Talk:Notre-Dame de Paris

Renamed several sections

I just renamed several of this article's sections:

• 'Iconography–the "poor people's book"' is now 'Iconography'
• 'Stained glass – rose windows' is now 'Stained glass'

There are several reasons why I made these changes:

• All of the content in "Stained glass" is about stained glass, but only some of it is about rose windows. To me, "Stained glass – rose windows" reads as "Stained glass, that is to say, rose windows", implying that, in the context of Notre-Dame de Paris, all stained glass is rose windows. This is not accurate.
• It deviates from what seems to be the convention elsewhere on Wikipedia - while it's possible they exist elsewhere, I cannot remember ever coming across a section in another article with multi-part section headings like these.
• It looks messy. Whoever set up these section headers didn't even format them the same—notice the extra spaces around the dash in "Stained glass – rose windows".
• The new section headings are simpler and more concise, and still accurately describe the content of the sections they label

Jacobdgm (talk) 18:17, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't know whether to like your changes (I'm not an expert on Notre Dame) but I do know that I don't like your reasons (they sound like you are not an expert either) You should find sources you could cite instead of relying on your own preferences. As an example, Rose window is an entire article about specific stained glass windows found in cathedrals; perhaps that's more important than "stained glass windows". 98.7.199.103 (talk) 17:35, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't profess to be an expert on Notre Dame - I just want Wikipedia's articles to be clear and easy to find their way around.

It's not clear to me how one would include a citation for a section header, or even what information one would expect to find in such a cited source. My understanding is that section headers are not meant to highlight relative "importance", but rather to aid in navigation by accurately describing the (ideally well-referenced) content contained within internal divisions of articles.

I don't believe my edits were based on personal preference, but rather on my understanding of the English language and of conventions in punctuation/capitalization/etc.

If you disagree with this or any other edit, please outline your reasons for not liking the edit. On Wikipedia, "you don't seem like an expert" is not a valid reason for disputing an edit: experts and non-experts alike need to follow Wikipedia's Content Policies, follow the Manual of Style, etc.

While with a brief search, I can't find all that much specific guidance about the content of section headers—perhaps a more experienced Wikipedian could help us here—here are some sections from the Wikipedia:Manual of Style that appear to me to be relevant here:

• "Editors should write articles using straightforward, succinct, and easily understood language." - I believe this extends to titles, and I believe these updated titles are more straightforward, succinct, and easily understood.
• "Section headings should generally follow the guidance for article titles" -> "A title should be a recognizable name or description of the topic, balancing the criteria of being natural, sufficiently precise, concise, and consistent with those of related articles." I believe my updated section headings match all four criteria mentioned, being more natural, precise (in that they accurately describe the content within the sections), concise, and more consistent with those of other articles (and within those of the same article, for that matter).
• And Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Headings begins, "Headings should be descriptive." I read this as, "headings should accurately describe the content contained within the section they head".

Jacobdgm (talk) 12:19, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Contradictory completion dates

The lede says "the construction of the cathedral began in 1163 under Bishop Maurice de Sully and was largely completed by 1260". However, the infobox says it was completed in 1345 and the article is part of Category:Buildings and structures completed in 1345. Neither date appears elsewhere in the article. So which date is correct? Thunderforge (talk) 21:00, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Probably both of them. Large medieval buildings are like that. Johnbod (talk) 22:18, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Translation

Hello, fellow Wikipedians. In short, I believe that the translation of Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris should be Our Lady Cathedral of Paris. This is because Notre-Dame acts as a compound adjective in the attributive which would be prefixed in English. Furthermore, to reinforce this interpretation, Notre-Dame's official website in English calls itself "Notre-Dame Cathedral of Paris" which clearly shows that Notre-Dame is to be interpreted as a compound adjective attributed to the noun Cathedral. Thank you. Arcchie (talk) 14:35, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Do you have even one singular reliable English-language source which uses that translation? Because I could argue about why I don't think it's a good idiomatic translation, but ultimately, we follow reliable sources first and foremost. (For what it's worth, the French equivalent of our article St Paul's Cathedral is called 'Cathédrale Saint-Paul de Londres', but I don't think anyone would argue that we should call the English one 'St Paul Cathedral of London'.) GenevieveDEon (talk) 14:50, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Ridiculous suggestion. The point is that it is dedicated to "Notre-Dame de Paris", a particular cultic form. It would be "Our Lady of Paris Cathedral", but we should not use that. French official website translations of English are almost always wrong & should be ignored. Johnbod (talk) 16:10, 25 June 2026 (UTC)