Wikipedia talk:Article titles

PRECISION, titles differing only in caps

The section Precision and disambiguation (shortcut WP:PRECISION) does not seem clear to me;

Whether or not two articles which differ only in capitalization need a parenthetical disambiguation.

It gives two examples, which seem contradictory, viz.

• WASP vs. Wasp

• WASP is a redirect to Wasp (disambiguation), not an article about the band W.A.S.P.
• Wasp is the article about the insect (primary topic)

• Red Meat vs. Red meat

• Red Meat is an article about a comic strip
• Red meat is an article about the food

I particularly think this can cause confusion in the predictive search text.

The issue recently arose through a request regarding a movie, Jumping the Broom, and confusion with the marital custom Jumping the broom - discussion can be seen on Talk:Jumping the Broom#Change This Article Title.

Therefore, can we discuss this and try to arrive at consensus, and clarify the guideline - to explicitly state the recommendation in such cases, whether or not it is appropriate to rename one article to add a parenthetic clarification, e.g. "Jumping the Broom (film).

I'd like the guideline to quite simply state that Articles whose titles differ only in capitalization should/should not be renamed to have a clarifier in parenthesis in the article title (with examples).

Thanks in anticipation,  Chzz  ►  02:06, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

• There was an RfC on this issue about a year and a half ago, archived at Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive. Precision and accuracy#RfC: Should we allow article titles that differ only by capitalisation?. - Station1 (talk) 05:26, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
• The link to the RfC is helpful. In these instances, a hatnote usually more than suffices (making disambiguation unnecessary). --Skeezix1000 (talk) 12:15, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

But, consensus that article titles differing only by capitalisation is allowed (the decision on that RfC) is not the same as a guideline on advice regarding best-practice. OK, so, it is allowed. Is it recommended?  Chzz  ►  13:47, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

It strikes me that the examples you've provided are appropriately addressed through the use of hatnotes. The real question is why would we bother with unnecessary disambiguation? --Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:06, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't know; it appears (e.g. from Talk:Jumping the Broom) that some people think we should. I think a lot of the reason is, the 'predictive text' - yes, it'll show both - but most people will think they're the same thing. And yes, the hatnotes do help to some extent. I'm really, personally, not particularly bothered whether we recommend disambiguating them in parentheses or not; I'd just like it to say whichever is recommended, in the guideline - to avoid confustions like we've just had on that page. If we could point to a guideline and say 'this is the consensus agreed best practice', that would avoid future similar issues.  Chzz  ►  02:36, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

It's been determined that it's permitted, so if there are "future similar issues", it's only because some editors want to revisit the consensus. I'm not sure why we have to make recommendations either way. If there is a change in the consensus, fine, but in the meantime it's okay unless in the particular circumstances of a specific article someone advances an accepted reason why it doesn't work in that case.--Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:27, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't see a clear guideline; that's why I'm asking. If the guideline (based on consensus) is that it is fine to have titles that differ only in caps - fine, we know where we stand. If it isn't - also fine. Currently, I do not know which is recommended; the guideline is unclear, therefore next time a user asks me, I'd like to be able to say, "THIS is what we think".  Chzz  ►  22:06, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

What we think is that a blanket rule is less useful than editors using their very best judgment to make a decision based on the actual facts and circumstances presented in the individual case. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I repeat; I'm not looking for a hard rule - just a guideline. Because, clearly, opinions differ. If the guidelines stated that it should be considered carefully on a case-by-case basis, then at least there would be some guideline advice - instead of wasting hours searching for it, as happened here, when it inevitably arises again; that's what guidelines are for, surely - helping advise. It's a guideline, not a policy.  Chzz  ►  14:48, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

It's permitted. It's okay to have titles that differ only by caps. That's effectively the guideline. I'm not sure how much more clear that could be. As WhatamIdoing says, one should use their best judgment in the particular circumstances where the issue arises. Anything beyond that is just instruction creep.--Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:24, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

But if you can think of a way to avoid having articles that close, without clumsiness, go for it. Like most questions, it's a balance between costs. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:36, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the primary articles need a parenthetical Dab in the title. The Jumping the broom example works very well as is. It is, however, very useful to create those pages as redirects (which I see is already done in that example). Maybe that should be the guideline, because I suspect a lot of people don't bother to capitalize anything when searching. Keep in mind that people who type in Jumping the Broom, or any other capitalized title probably know they're looking for a proper name. And if they have their caps lock on, well, they probably deserve to go to the wrong page. LRT24 (talk) 17:46, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Also remember that someone coming in cold to Wikipedia shouldn't be expected to know when we use capitals and when we don't, just as some newspapers, magazines and books would capitalize Broom in an article or chapter about the custom while others wouldn't. Some reference works, of course, don't capitalize the first letter of 98% of the titles that aren't proper names, as Wikipedia does, e.g. they'd use "chrome" for the metal and Chrome for the web browser I'm using now. And if Jumping is capitalized, then there's no intuitive way of knowing if some distinction attaches to the capitalization of Broom. ¶ On the other hand, even experienced Wikipedians have no way of always knowing what to enter into those disambiguation parentheses (or knowing they exist for a particular title), as I found when trying to specify links to various Ulster politicians in editing an article about the May 5th elections: (politician), (Irish politician), (UK politician), (Northern Irish politician), (Northern Ireland politician), (Irish nationalist), etc. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:56, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:NOUN and nutshell

Per this guideline, all article titles are (wherever at all possible) to be nouns.

I added it to the nutshell; but it has been taken out for no good reason I can tell.

I wish to put it back again, it's in no way specific, all article titles are to be nouns of one form or another, per the guideline, and this is what we are summarizing in the nutshell.Rememberway (talk) 21:31, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The reasons behind this are discussed quite well here, but it predates that by quite a long way.Rememberway (talk) 21:39, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The "wherever at all possible" aspect of this is what's important here. We should prefer that article titles be nouns of noun phrases, but there's certainly no requirement for that, and there shouldn't be. It's a misreading of the policy here to say that "all article titles are to be nouns of one form or another". That's just not what the policy says, and it's an unrealistic stance regardless (not all article titles can be nouns, and there's no reason to try to force people to come up with noun phrases where they don't fit).
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 21:51, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

No. The guideline clearly says that article titles should be nouns. If you disagree with that part of the guideline, you should not try to airbrush it out of the summary, you should try to get it changed. In the meantime that 100% definitely is what the guideline says, and thus it must be in the summary of the guideline, since that's what it says.Rememberway (talk) 22:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Please read WP:NOUN. Inserting anything specifically saying "noun" or "noun phrase" is not an appropriate addition to the nutshell. If you guys want to discuss changing the 6th bullet point in the Article title format section then we can talk about that, but until that's changed then changing the nutshell is inappropriate.

Also, not that it's really pertinent to this topic, but Wikipedia:Article titles is a policy, not a guideline.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:26, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Please read WP:NOUN? I quote: Use nouns: Titles should be nouns or noun phrases. Adjective and verb forms (e.g. democratic, integrate) should redirect to articles titled with the corresponding noun (Democracy, Integration), although sometimes they will be disambiguation pages, as at Organic. Sometimes the noun corresponding to a verb will be the gerund (-ing form), as in Swimming.Rememberway (talk) 23:51, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The policy is very clear.Rememberway (talk) 23:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I also read that sixth bullet point and didn't see any exceptions for article titles. Ohm, can you clue us in as to what you have in mind? An example of article whose title is not a noun phrase? Dicklyon (talk) 00:01, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Every single rule in the wikipedia has been IARd at some point, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to be crystal clear about what any given guideline or policy actually says. A nutshell on a policy isn't supposed to be summarizing the entire wikipedia anyway, it's summarizing the policy.Rememberway (talk) 00:23, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

It seems pretty clear to me what the problem is with the change to the nutshell sentence, but... obviously, I'm missing something, or you guys are, or something. Nouns aren't an absolute requirement for article titles. Where titles can be nouns (or noun phrases) they should be, but where it makes more sense not to use nouns then we should be free to do so (and relying on IAR to do that is not a solution. It needs to be explicit that nouns are preferred, but it shouldn't be some ironclad rule. IAR does not exist for people to directly oppose what is written in policy, it's there so that people don't have to check what policy is before making every edit). It seems to me that the change we're discussing here is an attempt to make the "Use Nouns" clause more rigid, which I don't believe is needed. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise (that this isn't the intent, or that it does need to be more rigid), but so far I don't see anything convincing.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 02:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

No, it was the intent of the people that wrote this policy that all or virtually all articles have noun titles, you can check back in the archives.Rememberway (talk) 02:45, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I've boldly put noun phrases instead. Is that more acceptable? Or are there exceptions to this that we need to consider? Dicklyon (talk) 22:36, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Even using the softer language (the "should be" qualification) along with the more open "noun phrase", that doesn't belong in the nutshell. Without the context of the rest of the section that WP:NOUN is located in, stating that "titles should be nouns" or anything similar is too imperative.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:31, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Really? What particular context would that be?Rememberway (talk) 23:44, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The context provided by the other points in the section, and the fact that the point is in that section.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 02:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I have softened it a bit more, with "should, in most cases, be"... yes, titles will often be nouns or noun phrases, but I can foresee situations where that is overly restrictive. Blueboar (talk) 02:29, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I've undone your change, it's clearly is not consensus to make that change right now. It's not most cases (in my book that's like 50-95% of something), it's more like 99.999%, a non noun title is exceptionally rare in the Wikipedia, and fairly arguably wrong wherever there is one.Rememberway (talk) 02:40, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

As someone just reading this debate I'm genuinely baffled. Here's how this looks to the outside observer: The policy currently says article titles "should be nouns", but some editors are objecting to repeating that fact in a summary of the policy. I simply don't understand how the objection that on rare occasions another part of speech is necessary applies with any more force to the summary than to the policy. If the objection is that whatever bit of nuance exists is lost in the summarization, only an idiot would think that the summary contains every detail of the policy, and we needn't worry ourselves about idiots. If we did, we wouldn't be able to have a summary in the first place. So what am I missing? -Rrius (talk) 04:15, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm equally baffled, since the objector hasn't even provided a single example of an exception; he must have something in mind, but isn't telling us what. Dicklyon (talk) 05:03, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

OK... what about Twist and Shout? or Don't ask, don't tell - Not a noun or a noun phrase to be seen. Blueboar (talk) 12:15, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, non-nouns/noun phrases are used when it's a proper name (like "Twist and Shout"; the book Go, etc.) or an article about a non-noun term ("Don't Ask Don't Tell"; or ther word gay). In both cases, however, they act as the noun when they're the subject of the sentence ("Twist and Shout is a song..."; "Gay is a term..."). The articles don't begin, for instance, with: "To twist and shout is to perform a particular dance" or "Gay people are those whose sexual orientation is towards someone of the same sex."

That said, I don't think the bit about nouns ought to be in the nutshell summary. It's supposed to be a brief summary of the core meaning of the guideline, but adding this one thing is just picking and choosing one particular element that doesn't even have its own section or subsection. It's being overemphasized, and doing that may downplay more important sections of the page.Cúchullain ^t/c 13:37, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I definitely agree that discussing it in the nutshell is overkill... and I question whether it should be in the body of the policy either... at minimum, it would require extensive caveats added to explain the exceptions (such as non-nouns/non-noun phrases used in a noun context, like "Twist and Shout"). Unfortunately, a lot of editors focus on the literal language of a policy and ignore the intent and broad principles behind it, and I could easily see this bullet point causing arguments over whether "Don't ask, don't tell" or "Twist and Shout" are in some way "illegal". Yes, our article titles are usually nouns or noun phrases... but do we really need to say that in the policy? Do we need to require it? Blueboar (talk) 14:09, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

As I say, it's not just usually, it's virtually every title in Wikipedia. It might be reasonable to expand WP:NOUN and add notes to explain how those kinds of titles work (used like that in the title they're both actually noun phrases), but in any case I think that it should definitely remain in the nutshell, because it helps people understand the policy; which after all is the sole purpose of the nutshell.Rememberway (talk) 14:32, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I think saying it in the body of the page is necessary, as it gets us to be consistent and it has a wide consensus. We may want to add the caveat about "non-nouns used as nouns", but it doesn't seem to have been a huge problem in the past. Most people understand the use-mention distinction, so our articles tend to be formatted right in this way. But I still doubt the usefulness of the addition to the nutshell summary, and I don't think this conversation can be taken as evidence that there's consensus to add it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:49, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The purpose of a nut-shell is to summarize the key (big picture) concepts that lie behind the policy. For this policy, the key concepts are: Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness, and Consistency (with Recognizability being the most important). WP:NOUN is, at best, a minor formatting point (made almost in passing)... it is not a key concept and so should not be included in the nutshell. Blueboar (talk) 15:01, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with that. I suppose we can continue the separate conversation about adding notes to the article body on non-nouns used as nouns.Cúchullain ^t/c 15:06, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

No, it is a key point.Rememberway (talk) 15:50, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

If it's not a key point, then why has it got its own personal redirect?Rememberway (talk) 15:50, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

And exactly how do you think that adding two words to a nutshell somehow magically detracts from the entire policy?Rememberway (talk) 15:50, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not like the sentence is ridiculously long already. You're behaving more like you're trying to hide or change the fact that they're all supposed to be nouns.Rememberway (talk) 15:50, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

And if it's so bloody obvious, and not important to say, then how come V=IR didn't even know that it was required? And you, Blueboar, apparently didn't even know that they virtually always are, and thought that they were only mostly nouns?Rememberway (talk) 15:56, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

There's a huge mismatch between what you're saying is important to know about this policy and what people actually know, right there.Rememberway (talk) 15:56, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

It's only one of many important points in the policy. Adding this wordage to the nutshell summary is unnecessary and overemphasizes it in relation to the policy as a whole. That it has its "own personal redirect" is unimportant; WP:NDESC has its own redirect too. And adding the wordage does nothing to reduce the type of confusion you're talking about. This can be solved by adding a note to the article body, but simply forcing the same wording into the nutshell won't help.Cúchullain ^t/c 16:10, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Why does WP:NOUN have its own shortcut? Because someone thought it would be useful to have a short cut to it, no more no less. Lots of policy points have shortcuts (even minor ones) ... that does not mean they are central to understanding the policy in the big picture, or that they need to be mentioned in the nutshell. Take WP:SPS... it's a shortcut to a very important policy point, but we don't mention the issue of self-published sources in the nutshell of WP:V... because it isn't really crucial to summarizing the concepts that underlie verifiability policy. Blueboar (talk) 16:13, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

And thanks for implying that I don't know what I'm talking about, Rememberway. I appreciate it. What a great example of collegial behavior, there. (PS:Great job explaining the issues here Cuchullain. You certainly explained things better then I!)
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:56, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Why does WP:NOUN have its own shortcut? Because someone thought it would be useful to have a short cut to it, no more no less. But nobody removed it afterwards, and it's been there for a long, long, long while. So it is actually a lot more and not less like you're trying to imply. And can I perhaps ask why people are repeatedly stating things that are patently untrue in this discussion? I think that real collegial discussion involves an absolute minimum of misstating of facts, and an attention to detail.Rememberway (talk) 00:31, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Many of the points have their own shortcuts. They are also important, but not included in the nutshell summary.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:01, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm still not sure I understand the objection. At first it seemed to be something about the policy itself, but now it seems adding "nouns" will somehow detract from the summary. At this point I'm not not sanguine about getting a satisfactory answer, but I'll ask anyway: how does adding three words hurt? Why do you think noting the heavy preference for nouns in passing does such damage to the summary? To both sides, why is this so bloody important? It does seem that WP:NOUN is one of the only parts of the policy that isn't summarized by the old version of the heading, but who actually reads the nutshell summary anyway? -Rrius (talk) 23:41, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I just added it because, as you say, it wasn't necessarily obvious (although people usually do do the right thing, although they do sometimes mess it up) and it wasn't in the summary. At the moment it seems to have been changed to encourage people to not do the right thing, which is even more bizarre.Rememberway (talk) 00:31, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I actually have several other problems in the format section... a few of the items are worded as must do mandates, when actually they are preferences (good practice, but not required). WP:Noun is one of those. Blueboar (talk) 00:48, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

This page identifies what its chief principles are: Recognizability, naturalness, shortness, precision, and consistency; some of them are not in the nutshell. WP:NOUN is a reasonable idea, but largely because it helps keep different articles being written on the same subject, one phrasing it as a noun, another as a verb. If it conflicts with any of the five principles in a given case, it can and should be jettisoned. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:30, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

That's not right, it's a must-do. Encyclopedia articles are about a field of study or a person or place or similar. Names of fields of study like astronomy, biology, tennis etc. are all necessarily nouns in English, as are person names and place names. So this isn't an optional thing. You have to use noun titles.Rememberway (talk) 15:24, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Rrius, there have been several objections to the addition. My objection is that this is only one of many important points in the policy; adding it is unnecessary and overemphasizes this one point compared to all the other ones. WP:LOWERCASE, WP:DEFINITE, and WP:DEFINITE are also important, but aren't in the summary. National varieties of English and Treatment of alternative names have their own sections but aren't included in the nutshell.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:01, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Your opinion is controversial, and in any case your entire kind of argument is deeply flawed. As with NPOV, neutrality is almost never reached by removing information from articles or summaries, the summary is supposed to be summarising the entire policy in a neutral way, not just including only the bits that you happen to like the best.Rememberway (talk) 15:12, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

If anyone's trying to include "just the bits that you happen to like the best", it's you. I've already explained that there are many other points that aren't mentioned in the nutshell summary, which is meant to be just that - a summary not a reiteration of every single point (or a nit-picked couple of points).--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:43, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I would be very happy with having those added to the nutshell as well, in a very highly summarised form. You're trying to exclude material, not me, and doing it even to the point where it's not an accurate summary.Rememberway (talk) 17:19, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you really proposing to include every single element of the policy page in the nutshell summary? It could scarcely be considered "in a nutshell" anymore.--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:37, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The nutshell is fine as it is. As Cúchullain says, there are a number of points that it could mention, but the core points are already there. There's simply no reason to expand them. I came into this debate with absolutely no preconceived notions on this subject, but it "felt right" to agree with not specifically adding WP:NOUN to the nutshell, and the points that both Blueboar and Cúchullain have made here have only strengthened my opinion on the matter. I'm perfectly willing to be convinced otherwise, but I have yet to see a compelling rational for doing so.

(PS.: This isn't a bad subject to discuss, in my opinion. As I said, I'm open to suggestions here. Examples of the use of WP:NOUN in practice might be compelling, one way or another.)
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:14, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you'll forgive me if I point out that you did start with the preconceived notion that nouns were not required by WP:NOUN, and it's also been pointed out that they were required, and it has additionally been pointed out that all article titles are actually in fact nouns or noun phrases. And there has historically been retitling required when people choose adjectives for example, which is not all that uncommon.Rememberway (talk) 20:26, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Sure, why not? Have you even tried? No of course not, you're too busy arguing that black is white as usual; articles shouldn't be nouns at all or we should be free to do whatever the heck we want!!! Anything!!!Rememberway (talk) 20:26, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Big deal: "Titles also avoid unnecessary use of emphasis, unusual characters and unnecessary small words."Rememberway (talk) 20:26, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I object fairly strongly ro this edit; Rememberway is pushing his POV that nouns are a "must-do", which has received no real support in this discussion. As a statement of fact, the claim that we always use "nouns and noun-phrases" is exaggerated; having it as a rule, it misses the point of Wikipedia space; it's sound advice, but not beyond exception. I am very tired of people who make policies and guidelines into arbitrary "rules", which they can enforce without rationale; I am reverting, and will dispute any further efforts on this enthusiast's part. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:20, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, if it's not required, name one non noun title. Come up with a single really good example. You seem to be claiming that it's not always required, but I can think of no major counterexamples, and certainly no common ones. You're the one changing the rule, but I don't think you can justify the relaxation, what are you relaxing it for?Rememberway (talk) 20:26, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I've just added two. You misunderstand what this policy does; it's not a set of orders, to be enforced by dogmatists; it's generally sound advice, supported by consensus.

That we have had one well-meaning soul making more of this sentence than it was ever intended to be is a sign that it is time to explain it - before somebody else makes the same error. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:35, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

That's an interesting and unusual way you've decided to go when you're changing a named policy. Wasn't it written like this for a good reason? So far as I can see, you've just rewritten it to permit article titles for individual adverbs, after all, what other title can you use to refer to an adverb?Rememberway (talk) 20:55, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Having just read the conversation to which Rememberway links, I observe that he is misreading it. Using nouns is an example of consistency, and use of nouns like Monophyly is an example of that. But there is consensus that consistency should yield to a strong enough case based on the other four principles; and when there is a sufficiently strong counter-consistency (call a work of literature by its title) that is sufficient in itself. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:41, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

With all due respect, a literature's title is a noun phrase you use to refer to the literature.Rememberway (talk) 20:45, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

So Try to Remember is a noun phrase? It seems to be missing - nouns. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:57, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Yup. It's a noun phrase that refers to the song. In normal English you would put quotes around it, but the other policies say you can't do that in titles, Use is like: "Try to remember" is a song... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rememberway (talk • contribs)

Which can be done with any word whatever: "Eat is a verb which..." In claiming that his rule is universal, Rememberway has empried it of content. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:28, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

You can't really be serious "try to remember" is the name of a song, it's a proper noun.

But yes, that's there's where other policies kick in (Wikipedia is not a dictionary), and so you would have to merge it with Eating, which is a noun. We're not supposed to have articles solely on terms, that's what a dictionary entry is defined to be, an article on the term itself.Rememberway (talk) 22:14, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Wasn't it written like that for a good reason? No, almost certainly not. Someone wanted to make the point "use nouns", with which everyone agrees in priniciple, and wrote something down; the exact wording (and whether we always use nouns) hasn't come up until now. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:39, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

On the contrary. It's very simple. Every title is a noun or noun phrase because it's the name of the topic of the article. In a dictionary it would simply be a word, but here it's always a name of some topic that the article is covering.Rememberway (talk) 07:50, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

For every Wikipedia page, there is a summary that is simple, direct, obvious, and wrong. Our titles are not names; this page was moved from WP:Naming conventions in order to avoid claiming they are names; they are convenient labels. To say otherwise is to encourage the nationalist violence (see the Macedonian disaster, among many others) which insists that articles must have the "real names" (i.e. the ones in the nationalist's language) of their subjects. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:37, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

So you're saying that this is a euphemism for 'name'. Fine, that's what I said, it's a name. And a label is also simply a type of name. It should just read "noun or noun phrase" because by definition, all names are nouns or noun phrases. So there are and can be no counterexamples, and so equivocating like this is at best, completely pointless. It clearly needs to be reverted back to "noun or noun phrase" with no equivocation.Rememberway (talk) 15:42, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

This artlessly conflates two positions: that names must be noun phrases, and that labels are names. From this, Rememberway concludes that labels must be noun phrases. But that, in any sense in which "noun phrases" is more restrictive than "phrases", is false: "Eat me", "drink me", "poisonous" are perfectly good labels.

As for the rest of this: No, it is not saying "do whatever you want"; it is giving sound advice, but our policy must recognize that we have innumerable special circumstances. Nor am I saying that "title" is a euphemism for name; if we wanted names, the arguments of the POV-pushers would be sound (when their facts are); our titles do not claim to be names. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:19, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Putting aside your bad faith accusations about POV pushing; Labels are always names, and names are always noun phrases. Tell me again why you want to twice equivocate this point, because you're not making any sense.Rememberway (talk) 22:34, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

To swing off of the issue of the nutshell for a moment... I think we do need to clarify WP:NOUN itself to explain that names (such as a song title) are proper nouns ... even though though they may not contain any nouns. I could easily see someone trying to argue that Try to remember is an "illegal" article title because it does not contain any nouns. Blueboar (talk) 00:16, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

It seems simpler to explain that we usually use nouns, and I have so tweaked it. If we don't, much the same someone will be protesting that Don't ask, don't tell isn't a proper noun; and that discussion seems utterly futile. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:35, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't ask don't tell is a noun phrase. A rolling stone gathers no moss is a noun phrase (it's the name of the proverb). Try to Remember is a noun phrase (name of a song). I like the way you've added examples of how article titles are noun phrases. Particularly with the proverb, it's a bit confusing I imagine; but consider the opening sentence A rolling stone gathers no moss is an old proverb' where it is a noun phrase (i.e. the subject) of the sentence. That's also how it's used in the title.Rememberway (talk) 07:34, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, come on now. A "rule" that permits everything is utterly worthless. Please stop. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't call them "noun phrases", which are typically defined as a noun plus modifiers (or a pronoun that replaces a noun plus modifiers). They are terms or titles that serve as a noun/noun phrase in the sentence.

I think at this point we've gotten away from the point of the rule, which is to ensure that article introductions are presented consistently. We don't use verbs-as-verbs or adjectives-as-adjectives. Hence, we don't begin any articles with "To run is to move quickly by foot" or "Red objects are those reflecting particular wavelengths of light"; we say something along the lines of "Running is moving quickly by foot" and "Red is a color..." Articles beginning with "'Try to Remember' is a song" or "'Gay' is a term" are totally in accordance with the rule, even if the words themselves are not nouns. We're trying to make too much and too little of this policy point at the same time.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:04, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Tony's back to adding his obscure jargon. AFAICT, "nominal group" is just Halliday's term for "noun phrase". If it is a synonym, then it's worse than useless, as it's obscure and the relatively few people who are familiar with it will know the normal English term "noun phrase" anyway. If it's not a synonym, as Tony (and the article) has argued but never explained or supported, then we should not present it as if it were a synonym. Either way it doesn't belong. — kwami (talk) 13:18, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

No, I just copied it in from WP:MOS because they were slightly different, and they shouldn't have been, and the WP:MOS version was linked. I glanced at the article but thought that a nominal group was a subset of noun phrase, but at the moment I think you're right, and they should be merged, seem to be the same thing. But we definitely need the links.Rememberway (talk) 16:15, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Always ignore WP:MOS.

In particular, the section of MOS that claims to summarize this policy is two years old, from before a major rewrite of this policy; that's why it gets the special characters wrong. As a guide to English usage, or to Wikipedia consensus, it is wrong more often than it is right. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:47, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

When a guideline uses slightly different wording than a policy, and there is a need to conform them (there isn't always such a need), I would suggest that: a) a centralized discussion on the issue needs to take place before conforming, and b) the starting assumption should be that the guideline should be updated to match the policy (not the other way around). Yes, there will be times when consensus indicates that we should change the policy, but 99% of the time it is the guideline that should change. Blueboar (talk) 12:27, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

generally

Why must the page use wishy-washy language? If Article titles "prefers" something, this already gives latitude to editors. How exactly does "generally prefers" differ? Is there some great thirst for article titles that are not nouns or nominal groups? Where, please? Why don't we add "generally" all over the place, such as "titles are generally expected to use names and terms that readers are most likely to look for to find the article", then? Tony (talk) 13:50, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I would certainly agree with their removal. They add nothing at all.Rememberway (talk) 19:03, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

"Generally prefer" is deliberately wishy-washy. It is a concise way to say: "Very often we prefer X, but occasionally we actually don't prefer X (preferring Y or Z instead)." Blueboar (talk) 22:34, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

It's a non concise way of saying nothing useful whatever. All policies and all guidelines are shoulds, not laws that you have to follow. They are not musts. We don't need wishywashyness we need policies that are clear and unambiguous and easy to follow and that help build an encyclopedia.Rememberway (talk) 04:06, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Anyone else agree to their removal? I propose they be removed out of hand.Rememberway (talk) 04:06, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Indeed; Blueboar, if the policy wants to be that wishy-washy, it may as well say nothing on that matter. When is the "occasionally" (serious question: do you have some examples?). Surely one reason for all policy points is to set out patterns so that editors don't argue about them in particular articles. Tony (talk) 06:43, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Every time the desiderata disagree: UK is short and common, but it is not the natural name of the United Kingdom and (since it can mean the University of Kentucky), not as precise - and we don't refer to other countries by initials. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:31, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Few things are less useful than the habit of demanding that our policies say something specific and "enforceable" when a categorical statement would be simply wrong a significant proportion of the time. Tony, Wikipedia policy is not a set of laws which can be "violated," and need to be "enforced" – not to mention that rational real-world legislation often has weasel-words like "reasonable" or "excessive" too.

In this case, we have five principles, all of which have claims on our attention; sometimes (and much of the time when this page needs to be consulted) they disagree. When they disagree, some will be right, some will be wrong (or rather, less important in that instance). Therefore all of them are generally true; none of them is exactly true.

"I don't care what we demand as long as we demand something" is an avenue to bad policy. Wikipedia would work better if it were a banning offense. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:13, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Because the five points were not uniform, I have substituted expected to. I still consider these arguments groundless. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:21, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

"Expected to" is a lot better than "generally". Tony (talk) 04:43, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

One never knows what will please people; the force of the policy is not changed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:46, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

However, the 'generally' in WP:NOUN is still there. Given that there does not seem to be overall consensus to make any change, and given that the previous version was long standing for many years, I still intend to revert this unless there is further support from others for the current version.Rememberway (talk) 05:20, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

And it ought to be; for yet another example, touché is a participle, not a noun. If, instead of disrupting this policy in a solitary crusade, R would say which example brought him here, he might get sympathy; this will only earn disregard. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:27, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

That's not even an encyclopedia article. You're the one disrupting policies by systematically trying to water them down. The policy on policies and guidelines is that they're not invariant laws. This is your fundamental misunderstanding.Rememberway (talk) 02:33, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Dude, chill already. This isn't a contest to see who's view "wins". Why continue to try to stir the pot?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 05:28, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

No, he's failed to show consensus, so it's gone. Policies are maintained by consensus. The idea of going through the policies and adding 'generally' everywhere is a thoroughly bad idea that cannot be encouraged in any way.Rememberway (talk) 02:33, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

After thinking "what the F?" for a sec, I decided to actually look at your user page, at which everything suddenly came clear. This is the point where I say "happy editing" and exit stage left. Regards,
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 03:12, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Whereas I prefer not to have single purpose accounts rewrite policy for their private and solitary purposes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:44, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you clearly prefer to edit war through non consensus changes even if as many people disagree with your change as agree with it. We don't vote, but you don't have even a majority, never mind consensus. Using the word 'generally' in WP:NOUN has 2 people for and 3 against. I asked if anybody else had an opinion, but nobody stood up at all. So it's gone. That's the way it's supposed to work in policy. Being bold and adding stuff is good, but getting consensus to allow it to remain is needed, and you've failed on that.Rememberway (talk)

• I don't know why seven generallies have crept into the page. At least three are in clauses that already contain a "weakener" such as preferred. I intend to remove these redundant bits of fluff that have no place in good expression. Tony (talk) 07:13, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I've reported Pmanderson for edit warring at WP:3RR. He doesn't seem to be following consensus in any way, shape or form. Although blueboar has supported him, nobody else has. I remind people that consensus is when everyone agrees. In fact many of the edits by Pmanderson and blueboar since I tried to add noun into nutshell seem to have been questioned by quite a few people, Dicklyon, you, me, Rrir and others on the policy page itself. In those circumstances reverting back to an earlier version is fair enough, but instead they've just edit warred controversial change upon controversial change. That has to stop.Rememberway (talk) 07:47, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

What we have here is a tug of war between two philosophical viewpoints... on one side are people who want to make WP:NOUN (and other sections of the policy) lean towards a strong "always" statement, and on the other side are people who want to make WP:NOUN lean towards a relatively weak "often" statement. The debate reflects the ongoing tensions at the MOS... Those leaning towards "always" see policy as being a statement of enforceable rules that all must abide by. Those leaning towards "often" see policy as being a statement of principles that are flexible enough to meet the needs of individual articles. The few of us who are debating can not achieve consensus, because we approach the problem with diametrically different goals. I would suggest that the best way to resolve this debate is to formulate an RFC and get a broader sense of community consensus. Blueboar (talk) 14:46, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

That is one issue, on which those who insist that policy is legislation are in fact acting contrary to policy. But this has more problems than the usual paradox; the "rule" does not describe consensus practice: touché is not a noun, and Try to Remember is a noun phrase only in Rememberway's imagination.

Most seriously, it is based on a non-consensus view of what article titles are. We should settle that by adding a negative sentence to the beginning of the policy, something like Wikipedia does not attempt to decide on the names of the subjects of its articles; the titles are convenient labels for the subject, sometimes descriptive. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:25, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I keep telling you, but you go deaf. 'Try to remember' is a proper noun. And you're both right and wrong that touché is not a noun. But in this context, you're wrong. Touché used as the title of an article is a noun, you're confusing the levels. A title is always a label, which makes a title a noun or noun phrase. The words that make up a noun phrase don't have to be nouns at all, particularly if they're quoted, as in 'try to remember'. But really none of this matters that much. Nearly all the articles in the Wikipedia have proper nouns for their title because they're people or places, and then there's songs, bands and literature as well, again proper nouns. Most of the remainder are things like 'astronomy', 'chemistry', 'running' etc. which are nouns. The rest are rare exceptions, and even then, the titles are still nouns in the sense that they're titles- all titles are treated as nouns in English.Rememberway (talk) 17:46, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

No, what we have here, is you two doing whatever the fuck you want to a policy page, even when you are a minority of two and then claiming that somebody else is non consensus. Non consensus means you don't make any changes at all, not carry on edit warring; which is what you bone heads are doing..Rememberway (talk) 16:59, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

You claiming that it is based on a non-consensus view of what article titles are and touché is not a noun, and Try to Remember is a noun phrase only in Rememberway's imagination are just things you've invented to rationalise your continued edit warring of the policy when you are in a minority. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? Say YES if you understand.Rememberway (talk) 16:59, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Right at the top of the policy it contains these words: This page documents an English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Changes made to it should reflect consensus. How is it, Blueboar that you can possibly think that all policies are to be written so that they can be absolutely and exactly followed, and so that they must be equivocated to cover all cases 'flexibly', and Pmanderson how is that you think that your changes don't need to reflect consensus? You know, consensus, as in not just Blueboar agreeing? Neither of these positions make any sense at all. NONE AT ALL.Rememberway (talk) 17:09, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

We're not deaf; we simply disagree with you.

In particular, the view that a Wikipedia article title "is always a noun phrase", even if (like touché) it isn't a noun, is both an odd view, and one that makes "use a noun phrase" utterly irrelevant to the purpose of this page: to advise on which string of words should be used for the title of any given article.

If you don't understand any of the answers you are getting, maybe you're asking the wrong question. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:26, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Citation needed

Rememberway's latest conribution contains:

Note that proper nouns such as names of quotations A rolling stone gathers no moss or titles of works 'Try to Remember' are nouns, even if they contain no noun words.

That's a claim of fact; I don't believe it. Let's have a citation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:34, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Rememberway, do I remember correctly from your previous accounts that you are a native German speaker?

I ask, because what's obviously a noun phrase in German is not obviously a noun phrase in English. We need this to be useful to English speakers, not to German speakers or grammar mavens.

And, PMA, it's technically correct: the name for anything is always technically a noun. (Of course, in one sense, that means that no matter what you put in the article title, it magically becomes a noun by virtue of being the name for the article: "To run is our article on running.") WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:04, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

That's true, and that's why this previously said 'article titles should be nouns' because they always are. There is the slight catch though that the noun has to refer to the article topic. You can't just stick a title there and talk about something else. And we don't quote in titles which complicates things enormously. So really fuck should be "fuck" since we're talking about the title word, not sex; the title is really the term "fuck", rather than sex, and in English proper nouns are nearly always quoted for similar reasons, but not in Wikipedia's titles, that's why there's this difference.Rememberway (talk) 19:32, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

It's all ridiculously geeky stuff. But it boils down to just 'use nouns'. If you just do that nothing goes wrong. The problem we have is that Pmanderson doesn't seem to get any of this, and he also doesn't get that he doesn't get it.Rememberway (talk) 19:32, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I was curious about that as well. More importantly though, this is the sort of bad policy that is a side effect of adversarial development. There's some good that comes from the adversarial approach as well, but this sort of thing is definitely an example of how the adversarial approach can hurt.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely I'm not German I don't know where you got that from, I speak native English.Rememberway (talk) 19:32, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, I don't know where I got that idea from, either.

But the fact is that the typical English speaker does not interpret the title Try to Remember as a noun phrase, whereas grammar mavens and people used to heavily declined languages typically would. So if we put the technically correct statement in this policy, we are both confusing our typical reader (the person who thinks "try to remember" is a verb) and making the advice less useful (the person who thinks that he can use anything he wants, since the act of using the words as the name of the article makes those words a noun). As a result, while it is True™, I think the proposed changes are unhelpful—and since the purpose of a policy page is to be helpful, I believe we should not make these changes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:49, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

No, please be careful here, 'Try to remember' is a proper noun. It's not being used as a term in the way you're implying at all. Song titles, can apparently be any part of speech at all, but really, they're proper nouns.; they're the name of the song!.Rememberway (talk) 20:07, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

'Try to remember' is a proper noun. But which word are you claiming is a noun word? It's not 'try' that's a verb. It's not 'is'. That's the verb to be. 'Remember' is a verb also. Which word is supposed to be a noun? None of them are. None of them act as nouns either. And yet the phrase is a proper noun. You added that example to the policy. Did you even bother reading it?Rememberway (talk) 19:32, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I claimed, and still claim, that none of them is a noun. That's why, although "Try to Remember", so capitalized, is a proper name, it is not a proper noun. On the other hand, touché is neither; it's a participle. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:22, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Then we have something like Surrender - which is both a verb (to surrender) and a noun (a surrender) - and is (quite appropriately) discussed in terms of both meanings in the context of our article. Blueboar (talk) 21:10, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Let's get our terminology correct. Previously Rememberway argued "Try to Remember" and the like are noun phrases. They're not, really; a noun phrase consists of a noun plus modifiers (or a pronoun standing in for a noun plus modifiers.) Now he's shifted to say that they are proper names. This is correct; it's a name for a distinct entity (a particular song). Proper names are nouns and are always acceptable as article titles.

It gets a little dodgier - slightly - for words, phrases, proverbs, etc. A rolling stone gathers no moss and gay are not really proper names, and when used in a sentence they are not nouns. However, by the use-mention distinction, when you mention them in a sentence as opposed to using them, they function as nouns as they are the subject of the sentence. They can be presented as "'A rolling stone gathers no moss' is a proverb..." and "'Gay' is a term"; as such they are also appropriate article titles.
As I said before, the purpose of this policy point is to say that articles should be presented in a particular way. We don't use verbs-as-verbs ("To swim is to move the body through water") or adjectives-as-adjectives ("Red objects reflect a particular wavelength of light"), we use noun constructions. "Try to remember" and "gay" can be presented in that type of construction. That's what the policy is intended to say, and whether we consciously pick up on it, the vastest majority of Wikipedia articles follow suit.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:46, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Then it would probably help to state that (somewhat limited) motive with the guidance; that might deter future assertions that this is some sort of Cosmic Truth, and correct those, like me, who had always taken it as a reasonable, but arbitrary, choice. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:56, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Yup. That's it. You get it Cuchullain.Rememberway (talk) 19:28, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

OTOH:

 'although "Try to Remember", so capitalized, is a proper name, it is not a proper noun'  - Pmanderson

It just says it all.

Perhaps it would be too much to ask that people editing the WP:NOUN policy be restricted to people that actually know what a noun is? It seems that we would be likely to get a lot less problems. It seems that Pmanderson doesn't know what a noun is, so he equivocates the policy when there's absolutely no point, and holds nouns up as counterexamples of nouns while doing it. This kind of thing can only get Wikipedia a bad name.Rememberway (talk) 19:28, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Yws, by all means. Let Rememberway say which of Try or and or Remember he thinks are nouns, and then apply his proposal to himself.

But anybody who's actually interested in this will be fascinated by Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Touché, instigated by - guess who? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Wow, this has got to be the first time Rememberway and I have agreed on something ;) At any rate this has gotten so confusing that it's hard to tell what's going on, and nearly impossible to tell what the consensus is. I'm glad it's been protected. I think we'd all do well not to think of whatever's there as the "right" version, and to make proposals for wording changes or corrections here on the talk page.Cúchullain ^t/c 13:03, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

"ranking" criteria

The first two criteria (Recognizably and Naturalness) are directly connected to WP:COMMONNAME (which I think is the single most important provision of this policy) So I think they are a step above the others in importance. I have been bold and divided the criteria into two sections (diff here... I was logged out when I made the edit, but it's mine. If you think the edit too bold, please revert and we can discuss. Blueboar (talk) 22:55, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I do disagree. WP:COMMONNAME is important because it represents two principles (and often the other three; United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is not the common name in part because it is so long), not because those two are inherently weightier than the others. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:18, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Recognizability

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."

I have read this sentence may be a dozen times. I do see the intent, from the word "recognizability". However may be I drank too much beer yesterday, but I fail to grasp its logic (too much beer yesterday?). (The second sentence is clear.)

I tried to do some analysis. The phrase says connects four pieces: title, topic, article, and the reader. It is constructed in the way that the actor is the title, i.e., the title must confirm to the reader that the article is about the topic. Now, the question is how does the reader know what the topic is in the first place? Did he learn it from the title? If yes, then it is the article text that makes the reader confirm that he indeed reads about the topic defined in the title and not some vandalistic hoax. On the other hand, if the reader learns the topic from the article, and he is "familiar with it" then what is the high importance of confirmation coming from the title so that it is "Rule #1" here?

The second sentence of the description excludes the following scenario: the reader sees the title "Leopold Theophuck Eugentric, 1st baron Hausmaus, duke of balbla...", wonders, starts reading and then in dawns upon him: heck, it is about Leon "Iron Ass" Hausmaus!

But again, to an extent the title "Leopold Theophuck ..." does give some extra affirmation that the article indeed about the topic, because from "See also" section we learn that there was one Leon "Iron Arse" Hausmaus, who was not baron, so that the title indeed confirms that we are reading about the correct Hausmaus. Still again, most probably we have already seen this from the article text...

So, what else does the first sentence serve for? (there is something, as implied by the words "One important aspect of this..."; so what are other aspects?)

I do have some ideas how to phrase this differently, but without knowing the full extent of the purpose of the rule I cannot suggest its summary. (I would like to be constructive, not just bitching.)

By the way, what's the deal with "ideal"? We know there are no such thing. I.e., it is of purposeless bell and whistle. Kaligelos (talk) 21:27, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, I just slogged through that whole post (no offense intended, but that was rather long winded...). I don't really have a direct answer for you, except to say that we don't generally write policy or guidance pages with a legalese outlook. Pulling out that single sentence fragment and parsing it in that manner isn't really something that is constructive, in my opinion (although please note that I'm not at all saying that you're being disruptive). Can you simply state what you'd like to change the point to read?

To me, the main reason for that point is to introduce WP:COMMONNAME (or, at least, one aspect of COMMONNAME). It's a slightly long winded statement that article titles should be the most recognizable description of the topic available. Using the word "ideal" is intentional as well, for the very reason that you brought up yourself: we all know that there's usually no such thing as an ideal situation.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:47, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't notice it was THAT long. My point is that I see this phrase as being of dubious logic. And this parsing was my attempt to demionstrate myself that I am not an idiot. And I am not for legalese in policies; just the opposite. My point was that the sentence looks like first best legalese clause: it looks sensible, but you have no idea what to read into it: you are afraid that the simple interpretation is somehow not enough.

If you say it is "slightly winged" from "article titles should be the most recognizable description of the topic", then why don't you just say so, plain and simple? And skip all this nitpicking ("readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in"... although not complete ignoramuses; while keeping in mind some of them may be ignorant but they hold the are not.....))

In other words, my original question may be narrowed down to: What does the discussed definition include important beyond the boldfaced quote of yours? Kaligelos (talk) 01:29, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm OK with that (Changing it to say "article titles should be the most recognizable description of the topic."), pending further discussion with reasons it shouldn't be changed.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 03:16, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

The page is full of gobbledy, and this fragment is no exception. Why not: ""an ideal title will confirm that the article is indeed about that topic to readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic." But I still don't like it much. Kaligelos's suggestion seems good. Tony (talk) 03:42, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

changed.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:48, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Not most recognizable; recognizable is enough, and the superlative is not particularly meaningful. If there are two names about equally common, we can choose between them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:49, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Definitely not "most recognizable", because sometimes we need to choose the second-most-recognizable for reasons of precision or disambiguation.

In the first example above, the first sentence should solve the reader's problem: Only one name should be the article title, but multiple names can (and frequently should) be provided in the first sentence. This policy does not control the first sentence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:47, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Title-initial deixis

Fairest_of_the_Fair—the title is clearly The Fairest_of_the_Fair. What's the practice in these cases? Tony (talk) 07:22, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

• First, how is deixis important here? I don't understand the use of the word. More on point though, WP:TITLEFORMAT covers this explicitly in the fourth bullet point: Avoid definite and indefinite articles: Do not place definite or indefinite articles (the, a and an) at the beginning of titles unless they are part of a proper name (e.g. The Old Man and the Sea) or will otherwise change the meaning (e.g. The Crown). So, by my reading, that article should be at The Fairest of the Fair.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 08:47, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Deictics are words that constrain a noun in terms of the speaker's/writer's here and now. Deictics in English include "the", "a", article-blank, "this" (the one close to me), and "that" (the one not so close to me). Here, "The" is at issue. Thanks for the advice; I'll move the article now. Tony (talk) 07:11, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
    • The has many meanings; it can be deictic; neither use here need be. Over the road means "this road" (of the many roads that exist); but "the Fair" means all the fair, and the "the Fairest" is unique; neither depends on the speaker.
    • But this is all dictum, except to proposals to rephrase; the article should be - and has been - moved on the ground of accuracy, not meaning. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:31, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Problems in the lead: some queries

Here's the lead as it is now:

This page describes Wikipedia's policy on choosing article titles.<ref>'''Article title''': the part of the [[URL]] that also appears as a large bold heading above the editable text of an article.</ref> It is supplemented and explained by guidelines linked to this policy (see the box to the right), which should be interpreted in conjunction with other policies, particularly the three core content policies: Verifiability, No original research and Neutral point of view.

An article title is intended to label the article conveniently, and distinguish it from other articles; it need not be the name of the subject. Wikipedia's design makes it impossible for different articles to have the same title. Generally, article titles are based on what the subject is called in reliable sources; when this offers multiple possibilities, Wikipedia chooses among them by considering five principles: the ideal article title will resemble titles for similar articles, precisely identify the subject, be short, be natural, and recognizable.

For information on the procedure for renaming an article see Help:Moving a page, and Wikipedia:Requested moves.

Three queries:

1. The footnote: first, does the term "article titles" really need to be defined in this context? Who is doubting what it means? Do we need to bother visitors with looking down to the bottom at this point? Second, I'm confused ... the URL often/usually contains things_like_underscores as well, and you have to hunt for this article title thing within it. Let's try replacing the weird bit of the footnote with something clearer: Article title: "the part of the URL that also the text that appears as a large bold heading above the editable text of an article." Now I'm wondering why we even need the other bit?
2. "It is supplemented and explained by guidelines linked to this policy (see the box to the right), which should be interpreted in conjunction with other policies, particularly the three core content policies"—right, so WP:TITLE doesn't need to be interpreted in relation to other policies? That's the logical implication of the current wording.
3. "An article title is intended to label the article conveniently, and distinguish it from other articles"—Nice to intend, but that doesn't mean we achieve it: the road to hell is paved with ...? So, "An article title is intended to should label the article conveniently and distinguish it from other articles." I'm still unsure about "conveniently": for the convenience of editors, or readers, or both? What is an inconvenient title? Tony (talk) 15:21, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Re the first query... we added this due to confusion... people thinking that the Article title also included the bolded text in the first sentence of the lede. While it is common for the opening sentence to repeat the title, this is not mandatory, and the text can be different. Also, defining what we mean by "title" helps clarify that the "title of the article" is not necessarily the same thing as the "name of the subject". Blueboar (talk) 15:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with losing the "part of the URL" bit, though - often it isn't (exactly) part of the URL, particularly if there are spaces or special characters involved.--Kotniski (talk) 16:02, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

"Represented in the URL" would be better; but we must, somewhere early, make the point that the URL is formed from the article title, and is the reason that no two titles can be identical. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:48, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Re the second query... This is referring to the subject specific naming conventions, and highlights that they have to be interpreted in conjunction with other policies and guidelines. I don't see it as implying that this policy is exempt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blueboar (talk • contribs)

Again, like much of Wikipedia space, this is a reaction to actual folly; that our Naming Conventions are laws which must be followed to the letter, even when the result is unintended and harmful. We don't know anybody like that, do we? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:48, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Re the third: both readers and editors will find United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland a somewhat inconvenient title. If we were to accept what often seems tempting, and use numbers as our titles and URLs, "804705702-8" would be an extremely inconvenient title. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:48, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

The original mile-long title for Gulliver's Travels is IMO inconvenient. An article title that required me to type Chinese characters would also count as inconvenient in my books. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:55, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

• Query 1: So given comments by Bluboar, PMA and others, can we drop the URL bit and retain this? "An article title appears as a large bold heading above the editable text of an article."? I can't imagine anything clearer, and the URL bit made it clunky and unclear. Why do we need to fuddle the visitor with talk about URLs to justify the need for article titles not to be duplicates? Who would disagree with that? Supplementary suggestion: could we integrate that shorter glossing into the main text rather than footnoting it?
• Query 2: For logic, I think it needs three words added: "It is supplemented and explained by guidelines linked to this policy (see the box to the right), which,along with this policy, should be interpreted in conjunction with other policies, particularly the three core content policies".
• Query 3: I'm reading this from a newcomer's perspective. What is convenient and inconvenient? Mr Anderson's comment clarifies that length and recognisability are the keys. But they are covered immediately below in specific terms. I don't believe convenience conveys anything useful to editors that is not already plain as day in the five principles. Why not make it more concise here, since we know an article title is a label for an article? "An article title is a convenient label for the article, which distinguishes it from other articles. Tony (talk) 09:22, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

On Query 1... I have no problem omitting the bit about the URL... especially since we have a nice image to make clear what we are talking about.

On query 2... Sounds reasonable.

Still thinking about the third Query Blueboar (talk) 12:31, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

• On query 3: that paragraph is a recent addition intended to summarize the five principles, because somebody objected that the lead should say something about what a good article title is. It therefore is intended to reach the audience that hasn't gotten to the five principles yet. I thought the objection well taken, but we can always merge the principles back into the lead, by taking out their header. That would make a long lead, and mean no section header for them, but those are minor problems. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:11, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I see what you mean about Q3, and the remaining fragment is now a bit stubby. That para does indeed thrust the readers downward by referring specifically to the five principles. Better to get to it more quickly without the confusing "convenient"? Also, the first sentence seems to be more linked with the third sentence, so perhaps a rearrangement is needed. And I'm unsure whether A title need not be the name of the subject; many article titles are descriptions of the subject. fits into that para. How is this?

"Wikipedia's design requires an article title must be unique to distinguish it from other titles. A title need not be the name of the subject; many article titles are descriptions of the subject. Generally, article titles are based on what the subject is called in reliable sources; when this offers multiple possibilities, Wikipedia chooses among them by considering five principles: the ideal article title will resemble titles for similar articles, precisely identify the subject, and be short, natural, and recognizable. Tony (talk) 16:42, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I'd recorder this; in practice, uniqueness is a constraint, and is rarely the central issue.

Article titles are based on what the subject is called in reliable sources. A title need not be the name of the subject; many article titles are descriptions of the subject. Wikipedia's design requires each article title to be unique. When there are multiple possibilities, Wikipedia chooses among them by considering five principles: the ideal article title will resemble titles for similar articles, precisely identify the subject, and be short, natural, and recognizable.

Reader convenience is the justification, as far as I can see, for the principles. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:02, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

On point #1, the title also appears in the title bar of the browser. If you look at the explanatory image, you'll see that it takes two red ovals to identify the locations of the article title.

The URL is (exactly) why we not only "do not" but "can not" have articles with identical titles. The article title is used to form the URL. Other software uses a different approach, and therefore can have articles with identical titles. You and I might think it undesirable to use such a (mis)feature, but it is not unreasonable of us to indicate how we use the title and why titles cannot (as opposed to "should not") be identical. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:41, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Well... if we define "title" as we in fact do here - as the big text that comes at the top of the article - then it's not strictly true that titles cannot be identical. By playing fancy tricks with DISPLAYTITLE you can hide part of the title to make it look identical to another one. (And we could also ask for the software to be configured to allow displayed titles to be completely independent of the stored title - that just requires changing a parameter.) So in fact the uniqueness requirement is our choice, rather than a software imposition. --Kotniski (talk) 10:02, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Or rather, we do not choose to evade the imposition made by the software; but that is covered by the footnote, which should stay. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:32, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

RFC proposal

OK, I've had it with this user. The list so far is edit warring, massive numbers of tendentious edits, subject line insults, AFD tag blanking, various arguments that I don't think even he believes that black is white. I'm pretty sure there's quite a few bad faiths as well.

So I intend to create an RFC on him, do I have anyone that will second the RFC?Rememberway (talk) 21:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

If somebody else wants to take over objecting to Rememberway's WP:FRINGE view on the status of WP:NOUN, that's fine by me. If somebody wants to agree with him, and make a better case for "Article titles are always and without exception nouns", that's fine too.

But in the meantime, we have a solitary editor who would very much like to have his pet theory written into policy, preferably into the nutshell. We've discussed this at #WP:NOUN and nutshell, and he has a notable absence of agreement.

Who should have an RFC? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:39, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

At this point I'd certainly support an "interaction ban" for the two of you, and I'd probably even support some sort of a "Wikipedia namespace ban". I don't see the combative approach that both of you tend towards as being constructive. It doesn't matter who believes what, or who started what. It takes two to tango.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 03:04, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Look, Ohms, in all seriousness, if somebody doesn't actually know what a noun is, and he's edit warring the WP:NOUN policy, and messing it up, what am I supposed to do? Read this: although "Try to Remember", so capitalized, is a proper name, it is not a proper noun - Pmanderson

A name that's not a proper noun? Yes, he's actually saying that a name ...is not a noun.Rememberway (talk) 04:25, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Is that, or is that not a totally fundamental misunderstanding on his part? And he's written this into the policy. And he's edit warring to keep it there.Rememberway (talk) 04:25, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

None of that matters since you've both acted poorly during this whole thing. This right here is a perfect example of the poor behavior that's been exhibited throughout. You seemingly want some sort of acknowledgement that you're right... that you've won. I don't care what other people do here, but I'm not going to play your game. PMA seems to be doing the same thing, and so he get's the same treatment here. You've both lost my support days ago, and the damage that this sort of adversarial debate can cause is exemplified now in the overly detailed explanation at WP:NOUN. I'm willing to work with either or both of you, but you both drive people away with the adversarial attitudes.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 04:45, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Look, all I know is that Pmanderson and Blueboar have been edit warring the policy away from what it has said for 3 years, without getting consensus first, and as it stands it has at least one obviously wrong thing in it. I put it to you that you reverting it back to what it said before they started hacking on it is at least an unarguably consensus position that it has had for 3 years. If they want to change it, they need to discuss it like sensible people on this page, rather than revert warring to what is obviously not a consensus position. That's not me trying to get the old version back, that's me trying, in good faith, to come up with a sensible course of action, while leaving the policy in a reasonable state in the meantime, and there's no guarantee that after it was discussed it wouldn't change in ways I wouldn't necessarily like.Rememberway (talk) 05:13, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Errr, weren't you topic banned just last year for six months from any edits on policies and guidelines related to words-as-articles? Discussion will do little good if you continue your behavior of "stridently pushing a very restrictive and not widely-held view with respect to the inclusion of words-as-articles". --NeilN ^{talk to me} 08:13, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Clearly there's some level of confusion about the wording. That's fair, the wording can be tweaked to indicate what the policy point is really getting at. But the back-and-forth reverting isn't going to help.Cúchullain ^t/c 18:06, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

In my view the confusion comes from the fact that we've essentially been arguing about the wording here from within a vacuum. Unless I've missed it, noone has provided any concrete examples supporting their position... well, I take that back slightly, since there were links added to a couple of example articles. Still, the point remains that there's been no real evidence given. There's been no broad view analysis, demonstrating a need for change at all. I'm still puzzled about what brought up the need to attempt to highlight WP:NOUN in the nutshell, which is what kicked off this brouhaha in the first place. I don't understand why this is important enough to make it worth pursuing. What the hell is the argument about, now?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:23, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

The argument's more about changes to the "Use nouns" section at this point. I think it can be summed up into two points: (1) there's no consensus that using nouns should to be mentioned in the nutshell summary, and (2) the edit warring has made it entirely unclear what the consensus is regarding the wording in the "Use nouns" section.

It's the second point that we need to sort out here on the talk page. Given that virtually every article title that anyone can find functions in the noun construction (whether or not the words in the titles are themselves nouns), the point obviously has very wide acceptance in general practice. However, as the wording in the policy point clearly confuses some people, it can be tweaked.Cúchullain ^t/c 18:49, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

The default consensus is always the long standing text. In this case it has been there for 3 years, and any changes from that have completely failed to reach consensus.Rememberway (talk) 19:36, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

This could have been put more concisely: "I support what I claim to be the long-standing text; nobody else does; therefore it must stay." What policy actually says, however, is Thus, "according to consensus" and "violates consensus" are not valid rationales for accepting or rejecting proposals or actions. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:51, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Back to subject

I'm a Latinist; to me, nouns are a formal category. It is not the case that all our article titles do, or should, contain members of that category.

Treating nouns as a functional category has two opposing problems:

• Any phrase whatsoever can become a functional noun, in such constructions as "The phrase hard to remember is...", "Hopefully is an adverb which arouses much controversy..." If read as intended, it offers no guidance.
• However, wikignomes will understand "Use only nouns" or equivalent language, as forbidding all phrases which do not include formal nouns, such as Try to Remember, although that is the name of the song.

I therefore support Article titles usually or normally use nouns or noun phrases; I will accept any reasonable variant. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:13, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Righhhhht. Wikignomes now? We had the 'proper names are not nouns' and now there's gnomes happily gambling through the wiki? Fortunately these wikignomes get confused ever so easily, forcing us to change the policy in the way you want. How very convenient! Has anyone else seen these gnomes?Rememberway (talk) 19:36, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Those who want to change how Wikipedia acts really should learn how it does things now. Like much Wikipedia jargon, WP:WikiGnomes began as a joke, but it is now the usual term for editors who "work behind the scenes of a wiki, tying up little loose ends and making things run more smoothly". How much they add to the encyclopedia is a question on which reasonable editors differ, but policies which ignore their existence are ill-fated. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:47, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but a Pmanderson wikignome is a fictitious stereotype you've created to bolster your weird ideas that proper nouns are not nouns.Rememberway (talk) 21:02, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

{{citation needed}}. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:08, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

However, wikignomes will understand "Use only nouns" or equivalent language, as forbidding all phrases which do not include formal nouns, such as Try to Remember, although that is the name of the song. Rememberway (talk) 21:12, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

• I'm gonna check (back) out of participating in the Wikipedia namespace for a while (it's sucking up waaaayyy too much of my time, in my opinion), but I wanted to say that I basically agree with the above. I like the "normally use nouns" construct, since I think that "normally" is a better description than "usually"... the tone is better, or something. I don't know. The important thing to me is to provide a bit of wiggle room. I believe that the whole idea of advocating for language such as "Article titles must be nouns of noun phrases" is completely antithetical to the Wikipedia culture. I'd like us to make firmer recommendations then we currently seem to do, but I don't want to see Wikipedia policy and guidelines turn into a rulebook. Generally, the majority wouldn't follow a rulebook regardless. That's what I'd like my contribution to entail (and incidentally, this is applicable to the dash issue as well, as a general principle).
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:40, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

We already say that at the very top of every policy though: This page documents an English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Are we seriously supposing that it is necessary to add 'should normally' to every individual sentence as well?Rememberway (talk) 21:10, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that we wikignomes (and I proudly include myself in that term), too often don't see how our work gets misused out there at the article level, when it goes beyond the pages of policy... All too often, editors who are involved in conflicts focus on the specific wording of specific phrases of policy... which they take out of context to to support legalistic "letter of the law" arguments. This is a form of Wikilawyering, and is highly discouraged... it is also epidemic. We don't want to write policy in ways that encourage this behavior. We want to write policy that makes editors think about the intent of the policy and focus on the principles that lie behind it rather than the narrow wording. This is why we liberally sprinkle hedge terms like "generally", "normally" and "usually" throughout our policy pages... to remind editors that there are very few policy provisions that are clear cut "Must do... Always... This means you" rules. It also means that when they come across a provision that is not hedged, it stands out as being one of those rare clear cut provisions.

Telling people that we generally (or usually, or normally) use nouns in our titles is a necessary hedge - to prevent WP:NOUN from being misused by people who only look at the narrow wording (and don't bother to think about the broader intent of the policy). Blueboar (talk) 21:37, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Provide an unequivocal example.Rememberway (talk) 01:13, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Just to add my agreement with PMA's analysis at the top of this subthread - that's exactly how I see it, and I'm not sure what the problem or objection is (or even if there is one) regarding the current wording. --Kotniski (talk) 06:16, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

One question is how you can state that proper nouns are 'major exceptions' to using nouns (???).

And even worse is how it is that titles are 'normally preferred' to be nouns, which seems to imply to me as a user that you can arbitrarily just decide to prefer to do something else at whim pretty much; whereas in reality, is it not the case that not using a noun is something you should never do unless you have no other sensible choice?Rememberway (talk) 06:42, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I mean that is how it is isn't it really? He's talking of preference, but really, it's not a question of preference for the reader of the policy; you should only be forced into a non noun by the circumstances. Preference is the wrong word.Rememberway (talk) 06:42, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, so something like Article titles usually or normally use nouns or noun phrases, as PMA himself suggests above.--Kotniski (talk) 07:35, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

"usually use" or "normally use" are both acceptable to me. Blueboar (talk) 23:55, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Usually or normally (to me at least) means (say) 95% of the time. Aren't we then saying that 5% of the article names don't have to be nouns?Rememberway (talk) 03:52, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Something more like 'virtually all use" is the reality.Rememberway (talk) 03:52, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

And it's not a question of forcing people to do something, it's more that if it's not a noun, they've very probably done something wrong when writing the article or choosing the title.Rememberway (talk) 03:55, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't see much point in continuing this conversation. There is currently no consensus for any changes, and I do not think that any reasonable person could possibly pretend that there is consensus for Rememberway's changes in particular. We can stop beating this horse any time now, because no matter how many more sentences we post to this page, the outcome isn't going to change. From here, it's just a matter of wasting your time in accomplishing nothing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:56, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

The only fair way to stop is to revert this section back to the 11th May version, which has been there for 3 years, and has presumed consensus.Rememberway (talk) 06:17, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I would rather have something that actually does have consensus (which doesn't necessarily require that no-one disagrees), than something that we might assume had consensus at some time in the past.--Kotniski (talk) 09:51, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

So would I, but at the moment we definitely don't have it, and we at least did have it; reverting it to the earlier version is the best of a bad job. The thing is that there's been a series of really serious breaches of the consensus guidelines on this policy page. Policy pages are supposed to be consensus at essentially all times, but some of Pmanderson's edits have been reverted at least 6 times. The second revert is non consensus; the 6th one is a joke. Nobody gets to do that with any policy page I have anything to do with (not even me!), I don't care whether it's 3RR or not, that stops right now. Consensus is when everyone agrees, not voting, everyone agrees, not when people get bored of dealing with extended edit wars, everyone agrees.Rememberway (talk) 10:42, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

This from the person who has reverted more often than I have... But he really should look up WP:3RR and see what it says; responding to a single purpose account six times over twelve days is no violation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:01, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

And I'm honestly not wedded to the legacy text of WP:NOUN either, it's time has come, but we need to revert to it, and work from there. There doesn't seem to be any other choice. When this kind of bad stuff goes down, is when we have to follow the policies. Not lip service to bits of the policies, actually following the full intent of the policies.Rememberway (talk) 10:42, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone NOT think that following the Wikipedia's policies is a good idea?Rememberway (talk) 10:42, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

You are correct that Consensus is not based on a majority in a vote count... however, it does not require unanimity either. Consensus does not require that everyone agrees. Blueboar (talk) 11:13, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

You're already quibbling about what the policy says. That's not the way this goes. I quote: Decision by consensus takes account of all the legitimate concerns raised. and Ideally, it arrives with an absence of objections, so in the ideal case it does. I am completely unconvinced at this time that this is not the ideal case; and I'm equally convinced that no more edit warring is to occur; all changes require clear consensus; and any edit by anyone that does not have clear consensus must be reverted and moved to the talk page, where it will be discussed. Right?Rememberway (talk) 11:33, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

And equally, I don't want anyone to get the idea that this is some kind of bad faith attempt to block changes. You are expected to assume good faith, because that is also a policy. (If it becomes clear that somebody really isn't following good faith, we'll get the admins.)Rememberway (talk) 11:40, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone else find it odd that the everyone (except Rememberway) seems to have no problem with adding modifiers like "generally", "usually" or "normally".... and yet he/she is the one lecturing us on consensus? While Rememberway's continued opposition means we don't have unanimity... I think we do have a fairly clear idea of where consensus lies. Blueboar (talk) 13:22, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Indeed - and if this goes on much longer, we should ask an admin whether we are correct in observing bad faith. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:01, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

You could try that, but the admin I talked to indicated that you were likely to get blocked at the drop of a hat; and I've seen your edit war block log... I've never seen anyone blocked that often before, and the blocks are getting more frequent. You're running on borrowed time mate. You do not, in fact have any choice but to seek and follow consensus.Rememberway (talk) 18:27, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Point of fact I wasn't the only person to revert those, but in any case, which part of Assume Good Faith and obtain Consensus for all changes do you not understand? You are expected, in Wikipedia, to make a good faith attempt to achieve consensus. If I don't like a change, it's not consensus, if Dicklyon doesn't like a change, it's not consensus, if Pmanderson doesn't like a change it's not consensus and it doesn't go in. etc. etc. We have to find positions that everyone can get behind, particularly in policies.Rememberway (talk) 18:27, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Consensus is not unanimity; we do not have the liberum veto, which destroyed Poland. There are two options here: either the view which everyone but Rememberway supports is consensus, or there is none. The first case is the present text; the second choice implies silence on the subject at issue. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:45, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

No, according to the policy, Consensus in Wikipedia's policies is essentially unanimity, and you have to take into account all reasonable concerns. This is not a majority voting system here, you have to follow the core policies, and seek consensus, or you will get blocked.Rememberway (talk) 18:59, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Doubtful on two grounds.

• Wikipedian consensus is never essentially unanimity (I observe that Rememberway has not managed to cite an actual policy which says so).
• Even more importantly, what Rememberway demands that we do (on pain of blocking) ignores the concerns of everybody but - by some strange coincidence - Rememberway. Septentrionalis PMAnderson

Policies and guidelines reflect established consensus, and their stability and consistency are important to the community. As a result, Wikipedia has a higher standard of participation and consensus for changes to policy than on other kinds of pages. in conjunction with while Consensus is not necessarily unanimity. Ideally, it arrives with an absence of objections So it's pretty clear you're supposed to shoot for unanimity particularly on policy pages. It's not necessarily that, but it's especially important there and you're told to try to get it. And it's very clear that revert warring as you've been doing pmanderson is really not on.Rememberway (talk) 06:36, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

"Ideally", there would be unanimous agreement. There, as on this page, we are rarely in the ideal world, and we must make provisions for what happens when there is not unanimity.The idea that one noisy editor can insist on preserving text which is demonstrably not consensus is our fundamental flaw, encouraging the introduction and maintenance of non-consensus opinions in Wikipedia space. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:58, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

As to your second point, that seems to be a misrepresentation as I've stated several times above that I am of course held to this every bit as much.Rememberway (talk) 06:36, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Except that you claim that you are not held by it; because you claim that your pet text is "long-standing" and must be preserved. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:58, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I've been traveling and haven't followed all the details, but I support the idea that we should roll back to the stable version and not make changes until we have consensus. I don't think there's a hint of consensus that adding "generally" is an improvement, or that weirdly punctuated non-parallel summaries like "Wikipedia chooses among them by considering five principles: the ideal article title will resemble titles for similar articles, precisely identify the subject, be short, be natural, and recognizable" can be tolerated in the lead. Dicklyon (talk) 08:25, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

One person making a lot of noise is not a reason to conclude that we don't have consensus. --Kotniski (talk) 08:42, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Google Books search

I'd like to suggest an addition of another caveat in Google Books search: make sure that the term in question is sought in reasonably recent books. The reason is that Google&Co OCRed a huge number so-old-as-out-of-copyright books, which may sometimes totally skew the statistics on terminology. Like, in honor of my favorite beer:-):: Plzeň: 87,700 results against Pilsen: 209,000 results, Kaligelos (talk) 00:27, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Part of that is the detail that Pilsen and Pilsner continue to be English terms for the town and the beer, much to the disappointment of Czech editors; but the caveat is well taken, and it is mentioned in WP:NCGN. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:31, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Italic titles

As expected, opening the floodgates allowing italics in article titles has produced cases of overuse. Many titles that are nominally about works whose titles would be italicized (like newspapers, for instance), are now entirely italicized, even if the article title includes words that are not part of the work's title. I never understood why the encyclopedia had to be complicated in this way for an extremely minor formatting benefit. Powers ^T 01:27, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

(If the benefit is extremely minor, then the problem you refer to must be extremely minor as well...) Can you give some examples? Maybe there's an infobox template or something behaving incorrectly.--Kotniski (talk) 05:32, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Rochester Times-Union. Powers ^T 13:20, 29 May 2011 (UTC)