detract from article writing.--Wikimedes (talk) 04:07, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Whether a single article is better or not for "Li" doesn't mean that it applies in all cases. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 06:10, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

And it would introduce a whole new slew of problems (with WP:DAB and wikidata/interwiki) without fixing any existing ones, simply shifting them to the section title level. See more detailed reasoning below. -Zanhe (talk) 09:39, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm also in favour of this method. There have been lengthy discussions on this at Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit"). As we don't differentiate between the surnames in English, a larger article benefits the reader. As I've said elsewhere: "If we present the information on a single article, scholars of Chinese and English-only readers alike can find the information easily without struggling through a dozen different articles trying to find the right one." and "We can make one encyclopedic article, or a muddle of stubs of dubious notability with confusing disambiguators. And as other editors have pointed out, all variations of the surname "Li" are treated the same way in English. I'm not saying we don't differentiate, I'm saying that we cover every one on a single article. What do we lose that way? If anything, we gain, because the ones that would not be notable in their own right, get coverage that they would not otherwise receive." Also, there's the issue of WP:ACCESS. --Rob Sinden (talk) 06:30, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

"What do we have to lose?" it defeats the whole purpose of WP:DAB and breaks Wikidata (as they all have separate articles on Chinese, Japanese and other wikis). Yet it does not fix the problem for English readers. They still have to go to the one huge article to find out which name is which, ultimately still using the original Chinese characters. -Zanhe (talk) 12:18, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

• 100% oppose any suggestion that we allow Chinese characters in article titles (and WP:AT does include the disambiguator). It fails on recognizability for anyone who is not a Chinese reader. And this is the English Wikipedia, so we need to make all article titles recognizable to English reading people. Also, it causes WP:ACCESS problems. --Rob Sinden (talk) 06:32, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Robin and Wikimedes, can you listen to those who know the language and not use your own language to judge others? English is a sound based language, and the spelling simply show the sound of the word, so it works in the way you are talking about. The Block letter languages starts from pictures, and is not a sound based language, so different characters are completely different words, and thus should not be placed in the same page. What you are proposing here, stating because they sounded the same so we should place them in the same page? its like placing the names John, Sean, Jean (french name), etc. in the same page calling it names that homophones with John, which obviously makes no sense at all. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 11:16, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Rob, you don't need to shout. It's arguable whether WP:AT includes the disambiguator or not. But no matter, if the current policy mandating transliteration causes new problems of ambiguity (there's no ambiguity in the original language), the policy is obviously deficient and it needs to be addressed. -Zanhe (talk) 11:22, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

• 100% oppose Chinese characters in titles, agreeing with reasons provided by Rob Sinden above. The solution for surnames is to merge all Li articles into Li (surname). As for the 3 kingdoms, there are other ways to distinguish them (by year maybe, for example like the 2 Jin Dynasty. Timmyshin (talk) 07:27, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

That "solution" has been discussed ad nauseum and does not work. There are 8 different surnames that transliterate as Li in total, merging them violates WP:DAB, breaks Wikidata, and solves no problem for English readers: they still have to figure out which is which within the big article, ultimately using the Chinese characters. -Zanhe (talk) 10:12, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

• A summary of why proposed alternatives don't work (already discussed ad nauseum at Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit")):
  • Alternative 1 (Disambiguation by name meaning) is wrong. Most Chinese surnames originate from names of ancient states or places. Many of these names have no other meaning at all, whereas some others have over the millennia evolved to acquire new meanings unrelated to the surname. For example, Jī (surname) (姬), the royal surname of the Zhou Dynasty, was named after the Ji River, but in modern usage it means concubine. Using such meanings to disambiguate the surnames is simply wrong and sometimes offensive. Any similar proposal regarding familiar English names would be instantly met with disbelief and ridicule: just imagine article titles like John (name meaning toilet), Randy (name meaning lustful), or Sandy (name meaning full of sand).
  • Alternative 2: (No disambiguation and merging the articles into one) introduces more problems than it solves. It ignores the fact that all these names have completely different origins and thousands of years of divergent history, and lumps them together just because they happen to share the same spelling in English. That would be an outright violation of the WP:Disambiguation guideline and would create a huge mess with interwiki. And for what gain? It solves no problem whatsoever, simply shifting it from the article title level to the section title level within the one big article. Ultimately the different names with the same spelling still have to be distinguished by their original Chinese characters. In summary, it would introduce a whole new slew of problems without fixing any existing ones.

In summary, after two weeks of endless discussion on multiple talk pages, no viable alternative has yet been offered. -Zanhe (talk) 09:17, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I would urge any interested party to actually read the discussions, rather than to accept the above editor's interpretation of events. This "summary" is misrepresentative and biased to their own opinion. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:27, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

If you think any part of my reasoning is faulty, refute it and offer a solution that works, instead of simply saying no, as you've been doing for a whole week. We need a working solution, not endlessly clinging to inadequate current policy and calling people who disagree with you a cabal. -Zanhe (talk) 09:34, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

The usage of Chinese characters was pretty much ruled out in the move request. Other solutions have been offered, but you refuse to compromise away from anything that does not include a Chinese character. So much so that you are trying to change the policy in order to fit the view of yourself and a handful of other Chinese speakers. Remember, this is English Wikipedia, and it should be accessible for English speakers. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:40, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Could you stop twisting the facts to suit your own needs? The move request ended in "No consensus", meaning nothing is ruled out. As I've already spent so much time explaining to you in the past week, hiding the characters from the article titles solves no problem for English speakers. They'll still have to distinguish them in the section title level, ultimately using the Chinese characters. -Zanhe (talk) 10:00, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

• Support Reason listed above. WP:ACCESS is THE REASON here. NO ONE is going to use what Robinsinden proposed, who know nothing in Chinese, and most of those who oppose the idea is WP:IDONTLIKEIT who know little to none Chinese or any block letter language, and keep using a faulty reasoning about access. No, people who don't know what the word is will not type in "X surname meaning Y" in the search box, it helps nobody. I'll support your argument if you can give me a reasonable reason why anyone with little knowledge of the word will do this.
• Additional grounds:

1. Even academic papers uses the Chinese characters to distinguish the surnames, do a simple search and there's tons of it.
2. What is being used now is the equivalent of this: Robin (Medieval diminutive of Robert, meaning bright fame)", who in their right mind uses this kind of title? no one, the only reason this was done is because of the WP:POINT argument made with the current guideline, which is WP:BURO. People come to wikipedia for answers, not because they have knowledge of the topic, most canNOT tell the exact pronunciation and meaning of the word BEFORE they read the article, so the current title used are plain USELESS.
3. Most who can compare pictures can compare the character with the one in the title, and click on the link to it, and those who got their character on a computer or smartphone can copy and paste, so the WP:ACCESS problem is NOT a problem. In fact, its much less of a problem than the special latin characters suggested in the WP:UE, a regular English computer user don't really know how to type all those ç, ø, and ö, etc. as well, but if they are found predominate in English language reliable sources and this can be a grounds, obviously this can be applied to block letter languages as well.(which a google scholar search returns with many academic sources that uses the original character in them as well.) —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 11:05, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Regarding WP:ACCESS, we asked at the project page and User:Graham87 commented as follows: "I can confirm that screen readers read all Chinese characters as question marks unless specifically instructed otherwise (i.e. by the use of a Chinese-language speech synthesizer or by multi-megabyte pronunciation dictionaries which almost nobody uses), so for that reason alone, they should not be in article titles." --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:19, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Again, disallowing Chinese characters as a disambiguator does not solve the WP:ACCESS problem, simply shifting it to the section title level. If a user really wants to learn about the similar-sounding Chinese surnames, he or she simply has no choice but using a Chinese-language speech synthesizer or dictionary. -Zanhe (talk) 12:35, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Regarding those "who know little to none Chinese", I remind you again that this is English-language Wikipedia, and we should assume that all readers "know little to none Chinese". The only people that support the use of Chinese characters are Chinese speakers. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:21, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

If someone really wants to differentiate the Chinese names that sound exactly the same, they have no choice but learn to tell the difference between the original Chinese characters. That's why most academic publications that deal with large number of Chinese names usually add the original Chinese in parentheses. And don't forget that the "Chinese speakers" you refer to are also English speakers, or we wouldn't be posting here. We simply have the cultural background in both languages, understand the nuances in both cultures, and would not make incompetent mistakes such as yours. -Zanhe (talk) 12:35, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Robin, your argument is faulty, users knowing little to none Chinese look for useful information that can help them, not stupidly named pages made up by ignorant editors who have no knowledge in the subject that gives them zero information and impossible redirections. Also, wikipedia works in unicode, which should display the terms right as long as you have installed it. Users who looks for information about Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters have to tell the difference of the terms sooner or later. Using the characters in the title solves the problem for these users, while it might not solve the problem for those who did not have unicode installed, it is still better than using the methods you have proposed, which solves no problems but introduces more redirects. Also, most smartphones(androids and iOS alike) and newer OSs have unicode to begin with, most newer versions of Windows as well. So the method of having the character in the title is just going to be more and more useful. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 13:25, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Myth... You say "Users who looks for information about Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters have to tell the difference of the terms sooner or later." ... I have to quibble... I think it highly unlikely that non-chinese speaking users will be looking for information about Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters. Our readers would be looking for information about the anglicized words or names. English speaking readers will be looking for information on the anglicized name "Li", not the Chinese characters 黎, 郦, or 厉. Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

For those who are less intellectually curious, yes, all they need to know is that Bruce Lee, Robert E Lee, and Lee Myung-bak all have the same family name. For those who do want to find out the unique origins and thousands of years of divergent history of different surnames, they ultimately do need to be able to tell the difference between the original characters. -Zanhe (talk) 14:44, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

No... they don't need to be able to tell the difference... they need to be told that there is a difference, and what that difference is. That is something that should be done in the article text, not in the title. Blueboar (talk) 16:31, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, you are using yourself to judge others, and tries to eliminate people who are here for actual info.

1. Quoted from WP:MTAU:

• On familiarity with the subject.
  • The general reader has no advanced education in the topic's field, is largely unfamiliar with the topic itself, and may even be unsure what the topic is before reading.
  • The knowledgeable reader has an education in the topic's field but wants to learn about the topic itself.
  • The expert reader knows the topic but wants to learn more or be reminded about some fact, or is curious about Wikipedia's coverage.

The "X surname meaning Y" targets none of these subjects, and "X (Chinese character)" targets the 2nd and 3rd, while the 1st can tell by comparing the character in the blankets as long as unicode is installed in their system(which is more and more wide spread nowadays).

1. Also, as stated above, we don't group contents together just because they are homophones and you cannot tell them apart just because you don't know the language.
2. Yes, they don't need to be able to tell the difference in the title, but it is the easiest way to solve the problem, and no other proposed method solves the problem. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 16:49, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

The only way to satisfactorily address point 1 would be to explain all the differences and nuances on a single page. --Rob Sinden (talk) 17:13, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Thinking outside the box

I have an unorthodox suggestion that (to my mind) would resolve the issue. All of the articles in question are about surnames that, in English, are anglicized as "Li"... So... I would suggest merging them into one single Li (surname) article. Start the combined article off with a sentence that says something along the lines of:

• "Li is the anglicization for three distinct Chinese surnames (presented as 黎, 郦, and 厉 in Chinese)".

Then go on to discuss each surname in its own section - Li (黎), Li (郦) and Li (厉)... noting the differences in meaning, tonality, etc. Do this and there is no longer a need for disambiguation at the title level. Blueboar (talk) 14:01, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I have also made the same suggestion, which seems like a reasonable solution, but this appears unacceptable to our Chinese-speaking friends. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:18, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this suggestion is hardly novel. That someone is saying it is "thinking outside the box" merely means that person did not bother to read the discussion. _dk (talk) 14:21, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Rob, I've explained the downsides of that approach to you on at least five different occasions. Again, instead of refuting my reasoning with solid arguments, you repeatedly use words like "cabal" and "our Chinese-speaking friends" insinuating some kind of conspiracy. That's nothing but personal attack. -Zanhe (talk) 14:31, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a fair assumption that the only people arguing in favour of the usage of Chinese characters can speak Chinese. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:33, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Even if that assumption were true, does that justify your continued insinuation of conspiracy? -Zanhe (talk) 14:54, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

And I've explained to you at least as many times why we cannot use Chinese characters. Your arguments have also been refuted many times. But apparently you are right and I am wrong. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:36, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

What's your argument other than "WP:UE is sacrosanct and it is worth breaking other parts of Wikipedia to keep it the way it is"? -Zanhe (talk) 14:54, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Again, you're misrepresenting me. Recognizability and accessibility are my main issues. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:27, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

As I've already explained many times, disallowing Chinese characters as a disambiguator does not solve the WP:ACCESS problem, simply shifting it to the article level. And what's recognizability, isn't that the same as WP:UE? -Zanhe (talk) 15:37, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Umm - recognizability is number one on the list of naming criteria! --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:17, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Basically you're saying the characters are not recognizable because they are not English, that's the same as WP:UE. -Zanhe (talk) 20:25, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

This proposal has already been discussed multiple times elsewhere. See above. The main downside is it violates WP:DAB and breaks Wikidata, without making it easier for English speakers to distinguish the surnames. The root of the problem is that ambiguity results from the transliteration mandated by WP:UE, and I think it's best to fix WP:UE itself rather than hold it sacrosanct while breaking other parts of Wikipedia. -Zanhe (talk) 14:22, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Is the Wikidata issue really that important? And does it really violate WP:DAB? And why do you assert that WP:UE is broken? It isn't. We don't use Chinese characters for very good reason. Certainly better reasons than for ensuring Wikidata is supported. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:27, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Is absolutely not allowing Chinese characters (only as disambiguator and only as a last resort) at the expense of everything else really that important? WP:UE is deficient because the very transliteration requirement it mandates results in ambiguity that cannot be easily resolved without resorting to the original language, thus creating a Catch-22 situation. -Zanhe (talk) 15:06, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

In fact, per WP:DABCONCEPT: "If the primary meaning of a term proposed for disambiguation is a broad concept or type of thing that is capable of being described in an article, and a substantial portion of the links asserted to be ambiguous are instances or examples of that concept or type, then the page located at that title should be an article describing the broad concept, and not a disambiguation page." --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:29, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

)ec) I am sorry if this is something that has been discussed before... you came here for third party (outside) opinions, and so I presented the idea as an outsider to those previous debates. I am not sure how a merge violates WP:DAB (as Rob notes, DAB seems to explicitly encourage such a merger) ... perhaps someone could explain. Also, explain how would it break Wikidata? Blueboar (talk) 14:36, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

The terms are not a broad concept. They have nothing in common at all except their spelling in English, which is why disambiguation is needed. Saying the three different states (黎, 郦, 厉) and the surnames derived from them are one "broad concept" just because they are all spelled the same is like saying Georgia (country) and Georgia (US state) are the same concept. It breaks Wikidata because in other languages (Chinese, Japanese, etc.) the surnames have separate articles which cannot be mapped to a big single English article. -Zanhe (talk) 15:00, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Nothing in common except their spelling in English... and the fact that they are surnames. That gives them two things in common that we can hang a merged article on. Blueboar (talk) 15:53, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Seriously, that is a complete nonsense way of doing things based on little knowledge in the subject, i.e. ignorant. Just because they have something in common does not mean we should have them together in one article, just like we will not have boar and bore in the same article just because they are homophones. Even as dictating as the Chinese government, they acknowledged the two Jones (鐘 and 鍾) are different surnames and therefore should not use the same simplified character, but now you are proposing to group them together because they are homophones, so why not group them with the English surname Jones as well? It does not make any sense, I'm telling you. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 16:49, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL. You need to stop calling everyone "ignorant". By the way, those two Joneses look very similar to me. If I look really closely I can see that they have swapped hats, but as an English reader I wouldn't be able to pick them out of a lineup. I'm not sure the point you are trying to make. Are you saying that there are two translations for Jones into Chinese? I'm not quite sure of the relevance. When transliterated back to Jones, of course they should be on the same page. --Rob Sinden (talk) 17:09, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually there is only one article on Jones (surname), and as far as I know, there is only one Jones (surname) in English. Why is it transliterated two different ways into Chinese, and what relevance does this have to the English Wikipedia?--Wikimedes (talk) 17:52, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Can you guys learn about the language before pretending you know about it and make suggestion on what should be done? Or you'd rather have people that have no knowledge in an article but still write tons of stuff in it? The two Jones are Chinese surnames, they happen to be the homophone of Jones in English, which suits perfectly in the nonsense suggestion made up there, "because they are surnames and have similar pronunciation, we should merge them together into 1 article." —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 18:18, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

There I thought that since Jones was an English surname and this is the English Wikipedia that you were referring to the English surname. Thanks for clarifying that there are two homonym surnames of Jones in Chinese (could have done without all the drama though). You're point still seems pretty irrelevant to the discussion at hand though.--Wikimedes (talk) 19:42, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

That's the most ridiculous argument I've seen in a very long time. Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine are both spelled Portland and are both US cities, so they're the same concept and you're going to merge them into one article? -Zanhe (talk) 17:13, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah - not a fair comparison. A big difference between surnames that in English would all be grouped together in the same section of the phone book, and two distinct geographical regions thousands of miles apart. --Rob Sinden (talk) 17:12, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually... if all the various articles on places named "Portland" were small enough, we certainly could merge them into one overarching article simply entitled Portland (with sections on each city). The reason we don't is that there is enough reliably sourced material on each to warrant having separate articles. Blueboar (talk) 17:37, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I am saying, if you don't know anything about a language, but keep giving "proposals" that don't help other than offending people who actually know the language, and was explicitly told so multiple times and your response is that there's a cabal against you, you are pretty ignorant and uncivil. Check WP:CIR#Lack of technical expertise. Technical knowledge is not usually a problem at all, as long as they don't delve into areas that require it. Not everyone needs the same skill set—and as long as people operate only where they're capable, it's not a problem. You are obviously working out of your zone of expertise, and keep making suggestions that show little knowledge to the topic. I use the Jones to show how your suggestion makes no sense at all, because the two Jones and the English surname Jones all have similar pronunciation, so you think merging them is a good idea? You are able to find differences of the different Portlands because you have expertise in the topic, and your argument works around that to ignore the argument is about people who do know the differences, they find the idea of merging them is nonsense. It is essentially the same situation here when you are trying to say merging the surnames are better. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 17:51, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Um... Myth... Was that last bit directed at me? If so, please note that I have never said anything about any cabal. I absolutely respect differences of opinion, and have no problem with other editors disagreeing with me (although I do expect the same courtesy in return... I ask that others respect my right to disagree with them). Also... could you expand on your comment about their being two "Jones"? I am not sure what you are referring to.

As to the various Portlands... As I said, there is no reason why we could not have single generic "main article" entitled simply Portland (or Portland (town name)) instead of the current disambiguation page (in listified form). The text of such an article would likely have a different focus than either of the articles on the individual towns - the "town name" article would probably focus broadly on the linguistic history of the name "Portland" (discussing its linguistic origins, and tracing it's usage from England to Maine and thence to Oregon), and would not really cover the civic history of the individual towns in the same detail as the specific town articles. But the point is... a "main article" on a broad topic is a perfectly acceptable alternative to having a listified DAB page. Blueboar (talk) 18:46, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

No, its not directed to you but to a certain person who should know what I am talking about. What I am talking about the two Jones, Nothing in common except their spelling in English... and the fact that they are surnames. That gives them two things in common that we can hang a merged article on. Blueboar (talk) 15:53, 7 July 2013 (UTC) If they should be merged into 1 article just because the are similar as surnames and pronunciations, than we will have something as unreasonable as merging the English Jones to the Chinese Jones surnames. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 18:55, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

OK... thank you for clarifying... I thought you were talking to me and was confused. Let me see if I understand your "Jones" reference... are you saying that (in addition to the common English surname Jones), there are two Chinese surnames that are transliterated as "Jones"? Is this correct? Blueboar (talk) 19:17, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I want to start out by saying I'm Chinese and I completely reject having Chinese characters in surname page titles. I'd like to give a Chinese perspective on why differentiating between characters in these surnames is IMO absurd. Chinese in its written form today has 2 types, simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese. Suppose the "Surname in English (Chinese character)" format is adopted, should "Zhang (张)" and "Zhang (張)" be 2 different pages? Any Chinese person would agree it's the same surname. But which one do you use? We can make a huge argument which would probably get into politics as it usually does. But let's suppose again that we have settled on one of these as the standard. Here's a thought: if Chinese people can accept merging Zhang (张) with Zhang (張), why can't they accept merging these with Zhang (章) too? I can already hear the answer, yes it's because 張 and 张 share the same "history", but 章 doesn't. But this doesn't consider the fact that languages evolve in the present also. Just as 張 evolved into 张 in Mainland China and Singapore (and in many cases in Malaysia). Other issues resulting from simplified Chinese vs. traditional Chinese also arise: ask a Mainland Chinese guy with the surname 丰, is his last name (before the simplification) originally 丰 or 豐? I bet he doesn't know (because I've done it.) Would you merge "Feng (丰)" and "Feng (豐)" then? China is also not the only country with a somewhat recent character simplification problem, for example some Japanese people today are surnamed 櫻木 while some others are surnamed 桜木. Are they the same surname? Well, once upon a time. But what is the difference? Really, other than the simplification of one of these characters, none. This is not just a problem resulting from PRC's simplification of Chinese characters, which, if I go into length, will again involve politics that I'm trying to avoid. But I want to give you this example. Two surnames 鍾　and 鐘 are not only confused in Mainland China due to both simplifying to 钟　but in Taiwan also, see http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2008/new/nov/17/today-so1-3.htm if you can read Chinese. The reason involves precisely a lot of the "you cannot read Chinese therefore you cannot judge Chinese surnames" argument above. The question is: Can a lot of Chinese people read Chinese? In the present without a doubt yes, but in the past, no. If you read histories of a lot of the surnames they are very often changed to, or confused with homonyms, by none other than Chinese people themselves. If you have read a lot of novels from the Ming Dynasty in their original hand-written manuscripts like I have, you would see lots and lots of "typos" and homonymic inconsistencies in personal names. And these are "literate" men, which is probably a minority during those times. In the old days a lot of Chinese people hire "literate" men to write out their names for them. You don't think these "literate" men would possibly confuse the names easily? Again, what is the point of disambiguation if you cannot even simply explain the difference in a parenthesis? So to summarize my point: do I think 张/張 is the same as 章? No. But do I think the difference is so large that they have to be separated in different pages, especially on an English wikipedia, for reasons already mentioned by others? Absolutely no. Timmyshin (talk) 20:28, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

That is a valid concern, but it's been solved on the Chinese Wikipedia long ago. Simplified and traditional Chinese are treated as the same character, and there's no duplicate articles for the identical surname. I think (but not sure) on Chinese Wiki they use a first-come first-served scheme, similar to the English wiki solution on British-vs-American spellings. But if you believe the differences between the characters don't matter just because some ancient people have made some mistakes, I think you are very wrong. -Zanhe (talk) 20:41, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

So how does it matter exactly? I've read the pages and I cannot see the difference as important. Again, characters change all the time, I've mentioned the Japanese examples 櫻木 vs. 桜木 in the past century; but let's use a Chinese example. In Mainland China some people have the surname 萧　on the official documents, some people have 肖. One means "sorrow" and one means "resemblance". So answer me please, are they the same surname or not and why? And what is the criteria of the "same" surname vs. "different" surname? Timmyshin (talk) 21:03, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Characters change very rarely, and I can easily read 2000-year-old Han Dynasty characters without much difficulty. On the other hand, pronunciation changes much more often, which is why surnames such as Liang (surname) can be variously transliterated as Liang, Leung, Leong, Neo, Nio, Niu, but still considered a single name, which another reason why disambiguating by character is better than by transliteration only. I think 萧 and 肖 should be treated the same because 肖 is the result of a partially-enforced simplification scheme of 萧. And that's an extremely rare exception that does not affect the vast majority of surnames. -Zanhe (talk) 21:37, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Of course I realize the dialect problem as the major reasoning behind pushing for Chinese characters in titles. That said, the fact that Liang, Leung, Leong, Neo, Nio, Niu have the same "root" in Chinese is irrelevant to an English or Western reader. They are all completely different surnames in the Latin alphabet and thus should have different articles, each containing the same possible character (which is I believe the current format). Do you think one should merge George = Jorge = Georg = Giorgio = Goran = Jorgan just because they have the same "root"? Now I realize the problem for example Tony Leung very infrequently being called Tony Liang creating confusion (probably better examples were in Hong Kong Shaw Brothers studio days where Cantonese speaking actors typically used Wade-Giles spellings of their surnames) but this is easily corrected with a Chinese template in the biographical (or other) page linking to wiktionary. I see absolutely no need to create a wikipedia page for something that belongs in wiktionary. Timmyshin (talk) 22:04, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Say we want to write an article on the origins and the distributions of the 梁 family, do we copy the same article to Liang, Leung, Leong, Neo, Nio, and Niu? Isn't it much more common sense to have it in one article? _dk (talk) 01:43, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

To cite another Taiwanese example, see this example of 温 vs 溫 (among others). http://gaosendao.com/bbs/thread-118-1-1.html (in Chinese). Somebody must find it amusing (otherwise it won't get published) because most Chinese/Taiwanese people cannot see a huge difference between 温 and 溫. But this is very arbitrary. How much different do 2 Characters have to be to be "sufficiently" different to constitute 2 surnames? Timmyshin (talk) 21:17, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

What's the point of coming up with these exceptional cases? It's like arguing English spelling is irrelevant just because some words are spelled differently by different people (such as colour vs. color). How does it matter if some blogger thinks color and colour are two different words, which is the essence of your example of 温 vs 溫? If the dictionary says 温 and 溫 are the same, just like color and colour, then we treat them as the same character. (restoring comment deleted by Timmyshin. I assume it was an inadvertent mistake.) -Zanhe (talk) 22:33, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Isn't any discussion of merging outside the scope of any activities here at WP:AT? -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 03:31, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

What would a merged article actually look like?

I thought it might help the discussion if people saw what a merged article might actually look like... so I have taken the liberty of drafting one in my user space.

• Please see: User talk:Blueboar/drafts - Li (surname)

Note... It isn't complete. I did not cut and pages all of the information that could go into it. I present my draft as a concept to be examined and discussed, and not as a final product.
I ask people not to edit my draft version... if you all find the concept and rough format acceptable, however, feel free to cut and paste it to another page... as a starter for a more complete article. Blueboar (talk) 15:53, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Sure looks great. You can easily do this on all currently disambiguated pages and abolish the whole concept of disambiguation. -Zanhe (talk) 17:02, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words, but I would not go that far. A merger like this might work for some topics that need disambiguation, but it definitely would not replace the entire concept of disambiguation (for one thing, some disambiguated articles are simply too long to be merged effectively). I merely offer this as a solution to a specific disambiguation problem. I am not so bold as to think that this concept would work (or be best) in other situations. Blueboar (talk) 17:26, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. The thing is that we're trying to find a Wikipedia-wide policy solution, while you're working on a specific issue that may be fine in short term when the articles being merged are short stubs, but does not solve the problem in the long run. What would you do if someone expanded a few of the surname articles into feature-length articles? -Zanhe (talk) 19:33, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Good work.--Wikimedes (talk) 17:43, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

• Certainly more useful and informative than lots of non-notable stubs. I'd support this proposal. --Rob Sinden (talk) 18:16, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

And not without precedent. See Le (surname). --Rob Sinden (talk) 18:20, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Le (surname) is nothing but a glorified dab page. And talk about precedent, the surname 利 had been at Lì (利) since 2006 without any issue until User:Bmotbmot, who's since been banned, made an undiscussed move two weeks ago, which led to an RM to undo his move, and the current deadlock. And 李 had also been at Li (李) until you moved it to Li (surname meaning "plum") without gaining consensus first, together with another move of Lí (黎) to Lí (surname meaning "dawn") which I partially reverted because it was completely wrong. -Zanhe (talk) 19:29, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

"Meaning plum" is ridiculous. But so is an English wiki title with a Chinese character. I see nothing wrong with this proposal. Timmyshin (talk) 19:32, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)There was a strong recommendation by the closing admin not to use Chinese characters. And the move of Li (surname meaning "plum") wasn't me, but I followed the lead of the editor who did move that one when I moved Lí (surname meaning "dawn"). --Rob Sinden (talk) 19:36, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Forgive my pedantry, but the Li (李) to Li (surname meaning "plum") move was certainly by you. I only moved articles that had insufficient disambiguation, created by the banned user. I specifically ignored articles with Chinese characters as I knew there was no consensus either way. _dk (talk) 01:54, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I pointed out to you the downfall of disambiguating with meaning, which you acknowledged, and soon the move request was closed as "No Consensus". But you went on to do a number of controversial moves anyway, one of which was outright wrong. And it led to a huge outcry at Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit")#Large scale mergers and moves by User:Robsinden. -Zanhe (talk) 19:48, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

We needed a temporary solution to get the articles away from the Chinese characters. And - "Huge outcry". LOL. --Rob Sinden (talk) 19:53, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

You moved articles from names that contained correct Chinese characters to names containing wrong English meanings against consensus, and have the guts to call it a "temporary solution"? -Zanhe (talk)

The title I chose is what was found in the article. If it was wrong, take it up with whoever wrote the article. --Rob Sinden (talk) 20:03, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Has it occurred to you that if you cannot spot a mistake like that, you probably do not have the competence to perform the moves, especially when there is no consensus from the community? -Zanhe (talk) 20:14, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

There is no consensus within the Wikipedia community to allow Chinese characters in article titles. If you don't believe that, then start a formal RfC and see if I am wrong. Otherwise accept that there has to be a compromise even if you don't regard it as the best approach and work with those trying to find a solution. Insisting that the only solution is Chinese characters isn't helpful when it's a solution explicitly ruled out in the English Wikipedia.

A single article on "Li (Chinese surname)" seems the best suggestion so far. The argument that it breaks Wikidata is irrelevant. There are many articles with no 1:1 equivalence between Wikipedias. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:44, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Peter, as people are asking for a change, there's also no consensus in using just English. We are obviously NOT the only ones asking for this. Whoever created those articles chose to use Chinese characters in it as well, and until someone with no apparent knowledge in the field came and force this policy on the pages that was consensus between people who know what they are doing. What's going on here are people without technical knowledges proposing different unhelpful ways just because of the policy, which is exactly what's stated in WP:NOT as WP:BURO. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 21:06, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

There is absolute consensus that we use English. That's why it's policy! --Rob Sinden (talk) 22:17, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Except we do not. If it's Germanic, we don't use English at all. We use eszett, when for centuries, we've had a common transliteration for eszett in English, and not even all German dialects use eszett, but we still do it, even though in German, not every German variant uses it. We use thorn, even though we've had a common transliteration for it in English. We use eth, but this is also the same. There's no "accuracy" accrued in pronunciation, since non-English isn't prescribed with English pronunciation rules. We use it because it is disambiguatory, this is the same as using Chinese characters in the disambiguatory section of a page title (which is not the same as the name portion of an article name, which is the non-disambiguatory part). We should restrict all the non-English characters to the disambiguatory section (parenthesized section), but this doesn't seem to be the case on English Wikipedia, because we don't use English on English Wikipedia. There's no difference between one non-English character and another, be it Chinese or German. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 22:29, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

There's no difference between one non-English character and another, be it Chinese or German – yes, there is, as I have explained several times. Characters which are formed by adding diacritical marks to the plain Latin letters are fine, because there is an obvious redirect at the same word without the diacritic (Brontë family – Bronte family). Characters which strongly resemble plain Latin letters are also fine for the same reason. (Musa × paradisiaca – Musa x paradisiaca). Chinese characters do not have obvious visual equivalents so there is no obvious way to input them using only plain Latin letters. Hence they should not be used in article titles in the English Wikipedia. (Redirects and disambiguation pages are a different matter.) Peter coxhead (talk) 07:45, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

The eth (ð) thorn (Þ) eszett (ß) are not accented characters, they are no different from Chinese, as they are letters not found in English. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:33, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, band articles keep showing up with Unicode graphics characters, or ASCII art, or L33T-speak, which are hardly different from Chinese, either. Indeed, from the looks of things, there's been a shift and we're restoring such things into musical act articles (see the "Sunn (band)" discussion indicated on this page) -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 12:01, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

That's not the case. We follow how things are referred to in English sources. Per WP:UE (again): "The choice between anglicized and local spellings should follow English-language usage". --Rob Sinden (talk) 22:32, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

So, we're adding all the ASCII art and L33T-speak to music band articles for this? (band articles are coming up for renaming now) -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 03:29, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah - that's another controversial issue. It's being discussed at MOS:TM. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:13, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

What does Снова в СССР fall under? A Paul McCartney album clearly isn't Russian, but it has a non-English title without an official English equivalent. Using a user-made translation might venture into WP:OR territory. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 17:51, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

We're not using English-language sources for many of the renames, we're using native language sources (like German-language sources) to justify the article names. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 03:35, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, according to this policy, we should. Any examples? --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:13, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

There is an article 南山, a dab page with a non-English title that's composed solely of CJK characters. While 南山 has the same meaning in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, it has four different pronunciations depending on the language (not counting all the different variants of Chinese such as Cantonese and Taiwanese which are usually ignored). How would you propose to transliterate titles like that? -Zanhe (talk) 21:10, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

That page is redundant and has no place here on the English Wikipedia per this policy. Disambiguation is covered by Nanshan and Namsan and no English speaker will be looking for it. --Rob Sinden (talk) 22:10, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

There was a deletion request two years ago and the result was keep. And I just found out there's a whole category of articles like that for which there is no unambiguous way to transliterate. The category itself was nominated for deletion and the result was keep. So much for your "absolute consensus". -Zanhe (talk) 22:48, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Another example: 中山, which may transliterate to Chūzan, Sun Yat-sen, Nakayama, or Zhongshan. -Zanhe (talk) 22:55, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Without looking into it into too much detail, I'd suggest that there is most likely systemic bias and local consensus at play in those discussions. --Rob Sinden (talk) 22:55, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Why would there be a "local consensus" at an AfD, when AfDs are clearly advertised in a location well visible to all Wikipedia editors? Do you consider RfCs, RfAs and WP:ANI discussions to be local consensus as well? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 18:11, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

"No English speaker will be looking for it"? Well, 南山 got a spike of 47 page views just on 5 July. It has been discussed repeatedly elsewhere, but one senario is when an English speaker finds a Chinese/Japanese/Korean name on a website and wants to find out what it refers to, but has no idea how to transliterate it. He copy-and-pastes the name into WP, and finds all possible answers he may be looking for. -Zanhe (talk) 23:14, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Robin, it is very bad practice to just label everything you don't want to know a systemic bias and local consensus. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 06:07, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for coming in on the middle of a debate without reading the discussion so far, but here’s my take: Non-English characters do not belong in article titles unless English-language sources primarily refer to the subject with such characters. It seems to be somewhat acceptable to use non-English characters to title pure disambiguation pages; but if the page gives further information such as the history of the subject (in this case, a variety of surnames), it should be considered an article, and it must have an English or anglicized title. This is so that English-speaking readers can read the title, or at least sound it out. —Frungi (talk) 23:11, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

So you're saying using non-English characters to title disambiguation pages is somewhat acceptable, but using non-English characters in the disambiguation portion of the title is not ok, even when the very ambiguity is a result of the transliteration requirement. Don't they serve the same purpose? -Zanhe (talk) 23:22, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I didn’t say anything about any portions of the title. I’m saying articles (and their titles) in an English-language encyclopedia must cater to the English language. Personally, I don’t think DAB pages should use exotic characters in their titles, either, but it’s more understandable that they would in order to point to different transliterations, translations, or what have you. —Frungi (talk) 23:51, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I must say, using English titles on the disamb pages than the Chinese titles on the articles makes so much more sense than the other way around. Yes, the English wikipedia should cater to the English Language, but since the names are translated to English yet there are differences, we need a way to distinguish them. And please see above google scholar link, the English academic sources primarily uses the characters to refer to them because there's no other way around. And seriously, this is why we have all the original characters in all the transliterate articles to begin with. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 06:07, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

What the English "academic" sources do is needs to be treated with caution. Specialist sources often use specialist notations or terms that would not be appropriate in a general encyclopedia. — Peter coxhead 07:45, 8 July 2013 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

See also WP:SSF. —Frungi (talk) 08:27, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I can only keep making the same point. If the article title uses Chinese characters, it cannot be input from a standard English keyboard and cannot be read by a screen reader to an English reader with a sight problem. By all means have redirects involving the Chinese characters (as we do for Ελλάδα for example) and even disambiguation pages, since the only people who need use them are people who need to disambiguate Chinese characters. But every monolingual English speaker should be able to enter the title of an article or have it read to them. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:45, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

And be able to read it. I’d wager that most native English speakers know even less about the Chinese language than I do, and a title with Chinese characters would be completely illegible to me. —Frungi (talk) 08:27, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Frungi and Peter, I must ask you if you really think NOT using the Chinese characters helps in ANY way better than using them. Yes, English users don't know how to read or input the characters, but the same goes for all mentioned suggestions. Choose the lesser of two evils, and in this case, using the meaning is not going to be more helpful than the Chinese character alternative, and the Chinese character alternative actually helps people who can and tries read them(including those who are at least taking the reasonable step to compare the character they have in hand with the one shown on screen). This is not violating WP:SSF, think of the character as a picture to help aid the users, not a foreign term they don't know. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 08:38, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I think using Chinese characters in article titles of an English encyclopedia would hurt rather than help. Like I said, they’re completely illegible to most native English speakers. I’m sorry to draw this comparison, but it’s a little like insisting on using as the title instead of Prince (musician). Besides, the original characters would be included in the very first words of the text, which I would think should satisfy your concerns about a user comparing the characters. —Frungi (talk) 10:22, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

We are not asking them to read the characters, but to do simple comparisons. It is different from your example which you don't have multiple musicians called Prince with different iconic logos. If someone searched for Li, the result page will have Li (李), Li (里), Li (利), etc. Which is pretty obviously a better direction than Li (surname meaning plum), Li (surname meaning alley), Li (surname meaning profit), etc. which makes no sense to people who don't know what those words means. The latter is simply offending to the Chinese language users and is plain wrong in most cases(since surnames are usually not related to any meaning). We don't even need a disamb page in this case if we use the Chinese characters as titles. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 10:39, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I don’t like the translation disambiguation either. But I’m having a hard time imagining a situation where one would have the transliteration and the written form of a name without being able to enter the latter as a search term. Anyway, as far as actual workable solutions, I think the best we could do would be to have separate DAB pages (or articles) for each transliteration (Lì, etc.), and have a section in the page for each homophonous name (Lì#厲, etc.). I have no objections to using exotic characters in section headings. —Frungi (talk) 10:56, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

It seems the possibility of a merged article is garnering some support as the only sensible way to deal with this. It was not without its supporters at the initial move request either... --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:00, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Frungi, The situation you cannot imagine is called name cards, which business partners give out a lot. Robin, even if we have disamb pages, we still need to have to settle on what title we use for the individual articles, which the disamb page solves nothing of that sort. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 11:10, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally, who is Robin? --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:37, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, misread. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 18:14, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

What I mean is, instead of having separate articles for each name, we’d just have one Lì article with a section on every name that’s transliterated as such, and a Lǐ article, and a Lí article. In other words, yeah, merges. And I think separating them by tonality is better than piling them all under Li (surname) (which should link to each of those three). —Frungi (talk) 11:59, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Most English users don't know how to type ǐ, ì, í, etc. as well, your arguments seems to be very biased on latin based languages over block letter based languages. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 18:14, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

English is a Latin-based language, so that’s kind of the idea. And it’s true that diacritics are still somewhat exotic to English (especially ǐ), but at least they’re readable by monolingual users. Of course, it’s still more readable without them, but they were just a suggestion, a proposed solution to a problem with no perfect solution. —Frungi (talk) 04:40, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I didn't think disambiguation by diacritic alone was sufficient. And surely most English-language sources don't use the diacritics when referring to someone's name. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:01, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

My sandbox has a hastily thrown together mockup of what I had in mind for one of the transliterations. Not complete, but hopefully you get the idea. —Frungi (talk) 13:21, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Which brings us back to two of the initial problems. Firstly, English readers won't know which Li they are looking for as they are all commonly transliterated as "Li". Also, is the topic of the particular tone of Li on your mockup page notable even when combined? I think we need to merge all tones to a single page. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:29, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Since Chinese tonality is integral to pronunciation, I would say yes. I can't counter your first point, but the reason I'm proposing separate mergers is that I worry a single merged article for all Lis would be unwieldy; I'm already concerned that a merged article on Lì alone would be too long. But merging, whether one or three, seems to me to be the only viable option for us. —Frungi (talk) 18:14, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Would it solve your concerns over length if we moved all the names to a separate List of people with the surname Li? I don't think disambiguation by diacritic alone is sufficient. --Rob Sinden (talk) 19:01, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I support merging surnames originating in the same non-English language, and having the same transliteration, into a single article with a title like Li (Chinese surname). This discussion is occurring on the English Wikipedia; what works best for another language does not necessarily work best here. Also, so far as I understand, this will not present a problem for Wikidata if the titles of the proposed variations redirect to the corresponding sections of that main article, and the interwiki links are placed on those redirect pages. bd2412 T 11:25, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is the English wikipedia, but can you show at least some respect on other people's names? They maybe homophones, but completely different things. Disamb page is still possibly reasonable, but whoever tries to push for a merge is just saying we should merge the articles of neptune and uranus, because they are both outer planets. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 18:14, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

That's a faulty analogy if I've ever heard one. The problem is that they're represented identically in English. That simply cannot be helped. Merging the articles would overcome a technical limitation of the alphabet. —Frungi (talk) 18:21, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Two family names are completely different things, and thus should not be in the same article. We don't merge other dissimilar things into the same article just because they have the same spelling, why surnames? —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 19:45, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

PS, the surname 李 is probably one of the most common Chinese surnames, listing out the notable people as disamb would already be a pretty big page. same goes for Wong, Ho and Chan. And Chan is like the only one I cannot think of a homophone —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 19:48, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, there is no need to list all of the notable surname holders on a page about the surname. Compare Smith (surname), which links to a lengthy list maintained separately from the article. Incidentally, that article points out that there are different means by which people have come to have the surname, Smith, but we neither have nor need separate articles for every possible surname origin. bd2412 T 03:21, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Comment: This is an oft-repeated faulty representation of the purpose of English Wikipedia, whose goal should be to help English speakers understand concepts of foreign cultures using the English language, not to distort foreign concepts to fit into the mould of the English culture. And that's exactly what the merger proposal is about: treating Chinese surnames that are considered completely different in Chinese culture as if they were the same just because in the English culture they are treated identically. This proposal would do a serious disservice to English readers by giving them the false impression that the Chinese culture is no different from their own, at least when surnames are concerned. -Zanhe (talk) 20:51, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Or it might actually facilitate understanding the distinctions between these terms that in English are identical by treating them all together in a single article. older ≠ wiser 21:14, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

They are already treated all together in the same article Li. That's what dab pages are for. Merging distinct concepts into a same article as if they were variations of the same concept is misleading and harmful to the reader. -Zanhe (talk) 21:20, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

The disambiguation page, as currently formulated, is of little to no help for an English speaker who knows nothing of what the characters mean. On the other hand, a page that explains and contrasts the distinctions, such as the examples that a couple of editors have provided, would be helpful for a reader with little or no familiarity with Chinese. older ≠ wiser 21:38, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

And by the way, disambiguation pages such as Li are not articles. older ≠ wiser 21:41, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

@Zanhe & others: I understand very well that there are distinct surnames which are all usually transcribed as "Li" in the Latin alphabet as used in English. I understand that ideally there would be a single article for each such distinct surname, as they are different. But you must understand that, unless there is a change of the English Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, Chinese characters cannot be used to create titles for such separate articles. So you have three choices:

1. Start a formal RfC on a request to change the MOS to allow Chinese characters in article titles. Then wait to see the outcome.
2. Cooperate in finding some solution not involving Chinese characters which allows different titles for each Chinese surname.
3. Accept a single article for each transcription, e.g. one article for "Li".

Keeping on arguing here for the use of Chinese characters is pointless. Unless and until the MOS is changed (which as you know I oppose), this is not an acceptable solution.

This has nothing to do with disrespect for Chinese culture. It's simply a technical fact about the impossibility of accurately representing Chinese characters in the basic Latin alphabet, which is all that English speakers should be required to read or have read to them or to input in the English Wikipedia. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:00, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

If you do understand that each name is unique and deserves its own article, but allow a technical difficulty to prevent us from doing the right thing, I really don't think you have a true understanding of the fifth of Wikipedia's Five pillars. -Zanhe (talk) 22:45, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

And one more thing, don't have the wrong impression that I have a personal agenda or something. I've written several hundred China-related articles and encountered many occasions where distinct Chinese names become ambiguous after transliteration, and have always tried my best to find ways to disambiguate without using Chinese. For example, Xiong Yan (elder) / Xiong Yan (younger), Duke Yǐ of Qi / Duke Yì of Qi, Duke Jing of Jin (Ju) / Duke Jing of Jin (Jiao) / Duke Jing of Jin (Jujiu), etc. However, when it comes to three different surnames that are transliterated as Li that originate from three different states that also transliterate as Li, I really cannot think of any better way to disambiguate other than using their original Chinese characters, and nor has anyone else after two weeks of discussion. -Zanhe (talk) 23:39, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

The question is: is disambiguation the best way to deal with the problem... I don't think that it is. By having one single article about Li (Chinese name)... an article that is focused on the average English speaker and which informs him/her that there isn't just one Chinese name "Li" ... an article which can take the time to fully explain the individual histories and distinctions between the different Chinese names that are transliterated into English as "Li"... The English speaking reader is actually better served, and ends up being better informed about all those different names. Figuring out the best way to present information is just as important as figuring out what information to present. Blueboar (talk) 01:04, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate your effort at finding a solution. As I mentioned before, merging all 8 different Li's into a single article may be fine in the short term when they are short stubs containing little information. But what happens when someone (possibly myself) expands them into full-fledged articles? Are we going to have a single article that contains 8 separate "origin and etymology" sections, 8 "history" sections, 8 "geographical distribution" sections, and 8 "list of notable people" sections? Eventually they'll need to be separated and we'll encounter the same disambiguation problem. That's why I think a policy solution is necessary. -Zanhe (talk) 01:22, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, I would probably combine the lists of notable people into one single list, but put it some sort of a table format so we could indicate which Li each person is associated with. You might be able to combine a lot of the other data into tables. Get creative. There are solutions that wouln't require splitting and disambiguating. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blueboar (talk • contribs) 01:44, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

My suggestion would be to have a merged article at Li (Chinese surname) and if in the future there is some actual need to spin out articles on one of the names, to continue to use summary style in the parent article providing sufficient context to distinguish the various forms of the name (which after all, so far as the average English reader is concerned, is a single name, not multiple). I agree with Blueboar that there probably should be a single comprehensive list of people with the name as there would be nearly no way to determine which Li is which without knowing the Chinese characters, which we should not assume to be known to readers of the English Wikipedia. As for the title of to hypothetical spun-out articles, I'm still undecided what the best form of disambiguation would be. I'm slightly leaning towards disambiguation by tone (e.g., Lí, Lǐ, and Lì), but that still has some problems. To be honest, in my opinion, provided that there is a strong parent/summary article at an obvious title such as Li (Chinese surname), it almost doesn't matter how the more particular surname articles are titled. older ≠ wiser 03:40, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

A parent article containing spin out subpages is what I've been calling for from the beginning. I think this is one of the few things people here can agree on. As you said, if we have a strong parent article, people should have no problem finding the right sub-article from there if they want to learn more about the origins of 黎, 李, etc. Then the article title wouldn't be as important. The problem remains, though, on what we should title those subpages. If disambiguation by meaning, tone, and Chinese character are problematic, I guess, of all the options I listed on Talk:Li (surname meaning "profit")#Summary of the dilemma, disambiguation by Hundred Family Surnames rank is the most appropriate. _dk (talk) 06:44, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation by tone is an option I've always preferred over Chinese character. However, it only works in some cases as many different surnames have exactly the same tone. The main downside of the Hundred Family Surnames approach is that it's extremely obscure. I suspect there are probably only a handful of people in the entire world who would remember the exact position of each name in the Hundred Family Surnames. And it still doesn't work in all cases as some names are not included in it (though most of the common names are). -Zanhe (talk) 15:10, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

At least for numbering from HFS we have a one-to-one relation. Surname 4 is always going to be 李 while Lì can mean a number of different surnames, not to mention the difference in tone is not something that's obviously noticeable for English readers. Again I stress that the article title should be made unimportant if we make a strong summary page for all "Li"s - then we'd only need something, anything, just to title the subpages. If you look on the surnames articles on Chinese Wikipedia, the surname's ranking is one of the first things they put in the lead section and infobox. And most notable surnames are on the HFS anyways (the only notable exception I can think of for the moment is 鄺 Kuang (surname)). As a parallel case, nobody remembers the ranks of the Kangxi radicals, but the article for the "heart" radical 心 is at Radical 61 like all 200+ Chinese radicals on enwp. _dk (talk) 01:36, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

A quick side question as it relates to WP:Verifiability (and in some cases WP:BLP) ... If we have separate articles, how does the typical English speaker know which article to place a person named Li in? How do we verify, for example, that Jet Li goes under Li(李) and not Li(利)? Blueboar (talk) 12:22, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Just cite any Chinese source or an English source that includes the person's name in Chinese (many do, especially academic ones). -Zanhe (talk) 14:51, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm going to keep this brief because there's been repeated restatement of the same basic problem and repeated WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT from the 2 or 3 editors opposed to optimal disambiguation. No one has yet given a coherent reason [typing isn't a coherent reason for any dab] why Li (surname 李 "plum") won't provide the maximum benefit both for User Group A the 90% of readers of an article on Chinese surnames interested in Chinese surnames, and User Group B the 10% of readers of an article on Chinese surnames interested in Chinese surnames, but unable, yet, to distinguish the character. The third User Group C - vehemently anti-Chinese surname readers who will never read the article but want to make it difficult for others frankly are a group we don't need to consider.

The proposals for a merger are unworkable, chaotic (setting en.wp at odds with interwiki) and frankly go right to the core of WP:COMPETENCE. An umbrella dab is fine (which is why an umbrella already exists at Li (surname) but any editor who cannot understand why Li (李) and Lí (黎) cannot be merged should not be in this discussion.

Resolute, Blueboar - you can use Li (surname)

Zanhe - you're correct that not all surnames are as easy to pick an English "shorthand" as Li (surname 李 "plum"), however an imperfect disambiguator can I believe be found from the Baijiaxing for all names that have been discussed so far - the trick is to pick one that isn't OR and doesn't make the history-informed reader wince.

Go to Wiktionary - it's possible that those who want to make the articles either difficult to find for the core user/reader group, or merge them into a meaningless random mess based on modern Beijing pronunciation, are going to carry the day here. In that case then maybe it's worth considering developing the surnames on Wiktionary instead? Wiktionary would be extremely cramped and restrictive and cannot carry encyclopaedic content, but maybe special pleading with Wiktionary's editors to have more substantial material there after having been forced off en.wp is an option. It's just a random idea, it probably wouldn't go the next two steps before toppling over.. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:46, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

On behalf of User Group C, I object to your lack of good faith. No one wants to make things more difficult; rather, some of us believe that allowing non-Latin forms of foreign names in article titles would make things more difficult. —Frungi (talk) 07:28, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Is there a group who is "anti Chinese surnames"? No-one has argued that Chinese surnames shouldn't have articles, as far as I can tell. I agree with Fungi re good faith.

Repetition has been on both sides. The core issue has always been and remains whether Chinese characters should be allowed in the title of an article (article text and redirects are a different issue). You wrote typing isn't a coherent reason for any dab. I'm assuming that by "dab" here you meant the extra text after the word "Li". This suggests to me that you haven't heard what others have been saying. If the article title is Li (surname 李 "plum") it cannot be reached by typing it; it doesn't matter that the Chinese character is only in the parenthesised bit. By all means have Li (李) as a redirect. But don't have 李 in the article title. (And, as has been pointed out before, if "plum" is a sufficient disambiguator, you don't need the 李 as a disambiguator anyway.)

You wrote that editors like Resolute and Blueboar could use Li (surname). Yes, precisely: if Chinese characters are used, the overwhelmingly largest group of English Wikipedia users would only be able to access the individual articles via a link on a dab page. It's this which I, and editors with the same view, find undesirable (and which is against current WP guidelines). It has nothing to do with the characters being Chinese or a lack of interest in Chinese surnames; it has everything to do with their not being accessible.

I can only repeat what I said above: if you think you have a good case, start a formal RfC to have the MOS changed to allow Chinese characters in article titles. It would be good to have as wide an input as possible. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:39, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

@Frungi, I started with good faith, but that was 2 weeks ago, you are getting my take on this now, after 2 weeks, the 2nd week merely observing. I hope and assume that everyone here belongs to Group B, all enthusiastically interested in Chinese surnames and who feel warm and cuddly when a Chinese character even if they can't understand it.

As regards "On behalf of User Group C" I was not expecting anyone to stand up on behalf of "readers who will never read the article" - how can I say this, "readers who will never read the article" means readers who will never read the article, and readers who will never read the article shouldn't be the primary consideration in fixing an article title. Some consideration needs to be shown to readers who will read the article, who are interested in Chinese surnames - providing help in disambiguation for both Group A and Group B.

@Peter coxhead - you may wish to link to where someone has said something I've missed please As I understand it the reason that typing isn't a coherent reason for or objection to any dab is that no one types any dab, e.g. no one types Independence Day (1996 film), people type the terms they know "Independence Day..." and the RH autocomplete or Google does the rest, setting out the choices to select. In this case even readers who know Chinese characters - Group A, are unlikely to type 李 (because it means having to CTRL + SHIFT and type Li, then click through 100 characters to select), but they won't have to, because Jimbo has already says it is okay to set the "rules" aside for an exceptional case. [Note - This is an argument from WP:RETAIN/WP:STATUSQUO, no need to invoke Wikipedia:Argumentum ad Jimbonem since that is how the articles were and are].

@Anyone/everyone, I've made my comment and have no further input. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:46, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I find the tone of this rather offensive. The groupings and percentages have been pulled out of thin air (or perhaps some bodily orifice). This is the English Wikipedia and for the average reader there is no readily discernible difference WHATSOEVER in these names. I continue to think that a combined article specifically addressing the Chinese surnames is the best approach. If articles are spun out from that page, a strong summary article should remain the starting point for the majority of readers. older ≠ wiser 12:08, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

@Bkonrad my "I have no further input" is not an open invitation for an editor to underneath the comment make a remark about my viewpoint coming out of my "bodily orifices" - the 90/10 guesstimate could just as easily have been 60/40 but for your information it is not pulled out of my anus (or did you mean nostrils?) but based on an interpretation of (a) Talk activity on the articles in question, (b) the content of printed books in English related to Chinese names, and also non-wikipedia webpages on the subject. As for the third group - the group who won't read the articles - how is the existance of a group who won't read the articles pulled out of a bodily orifice"? And why is the existence of readers who won't read certain articles "offensive" but saying an editor - when I washed my hands last week the editor who had actually been working on sourcing the articles in question - an editor's viewpoint on likely readership comes out of his "bodily orifices" is not offensive? In ictu oculi (talk) 23:50, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

How do reliable sources treat this issue?

One of the foundational premises of wikipedia is that we follow reliable sources. Now, how do reliable sources treat names like "Li", especially when there are multiple versions? I have yet to find a source that does not at some point use a chinese character to disambiguate in these cases. For example:

• Chinese American Names: Tradition and Transition - english book, but uses CHINESE characters when introducing the names
• Genealogical Research on Chinese Surnames uses chinese characters to distinguish Li when introducing the discussion of same. From a review of the book: "Chao does not note the meanings of names unless the meaning is involved in the origin, and she distinguishes different listings (the five different Chung listings, for example) by their Chinese characters."
• Origins of Chinese Names
• Echoes from Old China: Life, Legends, and Lore of the Middle Kingdom
• Chinese History: A Manual
• Lost in Transliteration: The Tolerance of Unintelligibility in Chinese Bibliographic Records in Western Libraries This dissertation studied this issue in detail - from the abstract: "By focusing on the development of incorporating Chinese records into Western catalog, the review not only sheds some light on the inherent capability and capacity of each script, it also helps explain why script is by itself a core technology in the formation of a message, and, how in the words of Harold Innis, the practice of romanizing Chinese names exerts the script's "bias" in communication." .

In reviewing the sources, we would be very hard pressed to find a source that was talking about 5 Chinese chung surnames with different origins, that did not attempt to use a chinese character to distinguish one from the other.

Yes, WP:UE is a policy, and we really don't need to keep on repeating it. We know. However, WP:IAR is *also* a policy. There was a long-standing, if silent, consensus to keep these articles disambiguated by their characters. This should not be overturned in the interest of purity of "english" in the special cases where chinese characters are the most clear disambiguators.

We have to think in terms of a user, and the user's experience. Suppose John wants to look up his friend Pat Li - so he types "Li" into the search engine, and he ends up at Li. Here, he sees a bunch of *different* Li pages. If he has a copy of Pat's name written in chinese, he could easily "match" the character and find the right article, or go to Li_(surname) and learn something. It is highly unlikely, OTOH, that John or Pat would know about which number this character is in the book of 100 surnames, or what it used to, or currently, MEANS. Such meanings are contested, apocryphal, and sometimes irrelevant - and as such are best left to the article. I'm now of the opinion that

• Li (surname 李)
• Lì (surname 厲)
• Lì (surname 栗)

etc. would be the cleanest, and easiest for the reader - as the only thing they could reasonably disambiguate upon is the original chinese character - the character is, by definition UNAMBIGUOUS.

All of the arguments about "we can't type that" should fall on deaf ears - wikipedia is littered with article titles you cannot type without knowing a bit of unicode (quick: can any of you type Æ?) - and search/search completion is broadly sufficient. If you want to link to a given article, copy/paste works very well.

Of COURSE a robust survey article should exist at Li (surname), and I'd even be fine with less-notable Li names simply being grouped/described there without much issue. But as soon as you have two Li's (or Chungs, or Wangs, or whatever) that cannot be otherwise distinguished through the transcription and that are significant enough to merit articles on their own, the Chinese character is the most natural disambiguator. It causes no harm to the user, and makes it easier for those who are looking for a particular "Li" (which is a vast minority) to find what they are looking for.

I also think, for simplicity's sake, that we should create a single List of people with the surname Li article, which could be grouped by "character", with a section at the top for "unknown". That way, if you're looking for all of the Li's, you can find them on one page, and amateurs could add "Bruce Lee" to the "unknown" section and then the experts could move him to the right place.

Note: I am not suggesting we *always* use a chinese character after a chinese name - rather that we ONLY do so when it's the best disambiguator; in this case, these articles are literally ABOUT a chinese character.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:33, 11 July 2013 (UTC)