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Maybe I'm missing something. We're back to edit warring over the interminable discussion above, but the reasons given refer back to the original & apparently inconclusive poll. Has there been a mediated discussion somewhere that has been closed in favor of one wording or the other?

If there's an uninvolved admin out there who feels the issue has been settled, please select the appropriate version and unprotect if you like. — kwami (talk) 04:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I shall be inquiring for one at WP:AN; I would prefer an admin who was not quite so frequently agreeing with Noetica. (I believe there is a gadget which shows when editors have edited the same page; does anybody remember what it is? I do not regard the poll as inconclusive; this is confirmed both by consulting it and by the call for a recount. Those may be justified, although I doubt this one is; but when are recounts demanded by the prevailing side? JCScaliger (talk) 20:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:AN#Uninvolved admin, please. Note that this is not ANI; we have had enough drama. I would prefer an admin to come here, close the poll, unprotect, and we could then, for example, discuss moving the key phrase here to a separate paragraph. If people want drama, that can be arranged too. JCScaliger (talk) 21:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Remarkably, Born2cycle still claims to have "won" the discussion that he derailed by turning it into a polarizing vote and stacking it with votes he inferred from others. I still think we should discuss it, but not until he agrees to back off and allow that. Dicklyon (talk) 05:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Remarkably? We've been waiting for weeks for, someone, anyone, to present an argument supporting V2 over V1. No one has presented anything to that effect. Nothing. In the mean time 9 different editors have written substantively supporting V1 over V2. How long are we supposed to wait?

Based on their edits, Kotniski and JCScaliger were done waiting. This is ridiculous. Noetica edited the article three times today reverting each time from V1 to V2, including reverting two different editors, in a matter of hours today:

[1] Noetica (talk · contribs) makes edit #1 02:22, January 12, 2012
- [2] Noetica is reverted by JCScaliger (talk · contribs) 17:37, January 12, 2012
[3] Noetica reverts JCScaliger 18:47, January 12, 2012
- [4] Noetica is reverted by Born2cycle (talk · contribs) (yours truly) 19:53, January 12, 2012
[5] Noetica reverts B2C 20:28, January 12, 2012

Is that a 3RR violation, or what? Instead, Kwami locks the page at V2 and doesn't even warn Noetica. What the hell? --Born2cycle (talk) 06:21, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is not a 3RR violation. Why would it be? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:38, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) How is 3 reverts a violation of WP:3RR? And I'm sorry I wasn't around to notice and revert you myself. Dicklyon (talk) 06:39, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you want an argument for why that status-quo is better than your "V1" version, here's one. You're using the phrase "to someone familiar with the topic" (and its parenthetical qualifier) to support your position that any extra clarity, that would make the phrase familiar to people outside of people familiar with the topic, is of absolutely zero value when considering tradeoffs with such things as conciseness. To the extent that I understand your purpose--wanting to not put any value on recognizability beyond a minimum--I disagree with your purpose. To the extent that you are warring to change policy in support of that purpose, I will do what I can to reduce your impact. But we don't have to make it a fight. We've had a start at discussing other ways to frame the naming criteria. Your desire to reduce them to a mechanical algorithm seems like not the best approach. So stop "waiting for, someone, anyone, to present an argument supporting V2 over V1" and start helping us, or at least allowing us, to find a good way to actually improve on the status quo, taking into account why we object to the direction you're trying to take it. Dicklyon (talk) 06:39, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I forget a 3RR violation technically requires 4 reverts.

So, your argument is you don't like the V1 wording because it supports the position that you know happens to be mine, and doesn't support yours? What kind of argument is that? Never mind that the V1 wording accurately reflects how we title our articles, and always have? Never mind that nine different editors expressed support for this point weeks ago? --Born2cycle (talk) 06:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like your wording because it moves from the status quo in a direction that seems to be designed for a purpose that I object to; I'm not saying that was Kotniski's purpose in penning it, but it does seem to be yours in pushing to restore that provision that never got discussed before it was temporarily part of policy. Is that a problem? And why do you keep counting expressions from before we attempted to open a serious discussion on the issues, which we've still barely scratched? Born2count? Dicklyon (talk) 07:06, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not my wording - it's the wording that was in place for years until it was inadvertently removed in 2011, and nobody who noticed realized the implications.

So your objection is your perception of the motivation of the person who first tried to restore the wording, and not substantive to the wording itself. Thank you for clarifying that your argument is baseless and not substantive. Yes, that's a problem.

For at least most of us, the discussion was serious from the moment it started at #Clarification of recognizability lost. Why do you discount the expressions of those who participated and favored V1 over V2 -- Born2cycle, Kotniski, EdChem, PBS, Kai445, Powers, WhatamIdoing, JCScaligera, Enric Naval -- as not serious? Just because you didn't take the discussion seriously (and you apparently didn't) doesn't mean we didn't. Did we do or say anything to support your position that we weren't serious? --Born2cycle (talk) 07:17, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't I just acknowledge that Kotniski penned it and that I take no issue with his motives in doing so? Yet it's you who is pushing for it. So stop pushing, and get back to discussing. I looked over the conversation since the attempted RFC, and while I may have missed some, here's what I see: speaking against your "V1" as too narrow or too wordy or something: Dicklyon, Noetica, Onconfucious, Ohms_law, Tony1, Blueboar (and I'm not claiming anyone is saying the status quo version is so great, just that yours is bad); speaking in terms of possible support for a compromise: WhatamIdoing, JCScaliger, SamBC, Kotniski; less clear position, but willing to discuss: PBS, Jinnai, Mike Cline, Art LaPella, Greg L, Brews ohare; apparently just want your change: Born2cycle, LtPowers, Enric Naval, Kai445. So if you stop looking at it like a vote, it's clear that there is a lot of interest in doing better. That's something we can build on. Dicklyon (talk) 07:47, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let me make my position clearer: substantively, I find the content of V1 necessary; it is the test we do in fact use. My suggestion was that it could easily be a paragraph of its own with a link; this would permit the key phrase to be moved there, slimming the first section; but that is purely stylistic. I do not agree that V1 was or is novel; it was established wording until a few editors showed up demanding an entirely novel system of unnecessary disambiguation. JCScaliger (talk) 20:45, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you think Noetica, Onconfucious, Ohms_law, Tony1, Blueboar all said anything substantive against V1 or in favor of V2, you're going to have to spell it out, because I don't see it. You're the only one who mentioned the word "narrow" in that RFC discussion, and no one said "wordy", so I don't know what you're talking about.

At least we agree no one said the status quo (V2) is great. A few like Blueboar aren't so crazy about V1 either, but the nine I listed did favor V1, and nobody favors V2.

I'm sure there is more to discuss, there always is, but in the mean time we have established consensus favoring V1 over V2. So why the reverting? Why the disruption? --Born2cycle (talk) 08:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible that I erred in my characterizations or interpretations. Noetica's objection seems to be more about precipitous changes without consensus than about a particular version, and I don't mean to try to speak for him. Similarly, I'll let the others clarify if they see fit. Dicklyon (talk) 08:10, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You guys (Dicklyon, Tony1 and Noetica) have been playing these delay tactics since Dec 21. From the moment I made the change and started a discussion section about, all you've been willing to do is edit war, and talk about the need to discuss, without actually discussing anything substantive. Enough! --Born2cycle (talk) 08:13, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To Dick: (after ec) If you look at the RfC above (i.e. where people actually addressed the issue), you'll see overwhelming support for the version that you rather misleadingly attribute to B2C, and virtually none for the one that the page has again been protected under (that you rather misleadingly describe as the "status quo" version). This whole thing, though the issue itself is quite trivial, makes a mockery of the idea that Wikipedia policy represents consensus - it's clear that all that matters is who's most prepared to edit-war and who's best friends with (or best able to pull the wool over the eyes of) an admin.--Kotniski (talk) 08:07, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I like how, if I protected it in the version that had been stable for the previous six months rather than in the one you wanted, it must have been due to (1) corruption or (2) stupidity. That doesn't provide me much confidence in your characterization of other editors. — kwami (talk) 17:38, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well OK, laziness is another option. It's easy to see which version has been stable for the last n months; it takes a bit more effort to look at the talk page and discover that editors who have been addressing the topic (rather than creating noise and smoke) have clearly decided it should be changed back. I know most admins tend to do the same kind of thing as you did (for any of the three reasons mentioned); I would have expected better from you.--Kotniski (talk) 07:38, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you understood the underlying issue -- the implications on actual title decisions of the difference between the V1 and V2 wordings -- and looked at the edit summary and associated discussion of the change that created the wording that was "stable for the previous six month", you would realize that that stability couldn't mean much, because those who made the change obviously did not appreciate these implications, and once the change and implications were realized, the only relevant argument made here (now by 10 people including Eraserhead1 below) was that to restore the V1 wording. Noetica, on the other hand, fully well understands these implications, which is why he wants to keep this wording, because it favors his contrarian view. That you've shown no sign whatsoever of realizing any of this does indicate some kind of visual blockage, especially considering how many times I've pointed this out to you, and your continued insistence that you don't see it (literally your words). --Born2cycle (talk) 00:14, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Version 1 is clearly better, we don't want to use more technical names if they are only known about by experts. We are aiming at a general audience here. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:39, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Eraserhead, you seem to have it backwards; the status quo or V2 version does not encourage "more technical", nor appeal to experts. It leaves recognizability broad, rather than restricting the value of it to only people who are familiar with the subject. For example, to use a perennial example, it encourages Bill Clinton over William Jefferson Clinton, even if everyone familiar with him knows that WIlliam Jefferson Clinton is his more precise name; the extra recognizability to even people not familiar with him can be traded off against the more precision of using his exact and less ambiguous name; on balance the short name wins here, partly because it makes the title recognizable even to people not very familiar with the man. We don't want to enable the argument that says that that extra recognizability is of no value when it extends to people outside of those who are familiar with the subject, which is exactly the way that Born2cycle tends to use it. Therefore, to the extent that I understood your comment, it seems more like you support V2. Am I correct? Dicklyon (talk) 16:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand what point you're trying to make. You say the V2 wording encourages "Bill Clinton over William Jefferson Clinton". I don't see how either wording encourages either name since both versions seem equally recognizable to me. Are you even suggesting that V1 would encourage the reverse in this case? If so, why? If not, how is this case even relevant here?

"We don't want to enable the argument that says that that extra recognizability is of no value when it extends to people outside of those who are familiar with the subject". Nobody I know wants to say it's of "no value"; certainly I don't. That's a straw man argument.

But you're living in an alternate universe if you think "extra recognizability ... when it extends to people outside of those who are familiar with the subject" has ever been a factor in deciding titles in WP (except maybe in a few isolated cases now and then). Any 20 clicks on SPECIAL:RANDOM will produce probably at least 10 examples of articles with titles for which additional descriptive words would make the titles recognizable to more people outside of those already familiar with that article subject, yet we don't have that extra description in those titles (unless it's also needed for disambiguation, meaning disambiguation from other uses within WP). That's proof that we don't title our articles for people unfamiliar with the subject to be able to recognize them from just the title.

Now, we know you want to change that, but you don't have anything close to consensus support for such a change. You don't even have anything coherent for what exactly you're proposing. In the mean time, you, Tony and Noetica keep filibustering to prevent us from fixing the written policy on recognizability to match actual practice. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:19, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Or to put it more briefly: Most people who know anything about the recent history of the United States call him Bill Clinton. So should we. V2 fails to encourage this, and was proposed and insisted upon by those who would like to make "explanatory" titles mandatory. JCScaliger (talk) 23:00, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I think we can agree that one of us is very confused. Since I'm missing the point of what you just said, maybe it's me. How does V2 not encourage "Bill Clinton" more than V1 does? And who are you saying proposed and insisted upon it? It seems to have been created (proposed) by Ohm's law, and as far as I can tell, nobody is insisting on this version. Dicklyon (talk) 23:09, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

JCS, please review the first post at #Clarification of recognizability lost for the history of the recognizability language. If you read the edit summary and associated discussion linked there, it's obvious they were just trying to simplify language without changing meaning, and did not realize what they had changed, and no one noticed and realized the implications until months later when I created that section. That change was not proposed or inserted "by those who would like to make 'explanatory' titles mandatory", but they are the ones who are insisting it stay V2 and not be changed back to V1. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:31, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a difference between V1 and V2 on the "Bill Clinton" vs "William Jefferson Clinton" title decision. Whether or not we restrict our consideration to those who are familiar with him, people are probably slightly more likely to recognize "Bill Clinton" than the formal name as referring to him. That is, people unfamiliar with him are probably no more likely to recognize one or the other as referring to any U.S. president, much less that one.

However, V2 would favor "Bill Clinton (U.S. president)" over "Bill Clinton" - because that would make the title recognizable ("Oh, Bill Clinton the president") to those who, like a certain 11 year old I know, might not be familiar with who this person is. And that's why we need to restore V1, because we're not moving Bill Clinton to Bill Clinton (U.S. president). --Born2cycle (talk) 01:08, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The reason why the title of the article in question is Bill Clinton and not Bill Clinton (U.S. President) is that there is no need for a parenthetical disambiguation. There is only one Wikipedia article about a notable person with that name. If, at some point in the future, an article is written about some other notable person named "Bill Clinton", then we might have to disambiguate the title of the article on the US President... but until then, No. Blueboar (talk) 15:58, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. But the problem is that V2 arguably favors Bill Clinton (U.S. President) over Bill Clinton, and (to choose another example by clicking on SPECIAL:RANDOM) V2 favors Peace, Love & Truth (album) over Peace, Love & Truth even more, even though there is no need for a parenthetical disambiguation in either case.

I mean, the current title, Peace, Love & Truth, is fine per V1, because it is recognizable to anyone who is familiar with that album. But to anyone who is not familiar with that album (including me until a few minutes ago), "Peace, Love & Truth" is totally unrecognizable, but at least we would recognize Peace, Love & Truth (album) as being an album. By the way, per V2, Peace, Love & Truth (Lennon-Ono compilation album) would be even better. That's the problem with V2 - it's totally open-ended - the more recognizable the title, to anyone, the better.

V1 might not be perfect, but at least it's not inaccurate with respect to most titles on WP like V2 is. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:47, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how V2 "favors" Bill Clinton (U.S. President) over Bill Clinton (or Peace, Love & Truth (Lennon-Ono compilation album) over Peace, Love & Truth). Explain please. (note... I am not saying V2 is better than V1... nor that V1 is better than V2... I just don't understand how the examples being cited fit into that debate) Blueboar (talk) 19:08, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll explain in terms of the album, because it illustrates the point better. Also, to review:

Version 1/original (adapted from May 2011 wording): Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?
Version 2/current: Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?

In general, recognizable means "able to be recognized". In the specific context of WP titles, a recognizable title means the topic of the article is able to be recognized from the title. I presume no one disagrees with this. I mean, what else can "recognizable" mean in this context?

For someone familiar with the album, they will recognize an article titled Peace, Love & Truth must be about that album, but someone who is not familiar with the album will not (I, for example, had no clue, and had to read the lead of the article to find out what it was about). However, that someone who is not familiar with the album will recognize that an article titled Peace, Love & Truth (Lennon-Ono compilation album) is about a Lennon-Ono compilation album named Peace, Love & Truth. Therefore, Peace, Love & Truth (Lennon-Ono compilation album) is recognizable even to those unfamiliar with the album, but Peace, Love & Truth is not nearly as recognizable, because it's recognizable only to those who are already familiar with the album (which fully satisfies V1, but the longer and more descriptive title satisfies V2 much better).

Because that article is at Peace, Love & Truth and not at Peace, Love & Truth (Lennon-Ono compilation album), V1 is a much more accurate reflection of the role recognizability plays in titling our articles than is V2. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:50, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I still don't understand your argument. V2 says the title must be a recognizable name or description... it does not say it must be recognizable by every living person on earth.

What it probably should say is:

Would the typical Wikipedia user find the candidate title a recognizable name for, or description of the topic?

Call this V3 if you want to. I would follow this up with a nod to WP:COMMONNAME by saying something along the lines of "If there is more than one recognizable name or description, Editors should try to determine which name or description is likely to be the most recognizable (by looking at frequency of usage in reliable sources). Blueboar (talk) 03:14, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

suggested edits

I would propose in the lede:

change "serves to give" to "gives"
delete "simply"
change "since" to "as"
change "what the subject is called" to "the terms used"
change "When this offers multiple possibilities, editors choose among them by considering several principles:..." to "Editors choose from all the possibilities offered by examining titles of similar articles, and seeking a short, understandable and recognizable title."

Hoping to make this itself a more readable lede. Collect (talk) 15:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Neither version 1 or 2 is satisfactory

TL;DR, I'm afraid. But my first instinct is to say that both are too vague and open to interpretation (we need to negotiate examples for the poor editors so they can get the gist of where the boundaries lie). 1 relies on the definition of familiarity and expertise, which mean different things to different people in different topics and areas. Version 2 avoids these definitional problems and merely shifts the vagueness to another level (the more general).

Version 1 also suffers from a category problem: it conceives of article-title specificity solely in terms of familiarity and expertise at the expense of the ability of anyone, expert or non-expert, to identify a topic without being misled. It skirts around this problem of how the principle of primary title produces highly unsatisfactory results in some cases (although not all cases).

So this interminable arguing over which version should stand is beside the point: we need to think more deeply about the issue. Tony (talk) 04:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps, but unless you have a specific V3 to propose so that we have something to actually discuss, this is just more disruptive filibustering from ~~Dick Noetica~~ Tony. In the mean time, we have at least 10 people now -- Born2cycle, Kotniski, EdChem, PBS, Kai445, Powers, WhatamIdoing, JCScaligera, Enric Naval, Eraserhead -- who have stated that V1 is most accurate in terms of reflecting how recognizability is used in deciding titles, and nobody who has even argued that V2 is accurate at all. Now, why are we still at V2? --Born2cycle (talk) 06:33, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes, neither version is satisfactory - the format of the whole section (which I and most others fully supported when it was introduced, since it was a great improvement over the logical mess we had before) is not, on reflection, satisfactory. Anything that phrases the article-choosing process in terms of vague criteria that "need to be balanced" is actually missing out the essential information on what is actually done in almost every situation. This is what I've tried to address in my proposal above, which would, I suggest, be a profitable focus for discussion.--Kotniski (talk) 07:16, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My preference is for a more explicit version of #1 with examples of how the principle it embodies is implemented. IMHO, it would have wording added as follows:

• Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic? This is to say, titles should contain parenthetical or comma-delimited disambiguation only when needed to avoid confusion with like-titled subjects assuming the reader has some facility with the subject matter. For instance, it would properly be Bill Clinton and not Bill Clinton (U.S. President) and it should *properly* be Collins Street and not Collins Street, Melbourne. Both the preceding titles are sufficiently clear inasmuch as they 1) assume the reader has a pre-existing intention to learn more on that particular subject, and 2) the subject matter can reasonably be considered as referring to a ‘particular one or ones’ assuming that topics must be sufficiently notable to merit inclusion in an encyclopedia. In accordance with this principle, it should be Gone with the Wind (film) to distinguish it from Gone with the Wind (musical).

FYI, it seems clear to me that our current disambiguation page (Collins Street) was borne out of wikilawyering-to-make-a-point. None of those red-letter articles-in-waiting seem to be the least bit notable. A Google search shows there is but one notable “Collins Street.” As for the other ones, Wikipedia is not Google Map. Greg L (talk) 03:06, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is the sort of thing we ought to be aiming at - actually explaining stuff instead of writing in vague abstracts. Though possibly this much verbiage is too much for the opening paragraph, which has to address other matters as well - it maybe better to do as in my proposed version, i.e. give the basics here, and link to a later section which deals with it in detail.--Kotniski (talk) 11:23, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also the matter of parentheticals tends to be associated with the "precision" criterion rather than the recognizability one - but as I've alerady proposed, I don't think we should be dividing this paragraph up according to the criteria.--Kotniski (talk) 11:25, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think you and I are in general agreement, Kotniski. I didn’t get the above proposal pregnant so it and I aren’t engaged or anything like that . If you know best how to take bits and pieces of the above and use them more appropriately in the guideline, I’m all ears. Greg L (talk) 03:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Quite reasonable wording; however, taking the proposal, making everything after "This is to say" into a new section, and introducing an internal link would be much more readable. If all the questions were done on this scale, the introduction and summary would be eight long paragraphs. JCScaliger (talk) 05:04, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have no feel for the dynamics on this talk page. Why not wait for the necessary amount of time for further input and, seeing no objections, revise as you think best. The worst that can happen is that someone reverts and then claims that our behavior here suggests genetic flaws and that you and I should have better chosen our parents. Greg L (talk) 05:21, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of thoughts about WP:Commonname

One of the benefits of closing a lot of RM discussions is that you begin to see trends in the application and interpretation of policies and guidelines across many articles. In the case of our English language, common name policy, it is not so much the policy that is misinterpreted or misapplied, it is the actual determination of What is the common name at any given point in time? that gives us the most trouble. We provide some guidance on how to use Google to determine the common name, but based on the wildly divergent results editors say they get in any given discussion, that guidance isn’t serving us well. Pile on all the other biased logic and rationalizations that editors bring to RM discussions and determining the English language common name for any given subject can be very tedious, and essentially unproductive. Unproductive I say, because it is consuming valuable editor time that could be much better applied to the improvement and creation of content. So, as we move from 3.9 million articles to ~5-10 million articles in the next 10 years, I asked myself how could we improve the application and interpretation of our common name policy? To think about that, I made three assumptions:

There is an English language common name for every article (understanding there are a lot of exceptions here in science and purely non-English language subjects, etc.)
The English language common name can reliably be determined through Google searches of reliable sources.
The English language common name should be the article’s title unless there’s overwhelming rationale to the contrary (also understanding that other titling criteria are equally considered)

If we accepted these assumptions, how could we improve the process?

Outsource the Google search – some editors are very sophisticated in their ability to use Google for researching common names. I think that skill comes from experience. I also think that if we could find a way to generate consistency in searching that eliminated all the biases and rationalizations that editors bring to discussion, the process would be much cleaner and more productive. Imagine a WikiProject Common Name whose sole purpose was to search and make an unbiased common name determination on any given set of choices. An editor who initiated an RM based on Common Name would submit the name choices to the project and the project would return an unbiased verdict. The RM would use that verdict along with whatever other rationale there was for the move to guide the discussion. All the unproductive, inconsistent and biased Google results would not dominate the discussion. Just like any other project, members would determine the best methodology to return unbiased results and manage the workload.
Establish better policy re common name changes overtime – It is a fact that names change over time. Sources on notable entities that have existed for a long time will show a bias for a name that existed for the longest period, regardless of what the most current name of the entity is. Although our guidance does address this to some extent, it’s not really unequivocal enough to help. I don’t know exactly what the right answer is, but the question comes down to:
Do we determine Common Name based on the lifetime of the entity to the current time? (i.e. maybe 100 years of reliable sources) or:
Do we determine Common Name based on a much, shorter, more contemporary period of time? (i.e. maybe only the last 10 years of sources, or only sources since a name changed.)

These aren’t easy questions, but we must begin to find a way to make our titling process more efficient and productive. Maybe these ideas can help. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:19, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting ideas, Mike. I see the RMs somewhat differently (biased by the ones I choose to pay attention to, no doubt). It seems to me that for 99.9% of articles, there's no issue, as the first name that an editor thinks of is likely to be the common name, and uncontroversial. Still, I agree that we spend too much time arguing. I worry though about theories that we can solve such problems by more strict centralized rules for titling; this is what User:Born2cycle tries to do, according to the essay on his talk page; the result seems to be more long-winded disagreeements, not fewer. And COMMONNAME is often invoked in issues where it is not really applicable. We have fairly stable central style guidance on things like capitalization, hyphens and en dashes, etc., yet users often want to override those by saying their sources do it differently; that's a case where the name is not in dispute, just the styling, but COMMONNAME gets invoked as an argument. And I think everyone would agree that Moonlight sonata is more common than Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven), yet we have a contentious RM going; clarifying COMMONNAME wouldn't help that kind of mess, would it? How many RMs do we have where COMMONNAME, or the difficulty of getting an unbiased count, is really the issue? Dicklyon (talk) 17:29, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding names that have changed... I know that some people want to have simple, one size fits all "rules" that will resolve all debates, but this simply is not realistic. I don't think we can have a simple, one size fits all rule for this, because the facts of each case are always going to be unique.

I would certainly agree that we should give more weight to usage since the change occurred... but this does not mean we should ignore or give no weight at all to older usage. There is usually a tipping point at which sources written since a name change will out-weigh the sources written prior to the change... but where that tipping point falls will be different from subject to subject. In debates, I think the question should be "Have we reached the tipping point in regards to this specific subject?" This question takes most (not all) of the heat out of RM debates... as it focuses the discussion on timing, as opposed to "what is correct". Blueboar (talk) 18:22, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I am advocating a one size fits all policy but rather a better articulation of the very process you describe above. If we could make the tipping point idea much clearer in policy as well as generate an unbiased assessment as to when that occured for any given pair of alternatives, we could make RMs much less contentious, and less bias laden than they are today.--Mike Cline (talk) 19:08, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dicklyon, regards Moonlight Sonata, that's really not an issue of What the English language common name is. It is really is the classic delimma we've created with our titling policy--what criteria trumps what other criteria and when? There's no answer to that, the policy is all over the map and that's a bigger issue. I don't know how many RM discussions are unproductive because of the vagaries of Common Name and its application, but there's are enough from my view that changing the process would be a big improvement. The current RM--Kolkata is kind of a poster child for my idea above, as is Turkey–Kurdistan Workers' Party conflict [6]. A process that would generate an unbiased decision as to the English language common name, would be a big improvement from our current process. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:32, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that there will ever be any satisfactory algorithm for this. Identifying "the common name" involves too many imponderables - which sources are (most) reliable? how much more weight do we give to recent sources, or more "encyclopedia-like" sources, than others? And then there are the other imponderables involved in deciding whether the common name is actually the best title for the article. It would certainly save us a lot of time and exasperation if we could answer titling questions just by asking a computer, but I don't think it's ever going to happen. --Kotniski (talk) 20:37, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dicklyon wrote: "I worry though about theories that we can solve such problems by more strict centralized rules for titling; this is what User:Born2cycle tries to do, according to the essay on his talk page; the result seems to be more long-winded disagreements..." Since we don't yet have "strict centralized rules for titling" (much less anything close to deterministic algorithm for titling), there can be no result of such. The long-winded disagreements are a result of not having more determinism in our rules. By definition, if they were more deterministic, the less there would be to argue about. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:27, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That begs the question: what is so wrong with argument? Blueboar (talk) 01:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps nothing, Blueboar. Can you show some bits of the current guideline that you would modify, along with the proposed modifications based upon your teachings? Greg L (talk) 03:29, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What is so wrong with argument? Nothing is wrong with argument per se, but pointless argument is, well, pointless. If our "rules" (i.e., policy, conventions, principles, criteria, guidelines, MOS, etc.) are such that a plethora of titles can be reasonably justified for many articles, we are guaranteeing a situation in which titles will be debated endlessly. The alternative is that we improve the rules incrementally so that they become more deterministic, so that with time titling in WP becomes less and less of an issue. Personally, I would like to see the number of title issues brought to RM to drop from about a dozen per day to a dozen per week or maybe even a dozen per month. Thus RM discussions would take up much less time and resources so all that energy can be focused on improving content. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:46, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of these assumptions,

the first is doubtful; there are many subjects with two or three contending names about equally common (to say nothing of articles with no common name, for which we must find a descriptive title).
The second is wrong; google results are indicative, not decisive; they are prone to many errors even as a sampling of the corpus of writing in English, and there is no way to consistently limit them to reliable sources (Google scholar helps, but not enough; there are too many non-journals in it.)
The third is an extremely controversial position (for more, talk to Born2Cycle, who holds it). The other points (or Greg's points below) are reasons not to use the most common name.
This ngram strongly suggests that UK is now more common in prose than United Kingdom. But we do not use it as an article title, and I have not seen anybody suggest that we do so. JCScaliger (talk) 04:53, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bill of Rights–like set of proposed principles

I think that to make any progress here, we need to take a few steps backwards and agree upon fundamental principles upon which WP:AT can be based. I propose that we need to rally around (develop a consensus in support of) the below fundamental principles that contributing editors would ask themselves when choosing an article name:

Does the article title look studious and encyclopedic?
Is it factually correct the way most readers who are expert in the subject mater understand it?
Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?
After a redirect from popular street vernacular, does the actual title best adhere to the principle of least astonishment?
Do the spelling, diacritics, or capitalization diverge from conventional, high-quality, real-world English-language practices as exercised by the most-reliable English-language RSs?

I’ve seen over and over and over that editors here tend to make proposals in the abstract that would sound swell in the Roman Senate but which tend to induce suspicion in other editors who fear sneaking agendas to POV push. It’s my intention to flesh out any of the above five items with example titles chosen to show what is proscribed and prescribed (or discouraged and encouraged for those who don’t fear coming across as wikilawyering); precisely as I did two sections above. For instance, the interaction and meaning of three of the above points could be expanded later in WP:AT with specific examples like this:

Points #1, #2, and #3 above in combination mean that we best serve the interests of our readership by titling the article Rock Hudson rather than Roy Harold Scherer, Jr..

But first, I propose we see what other items might be added to the above; see which ones are uncontroversial; and which ones are worthy of Turkish-prison butt-stabbings, ANIs, and ArbCom tongue amputations.

I am hopeful that with this approach, we can have an amicable working relationship. Greg L (talk) 03:58, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In short, you propose to rally consensus around what we now say (excluding the recent and controversial revert warring by a single editor).

It may be useful to have examples here, or in a guideline; but examples in the policy tend to become embarrassments as reality changes around it. One former example in the text (for what is essentially your #2) was that we prefered the accurate tsunami to the more common tidal wave; well, the Boxing Day Tsunami came along, and by now "tsunami" is more common, so it was taken out. JCScaliger (talk) 04:42, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

JCScaliger: Examples are important because when we stare at this text for hours and hours and debate it, it seems perfectly clear. But some of the guidelines aren’t all that clear to newcomers and novices (and even rather experienced editors who shy away from our guideline pages). Examples of what to do and what not to do are exceedingly valuable because they essentially say “Here is what we mean.” Examples are part of Education and Communication 101 and our policy pages tend to not have enough of them. As for examples becoming outdated: there are plenty of bright people on this page; it is not at all difficult to come up with scores of timeless examples. Greg L (talk) 04:50, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Not really that easy. The examples we have are largely collected from actual discussion, and nobody has come up with a replacement for tsunami. A guideline with examples and cross-links would be useful; but examples tend to become frozen - somebody introduces them to "settle" a debatable title, and then argues that "policy has decided this." You should recognize this problem from other and less fortunate guideline pages. JCScaliger (talk) 04:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On the issue of examples becoming outdated, you and I will have to agree to disagree. As for the use of examples being the source of disagreement and causing gridlock: no shit. But the alternative (talking in flowery but entirely nebulous generalities) is pure garbage. I’ve seen editors arguing over some text here and no one could explain to me what the practical difference was between them. Omitting examples on Wikipedia’s guideline pages have been a way to avoid coming to a true consensus by crafting near-worthless, ambiguous text that could be interpreted to mean what anyone wanted it to me. That has to end. Requiring example text will require that chameleons (they exist on this page now) come out of hiding and man-up. Greg L (talk) 05:08, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- You ignore the problem with tsunami; it didn't run into (or cause) problems because of differences over policy; it ran into a question of fact. Most examples will.
The practical difference which has caused the present protection is simple. A handful of editors want unnecessary disambiguation like National Tax Agency (Japan) or Elton John (rock star) on then grounds it will be clearer to the totally ignorant, and they think the simplified text will make it easier to argue for their version. I'm not sure either half of this is correct, but that is the practical difference.

Examples would not have helped. I don't think anuybody have thought Bill Clinton (U.S. President) would ever have been something we would need to discourage; there's no sign of a demand for it at WP:RM. JCScaliger (talk) 05:35, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you just drawing me into wikidrama so I get into the saddle even prouder on your side of this? We seem to agree on the objective. Your poo-pooing using examples like “Elton John (rock star)” just proves how that example would have been a valuable one since Elton John is what it properly ought to be… and is. That some editor thought it ought to be “Elton John (rock star)” doesn’t impress; all sorts of people have ideas that don’t gain traction with others. All that impresses me is a clear consensus and even clearer guidelines. I’m not exactly in a mood for caving to editors who fancy that the best tactic to get their way is to be tendentious beyond all comprehension. The best response to *bad* ideas is *better* ideas. Bring ‘em on. And then let’s be perfectly clear about what we mean. Greg L (talk) 05:48, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's no need to worry about the Bill Clinton title; if you think there is, use that one as an example. As for National Tax Agency (Japan), that makes more sense; a number of editors preferred that, since "National" is so ambiguous without a country, and since other countries have national tax agencies, whether WP has an article on them or not. It's interesting that you say "The practical difference which has caused the present protection is simple. A handful of editors want unnecessary disambiguation like National Tax Agency (Japan)..." I don't remember anything about that coming up in the huge lengthy discussion. Interesting. Dicklyon (talk) 06:21, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's largely because the editors who want the unnecessary disambiguation stayed aloof from the discussion, preferring to get their way by... well we know how. (This does not apply to you, of course.) If this "unnecessary disambiguation" issue is still the elephant in the room, then we really need to hear (finally) some concrete proposal as to what type of article name ought to have such disambiguation; then we might be able to make some progress on it, and incorporate the result into whatever wording we decide on. At the moment, though, we don't as a rule do "this kind" of disambiguation (except in a few subject areas where we always do, as I've indicated in my proposed wording), so any wording we come up with will have to reflect the fact that we don't, since that's the current practice.--Kotniski (talk) 11:46, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If it's the elephant in the room, let's bring it up. My latest real-world example: can anyone imagine what the topic of 2nd Avenue is, without the disambiguator? Take a look at the article and the recent talk section about moving it. What names would be suggested by various old and new naming guidelines? Dicklyon (talk) 16:15, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Having a disambiguation page at 2nd Avenue is correct as there are a number of existing topics ambiguous with the title and none are obviously the primary topic. There was never any discussion in which evidence of a primary topic was presented. This really has little bearing on cases where there is no other existing topic that is ambiguous, and yet some claim that disambiguation is nonetheless necessary. older ≠ wiser 16:29, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, at least one editor who has commented above about disambiguators has brought this up on my talk page: User_talk:Dicklyon#2nd_Avenue. The argument is partly in terms of primary topic, and partly in terms of there not actually being any other article competing for the exact title "2nd Avenue". Pretty much like the arguments in National Tax Agency and Catholic Memorical School, that disambiguators should be forbidden if they're not absolutely required by having another article that wants the same name. The TV channel was moved in 2007 to 2nd Avenue with edit summary moved ETC 2nd Avenue to 2nd Avenue: It is only known as 2nd Avenue now. Dicklyon (talk) 17:07, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the similarity. 2nd Avenue (disambiguation) has existed for some time now listing existing ambiguous topics. For Catholic Memorial School, no one has explained what the disambiguation page would contain. As it is, it remains a redirect to the disambiguated title, which is just plain dumb. As for National Tax Agency, I'd have no complaint with moving that article (to me, either Japanese National Tax Agency or National Tax Agency (Japan) would be acceptable) and redirecting National Tax Agency to Revenue service. The last appears to be warranted by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government and legislation). older ≠ wiser 18:33, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This hardline primary topic or the highway practice needs to allow for the disambiguation of clear cases where the item by itself is extremely unsatisfactory; like this one. Tony (talk) 23:18, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Like which one? There were three just mentioned. And if you or anyone can articulate beyond vague intuitions what you mean by clear cases where the item by itself is extremely unsatisfactory, then there might actually be something to discuss. older ≠ wiser 23:47, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is no magic formula for determining the best article title. This is because every article is unique. When it comes to adding a parenthetical disambiguation, There are some situations where such disambiguation is clearly necessary and helpful - I think we are all agreed that in those situations we should disambiguate... and of course there are situations when disambiguation is neither necessary nor helpful - I think we are all in agreement that in such situations we should not disambiguate... however, there are also situations when disambiguation may not be necessary, but would be helpful - in such situations we actually have a choice as to whether to add it or not. Some times the answer will be "Yes, disambiguate", but at other times the answer will be "No, don't disambiguate". How do we determine which is which... we discuss it and try to form a consensus. Forming a consensus is often a very messy process... consensus building often involves working our way past disagreement. It involves heated debate and even outright argument. That's OK. It's how the system works. Blueboar (talk) 14:43, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But can you give an example of a situation where parenthetical disambiguation is not needed to distinguish the title from any other, but has still been determined to be a good idea?--Kotniski (talk) 18:02, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I’m with Kotniski. Of course there are blue-text prescribed example titles and red-text proscribed example titles we can use to illustrate a principle. If there are grey‑area or contentious (battleground) examples, such as “National Tax Agency” (which seems a really poor example given that there is a National Tax Agency in Spain), then let’s use obvious and high‑quality examples upon which a consensus can be had (which means that we don’t need 100% agreement from all editors—even if they are tendentious). Everyone: Please offer up *good* examples rather than battleground examples that you obviously knew were bones of contention before and had to know would be bones of contention again. Under “making progress” in the dictionary, I can’t imagine that one of the key elements is “raise old issues that went nowhere before.” I see no point even suggesting example article titles to use here when it is already clear the title is probably incorrect and is no‑doubt controversial. I’ve already suggested titles such as “Elton John” (v.s. “Elton John (musician)”), which has the virtue of being correct to start off with. Do I have to hand out {{trouts}} to unhelpful posts here? Others here are more expert on what are the battleground issues here and should easily be able to find example titles around which we can rally and form a consensus. Greg L (talk) 18:50, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're trying to come up with a one-size-fits-all-there-are-no-exceptions-to-the-rule which is not how things go. Bluboar has it right. Clarify what can be clarrified and give some gudiance for when things might not be so clear cut. Examples are nice, but have the tendancy to be overused and quickly become outdated as policy/guidelines change.∞陣内 Jinnai 20:49, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Length of the title

Template:Formerly

There is no information nowhere. At least I couldn't found.

How many characters can there be in a title?
Which article has the longest title?

--98.199.22.63 (talk) 02:37, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions), the maximum is 256. I don't know if that maximum is attained anywhere.--Kotniski (talk) 07:21, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As I remember, the "maximum number of characters" technical restriction was a determining factor in settling a WP:Official name debate several years ago... the issue was what to entitle our article on the governing body of a Masonic organization: and we settled on "Supreme Council, Scottish Rite (Southern Jurisdiction, USA)". A few editors wanted to use the full "official" name of the organization, which is: The Supreme Council (Mother Council of the World) of the Inspectors General Knights Commander of the House of the Temple of Solomon of the Thirty-third Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America - but the debate was quickly settled when it was pointed out that it was not technically possible to use the "official name" ... it would put us over the max. Blueboar (talk) 17:15, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a list of some Wikipedia articles with long titles.

Treaties

Words

—Wavelength (talk) 17:23, 20 January 2012 (UTC) and 20:34, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am revising the heading of this section from Lenght of the Title to Length of the title, for more effective archival searches. This revision is in accord with WP:TPOC, point 12: Section headings. Please be attentive to spelling, especially in section headings.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:58, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This should be addressed at Wikipedia:Policy on the length of article titles that are exceedingly long or which are contrivances intended to attract untoward attention to themselves or are self-referential in nature so as to humorously make a point. Greg L (talk) 22:59, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Recognizability wording Poll/RFC

withdraw RFC/poll since no one was participating in the poll

Well, the previous RFC expired without ever being closed[7], and several related discussions since then started up and died out without anything getting resolved. How to move forward?

In this RFC/poll I propose we consider four main options regarding what to do, if anything, about the recognizability wording under WP:CRITERIA. I'm also asking for clarification about what everyone thinks on several related issues discussed recently on this page. I've tried to frame it all so everyone feels this is a fair and reasonable approach, without biasing towards any particular outcome, except that which has consensus support.

There are really two issues to consider:

Regarding the to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) clause: whether the recognizability criteria is intended to mean that the topic of the article is to be recognized from seeing just the title...
- to as many readers as reasonably possible? Or...
- to only those who are familiar with (but not necessarily expert in) the article's topic?
Whether the recognizability clause, or the criteria section, or the whole page, needs a more major change/revamp beyond issue #1, and, if so, whether the wording should be V1 or V2 while the more major issues are being discussed.

Version 1: Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?

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

Q1: Please select which one of the following actions you believe would be best for WP:

A) Adopt the shorter recognizability wording of V2 - this is accurate.

B) Adopt the longer recognizability wording of V1 - this is accurate.

C) Adopt the shorter wording of V2 because V2 is more accurate and/or better than V1, but continue discussing because V2 is not fully satisfactory.

D) Adopt the longer wording of V1 because V1 is more accurate and/or better than V2, but continue discussing because V1 is not fully satisfactory.

Q2: Please also select which of the following two statements you agree with more:

a) To help readers identify topics from just looking at titles, the recognizability wording should be be enhanced/nuanced/expanded somehow to allow for adding precision in one form or another to the titles of topics that have names, perhaps especially for those names/titles that look like "ordinary phrases" (for lack of a better term), even when the title in question is not ambiguous (has no other uses on WP).

b) The recognizability wording should remain consistent with no unnecessary precision, even for topics with names that look like "ordinary phrases". When the name of the topic is not ambiguous (has no other uses on WP), the title should be just that name.

Q3: Finally, especially if you answered C or D above, please also add any/all of the following as appropriate.

c) We should give Kotniski's "major change" proposal more consideration.

d) We should give Mike Cline's holistic approach proposal more consideration.

e) We should give Mike Cline's proposal to abandon naturalness and recognizability more consideration.

Please indicate your opinions in the #Poll Responses section just below - explaining your reasoning is not required but would probably be helpful. Also, let's try to keep discussion separate, in the #Discussion section below. Thank you! --Born2cycle (talk) 01:25, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Poll responses

Please use this section only to indicate your answers to the poll questions, Q1, Q2 and Q3.

Kotniski statement and discussion

We should enact the clear result of the previous RfC (plus comments made on the same topic by other people since) and put back the wording about "to editors familiar with..." It seems bizarre and plain disruptive that anyone could seriously object to doing that (and a waste of time discussing that particular matter further). But of course I think we should take the whole section out and replace it with something along the lines I've proposed - it's not helpful to readers to give vague criteria instead of concrete explanation of what we do - and it's also misleading to imply (which was never the intention) that we have a sacred list of criteria that are the only ones permitted to be considered.--Kotniski (talk) 14:29, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't agree. The whole page needs to be looked at in terms of precision and ease of comprehensibility by the poor editors at large, who have had to cope with a lack of clarity, disorganisation, and far too few examples. This should be discussed globally; that is, we should agree on the big picture before launching in (as I've noticed you've been doing, Kotniski) and unilaterally changing major tenets. Tony (talk) 15:04, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - So what is it you don't agree with? I'm also in favour of reversing the recent unsupported change to the "major tenet" (though I wouldn't describe it as that much of a tenet), and I'm also in favour of revamping the whole page (starting with the first section, for which I've already made a proposal). --Kotniski (talk) 15:24, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Tony, the notion about avoiding unnecessary precision (a.k.a. "predisambiguation" or "preemptive disambiguation") is not limited to this page. It's infused throughout WP:D as well, specific naming convention pages like WP:TV-NC ("editors should avoid preemptive disambiguation"), and most importantly in the actual naming of our articles. TV series and episode names are particularly relevant (not that they're the only ones) here because so many have names that appear to be normal phrases, certainly not recognizable to be the name of some particular series or episode of some TV series (e.g. The Practice, Whatever the Case May Be, ...In Translation, The Ghost Network, etc.)
    So, isn't what you're suggesting not "just" looking at this whole page "in terms of precision and ease of comprehensibility by the poor editors at large", but looking at how we guide folks to name our articles in practically every related aspect on WP, as well as actually changing the titles of perhaps the majority of our articles? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:03, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, based on what you've written here, I would expect Kotniski's poll response to be something like:

Q1: D Q2: (I'm not sure) Q3: c

And Tony's something like this:

Q1: C Q2: a Q3: The whole page needs to be looked at in terms of precision and ease of comprehensibility

Based on Dick's replies below (and of course what he has written before), I would expect his poll response to be similar to Tony's, and Blueboar I'm not sure at all, but I think he's leaning a bit more for C than D, with emphasis on the need to change it to something better (answering "a" to Q2). The point is at best we can only guess what each other's positions are - this poll is designed to make it more clear for each other, so we can see where we are and if we have consensus on anything. But you need to respond to the poll for this to be helpful. It's just an idea. Obviously if no one wants to do it, it's not going to help. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:38, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Could it be a surprise to many that the abovementioned rfc was never closed? The discussion was heated, circuitous, and was not helped by one or more participants' walls of text and endless wikilawyering. Also, what admin would want to get involved in this topic area knowing full well the angst caused to one of their well-respected fellow admins that incidentally caused him to burn out and bow out of WP for good? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:56, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes! We agree the previous discussion had problems... that's one of the reasons I started a new one (now that that rfc expired). hope it's okay I moved this thread to the Discussion section --Born2cycle (talk) 02:12, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You leave out an option... come up with a V3 that everyone can agree with. Blueboar (talk) 04:15, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Options C or D are for those who favor that. --Born2cycle (talk) 08:01, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - We have discussed an alternative in #Neither version 1 or 2 is satisfactory above: several sentences which address the issue. While not perfect, nobody has claimed it's mistaken.

On Q3, yes, we need to follow up on discussing other approaches before voting on the polarized approach. It seemed clear before that for such discussion to proceed, we would need to see a significant backing off of Born2cycle's ownership issues on this page. Dicklyon (talk) 04:39, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Do we have consensus for needing such discussion? That wasn't clear to me, which is why there are options C and D for those who favor that, so we can find out. As to me backing off, I am. Not participating actually, except to answer questions/issues like this. How's that? --Born2cycle (talk) 06:54, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Framing the question as you did in a new RFC is not backing off. Dicklyon (talk) 06:56, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oops. I thought I covered everything that has been discussed on this page. What did I miss? Don't you favor C? --Born2cycle (talk) 08:01, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you missed anything ... its just that I don't fine any of the choices discussed so far to be optimal... so I am looking for an option E.

To my thinking, the concept of recognizability can be summed up as follows: What title would result in the most number of readers saying "ah... this should be the article I am searching for" when they search for something.

Now, in figuring this out, there is no step-by-step process... yet there are some things we can do to help. We need to think about all the names/descriptions that a reader might use when searching for an article on the topic. These names/descriptions can form a set of "potential titles". Any of these "potentials" would be recognizable to at least someone. The trick is to figure out which potential would be recognizable to the most number of readers. So... from this set of "potentials", we can look to see if one of them is used by a significant majority of sources (ie we look to see if there is a WP:COMMONNAME.) The name/description that is used in the most number of sources is likely to be the one that is most recognizable by our readers.

Of course, sometimes there is no single WP:COMMONNAME. There may not be one single name/description that is used by a significant majority of sources. In which case, the principle of recognizability can not be used as a final way to determine the title... the best we can do is use it to narrow the set of potentials, while we look to the other principles to determine the best title.

What I would looking for in an option E would be language that gets all this across... but in nice, short, punchy language. Blueboar (talk) 15:23, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My proposal (#Naming criteria section again) says "...A name is selected by which the subject is commonly referred to in reliable English-language sources, thus ensuring recognizability to general readers who are familiar with the subject, while also indicating how the subject is likely to be referred to in an encyclopedic register (such as within Wikipedia articles). However, when there are several more or less equally recognizable names available, it is not obligatory to choose the commonest name – the choice may also take account of other factors, such as the criteria listed..." What do people think about that? --Kotniski (talk) 15:28, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Could you clarify what an "encyclopedic register" is? Blueboar (talk) 16:36, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

People keep asking me that - obviously this use of "register" isn't as familiar as I thought. It means the type - level - of language that would be expected in a serious reference work. Nothing too slangy, journalese-y, etc. How do we say this in a way that people will readily understand?--Kotniski (talk) 16:53, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Encyclopedic tone may be more readily understood. JCScaliger (talk) 19:59, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But the thing that seems to be concerning those who refuse to accept the result of the previous discussion (if one can sift out the occasional statement of substance from what they've written) is not related to the issue of choosing names at all - it's about the issue of disambiguation - there seems to be a view (though no-one who supports it seems willing to articulate it clearly) that we should add "redundant" disambiguation in some cases where we currently don't. This seems to be the issue addressed by B2C's second question. If I'm right that this is the elephant in the room, then let's concentrate on getting that issue sorted out.--Kotniski (talk) 15:37, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding "redundant" disambiguation: I tend to opine against such titles in RM discussions (I have yet to see an example where I think such disambiguation is needed)... however, I can accept that there could be a situation where such disambiguation might be considered helpful, and we should remain open to this possibility. In other words, while "redundant disambiguation" is usually not necessary, I don't think "redundant disambiguation" is wrong. My call... the policy should remain silent on the issue. Don't encourage it, but don't forbid it either. Not ever titling disagreement can be (or needs to be) settled by policy. Some decisions are best settled by reaching a consensus of editors - on an article-by-article basis. Blueboar (talk) 16:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we could just delete the whole policy, if we're going to take that approach (indeed it's already been suggested that it should be classed as a guideline rather than a policy). But if this page is going to answer any questions at all, then a prime candidate for inclusion would be a fundamental aspect of our titling practices that has (virtually) no known exceptions. We don't need to expressly forbid redundant parentheticals (do we expressly forbid anything?), but people reading this page have the right to know that they're not what we do. Unless we can find some agreement that they should (sometimes) be what we do. --Kotniski (talk) 16:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm... I am not at all sure I agree with you in characterizing this as "a fundamental aspect of our titling practices". The issue of "redundant parenthetical disambiguation" really does not come up all that often... and I don't think most editors really care about it one way or the other when it does. But perhaps I am missing something... could you explain why you think this is fundamental? Blueboar (talk) 17:27, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, someone might look at a few articles titled "John Smith (cellist)", "Sue Brown (flautist)" etc., and assume that these parentheticals are added as a matter of course, and decide to title a new article "Magungo Batungo (pianist)", when in fact "Magungo Batungo" would suffice. It wouldn't matter that much, admittedly, although titles like this are spotted from time to time and tend always to be moved uncontroversially to the undisambiguated name. In any case, the reader who has noticed that some "ambiguous" titles are disambiguated and some aren't deserves an explanation - these parentheticals are a frequent (and probably the most surprising) part of our article titles, and we need to present clearly and upfront the basic principles that govern their use and non-use. --Kotniski (talk) 19:14, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What is wrong with someone entitling a new article "Magungo Batungo (pianist)"? I would assume that they were simply exercising an abundance of caution ... by disambiguating "just in case" there were other Magungo Batungos out there. If the disambiguation is not needed... no biggie - we can come back and change the title later.

Indeed, I would rather have editors disambiguate when it is not needed, than have them not disambiguate when it is needed. Blueboar (talk) 21:30, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See my FAQ:User:Born2cycle/FAQ#How_do_readers_benefit_from_avoiding_unnecessary_predisambiguation.3F.

More importantly, if someone can simply move such a title to the undisambiguated title as non-controversial, the basis for such a move should be documented. If it's not, then it's more likely to be controversial. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:15, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Really nothing on this page is a biggie. If someone called their article "Batungo, Magungo – A Pianist" it wouldn't really matter that much; we could change it to match the standard formatting. But we shouldn't be suppressing basic information about how we create and format article titles just because a few people have a vague idea that in a small minority of cases we might wish to vary it a bit. In fact a worse "mistake" (that beginners also make) is to add a disambiguator to a clear primary topic just because they're creating an article that makes it ambiguous (move "France" to "France (country)" just because they're starting an article called "France (pop group)", that sort of thing). If this page is going to be of any use, we really need to explain the basics before going on to anything more subtle.--Kotniski (talk) 11:42, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Which wording is a change has been one of the chief questions at issue since the RFC. Begging this question will only inflame the controversy further; I have therefore supplied neutral wording. JCScaliger (talk) 20:12, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I and others above have attempted to suggest that titles of certain laws be subject to this automatic "redundant disambiguation", but this suggestion has been summarily dismissed using old and tired arguments about notability and the whatnot of the most common name variant. One particular concern of mine is that it is well known that many countries around the world have similar issues, and would pass laws bearing very similar names within their own jurisdictions. While such names are routinely common and unique in said jurisdiction, they are utterly ambiguous and meaningless in the global context, and it can be of much greater service to readers if these names were disambiguated with country names as specific identifiers. So can we at least add a qualifier in the body of the policy as to the desirability of this specific type of disambiguation? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 23:47, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is a solved problem; it's one reason most of our articles on laws use the short title and date: Reform Act 1832, rather than First Reform Bill. If that fails to disambiguate, we can add (Country) if two countries pass legislation of the same name in the same year. (I see it was moved from Representation of the People Act 1832, on grounds of recognizability.) JCScaliger (talk) 02:33, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Many laws have years attached to them: countries have been known to make a law and amend it some years later, appending a year to disambiguate. But it hardly helps in cases where, as I mentioned above, different countries having similarly sounding names for laws having similar scope. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:10, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Request to Kotniski

Kotniski, a couple of things I'd like to request. First, stop appealing to a "previous RFC" that you know full well was subverted and remained completely unresolved. We're trying to get to a framework for discussion (and this re-opening of the same polarizing question by Born2cycle is not helping). Second, please review for us the context of what you were thinking when you penned the phrase that you so like. Did it have something to do with disambiguation, as you seem to be suggesting above? What problem was it addressing? Or when did it come to be seen as having some bearing on disambiguation? What discussions, if any, were associated with that notion? Dicklyon (talk) 22:17, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Subverted? What?? It was a perfectly normal RfC, satisfactory in every way except apparently that it produced a result that you don't like. And I've already explained many times what this phrase is intended to mean - it means that we don't try to make titles recognizable to people who have no idea, or only a vague idea, of the subject's existence (which, in the case of the vast majority of articles, means the vast majority of readers). We don't say "Jack Burf (the actor in the Marmite adverts)" or things like that. This is really such an uncontroversial and standard principle that I really don't know what the objection to it is supposed to be; nor do I know why we are still wasting our time discussing this relatively trivial, already settled issue when we should be addressing the far more serious problems this page has.--Kotniski (talk) 11:33, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe we're talking about a different RFC? I'm talking about the one that Born2cycle took over and turned into a polarized vote that he stacked with the comments of other, which was then abandoned by those of us who were trying to get to a discussion instead. It was made clear that discussion was impossible with Born2cycle running the show, which is why I object to him doing the same thing again. Dicklyon (talk) 20:03, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I totally agree with you; the problem is we're both involved editors, and the only uninvolved admin (Kwami) who has weighed in has said he doesn't see consensus in that RFC discussion. I had it listed for closure at WP:AN but nobody would close it, and it's now expired and has been deleted from the list. This is why I started this new poll, which I designed to be as reasonably comprehensive and objective as I could. But if nobody wants to participate, it can't help. Dick has said it's polarizing - but is it any more polarizing than any other poll? I mean, polls are supposed to nail down what people's positions are - in that sense they're all polarizing. If there is something unusually polarizing about this one, I don't know what it is. What else can we do? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:46, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think the only "polarizing" aspect of it is that it turns out that nearly everyone disagreed with Dick. This is an interesting new line of argument - if almost everyone is in agreement over something, then clearly the discussion has been "polarized" and is therefore illegitimate, and we should consequently follow the wishes of the tiny minority. (Though argument doesn't really enter into it at all - whatever is said here, Noetica will always revert back to his preferred version, his "uninvolved" (hah!) admin friend will protect that version and threaten everyone else with blocks, and we will go on and on pointlessly talking about the same thing and achieving nothing...)--Kotniski (talk) 08:28, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Born2cycle, here are the number of posts by editors here on this page as of this writing:

Born2cycle: 98
Kotniski: 74
Dicklyon: 72
Greg L: 38
JCScaliger: 30
Blueboar: 23
Ohconfucius: 9
Kwami: 6

Well, if one wanted to be “Number one”, you’ve got it… in pure edit count, anyway. If you truly posses great facility to use facts, logic and reason to explain something to people who apparently just can't get it, (∆ edit for this claim, here), perhaps you might lighten up on keyboard pounding (there is no requirement that others admire your writings as much as you apparently do) and allow your logic to persuade instead of making everyone have to scroll further. There’s clear evidence here that if you were to back off with your edit counts, probably a full half of everyone else’s edits would disappear since a lot of us here find ourselves compelled to respond to your saying the same thing over and over in a vain effort to merely stem the tide of all your keyboard pounding. Greg L (talk) 01:09, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My impression is that many posts here are of the TLDR variety. TO that end, I'd be interested to see the statistic on wordscount, if anyone can be bothered... --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:43, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Big numbers. Is scientific notation OK? If necessary (more than 0.99 googol), I can use MPCalc on my Mac; it can handle numbers up to 10^400,00,000. Greg L (talk) 01:56, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ROTFL. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:07, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know why this tangent has been gone off at. The RfC I was referring to is the one where people were asked whether they preferred the wording that included the words "to readers familiar..." or the wording without it (or some other wording); everyone was free to comment, and virtually everyone who did so said they preferred the wording that contained those words, and gave reasons why. Most of those commenting outside the RfC have expressed the same view. No cogent reason has been given, as far as I can see, as to why the other version might be preferable. So I don't see why on earth we shouldn't just put back the wording that nearly everyone wants, and start discussing more important things. --Kotniski (talk) 07:44, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Kotniski, accusing admin Kwami of breaching wp:involved policy, and Noetica of teaming up with him, is not something to take lightly. Do you have evidence of wrongdoing? They are not "friends" in the sense I think you mean. Tony (talk) 13:31, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've been discussing it with them on their talk pages, to the point where it isn't worth doing so any further. But the fact remains that a clear decision made freely by numerous editors has been overruled for no good reason, and this distraction is holding up proper full discussion on reforming this page.--Kotniski (talk) 13:41, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I prefer "to readers familiar...". It assumes readers have a flying clue what they are reading up on rather than pandering to the MTV crowd with the attention span of a lab rat on meth. It should be “Boutros Boutros-Ghali”, not “Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egyptian dude)”. Reading the above, I can’t tell who wants what and would need an NSA supercomputer running an artificial intelligence algorithm to go through it all. But if what I’m advocating happens to also be what B2C wants, ♬♩I win. ♬♩ :-)) Greg L (talk) 23:13, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If I'm not missing anyone, you're now the eleventh editor --Kotniski, EdChem, PBS, Kai445, Born2cycle, Powers, WhatamIdoing, JCScaliger, Enric Naval, Eraserhead and now Greg L -- who has made a strong statement on this page in favor of including that wording, essentially for the exact same plainly obvious reason you just gave. In opposition all we've had is posturing by a few editors - no arguments or even substantive statements as far as I can tell.

Kotniski is so frustrated by what I refer to as Status quo stonewalling demonstrated here that he's announced he's taking a long break away from WP. I, for one, hope he changes his mind. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:31, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's a very clear RfC up there which makes it very clear who wants what (nearly everyone wants what you want, it turns out). But there's a small crowd who don't want that (for reasons that they aren't prepared to explain), and who have very successfully created a whole page worth's of smoke and noise to try to make out that this issue is Very Controversial (and have successfully fooled an admin into believing them). Anyway, I've had enough of all this - I'm taking a long (or permanent) wikibreak and try to find something more productive to do with my life than continually trying to present rational argument to people who aren't interested, in an environment where only the drama-mongers and edit-warriors are rewarded. (Sorry B2C, but I'm not changing my mind - and I might even suggest you do the same, since however unassailable your arguments you'll never win against these people - and does it really matter that much what Wikipedia titles its articles? I'm feeling a great sense of relief that I won't be spending tomorrow or the next day arguing with morons about trivia.) --Kotniski (talk) 23:42, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well… that clarifies that. I’m tempted to record my voice as I breath from a diver’s mask and say “B2C: *I* am your father.” It would hurt my brain and further ruin my eyesight to confirm his tally. So I invite anyone from the other side of The Force to clearly refute what he just wrote and explain why there isn’t a consensus to add “to readers familiar...”. Greg L (talk) 23:46, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can’t find a clear enumeration of an RfC. I clicked a link and it went nowhere. Someone please provide a link to clear poll numbers or provide a tally here. Oh… Kotniski: don’t quit just yet; let’s see what happens here at Disfunction Junction… Greg L (talk) 23:53, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- (edit conflict) (edit conflict) (edit conflict) Good luck getting your question answered. Even I can't count how many times Kotniski alone has asked that same question on this page. What you're more likely to see is the stonewalling tactic of ignoring good faith questions, as was just demonstrated here.
  As to the RfC, see #RFC_on_Recognizability_guideline_wording, which was started while there was an ongoing discussion in the previous section (another stonewalling tactic), so you should read that too. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:02, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have restored the text exactly as it was before the present wave of lobbying began.
The RFC is #RFC on Recognizability guideline wording. Seven editors commented; all who did were in favor either of the text that was here a month ago, or Dicklyon's variant on it. (Distinguishing between either or both, since Dicklyon proposed his alternative in the middle of the process, would be hard. If we get any more revert-warring, let's try the alternative.)
After that, I will consider whether I want to ask for protection, or for Mediation. Noetica was involved in the last three protections of this page, so it may not be enough. JCScaliger (talk) 00:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Long-time listener, first-time caller.... I've stalked this debate for well over a month now without weighing in. In short, I support both the "to readers familiar..." language and the reasoning behind it as expressed by so many on this page. As for the process, uff, what a mess. Sometimes I wish that WP were edited anonymously.... Dohn joe (talk) 00:35, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see that Kwamikagami reverted (∆ edit, here) JCScaliger. To Kwamikagami: Either there is objectively a consensus or there is not. If you dispute that a reasonable person would conclude there is a consensus for JCScaliger’s edit, then you should clearly state so right here, right now. If your objection is merely that JCScaliger can’t implement the consensus text because he is “involved”, then that isn’t good enough. I consider myself sufficiently uninvolved to make the edit myself; I had no idea who came down on what side of the issue until the last twenty minutes. Looking at the writings of a couple of editors here, who summarized the status quo, it appears there is quite clearly a consensus. It is on that basis alone (is there a WP:Consensus) that this should be made. Coming to this rather new, I am amazed at the tactics that have been employed here. There seems to have been water under the bridge underlying some editors’ motivations and none of that makes it incumbent on me to be swept up in everyone’s wikidrama. Greg L (talk) 00:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- And should have been a month ago!!! With Dohn joe now we have 12 in favor of the wording that involved admin Kwami just reverted: Kotniski, EdChem, PBS, Kai445, Born2cycle, Powers, WhatamIdoing, JCScaliger, Enric Naval, Eraserhead, Greg L and Dohn Joe. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:50, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There has been too much wikidrama here that has turned this venue into the paradigm of Disfunction Junction. That has to end. Just because I have an opinion doesn’t mean I have to suspend common sense. There is clearly a consensus. I assume that JCScaliger’s edit properly represented the consensus text so I just restored his edit by reverting Kwamikagami’s reversion of JCScaliger. It is just so wrong to revert someone on the pretense that he is “involved”—even if that is completely true—if a consensus clearly and truly exists for the edit. Greg L (talk) 01:03, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks for stepping up, Greg. A lack of resolve to end this nonsense by those of us in favor of the change is a big reason for why it has lasted so long (over a month!). I'm not sure about all the changes in that edit, but with a cursory glance I don't see anything obviously problematic in that.
  Kwami's claim has been that he can't see consensus in favor of either "faction" (his word) here, but he has repeatedly refused to engage in discussions with Kotniski or me about that finding. My argument has been to list all those who favored the wording, and assert that none opposed it with any substantive argument. A reasonable response to that would be to dispute those on my list, or to dispute the assertion by finding a substantive argument made in opposition to the change and listing those who support it. But he never did anything beyond repeating his claim that there was "no consensus". Very disappointing. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Add another person who prefers the "to readers familiar" version (either the 2011 version or Dick's variation). Anyone could see there is a clear consensus for it, so can it please be implemented and not continually reverted for being "under discussion"? Stop filling my watchlist with this ridiculousness. Jenks24 (talk) 08:13, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've been watching the drama here in utter disbelief at the obfuscation by some (and while I don't always like the manner in which B2B comports himself, his use of the term "stonewalling" is exactly right). Add my name to the list of editors who support the "to readers familiar" version. older ≠ wiser 12:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Article Title

Why are some music artists listed with their nicknames, while others are listed with their real name? What is the standard naming? See Ivan Shopov and Federico Ágreda, versus Gridlok and Deadmau5, for example. I propose Shopov and Agreda to be moved to their nicknames. Also, Xample could be moved to Loadstar (group) to include his partner Lomax. They're more notable together than alone. Gravitoweak (talk) 12:43, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Standard is just whatever they're best known as, more or less. I suggest you look at WP:Requested moves, and follow the procedure there for proposing renames of articles, for whichever ones you think should be renamed.--Kotniski (talk) 12:47, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Lemonade out of lemons

I've been involved in some pretty ridiculous discussions, and I doubt anything will ever beat eight years of obstinate resisting to the obviously inevitable Yoghurt → Yogurt move, but the discussion (using that term loosely) that has been going on here for the last month (Since Dec 21) might deserve second place. It has been so absurd that I've been inspired to write an essay about the kind of tactics used here to blockade a rather straight-forward change that should not even have been controversial. If anyone wants to review it, I would appreciate it! Here it is:

User:Born2cycle/Status quo stonewalling.

Thanks, B2C

Common names

Considering it's a Wikipedia policy, WP:COMMONNAME is surprisingly imprecise. The WP article Common name is only about taxa or organisms in contrast to scientific names — WP:COMMONNAME's reference is much wider.

The nearest the policy gets to a definition is to say: "The most common name for a subject, as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources . . . [however] . . . ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject . . . are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources."

This is not over helpful, so most editors will turn to the examples. These are of completely different types:

Initials: H. H. Asquith (not Herbert Henry Asquith)
Nicknames: Bill Clinton (not William Jefferson Clinton)
Stage names etc.: Hulk Hogan (not Terry Gene Bollea), Snoop Dogg (not Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr.)
Traditional names: Venus de Milo (not Aphrodite of Melos)
Short official names: United Kingdom (not United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), United States Code (not Code of Laws of the United States of America), Rhode Island (not State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations)
Non-binomial names: Guinea pig (not Cavia porcellus)
Non-chemical (IUPAC/INN) names: Caffeine (not 1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)-dione), Heroin (not Diacetylmorphine)
English (not foreign language) names: Nazi Party (not Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

So according to the policy, common names include initials and nicknames, stage names and traditional names, short official names, non-binomial and non-chemical names, and English (rather than foreign language) names.

Of course we have many, many article titles that don't conform to this policy. For example, the norm for biographies is to use a short form of the official name, not the nickname, except in special cases. Using initials is rare. Stage names are sometimes used, sometimes not etc etc.

IMO the policy needs to be completely rewritten. The new version should give a basic and robust definition of 'common name', and explain the different types and make recommendations about how they should be used.

I'd be grateful for opinions about the general problems of this policy as it now stands. It would be interesting to know what level of inertia/resistance there is to overhauling it! (Specific proposals can come later if there is a consensus for change.) Thank you for reading this. --Klein zach 01:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Written down or not, the predominate principle governing the titling of the vast majority of WP articles is to use the name most commonly used in reliable sources to refer to the article's topic. There are exceptions, of course, but they primarily come into play only when this main principle cannot apply for some reason. That's what WP:COMMONNAME is supposed to convey. The rest of WP:TITLE (and WP:D, plus the individual specific naming convention guidelines like WP:NC-TV), is for the exceptions. At least that's how I see it. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:28, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Kleinzach, I don't understand what the problem is. Why do you note that "Stage names are sometimes used, sometimes not" etc—do you feel that these inconsistencies somehow contradict the definition of common name that you quoted? Does the inconsistency bother you for some other reason? Would you please elaborate on what you are trying to do? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 01:33, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd prefer not to elaborate — after all I have written a fairly long post already — to avoid confusing the issue. However I've been involved in two or three debates recently where people have based their arguments on different interpretations, or should I say assumptions, about what WP:COMMONNAME means. My view is that the present version is more of a licence to argue than anything else. --Klein zach 01:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is the key part in my view: "The most common name for a subject, as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources, is often used as a title because it is recognizable and natural." I do think that section is too long. I just made a little tweak, but it needs a revamp. Too bad Kotniski just went on a break! --Born2cycle (talk) 02:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, without specifics there isn't much to talk about. If someone misinterprets it in a discussion, then you can talk about it there. A lot of times there is considerable debate about what the common name is—is it the name used by the most number of google hits? most often in "specialist" sources? dictionaries? whatever the NYT uses? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you are talking about Moonlight Sonata and the species capitalization kerfuffle. In the first case, it seems difficult to me how anyone could really argue that Moonlight Sonata is not the common name. There might be reasons to not use that title for the article—the top of the policy page does say "all editors should normally follow" not "all editors should always follow on pain of death"—but to say that Moonlight Sonata isn't the common name (as we use the term common name here on this policy page) seems like quite a stretch to me. There didn't seem to be any debate about whether it was the common name in that RM, so maybe my guess is off and this isn't what you were referring to. WRT common names of species, that is a wildly different use of the phrase common name—this policy doesn't attempt to discuss how common names of species should be styled. It only bears on that discussion insofar is it means we use the most common common name :)—it's lion, not king of the jungle or Panthera leo. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ErikHaugen Could you possibly take what I have written above at face value? There are no hidden meanings etc there. I wrote a detailed explanation. Let me give you the main 'plank' again: " . . . the policy needs to be completely rewritten. The new version should give a basic and robust definition of 'common name', and explain the different types and make recommendations about how they should be used." I don't think the idea that WP policies should be well-drafted is such a difficult one to grasp, is it? --Klein zach 01:31, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would love to take it at face value—but like I said, I don't understand it and you don't seem interested in clarifying. I thought I might know what you were getting at, hence my last reply, but I can see that I'm not being helpful so I guess it will be best if I bow out for now. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just to take the example given, Moonlight Sonata has always struck me as a throughly useless name from all orientations. To someone who knows nothing whatever about Western classical music, it says nothing; to someone who knows enough to know what a sonata is, it's uninformative, specifying neither the instrument nor the composer; to someone who does know music, it's an inappropriate way of specify some something that does have an exact and systematically derived name. A name is a conventional designation intended to identify something, not just refer to it, or to be the most popular one out of a selection of synonyms. We seem to use names in a much more restrictive sense, something to distinguish one article from another without necessarily giving any indication of the meaning. DGG ( talk ) 03:49, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

According to this book, "The Moonlight Sonata, Op. 27, No. 2 (C Sharp Minor) – There is probably no composition for the piano of any real merit, by any writer, which is so universally known, at least by name, as this sonata: Every one has heard of it, read about it, and most persons are more or less familiar with the music, or at any rate with portions of it, ... Dicklyon (talk) 04:43, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree Moonlight Sonata is a perfectly sensible article name: it's widely used by laypeople, and experts on music are likely to know what it stands for. Wikipedia is designed for laypeople, not for professors of music. You could theoretically reference cities in the USA by their longitude and latitude (it's unambiguous, it's systematic, and for an expert on climatography or geography the map ref tells you a lot about the city) but in practice that's completely useless. Titles should reflect the terms people want to look up; they don't exist to allow everything to be neatly classified into long lists. Simple titles also make wikilinking much easier. To sum up: if you need to search an index to find out what the title is, it's probably not a good title. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:37, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DGG makes a remarkable comment: "We seem to use names in a much more restrictive sense, something to distinguish one article from another without necessarily giving any indication of the meaning. "

I agree in general but would say it slightly differently: "We use titles to identify the name most commonly used to refer the respective article topic, and to distinguish one topic from another, without necessarily giving any indication of the meaning."

While the title should be recognized as a reference to the article topic by someone familiar with the topic, for the uninitiated, it is the purpose of the article lead, not the article title, to identify the topic of the article.

An excellent list of reasons for doing it this way, from over a dozen different experienced editors, is available in the poll just above. If you disagree, please address each of those arguments/points in favor of doing it this way. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When I started this discussion, I hoped it wouldn't go in this direction. We can all take our favourite positions on this side of the fence or the other. It's easy to repeat the arguments. The problem is that there is no 'fence' — no properly drafted policy for anyone to reference, either for or against. This is why we need a rigorous process focused on drafting rather than arguing.--Klein zach 01:11, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Drafting what? You haven't identified a problem with the existing wording that others agree needs rewriting. Like Erik said, "I would love to take it at face value—but like I said, I don't understand it and you don't seem interested in clarifying. " --Born2cycle (talk) 02:06, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I realise you don't understand what I've already written. Perhaps it would be best if you AGF, have a look at Process is important, and then see how this develops. What I am trying to do is initiate a discussion that is not chaotic. I hope that is not too much to ask? --Klein zach 04:16, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Without clarity regarding what it is you would like to discuss, it is asking too much, for chaos is all that can be reasonably expected in response to such a vague initiative. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:44, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal

I propose dividing the present text (unchanged) into sub-sections. Would that be acceptable to everybody? --Klein zach 01:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In principle there is, of course, nothing wrong with doing so. We even have guidelines that demand it of article prose. But I see a lot of head-scratching above regarding just what it is you think is wrong with the present guideline. What sub-section do you want to create? Per WP:BRD you could just go do it, and see if people like it. Given the high level of tension around here, I think that would be unlikely to work. What I would suggest is something I've done many times, many places: Go make the change, then immediately self-revert. You can then use the diffs as examples. "[difflink Here] is what I'm proposing." — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 12:24, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK. That's reasonable. I think it will be much clearer if we go through it sub-section by sub-section — that was always my intention. But at the moment I can't do this because the page is protected. --Klein zach 03:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Once and for all: Poll to establish the consensus

I thought that since a number of editors who have normally shied away from WT:AT (Disfunction Junction) have recently joined in to voice their opinion, now is the time to strike while the iron is hot.

Since bad habits have developed that subvert the collegial atmosphere, I’ll establish some ground rules that everyone must abide by in order to participate in this poll. If someone objects to the rules for participating in this poll and chooses to not be bound by them, they are welcome to start their own poll.

The question is simple:

1) Do you support This version of the WP:AT, which bears this edit summary: 23:56, 23 January 2012‎ JCScaliger (talk | contribs)‎ (40,869 bytes) (Resatore text to Dec 21, before Noetica's continual revert war for a non-consensus text. Boldness requires novel texts and discussion.)

…which seems to be centered around this key bit of text:

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

…which, for the purposes of this poll will be called “#1 (to someone familiar)”; or

2) Do you support This version of WP:AT, which bears this edit summary: 00:01, 24 January 2012‎ Kwamikagami (talk | contribs)‎ (40,913 bytes) (Undid revision 472889901 by JCScaliger (talk) Get someone to resolve this rather than edit warring)

…which seems to be centered around this key bit of text:

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

…which, for the purposes of this poll will be called “#2 (not necessarily familiar)”.

The ground rules:

A) This is an up or down !vote; you are free to voice that you think the issue should be something else, but your vote may not further complicate matters by introducing a third (and fourth and fifth) option via such votes as • Comment This isn’t the real issue. The text we should *really* be discussing (because I like it a great deal) is…. If you participate here, it is to merely vote for one of the above options. If you find that to be a less-than-satisfactory question, please don’t respond to it.

B) You may have a total of 300 words, excluding your autosignature, in the “Poll” section. You may blow it all on your !vote, or you may spread your words around to directly respond to other editors’ !votes in the polling section. Discussion and debate belongs in the following subsections.

C) I will moderate the closure. That doesn’t mean I will “decide” anything; “consensus”, as clearly and fairly established at WP:Consensus rules all. It means only that towards the end of this, I might motion that the poll be considered indeterminate, or that it ought to be snowballed, or to opine that an 80% quorum of those who have previously weighed in makes a consensus clear, or… whatever. But there will be no jumping the gun by the regular partisans.

D) If anyone who has previously weighed in with an opinion on this exact issue is contacted to let them know about this poll, everyone who has done so must be contacted; no cherry-picking, which in this case would be canvassing.

E) I may add new ground rules within the common sense framework of trying to accomplish a poll without disruption to adapt to new circumstances, stonewalling, tendentiousness, wikilawyering, and all-around exhibiting a non-collegial interaction with others.

Greg L (talk) 19:37, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Poll:

See “Motion on moving forward from here”, below. Greg L (talk) 20:09, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Closing of poll commences on or after 26 January at 19:19 (UTC)

#1 (to someone familiar) It assumes readers have a flying clue what they are reading up on rather than pandering to the MTV crowd with the attention span of a lab rat on meth. It should be “Boutros Boutros-Ghali”, not “Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egyptian dude)”. Greg L (talk) 19:19, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) seems like the most sensible way forward as it clarifies that its not just for experts, but for a reasonable person - seems a good balance. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:39, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) Start clicking on SPECIAL:RANDOM repeatedly and you will quickly find articles titled with names that are recognizable only to those familiar with the topic. Almost all exceptions -- where the title has more precision in it that makes the title possibly recognizable to those not familiar with the topic -- are to address ambiguity with other uses of that name on Wikipedia.
We already support exceptions in specific areas with specific naming guidelines like WP:NC:CITY, and occasional special-case exceptions with WP:IAR, but to endorse regularly adding additional precision to titles of articles because their names are not recognizable to those unfamiliar with the topic, or because they might appear to be ambiguous with uses outside of WP, opens an enormous quagmire that would make deciding titles even more contentious than it already is.
With #2, in cases where we agree on common name and primary topic and the title is therefore straightforward, there could still be contention on the issues of whether additional precision is needed to be make the title more recognizable to those unfamiliar with the topic, and, if so, what exactly that additional precision should be. To what end? It's simply not worth it. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:51, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) Others have said it better than I could. Dohn joe (talk) 20:00, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) - while I'm not sure I agree with all the changes on that page, if we're just going with the above choices, the title should be as accurate as we can make it. Is the argument is here the difference between "The White Album" and "The Beatles"? If so, does including the "to someone familiar" wording help or hinder that decision?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:03, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) #2 is obviously going to be used to make all sort of disambiguations in articles that didn't really need them. For example, the proposer of #2 moved Public achievement to Public achievement (US civic scheme), when there wasn't any article with a similar name.[8] --Enric Naval (talk) 20:36, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) Policies should describe best practice. The moves mentioned above are unusual (so most editors don't agree with them) and not helpful to the reader. If we are going to disambiguate Boutros-Ghali, why stop at (Egyptian)? The same argument would add (Secretary-General) and Hague Academy of International Law. (The complaint that began this was that categories may be unclear; there is a work-around for anybody to whom this is a burning issue.) JCScaliger (talk) 22:32, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) providing that the caveat "(though not necessarily expert in)" is included otherwise we will tip too far the other way and invite the use of obscure jargon and acronyms as names over more generally recognised names. For example articles written for peer reviewed journals often use obscure jargon and acronyms as names because the target audience will be familiar with them. One only has to read this talk page to see how communities/groups develop their own jargon which I think is likely to be impenetrable to the lay reader on first reading this page. -- PBS (talk) 00:18, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) For many specialised topics, no title would be recognizable to a layman, short of copying the entire lede. However, that layman might well type in a technical term he read elsewhere but doesn't understand, hoping to find the article at that title. As well as recognizability, WP:AT advocates naturalness ("what the subject is actually called in English"), precision ("only as precise as necessary to identify the topic"), conciseness ("is it overly long?") and consistency. #1 is the better fit with those other aims. Certes (talk) 01:17, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) I haven't followed this discussion specifically, but as a principle it is generally agreed by most editors. --Klein zach 01:37, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) per all those above. Jenks24 (talk) 03:14, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) as I have already indicated support previously. older ≠ wiser 12:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1. As I understand it, #2 would say we should use Matagami (town in Quebec) instead of Matagami, because someone might otherwise think that Matagami is a Japanese name . Because of that, I vote for #1. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) This wording settles the question of whether we create clumsy pedantic titles or streamlined ones. Binksternet (talk) 15:32, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) For the reasons amply outlined above and in the archives. I think we have a couple of people who need to learn WP:How to lose with a little bit of dignity and grace, or at least when to give up on an obviously hopeless cause. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) This seems closest to the principle of keeping titles as simple as possible, rather than recapitulating the article lede in the title. Franamax (talk) 22:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#1 (to someone familiar) For the reasons stated above and because Wikipedia is primarily a general encyclopaedia, rather than a specialist publication. MistyMorn (talk) 12:33, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Motion on moving forward from here

The result was that there is overwhelming community consensus in support of this version of the WP:AT, which bears this edit summary: 23:56, 23 January 2012‎ JCScaliger (talk | contribs)‎ (40,869 bytes) (Resatore text to Dec 21, before Noetica's continual revert war for a non-consensus text. Boldness requires novel texts and discussion.)

A reading of the comments reveals a very like-minded community reasoning as regards keeping article titles streamlined with minimal parenthetical or comma-separated disambiguation. The details of the basic principle should no‑doubt be expanded upon and illustrated with example proscribed and prescribed titles. Editors who have been active in these debates over the last month now understand—for the most part, anyway—the core issue, but new editors coming to WP:AT for guidance when creating a new article could benefit with some “show me” examples of what the verbiage means.

Editors active in this area should be mindful to study the reasoning given by the various respondents to this poll and endeavor to work collaboratively towards the spirit of the common view.

How to move forward from here?

I motion as follows:

That the contents of Wikipedia:Article titles be changed to the version desired by the community;
That the shepherding administrator strongly consider keeping WP:AT locked for an indeterminate period of time—until it is clear that an atmosphere of collaborative consensus-building is consistently exhibited on this talk page.

Those who would like to second the motion may do so here. Greg L (talk) 20:09, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not seconding as I disagree with #2. I think part of the problem here is premature page locking by administrators who are not looking at what the disputes are really about, which exacerbates the problem. As this poll clearly shows, there is broad and deep consensus support for the edit I made back on Dec 21. An examination by an uninvolved admin of my original edit and the discussion at #Clarification_of_recognizability_lost should have lead to having that edit put in place instead of a page lock, and that would have ended all this nonsense weeks ago.

A similar situation now exists regarding what should be even less controversial at WP:COMMONNAME (see #Clarifying ambiguity). I don't want admins locking pages; I want them to recognize disruptive status quo stonewalling for what it is, and act accordingly.

Take out #2, or, better yet, replace it with a request that admins do what I just asked, and I'll second. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As for your demand that #Clarification_of_recognizability_lost be simultaneously addressed with the subject of this poll, there’s a problem with that: it wasn’t an issue that was addressed by this poll. In your anxiousness to get everything you want now, you undermine yourself.
Note that in #2, I asked the administrator to “strongly consider”; I rather suspect the administrator has mostly made up his or her mind whichever way to go already. Hissy fits about other editors’ behavior are unlikely to impress an administrator that a collegial collaborative writing environment is at hand. You might best take your huge *win* and not agitate so vigorously. Your current demands are rather like the prisoner in his jail cell strumming his drinking cup along the bars of his cell at midnight, shouting “Unlock the door! I won’t get into fights if butt-heads aren’t mean to me!” : it’s not a convincing message in its totality.
If I were you, I’d intently read “Some advise to B2C,” below. Greg L (talk) 22:05, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I second both #1 and #2 unconditionally. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:41, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: In light of Dicklyon's comment below, I have to say that I agree with him about #1, but my unconditional seconding reflects my opinion that both formulations are equally bad, and that locked-down stability of the entire page reflecting the status quo ante bellum would be the most desirable result. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The "page reflecting the status quo ante bellum" suggests the version without the "people familiar with the topic" clause, that is, back to the version that came in with a discussion in May 2011 – as opposed to the version that B2C inserted, that had never before been supported in any discussion, that he put in to try to win an argument. That's why I object; not that one is worse than the other, but because one shouldn't be allow to bully one's way around that way. A proper discussion can't happen until he backs off from this offensive offensive. Dicklyon (talk) 05:14, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, you're right - what I meant was, back to whatever it used to read ante the May 2011 bellum, when people started messing with it to suit their own tastes. But in either case, #1 is (to use your term) orthogonal to me, as long as #2 can be implemented. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:29, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's hard to take your comments seriously if you talk about the May discussion and change that way. Have you even looked at it? Dicklyon (talk) 07:00, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No I have not. I wasn't even aware of this discussion until 25 January. My point is rather that, regardless of any specific phrasing on a policy or guideline page, no one should take it upon himself to jump in and make changes to the page without first having 1) posting a notice of intent on the talkpage, 2) making sure that the notice is brought to the attention of probable interested parties of whatever view including those probably in opposition, and 3) having a meaningful discussion about the proposed changes. Any and all changes made to a policy or guideline page without first having gone through this procedure should be considered void and illegal.

If I have the wrong date for when such changes - and reverts - first started, I apologize. This is a very difficult discussion to read and follow. I should say that you are one of the few editors here - there are a few others - with whom I've nearly always agreed. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:07, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I will say, though, that from the viewpoint of one who has been frustrated trying to search for articles, a consideration of Article titles in isolation from what information is given at the beginning of the lede is unhelpful and pretty meaningless for actual real-life searches, either at Google or here in Wikipedia's own searchbox. I also agree that Kleinzach's point concerning "common names" is integral to this whole problem, even though it may appear to some as being extraneous. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:33, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Flattery will get you everywhere. I believe the history is simple and not much in dispute, until after the December kerfuffel started. The phrase in question was originally inserted a year or so ago (I don't have the link handy) by Kotniski, with no trace of discussion on the talk page; nobody reacted. Then this discussion happened in May 2011. It was criticized with the comment And skip all this nitpicking ("readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in"... although not complete ignoramuses; while keeping in mind some of them may be ignorant but they hold the are not.....)). Then per the proposal and discussion there, the phrase was taken out; no repercussions; then we had a stable version based on discussion for 6 months or so. Then in early December, before discussion, Born2cycle put it back in while in an argument that recognizability had been cited in; and he started a discussion, but ... the rest is more in dispute. Dicklyon (talk) 23:29, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In that case my own preference and recommendation would be to restore the page to its last incarnation made collegially, regardless of what it said at that point, lock it down, and proceed from there. That's what I had meant. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why would you ignore the consensus of the community in preferring the wording that happened to be in place before May rather than the wording in place since May, as reflected in a very recent unanimous result? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I support #2, but I don't agree with #1, because this poll's limited polarizing viewpoint has not yet allowed us to have the discussion to find the version best supported by the community. Dicklyon (talk) 00:16, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How can a poll not allow you or anyone else from having a discussion about anything you want? --Born2cycle (talk) 02:10, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Looking over the poll comments, no one expressed concern that anything was polarizing, and no one expressed disappointment at the month-long process of gridlock amounted to insufficient time to discuss things. Moreover, you, Dick, ought to have voiced your views as early as possible in the poll if you wanted to have any influence; others might have considered your view and modified their comment or even changed their vote. In short, the community consensus is not in alignment with your wishes. Consensus is not 100 percent of editors in agreement and clearly isn’t so in this case either. Greg L (talk) 03:34, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think I did express my concerns pretty well below. They were orthogonal to your poll and vote. It's like asking to vote, or influence the votes of others, in the Republican primary; irrelevant to my concerns. Dicklyon (talk) 03:42, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How familiar?

I can't support this yet, because I have no idea how it should be interpreted. Can someone tell me what familiarity is in relation to Latin Quarter? Tony (talk) 03:29, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would say familiarity in relation to Latin Quarter is that you know it refers to a section of a city (as opposed to being, for example, a type of coin)... you do not need to know that it actually can refer to sections of many cities, however, as you will discover this when you search the term. Blueboar (talk) 04:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To one familiar with the Latin Quarter of Copenhagen, Latin Quarter might be enough, I suppose. Dicklyon (talk) 04:18, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It would appear that this is the crux of the problem. If familiarity is not defined, then we could have endless edit wars over the appropriate level of familiarity. Take large cell tumour, for example. In introductory medical texts, they hyphenate. For the general public, it would be best to hyphenate as well. Otherwise, it sounds like it's a large tomour. (Which would you rather have, a large cell tumor or a small cell tumor ?) However, the phrase is almost always left unhyphenated in medical journals. I don't think dab'ing would cover this, because large tumor is not a topic. I can see the AT wording proposed here being used to insist that the unhyphenated form be used, because that's what those "familiar" with the topic use, despite the inevitable confusion that will cause among those whose only familiarity with the disease is that a friend or loved one has it. — kwami (talk) 04:19, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To me that's a good example of where the narrowing that B2C wants is harmful. If we leave the familiarity maximally undefined by leaving it out, some editors are claiming that we mean recognizable to "everyone" or something like that. It seems to me rather that recognizability is just a generally good thing, to more people being better than to fewer, without any "cutoff" at "familiar". We're not trying to define an algorithm here (well, B2C is, but that's his trip). Rather, we are stating some of the values to consider. Conciseness matters, too. So does consistency. And precision. And naturalness. None of them trump the others, and none of them are reduced to zero, unless you have a clause like B2C injected to reduce familiarity to zero value in the particular argument that he was in when he inserted it (I've forgotten what that was, but it hardly matters). If we let B2C add a new clause to reduce a consideration to zero whenever someone cites it against him, we'll soon get to his ideal well-defined naming algorithm, I suppose. Is that the direction we want to go? Or can we follow the suggestions of several editors to rethink how we talk about recognizability, precision, conciseness, etc., with respect to what we'd like to accomplish, instead of this knee-jerk reaction followed by version polarization? Probably it's too late... if we're to have a serious discussion, we need to put the wikilawyering behind us, start fresh, swear off threats to take people to AN/I and RFC/U, try to get Noetica to re-engage in this talk page, and actually discuss before we vote. Dicklyon (talk) 04:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Like other examples presented here, that confusion can be solved by simply reading the first line of the article. For example Giant cell tumor of bone. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wording#1 was in place a year with no issues with interpreting familiar or anything else before inadvertently removed in 5/11. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:54, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's nothing particularly wrong with the wording that Kotniski made up and inserted without notice or discussion; I don't believe he had any bad motives. And when Ohm's Law removed it, inadvertantly or otherwise, he did at least have a few people in a discussion talking about it with him and seeing what he was up to, and there was no objection. Neither version is particularly better than the other. The problem is what happened in December, when the recognizability provision was quoted in an argument with you, and you immediately marched in and changed it in an attempt to reduce its weight to zero in that argument. That's not OK. No number of editors saying that Kotniski's version is better can make up for the fact that you are inserting it in an attempt to win an argument by changing the rules. In this sense you would be attempting to set a precedent where none existed before, giving it meaning that nobody foresaw, in an attempt to get your way in a whole series of potential disputes that really hinge on a question that deserves discussion. But until you back off and swear to stop hauling people up on charges for resisting your outrageous behavior, this discussion can't happen. Noetica is boycotting this page because of you. Only you can make an attempt to fix that. Dicklyon (talk) 05:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What??? Diffs please. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you might have missed the subtle way he put it when he last edited this page almost a month ago. I have been more explicit in telling you that I'm waiting for you to back off. Dicklyon (talk) 05:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here is Noetica's last comment, although "Diffs please" probably means Born2cycle disagrees with the previous post more completely, not just the part about Noetica's most recent departure. I read Noetica's last comment as implying, though not explicitly stating, that Noetica is taking a break because of Born2cycle. Art LaPella (talk) 06:00, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Art, perhaps so. I had assumed that he recalled how he started this on 20 December. Tony had done this talk page edit saying "Erik, as I said at the top, 'I'm not so concerned about the caps as the impenetrability of the vaguer title'. The policy says: 'In discussions about page titles, consensus has generally formed around answers to the following questions: [1] Recognizability – Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?'". About 40 minutes later, Born2cycle did this policy page edit in which be changed the provision that Tony had just quoted, saying in his edit summary "Restore original meaning/wording which was, apparently inadvertently, removed in May 2011". Then he wrote a big talk page section about it, which you can still see at #Clarification of recognizability lost, in the wee minutes of 21 Dec. (UCT). The rest is what it is. He won't back off. Dicklyon (talk) 06:18, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ps. I was not on Tony's side in that particular titling question. I fixed Life Safety Code (in this diff) to instead clarify its topic, so the problem would go away. I just didn't think Born2cycle should be allowed to decide when to give zero weight to a titling consideration, based on an old piece of text that had never had one good thing said about it. Since then, lots of people say they like it, but few of them are aware of the history or implications, and might be willing to reconsider if they knew they were handing over a win to such a cheat. Dicklyon (talk) 06:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This issue was previously addressed and follow-up questions were ignored by you[9]. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:33, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see you observed there that Tony had previously been OK with the "familiarity" wording. That should make it even more clear that the issue here is not the wording. It's your rewriting of policy in the middle of a dispute in a way that would attempt to establish precedent for reading it as supporting your interpretation. That's why it needed discussion, not an argument over which of two nearly equivalent versions. Letting a cheater win is never a good precedent. Dicklyon (talk) 06:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't rewriting anything. I was restoring what I thought it already said because it had said it before, was clearly supported by practice and consensus (as the poll results above confirms again) and history indicated it had been removed inadvertently. I wasn't "cheating". This is more ridiculous than I thought. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(e.c.) Dick, indeed, the gap between editors here may in part be based on the desire of some to produce a catch-all simplified algorithm for article titles. I suggest that the rules need to express more detail and that while most individual decisions will be unproblematic, those that are contested need to balance a number of issues. It's the 10% of problematics that will take most of the explanation of the policy and most of the time required in decision-making. Again, how familiar? is a problem. We should discuss some examples either side of a putative boundary and come to a deeper understanding of how to advise editors on this familiarity criterion, rather than trying to bury it as a factor. Tony (talk) 06:40, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have no strong opinion on the wording, but I totally endorse your call to explore it in open discussion. I still don't think we can even start on that until B2C tells us he is willing to back off. That means giving up any territory that he claims to have won in his cheat, swearing off his wikilawyering against us, retracting his recent threats, etc. Dicklyon (talk) 06:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Territory? Winning territory? If that's your paradigm that explains much. There are no owners on WP, no territories that belong to some more than others. There is only consensus. I suggest you start thinking in those terms. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Guys I suggest you agree to disagree, this discussion doesn't seem very useful. The above consensus is getting towards WP:SNOW. Additionally Dicklyon that is getting worryingly WP:BATTLEGROUND like... -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:28, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If we go down the rabbit hole of what is "familiar" then why not down the rabbit hole of "recognizable" as well? Familiar means "Of things: Known from constant association; pertaining to every-day knowledge, well-known" (OED familiar,(6)), coupling that to "though not necessarily expert in", and using the reasonable person test that we have to use for all these words unless we are going to chase the white rabbit through the dictionary, then I think it is self explanatory. It is not as if this is something new conjured up by Kotniski Dicklyon, as it was around in a slightly different wording before s/he started editing the page: see a version from 17 July 2009. So I suggest that it is not a question of B2C backing off, currently the consensus is to have the sentence that includes "familiar". I think that the sentence which has now has gained a consensus in all the polls we have held since mid December should be put in place sooner rather than later. Once in place, if Tony1 can come up with a more suitable word than "familiar", then I will support using it but lets go with the consensus version and then discuss changing it, rather than sticking with a version that does not have currently have a consensus. -- PBS (talk) 10:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let this be your final battleground

Can we please drop the metaphors of fighting for territory and of covert action; Dicklyon's edit above seems to be the first use of one of these, but "subvert/subversion" have been used three times now, and are beginning to creep into the common discussion. We are not conducting a war; if Dicklyon and Noetica are, they should seriously consider a unilateral suspension of hostilities. We are all supposed to be on the side of a better and clearer encyclopedia; that's policy.

territory
subversion by Noetica
subversion by Dicklyon.

These three allies are the only people I know who use this vocabulary regularly. I do not care for such a subculture. Please stop.

I do not know that Born2Cycle "cheated"; if he did, this is not the venue to discuss it - any more than it is the venue to discuss Noetica's career of exact reversions. This is not about power; really it isn't. It's about the encyclopedia. I do know that I disagree with the bloviated titles that were the protocatarctical cause of this poll; I do know that I support the language of familiarity (although, once this discussion is over, I would still support making it into a separate section). Many do likewise. JCScaliger (talk) 20:07, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hear, hear! I would add that requests/demands that someone else "back off" are also indicative of battleground mentality. Good time to review WP:BATTLEGROUND. Good advice there. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:29, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Thank you to Eraserhead1 for pointing out WP:BATTLEGROUND, which I was not familiar with, but which does describe the situation. I used the territory metaphor to try to get B2C to understand how he comes across, but I'm sure it was a waste of bytes. Dicklyon (talk) 01:11, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for admitting to your WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality, which explains much. I'm sorry I come across like that to you, but that's not how I see it at all, and explains why I've been so baffled by your behavior. Yes, BATTLEGROUND mentality explains your reverting my edit because it was me who made the change, not because the change isn't a good one. Please stop doing that. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:48, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From the reader's perspective

Editors, could I seek advice on these two google searches, in which not even the displayed opening of the lead under the hit-title helps to define the topic. These are just from an idle, random search:

Tony (talk) 08:11, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Click on the WP link at the top of the google results and read the lead - that will tell you what it is. If you're looking for either topic you're presumably familiar with them (or why would you be looking for them) and you will have found them. What's the problem? --Born2cycle (talk) 08:21, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You keep undercutting Tony's arguments with common sense. I don't think that is allowed here. older ≠ wiser 12:28, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He's not undercutting my comments. This is from the reader's point of view, not you'rs and not B2C's. I've yet to meet a google searcher among the public who knows what you're talking about. Tony (talk) 13:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And I'm not sure what your point is. You seem to expect a title to contain within itself enough of a description that an unwitting passer-by would know what the subject is. But that is not the purpose of a title. Never has been, never will be. older ≠ wiser 13:39, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We assume, perforce, that readers expect something like our notability policy; if they type in Fifth Avenue, they will not be surprised to find themselves reading about Manhattan (and an large majority of readers will be inconvenienced by a dab page, because they intend Manhattan); at least as synecdoche, it is known everywhere in the world. I certainly do; revising that assumption would require a much larger discussion than this one.

That being the case, it is a question of fact whether there is another notable Queen Street West in the world (presumably there are far less notable ones, as there are other Fifth Avenues - although not perhaps as many). If the answer to the question is Yes, somebody will eventually write the other article, and we will disambiguate; if the answer is No, we have no problem.

One trusts that this random search which has produced two Canadian streets is not intended to suggest that Toronto or Montreal are less important than New York City. JCScaliger (talk) 19:19, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"I've yet to meet a google searcher among the public who knows what you're talking about". What I'm talking about is clicking on a link and reading the lead of the article. Google searchers don't need to even hear that, much less know what that means - they just do it. Again, what is the problem? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:07, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You can't have it both ways. Enric Naval says, above, "Like other examples presented here, that confusion can be solved by simply reading the first line of the article." This argument is of no use to the reader who googles either of these items, for example, and is presented with nothing clearer by the opening that is included in the google entry. Should readers know that they need to click further at google to find out which Sherbrook Street it is? Or are they expected to fully download the article page to see whether they've wasted their time? Tony (talk) 09:13, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The title of an article alone is not going to be enough, in general, to completely determine what the article is about. But I think that the vast majority of people who use Google know that they can click on the link in Google to see the entire article. There's nothing wrong with loading an article to see whether it is the one you want. It's like using an index in a book: the index itself does not say whether the page listed actually contains the information you want, it just says where to look. — Carl (CBM · talk) 10:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's a lot wrong with having to click and wait to load. If the disambig isn't in the title, it needs to be in the lede. Many users are burdened with slow loading, even if you aren't. Milkunderwood (talk) 11:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Right, Tony's criticism is more appropriately directed at poorly constructed leads rather than article titles. older ≠ wiser 12:36, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you suggesting that we need to descend on WP:LEAD and instruct editors to write their leads in such a way that will compensate for the vague, misleading titles we dish up to google search pages? Tony (talk) 13:27, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's nothing wrong with most titles. If you want to take the issue up at WP:LEAD and leave WP:Article titles in peace, I think widespread spontaneous celebrations might erupt. :) older ≠ wiser 13:39, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And more unhelpful disambiguation. Kwami (the admin who protected the page), moving Swati (tribe) to Swati (Pasthun tribe), but there is only one Swati tribe, then moving all other Pasthun tribe articles for "consistency" (I have a few of them in my watchlist. Or moving Hashmi Syed (Nakokara) to Hashmi Syed (Nakokara) clan, where there are no other articles with that name, and when both Hashmi Syed and Nakokara are red links. Sigh.... --Enric Naval (talk) 18:50, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh, he has moved dozens of tribe articles in the same way[10]. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:12, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Early exchange between editors

The following is an early exchange between editors before others added sub-sections to the poll. I’ve transplanted the thread to here in hopes that both editors will approve since it frees up some of their 300-word quota. Either editor is free to move this back up to the polling section. Greg L (talk) 12:53, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – the question was never about which version; as B2C observed many times, nobody was particularly defending the other version. The problem was about process, and now Greg has given his stamp of approval to B2C's process, so we'll probably still have no chance to discuss the issues that made B2C feel that he needed to narrow the scope of the recognizability provision this way. If anyone wants to talk about it, I'm open. If not, I give up. Dicklyon (talk) 01:45, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- For my reasons, see comments here.
  Well? Talk already! What are you waiting for? --Born2cycle (talk) 02:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - I was waiting for you to back off. Like waiting for Godot. Dicklyon (talk) 02:34, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - Lame excuse. WPTALK pages are full-duplex. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:45, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This stuff is funny enough to be on Saturday Night Live

If a title is recognizable to someone familar with a subject then it must be unrecognizable to someone who is unfamilar with the subject. So given the fact that we have 3.9M articles and (who really knows) an average reader might be familar with 5000 subjects, then from that readers perspective, we have slightly less than 3.9M unrecognizable titles. This word recognizability to which we are assigning responsibility to millions of readers who we purport, speculate, conjecture, guess (or whatever other completely unsupportable with empirical evidence) verb we can use are going to react to any given title is the height of absurdity. You all can't even explain it to yourselves and yet you think 1000s of editors will immediately understand what you mean. Whatever wording follows this non-word recognizability will be meaningless in the larger WP community and be the source of endless, non-productive debate. It would be incredibly simpler if we just assigned a simple responsibility to the title itself: A WP title should faithfully represent the content of the article. When I was working in Europe in the 1980s, I would ask Germans that I met and worked with the following question: Have you ever seen the United States?, a great many would answer Yes, we have, my wife and I have been to Miami several times. They were no more familar with the U.S. than an illiterate worker in the Far East. We have got to stop trying to deduce how millions of readers are going to react to a title, and put the responsibility on the actual title itself--Title vs Content, title vs ambiguity, title vs MOS, etc. Funny stuff above. Off the grid for a while in the real-world of readers who must be familar with something. I'll ask a few if they've ever seen an unrecognizable WP title- you know those big bold, black letters at the top of every article. They are hard to recognize sometimes when I just wake up and haven't had that first cup of coffee. --Mike Cline (talk) 10:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why you keep saying that recognizability is a non-word. From Webster's 1913: The quality or condition of being recognizable. And Merriam-Webster lists it as a noun form of the verb. Granted it may not be a very commonly used word outside of WP, but the meaning is not nearly as confusing as you try to make it out to be. older ≠ wiser 12:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, mea culpa, it is a word, albeit obscure in most people's vocabulary as you point out. Still its the wrong word, the wrong assignment of responsibility to millions of readers and given the above discussion, I think your statement but the meaning is not nearly as confusing as you try to make it out to be. is a bit niave. If a dozen experienced editors can't agree on what it really means, its the wrong word when the expectation that 1000s of editors will understand it. --Mike Cline (talk) 00:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, if we adopted #2 , we would need a renaming to United States (North-American country).... --Enric Naval (talk) 12:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand... ... please explain why would we need to rename if we went with #2? Blueboar (talk) 16:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"United States" is ambiguous... see United States (disambiguation). "United States" alone is arguably not recognizable as referring to the North-American country to those more familiar with it referring to the other uses listed there - adding the additional disambiguation makes it recognizable for everyone. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:04, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the argument that the title "United States" could be considered ambiguous, but I still don't understand the logic behind saying that such ambiguity would require us to use the specific title "United States (North-American country)". There are other (far better) options that would resolve any ambiguity. The most obvious would be to use United States of America. That is not ambiguous at all. Blueboar (talk) 22:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think anyone meant that the specific title "United States (North-American country)" would be required by wording 2, just that some disambiguation of "United States" title would be required. And having to choose how to disambiguate a title that requires no disambiguation under the current system (and wording 1) is another disadvantage of wording 2 (assuming the rest of policy/guidelines were consistent with it rather than with wording 1 which they currently are). --Born2cycle (talk) 22:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ah... my understanding was that Enric was saying the specific title would be required. ok... but couldn't "United States" be considered ambiguous no matter which version is chosen... if so, I still don't understand why people feel that choosing v1 would mean that we sould keep "United States" as the title but choosing v2 would force us to change it? How does "familiarity" change whether something is ambiguous or not?

Enric and B2C, you do your case no good with the ridiculous strawman United States. It is very recognizable to people all over, and not very ambiguous. Nobody would be so extreme as to read anything proposed as suggesting that it needs a disambiguator. Dicklyon (talk) 01:18, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If a title is recognizable to someone familar with a subject then it must be unrecognizable to someone who is unfamilar with the subject.

As stated, this is a logical fallacy.

To give a counterexample, many physicians are highly familiar with certain diseases, but completely lost when you give an outdated name for them. You should expect your cardiologist to be highly familiar with vasovagal episodes, but you should not expect him (or her) to recognize the title Gowers' syndrome from a century ago. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:15, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Or to go the other way... As a historian, I am familiar with and recognize the term "Scrofula"... I am not familiar with and would not recognize Tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis (the only reason why I can put it here is that I just looked it up). Now, as far as choosing a title on this particular topic goes, we have one potential title that is recognizable by a historian, and another that is recognizable to a modern medical doctor. "Familiarity" isn't going to help us choose between them, because each potential title is recognizable someone who is familiar with the topic... but which potential title we are familiar with depends on our academic discipline. Blueboar (talk) 23:12, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Amen brother! If one were to look at Blueboar's example 'holisticaly one might conclude that either title--Scrofula and Tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis as article title both Faithfully represented the contents of the article. However when one applies the criteria WP titles should reflect common usage in English language reliable sources, one might (I didn't actually determine this) find that Scrofula was the most common usage. However looking at this holisticaly, when applying the criteria WP titles should be unambiguous and there is another article about a fungus called Scrofula, we might disambiguate to Scrofula (disease) and Scrofula (fungus). In this hypothetical there are no MOS or naming convention concerns, but if there were they could be dealt with simply. I fail to grasp why such a relatively simple decision about an article title cannot be conveyed in simple policy statements. As one of my Fortune 100 clients always likes to say--Keep it simple stupid-Don't try and boil the ocean --Mike Cline (talk) 01:02, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm told that there are two kinds of people: those who can tolerate and deal with ambiguity and uncertainly (usually progressive/liberal types, by the way), and those who can't (we call them Republicans, to put it in current political terms and risk pissing off half of you all). As a progressive, I am not bothered that recognizability doesn't give us much help in choosing between the two names for the disease in question. It's still OK to have recognizability as a goal, and it will often provide helpful input to the naming decision. Same for the "to whom" question: why try to pin that down? It will never to possible for all naming decisions to be made by policy alone, unless B2C gets his way, which would be sad indeed. Dicklyon (talk) 01:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And I thought the IRA considered themselves progressive, or where you referring to a different type of Republican if so why no disambiguation :-) -- PBS (talk) 22:55, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh… do behave, Dick. You were doing fine until that last sentence. If you want to engage in “Well… I think *you’re* the poopy‑head” with B2C, take it to your or his talk page, please. Greg L (talk) 01:33, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dicklyon, I will freely admit that I have no clue as to what you said above, but that's irrelevant. I do however have a question. Can you provide an example of an article title decision that was not based the our article title policy at the time the decision was made? I want to determine on what basis the decision was made, if it was not made on the (at the time) WP titling policy. It might prove instructive, because we may be missing something that should actually be in the policy that isn't. Please do that for me. Thanks --Mike Cline (talk) 01:36, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I hope I'm wrong, but I predict this question can be added to the long list of questions on this page posed to those favoring recognizability to the unfamiliar in our titles (for lack of a better description) that remain unanswered (no, I haven't compiled it in one place, but will do so if challenged). My theory for why questions like this remained unanswered on this page by these guys is explained here. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:38, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Blueboar, I agree with you that the choice between scrofula and TCL wouldn't be decided on the basis of recognizability, because both names are recognizable to people familiar with the subject. Tuberculous adenitis and King's evil are also "recognizable" options for that disease.

But just because a single criterion doesn't determine the title all by itself in every single case doesn't mean that it's not a useful criterion, and it's certainly not a good reason to require that the title communicate the contents of a page to people who know nothing about the subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Elaboration and examples can be added later

Note that before 11 May 2011, (∆ edit, here), the key passage used to read as follows:

* Recognizability – an ideal title will confirm, to readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic, that the article is indeed about that topic. One important aspect of this is the use of names most frequently used by English-language reliable sources to refer to the subject.

Elaboration like this may certainly be added later. Furthermore, we are free (and I welcome doing so) to add examples (or more examples) of prescribed and proscribed example titles into later, explanatory sections of WP:AT—like It is United States, not United States (North-American country).

However, now is not the time to work on such details. The purpose of the above poll is to establish what the community consensus is on the core issue and move on from there. Things are moving along splendidly; the community clearly welcomes the opportunity to put this one to bed and do so without fuss.

Along with the basic principle in bold that each poll response begins with, is the accompanying reasoning and views of that editor. Many of us tend to admire our own reasoning expressed in our poll responses, but we must respect and understand the reasoning of all the others in the poll in order that clarification, elaboration, and prescribed/proscribed examples can later be added. Greg L (talk) 13:14, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, we will never work this out without examples. Tony (talk) 13:17, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you say that? A consensus seems to be forming without the examples in place now. As I wrote, the community seems to welcome the opportunity to establish the core principle. And by reading the reasoning of all these editors who are participating in poll—some of whom have avoided WT:AT altogether because of its tenor—we are better prepared to add examples and further revise WP:AT, which will always be in a state of revision. Greg L (talk) 13:21, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One small problem is that no one can say how this "core principle" will be interpreted. Minefield for friction and uncertainly out there, I'd say. I hope you're will to take responsibility for dealing with that outcome, rather than thinking through the policy in terms of real examples.

I note also that no one has taken seriously my examples of cryptic, vague Google title entries that require readers, somehow, to know where to click to find out exactly what street, in this case, the topic is. If people can't see that that is highly unsatisfactory, we may as well give up and go home. Tony (talk) 13:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps because that question was answered, in my opinion. From the reader's point of view, why would he Google "Queen Street West"? Perhaps he lives there and wants to read more about it. Perhaps he is researching widening the street. Perhaps he is a real estate developer, and he wants to know if houses on that street are in an upper- or lower-class neighborhood. Perhaps he has seen it in an address, and wonders if it's north Toronto or south Toronto. But if he doesn't know it's in Toronto, then he is unlikely to know it exists at all, and he won't Google it. It's nice to confirm that it's in the right city, but everything can't be first. In this case, the first fact is that "Queen Street West" can be the name of a neighborhood as well as the street. Being in Toronto is second. Art LaPella (talk) 16:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, maybe I'll go back and count how many times you've raised this same issue with these types of examples, each time it has been addressed, and questions have been posed to you about it, which you've ignored. You keep raising this issue as if there is a problem so obvious it doesn't need explaining. But there is no such problem. Editor after editor looks at these examples and reacts with, "So? What's your point?".

So, if there is a problem, then you're the only one who sees it, and you're going to have to explain it in a way that the rest of us can understand. Or, as Denzel put it (at 4:40-4:50), "Explain this to me like I'm a 2-year-old because there's an element to this thing that I just can't get through my thick head." And if you can't explain it to us like we're 2-year-olds, well, that's telling too. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An example I like to use (which has the disadvantage that it would require changing an existing article title) is it ought to be “Collins Street“ and not “Collins Street (a premier street in Melbourne, Australia and not one of the many non-notable streets by the same name just because they return a hit on Google Map)”, as our current “Collins Street” link currently behaves. A Google search on "Collins Street" shows there is but one that is encyclopedically notable. This example embraces the principle in “#1 (to someone familiar)”, which is further fleshed out in the above-mentioned elaboration of that principle: One important aspect of this is the use of names most frequently used by English-language reliable sources to refer to the subject.
But, as I first wrote at the start of this thread, we can add examples later. The community seems to be happy as a clam with getting the basic principle established after a month of gridlock. And we can actually read the !vote comments here to better understand the community’s thoughts before endeavoring to elaborate on the basic principle and to add example titles. Greg L (talk) 20:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- One little nit - the community's support for getting this principle established was quite clear within the first hours of my making the initial edit on Dec 21, including explanatory commentary similar to what we're seeing here, as was noted at #Consensus clearly supports Version 1 over Version 2 on Dec 23. But there's nothing wrong with confirmation. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reptile and amphibian fun....

Hi all, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Amphibians_and_Reptiles#Article_naming_guidelines_redux. Please read carefully between options one and two. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:59, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There appears to be a serious proposal there to entitle articles about all reptile/amphibian species with the scientific (ie binomial) name. IOW, cane toad -> Bufo marinus. Surprisingly, this proposal actually seems to have traction. This appears to be an example of a broader theme of "specialist" guidelines doing an end run around more "core" or "general" guidelines and policies. In various fields, I think specialists desire a consistent use of terms of art, rather than the more vulgar nicknames that wp:COMMONNAME might otherwise suggest using. Another example of this is at WT:NCM—a discussion almost entirely among music editors (afaict) about whether to use common names as discussed in this policy or to do something different. I think this was launched in response to arguments made at the (successful) Moonlight Sonata->Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven) move request. I think it is appropriate to post notices of such discussions here so they can receive broader attention from the common folk.

tl;dr: if you care one way or the other about whether king cobra is moved to Ophiophagus hannah (and I guess if it was a reptile, lion->Panthera leo—will this set a precedent?) you might want to mosey over to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Amphibians_and_Reptiles#All_scientific_names and weigh in. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:04, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Erik, I don't disagree with your suggestion that

"it is appropriate to post notices of such discussions here so they can receive broader attention from the common folk",

but I think it's useful to point out that

"the (successful) Moonlight Sonata->Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven) move request"

was a unique circumstance. This was not so much a "move request" as it was a "move back request" to the way it had been, unchallenged as Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven), for many years. Regardless of the relative strength of argument presented one way or the other, the initial move proposal to Moonlight Sonata was never posted for comment at any wider venue, and the move was granted on the basis of the initial proposal, a single support, and a single oppose. It only came to the attention of any wider group after this initial move was accomplished on the basis of 2:1. It then immediately attracted strong opposition.

I don't want to rehash all of the arguments here, but one of the major points was that many of Beethoven's works have nicknames, some very well known and others very obscure; and that redirects from nicknames to more formal series names made more sense. In that discussion I also pointed out that the original movant had already been unsuccessful, twice in a row, in attempting to move the article titles of all of Beethoven's piano sonatas, either all at once, or failing that, one at a time, to titles having nothing at all to do with common names, but rather on the basis of much longer titles as given on a specific recording of the piano sonatas, when these are not consistent from one recording to another. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:48, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Milkunderwood; that is indeed useful to point out, thanks. There are a lot of issues here, as there are with names of species, and I don't mean to imply that WP:COMMONNAME can solve all of them for us. I'm just pointing out that it seems like specialist editors, themselves experts in their field, may marginalize some of these issues that would be more important to general readers/editors, and that all should be taken into account. Our current system of wikiprojects and guideline subpages does not foster this. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, whichever side of the fence you are on this issue, the problem is that WP:COMMONNAME is not fit for purpose. I've raised this specifically here. --Klein zach 02:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And once again, I still don't understand your complaint about COMMONNAME. I don't see anything at that discussion that has any bearing on what we are talking about here. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 00:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Clarifying ambiguity

See the previous discussion: Wikipedia talk:Article_titles/Archive 34#Ambiguous or inaccurate -- PBS (talk) 03:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yesterday when I mistakenly thought things had settled down, I made the following edit changing:

A: Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources.

to this:

B: Names ambiguous with other uses covered on Wikipedia, or names that are inaccurate for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be most frequently used by reliable sources.

The point was to clarify that the meaning of ambiguous here is relative to other uses in Wikipedia, as clearly stated at WP:D: "ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles."

However, this edit was reverted. I'm discussing this already with the editor that reverted that edit at User_talk:Ohconfucius#WP:TITLE_revert, but I'm curious what others think about this.

Actually, I'm now realizing that even B is misleading since it ignores use of ambiguous names on articles about primary topics (e.g., Paris), which of course is very common. So maybe it should say this:

C: Names ambiguous with other uses covered on Wikipedia, or names that are inaccurate for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are generally not used alone as article titles even though they may be most frequently used by reliable sources, unless the article is the primary topic for that name.

What do you think? A? B? C? Or ??? Thanks! --Born2cycle (talk) 22:26, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

D - For Ghu's sake, stop talking and let people finish the discussions that are already running! --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 00:13, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- ~~Not impressed~~Not impressed with the deletion of my comment with the hatting of the section. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:59, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I'm stupid for falling into this one, but I'll bite.

"I made the following edit"
"However, this edit was reverted."
"I'm curious what others think about this."

If ever a firm policy was needed at Wikipedia, it would be something to the effect of

whenever an RfC is in progress on any talkpage, whether for an article or a project page, etc, no edits of the disputed text will be allowed until the issues are resolved and the RfC is closed.

That's what I think. And exactly what is going on with all these hidden sections, anyway? Milkunderwood (talk) 11:05, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The comment used with the Hidden template explained the reason for it: to not divert from the other discussion, but that one is winding down, so I've removed it now.

Anyway, of course edits of text being discussed in an RFC should not be allowed. But the text I edited was not being discussed.

The text being discussed (not part of an RFC, by the way - there was one started about it last month, but it has expired) is the familiarity phrase in the Recognizability clause under WP:CRITERIA. The text at issue in this section is part of WP:COMMONNAME, and doesn't have anything to do with the familiarity phrase of Recognizability that has been at issue since Dec 21.

So, do you have an objection to the COMMONNAME edit itself? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:34, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I object to any edits whatever to a page or part thereof that's under general discussion with any connection to an RfC, whether or not the specific question has "expired". The edits apparently first made by Kotniski and edit-warred with Noetica should be outlawed - as should your own edits. Your "Who, me?" strikes me as being disingenuous. But then I think there's been a great deal of disingenuousness displayed throughout this entire page, by a number of different editors. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you serious? Have you looked at the #Poll: results? And I don't mean just counting the !votes unanimously supporting the position in favor of defining title recognizability in terms of familiarity with the article's topic - I mean reading and thinking about each response. If that doesn't confirm to you where the community consensus lies on the underlying issue of unnecessary/pre-disambiguation, and the reasons consensus is what it is on that issue, you need to read it again, and think about it some more. If, after all that, you still don't get it, then you need to ask some questions. And, if you can't see how the same principle opposing unnecessary/pre-disambiguation also applies to the edit that is the subject of this section, you either did not look at this edit seriously, or you have a lot of gall to accuse others of being disingenuous. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

B2C I think you need to read the previous section on this issue (Wikipedia talk:Article_titles/Archive 34#Ambiguous or inaccurate) as it highlights several additional misunderstandings about what this sentence can be understood to mean. -- PBS (talk) 03:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Guidelines trumping this policy

I've had this happen several times that people ignore this policy and cite the guidelines of WP:NC(UE), WP:MOS-JA and WP:NC(VG) (the latter of which spells out it is subordinate to this policy in the lead) as trumping concerns, specifically of WP:COMMONNAME when usually 2 names are common, but neither one can be clearly shown to have a "consensus" among RSes and a 3rd choice is chosen by default mostly because of macron use in MOS-JA stating that since neither one can be shown to be the "most common", we can't use either one.∞陣内 Jinnai 18:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you asking a question, or for help, just venting, or what? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:37, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am asking for help in trying to either get those guidelines changed or the simplier task (in theory) of changing COMMONNAME to make it clearer that we don't always need to have one name be the overwhelming dominate one and that if a title is clearly among the least used ones, it should be be defaulted to except under extradorinary circumstances (IE, WP:DR). That one of the more common names should be used in those cases.

Secondly, that for the purposes of an article name, quality of the RS shouldn't matter; the function of figuring out a title is not the same as making a quality article.∞陣内 Jinnai 18:45, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jinnai, WP:COMMONNAME says: When there is no single obvious term that is obviously the most frequently used for the topic, as used by a significant majority of reliable English language sources, editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best by considering the questions indicated above. (the "questions above" being the questions related to Recognizably, Naturalness, Precision, etc.). It sounds like the editors you are complaining about are actually doing what this policy tells them to do when there is no obvious common name... thinking about all the other provisions and principles that are discuss in this policy and reaching a consensus. Blueboar (talk) 18:52, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See also Wikipedia talk:Requested moves#Bishōjo game. -- PBS (talk) 22:47, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Raw notion of primary topic is fatally flawed

The WP:RM list presents daily surprises: one live RM is Indigenous inhabitant. At least one editor, AjaxSmack, opposes the move to a less misleading title for our readers—I take it s/he is basing the argument on this occupation-zone mentality of primary topic. We are seeing more and more objection to the extreme cases of vague and misleading titles this unfortunate principle has been spawning; not only this, many people wonder why it's first-come first-served to allocate a (privileged) unmarked title, which too often turns out to be orders of magnitude less notable or well-known among English-speakers than other topics of the same name.

Ironically, some editors are attempting to both (i) change the rules to allow more capitalisation in titles, and (ii) retain the unconstrained primary topic principle. This is causing huge problems; take, for example, articles that beckon the reader as a generic topic but turn out to be on a proprietary product or service, or vice versa, seem to have a foot in both camps, and the angle of the text (often not just the opening) has to be recast before we can decide whether the title should be in title or sentence case (Dicklyon has kindly put in the hard yards in this respect for a number of articles in which there's dissonance between the case of the title and the theme of the article).

At the very least, the notion of primary topic needs to be tempered in certain situations (not that this list below would have fixed the ludicrous Indigenous inhabitants, but it would be a start):

Book and film titles where the title of the work alone could easily be confused with a generic meaning (given that the case is sometimes insufficient to convey this among many readers, or is wrongly used, which we all know is rather too common).
Financial instruments and institutions, and agencies of governance, whose names do not already contain their location. For example, Payments Council and Individual Savings Account are weirdly vague, even with their correct caps; United States Department of Health and Human Services is fine, but Department of Transportation presents problems); and we really need to clean up conceptual messes like Plain Green Loans, which reveals little that is useful in pinning down the topic in its google blurb, and appears to vie with both what should be a lower-cased generic item and a number of proprietary names of the same wording. What a mess.
Streets, suburbs, and other locations, where there is more than one in the world and the unmarked topic (i.e., without broader parenthetical location) is not clearly the obvious choice in terms of significant notability per se or in relation to the other contenders. French Quarter comes to mind, which conveys US-centric POV, in my view; as opposed to Wall Street, which is sufficiently notable to deserve the unmarked slot; that is the kind of issue that should be discussed at RMs, moving beyond the crude, unconstrained application of this primary topic algorithm, which may be simple and solve many instances, but is significantly flawed for a minority of instances. Collins Street, Melbourne would be unacceptably Australia-centric if forced by this one-size-fits-all algorithm to Collins Street – and no, in my view it's not sufficiently iconic among English-speakers as a whole to stand alone, such as Wall Street is.

Tony (talk) 11:40, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just for the record, I agree fully with Tony's post here, and strongly believe in using parenthetical predisambiguation wherever there is likely to be ambiguity, whether or not Wikipedia already has a similarly titled article. There no "grasping at straws" here - it's just good common sense. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What crystal ball shall we use to determine if there is likely to be ambiguity where there is no other existing article? older ≠ wiser 22:03, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My answer will not only not satisfy you, but will confirm your doubts: I know it when I see it. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:28, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's actually the most (only?) straightforward answer to that question that I've seen. Dohn joe (talk) 22:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(after ec) The standard advice is to WP:Write the article first. Then assuming standards of verifiability and notability as met, then there might be something to talk about. In articles, we do not accept "I know this to be true"; I don't see why we should have a different standard for disambiguating titles. older ≠ wiser 22:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)LOL, Milk. That's probably the best reason I've seen. I appreciate your honesty regarding the vapidity of your argument.

Of course we could leave the issue open to subjective judgement on a case-by-case basis, but to what end, and what cost? In theory, we could just delete all the naming policies and guidelines, and name all articles based on case-by-case consensus of whatever everyone who happens to be participating thinks is best. But we recognize the chaos and consernation and never-ending dispute that would cause, so instead of we agree on ~~rules~~ policies and conventions by which we decide titles. That doesn't mean everything about titles is pre-ordained; much is still left to case-by-case subjective judgment. But, in general, we try to cut down on that where it's reasonably possible. And that's why the community decided to use a narrow interpretation of "ambiguity" in deciding when titles needed to be adjusted for ambiguity.

The determination of whether there are any other uses on WP of a given name is objective. So basing decisions on this specific question cuts down on a lot of disagreement and consternation. In contrast, determining "ambiguity" based on whether there are any other uses of the name on or outside of WP, past, present or future, is way more subjective, and, I suggest, much less clear than whether a given piece of material is "pornography".

Deciding titles like that would without question lead to many more arguments, and for what? So that titles could be more descriptive? Do users even look at titles enough for that matter at all, much less enough to justify the greater cost? --Born2cycle (talk) 22:54, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What is problematic about Department of Transportation? It appears to be a good example of a "Primary topic" main article - an overview article to explain what a DoT (regardless of location) is and does... with a list of various State and Provincial DoTs (which are disambiguated where necessary). Granted, it could use some expansion (for example, some historical background would be nice), but that is not an article titling issue.

As for Plain Green Loans... This is an article on a specific company named "Plain Green Loans" so the capitalization is correct. If the article needs to better explain what Plain Green Loans is and does, that is resolved by improving the article text, not the article title. As far as I know, there is no need to disambiguate... there is no such thing as a plain green loan, nor any other company with that name.

In the case of French Quarter, I do think you have more of a valid point... enough cities have a section called the French Quarter that we could justify creating an overview article about the concept of French Quarters in general (outlining what a French Quarter is, what various French Quarters have in common, listing various cities that have a French Quarter, etc.) If we created such an overview article, then I could see using the non-disambiguated title for that article, and moving the current article (specifically about the section of New Orleans) to a disambiguated title. Blueboar (talk) 14:03, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While there is no question that there are some articles that can be titled better, for the most part I think Tony's examples are grasping at straws. There is no need for Wikipedia to enshrine contrived ambiguity based on the vague intuitions of some editors. Collins Street at present is an abomination. It is not a disambiguation and is rather an entirely unreferenced collection of redlinks. French Quarter was discussed at some length, and if you are going to reject that as a primary topic, you might as well reject the concept of primary topic entirely and require titles such as London (England). In those cases where the title is actually ambiguous, the RM process does work, albeit slowly. But there's nothing unusual or wrong about that. older ≠ wiser 13:56, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As a further example, let us consider Broadway... at the moment this points to a disambiguation page, and I think it is highly appropriate to to use it this way... sure we could have used that title for our article on the street in NYC (calling it the "Primary topic" or "main page"). We also could have used that title for an overview article on "streets named Broadway", or for an article on "Broadway" as a general concept in theater (as in "Broadway musical" or "off-Broadway play"). But we didn't. We chose to use it for the dab page.

The point here is that different projects and topic areas have chosen to go in different directions. We don't have (nor do we need to have) consistency in how we use non-disambiguated titles ... sometimes a non-disambiguated title is used for an overview "main article" ... sometimes it is used for the article on the most notable choice among several (the "primary topic")...sometimes it is used for a disambiguation page... and sometimes it is used simply because someone wrote an article before others did (the "first come first served" situation). All are acceptable. None is mandated. If someone has a problem with a specific title, or an idea on how to more clearly entitle a group of articles, we discuss it and go with consensus. And since consensus can change, it is OK if we change our minds at some later date. Blueboar (talk) 15:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The part I wholeheartedly agree with you on, ~~Blueboar~~ older ≠ wiser (Bkonrad), is that “Collins Street” at present is an abomination.” There is only one Collins Street that is encyclopedically notable. All those redlinks on the disambiguation page are to utterly non-notable roads on which there will never rightfully be an article because Wikipedia doesn’t have articles on just any old road. I just now looked at Collins Street in Joliet, Illinois using Google “Street View”. There is a 1940s brick building with a trash can out front with graffiti on it. Wikipedia is not Google Map. #1 (to someone familiar) means “Collins Street” automatically means something to the reader when they type it into the search field because it is the name “most frequently used by English-language reliable sources to refer to the subject.” I just don’t understand why this simple principle has become so bogged down… Greg L (talk) 16:04, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It was Bkconrad that noted that “Collins Street” at present is an abomination.”, not Blueboar. Anyway, I agree with that too. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indigenous inhabitant is a bad example because it's arguably a candidate for deletion since it's utterly devoid of sources. Now, if there are reliable sources that consistently refer to the topic of that article as "Indigenous inhabitant", since we have no other uses for that name on WP, then yes, that's the title we should use. If we didn't, then we would be misleading our readers into thinking whatever title we gave that article is the more common way sources refer to that topic. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It has been brought to my attention that not only do we have another topic on WP to which "indigenous inhabitant" refers, but that that is its primary topic: Indigenous peoples. So, Indigenous inhabitant (and Indigenous inhabitants) should redirect to Indigenous peoples, so Indigenous inhabitant does require disambiguation. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Try this in Google Map: 551 Collins Street in Joliet, Illinois, United States. Drag the “little person’ icon to the location to get your street view. I’d say that is very representative of that street, for which someone cleverly created our Collins St, Joliet redlink on the “Collins Street” disambiguation page. All those redlinks are contrivances to justify a comma-separated disambiguation where none was ever required. A simple Google Images search on "Collins Street" shows there is but one on this pale blue dot that is encyclopedically notable. I think “Collins Street” is the perfect example to use when further elaborating on the meaning of the principle. Greg L (talk) 17:09, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Although inter-editor conflict is seldom fun, this is what makes Wikipedia so terribly valuable in my life and interesting: learning. As an American, I had no flying clue as recently as a month ago what “Collins Street” meant. People often ask, “How the hell do you know that ?!?” If I say “If you edit on Wikipedia, you learn a lot,” my wife—if she is present—rolls her eyes in that “what a waste of time”-manner. So I just shrug my shoulders now. Greg L (talk) 17:17, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

side comment: Tony, I'm on the fence here on what you're really trying to do wrt "predisambiguation", but I don't see how our current primary topic regime supports indigenous inhabitant staying where it is. The PT guideline isn't *that* fatally flawed. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is the reason that article should be moved. So the example used to illustrate how flawed PT is, instead shows why we have it and why it's so important. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:40, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A common theme

At the moment, we have multiple discussions going on at the same time... all relating in one way or another to the issue of ambiguity and disambiguation. There are so many proposals and changes being discussed simultaneously that I no longer can keep track of what is being proposed. It is all getting muddled together in my mind, to the point where I am experiencing "proposal overload"... and when that happens my instinctive reaction is to shut down and oppose everything, no matter what it is. I think others are experiencing the same. Can someone summarize the various issues and proposals?

On that note... I am curious as to why the topic of ambiguity and disambiguation is suddenly such a hot topic. Was there a particular incident or move decision that sparked this flurry of proposals off? There seems to be a common thread of concern about ambiguity running through all of the proposed changes... so I think there is a macro-issue for us to discuss here. But, every time I think I have identified exactly what that macro-issue might actually be, we get sidetracked by narrower sub-issues and the macro-issue gets lost in all the noise. So... is there a macro-issue? Blueboar (talk) 17:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are too many discussions... let's start another!

I know of only two active proposals... Greg's poll which is winding down, and #Clarifying ambiguity about the WP:COMMONNAME edit I made the other day which got reverted.

I believe the reason that ambiguity/disambiguation is so active lately is because of a certain small number of editors that has been very active in trying to get both policy/guidelines and specific titles changes in favor of adding more description than necessary to disambiguate from other uses to our titles.

Several of us have repeatedly tried to pin them down to make a specific coherent proposal explaining what exactly they would like to see, but I have yet to see one. Kotniski was so exasperated by their behavior that he has taken an indefinite break because of them. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Here's the background, Blueboar: Over the past several months, there have been a series of moves and move requests over the issue of what to do with generic-sounding titles, when they are unique titles within WP, or have determined to be the primary topic. Some editors feel that readers are better served when clues are added parenthetically to such generic-sounding titles. Others feel that no such "pre-disambiguation" is necessary. While not everyone is dogmatic about it, there has developed the feeling that there are "camps" or "factions" that have hardened around one position or the other. That issue of generic-ness and pre-disambiguation is the subtext to the thousands of words on this page - and exacerbated by hostile feelings among certain editors. Here are some of the most exciting examples of title disputes over the past few months that fall in this category:

There are more (many!), but that gives a sense of the background. Dohn joe (talk) 18:18, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, many more, including this active one, which I think is very revealing of the issue, and deserves a read by anyone trying to understand what's going on here:

Talk:Colombiana (film)#Requested move 2

--Born2cycle (talk) 18:58, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While some editors tend to call this pre-disambiguation, that may not be the best term here. If you are using what has come to be know as a disambiguator for titling clarity, why should that be labeled as pre disambiguation? Labeling those discussions as pre disambiguation taints them and draws in unnecessary emotional baggage and old holy wars. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:41, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tomato, tomahto, unnecessary disambiguation is unnecessary disambiguation. older ≠ wiser 19:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)~~Well, no one until now has used the term pre disambiguation in this section, so I'm not sure why you're bringing it up here. But since you have,~~ If the reason the disambiguator is being used or proposed is for disambiguating against possible future other uses of the title on WP, then that is pre disambiguation, by definition. And that is often the case in these situations. In fact, I believe that's the case in 3 of the 4 cases listed by Dohn joe. It certainly is at Colombiana.

Above, I used adding more description than necessary to disambiguate from other uses. But that is kind of unwieldy. Probably unnecessary disambiguation is best. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:57, 26 January 2012 (UTC) struck out error --Born2cycle (talk) 21:30, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As the one who introduced "pre-disambiguation" to this section, I'd been using it as shorthand, but I can see that it does have negative connotations - and perhaps for good reason. The "pro-predisambiguation" editors don't see it as disambiguating against a potential future WP article - they see it as current disambiguation against other current or likely uses of the title. So I could see how that terminology might grate. (And "unnecessary disambiguation" is no better.) I don't know what an alternative term might be, though - any neutral-sounding suggestions? Dohn joe (talk) 20:11, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Extra-disambiguation as in extra-Wikipedia? Hyperdisambiguation? In all seriousness, I don't know, I think pre-disambiguation is ok, and I'm a supporter. Well, of a limited form of it anyway. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:50, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I thought Tony laid out some pretty good commonsense situations for considering predisambiguation (I have no problem with that term) at Raw notion of primary topic is fatally flawed. I understand the problem that different people disagree about what is "common" sense, and the fact is that some calls are just intrinsically hard to make. It's certainly easier to draw a bright line as some editors are arguing for, but it can often create unnecessary confusion for readers; and I just think that applying common sense to try to avoid that kind of confusion improves both the encyclopedia and readers' ease of access to it. Milkunderwood (talk) 09:26, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well of course, why would we want to do something silly like use relatively easy to determine objective criteria when we can rely on vague intuitions instead? older ≠ wiser 13:47, 27 January 2012‎ (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, determining the best title for an article frequently involves vague intuitions to some degree. Determining the best title is a very subjective process. Yes, we do lay out some objective criteria that will assist us in navigating that subjective process... but ultimately choosing the best title depends on that wonderfully wishy-washy and subjective concept known as consensus. Blueboar (talk) 15:09, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree. I did not mean to equate objective criteria with some sort of all-inclusive naming algorithm. And the key factor that you mention is "consensus" which implies informed discussion. Most of the time, RM discussions produce reasonable results. If a RM discussion determines that a term is ambiguous, even though at first glance there are no other articles on WP that compete for the title, discussion may determine that there is in fact ambiguity and disambiguation is appropriate (for example, discussion at Talk:Indigenous inhabitant is tending towards disambiguation; and Talk:Sundries determined a disambiguation page is appropriate). What I have a problem with is encoding a preference for unnecessary complexity based only on vague intuitions where objective criteria indicates otherwise. older ≠ wiser 17:24, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am fully on board with the idea that Primary topic is a very flawed criteria, as is naturalness and recognizability because they don't put the burden on the title, but on guessing how millions of readers might percieve any given title. Guessing, conjecture, supposition, speculation and downright prediction is what we force editors to do when we ask them to base a titling decision on how millions of readers will react to some version of a title. I am awed by those editors who repeatedly invoke readers will .... They should be in marketing if they believe that what they saying is really true. On a comment Blueboar made above, in all sincerity on his part, it hints at the problems we've created for ourselves with the policy as it now reads. He includes this phrase in his opening sentence - determining the best title for an article ..... With five criteria, all apparently equal in stature there are 5 to the fifth possible iterations of those criteria for a single title = 3125. It is impossible to consistently decide a best or prefect title given the number of potential iterations of criteria application. If we all signed up to the notion that There are no perfect titles in WP, only titles that comply with our title criteria and that we created a simple, straight forward set of criteria that didn't require a nuanced interpretation or modification of policy everytime a given title was less than perfect in some ones opinion, we would be much better off. We don't need and won't ever be able to produce a titling algorithm that creates the perfect title, so why do we keep trying. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Then we would get complaints by anybody who disagreed with our criteria. What then? We do, I hope, read this thing; our reactions are useful. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:34, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mike, I don't understand how we can best serve readers with respect to naming our articles so that they can get to the ones they are seeking as quickly and efficiently as reasonably possible, without "guessing" at least to some extent about what they're thinking (though I wouldn't call looking at ghits, page view counts and other evidence as "guessing"). Help us understand what you're saying in practical terms by way of example. The word "Obama" is ambiguous (see Obama (disambiguation). Do you believe that Obama should continue to redirect to Barack Obama as it currently does, or that the dab page should be moved to Obama, or what? Why? Thanks! --Born2cycle (talk) 20:12, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

B2C, redirects and disambiguation pages are a technique to deal with logical alternatives to any given article title/subject. The fact that Obama redirects to Barack Obama is perfectly fine as it doesn't impact the Barack Obama article one way or the other. On the other hand, if (and I say if because as of today its hypothetical) there was a famous and notable neurosurgeon named Barack Obama, the following titles (in in my view) would be perfectly acceptable Barack Obama (U.S. president) and Barack Obama (neurosurgeon) and there would/should be no logical reason to change them. When we start endless debates that millions of readers are really searching for Obama the president, not Obama the neurosurgeon we are engaging in pure guesswork, because I know of no empirical way to deduce what some one is actually searching for or how they got to the any given article. Google doesn't tell us that and WP page views doesn't tell us that so how can we know. We've got to guess, predict or conjecture. Not smart. We layered on so much unnecessary complexity in the current policy to the point of dysfunctionality. If it wasn't, this discussion page would be much shorter. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Cline, that is a lot of hyperbole. I see very little guesswork involved in most naming decisions. older ≠ wiser 20:14, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please point me to a naming decision that involves editors invoking Primary topic and reconizability where they provided rationale that readers are going to be confused or react a certain way to a title alternative and explain why you think that rationale didn't involve guesswork. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Examples of what I am talking about. RMs are riddled with these types of comments following support/oppose positions 'XXXXXX [is the name] they are probably what most readers are looking for', 'but a reader searching for it here, ie in an English language encyclopedia (as opposed to a XXXXX dictionary) is much more likely to be looking for the XXXXX: this is the primary topic.' None of this guesswork is ever supported with empircal evidence that indeed millions of readers of different countries, educations and culture are or would actually behave that way. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:20, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If that is what you consider guesswork, then everything in Wikipedia is guesswork. If you have an idea for how it might be done better, good luck to you. But until you have some tangible suggestions, your complaint sounds a bit like whining. older ≠ wiser 21:52, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I guess (sorry), I opine the question above was too difficult to answer. As for ideas, I think I've been fairly consistent in my proposals and positions on this page. Plus I don't think of my comments as a complaint, but more an observation of the dysfunctionally of elements of our titling policy. I firmly believe that naturalness and recognizability serve no useful or meaningful purpose when it comes to WP titles and the ideas behind them should be scraped. Now since the above question was apparently too difficult to answer, I'll pose a simpler one. In the hypothetical RM to move XXXXXY to YYYYY based on commonname the following arguments ensue:

Comment Google shows YYYYY to have a 2% edge over XXXXXY, but both XXXXXY and YYYYY faithfuly represent the content of the article.
Comment, both XXXXXY and YYYYY are consistent with titles from similar articles and both XXXXXY and YYYYY are unamibiguous
Oppose, most readers will be confused by YYYYY and most readers are probably searching XXXXXY
Oppose, where I live everyone refers to XXXXX so most readers will probably search for XXXXXY
Oppose, YYYYY may be slightly most common but I know its confusing to readers
Support, XXXXXY is confusing to most readers, this article is easier for readers to find at YYYYY
Support, I find XXXXXY confusing as well and am confident its not what readers are typically searching for.

Now, imagine you are a closing admin. Because editors can say anything they want, whether it is true or not, how to you go about verifying which statements are true between the opposes and supports? Remembering that when we say readers we are talking about millions of people from a diverse background, interests, educations, et.al. Can someone answer this question for me? --Mike Cline (talk) 01:12, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First, I would discount if not ignore comments of the pure opinion type ("X is confusing to most readers", without a reasonable explanation for what the confusion cause is), and arguments based on 2% differences in results with margins of errors much bigger than that. Instead of an extreme hypothetical, why not point us to an actual RM discussion that you think epitomizes the problem you're talking about. I mean, it's a real problem in practice, right? Not just hypothetically? In actual discussions, the far-fetched statements are often refuted. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

B2C, the ongoing RM at [11] contains two such statements. The nom believes readers are behaving one way, an opposer believes the opposite. There are other issues at play in that RM, but it does demonstrate that these types of statements occur. Above you state: without a reasonable explanation for what the confusion cause is is exactly why this is problematic. Because it assumes there is confusion (regardless of cause) when there is no empirical method to determine whether millions of readers are actually confused or not. When you apply a criteria to something and any answer is essentially correct because you actually can't support it one way or the other, that criteria is useless and will generate meanlingless results. What I would really like to see is some sort of empirical evidence to back up a statement like one of those in the Baden RM. If readers are searching for one alternative over the other, show me the evidence that they are actually doing that, not just guessing they are with vague intuition as Blueboar likes to call it. --Mike Cline (talk) 02:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Page view counts are useful evidence there. Hopefully my comment there will answer all your questions. I suppose someone looking for Baden-Baden might search for "Baden", but tough poop for them. There can't be very many of them because the dab page gets so view page view counts - if there were significant numbers looking for "Baden-Baden" by searching on "Baden", then they would be clicking on the dab page hatlink and the dab page view counts would be high; but they're not. That's empirical evidence. Not perfect, but much better than nothing. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:58, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NCROY uses pre-emptive disambiguation . Is this a neutral term? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:34, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The only reference I could find there is this: "Monarchies which use a completely different namestock, such as Lithuania and that of the Merovingians, need not follow this convention; there is no disambiguation to pre-empt. " Isn't that a misuse? After all, the disambiguation used for European monarchs, for example, is not for pre-emptive disambiguation, but for actual disambiguation; actual disambiguation due to the ambiguities created by the common namestock. But even there PRIMARYTOPIC and common name apply... see Napoleon and Peter the Great. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:12, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Look for Henry IV. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:16, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Or Henry V... note that with both of these it was decided that there is no "primary topic"... the non-disambiguated title points directly to the disambiguation pages. (the titles "Henry IV (disambiguation)" and "Henry V (disambiguation)" are both redirects pointing to the relevant non-disambiguated disambiguation pages).

This tends to be the norm at the Royalty articles... because the Royalty wikiproject members have worked together and agreed on a consistent pattern. However, even they have exceptions to their strict consistency... consider this - The non-disambiguated title "Elizabeth II" points to the article on the current Queen of England, and the disambiguation page is entitled "Elizabeth II (disambiguation)". So even in that very consistent project, there is some inconsistency. That's OK. Blueboar (talk) 01:04, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Right, that's not pre-emptive nor unnecessary. The hallmark of pre-emptive disambiguation is when the non-disambiguated title is a redirect to an article with a disambiguated title, like in unique U.S. city names... Carmel-by-the-Sea, California is preemptively disambiguated (I mean, maybe another "Carmel-by-the-Sea" will crop up some where) since Carmel-by-the-Sea redirects to it. I suppose you can say that Anne, Queen of Great Britain is pre-emptively disambiguated since Queen Anne redirects to it. But that's not a clear-cut case because it can be argued that "Anne, Queen of Great Britain" is more commonly used in reliable sources, I believe. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mike Cline you wrote above "naturalness ... serve[s] no useful or meaningful purpose when it comes to WP titles...." We use naturalness so that we have the name Tony Blair rather than Blair, Tony etc (See my posting above on 23:12, 30 December 2011 for more details). -- PBS (talk) 03:57, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Phillip, I know you are sincere about this, but the very example you use and how you use it demonstrates the dysfunctional nature of such criteria. First and foremost, no single criteria can determine an appropriate article title. We have on one absolute criteria--uniqueness. In the example you use, Tony Blair, you contend that in the absence of the Naturalness criteria, a title such as Blair, Tony would be acceptable. But that’s a real fallacy, because you are defending Naturalness in isolation, not within a holistic view of WP titles. When that’s done, and it’s done often, in RMs the discussion is highly dysfunctional. Tony Blair is the right answer because it is an acceptable title for the article, and naturalness had nothing to do with it.

Tony Blair faithfully represents the contents of the article on Tony Blair the former PM of the UK. (that meets the obscurely worded recognizability criteria)
Tony Blair reflects common usage in English language RS
Tony Blair is consistent in form with titles for other articles on people
Although Tony Blair is ambiguous, our disambiguation mechanism can and has dealt with that.

Now I got to Tony Blair very quickly and never invoked Naturalness which depends on predicting how millions of readers will see a title. If on the other hand I was proposing Blair, Tony, it would never be an acceptable title, because it fails 2 and 3 above (everytime). I do agree that every titling decision is not this easy, but we can actually make it easier by developing clear, measurable criteria that put the burden on the Title, not the readers.--Mike Cline (talk) 15:10, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your say "reflects common usage in English language RS" in the case of TB it will, but for many minor historical biographies, the major sources are sources that place the surname first followed by the first names, so we do not follow the ordering of names in RS but use naturalness instead. With your argument about "is consistent in form with titles for other articles" I assume you mean consistent with other articles in Wikipedia. Let us suppose that someone writes new articles on a new sport and chooses to order the names surname, first-names (as is done in the RS on the subject), it could be argued that the ordering for that set of articles are consistent, and without naturalness how does one justify renaming them? Consistency within Wikipedia as a major consideration for deciding on names is a bad idea as it reinforces previous good or bad decisions and based on previous consensus which ought not to be binding as consensus can change. -- PBS (talk) 21:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If the point of the "naturalness" provision is that we put first names first, we could say that instead (I don't mind keeping it if it has other benefits, but I'm unclear on what issues this particular criterion might get invoked on). Or don't bother saying anything about first name first, since there's no pressure from any quarter to do differently. Consistency helps here; if consistency is a consideration, then we should have to discuss when we want to make things inconsistent. If someone decides to make a bio with last name first, there will be a discussion, and it's unlikely there'd be much support for that inconsistency. Dicklyon (talk) 21:52, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is not just about names for biographies of European ordering, it also automatically takes care of the ordering for names in other regions where family name may come before given names. It also takes care of other things such as place names (For example we could describe places by State, region, sub-region .... United Kingdom, London, Southwark, Borough) -- See my previous post higher up the page at 23:12, 30 December 2011 (UTC) -- PBS (talk) 22:29, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think naturalness is nearly as problematic as Mike is trying to make it seem. older ≠ wiser 22:01, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see much issue there either, but I do support Mike's idea of trying to write a more workable policy from a different viewpoint; let's see if we can get to something we like that way. Dicklyon (talk) 22:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mike you write when talking about naturalness "(that meets the obscurely worded recognizability criteria)", yet further up the page you wrote "I firmly believe that ... recognizability serve[s] no useful or meaningful purpose when it comes to WP titles". -- PBS (talk) 22:29, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

break

Arbitration

This matter, now it is almost resolved, has become an ArbCom case; since I have, unavoidably, quoted some language here, editors may wish to consult Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Article_titles.2FMOS, even if they have no interest in sanctions. JCScaliger (talk) 00:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Now Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation -- PBS (talk) 02:12, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization Of Article Titles

I would like to see capitalization of articles "officially" changed for beauty & simplification. Let's capitalize every word of an article title, no matter what part of speech it is. This makes it easy to go directly to a subject without being redirected, or failing to find the subject at all.

It is utterly abhorrent to my eye to see miniscule leading letters in what is supposed to be an "Article Title!", especially when that word is a conjunction or preposition.

I know the current rules point to "The Chicago Manual Of Style" (WHICH USES ALL CAPS IN ITS OWN TITLE) and/or "A Dictionary Of Modern English Usage". But I don't care about them, they aren't authoritative to me, I did not grant them consent to rule my wiki, did you? I never even heard of those 2 books until a bot uncapitalized the word "Pit" in Conversation pit, which I recently created as "Conversation Pit". Trying to correct that ugliness led me here. Even if we choose to follow these manuals generally, let's ignore their awful rules on titles. Wikipedia is made for viewing on machine, not print, and leading caps for every word is much easier to read in any medium, but especially the screen. Shouldn't wikipedia have its own style manual that serves us & our needs anyway? Isn't the wikipedia supposed to be written in American, not English? We still have homonyms & irregular verbs in our language for crying out loud, so why should we use musty old print style guides anyway, when our language has not even been formalized yet?

Does anyone else agree (about caps for each word in an article title)? Can we get consensus? Does my plea need to go someplace else? Ace Frahm (talk) 22:26, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't support this idea. The English Wikipedia is written multiple English variants, not just American English. WP:ENGVAR has more information.

You might find it handy to know that the name of the style you want is called start case, not all caps. What we use now is sentence case, and the more commonly proposed alternative is title case. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:34, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ace, I don't really understand why you are proposing start case instead of title case. Also, I don't think CMOS or the dictionary you mention have anything to do with why we sentence case our titles. I agree that it is odd that we use sentence case for our titles instead of title case. I think the main reason is so that links in running sentences will be easier to deal with, although I'm not sure I find this all that compelling—see WP:LOWERCASE. In any case, changing at this point is probably way more trouble than it is worth. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 00:46, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Start case can be easily implemented and maintained via bot, FWIW. But I suppose that's true for title case too, just more complicated because the bot has to know which words not to cap. Sentence case is the problem because you have to differentiate nouns in names (which you cap) from regular nouns in sentences (which you don't). --Born2cycle (talk) 01:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If we went to all caps, we would probably need to parenthetically disambiguate to distinguish Red Meat from Red meat. (say: "Red Meat (Comic Strip)" and "Red Meat (Mammal Flesh)"). Not saying this would be better or worse... just saying it would have to be done. Blueboar (talk) 02:12, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(All caps is RED MEAT ... ) Rich Farmbrough, 03:39, 29 January 2012 (UTC).[reply]

The current style, which was probably born out of the needs ErikHaugen mentions, has the advantages of simplicity, variety neutrality and consistency. Good enough for me. (And no, it is not supposed to me written "in American". And leading caps for every word is not more readable - there are readability studies available if you want to find out rather than make stuff up. Incidentally the word "Wikipedia" is capitalised ) Rich Farmbrough, 03:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC).[reply]

I support Title Case. Sentence is ugly, and I will continue to use Title Case for my sections and articles, and force some 'bot clean up after me. The Steve 06:45, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When I first arrived at Pickyweedia, I was very dismayed at the lack of "Title Case for Articles" (though "Title Case For Articles" isn't something that much of anyone anywhere would do). I've long since been swayed by the various rationales against it, the main ones being a) it implies that certain things are proper names when they are not, and b) it leads to a disambiguation mess of ungodly proportions. It's not even ungrammatical or "weird": Sentence case titling is used in the majority of scholarly journals, and while I don't know about majority/minority in this case, it's become extremely common in mainstream journalism in both newspapers and magazines. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 11:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gerund titles

It is requested that an edit be made to the semi-protected project page at Wikipedia:Article titles. (edit · history · last · links · protection log)

This template must be followed by a complete and specific description of the request, that is, specify what text should be removed and a verbatim copy of the text that should replace it. "Please change X" is not acceptable and will be rejected; the request must be of the form "please change X to Y".

The edit may be made by any autoconfirmed user. Remember to change the |answered=no parameter to "yes" when the request has been accepted, rejected or on hold awaiting user input. This is so that inactive or completed requests don't needlessly fill up the edit requests category. You may also wish to use the {{ESp}} template in the response. To request that a page be protected or unprotected, make a protection request.

‹ The template Edit fully-protected is being considered for merging. ›

This article refers to Swimming as a gerund title, but since 2009 that has been a disambiguation page. That makes it an awkward example of a good gerund title. Request changing the reference to Swimming to Human swimming, until someone identifies a better example of a gerund title. – Pnm (talk) 21:41, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Would Running be better? Blueboar (talk) 23:09, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I second Pnm's suggestion except taking into account Blueboar's example of Running. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Running sounds good to me, and will work with the existing sentence just fine. – Pnm (talk) 04:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Request for edit, Poll

It is requested that an edit be made to the semi-protected project page at Wikipedia:Article titles. (edit · history · last · links · protection log)

This template must be followed by a complete and specific description of the request, that is, specify what text should be removed and a verbatim copy of the text that should replace it. "Please change X" is not acceptable and will be rejected; the request must be of the form "please change X to Y".

The edit may be made by any autoconfirmed user. Remember to change the |answered=no parameter to "yes" when the request has been accepted, rejected or on hold awaiting user input. This is so that inactive or completed requests don't needlessly fill up the edit requests category. You may also wish to use the {{ESp}} template in the response. To request that a page be protected or unprotected, make a protection request.

‹ The template Edit fully-protected is being considered for merging. ›

The community’s views as gauged by #Poll, above show a clear and consistent desire for the changes denoted in Ver. 1. ArbCom (noted above) is looking into editor behavior that made it difficult for a month to discern the community consensus (“long-term disruptive editing” according to the petitioner, Admin SarekOfVulcan). And as Arb Casliber wrote, “We'd review conduct.” ArbCom won’t be looking at whether the community consensus should be second guessed so there seems to be nothing standing in the way of honoring the community’s wishes in this regard. Greg L (talk) 05:26, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that we wait until the ArbCom case closes (so we can adopt any suggestions they may make). The world will not end because the policy has the "wrong version" for a few more weeks. In the mean time, here is a question to think about: Does this need to be framed as a binary "V1" vs "v2" choice? Could there be a third option? Blueboar (talk) 14:35, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There certainly could be a third option, Blueboar. As you wrote in your 21:29, 29 December 2011 post well before the poll: To be honest, I don't like either of the versions...
And we could consider a fourth option. And a twentieth. Note however, that the rules of the poll (the very first first “A” one in fact) specifically allowed editors to participate in the poll with a comment that they thought there should be some other option than just the two provided; it asked only that they not introduce other options to consider into the poll so as to not complicate matters. There was a notable absence in that poll of those who were apparently in the minority. Human nature being what it is, it is reasonable to suspect that these editors stayed away rather than go on record that they were part of an extreme minority responsible for the month-long deadlock via tactics like digging in their heels to frustrate progress.
Despite the open invitation to participants to mention that there should be other options considered and that the provided options insufficiently captured the nucleus of the dispute, only one editor, SarekOfVulcan, expressed anything other than complete support for the basic principle embodied by Option #1 when he wrote while I'm not sure I agree with all the changes on that page, if we're just going with the above choices. The rest were rather clear that they agreed with the essential meaning and objective of the text in Option #1. A fair reading of the totality of the comments there would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the community strongly embraces the principle embodied in Option #1. And remember, WP:Consensus is defined not merely by mere nose count, but by considering the common message and voice of the accompanying reasoning.
I mention this not to further advocate for getting the community consensus implemented before ArbCom concludes its proceedings looking into the editor conduct that frustrated progress here for so long (see my below response to Mike Cline), but to instead articulate that it frankly seems unseemly to suggest that a clear-as-glass consensus on what the community wants should be obfuscated by suggestions that since other options (the possibilities are astronomical) could theoretically have been considered, that somehow means those options should first be discussed before honoring the clearly-stated community consensus.
I’m sorry if you felt all along that there should be another option, but the community’s wishes are clearly not in alignment with yours. And I’m sorry if you might feel put off by my disagreeing with you, but I thought I would respond to what I think is *bad* speech with *better* speech and state that I have a healthy respect on Wikipedia for honoring community consensus since embracing that principle cuts down on wikilawyering , stonewalling, and tendentiousness—not to say that you exhibited any such things.
But if you had read the rules, and understood them, you should have jumped at the opportunity to participate in the poll, and had your voice heard to possibly influence others—even if your comment was to opine that there should be a third option considered. I feel that you forfeited your right to complain about the poll and its outcome after declining your opportunity to participate.
And by “complain,” that includes cleverly suggesting with a rhetorical question that maybe a third option (yours, perhaps?) could be considered instead of honoring an exceedingly clear and lopsided community consensus. Greg L (talk) 21:25, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Concur with Blueboar, whether the policy page changes or not WP will continue. Lets wait till the ArbCom sets the course. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:32, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Very well, it can wait. Greg L (talk) 21:25, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I'm more and more coming to the conviction that edits to policy and guideline pages should never be made willy-nilly by any editor, however well-intended, without first posting a proposal on its talkpage, and waiting for full discussion and consensus. Even what may appear to be innocent phrasing can subtly impact the interpretation of other statements on the page. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:47, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn’t agree more. That was the problem with the disfunction for a month: editors were inserting clever, ambiguous, wholesome-sounding changes with little-to-no discussion and others suspected that the changes had hidden meaning or were “loaded” in some way. By the time the poll had been conducted, the crucial distinction of what the two camps were really driving at was sufficiently clear so uninvolved editors could weigh in on a properly moderated poll to establish what the community consensus was really about. Greg L (talk) 22:57, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom will decide nothing for months. When they do, they are likely to consider the conduct of the editors, not substantive policy.
I cannot agree that requiring discussion before boldness is useful. The problem here was not the bold change by Noetica, it was Noetica's continual reversion to a non-consensus version. What should be prohibited is reversion.

If people had to come up with something novel every time, they would be induced to think about what they actually wanted to say; the endeavor to come up with satisfactory wording that would stick would induce concessions; and they might well stumble on acceptable wording by accident. That's what happens in articles; it should work here. Reversion is for obvious vandalism. JCScaliger (talk) 17:25, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not that simple folks. In this particular case Kotniski made a change on August 17, 2010 without discussion, but which had consensus support (as has been verified at #Poll: as well as in the commentary from December), while the change made in May 2011 did have a discussion, but was never-the-less not supported by consensus once it was brought to their attention. I believe that's because the goal of the change in May was simplification of the wording, and no one noticed that the result was a significant change in meaning.

Let's not throw out the baby with the bath water. BRD works when followed, but that includes the D part. If there is a real objection to a change, then go ahead and revert it, but then discuss it (presuming the bold editor seeks discussion/explanation of the edit and revert). I mean, if the reverter can't come up with a substantive reason to object to the change, while the bold editor can explain why the change is supported by consensus, why should it not be accepted? And that's what happened here last month. My edit was accompanied by a simultaneous explanation (as recommended by BRD), but those reverting refused to engage in substantive discussion about it. All they did was disruptively wave the "there must be discussion first" flag, without actually discussing. This point is fully explicated at User:Born2cycle/Status quo stonewalling. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:51, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO WP:BRD is just plain stupid when allowed on policy and important guideline changes. How'd you like if someone came along and changed the 15mph speedlimit sign in front of your kid's school to 45mph. It would certainly be changed back, but in the mean time those speeding dangerously through the school zone would be following policy. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm… I note, Mike, that rather than find out how WT:AT got effectively hijacked by a small group of combatants in a manner that made it virtually impossible for others to join in, your recommendation on the ArbCom evidence page (which seems to be the wrong forum anyway for proposing remedies) is to lock down WP:AT for 365 days. That seems to be akin to boarding up a school for a year because a gang of hoodlums were getting out of hand. I note also that you didn’t participate in the above poll. Is there a connection between these two observations? Would you be happy to see the current state of WP:AT stay just the way it is for one year? And please don’t come back with anything like “the world will not end if WP:AT doesn’t change” and other such arguments; I expect a serious answer to A) why the community consensus on a valid Wikipedia-related matter should not be honored, and B) why a venue like WP:AT should be locked down for an entire year rather than deal with the few editors who hijacked this talk page with tendentiousness, stubbornness, and wikilawyering. Greg L (talk) 18:40, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Greg, you are fiesty this morning. A couple of observations before I answer your questions. First, I've been involved in WP:Title for a while, well over a couple of years, and seen it evolve into the Babel it is today. I don't think it can be fixed with sound bite edits. Interestingly enough, I closed three RMs this morning on articles all of a similar genre. There was little discussion, maybe two or three editors, but I guess 2 or 3 out of 1000s does represent consensus. I moved all three articles. Two went one way, the other went just the opposite. So much for policy or consistency. What was distrubing about these moves, was the fact that all three articles were in poor shape, tagged for references, etc. All the volunteer energy expended to request, discuss and adjudicate the moves (not even with a consistent application of policy across 3 similar articles), and not one edit was made to improve the articles. When you can selectively apply inconsistent policy in a way that suits your local purpose, any answer is the right answer. In my mind, the moves served absolutely no useful purpose in the quest to build this encyclopedia. So to answer your second question first. I firmly believe that if WP:AT did not change one word in the next 365 days, there would be zero adverse effect on the building of WP, and every ounce of editor energy diverted away from debating changes that have zero effect on actual policy implementation, whould actually benefit WP. If you, or any other editor can convince me otherwise, I'd be happy to reconsider, but given the dysfunctional nature of the policy today, leaving it alone is probably the wisest thing to do. As to the first question, I have always found it difficult to believe (and accept) that a handful of editors that agree on a position, reflects Community consensus when the community of active editors is ~136,000. Local consensus, yes, but community consensus, no. And I strongly believe that policy and guidelines should be subject to wide community review, discussion and decision. One way to accomplish that is to leave the policy alone while the wider community reviews it. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:26, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mike, if you look at pure !vote counts it's probably true that a local consensus is not necessarily a good indicator of community consensus. However, we're not supposed to do that, for precisely that reason. We're supposed to look at the arguments and reasons given for each position. If the arguments and reasons presented, even in a discussion of just a few editors, are much stronger one way vs. another, then I think that that strongly suggests community consensus is also in support of that position, especially if some of those arguments persuasively show that the community has shown support for that position in other contexts, like in the wording of other policies, or as demonstrated in the preponderance of a significantly large group of randomly selected articles. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:41, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably you are referring to these three recently moved pages: San Bernardino District, Paraguay, San Alberto District, and Naranjal District. While I largely agree with you that the efforts of editors could be better spent on improving articles rather than discussing what title to use for them, I don't agree that these three represent inconsistency. For one article there was another article with the same name; with the other two, there were no other articles with the same title. The moves were quite consistent with existing guidelines and practices (despite the hand-waving by some). In the first case, the move was requested BECAUSE of the ambiguity (and the move discussion explicitly indicated a disambiguation page should take the base name). The other two move were directly the result of the irresponsible actions of Noetica to move the pages away from the base names and then forcing the RM discussion by reverting an editor that undid the unilateral and undiscussed moves. older ≠ wiser 19:48, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, but if I believed that Consistency trumped Precision, wouldn't they all be similar. My point here is that just about every move can be defended pro and con by isolating one's pet criteria during the discussion. That's a flaw in policy. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, dear! Did my above post come across as “fiesty”? That certainly wasn’t my intention. I merely thought I would shed light where there was darkness by asking you to justify and clarify a novel suggestion of yours. And by “novel,” I mean one that undermines and flouts all that Wikipedia stands for.

Let’s talk about this philosophy you lectured to us about: I have always found it difficult to believe (and accept) that a handful of editors that agree on a position, reflects Community consensus when the community of active editors is ~136,000. Uhm… please accept it. To help you do so, I encourage you to read up on our exceedingly pithy Five Pillars, which is equivalent to Wikipedia’s Constitution, and WP:Consensus. You won’t find anything suggesting that a notable and high-visibility poll participated by a wide range of experienced editors that resulted in a 17:0 tally where there was uncanny commonality of opinion can’t reflect a community consensus because there are approximately 136,000 editors active on Wikipedia. Actually, given that there are a total of 47,584,796 registered users, your theory would suggest that it is impossible to ever discern a community consensus.

Please do advise when you find a policy page regarding how a consensus is arrived at on Wikipedia that backs up your novel views on the concept. You might also direct our attention to any policy page on Wikipedia suggesting that ArbCom’s proper response to disruptive editing would be to lock down a guideline page for an entire year. Since the odds of that last suggestion actually occurring is a number so close to zero that not even God can tell the difference, I don’t really need to belabor the point. Greg L (talk) 19:59, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(after ec) @Mike Cline, it's admirable to dream of a perfect policy. I doubt it is possible for a policy to adequately address every contingency or that would satisfy all editors in all situations. We have a messy process. That seems to be the way of the wiki, and I'm OK with that. Expecting systematic consistency on a wiki where literally anyone is welcome to edit seems just a tad idealistic. older ≠ wiser 20:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bkonrad, I does think you over state my dream. Its just that in my view, the gaps between dysfunctional-functional-and perfect are large indeed. Given the amount of contentiousness we manage to generate with the current policy, I would be much satisfied if we could find a way to close the first gap just a little. Now, back to editing articles. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe this is a glass half-full/half-empty sort of thing. While discussions on MOS and some other policy/guideline pages are IMO mostly aggravating and repetitious displays of verbal egotism and brinksmanship that have few if any tangible benefits, I honestly think requested moves is an area where WP does function remarkably well. Apart from a handful of outliers, most requested moves do not produce much drama and for the most part produce reasonable results. older ≠ wiser 21:10, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting idea. Our policy is functional, but just to keep it that way, we change every couple of days. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:54, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Bkonrad (older ≠ wiser) that RMs usually work pretty well; especially when the participants are blissfully unaware of the turmoil here. If people remember the policy from 3 or 6 years ago, that works just as well; better, in many cases. Dicklyon (talk) 22:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mike Cline remarks that this page doesn't have the stability of traffic laws. No more it does; that's because it's not legislation; it's an effort to reach a consensus description of actual policy, which is what editors actually do when they think about it.

The reason Wikipedia has policy pages at all is to store up assertions on which we agree, and which generally convince people when we make them in talk, so we don't have to write them out again and again.

That's why Dicklyon is right to say that the memories of what the page said 6 years ago are good enough; unless the climate of opinion has changed, we should be saying much the same things. (If it has changed, the response will be "that's so 2006." ;->) This is why policy pages aren't "enforced", but quoted; if people aren't convinced by what policy pages say, they should usually say something else.

The major exception to this stability is when some small group, either in good faith or in an effort to become the Secret Masters of Wikipedia, mistakes its own opinions for What Everybody Thinks. This happens, and the clique often writes its own opinions up as policy and guideline pages. JCScaliger (talk) 03:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Then to clear up any misunderstandings among more anal people like me, WP:POLICY should be rewritten to say "if people aren't convinced by what policy pages say, they should usually say something else." while removing more normative language like "all users should normally follow". Yeah, I agree there shouldn't be so much drama about changing the details. Art LaPella (talk) 04:37, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That would probably be an improvement. I backtrack a little because I wasn't thinking about NPOV when I wrote it.

There is the potential for a wonderful metaphysical argument about what if a consensus of Wikipedians came to disagree unresolvably with NPOV or Verifiability: would we throw everybody out, or change policy? (If we did have a purge, the editors would write a fork to their new understanding, so the difference would not be all that great.) This would probably be drowned in that. JCScaliger (talk) 23:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If I disagreed with NPOV or Verifiability, I would continue to cooperate unless or until a consensus agreed with me. That is how I deal with policies and guidelines I disagree with now. If everyone else behaved likewise, no such metaphysical crisis would arise; we would demonstrate consensus first, change policy second, and change behavior third. Or maybe even third before second. Art LaPella (talk) 03:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In response to the original topic, there is no reason to wait for ArbCom to futz around and decide something about user behavior or policy interpretation before we implement something with community consensus. The exact opposite is true. The community essentially tolerates ArbCom as a necessary-evil pile of legalistic bureaucracy that is against our community inclination to avoid having any; part of the "social contract" that makes this tolerable is that ArbCom doesn't get in the way of Wikipedian business as usual. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 11:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Appropriateness of new classical music naming criteria?

In the same spirit that this question about the 'Common names policy' was publicized, I would like to request informed opinions on the appropriateness of WP:MUSICSERIES on the music naming conventions page. Thank you, MistyMorn (talk) 00:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Original wording of request was: In the same spirit that this question about the 'Common names policy' was publicized, I would like to request informed opinions on the appropriateness or otherwise of WP:MUSICSERIES? I feel that this new classical music titling guideline, which strongly prioritizes 'consistency and (more arguably) 'precision', was pushed through on the basis of local consensus without allowing time and space for consensus in the broader Wikipedia community. I have raised my concerns on the music naming conventions page, and really would be more than happy to withdraw from the fray if the discussion there is expanded to take in a wider range of informed 'consumer' feedback. Thank you[reply]

I don't know how "informed" I am, but I'm very definitely a "consumer" of information concerning classical music. I'm not a musician; I'm simply trying to catalog a large collection of recordings, and I keep looking here in Wikipedia for assistance. I have often been frustrated in trying to find articles, and without doubt, the way WP:MUSICSERIES is presently written greatly simplifies my work. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There was a good consensus for WP:MUSICSERIES. It was based on WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. I understand that MistyMorn, a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias, believes that if a group of interested editors work on a guideline, it will necessarily be biased in some way because of their prior interest in the subject. This may well be an theoretically valid point of view, but Wikipedia could hardly function without interested people taking part. --Klein zach 02:11, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. MistyMorn has made an identical posting here. --Klein zach 02:25, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, Kleinzach. My posting was made in good faith.I followed advice to post at "WT:MOS or WT:AT or another appropriate 'core' guideline talk page" (having explained my reluctance to make the step myself, given that I am relatively unfamiliar with WP practices). WT:AT is clearly pertinent and I felt there was a rationale for eliciting at WP:MOS as well. Since the discussion on the music naming convention page is hard to navigate, I summarized some of the concerns that had led me to request further input. I now realise this was inappropriate and have revised the wording of the request accordingly. I'm not sure what can be done now about the dual posting. MistyMorn (talk) 09:48, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I also feel the need to rebut Kleinzach's claim that MistyMorn, a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias, believes that if a group of interested editors work on a guideline, it will necessarily be biased in some way because of their prior interest in the subject. This may well be an theoretically valid point of view, but Wikipedia could hardly function without interested people taking part. I think my point was clear: While guideline input from experts is essential, it needs to be complemented by input from non-experts who are also interested parties, ie 'stakeholders' (since it's not the just the writers who are interested in an article.) MistyMorn (talk) 10:28, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We've already explained to you that many contributors at WP:CM are non-experts. I'm not a musician myself. Why do you insist on referring to everyone at WP:CM as experts? --Klein zach 03:06, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You two obviously have a disagreement to work out, but I want to state for the record that notifying relevant places like AT and MOS about discussions that are likely to interest the regulars there and whose input is probably more well-informed than average on Wikipedia article policies and guidelines, is not canvassing, unless it exhorts a position ("come stop this!" or "rally to the defense!"). It's absolutely normal Wikipedia procedure. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 11:35, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NCM had sections on common names and on disambiguated names all along. Don't these two sections cover everything? This new section throws away our usual naming criteria of common name, naturalness, and recognizability and substitutes an indexing system. As far as organizing CDs goes, we could create a "Classical Music by Number" article or category. This article can be used as a model. Kauffner (talk) 05:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is this still about Moonlight Sonata? if so, by some other well-established method should cover it, making that a possible way of titling the article. (Moonlight Sonata is tolerably well-established.) If the section is being quoted against that, then you have a conduct problem, not a policy problem. JCScaliger (talk) 17:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, typing “Moonlight Sonata” into the search field and being taken to Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven) is a satisfactory balance of the test criteria I consider germane to determining proper titles, which are as follows:

Does the article title look studious and encyclopedic?
Is it factually correct the way most well-educated readers understand the subject matter?
After a redirect from popular street vernacular, does the actual title best adhere to the principle of least astonishment?
Do the spelling, diacritics, or capitalization conform to conventional, high-quality, real-world English-language practices as exercised by the most-reliable English-language RSs?

I’m not seeing a problem with Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven) since it is a redirect from a common name wherein the redirect is encyclopedic, adheres to standard music convention, and in this particular instance, astonishes no one. Greg L (talk) 17:02, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. JCScaliger’s Is this still about Moonlight Sonata? is a valid and crucial question that highlights a chronic problem around here. Whether or not this particular case is about “Moonlight Sonata”, it is still true that far too often, editors talk in the wholesome-sounding abstract and no one can figure out what they’re driving at and what their real objective is. We all end up talking cross‑purpose, completely waste our time, and outsiders who aren’t up to speed on the minute-by-minute blow-by-blow between disputants have no flying idea what the real nugget of the issue is about. This being evasive and abstruse deprives us of greater community input and makes it nearly impossible to discern a consensus. Man up and explain what you’re really trying to accomplish with some specific examples, please. Greg L (talk) 17:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Take it easy there. In this case, having followed the minute-by-minute blow-by-blow, I can confirm that MistyMorn does actually seem to be questioning WP:MUSICSERIES—or at least the way it was worded at the time—and how it relates to COMMONNAME, just as he said in his original post here, and not the Moonlight Sonata issue in particular. MM was even neutral in that RM. With that said, I agree that examples are almost always helpful. Moonlight Sonata is a good one here, there are others we could use, for example Eine Kleine Nachtmusik which was subsequently added to the wording at NCM. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 22:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am taking it easy, you ol’ calm voice of reason. ;-) I stated my preference and then, in the post script, I stated that we need more examples being used here so we don’t have outsiders guessing at what people are driving at. As to one of your examples, is there a consensus that “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” (a German-language name in an English-language encyclopedia) is preferable to “Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major, K. 525 (Mozart)”? Or even “A Little Serenade”? Greg L (talk) 23:18, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I fully agree that when establishing a set of guidelines, it's important to take the time to consider examples and possible issues arising. I've invited comment on a series of examples that I think are broadly similar to Eine Kleine to help explore how the recent changes to WP:MUSICSERIES function in slightly different contexts. The named Vaughan Williams symphonies may be relatively uncontroversial. Apart from one possible exception, they don't really touch on the controversy regarding cases—of which Moonlight is just one—where the common name is also a nickname. MistyMorn (talk) 13:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And I would like to stay out of the atomic-level details of guidelines governing the selection of titles for music articles. One thing I have become acutely aware of is that the Internet emboldens everyone (wikipedians are no exception) to express that they have an opinion even if they knew nothing whatsoever about a particular subject matter five minutes earlier. The greater one’s self esteem, the more individuals tend to prolifically pound their keyboards without fully understanding the subject matter.

Whether the specialty is psychology, mathematics, programming, linnaean hierarchy, dog breeding, fish species, or music; I believe it is best for us generalists to sit back and let the specialists figure out the details for their particular specialty. Towards that end, I think it is best if we have input from a wide segment of the community so we can establish the fundamental principles at WP:AT governing the vast majority of titles. But then WP:AT needs to butt out and let the specialists have Wikipedia follow the way the real English-speaking world practices the art within any particular discipline.

The notion is bankrupt that any single set of style guidelines can bring harmony across all the English-speaking world’s disciplines (achieve cross-project consistency). Improperly pursuing that end does our readership a great disservice. The proper role of any encyclopedia is to educate its readership on a given topic and properly prepare them for their continuing studies elsewhere on that topic. We fail our readership if we send them down the road talking and writing “weird” (in unconventional ways) in front of a gathering of experts in that discipline. I can just see it: “Why do you write it and say it that way??” some expert asks. “Because I read it on Wikipedia,” comes the response. (*knowing smiles*)

It can not be clearer that arguments that amount to “Wikipedia is a single published entity that needs a single set of rules governing all matters of style across all disciplines” is tantamount to “Let’s have readers submit college papers and walk into meetings all fat, dumb, and happy but completely at odds with the way the experts in a particular field practice their art.” Wikipedia reflects real-world practices and must not try to change the way the real world works—even if that shocks the conscience of wikipedias who really really like the metric system or have a great disdain for uppercase letters, or… whatever detail a particular wikipedian has a jones over. Just because these well-meaning editors desire to change how the way the real world works, think Wikipedia ought to be exploited as an agent of change in hopes our weirdness will gain traction, and know how to navigate their way to this page and dig in their heels when they don’t get their way, is no reason the entire system here has to break down just because some editors can’t accept “no”’ for an answer. Greg L (talk) 15:52, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you making a general comment, or is all this directed at my brief pointer? Fyi, I do have some professional experience of working on guidelines, and I didn't like what I saw here. I've also loved music all my life. Thank you in advance for the understanding, MistyMorn (talk) 16:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry; mine was a general comment and wasn’t in the least a criticism of your conduct and endeavors on Wikipedia. Wikipedia needs experts like you rather than your average young generalist (their numbers are great). Wikipedia has had its instances where a local consensus was at odds with a community consensus on a larger scale, but I had (and have ) no reason to think you have had a hand in any such things by way of music titles. If you have suggestions where the general principles on WP:AT are at conflict with what the music pros think is best in that discipline, please advise. Greg L (talk) 17:22, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for clarifying. I'm glad the comment wasn't aimed at my gf contributions, however inexpert. Although I agree the recent changes to WP:MUSICSERIES are a step in the right direction, it seems to me that this local guideline is still at odds with WP:AT if common names that are universally understood in the 'real world' like Moonlight, Waldstein, Hammerklavier, Kreutzer, Eroica, Pastoral etc etc are effectively banned from titles on 'scholarly' grounds (and by saying that I'm not supporting The Moonlight Sonata as a title). IMO, MUSICSERIES still seems to aspire to be a classification system (however simplified) rather than a titling guideline. Unlike some of the main proponents of MUSICSERIES, I think that WP:COMMONNAME is an excellent criterion across Wikipedia, classical music included. But since commonname usage appears extremely controversial locally, I was trying to take a few small steps to explore some of the less heated aspects in a bit more detail. This move was partially in response to your own demand to focus on specific examples rather than abstract theorizing (and why I posted the last pointer here). Regards, MistyMorn (talk) 18:20, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I duknow when it comes to music. I personally think common names have a place for the article titles of some songs when that name is near-universally used by music aficionados in conversation. My litmus test would be that if a conductor at an orchestra was talking to an orchestra member and told him of a particular song he wanted to play next, that is the name that would be a best fit. If it is the “Pastoral” (one of my very favorite compositions), then I think that is perfectly encyclopedic. But I would also have no problem with “Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)” so long as Pastoral (song) redirects properly, which it doesn’t because it takes me to “Head (The Jesus Lizard album), which makes no sense given how weak the association is. Greg L (talk) 03:10, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You are thinking of "Pastoral Symphony" (not song)—which does redirect correctly to "Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)". GFHandel ♬ 03:33, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure whether Greg deliberately spoke of "article titles of some songs" - (oh, please, no; not this same straitjacketing of classical together with popular music) - but in fact this is a valid point. Someone who wouldn't have a concept of "classical" music if it bit him on the leg picks up a reference to "Pastoral" somewhere, knowing nothing other than it is "music". But within Wikipedia, the system works. If I type nothing but pastoral into the searchbox, it returns a list of 10 suggestions, none having to do with music. Then as soon as I type a space and an s, it suggests, in sequence, Pastoral Symphony (which will take me to Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven), then Pastoral state, Pastoral staff, Pastoral (song), Pastoral Symphony (disambiguation), Pastoral sonata, Pastoral support, and Pastoral Symphony (Vaughn Williams). With appropriate redirects, anyone ought to be able to find anything in Wikipedia. There's no reason why a redirect couldn't be added to the Jesus Lizard page, if this is thought to be a problem.

In the meantime, I've never yet seen a better or more lucid explanation of the general article title problem than Greg's post of 15:52, 4 February 2012, above, and I very much hope he will crank it up into a full-blown essay so that it doesn't disappear into an archive of this page. It has long seemed to me that the real problem is that WP naming policy is a procrustean bed for specialties like classical music, or for instance ornithology, where a field of study has developed guidelines that best suit their specific needs, and then here at Wikipedia they get pushed and pulled to fit into schemes that are not just foreign to them, but in their experience simply don't work as well. But then I also have my own bête noir concerning encyclopedic tone as Kotniski tried to describe it. I truly believe that if we are attempting to be authoritative we should also try to sound authoritative, and not "dumb down" to the lowest common denominator of readers. Redirects do all the work, and the wording at the start of an article's lede assures immediate easy access to any and every wanted article. More properly formal article titles are noticed by most users, and do serve a valuable purpose in at least offering to a reader a concept of how the topic fits into a more general scheme, rather than reinforcing his/her limited view of the article in isolation. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, while I don’t know diddly about music notation, I do know my Beethoven Symphony No. 6. For decades, my favorite part has been the 1st Movement- Allegro Ma Non Troppo and I am especially fond of the part roughly 1:22 from the end of the movement; I think it is pure genius.

FYI, I also tried Pastoral (symphony) and Pastoral symphony, since the parenthetical form for adding specificity is an exceedingly common wiki-convention. But that didn’t work either. Having it be “Pastoral Symphony” seemed a bit out of the blue (no parenthesis). It’s easy to add more redirects.

The issue I think we are arguing about here is what is the best primary title to use for this song. And towards that end, my main message point is that WP:Article titles would best convey the fundamental principles covering article titles and should let the specialists in any field apply those principles as they see fit. I propose fundamental principles:

Editors active in specialty subjects on Wikipedia, when choosing an article title, the following basic principles should apply (in my opinion):

The article title should seem netural, studious, and encyclopedic.
The title should be a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic.
It should be factually correct the way most well educated readers who have an interest in the field understand the subject matter.
After a redirect from a common name, the actual title should best adhere to the principle of least astonishment.
Where experts and aficionados who are active in the field usually refer to the subject by a common name—both in writing and verbally, the common name is often best.
The spelling, diacritics, or capitalization conform to conventional, high-quality, real-world English-language practices as exercised by the most-reliable English-language RSs.

The music specialists (and the physics specialists and the computer programming experts, etc.) would simply take these general principles and apply them as they see fit in their specialty. Greg L (talk) 19:42, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify that my specific question regarding "Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)", the one commonly known as the 'Pastoral', has absolutely nothing to do with redirects (relevant though such questions are), 'songs' (a complete misnomer here), or specialist musicological details. It is just one possible test case among many about whether these local guidelines are in keeping with Wikipedia policy. As I wrote elsewhere: "It seems to me needlessly unfriendly to the broad Wikipedia readership to omit the common name (Moonlight, Waldstein, Appassionata, New World, Pastoral, Pathetique, etc, etc) altogether from the title (as distinct from redirects). I am asking whether WP:MUSICSERIES is in keeping with Wikipedia naming policy. I felt the guideline was 'pushed through' based mainly on local consensus (some proponents seem to feel strongly that that was actually a good thing). In brief, is WP:MUSICSERIES a valid local guideline, or is it a fudge?" IMO, that unanswered question is relevant to readers of this centralized policy page. MistyMorn (talk) 20:32, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Duknow. It’s hard to get sufficient generalists to march from here into a specialty venue where, once one sets foot, the natives tend to circle the wagons and can vastly outnumber those whose Wiki‑theology ain’t “straight” and smite all who trespass. If you don’t believe me, just try getting something sensible accomplished at “Lesbian”^(disclaimer), “Race and intelligence”, or any of our terrorism-related articles. It took me three entire months of consensus building and infighting just to get Wikipedia to stop routinely using retarded terminology unused in the real world like The Dell Inspiron came with 256 mebibytes of RAM and start using the terminology the rest of the computing planet used. Sometimes it’s better to just walk away and let ‘em play in their corner of the playground and not presume to dictate to them what the real rules of Four square are like. Greg L (talk) 22:04, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the criteria about accepting a project naming proposal could be as simple as, does it help the general readers? If not then reject, if it does, then we can use it. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:12, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't preferring a name used in reliable sources that's "familiar to our readers" a key rationale for WP:COMMONNAME? MistyMorn (talk) 23:07, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is precisely why Kleinzach has been trying for a long time to point out the deficiencies of WP:COMMONNAME. Most of this discussion here is simply wikilawyering. Again, I heartily endorse Greg's new posts and specifically his well-thought-out six enumerated basic principles. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:29, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:COMMONNAME is current policy (and one which seems to enjoy widespread community consensus, pace Kleinzach). Pointing out an issue of level of consensus is not wikilawyering. MistyMorn (talk) 12:00, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Judging by the frequent references to WP:COMMONNAME, it certainly is a popular policy, but it is also a major source of disagreement because of its (unstructured) vagueness. I am sure no professional publishing house would include anything like it in its manual of style. While I have my own view on the issue of article titles, I think that any clarification of the policy (pro or anti my personal position) would be better than the present amateurish and divisive version. --Klein zach 02:52, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong title

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

To avoid fragmented discussion, these topics are continuing at Talk:Tequila (song)#Requested move. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 05:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

According to the ~~policy~~ guideline page: "When a track is not strictly a song (in other words a composition without lyrics, or an instrumental that is not a cover of a song), disambiguation should be done using "(composition)" or "(instrumental)"." This is a request for an admin to complete the move of Tequila (song) to Tequila (instrumental). Hearfourmewesique (talk) 20:07, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First a note for clarity... Hearfourmewesique is pointing us to WP:Naming conventions (music)... which is a guideline not a policy. The policy page (WP:AT) does not contain the instruction on song v. instumental. I am not saying we should ignore the guideline... I just wanted people to be clear as to what was being referred to.

That said... one could argue that the work in question does have at a lyric... The word "Tequila". Blueboar (talk) 22:56, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's an instrumental tune that uses a word as a sound more than a lyric. The article defines "song" as having sung lyrics. Hearfourmewesique (talk) 23:49, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The idea that "Tequila" is an instrumental is very open to debate. The reasoning against this position is that the one-word lyric is "used as a sound effect" and "isn't sung". But this is nonsense; it's not some random noise like the samples popular in hiphop and in industrial music; the song's intent is to represent what it feels like to be loaded on tequila. And the word is sung: "Ta-^quiii-_la!" In cover versions, e.g. "Tequila Slammer" by Klute, this is even more apparent (and the article is about the song as a work, not just the original version). It's a song that is mostly an instrumental, with the most minimalistic lyrics. But it is still a song, with lyrics (well, a lyric; whatever). We are not in the business of making guidelines/policies that split hairs at a nanobot level. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 11:38, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, I find no such debate on the talk page, which has no archive. The article is at Tequila (instrumental), so I'm not sure what "move" Hearfourmewesique is talking about. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 11:49, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The title Tequila (instrumental) is a redirect, pointing to Tequila (song). Hearformewesique apparently wants to swap the two (so that the article is at "(instrumental)" with "(song)" as a redirect), and cites the music naming convention as the reason. I think both titles are acceptable under the WP:AT policy, so it is really just a question of how to apply WP:Naming conventions (music) (a question which comes down to: Should the word "tequila" be considered a lyric or not?). That question can be settled through a formal Move request, where a community consensus can be determined. Blueboar (talk) 14:59, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Whoa - it's actually messed up. If you search Tequila the second suggestion is Tequila (song). But then if you go to the talkpage there, you are automatically taken to Talk:Tequila (instrumental), with the note "(Redirected from Talk:Tequila (song))". Then at the bottom of that page is a closed move request from misspelled "Tequila (instrmental) → Tequila (instrumental)". I haven't looked at the histories, but it must have involved another move at some point in addition to this closed request. (Edit: Without doing a thorough investigation, it looks like something of an edit war started by Hearfourmewesique on Jan 25.)

Aside from this problem, it seems pretty obvious to me as a neutral bystander that "Tequila" is in fact a "song", and that "Tequila (instrumental)" would refer to a different version that is purely instrumental, omitting the single lyric "Tequila" which occurs several times. Milkunderwood (talk) 07:25, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK... I have fixed the issue with the non-matching redirects. Regardless of whether the article should be at Tequila (song) or Tequila (instrumental), the talk page should match the title of the article. Since the article is currently at "(song)", the talk page should be at "(song)" as well. If and when the article is moved, then the talk page can move with it.

As for whether the article should or should not be moved... There is enough of a question here, that I think a formal contested move request discussion needs to take place. Blueboar (talk) 17:12, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have opened such a discussion. Let's see what the broader community thinks. Blueboar (talk) 17:31, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are two parallel discussions of this topic, at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music)#Songs and Instrumentals (now closed for new discussion, but containing a number of pertinent posts not otherwise duplicated) and at Talk:Tequila (song)#Requested move. Please post any further comments at the "Tequila (song)" talkpage rather than here. Thanks. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:57, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Some observations on COMMONNAME

Of all the Babel in our WP:Title policy, it seems to me that Commonname is the most desirable, and unequivocal element of the policy. In my view, it is actually the underpinning of two of the listed criteria—naturalness and recognizability. Those so called title criteria are merely rationale for commonname and should be thought about as such. In essence, the common name aspect of our title policy could be stated concisely in these two statements:

WP article titles should faithfully reflect the content of the article as supported by reliable sources
WP article titles reflect common usage of the article subject in English language reliable sources.

Then when someone asked Why?, the answers might reasonably be all the babel we now associate with naturalness and recognizability. All that rationale is actually irrelevant if someone already accepts the policy as being Common Name. All that babel could merely be relegated to an essay for anyone who wants to know the rationale behind common name. I suspect there is overwhelming and wide community consensus that Commonname is the dominate and preferred title policy for WP, so why don’t we just be clear about it?

After common name we still have to deal with ambiguity, conciseness, neutrality and style, but that’s a different discussion. But in the larger scheme of WP, commonname is the dominate WP policy on titles. Once a common name is agreed upon, the questions of ambiguity, conciseness and style are much easier to answer. The challenge for us then is how best to interpret and apply that concisely stated policy in a reasonably consistent manner. Here are some thoughts about that:

Step 1, demote the How to nature of Common Name to a guideline, a guideline whose purpose is to explain the generic processes by which a Common Name or Common Usage in English language RS is determined. (very much similar to notability). All that need remain in WP:Title is a concise statement and minimum rationale that Common Name is WP policy on titles with a link to the guideline explaining the generic process.
Step 2, clearly think through the Common Name determination process and address as succinctly as possible these scenarios:
- What are the margins of difference between two equally common names that would warrant choosing one over the other?
- What is the common name when the subject originates in an English speaking country?
- What is the common name when the subject originates in a non-English speaking country yet is covered extensively in English language RS?
- What is the common name when the subject originates in a non-English speaking country and has minimal coverage in English language RS and good coverage in foreign language RS?
- What is the common name when the subject originates in a non-English speaking country, has coverage in English language RS, but because of geopolitical or other reasons is covered by multiple sources in different languages with English translations/transliterations based on differing foreign languages?

There may be other scenarios, but these are the most encountered. Also, I think each demands slightly different thinking to get to the correct common name.

The above ideas comes from the realization that the WP editor corps is growing with editors from or with cultural connections to non-English speaking countries, who speak and read English and desire to contribute to English WP on subjects originating in their native countries. Currently, I don’t think our Common Name methodology recognizes and accommodates this well enough. In the aftermath of a contentious RM, an editor wrote this (sanitized because the specific case is irrelevant): The common name in the English language is the [XXXXXXXX], it is referred to almost exclusively in [Country Y] as the [YYYYYYYYYY]. When you see the name [YYYYYYYYY] in the [English language] literature, if you care to look closer almost always the reference work will be a History of Y. [conclusion, those sources shouldn’t count because they weren’t reflecting an English speaking countries view of the subject] What I took away from that was that this editor either misunderstood , or didn’t accept common name as being derived from coverage in English language sources, not English language sources from English speaking countries.

I really believe that if we could begin simplifying WP:Title along these lines, we could eliminate a lot of misunderstanding and contentiousness that occurs in RMs. If we can do it with Common Name (a title policy that has wide community consensus), then it will make simplifying and clarifying the remaining issues—ambiguity, conciseness, neutrality and style—much easier. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:45, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am a huge supporter of WP:COMMONNAME... however, there are enough qualifications, hesitations and exceptions to COMMONNAME that I don't think we can make it mechanical "rule". In fact, the only solid "rules" in this policy are 1) no two titles can be the same. and 2) when there is a dispute, the dispute is settled through the messy (and ill-defined) process known as "Consensus".

Now, a proper consensus is always achieved after discussing and considering a multitude of (often competing) factors... and I would agree that one of the factors that should be given a lot of weight in any discussion is whether there is a WP:COMMONNAME or not. Understanding WP:COMMONNAME is vital to understanding how we reach consensus over titles... but the actual policy is "article titles are determined through consensus". Blueboar (talk) 19:11, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What an interesting notion: but the actual policy is "article titles are determined through consensus". But isn't that the policy for everything in WP? Not helpful. I am not looking for the mechanical, black and white here, but instead a way to simplify the babel. Please help! --Mike Cline (talk) 19:26, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But there is no mechanical, black and white way to entitle articles... Titling articles is a non-mechanical process... a grey zone. We can lay out some broad concepts that editors should think about and discuss when figuring out the best title of an article should be... but we can not predetermine the end result of the discussion. Each article is unique, and the best title for that article is dependent on unique factors. It is impossible to have a one-size-fits-all set of "rules" on how to title an article. All we can do is outline the questions that (usually) resolve they typical title dispute... we can not predetermine what the answers to those questions will be, nor outline which questions are more important or will hold the key to resolving any specific title dispute. One dispute may be resolved by asking what is most recognizable... in another the dispute may rest on what is more precise... in a third the determining factor may be consistency.... and in a forth, the resolution may come from asking about something we don't outline. Every article is unique. Blueboar (talk) 20:15, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Come on, I said above that I am not looking for a black and white mechanical solution. But, I do believe your approach is equally useless, because you'll essentially said there's no policy based titling solutions, only a solution that a handful of editors resolve (actually that rarely happens because some admin has to come and chose sides). If our titling decisions are not policy based, then why do we have a policy? What I am saying is that we do make policy based titling decisions and we can certainly do a better job of clarifying what the actual policy is? Individual decisions will still be made by the community, but clarity will remove a lot of the contentiousness and wasted energy the current titling policy engenders. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, thinking about this more... I can identify some black and white "rules"... they include:

Rule 1 - Relax... the fate of nations does not depend on how an article on Wikipedia is entitled, nor will the world end because Wikipedia chose one title over another.
Rule 2 - There is no such thing as "the wrong title". One title may be considered better than others, but none are "wrong". The goal is to find "the most appropriate title for the topic".
Rule 3 - Determining what the most appropriate title may be is achieved through consensus. There is no one-size-fits-all process to this. To aid in achieving a consensus and resolving disputes, The guidance section of this page lays out several questions that should be asked and factors to be considered (see below).
Rule 4 - Titles can change. The process for doing this is described at WP:RM. If there is disagreement - first see Rules 1 - 3 and discuss calmly.

With these "rules" laid out, I would then set out a "GUIDANCE" section that would contain the bulk of the current page, and point to the various project specific conventions. Blueboar (talk) 21:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My first thought is A) you overworked that “I’m an unflappable, Big-Picture©™® sorta dude” with your “Rule 1”; B) Your Rule “2” is too simplistic to be entirely true but because the exact definition of “wrong” is such a grayscale, your allegation is nonfalsifiable; C) I agree with your “Rule 3” and “Rule 4.” Greg L (talk) 22:12, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK... I may have gone over the top... but you get the point. :>) Blueboar (talk) 23:23, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Calling the heroin article Boston Massacre would be a wrong title; but how often is that going to come up? JCScaliger (talk) 23:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Accuracy: A sixth criterion?

I was surprised to see an editor say, in a move request response: "To the best of my knowledge, article names don't have to describe the subject accurately."

It's true that "accuracy" is not specifically listed as a criterion here. But it seems obvious to me that inaccurate titles would be inappropriate. Sometimes, a loss of accuracy may be necessary to achieve other goals (like conciseness or recognizability), but surely having accurate titles is something toward which we should strive?

-- Powers ^T 19:04, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we should always strive for accuracy (even in titles), but we also need to remember that people often disagree and debate whether something specific is accurate or not. Can you give an example of what you mean by an "inaccurate title"? Blueboar (talk) 19:13, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The linked comment acknowledges that "precision" covers the case being discussed. I'd ignore it. Dicklyon (talk) 21:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, in this case, I mean titling an article as if it's about two people when it's really about the relationship between those people. Powers ^T 15:03, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm... this is a bit off topic... but I really have to question whether Wikipedia should have articles about relationships ... such articles, by their nature, rely heavily on opinion over fact, and are likely to be POV magnets. That may be what is behind the debate over the title... people may be using a debate over the title as a substitute for a debate over the scope of the article (ie, they may be arguing about the title when what they really want to say is that the article should be about the two people and not about their relationship). Blueboar (talk) 15:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's entirely possible. Still, if someone can reasonably say "there's nothing about titles needing to be accurate in WP:AT" and be right about it, it seems like a glaring omission. Or do we just count on the other criteria to add up to accuracy in the end? Powers ^T 19:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal for WP:Identifiability. We seem to have a problem at Wikipedia where even admins are willing to say that WP:OR is acceptable for titles. Inaccuracy is a subject much discussed at WP:V (see WP:Inaccuracy). Titles have some problems that regular text does not, you cannot add a "citation needed" tag to a title, you cannot avoid using Wikipedia's voice with a title, and you cannot demote the information to a footnote. Should titles, including redirects, be exempt from WP:V? Unscintillating (talk) 21:44, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OR is not be acceptable, even in a title... but most of these debates are not really about Original research, they are about original wording. (also, as I noted above, I suspect that many of these disputes are really based on disputes over the scope of the articles rather than the words used in the title). Blueboar (talk) 15:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

At WP:RM, the scope of the article comes up regularly in renaming discussions. Arguments about the name are based on what the content currently reflects and what it should cover. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Accuracy is not mentioned as a question; but it is mentioned: Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources.

It is not mentioned more strongly, as I see it, for two reasons:

Boston Massacre (which is discussed under neutrality), is also widely held to be inaccurate. But it is unquestionably overwhelming prevalent usage; and there doesn't seem to be even a requested move. Such cases are reasonably common - and having a rule against them would also lend strength to the perennial nationalist argument: "It's X! You can't call it Y; the Foobarian national council has declated it to be X, and that's the only thing that matters. Calling it Y (even if only one English-speaker in a thousand has ever heard of it as X) is inaccurate." (Or Greg's favorite horror story: "a megabyte has to be 1,000,000 bytes; not calling 1,048,576 bytes a mebibyte is inaccurate.")
Nobody has come up with an example to replace Tsunami, which was our canonical example of a title that was less common but more accurate and so preferred. (It's still preferred; but since the Boxing Day Tsunami, tsunami has also become common usage.) JCScaliger (talk) 22:11, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So I took a look at the actual RM discussion in question, and I think that both LtPowers and Walter G were being sloppy when they referred to "accuracy" in their comments. There's no actual problem with the article title being accurate. The problem is whether the article is as precise as editors want it to be. (All non-geeks will need to review Precision and accuracy before proceeding.)

So the current scope of the article is about the relationship between two musicians. The question is whether the article title should be the more precise/pre-disambiguated "Relationship of Joe and John" or should be the more concise "Joe and John". Neither of these are actually inaccurate titles: the article is indeed about Joe and John rather than about Alice and Betty. However, one of them is more precise than the other, i.e., the longer title tells the reader (and future editors) that information about things other than their relationship should not be found on this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some editors have questioned at WT:V#Replacement phrasing for Verifiability not truth as to whether Dewey defeats Truman is an example of something that is untrue. The confusion is not a trivial issue, but the case here is even more clear: "Dewey defeats Truman" is an inaccurate title. Unscintillating (talk) 03:26, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it is an inaccurate title (it accurately describes the topic of the article: a famous headline consisting of those words) ... I suppose one could argue that it is an imprecise title. If you changed it to ""Dewey Defeats Truman" Chicago Tribune headline" the title would be more precise. An inaccurate title would be "Dewey's defeat of Truman (1948 Presidential Election)". Blueboar (talk) 03:49, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Poll to plan for future discussion on Recognizability

Our previous discussions (starting with Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 34#Clarification of recognizability lost) and polls (Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 34#RFC on Recognizability guideline wording, WT:AT#Recognizability wording Poll/RFC, and WT:AT#Once and for all: Poll to establish the consensus) left us with insufficient information about what people really intend with respect to the venerable recognizability provision in TITLE. Now that things have quieted down, I'd like to try this alternative framing, so that the people who supported the "familar with" wording, and others, can clarify whether they intended by that to support what Born2cycle and Kotniski seem to be trying to change the recognizability provision into; or not. I expect some will support option 1 here, and some will not, which will give us more information.

Some history of the evolution of recognizability can be found at User:Dicklyon/Whither Recognizability?; feel free to follow up and find more history if it matters to you.

The choices:

These texts are intended to be suggestive of intent for what recognizability should mean, not proposals for final wording.

1) Something like this bit of text, intended to explicitly represent what I think Kotniski and Born2cycle were trying to get at in restricting recognizability to people familiar with the topic:

• Recognizability – A title is judged to be recognizable if it is the most commonly used term for a topic in reliable sources; recognizability of a title to readers who are not already familiar with the topic is not a goal, and should not be used as an argument in favor of a title.

…which, for the purposes of this poll will be called “#1 (Post-Modern)”; or

2) Something like this bit of text, copied from this May 2008 version of the policy, and approximately representing what was stable since 2002, representing the alternative idea that we do try to make titles recognizable to a large number of people, as a top-level consideration that must be balanced with other considerations such as conciseness:

• Recognizability – Article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity.

…which, for the purposes of this poll will be called “#2 (Vintage)”.

3) Prefer a compromise somewhere in between these two texts; supporters of this option support the idea of discussion to find wording for a good middle road, not particularly close to either of the two extremes proposed above. Feel free to use your 300 words to elaborate. If there's an intermediate old version that you particularly like, this would be a good place to quote it or link it.

…which, for the purposes of this poll will be called “#3 (Compromise)”.

4) None of the above, or something completely different, such as not having a recognizability provision. Please use some of your 300 words to elaborate.

…which, for the purposes of this poll will be called “#4 (Something different)”.

The ground rules:

A) It's a poll, not a vote. It's informational, not binding on anything. Leave positive support comments only please; you are free to support up to two options (subject to the same total comment length limit), and to voice other concerns without limit in the discussion section below the poll, but your comments may not further complicate matters by introducing additional options into the poll structure once it starts. If one of your votes is a "second choice", label it as such. If you participate here, it is to support one or two of the above options. If you find that to be a less-than-satisfactory question, please don’t respond to it. If you feel you really must support three of the options, get over it (if you register support for 3 or all 4 items, I'll remove one or all and let you know).

B) You may have a total of 300 words, excluding your autosignature, in the “Recognizability poll” section, on your own statements only. Responses to the statements of others will be removed. Discussion and debate belongs in the following discussion subsection.

C) I will moderate the closure. That doesn’t mean I will “decide” anything. I intend to keep it open long enough, to collect enough information, that others can use it to get a sense of what the feelings are here. Everyone should feel free to cite and interpret poll results.

D) Please feel free to canvass for outside opinions, but if you do so then mention in the discussion section who you have invited, so we can have an idea how wide the invitation list is.

E) I may add new ground rules within the common sense framework of trying to accomplish a poll without disruption to adapt to new circumstances.

My thanks to Greg L for his poll framework, rules, etc., which I have cobbled here. Dicklyon (talk) 00:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Recognizability poll

Please leave these stubs here. Copy one or two and add your positive comments and signature.

#1 (Post-Modern) – ...
#2 (Vintage) – ...
#3 (Compromise) – ...
#4 (Something else) – ...

(see the section above for descriptions of the numbered choices)

#2 (Vintage) – I like the 2002–2008 recognizability provision best, as it reflects a lofty goal based on readers, rather than someone's interpretation of how to get there; that's why I made it a choice, anchoring one end of the spectrum. Dicklyon (talk) 00:16, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#3 (Compromise) – 2nd choice; I think there's a range of possible interpretations of recognizability that we can consider in an attempt to converge on a good consensus; an open discussion that acknowledges the history and current concerns will be productive. Dicklyon (talk) 00:16, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~#1 (Post-Modern)~~ (see below) – As annoyed as I am with all the endless and strenuous wikilawyering all over this page, there's no doubt in my mind that titles should reflect best practices, and not be dumbed down for those who are unfamiliar with the topic. Redirects and disambiguations do all the work of guiding the unfamiliar to a wanted article. It has been argued that readers never look at article titles, and I do not believe that. Some readers may not; but for those who do, a properly formal title as established by editors familiar with the field helps to put the article into a broader context. My objections posted above have been concerned with editors taking it upon themselves to edit the policy or guideline itself when the topic was under discussion. (Edit): Or making changes without prior discussion. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:10, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Leaning towards #2. I think I understand the intent behind the first version... but I am concerned that the "... familiar with the topic" language could be misinterpreted to mean we should ignore WP:COMMONNAME in favor of "Official names". I am certainly open to #3 or #4, but would need to see specific language first. Blueboar (talk) 03:51, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#4 (Something else) – Abandon Naturalness and Recognizability in favor of what they really mean—Common Name. As policy statements, these suck. They provide no useful guidance for title decisions. They may be useful for explaining why we use Common Name, but don’t contribute to the title decision process. In RMs, whenever someone chooses to argue Naturalness or Recognizability as a policy basis for a title decision, the only way they can defend it (and do defend it) is with Common Name—what is the common usage in English language RS. If that is the case, why don’t we just say the policy is Common Name? The current language seems like this scenario: A new resident moves into the neighborhood and asks: “What’s the speed limit on this street”, his neighbor replies: "The speed limit is a moderate rate of forward motion designed based on the local road conditions, the demands of a residential neighborhood and acceptable to both residents and authorities.” The new guy asks: “so how do I know what the speed limit is?” “Oh! That’s easy, look at the sign, its 25mph.” Common Name isn’t as black and white as 25 mph, but Naturalness and Recognizability are vague and useless as policy statements. I would replace them with the following language:
- WP article titles should faithfully reflect the contents of the article
  
  WP article titles should reflect common usage (or the common name) of the subject based on reliable English language sources.
Once we accept Common Name, policy statements about Ambiguity, Neutrality, Conciseness, and Style would fall right in place. Everyone argues that titles are determined by consensus and there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. I agree, but I don’t agree that consensus somehow is easier because we’ve littered this policy with a bunch of useless and conflicting [Babel].--Mike Cline (talk) 10:15, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'll take a bowl of #2 (Vintage), with a #3 (Compromise) topping, please: Version #1 (Post-Modern) is clearly yet another attempt by special interests to force geeky specialist practices and preferences on everyone. This missing of the general-audience encyclopedia forest for the specialist jargon trees problem is increasingly common on Wikipedia, and in one case has caused seven years and counting of rampant editwarring and disruption. There is a reason that the concept "albinism" is at the article Albinism, not science/medicine jargon terms like Achromatosis. That said, unless there is a clearly strong preference in generalist literature for one term (Heroin) while the specialist literature uses something impenetrable or unrecognizeable (Diacetylmorphine), there isn't any reason not to use what the specialist literature uses, especially if there is anything vague, ambiguous, misleading, obsolete, debunked or otherwise incorrect about the common usage. It is true, and important to the issue, that redirects work and work well. If the heroin article were moved to the diacetylmorphine name, no one (unless perhaps on a heavy dose of that substance) would be confused or freaked out. But #1 is unacceptable; it's another way of pushing the "specialist sources are more reliable about their specialty in every possible way, including style matters" nonsense. No one believes this but the specialists; clearly, generalist reliable sources are more reliable about style, regardless of topic, for a general publication. General, not specialist, style has to win out in a general encyclopedia for a general audience when the two conflict, pretty much by definition. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:20, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#3 (Compromise). A possible concept would be "recognizable to someone who is looking for the article" (not people familar with the subject of the article, but people familiar with the topic in which the subject is contained). #2 is much better than #1, and no one brought this up in the WP:COMMONNAME discussion, so it would be disruptive not to consider it. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:38, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#4 (Other) That is, the text unanimously supported by the last poll, Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic? The wording may be improvable (say a section of its own, mentioning reliable sources expressly), but this is about the idea.
- Number 1 is another algorithmic approach, not a goal, and many people disagree with the algorithm; nobody supports this wording, not even the two editors blamed for it. #2 is untestable, does not consider reliable sources, and tends to lend support to the unsound argument: "there are more Indians/Americans/whatever than other kinds of English-speaking people, so we have to do it their way." This is presumably why it was changed. #3 is a compromise between two undesirable options. JCScaliger (talk) 21:59, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#3 (Compromise) first choice. I like Arthur Rubin's suggestion that a title be "recognizable to someone who is looking for the article". We should not be surprised if many titles are not recognizable to random passers-by in the street who are unfamiliar with the subject. older ≠ wiser 22:15, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#4 (Other) Second choice. I also very much agree with JCScaliger's comment above. The phrasing unanimously endorsed in the poll above is considerably better than version #1. #2 is just too vague and nearly impossible to assess. older ≠ wiser 22:15, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#4 (Other) per Kotniski and as resuscitated by JCScaliger; my objections were procedural. Commentary in my previous vote for #1 still stands. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:25, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#4 (Other) Support the wording as agreed in the last poll that only closed on the 26th of last month: #Once and for all: Poll to establish the consensus (so the opinion of all those who do not express an opinion here should be weighed into this poll) the wording is:

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

-- PBS (talk) 00:59, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

#4 (Other) (edit conflict)As has been stated and restated countless times since Dec 21, by Kotniski, EdChem, Kai445, Greg L, Eraserhead1, Dohn Joe, SarekOfVulcan, Enric Naval, JCScaliger, PBS, Certes, Kleinzach, Jenks24, Bkonrad, CBM, Binksternet, WhatamIdoing, Franamax, Mistymorn and Milkunderwood at discussions at /Archive_34#Clarification_of_recognizability_lost, /Archive_34#RFC_on_Recognizability_guideline_wording and #Poll, because while the title should be recognized as a reference to the article topic by someone familiar with the topic, for the uninitiated, it is the purpose of the article lead, not the article title, to identify the topic of the article - consensus supports: "Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?". --Born2cycle (talk) 01:13, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#4 (Other) No wonder I couldn’t find the previous 17:0 poll’s “#1 (to someone familiar)”; it had been turned into “other.” Was “Model T” not available? Inquiring minds want to know. PBS and JCScaliger are right: this poll is *pointy* indeed. At least it wasn’t “#1 Orange juice”, “#2 Apple juice”, “#3 Breakfast blend”, “#4 Chinese dioxin”. After a month of discussing this, enough has been said on this issue. Debating the same tired thing until the heat death of the universe is not anyone’s idea of fun. Greg L (talk) 03:43, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#4. This is an unnecessary bit of wiki process that is wasting time better spent improving articles. The recent poll was perfectly clear and perfectly satisfactory: "Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?." That's the wording I'm sticking with because it works. Binksternet (talk) 07:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I vote for "Recognizable to someone familiar with the topic, but not necessarily an expert"(whatever number that is). Meant in the sense that I am familiar with what a dandelion is, but I do not recognize the name "Taraxacum", because I'm not an expert in botany. (WP:NC (flora) really does need to be changed).TheFreeloader (talk) 12:19, 9 February 2012 (UTC) {That means “#4 (Other)” Greg L (talk) 16:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)}[reply]
I am responding to a note from Dick on my user talk page. My very strong preference is #4, and specifically for the wording of "title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic". I find the wording of #1, which I suspect Dick intended to be more or less equivalent in content but with a hateful, anti-reader tone, to be so needlessly and inappropriately offensive that it makes me doubt the sincerity of his claims to want to know what people actually think would be the best wording for this section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#4 (Other) We already had support for using the familiarity clause in Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#Once_and_for_all:_Poll_to_establish_the_consensus. This makes us choose between a clumsily worded familiarity clause and a wording that doesn't have that clause. I am sorry, but this is the stuff that politicians pull off to kill proposals they don't like: hoping that we reject a clumsy wording of the clause so he can claim support for killing the clause in its enterity. This is disruptive. Implement the wording that already got consensus and start sanctioning people who keep throwing blocks in the road. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:24, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#4 (Other), as per others. Sorry I can't get more excited about this. MistyMorn (talk) 17:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#4 (Other), the variant #1 of January poll. Also, I specifically object to addition of any phrasing which may imply that so named recognizability is the main, or most important criterion in WP:AN ("Article naming should prefer what the greatest…" or so). It is one of the criteria listed, among others. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:40, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
#4 (Other). Feels like deja vu all over again. I do have to say that I'm intrigued by the "recognizable to someone who is looking for the article" language suggested above. But the "familiar with...not expert in" language conveys the right idea. Dohn joe (talk) 17:55, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion of recognizability poll

This is WP:POINTY and WP:DISRUPTIVE we have had two polls both of which expressed a clear consensus. There is no point having a third as consensus on this is very unlikely to have changed in a month. I propose that this whole section is collapsed -- PBS (talk) 00:43, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

PBS, thanks for your comments. I did pass the idea by the three drafting arbs of the current title/caps disruption case, to make sure that they wouldn't see it as disruptive. All three said it looks good (Actually, Casliber gave me some suggestions that I implemented, but also said he'd look at it more later; so maybe I jumped the gun. If he objects we can decide what to do about it.). The "point", if you want to call it that, is to determine more finely what the intent was behind the various votes in favor of the "familiar with" thing. As you'll recall, a number of editors never got a proper chance to discuss ways to deal with the history or the concerns, as it got too quickly turned into a V1 vs. V2 vote. Some of the comments on the V1 votes in Greg's poll suggested that there were actually a range of points of view behind those votes. That's what I'm trying to bring out by slicing it differently; think of it as "extreme V1" versus "moderate V1" and other points of view. Maybe we'll learn something. Give it a try? Dicklyon (talk) 01:08, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What happened to the mantra that consensus can change. It seems to drive our dysfunctional titling policy to everyone's satisfaction. If someone doesn't like a title they'll propose a change, regardless of how stable any given title has been. No rational policy reason required because our policy essentially allows anyone to suggest a different title is better than the current title and we we've given them dozens of conflicting ideas to support their particular position. Let dicklyon have his poll. I bet if we brought in a 100 diiferent editors, we might get a different answer.-Mike Cline (talk) 01:25, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm finding it helpful to even clearly understand the debate. The previous discussions were WP:TLDR, and coming from me that's saying a lot. While I have no gift for concision personally, a summarization like this is genuinely useful to get the "100 different editor" opinions you desire, because most of us are not going to wade through the raging mess that has preceded this. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For a summary read #Once and for all: Poll to establish the consensus and for more detail read User:Born2cycle/DearElen -- PBS (talk) 00:40, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This "poll" is disingenuous and disruptive. Born2cycle and Kotniski were perfectly clear about tbeir first preference: the language that stood before an accidental edit late May and the ongoing disruptions by Dicklyon and his friends: Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic? PBS expressly supported this at the last poll. It is not here; certainly the garbled #1, with its prejudicial label, has very little relationship to it. JCScaliger (talk) 21:44, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The "prejudicial label" "Post-Modern" was meant to signify that it is not the latest version or proposal, but derived from it. Sorry if that was unclear. Dicklyon (talk) 04:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to be perfectly up-front about my intent, which was to see how the supporters of the Kotniski/Born2cycle version divide up when things are sliced differently. It appears that there is little support for the extreme interpretation, which is what I thought Born2cycle and Kotniski were aiming for. If that's the case, it's good to know, and there's no reason anyone needs to be upset about it. We've also elicited a range of attitudes that didn't come out clearly in previous polling. Let's see what else we get. And what's this about an "accidental" edit last May? I guess you didn't look at the history that I linked. Dicklyon (talk) 22:52, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I want what I've been saying for a month I wanted; several of us seem to. I remain perfectly prepared to discuss wording of that substance. My understanding of the history between 2008 and May 2010 is in my comment above. JCScaliger (talk) 23:08, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dick, I suggest not conflating opposition to a particular clumsy wording with opposition to the interpretation associated with that wording. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:20, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Response to SMcCandlish:

- If I look up heroin, I would be like to be sure that I'm reading about heroin, not a class of morphine compounds which may include it (unless the redirect was vandalized). If the lead were adjusted to the title diacetylmorphine, I might have to read into the third section to be sure which one of these possibilities the article is. JCScaliger (talk) 22:48, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

People to invite.

Several people who responded to Greg's poll haven't been heard from in this one. If nobody objects, I'll invite them: Eraserhead1, Dohn Joe, SarekOfVulcan, Enric Naval, Certes, Kleinzach, CBM, Binksternet, WhatamIdoing, Franamax, MistyMorn. Dicklyon (talk) 04:13, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, fine. This is as much fun as a saline nasal rinse. Let’s get it over with. Greg L (talk) 17:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, done; and I added Ohms law, who has also been involved but not in Greg's list. Dicklyon (talk) 05:24, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Refactoring

Be aware that not every editor will agree with your refactoring or even of the refactoring concept in general. Provide links to the original, uncut version, so others can check your changes, and if necessary go back to the original to clarify what an author actually said. This combination of refactoring and archiving will often prevent complaints that information was lost. Make it explicit that you have refactored something so no one is misled into thinking this was the original talk page.

I find that I am one of the editors that does not agree with the general concept. Since the first poll was diverted into charges about Noetica's equally contestable refactoring of B2C's edit, this undiscussed and unilateral refactoring seems particularly unwise. It also deprives my comment of its necessary context. JCScaliger (talk) 18:53, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your objection is noted. The groundrules said that in the poll section you should comment only in your own section, and other responses should go in the discussion section, so that we'd end up with a clean list of opinions. You can perhaps solve the problem, and clarify the context of your comment, by quoting what you're responding to. Dicklyon (talk) 02:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop this disruptive behavior. Does anybody else regard Dicklyon's presence on this page, his ill-posed poll, or his refactoring, as an asset to Wikipedia? JCScaliger (talk) 18:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dicklyon seems intent on proving a point while under the scrutiny of ArbCom. The point being demonstrated however, may be one he didn’t intend. Given the way things have unfolded and the perception from several editors here that his poll seems *pointy*, his best move IMHO, would be to {{archivetop}} this whole thing. Greg L (talk) 20:42, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just trying to get a more clear understanding of what people are thinking. Looks useful so far. Dicklyon (talk) 05:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Motion to close poll

In response to 05:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC) post: That is fine, Dicklyon, if you are curious about something. Often, such edification can be accomplished by leaving a post on individuals’ talk pages. However, polls under circumstances like this, where…

The project page is still locked down due to editwarring and disruption,
There was already a poll (17:0 for particular wording) showing there was wording for a guideline that met with community satisfaction
ArbCom got involved because of disfunction on this talk page
The sponsor of the poll is embroiled in complaints on the evidence page at ArbCom,
Given the latest trend in the poll after editors figured out what the “other” option meant,
And where a number of editors here have opined that this is a “WP:POINTY”, “WP:DISRUPTIVE”, “disingenuous”, “unnecessary”, this issue “has been stated and restated countless times”, and this “is an unnecessary bit of wiki process that is wasting time” means…

…Too many people perceive that your effort to discern nuances of the community’s views by seeing what happens when “things are sliced differently” is neither helpful nor—as you say—“useful”. In short, a significant number of editors who are experienced in this issue have opined that this poll amounts to WP:REHASH, which is tendentious editing. Thus, in my opinion, it is time to accede to those concerns; I see no point to persisting at this.

I invite other editors to opine whether or not they share my views on this matter. Greg L (talk) 16:19, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. At this point, I can only see this as endless rehashing and attempts to ignore the unanimous support on the previous poll. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:27, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why no action on implementing community consensus

Hey, I haven't followed the long discussion on this topic, so just a quick question. If there already is a consensus for changing to wording of the criterion to "recognizable to someone familiar with the topic, although not necessarily an expert" then how come it has not been changed yet? What is holding this back? Office action, arbitration decision?TheFreeloader (talk) 18:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that the admins are waiting for an ArbCom action over disruptive editing (ArbCom workshop and Evidence page) to move forward to certain findings (or possibly conclude) before issues such as the one you raised are addressed. See also “Request for edit, Poll”, above. Greg L (talk) 18:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 1,117: / Line 1,117: @@
 == Poll to plan for future discussion on ''Recognizability'' ==
-{{archive top|Given the latest trend of this poll after the community finally understood that “'''Other'''” encompassed the consensus view from the previous poll, and in light of the strong sentiment in the community that this poll violates [[WP:REHASH]], it is time to [[WP:SNOWBALL]] this. I’m doing this to spare the community further disruption.
-As the sponsor of the previous poll, this ''closure'' could itself seem *pointy*. Nonetheless, I don’t mind being [[WP:BOLD]] when it seems amply clear that there is exceedingly little enthusiasm for ''even having'' this poll, let alone persisting with it.
-If any other editor feels this closure is unwarranted and continuing with it benefits Wikipedia, please feel free to revert me. [[User:Greg L|Greg L]] ([[User talk:Greg L|talk]]) 17:54, 9 February 2012 (UTC)}}
 Our previous discussions <small>(starting with [[Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 34#Clarification of recognizability lost]])</small> and polls <small>([[Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 34#RFC on Recognizability guideline wording]], [[WT:AT#Recognizability wording Poll/RFC]], and [[WT:AT#Once and for all: Poll to establish the consensus]])</small> left us with insufficient information about what people really intend with respect to the venerable ''recognizability'' provision in TITLE.  Now that things have quieted down, I'd like to try this alternative framing, so that the people who supported the "familar with" wording, and others, can clarify whether they intended by that to support what Born2cycle and Kotniski seem to be trying to change the recognizability provision into; or not.  I expect some will support option 1 here, and some will not, which will give us more information.
@@ Line 1,256: / Line 1,252: @@
 :I agree. At this point, I can only see this as endless rehashing and attempts to ignore the unanimous support on the previous poll. --[[User:Enric Naval|Enric Naval]] ([[User talk:Enric Naval|talk]]) 17:27, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
-{{archive bottom}}
 ===Why no action on implementing community consensus===
 Hey, I haven't followed the long discussion on this topic, so just a quick question. If there already is a consensus for changing to wording of the criterion to "recognizable to someone familiar with the topic, although not necessarily an expert" then how come it has not been changed yet? What is holding this back? Office action, arbitration decision?[[User:TheFreeloader|TheFreeloader]] ([[User talk:TheFreeloader|talk]]) 18:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)