Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 28

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Is "using the scientific name benefits the article" a sufficient reason to use the scientific name?

According to explicit conventions: "specialized names should not be adopted unless it produces clear benefits outweighing the use of common names". Some people have taken this to mean that if they say "using the specialized name benefits the article" that is all the reason they need to use it. Should something along the lines of "other than that the use of a specialized name itself benefits the arcticle" be added to clarify, or perhaps some examples of good reasons to use the specialized name over the common name? --WikiDonn (talk) 05:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The policy is clear "Article titles should be neither vulgar nor pedantic. Common usage in reliable sources is preferred to technically correct but rarer forms, whether the official name, the scientific name, the birth name, the original name or the trademarked name."

For many things, such as most beetles, there are only scientific names and in some areas the most common name in reliable sources will be the scientific name particularly if consideration of ambiguity is also factored in. -- PBS (talk) 07:23, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

O.K., but my question is that is the above statement enough justification that the scientific name should be used over the common name? If it isn't we should add in there that it isn't because some people just aren't getting it. --WikiDonn (talk) 15:22, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

There are some people who will just insist on using the scientific name whatever the situation. This is more common with plants than with animals, but the situation is regrettable either way.

Unfortunately, in a consensus-based system like Wikipedia, little can be done about it, unless the small knot of consensus on Neo-Latin can be met with a larger consensus on English. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:07, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

WikiDonn, I'm imagining the conversation like this:

You: Why do you want to use the scientific name instead of the common English name?

Other: Because it benefits the article.

You: How does it benefit the article?

Other: It just does.

You: In what way, specifically?

Other: In every way.

You: For example?

Other: It just benefits the article.

You: Says who?

Other: Me.

And so forth.

If I were you, I'd try to get the other editor to differentiate between "It benefits the article by <list of specific advantages>" and "I say that it benefits the article, just like I say that the moon is made of green cheese, and IKNOWIT so ITSTRUE." WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:17, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

And if you can get a Wikipedia editor to recognize that distinction, have you considered adminship? ;-> Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:21, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes English speaking countries differ on the name for a common item or bug. For example, eggplant. The article gives the "other" useages which I suppose are redirected. It does mean that the nation first labeling the (common) item gets to name it, which may seem real strange to people living elsewhere. I admit that most common items have already been identified and named.

Well I did a google of eggplant and got 9.3 million hits and aubergine gave 9.2 million hits. Not an overwhelming lead for eggplant and google counts aren't exactly a definitive measure but I doubt you could make a convincing case that aubergine for instance should be taken as the common name. Dmcq (talk) 20:07, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that aubergine is of french origin and a loan word in english. If I search for aubergine in english language web sites, I get 2.7 million hits, as opposed to 7.7 millions hits for eggplant on english language sites. FWIW. --Nuujinn (talk) 19:29, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Back to the original point. I guess I would rather have "Ring-tailed baboon" rather than "primatus ringtailus" or whatever. We need the common name. The lede can explain why it is ambiguous or misleading or whatever.Student7 (talk) 15:01, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

For birds and mammals, we generally use common names, but once you get to lower animals, common names are often a mess - many fish have different names depending on which state you are in in Australia. And with plants and invertebrates, many lack common names at all. More than that, I also see it as about promoting a uniformity of pages, hence if one has a genus of 10 plants, of which only one has a common name, I'd find it more logical and aesthetic to have all at their scientific names rather than one different. Many trees have different names for timber, horticulture or bushwalking and so on. This has been rehashed over and over. Names should be discussed in the article whatever the article name is at anyway, regardless of title. Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:10, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Please remember that "common name", in the sense of vernacular name as opposed to scientific name, is not the same as "most common name" as referred to in policy. Hesperian 15:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Bantu language names

Should we follow the example set by Swahili language for other Bantu languages and avoid the prefix in the title, for example at Ganda language? There's a request to move the article to Luganda, but I'm finding plenty of references to "Ganda" both in linguistic and non-linguistic works (such as art, history, and evangelism), some published in Uganda by Ganda authors. Also, in general, since many Bantu languages are obscure, should we try to follow the native or anglicized form? For example, some journals request that names in articles be in a specific format (such as "Swahili" and "the Swahili" rather than Kiswahili and Waswahili), and I can see advantages to consistent usage in an encyclopedia as well.

Posted this question at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (languages). — kwami (talk) 19:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK stations)

Could someone point me to which area this convention is classed under? Simply south (talk) 22:28, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

German sharp S

Where are we with ß in article titles? My reading of the language on the policy page is that it should be used when the phrase doesn't appear or appears rarely in English sources, and when the phrase contains the ß in German sources. I'm aware of several arguments both ways but if there's some simple, snappy way to answer the question, that would be great. - Dank (push to talk) 14:40, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Btw, some people may say this page prohibits it as a non-Latin character ... actually, it's considered a ligature of the Latin alphabet (change "Insert" to "Latin" at the bottom of your edit window and you'll find it). - Dank (push to talk) 14:50, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

If it "doesn't appear" in English sources, odds are that it fails WP:N, but if it doesn't I'd use the spelling used in German sources. If it "appears rarely" in English sources, and more than (say) 80% of those few sources use consistently the same spelling, I'd use that spelling, whichever it is. If those few sources are more equally divided than that, I would not move the article from one spelling to another unless consensus emerged that there's a specific reason to do that. (If I had to create such an article in the first place, I'd use the German spelling if it's a proper name and the English alphabet equivalent otherwise, but YMMV.) A. di M. (talk) 16:08, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Unless someone wants to disagree, that's exactly the answer I needed, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 20:41, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

My problem with any non-English characters is that is can't be searched using my keyboard. More importantly to the editor, I think, is that it cannot be found in a search. True of all "accented" French and German letters as well. We aren't giving grammar/language lessons here. A compendium of information. The article can assert that the word is spelled in a certain way in German/French as the case may be. I'd rather see (and be able to search for) "-strasse" any day. What English speaker cares about the spelling? Student7 (talk) 12:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

The "not on my keyboard" issue is irrelevant, as we have redirects. --Golbez (talk) 12:14, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes I'd prefer to use the normal spelling on any article and cater for searches by using redirects. Google is pretty good at figuring out what people mean. I've had this problem before with people complaining about ω-consistency for instance which is how anybody spells it but they wanted Omega used instead which was wrong as a capital and wrong because it isn't what people write. Dmcq (talk) 12:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I would agree... with the comment that "normal spelling" means: the spelling that is used in most English language sources. In some topic areas, this may actually be the "foreign" spelling that includes a funky character. Blueboar (talk) 12:28, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

It's not about pure numbers, of course. Let's say, using made-up numbers, that 60% of sources say "Espanola" instead of "Española" for the town in New Mexico. We should go with Española, because that's the correct name. If 90% of sources used n instead of eñe, then you could start to say that common usage trumps fact. Usage must be both common and overwhelming to go against the factual name. For example, let's say that, again, purely hypothetically, 90% of the sources used the n instead of the eñe. But, let's say there's only 10 sources, because it's a tiny village in the middle of nowhere that few people have written about. This is an indicator that there is no common exonym at all, and in the absence of a common usage we cannot create one ourselves, which means we have to go with the actual name, regardless of if it's only used in 10% of English-language sources. My whole point to this paragraph: It's not finding a mere majority of sources to determine the common name, nor is it percentage. It has to be a combination: Both volume and percentage. Lack an overwhelming amount of either, and there simply is no common name to use. --Golbez (talk) 15:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Not quite... Yes, determining commonality isn't a pure numbers game, but Wikipedia does not recognize any name as being "correct" (we must stay completely neutral on that issue)... we simply follow the sources and use what is most common. We base our decision on English-language sources because this is the English-language version of Wikipedia (just as the Spanish-language Wikipedia would base its titles on Spanish-language sources and the Russian-language Wikipedia would base it's titles on Russian-language sources). If the bulk of English-language sources call it "Espanola" (without the tilde above the n) then so should we. If the bulk of the sources use the tilde, then so should we. If the sources are close to evenly split, then the consensus of editors determines the outcome. it really is that simple. Blueboar (talk) 15:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

My point was, it's not simple "50%+1". There has to be an overwhelming common usage to trump the actual name, rather than simply 50%+1. or, if the bulk is of so few sources as to be statistically irrelevant. My only concern was how you defined "bulk". As for NPOV, I don't think there's anything more neutral than using a city's own name for itself, except, again, in the face of overwhelming common usage. (Of course, by definition, 'common' is the overwheling usage) --Golbez (talk) 15:32, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

We do not generally consider the city's own name for itself (a somewhat vague concept) any more than we expect the Spanish Wikipedia to give up using es:Nueva York; nor is there any "correctness" in English other than usage. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:17, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that a "city's own name for itself" is often the subject of controversy and political debate. This is why we don't care what anyone says the "official" name should be (including the government of the city itself). We neutrally follow the sources. If the sources are essentially evenly split, then it is up to consensus at the article talk page to determine what to use. No more, no less. Blueboar (talk) 21:37, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I very much hope that the names 'Stab City' and 'Slash City' don't become too common so that's how they're known on Wikipedia. ;-) Dmcq (talk) 19:47, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I can appreciate and feel grateful for redirects that take care of article titles in the English Wikipedia with non-English characters, but it sets a bad example for the remainder of the article which may also include non-title words with non-English characters in them that search engines file which I cannot reach. I don't want to worry about non-English characters in English Wikipedia. Similarly, Japanese, Russian, Arabic Wikipedians should not be forced to deal with Roman/English characters which their search engines cannot reach. (Yes. That is their problem since they make their own rules). Student7 (talk) 01:47, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I really cannot see what your problem is here Student7. Firstly, it's a matter of learning how to use your keyboard (the Character Map on your computer will show you what to type to get the character you think you are unable to type). Secondly, these days most search engines, as they are for international use, can cope with these characters anyway (try a Google search for "straße"). The problem appears to be your refusal to learn how to use your keyboard, rather than the "strange" characters. Skinsmoke (talk) 15:43, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I've probably been on computers longer than you have been alive. I do not know how to use the keyboard to enter a non-Roman character. Nor do I care to learn. Nor do most English Wikipedia users, which is more important. Entries should be aimed at normal users, not "continentally educated" ones. Student7 (talk) 17:31, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I doubt you had a computer 53 years ago! If you refuse to help yourself, that's your decision. But don't expect the rest of us to pander to your foibles. Skinsmoke (talk) 19:57, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Close. 48 years when you were 5. Anyway, we are supposed to be writing an encyclopedia to be used by normal people. These are not people who are capable, even less than I, of changing keyboard parameters. Foibles? I don't know what country you live in, but try talking to regular people sometime about keyboard use. Suggest they change to another set or use umlauts or whatever. Most will barely know what you are talking about. Sharp S? First I have ever heard it named before, though I have seen it on signs.

Let's continue to cater to normal people, not the "cognoscenti." Student7 (talk) 20:23, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

ß is standard in German, but ss is equivalent and sometimes used instead of ß. If you google an example, say "Strasse" and look for German's usage you'll find it's pretty common, although the usual spelling is Straße. Back before there were computers we used these things called Typewriters, and typing in German on an English typewriter one uses ss instead of ß. Personally, I see no reason to use ß if there are good sources for an English version of the given subject using a double s instead. A parallel example I would point to München, which is redirected to Munich--using the German name would just be confusing to many readers, and the redirect accommodates anyone who's looking for the German version. Relying on the spelling used predominantly in English sources makes more sense to me. --Nuujinn (talk) 20:48, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I have no personal objection to transliterating sharp S as "ss". And this transliteration is often used in English. Just trying to avoiding using non-English keyboard letters. And yes, there are many wrong names used in English. Austria instead of Oesterreich, Rome instead of Roma, Naples instead of Napoli, etc. etc. I am not claiming "rightness" for English, merely what is standard usage. Student7 (talk) 15:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, although I wouldn't call them wrong, just the English version. I guess my way of thinking is simple that this is the English wikipedia, and ß is not a standard character in modern English, and at least in German, ss is an appropriate substitute. The nice thing is we can use redirects to accommodate both the English and German character sets, eg. name the article Strasse, and redirect Straße to it. --Nuujinn (talk) 22:36, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Eagle (comic)

This article uses an infobox template which forces italics onto the article's title. Simple question: should this be allowed, or not? I ask because this matter is hindering the possible promotion of the article to FA. Parrot of Doom 23:11, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Seeing this post, I made a request for an italics opt out function to be placed in the template. See Wikipedia:Help desk#Non-italics alternative.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:34, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

This may be resolved; see Template_talk:Infobox_comic_book_title#Non-italics_alternative and the template. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

But there is a larger question. This arose in two steps:

1. The Comics Project decided that the titles of all the articles on comics should be italicized;
2. The template {{italictitle}} was written into their infobox, until now without an off-switch.

The second still strikes me as bad programming practice; infobox code should affect only infoboxes; but that's not our business.

What is our business is: when should the titles of articles on works of literature be italicized? The present situation is that War and Peace is; David Copperfield (novel) isn't, and every comic book with the infobox is. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that it's reasonable for the title of an article about a book to be displayed in italic text, especially in the current case, which is Eagle (comic). The main point of this section is "Please do not put apostrophes in the URL", not "You may not use proper text formatting for the titles of books". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

• This is absolutely infuriating. The argument that keeps being presented is that this page mentions only species, etc, and not comic titles. Nobody seems to comment on how that decision was made. If nobody else has anything to say on the matter then I'm going to edit this page to correct it. Parrot of Doom 19:00, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Naming conventions for United States federal buildings

Opinions are welcome in the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Naming conventions for United States federal buildings, which is specifically addressed to article titles for these buildings. bd2412 T 18:51, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

My opinion... US federal buildings should be named for prominent Wikipedians. I call dibs on the Supreme Court building! ... oh... the debate is over how we should entitle our articles on these buildings? Darn. Blueboar (talk) 21:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Additional opinions are still needed in this discussion. Cheers! bd2412 T 18:23, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Organizations that have decided to change their name

Hi.. There is an edit/move war going on at San Diego Wild Animal Park/San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and the conflict behind it isn't adequately addressed by this policy. The organization that runs the park recently decided to change the name of the park from "Wild Animal Park" to "Safari Park". This was leaked to the press and the organization confirmed it. However, the marketing materials (signs, website, etc.) apparently will not be updated till next year. So which name should be used? I know this topic has come up here before, but I don't think there was a satisfactory answer. It seems to be "most common name" vs. "official name". But is the name really official if the signage hasn't been updated yet and it's only a name that has been leaked to the press (with official confirmation)? Thanks.

Sources:

"The San Diego Zoo Board of Trustees, which governs both the zoo and animal park, voted June 30 to approve the name change" [1]

"Simmons said the change will be gradual, signs and logos will be replaced only as they wear out." [2]

"The zoo’s board of trustees voted in late June for the name change, which was under consideration for much of last year." "The name change will take effect next spring with new signs in front of the 1,800-acre enclosure off state Route 78 in the San Pasqual Valley. It also will be incorporated into the facility’s spring marketing campaign." [3]

- Evil saltine (talk) 03:28, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

No specific date was given for the name change, only that it is ongoing, in order to bring down th ecost of the name change. Items such as pamphlets, cups, and souvenirs are being replaced as they run out. This process has already begun.--Jojhutton (talk) 03:40, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

(EC) My view would be to continue using its current name until the new name actually takes affect. It is possible that between now and then, they may change their mind again. The new leaked name can be a redirect until it is actually official. If, as Jojhutton, notes that no specific date was given, I'd go with the day they actually update their signs at the place and their website. This was done when Sci Fi Channel announced its rename to Syfy in a mostly successful fashion after move protection was implemented to deal with less happy folks :-) -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 03:42, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

First I would like to point out that this is not "leaked information", but has been confirmed with reliable sources. Next I would like to also point out that the signs are going to replaced sometime before next spring, not next spring. So it can happen at any time between now and then. I know that sounds a bit nit-pickish, but we have to interpret the sources for what they sat, not what we think they mean. The articles name was moved nearly a month ago, and only a few ips and less experianced autoconfirmed users (Some I'm sure are also the ips) have tried to change it back. Several more experianced users, including myself, have patrolled the page during this time. According to a poll taken by the San Diego UT, 85% of people don't like the name change, so some of them are taking advantage of wikipedias "Anyone can edit" policy and trying to remove the new name. They are using wikipedia to vent their frustration, and we shouldn't allow it. Whether they like the new name or not, the council approved it. The only reason the signs haven't been changed is a monetary one, nothing more. They're not waiting for some special reveal day, its an ongoing process that has already begun.--Jojhutton (talk) 04:09, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

My mistake about the sources. I should have been more clear in that initially the information was leaked to the press, but it was later confirmed in a reliable source by the park itself. I think the ambiguity is that the sources say that they "voted" to change the name on June 30, not specifically that the name "was changed" on June 30. Also, this article ([4]) states that "The name change will take effect next spring..." Evil saltine (talk) 04:22, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I would wait until the name change officially goes into effect. Ωphois 12:25, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that the day that the sign over the entrance gate changes, is the day to change the article. - X201 (talk) 12:44, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Or at least, the day they change their website - where it is still called the Wild Animal Park [5].

Full name or with initials?

This is with reference to the Indian Army General, Kodendera Subayya Thimayya for whom the main article is [[K.S. Thimayya]] while [[Kodendera Subayya Thimayya]] is the redirect. Other Indian Army generals have articles in their full name such as Gopal Gurunath Bewoor. Please tell me if my proposing a move from "K.S. Thimayya" to "Kodendera Subayya Thimayya" is acceptable or if it violates any policy. AshLin (talk) 11:35, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

What do most sources refer to Thimayya as? Ωphois 12:13, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

As Ophois implies, the answer is that we should use the title that is most prevalent in reliable sources. Indian people are regularly referred to by their initials only. Ucucha 12:18, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

He is simply the most prominent Coorgi of that name. He is simply best known as "Thimayya" or "Gen Thimayya". In my deeper web search of the term "Thimayya" the first 40 results all are to the same person except for one on Wikipedia to Timoji and that is a wikipedia relic as the redirect earlier pointed to an obscure 16th century figure, Timoji as a little-known alias. K.S. Thimayya occurs in 18 entries while the full name in five. In India full names, especially of South Indians, tend to be lesser known. There are many K.S. Thimayya's in India with variants such as Thimmaiah, Thimayyah etc. If we decide to keep K.S. Thimayya, a large number of Indian Army generals such as are listed on this page will need changing. AshLin (talk) 14:09, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Medal of Honor article disambiguation

For the Medal of Honor recipients that require disambiguation, an editor has moved them from "John Doe (Medal of Honor recipient)" to "John Doe {Medal of Honor}". 1) I have not seen any discussion of this. 2) The person is not a Medal of Honor, he is (as the moving editor has pointed out!) a Medal of Honor recipient. The new name is, to put it politely "unclear," and ambiguous, particularly for a person whose first language is not English. Does the Medal of Honor have a name? Is the name "John Doe"?

The editor claims "consistency" with other articles. I am not aware of this. How accurate do titles need to be? Student7 (talk) 12:45, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

At first blush it would seem to be a good idea to have them all as "Medal of Honor recipient", but I don't know what would be involved in making a widespread change. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:57, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree - "consistency" is best served by making the disambiguator a definition of what the person is (as is common practice for all biographical articles), and the person is not a medal.--Kotniski (talk) 13:19, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Particularly moreso in this case, as there is other meanings of the words "Medal of Honer" that, without recipient, could imply another association (the first coming to my mind is the video game series, which I am pretty sure is not appropriate to be confused with). "Medal of Honor recipient" is the best descriptor to distinguish when disamb is needed and needs to be applied consistently. --MASEM (t) 13:26, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

As was pointed out in the concurrent thread at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Medal of Honor, recipients of the Victoria Cross are uniformly disambiguated as "(VC)", not "(VC recipient)", so there's at least some precedent there. Also, sportspeople are routinely disambiguated by "(baseball)", "(tennis)", etc., not "(baseball player)", "(tennis player)", and so on. It is generally desirable to keep the disambiguator concise. Hqb (talk) 13:36, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

They should be concise yes, but they also should be self-contained. (VC) is bad because that's not a common definition; similarly, saying just "baseball" or "tennis" is vague. The concise comes from whether extra terms are needed or not; if there is only one John Smith in athletics, the proper descriptor is (athlete) even if he is a baseball player, but if there are two or more, then (baseball player) or (tennis player) or whatever is needed should be used. --MASEM (t) 13:44, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

There's nothing vague or inappropriate about "(baseball)"; it's an instance of "the subject or context to which the [article] topic applies". The guidelines at WP:NCDAB even explicitly recommend the shorter "(mythology)", rather than "(mythological figure)". Hqb (talk) 13:59, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Athlete is problematic as British readers will tend to assume that a person so designated is involved in track and field, athletics normally referring to just that set of sports in British English. VC seems to me to be perfectly fine, as in practice Victoria Cross and VC are used virtually interchangeably, and a VC recipient is entitled to describe themself as Forename Surname VC. I'm not convinced by arguments that just using Medal of Honor is particualrly confusing - in what context are people actually likely to see the disambiguator - in most links it will be hidden anyway, in which case the shorter version seems prefereable as it is easier for editors to type, otherwise users will see it either if they type the name of the person into the search box, in which case (Medal of Honor) is perfectly sufficient to differentiate them from anyone of the same name, or on a disambiguation page, wehre there will be some more descriptive text anyway. I don't see that there's any particular need for a disamibuator to be "grammatical", it's not used in contexts wehre grammar is an issue for comprehension. David Underdown (talk) 14:23, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

The abbreviation "VC" has different meanings in different fields (eg, it commonly can be "venture capitalist" for one). We should never use an abbreviation in the disamb modifier so that no additional confusion is raised. On the other hand, "Victoria Cross" pretty much has only one clear meaning - the military honor - while "Medal of Honor" has many common ones. The disambig term should avoid secondary confusion; eg I believe this is why "footballer" is used for the international sport, while "American football(er)" is used for the US football sport.

Yes, most of the time, the disamb term is never seen by the end user, but consider that with the new search bar, typing out the first part of the name will bring up disambig'd pages and allow the user to select these, these need to be very clear to avoid a wasted search result. --MASEM (t) 15:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

VC can be used for other things, but I don't think this is likely to actually lead to "wasted search results", except just possibly in the very rare case where you have both (VC) and say (businessman) where that businessman happens to be a venture capitalist. Whereas if I'm looking up a baseballer (say) and see a dismabiguator of athlete, I;m not mentally going to connect the two things at all. VC isn't simply an abbreviation, it's the postnominal initials taht a VC holder is entitled to use. David Underdown (talk) 16:05, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I can agree that "MOH recipient" could benefit from the additional clarification because of the popular Medal of Honor series of video games. Otherwise, I generally lean toward concision in my disambiguation unless otherwise required (i.e. I appreciate and prefer the "Victoria Cross" or "baseball" disambiguator). — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 14:46, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Since I believe that I am the editor in question let me start by saying I do not have a strong preference either way. I simply used the DAB that was most common amongst the recipients and seemed to to jive with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#people. As I stated on one of the article talk pages recently the parenthesis does not infer what he is in my interpretation of the MOS, its what he is known for!. Also, there are a lot of Medal of Honor recipient articles that are disambiguated and this is to allow consistency between them. The vast majority already said Medal of Honor so I changed the rest that said Medal of Honor recipient to the same. I can provide you with a listing of all the disambiguated ones (both the ones that are already created and the ones that have yet to be created) with Medal of Honor, Medal of Honor recipient, soldier, sailor, etc if you need it. There are a lot by the way. I went on to instruct the user to present their argument to either the WP:Biography talk page or the talk page for WP:MOS. But here and Article title is ok too. I also told the user that Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#people is a little vague and could stand to be clarified in my opinion but basically the gist is to make the disambiguation only long enough so that the reader can distinguish between different people with the same name. Thats why we only need to say Medal of Honor, vice Medal of Honor recipient. We arent saying he "IS" the medal, were just clarifying the subject the individual is known for. I hope this helps but again please let me know if you have any more questions. --Kumioko (talk) 15:02, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

In reference to the above conversation pertaining to the VC I also believe that VC is too confusnig and could mean multiple things (Such as Viet Cong, Vice Chairman, Very creepy, etc) and should be clarified to Victoria Cross. --Kumioko (talk) 16:13, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes in other contexts it might mean other things, but is there actually any likelihood of it also being used as a disabiguator in those senses? You don't start searching by using a disambiguator, you start by using a name. David Underdown (talk) 16:48, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this is a case where we need clearer disambiguation ... I could easily see someone creating an article on the main character of the Medal of Honor video game series and (in good faith) entitling it: Lieutenant Jimmy Patterson (Medal of Honor). 17:07, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we should broaden the discussion a little: Is "(Medal of Honor recipient)" actually the best possible disambiguator in general? I would have thought that "(soldier)", "(pilot)", etc. would often be more appropriate – or is getting the MoH really such a defining qualify of a person that it takes precedence over everything else? After all, we never disambiguate people as "(Nobel laureate)" or similar, even though there are rather fewer of those; we use "(physicst)", "(poet)", and so on. Don't we primarily think of John Doe as a particularly brave soldier/sailor/etc, rather than in terms of whether he did or didn't quite earn himself a particular medal? I'm not saying "(MoH [recipient])" should never be used, but a comment above seems to suggest that it automatically trumps whatever else might have served as a disambiguator for that person. Hqb (talk) 17:40, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Just for clarification getting the Medal takes precedence over whether they were a soldier, sailor, etc because the Medal is what distinuishes their notability in WP. Although, there are a lot that do have soldier, sailor, US Army, etc as well. Also in some cases there are multiple recipients with the same name along with a number of others and Dabs become rather difficult because soldier, sailor, medal of Honor, pilot, general, etc are already taken. My point is just that in the past I haev seen people submit a MOH recipient for AFD because it had soldier in the title (because it stands out) and was not obviously notable whereas having Medal of Honor in the title quells some of that because being a MOH recipient (or VC recipient) is notable in WP's rules. Bare in mind also that whatever stance we take we could be looking at changing a couple of hundred articles. --Kumioko (talk) 18:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Um... I really doubt that we are talking about a couple of hundred articles. After all, there is no need to disambiguate most MoH recipients... In most cases, we can simply use the recipient's name as the title of the article (as we do with Alvin C. York). The only reason to add "(Medal of Honor recipient}" is when there are two notable people with the same name, and we need to disambiguate between them. Blueboar (talk) 13:02, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

You have to remember that there are about 3500 recipients...many of which have similar names to others already in WP. Give me a few minutes I will create the list in my sandbox. Its possible I exaggerated the number so lets see.--Kumioko (talk) 13:21, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok heres the first group. There are over 220 that currently have DAB'ed titles just in the articles we currently have. There are about 300 so far of articles waiting to be created. So that makes roughly 500. In reviewing these titles there are A LOT that still have poor dab titles in my opinion such as American Civil War, Sgt, US, US army, us marine, soldier, veteran, etc, etc and I will work on cleaning some of those up as well. I also suspect that at least some are dabbed unnecessarily, ( I will look into this as well) but In the mean time this should illuminate the magnitude of the issue a little. --Kumioko (talk) 14:39, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I think this is heading in the right direction. For the record, most of these folks were distinguished mainly for their Medal. That is, unlike the athlete, their soldiering was not distinguished, per se, until they heroism for a specific act was recognized. As Kumioko has suggested, some still do require a separate disambiguation since there is more than one soldier with the same name.

Another little problem in America, is that there were no other medals until 1900. While Medals of Honor awardees are greatly honored in the 20th century and beyond, they were handed out rather indiscriminately before that and not necessarily any big deal. We have not really discovered a real good way of handling this so we are handling them all the same way - as though they had as much honor as required in the 20th century for the award (and some did qualify with that higher standard. Many didn't though). Student7 (talk) 16:29, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Student7, I thinkst your position is not relevant, nor factual. In fact George Washington created the Purple Heart in August 1782. See F. L. Parks, ed. (1948). "The History of the Medal of Honor". The Medal of Honor. Department of the Army. p. 5. Indeed, the medal is the medal and was never awarded indiscriminately. Now were there different official criteria and requirements used in the 19th century to award the medal from those that evolved in the 20th century. Absolutely. But this phrase from the establishing document: ...that shall distinquish themselves by gallantry in action... legislated by Congress and signed by President Lincoln on July 12, 1862 leave no doubt as to the status of anyone who its been awarded to.--Mike Cline (talk) 17:01, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, in one early example, a kid fleeing the battlefield with the rest of his unit (and band), remembered to retrieve his trumpet or drum, or whatever. It was awarded as sort of a rebuke to others. At the battle of Veracruz, they handed out gobs of them, 1 for every 50 participants (or something like that) with very few deaths or apparent risk. The standard was thankfully set higher for WWI and thereafter. But the before is a caution. Equal to modern day standards sometimes, equal to a good conduct medal at others. Student7 (talk) 19:26, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Although there is some truth to what you say student7 this statement is a way off point of the original conversation and you seem to be selecting specific and rare events. Its true that some recipients have receieved it for less extraordinary conditions than others but of the 3500+ recipients these are fairly rare and probably make up less that 2% of the total. For example lets explore the multitudes of citations from the American Civil War that said something to the effect of "Capture the flag". Although these seem pretty mundane and undeserving of such an award, the colors were usually heavily guarded and to actually capture the enemys flag usually required charging through multiple volleys of rifle fire, hand to hand combat, sword wielding horseman, and volleys of cannon fire. Additionally, since the movements and actions of the color bearor directed the actions of the force, to capture the flag frequently caused the force itself to falter and lose control. Thereby contributing greatly to the outcome of the victory or battle. Additionally, there have been a couple of reviews done by the military that revoked or added recipients since the creation of the medal so I am confident that the ones that still remain are valid and whether a specific battle got more than another, to me is irrelevant. A lot were given out during the battle of iwo jima too. --Kumioko (talk) 02:43, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I follow what you are saying. Today we have a whole range of medals that can be awarded for gallantry. All require service "beyond" the normal scope of what is expected of a soldier. There is a nice gradient. But unitl WWI, there was no gradient. All valor that the leadership wished to recognize had to be the Medal of Honor or nothing. We cannot easily examine these bygone conflicts to determine what would have merited the Bronze Star or whatever. They don't just give those away either. And many Civil War medals may have met the highest criteria. The downer, though was Veracruz. I won't go there!

If we choose to continue this discussion, it should probably be moved to the Military discussion (cut and paste). It is out of place here. This is mostly, or maybe entirely, my fault, I think, for digressing. But we need to stop trespassing, as it were. Thanks. Student7 (talk) 19:39, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Sponsorship

Is there any guidance on stuff like Magners League, Aviva stadium or DW Stadium which have had their named change for sponsorship reasons. Many will point to COMMON here and say these are Ok sure they are the most common while others want consistency across articles 2010–11 Celtic League not 2010–11 Magners League.

Other events and stadiums have been sponsored by companies and aren't at the sponsors name such as National Football League (Ireland) not Allianz National Football League.

Any one care too weigh in? Gnevin (talk) 16:09, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

In the United States, we've had this with the Winston Cup/Nextel Cup/Sprint Cup, also Craftsman Truck Series/Camping World Truck Series, and Busch Series/Nationwide Series, and as you can see, we move it as needed and put the annual articles where appropriate. "Magners League" seems to be as major a naming issue as those and therefore, to my uneducated eye, "2010-11 Magners League" seems sufficient. Stadiums, like most buildings, tend to always go with their new name. --Golbez (talk) 20:42, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Do any of the NASCAR things have a alternate name which would refer to the entire history? Like Celtic League and Super Rugby Gnevin (talk) 21:23, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Not really; the Sprint Cup has had corporate sponsorship for more than half its life. (1970-2010, and it was created in 1949). In fact, many people still refer to it as the Winston Cup, since that's what it was for 33 years; most fans have never known it without corporate sponsorship. --Golbez (talk) 22:01, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I think on this side of the pond it's different so 5/6 nations while officially the RBS six nations the man on the street would rarely say this Gnevin (talk) 16:30, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. That one clearly seems to have long predated sponsorship, and the common name in this case is not inaccurate, so I'm fine with that. Magners has been the sponsor for nearly half the league's life, so I can see there being a dispute between the old/common name and the current/official name. As for 'guidance' as you requested, no, not really. Perhaps there needs to be one. :P --Golbez (talk) 16:44, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Self-congratulating titles

Marketing firms are using self-congratulatory names for certain material. Does this force Wikipedia into doing the same? Two such items are power centre a name for a large shopping center, and smart growth. Guess what? Every city in the US employs "smart growth" or say they do. And every shopping center over x sq ft (they have actually defined this!) is a power centre. I find this annoying. Anyway to stop it? if there were only two, that wouldn't be so bad. I suspect there are hundreds that I don't know about! Student7 (talk) 20:30, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Articles should not be based on strictly defining terms (WP:DICT) nor should include neogolisms without significant sourcing to establish it as an encyclopedic topic (WP:NEO). Of the two you've listed, "power center" probably can be merged into shopping mall, while the smart growth article actually seems well-substantiated as a stand-alone topic. --MASEM (t) 16:41, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Another in the same vein is Blue Cruise, a marketing ploy, but restricted to one area of the world only! Student7 (talk) 22:04, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, what would you suggest? --Golbez (talk) 04:01, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Consider merging it into retail park, see gasoline and tram for examples. -- PBS (talk) 04:17, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I have proposed this merger. See Talk:Retail_park#Merge discussion. Student7 (talk) 17:51, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Consistency August 2010

Oddly, whenever you find

When other criteria do not indicate an obvious choice, consider giving similar articles similar titles

on this page, you need look no further than PBS's last edit to find where it came from. This wasn't consensus the last five or six times he tried this on; it isn't consensus now - even on this page, much less the practice of Wikipedia in general.

He was bold - again - and has been reverted. Now let him discuss: it has always been practice to have a uniform and consistent naming practice for related articles. We know that two or three editors don't like this; but actual naming discussions are frequently (perhaps too frequently) based on analogy with other articles; one reason to have express standards is to indicate where an apparent pattern is mere accident. That is in fact a principle that Wikipedia values; why should we not admit this? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:23, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Please focus on content. That wording has been in place since June 23rd.

The sudden change today was bold, but clearly had no consensus, since it was immediately reverted, which is normal WP:BRD stuff.

At that point discussion should have gone to the talk page, except then it was reverted again, so that's when I first reverted. At that time we were again back to status quo, but that's when I was reverted, ironically with the comment requesting, "please do not try to change policy without consensus"! After I reverted a second time, it was then reverted once again, pushing 3RR. I think we can say that neither version has consensus support.

The two wordings are:

• Consistent – Using names and terms that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles.
• Consistent – When other criteria do not indicate an obvious choice, consider giving similar articles similar titles.

Any suggestions for a compromise? --Born2cycle (talk) 02:06, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

In other words, anything a small bunch of editors can sneak onto a policy page without anybody noticing becomes irreversible as long as one of the few who invented it are willing to revert war for it. That is the tyrannical principle which makes MOS a hell-hole. If it is practiced here, I am leaving - disputing the status of this page on the way out. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:16, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I think saying "no consensus" and revert warring almost two months after the fact is pretty disruptive. As for the wording, it seems like they are kinda the opposite of each other. Some says to do what others do, other says to have others do what this does. Why not have wording to include both? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I regret not noticing that Philip had attacked the page again, but I didn't; I very strongly dispute his text - so did others, when he proposed it before his edit. Arguments greeted with "beggars belief" are not consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:27, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't quite see the distinction you have in mind; in one case A has a title similar to B because A is like B, in the other because B is like A. Could you suggest a text? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Let us have some reasons why articles should not follow the pattern of other similar articles, and we will see how we can allow for them. Note that compromises with the other four principles are already allowed for; consistency gives way to them, and they to consistency, regularly. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:16, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

PMA I have altered the section heading because there is a guideline that specifically suggests not using user names in section heading. It is not my personal policy. It is a compromise worked out over a long period of time. My personal policy would probably not include it. It was not part of the policy until last year and it was put in without prior discussion or agreement.

There have been lots of examples given, but for the moment I suggest that you read the last entry from the archives about this discussion, or we are likely to be condemned to repeating ourselves: Wikipedia_talk:Article titles/Archive 27#Consistency June 2010. -- PBS (talk) 02:50, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

From the last archive: An example is given of one editor who argued that the article Zurich Airport should remain at Zürich Airport because the city is named Zürich and the airport name is derived from the city name, the person putting this forward considered consistency to be more important than the usage in reliable sources. This is a minority view and the wording here should reflect that usually we do not consider consistency to be as important as naming articles after reliable sources. -- PBS (talk) 05:42, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. I really don't understand the objection to the "When other criteria do not indicate an obvious choice" wording. --Born2cycle (talk) 14:51, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Serge, we know you don't. You don't mind having consistency being something one uses as a tie-breaker when one can't think of any other reason to decide. But that is not what Wikipedia actually does; more title discussions involve "should we follow the example of titles X, Y and Z?" than "is this title too long?" Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:09, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

But this may introduce another issue. Some people do see policy pages as a sort of Fantasy Legislature, which editors must obey and tremble; most people view them as describing the actual policy: what Wikipedia does after consideration. I hold the second; we have a word for pages where two or three editors Tell Wikipedia What to Do: {{essay}}s. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:09, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

PMA can you give us an example where consistency has been used even when it contradicts the other bullet points and in particular reliable sources? -- PBS (talk) 21:55, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• Since the wording you attacked does not support ignoring reliable sources, the second part of this is a red herring. "Don't be evil."
• Examples where it has been considered or prevailed against most common usage are collected below. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:00, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Nonconsensus edit

I use {{disputedtag}} intentionally. The protested edit was proposed by PBS on on June 9th last. It was roundly rejected - I have already quoted the statement (not by me) that his argument "beggars belief" ; at which point I thought the matter settled. Three weeks later - without any discussion or comment that I can see- he altered the text to the rejected form. This is the worst of faith. I shall be restoring the long-standing form in a day or so if there is no positive argument against it by then - and if there is any further reversion to this discredited form I will seek other forms of dispute resolution. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:26, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Enough of this. If PBS and B2C want a platform for their minority views, they are welcome to write an essay. If necessary, we can make this page into an essay. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:26, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Bantu (again)

Given the thunderous response to my last post, I've made a proposal at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Bantu). This is not yet linked to the MOS nav boxes, pending y'all's input. — kwami (talk) 01:42, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't see a need to create a specific naming convention for Bantu... or any other language group. What I could see is a section of this policy that says "Title your articles using the English language". Blueboar (talk) 13:15, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Niger-Congo (including Bantu) is a problem with naming because of the noun class prefixes. Many of the neighboring Nilo-Saharan languages share this problem--borrowed from Niger-Congo. It is a fairly unique situation in the world's languages because of the complexity of the noun-class prefixes and the difficulty that English users have had in placenames, language names, people names, etc. It is only "fairly unique" because there are certain problems in other areas as well related to prefixes that haven't been addressed adequately--I'm thinking of the Berber languages specifically, where Shilha is a more common English name than Tachelhiyt, but the article resides at the latter. I think that Kwami's proposal with a specialized template works for Niger-Congo. The issue of "common English name" is always touchy when dealing with ethnonyms and linguanyms (?) because of the nationalistic and emotional ties that come with such labels. --Taivo (talk) 09:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Fixed-wing aircraft

Is Fixed-wing aircraft supported by reliable sources? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:21, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The required location(s) of the markings will depend on whether your aircraft is a fixed-wing aircraft or a non-fixed-wing aircraft. The controlling regulations are found in FAR Sections 45.25 and 45.27

Aircraft ownership: a legal and tax guide, Raymond C. Speciale, McGraw-Hill Professional, 2003, Page 85. AJRG (talk) 18:29, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Does the common names section contradict itself?

A number of editors on Talk:Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act are citing WP:COMMONNAME's statement that "Common usage in reliable sources is preferred to technically correct but rarer forms, whether the official name, the scientific name, the birth name, the original name or the trademarked name". This is being used to support a move of the article to "Arizona SB 1070", although it's an enacted law, it's not a senate bill, the name is an apparently unique exception from the way that other legislation is named on Wikipedia and it ignores the convention set out in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government and legislation)#Legislation. I've requested a move back to the original name and it would be helpful if uninvolved editors could provide advice at Talk:Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act#Requested move.

This raises the question of whether WP:COMMONNAME actually contradicts itself. On the one hand it states: "Common usage in reliable sources is preferred to technically correct but rarer forms, whether the official name, the scientific name, the birth name, the original name or the trademarked name." On the other hand it states: "Titles which are considered inaccurate descriptions of the article subject, as implied by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more common. For example, Tsunami is preferred over the arguably more common, but less accurate Tidal wave." I have cited the latter as the main argument against using a common but inaccurate name to refer to an enacted law.

I think this needs to be clarified. It seems apparent that the policy is meant to prioritise accuracy. Thus an accurate common name would be preferred to an accurate but rarer form. However, as the "inaccurate descriptions" line makes clear, an accurate "rarer name" (like "tsunami") is preferred to an inaccurate common name (like "tidal wave"). I don't think the policy actually does contradict itself but the wording is sufficiently ambiguous to make it unclear. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:47, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Personally I think we give way, way too much weight towards "common usage", which is usually impossible to directly cite and verify anyway, it simply boils down to "count Google results". In any case where common usage can be shown to be incorrect or obsolete (tidal wave, Sears Tower, Burma) we should go with the factual terminology (tsunami, Willis Tower, Myanmar). (And yes, I'm inserting my opinion of the Burma/Myanmar naming issue here. :P) --Golbez (talk) 16:14, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Myanmar's a bit of a special case, so I wouldn't draw general lessons from it. But Sears Tower / Willis Tower is a pretty good example. I'm sure there are others. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:20, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Basically, common usage should not trump fact, no matter how common it is. The one exception I would grant is exonyms. --Golbez (talk) 16:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree; exonyms aren't quite the same. This is more a case of something being known as one thing, that term entering common usage, then the name of the thing changing without common usage catching up. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:08, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Right. Exonyms are entrenched constructions of the language going back centuries; "Sears Tower" was a name given to the building a few decades ago by the people who built it. "Tidal wave" was simply a term conflating two independent phenomena. --Golbez (talk) 17:18, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. And in the case I mentioned at the start of this discussion, "SB 1070" is what the proposed legislation was known as, "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act" is what the enacted and amended legislation is termed, but "SB 1070" is what it is still commonly but inaccurately called by the media. They should have given it a catchy name like USA PATRIOT Act or something... -- ChrisO (talk) 17:22, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

These bill names are frickin' horrible. Propaganda, nothing less. However, in this case, "SB 1070" is not in itself inaccurate, is it? Bills are often referred to by the number they were introduced under, and it is in common use otherwise, more common than the official name. Though, you do also make a point by saying, once it passed, it was a law and not merely a bill... hm. --Golbez (talk) 18:22, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, a bigger problem is that SB 1070 isn't actually a name as such - it's merely a legislative designation that's reused each year. The SB 1070 mentioned in that article is the 2009 one. There was one in 2008, 2007, 2006 and so on all the way back. There will presumably be another one in 2010. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:39, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

California ballot proposition numbers get recycled (they used to start with Proposition One each election, but now I think they follow a longer cycle), but Proposition 187, which redirects to California Proposition 187 (1994), rather than the legislation it enacted or the proponents' name {"Save Our State" = "SOS") is how it's listed at Wikipedia. Proposition 13 redirects to California Proposition 13 (1978), although it was officially titled the "People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation", and Jarvis-Gann Initiative was a commonly-understood (and neutral) name commonly used at the time. (A redirect is probably needed for that redlink). So Arizona Senate Bill 1070 (2010), with redirects from shorter titles like SB 1070 and from longer ones, like the present title, would, in my opinion, be a perfectly acceptable NPOV title using the commonly-used name. I have a strong belief that primary Wikipedia article titles should be the ones by which things are known, e.g. Queen Victoria rather than Victoria of the United Kingdom and New York state (and New York City) rather than the inherently-ambiguous New York (and Politics of New York, etc.) —— Shakescene (talk) 05:27, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

While I agree that calling it a "bill" is a bit misleading, it does seem better than the current title, which is self-congratulatory. A better title might be "2010 Arizona support of federal immigration law" or something like that which would be meaningful and readily understood by everyone. Neither the old, nor the proposed new one hit quite the standard I would like to see in article names. Student7 (talk) 20:08, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Right, it's not a bill, except where we're talking about only that phase of its existence (probably within the article of the law it became), so the bill number it had is important info but a crummy article title. It is a law, so its common name is the appropriate one for the article. That the law is unpopular among citizens, or bears a name more unwieldy than SB 1070, or bears a name with an obvious bias, can't sway us from naming the article correctly.

It is common practice to slap the "best" (politically best, or most useful to its proponents, not necessarily most descriptive) moniker on bills in legislatures. USA PATRIOT Act is the perfect (and perfectly nauseating) example. But we've (correctly) got an article on that, named that. We don't get to pick some middle-ground NPOV name we like, because making something up is non-NPOV itself. And we've got an article on War on Terror, with a redirect from Global War on Terrorism, both of which are politically-skewed fictions. We need to just clench our teeth and go on. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 21:03, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

At least in California, for good or for ill, it's more common to refer to legislation, and especially ballot propositions, by number rather than title. For example, I'm not sure I've ever seen or heard anyone refer to California Proposition 13 (1978) by its official title: People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation. The discussion in Talk:Arizona SB 1070#Discussion demonstrates a problem with always using the short-form act title: some legislation (such as Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act) doesn't have a short-form title or acronym, and some legislation (e.g., California SB 1827, California's Assembly Bill 540, Assembly Bill 811, and S.B.242) doesn't have any official title. In the latter case, I'm not sure there's an alternative to using the bill (or proposition or whatever) number. Examples cited were . The California examples illustrate another problem: with no guidance, the titles are all over the map. There appears to be some precedent in WP for using bill/proposition numbers for article titles, and many of the examples strike me as sensible:

jurisdiction name   bill/other designation   (year of passage or enactment);

it's actually quite similar to the format for citing court decisions. Some of the others are ambiguous; for example, Assembly Bill 811 would seem far better titled as California AB 811 (2008). Here 2008 is the year it was signed into law; but I suppose it could be argued that the date should be the year of introduction (for this example, 2007). I'm not familiar with conventions for jurisdictions outside the U.S., so I don't know how well this approach would work elsewhere.

In any event, there are a fair number of articles using the numerical designation, and in some cases, there appears to be no alternative. I think we'd be much better off if at least the format were consistent. But this is branching into a different topic that the one that opened this discussion, so perhaps it belongs in a separate section. JeffConrad (talk) 05:37, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I think the principle to choose the most common name is flawed, anyway: With a redirect a reader is automatically sent from a common name to a more correct one, so the commoness of a name should have rather low weight in a comparison. Where does this rule come from anyway? Was there some form of consensus? I would say there should at least be some minimum amount of correctness in a page title. And a nickname without further merit would never qualify. Incidentially I would have made a redirect from Bill Clinton to William Jefferson Clinton. For the curious: I came from Davy Crockett here and I rather would put that under David Crockett -- Tomdo08 (talk) 17:48, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Supported by

"Supported by" reliable sources is what we now say - do we know what this means, or is it intended as one of those delightful phrases that each of us can interpret however we want, so we're all happy? Does it mean that the name has to be used by (some? many? most?) reliable sources? Or just that it can somehow be logically arrived at by observing the kind of language reliable sources use?--Kotniski (talk) 19:17, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, I for sure do not know what others mean by that--this is the 3rd or 4th major discussion that has brought up the sourcing of titles, and so far, I've seen no clear explanation of what sourcing a title means, and I know that some editors completely disagree with my interpretation of what that should mean. Without clarification of that issue, the policy will hinder discussion, not improve it. Nuujinn (talk) 20:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

We do not directly source titles... However, the title should directly reflect what the topic of the article is... and we need to demonstrate that the topic is notable (which is done through citing sources). Thus, the title should be indirectly supported by the sources.

It also means that we can be somewhat flexible in how we word our titles... Our wording does not need to exactly parrot some phrase used in a source... instead it must reflect the language used in the sources. Blueboar (talk) 20:49, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I know exactly what Supported by reliable sources means as long as it pertains to our naming convention WP:Article titles. Titles are not sourced, article Subjects are. This is not a notability or content policy. The fact that a particular title is not literally repeated in a reliable source for an otherwise notable subject might mean there is a better title for the article subject. Given disambiguation, consistency, clarity and other technical requirements, article titles may not literally repeat the Subject of an article. Reliable sources are very useful in helping to decide the best title for an article, but it is the subject of the article, not the title that determines its suitability for WP.--Mike Cline (talk) 20:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I have to disagree. Ideally titles are sourced, and for most notable topics, that will be the easy option. I concur with Blueboar: the title must reflect the language of the sources, or if the language is contentious or contains a contentious label (e.g. William the Bastard), then the title should reflect the meaning of the sources (e.g. William I of England). If there is knockout reason to use a nickname or sobriquet (e.g. William the Conqueror), then the title should reflect the "weight of the sources" (i.e. the depth of significant coverage from reliable sources). One way or another, the title should reflect the sources. This policy needs to be flexible, but it should not be used as a front to perpetuate article ownership based on opinion alone. It needs a mechanism to diffuse or resolve differences in editorial opinion. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 21:26, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

See WP:RM and its associated pages. We may have the second most detailed mechanism in Wikipedia, after FAC. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:35, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I reverted Gavin's most recent edit to the policy because I think in contained language that is sufficiently vague to question its purpose, doesn't improve on supported by reliable sources and does not necessarily reflect WP consensus on this issue. We need to discuss this much further before additional changes are made.--Mike Cline (talk) 00:51, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Mike asked me to comment here. Titles do not necessarily need to be specifically supported by RSs, except when there is a disputed on the correct name or something or the need to clarify or resolve a conflict. Titles are metadata, not articles or article content; they are meant to indicate what the article is about in the clearest possible language. Normally the sources for the article itself will support the title, as for almost all articles on people or books or games or computer programs or companies or products. But sometime we have need to write a summary article, or an article about something which is a well-defined and referenceable concept, but has no common or specific name. The actual problem comes with such articles as List of X, a type of article which a few people have persistently opposed--Gavin would, I think , oppose having such an article unless there was already a source for calling a list of Xs a List of Xs, obvious though this may be. This also affects articles such as Outline of ... and many other conventional groupings.

I point out that our naming conventions often defy the actual sourcing: as an example, even if someone uses a middle name consistently, we do not include it unless there is a conflict, whether or not there is a source which supports the use without the middle name. (personally, I would prefer a naming convention which always uses the fullest known form of the name, but the consensus is clearly otherwise and there are more important things to do than change such metadata conventions.) And the mere requirement for RSs does not help much in disputed cases--almost always there are RSs on every side of the dispute, and the question is evaluating them and deciding ourselves which one to follow. The decision on "weight of the sources" can not blindly be followed--we do not count them! Nor does redefining it as "the depth of significant coverage from reliable sources"--in the article domain, most disputes about notability r whether sources support content deal with disputes over the degree of significance or reliability--in many cases it is possible to make a rational argument for almost any position whatsoever. In some area, there is serious conflict over how to weigh the sources, as in choosing common or scientific names for organisms. (personally, I disagree with the current decision, and would always use the common name if available & in general use, but I am not quixotic enough to try to change it now). We do not necessarily follow language of the source for names, we use conventional names, and we use consistent names. We're an encyclopedia, and we need some consistency in making things findable. Titles are metadata, and metadata is selected as being reliable and useful, as equal criteria.

There are some things we do need to do our own research for: determining what things are notable, what sources are reliable, what things are called. One cannot make an encyclopedia without thinking, and thinking involves making decisions. I hold very strongly for WP:V with respect to article content. But the metadata are not part of the article content,this affects the titles, just as much as the inclusion in categories. They still need to be supported, but not exactly or literally in the same way we reference content. There area few cases mostly involving biographies with disputed or controversial ethnic or other identity where we do properly require exact sources for inclusion in a category or list, but these are the exceptions. Similarly, qualifying a title as (Catholic activist) would require a specific reliable source. I point out that, for obvious reason, no sources contemporary with William I of England called him William I of England.

The preexisting wording was a useful compromise, and we should stay with it. DGG ( talk ) 01:35, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Titles should be subjected to sourcing requirements. I think titles should imply a scope for the article that sources are supportive of. An inapt title can imply that a realm exists when sources barely if at all support that realm. That is not to say that sources might not support that realm in a piecemeal manner. I think we should be looking for sourcing that provides support that coincides with the implied scope of a title. In many instances titles that fail this requirement will not be challenged, and that's OK. But we should set the higher standards, so that those higher standards can be applied when a dispute arises in which perhaps editors have created a title that implies that a scope for the subject matter is more supported by sources than it actually is. Bus stop (talk) 04:20, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I can't see any alternative myself. What is the counter proposal: that titles should not be based on the sources in the article? Are reliable sources to be the uninvited guests to this party? I am not sure what Mike and DGG are proposing, because the existing wording seems to suggest that consensus is reached in an unsourced vacuum. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:19, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

There need be no alternative. Nothing is broken. Out of 3.3 million articles in WP, what % do you think there is an editorial dispute about the title. I would suspect it is less than .01% (in other words we'd have a hard time finding 300+ articles under editorial dispute because of their titles). Yet a policy change is being proposed that would open the door to dispute 10,000s of titles because the literal text can't be found in a reliable source. (if anyone doubts that is Gavin's intention, please see [6]). Gavin accuses those of us opposing this radical change that we don't believe in reliable sources. Far from true as the previous policy (July) However, it may be necessary to trade off two or more of the criteria against one another; in such situations, article titles are determined by consensus, usually guided by the usage in reliable sources. was perfectly acceptable and has guided the creation of article titles for a long time. In this case No change is the best alternative.--Mike Cline (talk) 10:45, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I think you are ignoring the point made by Bus Stop, and that is where a title is challenged, there is no consensus. We are sort of stuck in a rut here: if article titles are agreed upon by consensus, and there is no consensus, then we are missing a mechanism to break deadlock or diffuse differences of editorial opinion. Consensus is not formed in a vacuum, nor will a solution to editorial disputes descend from heaven written on stone tablets. Simply put, this guideline needs to proivde clear guidance, not just platitudes. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:44, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that is a much better discussion at WP:RM since the locus of challenged titles is extremely small. There is no need to introduce language in our naming convention that would increase the probability of titles being challenged. Our WP:RM mechanism already deals with challenged titles. Why not address the subject there instead of mucking around with a policy that works perfectly well for 99%+ of all titles now.--Mike Cline (talk) 11:59, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec)I agree with Mike Cline. Furthermore, I'll point out that prior extensive discussions on the question of how a title may or may not be reliably sourced has led me to the conclusion that there is no tacit agreement as to how that would work--in discussion of existing articles, some editors have objected to certain titles the literal text of which does appear in multiple reliable sources. Gavin, we are not lacking a mechanism to break deadlocks, there are numerous procedures that can be used to resolve disputes. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:01, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

There does exist a process for resolving editorial disputes about article names at WP:RM. But that does not mean that the need for clear guidance is made redundant. Again, you are not acknowledging the point made by Bus Stop: if there is no consensus, then there should be standards can be applied when a dispute arises. Guidance and procedure are analogous to a hand within a glove: we need clear guidance to make the produre to work smoothly. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:28, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Given that a procedure for resolving disputes exists, what exactly is the problem you are trying to fix? Can you provides diffs to deadlocked discussions that your suggested policy would resolve? Nuujinn (talk) 12:34, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

... while not creating a policy that would actually increase the probability that their would be a great many more disputes about article titles that various factions just don't like, ie. like List and outline articles.--Mike Cline (talk) 13:17, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:NPOV says as follows:

""Neutral point of view" is one of Wikipedia's three core content policies, along with "Verifiability" and "No original research." Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles. They should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should therefore familiarize themselves with all three. The principles upon which these policies are based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus."

Editor's consensus does not supersede other policies.

The creation of titles has just as much potential for being abused as any other part of an article. A title sets a tone for the article which follows. It readies the editors and the readers alike for a formulation of reality. Unfortunately, we have the potential to create reality here. That is an abuse. We are tied to sources as a safeguard. It is Pollyannaish to presume that editors don't choose titles (sometimes) in disregard for what sources may actually support. When no one objects this is probably completely innocuous. But the tools should be there for others to raise objections and challenge those titles that it is alleged have overstepped their bounds. Titles need to be required to justify their existence. Sources should be able to be produced by those defending a title to show that the real world sees that title in a similar way to the way we are using it. We shouldn't for instance be able to create topics around parameters that are not well-established in the world outside Wikipedia. That is because there is potential for abuse in that. I think our policy should include language acknowledging that sources are only required if and when demanded. This is not unlike the following language found at WP:VER:

"This policy requires that anything challenged or likely to be challenged, including all quotations, be attributed to a reliable source in the form of an inline citation, and that the source directly supports the material in question."

The "inline citation" part would not be applicable, but I think the "challenged or likely to be challenged" part is a requirement that should be applied to titles too. Bus stop (talk) 14:27, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

This sums up my understanding of how WP:NPOV applies to article titles, but for some reason, the guidance in this policy does not spell this out. Yes, there is an existing mechanism for discussing article titles (WP:RM), but how do you know if there is an issue to discuss if this guideline is unclear as to what the issues are? Yes, consensus is the primary driver behind agreeing on article titles, but it is not a Black box who inner workings are only know to those editors with psychic powers or who have been lucky enough to buy a crystal ball.

Bus Stop has hit the nail on the head: Editor's consensus does not supersede other policies. We need to make policy for determining article titles explicit, or we will never be able to agree what that policy actually is, let alone agree on the wording. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:09, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

The need for change

Gentlemen, we must clear the air. I have assumed good faith, and responded to your counter arguements, and you have made it clear that you don't want to see any improvement to this policy on the grounds that the status quo is perfectly satisfactory, and there is indeed merit in this argument.

But it is not the only proposal being tabled in these discussions. I have attempted to explain the bona fide reasons why the guidance in this policy needs to be improved with a view to reaching a shared understanding of the issues. You seem more than reluctant to acknowledge that this guidance needs to make the link between consensus and sourcing explicit, as consensus on its own cannot resolve a dispute if it is absent, and I think this needs to be brought into the open.

Both Mike Cline and Nuujinn need to make their concerns explicit, so we can fully understand their objections. My personal view is that they rightly concerned about what would happen to the articles History of Wolves in Yellowstone and Criticism of Judaism if he existing policy was changed. I recognise the effort which they have put into these articles, and understand theirs concern if they thought their contributions wasted.

If these are your concerns, bring them forward into the discussions now. Bring them to the table, because they have been the uninvited guest to these discussions until now. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 14:35, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the History of Wolves in Yellowstone and Criticism of Judaism articles, I have no particular concerns. My contributions are various, and I have no doubt that over time most if not all will be lost as the world moves along. WP will never be perfect and never be finished. You mentioned deadlocked discussions, please point to a couple, because I don't know what you're talking about. Mike's comment that these issues can be handled at WP:RM is well said, and I think WP:CREEP applies here. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:54, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

So are you say that if article titles were explicitly linked to the article source, you would be happy to demonstrate that this is the case for the Criticism of Judaism article? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:05, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I am asking you to provide an example of a deadlocked discussion which could be unlocked if your suggested policy were in place. Can you please show us a specific example of something broken that your policy would fix? And in regard to the title of Criticism of Judaism, I think my position is pretty clear from the many long previous discussions you and I have been a part of, and I see no reason to go through all of that again. I will point out tho that your comment that Mike and I might "rightly concerned about what would happen to the articles History of Wolves in Yellowstone and Criticism of Judaism" might be taken to suggest that your concern here is not about appropriate titles, but rather content of articles. --Nuujinn (talk) 15:35, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Gavin, there is a shared understanding by everybody except yourself. Titles describe the article, they use the best description for the article, in case there is dispute about what that is, we base them on the available sources. The exact wording of a title does not necessarily have to copy any source. Just as 2+2=4 is not a violation of WP:SYN, if the existence of wolves in Yellowstone is demonstrated by sources, we can construct the exact wording how we please according to the best judgement of the editors involved. There is, btw, an alternate title Wolves in Yellowstone Park, and I wonder if that would satisfy everyone. Criticism of Judaism is similar, if there is criticism of Judaism, we can use that as a title, whether or not we have an exact source for it. They are a well-established for of article here, and we can use them. The only title question would be whether we should use Judaism, or the Jewish religion, or some alternative. Similarly for List of ... -- which I think may be Gavin's actual objective. If there are notable things, we can list them, and call it by the obvious title--that's 2+2=4. It's an equally well established type of article, we use that form of title for Featured Lists, and one person saying wishing to dis-establish such articles does not amount to a significant dispute.

while the principles of WP:VNPOV and WP:V are basic to the encyclopedia, the applicability of them in any given case is certainly open to question and debate. Rules need interpretation, and we interpret them by consensus. There is only one alternative to consensus, which is one authoritative person deciding for everybody. We have no such person, and any attempts of an individual to get himself into that position should be resisted, or, perhaps better, ignored. His entire argument is in my opinion pure POINT, an attempt to do away with most list articles. I wish he would accept that the consensus disagrees with him, and there are more constructive things to do than dispute such a firm consensus. (There are a few consensus positions that I myself disagree with rather strongly, and in order to do some constructive work here, I leave them be, as I know I shall not be able to change them.)

Incidentally, though I disagree profoundly with what Gavin proposes as a general principle of literal interpretation, that does not mean I always disagree with him in specific cases. I share his discomfort with some Criticism of ... titles, because in practice the contents sometimes tend to be disorganized and sometimes even tendentious. The general idea of criticism of articles seems to be to keep the most controversial material out of the main articles,and in practice, it does often work well. It did not work well with the original article on this topic ,which was a disgrace by any reasonable standard. (I would prefer to break Criticism of Judaism into articles on Christian Views of Judaism, etc. (or for even greater focus, clarity Medieval Christian Views, etc...). DGG ( talk ) 15:51, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I share those concerns regarding Criticism of X articles, too, and while I find myself in profound disagree with Gavin's approach, I recognize that his intent is good. In the particular, your suggestion regarding breaking Criticism of Judaism is, I think, a good one. Nuujinn (talk) 16:00, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Both DGG and Nuujinn can see that there is both a problem with these article titles and a solution as well (good thinking), but I find it strange they are not prepared to acknowledge that the diagnosis of these problems and the proposed solutions they are putting forward is based on their evaluation of the sources. There must be some misundertanding between us about what following the source entails. It is not about following the sources slavishly, nor is it about accepting some sources but ignoring others. What is being proposed is basically that when we come to choose an article tiltle based on good judgement and consensus, we do so with the aid of the sources and this should be acknowledge in the guidance in this policy. I would ask you to reconsider your positions as I can see that your judgement is not only sound, but that judgement has been based on by what the sources say, rather than arbitary opinion. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:34, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

This is a problem with the Criticism of X articles, not with their titles, which are supported by reliable sources {search on Criticism of [Target of your choice]. This page is not the way to get rid of articles; it's about what to call them once we decide to keep them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:31, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I am never sure where all this seems to be going. "Wolves in Yellowstone" sounds slightly better than "History of W in Y", but I can imagine a fork from the "new" article with the "History of W in Y" once the original article grows too long. So we would (sort of) be back to where we started! Where I hope we are going is a focus on keywords first, adjectives second, which contrasts mightily with Strunk and White. "Criticism of X" works for me under this principle. But, as usual, probably not what everyone else is talking about....Student7 (talk) 20:00, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Septentrionalis and Gavin, there are two issues I see here. One, I do not know what it is that is considered broken that the proposed change is supposed to fix. Mention has been made of deadlocked discussions, yet I see none, and when I ask for examples, none are provided. Wikipedia is not falling apart. Two, it is a simple matter to say that when a title is challenged, we should somehow rely on sources to make a determination of what the appropriate title is. But in prior discussions, what exactly it means to rely on sources in regard to discussions about titles is either unclear or a source of disagreement, so I see no advantage to Gavin current proposal (or his prior ones). If he can clarify how he believes that can work, I'll reconsider. Nuujinn (talk) 20:23, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Article titles should not be created to describe areas that are not described by reliable sources. If an area for investigation is only found in sources in a scattershot way, that does not necessarily constitute good enough support. Sources should describe substantially what the article title implies is an area for investigation. There can be debate about what "substantially" means but that debate can wait until the wording is included in guidelines on the suitability of titles, and until the first individual case comes up. It is sufficient now to simply include language in our guidelines that sources should substantially support an implied area that an article is being written about. There is no downside to placing the onus on those who have presented a title, the appropriateness of which is being challenged, to be required to show in sources that their preferred title is adequately supported by sources. We would hope not to find only piecemeal support—that might suggest to us that the article's parameters are just made up. We should want to determine that outside sources recognize the topic that the article's title is implying. Bus stop (talk) 22:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I will concede that "to rely on sources in regard to discussions about titles is either unclear or a source of disagreement". However, this approach (titles somehow should reflect the sources) is the lesser of two evils. The alternative is that claims that an article title has been arrived at by consensus of editorial opinion (i.e. based on sound judgement) is not an unreasonable view, but it is also one that can be "hijacked" and used to perpetuate article ownership issues. This policy needs to have a mechanism to distinguish between "consensus" formulated to disguise article ownership issues on the one hand, and consensus based on sound editorial judgement that is based on a shared understanding on what the sources suggest the article title ought to be. I would suggest to you that article ownership is always open to challenge, where as consensus based on the sources enables editors to reconcile their differences of opinion. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 23:48, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Gavin, you say that the alternative to your approach 'is one that can be "hijacked" and used to perpetuate article ownership issues.' Is this something that you believe has happened in the past? If so, please point to where you believe it has occurred. If it has not occurred in the past, I suggest we wait until we have a problem before trying to fix it. In my opinion, issues of article ownership are fairly straight forward to deal with, with the attention of additional editors. Nuujinn (talk) 21:19, 22 August 2010 (UTC)k

Fixed-winged aircraft does not seem to be supported by sources, and shows that other considerations besides sources are made, including choosing alternatives to using either a U.S. (airplane) or British (aeroplane) spelling (in this case). --Born2cycle (talk) 14:08, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Fixed-winged aircraft is an article title that would seem to be supported by sources. A "fixed-wing aircraft" is:

"An airplane or glider whose wing is rigidly attached to the structure, or is otherwise adjustable. The term is used to refer to monoplanes, biplanes, triplanes, and, in fact, all conventional aircraft that are neither balloons, airships, autogyros, helicopters or tilt-rotors. The term embraces a minority of aircraft that have folding wings, which are intended to fold when on the ground, such as those used in aircraft carriers. It also includes aircraft with variable geometry wings (i.e., those that can be swept back to varying degrees in flight). The term usually differentiates rotary-wing aircraft (helicopters and autogyros) from normal aircraft. It should not be confused with the hard wings used in air-refueling aircraft."

That is from "An Illustrated Dictionary of Aviation." (ISBN: 0071396063 / 0-07-139606-3) Bus stop (talk) 14:30, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Requesting proof of consensus for recent change from months-old stable policy

Policy seems to have been changed without consensus, but is now being defended by virtue of how long the small bit of text has gone unnoticed. Directives on article naming consistency were ~stable from November until July. Apparently, prior to November a change to the "Consistency" text was attempted by User:Philip Baird Shearer, but no consensus was found to support the change at that time. On July 2nd, the change was implemented again, and it seems there was no consensus to do so then, either (or, at least, no evidence of any such consensus has been provided). After ~40 days, this non-consensus change to policy was reverted to its prior version. Now, however, editors are invoking its 40-day-old age as a defense of the text.

The RfC is to determine whether use of the new text (that is known to have failed consensus previously) is preferable now that it has been reused again without a clear consensus. BigK HeX (talk) 22:53, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Community discussion

I am questioning text inserted in this diff: [7] and recently edit-warred over.

I see in comments that User:Philip Baird Shearer claims that his preferred version is justified by virtue of its age. I have not seen where consensus was established for this change to have occurred weeks ago. Pretty obviously, consensus is required, as posted above

The project page associated with this talk page is an official policy on Wikipedia. Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are considered a standard for all users to follow. Before editing this page, please make sure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss on the talk page.

I hereby request proof that this consensus was clearly established, and that editors aren't making contentious changes to policy without consensus. Editors supportive of the change from weeks ago please post a link to the discussion showing consensus. I am NOT requesting any "justifications" based on the age of the text; I want a link to where I can view the consensus. BigK HeX (talk) 18:30, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually this edit from July 2, although the other did change policy in the process of cleaning up clumsy phrasing. I may have been wrong to say "most recent". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:35, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmm ... that was the edit I meant to link. Not sure how I grabbed that other (wrong) one. Fixed my link, now. BigK HeX (talk) 20:38, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

A change made over a month ago is not "the most recent change". Was there consensus for that change? Who knows? There is evidence of consensus... that it did not change in over a month... but of course that does not establish consensus.

But my objection is to the change that truly is "most recent"... the change made yesterday, for which there is clear establishment of a lack of consensus (a revert within an hour).

That's the "most recent" change for which proof of consensus is not only missing, but proof of lack of consensus clearly exists. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:10, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

The text being questioned here is that from July 2, when it was introduced. The recent edit war to remove or re-insert the July 2nd text is irrelevant to my question here. The edits you are referring to seem to be a restoration of fairly old text (from further than Oct 2009); no one has questioned the consensus of that text, making the edits you are referring to as quite a different matter from what I am questioning. BigK HeX (talk) 21:15, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

See this talk page discussion from September 2009. -- PBS (talk) 22:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec) The "most recent change" wording in the name of this section is yours, not mine. It's an odd way to refer to a change that occurred some 40 days ago.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that the evidence of consensus for the text you are questioning, which was re-introduced on July 2, is apparently limited to its stability from July 2 through August 10. However, the evidence that there is no consensus for what truly is the "most recent change" (what you refer to as "a restoration of old text") is abundantly clear.

One change lasted 40 days, the other lasted 40 minutes. The fact that there may have been consensus for the text in the past does is not evidence that there is consensus for it today. In fact, the reason the change was made on July 2, which was originally made on June 23 (edit summary: "The edit before this makes no sense if internal consistency is pitched at the same level as verifiability"), was to accommodate another change in the policy.

If you want better evidence for either case, I think you're going to have to create it with a poll or something. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:30, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

The change was obviously contested, with sufficient evidence given by PMAnderson. Calling "40 days" a "consensus" is nonsensical. I will support resotration of the text prior to July 2nd, until such time that an actual consensus supports the July 2nd version. We do NOT just continue to try over and over again to sneak-in contentious policy changes until they finally slip through the cracks. BigK HeX (talk) 21:47, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• I have reverted BigK HeX's change which lacks consensus. 40 days seems adequate time to establish a version as the usual duration for processes like RfC is 30 days. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:33, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • You have also reverted it on the grounds that it is inconsistent with the following paragraph, which is a utterly novel and preposterous claim. (I helped draft both, and was part of the consensus which devised them.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:40, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

An RFC is advertised and thoroughly explained. The usual process for a proposed change to policy that a user has tried before and failed to gain consensus is discussion; while it's fine in mainspace articles, the process for changing policy that will affect the entire community most certainly is not to try to sneak in a change without renewing the discussion (and achieving a clear consensus). BigK HeX (talk) 22:38, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

BK, I really think that you need to spend a lot of time reading the archives (see Wikipedia_talk:Article titles/Archive 27#Consistency June 2010 -- the last time this was discussed for a list of the archives on this issue) and also probably the archived talk pages of Flora and Nobs, before making a decision on what is or is not the "consensus", and then make up your own mind as to what represents the consensus, and argue the case for that version, rather than trying to do it by counting the days between edits and decide on the consensus that way. To most editors the difference between the wording of these two alternatives will seem like counting angels on a pin head, but it does make a difference on the margin, and it can be misused unless hedged, take for example should the article orange (colour) be moved to orange (color) because other articles use the spelling color. Should British Armed Forces be moved back to Military of the United Kingdom (and note the first person strongly opposed to the move back in 2005!).

Thank you for the link -- that is exactly the discussion I was hoping to be directed towards. Unfortunately though, that discussion only confirms that there was no consensus to support the change you proposed. BigK HeX (talk) 22:59, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

You are either a very fast reader or you have not read the full history of this issue. If you read the complete history of the issue from the first introduction of this contentious bullet point there has never been consensus for it. the wording there for most of last month is compromise wording. -- PBS (talk) 23:06, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

In the last 48 hours PMA has expended a lot of words attacked both myself and B2C, and it seems his only discussion about the text has been "You don't mind having consistency being something one uses as a tie-breaker when one can't think of any other reason to decide. But that is not what Wikipedia actually does; more title discussions involve "should we follow the example of titles X, Y and Z?" than "is this title too long?"" but he has yet to produced any evidence that consistency is ever used over and above reliable sources or the other points mentioned. The major problem with consistency for consistency sake is that in is as likely to be used to reinforce previous bad decisions as previously good decisions. -- PBS (talk) 22:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

There is a logic melt down: "consistency for consistency sake" may be used for anything, but that is not the point: Consistency is a value in itself because it makes reading and understanding simpler. Also it is not really possible to use consistency to transfer bad decisions, because that can be countered by consistently renaming all prior (and current) bad namings. -- Tomdo08 (talk) 18:28, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

• (ec)BigK, I agree calling "40 days" a "consensus" is nonsensical, which is why I did not do so. But calling "40 seconds" a "consensus" is 86,400 times more nonsensical, which is what you're essentially doing, unless you're claiming consensus for the previous text now because it had consensus over 40 days ago, which is ignoring the change (and potential effect that change had on consensus) that precipitated the change 40 days ago in the first place. I presume you don't mean to do that.

  Also, if this was some obscure article on no one's watch list, the 40 days would indeed be meaningless. But many of us have this page on watch, and during the 40 days in question this page had over a dozen edits from as many different editors, and the talk page had hundreds of edits by dozens of editors, and reads by countless editors, so, considering the activity on this page, in this case I think 40 days is a significant amount of time. Again, its not proof of consensus, but evidence of it, and certainly much more evidence of consensus than has the text proposed as an alternative. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:56, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Sidestepping who is right about which consensus point in time, and thus which version we must look from, I think the... a... "more recent revision" shall we call it? is excellent and necessary. I have seen numerous WP:RM discussions where this language would have provided clarity. More importantly. I think this captures what we already do in practice. Consensus can come from targeted discussion of a change, it can come (more weakly) from silence, and it also, significantly, can arise implicitly from what we do—a matter that the community has spoken on because they implement it every day, but which is only now written down. In practice, at numerous move request discussions, we ignore consistency between similarly situated articles where overarching concerns of whether something is the common name, whether is it precise, and whether it is ambiguous crop up. We defer to these policy concerns over consistency in almost all cases, and so this change had consensus long before it was codified--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:27, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: it also, significantly, can arise implicitly from what we do'

It's interesting you say that... I currently have no opinion on which text has more utility, but in the discussion which was linked regarding this change to policy, one of the editors asserted that the change implemented here is actually counter to what the community already implicitly does. BigK HeX (talk) 00:00, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

You mean User:Kotniski, I presume? I noticed that too, and left a note on his talk page inviting him to this current discussion precisely because of the apparent conflict in perception of what actually happens. In truth, I'm sure there are cases of where consistency is weighed equally with other considerations, and where it is trumped. The question is what happens most of the time when there is a conflict? Is consistency normally given equal weight, or is it usually trumped by other factors, when they are relevant, and usually only determines naming when the other factors don't apply? I have to wonder how often such conflicts actually comes up. Presumably someone working issues at WP:RM sees a much larger sample size, and therefore might have a more accurate perception, than an editor who has encountered only a relatively small number of such cases while doing regular editing.

Anyway, I like where this discussion is going... getting at what is true consensus on this point in practice. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:46, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I admit I did not read the prior discussion before commenting above. My perception, having closed I-don't-know-how-many move discussions (probably a few hundred), is what I said above. Having read the previous discussion, my secondary impression is that there have been some large scale and rancorous move discussions in specific areas where consistency figured largely in overruling commonnames and precision, etc., but that these are the minority. The everyday discussion is where someone says "see this other article with a similar name", and a second party says "but that's clearly not the common name", and thus falls that argument. I am not much for impressions and anecdotal perceptions not backed by evidence, so I would love to gather a statistically significant sampling of discussions to test my impressions, but I fear that is not an easy task.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:07, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that happens sometimes; so does the opposite: we choose among common names the one which is most consistent with others (for example, we use United Kingdom, not UK, although the abbreviation is probably more common, and certainly shorter, than the spelling out); we use taxonomic names for flora - perhaps to excess - not because they are common, but because they are consistent. Again, this can be overweighed, as with Tea, which overwhelmingly more common than Thea sinensis. This is why the policy says However, it may be necessary to trade off two or more of the criteria against one another; in such situations, article titles are determined by consensus, usually guided by the usage in reliable sources. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:14, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

This is an awkwardly presented RFC as it is asking two things: 1) Is the current wording acceptable to people and 2) Was the editor following due process in making that edit? I feel the first question is appropriate for this talkpage while the second one is more appropriate for a different venue, and the questioner should decide if the question is more about procedure (regarding how we edit policy pages) or about behaviour (regarding if an editor has behaved in a manner inconsistent with our guidelines and ethos), as that will decide the more fitting venue. My individual view is that Wikipedia moves forward by a series of both quiet and bold edits. If there is a disagreement about the best way forward, then discuss, and if the parties can't reach agreement, seek wider consensus. This appears to work well. As long as we look at the issues rather than the individuals then we make progress. As for the questions: I find the current wording "Consistent – When other criteria do not indicate an obvious choice, consider giving similar articles similar titles" to be helpful; and the editor appears to have been acting in the best interests of Wikipedia, which I think is the appropriate process to follow. SilkTork *^YES! 01:24, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I basically think the action of changing policy without there being a consensus in the talk page discussion is inappropriate, but focusing on the behavior likely is less useful than focusing on the new content. So, if people choose to take this RfC as an opportunity to decide whether the new version is an improvement, that's probably the more effective use of this discussion. BigK HeX (talk) 01:46, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Fully endorse PMA's characterisation of PBS's edit as something that was sneaked onto the page despite never having consensus. A review of the policy page and this discussion page will show that PBS repeatedly comes back to this one point, arguing the same case more or less every few months. I have no problem with that; PBS is passionate on this point and is agitating for change. But there can be no doubt that PBS made that edit knowing that it had been rejected many times in the past, knowing that had been rejected recently, knowing that the only chance it had to stick was if no-one noticed it. I don't have a problem with PBS doing that, but I do have a problem with the spurious argument that the fact that it stuck for a month or so before someone noticed makes it consensus. That is crap and PBS knows it. Hesperian 03:03, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

The edit I made was not sneaked onto the page it was made at 23:33, 2 July 2010 with a detailed comment connected to the now archived conversations "→Deciding an article title: Consistent PMA there is no indication that the current wording has a consensus. You have not explained on the talk page what you objections to this edit are". If I had put in the change under a minor edit or under a heading that was misleading (eg "See also") then you might have an argument, but where is the assumption of good faith in endorsing such an ad hominem?

Please show me where there was ever a consensus for the wording I replaced. Just because when it first appeared on the page, I did not continue to revert it out. I also wonder how you can know that I thought "knowing that the only chance it had to stick was if no-one noticed it."? of the people who spoke about it [Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 27#Consistency June 2010 last time] the only two editors who commented on the talk page in favour of the current wording were yourself and PMA, so there is no reason to assume that the wording put there last September has broad support. -- PBS (talk) 04:04, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Frankly PBS, to assume good faith here would be to assume abject stupidity. I don't think you're stupid. You've been in enough edit wars with PMA by now, on this very issue even, to know that PMA would not have let that edit pass unchallenged if he had seen it. Nor would I have. It was not my intention to accuse you of making that edit in the hope that it would pass unnoticed. But I accuse you of realising, post-facto, that the edit had gone unnoticed, yet still indulging in the spurious argument that silence implied consensus. Hesperian 04:12, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

!Votes for the two versions

For brevity and ease of reading:

Support "Consistent – When other criteria do not indicate an obvious choice, consider giving similar articles similar titles"

1. Support current wording. SilkTork *^YES! 01:28, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
2. Support current wording ("Consistent – When other criteria do not indicate an obvious choice, consider giving similar articles similar titles") per User:SilkTork and User:Fuhghettaboutit above. . --Born2cycle (talk) 01:42, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
3. Support. Consistency is more of an internal plus than a boon to our readers. Consistency is a fall back position where the more important naming considerations, the ones that address our readership's expectations of least astonishment, and landing where they expect when they enter a search terms, are fulfilled. If the common name, the precise name, the unambiguous name does not present an obvious choice of title, then consistency should come into play, but it is rare that it benefits our readers to follow it over these concerns.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:25, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
   • I disagree: Consistency is more than an "internal plus" or a tie breaker. It is one of the most important things in structuring knowledge. It benefits finding, identifying, understanding and learning. It comes after correctness but it certainly comes before commoness or brevity. Search terms are a no-issue because Wikipedia has redirects. "Expectations of least astonishment" are a dangerous way of thinking, because your "least astonishment" might just be my "most astonishment". Also I might be delighted to be astonished with the correct phrase for a common nickname, for example. And, to finish the circle, consistency is one of the major tools to reach "least astonishment". -- Tomdo08 (talk) 19:25, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
4. Support in line with WP:AT#Explicit_conventions and WP:AT#Considering_title_changes. AJRG (talk) 07:05, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
5. Oppose as the proposal seems to be ignoring what the sources cited in the article say, and whether or not they support the title. I think this whole proposal is being badly presented, as it suggests that article title are chosen without reference to what the sources say. I think we need to move away from the idea that editorial opinion trumps external sources. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 07:45, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
   • How so? This is just one bullet point in WP:AT, which stresses over and over again the importance of usage in reliable sources. AJRG (talk) 07:55, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

     What appears to be "consistent" to one editor, may appear to be "inconsistent" to another editor, and it is silly to use these labels, as if they were clearly identifiable characteristics of article titles, when in fact what we are dealing with are vague generalisations. For instance, if you look at Category:Dungeons & Dragons standard creatures, you will see that inconsistency is the norm in Wikipedia when it comes to article titles. The only thing that an article title should be consistent with is the coverage cited in the article. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:12, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

     This is meant to be a compromise version between complete removal and the alternative listed "Using names and terms that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles" and as such I would have thought it closer to the position you are taking as one of the earlier bullet points is to use reliable sources. This wording will stop consistency being used to contradict the use of reliable sources. But these two choices do not have to be exclusive. If you think that there is better wording or that the option should be removed then add another sub section with the alternative you want. -- PBS (talk) 08:23, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

6. Support Seems reasonably balanced and restrained in allowing for consistency without prescribing it. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:17, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Support "Consistent – Using names and terms that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles"

1. Very strongly support Consistent – Using names and terms that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles. This is a general good, not something that should only be considered when we have no other course." Find "When other criteria do not indicate an obvious choice, consider giving similar articles similar titles " inaccurate and unacceptable unless the other criteria are rephrased similarly. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:40, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
2. Support. Wikipedia's policy pages are descriptive, not prescriptive. Of the two options put forward here, only this wording can be considered as reasonable accurate description of current practice. The other is irreconcilable with our many consistency-oriented conventions such as the one described in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility). Hesperian 02:57, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   Do you see no irony in arguing against prescription, (which I do not see a more overt than in the wording you prefer) to support a guideline starts "For titles of articles on monarchs (with the exceptions referred to above): 1. Generally, omit the titles 'King',"? Not only that I do not see how the wording I prefer contradicts either Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility) or Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora). So please explain how it does. -- PBS (talk) 03:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   Straw man, PBS. I never said your version was prescriptive. I said that your version is not an accurate description. To see that your version contradicts current practice in naming royalty articles, one need look no further than the ludicrously named Henry VIII of England, which indulges a consistency-based naming convention despite other criteria indicating an obvious choice: "Henry VIII". Hesperian 03:59, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   Sorry if I misunderstood you, it is your mentioning of "descriptive, not prescriptive" juxtaposing it with the next sentence. I'm glad that we have clear that up. However policies and guidelines are not just descriptive they are also prescriptive because of the feed back mechanism. One only has to look at the great "date link debate" to see this. Also as you are well aware (so I am writing this for those who may not) both Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility) or Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora) took on a certain prescriptive quality, to work around the problem we had in this policy using "all sources" to decide on an article title. Once that was changed to "reliable sources", much of the prescription in many of the guidelines became unnecessary as they had been rule based to model the findings in reliable sources as opposed to popular names in unreliable sources that were different from names in reliable sources. -- PBS (talk) 04:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   What you call "a certain prescriptive quality", I call accurate description written defensively, in order to fend off prescriptivists. Apparently you are not contesting my assertion that the title Henry VIII of England cannot be reconciled with with your preferred wording. I suspect we also agree that "Henry VIII" would be a better title. It is possible that we disagree only on whether we have the right to make and change the "rules" here. Hesperian 04:38, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   Double natives are a little confusing! I don't see how this proposed wording does or does not affect Henry VIII of England, as the name does not contradict the usage in reliable sources, that is more a question of precision and consistency. If, as was the case for arguing for consistency over sources for Zurich Airport, consistency is used to negate reliable sources then we have problems. The wording I put in place was a compromise wording from previous attempts to address this issue, I am open to other suggestions, but we should not be suggesting that consistency is normally given the same weighting in considering a name as that of reliable sources, because the norm is that it is not. I can think of very few cases where consistency is proposed without simultaneous appeal to reliable sources. The argument for consistency is far more likely to be "the reliable sources do not give a clear indication of what name we should use so I think to be consistent with this similar article we should use a similar format." I think a better example that PMA had raised in the past is the naming of American towns. But with a name like Tuscaloosa, Alabama there is no contradiction with reliable sources, it is more a matter of consistency over precision. The wording of the policy should not be phrased in such a way as to support the use of Military of the United Kingdom--for internal consistency-- over British Armed Forces--for consistency with external reliable sources-- because that is not a usage of consistency that most editors would support. -- PBS (talk) 06:38, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   I dearly wish your juxtaposition of consistency with reliable sources was valid. If our overarching principle was to follow usage in reliable sources, and our list of five properties merely corollaries to that, I'd be right here with you saying "let's not overdo the consistency; let's just do what reliable sources do, consistent or not". But despite my best efforts, following reliable sources remains a footnote to our list of five properties. Your proposed wording demotes consistency below the other four, without doing anything to promote the use of reliable sources, so the above guff about following reliable sources is completely irrelevant. Hesperian 06:58, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   AFAICT only consistency is used to argue for a name that is not compatible with reliable sources, all the others are used to frame that use. Can you give an example of any of the other bullet points being used to challenge the usage of reliable sources rather than to frame its usage? -- PBS (talk) 08:07, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   That's a jolly good point. I will concede that consistency seems to be the only one of these principles that seems regularly to lead to usage in reliable sources being disregarded. And yet, ironically, the point I just conceded subsumes the point that consistency is regularly applied in article naming, which is surely an argument for retaining it as a principle here. Hesperian 11:30, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   I'll add Carlos Hugo to the examples. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:39, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   Heh, can't believe you guys were arguing over "Carlos Hugo, Duke of Parma" versus "Carlos Hugo of Bourbon-Parma", without anyone once suggesting "Carlos Hugo", despite the fact that you were all referring to him that way throughout. And even now Carlos Hugo is a redlink. :-) Hesperian 23:57, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   One of the strongest objections to conventions that call for predisambiguation (including flora) is precisely the inevitable creation of this kind of redlink. Sure it's easy to fix, but only when someone notices it. This kind of link can remain red for months or even years before it's noticed, as this one apparently has. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:57, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

   Thankyou B2c, I wholeheartedly endorse your assertion that the occasional failure to create a plausible redlink is "one of the strongest objections" to the flora convention. Hesperian 04:44, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

   Hesperian, with the exception of one editor who has declared a pox on both you houses, the suggestion is not to remove the principle of consistency but to qualify it so it does not clash with other criteria. Which AFAICT is how it is weighted by most experienced editors, and so reflects usage, better than the wording that does not qualify its usage. -- PBS (talk) 02:25, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

   Yes, I know that, PBS. But all these principles clash with each other. They need to be traded off. The page makes this clear. You say you are singling our consistency for assimilation, but it is actually demotion.

   Your argument was stronger when you were saying that consistency is the only principle that regularly clashes with usage in reliable sources. The true nature of the tension here is not really between these five principles. It is between following our sources, and imposing our own order on things. All of our least negotiable rules—singular not plural, noun not verb, sentence case not title case—involve us imposing our own order on our content, and usage be damned. "paraphyly": 70k ghits. "paraphyletic": 200k ghits. Gonna argue for the adjective form? No, I didn't think so. Hesperian 05:09, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

3. Support (strongly) - per both preceding. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:28, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
4. Support the long-standing (Nov.-July) stable version. Consistency should not (and isn't, in practice) be seen as a last resort, to be used only when all else fails. WikiProjects should be allowed to continue using consistency as a relevant part of their naming convention when needed, as Hesperian points out. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (video games) are two more that include consistency in their conventions. First Light (talk) 04:40, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   I'm confused. Television is an excellent example of following the other wording, since consistency (in this case adding series name in parenthesis to end of episode name) is only used when necessary (for disambiguation): "For an article created about a single episode, add the series name in parentheses only if there are other articles by the same name". --Born2cycle (talk) 05:42, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   From Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television): "A consistent naming scheme should be used for all season articles of a TV show: if one season is named something special, this should be noted through redirects and in the article's WP:LEAD, but the article should be named in the same fashion as the other season pages. For example "The Amazing Race 8" was known as "The Amazing Race: Family Edition", but maintains the naming format as other seasons and the second link being a redirection to the consistently named season page." First Light (talk) 15:55, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   Okay, but that only applies in very special cases ("if one season is named something special") in which the other criteria is unlikely to indicate a clear answer either way. In essence, it's using consistency (with other seasons) as a tie breaker, which again is consistent with the other wording ("When other criteria do not indicate an obvious choice, ..."). --Born2cycle (talk) 18:17, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   That made me wonder about Wikipedia:Naming conventions (video games), which I was not familiar with. Sure enough, it says, "Do not disambiguate unless a naming conflict exists." In other words, just like for TV episode names, video games disambiguate to the consistent format only when disambiguation is necessary; i.e., "When other criteria do not indicate an obvious [available] choice, ...". So, I don't see how either of these project examples supports this wording; they both seem to clearly support the other wording. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:49, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   Not true regarding TV: Even though ""The Amazing Race 8" was known as "The Amazing Race: Family Edition"", according to reliable sources, their naming guideline says to give consistency more weight than the sources in this instance. First Light (talk) 20:15, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

5. Oppose as the proposal seems to be ignoring what the sources cited in a particular article say, and whether or not they support the title. I think this whole proposal is being badly presented, as it suggests that article title are chosen without reference to what the sources say. I think we need to move away from the idea that editorial opinion can be applied to a whole class of articles, while ignoring what external sources say for specific articles. Every article needs to be dealt with on a case by case basis; only an examination of the sources cited in an article can determine what the article title is. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 07:47, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
6. Support - I don't see why we should treat consistency as less important than the other criteria for article titles. john k (talk) 14:05, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   In general, the reason to make one criterion more or less important than others is to be able to objectively resolve conflicts when different criteria indicate a different title, rather than leave it to the way the wind happens to be blowing at that time in whatever part of Wikipedia happens to have a conflict. More specifically, the reason consistency in particular should be made less important is because it usually is held to be less important (notwithstanding certain cherry-picked examples below) when the title it indicates conflicts with other criteria (most notably, what reliable sources indicate). --Born2cycle (talk) 14:50, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   The way to be objective is to weigh the cases. If there is a strong case for consistency and not much difference in usage, go with consistency; if there are conflicting but reasonable claims of consistency (as with William I of Germany below), go with most common. And so on. We don't need to establish an artificial gradation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   Weighing the cases is an inherently subjective process. What constitutes a "strong" case? How little is "not much" difference? Reasonable people can and do disagree on these subjective evaluations all of the time. The more the guiding policy reflects what happens most of the time, there will be fewer occasions on which the decisions are ultimately made arbitrarily. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:10, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

   You have just described all editing, which is why it is done by humans and not by bots. But the idea of making a large arbitrary choice now, in the hope of less ultimate arbitrariness, ia the sort of promise that natives of the twentieth century instinctively avoid. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:04, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

   You, inexplicably, said weighing the cases is being objective. I was responding to that assertion. Anyway, of course much of editing is subjective, but not nearly as much of titling needs to be. When it doesn't really matter, why not let objective criteria provide more guidance than less? Why should usage in reliable sources trump consistency with other similar article names for one article, but consistency takes precedence over reliable sources in another? Where is the merit or value in that? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:52, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

   Inexplicably? I was responding to your proposal that we arbitrarily endorse your (subjective) opinion of consistency and call it objectivity. I recommended the exercise of editorial judgment on the strength of various cases, which is what we do when we are actually writing articles, and is as objective as editorial judgment gets. But perhaps it is inexplicable; I should have foreseen this would be a waste of time. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:11, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

   Just about everything ultimately comes down to one or more subjectively chosen premises. But decisions based on reason that follows from subjectively chosen premises are objective (given the premises). If every premise had to be objectively determined for the ultimate decision to be considered to be objective, objectivity would not be possible.

   By providing less rather than more guidance in terms of priority in these fundamental naming principles we are unnecessarily creating more subjectivity and arbitrariness in the overall naming process, with no benefit to Wikipedia that I can see. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:31, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

   Yes, yes: first adopt [the speaker's] preferences and all will be objective from then on; but I don't share your preferences. No thank you, Comrade Snowball. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:45, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

   It's only my preference because it's the predominant preference in Wikipedia. If Wikipedia was dominated by names that were mostly determined by consistency, then that would be my preference. WP usage determines my preferences, what determines yours? --Born2cycle (talk) 01:49, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

   Yah, sure; Pacific Grove, California and your other one-man crusades have nothing to do with it. Tell it to the marines. But the other falsehood is worse. It may indeed be true that it is your predominant preference; but there is no predominant principle in naming discussions as a whole; that's why we have five of them. Now please stop; your credibility is vanishing before my eyes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:01, 13 August 2010 (UTC)-

7. Support this wording is reasonable and unambiguous.--Mike Cline (talk) 00:59, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

   Mike (see the examples below) does that mean that if you were closing a requested move, you would give equal weighting to the use of Zürich Airport because the city is named Zürich and the airport name is derived from the city name, to the common name in reliable English language sources which is Zurich Airport? If not then why is the other wording not to be preferred? -- PBS (talk) 02:31, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

   Excellent question. If I was arguing for one or the other, I suspect I would argue for Zurich Airport as it is the pure, common usage translation of the airport name in German. The airport name is not derived as you say from the city name, the official name is in fact Flughafen Zürich and Zürich is German, not English. A translation to Zürich Airport is actually improper because it really translates to Zurich Airport. On the sourcing side, I found english language sources using both Zurich and Zürich when refering to the airport name. (I suspect more European/Asian published sources use Zürich) If I was closing a move on the other hand, it would depend on what the consensus was and how it was being supported. Both titles are suitable for English WP because Zurich (English) is indistinquishable from Zürich (German). However, looking at another airport: Atatürk International Airport calling it the Istanbul Airport would be wrong because the formal name is: Atatürk Uluslararası Havalimanı (even though many English sources call it the Istanbul Airport. Consistency is an important titling criteria among others and in English WP should favor usage in English language sources, but cannot be seen a a black/white criteria. Some common sense has to be applied.--Mike Cline (talk) 06:02, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

   I used Zurich Airport because it is a recent example where this question cropped up because the article about the city is named Zürich (the discussion is under talk:Zurich Airport#Requested move). So it seems to me that what you are saying is "Consistent – When other criteria do not indicate an obvious choice, consider giving similar articles similar titles" not "Consistent – Using names and terms that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles". -- PBS (talk) 09:47, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

8. Oppose Wikipedia is not a reliable source and so internal self-consistency is not a desirable goal. Prescribing consistency encourages editors to indulge in original research, creating titles for the sake of consistency which are not used by independent, reliable sources. This then causes difficulty in determining the scope and content of articles because a disconnect is introduced between Wikipedia and the general mass of external literature. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:39, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
9. Support Consistency is a value by itself because it eases finding, identifying, understanding and learning. This is more value than most other guideline points have, only recognizability and precision being a rival. Measures like brevity, naturalness and commonality have less value and are further diminished by the possibility of forwarding. Naturalness and commonality also are fuzzy and tend to change. -- Tomdo08 (talk) 18:58, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
10. Support per Tomdo08. FactStraight (talk) 04:47, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Examples

The following are intended as examples of the actual decision-making process and what principles are actually used. Whether we agree with the decisions or not is secondary, and anyone wishing to re-argue them should follow the links and do so on the talk-pages involved. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:13, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• John_Fisher,_1st_Baron_Fisher#Requested_move_-_2009. Moved (from Jackie Fisher, ist Baron Fisher); the formal name was imposed, and the title kept despite suggestions it be dropped, on grounds of consistency. I see PBS closed this, btw; he ought to remember it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:48, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Either version is a very subjective, in my view, particularly becuase "Jackie" is often used a term of affection or a nickname, rather than a proper name. I can see it is the fashion to give important English military and political statesperons their titles, but I think this is a passing fad, as the title of Baron was not awarded until the end of his notable career, an example of the tail wagging the dog in my opinion. The propoer name would seem to be John Arbuthnot Fisher, but I suspect most sources would refer to him simply as Admiral John Fisher. --Gavin Collins (talk contribs) 15:31, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Lord Fisher is actually the name I've seen most often, I think. —— Shakescene (talk) 10:31, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• Talk:William_I,_German_Emperor#Proposed_move_to_William_I.2C_German_Emperor Note, that despite the strong and virtually undisputed prevalence of usage, this was discussed on the basis of whether to be consistent with Wilhelm II, or with the rest of the dynasty. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I think this a bad example of over-Anglisisation. Wilhelm I seems perfectly adequate, and is probably supported by English language sources as such.--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

As it happens, I disagree - and the sources chiefly use William I - but this page should not be enforcing either of our wishes as to what Wikipedia policy ought to be; it should be describing what Wikipedia policy is. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:42, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

If the sources cited justify the use William I, then that is the right name. Wilhelm I was just my guess, as I would have thought that significant coverage of the emperor would explain that William I is the anglicised version of his given name in accordance with WP:TIES, but I could be wrong in this assumption. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:57, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:TIES only refers to English-speaking nations, and deals with issues of orthography, not translation of proper names. john k (talk) 19:42, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• Talk:Sequoiadendron#Requested_move This is one where I would have gone the other way myself - I think the balance is overset; but it is certainly a decision for consistency with other species against common usage. We should not prescribe conduct, but describe it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:27, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I would go which ever way the sources go. It is stupid to have a latin title if is not widely used by the sources cited in the article itself.--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

That depends on which sources you choose to cite. If you cite taxonomies and botanical journal articles, they will use Liriodendron; descriptions of the Eastern United States will use tulip tree - and both will mention the other form. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:39, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

If there is a source which considers all these names, I would be inclined to use this source, as the choice would then be supported by significant coverage. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:57, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

This points to an important secondary issue: What is consistent in one realm, may be inconsistent in another. This projects directly to the readers: People browsing the taxonomy would look for the latin names, and a tourist looking up the landscape might be more interested in common names. -- Tomdo08 (talk) 19:48, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

The sources should be of no concern, I would say. Their value lies in providing facts, not wording. -- Tomdo08 (talk) 19:52, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

• orange (colour) be moved to orange (color) because other articles use the spelling color. -- PBS (talk) 02:54, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  • WP:ENGVAR. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:25, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

If American commentators have given this topic more consideration than others, then I would bow to their scholorship. If the sources don't support the move, then I can see this as being cause for an edit war. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:21, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• Should Military of the United Kingdom be moved to British Armed Forces (and note the first person strongly opposed to the move back in 2005!) -- PBS (talk) 02:54, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  • WP:ENGVAR; which is consistency among articles on British subjects here. (In the first case, it's "don't be stupid".) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:25, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a categorisation issue. Perhaps "Armed Forces" would not include the intelligence services, in which case both titles might denote a topic notable in its own right. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:21, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• Zurich Airport should remain at Zürich Airport because the city is named Zürich and the airport name is derived from the city name. -- PBS (talk) 02:54, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  • And it's at Zurich Airport; but as PBS well knows, the placement of Zürich is itself controversial. Nothing binds us to consistency with an error. In any case, the actual argument made was WP:Official names. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:25, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Pmanderson: the use of the umlaut diacritic is a red herring, since non-germans don't use or read it on a day to day basis, even if they recognised it. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• Talk:Carlos Hugo of Bourbon-Parma (two move requests and other discussion. There is no evidence at all of English usage of Carlos Hugo, Duke of Parma, but it is defended and may yet be restored basically as Precision. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Again, I would follow the sources based on which ones provide the knockout rationale for using a particular variant. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

PMA I don't think it is a question of precision, it is a question of consistency with other heads of families, and the rules in the nobs guideline. Your position seems to be for the name used in sources, even if it is not consistent with the Nobs derived rule's name. I can't make up my mind on this one, because most of the sources refer to when he is notable and before the death of his father. But there is a reliable source published after the death of his father that gives his title as Duke of Parma, and we give more weight to sources after a title change than before ... . I notice that on the talk page someone has mentioned that he is dying and on his death there will probably be some obituaries in reliable sources which will settle the article naming issue through usage in modern reliable sources. -- PBS (talk) 02:43, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I didn't intend this to be an example of consistency; but if PBS is right, it may be that oonsistency will prevail, even before his death. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:04, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

It may be a coincidence PMA but the three examples you have given are all covered by the content of what were more so, but are still, two rule based guidelines and that gets mixed up in those decisions. My major concern with this is not for those decisions which are also influenced by guidelines, but free range ones like British Armed Forces. At least two of these are also covered by "National varieties of English" (colo[u]r) and "Article titles should be neither vulgar nor pedantic" (John Fisher) -- PBS (talk) 02:54, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• Two of your examples are indeed covered by WP:ENGVAR, which is a separate consideration; often it is consistency and it is specifically not most common usage.
• But this is what we agree on: sometimes principles conflict; and sometimes common names win the conflict. That's in the text PBS attacked. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:25, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
• And my major concern is that the proposed text would (if this page were the Secret Legislation that some people think it is) prohibit the use of rules-based guidelines, and the development of new ones. As it is, it is merely mistaken description and unsound advice. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I think you are both missing the point here. These are examples where consistency has been put forward as a reason for names when there are other criteria, which trump it. You are both doing that in your comments, and it shows that consistency is only used when other criteria do not suggest an obvious other name. It does not matter if Zurich or Zürich you are both (PMA and Gavin) rejecting consistency as a principle, yet according to the policy wording as it was in June, you should give it equal weighting with the other criteria irrespective of whether the rest of the set were or were not correctly named in the first place. PMA the same goes for the British Armed Forces. If you accept that consistency is given the same weighting as other criteria then you can not argue that WP:ENGVAR trumps it (of course given what you think of the MOS you actually mean Wikipedia:Article titles#National varieties of English). You an I who have both hung around WP:RM know how to weight these things. But this policy is not aimed at us, it is aimed at editors who do not have much experience and our wording ought to reflect that usage which as you two have just demonstrated above that "Consistent[cy only comes into play] When other criteria do not indicate an obvious choice, [then and only then do we] consider giving similar articles similar titles" -- PBS (talk) 02:02, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR doesn't really fit in this policy, because it is not really being done for reader convenience; but if it did, it would have to be an aspect of consistency; all articles similar in dealing with Australia are titled similarly insofar as they are in Roo.

And if MOS spent its time saying "play nice, children" as ENGVAR does, I'd think much more highly of it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:24, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Sequoiadendron's only advantage over Giant Sequoia is consistency - with the other floral articles. The second is the obvious choice on the basis of the rest of the criteria: precision is a wash, and the English name is shorter, far more recognizable, and much more likely to be searched for. Yet the article was moved unanimously to the present title. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:24, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Compromise?

As usual, we are headed for no consensus. What we are supposed to do at this point is work out language which will actually be consensus. I am prepared to support

1. stronger language on the use of reliable sources; for example, we could remove usually from "article titles are determined by consensus, usually guided by the usage in reliable sources"; as I recall, the reasons for it are (1) that it's true, reliable sources are not always consulted; (2) we have articles like List of wars extended by diplomatic irregularity; all items are verifiable, and the class evidently exists, but the sources have no term for the class.
2. Recognition that editors disagree on the weight to be given to these factors. Personally, I think concision should only be considered when other factors are not indicative, but some people like it - and if it keeps us from including all his realms in Nicholas II of Russia, the wording serves the encyclopedia.

How about it? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:04, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

The only way out of this subjective quagmire is to look at the sources that support a particular article title as a basis for reaching consensus. We will never be able to agree on purely subjective criteria for choosing a title. If the sources have no term for the class, then it is not worth writing an article about it. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:38, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

The way out is simple, stick with the existing description of the one (of five) criteria--Consistency--until a compelling case is made for another. Don't fall into Gavin's trap of trying to turn a simple discussion about two wording alternatives into a veiled attempt to make our titling policy (a naming convention) into a content/notability policy. There was a clear question on the table and Gavin is attempting to hijack the discussion with a failed idea that has gotten zero traction in the last 6 months.--Mike Cline (talk) 22:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

PMA, What we are talking about here is non descriptive names, and the "usually" is largely to do with when we have descriptive names. So I don't see that removing "usually" as desirable. -- PBS (talk) 02:54, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm willing to lose "usually", since even with descriptive names, editors' choices are guided by reliable sources. "Guided by" is not the same thing as "mindlessly enslaved to". We can be "guided by" the sources even when we reject an offensive title or describe a topic in plain English. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

"Guided" is very vague, but I agree that we can't mindlessly follow the sources either, because even the most reliable sources may not impartial, and may not provide a basis for choosing a title that satisfies WP:NPOV. However, sourcing is central to that policy, more so than editorial judgement on its own, I think you have to agree. I think we need to move towards "ideal criteria" for deciding an article titles based on editorial consensus as to what sources support the title, and that way we will find which title is recognizable, easy to find etc. I fear that we may approaching this process from the other way around, which could result in conflict with the sources. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:08, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Where reliable sources use different names, conflict with some of the sources is inevitable. If one of the names is used by more than half of reliable sources, we usually go with that unless there's an NPOV issue. If not, it's going to be a matter of judgement. AJRG (talk) 09:27, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. But judgement based on what? Judgement based on editorial opinion? Judgement based on what an Ouija board tells us? No, judgement based on what the sources are saying. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:31, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

When the sources do not agree, then we make decisions based on the Wikipedia editors' own Best Editorial Judgment of the sources themselves as well as the choices that the sources make. For example, we might reject the name used by a high-quality source because it is outdated (e.g., the organization changed its name after the source was published), or choose a less-common name because it is preferred by more formal or academic sources (and the subject is a more formal/academic one: opposite choices might be made for pop culture). "Editorial opinion" is not the same as an editor's personal opinion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:54, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Editorial judgement based on an evaluation of the available sources. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:53, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Stepping back

• I think we need to take a step back for a moment. Perhaps it is just me, but my understanding of the "ideal criteria" for an article name all relate to the support given to a particular choice of title by sources cited in the article itself. So when we refer to an article title being "Recognizable" or "Consistent" etc., we do so with reference to the sources in the article. I think some editors are trying to define what is consistent as a characteristic which is somehow self-evident (i.e. its the "truth"), rather looking at the consensus of opinion is about the title being consistent with the sources. I think this is a mistaken apporach as article titles are not chosen in a vacuum; at the end of the day it is the sources that more or less dictate the title, not the title that specifies the sources. If the sources don't support an article title for a particular topic, then that is a problem with the notability of the topic. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:06, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

That's subject-dependent. There are several subjects (including taxonomy. royalty, and nobility), where the sources would support several different titles: Lord Emsworth, Clarence, Earl of Emsworth, Clarence Threepwood, 9th Earl of Emsworth, Clarence Threepwood, 9th Earl of Emsworth, Viscount Bosham, and so on. For most real peers, the first form is hopelessly ambiguous both with the other holders of the title and with the article on the title itself; it would also the most common term for all nine Lords Emsworth.

Similarly for plants, where quite often the sources would support either Tulip tree or Liriodendron depending on what their purpose was. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:20, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

If describing these topics is difficult for us, then surely third party sources would have the same problem? The reason I say this is that titles are not created in a vacuum: for instance there were two Earls of Leicester called Thomas Coke, but my guess is that their biographers worked out a way to distinguish between the two, and their example can be followed, rather than having to think up novel and overblown titles that follow a (subjectively selected) taxonomy.

Likewise, there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to choosing the names of flora and fauna, so it must have occured to published naturalists that it would be a good idea to explain why their choice of name is the best. To me, following the sources is the best way forward, even if that means looking at which sources to give more weight to than others. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:14, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

That's not how the sources do things. They have no problem describing these subjects; our main problem is the abundance of choices, any of which would do. Since no printed book is under the constraint of finding a unique title for each subject, our problem is substantially unique. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Gotta agree with Pmanderson on this one. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:04, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with him too. We have to evaluate all the sources, not just those in favour of one article title or another. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 20:44, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

See Naming the American Civil War, where profound, erudite and thoroughly Reliable historians use different titles, depending upon their personal opinions, their detached professional assessments, and the points they want to convey. In this case, there is a fairly-settled common title, but no one history establishes it (you could find a page's worth of unimpeachably sound histories that call it The War between the States and almost as many equally worthy authorities calling it The War of the Rebellion. (Cf. The English Civil War, which was The Great Rebellion to Lord Clarendon.) —— Shakescene (talk) 21:25, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

We must be very careful in any wording change re our titling policy--which is a naming convention policy--that would defacto turn it into a notability policy that could be used to support deletion as Gavin's position suggests. This is a naming convention policy, not a content or notability guideline.--Mike Cline (talk) 21:38, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

When we look at the sources in the article, we look for "significant coverage" from "reliable" "independent" to support the article title. These are not merely characteristics of notability, but are characteristics of good sourcing in general. When we look at article titles we have to look a the sources from a wider perspective, because insignificant coverage is just not good enough to support badly chosen article titles. Othewise, the only fall back is editorial opinion, which is too subjective to be relied upon when push comes to shove. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:35, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Gavin, you are diving down the same old rathole. Notability is about the Subject of an article, not the Title of the article. WP:Article titles is a naming convention policy, not a content or notability policy. Does anyone else but you disagree with that?--Mike Cline (talk) 22:44, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Gavin, why do you think that we need "significant coverage" (a measurement most commonly taken by counting the number of words) in a reliable source to determine a title that may only be one, two, or three words long? Surely a two-sentence news story is at least as good an indicator of the name used for a topic as a twelve-paragraph story. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:05, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I think there are lots of trite generalisations being applied here. I am setting aside Mike's comment about notability, because we must assume that the topics that this policy seeks to serve are well sourced and notable. If we are confronted with multiple sources, each suggesting a different title or a slight variation, then there is potential for editorial dispute as to which sources take precedence. It is naive to think lots of sources will suggest only one title, so we have to examine all the sources to see which ones will support which titles, and out of those titles which one best reflects their subject matter overall. Most of the time this is obvious, but when push comes to shove, we need cleareer guidance than is currently available. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:18, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

There is an important distinction to be made: The sources used for an article generally are a very small part of the sources which are relevant. Also they might be bound to their own special and possibly unknown naming conventions. So it might be wrong to base the naming on a source despite it being the best for the facts. -- Tomdo08 (talk) 20:20, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Observations

Just back from hols (so glad to have been unable to take part in another discussion and edit war over "consistency" on this page) but my immediate thoughts on looking at the discussion above are: (1) there is nothing like consensus among people on this page about how we arrive at article titles; (2) if there's a possibility of consensus within the community, we have to offer people clear options and then have a poll or something; but anyway (3) the primary determining factor for any particular article name is not what this page (or any other naming guideline) says, but what factors the people at the move discussion happen to find most important (and those factors are not even limited to the list which was created at one point, on rather an ad hoc basis, on this page). In other words, we don't have a policy on article titles, or rather, our policy is that each title is decided on its merits, and the best we can do here is to list the factors to which weight is generally given, without trying to say how much weight should be given to each one. That's until the community has decided, through a proper procedure, that certain weightings or algorithms should be adhered to.--Kotniski (talk) 07:23, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

My view is that we are going about it in the wrong way by putting the factors ("the cart") ahead of sourcing ("the horse"). Some editors are trying to define, or give precedence to what they think is Recognizable, Easy to find, Precise, Concise and Constent, rather than recognising that these are the by-products of selecting an article title based on an evaluation of the article's sources. If a topic is defined by its sources, surely our first point of reference for selecting an article title should also be the available sources? Until we agree on the approach to this issue, I think we are trying to get the tail to wag the dog. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:28, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

No, a poll will not produce consensus; it never does. It may divide into a majority and minority opinion, but that's not the same thing. What we need are new ideas; new forms of expression. How about something like:

Wikipedia articles must, by the architecture of the system, have unique titles; these are based on what reliable sources in English call the subject of the article. There will generally be several possible alternative titles for any given article; the choice between them is made by consensus, guided by such principles as:

• [bullet points].

I think based on is needed to cover disambiguation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:00, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, sounds like a slight improvement over what we have. Though even that statement about reliable sources seems too strong - in some types of cases our titles are not based on that at all (e.g. descriptive titles; transpositions of foreign names for things little known in English; titles virtually unknown in reliable sources which are nonetheless used in order to conform to some guideline). I would at least put an equivocating adverb like "generally" before "based on".--Kotniski (talk) 17:35, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you about it being too strong; but I'm trying to write for consensus - which means satisfying PBS and his friends. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:23, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

If we are going to go that way then we could go back to the old wording of Use the most easily recognized name. I suspect though that if we go with another large rewrite to fix one bullet point then we will be back here again discussing other points (untended consequences). As the archives show this conversation is a direct unfinished business of the large rewrite that took place last September, and the chances are that another large re-write will throw up other problems even if this one is fixed. I am still trying to work out what the objection is to the wording I have proposed (which originates in one of the previous attempts to reach a compromise). See the next section: -- PBS (talk) 23:24, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I like this proposal, and I don't have any problem with strength of the statement, because I think that must be the only way to resolve disputes about the choice of article title, i.e. by going back to the sources. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:57, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Again, it would be nice, but Queen Victoria (which is by no means isolated) again serves as an undeniable counterexample (see below). --Kotniski (talk) 10:09, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know that it is. Queen Victoria is a shortform title after all. The are even shorter shortform titles as well ("Queen Vic"), but they ususally refer to one or more longform titles, and I would guess the sources for her article would be able to explain what is the longform title. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:40, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The point is the simple and undeniable fact that the number of sources calling her "Queen Victoria" is of a totally different order of magnitude than those calling her "Victoria of the United Kindgom" (which is just as much a shortform title). There is not the remotest doubt as to what usage is - but it has been spat at in favour of consistency. There are many other examples of this, but for me, this is one where everyone can see it transparently and unequivocably. --Kotniski (talk) 10:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I think I understand where Kotniski is coming from now, and I am indebted to his explaination and patience. "Queen Victoria" is indeed a short form title, and although it is probably used more extensively in reliable sources more than any other expression of her identity, it is only one of the many short form titles that can used to describe her. It is also used extensively in the article itself, and in other articles, but short form titles are limited in their scope (i.e. they have a specific purpose), and the scope of a particular short form title may not reflect all of positions of authority or nobility she held through every phase of her life, e.g. she would have been born a princess before she became queen. If I understand correctly, "Victoria of the United Kingdom" is just as much a shortform title, but it is one that reflect all of her life, not just the bit when she was queen. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Not even that is true. Before her coronation, she was known as Alexandrina (Victoria), the names with which she was christened, or Drina to her family. Although some of the accession and coronation documents were in the name of Alexandrina Victoria, she made a clear decision to be crowned as and known as Victoria. On the other hand during her youth, apart from the fact that her first given name was Alexandrina, she needed to be distinguished from her mother Victoria—who never became Queen Victoria herself because her husband, Edward, Duke of Kent, pre-deceased his elder royal brothers George IV and William IV. This is true of many monarchs (which is why they were christened with four or five first names from which to choose): for example, Victoria's son Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, known as Bertie but crowned as Edward VII, and his grandson David, crowned as Edward VIII, and made Duke of Windsor after his abdication. The argument that [Name] of [Country] is a constant form, like Jesus of Nazareth, Pablo Picasso, David Cameron or Walter Cronkite, that holds good throughout the person's life, is a very weak one. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:13, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Then I admit I am mistaken and I am indebted to Shakescene for his comments, for the argument that "Victoria of the United Kingdom" is the name that could be applied to all of her life, not just the bit when she was queen is not supported by the sources. But I still hold that the article title is supported by the sources including those that refer to Alexandrina, Drina or Victoria, as the choice of Victoria would probably carry the greatest "weight". What I mean by "weight" is that the name Victoria is supported by the largest number of reliable sources, and the quality of the signficant coverage would the greater from those sources supporting the other names. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:13, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the "Victoria" bit is supported by sources, but it's not that bit that would be contested in a move discussion. The choice would be between various different forms of title, all containing "Victoria" and something else (well, I suppose some people would say that Victoria alone would be a valid title).--Kotniski (talk) 09:21, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Then we come back to Pmanderson earlier point: the form of short form title needed to cover disambiguation. I am no expert on this, but if she was queen of the United Kingdom, then "Victoria of the United Kingdom" is the only short form title supported by the sources that is both concise and consistent for which there is no disambiguation issue. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:42, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

That there is no disambiguation issue has been disputed (if you don't say "Queen", how do you know you mean queen of the United Kingdom?), but anyway, if you're now saying that a name is "supported by the sources" if it can be traced to some (very few) sources, not even close to a majority, then the goalposts seem to have moved considerably from where we started out.--Kotniski (talk) 10:18, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I thought we had agreed that the subject of the sources is the person, not her title, even though her titles are an important sub-topic. But if you are suggesting that the title should include the word "Queen" because we have to copy the sources verbatim, then you would probably be correct. However, my understaning is that you are happy to omit the word Queen, on the basis the sources don't use her formal tile all the time, but use the short form "Victoria" once the formal introductions have been dispensed with. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Are we then talking about changing hundreds of articles from "John XXIII" to "Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli", "Edward VIII" to "Albert Windsor", etc.? This would be a surprise. My preference for Queen would be worded differently for other reasons, but, for purposes of this discussion, prefer the "Queen Victoria" label. She is the most famous holder of that title. Student7 (talk) 11:48, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Personally I'm not happy to omit the word Queen, but it seems the community is (since it has done so all these years). People have tried to explain it, but I can't recall any valid arguments - they say we shouldn't say "Queen" because its "a title, not a name", but then "of the United Kingdom" isn't a name either, and many other titles (like "Prince", and sometimes even "Emperor") are regularly included in titles. The real reason I think is that someone drafted a convention years ago that worked well with the great majority of monarchs (the numbered ones like Henry I of England), and then when they came across a minority for which it didn't work so well, rather than make exceptions or modifications, they stubbornly kept on applying the same rule and pretended that the resulting names were easily recognizable. It is sometimes pointed out that these names do appear in some reliable sources, but it can't be claimed that they are common in sources, nor that they have any advantage whatsoever except consistency with the others. --Kotniski (talk) 11:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I think this view is shared by many editors, and Dcmq is making the same point quite forceably about the fact that "Queen Victoria" is a widely used title in the next thread down. I had a look at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)/Archive 20 and I can see that the underlying tension between using naming convensions conflicts with rationalising them in terms of what the sources say or mean. My attempt to deconstuct this issue is that the underlying process of trying to express the the identity of a complex and rich subject using a short form title that is both precise and concise results in a loss of context. An analogy would be to put a Bugatti Royale through a car crusher in order to save storage space. Taken from this perspective, dropping the word "Queen" does results in a shorter title, but also a loss of context. However, if the title "Queen Victoria" is truely as notable as somebelieve, then it needs to be backed up by direct and detailed evidence that "Queen Victoria" is indeed her most notable epithet. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:41, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Presumably the "Victoria" arguments above are intended to make a wider point. If it is however, local to that article, discussion really needs to be moved there or to a Request to move. Thanks.Student7 (talk) 12:57, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

They were intended to make a wider point; we were comenting on the article's talk page discusions. My conclusion from this discussion is that "Queen Victoria" has not been shown a notable sobriquet in its own right. If there is strong evidence to suggest it is, then that would provide a powerful argument to sustain a Request to Move. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:13, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd be happy with Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom. I don't like "Queen Victoria" on the basis that there are no article titles formulated in that way, nor do any other encyclopedias title articles in that way. I fear I'm fighting a losing battle on this one, though. john k (talk) 14:51, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I had assumed that an link to [[Victoria, Empress of India]] (or whatever) could be piped to "Queen Victoria." If this were true, a lot of problems might go away, but I have seen pipes deliberately erased in order to point to the "main" article, without filtration/emending. In Victoria's case (and others), I can see where this would be annoying, at the least. As in "Victoria, Empress of India, was born on..." Hmmm. Student7 (talk) 18:20, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Kernel

I think we can pare away many cases and get to the kernel of any disagreement we have. If we can highlight that then we may be able to come up with wording we agree with. At the moment there is a lot of chatter about thinks that we probably agree on and so it is confusing the issue. I am going to put a number of bullet points below and if anyone disagrees with any of them then please comment:

• Before the rewrite in September 2009 there was no mention of consistency in the policy -- it was implied in some of the guidelines, and may have been explicitly stated in some of them (I don't know).

• This debate is not about descriptive article titles.

• Many of the #Examples given to date put consistency up against other parts of the policy such a precision, but to date no example has been given where internal consistency was chosen in direct contradiction to the name reliable sources. (even in the current WP:RM example Talk:Carlos Hugo of Bourbon-Parma, the only reason that the Duke of Parma may be chosen is because there is one source that supports it).

Does anyone have any other similar points to make? -- PBS (talk) 23:24, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I think you can only say "to date no example has been given where internal consistency was chosen in direct contradiction to the name reliable sources." because you have an astonishing ability to think whatever you want to think about any example given. I gave Henry VIII of England as an example further up the page, and you dismissed it with half a sentence of intractable wikilawyering. "Henry VIII" is by far the more common name in reliable sources, and it is obvious that we have only tacked "of England" onto the end in order to be consistent with other royalty articles, many of which need "of [country]" on the end for reasons of precision. If you won't accept this example, then you're incapable of accepting any example, which makes discussing this with you nothing but an utter waste of time. Hesperian 04:02, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Henry VIII of England is a matter of contradicting precision not a matter of contradicting reliable sources (eg Henry VIII of England by William Norman Pittenger (1970)), as would the using Zürich Airport or the Military of the United Kingdom. At a finer level many of our other policy suggestions also contradict some details of reliable sources, such as using precision to strip off minor realms from Kings. I personally don't see that as a problem as we are trying to give articles unique names, not put in a full list of titles. You may call it wikilawyering but I am trying to see if we can agree on some points, one is whether we are agreed that internal consistency should not be used to override usage in external reliable sources. -- PBS (talk) 04:42, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

See this is exactly what I'm talking about. If you consider any choice of title that has any usage in reliable sources to be following reliable sources, then I no longer concede that consistency ever leads to reliable sources not being followed. In fact, I challenge you to show me any proposed move, ever, whether successful or not, where the principle of consistency led someone to suggest a name that has never appeared in a reliable source. By your definition, you're fighting to prevent something happening that has never happened, could never happen, and has never even been suggested! Hesperian 10:36, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, as long as we have titles like Victoria of the United Kingdom (and I know at least one editor here who thinks that's an acceptable title - and presumably others elsewhere, or it would have been changed long ago), then sadly no, people are not agreed on that.--Kotniski (talk) 08:25, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The name Victoria of the United Kingdom does not contradict usage in external reliable sources (it is a similar example to Henry VIII), the title uses more precision than you would think necessary, but that is not the same as the two examples I gave above, which when implemented were supported by a minority of reliable sources against another name which was clearly the common name in English language reliable sources. -- PBS (talk) 09:57, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean - that sounds to be exactly the same situation as with Queen Victoria. (Of course you can find some external sources that call her what we call her, but it clearly isn't even remotely as common as the obvious alternatives.)--Kotniski (talk) 10:06, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

This is a difficult example, because there are no rules where an article title can refer to more than one topic. You could argue that undue weight is/is not being given to one particular Queen Victoria, but WP:UNDUE has never been applied across topics, as far as I can remember, so there is little in the way of policy or guidance with this title.

Perhaps a better example (with a similar problem) is the various Thomas Cokes, whose naming is worthy and consistent, but nonetheless somewhat ponderous and is not used explicitly by the sources cited in the article itself:

1. Article name: Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (fifth creation) - What the sources say: Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester
2. Article name: Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (seventh creation) - What the sources say: Thomas William Coke, Earl of Leicester

I admit that the individual concerned have confusing names and titles, but I think the convention used in their article titles makes things worse, as the term "creation" is not a term used in many sources. If I had named these articles, I would have been inclined to use the sources for the sake of more clarity. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:31, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Well we obviously see this from different directions, since for me, these consistent titles for earls are better than what you claim the sources say, whereas the "consistent" title given to Queen Victoria is simply bizarre (there is no meaningful clash with any other Queen Victorias). But the point is that, in both cases, the community accepts the name that goes against the sources, so it's just wrong to assert that we have a policy of always following the sources.--Kotniski (talk) 10:44, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe the article titles for the earls are better, but the sources in the articles don't support your view. As regards Queen Victoria, we both know this is the shortform title that refers to a longform title such as Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom or some variant along these lines. I don't think the rejection of the shortform title is bizarre at all, and again, I think the existing title (Victoria of the United Kingdom) supports this view. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:56, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

"The sources in the articles don't support your view" - well this is the whole point!! The community does support "my" view, the sources don't, the community wins - thus contradicting your assertion that policy is to follow the sources. What you say about Queen Victoria is equally irrelevant - we are choosing between two shortform titles, and again, the sources clearly go one way, we go another.--Kotniski (talk) 11:03, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

This discussion is turning into "oh yes it is - oh no its not type discussion" (mea culpa), and this is something that I very much wish to avoid with article titles, which I have to admit is a fairly subjective area to start with, so I don't want this discussion to get bogged down on differences of personal opinon. What I am trying to understand is the best procedure for working out what is the best title, know ultimately that it must reflect the content of the article. Where I am in disagreement with you is the "community always wins", because I read this two ways: the community make am honest and informed evaluation of the sources and arrive at the best possible article title, or the "community" (aka one or two editors) choose an article title, but its not really supported by the sources. If we always assume the community is right, that is fine, there is no issue and no dispute will arise. But where the choice of article title is subject to a (justifiable) dispute, or is open to a (substantiated) challenge, then the communities choice is going to be called into question. I have read Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility), point 1 of which says that Generally, omit the titles "King", "Queen", "Emperor" and equivalent, so I can understand why the title "Victoria of the United Kingdom" was chosen. Even so, I put it to you again, I don't see how this guidance can endure if, say, the sources suggest an alternative. This is what I mean by the tail wagging the dog, and I am finding it hard to understand the justification for this approach. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:32, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The sources almost always suggest alternatives. For example, Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (seventh creation) will be also known as Leicester, like most earls; as the Earl of Leicester, as Thomas William Coke, Earl of Leicester. Perhaps more commonly than any of them, he is known as Coke of Norfolk - his notability was in the Commons, and he retired to a peerage. I don't think we can suggest a single rule for this; there are several considerations which any discussion on its talk page will want to consider. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:46, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I wrote "Many of the #Examples given to date put consistency up against other parts of the policy such a precision, but to date no example has been given where internal consistency was chosen in direct contradiction to the name reliable sources." Kotniski I don't see how you think that "Victoria of the United Kingdom" is contradicting common usage in reliable sources. Of course the name will vary because the usage in reliable source's because usually sources are using a name in context (for some of her life for example Victoria was a princes so some interpretation of sources has to be done). No one who sees "Charles I summoned the Long Parliament" in a book on the English Civil War is going to mistake that man with any other Charles I so the author does not need to qualify his name it any more than we do in the article about the English Civil War. This is different from arguing that we should ignore English usage in favour of Zürich Airport even if a clear majority of reliable sources use Zurich Airport, which is why I wrote internal consistency was chosen in direct contradiction to the name reliable sources. Does anyone have any recent examples like British Armed Forces where a requested move has moved an article to a name (or failed to move a name where for internal consistency the name of the article is in direct contradiction to the name that would be chosen by relying on reliable sources, and if there is, does anyone think such naming can be justified under internal consistency? -- PBS (talk) 00:34, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

This doesn't make any sense at all to me, PBS. Please explain as clearly as you possibly can, how the case of "Henry VIII" (most common usage in reliable sources) versus "Henry VIII of England" (also occurs in reliable sources), is different from "Zurich Airport" (most common usage in reliable sources) versus "Zürich Airport" (also occurs in reliable sources). In particular, please explain why one, and only one, is a case of "direct contradiction to the name that would be chosen by relying on reliable sources". Please make an extra special effort of be clear and rigorous, because I'm going to give up on you if I hear any more intractable nonsense. Hesperian 02:42, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

That "Victoria of the United Kingdom" (as opposed to "Queen Victoria") goes against common usage in reliable sources is surely absolutely obvious to everyone even before they start Googling. I don't know where you're going by trying to deny such a blatantly checkable fact. I don't know what would happen if it were proposed to rename the article now (probably no consensus - I'm not optimistic enough even to want to bother trying), but clearly it doesn't go against policy as the community sees it, since the current title is tolerated even though it's a very visible article and the weird name issue would be obvious to any educated English speaker.--Kotniski (talk) 07:18, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with what you are saying but there is still a duty to be ACCURATE. Queen Victoria never was the Queen of the United Kingdom, so how on earth did this title get bestowed on her by Wikipedia!!!!!!!!!!!!! She was, amongst other titles, Queen of England, Empress of India etc. etc., but NEVER Queen of the united Kingdom!!!!!!!!!, enough exclamation marks for you?Petebutt (talk) 09:16, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm passionately in favour of making the article title Queen Victoria and not Victoria of the United Kingdom, an article where I've spent a little time attending to several peripheral matters, [just as I think New York is hopelessly ambiguous and should be changed forthwith to New York state while New York City remains just that.] However, the number of exclamation marks fails to establish what you want them to. My reprint of the 1900 Whitaker's Almanack gives this title on page 86 ("Royal Family") to the Grandmother of Europe:

HER MAJESTY VICTORIA, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India

—— Shakescene (talk) 09:30, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I think I understand the policy on consistency, but I don't think it conflicts with the common usage in reliable sources. What we are talking about is a series of short form titles supported by a variety of sources, but used in different contexts. There are several short form titles for the likes of Henry VIII and Queen Victoria that overlap, e.g. there was Prince Henry and Princess Victoria before they became monarchs, but we don't have seperate articles on them at this stage of their lives. Rather, we look at the sources and ask "who is the person this title addresses?" Since Prince Henry and King Henry are the one and the same person, then we need a short form title that best reflects all of the sources, not just those relating to when they were king or queen. In a way, this is an application of WP:UNDUE: the title "Victoria of the United Kingdom" does not give undue weight to her monarchy, rather it gives some weight to the fact that she had a life before being crowned.

Now the way I see how we get around using competing short form titles is the use of redirects: if Queen Victoria is a notable title, then it can be used exclusively as a redirect to the appropriate article. This way, all the short form titles that describe her can be used, not just one, and argueably the article titles do follow the sources, but sometimes that has to be done via redirects, not just in the article itself. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:34, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't think anyone has ever reasoned like that in relation to titles like Victoria of the United Kingdom. She's called that way pure and simple because she was queen of that country (as a princess she would never have been called that) and in order to be consistent with titles of other articles on monarchs. If we followed the sources like you say we do, we would never title an article with such a rare name when we have a perfectly good common one available.--Kotniski (talk) 10:28, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to get into the "No, it isn't, yes it is" mode, but if she is called that way because she was queen, then why doesn't the title include the word queen? I just don't think it is as pure and simple as you suggest. However, I agree with you that the title is consistent with the naming convention for monarchs, and can be applied to monarchs of different nationalities, which is useful for disambiguation purposes. As short form titles go, "Victoria of the United Kingdom" both follows the sources (in the sense the sources are about a person, not their title) and is consistent in the way it follows the sources. Perhaps it is this last bit that this policy is not making explicit, and maybe should do for clarity's sake. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:03, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I think it is a particularly stupid name when Queen Victoria is by far the most common name. There was no need to make up a name, it doesn't occur like that anywhere else that I know of. That is even worse than insisting the cat article be titled Felis catus, at least some people do refer to that name. Dmcq (talk) 11:12, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a fair point - the proof is in the pudding. We don't apply the naming convention conistently: there must be some "over-ride" mechanism, whereby the short form name is the proper name. A good example is William I of England, best known as William the Conqueror. Perhaps there is evidence to suggest that "Queen Victoria" is a proper name, not just a convenient short form working title. If there is a source that demonstrates that this is the proper name used to identify her, then I think this policy should say this is the knockout reason for using that title, rather than a "consistent" variant. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:39, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

But sources almost never say "X is the proper name for A" (whatever "proper name" means - presumably you don't really mean it in the sense that proper name links to). Sources just use the names.--Kotniski (talk) 11:43, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

This is true, probably because there are few short form titles that can be used in every context and can be refered to as proper names or sobriquets, e.g. Caligula ("little boots").

Names like Queen Victoria, William the Conqueror, Richard the Lionheart and Vlad the Impaler sound like proper names, but unlike Caligula they are not used in every context by every source. I would argue that because they had a life before they received these titles, these short form titles give undue emphasis to their sobriquet, rather than the person. In contrast, I think Caligula aquired his sobriquet when he was a small boy and it became his proper name.

However, if Dmcq can come up with a source which says directly why the title "Queen Victoria" does not require any form of qualification to distinguish her from other queens of the same name, he would have a knockout arguement against using a "Victoria of the United Kingdom", as he would have evidence that Queen Victoria is the proper name by which she is identified. However, since there are other queens of the same name, I think he would have to provide strong evidence that Queen Victoria (disambiguation) is unnecessary. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Queen Victoria already redirects to her. Queen Victoria (disambiguation) is necessary because there are other Queen Victorias but that is not very relevant. Where there is an obvious first choice that most people would be searching for then it is used for the main choice rather than going immediately to the disambiguation page. Just because there is a cat (disambiguation) page doesn't mean cat shouldn't refer to what is otherwise known as Felis catus. Dmcq (talk) 13:55, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

In a way, your complaint has been addressed by the redirect from Queen Victoria, but you still have a valid point: the redirect is a fudge, as the redirect should go to the disambiguation page, and when Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden becomes queen, that may well happen. However, whilst I agree with you that "Queen Victoria" is the obvious first choice, it contains both a title and the name of the person, and the article sources show it is about the person, not the title. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:33, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I've probably lost the point here, but someone mentioned "Charles I" as being unambiguous in context with the Long Parliament, etc. That still doesn't preclude our having to distinguish (pipe) Charles as separate from a similarly named Swedish (or whoever) monarch. I don't see why his unambiguity in context (which I am happy with), has anything to do with an article title which may be quite lengthy and unnecessary in the article (so it should be piped). That's fine. What's wrong with that? Student7 (talk) 18:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

section break

Hesperian I have been busy on other things I have not forgotten your question. But as what seems obvious to me is not obvious to you, will have to give a more detailed explanation than I have had time to craft. -- PBS (talk) 11:16, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Roger that. Hesperian 23:25, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I think I need to salami slice my reasoning and step thorough it (as I thought I had already been clear). We use the term WP:PRIMARYTOPIC "Although a term may potentially refer to more than one topic ..." I put it to you there is also a concept of "primary title" ie it is often the case that one of the title, out of the set of all the titles used by reliable sources, is used more frequently than all the others titles combined. So can we agree that there often is a primary title and use that term in this discussion? -- PBS (talk) 23:40, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

In the context of a discussion about choosing a name to use as a title, it may prove important to distinguish between names and titles. I agree that there is often a primary name. Hesperian 00:33, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

In the case of the 3 bullet points "Naturalness" (Yuck!) -- it actually means we write "Paul Smith" rather than "Smith, Paul" --, "Precision" and "Concisenes" you and I seem to agree on what those terms mean (although I am not sure some others agree with us) all of them frame the primary name. It may be necessary to reorder the words in the primary name ("Smith, Paul" to "Paul Smith"), or add to the primary name, or remove parts of the primary name, but the name remains the same. -- PBS (talk) 04:10, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

If you're saying that there may be more than one way to write a primary name, then I agree. When evaluating the prevalence of names for a topic, we wouldn't pit "Paul Smith" against "Smith, Paul"; we would bundle them together as orthographic variants of a single name. Your last sentence contains a great deal that I would be unwilling to take for granted. Hesperian 05:26, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Its a bit more than than "bundle them together as orthographic variants", if the only sources were the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography both would write the name as "Smith, Paul" but because we have chosen to write names under "Naturalness" (Yuck!) the entry here would be "Paul Smith". Agreed? -- PBS (talk) 06:56, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't see why that's any more "natural" than "Smith, Paul" - if users of other encyclopedias are used to surname-first, then it's natural, when they arrive at Wikipedia, to expect us to do surname-first as well. Once they've learnt that we don't, it would be extremely misleading to them if we suddenly titled one article with surname-first for no reason. This seems to be a case of consistency rather than the nebulous "naturalness" (combined with the fact that far far more sources refer to people with forename first, except in the very specialised circumstance of an index item or similar).--Kotniski (talk) 09:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

That is why there is a mention to linking from other articles. In the text of another article one would write "Paul Smith left the building" not "Smith, Paul left the building". -- PBS (talk) 09:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but that really isn't what motivates us (and if it were, it would be a very weak reason, when we have redirects available). Maybe that was one of the factors that influenced the original decision to use forename-first titles (if indeed that decision was ever made consciously), but now our custom is fixed, there are far more conclusive reasons not to use "Smith, Paul" for any article where such a suggestion might be raised.--Kotniski (talk) 10:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

PBS, Back to your comment at 04:10 26 August 2010: I believed you to be making the point that "Smith, Paul" and "Paul Smith" are the same primary name. I grant that. You also made some vaguer comments about what kind of orthographic alterations you can make to a name without it thereby becoming a different name. I declined to grant you that without further detail. I'm inclined to agree that we use "Paul Smith" rather than "Smith, Paul" for reasons of "naturalness", simply because I can't think of any other principle upon which such a choice might be made. I also note that you are assuming that such a naming decision must apply to every article—i.e. that every article must follow either a "Paul Smith" pattern or a "Smith, Paul" pattern. I don't disagree with this assumption, but it should be explicitly acknowledged here. Hesperian 11:14, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Stand back and ask yourself – What’s Broken

I’ve been following this consistency discussion for several days now and took the opportunity to ask myself—what are they trying to fix. EN WP now stands at 3.3M articles—all have titles. 1000s of articles get created all the time by editors whom I suspect are completely unaware of WP:Article titles and even if they are aware, they don’t consult the details when they create an article. I know I don’t. Yet we move along smartly. When an article is created with a title that doesn’t quite mesh for technical, NPOV, substantive, consistency or other reasons, conscientious editors and admins move in and correct it. We have a robust mechanism for fixing titling issues. Even if a title change requires extensive discussion, we have the mechanisms to do so. So why all this angst over the simple wording of one criteria aspect of our naming convention? To what end? What problem is it going to fix? I am personally interested in the titling policy because we need to prevent it from becoming another policy that is armed to support deletion of articles because titles aren’t directly and literally supported by reliable sources. There are those who want to do that. But absent that interest in this discussion, if I asked myself—what if not a single word of this policy changed in the next year? What havoc would that cause in our article creation efforts. Absolutely none. We are wasting a lot of energy on a discussion that will have literally little or no impact on the future of WP. Now I am going fishing and will see what you all think this evening.Mike Cline (talk) 14:51, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

You know what is broken, Mike. This discussion is about resolving editorial disagreements over articles with over blown or absurd titles like History of Wolves in Yellowstone which should be called someithing a lot more straight forward like "Wolves in Yellowstone". This is a problem worth fixing, and although you have a personal interest in this article (I think you created it), I am rather hoping you won't obstruct these discussions, but participate constructively and in good faith. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:57, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Bios may be different. I like "History of Wolves in Yellowstone." It agree it is lousy style. It is objective, which I like. It suggests there could be a a "Ecology of Coyotes in Yosemite" for example. I support discarding style guides for titles.

Having said that, for non-bios, I don't see what is wrong with "Queen Victoria." Longer titles for people with same names look fine, though. "John Jones, 6th Earl of Oxford" or whatever. Maybe bios should be separately discussed under a different thread? Student7 (talk) 13:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The danger lies in imposing an emphasized rank difference between different properties of naming. There are a lot of naming discussions referencing stuff on Wikipedia:Article titles and there a lot of editors wreaking havoc while citing some rule. Every wording which as much as only tends to preclude discussion will fuel destruction in the name of the good. -- Tomdo08 (talk) 21:02, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposed changes

I have edited the introductory text to the section, so as to emphasize the use of reliable sources. I hope this will address PBS' concerns, and that we can settle this, and drop the tag. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:02, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I tweaked the wording to put emphasis on article subject supported by sources thus choosing the best title to support the subject.--Mike Cline (talk) 15:19, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The emphasis on the use of reliable sources is not strong enough. The problem is the vagueness of this statement:

"There will often be several possible alternative titles for any given article; the choice between them is made by consensus".

I think the emphasis on consensus is not mispalced, but at the same time it is not clear, and can be used to assert or justify article ownership. The intent implied by this statement needs to be made clearer:

"There will often be several possible alternative titles for any given article; the choice between them is made by consensus based upon the weight and context of the coverage given to it by reliable sources".

I think we need to make this sort of amendment, as we have learnt one from this discussion - consensus must be demonstrated to have been reached by more than just editorial opinion formed in a vacuum. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Duly strengthened, to make clear that the choice is (normally) between titles supported by the sources. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:48, 17 August 2010 (UTC)