Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (events)

Initial section

Discussion on these guidelines took place here: Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Proposal_for_articles_on_events_and_activities. When the page is archived, it will probably be in archive 9 or 10. Kla'quot 03:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Naming conflict seems to cover this topic adequately, and I do not see what value this page has except introducing the possibility of confusion. As it stands, this page clearly contradicts the following text.:

Choose a descriptive name for an article that does not carry POV implications.

For instance, what do we call the controversy over Qur'an handling at Guantanamo Bay? The article is located at Qur'an desecration controversy of 2005. Note that the title makes no statement about who is the (more) guilty party: it does not "give away" that conclusion; in fact the article itself draws no conclusion. Similarly, the article on the September 11, 2001 attacks does not assign responsibility for the attacks in the article name.

There is not in fact any conflict between "use the most common name" and "use a non-POV name", because Wikipedia:Naming conflict does not apply the former principle to "descriptive names" such as those of events. The arbitration committee has contradicted itself on this issue ([1][2]), but in the absence of a clarification from them that is no reason to change the existing guideline. – Smyth\^talk 18:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mmm, where's the contradiction? This page also calls for editors to "use a descriptive name that does not carry POV implications". The point is to clarify how the "most common name" principle applies to event names—in this case, by taking precedence over artificially constructed descriptive names—rather than to discuss the proper construction of descriptive names in general. Kirill Lokshin 18:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My problem is that this page gives the common name priority over the POV implications, by saying: "If there is a particular common name for the event, it should be used even if it implies a controversial point of view". As NPOV is the most important of Wikipedia's policies, this seems quite wrong. – Smyth\^talk 20:49, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in mind that NPOV does not stand for "No point of view". As it explicitly calls for views to be represented in proportion to how widely held they are, it's quite reasonable to use the most commonly used name for an event as the title of the article. Kirill Lokshin 21:20, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's worth noting that a "neutral name" is often anything but. In many cases, these supposedly "neutral names" are more or less euphemisms that conceal unpleasant facts. It is just as much a POV to call the Armenian Genocide the "Armenian Unpleasantness" as it is to call it a genocide. The latter just happens to be the dominant POV, while the former is a POV limited to a few Turks. We should be really wary of supposedly "neutral" names that actually advance one side's POV. john k 00:00, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

These guidelines were written to clarify the ambiguity that SimonP pointed out in his ArbCom decision. These guidelines were originally discussed on Wikipedia talk:Naming conflict. I asked SimonP for his opinion on the proposedd guidelines [3] and he provided it here: [4]. The intro of the Wikipedia:Naming conflict page says it is to resolve conflicts over "what to call a topic or a geopolitical/ethnic entity;" from what I see there it looks like it is mostly written with topics on geographical locations and ethnic entities in mind. Kla'quot 05:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that it discusses the "Quran desecration controversy" is a fairly obvious counterexample to that. – Smyth\^talk 20:49, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The definition of "common name" provided here seems very strange to me, in that it suggests that only if one name is in universal use is there a common name, and that otherwise we have to come up with a "descriptive name that does not carry POV implications." There doesn't have to be one single name that is always used for there to be a common name. For instance, the Austro-Prussian War is sometimes also called the Seven Weeks War. That doesn't mean that Austro-Prussian War is not a common name, does it? One could presumably come up with other instances where the common name would be clearly POV. Yom Kippur War certainly isn't a "common name" as defined by this convention, in that there's numerous different names commonly used to describe it. I think the definition of "common name" here needs to be changed. (C.f. the way this convention has been cited at Talk:The Indian Rebellion of 1857. john k 21:08, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, these guidelines were written mostly to address the question of when to use loaded words. If an event has several names that are all free of loaded words, usually one name predominates. However, as you point out that isn't always the case. Can you suggest how to further clarify the definition of "common name"? Kla'quot 06:53, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, an issue is what counts as a "loaded word". Yom Kippur War might be considered loaded, since it emphasizes that the attack was on a Jewish holiday. Indian Mutiny (which hasn't been the location of our article for two years, unfortunately) is arguably loaded, in implying that the rebellion was a mutiny. It was that, in part, but some might (and have, if you look at the talk page I cited) say that because it was more than that, to call it a mutiny (or a "Sepoy Rebellion") is to diminish it. There are all kinds of examples like that. I would suggest that a "common name" be defined in the normal wikipedia sense of "the name most commonly used in English to refer to that event, if there is one." Some events don't have a clear "common name," (the 1859 War in which France and Piedmont-Sardinia fought against Austria, for instance, is a good example, in that there's no name that is commonly used), but that's not the same thing as an event which has several different common names in use. john k 13:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me. Kla'quot 01:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have added some tentative definition of military conflicts in the Military Conflict page based primarily on organizational level of troops involved in a conflict event. Comments are welcome

UCLA Taser incident

We made up a name that was short, unique, and descriptive, and everyone agrees that it should be the title of the article.

But it isn't found anywhere in newspapers or reports; there is no common name. Should the name we decided for the article also be written out and bolded in the first sentence of the article, or should the first sentence just be a description of the event? I think it's inappropriate to bold it, as if it were an official name or terminology, where none previously existed. — Omegatron 04:30, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree; I always find it irritating when people give so much emphasis to an arbitrary and Wikipedia-local title. – Smyth\^talk 14:17, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can we make a policy or guideline about it? — Omegatron 15:04, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you post at Wikipedia talk:Lead section. – Smyth\^talk 15:54, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disasters & rewrite & rename

Disasters addition

I've just added text that was recently added to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates) following discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#Disaster article names as adopted by the Disaster management WikiProject and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disaster management#Naming conventions?. Akradecki 18:50, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rewrite of guideline

I attempted a rewrite here. The intention is to have the guideline cover events in general, rather than just controversial events. Carcharoth 21:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The change was reverted. Per WP:BRD, I await the discussion here. I would appreciate comments on precisely what is wrong with what I feel is rather a minor, organisational rewrite. Carcharoth 22:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The change looks fairly uncontroversial to me. I must agree that this policy is far too narrow, and am sorely tempted to tag it for complete rewrite. Blood Red Sandman Open Up Your Heart - Receive My EviLove 07:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Update. I discovered yesterday that a naming convention does exist for elections, which are events, so should that be a section of this guideline? If not, then the title really needs clarification, because people looking for guidance on how to name election articles may come here, expecting an 'events' naming convention to cover elections, much as I expected it to cover earthquakes (and other disaster events). At the very least, if there is no guidance, enquirers should be directed back to the main naming conventions page, and to the talk page of that page, so seek guidance there. I really do think that it needs to be made clear that this is an incomplete guideline, and one way of making that clear is to narrow the focus of (ironically) the title. For now, I am going to link to the elections bit from here, to help people find what they want. I really can't see a problem with that. Carcharoth 11:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Renaming of guideline

My feeling is that if no expansion is possible, then the page here needs to be moved to something like Wikipedia:Naming conventions (controversial events) or Wikipedia:Naming conventions (controversial event names), as it focuses soley on controversial events at the moment, and not on matters of title style and format. One of the reasons for this is that the title is genuinely misleading. I was looking to see if guidance on earthquake names existed, and I spotted a link to this and thought "wonderful, that will cover all sorts of events". I was very disappointed to find that it was just a short guideline covering controversial event names. I've read lots of very lengthy discussions on event and other names including the words 'massacre', 'terrorist', 'war criminal', etc, and this guideline is currently just a response to those controversies, not a consideration of the wider issues surrounding event names. Carcharoth 22:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure we can rewrite/expand the present guidline into something suitable, and that this should not be nescescary. This is the sort of guidline that may get too long in the future and need split off, but for now we have the oposite problem. Blood Red Sandman Open Up Your Heart - Receive My EviLove 07:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Event crossing two years and is ongoing

What is the naming convention for an event that started in 2007 and is still ongoing? Should it be event (2007-2008), event (2007-08), or event (2007-present)? Would it violate WP:CRYSTAL by putting in 2007-2008 or -08? --Son (talk) 04:31, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Self-contradiction

This guideline contradicts itself. Point 1 states: "If there is a particular common name for the event, it should be used even if it implies a controversial point of view". Yet, later on we are told the opposite about one particular event with a common and controversial English name: the "Tiananmen Square massacre". The passage reads: "Say an article was written about the student uprising in Tianamen Square in China; if whoever was writing it was pro-Chinese government (even though the article should be neutral), it might be titled "Tiananmen Square criminal insurrection"; if it was pro-students, it might be titled "Tiananmen Square massacre." Only an article giving the location or the location and the year would have no bias at all, such as the one, Tiananmen Square protests of 1989".

This hypothesis is completely unfounded. "Tiananmen Square massacre" gets 108,000 Google hits whereas "Tiananmen Square criminal insurrection" gets 2 (and one of those is this very Wikipedia guideline).

Of course, the problem was only created when a single editor added the new, contradictory passage without any consultation last October [[5]. The contradiction can easily be resolved by reverting to the prior accepted version.

Otherwise we are effectively giving editors a green light to move pages to euphemistic titles of their own making in violation of our rules on no original research and Wikipedia is not censored.--Folantin (talk) 10:27, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have you actually looked at Tiananmen Square protests of 1989? Take a good look at it, especially the fact it's a former featured article. The article in its entirety is about the protest, and I can only suggest if you have a problem with the name of that article you take it to that article's talk page, especially as it was at that location before this guideline ever existed? One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 10:37, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your reasoning for keeping the title Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 (that it covers the entirety of the protests not just the massacre) is completely different from the one given in the contradictory addition to this guideline (that "Tiananmen Square massacre" is POV). There is some substance to your reasoning (although the phrase "Tiananmen Square massacre" should be given more prominence in the article), but there is none to the statement in this guideline which still makes the page self-contradictory and sets a dubious precedent. Therefore you should have no objection to the added passage being removed from this page. --Folantin (talk) 10:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It was in the lead, until it was removed. While I fully agree it should be in the lead, the previous sourcing wasn't exactly of a decent standard (I'd use something along the lines of "The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, or the Tiananmen Square Massacre" with several high quality refs). If that name is restored and the article stable, it should be on List of massacres. For example, see the discussion here. The comments of "why aren't x and y massacres" on there is because the article is in the process of being re-built virtually from scratch, check the history. While I've yet to decide whether the article should be kept or deleted, the current criteria for inclusion are better than the previous one of "find a source that's used the word massacre when talking about the event, and it goes on the list", which was totally indiscriminate and problematic.

Back to this...I actually think the other part may be the problem rather than the addition. See article naming in the NPOV policy, in particular "Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality". NPOV trumps WP:COMMONNAME after all. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 11:09, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll deal with the AfD and the Tiananmen Square massacre naming issue on the relevant talk pages (basically I agree that "Tiananmen Square massacre" should be given bolded prominence in the lead, especially since "June 4 Incident" is there - and that clearly refers to the massacre rather than the entire protests of 1989).

I disagree strongly with the point you make in your second paragraph. WP:COMMONNAME is quite in line with WP:NPOV, since the common English title avoids giving "undue weight". Problems arise only when there are two or more titles with a claim to being the common English one. As the policy says: "If a genuine naming controversy exists, and is relevant to the subject matter of the article, the controversy should be covered in the article text and substantiated with reliable sources. Otherwise, alternative article names should not be used as means of settling POV disputes among Wikipedia contributors". The additional passage to this guideline clearly doesn't deal with a "genuine controversy" but one the editor who added it made up (see the statistics I gave above) and seems to imply that "alternative article names should be used as means of settling POV disputes among Wikipedia contributors". I don't want WP to be held hostage to all kinds of POV-warriors who dismiss the usual English title because it offends them in some way or other. Then we end up with a mixture of original research and censorship. --Folantin (talk) 11:37, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not suggesting WP:COMMONNAME isn't in line with WP:NPOV, but the former doesn't tend to cover much in the way of controversial article titles while the latter does. So the point I'm making is that anyone pointing to WP:COMMONNAME should realise that WP:NPOV comes into play as well. The former is a guideline, the latter is policy that's designated as non-negotiable at Foundation level. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 11:54, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The official policy which covers article titles at length is WP:NAME which clearly states: "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize". --Folantin (talk) 12:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but that can't result in a name that's at odds with WP:NPOV. NPOV is the one, non-negotiable policy across all of Wikipedia regardless of which language it's written in, entire Wikis have been shut down for failing to comply with NPOV. I'm not just using NPOV as a generic fallback with an argument of "that name isn't particularly neutral", article names are explicitly covered in the policy. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 12:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really get your point. Some editors have tried to change the Katyn massacre article to a title that was more soothing to their POV. Should we accommodate them even though the current version is quite clearly the common English name (and nobody suggested it was anything other than a massacre when the Nazis were believed to be responsible for it)?

Whatever the case, this guideline contradicts itself because one user added a dubious section last October. I strongly suggest we go back to the prior consensus version.--Folantin (talk) 13:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I've been saying it's not that addition that's the problem, it's what was there already that's the problem. A guideline can't be written that contradicts official non-negotiable policy. And the point I'm making is that NPOV is above every single other policy bar none, including WP:NAME. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 13:25, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't answer my question. --Folantin (talk) 14:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Got any diffs? From what I can tell on the talk page (and archive) of Katyn massacre there's been the occasional attempt to change the wording in the lead, but you get that with virtually any remotely contentious article. I certainly can't seen any attempts to move the page, or even request a move. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 14:23, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This argument has run its course, but apparently nobody changed the project page itself. I generally agree with Folantin that "massacre", although a loaded word, can be considered neutral if people generally use that word. For example, the Virginia Tech Massacre could just be called the Virginia Tech shooting if people felt that "Massacre" was a loaded word, but for obvious reasons it's more than acceptable to call it a massacre. Likewise with the incident at Tiananmen Square. In a parallel vein, "disaster" can be considered a loaded word compared to "accident", yet we have Tenerife disaster and not Tenerife accident. I think small variations in nuance are acceptable in article titles and do not violate NPOV, and in accordance with that, as I rewrite this guideline for other reasons as below, I will address this item also. Yechiel (Shalom) 12:29, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would argue that "massacre" is NOT neutral though it's Webster definition might make it sound so. AP Style would call for "shooting" and in the case of Mass Casualty Events from an active shooter, I would say it's more appropriate, accurate, and specific. More importantly, using WP:COMMONNAME will not protect Wikipedia from having to deal with multiples of time and place that could occur. What if another event occurred at some point in the future.... take Tiananmen Square, for example? Will it become "Tiananmen Square Massacre II" or something equally as silly? Everything starts reading and sounding like feature motion picture sequels if we use common names. This is an encyclopedia, not a movie studio. We're not doing this for Google hits. I think the only solution is to apply date, event and place. If there's a common name in the media and official accounts, then editors can openly discuss it, but the guidelines should default to date, event and place. Obviously this will create edit wars as some folks can't even agree on WP:NPOV. (Possum4all (talk) 06:39, 26 November 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Suggestions solicited

Aliza Shvarts was rightfully identified as a blatant WP:BLP1E violation and deleted for that reason. I am now trying to recreate the article to focus on the event rather than the individual, at User:Skomorokh/Aliza Shvarts. I have a pet hate of Wikipedia editors creating original titles for events, but that is what is called for so I am soliciting suggestions. The most notable thing about the event is that it is performance art allegedly involving actual self-induced abortions, so one leans towards Yale University abortion art controversy. However, I've noticed most of these titles are completely bland and do not mention the controversy, but rather use a bland generic combination of date and participants, which leads one to something like 2008 Yale Undergraduate Senior Art Show or Aliza Shvarts art controversy. Any guidance or thoughts appreciated, Skomorokh 12:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Standardize the naming conventions for accidents

The purpose of this page is to develop a naming convention for accidents and incidents consistent with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events) and the consensus of editors.

Articles about accidents and incidents, like all other articles, are named by whoever first writes the article. There is no established standard for how to format the article title. Here is an overview of the current situation:

Aviation accidents and incidents

Articles about aviation accidents and incidents follow a standard format.

In most cases, an aviation accident is named for the airline and flight number of the plane involved. Examples:
In rare cases, for example if more than one plane was involved, the incident is named for its location. Example:
- Tenerife disaster
In some cases, either the flight number or the location may be used.
- Pan Am Flight 103 is also the Lockerbie disaster.
- British Airways Flight 9 is also the Jakarta incident.

One unresolved issue is the use of years in the title of an article. Most article titles about accidents and incidents do not mention the year. However, there are these exceptions in Category:Mid-air collisions. Note also that they describe the event using different words:

"air disaster"
- 1960 New York air disaster
- 1948 Gatow air disaster
"mid-air collision"
"crash"
- 2007 Radom Air Show crash
Other
- 1997 Israeli helicopter disaster
- 2007 Phoenix news helicopter collision

This discrepancy in language is magnified manifold for railway accidents and incidents.

Railway accidents and incidents

Unlike airline flights, trains do not carry a flight number to identify the particular train that crashed. Instead, the most logical identifier is the place where the crash occurred. In most articles, this place appears as the first word in the title. However, in a minority of articles, as with air crashes, the year precedes the place name.

There is no uniformly agreed-upon term to describe what happens when a train ride goes badly wrong. Is it a "rail crash," a "railway disaster," a "train wreck", or any of a dozen other permutations? Should the name of Category:Railway accidents be used as the default option for article titles? Should the type of accident (collision, derailment, level crossing accident) be part of the title?

One thing is certain: in the current system, anarchy reigns supreme. If we can hope to present a reliable encyclopedia to readers, the first step is to standardize the titles of articles.

Here are some examples of current titles. The most common choices are "rail crash", "rail disaster", "train crash" and "train disaster".

General accidents and incidents

Generally, it seems the year should be part of the title only if other factors fail to identify the incident with sufficient clarity. The typological example is 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake because there have been earthquakes there in other years. However, in most cases, it would seem for the sake of consistency that the year should either always be in the title, or never be there. Consequently, the article I wrote as 2002 Pi Glilot bombing should be renamed simply to Pi Glilot bombing.

Discussion

I do not wish to prejudice the naming convention, but I feel the community needs to agree on some standards. The adoption of such standards will enable literally dozens of page moves to make article titles compliant with these conventions in order to reduce the sense of anarchy in these categories. Please comment below. Yechiel (Shalom) 02:45, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've received no comments yet. In another couple of days, if nothing happens, I'll just go ahead and make my own rules and do a bunch of renames. I've already edited the project page in accordance with my recommendations. Yechiel (Shalom) 21:51, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Should we not follow the naming chosen by the sources we cite? If the newspapers are calling it "The Northsouthern Train Disaster" isn't that what people will be searching on? I appreciate the sentiment of your suggestion, but I question whether Wikipedia is able to take the lead here. Livitup (talk) 11:59, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not an easy call. However on reflection I'm not overly happy with the use of "tragedy" or "disaster", because although these terms may appear in newspapers at the time, they may be rather emotional or judgemental for encyclopedic use (how many people must be injured before it is a "disaster"?), whereas "crash" is perhaps more factual. If the popular press terms are well known, perhaps a simple redirect would solve the issue. (Example: Pan Am Flight 103/Lockerbie disaster works exactly like this.) I do think there is some scope for Wikipedia to set a consistently factual tone here. Hope this helps. Disambiguator (talk) 02:04, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am not concerned with the question of whether to use loaded words like "Disaster" or the "Great Train Wreck": if the sources support such a name, that is fine. I'm only here to set "rail accident" as the DEFAULT name if there are no other sources to recommend a specific name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kivel (talk • contribs) 02:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Avoiding the presumtion of "accident" in event naming

Using the word "accident" in the title implies that the event was an unforeseeable unintended consequence. We may not know if a deliberate or negligent act was causal, and therefore should not presuppose, much less in effect conclude, that an event was in fact an accident on our own. I know that in informal usage, the word "accident" is often associated with, and even used interchangeably with, "tragedy" (as in "tragic accident"), but both are subjective judgments which should be avoided. We also should not follow popular press accounts which use less rigid standards, not the more precise type of writing suitable for an encyclopedia.

The default choice for an event name should be a truly neutral choice such as "train wreck", "air crash", "shipwreck", etc. We should also use a more precise title if the facts directly support it, such as "collision", "derailment", etc. We should only use the term "accident" if this is non-controversial and non-judgmental, such as when an independent board has investigated thoroughly and subsequently concluded the event as truly accidental (according to modern standards), and no other body such as a court has found a related party guilty or negligent.Dhaluza (talk) 20:12, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tornado section

I've just now copied the section on Tornado conventions here from Wikipedia:WikiProject Severe weather/Tornado. Please note that I'm not attempting to claim any actual authority on this, as this was a simple housekeeping task in my view (the location of this guidance should be centralized). Feel free to discuss the addition and edit as consensus dictates.
— $V = I * R$ (talk) 17:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

NOTICE. Request For Comment: Changes to Naming policies which may affect WikiProject naming conventions.

Following recent changes by some editors to the Wikipedia:Naming conventions policy page, a Request For Comment, (RFC) is now being held to debate the removal of the passage specifying that individual WikiProject and other naming conventions are able to make exceptions to the standard policy of using Common Names as the titles of Wikipedia articles.

This WikiProject is being notified since it operates such a specific naming convention. Editors are invited to comment on the proposed change at this location. Xandar 01:11, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above "notification" is a grossly biased misrepresentation of the changes under discussion. The old version of the naming conventions policy tried to lay down binding rules; we don't work that way, so it was necessary also to make explicit exceptions. The new version articulates principles, and allows for consensus to establish how they should be applied. Thus there is no longer any need for exceptions. In fact, making exceptions is nonsense, since there are no rules to make exceptions to. These changes are good for specific conventions. Xandar is trying to induce moral panic in those who stand to gain the most from this. Xandar is only opposed to the new version because he thinks the wording, not the general thrust, weakens his position in a dispute unrelated to this RfC. Don't be fooled. Hesperian 02:42, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No. Don't be fooled. The proposed wording change is shown at the RFC linked in my post above. The removal of the "exceptions" phrase is a very significant change. The policy never stated that it consisted of "rules" before, and it still doesn't. However it remains policy. Simply stating a personal view that titling a section "principles" changes the status of the policy page, is one not even accepted by many editors on Hesperians side. There is already an attempt to use the principle of no exceptions to the "use common name" policy to radically change the Naming conflict page, and one of the proposers of this change has indicated that the guidance on flora is also targetted. The change is in my view an attempt to impose a rigid, top-down policy on naming which ignores what wikipedia editors on the ground find most useful. Xandar 03:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Acts of Violence / Mass Casualty Events

I'd like to recommend an addition to the naming guidelines for Acts of Violence or Mass Casualty Events... like in the case of events at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech and Fort Hood.

There's no clear reasoning for using the phrase "massacre" in the cases of Columbine and Virginia Tech, yet these articles continue to be titled incorrectly according to the guidelines created here.

I suggest that future events like these follow the September 11 titling taxonomy. Words and phrases like "massacre" are sensational and should be avoided unless there's common agreement in the press, government accounts and institutional references to such verbiage.

Virginia Tech Massacre should become April 16, 2007 Shootings at Virginia Tech (or just 2007 Shootings at Virginia Tech)
Columbine High School Massacre should become April 20, 1999 Shootings at Columbine High School (1999 Shootings at Columbine High School)

These revisions are less sensational, more specific and less biased. They also help eliminate the unintended ambiguity that occurs when placing a proper noun in front of another noun.... which can imply responsibility for the event.

Similarly, clarifying the guidelines for these events also helps establish a clear way to aggregate the content for research and future use.

Lastly, setting a clear recommendation for these types of events will serve to protect the Wikipedia taxonomy/structure should additional "massacres" occur at the same place but at different times. Adding the date to the beginning of these events prevents them from turning into titles that resemble movie sequels.... Rocky I, Rocky II, Rocky III.. (Possum4all (talk) 06:13, 26 November 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Sorry just noticed the lengthy section above on this same topic. Is there a resolution? I'll remove this if there is. (Possum4all (talk) 06:25, 26 November 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Please see my response at Talk:Virginia Tech massacre#Titling seems inconsistent and biased when comparing articles about shootings. Arsonal (talk) 06:26, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Arsonal... I've posted a reply... I appreciate the perspective and input. (Possum4all (talk) 07:05, 26 November 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Possible problem

Would someone please look at Trent Pierce, apparently the victim of a bombing, and figure out what the article ought to be titled? Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:44, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Default format: Year place event

For quite some time now, Wikipedia's de facto standard for naming events has been <<year>> <<place>> <<event>>. Can we add a mention of this to the policy? Suggested wording below:

As a rule of thumb, the preferred order is "(year) place event", as in 2003 Bam earthquake or 2011 Libyan uprising.

Opinions? And I'm not saying this should be an ironclad rule and that we need to start renaming everything that doesn't conform, just a rule of thumb for creating new articles etc. Jpatokal (talk) 09:29, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"However, "massacre" probably shouldn't have been capitalized."

How come Nanking Massacre is capitalized then? Is it capitalized in the literature, and our guideline is saying that it should not have been in the literature?Curb Chain (talk) 09:48, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Year in the title

Hello All!
It is important to mention the year in the title of an article to reduce discrepancy and be more accurate in differentiating various events. But i noticed the general practice of naming the articles is like "2010 Salta earthquake", i.e. to state the year/month/date before the event. There would be exceptions like Singaporean general election, 2011 where the year is suffixed. But they are few.
A disadvantageous point, i feel, in prefixing is that we have to remember the year. If i want to read about the Mumbai terrorits attacks that happened in 2003, i have to already know the date because we have four articles 27 January 2003 Mumbai bombing, 13 March 2003 Mumbai train bombing, 28 July 2003 Mumbai bus bombing and 25 August 2003 Mumbai bombings of events that happened in 2003. Also as many years have past, i could be confused if it was actually 6 December 2002 Mumbai bus bombing that i wanted to read about. The dropping down suggestions while searching for these articles dont help as i dont know the exact date. (Similar thing happens if i want to hyperlink an article while editing.)
However if the date was suffixed, the dropdown would atleast give me options. The suffixing of the year is usually practiced for films as is in Devdas (2002 film), Devdas (1955 film), Devdas (1953 Telugu film), Devdas (1935 film), Devdas (1936 film), Devdas (2012 film) and Devdas (1937 film). Parenthesis, as used for films can be used here too to avoid the awkward comma as is placed in Singaporean general election, 2011. This surely affects tons of articles present and hence your comments are requested. I might also be missing some advantages in the current practice. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 15:11, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are disadvantages to all systems and no system seems right, but what you are saying about the dropdown does seem like a good idea. Why are articles not in this format already?

About the bombings, for example - no one will know the exact dates, but as you say people will search for "mumbai bombing" and not for "(some date) mumbai bombing". The old way to find what one wants is to go to Mumbai bombing and then get a list of all the bombings, but I see no reason why to not add dates to the end to skip that step. Thoughts from others? Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:57, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Knock! Knock!! -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 06:28, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! Such a dead forum. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 09:55, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What you are talking about is disambiguation. I don't think we want (or need) a consistent "system" of disambiguation that gets imposed on all articles. There are lots of different (and equally acceptable) ways to disambiguate and a "one size fits all" approach never works. While it often makes sense to have a consistent disambiguation format when it comes to related articles, we are quite flexible when it comes to deciding which disambiguation format to use. A particular disambiguation format will make sense for one group of articles ... but that format might not work as well when it comes to a different group of articles (where some other format might make more sense). Don't over-think thinks. Blueboar (talk) 15:45, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, thanks for responding! I understand that creating a formula for all articles is difficult. But here i am addressing only articles which have date/month/year in their name. But what is your suggestion? Should i take these case by case and propose their moves? If i do that i will get examples of all other existing articles which use day at the start. Hence thought of raising this question here; common for all titles with day/month/year. And ofcourse we dont want or need any new system. Current one works. But its just not user friendly. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 16:06, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, I can see the point of having consistent title formats within specific groups of articles (such as all the articles dealing with "Mumbai Bombings" or all articles about the various "Devdas" movies), but I don't see a need for every title with day/month/year to have a common format. I would start off by going to any relevant WikiProjects, and asking the editors who regularly work on these articles why they chose the format they did. Blueboar (talk) 22:05, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I will now take this up in respective projects. But i imagined they would ask me to come here and hence came to a bigger forum. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 14:00, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

RFC – WP title decision practice

Over the past several months there has been contentious debate over aspects of WP:Article Titles policy. That contentiousness has led to efforts to improve the overall effectiveness of the policy and associated processes. An RFC entitled: Wikipedia talk:Article titles/RFC-Article title decision practice has been initiated to assess the communities’ understanding of our title decision making policy. As a project that has created or influenced subject specific naming conventions, participants in this project are encouraged to review and participate in the RFC.--Mike Cline (talk) 16:43, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Airplane crash naming problem

Hello, there is an article ČSA Flight 511 describing a crash near Nürnberg on March 28, 1961. However, this flight crashed once more in that year, near Casablanca on July 12. What articles' names should be used? Miraceti (talk) 18:43, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to eliminate the word “disaster” from articles about man-made disasters

See List of accidents and disasters by death toll for data on which the below is based:

Note that the word “disaster” is already almost never used in articles about natural disasters, even if they are bona fide cases. Thus, Hurricane Katrina might be the most expensive US natural disasters, but the article is not called the “Hurricane Katrina disaster” and won’t ever be.

The reason for the proposal is that the use of the word “disaster” in titles of WP man-made disaster articles is already fairly rare, is capricious where it is used, and is subject to recentism and hysteria, as well as lack of logic in so far as fatality proportions. Thus, we presently have a situation where there is a Hindenburg disaster but only have merely the Sinking of the RMS Titanic. And we have two space shuttle disasters, but only the worst air disaster on record (at Tenerife airport disaster) gets the title disaster, while the next 30-worst air disasters, until we reach a crash in 1975 that killed 188 people, are not called disasters. This word is used in perhaps 8 of the 177 air disaster articles, all of which killed more people than any space shuttle problem.

The List of accidents and disasters by death toll has lists where not only magnitude of man-made disasters is given in order, but it’s done by category and article links are given. Some interest trends and reversals can be recovered for examining this to come out with some kind of look at how WP does things.

The first obvious trend is that there are no maritime disaster articles with the name disaster. Except one: 1947 Ramdas Ship Disaster in which 625 people died, the #19th worst. Slipped though the cracks. The worst shipping disasters have killed several thousands each, but don’t get the title. Again, we have no Titanic disaster.

Another obvious terminology habit is that railway disasters are “almost always” called disasters. Of the first 19 articles with good names, all but the second largest disaster on record is called a disaster. Possibly because that one is part of a natural disaster from a tsunami.

The rest of the categories, however, are a mixed bag. The worst industrial disaster (Bhopal disaster) is called a disaster at 3800 dead, but then the word isn’t used again until Texas City Disaster at #5 with 500 dead. We end up using the word last at #124, the Boston Molasses Disaster with 21 people dead. There’s no rhyme or reason here, and I don’t believe all this is a result of the WT:search engine test. And here is a case where we probably shouldn’t be using the Google Test anyway, as Google sums-over-history and this fights with recentism, and you end up getting new and old things called “disasters” and nothing in the middle, as with Bhopal and the silly molasses thing.

There is no sense in having killer stampedes listed that killed over 1000 people even in recent times, but not call a single one of these things a disaster till you get to #22 at the Hillsborough disaster that killed only 96.

Similarly, sports events are known for riots and bleacher collapses, with loss of several hundred people at a time, but our first sports fan disaster was #8, the Port Said Stadium riot, in which 79 people died, and is now #10 1971 Ibrox disaster in which 60 died. What about the the nine riots and incidents that were worse?

Structural failures have killed up to 500 people per incident in modern times, but our first disaster article is Cavalese cable car disaster at #36 with 42 people, and we go all the way to Cave Creek disaster that killed only 14 people.

Explosions: Our first named “disaster” is the Texas City Disaster, but it’s #18 on the disaster list, it and killed only 500, which is a quarter of the worst ones. Does it deserve the title? Formally? Remember, just because these are lists of disasters doesn’t mean they all need to be called disasters in the titles. And where do we stop once we start?

I could go on, but the discussion above was prompted by a spirited debate about whether or not the recent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown deserves the title of disaster, especially in light of the Chernobyl disaster. Is Fukushima Daiichi going to ultimately kill more people due to radiation than died at Bhopal from chemical inhalation? Unlikely. More than the Benxihu Colliery explosion (a WW II Chinese/Japanese joint occupation screwup) that killed 1500, trying to process coal for electrical power? Also unlikely.

PROPOSAL: So here is the proposal. Because all this is complicated and the number of articles with the word “disaster” is already low in all categories but rail accidents, I propose it be banned or deprecated entirely in WP:MoS. This will obviously effect rail articles more than anything, and if somebody wants to make a single historical exception for rail disasters (specifying the top #50 of all time, or something, or anything with loss of life over 100 persons), then I could live with that.

What say you? Votes and comments below. S B H arris 23:51, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]