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Can we use this page to discuss the suggested policy, not specific cases? Kokiri 1 July 2005 19:30 (UTC)

East Sea/Sea of Japan

This is a good start, but unfortunately it misses a key point. The article says:

The body of ocean water between Korea and Japan is called the East Sea by Koreans and the Sea of Japan by Japanese. Which is right? Wikipedia refuses to say.

We do quite rightly refuse to say which is right - but note that the article is located at Sea of Japan, not East Sea. In other words we don't say which is right but we do select one name to take priority. There's no way around this, as MediaWiki won't allow one article to have two equal names (rather than one priority name and multiple redirections). So the question then becomes, which name should take priority?

I've already suggested that we should set objective criteria for deciding on naming priorities. The following is adapted from User:ChrisO/Naming disputes:

Wikipedia cannot take a position on whether the use of a name is legal or whether the user of the name is a legal entity. We are not international lawyers, nor are we bound by treaties, laws or any other legal obligations to call something X rather than Y. Nor can we take a position on whether the use of a name is morally right or wrong. Doing either – declaring that a name usage is legal/illegal, or right/wrong – is a violation of the NPOV policy.
We can, however, apply three key principles to determine what term should be used as the title for an article in the Wikipedia namespace:
* The most common use of a name takes precedence;
* If the common name conflicts with the official name, use the common name except for conflicting scientific names;
* If neither the common name nor the official name is prevalent, use the name (or a translation thereof) that the subject uses to describe itself or themselves.
A number of objective criteria can be used to determine common or official usage:
* Is the name in common usage in English? (check Google, other reference works, websites of media, government and international organisations)
* Is it the official current name of the subject? (check if the name is used in a legal context, e.g. a constitution)
* Is it the name used by the subject to describe itself or themselves? (check if it is a self-identifying term)
* If an historic name is mentioned in the article, is it in an accurate context? (check that the term is not used anachronistically, e.g. using France to describe Roman Gaul)
Subjective criteria (such as "moral rights" to a name) should not be used to determine usage. These include:
* Does the subject have a moral right to use the name?
* Does the subject have a legal right to use the name?
* Does the name infringe on someone else's legal or moral rights?
* Is the use of the name politically unacceptable?
If a dispute over naming rights exists, it should be described in the article, but it should not be the deciding factor in determining where the article exists in the namespace. Locating the article at an obscure or little-used name makes it considerably harder to find, and if it is done for subjective reasons (e.g. because someone does not like the common term for moral or political reasons), it is clearly not consistent with Wikipedia's NPOV policy.

Note that these principles and criteria support the current placing of the Sea of Japan article:

  • "Sea of Japan" is clearly the most commonly used name in English;
  • the official name is disputed, so no judgment can be reached there;
  • the subject is an inanimate object, so has no self-identifying term (obviously);
  • we don't take a position on whether the name is morally or politically correct, so that factor can't be used to judge where to place the article.

The only factor that survives is common usage, so the article is correctly placed at Sea of Japan on this basis. The advantage of having a set of criteria is that we can reach these decisions without getting into POV fights over moral rights to a name. It also creates a level playing field for resolving all such disputes. -- ChrisO 11:44, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Are we having an argument? I didn't read all that word-for-word, but I think we're in agreement. And I appreciate your staunch and well-reasoned defense of NPOV. I think the article remain at "Sea of Japan" simply because it got the most Google hits.
I don't think this is an objective criterion but more a practical one. We put articles where people can find them, but we don't use article names as endorsements of entity names.
I'm grappling for a way to resolve Japan Sea / East Sea, as well as the Macedonia and Macedonian Slav issues as well. I think between you and me, we have enough brain power to settle this in a way that all contributors will be content. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 01:35, Jun 27, 2005 (UTC)
I think we have the brain power! Unfortunately I don't think we can ever ensure that everyone will be content given that place and ethnic names are so tied up with nationalist feelings. But I do think we can at least reduce the impression of unfairness in naming articles by ruling particular criteria in or out at the start.
Here's how I'd tackle the two questions you raise, East Sea/Sea of Japan and Macedonians/Macedonian Slavs. I've transferred the criteria mentioned above into a table so that we can assign scores to the outcome of each, as follows:
Criterion Option 1
Sea of Japan 		Option 2
East Sea
1. Most commonly used name in English 1 0
2. Current official name of entity † 0 0
3. Current self-identifying name of entity † 0 0
1 point = yes, 0 points = no. Add totals to get final scores.
† Use English translation of name, where available
"Sea of Japan" comes out with a score of 1 while "East Sea" scores 0. "Sea of Japan" wins due to its widespread conventional usage. The article name should thus be "Sea of Japan".
Criterion Option 1
Macedonians (people) ‡ 		Option 2
Macedonian Slavs
1. Most commonly used name in English 1 0
2. Current official name of entity † 1 0
3. Current self-identifying name of entity † 1 0
1 point = yes, 0 points = no. Add totals to get final scores.
† Use English translation of name, where available
‡ Disambiguation is required to distinguish between the multiple meanings of this term.
"Macedonians (people)" is the clear winner, with a score of 3 versus 0 for "Macedonian Slavs". "Macedonians (people)" should be the article name in this case.
How would you feel about using this kind of mechanistic approach to deciding article names? -- ChrisO 28 June 2005 20:18 (UTC)

The latter example suggests to me that this version, at any rate, doesn't work, as it gives a counter-intuitive result. Part of the probelm, though, might be the data; it's not at all clear that there is a most common way of referring to this group in English (and in many other cases this will be the subject of much dispute, as different conventtions are used in different places and among different groups).

I'd also want to add a reference to the use of the options to name other things. So, for example, if "Macedonians" is commonly used to refer to a different, largely unrelated group (such as the people ruled by Philip and Alexander), that's a significant factor.

Note that there's a tension between including: Is it the official current name of the subject? (check if the name is used in a legal context, e.g. a constitution) and Is it the name used by the subject to describe itself or themselves? (check if it is a self-identifying term) while excluding: Is the use of the name politically unacceptable? This surely impinges on Wikipedia's need to stay neutral; if a group or nation uses a term to describe itself, but that self-description is disputed by another group or nation, isn't choosing one or the other likely to indicate that we've taken a position on the matter? I'm not saying that this prevents us from choosing one or the other, only that it should be taken into account.

As with other areas (in the philosophy of science, for example — the raven paradox, etc.), sticking to a mechanical, formal approach is likely to lead to serious problems. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 29 June 2005 11:19 (UTC)

I do believe that, there is a most common way of referring to this group in English - Talk:Macedonian_Slavs/Poll#Resources. As for other things named "Macedonians", there are plenty of disambiguating options: Ancient Macedonians (for the people of Alexander the Great), Macedonian Greeks, Macedonian Bulgarians (for the inhabitants of the wider region), Macedonians (nation), Macedonians (people) for people X. I think that the Is the use of the name politically unacceptable? criteria is properly excluded, because it is a subjective criteria. What is politically unacceptable? Subject X might find to be politically unnaceptable to call subject Y some name, even if Subject A,B,C find that name perfectly acceptable. Actually, only Greece finds it politically unacceptable to call people X "Macedonians". Even if we include that criteria, the use of "Macedonian Slavs" is also politically unacceptable by the Republic of Macedonia. In fact, the use of "Macedonian Slavs" has aroused more political tensions than the use of "Macedonians". International organizations and governments commonly use the term "Macedonians". The only attempt to somehow officialize the term "Macedonian Slavs" happened in the Council of Europe, a mass NGO action and an official political reaction from RoM followed, and the whole thing ended as a somewhat shameful attempt to impose a Greek POV to a credible institution such as CoE. (Walter Schwimmer ended up denying that such a document even existed). I think that this mechanical approach works perfectly when it comes to sensitive political and religious issues, (which constitute the majority of the naming disputes. I don't know about other fields, perhaps it will work well there, also. --FlavrSavr 29 June 2005 13:41 (UTC)

Coming up with a more detailed policy for resolving naming disputes is probably worthwhile. Though flexibility is needed - hard cases make bad law as they say. But isn't it missing the point? The problem on Macedonian Slavs (and no doubt elsewhere) is people voting nationalistically and without reference to the sensible guidelines already there at the top of the page. Refining the guidelines won’t help. If more detailed guidelines were in place (or indeed if some cunning compromise was on the table) there are so many people interested that a vote would surely still have happened, and it would still have had the same inconclusive (and arguably unfair) result. What will it be like when Wikipedia is bigger, and there are serious organised voting campaigns on each side? I know it's radical thinking - but some kind of panel just has to be the way of the future in cases like this – just as you proposed at User:ChrisO/Naming disputes. How does one make it happen? I am new to Wikipedia so I'd be glad to hear. --Cjnm 29 June 2005 15:15 (UTC)

Most common use

Two things here: (1) in the case of Sea of Japan/East Sea (as an example), we agreed last year or so, that the most common English use is context dependent. We're still struggling over this, but I think the possibility of context dependency needs to be addressed. To give an example (disputed): We could argue that in the context of Korea-related articles, the most common English name is East Sea, whereas in other contexts it is Sea of Japan. (2) I wish to include the statement that the Google test is a bad test (it excludes everything outside Google's index, including most published books), that it needs to be set on English results only (and that this is imperfect); but for practical reasons it is one of the few checks we can easily verify. Kokiri 1 July 2005 19:30 (UTC)

Strange...Kokiri, in a post just above you requested that we not discuss specific cases and here you are discussing specific cases. Anyways, that is moot point and i am not bashing or flaming you for that. I just wanted to point it out. Anyways, you said that "we agreed last year or so, that the most common English use is context dependent" I have searched high and low for that agreement and I haven't found it. Maybe i am missing it (probably as there are a lot of pages to sift through). As you are so fond of pointing out, it is in Korean contexts written in Korean-English, not English English, that uses East Sea over Sea of Japan. We are looking for the most common name in English and by far the most common name in English (and other languages) around the world is Sea of Japan. As I have pointed out here Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Korean)/Disputed names, Koreans are using false propaganda to promote the name East Sea. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't propaganda extremely POV? I see no problem using East Sea in cultural and historical references that are context dependent, but I fail to see how geography in English is context dependent. Geographic names in English are pretty cut and dry and geographically speaking, in the English language, the most common name is in fact, "Sea of Japan". I wish, just once that you would give a reason other than "East Sea is the most common name in Korea" to support your arguments because that one argument doesn't hold water here on Wikipedia. In Italy, the most common name for Rome is Roma, but the English name is Rome. Wikipedia seems to have no problems using Rome instead of Roma for the name of the city, even though both Rome and Roma are found in English writings everywhere.
On a side note, I agree that the google test is not a great one. It can help, but it isn't a great test. Why? Because propaganda can spread pretty quick on the net and if enough people got together, they can spread any name on the net that they like tipping the balance of the scales away from reputable sources.Masterhatch july 2nd, 2005

Manual of Style

I think this page might be useful (as a summary), but it really needs links to all the relevant sections in the Wikipedia manual of style. Most said here is also (already) written there. Kokiri 1 July 2005 19:30 (UTC)

Examples

I am very excitied with this new proposal. This can be very effective tool in dealing with naming disputes, some of which have been around for years. I think it is best to let the page talks about what we should not what we have been doing. So I made some revision with a hope to strengthen its potential. For example, I removed

Names may be disputed for nationalist, political or religious reasons. Common causes of naming disputes include: ...

While I agree this is true, I don't think it is a good idea to include this, as to me it sounds like accusing contributors. Saying what you are doing is wrong, so instead do this, isn't a good idea to let people help themselves. I also removed some controversial examples like sea of Japan. There is no need for us to be in agreement on this issue in writing this proposal. Finally, it is needless to repeat that we have to be objective in naming. Also, this sounded negative; we should not treat each of us as if he doesn't know he has to be objective.

As you should see from you edits, I also add why this procedure is so important as to explain why we need this and why traditional, consensus-based practices fail.

I tried to be very careful but if there is a problem, please correct me, especially if sentences I added are confusing. -- Taku July 2, 2005 15:31 (UTC)

Common usage (2)

How do we define "common usage" here ? Specifically, how is it determined which usage is more common ? A simple google search ? Some more complex research ? This needs to be more specifically explained. Lysy 2 July 2005 20:57 (UTC)

Framing the Proper Cultural Context of Common Use

  • On the above point, simplestic google searches are certainly contraindicated. Someone needs to get off their butts and survey printed textual references, in addition. Some cases will simply prove that other editors have faced the same delema, and come down on both sides of the issue. The real problem, then becomes the criteria by which people weight such references, and whether or not there is some common ground. In the Tsushima Islands naming issue, there is/was no give on either side, but at least the locals had a POV, and that is proper I think for such a case. User:Fabartus || Talkto_FrankB 5 July 2005 23:54 (UTC)
  • Following Below is 'A Duplicate' of what I posted earlier on the "Sea of Japan/East Sea" controversy on todays "Village Pump" Link. I think it germane for obvious reasons (I hope! <G>) so copy it here. The 'lead in' refers to the subpage Division (TOC) immediately above in that post where one party introduced the novel idea that the past has no impact on today!
  • To me, the general arguements are something that are going to occur over and over unless a clear guideline gives a way out; my solution is to consider the majority of users by recognizing the correct cultural context is not local, but the world wide body of English speaking readers, most of whom are mainly ignorant of another language and the use then of what they most expect. That's a fair definition of 'Common Usage'; Note that 'Official Changes' sans important POV disputes, are quickly available in Atlases, which have the paid editorial staffs to follow such matters. (i.e. When Ceylon became Sri Lanka, or Peking became Beijing, such happened virtually overnight, and appeared in new works immediately.
  • In otherwords, 'The Principle of Least Surprise' needs be considered as an appropriate contextual anchor; in the 'overnight' cases, there was a consensus to follow the wishes of the people in question; that can't apply when there are squabbles between two or more. In such cases, we need to consider our own cultural context, not that of one of the disputants, and that should be policy; That doesn't require Wiki to take sides, but merely shortstop such as unproductive, and note they are arguements for another forum— not this one. As an aside, it would of course help if we had some binding arbitration or mediation committees, but that rants is beyond the scope of this discussion.

I began by duplicating my effort on a bottom post, though wrote addressing a point midway in that discussion on the Village Pump (Heading 'The Past is Irrelevant'):

My proposal on Wikipedia:Homophora deals with cultural usage in not just article names, but also within articles although I see the conflict mainly occuring in article names. The conventions I proposed might be of some help here, or at least provide some additional ideas in dealing with the problem. --Ben 02:18, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Such Disputes Are Part of a Wider WAR

Have to strongly disagree that past references are irrelavant. Wiki must be made compatible with extant hundreds of thousands of volumes of published English language source materials. If someone is reading 'CMH' Winner Richard Dick O'Kane's 'Clear the Bridge (rereleased in 1996) or any book with a historical basis whether for entertainment or study and wants more information on a term like Sea of Japan, or Yellow Sea, the article title must usually be the most common name in the corpus of extant literature, until such a time as there is an official world wide switch over to something more locally palatable as noted following.

  • Moreover, There CLEARLY seems to be a concerted Nationalist rooted series of edit wars where it's Korea Vs Japan, with we who have English as our only language caught in the middle: See Tsushima Islands, Tsushima Strait, history pages as well as move and merge tags and talk pages for arguements, I've seen a few others with at least some of the same players. This is nasty ethnic stuff with strong grounds of cultural clash deep seated in historic events. And the reader is cautioned these same editors are appearing in these and other disputes.) These are not issues unique to the tensions of the Far East either, but span much of Africa and Asia, and as such need a systematic and widespread solution, not case by case treatment sans sufficient guidelines.
  • The first paragraph of all articles with alternate names should eventually contain equivilent 'terms in dispute' out of respect to the diverse cultures that may access Wikipedia since English is an internationally studied language, just as those same introductory sentences must contain older and historic names that once applied. In the later case, those historic handles once widely applied should be in the first sentence, not just the first paragraph, but working in a reference to explain a disputed name, would be complicated at best in grammer most of the time were both alternate types needfully be present, where the first sentence or two or three has the primary purpose of introducing the topic, not splitting fine hairs. A clever editor may be able to do so in the first sentence, especially if there is only one or two historical names (not even counting foreign names and their various alternatives in the locally relavant languages), but I would urge clarity and readability over 'cultural nods' for the sake of nicety.
  • Wiki MUST contain appropriate redirects to said articles from any and all such names embodied in Western literature (Which test references like East Sea may not pass at all.), regardless of any new fashion or term that has now become common or defacto international standard, or our search engine will miss the equivilence. Consider for example that the 'official place names' of Port Arthur and Dalian have each had four or five 'official' names adopted as the latest new 'fashion' during the past century. (or less changable Ceylon and Sri Lanka among hundreds of others now 'In Fashion'.). The enclycopedia links must allow someone to use the old fashioned name to get to the correct article. Using East Sea when it's not a common useage, is POV, not practical as the article name. Having it redirect so that a literal translation of the appropriate Korean phrase makes culturally sensitive sense, as changing the whole article name does not when there is a dispute. Same with assertions to merge the Korea Strait with Tsushima Strait, where the latter is a famous and much used reference, even if common practice of the UN or other 'official body' has allowed a 'Korea Strait' into the lexicon to satisfy some nationalistic pride. It may be equally likely that Korea Strait is the older term, but that publishing history has marginalized it in English text. It makes no matter, so long as Wikipedia gives fair coverage to both (provided both terms are in widespread non-local use). When the terms use is a wish of a single minority of the worlds population, one outnumbered by English native speakers, precedence must be given to the wider and more commonly used term. For example, some Western publications do not aknowledge 'Korea Strait' at all, whereas 'Tsushima Strait' is famous as the site of one of history's most important modern battles (Battle of Tsushima) and widely referenced as its widespread multi-decades-long impact is culturally important for both East and West as an indirect casus belli of WW-II. Similarly,that and the First Sino-Japanese War is still reverberating within Wikipedia, as these latest Korean attempts to rename a Western article attest. Other examples abound round the world in their own emotionally laden cotexts, and these need be recognized as more of the same cloth.
  • The Nationalistic or cultural POV in these matters AND 'the inevititable' cultural bias needs to remain Anglo-centric in an English reference work, and these cultural issues (Islam vs. Hindu, The Balkans, Greater Anatolia, issues to name a few others) must eventually be addressed by a policy yet to be written) that is fair to all national or cultural sensibilities as much as possible, (IMHO, that ideal is not at all possible literally— some of these cultures don't view freedoms at all like we do, so I don't want to be the one making a draft attempt! <G>). But in the main, the article itself should be named to what the English speaking world traditionally uses or used, as English is central to our culture, not an abstraction off to the side somewhere. In the case over whether Tsushima is an Island or Island's' (very silly, albeit both sides have thier points), the extant literature divides close enough to be called a tie. In such cases, the inhabitants prefered name should be used, even if we at Wiki then may break with say Brittanica or Columbia Encyclopedias— for there are others using the same tense, however we come down, and our discussions are on the record and open to theirs for consideration in their future editions.
  • OTOH, Seas do not have towns of inhabitants, so traditional English useage should apply. (At least until one learns to read and write Cetaceaish.)
  • If Korean groups want to alter English publishing practices, the historical references still outweigh any new name until a preponderence of publishers (X>90%) of Atlases, and nautical charts start using such a name (e.g. the noveau term BoHai Sea), at which time Wiki would be correct to follow suite, or even lead many in the changeover, but not before, and not because some other ethnic group opposes the alternative like Japanese nationalists; but solely because it's become or is becomming common useage in the English speaking nations.
  • In sum, we shouldn't culturally demand they change their own practices within their language, but they they are asking us to change ours, inappropriately, IMHO. The proper attitude is that the English name maps onto the object of the same name and must be figured to be an incorrect translation, not a cultural insult. We are sensative to and sympatheic with their viewpoint, but have our own culture as a guide, and that must be a bellweather in picking such names. Having them ask us to alter our cultural term to suite their bias is as nonsensical and selfish as it would be for us to ask them to change their term in their language to match ours. It's not their history, nor their language we are trying to change, which cannot be said for their efforts here in Wikipedia; they want to force us to use their prefered name, to score points in the long Japanese-Korea feud, and to toss aside hundreds of volumes of references to our long established cultural name in the same breath. When their Korean or Japanese becomes our language, then we can kowtow to such an unreasonably narrow viewpoint as well, but before that, our culture needs to be aknowledged as the one linked to English, not theirs— which translations usually heavily depend on whatever alliterative scheme the translator favors. (e.g. One Russian Admiral's name in the Battle of Tsushima can be translated correctly to six different and widely varying spellings in English; See that Talk for elaboration.) We can and should include their cultural bias when possible, for it costs little to be sensitive and courteous, but we must equally insist that they accept reasonable compromises in the same spirit of civility and cross-cultural compromise. These hardline wars with little significance directly in English culture are clearly harming Wiki just because they consume so many manhours when there is not any right answer universal to all cultures.
  • As an English language publication the key for us must be historical relevance assuming it (the name) still has current occurences and use in the practices of other reputable publishers (Not Web Pages) not based on one groups cultrual wishes otherwise (albeit with an understandable POV axe to grind); in the end, we are merely using one of several alternate handles, not one of which means much outside it's own cultural context. In sum, if and when common practice among english Publications is to conform to widespread practices like the change in my life to Beijing, not Bejing (or instead of Peping or Peking) or to use Busan instead of Fusan or Pusan, then and only then should our article alter have it's name changed to the new de facto standard. Our edge in such is that we can conform nearly instantly with such widespread and disconnective changes by writing a redirect and adding a note in the article itself that the new preferred name is _______. But moving the article to __________ should at least wait until permanently published references, periodicals and newspapers are showing the new term half the time or more.
    • Moreover, as an added caution, Wikipedia methods of dispute handling break down in these ethnico-nationalist-cultural clashes, because they assume that all parties are exercising both 'mature judgement' and 'good faith'; whereas in reality, these disputants are instead voicing intensely internalized POV, albeit well intended from within their own cultural outlook; but within ours are at best misapplications of our rules and guidelines to further the underlying and even unconscious cultural bias and resentments underneath. It must be kept in mind that this is an English Language and cultural oriented publication, no matter how nice it may be to give such non-inuse terms a nod, that they are not in use, should be the final word.
User:Fabartus || Talkto_FrankB 5 July 2005 22:19 (UTC) (Slight typo fixes here) User:Fabartus || Talkto_FrankB 5 July 2005 23:54 (UTC)

Names in articles

As it stands, this page doesn't really address the particular issues affecting use of names in other articles (for example, how Korea-related articles refer to the Sea of Japan, or Prussia-related articles to the city of Gdansk). In my mind, that is the area that really needs a policy. A number of hot disputes have arisen recently -- Gdansk/Danzig, Sea of Japan/East Sea, BC/BCE. All are primarily concerned not with article names but with usage in specific contexts.

The omission makes it seem that usage in articles should be governed by the same rules that govern article naming. I think that is very problematic. Dealing with naming disputes in specific contexts, we can no longer afford to follow the convenient fallacy of equating questions of naming to questions of fact.

That said, this is a good start. Let's keep working on these issues! -- Visviva 6 July 2005 13:19 (UTC)

Disclaimer: Wikipedia has no official position

Apparently some users (Greek nationalists) got to the conclusion that everywhere the term Macedonia (such as Macedonian dinar) is used with the meaning of "Republic of Macedonia", it must be included a disclaimer such as this:

Note
¤ The use of the terms Republic of Macedonia and Macedonian(s) throughout this article is not meant to imply an official position on the naming dispute between Athens and Skopje. See Foreign relations of the Republic of Macedonia#Naming_dispute_with_Greece, Republic_of_Macedonia#Naming_Dispute and United Nations Resolution 817 (1993)

I found that idea preposterous. You won't find such a thing in Britannica. This is not a way of solving a naming conflict. I couldn't convince any of the people that support this to give up. Anyone willing to help to solve this problem ? bogdan ʤjuʃkə | Talk 20:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Well you won't find "Macedonian Slavs" in Britannica either, however that didn't stop Wikipedia naming them so, because of avoiding "confunsion". --FlavrSavr 00:13, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

From proposal to official policy?

Can anyone explain to me how much time should pass until this policy becomes official? BTW, considering ChrisO's proposals on the Macedonians/Macedonian Slavs debate I was under the impression that a Naming Commitee would be established? Was I wrong? --FlavrSavr 03:00, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Common usage and google tests

The preference here for "common usage", which can be determined by google tests needs to be modified. As written in practice it will be synonymous with "use American usage", which isn't the approach WP takes. We allow all standard forms of English language. If such a term as "common usage" is to be used, it needs to be modified to say "a common usage" and to note that we are looking for widespread global usage, and with a strong warning that google is not always a good guide to what this is, jguk 05:41, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

my talkpage...

I'm sorry, but I thought I had answered your questions? yes, WP is supposed to be descriptive, and as such, we'll certainly say that the RoMians refer to themselves as Macedonians, while the Greeks refuse to accept this. However, what counts in cases where this is not the issue, i.e. in cases where the naming dispute is not being discussed, but WP prose is simply referring to the RoM, what is decicive is common use in English. This common use is to use "Macedonian" when the context is clear (as in Macedonian denar), but to disambiguate when the context is not clear (as in "Macedonian culture" or "Macedonian territory"). I am afraid that the term "Macedonian" doesn't refer to a contemporary nation any more than the term "Scandinavian". It used to refer to the nation of Macedon, which is no longer in existence. It is now a historical term, and a term applied geographically to the region of the former nation of Macedon. The RoM, which has gained nationhood 14 years ago, cannot claim exclusive rights to such a historical term. They can use it, and Wikipedia will report that they use it, but they cannot impose "common use". dab (ᛏ) 19:41, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

You hit the nail on the head on all counts. Unfortunately, imposition of common use is exactly what FlavrSavr is anxious to do: "The English Wikipedia, and its mirror sites are the most important generators of the Macedonian Slavs term on the net". Chronographos 08:54, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Questions to dab

Well, in fact you didn't answer my questions :). Your sole answer was: ambiguity. However ambiguity must not interfere with the NPOV policy. I never argued that the current "Macedonian Slavs" article should be merged to the Macedonians article. I never argued that Culture of Macedonia should only reflect the culture of the Republic of Macedonia, nor that there isn't a need to clarify the use of the Macedonian adjective. I never argued that modern Macedonians should be referred to without any qualifier - I specifically stressed the qualifiers that IMHO, should be used: Macedonians (nationality), Macedonians (nation), Macedonians (people), and if you are not pleased you can even use Macedonians (modern nation).

Dab has answered your questions, and so have I. You didn't like our answers, so you are just asking the questions again. Greek Macedonia has a 3000-year-long history. If 14 or 60 years are meant to impress anyone, you are clearly outclassed. 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
See POV. It is a POV that Greek Macedonians are the true "Macedonians". No one scientifically proved that. Even if they do, the existence of a modern nation called "Macedonians" is a fact. --FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

(BTW, the RoM has gained statehood 14 years ago, the nation was officially recognized 60 years ago) --FlavrSavr 14:21, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

An encyclopedia is first and foremost about accuracy and clarity of meaning. Popularity is measured by opinion polls and hit parades, not encyclopedias. 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Read the NPOV policy: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views. Besides, comparing Britannica to Top of the Pops is rather dumb. --FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

The main point behind my argumentation is that the "Macedonian Slav" disambiguation term, is a POV term. It is a point of view that they should be named "Macedonian Slavs", and it is a point of view held by the minority view. Of course "Macedonians" is a POV term, as well, but that't the POV that is accepted by the majority view, and therefore, with the proper disambiguation, it should be accepted as a term that should be used for reference to Macedonians. I provided with you with these resources (please check them, they are not invented by me), just to give credibility to the claim. I am fully aware that I am a partisan in this debate, but that does not mean that I don't know what the NPOV policy states (I am the second best in contributions on the Macedonian Wikipedia). Also, the author of this policy proposal ChrisO happens to agree with me on this matter, and as far as I know there are many of the neutral editors that do support me on this matter, regardless of how boring and annoying I might seem. Despite the flamboyant style of Chronographos, who chooses rather not to substantiante his arguments, frequently engages in appeal to motive type of statements, as well as personal attacks (against me) - I tend to cite my sources, no matter how "nationalistic" my approach is (also, I tend to condemn nationalism, if you carefully read my posts).--FlavrSavr 14:21, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

You seem to be using "majority" and "minority" as it suits your purposes. You are a majority in your country, but you are not the majority in the geographical area of Macedonia. There is another ethnic group living there: there are the majority both populationwise and landwise, they are the cultural and linguistic successors of Macedon, and they will not have anyone else monopolize a name they have continuously held for millennia. How more "descriptive" can this get?
It is you who is using "majority" and "minority" as it suits your interests. I'm referring to the majority of encyclopedias, news agencies, governments, and international organizations, (ALL of them, including the United Nations), that is, all that constitutes the majority view. You'd rather take it back to your ethnic majority, because that is a more comfortable place to you, but that's not going to work this time. --FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Indeed it was the very first President of your own country who put it best: "For the ultimate logic of a regime of group rights inevitably fractures political communities into ever-smaller — and ever-more antagonistic — sub-units, as individuals seek out the company and protection of their own kind. It leads, in other words, to situations like the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, a disaster with which we both have much unhappy experience at first hand. As the former president of Macedonia (Todor Kiro Gligorov), summed it up in this chilling aside: "Why should I be a minority in your country when you can be a minority in mine?" 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, yeah, we're evil communists and there for shouldn't be named "Macedonians". Your entire argumentation is not only baseless, but it appears to be racist as well. You frequent appeal to motive is not working, lets face it. However, here's what others think [1]:
Whether you are "evil" and/or communist is a matter for you to decide, through some frank and thorough introspection. When I see a hammer-and-sickle behavior, however, I will call it such, and that's my free-speech prerogative. Since you seem to be so interested in what the ... BBC has to say about Alexander, maybe you could take some interest in what he said about himself: "Αλέξανδρος Φιλίππου και οι Έλληνες, πλην Λακεδαιμονίων, από των βαρβάρων των την Ασίαν κατοικούντων". Chronographos 09:10, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
The reasons for Greek sensitivity are many and various. In the first place, they see in claims to Alexander a threat to their territorial integrity. Beyond that, Greece was invaded by Slavic peoples in the first millennium, and the question of the impact of these invasions and, more generally, of the relationship between modern and ancient Greeks has long been a burning issue in Greek politics. This sensitivity was not eased by the condescension of German and English classicists in the nineteenth century, who, in the words of Bernard Knox, 'created a vision of the ancient Greeks that had more to do with their ideal of themselves than with reality.' (The Oldest Dead White European Males (New York, 1993), p.122). A distant reflection of this attitude can still be found in some of the white racist web-pages on Alexander listed at Alexander the Great on the Web. Alexanderama. sv. 'Nationalists'
There's plenty of that here - [2], namely the Greek Helsinki watch (those damn reds!) who are not only deconstructing Greek brutal policy on Macedonians, but also are referring to them as ethnic Macedonians. Now, I'm not planning to engage in further appeal to motive arguments (that'd be your style), that's for the record only. --FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Dissent in Greece is handled the same way as in any Western democracy: with tolerance, even if it concerns fringe groups of out-of-work lawyers. It does not involve descent into civil war and the deployment of international peacekeepers to protect minorities, a situation you must be all too familiar with. Chronographos 09:10, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

So please, lets assume that I might be right, on this matter, no matter how annoying I may be (I am a pain in the butt, I know that). Also, bear in mind that Greeks are far more numerous than Macedonians on Wikipedia, so I think that it is reasonable to assume that they have had more influence on the texts (don't you agree) Therefore, could you please point specific answers to the each of the following questions (read them all first):

Macedonians/Macedonian Slavs

Please see this list of resources provided by Zocky, who is not a partisan in this debate. Also, according to this policy:

Criterion Option 1
Macedonians (people) ‡ 		Option 2
Macedonian Slavs
1. Most commonly used name in English 1 0
2. Current official name of entity † 1 0
3. Current self-identifying name of entity † 1 0
1 point = yes, 0 points = no. Add totals to get final scores.
† Use English translation of name, where available
‡ Disambiguation is required to distinguish between the multiple meanings of this term.

Also, please take into consideration that the use of "Macedonian Slavs" as an ethnic designation is mostly considered offensive by the ethnic group in question. On the other hand, the Greeks fin d the use of the plain "Macedonians" name for this ethnic group offensive.

1

Because those other Slavs do not call themselves plain "Macedonians". 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes they do. They use plain "Macedonians" as a regional identifier. Greeks use it in the same way, the only difference is that Greeks believe that they are the only true Macedonians. Isn't Wikipedia suppose to stand for clarity of information, as you put it? No, mister, Macedonian Slavs, are Slavs living in Macedonia, and those include the Bulgarians, as well. However, there is only one nation that's calling itself "Macedonians", and that is the most precise Wikipedia can get. --FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes, "Macedonian Slav" is also ambiguous. In addition to other Slavs who live in the region of Macedonia, there are, as I understand it, other Slavic ethnic groups that are represented in the Republic of Macedonia. "Macedonian Slav" could refer to any of those. - Nat Krause 07:29, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
Could you offer some numbers, so we can get some perspective? Because it seems to me that 1,400,000 "Macedonians" (as FlavrSavr refers to them) are anxious to protect the identity of 100,000 other Macedonian Slavs from confusion, whereas 2,500,000 Macedonian Greeks just don't count. What's wrong with this picture? Chronographos 09:19, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
Sigh. Greek Macedonians are not a separate ethnic group, they use "Macedonians" as a regional identifier, unlike the Macedonians of RoM that use it as an ethnic identifier. If Macedonians of RoM use it as an ethnic identifier, that wouldn't deprive Greeks of using it as an regional identifier. --FlavrSavr 14:55, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
I do not see how and why an "ethnic identifier" should take automatic precedence over a "regional" one. Especially since the "regionals" are more numerous than the "ethnics", and possess the oldest and closest ties to the region's millennia-old history and culture, as dab correctly pointed out. The terms "Macedonia" and "Macedonians" did not just fall out of the big blue sky just the other day, you know. 14 years ago your country achieved statehood. For 80 years before that it was just a part (a "region") of Serbia and then of Yugoslavia. Before then it was referred to as inhabited by "Bulgarians", and before that it was not referred to at all. You cannot hijack those terms just because they recently tickled your fancy. Chronographos 23:01, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

2

  • Why the following encylcopedias/works of reference:
    • Britannica
    • CIA - The World Factbook
    • The Columbia Encyclopedia
    • The Harvard Dictionary of Music
    • Philip's Encyclopedia
    • The Macmillan Encyclopedia
    • Crystal Reference Encyclopedia
    • Penguin Encyclopedia of Places
    • The Companion to British History
    • Encyclopedia of Chicago (my addition) [www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/773.html]
refer to "people X" as "Macedonians" , and not as "Macedonian Slavs", if as you claim, the "Macedonians" term is ambigious? (the MSN ENcarta is the only exception) Or to paraprhase the question: How come Wikipedia needs the "Slav" add-on to disambiguate, while most encyclopedias, don't found that add-on not necessary? (they also have references to the Ancient Macedonians) --FlavrSavr 14:21, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Mostly convenience. Just like most people say "America" when they refer to the US, or "Britain" when referring to the UK. Yet noone mistakes "America" or "Britain" for anything even remotely official. Not even Wikipedia! 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Why should Wikipedia necessarily comply with what other encyclopedias say, however prestigious or obscure they might be? Wikipedia was founded as, and is thriving on, an entirely novel concept. Otherwise it would just be a glorified redirect to the ... Crystal Reference Encyclopedia. 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
"Mostly convenience"? Why shouldn't that convienence be applied to Wikipedia, as well? I agree that Wikipedia is a entirely novel concept, that however, doesn't mean that it's should be it's only reference (that'd be plain dumb), and it isn't suppose to invent new realities, just to describe present disputes. It's called "citing sources". To paraphrase your reasoning Why should Wikipedia necessarily comply with what other encyclopedias, international organizations, governments, media outlets say, however prestigious or obscure they might be? (because Chronographos doesn't like it) --FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm, because Wikipedia should strive for an ever-higher standard of clarity of meaning? Dab answered this rather succinctly. Chronographos 09:22, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
Again, a quote from the NPOV policy: "Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views. The majority view (encyclopedias, international organizations, news outlets) is that this ethnic group should be named "Macedonians". Blame the NPOV policy, not me. --FlavrSavr 14:59, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

3

  • Why most international media outlets (which are also very important generators of what you call the common use in English refer to people X as "Macedonians"? (see the comparison in Talk:Macedonian_Slavs/Poll#Media|the appropriate section). In addition to this question, why does the BBC, the biggest English broadcasting network send an official appology, and a specific directive not to use the term "Macedonian Slavs", to cite [3]: we would like to suggest that as BBC we should seek to avoid wherever possible referring to ethnic Macedonians in Macedonia as "Slav Macedonians" or "Macedonian Slavs" or e.g. "the majority Slav population of Macedonia."? Why do all these major media outlets tend to reduce the "Macedonians Slavs" term, and not to increase it? --FlavrSavr 14:21, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
I guess this happened after a "spontaneous" protest campaign, and BBC responded as they usually do: with courtesy. 2,500,000 Macedonian Greeks could have put together a much more impressive "spontaneous" protest. Except they, like most people, have other things to do. 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, Macedonians don't have other things to do, that's why everybody's calling them "Macedonians". An impressive argument, I might say! BTW, there wasn't a protest on the streets, BBC's apology was after the reaction of Macedonian journalists. --FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
The majority of Macedonian journalists live in Thessaloniki. Admittedly most are sports journalists, as this town is obsessed with football. Do you mean to say that they protested to the BBC? Chronographos 09:13, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

4

See America-USA and Britain-UK above. 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
See strawman. BTW, does that mean that referring to Republic of China as such, is wrong? --FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
The matter of the naming of the article "Republic of Macedonia" was settled by a poll in 2003. Much as I disagree with this decision, I respect it and do not intend to disrupt Wikipedia procedure by challenging it, either by edit wars, or by other means. Your Republic of China example is doubly unfortunate. Your insistence about use of the term "Macedonian/s" is similar to using the term Chinese when one actually means Taiwanese. Such monopolization is obviously ridiculous in this case, and would be more so if you had it your way, because The Taiwanese are a subset of the Chinese whom history has brought into a tricky position. This is not the case in modern Macedonia, where ethnic, linguistic and cultural demarcation is rather clear. What you really need do is study Venn diagrams. Chronographos 09:53, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
    • If we do a similar test only typing "Macedonians" (excluding wikipedia) [4] - 8 of the first 10 results refer to the modern people X and not to the Ancient Macedonians? Ok, you'll say, they are mostly sites made by members of people X. (However, they are reflecting the English usage, too). But I managed to exclude those sites as well those sites that are evidently made by Greeks (macedonia.com, etc.) of the first 50 results (please check my judgement If you like, it is possible that I've made some mistakes) - that is, 14 remaining sites - only 5 refer to the people of Macedon, (3 of them are using the term Ancient Macedonians simultaneosly) while the other 9 sites are explicitely referring to the modern Macedonians, even some of them claiming direct ancestry from the Ancient Macedonians? --FlavrSavr 14:21, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Maybe Wikipedia should dissolve itself into Google then, and vanish. After all, Google is the source of all knowledge, good and evil. Sort of like the apple that Eve gave to Adam. 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Google test. Besides, I haven't pointed it as the only source of information. It's only a good guide to see how common a term is. --FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
"Macedonian" is indeed the common English name for these people (it also, of course, the common English name for the ancient Macedonians). - Nat Krause 07:29, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

5

  • Following you logic - there isn't another denar except the Macedonian denar, what do you say about this same pattern applied this way - there is only one contemporary nation called Macedonian (you said that), if I may add there is only one nation called Macedonians - because the people of Macedon weren't a nation - the concept is linked with the nation-state in the 18th century, and if we follow the Greek POV, they weren't even a separate ethnic group/people. So how can Macedonians (nation), Macedonian (nationality), Macedonian (modern nation) etc. be a problem? --FlavrSavr 14:21, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Do you seriouly propose that every single instance of the adjective "Macedonian", when referring to your country only, should be followed by a disambiguation term in brackets? Because if you do, then you just proved all these numerous Google returns and encyclopedias you are so enthusiastically invoking to be hopelessly misguided and confusing. 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
I think than in the Macedonians (nation) article we should clearly specify what are we talking about. Other meanings of the Macedonian adjective could be easily understood by the context. It is understood that the Macedonian prime minister is Vlado Buckovski (despite the other meanings of that adjective), as it is understood that the American president is George Bush (despite the other meanings of that adjective). In those (rare) cases such as the History of Macedonia article, when the meaning of the adjective "Macedonian" and "Macedonians" actually needs claryfing, disambiguation can be easily applied within the text, in the same way all other encyclopedias easily disambiguate. --FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Allow me to suggest that "nation" or "nationality" is ambiguous and should therefore be avoided. These words can refer either to an ethnic group or to a state; therefore "Macedonian nationality" could be construed as referring to anyone who is a citizen of RoM. Using "people" as a disambiguator is even worse. I suggest using "ethnicity" instead, as in "Macedonian (ethnicity)"; or, if it is deemed that additional disambiguation with the ancient Macedonians is required, it could be "Macedonian (Slavic ethnicity)" or "Macedonian (modern ethnicity)". As far as "Do you seriouly propose that every single instance of the adjective "Macedonian", when referring to your country only, should be followed by a disambiguation term in brackets?" goes, this is not a serious problem. The obvious thing to do is to flip the disambiguator around into an adjective, i.e. "ethnic Macedonians", or, in cases where there might be confusion with the ancients (if that ever happens), "modern ethnic Macedonians". As FlavrSavr indicates, however, there will be some situations where the context is clear and no disambiguator is really needed. - Nat Krause 07:29, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

6

Because the Ancient Macedonians didn't just vanish in thin air: they have descendants, and their culture and language survives with these descendants. 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
That being the Macedonian language? --FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
If you want to participate in the Ancient Macedonian language and the Pella katadesmos discussions, feel free to do so. Much merriment will thus be occasioned. Chronographos 09:26, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

7

  • Even if we actually assume that the people of Macedon were a nation, and even if we assume that the use of Macedonians can only be applied to them - how come Wikipedia refers to modern Egyptians as Egyptians even if that term can apply to the Ancient Egyptians? Why isn't Wikipedia calling them Egyptian Arabs (their language is officially Arabic, unlike the Macedonian which is not Slavic, nor Slavic Macedonian) to make a difference between them and the regional meaning of the word and the builders of the Pyramids (which are most probably to be found among the Copts)? --FlavrSavr 14:21, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
For the millionth time: because modern Egyptians live in the entirety of the land of Egypt, and no other people call themselves Egyptians besides them. This is not the case here: The Macedonian Greeks are the majority of people in Macedonia and they hold the majority of the land. Therefore they have the right to protect their identity. They do not forbid you the use of the term "Macedonian". They oppose the usage of the term on its own, without qualifications on your behalf, because this in effect identifies the whole of Macedonia and the Macedonians with you (plural). 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Egyptians identify themselves as Egyptians but they also identify themselves as Arabs (their language is officially known as "Arabic"). Copts seem to be descendants of the Ancient Egyptians (even according to Egyptian historians) and they by no means hide their identity - [[5]] - "The Coptic people are the descendants of the ancient Egyptians". However, they don't find that the common references as Egyptians when used to describe an Arabic speaking Egyptian, is a threat to their identity, and I don't understand how Greek Macedonians are going to lose their identity if Macedonians of RoM identify themselves as Macedonians. Greek Macedonians would keep their regional identification term "Macedonian", and keep calling themselves Greek (in terms of nationality). However using the "Macedonian Slav" term effectively denies the right of Macedonians to identify themselves as such, (in terms of nationality) guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Similarly, these American and Canadian cities named Athens don't deprive the citizens of Athens to feel as the true Athenians. --FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Actually, it would make more sense to refer to Egyptians as "Egyptian Arabs", because, as far as I know, there are no other Arab groups living in Egypt. - Nat Krause 07:29, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
FlavrSavr confuses things: the Copts are not the sole genetic descendants of the Ancient Egyptians: they are their linguistic descendants, as they maintained their language by resisting Islamization and clinging to their Christian faith. The Muslim majority in Egypt are equally the genetic and cultural descendants of the "Pyramid builders" as the Copts are. There was no population explosion in the Arabian deserts that produced an inundation of ... depopulated Egypt by Muslims in the Middle Ages! The Islamization and Arabization of Egypt was a cultural event, not a population transfer event. Chronographos 09:32, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

8

  • You say that people X cannot claim exclusive rights to such a historical term, but that's a POV par excellence, because, citing Wikipedia:Naming conflict policy:
It is exactly the opposite: it is you who strive for exclusivity: the height of POV. 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
I don't strive for exclusivity, I have already stated that I don't support the idea that the current Macedonians article should be exclusively referring to the modern Macedonian nation. I do not support the idea that the modern Macedonian nation are the only true descendants of the Ancient Macedonians. I do support the idea, when appropriate and necessary, the distinction between Macedonians (nation), Greek Macedonians, and Ancient Macedonians should be made. I stand for a NPOV dissambiguation term, in accordance to the relevant Wikipedia policies.
As ChrisO put it: The reason why we don't use that terminology at the moment is because the Greek nationalist POV is that only Greeks have a right to call themselves Macedonians. This is a controversial position, to put it mildly! -- ChrisO 30 June 2005 17:17 (UTC)--FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
No, we Greeks do not hold that position. What we will not have you do is use the term "Macedonian" alone, without qualifications. Chronographos 09:43, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

We cannot declare what a name should be, only what it is. Suppose that the people of Maputa oppose the use of the term "Cabindan" as a self-identification by another ethnic group. In this instance, the Cabindans use the term in a descriptive sense: that is what they call themselves. The Maputans oppose this because they believe that the Cabindans have no moral or historical right to use the term. They take a prescriptive approach to the term, arguing that it should not be used.

Irrelevant. In this case the Maputans have been the Maputans since forever, and the Cabindans have all of a sudden decided that they are the Maputans. 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Relevant. In this case the Maputans refer to themselves as Maputans (in terms of nationality), and they believe that they are they have been Cabindans (cough) forever. (A claim disputed by science, however) Cabindans however, refer to themselves (in terms of nationality) as Cabindans, and read below:

Wikipedia should not attempt to say which side is right or wrong. However, the fact that the Cabindans call themselves Cabindans is objectively true – both sides can agree that this does in fact happen – whereas the claim that the Cabindans have no moral right to that name is purely subjective and is not a question that Wikipedia can, or should, decide.

In this instance, therefore, using the term "Cabindans" does not conflict with the NPOV policy, as it would be an objective description of what the Cabindans call themselves. However, not using the term because of Maputan objections would not conform with a NPOV, as it would defer to the subjective Maputan POV. The moral of the story is: describe, not prescribe.

Excuse me, but how does this 11th Commandment apply to this issue? 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
See the table at the top of the page. --FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Moreover, the application of the policy explicitely states that the name should be "Macedonians (people)" How can you explain this? --FlavrSavr 14:21, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

User Mel Etitis voiced his objection to the blanket application of such criteria. "Macedonians (people)" will thus include the ethic Albanians in your country, who comprise at least 25% of the population if not more: they so violently objected to the treatment they receive(d), that international peacekeepers are still stationed there to protect them. Obviously "self-determination" only matters where it suits you. Chronographos 09:43, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
What are you talking about Chronographos? There aren't any peacekeepers in RoM. If you are referring to PROXIMA, that is a police mission, not a peacekeeping one. PROXIMA is composed of about 200 policemen (from different countries), and they mostly are only observers. --FlavrSavr 15:07, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
No one should exclusively claim "Macedonians" in any one sense, and I don't really see where anybody is proposing this. This doesn't mean that we can use "Macedonians", unadorned, in situations where the context is clear. - Nat Krause 07:29, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for you answers in advance.

As I said above, Dab has already answered you. Instead of answering him back, you just reasked him the questions on a different page. 62.1.228.15 16:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
He didn't, unfortunately. I'll be off for at least a week (exams), so attribute your future bragging to your arrogance, not to my unabillity to reply promptly. Meanwhile, I hope, neutral admins would engage in this debate. --FlavrSavr 01:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Also bear in mind, that any potential (real) ambiguity of "Macedonians" can be easily avoided in prose. Ambiguity in article names can be avoided by following standard naming conventions. I think that there should be a separate article concerning the naming dispute. (RoM/FYRoM - Macedonians/Macedonian Slavs) --FlavrSavr 14:51, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
(Apologies to all: my computer auto-logged out. Therefore where "62.1.228.15" please read: Chronographos 16:52, 30 August 2005 (UTC) )


I'm wondering if this is a place for my thoughts or not. I do believe though that the poll two months ago for moving Macedonian Slavs and the various talk pages about articles related to Macedonia have many comments for the issue. MATIA 08:57, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

No matter for FlavrSavr: he keeps the polls he likes and attacks the ones he doesn't like. Chronographos 09:14, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

some thoughts

  • FlavrSavr just removed the phrase "the term "Macedonian Slavs" has been used in several occasions by Macedonian Slav politicians as self-identifying", from Macedonian Slavs. Did some politicians of that country used that term, or not? (Gligorov, who had survived an assasination attempt, is one of them). The term "Macedonian Slavs" is also used in sites on the .mk domain.
  • I keep reading that the terms FYROM and Macedonian Slavs are offensive. I can't understand why these terms are considered offensive and I would like someone to explain it to me. If the word Slava indeed means glory, I find it even more difficult to understand how can something like glorious macedonians be offensive and FYROM is an acronym. I'm afraid these term are labeled as offensive for pov-pushing purposes.
  • This country is a modern country. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The terms Macedonia, Macedonian, Macedon and all related terms have a historical context and have been used continually (and not with interrupts) by Greeks during the last 2500 years. Even the greek prefecture of Macedonia is officialy named this way since it's independency from Ottoman's around 1912, and Greek people who live there (about 2 and a half millions) are self-identified as Macedonians. Even when the political negotiations reach the end (and I do wish, this to happen soon) an encyclopedia should stay focused on facts, and I've just mentioned few of them.

That's all for now. MATIA 15:42, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

First of all, IMHO, Miskin took the statements out of the context. Gligorov is one of the politicians that has fought vehemently for the recognition of the constitutional name of the country, so if you ask him "Mr. Gligorov, are you Macedonian or Macedonian Slav", the answer would, of course, be, "Macedonian". The term "Macedonian Slavs" is also used in sites on the .mk domain, but, it is mostly used in a clearly ancient context, that is Slavs that inhabited Macedonia in the medieval period. And for the thousand time, there is nothing wrong in "Slavs" in itself, it is offensive because it is used as an ethnic designation, and it is an anachronism, as such. That is why no one, of the Slavic speaking nation does not use it as an add-on. --FlavrSavr 14:20, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
Has any other Slavic-speaking nation been using a name that also belongs to another, larger, non-Slavic ethnic group? You know the answer is :no", and you also know that this makes your statements specious. Deliberately so. Chronographos 22:16, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
Yet, the term is not offending. MATIA 14:41, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
"elf-identifying"? Maybe we can make everyone happy with a compromise to move the page in question to Macedonian Elves and be done with it! - Nat Krause 07:29, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
In that case we are the Calaquendi and they are the Moriquendi, the Avari, the servants of Morgoth!  :-PPPPPP Chronographos 09:57, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
Okay, then, I guess it's settled: we move Macedonian Slavs to Macedonian Dark Elves. I'm certain this ought to satisfy all sides. I'm glad we settled this "FYROM" issue. What controversial matter shall we tackle next? - Nat Krause 09:46, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
How about whether to redirect FYROM to either Angband or Barad Dur?  :-PPP Chronographos 11:07, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
thanks :) I've just corrected my typo. MATIA 09:41, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
I must be the only person who hasn't watched the LOTR trilogy (I have the book, though, I'll read it when I have the time). Maybe a different mythology can be applied as well, how about Syth Macedonians - I mean, everybody knows how evil runs through our veins. --FlavrSavr 14:09, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
I would prefer something like Jedi Knights. MATIA 14:36, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
FlavrSavr probably referred to the Sith, but a delightful Freudian slip made him think Scyth, hence the spelling "error". Chronographos 22:16, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

about the table

  • Having read all these discussions, I have to point out that the three zeros on Macedonian Slavs column are inaccurate.
  • What about applying the same table for Greek Macedonians? Are their english name Macedonians?

Sources

As we know, Britannica, the Columbia Encyclopaedia, Philip’s Encyclopaedia, the Macmillan Encyclopaedia, Crystal Reference Encyclopaedia, Webster’s World Encyclopaedia and the Huchinson Encyclopaedia as well as Ethnologue, refer to this ethnic group as Macedonians. All these sources are obviously influenced by the richest, most powerful and influental of countries, the Republic of Macedonia, and they are all wrong, lol! Wikipedia should be neutral, it shouldn’t be the way the Greeks want. The addition Slavs is mearly to differentiate from the other inhabitants of the wider region Macedonia. I believe that Macedonian Slavs is quite inaccurate, because there are other Slavic peoples who live in the wider region Macedonia such as the Bulgarians. If you say Macedonian Slavs, who are you refering to? The Bulgarians who live in Macedonia or the ethnic group X (who like the Bulgarians are also Slavs)? Therefore the name Macedonian Slavs is totally inaccurate and cannot be used. The possibilty that nation X can be confused with the Ancient Macedonians is not a problem, because in this case the name Macedonians refer to a specific modern nation. The Ancient Macedonians no longer exist. Their descendants belong to another specific modern nation, the Greeks so there is no risk of confusion. Anyway, the HELSINKI REPORTS refer to these people as Macedonians, not Macedonian Slavs, the Helsinki Report must be neutral, therefore if they can use it, Wikipedia can use it (I love those Helsinki Reports)! REX 21:08, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

The risk of confusion is very real, and it is of great concern to more than 2,000,000 Macedonian Greeks. The 3,000 Macedonian Bulgarians in Pirin Macedonia comprise a minor population group in a region of 4 million people, in which Macedonian Greeks are the majority. Chronographos 22:27, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but Macedonian Greeks belong to an even larger ethnic group, the Greeks. Whereas the Skopyani as they are called in Greece are a separate ethnic group. The Greek Macedonians hold Greek citizenship and on their passport it says: Ελληνική Ιθαγένεια Eliniki Ithayenia Greek Nationality. The citizens of the Republic of Macedonia have passports on which it says Macedonian Nationality. Is this wrong? Should it say Macedonian Slav Nationality. Anyway, more neutral sources (the ones above: Britannica, Ethnologue, Hutchinson etc) refer to these people as Macedonians. Are they wrong and you right? REX 08:41, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

You are conflating the issues. What FYROM claims for itself and its citizens is one thing. How its neighbors and the international institutions refer to them is another. How Wikipedia should describe the geographical region of Macedonia and the peoples, languages and cultures that have existed there from antiquity till now is quite another. The adoption of the terms "Macedonia" and "Macedonian" without qualifications on FYROM's behalf is tantamount to monopolizing these terms at the expense of its neighbors' identity and cultural heritage. We have been through all that before. You are not doing anyone any favor by autistically revisiting the same issues just because you have a feud with MATIA over an almost extinct and totally insignificant linguistic matter. Chronographos 08:56, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

What is important is that we cannot use the term Macedonian Slavs because it is misleading. Who is that term referring to? There are at least two Slavic nations in the wider region of Macedonia. is it referring to the Bulgarian Macedonians or the nationality of the Republic of Macedonia? Also, there are many more credible sources who call this nation Macedonians than the few sources who call them Macedonian Slavs. Anyway, i am proposing calling them Macedonians (ethnicity). This is both accurate and unique. There is no other ethnic group in the Balkans who uses that name. The Greeks of Macedonia are ethnically Greek and the Bulgarians of Macedonia are ethnically Bulgarians. There is no reason whatsoever to dismiss the title Macedonians (ethnicity) with the notable exception of far-right Greek extremism. REX 09:54, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Let me remind you what the numbers are: Group A: 2.5 million Macedonian Greeks, Group B; 1.4 million Macedonian citizens of FYROM, Group C: 3 thousand Macedonian Bulgarians. You are proposing the effective monopolization of the term by Group B at the expense of Group A and because the term "Macedonian Slavs" is potentially confusing WRT Group C. I am concerned about the effect on Group A. Chronographos 12:20, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but Group A is not an ethnicity in its own right. Group A is a subset of Group D (Greeks). Group B however is an ethnicity and can use the term. We cannot use Macedonian Slavs because it is inaccurate, it could be referring to group B and group C. REX 13:33, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Group C is very small: less than one per thousand Macedonians. Group A is the majority. Chronographos 23:40, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

And why does that make any difference? Groups A and C are also members of other ethnic groups. Ethnic group B has no other name and the name Macedonian Slavs is inaccurate. REX 14:14, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

It's the best compromise that does not sacrifice clarity of meaning. Chronographos 14:28, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Hot to find self-identifying names

I inserted the following text into the article but commented out. I don't quite like the wording.

  1. The place itself Most countries have websites with an English language section, they also have embassies, cultural centers and commerce organizations that would be glad to answer questions.
  2. International organisations. Search for the conflicting names on the websites of organisations such as the United Nations, NATO, OSCE, IMF, WTO, etc.

SchmuckyTheCat 00:53, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Dover Strait or Strait of Dover

Some suggestions here people please.

Currently WP has Dover Strait as a redirect to Strait of Dover. As an ex-mariner I find the latter unnatural. Google and external references seem to indicate to me that Strait of Dover may be more commonly used by landlubbers whilst mariners use Dover Strait. The UK Coastguard use the latter (if that be officialdom).

I am inclined to propose a swap. Any suggestions ?

Frelke 06:26, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation of personal names

Is there a guideline on how to apply dismabiguating phrases to articles on peopple with common names? For example, Bill White is a common name. Right now we have three dismabiguated as (baseball), (mayor), and (activist). The last of those is being questioned, but I can't find the guideline for how to proceed. Any suggestions? -Willmcw 22:31, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

see also the guideline proposal Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Qualifier between brackets or parentheses and the talk page of that proposal: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people) --Francis Schonken 16:16, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! -Willmcw 19:43, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

A clarification

I've added a clarification to the guidelines, marked below in bold:

This should not be read to mean that subjective POVs should never be reflected in an article. If the term "Cabindan" is used in an article, the controversy should be mentioned and if necessary explained, with both sides' case being summarised. This does not mean that the controversy needs to be discussed in every article using the term; it is sufficient to discuss the controversy in the primary article about the term, not in secondary articles that mention the term in passing.

I believe that this is a common-sense clarification - clearly it's not appropriate to include a discussion of the controversy in every single article that mentions a disputed term; otherwise one would have to have absurdities such as disambiguation pages with lengthy discussions of disputes. The fact that China disputes the legitimacy of the Republic of China (Taiwan), for instance, doesn't mean that we have to rehash the China-Taiwan dispute in every article that mentions Taiwan.

Any thoughts? -- ChrisO 19:21, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

The change being made to the Example is not a clarification, it is a major change in policy. For months, Vergina Sun complied with the policy as stated. ChrisO edited the article to use the disputed name, and has rv'd any attempt to add an explanation of the dispute as dictated by the policy. Faced with the rule he changed them as a "clarification".
The existing policy reads "when an article...". It it was intented to so narrowly limit the scope, it would have been written otherwise. It is the nature of Wikipedia that information is often distributed among many articles; subjects so broad can be approached from a historical perspective, in articles about the poeple involved or (in this case) in an article about a cultural issue very much related to the controversy at hand. To state that one view must be globally adopted and all references to the controversy should be restricted to single article (where it can be easily overlooked) only serves the purposes of those wishing to hide information; WP is about learning and finding information, in an unbiased matter. Pretenting that the controversy does not exist is hiding relevant information from the reader. I am not suggesting that eash such controversy should be analyzed in detail in every article, but a brief, one-sentence footnote at the end of the article with a proper pointer is appropriate.
I have removed your "clarification" (and please don't try to twist logic with spin: Clarifications simply explain the existing rules, they don't change them). Civility dictates that you do not try to change the rules again without prior discussion and consensus from other wikipedians. Thanks. Sysin
The question is whether the controversy should be mentioned at every single instance of a controversial name being used. This is, obviously, not the same thing as "pretending that it does not exist". There is simply nothing in the existing guidelines to suggest that a citation - or even a footnote - is required in every instance, as you seem to be arguing. I understand why you're trying to make that argument, given your POV, but you're reading something into the policy that isn't there. -- ChrisO 19:57, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Nothing is truly "required" in WP; but there are rules as to what is permitted and what is recommended, and the current rules are clear: If the term "Cabindan" is used in an article, the controversy should be mentioned and if necessary explained, with both sides' case being summarised.. The word "should" clearly indicates that the footnote is permitted and, in fact, preferred, in an article that uses the disputed term (and not only in the article that defines the disputed term, as you suggest).
On the other hand, the top of the Wikipedia:Naming Conflict page clearly states "Feel free to update this page as needed, but please use the discussion page to propose major changes.". Again it doesn't "require" you to use the discussion page, but to anyone who acts in good faith, the procedure is clear. Sysin 20:16, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
PS. I am not extreme, I don't do around trying to apply this change in every article. This particular article is very relevant to the controversy, and it was in compliance with the rules until you came along. Please don't try to pretend that this will leat to every page in WP being footnoted; you know that this is not the case, and WP has natural mechanisms for dealing with that. Sysin

Hi, Chris, Sysin, I had seen Chris' addition before Sysin removed it, and I liked & understood it without needing additional explanations. Also it is a useful and appropriate addition. I don't want (for example) to explain the scholar/ethnic feud over "Hindu-" and/or "Arabic" numerals, every time I type [[Arabic numerals]]. I don't even understand what artificial "red tape" on working on guidelines Sysin tried to introduce. So, as far as I'm concerned Chris' text can be put back in ASAP. --Francis Schonken 20:27, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

And I'd remove the fictional Maputan/Cabindan example. I have to admit I never read it to the end, otherwise I'd taken out "If the term "Cabindan" is used in an article, the controversy should be mentioned and if necessary explained, with both sides' case being summarised." long ago. Fictional examples are rarely clarifying anything, I'd avoid them in guidelines. There are enough real examples that can be used if something needs to be clarified.
The whole section Wikipedia:Naming conflict#Types of entities, down to the example, is written in a fuzzy language (that's probably why I never really read it to the end), and might benefit some rewriting in a clearer style. Anyone feeling up to help a hand? --Francis Schonken 21:04, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
If you can suggest any improvements, please feel free.
The fictional example was chosen deliberately so that the baggage of real-world examples would not be carried across to discussions of the guidelines. There is a great deal of emotional POV baggage that accompanies real-world disputes such as the Republic of Macedonia's name, or what to call Gdansk. Ed and I felt that it would be better to avoid dragging real-world politics into the guidelines, so that people could focus on the underlying NPOV issue rather than the politics of a particular dispute. -- ChrisO 21:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
First of all, I am not advocating that you should be required to do anything special when you type [[Arabic numerals]]. Just type as little as you see fit. If someone else (or 10,000,000 people as is the case here) later feels strongly enough about this to add a one-sentence footnote on the bottom of the article, pointing to an article that explains the issue, they should be allowed to. This is what the existing policy states, and this is what ChrisO wants to prohibit.
Again, there is no fear of anyone trying to footnote every single disputed word in WP. This is not happening. Taking ChrisO's suggestion to the same absurd extreme, any controversial subject should be discussed in exactly one article, only once, and any second mention should be prohibited.
Discussed in detail, yes. We don't add disclaimers about evolution to every single article that mentions it - we have a detailed article on Creation-evolution controversy which describes that issue. Likewise we don't add footnotes saying "some people think the universe is only 6,000 years old" to every article on geology - we have a separate detailed article on flood geology. Just because a controversy exists, it doesn't follow that there is any value in directing the user to a discussion of it every time a controversial topic is mentioned in passing. -- ChrisO 21:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Please don't try to refocus the discussion around a straw issue. The issue here is a nearly 180-degree change in the rules from "give the reader pointers to relevant information" to "hide the information from the reader" Sysin 21:12, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
And one more thing. I did not know there was an controversy regarding the term Arabic Numerals. Now that you mentioned it, I know it. Thanks. That's exactly the distribution of knowledge that WP should encourage. Sysin
ChrisO, Interesting that while you advocate brevity, you edited Vergina by inserting the Slavic name of an tiny village 2km away. Like editing Warsaw, Poland to add the German name for Gdańsk. I did not remove your edit, btw., nor have I removed similar edits in other northern Greek towns. You are actively practicing what you preach against, and no-one is reverting those edits, but you rv the same edits when done by others.Sysin
As for geology or evolution, they are not covered by the Naming Conflict policy, nor will it be covered by your edit, and yet the situations you describe have yet to occur. Sysin 23:12, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, for the time being I put in:

This does not mean that the controversy needs to be discussed in every article using the term; it is sufficient to discuss the controversy in the primary article about the term, not in secondary articles that mention the term in passing.

And I take out:

If the term "Cabindan" is used in an article, the controversy should be mentioned and if necessary explained, with both sides' case being summarised.

Further, I still recommend a more fundamental rewrite of Wikipedia:Naming conflict#Types of entities, down to the example, to which I'm prepared to collaborate. Note that I don't consider Ed the nec-plus-ultra of guideline writing. We met here: Wikipedia talk:content forking#Asking for clarification (btw, that passage is also illustrative regarding how working with fictional examples just makes you lose time). --Francis Schonken 09:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Consider the implications of the restriction you want to place in clarifications:
Suppose the article about the Pope were to state "The Pope is Catholic". Fine.
The article about Pat Robertson states "Robertson is a Christian". Again, fine.
The policy as restated would mean that if someone were to type "The Pope is Catholic but Pat Robertson is a Christian", this should be acceptable, and the OP would be able to prevent others from qualifing the word "Christian" so that the sentense is not misleading. Please explain how or why this is desirable. Sysin 11:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Where there's an article fully discussing a controversy, surely other articles can link to it rather than "rehashing" the argument. ..dave souza, talk 20:33, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Falkland Islands

At Talk:Falkland Islands it is being strongly argued that NPOV requires unqualified statement of contentious names in the first line, leaving to a subsequent paragraph (or perhaps footnote) any mention of the fact that these names are considered offensive by the inhabitants of the islands, who self identify with the name Falkland Islands, and particularly associate the name Malvinas with a recent invasion. My reading of this guidance is that such a position is incorrect, but this point would be more explicit if the guidance specifically required that the first mention of such contentious names in an article should be in the context of an explanation of the conflict. It would also be useful if the weighting to be given to self-identifying names applied to consideration of alternative names as well as to the title. ...dave souza, talk 20:33, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

What is an "English Speaker"?

This, and WP:NAME, said the name most used by English speakers should be used. However, there is a problem when I tried to edit Case Closed: What is an "English speaker" in the meaning of these articles?

There was a naming conflict in that article (Talk:Case_Closed#Request_for_Comment:_Case_Closed_Naming_Conventions), and the key question was, an "English speaker" is an Anglophone or anyone who happened to know English of any fluency? --Samuel Curtis 14:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Common names versus scientific names

What exactly does:

The three key principles are:

  • The most common use of a name takes precedence;
  • If the common name conflicts with the official name, use the common name except for conflicting scientific names;
  • If neither the common name nor the official name is prevalent, use the name (or a translation thereof) that the subject uses to describe itself or themselves.

... mean? Over at Talk:Dwarf planet/Naming this section is being used to justify the renaming of the Pluto article to it's scientific name 134340 Pluto ; which I don't think was the intent of this section. And this seems to fly in the face of what we often do with scientific names in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna) which seems to point to the use of common names over scientific names. Nfitz 06:22, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that second bullet point is beyond my comprehension too. Preferring scientific names over common ones would definitely conflict with the spirit of naming conventions for plants and animals. I'm for rewording the bullet as: "If the common name conflicts with the official name, use the common name." That's two of us in favour - does anyone object? Kla'quot 08:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
The bullet needs to be removed entirely; it cannot be changed the other way because in other places it is more or less required to sort out disputes like, for example, sulphur/sulfur and aluminium/aluminum. If anything, Pluto and the Fauna are special cases. --163.1.165.116 09:55, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Conflicts between the "prevalent term" and "descriptive name" policies

The page currently says, to use "the most commonly used term in English." It also says to "choose a descriptive name for an article that does not carry POV implications." The page not seem to directly address cases where these guidelines conflict, i.e. when the most prevalent term used to describe a topic happens to carry a POV implication.

A recent example of a conflict between these two guidelines was the debate over the naming of Deir Yassin massacre. In two recent ArbCom cases, the committee indicated (with some dissent) that the commonly used term should take precedence [6],[7]. Arbitrator SimonP noted that, "The project page seems contradictory on this matter." Should the article be clarified to make a preference for common terms explicit? Kla'quot 08:33, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I think we should attempt to make the guidance contained in Wikipedia:Naming conflict a bit clearer on this point. I've been thinking about this, and was indeed waiting for the outcome of some ArbCom cases (like the Deir Yassin one) to see what way to move.
Note that, tangentially, also the Israeli Apartheid ArbCom case related to this issue (at least in the workshop of that case the "descriptive name" guidance from the Naming conflict guideline was quoted, but did not find its way to the eventual verdict of that case).
Another related guideline section (that I think would be best to treat together with a possible rewrite of the "descriptive name" guidance in the Naming conflict guideline) is Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Article title. Particularily the first example: "an article title "Israeli terrorism" inherently implies that Wikipedia takes a view that Israel's actions are considered terrorism [...]" has always seemed a bit odd to me. Contrary to that, I don't think a Wikipedia article title "endorses" anything on behalf of the Wikpedians who write the encyclopedia. We don't "endorse" the existence of Unidentified flying objects, neither do we "endorse" the non-existence of UFO's. The existence of a separate Wikipedia page with that name is exclusively justified through the occurrence of that name in external sources. Wikipedia summarizes what these external sources have to say on the topic (as well the sources defending the existence of UFO's, as those that cast doubt on such existence). I think we should attempt to keep article naming as much as possible out of the moral arena: using a name that does not correspond to the "most common" name for moral reasons, is drawing article naming in the moral arena. Of course I also think we shouldn't use names that are uselessly offensive when there's a less offensive alternative that would be as "recognisable" as a name for the concept. But that follows the same principle, avoid drawing article naming in the moral arena.
In short, we don't "endorse" that something like a benevolent dictator is "possible" or "impossible", by naming a page after that concept. What reliable sources write about that concept (including their considerations about the viability and about the self-contradictory properties of such expression) goes in the body of the article, not in the article name, per Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial#Article names. --Francis Schonken 09:10, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I hadn't even noticed Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Article title. And then there's Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history#Naming_conventions. With guidelines all over the place and contradicting each other, no wonder we fight. Kla'quot 09:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

By the way, an ongoing pain point is that it is often unclear to the casual reader which of these guidelines is being followed. The casual reader is likely to notice that Wikipedia's article names tend to use neutral and descriptive terms, and may assume that all articles use neutral and descriptive terms unless the article is tagged with Template:POV-title. I don't know how to solve this problem. Kla'quot 09:01, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, the issue has many ramifications...
  1. Personally I'd like to see, for *content* pages, that the guidance regarding "descriptive page names" that are not "standing expressions" would move towards the rule that they can only be used for *subpages* of summary style pages, and connected with that "main" article via a navigational template. This idea comes from Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)#Subsidiary articles. As far as I can see only for the page name of such sub-page the "neutralisation of POV implications" should be practiced, and then still only if there is no standing expression that would appropriately cover the content of the page.
    • Note: this supposes that it would be easy to distinguish expressions that are "standing expressions" ("common name") from other descriptive names that are introduced solely as an aid for the organisation of Wikipedia... in practice it won't always be easy to make that distinction, but I suppose that most people would intuitively grasp the difference.
  2. There's some other ramification to be found in Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Use of "and": "Do not use "and" to bias article names. For example, the article would be Islamic extremist terrorism, rather than Islam and terrorism." – "Islamic extremist terrorism" seems to me a very inappropriate page name for Wikipedia (as if, in connection with Islam, it would be possible to define "non"-extremist terrorism too: the "extremist" seems completely redundant in the expression to me) - but I agree "Islam and terrorism" is far from ideal too. The page name of that page has been discussed widely I suppose (don't want to launch myself in a nest of hornets), but personally I think "Islamic terrorism" (as a subpage of for example Religious extremism and/or Islamism or so) would maybe be better...
Giving some examples of the above:
  • "Auschwitz bombing debate" is a descriptive name that is not a "standing expression" in the sense of point 1 above. For me, this article title would only be possible if the Auschwitz concentration camp article has a section on this "bombing debate", and that section in the main Auschwitz concentration camp article summarizes the "Auschwitz bombing debate" article, plus a navigation between these articles by navigational template, per wikipedia:summary style. This is currently not the case, and somehow fractions the structure of Wikipedia's content in a way that could easily be avoided.
  • "Investigation and the arrest of Alfred Dreyfus" is an acceptable page name (even with the "and" contained in it), while the navigational structure that connects it to the Dreyfus affair article is present ("Dreyfus affair" being a standing expression in the sense of point 1 above), although the Dreyfus affair article could still benefit from a clearer "summary style" structure, that follows the several "chapters" or "sub-topics" indicated by the {{DreyfusAffair}} navigational template that is used on all pages of this "series".
  • "Islamofascism" is a "standing expression" in the sense of point #1 above. It does not need "neutralisation of POV by the article title" (the POV content "pro" and "against" is explained in the body of the article, per WP:NPOV). There is no implication that the authors of Wikipedia as a whole "endorse" or "reject" the implicit content of the term "islamofascism", by the simple fact that Wikipedia has "Islamofascism" as a page name (nor more or less as all wikpedians reject/accept fascism, or reject/accept a particular belief). "Islamofascism" is an expression that is frequently used in political discourse. Not having an encyclopedia article on it would be more POV (at least: some state of denial), and would reduce the possibilities of a NPOV treatment of the topic, that is: explain all POVs (pro and contra) in the body of the article. If the article name would be changed to "Allegations of Islamofascism" (or something in that vein), that would already give prevalence to one of the POVs, which would make it only more difficult to keep the treatment of the topic more NPOV in the body of the article. --Francis Schonken 11:16, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for articles on events and activities

I like the concept of "standing expression." Regarding articles on controversial political terms and articles on controversies, debates, mythical creatures, analogies, etc. - I was kind of hoping nobody would bring this up yet because my brain hurts when I think about it. I'll bring in some thoughts later. Here are some more ideas on naming articles about events.

How does this sound as a clarification to the guidelines:

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions Kla'quot 08:37, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

BTW Francis, are you also saying that main articles should always have common names as titles, and that descriptive names should only be used for subsidiary articles? If that's what you're saying, I disagree. We have lots of huge main articles on topics that have no common name, e.g. two of the above. Kla'quot 18:55, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Imjin War

One of our naming conflicts that frequently reappears, no matter how often you solve it (just like Nessie :P). The current debatte is about Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea or the Japanese invasion of Korea (1592-1598). Other names are the Imjin war or the Seven Year War (which is also used for one of the first European global conflicts). To solve the question of what is used more frequently, google search was used and the numbers compared. But the large numbers of results was not checked for content, so this method can be disputed, as here are different ways to put the search parameters. Perhaps we could find a solution to such cases. I think it is meaningless under what name we list an article, as long as all names direct there. Possibly the least confusable and most descriptive name (no suggestion of order) could be a solution in such thight cases. Wandalstouring 20:09, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistent policy

The table under "To determine the balance of these criteria, editors may find it useful to construct a table like the following" is not consistent with the text above it. According to the "three principles" in the text, common English usage takes precedence; official nomenclature can be used when there's no clear-cut common name; and a self-identifying name can be used when there's no common or official name in English. The table, however, suggests scoring one point for each of these criteria and adding them up. This is not the same thing. By counting one point for an official name and one point for a self-identifying name, it de-weights common English usage. Which of these is the policy? It seems that the table may be an attempt to reflect the policy in the text, but if so, it needs some work. --Reuben 07:34, 12 October 2006 (UTC) I note that the version in the text is consistent with the consensus from Wikipedia:Naming_policy_poll, while the table version would appear to effectively overturn it. --Reuben 07:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

proposed change in chart

I would like to suggest that

Criterion Option 1 Option 2
1. Most commonly used name in English ? ?
2. Current undisputed official name of entity ? ?
3. Current self-identifying name of entity ? ?
1 point = yes, 0 points = no. Add totals to get final scores.

be changed to

Criterion Option 1 Option 2
1. Most commonly used name in English ? ?
2. Current undisputed official name of entity in English ? ?
3. Current self-identifying name of entity in English ? ?
1 point = yes, 0 points = no. Add totals to get final scores.

so that articles don't end up with titles like 日本. "Japan" would be the most commonly used name in English, while 日本 would be the official name and the self-identifying name of the entity. This would give 日本 more points than "Japan." You wouldn't want the Japan article moved to 日本, would you? Jecowa 22:00, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is an important correction. Apart from Japan-type examples, it is important where individuals have some type of "dual-nationality" - see Giorgio Orsini, Giulio Clovio, and other depressing examples. Also see Guernica (city), for yet another variant. If no-one comments against it here, I would just be bold Johnbod 01:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
It looks to me like part of the difficulty with the chart is that it's meant to reflect the same rules as the text, but it doesn't (quite). Rule #3 about the current self-identifying name of the entity is meant to kick in when there's no commonly used or official name in English. In that case, you just use whatever name is used in the local language, transliterating if necessary. I think we should remove the table altogether, since it's not consistent with the text (which is the actual policy that achieved consensus). --Reuben 04:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, looking at the proposal for the chart (above here, in the middle of item 2) it says "in English translation, where available" for #s 2 & 3, by footnote. No 3 is, not very clearly I admit, given a subordinate status in the existing text just below the table. I agree there are problems, but if the text can be boiled down to a chart, or other form of summary, that would normally apply, this is highly desirable, given the length and complexity of the text, and also that the most intense naming conflicts often involve two sets of non-native English-speakers. Johnbod 08:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
It's just that the only times I've seen anybody refer to the chart, it was as a way of arguing against the common name. For instance, North Korea is the most common name in English, but the official self-description of the state in English is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Since it's official and self-identifying, it gets 2 points and "wins." If the table could be changed to indicate an order of preferences, instead of points to be added up, that would be great. --Reuben 01:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I propose the in English in #3 be changed to in Latin characters. --Samuel Curtis-- TALK 13:08, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
this would be a step in the right direction, & relevant in Asian cases, but why not go the whole way? Johnbod 13:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Imho,

  • "[...] official [...] in English" doesn't solve much. Examples:
    • Côte d'Ivoire and Timor-Leste are "official" names. For neither "[...] official [...] in English" would make much sense, or have eased the naming conflict that existed for both (one of them currently at an "English" name, the other at the name in the original language);
    • Giorgio da Sebenico may be most preferred according to the US-based Getty. But is the Getty more "official" than the city council of Šibenik, which writes Juraj Dalmatinac on its English pages? ([9]) The "[...] official [...] in English" would only add confusion and fuel to a discussion that an American private organisation would have a higher status of officiality than a Croatian city, because the Getty lies in the English-speaking part of the world... At best the proposed change to the table wouldn't change anything for this person, there is no "undisputed" official name for this person. Another cause of possible dispute lies in the first name, people would start disputing that "George" is the "official" English translation of Giorgio/Juraj. Again, more dispute incentive than solution.
  • "[...] self-identifying [...] in English" has similar problems,
    • Côte d'Ivoire and Timor-Leste both clearly self-identified. But did they self-identify "in English"? Both decided that the native language version of their name should be used in international communication (as if they can decide on English orthography, leave alone English Wikipedia)... "[...] self-identifying [...] in English" would add more confusion and fuel to debates than solve anything, I'm afraid.
    • Nor Giorgio Orsini, nor Giulio Clovio currently self-identify as anything nor in English, nor in any other language. Too dead for that I suppose. So, this change to the chart wouldn't make any difference for them.
  • "[...] self-identifying [...] in Latin characters" doesn't add anything either. It is a fact that the chart performs poorly in most cases when comparing an "English" version of a name, to the same name in the native language. That problem is known, and handled by the second paragraph under the chart, which reads currently:

    Where a choice exists between native and common English versions of names (e.g. Deutsch/German), the common English version of the name is usually preferred (see also #Ambiguity persists below).

    The "Ambiguity persists" section starts thus:
    When trying to solve a naming conflict according to the recommendations of this guideline, the outcome sometimes remains ambiguous. This happens for instance when:
    • The "official" name is not unambiguous;
    • Sources of comparable importance contradict each other;
    • etc...
    A frequently occuring scheme is when two names are compared, of which the one is the English translation of the other: for example, "Princess Viktoria of Prussia" or "Princess Victoria of Prussia"? Applying the table above would indicate "Princess Viktoria of Prussia" should be used, while "official", etc... Then the rule is applied that the "English version" of that name should be applied... resulting in "Princess Victoria of Prussia". So, in such case, the application of this guideline sometimes results in a loop...
    To get out of this [...]
    I'm afraid no chart calculation is going to get you out of there, these are the cases for which we have WP:RM: if WP:RM could be superseded by a calculation, that would have been done already.

Above, Johnbod spoke about "depressing examples"... Now let's not get too pessimistic. Don't think I ever saw your user name in the gazillion dispute archives of the Jogaila/Wladyslaw II Jagiello article. That was a problem! Compared to that the examples you mention are just peanuts. But yeah, I intended to give you some courage: here's how I would solve Guernica vs. Gernika-Lumo, based on the procedure explained in Wikipedia:Naming conflict#Proper nouns (which is more than only the chart - as you will see the paragraphs following the chart are of no lesser importance):

Step 1 - the table
Criterion Guernica Gernika-Lumo
1. Most commonly used name in English 1 0
2. Current undisputed official name of entity 0 1
3. Current self-identifying name of entity ? ?
1 point = yes, 0 points = no. Add totals to get final scores.
I didn't give any scores for the third criterion while "self-identifying" is neither easily solved (would depend from person to person there, whether they consider themselves "Spanish" or "Basque"), nor would lead to any of the two choices in the chart, it would lead to either "Gernika" or "Lumo" (if working by "majority"), neither to "Guernica", nor to "Gernika-Lumo".
Final scores:
  • Guernica: 1
  • Gernika-Lumo: 1
Step 2 - first paragraph after chart
For clarity, the last sentence of this paragraph reads:

In case of equal scores, criterion 1 takes precedence, except for conflicting scientific names, in which case the (most) undisputed (of the) "official" name(s) is best used [...]

We're not treating "scientific" names here, so the "Most common in English" wins, i.e. Guernica.
Step 3 - second paragraph after chart
I already quoted that paragraph above. This paragraph wouldn't make a difference, while there is no name for that town that would be more "English" than the Guernica spelling.
Step 4 - third paragraph after chart
We didn't "invent" any names, so this paragraph wouldn't change anything here either: Guernica is the final result of the Wikipedia:Naming conflict#Proper nouns procedure.

Then disambiguation is needed while "Guernica" is ambiguous with the painting. "Guernica (city)" would do fine, but that's not the only possibility (I won't go further in the disambiguation issue here, would lead to far).

If you can't live with that, take it to WP:RM, which indeed has happened, but, as often occurs with close runs, I see more turmoil than "WP:RM procedure" on the article talk page.

Now let's see whether the "in English" added to criterions #2 and #3 of the chart, or "in Latin characters" added to criterion #3 would have made any difference here: only the score for criterion #2 would change imho, leading to no points for any option in the second row of the chart, although I'm not sure: maybe some official English translation of the city name has been published somewhere (if anything, reason for dispute, not reason for solution). For the end result it wouldn't have made any difference, it would've been "Guernica" too. But don't be naive, it wouldn't have stopt the WP:RM vote being triggered, and even less would it have made the operations on the talk page less tumultuous, or have led to a different result, or have stopt overrunning that result.

So maybe the whole content of the "Naming conflict" guideline would better be replaced by "Oh please, behave!" or something in that vein, because that's what fundamentally goes wrong in cases like the Guernica vs. Gernika-Lumo naming conflict. --Francis Schonken 17:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow! A couple of points - I don't say the Getty Index is official, but it is to my mind authoritative for the commonest use in English. "In Latin characters" or "in English" would be relevant in Chinese etc instances. Otherwise, much food for thought. Naturally, all editors concerned think they are behaving impeccably, so more detail is needed! Johnbod 17:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
"Commonest" can't be determined by a single authoritative source (unless there is only "one" source in English, which is very rarely the case, I can only remember Ramparts of the Holy Trinity as a near-to-single-source-in-English case - currently this article is still in the Polish/Russian warzone in Wikipedia, so don't expect a stable page name for that article anywhere soon: the last time I looked that article had more page moves than content edits!).
I did some googling (both plain Google and Google Book Search) for Giorgio da Sebenico/Giorgio Orsini/Juraj Dalmatinac (according to the rules, that is: excluding "Wikipedia" in the search, and English only in plain Google - alas "English only" isn't possible for Google Book Search). In both cases Juraj Dalmatinac appeared most popular. There was a slight deformance because "Juraj Dalmatinac" is also a ship, in fact was a ship, it famously sank in Houston (US) in the 1990s, leading to court cases and changes in safety regulations for ships, thus causing false positives in the search. But to the best of my ability these accounted for only a few percent of additional results, not influencing Juraj Dalmatinac as most common version of the name of the medieval artist/architect in English. --Francis Schonken 18:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
This is an excellent example of exactly why is Getty is authoritative; it uses the same criteria as WP but does so professionally and thouroughly, and is updated monthly. See my analysis on the talk page when another editor tried just your arguement. The JD refs are all either not in English, very old books, or popular tourist guides. The GdaS ones have many of these, but also all the serious art historians & heavyweight reference books Johnbod 18:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Getty is "authoritative", but not on "common". Sorry. Getty is not even mentioned at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). We don't have influence on the parameters they use (nor should we), Getty as single source is simply irrelevant in the context of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). Likewise, Getty as "single source" is irrelevant for the application of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English).

Re. "The JD refs are all either not in English, very old books, or popular tourist guides":

  • "not in English": sorry, no, that was not my experience, I checked a large part of the google result pages and did not have the impression that influenced the search results (not even combined with the "ship" false results). In Google Book Search the "Giorgio" false results due to foreign languages in my experience more or less balanced the "Juraj" false results due to foreign languages (and ship-related). Note, as mentioned above, that for instance the city of Šibenik website is in English, and is in fact an authoritative source too. Again, certainly not less authoritative than the Getty, for reason explained above;
  • "very old books": "very" is inappropriate & subjective; "old" is irrelevant: books are in general preferred over websites (while more stable): in general books will have an higher average age than websites;
  • "popular tourist guides": tourist guides are not to be excluded from the search. If they are "popular" that only improves the indication of what is most "common".

"Heavyweight" seems rather at the opposite end of "common" to me, so I wouldn't use that as an argument. If you intend "historians" as in "scholars" or "specialists", then maybe have a look at the general Wikipedia:Naming conventions principle (which is policy, so above the common names guideline) - I chose the second formulation of that principle (fourth paragraph of the intro of that policy):

Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists (bolding added)

The less common/more academic alternatives for the page name should be in the lead section of the article, and should have redirects (Giorgio da Sebenico is currently a redlink, that should be remedied ASAP).

Re. 日本 vs. "Japan": Just thought about Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) being promoted to "guideline" a few days ago. Apart that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) already would rule out 日本 as page name in English Wikipedia instead of "Japan", the newly approved Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) would certainly do the trick. Both guidelines exclude that 日本 vs. "Japan" would ever be described in terms of naming conflict. "Naming conflict" only occurs if other naming conventions guidance is ambiguous, or contradictory. --Francis Schonken 19:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Very few specific sources are mentioned in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), so it is not surprising Getty is not. Getty should be mentioned somewhere, probably at "naming conflicts". They have essentially the WP criteria, without of course any influence from WP (frankly they would be mad) and they do the job far better than WP shows any signs of doing. Your comments re heavyweight etc are in conflict with "naming conflicts" and other guidelines which refer to encyclopaedias. Johnbod 19:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Pains my heart to say, but sorry, no, irrelevant. Wikipedia has its Wikipedia:Naming conventions policy (and its subsidiary guidelines, including Common Names; Use English; Naming Conflict and a few dozen more), and that's what we use. I'm not interested in whether that theoretically or practically equals the rules of the Getty (at least practically it has been proven that the Getty rules don't equal the Wikipedia rules in the Giorgio da Sebenico/Giorgio Orsini/Juraj Dalmatinac case), and then I'm not even going into the probability that the Getty would more easily be biased towards US practice, not averaging over UK, Australian,... and other English speakers - or would be biased towards Italian culture over Croatian culture (which I don't know whether that is the case, but really I'm not interested in sorting that out). No, the Getty should not be mentioned in Wikipedia naming conventions policies & guidelines. We have more than enough layers of complexity (including internal contradiction as you aptly point out) in current Wikipedia guidance as it is. We shouldn't name any more specific sources for naming conventions than we do currently, again I think we already mention too many, adding to complexity, which is a real problem in Wikipedia guidance. We don't cherry-pick Britannica either as a preferential source for Wikipedia page names, which would be even less controversial than the Getty (I suppose, but I might be way off with that guess). --Francis Schonken 19:46, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
manifestic illogicality here, but I think we have just been going round in circles for the last few edits, & there is little point continuing here Johnbod 23:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Resolving disputes in categorization

Please see Talk:Roman Catholic Church and Talk:Christianity. The nub of the dispute is whether the RCC should be categorized as a denomination or not. Some editors, mostly RCC, say that the RCC self-definition should pertain (ie., the fulness of the Christian Church subsists in the RCC and thus it is not a denomination). Other editors say that the categorization is a different beast from self-definition, since it is based on what people generally define a subject as being. I can see no reference to categorization in NCON - would more knowledgeable editors care to contribute to the discussion? Cheers! Fishhead64 19:29, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

University of Pristina/Priština/Prishtina

This move request is part of the long dispute regarding which names to use for Kosovo-related articles, Serbian (Serbo-croatian :-) or Albanian ones. This time, it's about the Universiteti i Prishtinës / Универзитет у Приштини :-)

  • This university identifies itself in English using the Albanian-language name of the city, "Prishtina".
    WP:NCON#Dealing with self-identifying terms has been mentioned as supporting this form (and also WP:NC & Wikipedia:Proper names just about an hour ago).
  • As far as I can tell, it's commonly mentioned in English-language sources using the simplified (diacritics-less) Serbian (Serbo-croatian :-) name "Pristina".
    This would be common English usage, which in my understanding overrides "the English translation used by the institution itself" (as I explain at length at Talk:University of Priština#Discussion). Of course, I may be wrong on this, in which case I would really appreciate to be corrected :-)
  • The article on the city itself is currently under "Priština", with diacritics.
    This would be the "diacritics-added" version of common English usage, and would be consistent with the article on the city itself.

As usual in so many Wikipedia articles, ethnic/political animosities seem to have played a role in the discussion. So, the opinions of neutral editors familiar with WP:NCON would be much appreciated at Talk:University of Priština. Thanks already. - Best regards, Evv 02:32, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposed addendum to the criteria

There is one issue that I do not believe is sufficiently covered by the criteria. There are cases where a group chooses a name for itself which is already used to one degree or another by other groups. The question then arises in such cases "who has the most right to the name or should this name simply not be used for the purposes of identifying any particular group." The prototypical example of this is the term "Catholic Church" which has been a raging debate on a variety of Christian pages in Wikipedia (multiple churches claim this name).

I'd like to suggest the following amendment.

The three key principles are:
  • The most common use of a name takes precedence;
  • If the common name conflicts with the official name, use the common name except for conflicting scientific names;
  • If neither the common name nor the official name is prevalent, use the name (or a translation thereof) that the subject uses to describe itself or themselves.
A number of objective criteria can be used to determine common or official usage:
  • Is the name in common usage in English? (check Google, other reference works, websites of media, government and international organisations)
  • Is it the official current name of the subject? (check if the name is used in a legal context, e.g. a constitution)
  • Is the name common in scholarly circles when referring to the subject? (check how the name is used in authoritative sources apart from popular culture)
  • Is the name commonly recognized as uniquely identifying the subject? (check if the name is commonly used to refer to other subjects)
  • Is it the name accepted by the subject to describe itself or themselves? (check if it is a self-identifying term)
Subjective criteria (such as "moral rights" to a name) should not be used to determine usage. These include:
  • Does the subject have a moral right to use the name?
  • Does the subject have a legal right to use the name?
  • Does the name infringe on someone else's legal or moral rights?
  • Is the use of the name politically unacceptable?

I'd also suggest a loose guideline that says that "tyrrany of the majority" should not be the way that names are chosen. For example, say names X and Y are both commonly used and widely recognized, but X is more common. Say X, though, is also ambiguous in that it is commonly used to refer to other subjects as well. In such a situation the fact that X is more common should not be the deciding factor. If Y is clearer then it is the better choice.

--Mcorazao 18:23, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Clarification wrt the "Dealing with self-identifying terms" section: I am not arguing that articles cannot bring up other names for things. In the above example, a group may tend to prefer the name X over Y. The names X and Y can both be mentioned as recognized names for this group. My point is that the primary identifier for the group is better left as Y (and there should be a primary identifier; too many times articles use inconsistent naming, even within themselves, making it confusing to the novice).
--Mcorazao 15:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Does this adequately address certain POV issues?

Does anybody else feel that this current guideline may be inadequate in addressing POV naming when an NPOV alternative is available? Most common English usage is not always easily established, and can easily fall victim to WP:BIAS. It can also still violate NPOV. In the case of Sea of Japan and many other naming conflicts, all usable names are POV. So most common English usage is naturally the best way to resolve a conflict. But what about cases where neutral alternatives are available? Two examples here are Liancourt Rocks and Senkaku Islands. The Liancourt Rocks article was recently renamed after some very long and drawn out discussions, and the article move is still contested by some. Both of these places have available to them neutral names that are not advanced by any of the countries in the territorial dispute. I feel that this current guideline as it is written does not give adequate weight to these neutral names. What does everybody think? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 05:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

For a similar naming dispute see:

I personally think that the most common names should continue to be used in titles. Otherwise it may be difficult for many readers to find the articles, since many people search for the common names. Also, wikipedia could spend endless years trying to find the most politically correct name for everything. What offends people changes daily anyway depending on the current politics. The common names change more slowly. As long as the first paragraph of the article explains the alternative naming, then readers will see immediately if they are on the right page. Plus it is common to say in the first paragraph that the names are disputed, or highly disputed, and to explain why. That is WP:NPOV and encyclopedic. -Timeshifter 22:39, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not that worried about people finding articles based on the names they know. Redirects easily take care of that. However, I'd like to see that NPOV alternatives are at least given equal weight to common usage. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 01:11, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi. Redirects work on our end at wikipedia. But redirects do not always work at the search engine end of things. If common usage is abandoned, then there will be frequent changes of article titles, and less people finding the articles. Many more article names than now will be contested and changed. It is just not worth it. The first paragraph fulfills the WP:NPOV requirements of giving equal treatment to all the alternative names. --Timeshifter 09:14, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
The name search problem can be addressed by including names in the text. If there are a few of them in the introduction or if there are many of them and an explanation is needed in a section that can be footnoted either as a footnote or like this(i). See Þrymskviða, Hárbarðsljóð and Seven Years War and for examples.
The case of Liancourt Rocks throws up an interesting problem which is not addressed by this page. Lets take a hypothetical situation what if there are 1,000,000 of pages using two POV names and the difference between usage is less than 5%? Are we really bound to use a name returned by a Google search where the "The most common use of a name takes precedence" even if the difference is statistically insignificant and even if the use of either name causes the introduction to have a non NPOV?
Why a non NPOV. Take the example of Liancourt Rocks which of these two introductory paragraphs is the most neutral:
Before the recent move
  • Dokdo is a group of disputed islets in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) currently administered by South Korea, but also claimed by Japan (where they are known as Takeshima). The islets are also known as the Liancourt Rocks after the French whaling ship Liancourt which charted the islets in 1849.
or after
  • Liancourt Rocks are a group of disputed islets in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) currently occupied by South Korea (where they are known as Dokdo (Solitary islands)), but also claimed by Japan (where they are known as Takeshima (Bamboo islands)).
As I said on the Liancourt Rocks talk page "The guideline Wikipedia:Words to avoid makes a valid point under the section 'Extremist, terrorist and freedom fighter' to paraphrase 'Use of the name Dokdo or Takeshima implies a moral claim to the island, if one party can successfully attach the label to the island, then it has indirectly persuaded others to adopt its viewpoint.'" On this point, I seem to have the tacit agreement of at least one Korean Newspaper (Front page news on Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's largest newspaper). I think that this issue needs to be addressed here, but also taking into account an English language/cultural bias that exists in English language sources. For example it would not be appropriate to make up names when there is an English name for a place or an event which is overwhelmingly the common name in English even if it has a perceived cultural bias. For example the English Channel should not be renamed on Wikipedia because the name might perceivably be construed as a UK claim on the French part of the channel. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:27, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Scientific nomenclature

Some science articles on Wikipedia have traditional names that are now deemed obsolete. It is unfortunate to find redirects away from terms recommended by international bodies of professional organizations. I think this kind of naming 'conflicts' should not be decided by google tests etcetera, but by recourse to international recommendations by BIPM (the International Bureau of Weights and Measures), IUPAP (for physics), IUPAC (chemistry), NIST (the US government agency for standards) and similar non-subjective bodies. I do not know about biology or engineering, but there must be similar authoritative bodies there, ISO-standards for example. So I propose to add at least BIPM (the agency that takes care of the International System of Units) to the list of international organizations mentioned in the article, and a line about scientific nomenclature. /Pieter Kuiper 10:03, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree: here is my pitch for the same idea:

Choice of article titles

The suggestion is made on this page that when there is no clear terminology choice, a Google test can be made.
I'd suggest that redirection should affect this advice. That is, redirection is transparent to the user, and will bring them to the page with the "correct" title even though a merely popular title was input.
Of course, "correct" raises everyone's hackles - "correct" according to whom?
As an example, in the case of a term like Vacuum permittivity, the most popular designation for this term, International Standards Organizations like the BIPM and NIST have adopted the term Electric constant as a replacement. They have not stooped to denigrating the old usage, just stopped using it themselves. In my view, when a term is technical, the term adopted by standards agencies is the correct term to use.
Moreover, in my view again, most users of this concept, regardless of terminology, are themselves in the technical community, and their failure to use the term "Electric constant" is simply because they have not kept up with developments, not because they belong to a rabid fringe group that thinks "Vacuum permittivity" is a great term. They would happily switch to the new term once aware, if for no other reason than to be current themselves.
In such cases, in Wikipedia the popular term should be redirected to the technical term adopted by the technical agencies, and not vice versa. An encyclopedia should use the name in use by the relevant body of scholars or agencies, and not the common term, when a technical term is involved. To do otherwise is (i) to promote misusage and (ii) to convey a sense that the encyclopedia is backward, or at least, indifferent and (iii) to suggest to readers that they cannot rely on good judgment by the encyclopedia. Brews ohare (talk) 22:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Eliminate the table

The table assigning point values to three criteria for naming should be dropped, as it does not accurately reflect the policy laid out in the text of the page. The actual policy gives three possible ways of choosing an article title, with a clear precedence: use the common name first; fall back on an official name if there's no suitable common name; and use an unofficial self-identifying name as a last resort. The table, on the other hand, takes these as independent criteria, and assigns one point to each. This very often leads to the opposite conclusion, especially where "official name" and "self-identifying name" amount to the same thing. The official name of a state entity is by definition also its self-identifying name. For one example, "North Korea" is the most common name in English, but the official English-language name of the state is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which is naturally also self-identifying. The actual policy text prefers "North Korea," but the table reaches the opposite conclusion. I understand why a table might be wanted, but one that contradicts the text is the opposite of helpful. --Reuben 21:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a good point. As the original author of the guideline (and the table), I suspect you're right that it's outlived its purpose. I'll have a think about how we can provide clearer guidance to identify preferred names. It will obviously have to be source-based, but this will be easier for some names than others. For instance, for self-identifying entities such as companies, cities or countries, the relevant foundational documents (charters, constitutions etc) will be the obvious source for the name. It's rather more difficult for disputed non-self-identifying entities such as the Liancourt Rocks, but I'm sure something can be worked out. -- ChrisO 22:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Charters and constitutions don't always reflect the preferred self-identifying name. Other sources, such the UN list of member states, EU/NATO applications, quotes from high-ranking officials etc etc also provide fundamental guidance. WP is generally not a fan of officiality, so charters and constitutions may sure be less attractive than what is commonly used by the entities themselves in various fora. The table sure needs to go or to be adapted for now, but I don't see any reason to limit self-identification to charters. NikoSilver 22:38, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, we can discuss it later, but I'd be interested to know why you think foundational documents - which set out the very basis of an entity's nature - are ineligible. -- ChrisO 23:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Burma/Myanmar was one example, lots of companies with long/short names I can think of etc. I am not of course saying that the foundational documents are ineligible. I'm saying they're not the only eligible. Self-identification cannot be limited to them. NikoSilver 23:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I hadn't realized that the same person wrote both the guideline and the table. In that case, it could be the guideline that needs to be changed instead of the other way around. I think the issue with charters, constitutions, and so on is that they tend to use names that are both very formal and not necessarily in English; you have The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Dae Han Min Guk, etc. --Reuben 00:04, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
True, but there's a simple rule in such cases which this guideline already states: use the English translation or the conventional English short form. Hence United Kingdom for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Libya for Al-Jamāhīriyyah al-`Arabiyyah al-Lībiyyah aš-Ša`biyyah al-Ištirākiyyah al-`Udhmā (talk about a tongue-twister!) and so on. I'm thinking along the lines of a simple guideline that says something like "look first at the foundational document", then "determine whether there is a conventional English translation or short form of the name given there", then "if there is, use that". There are admittedly some instances in which the foundational document won't be of much help. For instance, the country of Myanmar is still governed under a constitution of 1974, which states that the country's name is the "Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma". But in most reasonably well-run, up-to-date corporate entities (which Myanmar emphatically is not), the foundational document will say how it identifies itself formally. -- ChrisO 00:29, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I should also add that although I wrote the original guideline, table and the basic principles, the actual text of this guideline has evolved considerably since I proposed it about two and a half years ago. The principles are still pretty much intact but the current text isn't necessarily my work (I recognise chunks of it, but significant parts are by others). -- ChrisO 00:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it should be turned into a flow-chart. NikoSilver 23:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I was thinking, too - having editors go through a number of clearly defined steps. -- ChrisO 23:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like a very good idea to me. --Reuben 23:58, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Problematic additions by User:Itzse

I noticed that Itzse added on 12 July a couple of changes ([10], [11]) which, as the original author of this guideline, I've removed. The additions go completely against the spirit and the letter of the guideline, as well as our neutral point of view policy; the controversiality of a name is completely irrelevant to our objectives as encyclopedists. One of the most fundamental principles of this guideline is that (to quote) "We cannot declare what a name should be, only what it is." The corollary of this is that we also cannot declare what a name should not be. If a name is disputed then we should of course note that dispute, but we mustn't take sides on it. Again quoting the guideline, "Wikipedia does not take sides in a political controversy or determine what is something or someone's true, proper name." The question of alternative article names for POV reasons is explicitly addressed (and disallowed) by WP:NPOV#Article naming, which says: "alternative article names should not be used as means of settling POV disputes among Wikipedia contributors." -- ChrisO 23:37, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Clarification

This passage about the fictional "Maputan/Cabindan" example, in the section Dealing with self-identifying terms:

Suppose that the people of the fictional country of Maputa oppose the use of the term "Cabindan" as a self-identification by another ethnic group. The Cabindans use the term in a descriptive sense: that is what they call themselves. The Maputans oppose this usage because they believe that the Cabindans have no moral or historical right to use the term. They take a prescriptive approach, arguing that this usage should not be allowed.

I find this misleading. The point is not whether the parties themselves have a "descriptive" or "prescriptive" approach. In practice, more likely than not, they will both be equally prescriptive: both the Cabindans and the Maputans will have equally fierce beliefs about what is their correct name and why.

The point that this passage ought to make is that we, as Wikipedia editors, should be descriptive and not prescriptive. I'll take out one or two sentences to remove this confusion. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Conflicting local concepts

In the naming guide it says that terms where the local term is more "common" than any translation the local term should be used. Unfortunately this fails to address multi-lingual local traditions that has no common english translations. The best example is the article for Tomte which covers a Scandinavian brownie/elf tradition that is called Nisse in Denmark, Norway, Iceland and southern Sweden, but called Tomte in central sweden. The article was originally written by a Swede and kept the name because no good translation exist, and the other name is equally local.

It would be nice to have conflict resolution for these cases, as there are more translingual traditions in Scandinavia that needs translated names in the english wikipedia. The same might apply other places with a common culture but multiple languages.

I have few suggestions: 1. Keep the current system. The one who writes the article decides what language should be used. 2. All translations should be used in the header (e.g. Tomter and Nisser) with an explaination in the introduction. 3. Some neutral discription should be created, and the local names listed in introduction. Carewolf 10:43, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


Sea of Japan dispute again.

Hi.

This is one of those issues that indicates there may be a potential problem with this guideline, and perhaps with the present formulation of the neutrality policy in regard to names. *Both* names are not "neutral" in the Wikipedia sense -- using one or the other is subscribing to a point of view. In this case a novel synthesis may be required and I do not see how it would damage the encyclopedia. Could you explain how this may be? If it does not, what would be the problem with having some sort of exceptions to these rules? Simple, blanket prohibitions are not always the best answer to things. Instead of trying to defend the existing rules, perhaps the community should take a long hard look at the rule and see if maybe there really is a problem, being open to that possibility. Even if no problem turns up in the end, at least there would be less dogmatism in the attitudes of the community. mike4ty4 (talk) 22:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Hirohito#RFC:_Appropriate_Emperor_Name

An RFC on content related to naming conventions, as part of a naming conflict has opened, comments are welcome. MBisanz talk 01:53, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Naming conflict RfC

A Request for Comment about a conflicted name has been opened here: Talk:Scharnhorst_class_battlecruiser#Request_for_Comment:_Battleships_or_Battlecruisers.3F. Views from editors involved with naming guidelines and uninvolved with the dispute are encouraged. The Land (talk) 15:57, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Lack of table requires text cleanup

The Ambiguity persists section refers to a table, which seems to no longer exist. I don't understand exactly what that sentence is trying to say, so I can correct it myself. Libcub (talk) 21:12, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Settlement names in unrecognised countries

What would be preferred name for a settlement located in an unrecognised state, say Abkhazia, where the local name (Abkhaz) differs from the name used by Georgia (Georgian), which the world's states think Abkhazia is part of, and where many (but not all) of the international sources have chosen to use a third option (the Russian name). Since we should write descriptively and not care about right or wrong, and since settlements are self-identifying entities, should be use the current local name (Abkhaz), or should we follow international sources in this and use Russian names?sephia karta 02:42, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

To further complicate the issue, say the settlement is rather obscure, and there is not a lot of references to it in English (language) international sources, and those few that do exist do not have a clear preference for one version or another. Also, say the majority of this settlements inhabitants are actually Georgians and use the Georgian name for it? What do we do then? (PaC (talk) 04:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC))
Do you mind if I'd rather you not further complicate the issue? I am interested in the situation which I outlined above.sephia karta 22:45, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I was just making the description of the issue more in line with the reality. You may be interested in whatever you want. I am interested in this more realistic situation.(PaC (talk) 03:08, 31 March 2008 (UTC))
First: that's fine, but then start your own question, don't hijack mine. Second: what reality? I don't have any specific settlement in mind, but in any case the situation I outlined is not applicable to Ochamchira, in case that's what you're thinking, since there the Russian and the Abkhaz names actually coincide.sephia karta 16:44, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
First:"start your own question"??? How old are you Sephia? This is not your private chat. I ask the question where I see fit. If there was somebody here with a good answer to your original question then chances were they would have a good answer to mine as well. Second: did I say anything about Ochamchire?(PaC (talk) 18:22, 31 March 2008 (UTC))
You follow me here and reply to my question with a 'more realistic' scenario without knowing what settlement I have in mind. I consider that rude. And there is no need to act like you're telling me off.sephia karta 21:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I think you are deliberately trying to sabotage my question now that your twisted version did not fly. Most people would consider your behavior extremely rude. Grow up.(PaC (talk) 20:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC))
I'll let your thoughts speak for themselves then.sephia karta 12:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

In the Wikipedia:Naming conflict#Ambiguity persists section the link to Wikipedia:Straw polls should be removed because that proposal is rejected. Instead of "In those unsolved cases a poll, for example via Wikipedia:Requested moves, can be conducted.", it could be "For the unsolved cases use Wikipedia:Requested moves." or sonething like that. --Mskyrider (talk) 17:11, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Linux dispute

There is a dispute over at Talk:Linux as to whether the "Linux" slot in the WP namespace should occupied by an article about "Linux operating systems" or whether it should be a pure disambiguation page. Currently it is an article about the family of operating systems. The issue is complicated thus:

  1. It is undisputed that what makes an operating system worthy of the Linux name is its inclusion of the Linux kernel.
  2. It is undisputed that the name "Linux" technically (and maybe properly, but that is disputed by a few) refers to Linux, the operating system kernel, the article for which is found at Linux kernel.
  3. Popularly, when someone says Linux, they probably mean much more than Linux (the kernel) and maybe even more than Linux (the family of operating systems each of which contains the Linux kernel), they may even mean all the applications packages in various Linux distributions.
  4. There is a detergent called Linux.
  5. Some hold that the proper name of almost all versions of Linux operating systems is GNU/Linux and others are vehemently opposed.
  6. Recently one editor has been performing mass changes in articles changing links from GNU/Linux (which is a POV term, according to some, but is at least unambiguous) to Linux (which is often ambiguous).

(I consider the last two points only of tangential relevance to this particular discussion but they serve to inform the debate.)

In my view the "Linux" namespace slot has been misappropriated and that "Linux" should be a pure disambiguation page. Specifically I would like to do the following: (a) Move Linux to Linux operating system, (b) move Linux (disambiguation) to Linux and (c) leave linux kernel exactly where it is. I am trying hard to leave personal prejudice behind and despite a personal preference for the GNU/Linux term I am not in favour of naming the current Linux article GNU/Linux - with some that would be a highly unpopular move. I can't find any guidelines which disagree with my proposal [i.e. (a), (b) and (c)] and I believe the supporting guidelines for this are:

(1) use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things[12]

Hence "Linux" can't be used for the family of operating systems as Linux properly refers to the operating system kernel. I suggest "Linux operating system" and "Linux kernel".

(2) In cases where the common name of a subject is misleading, then it is sometimes reasonable to fall back on a well-accepted alternative. For example a "common" name for a tsunami is "tidal wave" (this term being less often used for the tides-related tidal bore). For this reason, the Tidal wave page is a disambiguation page, with links to the two other pages, and not a page giving details about either tsunami or tidal bore.[13]

That's why I favour a plain disambig page. The technical vs popular usage of "Linux" is very similar to the technical vs popular usage of "tidal wave". Same solution, therefore.

(3) But it does mean that we need to temper common usage when the commonly used term is unreasonably misleading or commonly regarded as offensive to one or more groups of people. ibid.

Yup. The bare word Linux can be unreasonably misleading. A weak point but supportive of my proposal.

(4) If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic, and that the disambiguation page should be located at the plain title with no "(disambiguation)".[14]

The discussion is ongoing and there is no compromise in sight. So, a plain title disambiguation page is best.

(5) When there is another term (such as Pocket billiards instead of Pool) or more complete name that is equally clear (such as Delta rocket instead of Delta), that should be used.[15]

This is a guideline telling us to use Linux kernel and not Linux for the article on Linux (i.e. the kernel). And similarly, why we should use Linux operating system and not Linux for the operating systems.

The strongest argument against my proposal is that we are supposed to be populist. The quoted guideline is from WP:NAME:

Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.
This is justified by the following principle:
The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists.

In response I ask how come we have energy being the physics concept and work being a disambiguation page rather than some man-in-the-street article about labour, and why is car redirected to automobile and Mercedes to Mercedes-Benz, It seems that we do not dumb down at WP. That the term Linux is often used loosely or that it is used with implicit disambiguation (by context) does not, to me, seem to be good enough reason to have the Linux spot in the WP namespace occupied by an article on Linux operating systems.

Comment invited.

Paul Beardsell (talk) 10:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Very late comment: "Linux" is a kernel, not an operating system. This is a simple fact. I favor calling things what they are, but have recently been told to take that opinion and stuff it. Before I do so, however, I just wanted to chime in here, in favor of calling operating systems that use Linux as their kernel by what they are, e.g., "GNU+Linux" or "GNU/Linux." When the Hurd reaches the level of Linux, presumably many operating systems that currently use Linux will switch to the Hurd; will any of them keep the name "Linux"? I hardly think so. Nor will they likely be renamed "Hurd," or even "GNU/Hurd," because the former would be as absurd as calling them "Linux" currently is, and the latter would be redundant. No, those operating systems that currently use accurate naming will simply drop "Linux" and call themselves "GNU" operating systems (since the temporary shoehorning of Linux into the system, which has always been a mere a stopgap measure until the Hurd is ready, will no longer be necessary), and those that don't currently use accurate naming will begin finally to do so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.218.107 (talk) 18:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937

There is a dispute at Talk:Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 about inclusion of both airliners that crashed in the incident into the article's title. The norm for other articles is to either put both planes or a date and a geographical representation of the area of the title (2002 Southern Germany Mid-Air Collision was recommended, and is used here as an example). Only in the case of a commercial airliner crashing into a civilian plane is the commercial airliner's name the only one used in the title. Since the debate has reached a standstill, I would appreciate it if an administrator could look over it and make a ruling to end said standstill. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vreddy92 (talk • contribs) 14:52, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Help needed in resolving naming conflict edit war!

There is considerable disagreement at Talk:Thylacoleonidae.

Summary: Marsupial lion and Marsupial Lion do not point to the same location, due to a scientifically technical reason. However, a few of us believe that there should be a better way to handle the situation, which would involve disambiguation pages or links.

Warning-- a particularly stubborn user is edit warring on this, so be careful what you say.

If you can help, please see Talk:Thylacoleonidae. Thanks in advance! Bob the Wikipedian (talk) 20:29, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Naming conflict not covered by this guideline

There's currently an argument at Talk:Tarot over whether references to tarot in all Wikipedia articles need to explicitly use the terms 'game-playing tarot', 'divinatory tarot' and 'occult tarot' to distinguish these different applications, or whether 'tarot' is sufficient if the context is clear. I believe it is highly awkward and artificial to require the qualifiers 'game-playing', 'divinatory' or 'occult' to be tacked on in every instance, since in normal usage, all three applications are normally referred to as 'tarot'.

This guideline explains what to do if there is a naming conflict, but doesn't give guidance on determining whether there actually is a conflict in the first place. The editor proposing this awkward naming convention is, I believe, inventing terminology to segregate concepts he believes should be distinct.

In a nutshell: is 'tarot' sufficient (assuming the application is clear from the context), or must we always use these bulky terms?

Can anyone point me to a guideline or ruling that would be helpful in resolving this argument? Fuzzypeg★ 04:58, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:POINT. Or even, WP:RS and WP:NOR. Point, because it sounds like this behavior and insistence is becoming disruptive. Reliable sources, because that is a foundation of our work and we shouldn't prescribe terminology that our sources aren't using (good writing shouldn't be slavish either, and Wikipedia needs consistency of its own, but in a conflict it is an easy default). NOR, because insisting on these qualifiers isn't something a generalist audience recognizes. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
This is a matter of being precise in our language. I did not invent the term "occult tarot" but it is a term used in more academic writings on tarot. To tell you the truth, I don't even like the term but it's one that has been used by authors on tarot history so this is not a personal bias of mine. Simply Google the term "occult tarot" and one can find books from at least two authors, one of whom is Michael Dummett, and websites on tarot history have also used this term. On the deletion of the re-direct, I inadvertently recreated it thinking it's disappearance was due to an error in capitalization. I should have been informed of its deletion and the reasons for it. Nobody gave me the memo on my talk page! In articles pertaining to the classical elements to name an example, I think it should be specified it is an occultist interpretation. Fire is not a really a suit of the tarot! . I don't see the symbol for fire or these other elements on most tarot decks! Btw my last edit, as I write this, was on the French Tarot article where I specified it was the French game of tarot because I think it should also be known that it's a regional card game of France. Concepts exclusive to occult or divinatory tarot should be specified as such. Concepts exclusive to the Rider Waite deck such as the images chosen for trumps VIII and XI should also be specified as particular to that deck and not all of tarot. There is nothing bulky about the term "occult tarot" and because some aspects of tarot are independent of the occult, this term is in no way a tautology. It is POV language and not keeping with a world wide view to employ the word "tarot" as if it's the exclusive property of the occult.Smiloid (talk) 00:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
This isn't the appropriate place to conduct our debate; it is for questions and comments about the naming conflict guidelines. Lets keep our argument in one place, at Talk:Tarot. Fuzzypeg★ 00:49, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Ireland

This paragraph in relation to Ireland is bunkum. It is written from the perspective that Republic of Ireland is the name of the state and Ireland is the common name. That is false. There is a dispute which is being talked through (badly) at the talk page of WP:IMOS. It is unhelpful that this disinformation is being used as fact in argument. Comment welcome there.Traditional unionist (talk) 11:18, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Used WikiCleaner, please do not revert

Used WikiCleaner software to fix disambig. links. Please do not revert, thanks! Funandtrvl (talk) 14:51, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Synonymous terms used widely by WP:RS

Per: "Sources of comparable importance use different names," I could swear I read last week that if a phrase is the main phrase used but other phrases are used almost as much by WP:RS (whether or not they have their own articles) one can say in the Lead: "XXX YYY (also frequently called WWW YYY and ZZZ YYY) is etc..." I can't find that now in this article or WP:NAME. Did I miss it, has it been removed or is it somewhere else? If it's somewhere else, it needs to be here in that section as well. This has been very contentious in two different articles and I just discovered these pages which help clear up a few other issues. Just need help on this one. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:20, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

"Jewish lobby" and "Israel lobby" are not synonyms, as has been explained to you over a week ago on the WP:NOR/N board. Jayjg (talk) 04:13, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
  1. It would be nice to discuss this in general terms since the issue of when and what kind of synonyms have to have sources is a wikipedia wide issue that I have recently become aware of and not just one on one particular article.
  2. That editor you link to makes the point that while Zionist Lobby and Israel lobby are synonymous, Jewish Lobby is not always synonymous with the other two. However, while I agree 100% that is true, the fact is all sorts of reliable sources, including Jewish publications, conflate Jewish and Israel lobbies all the time. And it's wikipedia's job to describe things as they are, not as we want them to be because it may be good for our particular POV. That is the whole point of WP:NAME and WP:NAMING CONFLICT, as I have just discovered. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:58, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Your question is only about equating "Jewish lobby" with "Israel lobby", nothing more. Your persistent mis-application of guidelines like WP:NAME is a separate issue. Jayjg (talk) 05:29, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
If you are going to tell someone they are misapplying a guideline, you should tell them which one, in what article and why. I have to assume you are referring to my error corrected above. But WP:Naming conflict is all about NPOV per the first sentence of WP:Naming conflict: A naming conflict can arise on Wikipedia when contributors have difficulty agreeing on what to call a topic or a geopolitical/ethnic entity. These generally arise out of a misunderstanding of the Neutral Point of View (NPOV) policy. CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:16, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Still trying to find out exactly where the rules for putting synonymous names in the lead are written. Have run into about 4 dubious cases since writing the above in this section's lead and I think this article should link to such information so people can do it properly. Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:18, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

"Common subsets versus uncommon supersets with shared names"

I've just removed this undiscussed addition to this guideline, contributed by an editor who wants to use it to settle a content dispute that she or he is currently involved in at Talk:Glider. I'm not taking any position on its eventual inclusion here; but as things stand, there's a clear conflict of interests. --Rlandmann (talk) 03:11, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm reverting your removal. Since:
a) you're not claiming it's controversial
b) this is only a guideline and can be overridden by consensus
c) it tends to minimise arguments (which is the purpose of this guideline after all)
d) it's a good idea that has been applied in so far, jet engine, steam engine and internal combustion engine
e) having it here in no way settles any dispute anywhere, but tends to avoid them
You're also not assuming good faith; and I don't think that it will settle the dispute in glider.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:00, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
I feel compelled to revert your reversion since:
a) It's demonstrably controversial and I can't understand how you can claim otherwise, given that you've cited it in an attempt to gain leverage in a content dispute here. Later in the same discussion, you admit that there's been similar contention in a number of other situations in the past. Perhaps the participants in those discussions should be invited to comment on this proposed change. Were they invited to do so?
b) Any guideline can be overriden by consensus, or simply ignored. However, just because consensus can override a guideline to hard-code the font of every article into Comic Sans 20pt doesn't mean that such a guideline should be written.
c) Does it? I'd like to see the proof before you go writing this into a guideline.
d) I will look into these over the next few days and comment further. I'm certainly not convinced that it's a good idea, based on what you've attempted to do with the glider and sailplane articles. Even the fact that you may have had your way with restructuring other articles in the past may not indicate this is a good idea.
e) How is this different from your assertion at c)? Again, simply asserting that it is so doesn't make it so.
I'm perfectly willing to assume that this was a good-faith faux pas. Nevertheless, it looks to me like a pretty extreme case of asking the other parent; indeed, attempting to become the other parent!
Whether or not you thought it would "settle" the dispute at glider, you attempted to invoke it there, indeed quoting it verbatim while failing to mention that the "guideline" was in fact something that you yourself had recently made up! --Rlandmann (talk) 20:38, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
It demonstrably is not significantly controversial, see a recent discussion on wikien-l and Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Common_subset_names. People aren't exactly falling over themselves to argue about it. Except you. Who died an made you God of the wikipedia exactly?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 21:29, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
If this proposal were uncontroversial, then I would expect that it could be implemented at Glider without opposition. This is clearly not the case. --Rlandmann (talk) 22:39, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, right. When has application of a policy or guideline ever been completely without opposition. People still argue about NPOV. Even if the guideline is not followed in glider (and probably that's not the way to bet) the batting would be about 5:1 on this principle historically, I'd forgotten about aircraft engine, rocket which also worked that way, there may be others as well.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:33, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
...which means that it's controversial... --Rlandmann (talk) 03:37, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
So, let's get this straight, your total argument is that there is an unfinished discussion in one article, which like any consensus in any article can override any guideline anyway; and that it's 'controversial'. That's not an argument.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:14, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
What I'm seeing at "Glider" (finished or unfinished) appears to be determined opposition to the implementation of exactly the principle contained in this proposed addition to the guidelines. You've also alluded to previous opposition at other articles, which further leads me to think that the suggestion is problematic at best. I'm also curious about the circumstances under which those other discussions were "finished". How would you characterise that? --Rlandmann (talk) 07:49, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Your vague 'curiousity' about 'circumstances' do you know credit at all. If you feel that the principle did not work out correctly in any other article, by all means reopen the discussion there. In the meantime I see this as purely bloody minded. Let's put it this way, give up this garbage here, or I'll reopen the discussion on glider, as I will have no other option, and I believe I will prevail both there and here. Your choice.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:24, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
In fact, I would argue precisely the converse- it's only worth having a guideline here if it is slightly controversial. The whole point of this guideline is to minimise arguments, while generally giving a good result, if it wasn't controversial then it would be completely pointless. I'm therefore reverting the change. It's up to you if you want to revisit this again, but I would strongly recommend against it.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:43, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Threats to cause trouble elsewhere if you don't get your way aren't really helpful. You are more than free to open or re-open discussion on "Glider" any time you like (as far as I can see, it's ongoing anyway, so I'm not really sure what I'm being threatened with here). Furthermore, labelling people who disagree with you as merely "bloody minded" and their opinions as "garbage" isn't very helpful either.

I didn't label your opinions as garbage, it's your actions that I find as unacceptable, you're reverting a considerable proportion of my edits out of hand, and you've just left me a message on my talk page essentially asking me if it's OK to canvas other editors!!!- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 21:08, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Putting that aside, could you please answer the question that you ignored last time. How would you characterise the outcome of discussions on those other articles? Did you actually achieve consensus with the other editors involved? --Rlandmann (talk) 12:06, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Strangely enough, yes. Not being a sysop and not one to form cabals I'm unable to force my views on other editors (ahem), can you say the same?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 21:08, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
Which actions do you find unacceptable? What have I reverted out of hand?
I personally don't consider asking other editors about their experiences of rescoping per your proposed additions to this guideline to be canvassing. Nevertheless I wanted to be transparent and up-front about what I hoped to do, in case you had any objections on those grounds. Since you apparently do, I won't be proceding.
Can you suggest an alternative process by which I can test your assertion that the rescopes had the weight of consensus behind them? --Rlandmann (talk) 21:14, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
The fact that people aren't discussing it or changing the article or discussing it further or creating similar articles with different definitions is usually considered to be good evidence for consensus in the wikipedia. If you insist on testing it in discussion form do so on the talk page of the particular article in the normal way.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 21:31, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
Thank you. I will formulate a question or two, and run them by you for your approval before posting them to the relevant pages. --Rlandmann (talk) 21:09, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, this is already core policy. See Wikipedia:Neutral_Point_of_View:

A Wikipedia article must have one definitive name.[4] The general restriction against POV forks applies to article names as well. If a genuine naming controversy exists, and is relevant to the subject matter of the article, the controversy should be covered in the article text and substantiated with reliable sources. Otherwise, alternative article names should not be used as means of settling POV disputes among Wikipedia contributors.

A neutral article title is very important because it ensures that the article topic is placed in the proper context. Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality. The article might cover the same material but with less emotive words, or might cover broader material which helps ensure a neutral view

My reading of this is that your creation of (for example) unpowered aircraft is very strongly disfavoured by this core policy.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Fundamentally, this also is very clear on this matter:

All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles, and of all article editors.

- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this would apply in situations where there is demonstrably a controversy outside the pages of Wikipedia over what something should be called, or what a term should include or exclude. We don't (for example) want separate pages on Danzig and Gdansk (to cite just one of Wikipedia's most acrimonious feuds).
In cases where a Wikipedia editor creates a controversy her- or himself, I don't know that it constitutes a notable POV that needs to be included in an article.
Therefore, a blanket guideline such as the one you've proposed to add here reflects the core policies that you've cited here, but in fact, stretches beyond them. --Rlandmann (talk) 21:21, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Where does the bit I just quoted mention controversy? It says all significant views, not all controversial views!!! How do you get to the point that you think you can pick one, such as a definition of glider that excludes, for example, gliding mammals, and then claim, 'I see no controversy' and then override NPOV in that way? Surely you must be joking Mr. Rlandmann!!!- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:21, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Could you please moderate your tone and keep this discussion civil?
The word "controversy" never appears in the section that you just quoted. However, it and its near-synonyms (in the context) "conflicting" and "competing" appear frequently in the guideline that you have taken this quote from. Please take a look at the "Reasoning behind neutrality" section which explains why the policy exists in the first place.
Are you aware of published sources that treat the term "glider" as broadly as you propose to? (or better, any that indicate that there is a difference of opinion as to how the word should be applied) I am not. If you can produce evidence of "significant views" in reliable sources that diverge on this point, please do so. --Rlandmann (talk) 08:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm not going to go through all that here, right now, that's going to have to go on in glider etc. In general terms, there are plenty of notable definitions of 'glider' around that describe a glider as basically anything that glides, others that some powered gliders are also gliders, and further that gliding mammals are also noted gliders. Even birds routinely soar, which I'm sure you'll agree is a form of gliding. These are all not in the glider article, and are extremely easy to source.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 11:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
The take-home point in this talk page is that the generality of articles with respect to their name is enforced by NPOV wherever reliable sources can be found, which in practice is nearly always, except for particularly obscure topics. This point needs to be made clearer in this guideline, as it comes up all the time.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 11:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Saying that a thing glides does not mean that it is a "glider", at least in the sense that anybody actually uses the word. But you're right; that's a topic for Talk:Glider.
As I see it, the point in this talk page is that an attempt to construct a "one size fits all" guideline like this is a very bad idea if it leads to (IMHO) illogical outcomes like the one you're putting forward for glider.
Sure, guidelines can be sidestepped or even ignored on a case-by-case basis, but I think you'll agree that once an idea is put into writing on a guideline or policy page, it acquires a certain weight that it doesn't otherwise have. As things stand, I don't see why cases for the fundamental rescoping of articles shouldn't have to be made on a case-by-case basis. In other words, the onus to make that case should be on the person advocating such a fundamental rearrangement of content.--Rlandmann (talk) 13:07, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but you can't really play the 'I think it gives a poor result in case X therefore I can override or refuse to state core policy on a guideline page'. Even if it did give a poor result, which I really doubt, that's just tough-NPOV is not negotiable in the wikipedia, and in conjunction with reliable sources it still controls the content of wikipedia articles in the way that I have indicated.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
This implication of the core policy needs to be pointed out here, otherwise many others will fall down the same hole that you and others in other articles have done, to the significant detriment of generality and scope of the wikipedia.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe the latest posting by Wolfkeeper is related to discussion above. I have therefore reversed it. If you believe that this amendment by Wolfkeeper was justified, or if you have a contrary view, please may we have a debate here before altering a fundamental aspect of Wikipedia. Please note that Wolfkeeper has also amended the guidelines on disambiguation emphasising the importance of NPOV. I feel that this may be related. JMcC (talk) 22:26, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

If you noticed he had not commented in 6 days, and my edit neither changed policy nor the guideline in any way, it merely pointed out that which is already true. If you can explain how I was supposed to have actually changed the guidelines or policy with this edit I would genuinely be most intrigued to know.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:43, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Name collisions

This is an issue that arises from time to time for me, & although I have been handling this on a case-by-case basis which mostly works (based on an absence of serious objections), I still am uncomfortable about my decisions. (And I am still amazed how how many names of Ethiopian people, places & things are the same names used in Japan, China, Italy & India.) So what should we do when two different subjects share the same name?

My primary rule of thumb is "first come, first unqualified": if an article on a Japanese town of that name already exists, for example, then the Ethiopian one is qualified as "X, Ethiopia". (I'll ignore the mess that results when I encounter two places in Ethiopia with the same name.) But when I discover the name of a town in Ethiopia is already in use as the name of a character in a video game, or a brand name (which has happened)... well, I'm not exactly willing to live by my rule in those cases; I feel that a person, place or thing in the Real World (TM) should take priority -- & be unqualified -- over one in a fictional world.

That's just one aspect of the problem: one could go into the use of parentheses, when there are enough names to justify creating a disambiguation page, & whether in the case of conflicts over geographical names the issue of size (either in area or inhabitants) should be a factor. Thoughts? Directions?

(BTW, I tried to find any trace of a policy or discussion on this matter before posting this, & while I am amazed at the amount of pages devoted to various problems with assigning names, I failed to find one -- which either means that it doesn't exist, or it is buried so deep in the maze of policy pages that only an expert could find it.) -- llywrch (talk) 17:24, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that the maze of guidelines we've created is in need of some serious sorting out. But I think the one you might be looking for is WP:Disambiguation, particularly the section "Is there a primary topic?" I don't think it does or should have any dependence on whether things are real or fictional, just how likely it is that people are going to be looking for them in an encyclopedia.--Kotniski (talk) 15:49, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

About self-identifying names

The whole section on self-identifying names ("Types of entities") seems somewhat confused. I suspect it was written with Macedonia in mind, but if it were taken literally and generalized, it would imply a whole lot of things that we don't do (like always use the local official name for cities). Any objection to it being tidied up?--Kotniski (talk) 15:54, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Apparently not, so I'll have a go.--Kotniski (talk) 09:02, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, I've made an attempt, and found much that seemed to need to be cut. (The section title is now "Self-identifying terms".) Let me know if anyone thinks I've left out anything important. I cut out the bit about distinguishing "self-identifying" from other terms, since I don't think our policy on naming mountains (Mount Everest, for example) differs significantly from our policy on naming cities on the grounds that the latter are populated and the former are not. And I cut out the Carimba/Mupatu example since it seems to be geared towards making a point about the Macedonia dispute or some other such dispute - I don't think a hypothetical example can be helpful here, since realities are much more complex.--Kotniski (talk) 09:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
I have restored this section, since it is useful, very important, only one person decided to remove it - and it is of particular interest relevant to articles such as the Roman Catholic Church - Catholic Church article. Xandar 23:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
But it's completely at variance with other policies and guidelines (WP:NCGN, for example). Can you explain how it is useful or important, and what its relevance is to the Roman Catholic Church? --Kotniski (talk) 08:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
I don't see any conflict. The guidance you quote states that it does not over-ride other guidance. And in this guideline it specifically states Commonly used English translations of self-identifying terms are usually preferred per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) guideline. For example: "Japanese" and not Nihon-jin. " So there is no conflict. Xandar 12:09, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
OK, looks like this discussion is continuing at #"pro-life" below.--Kotniski (talk) 12:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Holy/Maundy Thursday

Hello, I am looking for some advice on a naming issue that has NPOV connotations. There is currently a major debate going on regarding the article title for Maundy Thursday; see the talk page. It is my feeling, and that of a significant minority of editors, that the title violates NPOV as reflecting particular linguistic, religious, etc. traditions, and that "Holy Thursday" is a better, fairer title that encompasses religious traditions that do not use the "Maundy" label. A majority of editors disagree, but it seems to me that their argument relies on their perception of the frequency of usage of one as opposed to the other. My feeling is that, irrespective of frequency issues, the usage of both is close enough that we are obliged to use the more neutral of the terms. It is clear enough to me that this is not going to go anywhere without getting some of WP's dispute resolution running; this strikes me as a very similar debate to the aluminium/aluminum debate (or airplane/aeroplane), where neither side is likely to be convinced by the other's logic, at least without some authoritative interjection/interpretation of Wikipedia's policies on this matter. I thought it would be helpful to get the input of people who regularly attend to these concerns. Thank you. MrArticleOne (talk) 19:46, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Macedonia Request for Comment

The Centralized discussion page set up to decide on a comprehensive naming convention about Macedonia-related naming practices is now inviting comments on a number of competing proposals from the community. This issue relates specifically to WP:NPOV#Article naming and Wikipedia:Naming conflict. Please register your opinions on the RfC subpages 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Altering guideline without Community-Wide Consensus

Does this long passage on self-identifying names belong in a naming guideline?

The passage concerned being the one which was restored in this diff.--Kotniski (talk) 12:30, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Kontiski and one other seem to be determined to drastically cut a major section of this guideline on self-identifying names without any consensus whatsoever. This is an agreed Wikipedia POLICY GUIDELINE. As such it needs not only a good reason and a very wide consensus to change, it needs a consensus that reflects feeling across the community. I can see no good reason to cut this long-established guideline, and no good reason has been presented here. We can't have people just altering guidance to suit themselves. So can these people stop taking it upon themselves to alter policy guidance without proper Wiki-wide consultation. Xandar 10:52, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, all this could be said the other way round - Xandar and no other are determined to keep reinserting a section that seems (on the basis of practice and other guidelines) not to enjoy community consensus, or even to make much sense. You seem to be mainly interested in it because you think it supports your arguments about what to call the (Roman) Catholic Church article, so you're hardly in a position to accuse others of altering it to suit themselves. Anyway, what matters is whether it clearly and accurately states how we do things - what evidence do you have for that? Evidence has been given above on this page that it doesn't.--Kotniski (talk) 12:17, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
My principal point is that this guidance was written in Summer 2005, and the part Kotniski wants to remove has been in the guidance since July that year. It has been there for the whole lifetime of the guidance and enjoyed community support for all that time. It should not be significantly altered or removed on the whim of one or two people. I believe it has a very useful purpose in specifying how naming guidance works in practice - with a clear theoretical example. Of course I was interested in it because the policy is relevant to a recent dispute. I'm not saying this is set in stone, but any significant change has to be carefully negotiated and approved by the wider WP community, certainly more than a couple of people who just happen to be here. I don't think there is a good reason for cutting this so drastically. It might also be useful to involve more of the original authors in any proposed changes. Xandar 22:51, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, to me: (a) it doesn't have a clear relation to this page (it talks about using names "in" articles when this page should be about naming articles, and it isn't clear if any of this relates to that topic); (b) it is based on premises that don't have any following on WP (that local names for populated places somehow have a different status than local names for geographical features; and that we always call things by their local/self-adopted names rather than by their common English names). In other words, it doesn't reflect accepted WP editorial practice, and therefore has no place on a page which is marked as a guideline. (It could be made into an essay.)--Kotniski (talk) 16:30, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
So basically you seem to be quarrelling with the policy that the names chosen by self-identifying entities to identify themselves should be followed by Wikipedia. The alternative would be for Wikipedia to decide what these entities names SHOULD be, even if they dislike or reject those names. That is a lot more than just the trimming, or shortening of the guidance that was initially claimed by those wanting the change. It would be a major change of policy that would re-start a hundred now-dormant naming conflicts across Wikipedia. Mormom-Latter Day Saints, Macedonia-Greece, Clay-Ali, Catholic-Roman Catholic, Orthodox-Eastern Orthodox, Coptic-Ethiopian Orthodox etc. etc. Basically I think the established guidance adopts the correct principle of WP editors not overruling people, cities or organisations as to what their name is. As far as the other point goes, the guidance is "Wikipedia naming conflicts" It doesn't just say "titling conflicts". Xandar 22:28, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, the principle (as stated in other better-known and better-followed policies and guidelines) is that we use the names by which things/people are best known in English. In the great majority of cases that's also the self-identifying name, but that doesn't mean that self-identification is the principle that we follow. I'm certainly not saying that we decide what the name SHOULD be, just what it IS - but based primarily on third-party sources rather than the subject's own preference. And I don't mind the self-identifying name being taken into account as one of the factors considered when it's not clear what the common name is - but the way this passage is written, it makes it sound like the self-name should automatically trump all others. --Kotniski (talk) 08:34, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
That's your opinion, however it would be a major change of Wikipedia policy to do as you suggest - and a change that would have many ramifications in re-igniting conflict. At the moment the guidance is clear and easily followed, making it more obscure for no good reason, would cause endless disputes. One name that Kotniski's proposed new policy would almost certainly alter would be the Church which most people would find by typing Mormon Church. Xandar 22:57, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
No new policy is being proposed; I just want to get rid of a passage that misstates existing policy. (Look at Burma, for example - we don't go with the self-identifying name.) Given the lack of interest in this discussion, it seems that no-one is interested in this page anyway, hence any changes made here almost certainly won't have any effect on the way things are actually done, they will just prevent anyone who chances on this page by accident from being misled.--Kotniski (talk) 07:25, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
It appears to be your view alone, that the clearly-stated guidance, that has been here for rfour years, unchallenged, and used in many disputes is "MISSTATING POLICY"! This is an amazing conclusion! The policy is quite clear about self-identifying names. And there is no mandate to change it. You seem to be confusing the WP:Use English policy with the one on self-identifying names. In cases where a country or person has a self-identifying name that has significantly BETTER usage in English, then the English form of the self-identifying name should be used. That is the general rule. Naples for Napoli for example. Sometimes, when the English name is so well used that to use another would cause confusion there are special issues, such as Burma. The change of name by the military government to Myanmar is also opposed by many Burmese democrats. Bombay however has changed its name with popular agreement. However these are not reasons for changing the rule - which is what you are really proposing. Xandar 15:38, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Can the two parties please provide a clear summary of the issue? Examples and all that aside, what is the specific statement that is in question? The current wording certainly goes against the fresh WP:POLICY#Content rules on 'theorizing', which is certainly what a statement like the following is:

"A distinction should be drawn between a self-identifying entity and an inanimate or non-human entity. An inanimate geographical feature such as a sea or mountain, or a non-human entity such as an animal, does not have a name for itself."

This is inappropriate and unclear, but I'd like to know what the real issue here is. The amount of time that something has existed as policy is irrelevant, if some prior broad consensus discussion for its inclusion does not exist.    M   02:28, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

It's hard to point to a specific statement when the whole thing is unclear. Certainly this theorizing about differences between populated and inanimate places needs to go - I've never seen this distinction play a role in discussions about place naming. If there are areas of WP where self-identifying names are prioritized (Xandar suggests this is the case with names of church organizations) then this should be stated, but whatever it is that we are trying to state here needs to be set out clearly and concisely.--Kotniski (talk) 07:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Ok, well the entire thing should be either removed, or rephrased to not require a long speculative account, filled with examples, of what it means for a thing to be "self-identifying". Most of this, especially the stuff about inanimate objects, can be replaced with "Some persons and organizations have stated preferred names for themselves. In such cases where a thing cares what it's called, we..."    M   08:56, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

For reference, there are only 4 non-reverting editors having over 5 edits on this page: 

[name] (total edits, chars sum: added minus removed, chars added, chars removed, content moves)
ChrisO           (29, 14566, 3250, 17816, 22)
Francis Schonken (13, 2409, 1324, 3733, 16)
Wolfkeeper       (11, 0, 0, 0, 0)
Kotniski         (6, -2371, 2942, 571, 6)

Which doesn't look too good, in terms of diversity. This should mean that the person claiming that widespread community support for some specific wording exists should provide evidence.    M   09:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what is allegedly "unclear" about a self-identifying name. Either a body has a name for itself or it doesn't. A mountain doesn't name itself. A country DOES. It's not too hard to understand. The length and the examples ADD to the clarity - which is needed in contentious naming disputes. This policy has stood for many years and is quite clear. The statement of konitski that it isn't used is just supposition on his part, with no proof whatsoever. Similarly the lack of changes to the policy show its stability and usefulness rather than vice-versa. So far I have seen no rationale for a change other than WP:Idontlikeit. It would certainly need a lot more than Kotniski and a couple of his friends to change such a basic policy. Xandar 19:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Look at it this way: If it's clear, you don't need to go on and on about rocks and trees and birds. It's entirely irrelevant that this specific wording has stood for many years, as long as nothing substantive changes. So, what do you see as the substantive (important, crucial, unchangeable) parts of this section?    M  
Believe it or not, it has come up. Otherwise the community wouldn't have seen fit to put it in the guideline. People argue over all sorts of names, I don't see how more examples and more clarity could be a bad thing. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 20:24, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Strongly against Kotniski proposals to cut the section. It would be a violation of the WP:NPOV policy to cut out a section on what entities self-descibe their own name as. The section is very useful and should remain within the article. There doesn't really seem to be a good reason to remove it, other than, as Xandar pointed out WP:Idontlikeit. If it isn't broke don't fix it. - Yorkshirian (talk) 20:25, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

The line Kotniski objects to certainly is needed. There are plenty of disputes over the names of inanimate objects - the Persian Gulf (or Arabian Gulf) and the Sea of Japan (or East Sea) are just two examples. In those cases there's no "definitive" name for such things - we go with what is most frequently used in English. Countries, cities and other geopolitical bodies are a different matter because they do have a self-selected name. That's why we make that distinction in the guideline. It's an important distinction to make, because disputes over geopolitical names and geographical names need to be treated somewhat differently. As the original author of the guideline, I suggest that the line should stay. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:28, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the current guideline could use some review, rethinking and possibly rewriting. I'm not prepared to lay out a coherent discussion of the issues at this time. However, pending a thorough review of the guideline, I think we should keep the text that Kotniski wishes to delete. Using the Self-identifying name is a good guideline. --Richard (talk) 21:28, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
A major part of the issue here is the objection to the wording and the theorizing, not to the actual substantive parts of the policy. The weird "self-identifying" self-identifying terminology needs to be removed in favor of something coherent. I read that section and my mind goes numb; there's a much easier way to state things.    M   22:38, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Ok, I cleaned up a bunch of this as per WP:POLICY. Nothing substantive was removed, but the weird and confusing theorizing was mostly cut. By the way, a self-identifying name, much like a self-identifying homosexual or wikipedian, is someone who identifies themselves as that label. In this context, it basically means a name that identifies itself as a name, which is nonsense. The term we want to use here is "preferred name", as in that little box, on forms, where you list the name that you prefer to be addressed by.    M   23:18, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the policy is getting watered down a bit. The entity under the old wording doesn't have to state that they prefer one term, they could also simply use one name most the time without explicitly stating that they prefer the name; I don't get the feeling that the current wording captures that idea.
As for the first sentence of the self-identifying section, does this mean we should mention it, or that we should title the article this way?" Yes, this guideline is designed to select a single title for an article. It is stating (and is commonly interpreted to mean) that articles should be titled by the name that an animate entity chooses to use for itself, whether or not others think they have the right to use that name; this policy helps us avoid taking sides in political disputes and helps wikipedia remain neutral. Here's what I think its trying to say: Where self-identifying names self-selected names are available, they should be used within articles. Wikipedia does not take any position on whether an self-identifying entity has any right to use a name; this encyclopedia merely notes the fact that they do use that name. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 02:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I've changed it to reflect this. I've also removed some of the wording:
  • These names are not simply arbitrary terms but are key statements of an entity's own identity. -- we don't care how important a person's key identity is to them, we just want to avoid conflict
  • This should always be borne in mind when dealing with controversies involving self-identifying names. -- we don't officially advise our editors to take a more cautious stance towards 'self-identifying' entities specifically. All entities, including the ones that think that, say, "creation scientists" shouldn't be called scientists, are worthy of respect.
  • this encyclopedia merely notes the fact that they do use that name. -- no, it's not like we're titling articles "the artist who calls himself the artist formally known as prince"
and so on. I've also excluded the verbose examples as per WP:POLICY#Content, if someone wants to start an essay using those examples, that would be fine. If I've missed anything, please let me know and I'll change it again.    M   03:54, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
That's certainly a great improvement in terms of presentation - at least we can see what it's trying to say now. I think, though, that you've actually strengthened it in terms of substance - where previously it talked about using names within articles, it now says that the self-identifying name "should be used" as the article title. Clearly there are exceptions to this (otherwise it would conflict with WP:NC) - perhaps this should be reflected in the wording? For example, we could delete "even if they do not have a right to use that name" (as redundant), and replace it with "subject to other Wikipedia naming conventions."--Kotniski (talk) 07:41, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
The lack of clarity in the previous wording means that we can't figure out what the consensus was actually for. I began my rewrite by basically copying Kraftlos's statement, "that articles should be titled by the name that an animate entity chooses to use for itself, whether or not others think they have the right to use that name". My guess is that people explained things somewhat clearly somewhere in this talk page history, got consensus, and then wrote something that was extremely difficult to understand without this context. I think that the intent was actually to talk about the naming, not the title of the article. The NC policy is huge (tldr) - which parts would this conflict with? (If it doesn't explicitly conflict, then we can just let them point to POL, which says policies win out over guidelines.)    M   08:46, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Well, it seems to conflict with the overriding "use common name" principle, as well as many other specific naming conventions, such as those for monarchs. Generally the naming conventions pages are all mixed up, with different things being stated as rules in different places, and no clarity about what takes precedence over what (there was an idea some time ago to reorganize it all as a list of factors to be taken into account in naming decisions, which would have been more logical, but didn't happen).--Kotniski (talk) 09:13, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't know if we should mention this. It might imply that this can just be ignored because there's a policy. On the other hand, if someone actually identifies a conflict between, say, royal names and this page, the status of guideline and policy will soon be noted anyway. Provisos, and all that.    M   23:26, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I think too much was removed. I have restored some of the sentences including the rationale for the policy and the briefer examples. With no rationale, the guidance simply looks arbitrary. I also think the long example regarding the Cabindans-Maputans is useful in explaining the reasoning, and if it is too long to go in the main text, it should be retained as a note. Xandar 23:49, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
The rule is now sufficiently-clearly worded that examples are not needed. For the two insertions, can you think of a case where they would actually be needed? If not then we exclude them. The last sentence, before your revert, already justified things (to remain neutral). The insertions are actually rather controversial and conflict with established policy:
  • Wikipedia is descriptive, not prescriptive. We cannot declare what a name should be, only what it is. -- No, if I say 'bombay' is the correct name of bombay, you can't tell me that, no, "mumbai" is actually the correct name. It isn't. It's merely one of many names, but the only type out of all of them that we can choose consistently.
  • not simply arbitrary terms but are key statements of an entity's own identity. -- hell no. We don't take any position on what is or isn't a key statement of one's own identity. That's not the reason we have this rule, the reason is simply to avoid conflict.
  • This should always be borne in mind when dealing with controversies involving self-identifying names. -- no, we are not going to instruct our editors to give these entities special treatment or consideration
  • Where self-identifying names are in use, they should be used within articles. -- I have no idea what this means, but
Your revert makes me somewhat impatient, since I've explained in detail above why these statements not only are bad, but violate the WP:POLICY policy and the WP:NPOV policy. I'll be taking them out shortly. Please, read the discussion carefully before reinserting these points.    M   00:14, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree with M that these reinserted statements are best left out. But I still think we must state explicitly that there are other naming conventions that may modify or take precedence over this "rule". We don't want to mislead the people reading this page - it's not enough that we know (or other parties to disputes will know) that other policies exist; we must mention this key information so that all readers understand.--Kotniski (talk) 08:49, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, I now think that you may be right - I'd support something like "This does not override [wp:naming convention] standards, such as _ and _". Since nobody is opposing it, you should probably just add it.    M   09:36, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
All right, let's try. (I also made a slight rewording to the clause about rights).--Kotniski (talk) 09:50, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
" Note that this does not override naming convention standards, such as the use of common names."

I now realize that this specific choice of example might be, uh, problematic. The point of this section is to settle disputes on this issue, and it looks like Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Use_common_names_of_persons_and_things pretty much hands off judgement to this guideline. Looks like "use common names, if that fails, see naming conflict". So it looks like we don't really need the clause, since namecon asserts no conflicts. It really needs to be worded better though. This may need broader discussion.    M   11:26, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I've restored the original wordings you have deleted. you do not have the right to alter these policies on your own. There is an attempt being made here to subvert the established policy, confusing the issue of self-identifying names with that of common usage of English forms of those names, and usage of terms for non self-identifying bodies. It is denial of use of self-identifying names that is POV, as the guideline states. What we are seeing here seems to be less brevity and cutting out excess wording, but a misjudged attempt to change the policy. Xandar 00:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
I do have that right, anyone can edit policy. Incidentally, this page isn't policy. Anyway, read the above discussion. I stated that I think this very clearly overrides common names, and removed the wording that would have changed that. I understand what your general feeling on this issue is, and I'm pretty sure that I agree with you. Let's move on to discussing the specifics - why is "These names are not simply arbitrary terms but are key statements of an entity's own identity", something that you think belongs as a guideline? Read my objections to it above.    M   00:54, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Agree with you on that sentence, but I don't follow your reasoning about this "clearly overriding common names". Surely the fact that Naming Conventions says "if that fails" means that we apply the common name criterion first, and if it isn't clear how to apply that, we look to Naming Conflict for further guidance. In other words, it's common names that override self-identifying names - and as I said before, we should say so here to avoid misleading people. Or if that isn't the case, we should bring it up at the main naming conventions talk page (in fact, I think I will).--Kotniski (talk) 03:59, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Ok. I think the general principle here is that we want to be fair - that is, almost ignorantly equal. A common name having, say, 80% more google hits should not be preferred to a preferred name. Someone can argue that google misrepresents. But nobody can argue that it's not a preferred name.    M   04:30, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

After reading some of the discussion from around July 1, 2005 when this wording was first introduced, it seems very clear to me that use of common names was very important to this policy; this section actually used to be a subsection of How to make a choice among controversial names; which in the 2005 revision states:

The three key principles are:

  • The most common use of a name takes precedence;
  • If the common name conflicts with the official name, use the common name except for conflicting scientific names;
  • If neither the common name nor the official name is prevalent, use the name (or a translation thereof) that the subject uses to describe itself or themselves.

Anyway, I think that this subsection was intended to flesh out the third point, but it ended up being really muddied. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 06:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

That looks a much more logical setup (though I'm not sure what "official name" is supposed to mean, or how the second point relates to naming conventions actually used for science articles these days, which have changed since 2005).--Kotniski (talk) 08:32, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Note that shortly after those points in that revision, there's a table that implies that the three have equal weight, and that it's best 2/3.    M  

Kraftlos, the 2005 version of the policy you refer to ALSO contains this text, which people are now trying to delete Types of entities

A distinction should be drawn between a self-identifying entity and an inanimate entity. An inanimate geographical feature such as a sea or mountain does not have its own name for itself (obviously). Thus the English name Mount Everest is just as arbitrary as the local name, Qomolangma. The use of "Mount Everest" as the definitive term in Wikipedia is simply a matter of convenience, as the mountain is far more widely known by the English name than by its native Tibetan one.

A city, country or people, by contrast, is a self-identifying entity: it has a preferred name for itself. The city formerly called Danzig now calls itself Gdańsk. The country formerly called Burma now calls itself Myanmar. The people formerly called Eskimos now call themselves Inuit. These names are not simply arbitrary terms but are key statements of an entity's own identity. This should always be borne in mind when dealing with controversies involving self-identifying names.

These statements are important because Kotniski, in particular, seems to be losing track of the important difference between self-identifying and inanimate entities in naming conflicts, and seem to want to apply rules meant for inanimate entities to self-identifying ones. Xandar 10:21, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, rather than losing track of the difference, I just don't believe this difference is particularly important. Which rules do you think can't be applied to self-identifying entities? (And all this discussion about 2005 texts is rather moot - we should be discussing what best describes current practice, not what a few people came up with four years ago.)--Kotniski (talk) 10:35, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Kotniski, your response came while I was writing the response below. But the difference in the two types of name is referred to below. If we are going by rules applied to inanimate objects then the article currently at Mumbai should be at Bombay and the article currently at Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints should be at Mormon Church. This would cause unending conflict, therefore these rules have been set out, giving us a simple, clean method of short-circuiting that conflict. Having just been involved in 12 months of such conflict, changing this guidance is NOT a good idea. Xandar 10:53, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
But the point is that these rules are not followed in all cases. Sometimes the self-identifying name is chosen, sometimes not (as with Burma, and probably Macedonia and Ireland). There are many factors to be considered in choosing titles for articles, and the passage as it stood (and stands) seems to place far too much emphasis on just one.--Kotniski (talk) 11:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
M, (why the sinister name?), I cannot see the objection to the passages you highlight and want to remove.
  • Wikipedia is descriptive, not prescriptive. We cannot declare what a name should be, only what it is.
Just saying that the guidance exists to remain neutral, is a claim, not a full rationale. The fact that you argue with the guidance using the example of Bombay, actually shows how useful it is. You say "you can't tell me that, no, "mumbai" is actually the correct name. It isn't". This is precisely why this sentence exists. We can argue which is the correct name for months. The sentence makes the principle clear that we use the name actually used by the entity, and short-circuit that fruitless discussion. The change as proposed would reopen the Calcutta, Bombay and Mormon Church naming conflicts - all of which would probably come up on a google search far more under the names I have just listed than by their self-identifying names.
  • not simply arbitrary terms but are key statements of an entity's own identity.
Again this sentence is not asking us to take any position on what is or isn't a key statement of one's own identity. It is saying that we cut through this argument by using the SI name - so avoiding conflict.
  • This should always be borne in mind when dealing with controversies involving self-identifying names.
This is the basis of the guidance, giving entities with self-identifying names special consideration. I may prefer to call Gdansk, Danzig, (it's more historical, and a lot easier to pronounce) but to avoid conflict we use Gdansk because that is what the entity currently names itself (for whatever reason)
  • Where self-identifying names are in use, they should be used within articles
Again this seems quite clear to me. What is the problem? Xandar 10:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Xandar's statement about Gdansk is completely false. First of all, we do call it Danzig when referring to the long period when it was a German city; after much and acrimonious discussion, we have agreed (see the mentions of it in WP:NCGN) to do so because that's what our sources do. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:30, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2

Is "These names are not simply arbitrary terms but are key statements of an entity's own identity." - is this going a bit too far here? I'm under the impression that as far as we're concerned, names are arbitrary, and it doesn't matter one bit whether or not they are "key statements of identity". Other groups make "key statements of non-identity", too. Am I missing something here? What do other editors think about this?    M   12:22, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your impression. Well, I wouldn't say names are arbitrary, but we certainly don't choose them because they are statements of anything. This sort of irrelevant philosophizing has to stay out of the guideline - it just blurs whatever concrete advice we're actually giving.--Kotniski (talk) 12:51, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
I still don't see the harm in that sentence. Muhammad Ali is in part a statement of identity, as are Mumbai and Gdansk. But I don't see irreparable harm in removing that particular rheoretical justification. Xandar 21:57, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I'll take it out. Consider this: should we include the sentence "Objections to a group calling themselves Palestinians are key statements of the opposing side's identity"? It's as true as the statement we have. The statement takes the moral side of the self-namers, all we do is arbitrarily choose them for entirely practical reasons.    M   00:00, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
The argument that an OBJECTION to someone else using a name has as much validity in identity as the actual USE of a name by a person, is dealt with in the Cabindan-Maputan example. In other words, since the Israelis choose not to primarily self-identify as Palestinians, their objection to Palestinian Arabs using the title is a POV, while the Arabs' use of the title is a Fact. If both Jews and Arabs primarily identified themselves as "Palestinians", then Wikipedia would have to use the name for both, and disambiguate. Xandar 01:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Uh, their objection is also Fact. If I choose to sanely self-identify as God, the Prophet Mohammed, or the Blessed Virgin Mary, and you don't choose to identify yourself by any of these terms, is my self-identification somehow superior to your refusal to accept me as such? No.
Now, for another part: "Wikipedia is descriptive, not prescriptive. We cannot declare what a name should be, only what it is." -- our article titles don't actually declare what the correct name is. Even if one side was right, morally, that a name should not be used, we wouldn't care.    M   02:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
I must agree with M. That a group calls itself something is a fact; that another group objects to it calling itself that is also a fact. That it has/hasn't the right to call itself that is a POV; that the other group is right/wrong to object is also a POV. At Wikipedia we should report all the facts (and POVs as attributed opinions); and when choosing names, be as neutral as we can - by choosing the names most commonly used in (good) English. In most cases it will be the self-chosen name anyway, but not always.--Kotniski (talk) 09:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
It's not any less neutral to use the name that the self-identifying entity chooses for itself, the guideline does state to cover the naming conflict if it is notable in the article. It would be POV to take sides as to who has the "right" to use that name, but the policy simply gives us a way to avoid discussing subjective arguments of who can/should use a particular name. I don't see what's so hard about that, it's totally neutral. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 18:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
This is mostly about the wording that implied this, which I removed and Xandar replaced. The policy should also be used in conjunction with many other naming policies - if everyone knows some mafia hitman as Mike "Fatts" Smith, it doesn't matter that he sincerely prefers to be called "Little Mikey".    M   20:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
I've already pointed out important examples of where the most well known name in English is not the self-identifying name. Altering the guideline would revive all those (and many other) disputes. There is no good reason for doing this, since it would be to perversely replace a simple, easily followed and justifiable set of guidance with a confusing overlap of contradictory principles. (self-identified name Vs "Best known name in English). That would be regression not progress, and a recipe for endless disputes. As far as giving yourself a famous name others think you are not entitled to, we have a key example of this in Madonna and Tom Jones, who are listed under their self-identified names, even though there are other claimants with the same name. As far as the mafia hitman goes, I'm sure if he wanted to be known as Little Mikey, people would call him Little Mikey. Xandar 01:16, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
This misses the point entirely. Madonna is called Madonna because that's what people call her. Mike, despite self-identifying as 'Little Mikey', is called 'Mike Smith' or 'Fatts' by everyone, and Wikipedia would have a nice article for him over at Mike Smith, not at Little Mikey. So sometimes, we just don't care what you want to call yourself. This isn't the only reason or example, but it's a counterexample that proves that the statement 'self-ident names are above common names' is flatly false. As for the actual page: "Where self-identifying names are in use, they should be used within articles." - what is this supposed to mean, and isn't that already covered?    M   02:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
"I've already pointed out important examples of where the most well known name in English is not the self-identifying name." Yes, so have we - and in some cases the WP article is titled with the self-identifying name, while in others it is titled with the well-known name. There are clearly (at least) two factors at work here - it is simply misleading to imply on this page that the self-identifying name is the one we always choose, while the main WP:NC page (which also has problems) hardly mentions that criterion at all. --Kotniski (talk) 08:44, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
This guideline exists to supplement WP:NC. It is to help solve problems - which it does by being CLEAR. Kotniski seems to want to make the guidance less clear and more ambiguous. That will help no-one. If there are a few places where the guidance isn't applied (although in the majority of places it is applied very successfully), that doesn't invalidate the guidance. Using made-up examples is not helpful here since there are no parameters to measure. Self-identifying names are generally clear, unambiguous and carry fewer POV connotations. So-called "well-known" names often have none of these advantages. Xandar 01:42, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Huh? Well-known names are just as likely to be clearer and less ambiguous ("Roman Catholic Church" is certainly less ambiguous than "Catholic Church", for example), and if there is a dispute about the "right to use a name", then choosing the commonly used name certainly seems a more NPOV method than choosing the self-chosen name, which by definition is supporting one of the POVs. And there is certainly nothing CLEAR about laying down a principle on one page which is potentially in conflict with another principle on another page, and not admitting on either page that other principles exist and need to be taken into account simultaneously. If you believe that self-chosen names take precedence over common names, why not try to get that principle accepted at WP:NC? It won't be, of course, so why lie to readers of this page that this principle is somehow paramount? There's no advantage to clarity if what you're saying is wrong.--Kotniski (talk) 10:11, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

The entire naming conventions page needs to be cleaned up. I have no idea why certain sub-pages, like this one, are deferred to when they're just a guideline. All of this needs to be in one place...    M   18:00, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

That may be, but let's try to make this guideline the best that it can be, given the circumstances. Frankly, this is about a conflict of names; that is, it refers to instances when using the common name doesn't yield a clear distinction between two entities with a claim to the same name, or one entity with more than one apparently viable name. It is not saying "in the case of self-identifying entities, always use the name they call themselves by." rather it is resolving the conflict by bringing in some extra objective criteria to help determine which name is the most common. It doesn't conflict with the common name principle, rather it expands upon and clarifies the idea. The guideline needs work, but I think it is entirely necessary as a support for NPOV and Naming Conventions. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 10:56, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
I think this issue was moved up to WT:Naming conventions.    M   16:28, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

The fundamental primary principle of our naming conventions is the use of the most common name - WP:NAME starts with a section "Use the most easily recognized name" and the first general convention listed is "Use common names of persons and things".

The sentence "Where any persons or groups (organizations, cities, political parties, fringe movements) have chosen to refer to themselves by a certain name, the titles of the articles that cover them should use that name" is not compatible with this general principle. Though these names may coincide with the most common and recognised name, when they do not they must instead defer to the most-common name. Anything saying otherwise (such as this sentence) has no wide consensus, is not supported by our general naming principles, and should be removed unless endorsed by the community in a centralised discussion. Knepflerle (talk) 22:13, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

(To clarify: that self-defined names should be mentioned and explained in the article text is of course natural, and no censorship of this should occur for political reasons. However, use of a self-defining name as the article title is, however, not endorsed over a more commonly used name). Knepflerle (talk) 22:16, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
That's your opinion. And in defiance of long-standing policy. The standing policy defers to this guideline on self-identifying names. One reason is because it is CLEAR. We use the name a person self-identifies by to avoid conflict. Using the "most easily recognised name" is ambiguous in these cases, since which is most "easily recognised" between Catholic Church and Rioman Catholic Church or between Orthodox and Eastern orthodox, or between Latter Day Saints and Mormon? Xandar 23:13, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Utterly incorrect.

  1. it wasn't my opinion - it was direct quotation from the policies.
  2. there is no longer standing policy on this matter than WP:NAME.
  3. WP:NAME, WP:UE, WP:COMMONNAMES, WP:OFFICIALNAMES are united on promotion of common names over self-identification or officialnes; this is the only document out of step
  4. WP:OFFICIALNAMES lists some very good reasons why picking self-identified names does not eradicate all arguments.

Knepflerle (talk) 23:55, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

...and this lot are hardly unbiased notification to take part in the debate, are they? Not cool at all.
I have asked one editor with considerable relevant experience to come and give his own opinion. Knepflerle (talk) 00:19, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
And on that cue:
On the procedural point, this page is not policy, and never has been; it's a guideline. WP:NAME says The naming conflict guideline may help resolve disagreements over the right name to use; the added emphasis should make clear that NAME does not "defer" to this page in any way that would make it more than a guideline. Its other reference to this page says that controversial names, once established, should not be changed without discussion, and suggests (correctly) that we have better things to do with Wikipedia than engaging in such discussion - which includes changing to "self-identifying" names.
There is no consensus to always use self-identifying names - or we would not be having this discussion. Is anybody but Xandar defending that position? It is one of the criteria we should consider - and we may vary on how deeply we consider it.
To pick an example apart from current controversies: we use Diggers, Roundhead, Huguenot; the first have several self-identifying names, but even seventeenth century specialists might not recognize them - no one else would have a chance.
The "Cabinda" example I have spoken of at #"pro-life": it's a badly-chosen pseudonym for a Balkan conflict, now settled in a poll approved by ArbCOm, and not under the principle of "self-identification" Therefore this is not descriptive. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:07, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
The consensus is the guidance that has existed on this page since 2005, and it has been supported on this page. You suddenly dropped into the argument from nowhere and decided to change a long-standing policy that would cause mayhem on WP if reversed. That consensus policy needs widespread CONSENSUS - not two or three people who show up suddenly on a talk page to reverse - as you seem to want to. The attempt to reverse the polcy without notifying ANYONE, and then to transfer the talk elsewhere because you could not gain consensus here is certainly not cool. I have merely informed interested parties you did not bother to inform. Xandar 00:46, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Also WP:NAME refers to this guidance for rational and specifics on naming policy with regard to controversial names. WP:COMMONNAMES does as well, and WP:OFFICIALNAMES is not even Guidance, but an essay. Xandar 00:56, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't think Xandar confused you for Knepferle, I think he was replying to his comments above, not just your's. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 02:53, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I want to make a few comments on today's discussion, above:

  1. Let's not attempt to privilege one editor, over others. I refer to Knepflerle's comment that "this lot are hardly unbiased notification." Xandar contacted me and some others who have just been involved in a protracted dispute over article naming, which I mediated. I do not regard myself as biased on this topic. But I do have some recent experience in interpretation of the Naming convention policy and the Naming conflict guideline.
  2. It appears that some editors have been attempting to change the guideline, absent consensus on the talk page. Let's keep in mind the WP guidance for all policies and guidelines, which appears at the top of each: "...Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page."
  3. From reading the above discussion, there seems to be some confusion as to whether there is a need to merely clean up the wording, or change the guideline. There is a big difference. But at least one editor seems to want to throw out the guidance on naming conflicts. Please, let's all bear in mind that the policy specifically refers editors to the guideline for resolution of naming conflicts. This is important. It indicates that when the naming convention (most common name) is disputed, one refers to the guideline and its emphasis on self-identification.

Let's all take it slow. Please stop the reverts. There is no need to rush. Policy decisions are important. Sunray (talk) 03:56, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Xandar - so much to correct in what you wrote.
  • "The attempt to reverse the polcy without notifying ANYONE, and then to transfer the talk elsewhere because you could not gain consensus here is certainly not cool". I did not move any discussion anywhere. I am not Kotniski, nor am I an "ally" who participated before tonight. I left a short message at WT:NC, but contributed here.
  • "I have merely informed interested parties you did not bother to inform." - read WP:CANVAS about campaigning. It was the obvious bias in your notification that was the issue, and took it beyond "mere informing"
  • "You suddenly dropped into the argument from nowhere and decided to change a long-standing policy that would cause mayhem on WP if reversed" - the wording as it stood when I edited it was not long-standing. For example, with my emphasis added:
  • "Compromise" version "Where any persons or groups (organizations, cities, political parties, fringe movements) have chosen to refer to themselves by a certain name, the titles of the articles that cover them should use that name"
  • 2005 version "Where self-identifying names are in use, they should be used within articles. Wikipedia does not take any position on whether a self-identifying entity has any right to use a name; this encyclopedia merely notes the fact that they do use that name"
There is a significant difference between the two: the use in titles does not have consensus since 2005. This was not included in the text back then, precisely because it is incompatible with WP:NC if it is not also the most common name. At least the version at it stands does not promote this falsehood, but it is not completely clear - hence the quotations I added from the relevant policies and guidelines. My edit took the guidance much closer to the 2005 version than the compromise by removing this new non-consensus insertion.
  • (from WT:NC) "It was an attempted compromise with M and Kotniski. Since that compromise has been broken by coming here, and completely reversing the policy unilaterally." - I have nothing to do with any compromises between you, those editors or anyone else. Instead of immediate and complete obliteration of my edit using blanket reversion because some "truce" had been broken, examining it would have revealed that my version was much closer to that of the 2005 version (i.e. talking about use in article text), and provided further guidance directly quoted from WP:UE.
Sunray.
  • "Xandar contacted me and some others..." - as above; this should have taken the form of a neutral notification. Seeing as you (like the others commenting at WT:NC) appear not to have noticed that my edit took the advice back closer to the 2005 original makes my point about non-neutral campaigning, really.

Let's keep all the bureaucratic and procedural whinges here. I will comment on Knepferle's position after he restates it.

From my PoV, this page is not policy; it is a guideline. WP:NC makes its subpages policy exactly as far as it explicitly endorses them. It does not mention self-identifying names; it mentions this page exactly twice, once to recommend that this page be consulted for guidance, and once to discourage editing solely to change names.

Guideline pages are, by policy, descriptive, not prescriptive; the first question is "what does WP actually do?", always. The reason guideline pages came to be is so we don't have to make the same points over and over again; that's all they are. In this case, I have some familiarity with WP:RM; it is certainly not the regular thing for usage to be overturned for self-identifying names - in fact, I cannot think of an instance.

WP:Consensus exists only for as long as there is general agreement on a point; when there isn't, it doesn't exist - and guidelines should state what is consensus and no more. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:00, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

In summary - guidance on the article text, as per the 2005 version is fine, and you will find that nothing in my edit contradicted this. Anyone want to actually read and comment on the wording I proposed in my edit, this time? Knepflerle (talk) 09:35, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
However we all got into this discussion, we are here. Let's proceed. Knepflerle, I'm not yet clear on what you are proposing. Perhaps that is my own inability or perhaps it is due to all the crosstalk about process. I'm not clear whether your concerns have to do with language (i.e., grammar) or policy. Would you be willing to spell it out? Sunray (talk) 16:10, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Though there may or may not be widespread consensus for saying that self-identifying names override common names, the reinstatement of the philosophical talk about rocks and leaves giving themselves names is not appropriate. It should be noted that Xandar (talk · contribs · count) has a clear COI in editing this policy: 489 edits to Catholic Church, 767 to its talk page (61, 37 are the respective counts for the second most edited article/talk). Xandar is the third-most-common editor of that page. Note that forceful editing of a policy to support your view in a discussion is very much against policy, especially if such a conflict of interest is not very clearly disclosed. It's ok to bring up issues, and even change policy to address some current problem that you're having to prompt discussion, but a massive revert is entirely unacceptable.    M   18:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we should consider starting a centralized RfC on this issue.    M   19:42, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that the changes proposed to the naming policy will improve it. I would also like to point out that those initiating and supporting the change were the few editors who argued against the consensus in the recent Catholic Church mediation on naming the article. This mediation went on for six months and included over 20 Wikipedia editors of all faiths and no faith. The conclusion reached irked those few who have now come here to change the policy, a policy that has been serving well for over three years. I don't think that is a good faith reason to change the policy especially since the proposals are not better than the existing policy.NancyHeise talk 19:49, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry I missed it; but it seems to be those who prevailed in this badly advertised mediation who changed this guideline first. Since it doesn't seem to have actually settled the issue, it should be replaced by an RfC, which would be open to anybody. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:06, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Please list these editors, and provide a proper link to where they voiced their opposition. I was uninvolved in that discussion, and initially edited the section to be clearer and therefore stronger. When editing policy, it is very important to consider the implications on all other disputes, not just the one you were involved with. Given the evidence provided in this discussion, it seems clear that preferred names are not, as a rule, used in favor of common names.    M   20:12, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
The mediation was all legit and the consultation was in keeping with policy and guidelines. And all of that is irrelevant to a change in the policy or guideline, as far as I can tell. Let's stop caviling over people and process and get on with substantive questions. Sunray (talk) 20:52, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I certainly did not take part in whatever discussion this was. I oppose this policy of preferring self-identifying names in general, as being the imposition of a defensive and apologetic POV; but if I had realized that this was the content dispute which was distorting a policy page, I would have chosen other examples above: the Boxers, for instance. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:22, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Nevertheless, the guideline has been changed from its previous stable state. As I understand it, Xandar has merely been trying to put it back to the way it was until we reach a consensus here on changing it. Keep in mind that the editors he notified from Catholic Church (myself included) are not all on the same "side". He was not vote farming, he was just looking for more voices that were familiar with the topic. As I have done with some of the original 2005 editors (albeit unsuccessfully). Let's please stop throwing around accusations (both those in favor if change and those against) and let's get down to actually discussing this issue (without the constant edits to the main page). --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 20:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
That raises the perennial question. What happens if something was written into a guideline and is now disputed? I think the argument "we get our way until we are overriden by (what we admit to be) consensus" is inherently a mark of bad faith. But this deserves a section of its own. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:33, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Please, everyone, stick to content rather than contributors. The guideline has been stable on this question for over two years. Some editors are proposing a change. Let's hear more about that. Would the proponents please indicate what they want changed and why? Sunray (talk) 20:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
And if you want to have us join you in consensus, it is up to you to give some reasons why we should support this guidance. As for me, there are clear reasons why it should be struck:
  • It's not what Wikipedia actually does; I've never seen a "self-identifying name" chosen over usage, and I watch WP:RM routinely.
  • It would tend to impose an apologetic and defensive POV. We have a difference only when there is a commonly used name, and it's not what the group uses for itself. When that happens, there's a reason that English doesn't use the self-identifying name: and it's usually that the name itself is special pleading.
  • It is not, by hypothesis, what English calls the subject of the article, which defies the policy of having our titles optimized for lay readers, not for specialists - and even more so, not for special pleaders. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:57, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I listed in a section below a few examples of what PManderson/Septentrionalis says does not happen. I repeat them here, for convenience:
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