Wikipedia talk:Article titles

Lemonade out of lemons

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

• User:Born2cycle/Status quo stonewalling.

Thanks, B2C

Proposal: clarifying PRECISION

The current situation

The Precision criterion is currently worded as follows:

• Precision – Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously.

Note that it links to the WP:PRECISION section which starts out with the following statement:

When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided.

Note that this clarifies what "unambiguously" means: to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name.

Note also that the first sentence of WP:D defines disambiguation in terms of usage within Wikipedia:

Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles.

Why is this a problem?

Now, anyone can follow this chain of statements to ascertain the intended meaning, but if you just look at the precision criterion in isolation, it could be misleading. In particular, one could interpret it to mean unambiguously with respect to all usage in English, not just within the context of WP titles.

What's the solution?

Because of the potential misunderstanding/misinterpretation of the current wording, I suggest that we tighten up the wording about precision to be consistent with the accepted definition of disambiguation within WP.

What's the specific proposal?

I propose the criterion be updated to say:

• Precision – Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously with respect to other Wikipedia titles.

And also the following clarification added at WP:PRECISION:

When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article title from other title uses of the topic name within Wikipedia, over-precision should be avoided.

Thoughts? Comments? Any objections? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:29, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Re WP:PRECISION, I suggest:

When additional precision in the title is necessary to distinguish anone article title from others uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided.

I don't think we're trying to distinguish titles but using titles to distinguish articles. Jojalozzo 21:31, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I suppose a parallel approach can be used for the Precision goal:

• Precision – Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identifyfor readers to distinguish the topic of the article unambiguouslyfrom that of others.

I think it is clearer if we include "readers". Jojalozzo 21:39, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

At first I was going to say good point, but after further thought, I don't think that's right. We use extra precision to distinguish the titles to avoid clashes due to the technical limitation of not being able to have two articles with the same title. We don't do it to distinguish titles for readers. Encyclopedias without this technical limitation use the same title for different articles. For example, Britannica Online uses Mercury for all of the articles about the following uses of that name.

• Planet http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/375807/Mercury
• Space project http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/375884/Mercury
• Roman god http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/375807/Mercury

They do include the chemical symbol in parenthesis for the element, but they do that for all articles about the elements, including those that don't need disambiguation:

• The element mercury (Hg): http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/375837/mercury-Hg/
• The element einsteinium (Es): http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/181416/einsteinium-Es/

So if it wasn't for the wiki technical limitation, I don't think we'd disambiguate our titles either. I don't think disambiguation in titles is done for readers at all. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:10, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Some history of the "Precision" provision

Historically, B2C's interpretation of what "precision" is about (the "intended meaning") is far off the mark of what precision has been about over the years. Back in 2002 it was terribly amateurish, but this shows where the idea came from:

Be precise when necessary

Please, do not write or put an article on a page with an ambiguously-named title as though that title had no other meanings! A reader may have found your article with a search, or accidentally, or in some other way that robs him of the context, so do him a favor and name your articles precisely. If a word or phrase is ambiguous, and your article concerns only one of the meanings of that word or phrase, you should probably--not in all cases, but in many--use something more precise than just that word or phrase. For example, use Apollo program, Nirvana (band), smoking pipe; rather than simply Apollo, Nirvana, Pipe. See disambiguation for more details on that.

By 2008 it was more concise, slightly mangled, but still the same concept (ambiguity as the opposite of precision):

Be precise when necessary

Convention: Please, do not write or put an article on a page with an ambiguously named title as though that title had no other meanings. If all possible words have multiple meanings, go with the rule of thumb of naming guidelines and use the more popular term.

In early 2009 when Kotniski didn't know what it meant, he changed it, still focusing on real ambiguity: "Avoid giving an article an ambiguous title (unless it is unlikely that the other meanings deserve their own article)." Then in April 2009 he changed it to

Be precise when necessary

Convention: Name an article as precisely as is necessary to indicate accurately its topical scope; avoid over-precision. If there are other articles with the same name, then the title should include a disambiguator in parentheses, unless the article concerns the primary topic for that name. If alternative common names exist for a topic, sometimes a less ambiguous option may be chosen in order to avoid the need for a disambiguator.

It was Pmanderson in June 2009 who added this about technical uniqueness:

Be precise when necessary

Convention: Name an article as precisely as is necessary to indicate accurately its topical scope; avoid over-precision.
All articles must, by the design of Wikipedia, have a unique name. If there are several articles with the same name, it may be that one concerns the primary topic for that name; if so, that one keeps the common name, and the others must be moved. The articles should be linked, to help readers get where they want to go, either to each other or to a disambiguation page, normally called topic or topic (disambiguation). If alternative common names exist for a topic, using them may be the simplest way to disambiguate; if not, add a disambiguator in parentheses. Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) and Wikipedia:Disambiguation.

When the "Deciding an article title" section got made in the turmoil of Sept. 2009, the locked version at the end of the month simply said:

Precise – Be precise, but only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously.

where that limitation "only as precise as necessary" derived as a toned-down version of Born2cycle's attempt to rewrite "precision" in the negative, to discourage precision instead of encourage it, as:

Precision. Good article titles are only as precise as necessary to indicate the name of the topic unambiguously.

Born2cycle further mangled it here to:

Precise – Article titles that do not simply reflect the name of the topic are more descriptive, but only as precise as necessary to identify the name or subject of the topic unambiguously.

Finally a fluff reduction by Rannpháirtí anaithnid made the ending version quoted above.

There was still also a separate section that said

Be precise when necessary

Further information: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) and Wikipedia:Disambiguation
Articles are named as precisely as is necessary to indicate their scope accurately, while avoiding over-precision. Readers should not have to read into the article to find which of several meanings of the title is the actual subject, but there is no virtue in excess. Wikipedia also has disambiguation pages to help readers find the meaning they want. When (as with Paris), the unmodified term has an overwhelmingly predominant meaning, we use the simple term for that article; see WP:PRIMARYUSAGE.
All articles must, by the design of Wikipedia, have a unique name. If there are several articles with the same name, it may be that one concerns the primary topic for that name; if so, that one keeps the common name, and the others must be disambiguated. It may be that using an alternative common name for a topic is the simplest way to disambiguate; if not, add a disambiguator in parentheses. The articles should be linked, to help readers get where they want to go, either to each other or to a disambiguation page, normally called topic or topic (disambiguation).

The next big change of meaning – Kotniski changed that latter section on Oct. 29 2009 to

Precision

Articles titles usually merely indicate the name of the topic. When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided. For example, it would be inappropriate to name an article "United States Apollo program (1961–1975)" or "Nirvana (Aberdeen, Washington rock band)". Remember that concise titles are generally preferred.

but then on Nov 9. Francis Schonken just pointed it off to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) instead, because he didn't like how Kotniski merged things (I don't totally follow).

going off in a new direction – on 17 Aug 2010, Kotniski replaced the "precision" bullet with this "disambiguation" bullet:

Disambiguation – For technical reasons, no two Wikipedia articles can have the same title.[1] Details on how titles are made unambiguous can be found in the Disambiguation guideline.

badly patched – in the subsequent flurry that ensued (and after a couple of typically ineffectual attempts by PBS to stop the policy thrashing, which was the same thrashing that planted the seeds of our recent month-long trouble), with help from Pmanderson they emerged merged, as

Precision – titles are expected to use names and terms that are precise, but only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously. For technical reasons, no two Wikipedia articles can have the same title,[1] so ambiguous titles are generally avoided; see further the Precision and disambiguation section below and in the disambiguation guideline.

sorry, I'm not copying all the links and stuff, but this merge is where it came to have two copies of the link to WP:AT#Precision and disambiguation, the "extra baggage" that I removed finally in 2012 the other day.

I don't think there's any point in the history where the concept of "precision" resembled what B2C now says it means (except for a brief transient in Sept. 2009 when he made it say that precision is to be minimized). Even if he's right that "I don't think disambiguation in titles is done for readers at all" (which I don't think he is), that's not an issue that belongs in "precision", just as it was not an issue that belongs in "recognizability". It is an issue peculiar to B2C, it seems, as I read the essay on his user page (User:Born2cycle#A goal: naming stability at Wikipedia). Dicklyon (talk) 07:13, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

I should note that until this change of a few days ago the wording of the precision criteria at least referred to these two other sections, making it easier for others to connect the dots and make misinterpretation less likely. I don't think returning the "extra baggage" would be an improvement, but what I propose addresses a problem created by this removal. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:13, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to this but it is a question I have: Why do we chose to use a word like Precision which is a science, engineering, and statistical concept (I looked that up on WP) to describe a characteristic (or desired outcome) of ambiguity, unambiguous, disambiguation etc. which are all terms about interpretation of language and have nothing what so ever to do with the statistical concept of precision. What is the advantage of that?--Mike Cline (talk) 22:02, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I suppose it may be related to such vernacular usages as "to be precise", "Yes, precisely!", or the pricelessly redundant, "That's precisely right". Dictionary.com's antonym for "ambiguity" is "explicitness, clarity". Jojalozzo 23:14, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, the point of WP:PRECISION is that we only care about it in a technical sense - that each title technically refers to precisely one article - and that that is inherently required by the software. This too was explained in the "baggage" Dicklyon removed[[1] a few days ago, which makes it less clear in this regard too. Another reason to make the changes I'm proposing... --Born2cycle (talk) 00:19, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The "baggage" was the duplicate link, plus the sentences that were accidentally merged from a "disambiguation" section back in 2010, which made it look like we only care about precision in a technical sense. See the history above. For the first 7 or so years of its life, "precision" suggested that "Articles are named as precisely as is necessary to indicate their scope accurately, while avoiding over-precision. Readers should not have to read into the article to find which of several meanings of the title is the actual subject." If you really want the other material, consider adding it back as a Disambiguation bullet like Kotniski did originally, but don't replace "precision" by it as he did; nobody liked that. The best way to fix the "precision" section is probably to make it about the reader's needs again. Dicklyon (talk) 07:15, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

'Precision' has more than just a statistical meaning. That wouldn't apply here anyway, because article titles are not statistics, and in any case that usage of 'precision' contrasts with 'accuracy'. (You can be extremely precise and completely inaccurate: the two are independent of each other. For example, if you shoot a gun at a target several times, and you land your shots in the same place, then you've achieved precision even if you completely missed the target. Likewise, if your shots clustered around the bulls-eye without being in the same place, then you were accurate but not precise.) The common usage of the term, however, is a near synonym with accuracy. As the OED says, 'precision' is "the fact, condition, or quality of being precise; exactness, definiteness, accuracy." Although most of their recent quotations reflect a mathematical use of the term, they have an earlier one (from 1824) which is germane:

Precision is the third requisite of perspicuity with respect to words and phrases. It signifies retrenching superfluities, and pruning the expression, so as to exhibit neither more nor less, than an exact copy of the person's idea who uses it.

Which seems to be basically what we want: enough to be clear, but no more than that. (The question being, enough to be clear in the context of the world, or in the context only of other WP articles.)

And 'precise':

• Definitely or strictly expressed; exactly defined; definite, exact; of a person, definite and exact in statement.

Let us then put into more precise terms the question which has arisen.

• Exact; neither more nor less than; perfect, complete: opposed to approximate.

A definition ‥ should be Precise, that is, contain nothing unessential, nothing superfluous.

• Distinguished with precision from all others; identified, pointed out, or stated, with precision or exactness; the precise, the particular, the identical, the very, the exact.

The Protestants ‥ insisted upon the council's copying the precise words of that instrument.

I don't know if this is precisely what was meant by precision, or if another of our terms (explicitness, etc.) would be better. — kwami (talk) 08:12, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” Wayne Gretsky

We should be focusing on what we want out of precision and disambiguation, not the history of where we been. What's the desired outcome, the future. The past is irrelevant. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:17, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree we should be looking forward. The history, however, is a rich source of ideas that we have been through, and is also useful to counter claims that a proposed change is simply a clarification of intent; it shows whose intent is being clarified. Personally, I think we have some articles with such ambiguous titles that more precision would help them a lot; something like what the older "precision" versions encouraged, as opposed to the "only as precise as necessary" where "necessary" seems to be interpreted in a minimalist way, "only as precise as necessary to prevent WP name collisions". We get that view asserted in RMs sometimes, but I find it just keeps ambiguities from being resolved. Dicklyon (talk) 17:55, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

An alternative proposal

The section WP:PRECISE indeed starts with a hard-to-interpret sentence, which today attracted an editor to insert "not" into it, which left it no better and no worse. I made a change to clarify, and these were both reverted, so I propose it for your consideration here:

Although additional precision is sometimes necessary to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name, or to reduce ambiguity, excess precision should be avoided. ...

This restores a tiny bit of the concept that precision is to prevent ambiguity, a concept that was edited out some time ago, as the history above shows. It doesn't specifically define "excess precision", which is OK I think, and certainly better than defining it such that the only tolerable precision is the minimum needed to avoid name collisions. Comments? Dicklyon (talk) 23:47, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I think that bold edits of policy and guidance should be reserved for typos, refinements and clarification but while this wording probably is a clarification, it is also a significant rewording that could have unforeseen and unwanted interpretations. Perhaps BOLD on policy pages is best limited to minor clarifications.

• "topic name" appears to be a way of referring to the title without saying "title" which raises the question as to what we are referring to.
• I continue to think that we use titles to distinguish topics (concepts/articles) from one another not titles (text/words/phrases) from one another. Perhaps "discriminate" gets at that better than "distinguish".

Although additional precision is sometimes necessary to discriminate among articles with similar titles, excess precision should be avoided. ...

Jojalozzo 03:02, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree, it's complicated. In many cases, we discuss topics, titles, and prospective titles. We can work it out if we get agreement in principle. Dicklyon (talk) 05:16, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry to belabor the point, but we might want to try and write this without using the word precision. All the difficulty is the result of trying to relate the word precision and precise to ambiguity. There are really only four words we need to use to craft this idea--ambiguity, ambiguous, unambiguous and disambiguation. Perhaps if we could agree on simple wording without the words--precise and precision, we might begin to agree on the understanding as well. --Mike Cline (talk) 10:21, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't care about the policy at all; I just stumbled across the page and saw that sentence that looked like it was written by a five-year-old. This is really not that hard to clean up, guys. This revert just looks stubborn--my edit didn't change the meaning of the description at all, just got rid of what you have all admitted was a horribly written sentence. If you prefer to have a policy page with writing that no one can understand, then go ahead, knock yourselves out. rʨanaɢ (talk) 12:48, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about the revert; we had just been admonished for editing before securing a consensus, so that seemed like the thing to do. If someone wants to revert my revert, I won't object. Dicklyon (talk) 02:03, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Mike, "precision" used to mean something when it said "Name an article as precisely as is necessary to indicate accurately its topical scope." If you replace it by "ambiguity" only, you're going to have an even harder time, I suspect, defending against the idea that the only ambiguity that matters is actual article namespace collisions. Or would you put it some other way that captures some of the original concept? Dicklyon (talk) 02:03, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Dicklyon, I think there is an unnecessary collison of words here that is confusing--Precision versus Ambiguity. To demonstrate why I think this is happening, I'd like you to answer two questions in reference to this hypothetical example.

Consider an article title for an American sportswriter named John L. Doe. Consider these alternatives and their relative situation within WP: John Doe-there are 25 John Doe articles including:, John L. Doe-of which there are 5 of the 25 including:, John L. Doe (writer)-of which there are three sportswriters, two British and one American: John L. Doe (sportwriter) and John L. Doe (American sportswriter). Now answer these two questions without reference to Primary Topic or without reference to any of the terms derived from ambiguity--ambiguous, unambiguous and disambiguation.

• #1 Are any of these alternative titles inaccurate or imprecise? If so, why are they imprecise in the WP context?
• #2 If we assume that John L. Doe (American sportwriter) is the correct title, describe why it is more precise than the other alternatives.

Please answer these questions, without refering to any of the terms related to ambiguity. You may address them within my post if you'd like. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

The exercise merely illustrates a fundamental difficulty with article titles -- namely, that the criteria or objectives cannot be meaningfully evaluated in isolation from the others. To play along, some of the titles are less precise than others because they do not adequately distinguish the specific article to which they might refer. older ≠ wiser 15:13, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Bkonrad - I think you know that I for one am not advocating that this or any other criteria be considered in isolation. Far from it, I think it ought to be mandatory that all the criteria are applied and considered on every article title decision. But that's not what this discussion is about. It's about the appropriateness of the term precision to the objective of this particular criteria. We all know what that objective is, we are just struggling with the words that convey that objective in a meaningful way to 136,000 editors. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:03, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Answer: it's not a well-formed question. There is no need for binary attributes like "imprecise" or "inaccurate". In order of increasing precision, we can consider: Doe, John Doe, John L. Doe, John L. Doe (writer), John L. Doe (sportwriter), and John L. Doe (American sportswriter). Which one we prefer will depend on how precise we think we need to be to clearly identify the topic of the article, relative to other articles, other known or suspected John Does, and in light of other title criteria etc. If it comes out that John L. Doe (American sportwriter) is the answer, then there's probably a reason we thought that John L. Doe (sportwriter) was not precise enough, likely having to do with those words you want me to not mention. In this case, it seems unlikely to me that we'd go there without a good reason, like another known John L. Doe (sportwriter), perhaps a well known one whose article is called something different even, so not necessarily an article name conflict. If there really are other notable John L. Doe (sportwriter)s, then certainly that would not be sufficiently precise to clearly identify the scope of the article. But I think you know all that, so I'm wondering what you wanted me to say, and whether you're looking for some opinion, or some words you can use, or something to trip me up on, or what??? Dicklyon (talk) 16:32, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Not a trick question and you did well with your answer. You did highlight the one element of this precision-ambiguity conflict that I think is important. Precision is a continuum where something can be more or less precise that another entity in the continuum. Ambiguity on the other hand is boolean. An entity is either ambiguous or unambiguous in the context in which it is being evaluated. Precision implies a tolerance-a variation from some baseline. whereas ambiguity implies understanding--something is understood (clear meaning) or its not (meaning is unclear) in the context being evaluated. Take these three phrases: A big gallon jar, a gallon jar, a big jar. The first two are unambiguous, although A big gallon jar is overly disambiguated. A big jar is ambiguous. They all might be precise descriptions of a jar being described within context. I really think ambiguity is what we are trying to deal with here, not precision. We can't tolerate namespace conflict, but we also don't want to create article titles that are ambiguous. Therefore we have created a disambiguation style and mechanism that allows us to evolve ambiguous article titles into unambigous titles but also do not favor unnecessary disambiguation. Now if we could convey that concept with some precision, we'd be rollin. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:12, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm unclear on why you're thinking of ambiguous as binary, or how these examples support that. Dicklyon (talk) 17:20, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Using this definition of ambiguity--a word or expression that can be understood in two or more possible ways : an ambiguous word or expression , all the alternatives in the John Doe example are ambiguous (multiple meanings) until the John Doe (American sportswriter) alternative is considered. It is unambiguous because in the context of WP articles on people named John Doe who are American sportwriters, there is only one on an American sportswriter so the meaning is clear and unambiguous. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:25, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Are there two different types of Precision?

If I understand Mike's point correctly, I think he has a point. Precision and disambiguation are related, but I think they are distinct concepts. I have always though that Precision applied more to creating descriptive titles than it does to disambiguating proper name titles. Or at least it applies to the two types of titles in different ways.

To illustrate: We have an article that is descriptively entitled Christianity and Freemasonry... I have long thought that this was a very imprecise title for that specific article, because it does not really describe what the article is about. A more precise title would be Opposition to Freemasonry by certain specific Christian denominations. (Note: I am sure that there is a more concise wording that would be an even better title for the topic than the one I suggest here... I am making a point, so go with it). Now... Compare how I am using the term Precision in my example to how the term is used in Mike's John L Doe example, and you see how we are not really talking about the same thing... In both cases there is a need for "Precision"... but there is a different type of Precision that is needed. I think it would be helpful if we separate the two types, and in doing so we should probably use two different synomyms for "Precision". Blueboar (talk) 16:41, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Certainly, though I would have put it as two types of ambiguity – ambiguity in the interpretation of article topic and scope from title, like your example, and ambiguity in the sense of different articles with similar topic names (like Race would be ambiguous as applicable to several different articles like Race (classification of humans) and Racing). The history of precision above makes it clear how the concept has moved around, sometimes with distinct precision and ambiguity provisions for the different aspects, and sometimes not. I definitely don't want to see the former eliminated in favor of the latter interpretation. They became greatly confused when Kotniski replaced precision by disambiguation, and then got mixed together when precision got restored badly. It's time to sort this out. Dicklyon (talk) 16:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I would say there is one type of Precision--Blueboar's example - see Accuracy and precision and one type of Ambiguity-my John Doe example. Trying to create one criteria with two separate meanings isn't smart when we expect 136,000 editors to understand it. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:19, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Whether the two examples are different forms of Ambiguity, or different forms of Precision... my point was that they are different. More importantly, in terms of applying policy they are dealt with in different ways. This needs to be pointed out in the Policy (at the moment it is not, and this is causing confusion). And to make the distinction clearer to readers, I would suggest that we use different terms when describing them and discussing them. Blueboar (talk) 17:27, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and to be more clear, I am in total agreement with that. Older versions of TITLE (before 2009) made that distinction better. Dicklyon (talk) 18:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

If Precision and Ambiguity are distinct criteria then ...

So here are the two criteria—ambiguity and precision separately defined along the lines of Blueboar’s observations above. Just for consideration of the concept. (dictionary definitions for support only, not part of the criteria statements)

Ambiguity*: [Wikipedia article] titles are unambiguous in the context of the Wikipedia article space. Our disambiguation guidelines and naming conventions favor minimum disambiguation to remove ambiguity when two or more articles titles may have a title with multiple the same meanings.

• Ambiguous: open to or having several possible meanings or interpretations; equivocal.
• Unambiguous: not ambiguous; clear

Precision*: [[Descriptive] Wikipedia] titles are as precise as necessary to indicate accurately the topical scope of the article. Over-precision should be avoided as conciseness is important.

• Precise: being exactly that and neither more nor less: a precise temperature; a precise amount.

--Mike Cline (talk) 18:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Please help me out. Reading these two goals (unambiguity and precision) it seems that a title that meets the precision goal automatically meets the ambiguity goal since the appropriately precise title accurately (unambiguously?) indicates the scope of the article and since we do not have two articles with the same scope, there will be no ambiguity. Maybe an example would help me see the need for the unambiguity goal. Jojalozzo 19:38, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll have some more thoughts later but you say: a title that meets the precision goal automatically meets the ambiguity goal since the appropriately precise title accurately (unambiguously?) indicates the scope of the article and since we do not have two articles with the same scope, there will be no ambiguity. But can you equally say the opposite, ie. a title that meets the ambiguity goal automatically meets the precision goal since the appropriately unambiguous title accurately (precisely?) indicates the scope of the article and since we do not have two articles with the same scope, the title will be precise? If we can say that then we have but one criteria. If not, we have two and need to distinguish between them. Since Accuracy has nothing to do with Ambiguity both these statements interpreted similarly are problematic. --Mike Cline (talk) 00:09, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

If Precision subsumes Ambiguity but not the other way around then we don't need the Ambiguity goal as long as we meet the Precision goal. Should we be considering situations where we will use titles that meet the Ambiguity goal but not the Precision goal? Jojalozzo 02:37, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The "ambiguity" item proposed here is a bit off where it says "when two or more article titles may have the same meaning". I suppose it means "when two or more articles could take the same title" or something like that? Anyway, it is not possible to not satisfy this criterion, right? So no matter what other criteria are satisfied or violated, this one will be satisfied, for technical reasons.

The "precision" item, on the other hand, is about specifying the article scope clearly (or accurately, or precisely, if you prefer). That's what precision was traditionally about, but it has been whittled away at, with the addtion of "avoid over-precision" in early 2009, to "only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously" later in 2009, to "merely indicate the name of the topic", and back; and now the proposal "only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously with respect to other Wikipedia titles" that explicitly wipes out precision as a consideration, because there's only title "ambiguity" to consider. I prefer to go back to where it means something, like the just proposed "as precise as necessary to indicate accurately the topical scope of the article", for descriptive titles or otherwise; sometimes names are particularly ambiguous, as names of things (esp. creative works) are typically made from words with other meanings. Dicklyon (talk) 05:31, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with anything that's been said, but a few thoughts...the technical requirement that titles be unique does not eliminate ambiguity. I may likely be misusing these terms in some specialist sense, but I think it may help: it is a technical requirement that titles be lexically unambiguous (i.e., consist of a unique sequence of characters), but it does not eliminate semantic ambiguity. To use an example for WP:AT -- are the titles Red Meat and red meat ambiguous? How about those titles where the only difference is a pluralized word or where there is a definite article thrown in? I think the notion of precision helps in addressing semantic ambiguity. older ≠ wiser 13:40, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

re: "a title that meets the precision goal automatically meets the ambiguity goal"... not necessarily. Consider two articles on different people named John Louis Doe... in both cases the title "John Louis Doe" would be a precise title. However since there is more than one article that could take this precise title, at least one of them (and possibly both) needs to be disambiguated. Now, we have choices for how to disambiguate... one valid option is add descriptive parentheticals to both titles, to make them even more precise: John Louis Doe (politician) vs. John Louis Doe (actor). However, another equally valid disambiguation option is to be slightly less precise with one title: John Louis Doe vs John L. Doe. This is OK because John L. Doe can be cosidered a precise title (while it isn't quite as precise as the fuller "John Louis Doe", it isn't imprecise). Blueboar (talk) 15:34, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

As I understand the concept of ambiguity and how normal people process words, I would say the Red Meat and Red meat were ambiguous as there is one set of words that have two meanings. Now because of type casing, they do not cause a namespace collision in WP. Until a reader goes to either of the articles, the reader does not know which meaning each title represents, thus they are ambiguous. On the other hand, Red Meat is precise for the article it entitles, as is Red meat. That precision can be verified by reading the article. In that regard, I think the precision aspect of a title is directly tied to the content of the article and is only of concern to the reader if the title of the article doesn't match up with the content. That is Blueboar's idea of precision. When evaluating the ambiguity of a title, one not need see the all the individual articles that the term might apply to. If the reader doesn't know what red meat means (all the meanings) it is ambiguous to the reader within the context of WP. Disambiguation resolves ambiguity, style doesn't. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:34, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Unambiguity

I think I am beginning to understand what Mike has been telling us. Precision in itself is an abstract concept and therefore meaningless in practice until we apply it to the measurement of a property, such as Unambiguity. As Blueboar suggests, we can also apply precision to Descriptiveness (which is very similar to, if not basically the same as, Recognizability). I think that the Precision goal is guidance for the process of applying Unambiguity to titles that are assumed to be already Recognizable and Natural - it explains how to (precisely) Disambiguate: by improving Natural, Concise, Consistent Descriptiveness without over-describing. Here's a draft that does not mention precision per se:

Wikipedia article titles have the following characteristics:

• Recognizable – Titles are names or descriptions of the topic that are recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic.
• Natural – Titles are those that readers are likely to look for or search with as well as those that editors naturally use to link from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English.
• Precision – Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously.
• Concise – Titles are concise, and not overly long.
• Consistent – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles. Many of these patterns are documented in the naming guidelines listed in the Specific-topic naming conventions box above, and ideally indicate titles that are in accordance with the principles behind the above questions.
• Unambiguous – Titles distinguish the topics of articles with similar titles by adding description (natural recognizability) with minimal effects on conciseness and consistency.

I put Unambiguous last because it is subservient to the other characteristics. Jojalozzo 05:24, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

That's pretty much what Kotniski tried on 17 Aug 2010. It was opposed. I would oppose it again. Precision is still a useful goal. Dicklyon (talk) 05:33, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree... I think we want precision and unambiguity. While they are related concepts... they are also distinct concepts. I the way forward is to discuss both... separately. Blueboar (talk) 15:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I concur with Blueboar here, we need both Precision and Ambiguity criteria as they are two distinct ideas. Although precision or ambiguity could cover both, the single criteria would then be ambiguous as it would have two meanings. I remind us to remember we are crafting policy that 136,000 editors must understand and apply and invoke the words of Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:22, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

My position is that if a title is recognizable and unambiguous then it meets our precision goal. If it is recognizable but ambiguous then we add more description to disambiguate but not with a goal of more precision - that's a side effect of unambiguity. Therefore the goal of precision is always met by meeting the goal of unambiguous recognizability. Adding the precision goal just confuses everyone because they think they need to pay attention to something that is not there, separate from unambiguous recognizability. If I'm wrong I will probably understand best if you explain with an example. Jojalozzo 22:01, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I have to disagree... a few sections above, I gave an example of an article title that I thought was imprecise: Christianity and Freemasonry. I don't think the problem with this title is that it is unrecognizable or ambiguous. The flaw is that it is not precise. I think a more precise title would be something like: Opposition to Freemasonry by certain specific Christian denominations. Blueboar (talk) 18:54, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that's a good example. I wouldn't necessarily support a move, since the more precise title is so much less concise, but it's a good example of what precision means and the fact that it should be considered as one dimension in a tradeoff space. Dicklyon (talk) 19:24, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

(Oh, I agree my "more precise" title has a problem with conciseness. I wouldn't suggest it at an actual RM. I ignored consistency to make the point.) Blueboar (talk) 19:42, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I also agree it's a good example because it illustrates Joja's point - precision beyond making the title recognizable and unambiguous is not something we try to do in practice. That's why we have Christianity and Freemasonry and not Opposition to Freemasonry by certain specific Christian denominations. This is also why precision has been defined for a long time in such strong limiting terms (only as precise as necessary to disambiguate from other uses). I'm okay with replacing precision with unambiguous. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:40, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm... I am tempted to actually start an RM discussion on that article. I am sure that someone could come up with a title that is better than both the current flawed title and my "suggestion" - but it would be interesting to to see how they arrive at that "better title"... how the broader community interprets the various policy points we have been discussing. Blueboar (talk) 19:58, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

B2C, is there any evidence in the history to support your statement of the reason for why we have such strong "limiting" wording? It seems like it was something that you pushed for, like when you changed ambiguity from being about topics to being about names here, but that got reverted. It seems that it kind of crept in; is there any record of why? The only thing you said on the talk page around then was "The problem is that these principles have no application to how most articles were named." Dicklyon (talk) 07:44, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

According to your presentation of that example ("it does not really describe what the article is about"), it fails recognizability. It illustrates my position quite well. Once we have made it recognizable, precision is satisfied. Jojalozzo 21:54, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

All article topics fall into one of two categories: those with commonly used names and those without. For those without, like this one, we have to come up with a title which is contrived. These are descriptive titles and the way our naming criteria applies to such articles is a bit different. For example, if this topic did have a commonly used name then this discussion would be moot, because recognizability would be met just by using the name, regardless of how literally vague it might be. But since this is a no-name topic, there is more room for adjustment and discussion.

I wonder if we shouldn't have separate criteria for topics with and without names. The criteria might be similar or even the same, but how we prioritize it is different, and maybe we should describe it differently. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah... once again we come to our underlying disagreement over the role that the "goals" play in this policy... you see them as being "criteria" - to be prioritized. I don't. I see them as the "broad principles" that underlie the policy - intentionally stated with no set prioritization (because which principle takes priority will be different from one article to the next). One of the differences between principles and criteria is that principles can overlap. However, they don't overlap completely... and because they don't overlap completely, each needs to be laid out and explained separately so editors will understand their nuances and how they should be applied. Blueboar (talk) 03:04, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Blueboar, although the criteria themselves may not need (or even should be) prioritized, I think we should be cautious about saying every title decision is random (my word) – your phrase: because which principle takes priority will be different from one article to the next. I fervently believe that if we are to have a functional titling policy that will guide us as we move from ~3.8M articles to ~-5-10M articles, there indeed must be some prioritization of policy application. The four elements we must apply are: sourcing, common name, ambiguity and style. I think sourcing takes priority over the other three. Common name is the next driver. Where we currently have conflict are with the relationships between common name and style and ambiguity and style. This is where we have to focus our attention. The current set of criteria as drafted work fine with these elements, but it is the relationship between the elements that needs focus. FYI, I think Opposition within Christianity to Freemasonry would be a nice alternative title. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:34, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

You are conflating terms and concepts that I think are better left distinct ... I am talking about not prioritizing between the five broad Principles (Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness, and Consistency - and I would add Unambiguity as a sixth broad principle). Which of these might take precedence over the others is determined on a case by case basis. Of course, ideally none of them take precedence over the others ... the ideal is to achieve them all at the same time. But when we do have to choose one over the others, the community is very inconsistent as to which. The reason for this inconsistency is that titles are chosen based on the context of a specific article topic. And every topic is unique and has unique issues that will affect consensus over the best title.

The other "elements" you discuss (Sourcing, Common Name, and Style) are a different kettle of fish entirely. These should be discussed at a secondary level ... as the methods by which we achieve the goals laid out in the broad principles. Sourcing/CommonName (which I think are really the same thing) and Style are how we determine which titles are Recognizable, Natural, Precise, Concise, Consistent and Unambiguous. Methods... not Goals. I would agree that when Sourcing/CommonName conflict with Style, we should follow the sources (the English Language is routinely inconsistent when it comes to style... so it is likely that the sources are actually following an "acceptable" style... even if Wikipedia's MOS prefers a different style choice).

As for your suggestion of Opposition within Christianity to Freemasonry... nice alternative. I will consider it if I ever get around to actually filing an RM. Blueboar (talk) 17:19, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

@Mike and Blueboar, You include Precise without explaining why we need it. From what I can tell it seems that you are applying Precise to correct a title that fails either Recognizable or Unambiguous. Other than that there is no standalone Precise goal. Please give me an example where all other goals are met but the result does not satisfy Precise. I think we should keep precision as a goal if we need it but as far as I can see it just specifies (in a backhanded way) how to achieve the Unambiguous goal by making the title more recognizable (and potentially less concise and consistent); it's not a goal in itself. Jojalozzo 02:20, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I do not agree with lowest priority of unambiguity. Just coming from a discussion about the correct title for trivial objects in algebra. The resulting title, "Zero object (algebra)", is less recognizable that any of its inbound redirects, not highly consistent (in the sense mentioned above), and absolutely unnatural. But it is unambiguous and devoid of all misleading connotations, unlike proposals of the previous generation. Though this case was exceptionally complicated. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:04, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I am guessing that the more natural, recognizable, concise and consistent options were proposed first. Only after those failed the unambiguous goal (and another article won Primary topic) did you choose the suboptimal wording. If so, that is why I propose putting Unambiguity last (in order of application, not priority) since it usually requires the most significant compromise to the other goals. Jojalozzo 02:20, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Balancing criteria that are expressed as continua rather than binaries

I think this is such a difficult issue to solve because many items in the texts being proposed are hard to pin down in yes–no terms. Among these items are "familiar", "precise", and "necessary". They beg questions such as how familiar, how precise, and necessary in what respect? While WP can get away with binaries in many of its policies and guidelines, wp:title doesn't seem to be one of them. This is why the nitty-gritty lies in providing editors who consult this policy with examples. I know this is something of a mantra of mine, but doesn't anyone agree?

Scoping most titles is uncontroversial, but a small proportion will always require case-by-case decisions or delicate judgements by individual editors/admins. When either is indicated, the criteria, to me, are best regarded as continua to balance against each other, rather than binaries, weighed against each other. In other words, the difficult, borderline, or controversial cases might benefit from considering a number of scaled criteria.

This has been part of the anti-canvassing policy for years, and seems to work well there. I've reproduced the table at canvassing below, and underneath it, a table I derived from it when discussing with Moonriddengirl last year the tangled set of criteria at play when deciding whether text is plagiarised. (We haven't yet taken this forward for broader community comment.) I suppose I'm fishing to see whether anyone here thinks this model might be useful for article title decision-making—adapted, of course, for the purpose.

Table at the top of the canvassing policy page

	Scale		Message		Audience		Transparency
Appropriate	Limited posting	AND	Neutral	AND	Nonpartisan	AND	Open
	↕		↕		↕		↕
Inappropriate	Mass posting	OR	Biased	OR	Partisan	OR	Secret

Derivative table for judging possible plagiarism

	Length of wording in question	Closeness to the original	Distinctiveness of original wording or meaning	Attribution
Less of an issue	Short	Your own wording1	Not distinctive	Fully attributed
	↕	↕	↕	↕
More of an issue	Long	Exact wording duplicated	Distinctive	Not directly attributed

¹Excluding "non-creative" text.

Your comments would be welcome. Tony (talk) 11:47, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Tony, I think you're conceptually on to what I've been trying to convey for a while now. Our title decision policy, which in turn drives title decision process is indeed a continum--a holistic balance of the application of various criteria, which in isolation are not functional. In my view there are four elements of that continum that drive title decision making-sources, type of name, ambiguity and style. The source element is not a difficult element and neither if type of name (although determining a Commonname in any given context can be challenging). Ambiguity and style are the most problematic and can be difficult to balance. But they are, and should be part of every title decision. All four elements contribute to the ultimate title decision, not one to the exclusion of others. More later, but I think you are conceptually on track. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:03, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I like the idea, too. The idea that things like conciseness and precision and recognizability, etc., get considered in a tradeoff space, where they may push in opposite directions, would be well illustrated this way. Dicklyon (talk) 23:51, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

We should also keep in mind the nutshell, which has been stable since 10 Sept 2009, and support it in this tradeoff space:

and derives from the original 2006 nutshell which also has some good points:

– Dicklyon (talk) 06:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

By the way, Kotniski made a relevant comment here in his edit summary: these aren't yes/no criteria you can *satisfy*, they are parameters by which you can compare different titles. Dicklyon (talk) 05:41, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

To be precise...

I just reverted the precision section as amended by Rjanag and Dicklyon to the version of earlier today (see diff here). We'd been doing a good job of not changing substance without consensus (for a couple of weeks, at least). Let's keep the streak going. Dick's additions make explicit the position that reducing potential title ambiguity, even where there is not an existing WP article of the same title, is a goal. This is a change from existing explicit guidance. Let's find out if there's consensus for that (and if I've misrepresented your position, Dick, feel free to restate it). Discuss.... Dohn joe (talk) 23:51, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I started that discussion just before you, at #An alternative proposal above. Dicklyon (talk) 23:53, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, how about that. :) Thanks for anticipating me, Dick. Dohn joe (talk) 23:55, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

bilateral relations

Currently our convention for bilataral relations in "[country 1]endash[country 2] relations", where 1 and 2 are in noun form and in alphabetical order. This is unsatisfactory for several reasons, not least because it contravenes COMMONNAME. If you look up the results in GBooks, you'll find that sometimes the only sources which use these phrases are republications of WP articles. Normally, English uses adjectival forms, although there are exceptions, where the adj. form is not common. And while alphabetical order is an easy way to avoid arguments, it often conflicts with the normal tendency to put the longer name last. Also, in some cases we use almost-full names of countries, but not the actual full names. For the US, for example, we use "United States" rather than "US" or "United States of America". This produces some really awkward titles: Bosnia and Herzegovina–United States relations, for example, or Saudi Arabia–United States relations, or Saint Vincent and the Grenadines–United States relations, when normal English is US–Bosnian, US–Saudi, and US – St Vincent relations. This format has evidently been too much in some cases; rather than People's Republic of China–United States relations, for example, the article is currently at Sino-American relations. In other cases we use the format "Relations between [country 1] and [country 2]", and even when we use the "X–Y relations" format for the title, we often switch to one of the other formats for the lead, because otherwise it would just be too awkward.

Although I wouldn't advocate following it blindly, a generally good example of usage is the US Dept. of State site here: click on the country, then click on the "Background Notes" link near the top (not every country has one), then scroll down to "U.S. Relations", and they have titles like "U.S.-BOSNIAN RELATIONS". (They don't use our punctuation conventions, but that's a minor point.) I give the US govt site, because the articles dealing with the US are probably the largest fraction of awkward names. Or just search GBooks.

At least "Relations between Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and the United States" would be natural English, even if a bit formal. (You might argue that the two "and"s makes that ambiguous, but that is equivalent to the argument for spacing around the en dash, and those have all been removed from the article titles.) And while my examples all involved the US, the problem is not restricted to it: Germany–Japan relations, for example, rather than German–Japanese relations. (I moved that one, but it might get moved back.) The latter phrase has 400 non-WP hits on GBooks, the former has 1 (or 3, if you count listings in an index). Is this s.t. we should address? — kwami (talk) 04:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. I've mentioned this to kwami but thought I should just briefly restate it for all. My main hesitancy with changing the current naming format for these is mainly because these names have been extremely contentious over the years. I believe it took about 6 years of on-and-off debates—some quite heated—to arrive at the compromise format that is now used consistently across nearly all bilateral relations articles. (The article Sino-American relations is actually being discussed for a rename to the format currently, and looks like it might be going to China–United States relations.) The two-part compromise was (1) We will use the name of country as it appears in the WP article name for the country; and (2) the countries will be separated by an endash and will appear in alphabetical order. To re-open this might be very messy and may stoke some old grievances, is all I'm saying. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 08:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I sympathize, and if the result had been normal English, such as relations between A and B, I wouldn't care, but these names are almost ungrammatical in many cases. We have a format that's being blindly applied even when it's inappropriate. — kwami (talk) 09:25, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if "ungrammatical" is the word you are looking for, but I think I get your meaning. If anything is changed, I would like to see these go through the regular WP:RM process, since the previous names were arrived at through many years' discussion and they shouldn't be changed without going through some sort of formal process. I do feel it's a shame to have to re-open an issue that was problematic for so long and managed to finally wind down into an unperfect but decent compromise. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 20:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Could you point me at where such a compromise was made? The last discussion I knew about on this issue was this RfC were there was clearly no consensus on what name form to use. I accept that many editors in this field would like to be, and think there is, a consensus for noun form but the one discussion involving the wider community that I'm aware of (the RfC) clearly showed there isn't. Has there been discussion since that RfC that I am unaware of? The text at Wikipedia:WikiProject International relations#Bilateral relations still represents the results of the RfC. Dpmuk (talk) 23:20, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

AFAIK, there wasn't a central discussion at a wikiproject or guideline talk page that can be pointed to as the governing discussion. The development of the compromise was gradual and quite ad hoc. There were a series of mass article move nominations in the past two years where discussions were of this nature. I also remember seeing a particularly lengthy discussion on a user's talk page. I wasn't really heavily involved in any of the discussions so I don't have them bookmarked and I haven't intensely looked around to find them. I'm just speaking off some recollections that have spanned the past 3 years or so. But I think it would be great if we could have a discussion about it somewhere that is more central, more structured, and more publicized. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

• Broadly speaking, I agree with kwami's point. Some of the current titles are very unnatural. I think we should pay more attention to readers' expectations, rather than consistency with an old compromise between editors. If it turns out that a more readable title provokes talkpage drama then we can always move it back in those specific cases; but we have to try, at least. bobrayner (talk) 10:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Naturalness is one of our key criteria... titles should not be unnatural. Compromising subjective opinions is one thing; compromising principles is quite another. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I would recommend Xese–Yese relations (or Xian–Yian relations) when those are natural, and Relations between X and Y when they are not. Phrases like Sino-American relations I also find acceptable, though I understand wanting a degree of consistency, so that's a case we'd want to discuss explicitly: Sino-American, Chinese–American, or US–Chinese ? Checking every one in GBooks for frequency could be a nightmare (esp. as some are so infrequent as to make a search statistically meaningless), so agreeing on a default pattern is IMO a good idea.

Phrasal country names need specific instruction, and are often idiosyncratic. It looks like the two Chinas are now agreed to be China and Taiwan in such cases, so that seems to be settled. The US and UK should be addressed: US and UK, or British and American ? (Or one of each?) EU or European Union or European? Saudi or Saudi Arabian? The two Koreas? Can we sum this up as "use a one-word name where possible" (maybe with specific exceptions)?

There is a natural tendency to put the shorter name first. Lengths being approx. equal, I suspect there may be a tendency to put an anglophone country first; here we have a possible conflict between 'world view' and 'common name'. Except when using affixed forms: then the anglophone country tends to be second, as in Sino-American. — kwami (talk) 22:34, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Alan Liefting

I suggest that anyone interested in the titling of articles should take a look at User talk:Alan Liefting. Liefting has recently taken it upon himself to make a large series of page moves peremptorily without warning or discussion, based solely on his own interpretation of "redundancy". Several editors have reverted his moves, which he has promptly re-reverted.

It appears that he is now undertaking a similar "clean-up" of categories. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:53, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

There is additional discussion at Talk:Glossary of music#Move from "Glossary of music terminology" to "Glossary of music" that may be of interest. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:02, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

One again, you are inaccurate in your statements and a check of edit histories will show that. I reverted two page moves done by one editor who had reverted my page moves. I only did the reversion because I felt that the outcome of the discussion favoured my opinion. After the other editor reverted by revert (are you following here still...) I left things alone. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 03:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I apologize for having misunderstood the situation. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:00, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Romanized Sanskrit Vs. IAST

At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Yoga#Article Titles Of Asanas, I've noted the our articles on asanas have a few naming schemes which are not the same across the board. Could I get some feedback/comment/advice/help to the best convention of titling for our asanas?

List of asanas and Category:AsanaCategory:Asanas lists our asanas. I am not sure if there may bet other asana articles not listed on these pages.Curb Chain (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

A test case for WP:COMMONNAME?

See Talk:Republic_of_China#Requested_Move_.28February_2012.29, a proposal to move Republic of China to Taiwan. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:03, 4 March 2012 (UTC)