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Weakening the wording of WP:ACRONYMTITLE

Of late, I've been involved in a few page move discussions (most notably for USB, which is currently at DRN) related to WP:ACRONYMTITLE. In my opinion, the present wording is overly strong and doesn't reflect the general consensus on titles (particularly WP:COMMONNAME). Suggested rewording of the section in WP:NAME:

Avoid ambiguous abbreviations

Abbreviations and acronyms are often ambiguous and thus should be avoided unless the subject is known primarily by its abbreviation and that abbreviation is primarily associated with the subject (e.g. NATO, laser, USB). The abbreviation UK, for United Kingdom, is acceptable for use in disambiguation. It is also unnecessary to include an acronym in addition to the name in a title. For more details, see WP:ACRONYMTITLE.

And the corresponding line in WP:ACRONYMTITLE:

An acronym or initialism should be used in a page name if the subject is known primarily by its abbreviation and that abbreviation is primarily associated with the subject (e.g. NATO, laser, USB). In order to determine the prominence of the abbreviation over the full name, consider checking how the subject is referred to in popular media such as newspapers, magazines, and other publications.

Thoughts? As it stands, the wording plainly doesn't reflect the way moves are being closed, as the community seems to prefer WP:COMMONNAME to override the "avoid" stance unless there's genuine cause for confusion. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:58, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with this. There is no real good reason to be avoiding acronyms in general. If they are ambiguous and not the primary topic, then of course consider using the full name. But I don't think there should not be made any special exceptions from WP:COMMONNAME for acronyms.TheFreeloader (talk) 16:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I would agree with this proposal. It seems that WP:COMMONNAME is not only more strongly supported but actually works better. It seems unhelpful to name articles not according to how they are best known. I think the policy should be that, unless there is an issue with ambiguity (ie, the common names of two equally notable/common/searched for objects are the same), an acronym is an acceptable common name and title. ItsZippy 19:49, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I think we need to be careful here with swinging the pendulum too far. USA is a very common acronym for United States of America and the primary use of USA acronym in general. However, I do not believe that article would be better served by changing the country name to an aconrym and it would be hotly cotested if COMMONNAME were to apply. I'd say it would have to very clear that the acronym was more common before it should replace the word usage. If its close or unclear, it should not.∞陣内Jinnai 20:09, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes, I hadn't thought of that. I think the distinction between USB and USA is that people understand United States of America and use the name America as commonly as USA; with USB, the term Universal Serial Bus is not so well known, nor is any variant other than USB used. A policy would have to encompass that nuance, I think. That is, if policy is the best way to deal with the issue. ItsZippy 22:04, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. Even if "USA" is the dominant name for the subject, it is not strongly so next to the alternatives. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:21, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure if we need to change the policy. USB is like NATO, overwhelmingly referred to by its accronym... so it is already covered. Blueboar (talk) 23:56, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that both the current and proposed wording support USB rather than Universal Serial Bus, United States of America rather than USA, and NATO and Laser over whatever they stand for. So I don't have a problem with the change, nor the current wording. Practically speaking, I don't see a difference.

Does anyone know of a case where the proposed wording would indicate a different title from the current wording? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:41, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

"USA" is a bad example, without recognizing that "USA" is already outlawed (or whatever word satisfies the "it's only a guideline" people) at the "US and U.S." paragraph of ]. Art LaPella (talk) 02:07, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Huh, I'd never noticed that before. It's interesting that you mention it now, because the folks at Meta (who are working on the revised terms of use for all WMF sites) are unhappy with "United States". It turns out that "USA" is unique, but "United States" is distinctly ambiguous for a substantial number of Spanish speakers (since it can refer either to the United States of America or to the United States of Mexico). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:37, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The thing is, in several cases people have argued that the wording prohibits the likes of "USB" (another recent example which subsequently passed unopposed was OLED). Weakening the wording a little would hopefully prevent situations where people make arguments based on a reading of the guideline which is stronger than intended. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:24, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I have to oppose this strongly, except for acronyms that have been reassimilated into the language as simple words (scuba, radar, laser). Already it is far, far too frequent for editors, especially newer ones, who outnumber the experienced ones, to use only the acronym when referring to something they know and just assume everyone does. I've sometimes fixed that error 5 times in one day, without even looking for them. The change suggested here would turn this annoying trickle into a flood, and it would be very problematic, because the editors who do this often either link only to an acronym that ends up being a disambiguation page or they don't link at all, leaving later editors to guess where they're trying to point. Given that the acronym will redirect to the full article title, or to a necessary disambig page, there isn't any utility at all to putting the article at the acronym name. Especially for something like NATO. It's instantly and undeniably useful to have the real, full name be the title, since you see the title and the acronym expansion and now know what it means. If it were normal to have the articles be at the acronym, in many cases stub articles on such topics would be written without expanding the acronym anywhere at all. The current system isn't broken in any way, so don't "fix" it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 01:43, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I avoided commenting on this one but I'm inclined to side with SMcCandlish on this, and I'd go as far as to say I think the guideline needs strengthening, not weakening. I think there's a fine line in what constitutes a different name for the purposes of WP:COMMONNAME. I didn't participate in the vote but I agree with the move of People's Republic of China to just plain China because they're different names, and one is the far more commonly used one. But I would treat acronyms differently - an acronym and its expanded version are fundamentally the same name, just being rendered differently. NATO and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation should be treated at a fundamental level as the same thing with respect to article titles, and as SMcCandlish mentioned, the latter is far more appropriate for an encyclopedia title. USB being there instead of at Universal Serial Bus sits very uncomfortably with me here. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 22:28, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Almost no one calls it a Universal Serial Bus, even among the more tech inclined. USB is the name that has entered the lexicon, not Universal Serial Bus.∞陣内Jinnai 18:40, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Coming late, I know, but I just studied the USB thing and this proposal that came out of it. I basically like the proposal, saying to mostly avoid acronyms except really good cases, as opposed to the old way that said to use good ones. But I would object to putting USB into that list; it would be much better to use examples that don't carry the baggage of controversy. I'm a bit confused by the comments of TechnoSymbiosis, who says he agrees with SMcCandlish, but appears to want more acronyms, not fewer; and by SMcCandlish's comments, who seems to think this change will encourage acronyms, when it seems more intended to discourage them. Am I reading things wrong? Dicklyon (talk) 04:47, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you read that I want more acronyms. I'm certainly a proponent of expansion - acronyms don't belong in article titles in the majority of cases. USB should be at Universal Serial Bus, NATO should be at North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and so on. Rare exceptions (like IBM) may apply but the general rule should be expansion, not contraction. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 22:44, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure either. I think your call for "strengthening" the provision looked like in favor of a suggest to "use acronyms". I'm glad that's not what you intended. Dicklyon (talk) 23:24, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I suppose that wasn't as clear is it could have been. I'm in favour of strengthening the current wording (not the proposed wording), to more strongly recommend expanding acronyms. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 02:02, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

hopelessly vague title

Can anyone give one good reason that National Tax Agency is not National Tax Agency (country name)? The title is a translation into English, too. This is where previous practices relying on "primary topic" are becoming ludicrous. I arrived there from a category list. Tony (talk) 02:47, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I would certainly move it to NTA (Japan) or Japanese NTA, regardless of whether there is another article with that title. — kwami (talk) 02:59, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

One good reason is that it's its name. Another is that nothing else on WP has the name, to the best of my knowledge. This has nothing to do with "primary topic". It's the only topic on WP using that name. Station1 (talk) 03:29, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

National Tax Agency (Japan) would be the epitome of unnecessary disambiguation. It would be unnecessary because National Tax Agency is its name, is natural, precise, concise and consistent with other titles. There is no basis in policy or practice to disambiguate this title. As has been explained countless times to you guys, the purpose of an article title for a topic that has a name is not to describe that topic, but to reflect its name.

I should also add that if the article was at National Tax Agency (Japan) it would wrongly imply that there are other topics in WP whose name is "National Tax Agency", and this one is not the primary topic. That would be misleading. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:04, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Extremely inconvenient for readers and editors. So uniqueness trumps clarity, does it? This is a ham-fisted, easy-peasy policy we've allowed to fester into bad, misleading google hits. Tony (talk) 05:14, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Since "clarity" about what the topic is for people unfamiliar with the topic has never been something that titles are supposed deliver, yes, uniqueness and conciseness trump clarity. For every topic there are two types of readers - those familiar with the topic and those who are not. If a reader in the latter group stumbles upon a title, the title is not supposed to tell him what the article is about - only the name of the what the article is about. Why is this so difficult to accept for about a half-dozen of you? --Born2cycle (talk) 05:27, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Sheer blind impenetrable legalistic rule-mongering. Of course it is desirable that the title should suggest the topic in a helpful way. By the reasoning of the small coterie of zealots who serve WP:xxxxxx rather than the readers, we might as well give each article a serial number as a title, instead using English words. (Yeah yeah: I know that is against policy.) Nothing seems to jog people out of this weird obsession with parochialism and obscurity. Such a waste of potential; such a detriment to the Project. Noetica 06:43, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The alternative is creating bottomless quagmires of dispute. Take this example... Sure National Tax Agency (Japan) is more descriptive than National Tax Agency, but National Tax Agency (Japanese tax collecting agency) is even more descriptive. Which should we use, and why? Based on what criteria? We already have criteria, and that criteria indicates National Tax Agency. What you're proposing is a change to the criteria. Fine, propose that. But I honestly don't see how you could change the criteria to allow for more descriptive titles without creating that quagmire. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:31, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

B2C, I'm not sure where you're going with this example. Why would anyone suggest National Tax Agency (Japanese tax collecting agency)? I don't even see how it is more descriptive, let alone how it could be a serious contender. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 08:12, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Is that so? Then you are, equally honestly, incapable of thinking the issue through. No one is suggesting such lengthy qualifiers as that. In the present case, "national" already marks the agency as unique for a certain nation. The only question facing our worldwide readership is this: "Which nation?" And rather than spend seven characters to show that information, you opt for retentiveness at all costs. Such an attitude is normally a manifestation of some deep-seated psychological need. In the oxygen-rich world of actual readers, it withers and good sense prevails. Here, where a certain narrow rule-boundedness wins favour, it has been allowed articially to thrive. A pity. A pity we can't clear the area of fundamentally misguided binary thinking: my way, or a "bottomless quagmire".. At least learn this, beginners: "criteria" is the plural and "criterion" is the singular. Noetica 08:35, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

You supported Tony1 on this issue back in October, and moved a page after I mentioned it in the then current discussion. history: Financial Management Standard. -- PBS (talk) 09:33, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

While I generally dislike redundant disambiguation, I find it more of a good thing in cases like this, where the "name" on its own is really just a generic description. (It's not really "the" national tax agency, it's just "a" national tax agency which happens to be the only one that Misplaced Pages currently titles with those exact words.)--Kotniski (talk) 08:49, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm with B2C on this. Does every article on Misplaced Pages about British place names now have to have nation attached to them? eg Moreton-in-Marsh --> Moreton-in-Marsh, England or should it be Moreton-in-Marsh, United Kingdom? Because as far as I can tell that would be the logic of this suggestion.

Tony1 has raised this issue twice in the last 3 months see also Misplaced Pages talk:Article titles/Archive 33#Article specificity (17 September) and Misplaced Pages talk:Article titles/Archive 33#Motion of no confidence in WP:PRECISE and WP:PRIMARY TOPIC (8 October) and it was rejected both times. Has enough time passed for this to be discussed for a third time? -- PBS (talk) 09:21, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I definitely see where Tony and Noetica are coming from, but I think it would start us down a slippery slope where suddenly everything that has a title that isn't universally known must have a qualifier added to it. I also find it interesting that these discussions usually display our systematic bias. Or would you guys also support tacking "(United States)" onto Internal Revenue Service? Jenks24 (talk) 09:44, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

There could be a difference, though, between the ways we treat "real" names and translated names.--Kotniski (talk) 09:52, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Their Web site says "(c) Copyright National Tax Agency Japan". In the preface of the English-language version of their annual report, it says "National Tax Agency, Japan". So that's what I'd suggest as the article title. The title should approximate what people in English-speaking countries would actually call the subject. Whenever this agency appears in non-Japanese RS, there is something that tells you it is Japanese: Japan's National Tax Agency, Japanese National Tax Agency, etc. Article titles perform the vitally important function of providing the common or most useful name of the subject. They should not be expected to be unambiguous, to identity the nation-state an entity is located in, give an individual's career, or leap tall buildings in a single bound. Kauffner (talk) 10:44, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Kauffner's last comment.

I agree with Noetica's comments.

Kotniski, some good points.

B2C, it's not just that the way it's been set up, this uniqueness trumps clarity thing. In fact, it's worse than that: it's that uniqueness as a WP article title, as a topic that is treated in a WP article, trumps clarity and utility, both in WP categ. lists and more importantly on google search displays. For example, there can be scores of vehicle motor taxes, but the one WP means is that in Ireland. Very irritating to have to travel to the article to learn this. And the response from these realms: "Oh ... but it's the only article we have on vehicle motor tax, so finders keepers." I don't buy it. Truth is, a more nuanced, explanatory policy is required to avoid these most unsatisfactory effects.

Jenks, the "slippery slope": yes, I understand your concerns, and I too have done thought-experiments that have shown the dangers of title-bloat. So what I'm asking is that we get together and work out real examples of where the boundaries lie so we can develop guidance that allows these "National Tax Agency" tragedies to be fixed where this can be done with minimal extra characters, but so that for the overwhelming majority of cases the policy still insists on the discipline that produces brevity, succinctness. Tony (talk) 14:29, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree about the "finders keepers" thing is a problem. I went to The King's Academy, but not The King's Academy (maybe the subject of that article is extraordinarily significant and this is a bad example, but my point remains). I think there is some balance we should be able to find here. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 15:30, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, in the past, I was inclined to support the arguments in favor of pre-disambiguation of topics in specific domains for the sake of consistency, such as television episodes. It made sense to me then that the title of an article on a topic of relatively specialized interest would benefit readers by clearly indicating what type of specialized thing it was. However, pre-disambiguation was soundly thrashed in the ensuing discussion and that has been the law of the land since. I've come to accept that and support the position that unless there is ambiguity within the context of Misplaced Pages, then no disambiguation is necessary. However, at times I can sympathize with Tony and other's view about topics where some relatively obscure, generically named topic becomes the primary topic by default by virtue of being the only topic with that name. However, what happens to the undisambiguated title in these cases? Unless there are other topics that treat the subject sufficient to create a disambiguation page, the undisambiguated base name will redirect to the disambiguated title. So for example, if readers search for or link to National Tax Agency, they would still go to the article on the Japanese agency. So how does having a disambiguated title help such readers? And in article text, links to disambiguated titles are most often piped such that most readers would not see the dismabiguated title until they click on the link. In sum, I find Tony's irritation at having "to travel to the article to learn" that the topic is on a specific subject to be unconvincing and a poor reason for changing policy. Finder's keepers is also a red herring. If other encyclopedic topics are later created, then principles of disambiguation apply. Unless one of the topics is the primary topic, the titles would then need to be disambiguated. This happens all the time as part of how Misplaced Pages develops. I do not think we should be using crystal balls to try and guess which topics might possibly one day in the future have an article written on the subject that would require disambiguation. older ≠ wiser 16:04, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Like --Born2cycle (talk) 17:41, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

older/wiser—you're missing the point about finders keepers. "finders keepers" is not a good name for it, I think, so that is understandable. I don't think anyone is saying that when a new article is made that the dab can't be created then. That isn't the point. The point is that if the topic is not the primary topic for the term, then it seems odd to name it differently just because we don't yet have articles for the other topics for the term. So, in the case of someone searching for my high school, they'll find an article about a different high school. Sure, they can figure out pretty fast that it isn't the one they were looking for. But Misplaced Pages is saying that this is the "The King's Academy", and my HS is not the main one. Now, I suspect that the Japanese "National Tax Agency" is in fact the "National Tax Agency" (ie, really the primary topic for the term), so I don't think it's really a problem that National Tax Agency is about the one in Japan. But generally, I don't think it's best to only disambiguate when there's "ambiguity within the context of Misplaced Pages". ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:41, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

But that is exactly the issue -- what process of divination shall we standardize on to try and guess which topics might possibly one day in the future have an article written on the subject that would require disambiguation? If there is only one article with an ambiguous title, no disambiguation is necessary within the context of Wikpedia. As the need arises when new articles are created, then existing articles can be disambiguated appropriately. This is standard operating procedure, and aside from occasional lapses (which will happen regardless of whether guidelines say to do it one way or another), there have been few significant problems. older ≠ wiser 20:07, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Again, you're missing the point. Even if no other The King's Academy ever gets an article, the problem remains. Not having the disambiguating parens implies something about the subject—that it is the primary topic of this term. In almost all cases, the common name for the subject either has a clear primary topic or several topics with articles; in those cases, what we do now is fine in general, I think. I'm talking about topics of marginal notability, for which there are many subjects with the same name. When considering an article like The King's Academy, no divination is required to determine whether it is the primary topic or not. Note that WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, if taken literally, supports what I'm saying, although I kind of doubt that was intentional. My claim that no disambiguating parens implies primacy on its own could be debated, of course. If we think it's true, though, then articles like this should have disambiguating parens even though we don't need to disambiguate with other WP articles. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 22:52, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

All it implies is that Misplaced Pages has no other article that competes for that title. Period. If there is no other article, then the base name would still be a redirect to the disambiguated title and that would do little or nothing to help anyone. If the article were located at The King's Academy (Coulby Newham) (or something similar), most readers would still click on links where the only visible text is The King's Academy (which might be a piped link or might be a redirect) or they would enter that into search and would be none the wiser until reaching the article. Currently the only competition for the title is a partial title match at King's Academy, which is disambiguated by hatnote. While it might satisfy some abstract notion of fairness, it would not actually help readers looking for one or the other to force them to go to a disambiguation page with only two entries. On the other hand, if you wanted to write articles for other schools with the name, or even create a list article identifying all such schools, then there might be something else to disambiguate. But as it is, having an undisambiguated title mean only that there are no other topics with that title in Misplaced Pages. older ≠ wiser 23:19, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

If you're missing something, then so am I. Erik, please explain what you would expect/prefer to see... nothing (redlink) at The King's Academy? A dab page with one entry? What? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:03, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure; I guess a dab page. It would have at least two entries at this point, though. In general, I think the answer to your question might be a dab with a link and possibly some red links. I don't think this question is the interesting one here, though. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 02:09, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

At the top of this section Tony wrote, " I arrived there from a category list. ". Per Bkonrad's explanation (excellent, BTW) this issue doesn't matter, except for the one context of category lists. But let's look at these; this particular article belongs to four cats.

1. Category:Tax stubs - for editors only
2. Category:Japanese government stubs - for editors only; category name itself provide descriptive context
3. Taxation in Japan - category name itself provide descriptive context
4. Revenue services - only context in all of WP where this is even an issue

I concede that for the specific context of certain category lists (general categories; specific categories provide the necessary context themselves), having more descriptive titles would be helpful. But that's the only upside there is to this, and its very limited - the main downside I see is that it would complicate our already all too contentious title decision process by adding another consideration into the mix that would apply to any topic with a unique name that is not widely recognizable to the public in general... something like... make the title sufficiently descriptive so that people unfamiliar with the topic can get a reasonable idea of what the topic is from just the title. The complications are:

1. How do we decide whether a given title is widely recognizable with just its name, or whether it needs additional descriptive information in the title?
2. If we do decide a given title needs additional descriptive information, how do we decide what that is? How much description is enough?

Further, as Bkonrad notes, there is strong consensus in the community against adding such information even for cases where #2 is not an issue because there is a convention for what the descriptive information should be (e.g., for TV episode names it is the TV series name in parentheses).

Kotniski's and Kauffner's argument for this particular case aside (special case translated names and treat them as descriptive; "Japan" is part of the name used in RS to refer to this topic, which is not an argument to add descriptive information, but to better reflect usage the most common name used in RS), I think #2 adds a lot of burden to the process for little benefit. Further, a point I keep repeating but is never addressed, there is a benefit to the reader when we disambiguate only when necessary - and that is that we inherently convey information about how the name is used in RS. That is, if we always disambiguated government agency names with the name of the country, then, for example, readers would not have an inkling of whether "Internal Revenue Service" is a name unique to the U.S. agency, or whether it's commonly used in other nations. Under the current system because it's at Internal Revenue Service, and not at Internal Revenue Service (United States), that tells us something about usage of the name "Internal Revenue Service" in RS that we would not convey if we systematically predisambiguated names that were not ambiguous with other uses.

In short, we all get where you're coming from, but what you're advocating is a solution to a little problem (improve usefulness of certain general category lists); a solution that creates problems bigger than the little one it's addressing. So, unless Tony, Noetica, et. all can come up with new arguments, I'm with PBS. Enough already.

--Born2cycle (talk) 17:41, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

One solution, specifically for categories, is to have a redirect from National Tax Agency (Japan) and place the category tag on the redirect (and a hidden comment on the article itself, to avoid duplication). This will serve those readers who navigate by categories without inconvenicing the rest of us. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:53, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The unsatisfactory thing about this solution (which I know is used on various articles for various reasons) is that the category then doesn't appear at the bottom of the article itself. You really need to have the duplication.--Kotniski (talk) 17:57, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Not really; but you are right that you need an open comment, which could be a template. "Category X appears on page Y, which redirects here." Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:36, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Ideally we would be able to specify a display name in the reference to the cat, something like

].

--Born2cycle (talk) 19:30, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. We use that syntax now to imdicate that we should alphabetize the cat using that key; displying the key should be a simple fix. Anybody want to go to bugzilla? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:12, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Would it help if we made an article on Spain's "Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria" and called it National Tax Agency (Spain), as it's often translated? Dicklyon (talk) 00:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The agency gives their English-language name as, "Spanish National Tax Agency", so it's not a problem. Kauffner (talk) 04:31, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The "Spanish" there is a disambiguation, not a translation. There's no España in "Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria". Dicklyon (talk) 16:08, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and if you could show that it's reasonably often referred to as "National Tax Agency" in reliable sources, then that's enough to move National Tax Agency to National Tax Agency (Japan) and create a two-entry dab page at National Tax Agency. That's how it works. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:12, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think there's a huge difference between a name that's unique because it's not used for anything else, and a name that's unique because no-one has yet bothered to write a WP article on its other uses. In the first case a reader will most likely be looking for the article we have, but in the second case they will often be looking for something else. "National Tax Agency" does not imply Japan; the fact that we only have it for Japan is simply a quirk of WP. If other countries use the phrase IRS then we should dab that name as well, unless the others are obscure, in which case we can make do with a hat note. But the Spanish NTA is no more obscure than the Japanese one, and we should reflect that regardless of whether we have an article for the Spanish NTA. Our titles should reflect external reality, not just the chance existence of a WP article. — kwami (talk) 01:17, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

It does not fit in with Misplaced Pages is not a crystal ball. Many subjects of biographies have the same name, but we do not make the assumption that every subject of a biography name is not unique and pre-emptively dab them. The problems it would solve for the future changing of links etc, are most likely outweighed by the initial debates of whether the first instance is then most notable (so does not need disambiguation), or whether there is another person with the same name notable enough to be included. The whole point of the current system is KISS. -- PBS (talk) 02:12, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:CRYSTAL ball concerns our avoidance of predicting the future in the real world, not of the practicality of assuming that other WP articles will be necessary, even inevitable, that might have used exactly the same title. Now I see that that someone has moved Quota Elimination (WTO) to just Quota Elimination. That will be more useful in a google search. Tony (talk) 02:57, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:CRYSTAL is not what I was referring to except by way of allusion. The point is that unnecessary disambiguation requires a determination by an editor that a topic is ambiguous, even though there is no evidence for such ambiguity within the context of Misplaced Pages. This runs squarely against WP:Verifiability. Without evidence of ambiguity within the context of Misplaced Pages, it is inappropriate for an individual editor to determine that a topic requires disambiguation simply because that editor knows it to be true. older ≠ wiser 03:15, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think we should bring higher principles like verifiability into this; this is the kind of editorial decision we make all the time (is X the primary topic for Y? is the mention of Y in article Z enough to warrant a hatnote at X? etc.), and isn't the same as including unsourceable statements of fact in articles. (And if policy forbids redundant disambiguation, then all those Americans who insist on including the state name in all their place-name articles, and the peerage and royalty and shipping buffs who do similar things, must be well out of order - would that it were only so.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:28, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying, but when there are no clear indications of ambiguity I'm extremely skeptical that we should be naming articles based on an individual editor's intuition that something is too generic a title for a specific topic. If discussion, preferably with input from diverse points of views and with evaluation of credible evidence rather than only likeit/dontlikeit opinions, makes a determination, that is just fine. older ≠ wiser 13:44, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The credible evidence can be presented at move discussions even if the other topics of the term do not have wikipedia articles. There are no problems here wrt WP:V. Maybe we only want to disambiguate w/in WP anyway, but we don't need to just because of V. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:22, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

But my point is that if there is no verifiable evidence of ambiguity within wikipedia -- then what is the disambiguation to be based on? Disambiguation pages do not introduce facts or assertions that are not supported by a linked article. If there is no article that supports the ambiguous usage, then there is nothing to disambiguate within the context of Misplaced Pages articles. And so far as content within an article must be verifiable within the scope of WP:V, content in a disambiguation page is also similarly subject to WP:V. older ≠ wiser 23:01, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Personally I think it reasonable to declare the primary topic for "national tax agency" (however capitalized) to be Revenue service. But that doesn't solve the problem we've seen in some such cases in the past, where some obscure country (sorry, but some things are obscure to the bulk of our English-speaking readership, whether or not you want to call that "systemic bias") has a government agency or department with some generic-sounding but probably unique name (department of fishing and horticulture, or something a bit along those lines - I don't recall the exact situation). I seem to recall that in such situations consensus has quite often been that we should include the country by way of "disambiguation", not because there's real ambiguity, but because the name "sounds too generic" otherwise.--Kotniski (talk) 09:05, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

PS One such discussion was at Talk:Census and Statistics Department (Hong Kong). No consensus was reached, though a majority supported keeping the "redundant" disambiguator. Though I notice there's something of a mixture in the way such articles are titled.--Kotniski (talk) 11:45, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

And is that such a bad thing? I know we seek consistency between articles to aid navigation, but not at the expense of other principles such as naturalness and recognizability. Blueboar (talk) 12:18, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

In this case I don't see any higher principles being applied; it's just that editors happen to have decided to go one way in some cases, the other way in others.--Kotniski (talk) 12:21, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

That discussion referred to Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (government and legislation), a backwater Naming Convention I hadn't come across before. But it does appear to address the specific situation here. Kotniski also may be right that national tax agency should redirect to revenue service. While I'm no fan of the royalty naming conventions, I think where there are conventions with defined scope of application, reasonable rationale, and some modicum of consensus, I really don't see much of an issue with using more specific names as the title. Personally, I'd prefer to see such cases use natural language forms rather than parenthetical, but that may just be a preference. The implication is that while natural language form might not be the most common form, it is a name that is actually used for a subject. Parenthetical disambiguators are almost never a part of the real world name of a subject and are purely a Misplaced Pages contrivance -- and within the context of Misplaced Pages, a parenthetical disambiguator generally indicates there is one or more articles at the base name, but that is not necessarily true with natural language disambiguation. older ≠ wiser 13:44, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

(left) What the NC says is: Disambiguation is unnecessary ......if the agency or office name is unique or is by far the most common meaning, or primary topic (Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Foreign and Commonwealth Office). Care should be taken to avoid convoluted or artificial constructions: Something of Something of Jurisdictionname. The editor who appealled to it seems to have missed that. JCScaliger (talk) 22:50, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

• There should be some scope to insert a country-name after departments and organisations that are described with an apparently very generic title. This is an international project. Of course they don't bother to put (HK) after it in HK itself (although many organisations there are likely to have the name of the jurisdiction embedded within them (from memory, for example, The Hong Kong Port Authority). I'd be inclined to do it on a case-by-case basis, and to use the shortest possible character length (Internal Revenue Service (US)), Car registration fee (UK)). We shouldn't be hostage to whether or not a body embeds the jurisdiction within its title. Our readers' needs are the same in either case. There must be a way of minimising the cumbersome and avoiding country names altogether in some cases. Isn't it a case of establishing what the balance is between familiarity to readers of en.WP and the clutter? Nor do I think our readers and editors should be hostage to whether a title is unique among WP article topics, or is unique in the real world. For example, it's very awkward that while we're allowed Fringe benefits tax (Australia) because there are also articles on the NZ and Indian equivalent taxes, we're not allowed to know where Bank account debits tax comes from. (What does Encyclopedia Brittanica do?) Tony (talk) 12:29, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

"There should be some scope to insert a country-name after departments and organisations that are described with an apparently very generic title." If there should be that, than should there also not be some scope to insert a country-name after place names that are not universally well known? Should there not also be some scope to insert the TV series name after every TV episode name? If not, what is the distinction? If so, are you suggesting that we predisambiguate all place names, TV episodes, and a myriad of other articles, too? Or are you drawing a line somewhere? If so, what is that line, and where is it?

Please convince us that you understand what you are suggesting by being clear on what exactly you're seeking; please answer these questions as completely as possible. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:15, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, I think that if you look at UK building articles, you will find many that include the location, even when disambiguation is not needed. But is adding the location disambiguation? Or do we just like to classify it as disambiguation since it is comma separated? Examples include St Botolph's Church, Heene, St Cyprian's Church, Hay Mills or St Berres' Church, Llanferres. This is just one type of example. If you look at various move discussions over the years, you will find comments rising above the background noise that favor the inclusion of information that either identifies the location of something or to give some idea what it is (say a fish or a plant). Sometimes these points get consensus. More often, they run into the the red herring of we don't pre disambiguate or someone waving the WP:PRECISION flag. But does WP:PRECISION really say that we can't include correct valid and helpful information that unambiguously identifies the topic? If so, they we need to rename a large number of articles. However if the policy is not followed in practice and does no harm, should the policy be tweaked after a discussion? Vegaswikian (talk) 19:51, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes it does say that, and it should. The bad example given in the policy ("United States Apollo program (1961–75)") contains nothing incorrect or invalid, and the information will be helpful to some people; but there is no stopping on that road short of making the entire article into the title. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:51, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Note that this section lists four other Churches of Saint Botolph, three of which have articles. The fourth might well - and there's still Boston itself. Any of them could be titled St. Botolph's Church; that's actual ambiguity, which needs disambiguation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

That just means we need a dab page to justify the extra precision for that one. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:16, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

A dab page would be useful; but we need to disambiguate whether there is one or not - because we have several articles; so also for St. Cyprian's Church, Hay Mills and St. Cyprian's Church, Sneinton. It would take a very obscure saint indeed to have only one church in the world; not even St. Berres manages - there's one in Llanferres, but all the towns in France called Saint-Brice have the same patron. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:35, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

This illustrates another problem with predisambiguation - the undisambiguated base name is often neglected and remains a redlink. When this is pointed out it can be easily remedied, of course, but that's beside the point. The point is it's an inherent systemic problem with employing that approach. People are likely to overlook properly handling the base name, and years can go by before an editor becomes aware of it and fixes it.

And, yes, adding additional place information to a title is predisambiguation if the article could be at the plain base name, by definition.

The inclination to want to make a title more descriptive is understandable, and certainly achieves local consensus support in some cases, but I see no broad community support for the practice in general. It has even fallen out of favor to some extent in some categories of articles, like WP:NCROY, which arguably once was the bastion epitome of predisambiguation. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Sigh. It would be nice to have a disambiguation page at the base name, but if nobody notices we don't have one, nobody has been harmed. If you type in St Botolph's Church into our search engine, you will get six possibilities.

These are two competing non-solutions "fixing" a non-problem. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:00, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

While red base names are not a problem for searches, it is a problem for disambiguation bots as they check links against disambiguation pages! If I put some text into a page and it includes a red link to a church I assume that no article has been written about the church not that there are half a dozen about different churches one of which may be the one I want! I assume the same with links to biography articles, because up to now the usual way is to write an article and then move it if later if a disambiguation is needed, or a hat note is added if the name is the primary one. -- PBS (talk) 03:49, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

FYI... Since it was raised, I have created a dab page for St Botolph's Church. Blueboar (talk) 16:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The problem with predisambiguation that I brought up and the ramifications of which PBS explained with greater clarity (thanks!) is easy to dismiss precisely because it is so insidious. The article about St Botolph's church was created in 2002, but apparently as Boston parish church. However, it was moved to St Botolph's Church, Boston in 2007, , which means the St Botolph's Church redlink that Blueboar just finally fixed, and all the associated problems with it to which PBS refers, has been there for over four years. St Botolph's Aldgate has also been around since 2007. These redlinks are very difficult to find because it means undisambiguating every disambiguated title to see if anything exists at the base name.

This is just one example that happened to be raised in this discussion, but there are undoubtedly a plethora of them. Any proposal that encourages more predisambiguation just exacerbates this problem. Let's not make matters worse. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

And confusing title clarity with the red herring of predisambiguation is probably a larger problem. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:44, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

There is no confusion. We're talking about the same thing... additional precision in the title beyond just the name of the topic, if you will. The motivation for adding more precision to a title might be for clarity or it might be for disambiguation, but, mechanically, if the additional precision is not needed for disambiguation, then, by definition, it is predisambiguation, regardless of whether it's being done to add clarity or to anticipate a need to disambiguate in the future.

Ultimately, this is just a matter of semantics... how does what we call it create a problem at all, much less create "a larger problem" than the redlink one PBS and I have described? --Born2cycle (talk) 23:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Clarification of recognizability lost

Above, it is being argued (in essence) that a title like Crime Patrol, since it is not universally known, does not meet the "recognizability" criteria, and, so, should have more precision (or predisambiguation) in order to be more recognizable to readers and editors unfamiliar with the topic.

The recognizability criteria question is currently stated as:

Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?

However, a few months ago, and for many years, it said this:

an ideal title will confirm, to readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic, that the article is indeed about that topic.

This fundamental change was made in May of this year , with edit summary "Changed Recognizability point based on discussion on the talk page".

The change was discussed by 3 or 4 editors on this page, now archived here. However, I don't see the question of "recognizable to whom?" being addressed there. It appears they did not understand they were changing the meaning of the criterion by implying it needs to be broadly recognizable to meet the criterion, rather than simply be recognizable to those familiar with the topic, which is a huge change. The long-standing original wording emphasized that titles don't need to be "universally recognized" to meet the criteria, but only have to be recognizable to those familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic. I see nothing in that discussion to indicate that the change in meaning by the removal of this qualification was intentional, and, so, I think we need to re-insert them.

So, I've essentially restored the original wording and meaning to be this:

Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?

--Born2cycle (talk) 07:13, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

discussion about revert

I see I've already been reverted. Sigh. What on Earth could be a reasonable objection to this restoration of a long-standing clarification? --Born2cycle (talk) 07:18, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't part of that change, but it's what has been the status quo for a while, it seems. I cited the recognisability principle above, and a few minutes later you changed that part of the policy (apparently because it doesn't suit your purposes?). Let's have a debate involving more editors, please. Tony (talk) 07:20, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Perhaps, like some of your previous attempts to rewrite guidelines, the main objection is that it's motivated by an ongoing dispute in which you have a dog. That dispute might be a good motivator for a discussion, but maybe not for just letting you have your way. Dicklyon (talk) 07:22, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Do either of you have a substantive argument against the restoration that is not an ad hominem attack on the proposer of the restoration? --Born2cycle (talk) 07:25, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll rephrase: Perhaps the main objection is that it's motivated by an ongoing dispute in which you have a dog. That dispute might be a good motivator for a discussion, but maybe not for just letting you have your way. Also, I think it's rude to change something back just because you missed the discussion when it was happening. Also, I think your focus on "recognizability" is missing the point of my objection about "primary topic". I just think you're barking up the wrong tree here; and if there's a reason to change that, we should be invited to consider it first. Dicklyon (talk) 07:31, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course Tony's citing of the stripped criterion motivated me to make this change. It brought the issue to my attention - that those important words of clarification had been stripped out. Why? I wondered. So I researched, found no good reason for their removal, restored it, and explained it above. What's wrong with that?

I didn't change something back just because I missed the discussion when it was happening. I changed it back because the discussion that I missed did not explain why it was removed.

And, by the way, Tony you were part of the discussion that lead to that change: Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles/Archive_32#Recognizability. In fact, you supported wording similar to what I just restored. You suggested, "an ideal title will confirm that the article is indeed about that topic to readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic." Notice how that too still included the "readers who are familiar with" clarification. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:35, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I will presume the absence of the expression of a substantive objection to the restorative change is evidence of an actual absence of a substantive objection to the restorative change, and so will restore it again. I will interpret further reverts without substantive objection, at least by others involved here, to be nothing but disruption, and will take action accordingly. You can't just revert without a good reason, especially non-controversail longstanding wording that was inexplicably removed. Again, I'm not changing anything; I'm just restoring longstanding wording and meaning that accurately reflects how recognizability in title decisions has always been interpreted, and still is. If you disagree with that, then yes, please revert, but also explain why you disagree. Thank you. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:50, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Not a safe presumption. I haven't even looked at what you're proposing or what it's implications are beyond the fact that it seems to bear on an argument that you are presently in. It's your process that I object to. Dicklyon (talk) 08:09, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

B2C, my impression corresponds with Dicklyon's: "Perhaps, like some of your previous attempts to rewrite guidelines, the main objection is that it's motivated by an ongoing dispute in which you have a dog. That dispute might be a good motivator for a discussion, but maybe not for just letting you have your way." Again and again we observe you unsatisfied with some perfectly normal process or decision, and then scurrying to get policy or guidelines changed to shore up your position for a renewed attack. You're pretty quick on your feet, and a smooth talker; so people may not notice at first. But you won't always get away with it. Sometimes you'll get lucky when you approach an admin for a reversal or a review. The current RM at Talk:Catholic Memorial School (West Roxbury, Massachusetts) was first relisted, and stayed open for more than two weeks before admin Mike Cline closed it: no consensus to move, and the current title does no harm. You had not taken part in the discussion, so you asked the closing admin to revert the close (!). Amazingly (or not knowing your history of such self-oriented requests), he did just that. You then suggested that the votes of three editors you see as consistently arguing against your position at RMs be "discounted" (!!).

The pattern is becoming clear. You are not really in favour of following policy or guidelines, or of consensus. You are in favour of policy and guidelines following Born2cycle. You have not followed the established procedures when you sought to close RMs as a non-admin. You have not accepted the judge's verdict after due discussion. You have not respected all consensually settled provisions for titles. It is one thing to favour a selection of provisions and suppress others; but another to leap to change when you feel an urge for change, so that every provision bears your stamp.

Some editors have by slow forbearance earned the respect of their colleagues, for their even-handed work toward development of guidelines and policy through collegial discussion. You are not among them. The way to achieve such trust is to be trustworthy. People are right to react defensively against changes you make without due discussion. You have tried too many tricks in the past. I am an optimist about human nature and the possibility of change, so I don't rule out reform in your case. But I think "the community" (whose support you continually and loudly assume on the most spurious grounds) does not yet see that in you.

I will support the wording for recognisability as it now stands, until I see considered, slow discussion for a change that will work in the interests of readers better than the present wording.

This is not improperly ad hominem (unlike your specific mention of me and two other experienced and knowledgeable editors as to be "discounted"); it is prudence in the face of real danger to core policy.

Noetica 08:15, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

For crying out loud, you have the time and energy to generate this ad hominem rant, here, but don't have the time or energy to take a few minutes to give the proposal/change I made a serious look and give us your take on it? I'll just say you're way out of line on a bunch of what you say here - but if you have an issue with my behavior take it up in an appropriate forum, like my talk page. Not here. This is not constructive, to say the least. --Born2cycle (talk) 08:31, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Administrator assistance requested

Stumped regarding how to proceed constructively, I have requested administrator review and assistance, here: Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard#Uninvolved_admin_-_please_take_a_look. --Born2cycle (talk) 08:34, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

If you want to be productive, you could do as we suggested; stop edit warring the guideline change, make a proposal, and wait for some discussion. Good night. Oh, and don't forget to notify the people from the previous discussion, whose change you want to undo. Dicklyon (talk) 08:58, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

 Done This is so simple and straightforward, I really don't think it's necessary. If you would bother to read the proposal instead of blindly objecting that would be clear to you. Anyway, from what I can tell, only three users were involved in the discussion before the change was implemented, and I've notified each of them. --Born2cycle (talk) 09:36, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that by inviting people into this ongoing big mess, rather than starting with a clean proposal, you've doomed the discussion to continued confusion. Dicklyon (talk) 16:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Recognizable to people familiar...

The bit about "recognizable to people familiar with the subject", I think, was lost accidentally at one point and ought to be restored. We don't expect titles to be recognizable to people who have no familiarity with the subject at all (most articles on Misplaced Pages are about things that most of us have never heard of; we don't generally worry that the titles we choose are consequently unrecognizable to large swathes of the population).--Kotniski (talk) 09:15, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Exactly. Believe it or not, that bit is all that is at issue here (I think some other changes - inconsequential tweaks - also got mixed into the reverts), and it sure seemed straight-forward to me. --Born2cycle (talk) 09:20, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Ah, sorry, just noticed the link to the archived discussion given above, so the change wasn't entirely accidental. But still I don't think the 2/3 editors who made that change really understood the intent of the wording that was removed. We don't add stuff to article titles to try to make them recognizable even to people who are ignorant of the subject (we don't say Fred Smith (actor, you know, the fat one on Eastenders), or anything like that).--Kotniski (talk) 09:23, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

There is simply no need for haste of that sort. Obviously, the matter is sensitive through and through. Nothing is lost by waiting. I have restored the version that was in place for many months, until a few hours ago. Now, let's see some testing of consensus. When (and if) there is consensus to change the text of the crucial wording of a main principle in policy, we can agree to do it.

Noetica 09:30, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Why exactly are you in such a rush to restore the other version, then? If this is a major change, then you can surely see from the discussion that led to it (linked above) that there was never anything like full discussion of the original change? We are really just restoring the version that really did come out of a major discussion process some time back. It was never anyone's intention to change titling policy completely, by requiring that titles somehow be recognizable to everyone.--Kotniski (talk) 09:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Kotniski, on what basis do you have consensus to make this sudden change to the policy page? Tony (talk) 09:45, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Like I say, it's not a sudden change, it's just undoing a change that was made a while ago without proper discussion (or apparently any particular understanding of the consequences). I mean, either the change makes little difference (it's just a wording tweak without any significant change of meaning - in which case, why are we worrying about it); OR it really does represent a significant change to the meaning of the policy, in which case the removal of the words obviously wasn't properly discussed on that basis. --Kotniski (talk) 09:47, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not in a rush to do anything – except to get people not to be in a rush. The provision sat quietly in place as part of core Misplaced Pages policy for months. Many editors would expect the wording to stay as it is now (rather stably), unless there is slow and careful discussion to change it. With wide consultation if necessary.

Noetica 09:52, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

(e.c) Response to Kotniski: Is that the way it works? Born2cycle sees me quoting something from WP:TITLE that he turns out not to like, and unilaterally changes it without notice of more than one minute after posting about it here? There's too much aggressive action going on, such as his recent request for the re-opening of an RM that didn't go his way. I don't recall whatever change was made to WP:TITLE, but if you and/or B2C want to change the current version, you need to discuss it here first. Tony (talk) 09:54, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

This section is now something like three pages long, and none of you three who are reverting the change have said a single substantive thing about the change. There are now two of us who favor the change, and willing and able to discuss it, three of you who are reverting it, but not discussing it. Am I missing something? --Born2cycle (talk) 09:59, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Well if you're quoting from the policy as it is now, and he's claiming that it would be more accurate to quote from the policy as it was then, then that implies there definitely is some difference in the interpretation (i.e. the policy actually was substantially changed). And since there was no indication in the discussion that led to it that any substantial change (as opposed to removal of verbiage) was intended to be made, then I think we have to go back to the original until the matter can be sorted out. --Kotniski (talk) 10:00, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

B2C: "Am I missing something?" Yes. Some of us have more to do than jump frantically to meet whatever challenge you might like to throw up for discussion, in the split second that you choose. Lay the topic on the table, make a summary case, and sit back. Allow editors to come in and have their say in an orderly way. Then (politely and rationally, after more than 30 seconds of thinking) respond. Occasionally change your mind. Occasionally learn from others who have experience (of directly relevant professional work, of Wikipedian ways, and of the world at large) that may differ from your own. More to do? Yes. For example, I'm going to bed now. Some of us sleep. Not to the same clock as you do.

Noetica 10:22, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

On the substantive issue (and noting that I couldn't be less interested in the background dispute), it is ridiculous to suggest that titles need to be recognisable to those totally unfamiliar with the subject. To give an example, the esomeprazole article is so-named because it is the pharmaceutical name for the compound; it is the recognised name, as would be expected by those with medical or pharmaceutical training. The article isn't at Nexium (the trade name, like a lay-person might expect), nor at (S)-5-methoxy-2--3H-benzoimidazole (the IUPAC name, like a chemist (not a pharmacist) might expect). It certainly isn't at "drug for treating heartburn", an arguably "recognisable ... description of the topic" for a passer-by with no familiarity with the area. As another example, my FA article on rhodocene... I have no doubt that lay people would not recognise the name, nor be able to describe the topic, but I am sure that the article title is appropriate because it would be recognisable to anyone familair enough with chemistry to know about the topic. Please, a suggestion... restore the sensible clause regarding topic familiarity and then find something to do that is more worthy of your time. EdChem (talk) 10:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

esomeprazole as a name is highly unlikely to stand for anything but a single entity. Fine, but this is where the notion of expertise is being confused. An article, say, on Financial institutions duty that stands for the one in Zimbabwe (where the tax people might well use lower case, as the Australian Taxation Office does for taxes) is not satisfactory: it's likely that most readers and editors will wonder how many of these taxes of the same or similar name exist in the real world, even if no others have nabbed the title "space" first off. Not many people will search for esomeprazole, but Financial institutions duty is likely to come up in a lot of searches. Tony (talk) 10:27, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

So what are you saying? That if a topic has a name that is likely to be used to search for something else, then the title of the article for that topic should be expanded to be more descriptive and unique, even if that something else is not a topic for which we have an article in Misplaced Pages (we already handle the cases where we do have an article for that something else)? The problem is, if we don't have an article for that something else, how do we decide it is a something else? With what criteria? --Born2cycle (talk) 10:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, I think if any change in practice is to be considered here (I don't think anyone's proposing adding disambiguation to unique but specialized names like esomeprazole), it would have to be based on a different treatment of names that "sound generic" (like financial institutions duty). Generally speaking we don't do redundant disambiguation (except in particular topic areas where groups of editors have decided they want to make their own rules, like U.S places - that's a different topic), but there does seem to be a certain sympathy for it in these "generic-sounding" (for want of a better word) cases.--Kotniski (talk) 10:45, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

(e.c. x 2) Tony, we are talking about whether recognisability should be recognisable to anyone or to someone with familiarity of the topic. Whether an article on FID would be expected to be generic or specific to a single country seems to me to be unrelated to whether the title is suitable recognisable. I would like make FID generic (or with a list, like finance minister) and FID in Zimbabwe (or similar) for the specific case, but I don't see it as a recognisability issue but rather one of precision. EdChem (talk) 10:47, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

• I refuse to wade through a wall of text of ad hominem attacks and people telling other people to "slow down". It's ridiculous and unproductive. I've read the policy before and after the change. It looks clear to me that it needs to be reverted back to the way it was. EdChem makes some nice points, and I agree with them 110%. As for Tony's reply, if people are looking for related articles, we should categorize them together and use "See Also" judiciously, not mangle the title with overdisambiguation. -Kai445 (talk) 16:14, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Just throwing in my opinion here, as the discussion would appear to be looking for substantive points about the actual point in question. I agree that we should generally be concerned about recognisability for those with some familiarity with the subject, as the proposed change suggests. On the other hand, I also agree that some title could do with "pre-disambiguation", if for no other reason than that they will appear in category pages that do not provide enough context for anyone to have any idea what they're referring to. From a point of view of user-friendliness, it would seem sensible to think about the degree of confusion such category listings will produce. For example, the pharmaceutical names are rather unlikely to appear in a category (other than meta stuff) that would lead to insufficient context, but taxes, legal instruments, national organisations... they could possibly do with contextualisation. Now, an idea technical fix would be to add a meta field to articles that would appear next to the title link on category pages, but that not being an option right now, contextualisation of the title should be considered on a case-by-case basis. It should be unusual, but not forbidden or presumed so strongly against as some seem to want. Of course, where a particular item is well known in the English-speaking world, that would not be expected to need such contextualisation (such as the FBI, say). This, I feel, strikes a balance between the principles that we have already outlined, and a basic principle of user-friendly presentation. SamBC(talk) 17:15, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

You've clearly expressed the problem and goal, as have Dicklyon, Noetica, and Tony1. As always, the devil is in the details. How do we express and convey this in this policy without creating a situation in which article title discussions are even more contentious than they already are? Or are the benefits of having a few titles predisambiguated sufficient to warrant the additional consternation? I, for one, believe it is not.

Speaking of details, do you object to returning the original words about recognizability to the policy as proposed here? --Born2cycle (talk) 17:28, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

The original wording is clearly superior; it's a shame that was removed without full discussion of the implications. Powers 19:03, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the previous wording was superior, but to be so it has to include the parenthetical "(though not necessarily expert in)". -- PBS (talk) 20:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

RFC on Recognizability guideline wording

We need to have a thoughtful discussion of the wording of the title guideline at Misplaced Pages:AT#Deciding_on_an_article_title concerning recognizability. It was changed last May in this diff (at which the old and new versions can be compared) after this brief discussion, and now there are suggestions to change it back, or perhaps change it to something different (it was subsequently rephrased as the current question form "Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?" so that's also an option). This RFC is a subsection of a section about it, but reading and responding to that argument may be counter productive, so let's have a focused discussion here instead. Please say which version you prefer, and why, or suggest something better. The "Compromise" discussion below may also be relevant. Let us proceed at a moderated pace; be not quick to counter, so we can see where we stand and collect some ideas. Dicklyon (talk) 21:48, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

See #Clarification of recognizability_lost for the details of the specific proposal, but the two versions of the wording in question are:

Version 1/original (adapted from May 2011 wording): Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?

Version 2/current: Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?

--Born2cycle (talk) 00:13, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• The following comments favoring Version 1/Original were made within the last 24 hours just above:
  • "We don't expect titles to be recognizable to people who have no familiarity with the subject at all " --Kotniski (talk · contribs):
  • "It is ridiculous to suggest that titles need to be recognisable to those totally unfamiliar with the subject." --EdChem (talk · contribs)
  • "I agree that the previous wording was superior, but to be so it has to include the parenthetical '(though not necessarily expert in)'" PBS (talk) 20:09, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
  • "It looks clear to me that it needs to be reverted back to the way it was." --Kai445 (talk · contribs)
• --Born2cycle (talk) 00:13, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
• Version 1/Original We generally do not try to make titles recognizable to everyone, just to those familiar with the article topic. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:13, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• Alt version – I see problems pointed out with all those versions, so here's another idea, adapting comments from DGG below: Dicklyon (talk) 00:27, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Version 3/mix: Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic, to someone familiar with the subject area?

• Comment. As noted below, I don't understand where this alt wording would make a difference, and "topic" is much more specific. In many cases it may not be clear what the "subject area" is. I see no point in bringing in this ambiguity. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Uh huh. If you don't understand something, ask, think, take your time. Reflect on the fact that other people are endowed with intelligence and insights also. Other people also have a sense of proportion and fair procedure. Watch a bit, and learn.

I think all the issues concerning this provision need clarifying. It is not a simple matter of patching up the wording with minimal depth of discussion. I am unwillingly to spend much time on this right now; but it certainly needs to be done. Editors use this part of the policy at RMs as if it were Holy Writ, and according to their own sectarian interpretations. Big reforms are needed.

Noetica 02:01, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• I'm not really sure what the kerfuffle here is about, and I'm even less sure that I care. The only comment that I have is that the change back in May (right?) was made with an eye to simplifying what was being said. If what you're trying to add to a policy requires a long winded explanation (which the "old" version is certainly an example of), then that seems to be a good indication that something is wrong with either the approach that is attempting to be taken or that something is wrong with the advice in general. Anyway, it looks like y'all are hashing this out just fine, to me. Have fun arguing at each other.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:56, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I presume this confirms you did not intend to change the meaning of the policy with that edit. Though apparently no one realized it at the time, many of us now believe the edit did substantially change the meaning, or at least made it likely to be interpreted in a very different way (to mean that we try to make titles familiar to everyone, not just those familiar with the respective topics). Do you have any objection to the Version 1/Original wording? Do you have a position on the scope of "recognizability" that is at issue here, and how these two versions convey that? Thanks! --Born2cycle (talk) 02:02, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
• Version 1/Original. This version retains necessary clarity that was lost with the revision. Without the caveat, it renders the task of naming articles nearly impossible, as it requires the titles to be recognizable even to people unfamiliar with the topic. That will produce unnecessarily complex and lengthy titles. Powers 01:59, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

The idea that it means "everybody" is just silly. Did you read the prior discussion? They directly addressed the idea that this extra bit of verbage seemed unnecessary. You can disagree with the conclusion, but it doesn't help to trivialize the question this way. We seem to have no more trouble titling articles than before under this guideline. Dicklyon (talk) 02:10, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not silly at all to assume others interpret it to mean "everybody". That's exactly how Tony interpreted it, apparently. Above, at #Life Safety Code, he quoted the current wording to support his concern that Life Safety Code was too vague. Too vague for whom? The most reasonable answer to that question is everyone; certainly not those familiar with (but not necessarily expert in) the topic. That's the problem... it's too easy to interpret to mean everybody (or nearly everybody). --Born2cycle (talk) 02:23, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• Version 1/Original or Version 3/Mix, but not Version 2. Since we get occasional complaints that "I didn't recognize it, so it's not recognizable", it seems useful to specify who ought to be recognizing the title. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:35, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
• 1 or 3 for now. Perhaps in the long run we should try writing a paragraph on the subject, and return to 2 as simplest, with a link to the paragraph. On the underlying dispute, I oppose the unnecessary disambiguation involved in National Tax Agency (Japan); adding disambiguation for consistency (as in some of the examples above) is best discussed in the section on overall reformulation below. JCScaliger (talk) 23:28, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
• Version 1/original, article titles are supposed to be short. Making all titles recognizable for everybody would force us to create convoluted titles. For example, moving Public Achievement to Public achievement (US civic scheme), (move discussion). I think that removing the "expert" bit in version 3 makes the definiton of "familiar" too vague. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:48, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why these are special cases. Check for usage of "Crime Patrol" in reliable sources. If it is used to refer to both generic and specific topic, then the phrase is ambiguous. If there is a strong bias towards a particular topic, then the phrase has a primary use. Follow standard procedures: deploy disambiguation pages, hatnotes and redirects as required. There is nothing here that isn't handled neatly by the broader policy, so why introduce wording that treats it as a special case? Hesperian 01:03, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Consensus clearly supports Version 1 over Version 2

As if it wasn't obvious before, it should certainly be clear now to even the most obstinate supporter of unnecessary disambiguation that Version 1/Original has consensus support, and Version 2/Current does not, as it always has. There is no justification whatsoever for continuing to have the policy reflect Version 2 rather than Version 1. Does anyone (besides perhaps Noetica, Dicklyon or Tony1) disagree with this assessment? --Born2cycle (talk) 02:07, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

• You seem to be discounting or trying to dismiss certain views in arriving at your conclusion. Noetica, Dicklyon or Tony1 are all part of the community and have a right to have their views considered with equal weight. Anyhoo, taking your premise, I think there are far too few expressions of opinion for anyone to say that that is the case. --Ohconfucius 02:17, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

The trouble is just that there hasn't been any airing of ideas, or discussion of problems. I made a midway proposal that got some support, but B2C has stacked the discussion so we don't have much way of gauging community reaction. I have not yet expressed a preference, because it's not yet clear what the issues are. I don't recall Noetica or Tony expressing a preference, either, other than a preference that B2C not railroad through his change in the heat of a related argument. As I said, I'm willing to give it up, unless people like you come up with a way to turn it back into a productive discussion. Dicklyon (talk) 02:26, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

To make it productive, I think we have to stop focusing on that particular sentence in the policy (which is anyway hardly relevant to the substantial matter under dispute), and discuss what really seems to be concerning us, namely that some people would apparently like to introduce a principle that "generic-sounding" names (perhaps someone can phrase it better) ought to be disambiguated even if there's no other specific topic to distinguish them from. Arguing about the sentence is a silly distraction, though nearly all the substantial views expressed seem to support the longer and better-estabilshed version, so it seems clear enough (without prejudice to any continuing discussion about the pre-disambiguation thing) that that's the version that should be restored.--Kotniski (talk) 10:55, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

If we went back (in the archives, not just the current page) and compiled all the times they tried to bring up this issue -- that "generic-sounding" names ought to be disambiguated even if there's no other specific topic to distinguish them from -- we would have a good case for tendentious editing. Each time they bring it up, in one form or another, specific questions are asked about how exactly to implement it, and this is never answered. In each case, they bring it up, they are questioned, and they drop it. We're not idiots. We understand generally what they want, and, that, on the surface, it's not an outlandish idea or anything. But as I keep saying (well, this is the third time on this page - search for "devil"), the devil is in the details, and nobody has been able to articulate anything close to something that could be reasonably implemented in policy, or consistently carried out in practice. In the mean time, they're using this "let's talk about (without talking about it)" approach to filibuster against this proposal. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:07, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Ohconfucius, I'm not discounting anything. Noetica and Tony have yet to say anything substantive in objection to Version 1, or in support of any alternative. All they've objected to, repeatedly, is lack of discussion. Well, discuss already if there is anything to discuss! Dicklyon to his credit at least expressed some objection to Version 1, but even then all he said was, "I see problems pointed out with all those versions". Do you have any idea what those alleged problems are? I don't either. And neither does anyone else, apparently. I'm not discounting any of this because there is nothing to discount! Even Dick is conceding this is not a productive discussion, though he blames me for that... for "stacking the deck" (never mind that that has not stopped plenty of non-substantive discussion like this - why should it inhibit any substantive discussion?). Speaking of substantive discussion, now I'll go and respond to your latest below, which I just noticed. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:18, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I was referring to problems pointed out in the previous discussion that moved us away from that version. You should review it. Dicklyon (talk) 18:26, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Please quote what specifically you're talking about. All I see is a discussion about simplifying the meaning with no intent to change meaning, and no direct mention of the specific words in question here, or the impact of removing them. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:42, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

One of the editors there wrote "If you say it is 'slightly winged' from "article titles should be the most recognizable description of the topic", then why don't you just say so, plain and simple? And skip all this nitpicking ('readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in'... although not complete ignoramuses; while keeping in mind some of them may be ignorant but they hold the are not.....)) ... In other words, my original question may be narrowed down to: What does the discussed definition include important beyond the boldfaced quote..." I haven't seen a good answer to why we want that wording in there; being familiar with the topic seems way too narrow, for one thing; that's why DGG's suggested "familiar with the subject area" seems like a sensible compromise. For example, a person familiar with chemicals will recognize a chemical name even if he was familiar not with the particular chemical. Dicklyon (talk) 20:13, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

No, I think it's familiarity with the specific topic that we mean - if there's an obscure footaller called John McHaggis, we title his article John McHaggis, without extra information (unless disambiguation happens to be needed), despite the fact that most of the world's football buffs will never have heard of him and so will fail to recognise his name. --Kotniski (talk) 20:36, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

All that comment reveals is a lack of appreciation for the difference in meaning between recognizability in general and recognizability to those familiar with the specific topic (what was dismissed as "nitpicking"), perhaps because of what was then a somewhat convoluted wording. In any case, it shows no intent to change the meaning - the person obviously thought the suggested wording was a simpler way to say the same thing.

I know of no support for the "familiar with the subject area" interpretation in actual usage; as Kotniski explains, it's not what is meant by recognizability in WP. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:22, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Please remember that we entitle our articles for the convenience of our readers... We want to choose titles that will be recognizable to people searching for an article on a particular topic. Such readers may or may not be knowledgeable in the topic, but they will have a goal in mind. They will enter a name, or a descriptive phrase into the search box... and we want them to be able to quickly look at the results and say "ah, yes, there is the article on the topic I was searching for". Thus, the name or description we choose as a title should be the one that is most likely to be searched for by our readers. That is what is meant by "Recognizability". Blueboar (talk) 17:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

To clarify, how well do you think this meaning is conveyed by the current wording, which is version 1: "Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?" --Born2cycle (talk) 19:01, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't like either of the versions... I would prefer something like: "Is the candidate title the name or description that the average reader would search for when trying to find this topic? Would the average reader be surprised or confused to find the topic under the candidate title?" Blueboar (talk) 21:29, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I would like to avoid the clumsiness of the parenthetical remark in the current wording, but at least it explicitly states we're referring to those who are already familiar with the topic, whereas with your suggested wording it's only implied (you'd have to be familiar with it to some extent to be searching for it). Also, your wording unnecessarily discusses the reasons for having the recognizability criteria, rather than sticking to simply stating what "recognizability" is. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:25, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Abandoning this RFC

It is remarkable that an effort to resolve this issue has been hijacked for partisan purposes in such a flagrant way. At an RFC we ask the community to comment in slow, orderly, and respectful fashion. We work together to structure the discussion to tease out all issues; we wait to see whether our "opponents" (or rather, colleagues) have points to make that did not occur to us. We do not flood the attempt to achieve this with selected comments from an earlier discussion.

I will not participate in such a mockery of an RFC. I thank Dicklyon for starting it. Carry on with it, or finish it, whoever wants to. I have more productive things to get on with.

An RFC like this can have no respect from the community, and any "consensus" purported to arise from it will be worthless. Expect more orderly initiatives later. ArbCom had to supervise many weeks of action to get WP:DASH sorted out. In that case, the content was endorsed by the community, and some useful clarifications were added. No one wants all that fuss here; but the way to avoid it still seems to elude certain editors. I seriously doubt that the community accepts the provision that we have been concerned with here, along with its neighbours. Probably not more than a couple of dozen very active editors, who invoke them in pursuit of a very particular agenda. Still, that's just my considered opinion.

Threats to take editors to WP:AN/I (see edit summaries) do nothing toward respect and cooperation. Let's do without those in future.

Noetica 02:41, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I tried to counsel him on his talk page (User_talk:Born2cycle#RFC) to no avail. I warned him that a fourth revert of this removal of his improper refactoring of the comments of others would violate 3RR; he did it anyway. Should I report him for 3RR and risk getting the lot of us blocked for edit warring? Or give it up like you're doing? I'll think on it... Dicklyon (talk) 02:47, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

And he also takes on the authority of deciding which parts of the previous discussion are substantive, and which are not, blanking the parts he doesn't want people to be distracted by, even while copying his favorite bits into the focused RFC. You've got to admit, it takes balls. Maybe AN/I makes more sense than the 3RR report. Dicklyon (talk) 03:17, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

3RR, being a simple, "mechanical" decision, is usually less drama-oriented than ANI, but ANI is not unreasonable because of the breadth of behavioral concerns. I'm just not sure that it will actually resolve the disputes. It could easily have the effect of spreading it to another page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:39, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Multiple people complained about that section being difficult to navigate. So I tried to hide the parts I genuinely felt were not substantive. I really wish you guys would take a big gulp of AGF, because comments like "he also takes on the authority of deciding which parts of the previous discussion are substantive, and which are not, blanking the parts he doesn't want people to be distracted by, even while copying his favorite bits into the focused RFC" indicates to the contrary. For example, if you think my hiding was incomplete, why not hide the parts you think are not substantive that I missed, or unhiding the parts you think were substantive that I hid, instead of reverting the whole thing? --Born2cycle (talk) 03:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Selecting hiding, by a deeply involved and controversial principal in an argument, is a really terrible idea. Why can't you see that? And repeating controversial biased/biasing actions after they are objected to and reverted is also contrary to movement toward resolution; and obnoxious. Did I say obnoxious? Dicklyon (talk) 03:51, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, please. Initially, I hid a large section that was obviously non-substantive. You complained and reverted; part of your complaint was that I didn't hid everything that was non-substantive. So I tried again, this time trying not to miss anything. Again, instead of just whining and complaining, how about helping clean up that section by hiding the parts we all agree are non-substantive (you know, where actually talking about the proposal is substantive)? --Born2cycle (talk) 03:59, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Besides, it's not like the hide template (ah hem) deletes anything. Everything is still visible with just one quick click on the "show" link. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:02, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I have registered my complaint at AN/I, and asked for feedback. I don't see how it can be possible to recover from this toxic mess. So whatever; if people want to take it back to some old wording instead of trying to work out an improvement, I'll stay out the way (whether due to a block or otherwise). Dicklyon (talk) 03:56, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

"Take it back to some old wording"... your intent to frame its previous incarnation in a negative light is ridiculous. The old version is the improvement, where the 'current' incarnation is concerned. If the hidden sections are the ones where people are bitching and whining instead of discussing the issue, I'm in favour. -Kai445 (talk) 17:57, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Recognisability: plotting a compromise pathway for readers and editors

I baulk at this title: Financial Instruments and Exchange Law (it's a Hong Kong law, actually), and Professional Evaluation and Certification Board (New York, actually).

In the thread above, the term recognisable is being bandied about as though it's easy to define. Why do I get the feeling this is on purpose, to make article titles as unrecognisable as editors please. There are several reasons we need to spell out some instances where locations can be included in titles:

1. many titles are almost useless in category lists and even in google searches;
2. at the moment, there's inconsistency on this count, no matter how loudly a few people might bellow here;
3. we're making a lot of trouble in the years ahead when more articles will be added that will vie for the same title "space".

I suggest that some exceptions be included—for example, when a financial instrument, organisation, or (workforce) position could refer to multiple topics, it's permissible to add the name of the location in parentheses after the wording, in short form where possible (HK, NY, US, UK, etc.). Tony (talk) 10:09, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Again, the longstanding practice has been, for many good reasons, that the only requirement of titles in terms of recognizability is that the title should be a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic. This is not a difficult or complex issue. --Born2cycle (talk) 10:11, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, "for many good reasons" isn't a debating tool. Can you explain? Second, where are the boundaries between non-familiarity, familiarity, and expertise? This is the burning question. Tony (talk) 10:21, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I think EdChem explains it quite clearly, just above. --Born2cycle (talk) 10:28, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

No, he's confusing expertise with notions of uniqueness. Here's another issue: Verified Audit Circulation. Given the widespread over-capping only now being addressed in WP's titles, what are we to make of this? Any guesses? Ah, it's a corporation. Right. Tony (talk) 10:30, 21 December 2011 (UTC) PS And could someone explain the meaning of this, which I just found in a prominent part of the policy? "Consensus titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously." How does "Verified Audit Circulation" identify the topic of the article unambiguously? Tony (talk) 10:36, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I admit I had no idea what Verified Audit Circulation was. But here's the thing... So what? You present this as if it's an obvious problem. What's the problem? State it as clearly as you can... The title Verified Audit Circulation does not make it possible for someone unfamiliar with it (most readers) to recognize it to be a company. The problem with that is ________ (fill in the blank).

As far as how "Verified Audit Circulation" identifies its title unambiguously... it does that because there is no other topic in WP to which that name refers. This is explained in detail at WP:PRECISION, including this statement: "when a topic's most commonly used name, as reflected in reliable sources, is ambiguous (can refer to more than one topic covered in Misplaced Pages), and the topic is not primary, that name cannot be used and so must be disambiguated." Here you see "ambiguous" is clearly defined in terms of other topics covered in Misplaced Pages. It is in that sense that unambiguously is intended to be interpreted in "identify the topic of the article unambiguously". --Born2cycle (talk) 10:52, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

• How does this play into utility in category lists? Tony (talk) 11:19, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
  • In many cases the category itself provides sufficient context, but in some cases having a more descriptive title would make category lists more useful. What's your point? --Born2cycle (talk) 12:23, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
    • So you agree that the context of category lists presents significant problems for the examples I've cited here? Who uses category lists, anyway? I'm genuinely interested to know whether it's readers or just editors. Tony (talk) 13:31, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
      • Categories as currently implemented and utilized are an abomination. Many categories use a strictly hierarchical attribute-based structure (that is, an entity in the category is of a type described by the category). Other categories define membership based more loosely on having some association with the topic of the category. These are two very different sorts of categorization schema that, IMO rather confusingly, share the same mechanism. But apart from that, I've about given up on categories largely because of the obsession with making the categories so specific that it makes navigating the category tree painfully tedious and confusing. older ≠ wiser 14:08, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
        • Bkonrad, I must say I've never delved into the business of categories, and have rather accepted them as part of the furniture for all this time. It disturbs me to hear you say this. Is it a widely held view? Is there a possible solution? Is it also entangled with the debate about the specificity of article titles? Tony (talk) 14:51, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
          • My opinion is my own. The problems with the competing schema are well-known. How widely my estimation is shared I couldn't say. I have only been keeping the intermittent tabs on categorization discussions. I think many regular categorizers would prefer that categorization follow the hierarchical "IS A" model. In the past there had occasionally been some discussion of implementing a separate mechanism for associative tagging, but I'm not aware that has gone anywhere. But even within the strictly hierarchical tagging schema, the lack of an easy to use mechanism for viewing the aggregate collection of pages with subcategories of a category or of viewing specific intersections or unions of categories really limits the usability of categories. For example, if I am interested in examining townships within a U.S. state, currently these are sub-categorized by county. There is no way that I'm aware of within the mediawiki software to view all the townships within a state by categorization -- instead, it requires tediously navigating to each and every subcategory. There is at least one tool, CatScan, and possible others at toolserver, but these are not readily available for typical readers. Of course there are list articles for some such views, but not being able to do this with categories seems to me a limitation on the usefulness of categories. Someone else has already mentioned earlier on this page, the suggestion to have some sort of DISPLAY_TITLE attribute for categories to display a title different from the article title. IMO, that would help to address another limitation of category usability. older ≠ wiser 15:34, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
            • Categories are a substandard tool, I certainly agree with that. I think they're something the developers created at one point a long time ago and then more or less gave up on. If they were slightly more cleverly/flexibly designed (the DISPLAYTITLE idea is just one of the improvements that users seem to recognize but no developer considers worth working on) they could be genuinely useful. (I'd like to see an expandable category tree structure in the left-hand side-bar of each article, but given the change-phobia of Misplaced Pages that's probably just a dream.) I don't think we should make major changes to our article-titling practices just to try to make categories a bit less useless (though I admit I like to see similar articles in a given category titled in a uniform way, if there's no reason other than random variation why they should be different).--Kotniski (talk) 18:19, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
              • Re "expandable category tree structure". This is part of a debate that took place computer science in the 1970s between the hierarchical database model and the relational database model. The hierarchical model was largely rejected in favour of relational model, so it is not surprising if the developers consider further development of categories sticking plaster programming. -- PBS (talk) 20:57, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow, I couldn't be more opposed to this. I do not have time right now but I will elaborate. Just placing this here to give a prod to not change any language precipitously.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:02, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

To what are you opposed?Kotniski (talk) 18:19, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I assumed he was referring to the final paragraph/sentence of Tony's opening comment in this section, but it would be good to verify. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:29, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh deary me. Please refer to my comment of a couple of minutes ago in the section above - the general sense of it fits here as well. SamBC(talk) 17:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Verified Audit Circulation sounds like a generally used term of art within its sphere, but instead it refers to a specific company. I did not expect this, and nobody who happens to be unfamiliar with the company could be expected to know. Even if one is looking for the company, a reasonable qualifier , like (company) is helpful. (I am, for example, familiar with the concept of audited circulation figures for publications, but I've never heard of the company & unless I'm mistaken, it is not the major company in the field--and even if it is, the article does not say so.) Similarly, if one is looking for a law with a rather general title, one is normally looking for either a comparative study of such laws, or the law in a particular jurisdiction. A heading such as] is useless--unless that jurisdiction happens to be Hong Kong, one doesn't know if there will be any information there. If one is very familiar with a law of a similar title elsewhere, confusion will also occur. enWikipedia covers the world,so things which are likely to be meaningful only in a particular part of the world need specification, which should bethought of as different for disambiguation. Here's an example:redirects to --specifies exactly what it was about and anyone who wants to know about the general concept or about the law elsewhere, which will probably be about half the users, will know to go elsewhere (not that many of the other articles have been written). But unfortunately the general term Securities law redirects to just this article, which is a useless and incorrect redirect at least half the time--this may be another problem, but its part of the confusion about the need to identify subjects. We are writing an encyclopedia not as a work of logical organization, but as something to be of immediate use to real world users. It doesn't matter if the qualifiers are sometimes unstandardized; it matters that the exist. The proper term I suggest is that the title must be clear to someone with a basic knowledge of the subject field. I don't expect Euler identity to be comprehensible to someone totally unfamiliar with mathematics--and even if it is, the article won't be of much value to them, but even here it would help if it was qualified as (mathematics), because though a mathematical may immediately realize Identity is used in a special way, others will not. A related article Euler's formula needs to clarify in the title whether it's mathematics or chemistry.Not doing so helps nobody. The principle is that Misplaced Pages is a general encyclopedia, not a specialized one. DGG ( talk ) 00:17, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course those of us unfamiliar with "Verified Audit Circulation" wouldn't know it's a corporation from just looking at the title... so what? In what contexts besides maybe in some kind of category list, would it matter? I mean, either you're looking for it, and so know what it is, or you run into it in another article which almost certainly provides the necessary context, as in, "While John Doe was CEO of Verified Audit Circulation, ...". What's the problem?

I also don't see the distinction to which you refer in practical terms. Can you (or someone) provide an example of a title what would be recognizable to someone familiar with the topic, but not to someone "with a basic knowledge of the subject field", or vice versa? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:44, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• Oh, I now see what the problem is and where potential difficulties may arise. B2C points to the need for context. It's counter-intuitive to need to rely on context, because what happens in most cases people doing web searches for 'audit circulation'? This is where WP:AT fails. The reader will see this WP article among the first GHits, but will be disappointed by the result; they will not know that WP does not have an article on the subject they are searching for, and so are misled and may feel deceived. The corporate name in this case really ought to be qualified or dabbed because it sounds too generic, same applies in the case of laws or government agencies or bureaux where the jurisdiction is not in the title. Web searched may not necessarily be aware that the use of capitals here denotes a proper noun because Gsearches are case insensitive. However, if it's made clear from the outset that an article actually refers to "Verified Audit Circulation Corp" or "Verified Audit Circulation LLC" or whatever the legal form is, they will know not to waste their time clicking on that link. --Ohconfucius 04:36, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• But it does not fail because in the example you give the Google search also returns the first sentence of the article "Verified Audit Circulation is a U.S. company that conducts circulation audits of both free and paid print publications and of traffic figures for websites". I had this discussion over Oliver Cromwell see Talk:Oliver Cromwell (died 1655)#Move. But it does mean that the first sentence has to get in the most relevant points (as is done in the first sentence of Verified Audit Circulation). Perhaps to help navigation from search engines this could be suggested as desirable in the the policy. -- PBS (talk) 20:26, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• So, I believe you're saying that in the case of relatively obscure topics with names that are likely to be used as search strings, the title should be disambiguated. Well, then, we've reach the same point here as I did with SamBC above (where it stalled). At this point I say... As always, the devil is in the details.

  Specifically, how do we express and convey this in this policy without creating a situation in which article title discussions are even more contentious than they already are? How do we determine whether a given name is sufficiently likely to be used as a search string to warrant this special treatment? How do we decide what exactly that special treatment should be in each case? And, perhaps most importantly, how does this really change anything?

  In the current situation, someone searching with "audit circulation" -- the first ghit, by the way, at least for me, is the website of Verified Audit Circulation - verifiedaudit.com -- might come upon our article at Verified Audit Circulation. They will realize it is not their article seconds later after reading the lead.

  Now, how would the situation change if we followed one of your suggestions, say by moving the article to Verified Audit Circulation Corp? Well, the same user would end up at the same article, with a slightly different title. They will realize it is not their article a few seconds later after reading the title and/or the lead. I'm sorry, but I really don't see a big difference here. In fact, at least in the current case they are likely to realize that WP has no other article named Verified Audit Circulation, but in the suggested situation, being at Verified Audit Circulation Corp is likely to wrongly suggest to them that there is another article named Verified Audit Circulation. So at best, it's a wash, and it's likely to make matters worse. Please explain how this would be an improvement. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:27, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• I believe I already explained it above, it lies with anticipating readers' expectations. The current way titles are configured for generic-sounding names (no, I'm not talking about relatively unique names such as 'Intel' vs 'Intel Corp') potentially leads the searcher/reader to fall on the wrong article more often than not. You seem to believe that it doesn't matter but I think it does. Still using the above example, amigo, if you can't see the difference, then perhaps the problem lies with you and not with me. At present, a Gsearch for 'Verified Audit Circulation Corp' doesn't show the WP article, whereas the WP article for the company shows up when searching for 'audit circulation'. So it is a problem, n'est-ce pas? --Ohconfucius 06:52, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• No, I really don't understand. I'm not denying the possibility that the problem lies with me - I might be having a dense moment. If so, I just need a clear explanation of what you're say, and I'll get it. Believe me.

  You say "the current way" "potentially leads the searcher/reader to fall on the wrong article more often than not". Please explain how changing the name of the article currently at Verified Audit Circulation to Verified Audit Circulation Corp would even affect the likelihood of users searching with, say, "audit circulation", reaching this article, much less make it less likely. If you believe the same article, when moved to Verified Audit Circulation Corp, will be less likely to show up in the "audit circulation" search results simply because of the title change, then you don't understand how google searches work. First, Verified Audit Circulation will remain a redirect to the article. More importantly, google will "learn" where the new article has been moved. Remember, it's reporting results largely based on article content, not the article title... we can move the article to Red fairies in Volkswagens, and google will still find it. I think you're assuming the title in general, and even a minor change in the title, affects search results much more than it actually does.

  You say, "a Gsearch for 'Verified Audit Circulation Corp' doesn't show the WP article". Right. So what? Who is going to be searching with that string? What does that show?

  You also say, " whereas the WP article for the company shows up when searching for 'audit circulation'." Right. Again, and why do you think that will change if the article is moved to Verified Audit Circulation Corp? People will still be searching with "audit circulation", and the article now at Verified Audit Circulation Corp will be just as good of match, and will show up the same spot (all other factors held equal) in the search results.

  What am I missing? --Born2cycle (talk) 07:35, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• Also, note that both Google and WP results don't just present a list of titles - they also display snippets of the article lead, so it's easy to see what the article is about without relying solely on the title, if that's what you're thinking. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:57, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• OK, now let me use some other examples to illustrate how I believe article titles ought to be named: cases where the terms are generic or names common, our policy ought to mandate disambiguation from the outset. It would have the advantage of clarity, and the dab page would be a first stop where namesakes can be listed whether there is an article or not. Red links can serve the purpose of inciting users to create articles of notable instances. The principle seems to be well applied in cases such as Peter Jones and Paul Smith, both of which are disambiguating pages notwithstanding very prominent examples (Peter Jones (department store) and Paul Smith (fashion designer)). As I am myself a minimalist, I believe that simplicity is good, but oversimplicity can be a disservice to readers by the ambiguity it creates. --Ohconfucius 04:46, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, let's add you to the group of editors — along with Dicklyon, Noetica, Tony1 and SamBC — who want articles with "generic sounding names" to be predisambiguated (disambiguated even when there is no conflict with any other uses of that name in Misplaced Pages).

Like I've said four times now (search for "devil" on this page), the devil is in the details. How do we express and convey this in this policy without creating a situation in which article title discussions are even more contentious than they already are? How do we decide whether a given name is "generic sounding", or not? How do we decide how to disambiguate it if there are no other uses to disambiguate from? That is, Cork (city), for example, is disambiguated with "city" because it is the only use of "cork" in Misplaced Pages that is a city... but we need to have other articles to know that. If there were other cities named Cork, the "city" would not be an appropriate disambiguator (unless it was the primary use relative to the other cities). If there were no other uses at all of "Cork", then it could just be at Cork. Our whole system of deciding how to disambiguate is based on looking at other uses in Misplaced Pages; so how do we decide how to disambiguate when there are no other uses?

Finally, and most importantly, what problem is solved by introducing all these complications? How is Misplaced Pages improved if we start predisambiguating titles of articles about topics with generic names?

Now, what typically happens in these discussions when they get down to these nitty-gritty questions is... the discussion ends. Over and over, and we never get anywhere. That's the point.

With regard to Peter Jones and Paul Smith, there are over a dozen other uses of each in WP, and we've decided that among them there is no primary topic. That's a separate issue, one that we're accustomed to handling. The issue we're talking about is disambiguating something even when there are no other uses in WP. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:32, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Do not speak for me, or assume that I will support the same approach as some others, even if we agree more often than not. And if you want to see discussion, try limiting your own posts to no more than about 20% of the total, instead of your typical 40%. It's not reasonable to expect others to answer every one of your questions when you have such a history of dominating discussions and not listening or allowing others to help frame or lead the discussion. Dicklyon (talk) 18:44, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Queries that may be related to the above

Colleagues, it seems useful to gather here a few imponderables that might have a bearing on our discussion above. I approach these from a position of ignorance. Please add to this list, anyone, article titles that might help us to sort out what to do.

• Pension administration (US). This is as I found it. Do the current rules disallow this kind of specificity in a title? There seem to be no other contenders for the title "space", but I'd find "Pension administration" impossibly vague.
• Unit Investment Trust. No "(US)", and close by the first one in the same category list. Now given the caps, I clicked on this one thinking it was a formal title (of a company?), and when I saw the opening phrase I almost clicked away:

  "A Unit Investment Trust (UIT) is a US investment company offering a fixed (unmanaged) portfolio of securities having a definite life."

  Ah, but read on, way past the opening text that would appear in a google search entry: if you missed the opening "A", you'd fail to understand that it's actually a type of investment company. I'd rather have the "class of ..." or "type of ..." up-front at the opening; this is part of a larger problem that occurs when articles are not themed clearly as generic or titular, and it brushes up against the practices of naming titles. So I suppose it should be downcased per MOSCAPS, although I've had to mount an RM to have it moved (sigh). Chaotic casing and unclear openings are not helping the recognisability issue one bit. Another little issue is that the UK equivalent is called Unit trust, as it notes at the top in tiny print. I find this rather unhelpful to the readers.

• Payments Council: I have a real problem in the field of finance, banking, tax, accounting, where the titles might sometimes be unique (on WP anyway) but conceptually are unhelpful, even frustrating.
• Banking Code. Hmmm. I've read this short article and I still can't work out what it is, exactly. Tony (talk) 12:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Dohn Joe, I trust you will not launch in and change the first one while this issue is being discussed (as you've done previously when I've raised examples here). Tony (talk) 10:59, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Is this a new game? Guess the article content from the title? Or is the game to find articles with a poorly written lead? Sounds like fun! Let's see what gems Random article bring us. Here are several that I have no idea what the topic is by looking only at the title: Tatra 57, Old and in the Way, or how about Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility -- which Mount Pleasant is that? Or might it be the facility in Mount Pleasant, NC with a different name? Or might it even be an arcane way to refer to Sing Sing, which was built in the town of Mount Pleasant, New York? Or how about Bacabeira? Is that a place name? Or a biologic taxa? Or maybe a nickname for a footballer? The point is that few expect an article title to summarize article content.

I'll grant that the lead to Unit Investment Trust is poorly written, though that alone is no reason for renaming. I'd agree with renaming as Unit investment trust since it is not the formal name of any entity. It might even be that a merger with Unit trust is appropriate. You note the tiny print of the hatnote, but unless you've modified your CSS, the size of the hatnote text is the same as the article text and hatnotes ARE one of the methods for addressing ambiguity on Misplaced Pages.

You say that Pension administration (US) is as you found it -- but you moved that page on Sept 28 from Pension Administration.

In principle, I don't have that much of an issue if a generally supported naming convention recommends pre-disambiguation in some circumstances, such as Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (government and legislation) or Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility) or WP:USPLACE. These define the scope of applicability and provides guidance for consistent application. I very much oppose the notion that a fundamental principle of Wikpedia's article naming practices needs to be changed. older ≠ wiser 14:02, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Tony, how many times will you bring up the same point, and elicit the same explanations, like Bkonrad has taken the time and energy to do, again, here, which you will not address, only to bring it up again and again and again? Enough!. If you just repeatedly raise the same issue and don't engage in constructive dialog, you're just being tendentious and disruptive, by definition. See WP:TE. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:59, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• UIT – I worked on Unit Investment Trust a bit; it needs to be downcased still. It's nothing to do with the US. If we had all these generics in lower case, maybe we'd have a better chance of understanding upper-case terms as names; but we're still a long way from getting there, so I agree that the extra disambig can sometimes be an important clue; we should not expunge those just because we can, title-ambiguity-wise. Dicklyon (talk) 22:53, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

This appears to be a rare occasion I agree with you, Dick ;) Unit investment trust should be downcased. Pension administration (US) is an inappropriate title, the Misplaced Pages norm for this type of name would be the descriptive title 'Pension administration in the United States'. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 23:18, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Here's another weird one that seems to be enforced by the current practice: Basic Safety Training. It's downcased in the article text, BTW. Tony (talk) 13:11, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Like many articles, it is capitalized where it should not be. Yet other articles are not capitalized, and ought to be. Neither of these is "enforced" by anything. Tony has spent some time usefully decreasing the first set of errors; but this campaign is now increasing the second set about as fast. Please do this one and stop. JCScaliger (talk) 21:22, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

And get a load of this: Electronic Filing System ... um ... Singapore judiciary got its hands on this article title "space" first, so finders keepers.

Folks, our articles generally fall into one of two categories: Those with names and those without names for which we have come up with a descriptive title. I suppose we're talking about what some perceive to be a gray area - topics with names that look like descriptions. But, here's the thing -- if it's the only use of that description-looking name in WP, we still use its name as the title of the article. If there ever is another article about a topic that uses that name, or an article for which that name is an appropriate descriptive title, then we disambiguate. To say that we should always disambiguate "such titles" brings us back to the devil that is in the details" I keep bringing it up (and I won't again - just search for "devil" on this page). --Born2cycle (talk) 18:52, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Taking a holistic approach to Misplaced Pages title policy – Is it an idea whose time has come?

Having been following WP titling policy for several years and more recently actively participating in the RM process, I am convinced that our titling policy is much too complex to be applied effectively. I don’t think the complexity is intentional, but comes as a result of our failure to take a holistic view of titling policy while making a whole myriad of incremental changes to a variety of policy, guidelines and MOS related to titling. Add on top of that is the litany of advice from WikiProjects laying out naming conventions for particular categories of articles and we have a proverbial Tower of Babel when trying to apply all this to any given article title. Think about it. We have WP:NAMINGCRITERIA—Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness and Consistency. On top of that we can invoke WP:COMMONNAMES, WP:POVTITLE, WP:PRECISION, WP:DAB, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, WP:MOSCAPS, WP:DIACRITICS, WP:EN and WP:ENGVAR. (I suspect I missed a few and intentionally didn’t list all the project level naming conventions). All these can and do trump each other when applied to individual articles. Imagine a new editor trying to avoid running afoul of all these conflicting rules.

There are several truths associated with WP article titles—every title has to be unique (all 3.9 million of them), every title probably has a logical alternative, and for every title, there is probably at least one editor who vehemently disagrees with it and has a better alternative. For some reason, editors become emotionally attached to their favorite alternative titles and the selective rationale for them. That emotion leads to a lot of unnecessary incivility and contentiousness over article titles. Over the next ten years, the probability that WP will have 6 million + articles is high. That’s 2 million new titles and millions more alternatives. There’s another truth associated with Misplaced Pages article titles and the things editors say about them is that it is pure fantasy to think that any editor can proclaim how millions of readers are going to behave if a title isn’t precisely the way they believe it should be. Everytime I read readers are going to do this or readers are going to do that in a move discussion, I cringe at the lunacy of such statements. Readers don’t visit WP for titles, they visit WP for content and our titling policy doesn’t recognize that. Yet, we continue to debate (and expend valuable volunteer energy) the silliest title changes when that energy would be much better spent improving content.

Here’s a little metaphor to explain my point a bit more graphically. Imagine we had an article entitled Dog Shit and in reality, from a content perspective, it is metaphorically a pile of crap—no sources, bad lead, bad prose, bad formatting, etc. Someone thinks there’s a better title for the Dog Shit article—alternatives (Dog shit (MOSCAPS)), (Dog feces (Precision)), (Dog poop (POVTitle)), (Dog crap (Commonname)), and my favorite (Hundekot (because the crap was taken by a German Sheppard)). We could select anyone of the alternative titles (although Hundekot would be a stretch), but in the end, the article’s content would still be a pile of crap (metaphorically at least) because an article title (no matter what it is doesn’t make up for bad content).

If anyone has got this far and wants to invoke WP:TLDR, don’t. Sometimes you just have to listen first, before evaluating an idea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike Cline (talk • contribs)

Proposal for a proposal

I believe we need to accomplish two things relative to article titles. One, we need to drastically simplify WP:Titles and the associated guidelines and MOS. And when I say simplify, I mean a reduction of at least 2/3rds of the collective Babel it contains now. Two, we need to change the focus of titling discussions (including our formal processes) in a way that not only stabilizes titles, but makes titling an afterthought when compare to the imperative of creating and maintaining good content in WP. I have an idea as to how we might do this, but I want to point out how we might simplify our naming policy. Currently our five naming criteria—Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness, Consistency could be reasonably reduced to three, eliminating two that are nearly impossible to define let alone interpret and implement.

• Recognizability (not a real word) doesn’t say what it means. What is means is: Article titles should be representative or reflective of article content. (i.e. We wouldn’t name the article on Cleveland, Ohio Chicago, IL)
• Naturalness is not definable or interpretable – its lunacy to think we can deduce what millions of editors think. Giving license to that lunacy in policy is a colossal mistake. This one goes.
• Precision is another criterion that should go. Precision is essentially impossible when there are multitudes of alternative titles. What is more precise—Water or H2O? This criterion has spawned all sorts of Babel with PRIMARY TOPIC, COMMONNAME, etc.
• Conciseness is a criterion that is easy to understand and interpret. Some titles are more or less concise than alternatives. Some level of conciseness is desirable and easy to determine and our policy doesn’t need to be The most concise title
• Consistency, which I believe, is the single most important criterion and unfortunately the most ignored in the sea of Babel around titling. We should be able to establish reasonable naming conventions for different types of articles, use and enforce those conventions.

So how do we go about simplifying our titling policy and associated guidelines and MOS without disrupting the encyclopedia? It won’t be easy, but if we take an objective look at it, it would be possible. I’d like to see a couple of things happen.

• Establishing a defacto moratorium on WP:TITLE policy changes for the next 12 months. In the last 12 months there’s been over 500 edits to the policy page, who knows how much energy spent in discussion around those edits and all we’ve accomplished is a rearrangement of the dysfunctional Babel that is our titling policy.
• Establishing a WikiProject Titles (or some other venue) that can systematically and rationally take a holistic examination of our titling policy. (We have 3.9 million examples to work with). This might take a year, but a project like this could recommend changes in policy and process that would not only simplify titling, but would refocus titling processes to put the emphasis on good content versus titling for titling sake.

In my view, the key ideas here are simplification and content taking priority over titles. We can’t do that without taking a reasoned, systematic, holistic look at this. Sustaining and incrementally modifying the current state of Babel that is our titling policy will not bode well for us as we generate the next 2-3 million articles. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:41, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you in principal, but disagree on some of the important details.

In a sense I agree that "consistency" is most important, but there are two ways "consistency" is commonly interpreted, which I refer to as the narrow and broad sense of "consistency". The narrow way is the interpretation intended in the listed criteria on this policy page - for articles to be named consistently with other similar articles. This is why it's often not given high priority, because doing so often conflicts with other criteria and is often considered less important (New York City, not New York City, New York, Catherine the Great, not Catherine II, etc.). The broad interpretation of consistency is that all titles should be consistent with the broad naming principles of Misplaced Pages - this makes titling more predictable and less contentious.

Recognizability and naturalness are really just attempts to explain the underlying reasons for using common names - and using common names is a fundamental guiding principle in the vast, vast majority of our articles' titles.

In addition to consolidating and simplifying this policy and all the related guidelines, I think the main missing piece is a method for how to prioritize, or at least weigh against each other, the various "rules" when there are conflicts. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:53, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I think you exaggerate the problem - for the vast majority of articles, there is no dispute over the right title. But I agree this whole page could be rewritten (again) to make it clearer how titles are chosen in practice. Although any attempt to describe the process "holistically" will mean admitting that there we tolerate certain inconsistencies just because editors in certain subject areas have made it a matter of faith that they need to do it differently and will not agree to standardize (place-names in the U.S. with redundant disambiguation,and so on).--Kotniski (talk) 18:58, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Consistency is the least useful. Its use reminds me of the old WWI marching song "We're, here, because we're here, because we're here, because we're here" (to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne"). The justification for keeping Zurich Airport at Zürich Airport was because Zurich was at Zürich and guess what one of the arguments for keeping Zurich with dots was because articles like the airport article used them. I think consistency is a problem because it is easy to be seduced into seeing consistency in data sets that does not exist (Martian canals). While consistency has its place, it should be subservient to common name (it took a long time to get that agreed at WP:NCROY and WP:FLORA), and also to a lesser extent to the other bullet points. -- PBS (talk) 21:08, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Consistency is important, but PBS does make an important argument of what can happen if its placed too high up. People will end up locking things into one form or another because another page uses it. I still believe he goes too far by saying its the least important.∞陣内Jinnai 21:58, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

The trouble with consistency, as B2C has intimated, is that people who insist on being "consistent" in certain areas actually end up causing inconsistency. This is most obvious in the case of place-names - people try to enforce religiously the conventions that have been worked out for places in particular countries, on grounds of "consistency", but because these various conventions are not uniform, we actually end up with inconsistent titling between places in different countries.--Kotniski (talk) 10:27, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, Recognizability does mean what it says. Why do we use United Kingdom and not UK, which may well be now rather more common? One minor reason is the slight ambiguity with the University of Kentucky. Another is tone, which is not one of the questions (although I would call it Naturalness if pressed). But surely the chief reason is that most people will more quickly recognize what article they are at? JCScaliger (talk) 00:21, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Naturalness is the most important of the criteria; why would you recommend removing it entirely? The important thing is for readers to be able to find the article they're looking for as quickly as possible, and using the most natural title possible is the best way to ensure that. Powers 04:07, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think consistency is the most important, but it's important. And just because naturalness and precision are hard to define doesn't mean we'd be better off to ignore them. I pretty much agree with the comments on recognizability and conciseness, but it's less clear where that should take us in re-expressing the guidelines. I think the problems we get into are about trying to find narrow interpretations of these points, or to apply one over another, rather than be open to what's a better title for a particular article. Dicklyon (talk) 04:34, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

"Recognizability – Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?"—there was never consensus for this. Tony (talk) 02:05, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

If you've worked out where it came from, or where we can find discussion about, let us know. Dicklyon (talk) 05:55, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

It was part of what came out of a massive discussion and reconstruction process some time (2 years??) ago. The discussion thread above seems to show that it is still generally supported. Of course, this page is still structured in a less-than-straightfoward way and could be much improved, but I don't think there's any special problem with this phrase - it just means that we want an article title to be recognizable to the sort of person who might be looking for that article (i.e. someone who has heard of the topic - otherwise why would they be looking for it? - but isn't an expert in it - otherwise what would they be expecting to learn by looking it up on Misplaced Pages?)--Kotniski (talk) 10:01, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I see it was your words that we're arguing about; this 17 Aug 2010 diff. There had been language before about how the title was more for the general reader than for the experts, which I think is more along the lines that Noetica is concerned about. That was removed as "fluff" in this 25 Sept 2009 diff; taking it out of the familiarity clause may have been part of the present disagreement. Dicklyon (talk) 23:57, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

How to start

As with many discussions, it is possible to wander off into abstraction where debate can circle about until everyone despairs over any advance. Maybe it would be helpful to identify a particular example, or a class of examples, where some problem has arisen and discuss that to see whether any general principles come out of it.

For example, we presently have Coriolis effect as the title of an article with a redirect from Coriolis force. In terms of Google searches, the latter is the more common terminology: is a Google search a definitive selection criterion?

From a different stance, Coriolis force is a force, not an effect, technically speaking, so maybe the more precise usage is a criterion?

We also have Coriolis effect (perception). In this field there is no ambiguity: Coriolis effect is always used, never Coriolis force, and in fact, the Coriolis effect has nothing to do with the Coriolis force of physics, and it is related to rotation in a completely different way. (It's related to the construction of the inner ear.) So in the case of these competing definitions, do we take the unambiguous usage as paramount over an ambiguous usage?

Is the solution to use Coriolis force for the physical force, and a disambiguation page for Coriolis effect subdivided into Coriolis effect (perception) and Coriolis effect (physics)? Is the solution in this instance amenable to generalization?

Any thoughts? Brews ohare (talk) 18:29, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I suppose it depends what we think the primary usage for "Coriolis effect" is (what, if anything, do we think a clear majority of readers are looking for if they type in "Coriolis effect"?) If we don't find either of the two meanings to be primary, we go for a disambiguation page (though that's not a particularly helpful solution when there are only two topics). At least, that's the way it's handled according to existing principles - are you suggesting that these be modified in some way?--Kotniski (talk) 18:34, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

It's highly conjectural what the majority of readers are looking for. The majority of medically minded readers or airplane pilots are looking for Coriolis effect (perception), The majority of physics readers are looking for Coriolis force. By about two-to-one google searches favor Coriolis force. My solution would be to use Coriolis force for physics and Coriolis effect for perception with a For...see note at the top of each page referring to the other usage.

My basis would be that Coriolis force is unambiguously physics, and Coriolis effect has a clear meaning in perception, although it can be confused with physics. So some physics readers will be subject to an inconvenience, but not the majority, and medical readers will be unencumbered.

I am unsure how to formulate the general principles that apply here.

Of course, that leaves aside the politics of dealing with the ruling clique at Coriolis effect.Brews ohare (talk) 18:48, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

This search on "Coriolis effect" that excludes poetry and includes "ear" produces 164,000 hits; this search that excludes "Coriolis effect" and references to poetry produces 92,300 hits and this search for "Coriolis force" that excludes "Coriolis effect" produces 319,000 hits. I conclude that the majority of readers use "Coriolis force" to find "Coriolis force", and the majority of those using "Coriolis effect" are looking for "Coriolis effect (perception)" and only a minority group use "Coriolis effect" to find what is actually "Coriolis force". Brews ohare (talk) 19:31, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

It's tidy, but I don't follow the logic of your counts. If you look at books, it seems apparent that the physics (esp. geophysics) topic is primary for Coriolis effect. Dicklyon (talk) 20:14, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I suppose the "logic" at issue here is how to set up a search, assuming that it is agreed that a search is a useful way to evaluate a choice of titles. I find that this Google book search on Coriolis effect excluding poetry and perception produces 91,300 hits while this Google book search arranged to include perception has 1380 hits. On the other hand, this Google book search on Coriolis force that excludes poetry and perception comes up with 325,000 results. So I conclude again that most readers of WP use "Coriolis force" to search for Coriolis force, while about a third as many search on "Coriolis effect" for this purpose. A much smaller number search for "Coriolis effect (perception)" using Coriolis effect, and of course, they are not looking for Coriolis force.

So based upon Google book searches we end up with Coriolis force as the practical title, and two choices for Coriolis effect: have it refer to the perception (a convenience for medical readers) or have "Coriolis effect" redirect to Coriolis force with a For...see for medical readers directing them to Coriolis force (perception).

The fundamental question, though, is whether Google searches are to be the main determinant in this way, or Google book searches, and if so, how are such searches to be constructed (it is an art). Alternative to Google searches, or supplementing them, one can try to use some other rationale like connection to fields where the terms are unambiguously used, or minimal disturbance to readers, or something.

As another wrinkle, isn't it common in WP to use titles with parenthetic end-qualifiers as members of a family of such titles distinguished by different parenthetic back ends in conjunction with disambiguation pages? Brews ohare (talk) 21:37, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Recognisability: the "restored" version is not well founded; what to do next

I have been looking through the archives. I see a great deal of discussion of the fundamental questions and principles (or of what preceded them) in late 2009. But I see no agreement on the wording that has now been put in place for recognisability. I find no endorsement of that by the community, or even any well-notified attempt at wide consultation. It is possible that I have missed something that should stand out as obvious in those reams of dialogue. I hope someone will point it out for us. So far it seems that the present wording was invented by Kotniski in this edit of 18 August 2010, and not addressed specifically in the ensuing discussion (though some called for a closer consideration, and caution in supplanting long-established wording: see this archived discussion).

It is interesting that Kotniski has supported Born2cycle's reversion to an earlier version. It is, as it turns out, Kotniski's version. Kotniski's edit summary: "let's not get silly about this - this is the wording that (a) is longer established, and (b) is the one the majority clearly support". Majority support? Hmm. Let's not get silly about this, indeed.

The wording Born2cycle has now removed was discussed by five editors (not "two or three"), in a section specifically dedicated to it, from 20 to 22 May 2011. See Recognizability, in Archive 32. The result of the discussion was a reversion (in this edit) to the core of the provision, without any complex qualification:

Recognizability – article titles should be the most recognizable description of the topic.

That text was soon simplified (see edit), with a reference to the discussion I have just linked:

Recognizability – article titles are expected to be a recognizable name or description of the topic.

This developed into the question form that has stood until supplanted in recent days:

Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?

The participants in that open and well-labelled discussion:

User:Kaligelos

User:Ohms law

User:Tony1

User:Pmanderson

User:WhatamIdoing

In the months that followed there was extraordinary action, involving attempts to present relevant portions of the page by transclusion from another page (by Born2cycle, with heavy resistance from others), and the linking of an essay by Born2cycle (also resisted, and not currently implemented).

Born2cycle has placed transclusion features (against objections) that persist in the present version of the page. One regrettable side-effect of an earlier attempt: when we consult certain earlier drafts of the page (this one for 15 July 2011, for example) we are misled. The current text concerning recognisability (and adjacent provisions) is displayed in that dated draft, not the text that was in place at the time.

It is plain to me, at least. The evidence suggests a bad case of WP:OWNERSHIP. It is extremely difficult to plot the development of the page because of those unilateral shifts, and what might be regarded as smokescreens and distortions of history. Equally, it is perilous to claim that there is consensus for any historical version under such conditions of documentation.

The extended chaotic discussions above this section are cause for concern. There was a unilateral restoration of a provision claimed as "consensual" and in place "for years" (though see my critique), countering a later discussed changed that stood for seven months. There were appeals to WP:AN and to WP:ANI, where Born2cycle was counselled to go back to the page and wait for discussion; and another admin proposed that he absent himself for a week from this page. He did not even acknowledge those suggestions (though he had sought advice); he pressed on with a campaign for his wording here, and diverted attention at WP:ANI to those who opposed the speed and belligerence with which he pursued that course. Some editors have endorsed the restoration; but the discussion has been laughably shallow and narrow; and an impartially presented RFC has been hijacked, against the possibility of broad consultation and quiet consideration.

As I write, Born2cycle's last edit of the page (soon after the WP:ANI section had been archived) restored his favoured text and removed the "under discussion" tag. Almost simultaneously, though, he continued the discussion with a reply to Dicklyon, and an invitation for Dicklyon to continue the discussion: "Please quote what specifically you're talking about."

Now, this is not a page for discussing user conduct. But it has been impossible in recent times to separate such conduct from content development, such is the domination of one editor here. I do not call for sanctions or penalties; I just want the history of these core policy provisions to be clearer. If anyone can add clarifying facts, or fill in missing episodes, that would be useful too.

What to do next? I can only speak for myself. I have not addressed content in the recent discussions, because conditions were plainly against calm deliberation. I have pointed that out consistently. That is how things remain. I propose that we put this issue aside to be dealt with later.

A core, contested provision on the page has no demonstrated consensus. It cannot be claimed as representing a status quo in future discussions.

–Noetica 23:44, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow, the history around July 14-15 is indeed rather confused and amazing, with Born2cycle repeatedly warring in his templated version of the provisions over repeated objections from Blueboar and others. But when I look at the transcluded template history, it seems to not exist until July 19. Did it get deleted and come back, or what? That hack sure does make it hard to understand what old versions looked like at the time. As for Kotniski's 17 Aug 2010 introduction of the currently controversial wording, I find nothing in the talk page related to it at all. Dicklyon (talk) 05:41, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow. Well my 2 cents is that I think recognizability as it is worded in the pre-Kotniski version and moreso Kotniski version is the issue itself. It seems to trump almost every other criteria when it should be of those one of the lesser ones as it isn't (by the pre-Kotniski edit version based on reliable sources. COMMONNAME should apply primarly to RSed items. Actually, easy-to-find and recognizable should probably just be merged. They basically say the same thing but one we rely on credible sources and the other we ignore them which goes against stuff like WP:RS and mostly use google hits which are far from perfect even when narrowed down.∞陣内Jinnai 06:45, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

You are all making one hell of a fuss about something that really is very trivial. All the sentence is doing is documenting the very well-known fact that we don't add extra information to titles to try to make them "recognizable" to people who aren't familiar with the topic at all. (We don't put "(footballer)" after the name of every obscure footballer, for example - we only do it if disambiguation is needed.) It's been like that on this page for ages, and didn't require discussion when it went in, because it isn't controversial. The RfC above confirms that this version continues to be supported. So what exactly is the problem? I certainly don't see a need to mark that whole section with a "neutrality" (?!) tag, when the dispute (insofar as there is one) concerns just one sentence, which is already marked as under discussion.--Kotniski (talk) 08:26, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Some of it is simple rephrasing of prose, but other prose changes change the meaning substantially.∞陣内Jinnai 18:11, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Some of what?--Kotniski (talk) 21:00, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

• Recognizable - that one did not have the idea that it was "readers who are familiar". It was only that the names appear in RSes.
• Easy to find (i think became commonness) which did not have any burdern on RSes nor did it try to push that "easy to find" aka commonnness is akin to COMMONNAME, the most often cited part of this policy.
• It removed precision entirely (being common or recognizable does not mean something is precise. Take, FE: Role-playing video game. It is not the common term (Role-playing game is and will never be avialable for that article because its broad-topic article), its not exactly all that recognizable though it is used by a few reliable sources, but it is precise. Instead Precise was replaced with disambiguate note that moved the text from the lead to where it would be. Moving the text there in and of itself is not inherently a malicious move as it could make it more clear, however, removing precise does appear to be a major change in policy that came under the guise of "not having any other meaning not covered" when there was no debate on that.
• Consise - dropping the note that disambig portion is also part of consise is a major change as without it there could, and have been, arguments that the disambig part isn't really a part of the title.
• Consistency change would have done better to give an internal link on the page, but I don't think there was any major changes here.∞陣内Jinnai 21:26, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

As to what to do next, like I say, I don't see any problem (except for the fact that a few editors have suddenly and coincidentally arrived at this page to make a fuss about it) with the particular "recognizability clause" (it's only descriptive, anyway - "consensus has generally formed around the following questions"), but we might take advantage of this sudden surge of interest in this page to make a new, more comprehensible draft of the policy - I'm sure we can describe the process by which we arrive at article titles in a more simple manner than this page does at the moment.--Kotniski (talk) 08:33, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

It could also be argued that it was an attempt to sneak a major change in under the guise of a copyedit or clarrification edit. I'm going to assume that was not the case and if so, you shouldn't mind debating the changes and their merits since it has been brought up for discussion.∞陣内Jinnai 21:26, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

You know, we just had an RFC on this very point. A substantial majority preferred the present wording; nobody who didn't come in to complain about this was convinced. Vast amounts of Wikidrama were produced.

Now, in an editor who didn't insist so loudly, elsewhere, that consensus is required to change even a guideline (much less a policy), I would be more persuaded that this is simply a variant definition of consensus; but not here. Please drop this, together with the unnecessary and unpopular disambiguation it is in aid of. JCScaliger (talk) 21:46, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

With respect, JCS, you seem not to understand what is going on. Have you fallen victim to Twitterdom, so that you no longer read sustained argument? You write:

"You know, we just had an RFC on this very point. A substantial majority preferred the present wording; nobody who didn't come in to complain about this was convinced."

Did you not notice that the process (started correctly by Dicklyon, with a call for new input and moderation) was immediately subverted by unilateral tabling of selected old input and a call for a most spurious "status quo" to be accepted without further question? Did you not notice that this disruption occasioned action at WP:ANI? I am surprised. After all, you were there yourself, complaining about those who deplored the subversion of due process at this page. (Review the discussion at ANI here.) If you are partisan and have some relevant history, just declare it. Then we'll all understand.

Recognisability, as it is presently constructed (after resurrection to an earlier state over objections that have not been met), is just one of the ill-considered provisions that need review on the page. Obviously some are uncomfortable with that; and they hasten discussion and belittle any objections to keep their rather convoluted version in place. That has nothing to do with discovering consensus.

This page, and this talkpage, could do with the sorts of reforms we have seen at WP:MOS and WT:MOS. Things are much calmer and more respectful there, since the cessation of earlier hostilities, and a move away from sharp practice. Till that is achieved, WP:TITLE is flawed. Nothing can be done about that unless we respect Wikipedian norms for collegial development of policy.

Noetica 23:13, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I noticed both of you attempting to impose "rules of order." Both of you seem to have been making them up; Born2Cycle at least appears to have been adjusting mainly his own contribution, which is what WP:REFACTOR says to do.

But the opinions on the question of substance are still on this page; they are not in favor of what you demand.

You also have been adding a {{NPOV}} banner to the section at hand; this is unjustified by your own arguments. Even if an argument were made that it somehow produces unneutral titles, this is the wrong tag, and redundant with {{underdiscussion}}. Please stop adding drama. JCScaliger (talk) 23:28, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

JCS:

"I noticed both of you attempting to impose 'rules of order.' Both of you seem to have been making them up; ..."

Not so. Just for a start, review the instructions that appear on the top of a policy page when you set out to edit it:

You are editing a page that documents an English Misplaced Pages policy. While you may be bold in making minor changes to this page, consider discussing any substantive changes first on the page's talk page.

It is no minor change, as evidenced by the vehemence with which it is promoted or resisted. Now, read my account of B2C's other departures from accepted standards above.

"Born2Cycle at least appears to have been adjusting mainly his own contribution, ..."

Factually wrong, as inspection of the history of this talkpage shows.

The {{NPOV}} tag is most appropriate. It is clear that there is a push to maintain the present wording of major provisions, and it is supported by distinctly non-neutral, partisan means. As for drama, you add to it when you rail against calls for good order, and dismiss them as inappropriate.

I call for acceptance that things are broken here, and they can't be fixed until we let the oxygen of impartial scrutiny in. Wide community consultation and review, with systematic supervision from concerned admins if necessary. I am not calling for immediate action; people here are plainly not ready to settle down to it. But I want it on record that the page is seriously compromised by zealotry. And let me preempt any suggestion that I push any agenda of my own in editing the page. Review my 24 well-explained and orderly edits before making any such claim.

Noetica 23:47, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Concerning the NPOV tag, please discuss Misplaced Pages:Policies and guidelines#Not part of the encyclopedia, which I interpret as supporting JCScaliger's interpretation. Art LaPella (talk) 00:13, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. To quote:

Misplaced Pages has many policies and guidelines about encyclopedic content. These standards require verifiability, neutrality, respect for living people, and more.

The policies, guidelines, and process pages themselves are not part of the encyclopedia proper. Consequently, they do not generally need to conform with the content standards. It is therefore not necessary to provide reliable sources to verify Misplaced Pages's administrative pages, or to phrase Misplaced Pages procedures or principles in a neutral manner, or to cite an outside authority in determining Misplaced Pages's editorial practices.

Indeed, the whole point of these pages is not to be neutral, but to express one side, when we agree on it. We may differ whether these five points are more rhetorically effective as questions, as criteria, or as demands; they've been all three. But none are, or are intended to be, neutral. JCScaliger (talk) 00:32, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the technical advice, Art. I have put a more appropriate tag in place. No one will deny the need for consensus in that crucial section, I hope.

Noetica 00:40, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

And will any deny that this new tag is redundant with {{policy}}? Let's see what other people think. JCScaliger (talk) 00:53, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

That's in {{policy}}, which is at the top of the page. JCScaliger (talk) 01:07, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I have applied a better tag, adapted exactly for disputed wording in policy. Sorry: took a while to find the right one.

Noetica 00:56, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Having placed {{Need consensus}} which is intended for articles (it plsces them in Category:Accuracy disputes; being designed for cases when an editor thinks particular information being deleted from an article or section is relevant and therefore should be allowed in the article or section); Noetica now places a tag which is completely redundant with {{underdiscussion}}, which has been present all along, and is more suitable to less than a dosen words. JCScaliger (talk) 01:07, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your observations, JCS. Please note that the wording of the section is disputed, not merely under discussion. Rather than edit-war with the two editors who have restored an old wording, even as discussion continued and without any proof of consensus for that change, I mark the wording as disputed. In fact, the whole section is disputed; it's just the recognisability part that is the focus of current disagreement.

Squash discussion if you must; and support non-consensual editing of the page at a crucial point. But do not extend the campaign to suppressing a template that shows there is dissent.

Noetica 01:21, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

To summarize:

• Is it disputed or discussed? Sounds like counting angels on the head of a pin. Without a dispute, why would we discuss it?
• Is it duplicated? Well, what if it is?
• Do we dispute the section or just recognizability?

It sounds like you might both agree to keeping the section warning without the duplicate warning below. Art LaPella (talk) 02:12, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd happily agree to that, Art. The dispute is the crux, along with contested editing that I for one do not wish to escalate into an edit war. It does affect the whole section, since the recognisability provision is intertwined in contested ways with the other provisions (though that is not highlighted here). For example, it is uncertain how the provision could be consistent with this (lower in the section):

The choice of article titles should put the interests of readers before those of editors, and those of a general audience before those of specialists.

The present qualification for recognisability considers the needs of those already familiar with the topic, not the "general audience". And it works in particular for the convenience of editors concerned with the article in question, who almost certainly have become familiar with the topic.

We are simply not ready to settle these things in the present climate, and I want no war on the page. But the dissatisfaction and discord needs to be signalled, even while a version that some of us consider non-consensual stays in place.

Would you please make that change then, Art? Assuming there are no objections. Do we also agree to enclose this whole discussion of tags in a navbox, or similar? It is a peripheral, procedural matter.

Noetica 03:00, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Sure, if there are no objections. I think you meant {{hat}} or its variations, not WP:Navbox. Art LaPella (talk) 03:16, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

OK. If there are objections, let it stay as it is. And no, I meant {{navbox}}, or the related {{hidden}} that was used tendentiously on this talkpage (a trigger for the ANI discussion referred to above). We can agree to hide merely procedural text.

Noetica 03:39, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

In reference to the July discussion about templating (selective transclusion, really) - all the concerns were addressed and all the issues were resolved; and that's why the changes were accepted. The new methods developed were documented at WP:SELECTIVETRANSCLUSION. There again is a great example of how WP should work (well, some collaboration would have been appreciated, but at least others clearly explained their objections so I could address them, and that certainly helped achieve a robust, general and minimally intrusive solution), and yet it's referenced above as if it was a bad thing.

As to the supposed contradiction between the current recognizability wording and the later wording about serving general readers over specialists, there is no contradiction. That's why the recognizabilty wording clarifies, "but not necessarily expert in". We try to make our titles recognizable to general readers who are familiar with the topic - not just to specialists or experts in the field. But no, we do not try to make titles of topics recognizable to general readers who are totally unfamiliar with the topic at issue. As has been noted time and time again, that would mean almost all of our titles would be more descriptive than they are. Since they aren't that descriptive, clearly that's not supported by consensus.

Finally, I'm sick and tired of being accused of violating WP:REFACTOR. Nobody provided a single diff at the AN/I to back up this absurd claim - I suggest this is because there aren't any. --Born2cycle (talk) 08:30, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Born2cycle, you appear to answer selectively, where you think you have a strong case. You are silent about the rest. But even on those selected points you revise history. For example, you know very well that your intrusive transclusion experiments were strenuously resisted. I have pointed out one abiding transclusion problem (see above) that you fail to address at all. You do not acknowledge it, but I warned that at the time that such innovations compromise the page's development, and its documentation. Others warned you also; but you do not listen.

I hope one day you will be ready to take the advice that you solicit at WP:AN (see material now moved to an WP:ANI archive, linked above) and wait for orderly discussion; or take a week off when things get heated, as another admin suggested. Till the climate changes here we cannot conduct the proper business of the page. At the very least, you could hold off from removing tags indicating discussion even as you continue it, restoring your contested wording. It is only because others back down, not wanting an edit war, that the historical version you favour is in place as I write. It has no consensual backing beyond what you have invented for it, and it was removed seven months ago following open discussion at this talkpage – with no complaint.

You do not have privileged authority that you regularly assume for yourself at this page, and in your dealings at RMs. Writing with boundless confidence here is one thing; having the genuine confidence to back off in favour of fresh community discussion is another.

Noetica 08:58, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Noetica, you seem to have arrived here and created a huge amount of unnecessary and unproductive drama over what appears to be some petty issue - please can you finally get to the point and propose and reason for a concrete change so that we can have some on-topic discussion? Thanks.--Kotniski (talk) 09:08, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Seems that way to you, no doubt. And it is easy to make it appear that way to others. You have reinstated wording that you invented in 2010, claiming vaguely that it was the result of a big discussion two years ago. No one has found any frank discussion, let alone endorsement, of your innovation in 2010. It was part of a major rewrite in a single edit. When it was squarely addressed (see my initial post in this section), it was rejected. This is not a consensual endorsement of your wording, whose introduction you are so unclear about. It is quite the opposite.

You can denigrate my objection as "a huge amount of unnecessary and unproductive drama"; if the consensus is that from now on we make policy by stealth, bullying, and obfuscation, I will withdraw. But I do not think we have consensus for that innovation, either.

You want to know my objections? Then clear the decks, start anew; and when we are all ready for a breath of fresh air, we can open the doors for a wide, genuine RFC to work things through. I'll have a lot to say then. But we are not ready yet.

Noetica 09:21, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

If you've got a proposal, then I think we're all ready to hear it. Since you insist on tagging a section of the policy as "disputed", I think it's up to you to say what you would like to change as regards that section. If you've got nothing to propose, then please remove the tag until you have.--Kotniski (talk) 09:35, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

You think "we" are ready to hear it, do you? Never mind all that I have said here, addressing your misrepresentations on this talkpage and your modifying policy without discussion, against the last discussion of the provision on this talkpage in May 2011. Here's a proposal, which "we" are ready for: answer what I have said and documented. Admit your role in inventing the wording you yourself have restored (passing it off as the result of "discussion", "two years ago"); undo your unjustified restoration of that wording. Then we might have the beginnings of a way forward.

Noetica 10:23, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

This is more procedural complaint. Does Noetica have a substantive proposal on what the policy should say? If there has been one, I don't see it either. JCScaliger (talk) 18:23, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

The last substantial discussion on this topic can be found higher up this page; it seems clearly to support the current wording. At least relative to anything else that's been proposed so far. Do you have any new suggestions as to how it might be worded? --Kotniski (talk) 11:46, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Nonsense, as demonstrated. The last substantial discussion on this topic took place from 20 to 22 May 2011. The "discussion" above merely wrestles around a removal of the simple collegially discussed wording that was adopted seven months ago.

But let's move on now, with the "fresh debate" that Tony has started, in a section below.

Noetica 21:20, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Noetica, I'm addressing all that I realize is worth addressing. If I miss anything, let me know.

Your objection to the selective transclusion, as I understand it, is a) new (never heard it before) and b) hilarious. The whole point of it is to be able to quote a section of a policy page like this one in a way that is automatically updated every time the main page changes so that editors don't have to make the same change twice.

As to the 5 editors who supposedly supported the change to the wording, what they supported was a simplification of the wording without changing the meaning. If you look at what they discussed, there was obviously no recognition that taking that out changed the meaning. All have been notified. None have said anything about their views being misrepresented.

Anything else? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:01, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Born2cycle, when you last asked if there is anything else or whether you are missing something, you proceeded to conceal my answer and embroil me in discussion of a complaint against you at WP:ANI. Yes, there is plenty else. But let's move on. See the new section that Tony has started below, where he begins a "fresh debate". That is what I have been calling for, instead of spurious resurrections of non-existent past consensus, supplanting the closest thing to simple, comprehensible, consensual wording we have yet seen.

Take issue with that if you want to; but it is better to leave this and take a step forward instead.

Noetica 21:20, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

If you actually contribute something to that new section which moves discussion forward in some substantive fashion, whether I agree with the direction of the motion or not, I will respond with a Like template. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:08, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I tremble in anticipation of such an accolade. Move on; and read on, in the current discussion below. Noetica 00:59, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Pardon me for adding my tuppence here, but I find the above comments not only condescendingly dismissive of the concern of others, but downright arrogant. Looks like there may be a showdown at sundown. Where's the sheriff, or have you already shot him? --Ohconfucius 01:24, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

You know, Ohconfucius, I thought we were making some progress back on the 23rd, but you dropped that thread. Not sure what to make of that.

As to what you just quoted here, I'm sincerely hoping for Noetica to contribute something substantive to the discussion. A concrete explanation of an objection to the current wording. A concrete proposal. Something! Is expressing such hope arrogance? Sorry! --Born2cycle (talk) 02:15, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Ohconfucius, if you answer that last question Born2cycle is likely arrogantly to suppress your answer by hiding it from view. See greyed-out examples, earlier on this talkpage. For current, contentful discussion of the inadequacy of the section that includes recognisability, let's all adjourn to the active section below: #Fresh debate: recognisability and related questions (or later sections that may be started). Let's not fragment the discussion, or divert attention from the issue: the unacceptability of the non-consensually resurrected text.

Noetica 02:29, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

• It's not easy to participate in a discussion on a single issue spread over maybe four/five different threads. I think Noetica below has it about right, that these threads should be closed off and a discussion be reunited in a single thread. As to 'arrogance', I was particularly struck that you you deigned to suggest you would use the {{like}} template to manifest your pleasure, as if the whole world would stop and applaud your stand. Perhaps this is the 'weapon of choice' to supplement your use of the {{hidden}} template, as pointed out by Noetica. ;-) --Ohconfucius 02:35, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:Update

This is one of the tougher pages for me to do for the quarterly update; I'll just give the quarterly diff, and if anyone wants to break it down, great. - Dank (push to talk) 03:37, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Dank, I am not yet happy with that. I appreciate what you do! But at this very moment there is a contested provision for recognisability on the page. That's the first item in a crucial section. I do not want to war about it, so I leave it in place with a disputed template marking the dissent. If an update duly records the message of that template, all's well. Otherwise we have something to sort out. It should not be that tendentious editing gets "endorsed" in a quarterly update, while restraint and a call for due process are unacknowledged.

Noetica 03:47, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm still waiting to see a clearly stated objection to the recognizabilty provision, other than it undermines a tiny minority view advocated by 3-5 editors that favors the notion that titles of articles about topics with "generic sounding" names should be disambiguated (with additional precision) from other uses of that generic name, even when that name is clearly favored by reliable sources, and none of those other uses have articles in WP. That's the only objection, isn't it? Is that objection shared by anyone other than Dick, Tony and Noetica? Has anyone addressed by "devil is in the details" questions about this objection (search for "devil" on this page)? --Born2cycle (talk) 08:38, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm still waiting too.

• For one thing, I would like you to correct numerical errors. The wording that you favour was discussed by five editors (named above), not two or three as you have earlier misleadingly stated, in presenting your fait accompli reversal of it. You gain respect if you admit errors, especially plain misrepresentations.
• For another thing, I am waiting till it is possible to call for fresh discussion without you sabotaging it immediately. I can show you how to manage a fair RFC, if you like. We've had some good ones at WT:MOS. You don't know how many support the present wording or how many support the simpler version that was in place for seven months, until people come in without being bullied, ridiculed, and jeopardised at WP:ANI for disagreeing with you.
• For a third thing, I am waiting for you to desist from claiming your favoured wording as "years" old, when it was invented by Kotniski in 2010, never discussed, and supplanted in discussion in May 2011.

And more. But those would be good for a start. You and I might usefully leave this for a while though. Not all of us are in a hurry to change the world to match our own ideals, or even this page. WP needs stability, and it needs good will and due process.

Noetica 09:11, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like this isn't going to be resolved in a few days; I won't describe or explain the differences, I'll just give the single link with a diff (which seems to be the usual for the page, I have a hard time following the changes). - Dank (push to talk) 13:39, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I have a hard time following the changes -- heh, you, me, and most other people, including the principals involved in the discussion. older ≠ wiser 13:43, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Nothing substantial has changed, as far as I know - just a few tweaks of wording to try to describe practice better. --Kotniski (talk) 14:27, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I think you're right that the actual changes to policy have been minimal. I guess I was referring more to the volume of smoke on the talk page. older ≠ wiser 15:31, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Expect loud protests and wrangling when the history is misrepresented and there are flagrant abuses of process on the talkpage for a vital policy page, ≠. We'd be in a sorry state if that were not so. But as you can see, there is a new section below. An opportunity for people to behave better and get something achieved. Let's all try to do that.

Noetica 21:29, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Fresh debate: recognisability and related questions

• Clearly we need a fresh debate. It's not an easy thing to solve, because the text needs to attempt three things: (1) as much simplicity and brevity as possible; (2) encouragement to choose titles that are as short and succinct as possible; and (3) encouragement to choose titles that are reasonably helpful to readers and editors. The last thing we want is editors systematically going around adding parenthetical disambiguators to everything without regard to a fair balance between 2 and 3. Tony (talk) 12:20, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

  So do you have any ideas as to how to define the cases where you think parenthetical disambiguators should be added (other than the uncontentious cases where the article topic is not the Misplaced Pages primary topic for the name)? Is "generic sounding" the right general idea? --Kotniski (talk) 12:45, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

To me it seems that the problem is that a few editors want hard and fast formulas to rely on, rather than try to balance these inherently conflicting criteria on a case-by-case basis. Born2cycle has even written an essay with an algorithm to follow in titling an article, in which different criteria are necessarily strictly ordered in priority. This way lies madness. In the arguments we end up having, he tends to stick to strict interpretations of one provision, while narrowing another to get it out of conflict, rather than considering what's the best title for the case in hand. I agree with Tony that it needs to be about balance instead. Dicklyon (talk) 15:18, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, that's what the policy basically says - there are these criteria (some people have interpreted it as meaning that these 5 are the only allowable criteria, but I don't think that was ever the intention), which can be weighed up to decide on a title. And that's what happens - there is no algorithm in the policy. Is there something in the policy you would like to change? And if so, would it be to make the policy more accurately descriptive of current practice, or would it be based on a consensus to effect a change to current practice?--Kotniski (talk) 15:26, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Added a few words to say that there are other questions. Can anybody come up with a fairly common sixth question? JCScaliger (talk) 18:35, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

My preference would be not to work harder to "define the cases", but to leave it more as it was, with things to consider. Every time someone tweaks the wording, it seems to be to try to narrow down the meaning – by too much usually. In the recognizability case, omitting who it is recognizable to doesn't mean to everybody, as some say; narrowing to those already familiar with the topic is going too extreme. If we leave it open, it can be interpreted as "to as many people as possible, as balanced against all the other criteria" or something to that effect. Trying to pin down how to use it is not all that helpful; except for some principles like making life better for our readers. I believe Tony has expressed the goals in a way I like; you came back and asked him "how to define the cases"; bad idea – too algorithm-like. Dicklyon (talk) 02:50, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

• As I lamented above and relatively no one showed much interest, we need to step back from these discussions on fragments of the titling policy and take a holistic look at it. Right now, we are just rearranging the Babel on the Tower of Babel. I do not see how we can devise coherent titling policy that must apply to 3.9 million articles (+ millions more in the future) when all we ever do is try and craft policy around one or two examples in the lunatical hope that it will work for 10,000s of other articles (now and in the future). When it doesn't, we just recycle the same old lunacy with new examples. I really wish we could step back and craft a longer term approach to simplifying this policy and refocusing its importance on content, rather than isolated page names. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:30, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at. Can you suggest anything more specific?--Kotniski (talk) 15:37, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll try and say this in a slightly different way (with no malice toward anyone who's commented on this page). If you look at this current content of this talk page today, it is dominated by two elements of our complex titling policy--Recognizability (not really a word) and parenthetical disambiguation. There is clearly no broad WP consensus being displayed in these discussions, and limited local consensus. Yet we are attempting to rewrite policy that should apply to 3.9 million articles. In the simpliest of worlds, we ought to know a couple of things about Recognizability and parenthetically disambiguation before we rewrite the policy. How many of WP articles today have Un-recognizable titles? What is an Un-recognizable title anyway? How many WP articles have parenthetical disambiguation? Is there any consistency here? Are there inconsistencies that need to be addressed by policy? Does parenthetical disambiguation contribute to better content or detract from article content? What do 1000s of articles of a similar genre look like collectively--with and without parenthetically disambiguation? We can't hope to answer these types of questions with the aim of simplifying titling policy through sound-bite type discussions using one or two articles as examples. This entire policy needs a good, thorough review and scrub. That's a long-term, lot of hard work project. All the energy going into these sound-bite improvements is wasted IMHO. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:05, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it was ever intended that recognizability dominate; a use for it (aside from WP:COMMONNAME), is the discussion on fumi-e, above; a claim that the Japanese term is not recognizable. Ideally, this policy should deal with principles to which there are quite few exceptions (aside from conflicts between them): that there are some demonstrates it's a real issue; that there are few demonstrates that most editors do it one way.

JC, when I said dominate above, I meant it to mean that we are focusing on small parts of the policy, absent a bigger picture look at not only the whole policy, but how does the whole policy reflect the practice of 3.9 million articles. I wasn't refering to the role of recognizability (not a word) in the policy. We can continue to make small changes to small elements of the policy but to what end? In an ideal world, our titling policy would be so simple as to make the Yogurt - Yoghurt debate unnecessary. Our titling policy has lost sight of what this encyclopedia is all about--encyclopedic content. We are not an encyclopedia of 3.9 million perfect titles, yet we continue to try and micromanage every element of an article title. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:01, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah I see. Sorry to misread you. I think you are looking at a tempest in a teapot. I don't think this policy is intended to micromanage, but to provide ideas on which to base discussion; at least that's what policies are supposed to do. JCScaliger (talk) 19:08, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I would be content to reorder the five points if that will help; the only problem that would produce is making some old discussions less clear. JCScaliger (talk) 18:20, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

This section represents a more reasonable way to proceed. Thanks to Tony for starting it, though I have renamed it – for the archives, and so that everyone can see what we're talking about. I have also restored and updated the "disputed" template at the relevant section of the project page (removed by JCScaliger), and taken out the old "discussion" template that applied to only one provision among several that are intertwined and therefore up for joint treatment here.

I am impressed by Mike Cline's more comprehensive approach. I liked what he initiated a few sections back, on taking a holistic approach. I feared then that the talkpage was too disorderly for anything useful to be transacted. I hope that's beginning to change now.

It would be best if we agree to deliberate calmly and respectfully, without distortions of any facts. I remain concerned about certain unanswered questions in discussion before this new section. The present wording does not represent calm, collegial discussion over recognisability. That last took place from 20 to 22 May 2011, without haste, abuse, misrepresentation, shouting down, or referrals to WP:ANI. The wording has been altered since then without due process.

If that is left plainly recorded and undisturbed, and the template is left in place on the page, I am happy for us to move forward. All of this should go to a well-designed, disciplined, and impartial RFC process when the time is right. And that must be advertised very widely to the community, if we are to make any lasting progress.

Noetica 21:05, 28 December 2011 (UTC)0

I think the issue with recognizability is that TITLE has allowed COMMONNAME, and specifically google hits, to be the dominant factor in deciding titles. It should be a factor, but lesser than others. I think precision and especially consistency are probably better when we go we are dealing with trying to make something that can be applied everywhere. We should also be discouraging, not encouraging, disambigs if there is a name that's fairly short and obscure. Obviously concerns about consistency becoming a immovable because so many pages use that form, but there are ways to deal with that.∞陣内Jinnai 21:49, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I see your problem; but what you demand will not affect it. Changing this page has limited effect on practice anyway; the real policy is what gets done, and we are merely documentation.

COMMONNAME is older than the five points; some people insisted that it be the only test for titles before they were written, just as they do now - more often for ideological convenience than as a Misplaced Pages princeiple. Indeed, recognizability and naturalness are a hedge against the "MY name has 51% of usage, it must be the title" argument; the 49% name is likely to be equally natural and recognizable; as we expressly say When there are several names for a subject, all of them fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others. Quote that, or quote the questions; that's what they're for. JCScaliger (talk) 22:35, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm still not really clear what anyone is proposing or what justification there is for having a "disputed" tag hanging over the whole of a well-established policy section (I hope when emotions subside over the next few days everyone will realize that it's quite inappropriate - "under discussion" might be more suitable). But anyway, can we have some reasonably concrete proposals for change? And it would help to know whether the proposals are intended to change current practice or only to document it better. (Personally I think listing five "criteria" and simply saying that we "weigh them up" doesn't give full information about the way we do things. We actually apply the particular criteria in quite specific ways - we almost always want "a" common name (though not necessarily the commonest) if there is one; we almost always add disambiguators if needed but not for unambiguous terms or primary topics. There are also other, perhaps equally important criteria, that people have identified but are not listed, such as encyclopedic register and neutrality. And there are things missing from the whole policy because of past wiki-politicking, like the fact that titles normally conform to Misplaced Pages's MoS over things like punctuation. So we could do much better at describing currently accepted practice. And - but we should treat this as a separate issue - there may be good reason to make some changes to currently accepted practice, for example over when we should add parenthetical disambiguators, but that should be done with a properly formulated proposal, if someone would like to make one.)--Kotniski (talk) 11:42, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I too am unclear on what anyone is proposing. More importantly, I'm unclear about what in the current policy is being disputed. Typically we would see something like a quote of the words at issue, and an explanation of what is seen as a problem with that wording, and usually a proposal for alternative wording that attempts to address that problem without creating new ones. Until we see something like that here, I don't see what there can be to discuss. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:33, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

This section alone is now over 36 hours old, has, about 15 comments, and still there is nothing stated with clarity regarding what is disputed in policy, or what is proposed, or anything like that. Same with all of the blather above it. There is no dispute. There is not even a discussion. There is nothing to discuss! Unless something substantive is offered soon (say within 24 hours), the dispute/under-discussion tags must go. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:17, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

You replaced a version of "recognizability" that had been openly discussed with one that had not been discussed when it was put in earlier. Some of us objected. The version you like makes "recognizability" to most readers irrelevant, effectively demoting it to below all the the other criteria. Is this really what we want? Until we can have an open discussion of it, not run roughshod over by you, we won't likely be able to even consider a middle ground or other ways to resolve this. Let me know when you're ready to back off. Dicklyon (talk) 00:25, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

First, I simply restored wording for which we had consensus support before it was removed earlier this year, and for which we still have consensus support, which has been abundantly shown above. Stop misrepresenting what happened. As over a dozen editors have explained in a variety of ways, yes, for relatively obscure topics, we do want to make "recognizability" irrelevant to those (which is most) readers who are so unfamiliar with the topic, they won't even be searching for it (if they are searching for it, then they are in the minority that is familiar with the topic, and we do want to make the title recognizable for them).

Second, I restored that wording eight days ago, and during those eight days there were a few where I didn't check in at all. And, yet, there is nothing here. No dispute. No discussion. Nothing substantive at all; just several variations of WP:JDLI, like the one you just posted. If you have something to dispute and discuss, please do so. This is what I asked for when Tony first reverted the restoration of the original wording. None of you who supposedly object have even addressed my initial explanation for restoring that wording. It's unbelievable, really.

In short, if you've got something, spit it out already. If not, quit the blather and remove the tag. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:45, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

On what are you basing your assertion that your version had consensus support at some point in the past? I have been unable to find any discussion of it. I hope you're having a happy holiday. Dicklyon (talk) 00:53, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll take your silence here as a withdrawal of all previous claims that your version had some kind of consensus. Dicklyon (talk) 02:40, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Fine by me, B2C. Skip your blathering and bullying, and restore the wording that you have recently supplanted, and then we can remove the dispute tag.

The dispute tag represents a peacemaking concession to your belligerent editing. The wording you have retrieved from the archives was never discussed, so far as anyone has been able to show. There was support in May for the simpler wording that you removed, and there is support now. Blueboar has very recently written this (see above, from this edit):

Please remember that we entitle our articles for the convenience of our readers... We want to choose titles that will be recognizable to people searching for an article on a particular topic. Such readers may or may not be knowledgeable in the topic, but they will have a goal in mind. They will enter a name, or a descriptive phrase into the search box... and we want them to be able to quickly look at the results and say "ah, yes, there is the article on the topic I was searching for". Thus, the name or description we choose as a title should be the one that is most likely to be searched for by our readers. That is what is meant by "Recognizability".

That sounds reasonable to me; so do Mike Cline's remarks in the present section. So does other dissent from the narrowed wording that you impose, and that Kotniski invented in 2010 and seeks to pass off as the result of long-established, historically entrenched consensus. Blueboar doesn't much like "either version" (see his follow-up); I don't much like the whole present set of questions, and I like less how they are imposed and how they are abused at RMs. But the simpler, less doctrinaire version is preferable by far. You famously want the process of naming articles to follow an algorithm; others see that this is counterproductive. Let editors work their own ways with the broadest principles. Your narrowing of them is unhelpful. Such partisan micromanagement has failed, and occasions problems at RM discussions.

There is discussion here, and there is unfortunately dispute. You engender dispute when you edit tendentiously. Let the page have that dispute marked, because this is no trivial disagreement. Myself, I agree with several others here in favouring the simpler wording, which represents the genuine and long-established principle concerning recognisability to the general reader. I also hope for broader, calmer discussion that will not distort the facts; the whole section needs review. Stop pressing people to meet your deadlines.

Noetica 00:51, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps my favorite repetitive argument on Misplaced Pages is when I read pages of dispute over whether there is a dispute or not. That's why I added the "Dispute tags" section to User:Art LaPella/Devil's Dictionary of Misplaced Pages Policy years ago. As I understand it, neither side wants to justify its preferred wording because that might jeopardize that side's claim to be the original text; is that about right? Art LaPella (talk) 01:18, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Art, I have no fear of jeopardising the wording that I support. I actively call for more participation, and time to debate the matter – with suitable Wikipedian procedures and checks in place. I am confident that it will stand up to wider scrutiny, when we are all settled and ready for a big reconsideration and RFC (or series of RFCs). As I say, it is plain that there is a dispute if people are, well, ... disputing. We are. In this section. And again, if anyone wants no dispute let them withdraw a contentious alteration of the page. Everything was fine for seven months; and now this. I have no part of the blame for that; but I appreciate the ingenuity of those who would like to deflect attention to me, and to the others who insist on a more consensual approach.

(Appreciate, not approve.)

Noetica 01:38, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Art, no, not in this case, at least not with respect to the current/original wording. This wording has been justified numerous times by numerous editors as reflecting actual practice, and desirable, which can be quickly confirmed at any time by obtaining a reasonable sample of article titles by clicking SPECIAL:RANDOM about a dozen times. For example: Homerusbuurt, Tyler MacDuff, That Kind of Woman, Trevoa trinervis, New Anshan Railway Station, Siege of Valenciennes (1793), Meld (Star Trek: Voyager), Ritch Savin-Williams, Aaron Sachs, Danvou-la-Ferrière, Ron Atchison, Laurel Mountain (West Virginia).

As with just about any randomly selected dozen titles, we can see that most titles are not recognizable to those who are not familiar with the topics. For those that look like names of people, we don't know if they're actually names of people or names of books or characters or what, much less whether they're actors, writers, or baseball players if they are people. In this particular list I presume Siege of Valenciennes (1793) is some kind of battle, Laurel Mountain (West Virginia) is a mountain in West Virginia, New Anshan Railway Station is a railway station in a city called New Anshan (but I have no idea where that is), and Meld (Star Trek: Voyager) is an episode of Voyager. But these are obviously exceptions, as I can't even guess about the others with much reason.

And, again, what exactly are we proposing? That titles like That Kind of Woman (because it's "generic sounding") be treated with additional precision to make them more recognizable to even those of us who are unfamiliar with it? So, in this case (I looked it up - it's a film), all films should be disambiguated with at least (film), if not (year film)? After all, the vast majority of film titles are "generic sounding" and are not recognizable as films to most people.

In any case, the current/original wording does reflect how we currently name articles, and have always named articles, and this is so obvious that nobody has even disputed the policy saying so since it was first said, until 8 days ago. And, no, when the wording in question was removed, along with some other wording, back in May, it was not disputed. That was just an effort to simplify the wording that went too far, and changed the meaning inadvertently when those words were removed. None of the editors involved in the May over-simplification has objected to restoring the wording.

But, now that you mention it, I have not seen a justification for the wording that we had between May and 8 days ago - the wording apparently favored by at least Noetica and Tony (not sure about Dicklyon or anyone else). But they won't be definitive about even that. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:04, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps Noetica feels he has answered the question with phrases like "But the simpler, less doctrinaire version is preferable by far." But I didn't find anything like "Here is my answer to Born2cycle's question:". From a mediation point of view, that request seems easily granted. Art LaPella (talk) 02:24, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Art, I answer questions when they are fairly posed. I at least give a general indication of preferences, and of what substantive contributions I agree with here; but I do not take well to bullying. Born2cycle has seen to it that I was in jeopardy at WP:ANI. I do not take well to that, when I had no part in initiating or supporting such action myself. B2C may be impatient; but that's not my problem. The climate is not one of conciliation or mediation, when one side continues to misrepresent facts (as in B2C's last statements above), to threaten, to insist that there can be no reasonable dissent from his view, and to attempt even to suppress my flagging to the community that there is a dispute.

If B2C were genuine about real dialogue, he would not edit the page as he did. He would back down and acknowledge that he was hasty, and he would take the advice of admins that he himself sought at WP:AN and WP:ANI – to go away for a week, and simply to wait for discussion. He demands it, now. ("Spit it out!" he says.) Always on his terms, with his interpretation of history in view, and subject to his redaction of responses.

But you want content? I'll give you content. I supported what Blueboar has said, and what Mike Cline has said. I said something myself: that such a closely worded and restricted version for recognisability is counterproductive, representing an avowedly algorithmic approach that has caused great dissatisfaction at RMs. Not just for me!

I have no more to say right now. I invite B2C once again to slow down, and to let some comments come in without the prospect of browbeating. In fact, I have work to do now and must withdraw for a while. I think that's fair, and that no one will object.

Noetica 02:46, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Bullying? With electrons? Please! I saw to it that you were in jeopardy at AN/I? What? You are responsible for your behavior; I for mine. Stop blaming others. Mike Cline has made some very general statements in a discussion that went no where. Blueboar made a suggestion - I raised some concerns about that - and those have not been addressed. If this is all you're willing to contribute, I say remove the tag. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:56, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and as to this... "such a closely worded and restricted version for recognisability is counterproductive, representing an avowedly algorithmic approach that has caused great dissatisfaction at RMs."... what is one to do with this? This "closely worded and restricted version" accurately describes actual naming practice here since the beginning of WP. This is unchallenged. Noetica does not like that. He can say this over and over, but his opinion/preference adds nothing substantive to the discussion, and does not address, much less refute, the multiple explanations from multiple editors regarding this wording. That it represents an algorithmic approach I won't deny, and of course I think that's a good thing. He claims it causes great dissatisfaction - I suggest wording that is less algorithmic (more vague - leaving more open to JDLI arguments) will cause even more.

Is this browbeating? Sorry. I call 'em as I see 'em, and I still see nothing here. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:10, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

You're asserting that recognizability in naming has traditionally not been a concern except for people familiar with the topic; how can you support such an assertion? Dicklyon (talk) 04:26, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

What I'm asserting is that recognizability in naming has traditionally only been considered with respect to people familiar with each topic. As I explained just above, and you're ignoring, that's obvious from just looking at our titles, which generally are only recognizable to people familiar with the topic, unless they're disambiguated because they conflict with other uses in WP, or because the title is inherently generally descriptive. Check out the 12 random examples I listed above. Or pick your own 12 by using SPECIAL:RANDOM. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:26, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Example of a recognizability problem

At Talk:Nitrogen group#Requested move, we have a proposal to move to Pnictogen. I suspect the latter term is recognizable to people familiar with the topic; but it's not to me, and probably not to millions of others who vaguely recognize "Nitrogen group" from chemistry class. Is that all the recognizability we want? Dicklyon (talk) 05:19, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

That can and should be opposed based on current wording; and I did. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:33, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the intention of the current wording is precisely to reflect the community's general support for titles like "nitrogen group" over titles like "pnictogen". Those who vaguely remember nitrogen group from chemistry class are familiar with the topic (but not expert in it), so they are the sort of people to whom the title should be recognizable. Of course, it's quite possible that the wording could be improved, but we still seem to be awaiting any proposals in that direction.--Kotniski (talk) 08:43, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you both. I'm glad we agree on the intent at least this far. But as I point out, the recognizability clause is drawn so narrowly now that it doesn't help distinguish these names very well. There will be other examples even closer to the line if you think this one is just a few chem insiders going too far. Dicklyon (talk) 17:34, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you saying the previous (May-December) wording would have helped distinguish these names better? Or do you have better wording in mind? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:04, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

We should abandon Naturalness and Recognizability (not a word) as title criteria because …

If you seriously examine the five criteria we now have—recognizability, naturalness, precision, conciseness and consistency—one finds that only three of those can actually describe the characteristic of a title.

Meaningful criteria

• A WP title should be concise-Concision is relative to context, but clearly describes a desirable title characteristic. Concise: expressing or covering much in few words; brief in form but comprehensive in scope; succinct; terse An example of an (un-concise)=wordy title might be New York City, United States when New York City works just fine.
• A WP title should be precise-Precision is relative to context, but clearly describes a desirable title characteristic. Precise: Exact, as in performance, execution, or amount; accurate or correct. An example of an imprecise title might be: Great Basin Pocketmouse when Great Basin Pocket Mouse is the precise term.
• A WP title should be consistent-Consistency is relative to context, but clearly describes a desirable title characteristic. Consistent: Being in agreement with itself; coherent and uniform. Unfortunately, WP is full of inconsistent titles. Look at this category: Category:Film and television discographies Within 64 titles, all about the same type of article, there are at least five different title conventions used. Consistency is easy to understand, establish and apply. Our various naming conventions do this reasonably well. We just need to get better at applying it.

Meaningless criteria

• A WP title should be natural?? What does that mean? You can’t apply the definitions of the word natural to it. What is an un-natural title? We describe it as What title(s) are readers most likely to look for to find the article? Which title(s) will editors most naturally use to link from other articles? Unfortunately, that describes the behavior of editors, not a characteristic of a title. It forces us into the lunacy of trying to reach consensus about how millions of editors might behave. I cringe when I read statements like this that lump every reader into the same behavioral bucket: Please remember that we entitle our articles for the convenience of our readers... We want to choose titles that will be recognizable to people searching for an article on a particular topic.
• A WP title should be recognizable? Really, show me one that isn’t. On my PC I recognize every title on every article I look at. It’s in big bold letters at the top the screen. Here are three definitions of the word recognize: To know to be something that has been perceived before: recognize a face., To know or identify from past experience or knowledge: recognize hostility, To perceive or show acceptance of the validity or reality of. Again we are trying to define the behavior of our readers, not the characteristic of a WP title which leads to lunacy when trying to deduce how millions of readers will behave as regards any given title.

Replace Naturalness and Recognizability with what we really want

If you examine what we really want from Naturalness and Recognizability (not a word), I think we could sum it up with something like this: A WP title should faithfully represent the content of the article using common English as demonstrated by reliable sources. The key word here is Represent which has a number of meanings, the most telling of which is: To present clearly to the mind. By abandoning the ill-conceived, but well intentioned—Naturalness and Recognizability—with Represent we would be describing the characteristic of a WP title that we want and not the behavior it is supposed to elicit. It would significantly simplify the policy and its resulting processes. WP:COMMONNAME, WP:ENGVAR and all the other Babel would flow nicely from this. Combined with the meaningful criteria--conciseness, precision and consistency, adjudacating a title would be much simpler.

FYI-this is not intended as a verbatim suggestion to replace specific wording but a conceptual argument that says Naturalness and Recognizability are a poor choice of words for what we are really attempting to say. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:47, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I just skimmed this, so I might very well be mistaken, but it seems to me you've taken the names of each criterion, like "naturalness", assigned whatever meaning you wanted to it, and questioned that, rather than going with the meanings (now expressed as questions) that we actually have. No? --Born2cycle (talk) 17:52, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Not at all, I am conceptualizing how the five criteria are applied to WP article titles. Our wording for Conciseness, Consistency and Precision are OK as these terms are actually definable and desirable characteristics of a WP title. Additionally, the real world definition of these terms comes close to what we are trying to convey. On the other hand, it doesn't much matter what we say about Naturalness and Recognizability because as described now, they describe editor behavior (a real stretch) and not a title characteristic. And the real world definitions of these terms aren't even close to what we are trying to convey. So I say abandon them (not the sentiment) but the words and use Represent instead. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:03, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I read it more carefully now. You discount "naturalness" - and yet it is clearly defined as "convey what the subject is actually called in English". What's wrong with that? That has always been a key characteristic of WP titles - it is the essence of WP:COMMONNAME.

You also dismiss "recognizability" even though one of the definitions you provide - "To know or identify from past experience or knowledge" - is exactly what is meant. People familiar with the topic should be able to identify the topic from the title from past knowledge. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:01, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Both Naturalness and Recognizability as we define them, are describing the behavior of readers, not the characteristics of the title. Although Naturalness might be considered a characteristic, if you look at the real world definitions of Natural , they don't describe what we want, so we have to contrive a meaning. Why don't we just say what we want in definable, applicable terms so that we aren't constantly having to explain what we really mean. Although not a specific proposal, if our 4th and final criteria was: A WP title should faithfully represent the content of the article using common English as demonstrated by reliable sources. we would not have to constantly interpret Naturalness and Recognizability and we would not put the burden of title adjudacation on predicting the behavior of millions of readers. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:29, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Re the essence of WP:COMMONNAME. B2C you stated: Naturalness--That has always been a key characteristic of WP titles - it is the essence of WP:COMMONNAME.. I would fundamentally disagree with you that Naturalness is the not essence of COMMONNAME. It may be the rationale for (although poorly worded) for COMMONNAME, but not the essence of. The essence of COMMONNAME is that we use titles most commonly found in reliable sources covering the topic of the article. The reason we do that is that we require titles that best represent the subject of the article--its the professional thing to do. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:39, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The whole idea of basing common name on usage "in reliable sources" is relatively new and happens to be a very good way of determining common name, but the reason we use (for example) Bill Clinton rather than William Jefferson Clinton - which has long been the epitome of "common name" listed on this policy page -- is because we prefer to use names people actually use; it has nothing to do with being more professional. Arguably, William Jefferson Clinton is the more "professional" choice; but Bill Clinton is more natural. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:37, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

You have responded to a twisted misreading of Mike's comments, rather than to what he said. Dicklyon (talk) 21:20, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

B2C - The Professional comment above has nothing to do with one title or another. It was meant to say that using the most representative commonnames from reliable sources was the right way to decide our title. The problem with Natural and Recognizable is that these words are poor choices for our title policy. They always required some sort of: Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do! for editors to figure out what they really mean and how to apply them in any given situation. I would defy anyone to say why Bill Clinton is more natural than William Jefferson Clinton without refering to the commonness of Bill Clinton in reliable sources compared to William Jefferson Clinton. There is nothing Natural or Unnatural about either of these and trying to say something is more natural than something else is pure fantasy. We don't concoct our titles out of water, minerals, chemicals and organic materials then decide the most natural based on the about of organic material used. We concoct our titles based on what RSs say. Why can't we simplify our policy along those lines? --Mike Cline (talk) 22:46, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Come on. Obviously natural is not meant here literally. Per my google dictionary, this is the definition of natural that is obviously intended here:

Occurring as a matter of course and without debate; inevitable.

° Ken was a natural choice for coach

The way I think of it, is: if someone is referring to the topic in question at a cocktail party, what name are they most likely to use. Of course, we have no way to determine that, so we use what is the likely determinant of what someone is most likely to use... usage in reliable sources. That is, the reason we use the most commonly used name in reliable sources is because that is likely to be the most recognizable to most people, and what they themselves are naturally most likely to use when searching for the topic.

"Bill Clinton" is more natural than "William Jefferson Clinton" because its use occurs much more often as a matter of course when people are talking and writing about him. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:01, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Part of the reason we have these words is to do with word ordering in titles (naturalness). For example we could describe places by State, region, sub-region .... United Kingdom, London, Southwark, Borough, or a more common example is surname, given names (as is done in many encyclopaedias and other reference works and is used in Misplaced Pages categories). There is no reason why we should not use Clinton, Bill or Clinton, William Jefferson other than naturalness. While to some in a bureaucratic organisation like a military logistics system "clothing, coat, great, male" may seem natural, in none bureaucratic text one would usually write "a man's greatcoat is ...", and that is the whole point of the sentence "Which title(s) will editors most naturally use to link from other articles?", and from that it follows that whether we use "William Jefferson Clinton" or "Bill Clinton" is a further refinement of that principle, as the natural name to use in a reference work such as this will depend on which is the most frequently in what we call secondary sources. We could change the article titling system radically and start to introduce systems such as surname first, or go one step further and use that of the online ONDB and use a unique number . doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/94837. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)) but we have chosen to use our own method James Callaghan based on naturalness. I think if at the start of the project articles had been placed under a unique number with text redirect to that number, then lots of the disputes over article titles would have been avoided, and I would be pleasantly surprised if we were ever to go over to that method. -- PBS (talk) 23:12, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

More revert warring

Given the discussion above, and the apparent withdrawal by Born2cycle of any claim that his and Kotniski's version ever had consensus, or even a discussion, prior to this one, it seems justifiable that Noetica has again restored the version that was stable for months after it arose from a discussion here. Yet Born2cycle put it back again and threatened to take him to AN/I again. I had earlier explained to him on his talk page that his owership issues here are disruptive, but he fails to see that.

I fully respect those who prefer the version that he is warring about; I still think we'll find a mutually agreeable compromise in here somewhere. But let's converge first, not go back to a never-discussed version by force of editing warring. Dicklyon (talk) 06:56, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

If you don't see that V1 clearly reflects actual practice much better than V2, I suggest you review the comments at Wikipedia_talk:TITLE#RFC_on_Recognizability_guideline_wording with explanations from 9 different experienced editors about that exactly. It wasn't discussed when the change was first introduced by Kotniski because it was obvious to everyone involved that it reflected actual practice. Even though there was no discussion, it had WP:CONSENSUS support. See Misplaced Pages:Consensus#Reaching_consensus_through_editing, which is the much more common way to reach consensus in WP.

The change in May, however, apparently missed everyone's scrutiny, because when it was brought to everyone's attention, everyone who looked at it (9 out of 9) agreed V1 was better. No one who looked at it argued that V2 was better.

There is absolutely no basis whatsoever for restoring the V2 wording at this time, and, unfortunately, I see no recourse but to file an AN/I, unless Noetica restores the V1 wording himself. I've explained this in more detail at Noetica's talk page. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:24, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

And now Born2cycle has made an explicit threat, with short deadline, to take Noetica to AN/I again, on User talk:Noetica#WP:TITLE. Is this any way to try to find consensus? For his claim of consensus he relies on the RFC that was abandoned after he hijacked it by speaking for many others. Dicklyon (talk) 07:24, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

No. The way to find consensus is through discussion. See Wikipedia_talk:TITLE#RFC_on_Recognizability_guideline_wording where consensus was found in that manner, and it was practically unanimous. I didn't highjack anything - the section remains open for editing even today. It's not my fault the 3 of you who disagree with consensus are unwilling or unable to even state a coherent argument in favor of your position, much less persuade anyone else, and, so you choose to abandon discussions, repeatedly, that are not going your way.

When Noetica edits policy so blatantly contrary to consensus, I see no recourse besides AN/I, but I'm open to suggestions. Got any? --Born2cycle (talk) 07:30, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh for heaven's sake, stop this edit-warring: B2C, you've been acting as though you own this page, and you're allowing yourself to be unnecessarily wound up. I note that when you marched onto my talk page last week to upbraid me, I responded with goodwill, which you then threw back in my face. I don't mind, personally, but please calm down (you and the others). This current imbrioglio should be sorted out on the talk page, not at the actual policy page. Tony (talk) 07:34, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I had suggested before that you back off and let us discuss it. You seem determined to not do that; in the RFC, you quickly introduced a ballot and filled in your vote count before anyone had a chance to respond to the request for comments; how is that not hijacking? And it was your removal of the "under discussion" tag a few minutes ago that prompted Noetica to go back to the stable version. You can't have it both ways. Dicklyon (talk) 07:35, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Removing the tag, as I noted in the edit summary, does not preclude further discussion. But we can't have tags on policy pages when there is no specific objection. Without a specific objection, there is nothing coherent to discuss, and that's where we've been for over a week. I'm not doing anything to prevent discussion. Again, all the sections above are open for you and anyone else to say whatever you want, present whatever evidence you want. In fact, I would love to see that. Several of us have been asking for weeks, perhaps even months, for you three to come up with something coherent and substantive. That would be great to discuss. As far as I know, the only specific point that was finally conveyed was that there is concern about titles that are "generic sounding". That helped a great deal, because it finally gave us something specific. But we need far more than that. What exactly do you propose we do differently with "generic sounding" titles? What exactly constitutes a "generic sounding" title? etc.? I don't understand what is preventing you from expounding on all that. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:54, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I see that now Kwamikagami has taken it back to the pre-edit-war (Dec 12) version that arose from discussion earlier this year. Maybe we can focus on exactly what the shortcoming of that version is, and how best to fix it. Your objection, as I understand it, is that it is not specific enough about who the title should be recogizable to. I'm less sure that's a problem, but willing to discuss ways to fix it. The fix you particularly like seems so narrow, though, since just about any obscure or official title can be justified as familiar to a narrow enough group of people familiar with the topic, as in pnictogen that is recommended by the IAUPC and hence favored by at least one editor even after the recognizability to people "familiar with chemistry" was offered to him as a criterion that would rule it out. I'm not saying this is the best example, or a direct result of any guideline wording, just that it's the sort of thing I worry about. Dicklyon (talk) 16:10, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, the issue is deciding which of the following should be used in the guideline:

Version 1: Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic?

Version 2: Is the candidate title a recognizable name or description of the topic?

(Note that I had to dig the above two quotes from one of you guys’ talk pages since I can’t find much meat & potatoes here.)

Can someone offer up two pairs of article-title examples that could exemplify how the above differences could affect things? For instance, would one permit “Octomom” whereas Version 1 would require “Nadya Suleman” ?

The trouble with trying to establish a consensus on Misplaced Pages is it can often be difficult for others to jump in because the core of the dispute is often cloaked behind abstruse wiki‑slogans (“Well… WP:Unicorn tears anoints and washes my position with goodliness”) when the real reason is at least one of the editors—often both—have a pattern of pushing a particular agenda and there is suspicion that the other editor will use a seeming innocuous change in a written guideline to revisit a long-dead issue.

In short, will someone please explain what this is really about? Greg L (talk) 17:43, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

The core is that Tony, Dicklyon and Noetica don't like titles that sound "generic", like Public Achievement, and they want to increase precision by moving them to titles like Public achievement (US civic scheme), (move discussion).

The old wording (version 1/original) doesn't favor this sort of moves. Thus the editwarring and the tagging --Enric Naval (talk) 17:53, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Holy Crap!, Enric, could you be more dishonent in representing what happened at Talk:Public_Achievement? It was I who re-wrote the article to be about the proper-named Public Achievement after you tried to make it about the generic! What the heck are you trying to do by telling such stories? I invite anyone to review the RM discussion and article edit history to see what a fuckwad liar you're being. Dicklyon (talk) 18:04, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I note that the move discussion was precipitated by one of those “It’s A Title In All-Cap®™©” (proper noun) deals (“1992 Los Angeles Riots” v. “1992 Los Angeles riots”). Moreover, the distinction between Ver. 1 and Ver. 2 pertains to the reader having some pre-existing familiarity with the subject (or not) whereas the move discussion intertwines specificity in the nature of the article, parenthetical disambiguations in the title to address the specificity, and (as I already said) issues pertaining to the use of all-cap proper nouns. I fail to see the connection. I’d like to see if everyone involved here also sees all that as being swept up in wording regarding the reader already has some familiarity with the subject matter. Greg L (talk) 18:05, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

P.S. As I am rather expert on words like “fuckwad” (having authored “"Fuck” is not necessarily uncivil”), I believe your use here would fall under the “descriptive” classification as well as its generic use as an intensive. I think I’d like to use that as an example on my essay. May I? Greg L (talk) 18:10, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

P.P.S. BTW, I note that Dicklyon’s response indicates that he doesn’t wholeheartedly embrace Enric’s sentiments as to what the core issue here is really about. It would be splendid if Born2cycle could weigh in. Greg L (talk) 18:14, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Tony moved Public Achievement to lowercase when the lead sentence said "Public Achievement involves young people working in teams on a public work project of their choice," which gave no clue that the underlying topic was intended to be the proper-named thing. Noetica then added the parenthetical, since such a generic title lacked any precision. Enric tried to write it as a generic here. I took a look, sorted out what it was supposed to be about while reserving judgement on the RM caps issue, then fixed the article and made everyone happy; after it was clearly a proper name, someone else removed the disambiguator. There's no bloc here, no aversion to correct proper names, nothing like what Enric asserts. Dicklyon (talk) 18:11, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I see you had second thoughts about describing Enric as a “fuckwad” and replaced it with the far less objectionable “liar.” Well done; your latest choice removes any ambiguity as to whether you’d invite Enric over to your house for Thanksgiving dinner next year. I conclude also, that my stepping into this dispute is akin to mowing the side lawn with my new sneakers (with very aggressive cleating to the soles) after the wife overlooked one of the doggy droppings hiding in the grass. It would be a true pleasure if we could stop with the Turkish-prison butt stabbings (“It ain’t attempted murder if you shank them below the waist”) and if someone could explain what editors really think would be the practical difference between Ver. 1 and Ver. 2. Greg L (talk) 18:23, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think Born2cycle has a clear idea what the issues are, since he hasn't been able to listen. He doesn't seem to understand that re-inserting a version that has never had consensus nor any positive discussion at all is something that should legitimately be reverted and lead to discussion. As to the substantive details between the versions, I'm not sure I know, either; but I respect the right of editors like Noetica to have it out until it's discussed and achieves concensus. The claim to consensus that Born2cycle makes is based on a heated turmoil during a revert war, followed by his hijacking an RFC by converting it to a two-way vote and filling out all the ballots on his side. But that's all history; a discussion has finally gotten underway below (#Naming_criteria_section_wording), so it looks like progress is possible now. Dicklyon (talk) 18:25, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Quoting you: As to the substantive details between the versions, I'm not sure I know, either. I thought that might be the case. Now…

This is directed to you, B2C. WP:Consensus can change and consensus is not defined by who can be the most tendentious while editwarring with four-word edit summaries. Consensus is established here on this talk page. Moreover, if you resort to {dispute], {biased}, {I didn’t get my WAAAAAY}-tags, slapped up at the top of articles after loosing to consensus as small as a 2:1 margin here, a poll can be conducted as to whether the tag is warranted and whether the issue is resolved (which is to say, whether a consensus had truly been achieved the first time around) and then the tag goes. Someone please alert me on my talk page the next time there is editwarring or editing against consensus here. Greg L (talk) 18:40, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

P.S. I won’t be able to weigh in with a !vote in any RfC or poll here because no one has been able to explain what the underlying issues are really about. I suspect B2C has been doing the ol’ stunt of reverting editors because 10 neurons and 30 synapses in his brain are now wired for knee-jerk, reflexive reverting of certain editors without comprehension of the issue nor desire to discuss. I’ll leave the substantive discussion and !voting to editors who actually discuss things and have a flying clue what is going on here.

Finally, Enric’s 17:43 post, above, wasn’t at all helpful and I have a hard time believing he didn’t know full well what he was going when he wrote that (WP:BAIT). Moreover, he wasted Dick’s and my time this morning. I apparently value my time this morning more than he values his. That sort of stunt here won’t be tolerated. Greg L (talk) 18:50, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Greg, I will try to address all your points. If I miss something you wanted me to address, please let me know.

You start by saying you had to dig the two quotes from a user's talk page. Why didn't you just look at the section where all this started on this talk page, here: #Clarification_of_recognizability_lost. If you don't look at that, you're missing some important context. Also, reading the section that follows that, #RFC on Recognizability guideline wording, is important to understand what happened here, starting over a week ago.

I agree that "consensus is not defined by who can be the most tendentious while editwarring with four-word edit summaries." Do you think I was editwarring with four-word edit summaries? Where? When? Last night I reverted Noetica twice, each time linking to one or two sections with long explanations. Did you read those? I also created a section below that explained how and why the original Kotniski wording had consensus support, but originally via consensus-by-editing, and recently via consensus-through-discussion. Did you read it? Here it is: #Consensus support for "recognizable to someone familiar" wording is established

In a paragraph directed at me, you state, "if you resort to {dispute], {biased}, {I didn’t get my WAAAAAY}-tags, ..." You seem to believe I have been adding tags like that. I haven't added any tags of any sort. Are you aware of that? If so, why did you say this to me?

You also refer to "loosing to consensus as small as a 2:1 margin here". I don't know what you are referring to, but in the discussion about V1 vs V2 which you can see at #RFC on Recognizability guideline wording, the margin was 9:0, since 9 editors favored V1, and gave reasons/arguments for it, and no one gave an argument favoring V2. That was 9 days ago, and still no one has presented an argument favoring V2. If I'm wrong about that, please, quote even one coherent statement supporting the use of V2 over V1 that has been stated on this talk page, and that has not been addressed and refuted.

Instead, there has been nothing here but filibustering by three editors who seem to favor V2, but cannot articulate a coherent argument that supports their position, much less one that anyone finds persuasive.

You say you want to be alerted "the next time there is editwarring or editing against consensus here." Well, last night I removed the tag because there was no consensus for it, and no substantive discussion about that section in over a week. No one had even stated a coherent objection to the V1 wording. Again, if I'm wrong, please quote it. I'm dying to know what it is. Was that editwarring or editing against consensus? How? Then Noetica replaced the consensus-supported V1 wording with the V2 wording in this edit. That seems clearly to be editing against consensus. No? How is it not editing against consensus, since consensus favoring V1 is clearly established, and nothing has even been presenting favoring V2, much less something showing consensus support for V2.

Since it was editing against consensus, I reverted it, restoring the V1 wording, and not with a 4-word explanation, but with a link to the section where discussion revealed it was V1 that had consensus support. Is this editing or editwarring against consensus? How so?

Never-the-less, Noetica reverted this again, with a #Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#Fresh_debate:_recognisability_and_related_questions reference to a discussion section where he says the section "is disputed", but which says nothing substantive favoring V2 over V1, much less shows that V1 does not have consensus support, or that V2 does. That sure seems like editwarring against consensus to me. No?

So I restored the consensus-supported V1 wording again, this time after writing a full explanation on Noetica's talk page and linking to that, as well as providing a link to this section.

I don't understand why the V1 wording has not been restored. What's the point of developing and showing consensus if it is ignored?

Does that explain what this is really about? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:25, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, that helps. Unfortunately, the distinction between V. 1 and V. 2 seems superficially innocuous. The behavior of editors here looks as if there is an undercurrent of meaning that no one is talking about in the open, such as Misplaced Pages values diversity, which seems unarguably pleasant sounding, nice, and swell, oddly encounters great opposition because others harbor suspicions the editor advocating adding that language actually thinks it could reasonably be interpreted as Your dog can take a leak on the keyboard and whatever short-circuit crazy crap uploads to Misplaced Pages has as much merit as the writings of an actual human who knows what he’s talking about. I’ve tried before here to get to the bottom of what people are actually driving at but was met with silence (as if everyone looked at each other with a puzzled look, stuck their hands in their pockets, and started doodling in the dust with their toes—in one of those “Uhh… we’re just hanging out and talkin’ here.”) Greg L (talk) 22:33, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. Did you read the opening comment of #Clarification_of_recognizability_lost? I think it's all there... the difference is that V1 restricts the scope of recognizability of a given title to those who are familiar with the topic in question, while V2 omits that restriction in scope. The implications are huge. With V1, obscure topics with unique names can have just those unique names as their titles, which is how articles have been named traditionally in WP (click SPECIAL:RANDOM about a dozen times for probably at least six examples); V2 indicates more descriptive information should be added to such titles, which is contrary to what is actually normally done: only when the additional descriptive information is actually needed for disambiguation per WP:D and WP:PRECISION.

Since those who favor V2 cannot or will not even articulate an argument in favor of their position, all we can do is speculate, but as far as I can tell they just are looking for as much leeway in policy as they can get to allow them to move articles to titles that are more descriptive. I really don't think there is much else going on. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:56, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

B2C keeps claiming that he developed a consensus on this very page. Can anyone else find that? Dicklyon (talk) 22:42, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I never said I developed a consensus. In the section which you started, #RFC on Recognizability guideline wording (including comments I summarized from the previous section #Clarification of recognizability lost), nine different editors -- Kotniski, EdChem, PBS, Kai445, B2C, Powers, WhatamIdoing, JCScaliger and Enric Naval -- explained why V1 was preferable to V2, and no one has made a single coherent statement favoring V2 over V1 anywhere on this page. That's not developing consensus, that's just showing what it is (on the V1 vs V2 issue). --Born2cycle (talk) 22:56, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I misinterpreted your rhetorical "What's the point of developing and showing consensus if it is ignored?" I figured you meant both parts to refer to you, since you are the one claiming the consensus. Dicklyon (talk) 23:27, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll be happy to examine your claim above. Yes, you inserted previous comments from something like 9 users, rather than letting them speak for themselves. Before the RFC was abondoned in reaction to your unwillingness to let people speak for themselves, the RFC section was editing by me (4 times), by Noetica (4 times), by you (10 times), and by WhatamIdoing, LtPowers, and OhmsLaw; that's all; not many of the list you're counting toward a consensus. You also conveniently ignore comments by people who didn't take sides in your polarizing framing of the discussion, like SamBC, Hesperian, DGG, myself, Tony, and Noetica. And you ignored all support for a compromise attempt, supported by DGG, me, WhatamIdoing, JCScaliger. By insisting on counting votes on a two-way partition, inferred from comments made before the RFC and before any discussion toward finding a compromise, you created the mess that we're now starting to try to discuss our way out of. Don't do it again. Dicklyon (talk) 23:27, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Dick, let's review the facts, shall we?

1. Eleven days ago, on Dec 20, I made a small 11-word edit to the policy replacing V2 wording with V1 wording from earlier this year that I simultaneously fully explained in a new section on this page, here: WT:AT#Clarification_of_recognizability_lost. It should be noted that the explanation I provided there was essentially endorsed by nine editors within the next few days, supporting my contention that this should not have even been controversial and should not have required discussion prior to the change, which is why I made the change boldly and the explanation simultaneous. Of course, that presumed people would read the explanation prior to reverting the change.
2. Within 2 minutes, obviously without even reading that explanation, my edit was reverted by Tony1.
3. Then, instead of having a substantive discussion about the edit per WP:BRD, the three of you -- Dicklyon, Tony1 and Noetica -- made all kinds of disruptive comments about process and behavior in that section.
4. Never-the-less, some other editors did contribute, and several explained why V1 was better than V2. No one argued that V2 should be favored over V1.
5. Within a few hours, perhaps not liking the direction that discussion was going, you, Dicklyon, started a new RFC section which disrupted the ongoing discussion in the section I had created. #RFC on Recognizability guideline wording.
6. In the RFC you made vague references to the options, so I made them more specific, introducing the V1/V2 nomenclature. I also summarized the relevant quotes from the previous discussion that favored either version (it's not my fault that none favored V2 - if there had been any, I would have included them).
7. Others chimed in, and by the next day it was clear that V1 was unanimously favored. At this point Noetica dramatically announced that he was "Abandoning this RFC", but others continued to participate for another day or two, and in the end nine separate editors --Kotniski, EdChem, PBS, Kai445, B2C, Powers, WhatamIdoing, JCScaliger and Enric Naval -- all clearly explained why V1 was better than V2, while none favored V2 over V1, and there was a smattering of expressions of preference for various other changes, but nothing really specific that was favored by more than one or two people.
8. By December 25, despite all kinds of discussion, there was still not even one single statement made by anyone in support of V2 over V1, so I again restored the V1 wording, which was disruptively reverted by Noetica, and restored by Kotniski.
9. At that point Kotniski added an "under discussion" link/tag as well.
10. Five days later, on Dec 30, last night, with still nothing stated favoring V2 over V1, nor even anything specific stated objecting to anything in this section, I removed that tag, noting that this of course does not preclude discussion from continuing.
11. Noetica then disruptively again replaced the V1 wording with V2 wording. .

This disruptive filibustering has been going on for 11 days now. We can have other discussion about making other changes, but the argument favoring V2 over V1 simply is not there. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:25, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, B2C, I saw #Clarification_of_recognizability_lost. And it still as unobvious as ever what the distinction is meant to accomplish. I note your own WTF there when you wrote However, I don't see the question of "recognizable to whom?" being addressed there. It appears they did not understand they were changing the meaning of the criterion by implying it needs to be broadly recognizable to meet the criterion, rather than simply be recognizable to those familiar with the topic, which is a huge change.

It would be exceedingly helpful if editors proposed guideline text that made it perfectly clear what the meaning is of the guideline via examples (*sound of audience gasp*). Note my very own effort on this regarding linking (here at MOS:Linking), which was a jihad effort on both sides, with plenty of wiki‑suicide bombings, ArbCom tongue removals, and ample Turkish butt-stabbings. Yet, when I crafted a proposed guideline that was unambiguous and clear as glass as to its scope and applicability, peace fell upon the land and editors no longer feared their crops would wither, livestock die, and midwives weep. I suggest the same here. The clear-as-glass guideline is as follows:

Month-and-day articles (February 24 and 10 July) should not be linked unless their content is germane (relevant and appropriate) to the subject. Such links should share an important connection with that subject other than that the events occurred on the same date. For example, editors should not link the date (or year) in a sentence such as (from Sydney Opera House): "The Sydney Opera House was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007", because little, if any, of the contents of either June 28 or 2007 are germane to either UNESCO, a World Heritage Site, or the Sydney Opera House.

References to commemorative days (Saint Patrick's Day) are treated as for any other link. Intrinsically chronological articles (1789, January, and 1940s) may themselves contain linked chronological items.

I suggest others try to be as equally clear by using language that begins with wording like “For example…” Greg L (talk) 23:33, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

That's probably a good suggestion and a valid criticism, but it's not really specific to this issue, as the wording has always lacked examples. I'm open to discussing all kinds of general improvements like this, but I would really like to focus on the V1 vs V2 issue. This was resolved on the talk page over a week ago, and yet is still not reflected on the policy page. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:32, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

There is no practical and real distinction between the two except for that which is imagined by those who stare at them too long and debate this nonsense until the heat death of the universe. Until someone has the balls to get explicit with better wording and add specific examples of how the principle is applied, this conflict is just bickering over points of order and theological debate where the monks practicing their art believe there are hidden meanings to their chants and hymns. Someone please give me a holler on my talk page when someone here finally figures out and explains precisely what the distinction between the two is insofar as other editors crafting actual titles to actual articles in actual, real-world circumstances. Greg L (talk) 02:12, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree that there's not a heck of a lot of difference, which is why I wanted to not pick a side until after discussing it, but the titling discussion that provoked B2C to insert the narrowed version is to be found above at #Life Safety Code, where Tony invoked the recognizabililty provision. It's not actually a very good test case, and not one on which Tony and I were in agreement at the time (on unrelated grounds; he may have come around to seeing it my way, not sure). In any case, B2C figures that if someone invokes a guideline against you, just change it! The narrower he can make the recognizability provision, the better he can argue against the sort of recognizable titles that Tony and Noetica have sometimes proposed, and that I have on occasion supported. Maybe he can find you a better example. Dicklyon (talk) 02:34, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree there isn't a great deal of difference between the two versions, and our time would be much more valuably spent discussing rewriting the whole section, as is happening below, but when we had a substantial discussion specifically on the two (or three) versions, almost everyone who had anything substantial to say preferred the older (longer) version. The reason is quite straightforward - Misplaced Pages's general practice has always been to name things using their common names, without any extra fluff to make those names "recognizable" to the (often very large) percentage of the population who have never heard of the subject in question. (We don't do things like James Onlyheiscalledthis (footballer) or Tom Smurk (actor who played Dick Woob in Baywatch).) If the wording difference actually makes any difference at all, then it's the longer version that makes this practice clearer. But in any case, as a matter of principle, I think we should be respecting the result of on-topic discussion, not allowing the content of the page to be dictated by drama-mongering and edit-warring. Surely you guys have had enough problems of this kind from various troublemakers at MoS to recognise it here (even though, surprisingly to me, the main culprit this time is someone I'd always associated with defending MoS against exactly this kind of thing).--Kotniski (talk) 13:56, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Subtitles in smaller type

While we're on parenthetical disambiguators, this may be a good time to re-raise an idea that has had some support in the past - make the parenthetical bit of the title display in smaller type, so that it looks more like a "subtitle". That way we go some way towards having our cake and eating it - we get concise "titles", while the heading as a whole provides the precision and (perhaps) consistency. (For another possible advantage of this approach, see my last comment at WT:Disambiguation#Disambiguation of two topics.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:55, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Possibly useful. Is there a template that will do this, or do we need to demonstrate consensus enough for a bug report? — Preceding unsigned comment added by JCScaliger (talk • contribs) 18:26, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Last time it was discussed, I think someone rigged up a template. That's not a problem, though it would then have to be applied, gradually, to hundreds of thousands of pages. The other alternative is to ask for a change to the software (though my experience is that getting the devs to do anything useful takes so long that it would almost certainly be simpler to have a bot apply the template everywhere). In either case, though, the main issue would be detecting and excluding the exceptional cases where the parenthetical is actually a full part of the title.--Kotniski (talk) 11:20, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Advice

Should all official names of settlement be mentioned in Infobox part official name and in leade. Also, which percentage of community is considered sufficient to add a minority language in leade, and which in name section where language is not official (Specifically, 50% is enough?). This will be useful in specific discussion, but be also sure to specify it in the rules in article (about that we have great debate).--MirkoS18 (talk) 01:28, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

50% seems like enough. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 11:27, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Infoboxes are a separate thing from the article title... They are essentially part of the article text. Thus, what should (or should not) go into them is not really within the scope of this policy. Blueboar (talk) 12:02, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your advices.--MirkoS18 (talk) 14:23, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

No, not all. There are cases where the question of who is official is disputable (and this is when some editors want to insist on it, unfortunately); to include an official name under such circumstances is POV. JCScaliger (talk) 03:47, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Case at dispute resolution involving article titles

This case may be of interest to some of you here. --Ohconfucius 03:06, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Consensus support for "recognizable to someone familiar" wording is established

The "recognizable to someone familiar" wording that clarifies that we strive for our titles to be recognizable to those who are familiar with the topic in question, was added by Kotniski on August 17, 2010 with this edit.

Kotniski was clearly editing in good faith, and seeking review, as is revealed by the edit summary, "an alternative formulation for your perusal and possible reversion ("easy to find" and "precise" seem not to have any meaning not covered by the other crietria". This method of building consensus is more commonly used than Reaching consensus through discussion, and is known as Reaching consensus through editing. Within hours of that edit, Knepflerle (talk · contribs) made another edit to the same section, signalling acceptance of Kotniski's change. A few minutes later Hesperian also made edit, and also left Kotniski's wording largely intact. Then, PBS reverted the whole thing , but Knep insisted , another revert from PBS , and then another restore by Kotniski . The next day PMA also made an edit, also signalling acceptance . A few days later, on the 24th, another editor made changes to that section, without changing the wording . In short, a number of editors clearly looked at this wording and accepted it. That establishes consensus, even though there was no discussion about it.

In theory, a similar argument could be made about the recognizability simplification edit in May 2011, except when the ramifications of the oversimplification was pointed out a week ago, consensus clearly favored restoring the previous wording (nine different editors explained why that wording was better; no one argued in favor of the simpler wording).

Now, those are the relevant facts that I'm aware of, and they seem to clearly indicate that consensus supports the "recognizable ... to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic" wording over the "plain" recognizable wording, but maybe I'm missing something. Am I? If so, what? If not, I hereby refute the argument that this wording has no consensus support, which, frankly, I'm sick and tired of fielding (this argument was made in the first sentence of #More revert warring just above). But at least now I have something to refer to if it's ever presented again. --Born2cycle (talk) 08:28, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

@ all, I've reverted the contested point to the Dec. 12 wording, before the current edit war. Please work out the wording on this talk page, rather than in the edit summaries. That's getting disruptive. Given the number of people who edit this article, protection isn't really an option, which means I'm left with blocking people. — kwami (talk) 08:52, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Kwami, how much of this page did you read? If you look at this section, Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#RFC_on_Recognizability_guideline_wording, you'll see that the wording you reverted is unanimously supported by consensus. I'm not counting !votes, BTW, but arguments. Yes, there are three people, Noetica, Tony and Dicklyon who express a preference for the simpler wording, but with no argument. No argument at all has been presented favoring the wording that you restored (note that anyone is free to reply after this with and edit diff to such an argument, but they won't, because there isn't one).

How can anything be resolved with such obstinacy? If they refuse or are unable to engage in substantive discussion, what is there to discuss? --Born2cycle (talk) 09:10, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this really is bizarre. We discussed this, got clear support for a particular wording, and now suddenly the wording that was rejected in the discussion is back in place, and any indication that it is disputed or under discussion has miraculously disappeared. What is the point of all this discussion if all that's going to happen is that the results are going to be overruled by edit warriors?--Kotniski (talk) 10:19, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Funny, I thought that it had already been worked out on the talk page, and that we had generally agreed that what Kwami restored was the least desirable of the three significant options presented. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. I think Kwami must have looked only at the edit and flame wars and not at the on-topic discussion (as admins are unfortunately wont to do).--Kotniski (talk) 09:27, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

And this has happened again. We had a poll on this, after extensive discussion. I believe that more people have now installed the longer and long-established version than ever argued for the short version. If this continues, we may need some adult supervision. JCScaliger (talk) 01:51, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Naming criteria section wording

All right, can we get this sorted out. What, specifically, does anyone propose changing about the wording of this section (the one titled WP:AT#Deciding on an article title). Apart from re-adding the clarification that was confirmed in a discussion above, that recognizability should be stated as applying to people who are "familiar with (but not expert in) the topic". Are there any other proposals about this or any other of the wording?--Kotniski (talk) 10:28, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Possible wording (quite major change)

Trying to rewrite the section so as to be more accurately and informatively descriptive of the process, I came up with this totally reworded version:

The title of an article is often simply a name of the person or thing which is the topic of the article (examples). In many such cases the name is accompanied by an additional descriptor (disambiguator), often in parentheses, to specify it more precisely (examples). In other cases a descriptive title is used, indicating the topical scope of the article (examples) or describing what the article is (examples: List of..., Timeline of...).

For most articles there will be a simple and obvious title. However, in some cases the choice is not so clear – there may be several possible titles, each with advantages and disadvantages. The critera most commonly applied when selecting article titles are recognizability, naturalness, appropriate register, conformance to reliable sources, conciseness, precision, consistency, neutrality, and sometimes others. The principal ways in which these criteria are applied in practice are described below.

When a name is to be used as an article title, the main criterion is the "common name" principle, described in the following section. A name is selected by which the subject is commonly referred to in reliable English-language sources, thus ensuring recognizability to general readers who are familiar with the subject, while also indicating how the subject is likely to be referred to in an encyclopedic register (such as within Misplaced Pages articles). However, when there are several more or less equally recognizable names available, it is not obligatory to choose the commonest name – the choice may also take account of other factors, such as the criteria listed in the paragraph above. In particular, a consistent form of name is often applied for subjects of the same kind – this can be determined by examining titles of similar articles or by consulting the specific guidelines in the box to the right (but it is not obligatory to follow these conventions when there are good reasons to do otherwise).

To decide whether a name needs to be accompanied by a disambiguator, the usual question asked is whether the article subject is the primary topic, or only topic, for that name. If the subject is the unique or the primary topic, then no disambiguator is required – the article title can be the plain name (example). Otherwise, a disambiguator should be added – this usually goes in parentheses after the name (example), although in some cases a more natural or conventional method is used (examples: commas, kings). In a few areas it has become established practice to add descriptors routinely, whether or not disambiguation is required (example); information on such cases can be found in the specific guidelines.

If a disambiguator is required, then it is chosen with regard to the general criteria for article titles. Excessive precision is avoided. For more information see the precision and disambiguation section below and the disambiguation guideline.

When a descriptive title is used for an article, it is no longer so important to use a precise form of words commonly encountered in sources, but the general criteria are again applied. The title should be a clear, concise and sufficiently precise indication of the scope of the article.

When there is disagreement about the best title for an article, editors attempt to reach consensus on a solution. This is commonly done through the Requested Moves procedure. If no consensus can be reached, the article is usually left at its established title.

This way we say more about how the criteria are actually applied, without appearing to define a closed set of criteria (or to lay anything down in stone). Any thoughts?--Kotniski (talk) 12:07, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Um... I am not sure what is meant by the term "register". Explain? Blueboar (talk) 15:22, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Register (sociolinguistics). I.e. titles should be in an "encyclopedic register" (or "tone", or some similar expression). Faeces rather than "shit", to take our familiar extreme example.--Kotniski (talk) 14:06, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Kotniski, thank you for this thoughtful start at a revised approach to naming criteria. It's a lot to think about; let's hope we have a chance to proceed deliberatively, and see if it can be tuned up to something we can all accept. A few reactions:

• I'm not sure that getting rid of the bullet list of bold criteria is going to be effective; the "wall of text" will be very offputting to most editors who look at it, and hard to form a concise internal model of, so it will likely be ignored a lot. Maybe that's OK, as it's mostly ignored already, and just referred to when RM discussions come up.
• The recognizability thing being limited to the "subject" pokes at the current dispute; the "subject area" was one suggestion to soften it a bit. I'm glad you dropped the silly parenthetical about experts anyway.
• The "main" status of "common name" is awkward where it is, since it's applicable to the case of "names" as it says (proper names, as WP:COMMONNAME says), but appears to be much more general than that; it's prominence is sometimes a problem that leads to hit-counting arguments.
• Recognizability in the service of commonname seems like an odd narrowing of its role, too. What about recognizability of titles that are not names? Or clarity of subject from titles? For example, on the Las Vegas dispute, everyone recognizes "Las Vegas", but who can tell if the article it titles might be about the city, or about the vacation destination known as the strip, or both? Can disambiguators have a sanctioned role in this kind of recognizability?
• The endorsement of alternative specific naming convention in certain areas is likely to be controversial; there's a flare-up about that in the NYC subway station naming going on now. I'm not sure where I stand on it, as I think their conventions make a lot of sense there, but I don't generally like the locally-consensus style approach. This will need some though.
• The nutshell says a title should be unambiguous, and the lead says it should precisely identify the subject. Yet attempts to make that true of a title are often resisted on the basis that ambiguity is OK if there's no other article in conflict, and the precision is not really needed except minimally in some sense. Does this new approach do anything to address this discrepancy, or to shift the "balance of power" between the factions? That needs to be looked at, since if we change anything, one side is likely to use the new text to rewrite the lead and the nutshell to reduce that they say about avoiding ambiguity and about precisely identifying the subject.

Thanks again. Dicklyon (talk) 16:38, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

To answer your points: (1) I don't object to making the text more readable by having some bullets in there. But I'd rather it were the different types/elements of titles (names, disambiguators, descriptive titles) that were bulleted, rather than the criteria - we want to get away from the idea that there's a closed set of criteria and nothing else is allowed to be considered. (2) I think the current "dispute" over the wording of "recognizability" is way overblown and I didn't consider it much when writing the above - in any case the precise wording is open to discussion. (3) I'm not sure what you mean about "common name", but I've tried to reflect what seems to be its actual status in move discussions, in my experience - it seems to be the main, but not the sole, consideration when selecting names for use in titles. A caution against hit-counting could be included, though that's already addressed in the policy section specifically about common names. (4) For better or worse, I think existing practice is not to add "disambiguators" purely for recognizability (though I didn't intend to write anything that would forbid doing so). (5) I don't always like the zealous application of local naming conventions either, but experience shows that they can have a significant effect on titling choices, so it would be wrong to leave them out of the description. (6) I'd happily rewrite or (preferably) lose the nutshell; in any case I'm not trying to shift any "balance of power" over any issue - just describe current practice, for which see (4).

You (and other recent arrivals at this page) seem to be particularly concerned with one aspect of article titling - it seems you would like to add descriptors "for recognizability" in certain cases where they are not currently used because they are not needed for disambiguation - perhaps you could phrase some kind of proposal in this matter (since I think it would certainly represent a change to current practice), and we could have a separate discussion about that? --Kotniski (talk) 11:19, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Kotniski - Thanks for taking the initiative here. Although I don't have any disagreement with the stuff you wrote above, its major flaw is that is describing a process, not stating a policy. Our policy pages should be clear, concise, and as much as practical, unequivocal. Maybe we need a Misplaced Pages Title Adjudacation Process page that interprets application of the policy. But everytime we start describing How to on a policy page we open the door for senseless discussions in the name of policy when in fact editors are invoking as gospel one interpretation of policy application to the ignorance of the complete policy.--Mike Cline (talk) 17:12, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Well yes, but we don't really have a policy (we could well drop the policy tag from this page in fact). Pretty much everything about article titles is negotiable. We don't serve the reader by pretending that we have a policy when we don't. What I wrote above is more or less what I would say to someone who wants to know what he should call his Misplaced Pages article or has doubts about what some article is currently called. It's only a rough draft, obviously, but I think it's a more helpful way of summarizing the topic than just giving a list of abstract criteria that you'd have to be a mind-reader to get anything concrete out of.--Kotniski (talk) 14:06, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I share some of the concerns stated here, but also favor resolving the V1 vs V2 recognizability wording issue in the current version before we address something like a total rewrite of the criteria section. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:22, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

"When a name is to be used as an article title, the main criterion is the "common name" principle, described in the following section." I thought the whole point for calling this policy "Article titles" (I was in favour of a rename for this policy but never expressed a preference for this name!), was to move away from stating the title was a name. This sentence seems to be self defeating for those who agreed to the move, as it places the emphasis back on the article title being the name of the subject.

"In many such cases the name is accompanied by an additional descriptor (disambiguator), often in parentheses, to specify it more precisely (examples)." This sentence does not work as it does not explain the conditions for which an "additional descriptor" is acceptable. This clause "recognizability, naturalness, appropriate register, conformance to reliable sources, conciseness, precision, consistency, neutrality," lumps in even more than we have at the moment. what is "appropriate register"? What does "conformance to reliable sources" mean and how does it differ from "recognizability"? What does "consistency" mean and does neutrality mean that "Boston Massacre" is out? It is not for names, but for descriptive titles that neutrality is important, something not mentioned in the sentence "When a descriptive title is used for an article,..." . -- PBS (talk)

About the first point - it says when a name is used, i.e. there are situations where the title is a name, and there are situations where it isn't. In the first case, we usually apply the "common name" principle. I don't see any terminological difficulty with that. About the particular criteria listed, if we want to specify more precisely what each of them means, then we can have a separate section in the policy for each one, where we can explain it at length. I agree that neutrality tends to be an issue only for descriptive titles; that could be emphasized. And "lumping in even more than we have at the moment" is entirely deliberate - what we have at the moment implies that there are these five allowable criteria, which was never anyone's intention (didn't even GTBacchus, who came up with the criteria, recently say that he regretted doing so precisely because it had been misinterpreted as a would-be full and authoritative list?)--Kotniski (talk) 14:30, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

New version of proposal

--Kotniski (talk) 09:47, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Mike Cline's ideal title policy criteria

If I were a wiki-god, this is how I'd simpify the basics of our titling policy.

Misplaced Pages Article Titles - Naming Criteria

Article titles are subject to WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:RS policies, guidelines, specific topic naming conventions and elements of WP:MOS. Article titles reflect what reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject by. Although all WP article titles are unique, there are always potential alternative titles for any given article and the following title criteria collectively, along with consensus discussion when necessary should guide the selection of article titles. {{Policy shortcut|WP:CRITERIA|WP:NAMINGCRITERIA}}

# A WP article title should be precise as practical based on use in reliable sources

1. A WP article title should be as concise as practical based on use in reliable sources
2. A WP article title should be as unambiguous as practical
3. A WP article title should be consistent with other similar titles
4. A WP article title should faithfully represent the content of the article using common English as demonstrated by reliable sources.

end of proposed policy

Discussion This drastically simplfies our titling policy, puts the focus of the policy on the titles, not predictions or prognostications about how millions of readers are going to deal with a specific title. It puts the burden of title selection on use in reliable english language sources. You'll note the section heading change to eliminate Deciding an article title which actually describes a process, not a policy., and changes it to a policy statement. It eliminates the need for the Babel of how-to essays that follow, most of which should be turned into essays and removed from the policy page. It is clearly supported by current practices of WP:COMMONNAME, WP:DISAMBIGUATION, WP:MOSCAPS, WP:ENGVAR, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, WP:RETAIN, WP:REDIRECTS, et. al. It would be a blessing at WP:RM where title disputes could be rationally discussed based on clear criteria and not the emotional crap that editors bring to the discussion because they see the world differently than another editor. Much of the procedural information on the policy page could stay, but eliminating all the conflicting how-to guidance would be a significant improvement. A policy page should clearly state what is the Policy, not because our policy is actually so unclear and inconsistent we have to write a lot of how-to essays to explain it. I would challenge anyone to point our how the above proposal (conceptually) would adversely impact the 3.9 million articles we already have on WP and adversely impact the creation of the next 2-3 million articles in the coming years. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:47, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Here's the concept in a nutshell:

In Misplaced Pages, there are no perfect titles, only titles that meet our naming criteria. Mike Cline, December 31st, 2011, Bozeman, Montana

Mike, I like your approach. Thanks for articulating it. A couple of reactions:

• The "reliable sources" bit needs some thought. What does it mean to be "precise as practical based on use in reliable sources"? Precision seems to be more about ambiguity in the context of wikipedia. Take the Las Vegas dispute again; reliable sources are mostly going to refer to both The Strip and the city as "Las Vegas", so that seems precise enough in the context of sources; but in a context where we cover both extensively in separate articles, it's not precise enough. "Precise as practical" might be OK, but conflicts with the previous "precise as necessary", which may get you come pushback from some camps.
• "concise as practical" is similarly a bit unclear to me; how does the practicality relate to reliable sources here?
• I like what you've done with "consistent" and "represent", but we should consider recent or current cases and see how they would be applied, and see if they help.

Thanks for advancing the conversation. Dicklyon (talk) 17:21, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

The use of: as practical based on reliable sources is an accession to the brutal fact that every article must have a unique title. Although one alternative for a title may be more precise or concise than another alternative, any given alternative may not 1) meet the other criteria, or 2) has already been used by another article. As long as the best alternative is supported by sources, it meets these criteria. The Bill Clinton comparision is a good example here. Sources support both Bill Clinton and William Jefferson Clinton. The Bill version is not imprecise and it is more concise than William. But if someone suggested W. J. Clinton is should be considered imprecise because sources don't support that even though from a letter count, its just as concise as Bill Clinton. I think the other thing that is really important here is that these criteria cannot be view individually in isolation of each other, but as a collective. Every WP title should meet all four criteria as smoothly as possible. I do agree that a change like this will take a bit of interpretation and transition, but that should be the result of the policy change, not part and parcel of the policy.--Mike Cline (talk) 17:39, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Is this, then, a proposal to redefine precise as "what reliable sources use"? That's not precision, in any definition I know of the term. JCScaliger (talk) 03:43, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't find this proposed version much better than the present one (except that it's shorter, so anyone reading it will waste less time doing so). Someone who doesn't know how WP articles are titled still won't be any the wiser after reading this. After reading the first paragraph of this policy, the reader ought to know the basic facts about Article Titles: we use common names, we use disambiguators when necessary (and what they are), we use descriptions for topics that don't have names, we use sentence case (oops, forgot to mention that in my version), there are various other criteria that may be considered when choosing between candidate titles. Any list of abstract criteria alone is pretty unhelpful, and is even misleading since it implies that you're "not allowed" to consider anything else. --Kotniski (talk) 14:17, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

It is interesting that now we are actually discussing whether or not WP:Title should be a policy page or not. As of right now, it contains snipets of policy, some guidelines, and some essay type stuff. If it is a policy page, i.e. what someone can actually invoke as policy, then it should be clear, concise, and essentially unequivocal. For policy pages we say: This page documents an English Misplaced Pages policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow.. When we venture into the realm of guidelines we say: This guideline is a part of the English Misplaced Pages's Manual of Style. Use common sense in applying it; it will have occasional exceptions. and This page documents an English Misplaced Pages guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.. When we reach the stage of How To essays, we say: This essay contains comments and advice of one or more Misplaced Pages contributors on the topic of XXXXXX. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Consider these views with discretion. Essays are not Misplaced Pages policies or guidelines. When we combine elements of all these types of guidance into a single page and call it policy, we give license to the lunacy and Babel that surrounds contentious title changes. If everything about titles can be invoked as policy, then we have no policy, just a bunch of words. I don't find any fault with the Process things we need to tell editors about when it comes to titling, but I do think that calling everything policy is really lame. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:09, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I would make this page into a guideline. The only reason I remember being given for its being a policy is that it has more "general" application than a lot of the more specific "Naming conventions (xxx)" guidelines, but I don't really think that's too significant. I would adopt an arrangement parallel to that used for the MoS - rename all the other NC pages "Article titles/Xxx" (i.e. as subpages of this one), and then classify everything as a guideline (except for any pages that don't deserve to be).--Kotniski (talk) 15:59, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

(1) It is inappropriate that this page be "policy". I agree with Kotniski on that.

(2) I like some of the things in Kotniski's proposal, but it skirts around the issue in a few critical ways. It could be tightened up and bullets and inline headers used for user-friendliness.

(3) Mike's proposal will cause a lot of interpretation problems: what is "practical"? What if RSs are in conflict, either between themselves (common) or with WP's in-house style?

(4) I've got to say that examples are critical in conveying the title guideline. We could do worse than to workshop some examples ourselves, on this talk page, to get a sense of where the boundaries should lie. Tony (talk) 13:20, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Tony, you say my version skirts around "the issue" - presumably you mean the issue of "redundant disambiguators" (or whatever they are to be called) as I referred to in my reply to Dick above? Could you perhaps make some kind of explicit proposal on this issue, as I suggested there? Once we know exactly what it is we're supposed to be deciding, we could reach some kind of consensus position on it, which would then be incorporated into whatever formulation of the guidance we end up choosing.--Kotniski (talk) 15:30, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

This page has been policy for a very long time. I have given reasons in the past why it should remain so (and in the past Tony1 has agreed with some of them). But the major reasons are. Unlike almost every other aspect of Misplaced Pages pages have to have a unique name, so there needs to be a basic policy on how to manage that process. Having one central policy supported by a host of guidelines, makes it much easier to coordinate them and have one central clearing house for ideas. "Policies explain and describe standards that all users should normally follow, while guidelines are meant to outline best practices for following those standards in specific contexts" (WP:PG]]). If this is a guideline then what standards is it outlining? At a practical day to day level it helps administrators with processes like WP:RM due to the additional authority that policy carries, when they reject a move that has a local consensus not based on following this policy (see WP:CONSENSUS). If instead all of the naming conventions were to be considered as equal grist for the mill then admins would have a far harder time justifying their decisions when closing WP:RM debates that went against the local consensus than they do now. -- PBS (talk) 02:26, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it carries that weight in practice (mainly because this page doesn't really say anything concrete). If people come to a local consensus to use some title for an article purely on the grounds that it conforms to some sub-guideline (like German battleship Bismarck), then the admin will respect that. If this page somehow forbade such titles, then it might carry some weight as policy, but of course it doesn't forbid or require anything concrete - it mainly just describes and suggests. In fact I think the WP:Disambiguation guideline is treated as more authoritative than this page, when it comes to relevant aspects of article titling.--Kotniski (talk) 14:41, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

• Mike Cline’s arguments make a lot of sense to me. If someone still disagrees with his logic, can someone please provide an example of a title that—in their opinion—could be improperly crafted were Mike’s proposal implemented as he proposes. The example titles can be either entirely or partially fictional. Greg L (talk) 23:58, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

• Consistency is a bad reason for naming a page as it tends to reinforce both earlier decisions both good and bad so encourages consistency for consistency sake. This goes against the principles outlined in consensus (that it can change and hence the reason for the original name may go against more recent policy and guideline advise). Zürich Airport is such an example where consistency (with Zürich) was used to ignore usage in reliable English language sources. As was the retitling of the battles of Zurich, which were moved from "battle of Zurich" to "battle of Zürich" not based on the usage in sources but in the article title of Zürich. We use naturalness so that we have the name Tony Blair rather than Blair, Tony etc (See my posting above on 23:12, 30 December 2011 for more details). PBS (talk) 02:26, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

• I see. I agree with your stated objective, PBS. I take it that Mike’s #3 point is something you don’t support. It looked sensible on the surface, but your explaining what it means in its application helps immeasurably. It is easy to agree with Article titles should respect authority, value diversity, and love puppies. Getting to the bottom of how editors are trying to hide their hidden agendas behind the apron strings of goodliness is an altogether different matter. Greg L (talk) 03:03, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

• Greg, it's not Mike's logic, but what I see as the impracticality of the wording, which uses terms that could mean anything to anyone. If Mike or someone else can nail it down, then we might be able to judge. Unfortunately, I do believe it's impossible to express this in only a few words, as noble as that aim might be. Kotniski, I don't know the answer yet, but that doesn't stop me gagging on many titles I encounter that I know are intrinsically misleading or unhelpful to readers. Again, I call for a workshop on this page, where we can all grapple with some concrete examples. Tony (talk) 06:05, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, I think I agree with Tony about Mike's version - there's nothing expressly "wrong" with it, but since it could mean pretty much anything, there's nothing really "right" about it either. It wouldn't add much to anyone's understanding of the topic, nor would it provide any guidance that could be usefully followed in any concrete situation. (The same criticism applies to much of the present wording of the section as well.)--Kotniski (talk) 14:20, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Responses re above and slight change in proposal

You’ll all note that I made a slight modification to my ideal criteria above. I have been encouraged by all the comments so far. As far as the adjusted criteria goes, you’ll see I whacked Precision and replaced it with what we really want (actually must have)—unambiguous titles. If it is ambiguity that we must avoid, then let’s be clear about it and not camouflage it with a word like Precision.

I don’t disagree with Kotniski or Tony who worry about interpreting a simplified policy, but whatever interpretation is needed, it should be separate from the actual policy. We already do a reasonable job of interpreting the basics of our titling policy, but have confused that interpretation (which should be in the form of guidelines, MOS and essays) with the actual policy. What we continually failed to recognize as we’ve tweaked this policy in the past is that every WP article title has a context all its own. That context is made up of the article’s content, its broad subject area, whether the article is from a traditionally contentious subject area, the quality and quantity of reliable sources on the topics, and whether the article is really about a subject where English isn’t the primary language, et. al. It is impossible to address all the complexities associated with a specific title context with comprehensive how-to guidance. When we try and label such guidance as policy, it fails miserably when the context changes.

An approach to articulating policy and interpreting/applying it on the same page

It would be a novel approach, but an interesting one to combine both policy statements and guideline statements (all clearly delineated on the same page) under the title WP:Article Titles.

It might look something like this:

This page and section documents an English Misplaced Pages policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Changes made to it should reflect consensus.

• Very clear, concise, essentially unequivocal statements like I proposed above

This section documents English Misplaced Pages article title guidelines. These are generally accepted standards that editors should attempt to follow in applying the policy above, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.

• All the various guideline and how-to stuff listed here with the focus on how-to interpret and apply the above policies to the most common titling situations in WP.
• Much of this guideline section would flow in summary style, linking to other guidelines, MOS, naming conventions and essays.

A What if?, not How Do We Do It? approach

If for the sake of discussion, that we’d agreed to put aside concerns about How would we go about interpreting and applying the simplified policy above?, how could we evaluate the potential for this simplified policy? Right now, there are ~3.9 million article titles within the English Misplaced Pages. If each and every one of those titles met the proposed criteria would anyone be disappointed. In other words if title #1 through title#3,900,000 was as concise as practical, was unambiguous as practical, was consistent with related titles and faithfully represented the content of the article using common English as demonstrated by reliable sources; would anyone be disappointed? I would sincerely like to hear from any editor who would be disappointed or unhappy if article titles met these criteria, regardless of how that was accomplished and why they feel that way. On the other hand, if no one would be disappointed or unhappy, then we are not quibbling about the proposed policy, only struggling with the methodology and words needed to interpret and apply it in the most common of titling contexts. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:52, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Again, these statements are not demonstrably wrong, but that's the problem - they are all so vague that everyone would interpret them in different ways. Laying this down as policy would just lead to entirely unnecessary discussion about how to interpret it in particular situations, where that discussion would be more usefully focused on whether a proposed title satisfies Misplaced Pages's actual, concrete titling practices and its purpose as a reliable and useful reference work.--Kotniski (talk) 09:23, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Names of individuals

This issue frankly crosses so many style guides and policies that I've brought it up here (even though it concerns multiple issues of the manuals of style).

In the past several months, I have dealt with extreme opposition to proposed moves for articles on individual people. Per WP:MOSCAPS, names of individual people appear to be exempt from capitalization rules so long as the person's name is written in all lower case letters (WP:MOSCAPS#Mixed or non-capitalization), but names that are parsed in all capital letters are apparently forbidden under this style guide (because all-caps are only for acronyms), as well as WP:MOSTM. At some point in one discussion I've had on this page or on another (or perhaps in setting up the exception for k.d. lang at MOSCAPS), it was stated that individuals' names are not subject to MOSTM because they are not trademarks. I've brought this up before at WT:MOSCAPS but that discussion has never resolved

And time and time, again, I have been told that WP:COMMONNAME automatically excludes the use of any names preferred by the subject (if we are dealing with individuals), and someone wrote up WP:OFFICIALNAME to cover that. Why should the English Misplaced Pages not use a name (or name form in the means of stylization) because of our own internal policies and guidelines? I understand that the Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam issue exists, but bringing that up just starts a slippery slope fallacy. If we allow titles such as will.i.am and k.d. lang, then there is no reason that MISIA or Ke$ha should be invalid article titles.—Ryulong (竜龙) 09:58, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Don't forget to move Prince (musician) to 15px! If we don't cater to every celebrity publicity naming stunt, can we look in the mirror and call ourselves an "encyclopedia"? Yes, it may be possible to live in a world without DJ OZMA, YUI, MISIA, "melody.", CHARA, Se7en, and P!nk, but only DJ Ozma, Yui, Misia, Melody, Chara, Seven, and Pink. But I say that such world would be a poorer place. So I am recapitalizing my user name in solidarity: kAuFfnEr (talk) 12:36, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Prince is not known by that symbol any more so we need not have to worry about his page. And Kauffner, your comments are not adding anything to the discussion and it appears you are merely antagonizing me by seeking out the various discussions I have started because of our conflict over the titles of Misia and Yui (singer) last month (because you had no freaking clue what a "stylization" was). I am pointing out that there is a disparity in what Misplaced Pages currently accepts as acceptable article titles for individuals, where all lower case names are allowable, per bell hooks and k.d. lang, but this same leeway is not given to individuals who are known by names parsed in all capital letters, mixed capitalizations, or with characters that exist on a standard QWERTY keyboard such as the exclamation point, the period, or the question mark. Instead of dismissing the whole argument and being unnecessarily disruptive by changing your signature and pointing this out, it'd be better to provide arguments as to why I am wrong.—Ryulong (竜龙) 20:13, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Maybe Kauffner's approach of making light of the problem is not satisfying you, but I think I agree with him that letting the style of the encyclopedia be so driven to what Tony1 calls "Eye Poking" style would be inappropriate. In all cases, these names are trademarks, and subject to our style guidance on such. Dicklyon (talk) 20:40, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Why then allow for lowercase exceptions? That's called a double standard.∞陣内Jinnai 21:05, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Dicklyon, a person's name cannot be a trademark. And even if I'm wrong, Jinnai makes a point. It's a double standard to allow all lower case variations, but completely forbid all capital variations, alternating capitals variations, or variations that use punctuation marks.—Ryulong (竜龙) 21:10, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

How is a performer's name not a trademark? And what's wrong with a double standard? Dicklyon (talk) 06:23, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Because it is his or her name. And a double standard is inherently wrong. It's not necessary to say that "bell hooks" is OK, but "MISIA" or "Ke$ha" is wrong.—Ryulong (竜龙) 09:05, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

If an entertainer’s name is used in its stylized form principally by only by select entertainment organizations like MTV and the entertainer’s own “worship me” web promotional site, that is one thing. But if the individual’s name is near-universally spelled a particular way by traditional RSs, then Misplaced Pages should follow the RSs. We don’t have to love that Apple named it “iPhone”; we just accept that is what it is. We have no more business mis-spelling an individuals name under the pretense of doing *very nice English prose per our own style guide* than we do making pronouncements like Mount Rainier is properly pronounced “Mount Ren-YAY” because we wikipedians know our “English stuff” and are smart-smart-smart. Weirder-yet examples can be addressed on a case-by-case basis, like when Prince legally changed his name to an unpronounceable glyph combining the symbols for male (♂) and female (♀) and then trademarked the symbol as an album cover so people couldn’t write or pronounce his name. In that particular case, one can just spell it “Narcissist”. Greg L (talk) 00:28, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. And that's why MOS:TM says "choose among styles already in use (not invent new ones)". Dicklyon (talk) 00:46, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Unless the “invented new ones” are near-universally spelled that particular way by traditional RSs—even if the *new* way meets with the disapproval of wise wikipedians. But your point is well taken. Driving down to the practical effect of "choose among styles already in use (not invent new ones),” that means we would find that the *new* way was—as I wrote—invariably being used only by select entertainment organizations like MTV and the entertainer’s own “worship me” web promotional site. Greg L (talk) 00:49, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S. But I might take that back. I see that The New York Times spells it “Ke$ha”. Nonetheless, our article on her, “Kesha” looks very encyclopedic. I would say that it is not about “double-standards” but is all about not straying from encyclopedic practices and turning Misplaced Pages into a billboard for entertainers without a compelling and very good reason to do otherwise. So long as “invented new ones” is used within the intended scope and not taken to extremes, that sounds like a good guideline to me. In the real world, things are seldom black & white; shades of gray must be dealt with. Greg L (talk) 01:16, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

P.P.S. And I see that The New York Times spells it “K.D. Lang”. So I am utterly mystified why our article is titled “k.d. lang”. Now I can see what others mean by “double standard.” I can only assume that a bat-shit-crazy, rabid following on that article established a local consensus in violation of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. I wouldn’t touch an RM on that article with a ten-foot pole; my writing style comes across as “The Man” and I’d be blocked for twelve years for something like ending a sentence with a preposition. Greg L (talk) 01:23, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not so happy with all-lowercase names and trademarks, either, but they are in use, and are less eye-poking and somewhat closer to normal English than the all-caps and some other styles, so MOS:TM allows them. It's a standard, not a double standard. Dicklyon (talk) 01:34, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Nice try. MOS:TM covers things like “Rolex” and “REALTOR”®. It does not encompass vanity capitalization like “k.d. lang”, which is not a trademark issue. Nor does MOS:TM have a preference for “less eye-poking” lowercase over uppercase (as REALTOR® amply demonstrates). Which case (upper or lower) has absolutely nothing to do with this. Ryulong is entirely correct; “k.d. lang” it is a double standard because we don’t spell it “Ke$ha.” What Ryulong doesn’t probably appreciate is that Great Wrongs™®© are seldom an institutionalized, intentional act but are invariably the product of the combined efforts of 5 to 20 editors active on a local issue who are clueless as to Misplaced Pages’s many guidelines. It’s tough getting sufficient regular, outside editors to weigh in on an RM or RfC. On an article like “k.d. lang”, the call would go out and a hundred editors and I.P.s would descend upon the land and drown out any reasonable discussion. So there is no point even trying. Greg L (talk) 01:43, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

How is a performer's name not a trademark? See these books on trademark law and the artist business: , . Dicklyon (talk) 01:52, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't know about the "clueless to Misplaced Pages's many guidelines" part is. Because in my attempt to suggest that Kesha be moved to Ke$ha, people are quoting MOS:TM as a reason as to why the page should not be moved. And on a semi-related subject, a move for the comic book/animated series Bakuman to Bakuman. is also an issue of MOS:TM, when I am entirely certain that punctuation at the end of titles is fine when it's anything but the full stop.—Ryulong (竜龙) 02:16, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages’s articles on these artists are biographies and Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia—not an agent, promoter, or MTV. Misplaced Pages looks best when it observes most-encyclopedic literary practices and that is undermined when some articles use non-traditional “see me” vanity/stage capitalization. Is anyone here suggesting that Misplaced Pages is somehow obligated to use the stage/vanity spelling “k.d. lang” for the biography on her but there is no need to do so for “Misia, who prefers the stage/vanity spelling “MISIA”? Ryulong is quite right: they should clearly be treated the same. But I disagree with his perceived remedy: start using even more stylized stage names. In short…

Encyclopedic biographies should generally not use vanity or stage-name stylization and capitalization. My preference would be to do an RM and make it “Kathryn Dawn Lang” and all else redirects (K.D. Lang, k.d. lang, etc.). The first sentence would say just what it currently says: Kathryn Dawn Lang, OC (born November 2, 1961), known by her stage name k.d. lang, is a Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter…

I see no sensible reason why Kathryn the entertainer gets to have a biography title using her stage name but Misia does not. Note that this would have to be an entirely separate issue from performers widely known by nothing other than a normally-capitalized stage name, such as Rock Hudson. Still more shades of gray (*sigh*). But I would say that Misia, Kesha, and Rock Hudson are correct, k.d. lang is not. I can simply not discern any logic that would justifiably treat Misia different from ol’ Kathryn. Furthermore, my position has the virtue of suggesting only one of the four articles mentioned here are fouled up. Now…

I’m done here for the day. WT:Article titles is still disfunctional for trying to get anything done because so many editors lose an RM or RfC somewhere and come here to change the rules of the game so they can get their way across the wiki‑land. Just trying to get an editor to fess-up and explain what his or her proposed wording means in real life… as a practical matter, is like pulling teeth. Above, I had one or two editors say they didn’t know what the difference was between two proposed guidelines; they were reverting each other out of shear habit. Well, I’m going to start making sure editors have to lay their cards on the table and rexplain precisely what they are driving at with real-world examples. For some, that would force them to reveal their hidden agendas. So shoot me for saying what I think is true; that’s what’s going on here—by the boat load. Greg L (talk) 02:45, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Yep, all true. They have trademark-styled names, and we are an encyclopedia. Our style guide says to avoid REALTOR®, TIME, KISS, but to do iPod, eBay, etc. That's what it is; those who don't like it should know where to go to try to get a new consensus on it developed. Dicklyon (talk) 03:01, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, maybe one more post by me today. I see why Ryulong speaks of having WP:TM thrown at him. WP:TM is misapplication. The fallacy here in your argument is that biographies on individuals who happen to be entertainers means that biographies must necessarily be encumbered by trademark restrictions. There are limitations to using Rock Hudson for commercial purposes. But when doing an encyclopedic article on a biography mentioning the individual’s name, then “Rock Hudson” is his name. Vanity stage names with stylized spellings entered into the search field should simply redirect. I suggest biographies on entertainers merely use the artist’s commonly known name as most often used by the RSs in the non-trademarked fashion. That would be a most-encyclopedic practice for biographies. Thus, it would consistently be Kathryn Dawn Lang, Misia, Kesha, Prince (musician), and Rock Hudson; not k.d. lang, MISHA, Ke$ha, and Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. Greg L (talk) 03:20, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "trademark restrictions"; the only restriction is to not necessarily adopt their weird trademark styling if there are more normal stylings of their names available to choose instead. We do still show in the lead how they style it normally. It looks like we agree. Dicklyon (talk) 03:30, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

"Rapper Young Buck may lose his stage name as his assets are liquidated and his name trademark is one of his assets." So it seems that a stage name is a trademark. If you want to rap under the stage name "Young Buck", soon to be former Young Buck may have just the right deal for you. Kauffner (talk) 14:57, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

This is exactly why we have WP:Ignore all rules. Our style guidelines are just that... guides to good writing and style. They are not "Laws" that must be adhered to in every single situation. Remember that there are going to be exceptions to every rule. We should follow the excellent advice laid out in our style guidelines most of the time... but we also must accept that there are going to be times when what is said in a MOS simply does not fit the situation. I also draw your attention to one of my favorite essays - Misplaced Pages:The rules are principles. Blueboar (talk) 15:01, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I often find that WP:IAR is never given the weight it should in discussions. It's one of our central policies, but whenever I propose that it be applied in any of the situations where I've attempted to propose a page move, I am told that I apparently need more of a reason to apply it in that case. Despite being a policy, it is constantly trumped by guidelines which have become so rigid that no leeway is allowed anymore.

And there has yet to be a reason as to why lower case stylizations in the vein of will.i.am and k.d. lang are OK, but all caps stylizations in the vein of MISIA or DJ OZMA (which Kauffner has started a move proposal for to move it back to "DJ Ozma") are not.—Ryulong (竜龙) 17:54, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that there is an inconsistency between allowing all lower case and not allowing all upper case... but that is a style issue and not a matter for policy. If you have a problem with a specific style guideline, go discuss it at the guideline talk page and work it out. As a matter of policy, we don't really care about capitalization all that much. From a policy standpoint it really does not matter whether the article is at DJ OZAMA... DJ Ozama... or dj ozama. I think all three are fairly equally recognizable, natural, precise, and concise (consistency isn't an issue in this case)... but if one is used more often in sources, that one is probably best used here. Blueboar (talk) 20:09, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

But seeing as it regards the title of the article, it goes here, does it not? Why are these style guides supplanting the article titling policies? And where the heck did you get "Ozama" from? It's "OZMA", not Bin Laden.—Ryulong (竜龙) 21:13, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I mean, look at Talk:DJ OZMA#Requested move: DJ OZMA → DJ Ozma. Kauffner has cited WP:ALLCAPS, WP:MOSTM, and WP:CAPS in his argument, none of which even come close to covering the case of an individual's name, a fact which was also brought up in the August requested move but Kauffner seems to ignore it.—Ryulong (竜龙) 23:58, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I'd put KD Lang at the same capitalization that we use for E. E. Cummings. Will.i.am, on the other hand, might be a useful method of disambiguating the page, since we already have a page at William.

On the all-caps issue, there's a general standard (in the real world) that all caps is not used when the name is pronounced like a word. So it would be IBM and HIV, but Misia and Aids. This rule is particularly common in British English. This typical approach probably explains why all caps is so much less likely to be accepted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

“Aids” and not AIDS? It’s an acronym. And our article has it capitalized correctly. Maybe you meant Ayds. Greg L (talk) 21:06, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Nope, I mean Aids, the common acronym for the disease caused by HIV. British style guides like this one do not maintain the capitalization of "pronounceable" acronyms. So in UK publications, you'll see it referred to as "Aids", unlike American publications, which print the same thing as "AIDS". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

On names as trademarks

See this book and this book. Note that a name, if it signifies an individual, can be registered as a trademark; and a name used in trade or services is a trademark (or service mark) whether it is registered or not. If it's too ambiguous enough, or not famous enough to signify an individual, then it can't be registered. Dicklyon (talk) 01:08, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

• So what, Richard? So entertainer names can be trademarked. That does not mean anyone can pull Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Trademarks out of ones sheath with a Three-Muskateers “Ah-Haaaa! Got you!” and everyone has to shrug and go home; not unless the rest of the community thinks the guideline is a good fit for guiding and limiting the scope of what article titles are judged suitable. If so, we can transplant some of MOS:TM’s teachings to WP:AT. If not, we are perfectly within our rights to arrive at a consensus that adopts all, lots, some, little, or none of MOS:TM when developing guidelines governing article titles. I’m all for starting with a simple screen for titles:

1. Does the article title look studious and encyclopedic,
2. Is it factually correct the way most well-educated readers understand the subject matter,
3. After a redirect from popular street vernacular, does the actual title best adhere to the principle of least astonishment, and
4. Do the spelling, diacritics, or capitalization diverge from conventional, high-quality, real-world English-language practices as exercised by the most-reliable English-language RSs.

This wouldn’t have to be so difficult if WP:AT wasn’t a battleground for disaffected editors who lost a battle somewhere else and came here to exact a win at all cost (making other editors feel compelled to come here and sandbag the place against the rising floodwaters of discontent). I keep finding a repeating pattern where my take on matters would result in the fewest changes to existing article titles. Just pardon me all over the place for patting myself on the back, but I see that as validating my take on matters to a certain degree. Greg L (talk) 04:01, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're going on about, Greg. My point is just that our guidelines on treatment of oddly rendered trademarks and company names applies equally to other kinds of trade names. Why wouldn't it? What's wrong with choosing the less eye-poking alternative like DJ Ozma, or Kesha, as it suggests? Of course, if you're proposing a way to change WP:AT to make it more clear, or make it give different results, I have no objection to you clarifying that proposal. Dicklyon (talk) 04:12, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I am saying that only Misplaced Pages’s Five Pillars overrides and limits the scope of what we may do here. Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Trademarks is a guideline; it is neither prescriptive nor proscriptive as to what we decide to put here in WP:AT. MOS:TM has some good stuff. I agree that “REALTOR” should not be the capitalization for an article title. I also think it is exceedingly non‑encyclopedic to have “Ke$ha” or whatever her name is. Greg L (talk) 04:17, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

May I ask how it can be non‑encyclopedic if it's her name?—Ryulong (竜龙) 04:23, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

• Enough has been written on that here and the needle on my This-Is-Crap-O-Meter just pegged past “80”. You know full-well why it is non‑encyclopedic and I’m not going to go around in circles with you, Ryulong. You’ve been told numerous times why our article on her (titled “Kesha”) is properly encyclopedic and Misplaced Pages is not encumbered by a duty to stylize its titles with eye-popping vanity stage-hyped adornments. She can stick a big glossy banner reading Ke$ha on her ‘I-love-me’-wall in her living room if she choses; Misplaced Pages is not obliged to follow suit. As the article says, her name is Kesha Rose Sebert and it is stylized Ke$ha. We can all read here so please desist with that “it’s her name” business; it’s tedious. Note too that my position on Kesha doesn’t mean I defend other stylized stage-hype names to which you can point and claim “double-standard” or name-bias or whatever grievous insult you perceive. I’ll have none of that wikidrama. Greg L (talk) 04:56, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what non-encyclopedic means, either. To me, the issue is just this encyclopedia's stated policies, guidelines, and style advice. Dicklyon (talk) 05:00, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Any good encyclopedia. If Encyclopedia Britannica thought she was more notable than a bucket of warm spit and actually had an article of their own on her, it would be titled “Kesha Rose Sebert” and all the other stuff would redirect. Greg L (talk) 05:04, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

At allmusic.com, she's Kesha and Kesha Rose Sebert; but they give her the dollar sign in the title. Different style. Dicklyon (talk) 05:16, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Hey. You got me there. I wonder how Beavis & Butthead would spell it? Greg L (talk) 05:21, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Fine. Then I am trying to get rid of the unnecessary policies and guidelines that are in place that prevent article titles like "Ke$ha". If that's how 34 million websites write the name while only 2 million or so write it the other way when referring to the woman, then why should we be part of that 2 million when the other 34 million include the Grammy organization, Billboard, several other music publications, the New York Times, etc.? Similarly, per the DJ OZMA discussion, why should the English Misplaced Pages base its style guide on the style guides of a minority of the sources merely because they are the only English language ones?—Ryulong (竜龙) 07:48, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

When you start getting result numbers in the millions, you can count on it being at least 99 percent ghosting. The New York Times usually calls her "Kesha". See here, here, and here. Our readers do the same. Check out Google Insights. (Bar graph on the right.) BTW, I am continuing my war on clownishly capitalized and punctuated celebrity names with k.d. lang. Kauffner (talk) 11:49, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

The NYT also uses "Ke$ha" as I pointed out in the RM there, and your "war on clownishly capitalized and punctuated celebrity names" seems to be going through its Waterloo on k.d. lang.—Ryulong (竜龙) 23:26, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

If you think Noetica, Onconfucious, Ohms_law, Tony1, Blueboar all said anything substantive against V1 or in favor of V2, you're going to have to spell it out, because I don't see it. You're the only one who mentioned the word "narrow" in that RFC discussion, and no one said "wordy", so I don't know what you're talking about.

To Dick: (after ec) If you look at the RfC above (i.e. where people actually addressed the issue), you'll see overwhelming support for the version that you rather misleadingly attribute to B2C, and virtually none for the one that the page has again been protected under (that you rather misleadingly describe as the "status quo" version). This whole thing, though the issue itself is quite trivial, makes a mockery of the idea that Misplaced Pages policy represents consensus - it's clear that all that matters is who's most prepared to edit-war and who's best friends with (or best able to pull the wool over the eyes of) an admin.--Kotniski (talk) 08:07, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

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