m →Title quality spectra: adjust format |
|||
Line 649: | Line 649: | ||
::Is there evidence that there's any shift in thinking in your direction in the last 5+ years? [[User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon]] ([[User talk:Dicklyon|talk]]) 16:30, 16 April 2012 (UTC) |
::Is there evidence that there's any shift in thinking in your direction in the last 5+ years? [[User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon]] ([[User talk:Dicklyon|talk]]) 16:30, 16 April 2012 (UTC) |
||
:::<small>This is exactly the type of thing [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ADicklyon&diff=487208511&oldid=486559053 you've been asked not to do], so I'm not engaging. Focus on the issues, not on the people.</small> --[[User:Born2cycle|Born2cycle]] ([[User talk:Born2cycle|talk]]) 17:20, 16 April 2012 (UTC) |
:::<small>This is exactly the type of thing [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ADicklyon&diff=487208511&oldid=486559053 you've been asked not to do], so I'm not engaging. Focus on the issues, not on the people.</small> --[[User:Born2cycle|Born2cycle]] ([[User talk:Born2cycle|talk]]) 17:20, 16 April 2012 (UTC) |
||
::::Without going into too much detail on the ancient history of this policy, [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AArticle_titles&diff=222165086&oldid=221935384 this edit] in June 2008 changed how the Naming Conventions were drafted. Previous to that addition many of the guidelines were put in place with rules that described algorithms that emulated the usage in reliable sources, because up to then "common name" meant in all sources not just usage in reliable sources. Hence the reference to consistency ("name her 'Mary I of England' not 'Bloody Mary' because although BM is the most common name [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_%28royalty_and_nobility%29&oldid=216081967 NCROY (May 2008)] says use ''monarch numeral'' of ''country'' so that it is consistent with other monarch articles"). So all conversations on this talk page and the talk pages of the policy's guidelines prior to June 2008 must be read with that in mind. If my memory serves me well, B2C took longer to support the change ''common usage in reliable sources'' than most. It is a benefit to us all that people are open minded enough to change their opinions. -- [[User:Philip Baird Shearer|PBS]] ([[User talk:Philip Baird Shearer|talk]]) 14:47, 21 April 2012 (UTC) |
|||
== Popular alternatives == |
== Popular alternatives == |
Revision as of 14:47, 21 April 2012
Error: The code letter for the topic area in this contentious topics talk notice is not recognised or declared. Please check the documentation.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 61 |
Archives by topic: |
This page has archives. Sections older than 14 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present. |
Policy, or guideline?
In light of the continuing discussion at Talk:Fort Worth where people have various different feelings and interpretations about what our naming practices are or should be, I'm reminded that many of us had agreed that having this page be called "policy" is a bad idea. What do people think about relabeling it as a guideline? Dicklyon (talk) 19:08, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
- I don't remember any "agreement" on that. I think this should be a "Policy" page and not a guideline. That said, some of the things we talk about on this page are better presented as "best practice" guidance than "firm and fast rules"... and we could do a better job of distinguishing which bits are which. Blueboar (talk) 19:29, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose. Anyone who disagrees with anything this page or any other policy page says should simply see if there is consensus support for his or her view, and, if so, try to get it changed. Trying to circumvent that process by weakening the policy authority placed on this page by community consensus is not only contrary to WP:CONSENSUS, but will only lead to more ambiguity and disagreement. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:31, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
- I am of course opposed to this idea. This would put core titling principles like WP:COMMONNAME, WP:CRITERIA, and WP:UE on the same level as WP:USPLACE, a poorly thought out guideline that I have denounced vigorously over at the Fort Worth RM. Kauffner (talk) 03:19, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support—I see utterly no substantive reason put by the two opposers above. Should we make a counterproposal that our style guides be made policy? I ask: what is the key difference, then? Tony (talk) 03:28, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
- The key difference is that when there is conflict, policy trumps guideline/styleguide. It's like in U.S. law the Constitution trumps a specific law when there is a conflict. It's a critical distinction. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:03, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- Tony1 as I wrote last time you raised this point in a section titled Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 32#retitling the "Naming conventions" on 11 July 2011:
- Aide-mémoire from August 2008: Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 11#Discussion -- PBS (talk) 23:11, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- The key difference is that when there is conflict, policy trumps guideline/styleguide. It's like in U.S. law the Constitution trumps a specific law when there is a conflict. It's a critical distinction. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:03, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- Comment - We wouldn't be justified in making such a change based on this discussion. At minimum this would require a centralized RfC, e.g. at Village Pump (policy). If anyone here is serious about this then please escalate it now. Jojalozzo 23:37, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
It seems to me that the current title "policy" is a big mixed bag, with little or nothing at the same level as WP:V, WP:NPOV, and such policies. What is it that policy requires? It's clear why people who are in control of it want to keep it as policy, so they can claim it trumps other guidelines, but that seems to cause more trouble than solutions. It would seem more logical to work on the guidelines when there are differences of opinion, and either iron them out or leave some flexibility. The constant attempts to apply title policy as rigid prescription, ignoring what would work best for readers, isn't really helping anything. The USPLACE guideline, or example, seems to me like a good idea idea, but some say that we should ignore it because TITLE policy requires us to move Hatboro, Pennsylvania to just Hatboro. Dicklyon (talk) 01:33, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- I tend to agree, for what it's worth. Blueboar's first comment here basically admitted that it is a guideline anyway ("some of the things we talk about on this page are better presented as "best practice" guidance than "firm and fast rules""). Besides that, policies don't "trump" shit, regardless.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 04:10, 8 April 2012 (UTC)- I really hate it when I am quoted out of context... I said "some", not "all"... there are (other) things we talk about that are better presented as being "firm and fast rules". Many of our policy pages present guidance... as well as rules. Blueboar (talk) 12:59, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- It's a fuzzy line, certainly. I still think that your quote supports what myself and Dicklyon are saying though. The main goal of this page is to provide guidance, even if it does have some imperatives to it. Marking it as a "guideline" doesn't make those imperatives any less important, which is a common misconception that seems to crop up among those of us who really get involved in policy and guideline pages in my experience (which is what I was saying above: "policies don't "trump" shit, regardless"). Do you really put this page in the same category as the "Neutral Point of View" or "Verifiability" pages? I'm not talking about importance, but in character. (Here's a thought that just occurred to me: do we need another axis of categorization here? Maybe "Core", vs. "General" and "Specialty" policies and guidelines?)
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:01, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- It's a fuzzy line, certainly. I still think that your quote supports what myself and Dicklyon are saying though. The main goal of this page is to provide guidance, even if it does have some imperatives to it. Marking it as a "guideline" doesn't make those imperatives any less important, which is a common misconception that seems to crop up among those of us who really get involved in policy and guideline pages in my experience (which is what I was saying above: "policies don't "trump" shit, regardless"). Do you really put this page in the same category as the "Neutral Point of View" or "Verifiability" pages? I'm not talking about importance, but in character. (Here's a thought that just occurred to me: do we need another axis of categorization here? Maybe "Core", vs. "General" and "Specialty" policies and guidelines?)
- I really hate it when I am quoted out of context... I said "some", not "all"... there are (other) things we talk about that are better presented as being "firm and fast rules". Many of our policy pages present guidance... as well as rules. Blueboar (talk) 12:59, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
Titles of Indian film titles
An issue has come up in regards to whether India is an English speaking country, and what bearing this has on article titles. It seems to me there isn't a thorough grasp on policy in the discussion, so it would benefit from some more informed opinions. The discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (films)#Titles of Indian film articles. Betty Logan (talk) 07:13, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
- It does not matter whether India is an English speaking country or not... what matters is that there are many English language sources published in India, and these should be examined along with those published in other nations. Blueboar (talk) 17:52, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
ArbCom warning
Yikes! A warning template at the top of a policy page? What an unfriendly way to welcome editors! A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:56, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- And it would be helpful it the warning contained a link to the ArbCom case. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:56, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- It looks like I found it.[1] Can we move the warning from the policy page to edit page? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:00, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- An arbitration clerk did that, so maybe you should ask him. Art LaPella (talk) 22:19, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- It looks like I found it.[1] Can we move the warning from the policy page to edit page? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:00, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
I recommend that you boldly move it, and see if anyone balks. There's no sensible reason for the stop sign on a page that editors are supposed to refer to. Same on WP:MOS. Dicklyon (talk) 22:20, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- I moved the template. Please revert if you disagree with the edit. - Eureka Lott 00:03, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
ambiguity
At Talk:Discrimination based on skin color#Requested move, there is some disagreement over whether the "ambiguity" referred to in the "nutshell" summary of WP:AT means "ambiguity" in general, or specifically ambiguity limited to the space of Wikipedia article titles. That is, if the (made-up) word "killbar" had a number of meanings in English, but only one of those meanings has (or is likely to have) a Wikipedia article, is "killbar" an ambiguous title for purposes of this policy? Powers T 13:06, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- The definitive definition for "ambiguous" can be found in the lead of WP:D: "Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles." My emphasis.
If people are interpreting it differently based on what's written on this page, then it needs to be corrected/clarified on this page. It makes no sense to work with two different definitions of "ambiguous" when deciding titles. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:07, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- I've made some clarifying edits on WP:AT regarding the meaning of "ambiguous" and "unambiguous" that are consistent with similar clarifications at WP:PRECISION and WP:D. It's only reasonable to presume that those longstanding clarifications have consensus support, and we know from above that these terms are sometimes interpreted more broadly when they are not clarified accordingly. It's unfortunate to have this clumsy redundancy, but I see no other way to avoid misunderstanding. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:25, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)Ambiguity on this page concerns the ability to distinguish article topics from one another. I suspect the discussion you refer to would be better informed by the guidance on "recognizability" and COMMONNAME. Jojalozzo 16:43, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Born... I am not sure whether I agree with your edits or not... but I do wish you would discuss changes before you make them. As to the specifics... I am not sure if I understand why ambiguity is an issue... I don't see how "Discrimination based on skin color" is an ambiguous title (whether in general or limited to the space of Wikipedia titles). It seems a perfectly unambiguous descriptive title that accurately reflects what the topic of the article is. Blueboar (talk) 16:45, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- JoJalozzo... I don't think WP:COMMONNAME applies... that provision relates to situations when we are choosing between two proper names ... but Discrimination based on skin color is a descriptive title, not a proper name. Blueboar (talk) 16:51, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Blueboar, this talk page is replete with efforts to discuss first that go no where. That's the point of BRD - the "bold" edit is what gets interested parties engaged. I do agree the standards need to be much higher on policy pages. In particular, any policy page edit should be supported with high confidence that it is supported by consensus. I strongly disagree with reverting for no reason other than "this was not discussed".
As to Discrimination based on skin color - that discussion belongs on that talk page. The only aspect of it relevant here is the discussion about "ambiguous" means, particularly in the nutshell. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:01, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- All of this is born out of a dispute, which makes this discussion and the attempt to impose a change in policy (by editing the nutshell) look like nothing more than an attempt at point-scoring, to me. Maybe if this is shelved for some period of time we can re-address it under less confrontational circumstances.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:05, 9 April 2012 (UTC)- Please look at the situation a bit closer instead of judging by prejudice and ignorance. The main "dispute" at Talk:Discrimination based on skin color#Requested move is about whether to move that article to Colorism. So far opposition to that proposal is almost unanimous; only Powers seems to support it.
However, one of the man who is opposing that proposal has opposed based on "Colorism" being "ambiguous" - and Powers has correctly challenged that particular reasoning. That side discussion, which is essentially irrelevant to the main dispute there, is what is relevant here and to the edits that I made.
The idea that these changes were made by me to score points there is ridiculous, considering I'm opposed[2] to that move. Why can't we discuss these edits objectively without regard to that particular dispute? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:15, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- It's not prejudice or ignorance, I'm just trying to point out that yourself and others are in "the heat of the moment" over this issue. You've stated a position in a debate, and as a result of the discussion at that debate have come here and edited policy to support your position (the actual "oppose" or "support" in the dispute is immaterial), so I think that recommending you give this time to cool off and coming back to it later is the gracious position to take here. Even beside all of that, Bold and Revert have occurred, so now we're Discussing. If you really want to know my opinion, I think that it's a bit ridiculous to (re)define "ambiguous" here.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:06, 9 April 2012 (UTC)- Ohms, I think you're over analyzing this. First, Born2Cycle was not involved in the move discussion prior to this and had no stated position on that topic prior to "com[ing] here and edit[ing] policy" (and when he did express a position, he was in agreement with the majority on the merits of the move request). Second, for myself, I came here not to get the policy changed but to try to obtain the opinion of frequent WP:AT contributors regarding whose interpretation of the policy's wording is correct. If I "give this time to cool off" as you suggest, the move request will close and there will no longer be a need to request clarification for purposes of informing the move request; on the contrary, I would prefer to get that clarification as quickly as possible given given how imminent the closure of the move request is. Powers T 23:31, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Maybe I am over-analyzing this (it wouldn't be the first time!), but see #Reverted undiscussed changes in midst of dispute immediately below...
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:03, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Maybe I am over-analyzing this (it wouldn't be the first time!), but see #Reverted undiscussed changes in midst of dispute immediately below...
- Ohms, I think you're over analyzing this. First, Born2Cycle was not involved in the move discussion prior to this and had no stated position on that topic prior to "com[ing] here and edit[ing] policy" (and when he did express a position, he was in agreement with the majority on the merits of the move request). Second, for myself, I came here not to get the policy changed but to try to obtain the opinion of frequent WP:AT contributors regarding whose interpretation of the policy's wording is correct. If I "give this time to cool off" as you suggest, the move request will close and there will no longer be a need to request clarification for purposes of informing the move request; on the contrary, I would prefer to get that clarification as quickly as possible given given how imminent the closure of the move request is. Powers T 23:31, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- It's not prejudice or ignorance, I'm just trying to point out that yourself and others are in "the heat of the moment" over this issue. You've stated a position in a debate, and as a result of the discussion at that debate have come here and edited policy to support your position (the actual "oppose" or "support" in the dispute is immaterial), so I think that recommending you give this time to cool off and coming back to it later is the gracious position to take here. Even beside all of that, Bold and Revert have occurred, so now we're Discussing. If you really want to know my opinion, I think that it's a bit ridiculous to (re)define "ambiguous" here.
- Please look at the situation a bit closer instead of judging by prejudice and ignorance. The main "dispute" at Talk:Discrimination based on skin color#Requested move is about whether to move that article to Colorism. So far opposition to that proposal is almost unanimous; only Powers seems to support it.
Reverted undiscussed changes in midst of dispute
(edit conflict)I am reverting recent changes that were not discussed first. It is inappropriate to modify a guidance or policy page in the midst of dispute that refers to it. Please rein in the impulse to adjust policy to resolve conflicts. Our recent Arbcom process taught us that changes to guidance and policy need special care and clear consensus. I think this sets a inappropriate precedent. Jojalozzo 16:43, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- I made those changes confident that they are consistent with broad consensus, and without regard to the dispute referred to above (to which it is a peripheral issue at most), and explained why above. Can you please comment on the substantive merits or issues with the changes you reverted. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:04, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Process is important, especially on policy and guidance pages.
- 1) I am not confident that the changes reflect broad consensus. The fact that some editors think ambiguity might have a different interpretation than the one you assumed is broadly accepted is enough for me to want to verify it.
- 2) It is inappropriate to make changes, especially to policy pages, that directly impact an ongoing dispute.
- Jojalozzo 17:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Regarding (2), that's great in theory, but in practice this point is really not relevant to that discussion, which should arguably be closed per WP:SNOW. I know of no "ongoing dispute" about this. Do you?
As to (1), in my explanation of my edits above, I quoted longstanding clarifications about the meaning of "ambiguous" from WP:D and WP:AT (specifically, WP:PRECISION). Do you believe consensus support for those meanings is in question? --Born2cycle (talk) 17:37, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- This response concerns me coming on the heels of the Arbcom decision. I fear we are moving back to the ways that got us into Arbcom in the first place. I do not see a need for making those changes without checking with the community first, especially since some of the language that was changed has been under extensive discussion and there is no consensus for how to correct the problems that we have already identified there. Likewise, I disagree that the dispute at Talk:Discrimination based on skin color#Requested move should be closed. There appears to be support for both sides, I respect their efforts to work it out, and I think it is unhelpful to change policy while they are working with it. Jojalozzo 18:07, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support for both sides? There are only oppose !votes. Anyway, I am checking with the community now. You are part of that community. I'm checking with you. Can you please forget about that proposal and just focus on these edits to this policy without regard to that discussion? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:18, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- @B2C: I think it is likely that you know the changes may be considered contentious. There's not such a great rush that you can be so bold. If past behaviour is anything to go by, your expression of "confidence that they are consistent with broad consensus" could be a calculated move on your part to put in wording that conforms to your world view. I apologise in advance if I'm being too cynical. I would nevertheless ask you to kindly desist and leave changing the guideline to others not involved in pushing one view or another, when the discussion has run its course. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 08:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- No, there should be reason these edits should be contentious. The lack of any argument explaining an objection to them is telling. Are you suggesting only uninvolved admins should make actual edits to policy pages? That ArbCom case made no sense whatsoever. My edit/position under scrutiny there (regarding the clarification to responsibility) was ultimately shown to be supported unanimously by the community, just as I originally said. There was no reason for that edit to have been contentious, and it wasn't. Ultimately then and now the only contentious aspect about the edit was that B2C made it. There too there never was a substantive argument against the edit. Now again you and others are not talking about the change itself, but all these peripheral issues. It's really unfair, uncivil and disruptive to treat me (or anyone for that matter) like this. Why are you doing it? --Born2cycle (talk) 08:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yep, it's indeed a peripheral issue; but if more attention had been paid to peripheral issues, to form and due process, chances are the case would never have got to Arbcom. Yet you seem to be going hell for leather as if nothing has happened. Maybe you can judge for yourself if an admin is likely to come and administer a warning or block, maybe you can't. Perhaps you ought to play it safe, rather than continue to push the boat out? There can be a happy ending if you weren't so octane-charged. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 09:21, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- The reason that case when to ArbCom is because there was no substantive discussion about the edit itself, and there was all this discussion about the same peripheral issues now being discussed here. There was no point to it then, and there is no point to it here. Also, in that case, there were repeated edits to the policy page itself; that is not happening this time. Anyway, why don't you discuss the edit and proposal itself? --Born2cycle (talk) 09:28, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Of course you're right, as you have been all along. ;-) --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 09:38, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- The reason that case when to ArbCom is because there was no substantive discussion about the edit itself, and there was all this discussion about the same peripheral issues now being discussed here. There was no point to it then, and there is no point to it here. Also, in that case, there were repeated edits to the policy page itself; that is not happening this time. Anyway, why don't you discuss the edit and proposal itself? --Born2cycle (talk) 09:28, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yep, it's indeed a peripheral issue; but if more attention had been paid to peripheral issues, to form and due process, chances are the case would never have got to Arbcom. Yet you seem to be going hell for leather as if nothing has happened. Maybe you can judge for yourself if an admin is likely to come and administer a warning or block, maybe you can't. Perhaps you ought to play it safe, rather than continue to push the boat out? There can be a happy ending if you weren't so octane-charged. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 09:21, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- No, there should be reason these edits should be contentious. The lack of any argument explaining an objection to them is telling. Are you suggesting only uninvolved admins should make actual edits to policy pages? That ArbCom case made no sense whatsoever. My edit/position under scrutiny there (regarding the clarification to responsibility) was ultimately shown to be supported unanimously by the community, just as I originally said. There was no reason for that edit to have been contentious, and it wasn't. Ultimately then and now the only contentious aspect about the edit was that B2C made it. There too there never was a substantive argument against the edit. Now again you and others are not talking about the change itself, but all these peripheral issues. It's really unfair, uncivil and disruptive to treat me (or anyone for that matter) like this. Why are you doing it? --Born2cycle (talk) 08:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- @B2C: I think it is likely that you know the changes may be considered contentious. There's not such a great rush that you can be so bold. If past behaviour is anything to go by, your expression of "confidence that they are consistent with broad consensus" could be a calculated move on your part to put in wording that conforms to your world view. I apologise in advance if I'm being too cynical. I would nevertheless ask you to kindly desist and leave changing the guideline to others not involved in pushing one view or another, when the discussion has run its course. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 08:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support for both sides? There are only oppose !votes. Anyway, I am checking with the community now. You are part of that community. I'm checking with you. Can you please forget about that proposal and just focus on these edits to this policy without regard to that discussion? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:18, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- This response concerns me coming on the heels of the Arbcom decision. I fear we are moving back to the ways that got us into Arbcom in the first place. I do not see a need for making those changes without checking with the community first, especially since some of the language that was changed has been under extensive discussion and there is no consensus for how to correct the problems that we have already identified there. Likewise, I disagree that the dispute at Talk:Discrimination based on skin color#Requested move should be closed. There appears to be support for both sides, I respect their efforts to work it out, and I think it is unhelpful to change policy while they are working with it. Jojalozzo 18:07, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Regarding (2), that's great in theory, but in practice this point is really not relevant to that discussion, which should arguably be closed per WP:SNOW. I know of no "ongoing dispute" about this. Do you?
- B2C, I've been out of circulation for a week and I haven't looked at the current imbroglio; but already, just from this thread, there's the same smell that led to the arbcom case. While I'll fight for your right to say that the case "made so sense whatsoever", could you pause for a moment to reflect on why you were warned and why there's a discretionary sanctions notice is at the top of this page now? No, on second though, don't: an extended tennis match on this is the last thing I want at the moment. You say, "are you suggesting only uninvolved admins should make actual edits to policy pages?" Well that would be better than the edit-first-discuss-later model that seems to be gaining a foothold again. I can't participate at this page until you take a more practical stance, more socially sensitive. Parts of this policy appear to be controversial at the moment, so any change should probably be announced and discussed here first. I mean no offence, and want you to continue to contribute to this page; but will you please agree to discuss before you edit the policy? Tony (talk) 10:08, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- YES. I agree to not make edits to this policy page before discussing them on the talk page. Now will you agree to actually discuss the changes when they are proposed? Can we now please discuss the actual proposal below? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:50, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
Proposal: Clarification of ambiguity
The nutshell description on this page is currently:
- Article titles should be recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources.
The summary description of the "precision" criterion under WP:CRITERIA is:
- 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.
WP:COMMONNAME currently states:
- Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources.
The use of "ambiguous" in these statements is, well, ambiguous. Taken in isolation, they can be interpreted in the narrow sense, with respect to being ambiguous with other Wikipedia titles, or in the broad sense, with respect to all other uses in English. However, whenever the term's meaning is clarified in policy and guidelines, it is clear that it is intended to be interpreted in the narrow sense. The opening statement of WP:D is:
- Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles.
Also, WP:PRECISION states:
- ... when a topic's most commonly used name, as reflected in reliable sources, is ambiguous (can refer to more than one topic covered in Wikipedia), ...
One might think that having the meaning/scope clarified in those places is sufficient, but we have evidence that because "ambiguous" is used ambiguously in the places cited above, it is argued that it should be interpreted in the broad sense[3].
I therefore propose we clarify the meaning of the term in the above places to be consistent with WP:D and WP:PRECISION. Specifically, these changes are proposed.
Please indicate whether you support or oppose these changes, and explain why. If your opposition has nothing to do with substance but only with timing because this issue was brought to our attention during the just-cited dispute, please indicate whether you would support or oppose the changes a week ago, or, say, a month from now, and why. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:54, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- As I said above, this is a bit ridiculous. The phrase "Mountain out of a molehill" springs to mind. "Ambiguous" here applies to much more than disambiguation, and the dictionary definition is perfectly acceptable for those who need additional guidance. We don't need to provide definitions of every word given in policy.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:10, 9 April 2012 (UTC)- Then how do we resolve disputes where one side is based on interpreting a term used in policy using a broad/general dictionary definition, and the other side is based on using a definition specified elsewhere in the policy? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- How about getting an uninvolved party to come along and apply their reasoning and understanding of policy to determine how things should be settled on a case by case basis? (sound familiar?)
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:40, 9 April 2012 (UTC)- So every case should be subject to being decided by the whim of whatever uninvolved admin happens to come along? Sorry, but I don't think that's helpful.
Policy should be clear enough so that reasonable people all interpret it the same way. If they don't, that in and of itself suggests the policy needs to be improved. Policy should be written and improved to discourage WP:JDLI rationalizations, not enable them. Leaving wording open and ambiguous to interpretation enables JDLI rationalizations. Is that what you support? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:04, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- And you probably make a good point about a policy being clear. However we have multiple policies and that is probably where the problem is. Each policy seeks to address a specific area of possible concern. So when you have an issue that is governed by multiple policies confusion can reign. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:43, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- I disagree with the "policy should be rigid" train of thought (even if specific issues may be good candidates to be give more rigid rules), and historically Wikipedia has as well. I think that this will be a long uphill slog to gain any sort of (lasting) consensus to go in this direction. I for one see nothing to convince me that making policy more rigid would be beneficial.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:02, 9 April 2012 (UTC)- Vegaswikian, I agree in general that "when you have an issue that is governed by multiple policies confusion can reign", but in this specific case, regarding the intended meaning of ambiguity, every place that clarifies what it means seems to be consistent with every other place. In particular, WP:D and WP:AT (WP:PRECISION) say almost exactly the same thing. So I don't see how that concern applies to this issue, or to this proposal. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Addressing the "every place that clarifies what it means" point, that's almost certainly true (you've looked, after all), but it also ignores the context that the word "ambiguity" is being used in. Of course, "ambiguity" only really has one definition... well, two actually, but their essentially the same... which is basically my point here. Context makes a bit of a difference here, so I'm basically suspicious of copying from a piece of another policy to this policy right away. (The second immediate strike against the specific edit that started this is that I don't think it's a wise decision to be adding parenthetical content to the nutshell, which should be as succinct as is reasonable.)
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:51, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Addressing the "every place that clarifies what it means" point, that's almost certainly true (you've looked, after all), but it also ignores the context that the word "ambiguity" is being used in. Of course, "ambiguity" only really has one definition... well, two actually, but their essentially the same... which is basically my point here. Context makes a bit of a difference here, so I'm basically suspicious of copying from a piece of another policy to this policy right away. (The second immediate strike against the specific edit that started this is that I don't think it's a wise decision to be adding parenthetical content to the nutshell, which should be as succinct as is reasonable.)
- Vegaswikian, I agree in general that "when you have an issue that is governed by multiple policies confusion can reign", but in this specific case, regarding the intended meaning of ambiguity, every place that clarifies what it means seems to be consistent with every other place. In particular, WP:D and WP:AT (WP:PRECISION) say almost exactly the same thing. So I don't see how that concern applies to this issue, or to this proposal. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- So every case should be subject to being decided by the whim of whatever uninvolved admin happens to come along? Sorry, but I don't think that's helpful.
- How about getting an uninvolved party to come along and apply their reasoning and understanding of policy to determine how things should be settled on a case by case basis? (sound familiar?)
- Then how do we resolve disputes where one side is based on interpreting a term used in policy using a broad/general dictionary definition, and the other side is based on using a definition specified elsewhere in the policy? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
This constant push to neuter "precision" and "recognizability" in favor of "conciseness" is tiring. We should be going the other way, and seeking to have titles that provide more value to the reader, rather than just trying to avoid namespace collisions. Dicklyon (talk) 22:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Good luck. While support for that may be building, I don't think it is strong enough at this time to even allow it to be added as a consideration to the policy. Maybe a straw vote to see if the idea has any support? Vegaswikian (talk) 22:22, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- You may be right, but I miss the reader focus to titling; things like "Name an article as precisely as is necessary to indicate accurately its topical scope" and "article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity" that we had back in 2009. I'm not convinced there was any consensus involved in their neutering, just persistent hacking away at them by a few owners of this policy. Dicklyon (talk) 23:31, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Ohms Law, no one is suggesting that "policy should be rigid" (let's not conflate clarity with rigidity). Dicklyon, no one is arguing that "precision" and "recognizability" should be neutered in favor of "conciseness". Why don't people address what is actually being proposed rather than what they imagine to be occurring in their minds? I tried to use very specific wording and justification in my proposal. Is it not clear? --Born2cycle (talk) 23:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- What part of "Precision – Titles usually use names and terms that are precise (see below), but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously" wouldn't be neutered by defining ambiguity as simply namespace collisions? Dicklyon (talk) 23:33, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Dicklyon, Wikipedia:AT#Precision_and_disambiguation already states that it applies when "additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name" and "where there is more than one existing Wikipedia article for another meaning of a desired title". It also reminds us "that concise titles are preferred.". Finally, it states that "ambiguous" means "can refer to more than one topic covered in Wikipedia".
If you believe limiting precision to namespace collisions neuters precision, well, then, precision is already neutered by your interpretation - and, so, this proposed change won't neuter precision any more than a veterinarian can neuter a castrated male dog. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:07, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Dicklyon, Wikipedia:AT#Precision_and_disambiguation already states that it applies when "additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name" and "where there is more than one existing Wikipedia article for another meaning of a desired title". It also reminds us "that concise titles are preferred.". Finally, it states that "ambiguous" means "can refer to more than one topic covered in Wikipedia".
- Comment - I think this discussion should be broadened to address the larger issues of what each titling goal means and how they all work together (questions like Dick's, above). It won't be resolved by piecemeal copy edits - that's how we got the confusing language we have today. Jojalozzo 23:53, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Jojalozzo - reluctance to clarify ambiguous wording to be consistent with more precise wording is what leads to confusion - the type of changes being proposed here is an antidote to confusion, not a cause of it. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:07, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- I disagree. Additionally, I think that following that train of reasoning for any length of time will (and has) lead to people being bludgeoned with policy, which I don't think is desirable.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:26, 10 April 2012 (UTC)- You disagree? You believe clarifying the meaning of a term to be consistent with other uses of that term within a given context (in this case a WP policy page, but it could be a research paper, an instruction manual, a textbook, an essay, or even a poem) increases confusion? If that's what you mean, can you explain how? And how does that reasoning lead to people being "bludgeoned with policy"? I agree bludgeoning with policy is not desirable - but I think more clarity in policy makes it less likely to be used for bludgeoning, not more likely.
The same principle applies with laws in the real world, by the way. Authoritarian police love ambiguity in the law, because the more open it is to interpretation, the more free they are to use it however they want in whatever situation they want. That's why in the real world I'm an advocate for clarity in the law, and in WP for clarity in policy/guidelines. The more we all agree about what policy is, the less debate, and bludgeoning, there will be. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:09, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think that if you define ambiguity as simply namespace collision, then you'd need to use a different word in "precision." You can tell from older versions what the meaning was there, in statements like "article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity" and "Name an article as precisely as is necessary to indicate accurately its topical scope", and "Readers should not have to read into the article to find which of several meanings of the title is the actual subject", that the meaning of "ambiguity" has been repurposed ("repurposed" is quoting Arthur Rubin from an edit summary of one of times that he reverted B2C's repurposing of terms to neuter the provisions). I agree that B2C has already largely neutered these provisions; I'm just saying that I object to him finishing the job by formalizing the definitions to say that the new "precision" point has no bearing on anything ever. Dicklyon (talk) 01:19, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Here's another of B2C's attempts to neuter recognizability and precision. And here he cuts the nuts off "consistency" for the same purpose. Dicklyon (talk) 01:36, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- How are these changes from three years ago relevant to this proposal, except as an attempt to denigrate the proposer here? --Born2cycle (talk) 01:48, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- You disagree? You believe clarifying the meaning of a term to be consistent with other uses of that term within a given context (in this case a WP policy page, but it could be a research paper, an instruction manual, a textbook, an essay, or even a poem) increases confusion? If that's what you mean, can you explain how? And how does that reasoning lead to people being "bludgeoned with policy"? I agree bludgeoning with policy is not desirable - but I think more clarity in policy makes it less likely to be used for bludgeoning, not more likely.
- I disagree. Additionally, I think that following that train of reasoning for any length of time will (and has) lead to people being bludgeoned with policy, which I don't think is desirable.
- Jojalozzo - reluctance to clarify ambiguous wording to be consistent with more precise wording is what leads to confusion - the type of changes being proposed here is an antidote to confusion, not a cause of it. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:07, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)B2C has neutered these provisions? Come on, Dicklyon, you can't put that on me. This statement, for example, is from August 2007, which I believe is before I ever made any changes to these pages: "Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic, making that term likely to be the natural choice of title for more than one article. In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to the different article pages that could use essentially the same term as their title."[4]. And yes, WP:AT already linked to WP:D back then when referring to disambiguation.
There has been an effort, of which I was part, to bring consistency in terminology across WP:AT and WP:D. This proposal is in that vein, to be sure. But what you're saying is completely different - you're challenging the meaning of "ambiguous" in the places where it is already clarified to mean namespace collision. If there is consensus support for that challenge, then I too will support it, but this reminds me of your challenge to my change to the recognizability wording, even after Greg L's poll showed it had unanimous support (see Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles/Archive_35#Poll:). --Born2cycle (talk) 01:40, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)B2C has neutered these provisions? Come on, Dicklyon, you can't put that on me. This statement, for example, is from August 2007, which I believe is before I ever made any changes to these pages: "Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic, making that term likely to be the natural choice of title for more than one article. In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to the different article pages that could use essentially the same term as their title."[4]. And yes, WP:AT already linked to WP:D back then when referring to disambiguation.
- I oppose Born2cycle's proposed changes as inappropriately narrowing the policy. We might well reject a natural, recognizable, precise name for being ambiguous because, e.g., it is incomplete. (Consider "Clinton" vs "Bill Clinton".) These changes are not an improvement and do not accurately reflect the community's actual views on the subject. Avoiding disambiguation problems is the most important case covered by this item, but it is not the only case covered. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:41, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- First, thank you for addressing the substance of the proposal. Second, Nixon/Richard Nixon is a better example than Clinton/Bill Clinton because the community considers Clinton to be ambiguous in the narrow sense (it's a dab page), while Nixon is not (it redirects to Richard Nixon). But is that because "Nixon" is considered ambiguous in the broad sense? I don't think so. I think that's because the convention used in reliable sources for referring to people is "<first name> <last name>", and WP:NCP reflects that.
Anyway, I understand what you're saying in theory, but honestly don't see it in practice. I mean, if titles are supposed to be unambiguous in the broad/general sense, then I suggest all of the following actual current article titles are problematic: Paris (city or god?), Wine (beverage, color, software, film?) , Cold (temperature? virus?), Prehistoric Women (anthropological issue? film?), I Didn't Know You Cared (song? film? book?), 1670 Broadway (what?), She's Got You (song? film? book?), Amadeus (play? film?), Doctor Zhivago (book? film?).
That's just a list off the top of my head and with a little help from SPECIAL:RANDOM. The point is that titles that are ambiguous in the broad sense are the norm on WP - I don't see any evidence whatsoever that the community tries to make titles unambiguous in the broad sense, only in the narrow sense, specifically to avoid article title namespace collisions with other uses, taking into account the concept of primary topic and other WP:D considerations. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:47, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- First, thank you for addressing the substance of the proposal. Second, Nixon/Richard Nixon is a better example than Clinton/Bill Clinton because the community considers Clinton to be ambiguous in the narrow sense (it's a dab page), while Nixon is not (it redirects to Richard Nixon). But is that because "Nixon" is considered ambiguous in the broad sense? I don't think so. I think that's because the convention used in reliable sources for referring to people is "<first name> <last name>", and WP:NCP reflects that.
- Actually, there has been considerable disagreement, though little debate, about how to handle the ambiguity of Doctor Zhivago, which has at various times referred to the novel, the 1965 film, and the disambig page. Arguably, more English speakers would recognize it as the film than as the original book. I don't think there's any question that people will know the topic of Paris and Wine without reading into the article. And since there's a Prehistoric Women (1967 film), it's hard to see why someone would think a primarytopic claim for the 1950 film is justified; shit happens. And She's Got You doesn't have so much as a hatnote to She's Got You (EP), so I wouldn't hold that up as an example of anything but carelessness. Amadeus also deviates from normal practice, in the structure of the disambig page Amadeus (disambiguation) conflicting with the dubious PRIMARY claim. Some titles are ambiguous primarily because that's what the guidelines encourage (though I see no excuse for Cold). Certainly the guidelines are often invoked in RM discussions, so they influence titling as least as much as they reflect it. Dicklyon (talk) 04:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- The point is, just because Doctor Zhivago and the others are ambiguous in the broad/general sense is not a reason we don't have an article at each of those titles (not to mention that countless other similar situations). The ambiguity with which WP is concerned is ambiguity with other uses in the title namespace, and even there often articles are found at titles ambiguous in the narrower sense, when the article's topic is considered primary for that title.
BTW, the "considerable disagreement" about Doctor Zhivago is an example of "considerable disagreement" caused by lack of clarity in our policy and guidelines regarding title decisions. In this case the problem is caused by the ambiguity in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, because usage indicates one article (the film) while long-term significance indicates another (the book). Not only does WP:PRIMARYTOPIC suggest using two criteria, each of which indicates a different topic, but it also does not give guidance on how to resolve conflicting situations like this. This is why I advocate a clear/simple definition of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC based entirely on usage, and not at all on long-term significance, but consensus is definitely not with me on that one.
One can argue reader benefit based on either usage or long-term significance, but is choosing either title that much more beneficial to readers than the other? I suggest not. So we have disagreement, debate and consternation... to what end? Is there even an end? On the other hand, if we always only went by usage, then there would be much less (if any) disagreement and debate about such titles, and the readers would be no worse off. This is why I see only an upside to bringing in more clarity to titling policy and guidelines. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:37, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- The point is, just because Doctor Zhivago and the others are ambiguous in the broad/general sense is not a reason we don't have an article at each of those titles (not to mention that countless other similar situations). The ambiguity with which WP is concerned is ambiguity with other uses in the title namespace, and even there often articles are found at titles ambiguous in the narrower sense, when the article's topic is considered primary for that title.
- Actually, there has been considerable disagreement, though little debate, about how to handle the ambiguity of Doctor Zhivago, which has at various times referred to the novel, the 1965 film, and the disambig page. Arguably, more English speakers would recognize it as the film than as the original book. I don't think there's any question that people will know the topic of Paris and Wine without reading into the article. And since there's a Prehistoric Women (1967 film), it's hard to see why someone would think a primarytopic claim for the 1950 film is justified; shit happens. And She's Got You doesn't have so much as a hatnote to She's Got You (EP), so I wouldn't hold that up as an example of anything but carelessness. Amadeus also deviates from normal practice, in the structure of the disambig page Amadeus (disambiguation) conflicting with the dubious PRIMARY claim. Some titles are ambiguous primarily because that's what the guidelines encourage (though I see no excuse for Cold). Certainly the guidelines are often invoked in RM discussions, so they influence titling as least as much as they reflect it. Dicklyon (talk) 04:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- I have not been following this topic, but just now happened to wander by; and out of curiosity I typed doctor zh in the searchbox. My question is, when there is no obvious "primary topic", why try to choose one? Personally I would much prefer to find
- Doctor Zhivago (film)
- Doctor Zhivago (novel)
- popping up as clear choices than the present
- Doctor Zhivago (film)
- Doctor Zhivago
- that does pop up, and leaves me guessing as to what the undisambiguated entry might be. If it were me, I would write the guideline to say that when the primary topic is not absolutely clear and uncontroversial, disambiguate all entries. Milkunderwood (talk) 10:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- The title and disambiguation policies and guidelines were developed long before the auto-suggestion feature in the WP search box was implemented, and, because the search box is not the only way topics on WP are sought, its impact on search is often not considered. What you're saying is we should rethink and re-evaluate how and when we disambiguate our titles, taking this feature into account. I don't know if there is consensus support for that idea - but such a proposal probably belongs on WT:D, not here. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:36, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- I have not been following this topic, but just now happened to wander by; and out of curiosity I typed doctor zh in the searchbox. My question is, when there is no obvious "primary topic", why try to choose one? Personally I would much prefer to find
As I believe is re-explained to you every time we have one of these discussions, it is not always possible to find a title that perfectly meets every single criteria. Nixon redirects to Richard Nixon, but the article resides at his full name, i.e., at the article title that cannot be confused with Nixon (film) or Nixon (album) or Nixon (surname) or any of the other items listed at Nixon (disambiguation).
The conventional "<first name> <last name>" pattern for names is the reason we chose to put the article at Richard Nixon rather than at Nixon (president). It is not the primary reason why we gave the article a non-ambiguous title in the first place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Tony's alternative proposal
- I agree with what Dicklyon and Joja are saying. My own take is that some of the key principles in the policy are vague and open to interpretation per se, and that the sticky examples are really hard to resolve with the current policy "tools". I believe the policy should express the essentials (e.g. non-collision), and should go on to express a set of desirables that need to be balanced against each other. This sort of approach I suggested back in January, I think it was, with a large coloured diagram borrowed from the canvassing policy, with an analogue in a proposed approach to plagiarism determination – both of which involve nuanced balancing rather than binary decisions. Tony (talk) 10:49, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Well said. We need to avoid as much rigidity as possible with this policy, I think. Article titles are rather notoriously hard to fit into an algorithmic approach, which is where most of the conflict with them comes from I think. I understand the compulsion to make an attempt at reducing the conflicts that arise over names, especially when there are many similar discussions taking place over time, but I think that taking that compulsion much further than providing recommendations is a mistake. Actively attempting to prevent arguments does more to cause arguments than simply allowing them to occur naturally, in my experience.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)- What do you mean by we "need to avoid as much rigidity as possible"? That unclear/vague guidance is preferred over clear guidance? How does that make WP better? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:53, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- "need to avoid as much rigidity as possible" is exaggerated (eliminating all rules would accomplish that goal) but remember that almost all rules have exceptions. Art LaPella (talk) 21:11, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yea, it's a bit exaggerated I suppose... although, against the backdrop of this proposal, I think that "exaggerated" is itself exaggerated (this train of thought is getting too "meta", dangit...). I'd actually like to see this policy page go in the other direction than this proposal, which is where Tony, Dick, and Joja seem to be leaning towards themselves.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 21:22, 10 April 2012 (UTC)- Can you explain how less "rigidity" (I think that's a misnomer, per IAR, and clarity in policy is the more accurate term for what we're disagreeing about here - you favor less clarity/more ambiguity in policy wording) in title policy improves WP, or why going "in that direction" improves WP? --Born2cycle (talk) 21:47, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Also, don't we agree that policy - including in terms of how much rigidity/clarity there is in the wording - should be determined by actual practice, not personal preference? The proposal I made is an effort to have the policy reflect better/closer actual practice in terms of how titles are selected with respect to "ambiguity". I suggest most RM closers will agree that in actual practice that the concept of "ambiguity" is interpreted by the community in the context of title selection in terms of title namespace... ambiguity with usage not covered in WP is generally considered irrelevant. This is what policy says where this is clarified; why not say it in the other place too, to make sure policy reflects actual practice as best as possible? --Born2cycle (talk) 21:54, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Well, part of the problem here is that I don't think that the edit which started this discussion added more clarity at all. It's somewhat hyperbolic to characterize my position as "you favor less clarity/more ambiguity in policy wording". Honestly, my impression is that you're out to get your way ("win") in this conversation, rather than have an open-minded discussion about it, and those kinds of comments are the primary reason that I feel that way. As for the explanation that you're ostensibly asking for, re-read Tony1's comment that started this indent chain, and my reply to it. I think that those are fairly clear statements, but if there's specific questions then I'll be happy to try and answer them.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:05, 10 April 2012 (UTC)- Do you think it's possible that your belief that I'm out to "win" rather than have an open-minded conversation is inhibiting us from having an open-minded conversation? Let's try to follow AGF, shall we?
While it's certainly not atypical of me to use hyperbole to make a point, I assure you I'm not doing so here. Thank you for clarifying you're not advocating less clarity, but I don't understand why you think my proposal does not add clarity. Without the edits, it's not clear whether to interpret "unambiguous"/ambiguous in the narrow/namescope or broad sense; with the edits it's clear it's to be interpreted in the narrow/namescope sense. Isn't that more clarity?
I've reread Tony1's comment and your reply to it. I don't see how that addresses whether the proposal adds or reduces clarity in the policy. It's also a lot of general statements that sound good in theory, but I don't see how to apply them in actual policy wording. The devil, as always, is in the specific details. And until you try to actually say what those details are, you're not really discussing anything practical about the policy. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:23, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Do you think it's possible that your belief that I'm out to "win" rather than have an open-minded conversation is inhibiting us from having an open-minded conversation? Let's try to follow AGF, shall we?
- Well, part of the problem here is that I don't think that the edit which started this discussion added more clarity at all. It's somewhat hyperbolic to characterize my position as "you favor less clarity/more ambiguity in policy wording". Honestly, my impression is that you're out to get your way ("win") in this conversation, rather than have an open-minded discussion about it, and those kinds of comments are the primary reason that I feel that way. As for the explanation that you're ostensibly asking for, re-read Tony1's comment that started this indent chain, and my reply to it. I think that those are fairly clear statements, but if there's specific questions then I'll be happy to try and answer them.
- Yea, it's a bit exaggerated I suppose... although, against the backdrop of this proposal, I think that "exaggerated" is itself exaggerated (this train of thought is getting too "meta", dangit...). I'd actually like to see this policy page go in the other direction than this proposal, which is where Tony, Dick, and Joja seem to be leaning towards themselves.
- "need to avoid as much rigidity as possible" is exaggerated (eliminating all rules would accomplish that goal) but remember that almost all rules have exceptions. Art LaPella (talk) 21:11, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- What do you mean by we "need to avoid as much rigidity as possible"? That unclear/vague guidance is preferred over clear guidance? How does that make WP better? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:53, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Well said. We need to avoid as much rigidity as possible with this policy, I think. Article titles are rather notoriously hard to fit into an algorithmic approach, which is where most of the conflict with them comes from I think. I understand the compulsion to make an attempt at reducing the conflicts that arise over names, especially when there are many similar discussions taking place over time, but I think that taking that compulsion much further than providing recommendations is a mistake. Actively attempting to prevent arguments does more to cause arguments than simply allowing them to occur naturally, in my experience.
Tony, your proposal Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles/Archive_36#Proposal:_clarifying_PRECISION before did get some support. And B2C's previous attempt to get rid of "precision" by reducing it to nothing but avoidance of namespace collisions didn't (see the section before yours in the archive: Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles/Archive_36#Proposal:_clarifying_PRECISION); toward the end of that discussion were some good ideas about restoring "precision" without the word "ambiguity" in it, which is one way to remove the interpretation question that B2C is worried about. But we'd have to decide what we want "precision" to be about. There was some support for the idea that the traditional (2009-ish) interpretation of "precision" is still needed, in addition to the "unambiguity" provision, though they overlap a lot. Dicklyon (talk) 22:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- No, Dick, WP works bottom-up much more than top-down. So, we don't decide what we want "precision" to be about - we must recognize and reflect in policy what "precision" is about in practice. We're not working with a blank slate and get to decide whatever we want. We're supposed to make our best effort to recognize and appreciate what actually goes on in title decision making on WP, and reflect that as clearly and accurately as we can in policy. It's never perfect, but the point is to get it closer and closer to reality, rather than further and further.
But unless and until you recognize that is our role, as long as you think our job is to make policy rather than reflect policy, we're going to have a very difficult time agreeing on much of anything. Perhaps that's the core of our disconnect? --Born2cycle (talk) 23:04, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- I agree with B2C that the current meta-policy is that policy changes do not drive practice. As I understand it, both a policy-reflects-practice approach as well as a new-practice-changes-policy approach are at play. To change policy we first get consensus on new practice by a) demonstrating alternatives to "how we've always done it" via strategic article space IAR* or b) developing consensus to try a new way without Bold edits. Either way, it's only once consensus is established that we have an authoritative policy.
- *For me, the IAR option is just theory. I'd like to see actual examples of where the IAR approach was successfully used. Jojalozzo 00:54, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
- Well, the way the AP list exception got into the WP:USPLACE guideline was via IAR. Originally all US cities were at City, State, except the original exception was New York City because New York City, New York was rejected per IAR as an exception (that was before me). Later, and I don't remember the order, but the state was removed from articles like Chicago and San Francisco per IAR and local consensus before the guideline was changed to incorporate the AP list exception. I'm not familiar with all the details, but the WP:NCROY naming convention seems to have softened (no longer as strict) over the years through a process of individual article changes, and then updates to the guideline.
In general, very little if anything changes top-down. Traditionally, the debate on these talk pages has always centered around what is actual practice, not so much what actual practice should e, though there is always a little of that too. That's why I say it's mostly (not entirely) bottom-up. My observations and conclusions about how change occurs on WP, and the inherent chicken-egg problem associated with it, are summarized in my FAQ, so I won't repeat it here. See User:Born2cycle/FAQ#Shouldn.27t_you_get_the_policy.2Fguideline_changed.2C_rather_than_try_to_subvert_it_one_article_at_a_time.3F. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:40, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
- Well, the way the AP list exception got into the WP:USPLACE guideline was via IAR. Originally all US cities were at City, State, except the original exception was New York City because New York City, New York was rejected per IAR as an exception (that was before me). Later, and I don't remember the order, but the state was removed from articles like Chicago and San Francisco per IAR and local consensus before the guideline was changed to incorporate the AP list exception. I'm not familiar with all the details, but the WP:NCROY naming convention seems to have softened (no longer as strict) over the years through a process of individual article changes, and then updates to the guideline.
- If policy is supposed to document practice, why is B2C always trying to rewrite policy to what he favors, even while admitting that resistance to his approach remains strong among people titling articles? See his essay User:Born2cycle#A_goal:_naming_stability_at_Wikipedia. I would say rather that practice varies, and that we should put best practices into policy; by best I mean the ones that make the experience best for the reader, which is what the criteria were about originally, as opposed to B2C's goal which is to reduce the amount of work editors have to do to decide what's best, by having decisions forced by policy. Dicklyon (talk) 01:45, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
- That's the nub of things, right there.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:59, 11 April 2012 (UTC)- Dicklyon, what examples do you have of me ever (much less always) "trying to rewrite policy to what [I] favor[s]"? My changes, like to the recognizability wording in December, and now this change regarding "ambiguous", is always in accord with my best effort to reflect actual practice and consensus. That doesn't mean I'm always right! Of course! But that's certainly what I always try to do.
Beyond that, my main personal broad goal is to persuade a consensus of the community to agree on consistent rules to reduce the amount of dispute and discord involved with title decision-making. Of course what's best for the reader is of prime importance, but in most cases the difference to the reader between the choices being considered is irrelevant. Does it really matter to the reader if it's San Francisco or San Francisco, California? If it's Airplane, Aeroplane or Fixed-wing aircraft? If it's South Shore Line (NICTD) or South Shore Line? To illustrate with analogy, we use a power saw to get it down to choices that are acceptable to readers, then we get out a file, then coarse sandpaper and finally extra fine sand paper to get it down to the best choice based on our naming criteria and what reduces conflict and discord about titles. It's not a choice between what's best for the reader or what's best for the editors. They're compatible, not conflicting, goals. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:20, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
- Dicklyon, what examples do you have of me ever (much less always) "trying to rewrite policy to what [I] favor[s]"? My changes, like to the recognizability wording in December, and now this change regarding "ambiguous", is always in accord with my best effort to reflect actual practice and consensus. That doesn't mean I'm always right! Of course! But that's certainly what I always try to do.
- The WP:PG procedural policy (Content changes) also reflects practice, no? So we can change it by developing consensus on talk pages or by conscientious IAR on policy and guidelines content pages. There is a discussion on the talk page to modify it to clarify issues related to longevity of policy content vs. its consensual authority. Maybe we need to do some similar work there related to what we are learning here. Jojalozzo 04:17, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
- That's the nub of things, right there.
- Just for the record, someone else inserted the subtitle referring to "Tony's" proposal ... I don't mind, but hadn't intended that my opinion be so prominent. But since it's prompted significant commentary, here are the analogous diagrams I displayed back then:
Table at the top of the canvassing policy page
Scale | Message | Audience | Transparency | ||||
Appropriate | Limited posting | AND | Neutral | AND | Nonpartisan | AND | Open |
↕ | ↕ | ↕ | ↕ | ||||
Inappropriate | Mass posting | OR | Biased | OR | Partisan | OR | Secret |
Derivative table for judging possible plagiarism
Length of wording in question | Closeness to the original | Distinctiveness of original wording or meaning | Attribution | |
Less of an issue | Short | Your own wording1 | Not distinctive | Fully attributed |
↕ | ↕ | ↕ | ↕ | |
More of an issue | Long | Exact wording duplicated | Distinctive | Not directly attributed |
1Excluding "non-creative" text.
I haven't thought properly about how this frame could be adapted to the current policy needs, and whether it would work. Tony (talk) 02:36, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
Here's a way to present WP:CRITERIA with this type of table.
Recognizability | Naturalness | Precision | Conciseness | Consistency | |
Better title | Recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic | Reflects what readers and editors are likely to expect. Conveys what the subject is actually called in English | Precise, but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article without conflict other titles | Concise; not overly long | Follows pattern used by similar articles |
↕ | ↕ | ↕ | ↕ | ↕ | |
Problematic title | Not recognizable to someone familiar with the article topic | Does not convey what the title is actually called in English | Overly precise | Overly long | Does not follow pattern used in titles of similar articles |
Not sure what value, if any, this might have. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:53, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
- At least the contrast that you list for "precision" makes it clear that you view precision as a negative attribute, unlike the original intent which was that it was a positive attribute, back when we had things like "Name an article as precisely as is necessary to indicate accurately its topical scope", and "Readers should not have to read into the article to find which of several meanings of the title is the actual subject". And I think you know how I feel about how you mangled recognizability, too. Dicklyon (talk) 03:44, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
- You don't seem to understand that how you feel or how I feel or how any one other editor feels is irrelevant here. What matters is what the community consensus is.
On the recognizability wording, Greg L's poll confirmed that the wording I originally tried to restore, and you reverted, but was eventually restored, was favored unanimously by the seventeen members of the community who participated in that poll. Yet you still refer to it as "mangled".
The same thing about precision - it's not that I view it as a negative attribute - that's how the community views it. If you don't believe the "only as precise as necessary" wording in the table, which reflects wording from policy, is an accurate statement of community opinion, then propose a specific change to the wording to reflect what you think community opinion is, and see if you can get consensus support for it. That's how the current wording got to where it is.
It would really help if you stopped looking at this from the perspective of your opinion or whatever you believe my opinion is, and started looking at what the community does and says in practice. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:20, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
- You don't seem to understand that how you feel or how I feel or how any one other editor feels is irrelevant here. What matters is what the community consensus is.
Title quality spectra
Inspired by B2C's table above, I see that a table with descriptions of both better and problematic goal satisfaction has the potential to offer editors more information than just the description of title characteristics for each of the goals as we have it now. The "problematic" row presents an opportunity to present an enhanced perspective on the "better" description. This is a common approach with examples in the MOS. As primarily an exercise and demonstration but also a strawman proposal, I have composed the table below with an extra "Unambiguous" column, adjective goals instead of noun goals, major liberties with B2C's "better" row, and an attempt to go beyond pure dichotomies in the "problematic" row:
Recognizable | Natural | Unambiguous | Precise | Concise | Consistent | |
Better title | Recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic | The most common English name of the topic (without colliding with another title), reflecting what readers and editors are likely to expect | Clearly distinguishes the topic from that of other articles | Satisfies other goals without unnecessarily narrowing its scope | Uses as few words as possible | Follows patterns used by similar articles |
↕ | ↕ | ↕ | ↕ | ↕ | ↕ | |
Problematic title | Identifies the topic only for experts | Unusual or very specialized name for the topic | Has more than one common, natural interpretation | Improper focus, defines topic too narrowly or too broadly | Too wordy, hard to comprehend at a glance | Diverges from standard patterns |
I welcome feedback but would even more like to see how others to would express the goals in this "quality spectra" table format. Jojalozzo 00:57, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Comments. Nice work by both B2C and Joja. Already I feel I can come to a better understanding by looking at these tables. A few queries:
- The Concise principle: The minimalist in me wants something like Minimizes wording (green) and Unnecessarily long (red). I'm presuming unnecessarily would mean, "gains decreasing returns for additional length in terms of the other principles, taken as a whole". If that's the case, I don't think it needs spelling out—certainly not within the table itself. This is probably how we should understand the polarities we're expressing for all of these balanced principles.
- I think the wording of the upper table's red Consistency is clearer; the lower table says Diverges from standard patterns (patterns of what?). May I suggest an amalgam of the two? Diverges from patterns in similar article titles (red) and Follows from patterns in similar article titles (red)? Joja, does your red Concise wording blur two issues (length and comprehensibility)? The corresponding green cell is monothematic.
- Unambiguous': I've always found "Precise, but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article without conflict other titles" (green) too wordy; the wording in the lower table seems to be more succinct. Joja, in the red cell, is there any reason for departing from the top table's Overly precise? BTW, I'd prefer Over-precise as standard formal English.
- Recognizability': the red cell is likely to need much discussion. I'm starting to think our troubles have partly arisen from the conflation of two types of recognisability: one relating to a familiarity you'd expect of no one but those in a particular technical or research field (MS 1467) and one relating to the familiarity based not on technical expertise but on local assumptions among ordinary readers who, say, live in a particular city (Collins Street, when there are many streets of this name around the world, and French Quarter). That is to say, there may be a case for allowing WP to address experts in highly technical topics who are likely to recognise and search-box a title that means nothing to ordinary people, without clunky explanations in the title, while using a lower benchmark for non-technical topics. Just what to make of Fearghal Óg Mac an Bhaird, an Irish writer (could have been a town for all I'd known), versus Fortress Church, Târgu Mureş, which does spell it out in English but at the expense of length, I have no idea. Tony (talk) 02:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- Concise red cell: I prefer Can be shortened without impacting other goals rather than Unnecessarily long (which I think is too concise). I agree that I've mixed in another goal there when it could involve others as well.
- Consistent both cells: Diverges from patterns in similar article titles (red) and Follows patterns in similar article titles (green) works well for me.
- Precise red cell: I think we should avoid repeating the goal adjective (i.e. Over precise). How about something on the lines of Unnecessarily limiting or Over restrictive? I also see that I have again conflated some goals, mixing in Ambiguous (i.e. imprecise) by including the "too broad" problem. The red cell highlights a stumbling block I have encountered in working with Precise since the problem is not Imprecise (i.e. ambiguous), as I unthinkingly included, but Over precise or Over restrictive.
- Precise green cell: The green cell should be blank. Once we add the new Unambiguous goal, Precise is automatically satisfied by Recognizable, Natural and Unambiguous. However, we need to include Precise because we want to avoid Over precise (red cell). I propose we replace the term Precise by Loose, Nonrestrictive, Free, Unconstrained or Generous with Offers a liberal topical scope (green) and Overly restrictive (red). If people are attached to Precise (and I understand they are) we could replace Unambiguous with Precise (though I'd recommend against it).
- Recognizable: I don't agree or perhaps don't understand. I think the Collins Street problem is ambiguity, not recognizability. Names like Fearghal Óg Mac an Bhaird that are uncommon in English speaking countries are still probably quite recognisable to someone familiar with (but not an expert in) the topic. I don't think there's a problem. Jojalozzo 03:44, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- Here's a revision (see last three columns):
Recognizable | Natural | Unambiguous | Generous | Concise | Consistent | |
Better title | Recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic | The most common English name of the topic (without colliding with another title), reflecting what readers and editors are likely to expect | Clearly distinguishes the topic from that of other articles | Offers a liberal topical scope | Minimizes wording | Follows patterns in similar article titles |
↕ | ↕ | ↕ | ↕ | ↕ | ↕ | |
Problematic title | Identifies the topic only for experts | Unusual or very specialized name for the topic | Has more than one common, natural interpretation | Overly restrictive and narrow | Can be shortened without impacting other goals | Diverges from patterns in similar article titles |
- Thanks, Joja. I don't understand Generous as the title for a principle. I see that the titles are all adjectives, and would be best of consistent grammar; but does it mean Generous in scope? (I'd still be in the dark about what generous means, though.) I find the term scope or scoping clear and useful. Could "Overly restrictive and narrow" be changed to simply "Too restrictive and narrow"? Overly gets up my throat, for some reason. "Can be shortened without impacting other goals"—I find that to be rather binary ... with the assumption that the shortening either does or doesn't impact on other goals. Will you consider "Can be shortened with little or no impact on the other goals", thus maintaining the modal concept, that is, a continuum from positive to negative, rather than a blanket polar choice? Tony (talk) 05:01, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah, I understand about Generous. I do mean Generous in scope in the sense of a generous cut in pants or a skirt. Ah. So the red cell is Narrow and confining! Would you understand Liberal better? (I prefer it to Generous but fear the political interpretation gets in the way.) Free is wrong because limits are critical. I'd welcome suggestions.
- I like your Concise red cell proposal, Can be shortened with little or no impact on the other goals. Jojalozzo 05:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think I didn't make my reasoning clear. The green cell in the Precise column is unnecessary because it is redundant given that we have satisfied Recognizable, Natural and Unambiguous. But the red cell in that column is still necessary - we don't want titles that are Over restrictive or Over precise. By replacing the Precise goal with one that captures our intent when we prevent a title from being "Over precise" we are able to fill both the green and red cells in that column: Offers a liberal topical scope (green) and Narrow and confining (red) and the green cell is a new title characteristic that was implicit before but now can be seen as a goal we had not previously recognized. Jojalozzo 05:56, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
I think that unambiguous and generous capture some of the intent of precise, but not all. See the old quotes. The title should be clear and unambiguous about what the topic is; that can usually be done in a way that's not narrow or restrictive (is generous), and is not about whether there are other articles with similar names (unambiguous in that sense). We tend to do this naturally, but sometimes the conciseness hammer removes the clues to the topic and leaves the title ambiguous (see typical PRIMARYTOPIC RM arguments, where some want to use an ambiguous name on an article and some don't, like current ones: Talk:Waterdeep (city)#Requested move or Talk:Whisky Galore (novel)#Requested move 2 or Talk:The Rats (novel)#Requested move). We've never pinned down what it means to be "not over precise" or "no more precise than necessary", but to me what's "necessary" is to define the topic. Dicklyon (talk) 06:29, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- Many of the interpretations and notions reflected by the "old quotes" were rejected through consensus editing and discussion. If you think errors were made or consensus has changed to favor those interpretations again, then make the proposals. You can't just grab a statement from X years ago and presume it has consensus support today because it was in the policy then.
For example, the notion that the purpose of the title is to define the topic has been repeatedly rejected over the years, and I would be very surprised if it had consensus support today. Traditionally, the article lead defines the topic, not the title. Think of a dictionary definition, which has an entry (the word being defined) and the definition. In WP articles, the title is like the entry, and the lead is like the definition.
This gets a bit confusing because we do have titles about topics that don't have names, and so in those cases we sometimes use descriptive titles which can look like definitions (e.g., List of video games cancelled for Xbox 360 console). But we shouldn't let these exceptions cause us to believe that all or even most titles should be descriptive definitions of the topic. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:56, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- I have made no claims about concensus, nor have I changed the policy to what I think it should be. But yes I think mistakes were made in changing the policy to what it is now, and I'm pointing to what it used to be as a representation of what seemed to work well in my first several years of WP editing, and which I continued to use while being unaware of how policy was being rewritten in protracted edit wars such as the big Sept/Oct 2009 mess. And I'm not meaning "define" in the dictionary sense, but using titles that are less ambiguous, and pretty much say what the topic is, e.g. by not overusing primarytopic claiming. Dicklyon (talk) 14:48, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- Okay, allow me to rephrase. The notion that the purpose of the title is to pretty much say what the topic is has been repeatedly rejected over the years, and I would be very surprised if it had consensus support today. Traditionally, it is the purpose of the article lead to pretty much say what the topic is; it's not the purpose of the title. As can be quickly deduced by a few repeated clicks on SPECIAL:RANDOM, in practice, the purpose of the title is essentially to reflect how the topic is most commonly referred in reliable sources, save for the exception-complication of unnamed topics with descriptive titles I mentioned above. But we shouldn't let these exceptions cause us to believe that titles of articles about topics that have names used in reliable sources should be more descriptive in order for the title to pretty much say what the topic is. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:49, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- I have made no claims about concensus, nor have I changed the policy to what I think it should be. But yes I think mistakes were made in changing the policy to what it is now, and I'm pointing to what it used to be as a representation of what seemed to work well in my first several years of WP editing, and which I continued to use while being unaware of how policy was being rewritten in protracted edit wars such as the big Sept/Oct 2009 mess. And I'm not meaning "define" in the dictionary sense, but using titles that are less ambiguous, and pretty much say what the topic is, e.g. by not overusing primarytopic claiming. Dicklyon (talk) 14:48, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
When I first started editing, I consulted these pages for a specific question and found them to be totally useless. Ordinary users do not have time to cogitate on thousands of pages of confusingly written specious jargon before putting finger to keyboard.
- The principles should be simple and easy to skim. They should be written to enlighten the user, not to bamboozle, or to preemptively and authoritarianly bludgeon the user in order to prevent authoritarian bludgeoning, which does not assume good faith. They should not be written in jargon, or specialized Wiki-terms. The prose should be clean, clear, and if possible, graceful.
- I bookmarked this some time ago, along with Dicklyon's "whither recognizability" summary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles/Archive_34#Taking_a_holistic_approach_to_Wikipedia_title_policy_.E2.80.93_Is_it_an_idea_whose_time_has_come.3F It contains some interesting nuggets: 1) "our titling policy is much too complex... as a result of... making a whole myriad of incremental changes... 2)"...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". 3)"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." 4)"I’d like to see...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."
- "Consensus" has been invoked repeatedly, both here and in the recent ArbCom discussion. Ignoring for the moment the 'argumentum ad populum' dimension of that, which is not compatible with WP consensus policy, when you examine any particular situation more closely, particularly in light of Tony's canvassing paradigm above, there has rarely been overwhelming support for any one proposal. Titling policy deals in shades of gray.
- Elsewhere, the "open-endedness of the naming criteria" has been noted. In the last year there has been an incremental reversal of this, as far as I can tell, without discussion.
There is no point in rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. We need to take a step back, and decide first what is worthy of discussion. Neotarf (talk) 10:34, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- I agree and happily drop this smaller project for now, though I found it helped me to understand better what this policy is about and why what we have doesn't work that well. What are your proposals? Please start a new section. Jojalozzo 12:51, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- Heh. You really know how to drop a bombshell. What are MY proposals? No one can do this alone, it has to be "we". But fair enough, I did bring it up. I'm horribly busy in RL for the next couple of days, let me think about it for a space and I will come up with something. Or if someone else starts it, I'll add my 2¢. For starters, in the U.S. we say "politics is local". The answers (or is it the questions) will probably come, not from theorizing, but from places like the micro-discussions in RMs, where the rubber meets the road. Neotarf (talk) 16:27, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
"Any third_rate engineer or researcher can increase complexity; but it takes a certain air of real insight to make things simple again." --E.F. Schumacher
- Any creation that is the result of evolutionary change driven by consensus decision-making, as this policy page is, will almost necessarily suffer the problems that you've identified: too long, too complicated, confusing, conflicting, etc., etc. I mean, much of the same criticism applies to laws in the real world (just take a glance at U.S. tax law, for example). Of course if we appointed a genius dictator with absolute authoritarian power unhindered by a panoply of personalities with a variety of conflicting motivations and understandings, it would be possible to cull all this down to something that probably does not suffer these problems - but would it reflect consensus? And that's another thing - our goal is to provide guidance that is supported by consensus, but on many issues we don't have consensus... so part of the process is building consensus support. In other words, it's necessarily an ongoing process.
"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" --Mark Twain
- Certainly this policy, like others, suffers many problems and has plenty of room for improvement, but to dismiss the process of incremental evolutionary change that is hoped to be improvement as rearranging chairs on the Titanic is greatly exaggerating how bad it is, not to mention under-appreciating the momentum of the years of consensus edits and discussion behind it.
For better or for worse, bold edits and specific proposals that have consensus support is how policy is far from perfectly governed on WP, and probably always will be, or it would be a very different kind of project.
Whining about problems that are not discussed in the context of a proposal to solve those problems, hopefully without creating new ones, is rarely helpful or productive, and often bordering on disruption. That's not to say that problems without a specific proposed solution should never be discussed - it's possible that someone else will propose a good solution to a clearly specified problem - but in my experience most discussions that do that, like Mike Cline's Taking a holistic approach to Wikipedia title policy – Is it an idea whose time has come?, rarely go anywhere productive. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:27, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- Still too busy in RL to give this proper attention, but will try to respond briefly.
- This so highly insulting I hardly know where to begin.
- 1) First, if I am reading this correctly, Born2cycle is so unreceptive to my ideas that he simply dismisses them as "whining" and a "disruption" without bothering to give any rationales for disagreement, or indeed, any indication that he has even read them.
- 2) My third bullet point was specifically about the problematic nature of invoking the god of "consensus", yet Born2cycle blithely continues to worship at that altar, ritually invoking the word "consensus" seven times here, as he has so many times in the past. How about addressing the points I made?
- 3) It is clear that the titling policy does not work, and in the last year has gotten worse, thanks to sockpuppetry and other problems, yet Born2cycle does not seem at all concerned. Instead he is concerned about "under-appreciating the momentum of the years of consensus (sic) edits and discussion behind it." Maybe we need to step back and ask who and what the titling policy is for. And what's with the "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" quotation? -- does he think he will die if the policy is revised?
- 4) The assertion that discussions of problem analysis "rarely go anywhere productive", if unchallenged, can end up as a self-fulfilling prophecy. This kind of long-winded negativity can stall a group and is the exact opposite the type of brainstorming that a successful focus group does.
- 5) I question whether the time is right to discuss title policy. Perhaps it is still to close to the Arbcom thing and some of the editors still have hard feelings about that, but it is certain that anyone who steps into those murky waters will quickly find they spend 5% of their energy working on titling and 95% of their energy on resistance and distractions. I have been looking at RMs in order to get some idea of what goes into it, and I'm beginning to think that anyone who spends any time at all with titling will become either masochistic, difficult, or chronically angry. Neotarf (talk) 22:02, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Heh. You really know how to drop a bombshell. What are MY proposals? No one can do this alone, it has to be "we". But fair enough, I did bring it up. I'm horribly busy in RL for the next couple of days, let me think about it for a space and I will come up with something. Or if someone else starts it, I'll add my 2¢. For starters, in the U.S. we say "politics is local". The answers (or is it the questions) will probably come, not from theorizing, but from places like the micro-discussions in RMs, where the rubber meets the road. Neotarf (talk) 16:27, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- Neotarf, I'm going back to your original statement. The first two bullets are your opinion about problems on this page. I have no big disagreement with what you say, but I repeat - that's normal and should be expected given how this and other policy pages necessarily develop and evolve here.
The 3rd bullet, about consensus, I don't fully understand. But "rarely been overwhelming support for any one proposal" seems central to it, and yet we did have overwhelming (indeed unanimous) support for the change to the recognizability wording recently, despite all the controversy and even an Arbcom case that stemmed from it. And that's not that unusual. Over the last few years there has been consensus regarding the idea that policy is suppose to mostly reflect actual behavior, and most edits have been done in concert with that. Most edits, the vast majority, to this page, over the years, nobody objected to at the time they were made, nor later.
I really don't understand the predilection for open-endedness in titling policy and guidelines, at least I don't see how that benefits the encyclopedia. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:01, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- You've told that "unanimous" lie 6 times on the current version of this talk page. You should stop. The vote was only unanimous among those who accepted the question as a vote between two versions, when it was clear that a wider discussion was needed. Still is, and still hard to get that going with you being so dominant here. Also recall that nobody supported your interpretation of what the new wording means, an interpretation that you admitted to only after it was a done deal. Dicklyon (talk) 23:36, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Lie? The choice was between those two versions. No other versions were ever even suggested, and haven't been since. There was a choice to object/abstain, of course, and if anyone wanted that to count as non-support they could have participated with, say, Abstain, or something like that. But of those who wished to have their !votes counted, seventeen participated, and all seventeen supported what is now the current wording, and most gave very specific reasons and explanations. It's not a lie to characterize 17:0:0 as unanimous support. I can't recall anything on this page ever receiving clearer/stronger support. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:49, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- A more accurate representation would be something like 17 in favor of that wording, and 5 or so who expressed some sort of opposition or neutrality while the poll was open, without !voting. That's still a very strong consensus for these parts. B2C - you don't need to (and shouldn't) claim unanimity to make your point. Dicklyon - you don't need to use inflammatory words like "lie" to make your point. How was that helpful? Dohn joe (talk) 23:59, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Of those who chose to participate in the !voting of that poll, the decision was unanimous. That's just a fact. Unanimity like that is rare in such polls, and I think significant in this case. That's why I mention it. As to the 5 or so (I think that's generous) who expressed "some sort of opposition or neutrality while the poll was open", my objection to their position since mid December has been the same: they have no position can be articulated, much less supported or opposed. Really, it's the epitome of disruption. It's a shame Arbcom did not see it, but it continues today. Recently, David Levy (talk · contribs) has essentially asked the same questions I've been asking since December, and they too remain unanswered. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:22, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- A more accurate representation would be something like 17 in favor of that wording, and 5 or so who expressed some sort of opposition or neutrality while the poll was open, without !voting. That's still a very strong consensus for these parts. B2C - you don't need to (and shouldn't) claim unanimity to make your point. Dicklyon - you don't need to use inflammatory words like "lie" to make your point. How was that helpful? Dohn joe (talk) 23:59, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Lie? The choice was between those two versions. No other versions were ever even suggested, and haven't been since. There was a choice to object/abstain, of course, and if anyone wanted that to count as non-support they could have participated with, say, Abstain, or something like that. But of those who wished to have their !votes counted, seventeen participated, and all seventeen supported what is now the current wording, and most gave very specific reasons and explanations. It's not a lie to characterize 17:0:0 as unanimous support. I can't recall anything on this page ever receiving clearer/stronger support. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:49, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- In fact, this was one of many "polls", many of which did not pass the sniff test of Tony's sunlight paradigm, and was in fact an emergency measure imposed by an administrator to stop an edit war. 'An edit war.' Seems kind of an oxymoron to me to claim an edit war consensus. Continuing to repeat these "consensus" claims without responding either to my point about 'argumentum ad populum' or Tony's paradigm, plus the insistence that consensus (or the manufactured appearance of consensus) will remain etched in stone for all time, makes it hard for me to continue this conversation, if indeed it ever was a conversation. But of course if you consider revision of title policy to be a waste of time, you're entitled to your opinion. Neotarf (talk) 00:04, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- Neotarf, please AGF. I'm sure your points are really clear to you. They seem mostly clear to me, and I'm discussing them to the best of my ability, but maybe I'm missing something. You don't seem satisfied with my replies. I'm sorry, but bear with me, please.
I don't know where you get the idea that Greg L's poll was "an emergency measure imposed by an administrator to stop an edit war", but Greg L is not an administrator, as far as I know. Perhaps you know otherwise. I believe Greg is just another experienced editor who wanted to get clarity regarding where consensus (sorry, but that is what he was trying to ascertain) might be on the central question at issue. The result of that poll supported the position I held since I first re-added that wording in mid-December. Anyway, I brought it up only because you said, "there has rarely been overwhelming support for any one proposal." I don't know what you mean by Tony's sunlight paradigm (I searched for "sunlight" on this page and in its archives to no avail), but if that poll didn't demonstrate overwhelming support for that proposal, then there is no such thing.
The only thing you said about "argumentum ad populum" is: "Ignoring for the moment the 'argumentum ad populum' dimension of that, which is not compatible with WP consensus policy", I'm not sure how you expect me to respond. I guess your point is that they're not compatible. Well, yes, argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy in debates about factual matters. But in title decision making, we're not trying to establish whether certain proposition are true or not, in which case holding polls would indeed by inappropriate. We're trying to establish what community opinion is, for which polling is quite appropriate.
What you mean by "the insistence that consensus (or the manufactured appearance of consensus) will remain etched in stone for all time" I have no idea, but I will say if that's what you think I'm doing, I'm not being very clear, or you're not paying very good attention, or both. But I suggest your lack of quoting the words of mine that caused you to believe that's what I meant is telling. I mean, if I believed that, why would I spend so time and energy trying to persuade others through discussion in order to build consensus? WP:CONSENSUSCANCHANGE, thankfully!
Upon review before Save page, it struck me perhaps you're under the impression that I'm saying those who favor more description in titles should not be arguing this because it's against consensus and consensus won't change. If that's not your impression, then please ignore the rest of this. But if that's your impression, then there has been a misunderstanding, I assure you. First, I'm arguing that policy should not change to say something that does not reflect consensus, or reflects consensus less than current wording. First you change consensus, then you change policy. I also am a big believer in changing consensus/policy bottom up - first you persuade others one minor proposal at a time, via WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, and then you establish a pattern which you can use to argue for a change in policy. What you can't do is say WP would be better with whatever, so let's just add this and delete that from policy.
But there is also the WP:IDHT consideration. At some point, when you've been shown that your position is clearly contrary to consensus, at least for now, you might back off a little.
But in this case, again, the real problem is the lack of a real position - what exactly would people like to change? What are the answers to David Levy's questions, etc.? If we had a real proposal, and these questions were answered, then we'd have something real to consider. Hope this helps. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:22, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- Neotarf, please AGF. I'm sure your points are really clear to you. They seem mostly clear to me, and I'm discussing them to the best of my ability, but maybe I'm missing something. You don't seem satisfied with my replies. I'm sorry, but bear with me, please.
- You've told that "unanimous" lie 6 times on the current version of this talk page. You should stop. The vote was only unanimous among those who accepted the question as a vote between two versions, when it was clear that a wider discussion was needed. Still is, and still hard to get that going with you being so dominant here. Also recall that nobody supported your interpretation of what the new wording means, an interpretation that you admitted to only after it was a done deal. Dicklyon (talk) 23:36, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- I agree and happily drop this smaller project for now, though I found it helped me to understand better what this policy is about and why what we have doesn't work that well. What are your proposals? Please start a new section. Jojalozzo 12:51, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- @B2C
- What's with the "please AGF"? What exactly are you accusing me of and why are you doing it here? Shall we review what WP:AGF says, since you have been so quick to use it for accusations?
If criticism is needed, discuss editors' actions, but avoid accusing others of harmful motives without clear evidence.
- Yes, I have criticized your continued citation of this old poll from January 2011. After all the comments you made about how many admins you had to approach to find someone who would attach importance to this particular poll, and after all the comments that other editors made about the circumstances of the poll, I'm quite surprised that you would continue to cite it, especially now, since the poll was way back in January. Please note that I have said nothing about your motives. I don't know why you keep bringing up this poll and I don't care; the poll is a dead horse.
- You also need to stop accusing me of WP:AAGF--
In these cases admonishing someone to "assume good faith" is in fact assuming that they are not assuming good faith - the admonisher is ironically violating the very principle he or she is purporting to uphold, and is being uncivil.
Be careful about citing this principle too aggressively. Just as one can incorrectly judge that another is acting in bad faith, so too can one mistakenly conclude that bad faith is being assumed, and exhortations to "Assume Good Faith" can themselves reflect negative assumptions about others if a perceived assumption of bad faith was not clear-cut.
- The first rule of WP:AGF: Don't talk about WP:AGF.
- It has only been a few days since the last time I protested against these same baseless accusations on my talk page. At that time you changed two of my edits without leaving an edit summary and claimed it was "refactoring". But what does WP:REFACTOR say about what to do if someone objects to the "refactoring"?
If another editor objects to refactoring then the changes should be reverted.
- Does it say you should run over to their talk page and make a sarcastic comment like "WP:AGF much?"? No, it does not.
- Please, let's comment on the content, not on the contributor. We need to stay on topic, stay objective, and be positive (just to cite three objectives of the talk page guidelines WP:TALK), and be concise, to cite a fourth, so that we can move forward to discuss ways to improve titling. Neotarf (talk) 23:05, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think that this conversation needs a comment, to balance it a little. I broadly agree with what B2C is saying here. Sometimes on this page he seems to be in a minority but that is usually because he is saying things that others such as myself agree with, and to repeat them just adds to bloat. So I leave him to put forward a position that I think is broadly correct. It is a shame that some of the others who regularly and repeatedly argue against him (over precision etc) and have already made their positions very clear do not turn off verbose mode as do most who agree with him.
- I was against the list of bullet points that was put into this policy some times ago. Not because most of them did not sum up what was here already, but because I thought the changes were brought in too fast and not discussed properly and because they did introduce unforeseen minor modifications to the policy. For example what they have done is to make it appear as if each bullet point should carry the same weight, which I think was a mistake.
- Also there was one bullet point "Consistency" which was not in the policy previously and was introduced because of an ongoing disagreement over the flora guideline to help bolster the position of those who want all flora articles named after the scientific names. I think it was a mistake (to give consistency the same weight as usage in reliable sources) because it is used to justify using names that are not supported by common use in reliable sources, but instead rely on a previous Wikipedia editorial decision which may or may not have been made correctly using the policies of the day, but would be rejected by current guidelines and policies (for example there was a time when common name meant usage in all sources reliable and unreliable) -- consensus can change. For example the argument that Zürich Airport should be spelt that way because that article Zürich was spelt that way. I think that was wrong then, and it would be wrong now to argue that a company called "Flughafen Zürich AG" shoudl be called "Flughafen Zurich AG" because the city is now spelt "Zurich", such decision should be made on the usage in sources. -- PBS (talk) 08:40, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
What purposes does an article's title serve?
I think we're not going to get much further until we agree on the reasons for titles. Currently the introduction to this page suggests two: "The title serves to give an indication of what the article is about, and to distinguish it from other articles." B2C says, above: "The notion that the purpose of the title is to pretty much say what the topic is has been repeatedly rejected over the years, and I would be very surprised if it had consensus support today." I find that hard to believe and am interested in to xis explanation. What are all functions that titles offer? Jojalozzo 19:34, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- You're right that we need to agree on reasons for titles.
Of course a title serves "to give an indication of what the article is about" - that's very different from "the purpose of the title is to pretty much say what the topic is".
For example, 4706 Dennisreuter (found using SPECIAL:RANDOM) gives an indication of what the article is about, to someone who is familiar with that asteroid, but it doesn't say what the topic is. The lead does that: a main-belt asteroid discovered on February 16, 1988....
If the title gave more than an indication of what the article is about, and pretty much said what the topic was, then the title of that article would be more descriptive, and would be something like 4706 Dennisreuter, asteroid discovered in 1988.
But we only use such descriptive titles that "pretty much say what the topic is" when the topic does not have a name commonly used in sources, or sometimes as a byproduct when additional descriptive precision is needed in the title for disambiguation. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:05, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- That's a good explanation. The distinction is quite significant.
- Inexperienced users sometimes encounter titles containing parenthetical descriptions and mistakenly assume that we routinely include them (even when no disambiguation is required). For example, someone who's seen John Jones (footballer born 1916) might create an article titled "Waldo McNeal (footballer born 1970)" (despite the nonexistence of another Waldo McNeal article, let alone one about a footballer). —David Levy 21:28, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- It's an understandable mistake when an inexperienced user does it, and I think you've described why the misconception occurs. But what is in when when an experienced editor favors unnecessarily descriptive titles? --Born2cycle (talk) 21:34, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- That reflects disagreement with a basic Wikipedia naming convention (and the longstanding consensus on which it's based). —David Levy 01:49, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Suggestion:
- An article title should be the term which a reasonable person would most likely use in seeking information about a topic.
- Terms which are less likely to be used should be redirects.
I keep thinking of the White Knight's poem ... [5]
- The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes.
- That's what the name is called. The name really is 'The Aged, Aged Man.'
- The song is called 'Ways and Means' but that's only what it's called, you know!
- The song really is 'A-sitting On a Gate': and the tune's my own invention.
Seems to cover much of the "title" problem AFAICT. Collect (talk) 21:44, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- I like it, but suggest a caveat for disambiguation:
- An article title is ideally the term which a reasonable person would most likely use in seeking information about that article's topic.
- More descriptive information does not belong in the title, unless it is needed to disambiguate from other titles, and terms less likely to be used for searching should be redirects.
- --Born2cycle (talk) 22:03, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- I like it, but suggest a caveat for disambiguation:
- Certainly, I think we all agree that if you type in the term a reasonable person would most likely use in seeking information about that article's topic, and there's no other article you could mean, then you should get right to the article. That means that term should be either the title, or a redirect, as WP:PRIMARYTOPIC explains. However, look how much more useful it is to readers to have 4706 Dennisreuter as a redirect and 4706 Dennisreuter (asteroid) as the title – because when you get there, or when you see the title in a list (category, search result, whatever), so can recognize what it's about. Without that, you probably think it's a building named for its address, like the one in Denver. The simple "(asteroid)" is enough to clarify what the topic is, which I think is "necessary" from the point of view of the reader, and is not "excess precision" as "(asteroid discovered in 1988)" would be. Note that I am not advocating for unnecessary disambiguation; just for allowing reasonable recognizability and precision, in service of the reader. It in no way conflicts with the desire to support direct access from search or link by just "4706 Dennisreuter". In places where there is real ambiguity, or course that would be a disambig page instead; and if this asteroid were deemed to be the primary topic, it would still be better to have that as a redirect, and put the "(asteroid)" in the article so people who get there looking for something else will see immediately what topic they got to. In my experience, this is how it has usually been done, though I admit there's a largish contingent pushing for minimality and conciseness, too. Dicklyon (talk) 00:21, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- By the way, I've nominated it for deletion, since it clear fails WP:NOTABILITY. Dicklyon (talk) 06:16, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- What? In your experience articles like 4706 Dennisreuter are usually at more descriptive titles, like 4706 Dennisreuter (asteroid), even though there is no other use for 4706 Dennisreuter in WP? Do you really believe that? I wonder what you're thinking about, because my impression is exactly opposite of yours about this. As a test, call it the B2C Challenge, please repeatedly click on SPECIAL:RANDOM and let us know when you find five examples that fit that criteria, keeping track of how many times you had to click on RANDOM before you found the fifth. Let us know what those examples are, and how many clicks it took to you find them. I went through 12 clicks of no examples of that until I got to Michael Foster (Ontario politician), but that's not an example either since Michael Foster is a dab page. 30 more clicks and I still haven't found one. BTW, no fair giving us examples in which you were involved in moving the article to its descriptive title.
At least you admit "there's a largish contingent pushing for minimality and conciseness, too". I suggest largish is a gross understatement given the dearth of articles that are titled inconsistently with this. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- What? In your experience articles like 4706 Dennisreuter are usually at more descriptive titles, like 4706 Dennisreuter (asteroid), even though there is no other use for 4706 Dennisreuter in WP? Do you really believe that? I wonder what you're thinking about, because my impression is exactly opposite of yours about this. As a test, call it the B2C Challenge, please repeatedly click on SPECIAL:RANDOM and let us know when you find five examples that fit that criteria, keeping track of how many times you had to click on RANDOM before you found the fifth. Let us know what those examples are, and how many clicks it took to you find them. I went through 12 clicks of no examples of that until I got to Michael Foster (Ontario politician), but that's not an example either since Michael Foster is a dab page. 30 more clicks and I still haven't found one. BTW, no fair giving us examples in which you were involved in moving the article to its descriptive title.
- My view is perhaps colored by early experience, like 2006–2008; there were for example attempts to move Bath, Somerset to the more ambiguous and less precise Bath (city), but the community rejected that (proposals by Serge, B2C's name at the time). And look at the discussion of moving the well-known AP-list cities to omit state: in 2007. There were complaints that the discussion had gone on for five years already, and the community strongly resisted removing such information. About a year later they finally accepted the compromise on the AP styleguide cities (in 2008), and there was relative calm over that. But B2C says it "never made sense" (though he said back then that it had consensus), and continues to try to overturn this long-standing convention, like at the Fort Worth, Texas, RM. I don't see how this kind of minimalism helps the reader, or how it can be claimed to be a reflection of community practice or consensus. Dicklyon (talk) 01:12, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Your "this is how it has usually been done" statement seemed to be made in very general terms, about all kinds of articles like that asteroid article having more descriptive/precise titles than just the name of the topic even though disambiguation from other uses is not needed, not just about US cities which are a special case. Are you backing off that assertion now?
The Bath discussion was about whether to follow the Cork (city) example or that of other cities in Somerset - it had nothing to do with one being more ambiguous or less precise than the other, if I recall correctly. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:51, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Your "this is how it has usually been done" statement seemed to be made in very general terms, about all kinds of articles like that asteroid article having more descriptive/precise titles than just the name of the topic even though disambiguation from other uses is not needed, not just about US cities which are a special case. Are you backing off that assertion now?
- My view is perhaps colored by early experience, like 2006–2008; there were for example attempts to move Bath, Somerset to the more ambiguous and less precise Bath (city), but the community rejected that (proposals by Serge, B2C's name at the time). And look at the discussion of moving the well-known AP-list cities to omit state: in 2007. There were complaints that the discussion had gone on for five years already, and the community strongly resisted removing such information. About a year later they finally accepted the compromise on the AP styleguide cities (in 2008), and there was relative calm over that. But B2C says it "never made sense" (though he said back then that it had consensus), and continues to try to overturn this long-standing convention, like at the Fort Worth, Texas, RM. I don't see how this kind of minimalism helps the reader, or how it can be claimed to be a reflection of community practice or consensus. Dicklyon (talk) 01:12, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- 1. I must reiterate Born2cycle's inquiry. Are you suggesting that it's normal for us to append parenthetical descriptions to article titles when no disambiguation is needed?
- As Born2cycle noted, a basic description belongs in the article's lead (where its absence constitutes a fundamental flaw).
- 2. Where, in your view, should we draw the line? In the above example, you argue that we should retitle the 4706 Dennisreuter article to explicitly indicate that its subject is an asteroid (which many people wouldn't realize from the name). But all sorts of subjects are unfamiliar to many people. Someone might not know what a colonoscopy is. Should we move the article to Colonoscopy (medical procedure)? Until recently, I'd never heard of a blackcurrant (and didn't deduce its nature from the name). Does that justify a move to Blackcurrant (plant)? To be on the safe side, should we just go ahead and include descriptions in all of our articles' titles? —David Levy 01:49, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
I asked this ages ago. Is the title primarily for search optimisation (so the reader can pick the right article from a list of options when no other text is visible), or is the title part of the descriptive text of the article. If it is primarily for search optimisation, then WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is less than helpful (there's a huge long piece in the archives of this page about Steppenwolf as a search term, that already covered this).Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:31, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- I don't think the title has ever been primarily to aid users in picking the right articles from a list of titles. Until the relatively new feature of search completion in the search box, the only place one might have ever been presented with such a list is when looking at categories. That said, titles are for search optimization in a different sense - helping readers get to the article they seek as quickly as possible. Primary topic in particular is supposed to be consistent with the principle of least surprise. For example, anyone who types in Paris would probably not be surprised to land upon the article about the city in France.
I also don't think the title was ever supposed to be part of the descriptive text of the article, except for those articles about topics that don't have names, like List of hotels in Manila.
To expand a bit on what David Levy said above, because we have titles that are descriptive because they require disambiguation, and titles about topics without names that require descriptive titles, people can get the wrong impression that titles are supposed to be descriptive. But in reality, they're just supposed to reflect the tag (for lack of a better term) that is most commonly used to refer to the article's topic in reliable sources. It's just sometimes we're required to use descriptive titles - but I don't think that has ever been a goal of titles. Using the most commonly used name of a topic as its article's title, whenever reasonably possible, aids searches (because articles are where they are expected to be). --Born2cycle (talk) 01:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Well, there certainly was a time when precision was a goal, and was encouraged and valued. See late 2007. Dicklyon (talk) 01:56, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- It's one thing to be written in policy in the past. It's another to be reflected in practice, for which there is precious little evidence. I await your answers to David Levy's questions above. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:34, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Well, there certainly was a time when precision was a goal, and was encouraged and valued. See late 2007. Dicklyon (talk) 01:56, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think we should not be looking for just the primary purposes of titles here but all the purposes. Serving as a search term is one of the purposes to which titles are put. Is there disagreement on that? Jojalozzo 02:57, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, serving as a search term is certainly a purpose of titles, in order to make them easy to find. I don't think there is any disagreement about that; hence Collect's suggestion above. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Speaking for myself, as a search term is one of the most important purposes of a title, whether in WP's searchbox or Google, etc; and titles should always be devised with this in mind. I posted above here the example of searching for Doctor Zhivago, and suggested that "when the primary topic is not absolutely clear and uncontroversial, disambiguate all entries". Currently the original novel is not identified as being such, and the reader searching is left to guess by elimination of other possible choices. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:37, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Again, since WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is on WP:D, any suggestions or proposals to changing it belong at WT:D, not here. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:43, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Speaking for myself, as a search term is one of the most important purposes of a title, whether in WP's searchbox or Google, etc; and titles should always be devised with this in mind. I posted above here the example of searching for Doctor Zhivago, and suggested that "when the primary topic is not absolutely clear and uncontroversial, disambiguate all entries". Currently the original novel is not identified as being such, and the reader searching is left to guess by elimination of other possible choices. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:37, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, serving as a search term is certainly a purpose of titles, in order to make them easy to find. I don't think there is any disagreement about that; hence Collect's suggestion above. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think we should not be looking for just the primary purposes of titles here but all the purposes. Serving as a search term is one of the purposes to which titles are put. Is there disagreement on that? Jojalozzo 02:57, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Are we ready to agree on a list of title purposes? Is the following inclusive? Are there wording improvements?
- Communicate a sense of the article's topic to someone familiar with it
- Match natural or likely topic search terms
- Distinguish the article from others
Jojalozzo 04:34, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- What is the point of the restriction "to someone familiar with it"? Isn't it a good purpose statement to just say "Communicate a sense of the article's topic"? Or is there a reason we'd want that goal to be so narrowed? Dicklyon (talk) 04:42, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Because we are not writing our articles in the title line. It is hard to know where exactly to stop describing what an article is about when assuming that the reader is not familiar with the topic. For instance is it enough to change the title of Special relativity to Special relativity (physical theory) to communicate what the article is about, or should it actually be called Special relativity (physical theory by Albert Einstein) or even Special relativity (physical theory by Albert Einstein which incorporates the principle that the speed of light is the same for all inertial observers regardless of the state of motion of the source). When is enough enough when trying to explain to someone unfamiliar with a topic what it is about? And what do we assume to be obvious and what do we assume needs explaining? I don't see how we are going to come up with clear answers to these questions.TheFreeloader (talk) 15:24, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Sometimes a bit of extra information is needed to clarify the topic; but not on Special relativity, I would think. It you need a hard and fast rule to draw the line for you, then you think like Born2cycle. I don't think that algorithmic approach serves readers well. Dicklyon (talk) 15:32, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- I don't know, if I had never heard about the relativity theory, I surely would think "special relativity" looked like a funny name, and I don't think I by any means would conclude that it had to be an article about a physical theory. I think I might just as well have thought that it was an article about some newfangled idea in philosophy. I am not sure how this question of when and how far to explain topics in titles is solved by pushing it from the general to the specific. As I see it this question would be possible to raise in all Requested Move discussion involving parenthetic describers in article titles. And where are people supposed to find the answer for this question when WP:AT does not even set out any guidelines for how to deal with this question. I am not necessarily saying that everything needs to be cut out in stone from WP:AT about how to title articles, but I think WP:AT does at least need to set out some principles which can serve as a framework for RM discussions.TheFreeloader (talk) 16:03, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Sometimes a bit of extra information is needed to clarify the topic;
- As TheFreeloader noted, we don't write the article in the title line. The "extra information [that] is needed to clarify the topic" belongs in the lead.
- but not on Special relativity, I would think.
- I previously inquired as to you where you believe we should draw the line (and received no response). It appears that you have no specific criteria in mind, apart from the "Is it clear to Dicklyon?" test. —David Levy 16:32, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- It seems to me that some editors favor ambiguity in title decision-making policy and guidelines. They can't seem to explain why, and I can only imagine it is perhaps because they enjoy pointless banter in RM discussions based on tossing JDLI arguments back and forth ultimately resolved by counting !votes.
Well, to be fair, I think they imagine that these differences sometimes matter more than I believe they do. My point in favoring less ambiguity here is that ultimately when it comes down to questions like whether there is sufficient precision in a title, that it doesn't matter (either title is just as good for the reader), and, so, the more decisive our guidance is, the less debate there is about something that ultimately doesn't matter, which is a good thing. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:49, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- It seems to me that some editors favor ambiguity in title decision-making policy and guidelines. They can't seem to explain why, and I can only imagine it is perhaps because they enjoy pointless banter in RM discussions based on tossing JDLI arguments back and forth ultimately resolved by counting !votes.
- Sometimes a bit of extra information is needed to clarify the topic; but not on Special relativity, I would think. It you need a hard and fast rule to draw the line for you, then you think like Born2cycle. I don't think that algorithmic approach serves readers well. Dicklyon (talk) 15:32, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Because we are not writing our articles in the title line. It is hard to know where exactly to stop describing what an article is about when assuming that the reader is not familiar with the topic. For instance is it enough to change the title of Special relativity to Special relativity (physical theory) to communicate what the article is about, or should it actually be called Special relativity (physical theory by Albert Einstein) or even Special relativity (physical theory by Albert Einstein which incorporates the principle that the speed of light is the same for all inertial observers regardless of the state of motion of the source). When is enough enough when trying to explain to someone unfamiliar with a topic what it is about? And what do we assume to be obvious and what do we assume needs explaining? I don't see how we are going to come up with clear answers to these questions.TheFreeloader (talk) 15:24, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
IMO, there are two basic purposes of a title. First, it should allow the reader to pick out the article he is looking for. That is to say, when the title appears in a list, such as a list of Google results, it should give the reader a cue that this is the article he is looking for. Secondly, the article title should tell the reader what the name of the topic is, what it commonly called in real-world English-language usage. I think it is safe to assume that the name of a subject in its most common form is more recognizable than a descriptive followed by a little "Wiki invented here" parenthetical disambiguator. But for those editors who refuse to believe this, we can run an experiment. Let's pick out a group of articles, change the titles back and forth between the two formats, and compare page views. "Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven)" was moved to "Moonlight Sonata" and back, so there is already a test case: "Moonlight Sonata" vs "Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven)". (Name-only titling beats explanatory titling by 14 percent, at least in this case.) Kauffner (talk) 04:49, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)Seriously Dicklyon? Seventeen people gave 17 answers to that question in Greg L's poll. Answers like, "it assumes readers have a flying clue what they are reading up on rather than pandering to the MTV crowd with the attention span of a lab rat on meth. It should be “Boutros Boutros-Ghali”, not “Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egyptian dude)”. ".
In addition, David Levy gave an answer today. Did you read all that? If so, why are you asking? If not, please stop asking and read them, then take up your disagreement with each one of them.
David also asked you two related questions. Will you answer or evade them? --Born2cycle (talk) 04:58, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)Seriously Dicklyon? Seventeen people gave 17 answers to that question in Greg L's poll. Answers like, "it assumes readers have a flying clue what they are reading up on rather than pandering to the MTV crowd with the attention span of a lab rat on meth. It should be “Boutros Boutros-Ghali”, not “Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egyptian dude)”. ".
- (edit conflict) Joja, that's good, though I think the current "give an indication" phrasing for the first is better. Also, perhaps not originally a primary intentional purpose of titles, but certainly an implicit one unavoidable because it's true for the vast majority of our articles, is:
- Convey the name of topic most commonly used to refer to the topic in reliable sources (for those topics that have names).
- (I note Kauffner has suggested this as well). --Born2cycle (talk) 04:58, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
I think the main point of concern here is what "familiar" means, or perhaps more importantly, what people will interpret it to mean when quoting it to justify a move or edit war. I think we need to be clear that "familiar" shouldn't mean you already know what's in the article, or are familiar with the literature the article is based on. If your doctor gives you a diagnosis, and you come to WP to read up on it, you're familiar with the topic in an sense, but may know almost nothing about it. People look things up because they're ignorant, and IMO we need to target a likely level of familiar ignorance.
To accommodate that concern, I think when we say the name most commonly used in RS's, we shouldn't mean just the professional material that editors of the article read, but also introductory material: what is a beginning student of (chem/polisci/philosophy/etc) familiar with, when first exposed to the topic? (That's often when people come here.) What is someone peripherally connected with the topic in a non-professional capacity familiar with? If it's commonly known among those who really don't have a clue, if it's been in the news or entered, misunderstood, into popular culture, which name would ring a bell? And which dab would be needed to say, "no, not *that* X, dummy, this one." The most commonly used name will generally be the one used in trade journals, because they're the places it will be talked about the most. But their target audience is the experts in the field, not the general interested public, which is our target audience.
Sometimes I read a WP article on s.t. I already know a lot about for the sheer joy of reading a well-crafted article. But usually I look s.t. up because I'm ignorant about it, only familiar enough with it to know I need to look it up.
Would "Communicate a sense of the article's topic to someone interested in it" capture that balance, knowing enough to know you need to look it up, but not familiar enough to understand the professional lit, at least not before reading the WP article? — kwami (talk) 05:57, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Well said, Kwamikagami! This is exactly what I think of when I think about article titles. I think that it pisses off some editors that we think this way, but... really, who cares? Our articles are supposed to be for the readers anyway (and I know from personal experience, when I land at a page with a technical article title it's usually quite jarring). Anyway, "Communicate a sense of the article's topic to someone interested in it" sounds pretty good to me (I'd like to see it more in context, which is what I'll attempt to do immediately after posting this, but that looks good right now).
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 06:14, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)The "familiar" clause has been in there a long time - certainly long enough to provide plenty of real examples of problems, if it really causes any like the ones you hypothesize about here. Yet I don't know of any actual cases of title decision debates caused by conflicting interpretations of "familiar"; do you? As far as I know, "only familiar enough with it to know I need to look it up" qualifies as "familiar" is how everyone interprets it.
The clause in full is: "recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic." I think the "though not necessarily expert in" parenthetical caveat really helps convey that it doesn't mean usage in professional material. And remember, not only are introductory books considered reliable sources, but so are newspapers and magazines that use layman language.
I don't think "to someone interested in it" conveys the same meaning. Someone could be interested in something, yet have no idea what it is called, so the title would not be recognizable to them. Nor do we try to make our titles recognizable to a person like that. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:23, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- You're right, of course, about my wording, but I couldn't think of anything clearer.
- I have come across such debates. I had a huge go-around about hyphenating names of melanomas. One contributor, who certainly knew his stuff, insisted we not hyphenate because the medical journals do not hyphenate. Yet introductory college textbooks often do hyphenate, because the meaning is clearer that way—especially when the word 'large' or 'small' is in the name but has no implication for the size of the tumor. Potentially extremely confusing. Based on COMMONNAME, and assuming COMMONNAME applies to punctuation (which I find dubious), we would need to drop the hyphen. And the familiarity argument was used as support: everyone familiar with the topic (i.e. oncologists and readers of oncology journals) drops the hyphens, therefore per WP:AT we need to drop the hyphens. But for our target audience, the disambiguating hyphen is clearly helpful: small-cell melanoma rather than small cell melanoma. — kwami (talk) 07:55, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Joja asked "Are we ready to agree on a list of title purposes?" If the proposed list has to include the most controversial clause in recent history, imported from "recognizability" wording into what you should be a clean-slate list of purposes, then the answer might need to be "no". Dicklyon (talk) 15:20, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- You still haven't answered David Levy's questions above, and now you refer to a clause supported unanimously in the this recent poll as "the most controversial clause in recent history". Are you participating in this discussion, or just trying to be disruptive? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:33, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think there is a preference for the current wording: "Give an indication of what the article is about". Is that acceptable? Jojalozzo 16:55, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Is that acceptable in what context? That wording in the intro is relatively recent (December 2011), and I was fine with it, until you started this section, which revealed that at least one person interpreted "give an indication of" to mean "to pretty much say what the topic is". Per this discussion we seem to have consensus that the two meanings are different and the distinction is critical. That suggests to me that the current wording needs to clarified in terms of that distinction, as explained by David Levy among others. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- I can't believe this is still going on. I'm becoming less and less impressed with the quality and volume of contribution from the leading contributor to this forum. Rip van Winkle would not be too disorientated by this continued discussion, and can happily go back to sleep for another 100 years safe in the knowledge that he will have missed nothing in the intervening period.
Much of the latest discussion seems recursive. There seems to be a simple unwillingness from B2C to understand what others have clearly identified as a problem. There is the recycled retort that there is no problem that needs fixing. Above, current policy is employed recursively to defend against any changes in said policy. The continuing defence seems to be "what's wrong with having a concise title when there are no other identically-named articles?" The B2C challenge only proves that many articles follow the way B2C prefers articles to be named. It doesn't disprove that it can be a problem for the prospective reader to identify the topic of interest to him/her when looking at the title which is the product of a questionable algorithm. Whilst one editor is contributing 60% of the wordcount, most of the editors presently assembled (and representing the 40% wordcount) don't see article titles as a binary function; they don't want article titles to be stripped down to just the provebial engine and four wheels; they may not need Recaro leather seats, but ther would certainly welcome a nice chassis. In policy terms, they just want greater facility to identify one topic from other similarly-named topics. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 17:44, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- It is your contention that adding words to a title increases page views? For myself, I assume that the most recognizable form of the name of a subject is the one that will attract the most readers. Is the idea to game the search engines by putting SEO in the titles? If it works, that would certainly raise ethical issues. Be that as it may, this is a testable proposition. We can create a list of titles to experiment on, move them around, and see what happens. No matter what the outcome, I would still oppose unprofessional-looking titles with parenthetical disambiguators and so forth. Kauffner (talk) 13:50, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- I can't believe this is still going on. I'm becoming less and less impressed with the quality and volume of contribution from the leading contributor to this forum. Rip van Winkle would not be too disorientated by this continued discussion, and can happily go back to sleep for another 100 years safe in the knowledge that he will have missed nothing in the intervening period.
- Is that acceptable in what context? That wording in the intro is relatively recent (December 2011), and I was fine with it, until you started this section, which revealed that at least one person interpreted "give an indication of" to mean "to pretty much say what the topic is". Per this discussion we seem to have consensus that the two meanings are different and the distinction is critical. That suggests to me that the current wording needs to clarified in terms of that distinction, as explained by David Levy among others. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- I am better able to keep up with a discussion when it's regularly re-anchored by concrete outcomes and implications. I would find it helpful to see alternative proposals along with theory. For example, if "someone interested in it" is problematic, what are some alternatives? Jojalozzo 18:15, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia article titles [should] and do perform only two roles:
- They function as the unique part of the URL that displays an article in a browser or serve as a link in a hyperlink.
- They [should] faithfully reflect the contents of the article which they title.
My first observation about this discussion is that we will continue to “tilt at windmills” if we continue to try and describe anything about titles using some element of the user experience to do so. Utterly impossible and meaningless. At last count, there were ~2.7 billion internet users on a daily basis. WP historically is visited by ~13-14% of global internet users on a daily basis. Do the math (14% of 2.7 billion) = ~378 million users every day. Trying to describe a title in terms of how 378 million users ought to behave relative to the title is pure fantasy.
My second role above emphasizes this and puts the burden on the title. I favor the word “contents” over topic because a great many of our 3.9 million articles cover multiple topics or topics that can be interpreted multiple ways. On the other hand “Content” is “Content”. In my view, if a title Faithfully reflects the contents of the article then it is fulfilling its role for WP. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:41, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- I don't know if it is optimal to say that the title should describe the content of an article. You gotta remember that the only (semi-)permanent thing there is for actually defining the topic of an article is its title. The content of an article may change over time, and an article may get skewed so as to mostly cover only part of a given topic. I don't think this means that in general the title and thereby the topic of an article should just be changed, as an easy fix for this mismatch. Rather the problem should, at least initially, be sought solved through rewriting the article so as better to reflect the way it is covered reliable sources. Of course there might be cases where the topic of an article has been set out wrong, but in general I don't think it is right to try to change horses midstream, and change the topic of an article when the initial topic has already been determined to be notable. Then rather start new articles and split off or merge content.TheFreeloader (talk) 19:39, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Agree essentially. Although I much prefer content over topic because it is much broader and less prone to debate. I essentially see WP articles as a partnership between the article title and the article contents. Both must support each other. All other considerations (NPOV, OR, etc.) aside, if any given article title faithfully reflects the content of the article, then in my view it’s OK. Who would complain? Indeed content changes over time and content for many articles on contemporary subjects or historically controversial subjects is dynamic. As long as the title is in good partnership with the content it’s fine. If not, either the title needs to change or the content adjusted. Its pretty simple and yet we continuely to add to the babel that makes it seem complex. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:14, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Well and my point is that I think it is usually content which needs to change. If the topic as defined by the title is notable, I think it is usually easiest to have the content change to suit that title/topic, be that through splits, merges or rewriting, as those processes will not require the discussion process which an article move usually does. Also, I think it is useful for the article writing process to not just have the topic of an article float around and get redefined all the time, as people add new random stuff to an article. I think it creates some stability to content creation that the topic of an article is allowed to stay the same throughout the history of an article.TheFreeloader (talk) 21:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- I just went through such an issue at Talk:Signal (electronics); an editor wanted to change the contents to better fit the title. Instead, I undid the move the put it there, which solved much of the problem. Sometimes it might be the other way around; just depends. Dicklyon (talk) 05:57, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yup... "it depends" is absolutely right... we often get into debates as to whether the title is determined (or defined) by the topic or whether the topic is determined (or defined) by the title. Such debates miss the point... The topic and title should reflect each other. If there is a disconnect between the topic and the title, that disconnect needs to be fixed... but we have a choice as to how to fix it. Sometimes the solution is to re-title, at other times the solution is to re-focus the article's topic. And a still other times the solution is to do both at the same time. Blueboar (talk) 14:23, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yup. And it's often hard for the title to reflect the topic when it's reduced to the minimum thing that the topic is commonly called. Like with Cold. Dicklyon (talk) 15:35, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, I guess I agree with this point. I am really just objecting to the bias towards changing titles, which I think saying that the title of an article should "faithfully reflect the contents of the article" would imply. I think it is better to just stick with the notion that title should convey the topic of an article, although while keeping in mind that the topic of an article can sometimes change.TheFreeloader (talk) 18:02, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yup... "it depends" is absolutely right... we often get into debates as to whether the title is determined (or defined) by the topic or whether the topic is determined (or defined) by the title. Such debates miss the point... The topic and title should reflect each other. If there is a disconnect between the topic and the title, that disconnect needs to be fixed... but we have a choice as to how to fix it. Sometimes the solution is to re-title, at other times the solution is to re-focus the article's topic. And a still other times the solution is to do both at the same time. Blueboar (talk) 14:23, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- I just went through such an issue at Talk:Signal (electronics); an editor wanted to change the contents to better fit the title. Instead, I undid the move the put it there, which solved much of the problem. Sometimes it might be the other way around; just depends. Dicklyon (talk) 05:57, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- Well and my point is that I think it is usually content which needs to change. If the topic as defined by the title is notable, I think it is usually easiest to have the content change to suit that title/topic, be that through splits, merges or rewriting, as those processes will not require the discussion process which an article move usually does. Also, I think it is useful for the article writing process to not just have the topic of an article float around and get redefined all the time, as people add new random stuff to an article. I think it creates some stability to content creation that the topic of an article is allowed to stay the same throughout the history of an article.TheFreeloader (talk) 21:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Agree essentially. Although I much prefer content over topic because it is much broader and less prone to debate. I essentially see WP articles as a partnership between the article title and the article contents. Both must support each other. All other considerations (NPOV, OR, etc.) aside, if any given article title faithfully reflects the content of the article, then in my view it’s OK. Who would complain? Indeed content changes over time and content for many articles on contemporary subjects or historically controversial subjects is dynamic. As long as the title is in good partnership with the content it’s fine. If not, either the title needs to change or the content adjusted. Its pretty simple and yet we continuely to add to the babel that makes it seem complex. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:14, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Two comments:
- The problem with "contents" (rather than "topic") is that inexperienced and incompetent editors then propose page moves, with excuses like "Well, this promising stub currently only talks about treatments for the common cold being used in the US, so I think the title should be Treatments for the common cold in the US rather than Common cold. They can always move it later if it were expanded, and I'm sure that nobody in the world would ever be discouraged from expanding it if it had such a narrow title."
- The fundamental problem with using likely search terms is that pandering to the lowest common denominator is not consistent with our goal of being a serious reference work. We want the article at Feces, not at Poop or other slang terms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:02, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- I agree with your first point re: contents vs. topic.
- Disagree that pandering to the LCD is a fundamental problem with using likely search terms, primarily because for the vast, vast majority of articles the most likely term coincides with something that is appropriate to use as the title in a serious reference work. The poop/feces exceptions are so rare they can be handled by IAR. And I even question whether poop/feces is an example of this - as I doubt more people actually search for "poop" than "feces", and we define the most likely search term as that which is determined by looking at usage in reliable sources where surely feces is more common than poop. --Born2cycle (talk) 15:55, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- There are lots of possible examples: Kleenex has more hits than Tissues, for example. Band-Aid has more hits than adhesive bandage. The most common search term is not necessarily the most appropriate title. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:23, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- This idea of B2C's that WP:IAR can be used as an excuse for making stupid rules needs to stop. If we craft rules sensibly, WP:IAR should be invoked rarely, when the circumstances are outside what was anticipated in writing the rules. Dicklyon (talk) 18:27, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- Stop misrepresenting me - no words of mine mean or imply "WP:IAR can be used as an excuse for making stupid rules", or anything close to that.
Anyway, the rules are crafted sensibly and IAR is invoked rarely. Per the rules, not per IAR, and all appropriately, Kleenex, Band-Aid and Adhesive bandage are all separate articles, and Tissues is a redirect to a dab page at Tissue. I don't know why WhatamIdoing thinks these are examples of pandering to the LCD; none of them are.
What actual and serious problem are you guys trying to address? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:42, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- Stop misrepresenting me - no words of mine mean or imply "WP:IAR can be used as an excuse for making stupid rules", or anything close to that.
- This idea of B2C's that WP:IAR can be used as an excuse for making stupid rules needs to stop. If we craft rules sensibly, WP:IAR should be invoked rarely, when the circumstances are outside what was anticipated in writing the rules. Dicklyon (talk) 18:27, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Paying attention to others and avoiding circular discussion
Ohconfucious wrote above:
- "The B2C challenge only proves that many articles follow the way B2C prefers articles to be named."
It's not what I prefer that matters, but what the community prefers. But, yes, the B2C challenge only proves that, but that is all it is supposed to prove!
The B2C challenge (use SPECIAL:RANDOM repeatedly to obtain a sample of titles from which common practice can be discerned) is designed to refute the assertion that descriptive information in parentheses added to the names of topics in titles for reasons other than disambiguating from other uses is the way "it has usually been done"[6].
If you want to concede that that is not the way it has usually been done, but contend that it should be the way it is done, that's a different argument, and one to which the B2C challenge is of course irrelevant. Ohconfucious also says:
- "There seems to be a simple unwillingness from B2C to understand what others have clearly identified as a problem."
I understand very well what the problem is. I just disagree on its magnitude (I don't think it matters much at all), and, more importantly, don't think there is a solution that doesn't create much bigger problems than the one it's trying to solve. I haven't even seen a specific solution proposed, much less one proposed that would not be seriously problematic. This is the same issue raised by the questions that David Levy asked of Dicklyon (search for "David Levy" on this page), and which I've raised in the past every time I pointed out that the "devil is in the details" (search for "devil" in the archives), which remain unanswered. That's why we keep going in circles... the proponents of more descriptive titles keep ignoring this issue, no matter how many times it is raised, by how many different people. Yet we're the ones accused of not understanding and recursively defending against changes in policy.
Speaking of changes in policy, I explain how I believe policy change occurs at WP, and why, in my FAQ. Please see User:Born2cycle/FAQ#Change_guideline_first. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:52, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Assign purpose of matching search terms to redirects
Previously I proposed three purposes: Communicating the topic, matching search terms and distinguishing between articles. I think matching likely search terms could be assigned entirely to redirects if direct hits are not a high priority (which is fine with me). Then we can collapse to two encyclopedic purposes: 1) to give an indication of what the article is about and 2) distinguish the article from others. If we think it's clear (I'm not sure it is) that communicating what an article is about implicitly includes what it is not about then we only need the first of these. (I do not consider technical issues with name collisions and URLs to be encyclopedic.) Jojalozzo 20:28, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
PRECISION - negative to positive
WP:PRECISION is currently defined as what Dicklyon calls a "negative attribute"; this is the first sentence:
- When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided.
What about rewording like this:
- A title should be as precise as necessary to distinguish it from other uses of the topic name, but no more.
Better? --Born2cycle (talk) 07:56, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- I find that better. I struck out a couple words I found redundant; pls put back if you object. — kwami (talk) 08:03, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Like - I went ahead and removed the redundant words. --Born2cycle (talk) 08:10, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Precision has a role in defining the topic also, not just disambiguation:
- A title should be as precise as necessary to identify the topic and distinguish it from other uses of the topic name, but no more.
- Jojalozzo 16:31, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- I'm not following. Can you provide an actual example where a title reasonably meeting other criteria is precise enough to distinguish it from other uses of the topic name, but not sufficiently precise to "identify the topic"? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:36, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- You said it yourself, "meeting other criteria". That's missing from your version. I tried to capture that by including what I think is the prime "other criteria", identify the article content (nod to Mike). One of the problems with the notion of precision in this section is that it's viewed narrowly as just a method for disambiguation. Communicating article content with some degree of accuracy is taken for granted as your response demonstrates. As Mike reminds us below, by Precision we really mean "getting it close enough" (or "reasonably meeting" in your words - I like "reasonably") whether it's disambiguation, communicating article content, or matching likely search terms. Jojalozzo 20:18, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- If we're talking about redundancy, why not: "A title should only be precise enough to distinguish it from other uses of the topic name."
So does this mean that "Vehicle registration tax" (it's actually the Irish one) is sufficiently precise? I'm not sure this is sufficiently reader-focused if it lets through vague titles like that one. Tony (talk) 04:30, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
- I'm not following. Can you provide an actual example where a title reasonably meeting other criteria is precise enough to distinguish it from other uses of the topic name, but not sufficiently precise to "identify the topic"? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:36, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for fixing that one a few months ago, Tony. I went through and fixed all the links to Vehicle Registration Tax, and linked that to a better place. Dicklyon (talk) 05:59, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
- Joja, "reasonably meeting other criteria" is implied in each criterion and is not restated explicitly in each one. The point is that the reason that, for example, Solar System is not at Solar is not because Solar is insufficiently precise, but because "Solar" is not the name of that topic.
This is why I'm asking for an example of a title that reasonably meets the other criteria for a given article, but, in your view, needs to be more precise. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:18, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- Joja, "reasonably meeting other criteria" is implied in each criterion and is not restated explicitly in each one. The point is that the reason that, for example, Solar System is not at Solar is not because Solar is insufficiently precise, but because "Solar" is not the name of that topic.
Wrong word
The concept of Precision and WP article titles is a case where we continue to use the wrong word to describe what we really want. I’ve said this before and as far as I can tell, the definition of precision in the English language hasn’t changed. Precision is primarily a mathematic construct that derives from Accuracy.
- the quality or state of being precise : EXACTNESS
- the degree of refinement with which an operation is performed or a measurement stated — compare ACCURACY
- the accuracy (as in binary or decimal places) with which a number can be represented usually expressed in terms of the number of computer words available for representation <double precision arithmetic permits the representation of an expression by two computer words>
Yet, we continue to try and define precision as something it isn’t to fit into WP titling policy. Why? Anyone that sees the words—precise, precision etc. isn’t going to understand them any different from how they are defined in the real world regardless of how many times we’ve tried to craft a new meaning on this page.
We are really trying to convey a sense of How much ambiguity should we tolerate in a title? (one perspective) or How complete should our disambiguation be for any given title? (another perspective). Why can’t we just say that? Precision implies (actually requires some baseline of accuracy) and accuracy is something we don’t demand in our titles, since Commonname is the driving source of titles. So why do we continue to use a word that we can’t explain and drives editors to strive for accuracy in titles when that’s not what we really want. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:14, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- The term precision is also commonly used with respect to language. Here's a good definition that seems to fit what we mean here (or used to mean, before it was neutered). Dicklyon (talk) 02:55, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- Here's another book contrasting precision with ambiguity in language. Here's another. Dicklyon (talk) 06:08, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- I'm with Dicklyon and Blueboar on this one. There's no reason to presume the mathematical/scientific meaning of "precise" here. I think it's sufficiently clear that we mean precise as used in the following sentence: "I had fruit in my cereal" is less precise than, "I had bananas and grapes in my cereal." Precise is precisely the right word. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:18, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
What about descriptive titles?
We keep discussing Precision with "proper name" titles in mind... but what about descriptive titles? I think Precision is a very valid goal in determining acceptable descriptive titles. For example, we recently changed "Christianity and Freemasonry" to "Opposition to Freemasonry within Christianity" because the second title more precisely described what the article is actually about.
On a related note... Can anyone think of a time a descriptive title needed disambiguation?... perhaps this is where we can draw a distinction between the two concepts. Disambiguation (and how much is needed) relates to Proper Name titles, while Precision (and how much is needed) relates to descriptive titles. Just a thought. Blueboar (talk) 20:21, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Blueboar, I would contend that Opposition to Freemasonry within Christianity more faithfully reflects the content of the article than the previous title. It is a good partnership with what the article content says. It is not more precise because there is no absolute truth or baseline to measure from. Precision is the the degree of variance from some absolute baseline. No matter how many times we try to refine what the word means, its real meaning won't change in the mind of the average editor. --Mike Cline (talk) 02:38, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- Even without objective ground truth, it seems to be clearly more precise. It specifies more narrowly what the article is about – but not too narrowly. Of course, if the scope of the article is really a lot broader than that, I could be wrong, but I'm assuming the change was at least reasonably aligned with the actual article content. The old title gave no clue to the topic, so was very imprecise. Dicklyon (talk) 02:57, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- Most of our problems and confusion could be resolved by treating title determination for topics with names differently from title determination for topics without names.
Titles of articles about topics with names should simply be that name if the name does not conflict with other uses on WP or the topic is primary for that name, or it should be the name disambiguated. Articles about topics without names should be descriptive.
Much unnecessary conflict and confusion arises when we try to add descriptive information to titles of articles about topics with names when that descriptive information is not needed for disambiguation from other uses on WP. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:18, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
This whole proposal is flawed because of misguided notions of what constitutes somethings "name", because of misguided beliefs that "most common" is clearly defined and determinable, and because it is just bad-faith failure to accept the fact that Serge's repeated proposals along these lines do not have a consensus in support of them and are unlikely to achieve it. User:Gene Nygaard 05:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
- Is there evidence that there's any shift in thinking in your direction in the last 5+ years? Dicklyon (talk) 16:30, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- This is exactly the type of thing you've been asked not to do, so I'm not engaging. Focus on the issues, not on the people. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:20, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- Is there evidence that there's any shift in thinking in your direction in the last 5+ years? Dicklyon (talk) 16:30, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- Without going into too much detail on the ancient history of this policy, this edit in June 2008 changed how the Naming Conventions were drafted. Previous to that addition many of the guidelines were put in place with rules that described algorithms that emulated the usage in reliable sources, because up to then "common name" meant in all sources not just usage in reliable sources. Hence the reference to consistency ("name her 'Mary I of England' not 'Bloody Mary' because although BM is the most common name NCROY (May 2008) says use monarch numeral of country so that it is consistent with other monarch articles"). So all conversations on this talk page and the talk pages of the policy's guidelines prior to June 2008 must be read with that in mind. If my memory serves me well, B2C took longer to support the change common usage in reliable sources than most. It is a benefit to us all that people are open minded enough to change their opinions. -- PBS (talk) 14:47, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
Popular alternatives
If there are alternatives which are almost equally popular, how to select one to be the main title of the article? For example, two names refer to the same dish. Thanks. Mặt trời đỏ (talk) 19:20, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- Is it true that the title is selected as according to the first author who created and/or significantly extended the article?
- Does the number of Google hits help in this case? Thanks
Mặt trời đỏ (talk) 11:58, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
- You probably mean vi:talk:Nem rán. If the article is written as "Nem rán" and there is no consensus about its naming, then it probably will be named "Nem rán" indefinitely – this does not mean forever, but until the consensus appeared. But it serves only as a hysteresis-like protection against frequent moves. Fundamentally, questions of authorship are not relevant to this matter and the decision should be taken based on some external (non-Wikipedia) criteria. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 12:18, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
- There actually many similar cases, not only Nem rán, in which the alternatives are accepted and almost equally popular and no material discussing about which name is better. Thanks anyway. Mặt trời đỏ (talk) 13:14, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
- You probably mean vi:talk:Nem rán. If the article is written as "Nem rán" and there is no consensus about its naming, then it probably will be named "Nem rán" indefinitely – this does not mean forever, but until the consensus appeared. But it serves only as a hysteresis-like protection against frequent moves. Fundamentally, questions of authorship are not relevant to this matter and the decision should be taken based on some external (non-Wikipedia) criteria. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 12:18, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
Interesting case: The Troll Hunter
There is an interesting case at Talk:The_Troll_Hunter#Requested_move. The problem here is that there are four different variants of the English title in use, and all of them seem to be reasonably widespread: "The Troll Hunter", "Troll Hunter", "TrollHunter", "Trollhunter". Google searches are inconclusive because if you exclude one search term from the search, you lose a load of results that list alternative titles etc. The sources in the article use a mix so it's not a straightforward case. Betty Logan (talk) 00:05, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
Grand Council
Are people happy with this title? Grand Council. Tony (talk) 06:53, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- Both the French and Venetian grand councils are more notable. But the articles for both are oddly titled now, and neither even gets an entry at Grand Council (disambiguation). Kauffner (talk) 08:42, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- I have to admit... if we go by the Principle of least surprise, this one should change. When I saw the link, I expected to be taken to an article that explained what a Grand Council is... in a generic sense... which then would link me to articles on the various specific Grand Councils through history (disambiguated so I know which was which). Blueboar (talk) 19:11, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- Happiness is not our goal. Neotarf (talk) 19:53, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- See/discuss here: Talk:Grand Council#Requested move. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:55, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Interesting case: Inverter (logic gate)
The RM at Talk:Inverter (logic gate)#Requested move smacks of bad faith. People who know nothing of the subject are wanting to move this already-disambiguated topic to NOT gate, a name less familiar (even to people familiar with it), probably so that they can then try again to put Power inverter at Inverter by claiming there's no longer any ambiguity. At least, I'm unable to find any other theory for why they piled on from the other RM (Talk:Power inverter#Requested move). Is this kosher? Dicklyon (talk) 23:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- One of the opinions expressed is "Support. The need for disambiguation, and the desire for consistency with related articles, both point toward using a slightly less-common but equally well understood name for this construct. Powers T 16:08, 16 April 2012 (UTC)" which is relevant to my last posting to this page about the bullet point Consistency. -- PBS (talk) 10:33, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- Inverter already redirects to Power inverter, so the article
was andis the primary topic for "inverter". The move of the logic gate topic, or the addition or subtraction of of other topics ambiguous with the title "Inverter", would not affect that, nor change the proper titling of the topic that is currently at Power inverter. Navigationally, it doesn't matter if the topic is at Inverter or Power inverter if the one redirects to the other. It would have to be some indication from WP:AT that the topic is better titled "Inverter" rather than "Power inverter" -- and that was contra-indicated in the last discussion. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:07, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- I have no interest in this debate or these topics. But I feel when you said "Inverter already redirects to Power inverter, so the article was and is the primary topic for "inverter"." you should have mentioned that its only been that way since April 15 when you moved the disambiguation page and pointed the redirect to inverter. - X201 (talk) 12:41, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
Who disambiguates the disambiguators?
Let's suppose that there is a country with the long-form name "Republic of Smell." Further suppose that there are various nations named Smell, and that the Republic is neither the largest nor best-known of these. As you can imagine, the people of this nation found the name to be dissatisfying. So the foreign ministry decided to encourage the use of the form "Republic of Smell (Pleasant)". Can a ministry chose a disambiguator, or must these be chosen by a Wiki specialist properly credentialed in such matters? For a real world example, see here. Kauffner (talk) 10:06, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Not sure what you mean by "a Wiki specialist properly credentialed in such matters" ... but I think you have a misunderstanding of how we entitle our articles. The decision as to whether to add disambiguation to an article title is not determined by governments nor by "Wiki specialists"... it is determined by community consensus and by applying the rules and guidance set out in our various policies. Blueboar (talk) 11:41, 17 April 2012 (UTC)