Facu-el Millo (talk | contribs) →RfC: Titles which are part of an ambiguous series: Fix order, hidden begin and end are part of Herostratus' comment |
King of Hearts (talk | contribs) →RfC: Titles which are part of an ambiguous series: re to SmokeyJoe |
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It has been |
It has been general practice to disambiguate only when necessary, and otherwise choose a title that best incorporates the naming principles described at [[WP:CRITERIA]]. The logical conclusion of this, is that [[WP:PARENDIS|parenthetical disambiguation]] is not permitted unless the base title contains a disambiguation page, another article (i.e. the [[WP:PTOPIC|primary topic]]), or a [[WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT|primary redirect]] to a different page. In particular, the base title is not allowed to be empty or a primary redirect to the aforementioned parenthetically disambiguated title. However, there is a notable exception in [[WP:MUSICSERIES]], which mandates that Haydn's 100th symphony be called [[Symphony No. 100 (Haydn)]] even though he was the only composer to have written 100 notable symphonies, and in fact [[Symphony No. 100]] redirects there. The intuition behind this naming convention is that a name like "Symphony No. 100" is inherently ambiguous and should not contain an article on Haydn's work simply by happenstance. This principle may, perhaps, have relevance outside of generically numbered musical works. |
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'''Question:''' What is our view on parenthetically disambiguated titles which are not strictly necessary from a disambiguation point of view, but are part of a numbered series whose meaning is inherently ambiguous? [[Ahkam|Borrowing from the Koran]], should they be: 1) '''required'''; 2) '''recommended'''; 3) '''permitted'''; 4) '''discouraged'''; or 5) '''prohibited'''? Examples and further explanation to follow. [[User:King of Hearts|King of]] [[User:King of Hearts|<font color="red">♥</font>]] [[User talk:King of Hearts|<font color="red">♦</font>]] [[Special:Contributions/King of Hearts|<font color="black">♣</font>]] ♠ 03:17, 25 April 2020 (UTC) |
'''Question:''' What is our view on parenthetically disambiguated titles which are not strictly necessary from a disambiguation point of view, but are part of a numbered series whose meaning is inherently ambiguous? [[Ahkam|Borrowing from the Koran]], should they be: 1) '''required'''; 2) '''recommended'''; 3) '''permitted'''; 4) '''discouraged'''; or 5) '''prohibited'''? Examples and further explanation to follow. [[User:King of Hearts|King of]] [[User:King of Hearts|<font color="red">♥</font>]] [[User talk:King of Hearts|<font color="red">♦</font>]] [[Special:Contributions/King of Hearts|<font color="black">♣</font>]] ♠ 03:17, 25 April 2020 (UTC) |
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: --[[User:SmokeyJoe|SmokeyJoe]] ([[User talk:SmokeyJoe|talk]]) 03:46, 27 April 2020 (UTC) |
: --[[User:SmokeyJoe|SmokeyJoe]] ([[User talk:SmokeyJoe|talk]]) 03:46, 27 April 2020 (UTC) |
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: An RfC that begins with a false assertion should be speedy closed. --[[User:SmokeyJoe|SmokeyJoe]] ([[User talk:SmokeyJoe|talk]]) 03:48, 27 April 2020 (UTC) |
: An RfC that begins with a false assertion should be speedy closed. --[[User:SmokeyJoe|SmokeyJoe]] ([[User talk:SmokeyJoe|talk]]) 03:48, 27 April 2020 (UTC) |
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::{{ping|SmokeyJoe}} I don't think the overall setup of my RfC is flawed; I begin with a premise, and then challenge the premise a few sentences later, establishing the purpose of this RfC. Perhaps it could have been worded a little better though. I have changed "long-standing policy" to "general practice" to soften the absolute nature of the statement (which was not my intention) and reflect the fact that we avoid unnecessary disambiguation in a vast majority of cases, but nonetheless do so when prudent. -- [[User:King of Hearts|King of]] [[User:King of Hearts|<font color="red">♥</font>]] [[User talk:King of Hearts|<font color="red">♦</font>]] [[Special:Contributions/King of Hearts|<font color="black">♣</font>]] ♠ 05:19, 27 April 2020 (UTC) |
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WP:CONCISE
Full disclosure: I came to this page again from a discussion at Talk:May 1968 events in France. This edit by me is not related to any of the arguments from that discussion, however. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:14, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Use of obscure and/or not strictly COMMONNAME examples of COMMONNAME
- This is about this pair of edits. Johnbod (talk) 16:14, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
@Johnbod: The reason I didn't take it to talk first was because I assumed my restoring the status quo pending someone opening a talk page discussion would be uncontroversial.
Do you have any concrete arguments against my reasoning? Do you really think Diocletian is a "common" name? It's a name I've seen used in a lot of scholarly literature on the topic, but at the same time I'd say if I asked any of my four siblings or my parents over Christmas dinner if they had ever heard of him, I might get 1/6 saying they had, and that's only because my father is almost as big a history buff as I am. Similarly, while J.K. Rowling actually is a household name, we use that pen name as our article title for the same reason we use Fujiwara no Teika -- someone who is/was known professionally by a pseudonym (of sorts) is called by that pseudonym regardless of whether it is commonly known/used among our readers.
Moreover, the lead of the page says
It describes a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Changes made to it should reflect consensus.
-- unless you can point to me where consensus was found that COMMONNAME applies to relatively obscure topics that don't have a "common" name but are conventionally called by a particular name in English-language reliable sources, the examples that were unilaterally added last April need to stay out.
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
- I'm not seeing many arguments in your reasoning frankly. Yes, I certainly think Diocletian is a WP:COMMONNAME, & you are entirely misreading the policy if you think only names likely to turn up in domestic conversation count as "common". I'd guess my sibling count would be 5+/7 - I may do an e-poll to test. That's recognising him as a Roman emperor, not knowing anything much about him. So why do your true statements about JK Rowling mean she should be removed as an example? I'm confused, but let's see what others think. Johnbod (talk) 16:12, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
- I agree with Johnbod. Common name doesn't mean that everyone refers to the article subject by that name. Rather, that the majority of reliable sources use that name. For niche topics, those sources may be from a niche area and few outside the field may have heard of either the common or the actual name. In this respect, Diocletian is actually an excellent example for inclusion. --regentspark (comment) 16:27, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
For clarity:
- Diocletian is a WP:COMMONNAME, and an excellent example of the principle. It is also an instance of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Single name
- J. K. Rowling is a WP:COMMONNAME, and an excellent example of the principle. It is also an instance of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Nicknames, pen names, stage names, cognomens. However, as Bono is an instance of the same type, I'd remove one of these two: preferably I'd remove the Bono example. Maybe replace Bono by something like "Marie Curie (not Maria Salomea Skłodowska)" or "Alma Mahler (not Alma Mahler-Werfel)" – some gender parity in the four "people" examples would be nice.
Generally, I'd like to bring to mind that a few years ago there were extensive talks to reduce the number of examples in the list of "common name" examples of the policy – with few changes resulting from these talks: meaning, changes to the list of examples is a minefield, careful treading advised! For the people names, the shorter the list the better, so that editors actually take a look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) ASAP, instead of deriving "policy" rules from some random examples, which they then propose as superseding the actual rules at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) (believe me, this has happened often). --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:19, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
- All of you, please leave me alone. I think my interpretation is correct, and the longstanding status quo of this page supports my interpretation. Many, many other Wikipedians share this interpretation (why it is, and always has been, Man'yōshū and not Manyoshu). But I don't care enough to talk about it at this time. So please just drop it already. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:12, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
- FWIW, as long as I am not made the focus of this discussion as was being done until I posted the above (even after this edit), I don't mind continuing to participate in discussion -- I find it rather odd that discussion continued at all (it seems like my edit, which was immediately reverted and never restored, is now being used as an excuse to push through further controversial changes), but that's another matter. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:52, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
Bono
Above I suggested to replace the Bono example:
- Bono (not: Paul Hewson)
by either
- Marie Curie (not: Maria Salomea Skłodowska)
or
- Alma Mahler (not: Alma Mahler-Werfel)
The first of these two alternatives is probably more recognisable, but might suggest that there is a preference for "married name" or against "native spelling" – neither is always the case; the second illustrates that the common name ("... Mahler") supersedes the subject's personal preference ("... Mahler-Werfel"), so that's the one I prefer.
Is there enough support for such change? Alternatively,
- Bono could just be dropped;
- Other replacements could be proposed.
I'd proceed with the ...Mahler replacement in a few days, unless something else is suggested, with more support. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:28, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
- We have 4 examples in each of the sections, which seems about right. Btw, of the sections "Scientific and technical topics" seems the weakest, but I suppose it is no use asking Wikipedians to focus on this, rather than their favorite topic of person names. I don't much like Alma - our article begins: "Alma Maria Mahler Gropius Werfel (born Alma Margaretha Maria Schindler)" - too many possibilities, & perhaps just confusing. How do you lose a middle name btw? Curie is ok. Johnbod (talk) 16:17, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
- Alma: "... she took the name Alma Mahler-Werfel" is further down in the article. "Alma Maria Mahler Gropius Werfel ...", as in the Wikipedia article's lead sentence, does not exist, and is likely WP:OR (she divorced Gropius before the Werfel episode, so "Gropius" and "Werfel" can never be together in her name) – but true, as it is, this does not really make a straightforward example.
- Middle names in article titles: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Middle names and initials. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:40, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
- @Johnbod:
How do you lose a middle name btw?
Move to Japan, get bloody sick of people insisting that your middle name be included on all forms -- oftentimes after the fact, thus requiring that they be rewritten and resubmitted, usually on weekdays during business hours -- and then eventually just legally change your name to avoid the hassle. ;-) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:23, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
- @Johnbod:
- Oppose Before making any such change, there should be an RFC to establish a clearer and broader community consensus regarding whether this policy is meant to primarily cover "household names" (mostly pop culture and political subjects in English-speaking countries) that are almost always referred to by one name and almost never referred to by the other. The changes made unilaterally last year, in my opinion, made the list worse; replacing a pop star with one legal and technically correct name that almost no one knows and one widely-known stage name with either of the above (one a relatively obscure -- at least from a "mainstream" Anglophone perspective -- composer and the other a scientist who is relatively well-known but hardly a household name, neither good or even remotely acceptable examples of "common name vs. official name") would carry these changes further, and should not be made without a clear and broad community consensus that the pre-2019 list of examples was a gross misinterpretation of policy (and that Man'yōshū should be moved to Manyoshu).
- I would not, however, oppose removing Hewson and restoring Richard Starkey as an example instead. Actually, I would support that change.
- Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:48, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
- Page views in the past 30 days:
- So I suppose the Curie example would be preferable from a "recognisability" perspective.
- For clarity, also J. K. Rowling (207,122 page views in the last month) seems to outdo both male "pseudonym" contestants above from a "recognisability" perspective.
- Diocletian (41,277 page views in the last month), does less well from that perspective. As far as I'm concerned that example could be replaced by e.g. Nero (174,459 page views). --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:38, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
- Given that the father of modern physics only has 267,105, I can't help but feel that Curie figure might be inflated -- perhaps by schoolchildren doing project's for International Women's Month? If we look at the figures from July last year (when both articles were linked from the main page for exactly one day) Starr had 324,762 while Curie had 170,947; the following month Starr had 225,903 visitors while Curie only 157,646. The figures for other months were closer, with Curie winning some and Starr winning others; over the course of 2019 Starr was viewed 2,508,403 times vs. 2,459,443 for Curie, so I'm not going to argue that they don't have a comparable level of name recognition, but Curie seems to benefit from sudden bursts of public interest due to various anniversaries. I'm not going to bother trying to figure out why about 5% of the page's annual visitors swamped there on April 3, but it's probably similar to why 15% of this page's annual views occurred on a single day -- a bunch of members of the unwashed masses who had either never heard of her or only vaguely recognized the name saw her referenced on some pop culture news website or the like, and came to Wikipedia to figure out who she was. This doesn't prove she is better-known -- it rather proves she is more obscure, at least among a "general" readership.
- Let me be clear, I am not saying this state of affairs is a good thing. (You may recall a case not so long ago where I bemoaned that an apparently sizable portion of Wikipedia's editors insisted that an article on Japanese philology and religious history should grant undue weight to the views of an NPR host apparently because said source is in English and has a more "mainstream" appeal among our readership.) I hate that movie stars and popular musicians have greater name recognition among our readership than scientists -- but that is simply how things are.
- Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:20, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks for comparing over a somewhat longer period of time. Bottom line seems to be "I'm not going to argue that [Starr and Curie] don't have a comparable level of name recognition" – meaning that either of them is better than the current Bono example from a recognisability point of view. Also, since their recognisability is "comparable" I'd still prefer Curie over Starr for the stated reasons:
- Starr and Rowling illustrate the same principle (chosen pseudonym) – two examples illustrating the same principle are redundant, and there is no reason to remove the Rowling example.
- Gender parity in the examples: 2 female / 2 male seems preferable over 3 male / 1 female
- The analysis "why" Starr and Curie would be of different recognisability while the numbers say otherwise seems, to put it mildly, irrelevant, if not dispensable out of hand for being too speculative. Even if the speculation would be correct: school children more likely to understand the Curie example (while they encountered it at school) and not Starr (which they didn't encounter at school) seems an advantage. These examples can do more good if they're clear for young newbie editors, than if they're clear for an older audience that more likely doesn't need the examples to understand the principle. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:16, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks for comparing over a somewhat longer period of time. Bottom line seems to be "I'm not going to argue that [Starr and Curie] don't have a comparable level of name recognition" – meaning that either of them is better than the current Bono example from a recognisability point of view. Also, since their recognisability is "comparable" I'd still prefer Curie over Starr for the stated reasons:
- Support Marie Curie (not: Maria Salomea Skłodowska). —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:25, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Scientific and technical topics
Per Johnbod's suggestion above, how about replacing the first three,
- Caffeine (not: 1,3,7-Trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)-dione)
- Down syndrome (not: Trisomy 21)
- Fuchsia (not: Lady's ear drops)
by:
- Aspirin (not: acetylsalicylic acid)
- Spanish flu (not: 1918 influenza pandemic)
- Diesel engine (not: compression-ignition engine)
? I'd keep the cavia, works fine as an example afaics. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:13, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
- Support both, though not necessarily for the (unspecified) reasons. "Caffeine" is a bloody terrible example since plenty of scientific literature can probably be found that use it as shorthand for "1,3,7-Trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)-dione" anyway, and "fuchsia" is technically wrong (it's a scientific name that is also used in common parlance, while "lady's ear drops" is actually one of its common names) and it botanical articles appear to be an exception, since the vast majority of such articles actually do use the scientific name as the article title rather than choosing between multiple imprecise common names potentially each favoured by a different group of readers. The proposed examples do not have these problems. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:23, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
Done --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:16, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Support all these suggestions, and thanks to Francis Schonken for implementing it. Spanish flu is a good example because it was recently confirmed by consensus and represents the latest example. — Amakuru (talk) 07:14, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
- Support all three. Caffeine looks like a nerd joke. Down Syndrome annoys me because it’s an annunciation derived error of Down’s Syndrome. The third one is not remotely familiar. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:27, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
- Only partial support, specifically for the aspirin–caffeine replacement. The Down syndrome example would be good to retain (we do in fact have medical and other technical editors who keep trying to move things to obtuse names to be "more correct" according to their own insular training). Meanwhile, the Spanish flu case is a poor example to introduce, because (rather obviously) we do in fact often use titles in forms like "1918 influenza pandemic" when there could be any doubt; cf. the article on the current pandemic). Next, we don't have any evidence that "compression-ignition engine" is something people would be inclined to use in place of "Diesel engine"; it's not even faintly common and is found only in technical contexts. The Fuchsia example is a sort/type of case that is good to retain, and is easily replaceable with something else. The most obvious example that comes to mind for me is "Smilodon (not sabre-toothed cat or saber-tooth tiger)", which has the extra bonus of accounting for BrEng vs. AmEng habits, and it also appeals to our younger-set reader/editors who tend to be inordinately interested in ancient megafauna). That is in fact a scientific name that has slowly become common in everyday English (with unofficial vernacular names that only vary a little from each other), while Fuchsia is both a long-running vernacular name (among many regional and well-documented ones that widely diverge) and a genus epithet. So, they aren't quite parallel cases. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:24, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
- I agree the aspirin for caffeine swap is particularly strong. The chemical name of caffeine is not a plausible title for caffeine, but acetylsalicylic acid is (it’s even in the default autocorrection list). I agree that Smilodon is a very good example, as a better title than the common uninformed guess. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:11, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
- Imho "Down syndrome" is not the most ideal example, for several reasons: (1) it is difficult to prove that "Down syndrome" is more common than "Down's syndrome" ([1]); (2) there's that other, no longer PC, term which for over a century (the syndrome was first defined in 1862), i.e. until around 1970, was more common than "Down's syndrome", and until around 1980 more common than "Down syndrome" ([2]). The first of these objections relates to the fact that the common name principle is usually fairly useless w.r.t. spelling variants (e.g. of the ENGVAR type), and that a "common name" example should not suggest the contrary. The second of these objections relates to the fact that the common name has no built-in PC correction (that is a principle different from the common name principle), and the example should not suggest the contrary. Further, regarding the "medical example": note that both "Aspirin" and "Spanish flu" are in the medical realm, and drive the point home w.r.t. medical terms.
- I think one example from the combined fauna and flora realms (including ancient megafauna) suffices. Comparing the current candidates ("Guinea pig", "Fuchsia", "Smilodon"), I think the "Guinea pig" still is most illustrative in covering bases, and drives the point home. And, as per the previous point, the Smilodon example is less suitable in somehow suggesting that COMMONNAME is a usual way out for ENGVAR issues.
- Re. "Diesel engine": I sought for the best example I could find in the technical/engineering realm (the former list, despite having "technical" in the list header, did not have a single example from that realm). I'm open for better proposals, but the example is better than having none from that realm. And it is a clear example: common term is far more used than technical term, thus common name is chosen. I like the clarity of the example (as opposed to "Down syndrome"/"Down's syndrome" which is rather fuzzy as to whether it really illustrates the COMMONNAME principle, see above).
- For the same reason, i.e. clear illustration of the COMMONNAME principle, I think "Spanish flu" is an excellent example: it was recently, i.e. after COVID-19 outbreak, confirmed as a WP:COMMONNAME instance (see explicit reference to COMMONNAME in RfC closure), in a broadly attended RfC. If it illustrates anything w.r.t. COVID-19 related article title choices, then it is that the common name principle works fairly well for names that have been around for some time, but not for neologisms and/or recent events: for these, inevitably, the fifth of the WP:CRITERIA, i.e. consistency defined by naming conventions guidelines, will obviously often take the upper hand. I have no clue whether "2019–20 coronavirus pandemic" is a stable article title – in a few years its common name may be "2019–21 coronavirus pandemic" or whatever name not really even in the picture today: WP:NOTCRYSTALBALL, and WP:COMMONNAME can not be used as a substitute for a CRYSTALBALL. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:22, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
- Oppose I strongly disagree with the inclusion of "Spanish Flu" as it is an example of WP:COMMONNAME on ideological rather than objective criteria. Even though it was confirmed by consensus, people arguing about the inclusion of "Spanish" seemingly overlooked that the page is about an event in time. As the page is currently titled it actually encourages misinformation by inferring that there is a strain of flu called the "Spanish flu", despite that strain actually being A/H1N1, sometimes referred to as "swine flu". Even if the consensus demanded "Spanish flu" to be in the title, it should be "Spanish flu pandemic" or "1918 Spanish flu pandemic" and Spanish flu should redirect to either "Influenza A virus subtype H1N1" or "Swine influenza" as "Swine flu" does. As is, it violates the criteria of precision and consistency, and arguably conciseness and should not be included in the list for those reasons. Nebes (talk) 06:21, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
- Oppose the Spanish flu example for the same reason that Nebes gave. It's imprecise, since it does not clearly distinguish between the event and organism causing it. This is a regular problem with disease-causing organisms, and we should not encourage more muddle and confusion. The header at Coronavirus disease 2019 rightly notes the need to distinguish between the disease, the organism and a particular outbreak of the disease. "Common usage" is not acceptable when it produces imprecision. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:26, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Time to ditch DIFFCAPS?
So, DIFFCAPS has existed in one form or another for about as long as this page has, with red meat v Red Meat being the canonical example. This only happened because Red Meat's target demographic was wildly overrepresented on Wikipedia during the early days; indeed, the webcomic got moved to an unambiguous title not that long ago.
After a series of very contentious move requests about ten years ago that supported the use of minor details besides just capitalization, I rewrote the section and created the shortcuts WP:DIFFCAPS, WP:SMALLDETAILS, etc. (See pages like Talk:MAVEN for a synopsis of our changing consensus over the years.) Obviously, I am not the creator or decider of Wikipedia's rules, policies, procedures, guidelines, or practices; I just summarized what everyone had been doing, and through consensus it stayed.
I've become convinced that DIFFCAPS is now doing more harm to our project than good. We have tons of silly disputes about things like a capital letter here or an umlaut there and it seems that our readers are most likely done a disservice. Ten years ago, it seemed more reasonable to assume that someone searching Wikipedia knew enough to not capitalize common nouns, and knew how to spell albums with slightly alternate spellings. Now, I'm not so sure that's right any more, even if it was at one point Template:Fake dubious.
The problem is exacerbated because from the start, DIFFCAPS was never a bright-line rule. For instance, Stockholm syndrome is correctly spelled with syndrome. But if a mediocre punk rock band decided to call themselves "Stockholm Syndrome" and they barely managed to chart high enough to survive a deletion discussion, we would still not allow them to be at Stockholm Syndrome and would put them at Stockholm Syndrome (punk rock band). If, however, they became the most successful punk rock band in the world, inspiring numerous books, documentaries, etc., we probably would allow them to be at Stockholm Syndrome. Even if they reinvented music forever, we probably wouldn't move the article about the actual syndrome. But then imagine that our punk rockers discovered a cure for cancer, became the largest employer in seventeen countries, founded a base on Mars, and created the first perpetual motion device... at that point, we would probably say "okay, who's really looking for the syndrome itself" and move Stockholm syndrome to Stockholm syndrome (psychology) or something like that. In other words, DIFFCAPS is subjectively employed, by design, which just leads to endless discussions about minutia.
We have three cases happening right now that rely on DIFFCAPS in some way, and I have noticed many editors saying "diffcaps is decreasing, we aren't relying on diffcaps much any more".
I'm putting this up for discussion here: should we A) ditch DIFFCAPS altogether? (Friendly Fire becomes Friendly fire (disambiguation) and the like) B) Edit the section to say how DIFFCAPS is declining in popularity and is frequently overruled?
Or C) Do nothing?
I leave this in your capable hands. Red Slash 18:27, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
- Without being one of those participants in those RMs, but having watched this page for some time now, I've also come to the conclusion that DIFFCAPS's time has passed (at least in its current form). I am not entirely sure removal is the correct way to go as opposed to rewriting the section to say that "small differences are not sufficient to disambiguate" (which is the option between A and B to me). --Izno (talk) 18:45, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
- Those RMs would seem to be WP:LOCALCONCENSUS. It could be that editors who find such RMs hold opinions on the topics that cloud their judgment on the applicability of WP:DIFFCAPS in their special case. WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is possibly not being relied upon much any more, though. It seems there are many perennial discussions that come up because some area or other would rather fork from the guidelines or policies (in good faith) and the practice gets entrenched before anyone else notices, and moreso before those who notice feel like going through the RfC process since just applying the broader policies and guidelines (in good faith) tends to generate drama. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:43, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
- Ditch WP:DIFFCAPS. DIFFCAPS alone is not a justification. Where it is a factor, it comes under SMALLDETAILS. Different capitalisation is just another small detail, and is not more important than other small details. I think this reflects the current evolved consensus. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:11, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- I don't think SMALLDETAILS should be kept either TBH. A period or an exclamation point or... just aren't sufficient IMO. --Izno (talk) 01:45, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- One thing at a time, but SMALLDETAILS, that ALLCAPSONEWORD, does not mandate that a terminal period is sufficient disambiguation. I think it is well agreed that it doesn’t. However, small details *can* be sufficient. The boundary line is unclear, particularly at a terminal exclamation like Airplane!. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:28, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- I don't think SMALLDETAILS should be kept either TBH. A period or an exclamation point or... just aren't sufficient IMO. --Izno (talk) 01:45, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Ditch. Always was an awful way to disambiguate. -- Necrothesp (talk) 00:50, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Ditch, toss it overboard with an inflatable raft and an inflatable paddle. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:58, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Status quo. We had a well attended RfC on this just over a year ago. The result was to keep the guideline to support case-by-case determinations. And as far as anecdotal evidence, I have seen several RMs since the close of the RfC that cited DIFFCAPS positively. Dohn joe (talk) 03:14, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- My October 2018 proposal was waylaid by an excessive RfC question. The proposal is to remove WP:DIFFCAPS from the currently bloated WP:LINKBOX. No wording change to the policy is called for. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:21, 1 April 2020 (UTC) Illustrated here. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:24, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- No, I intended this to mean ditching the idea of differentiating titles by small details like capitalization instead of just using parentheses. Red Slash 17:54, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- User:Red Slash, what specific edit would you make? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:33, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- No, I intended this to mean ditching the idea of differentiating titles by small details like capitalization instead of just using parentheses. Red Slash 17:54, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- My October 2018 proposal was waylaid by an excessive RfC question. The proposal is to remove WP:DIFFCAPS from the currently bloated WP:LINKBOX. No wording change to the policy is called for. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:21, 1 April 2020 (UTC) Illustrated here. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:24, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- The best solution is for productive editors to studiously avoid endless discussions about minutia and edge cases, and instead to concentrate on actually improving the encyclopedia. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 03:26, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Ditch per the very well-written nom. The results of numerous RM discussions, including the iconic Red Meat example, are not just local consensus, they reflect an actual change of mood by the community since the early days of the Wiki. And although DIFFCAPS is still sometimes applicable, it is too often misused by people citing it with no other analysis, as if it's a magic formula that overrules all other considerations. — Amakuru (talk) 07:09, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Status quo. The recent RfC shows there is no consensus to eliminate the policy, and my experience with RMs doesn't show any decline in popularity. Some proposals citing DIFFCAPS get moved, some don't. It depends on individual circumstances of the article, as well as who happens to show up. The example of Stockholm syndrome in this proposal shows how things are supposed to work. Sometimes one topic is primary for both spellings, often they're not. Differing outcomes for different cases is a good thing, not a problem. And there is no evidence that readers are generally confused by having articles about different topics at titles that differ in SMALLDETAILS. Moving Iron Maiden to Iron Maiden (band) for no logical reason would result in a disservice to readers. Station1 (talk) 07:30, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Oppose as stated (i.e. "all or nothing") – the gist of Wikipedia:Article titles#When a spelling variant indicates a distinct topic seems to be that if two article titles look very much like one another, then proper disambiguation techniques should be put in place. That should stay in the policy, because it is an important policy-level principle. If the disambiguation technique of choice rather moves from disambiguation pages and the like to disambiguation via explicitly disambiguated article titles that can be adopted in the policy, but the need for proper disambiguation, even if, strictly, two article titles are not completely identical but only near-identical remains. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:07, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Ditch. The concept was always flawed. We shouldn't expect readers to know how Wikipedia styles its articles. Most readers are familiar with search engines such as Google that don't care how you capitalize your word, and Wikipedia should follow it as it is the most common practice. Also, to those above citing the last RfC, please look again at the actual comments and you'll see that the clear majority was in favor of removing it. A guideline should have the community's acceptance, when it doesn't it leads to endless and pointless RMs. Closing it as "no consensus" was a cowardly way of not dealing with the actual issue. --Gonnym (talk) 08:40, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- I must come to the defense of the closer of that RfC. I did look at the comments again, and far from being cowardly, the closer did look closely at the comments and, rather than vote-counting (which was close anyway), provided a considered rationale for their close based on the full discussion. There is no current consensus to prohibit ever using small differences in article titles. Station1 (talk) 14:49, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Keep, i.e., status quo, for instances where there is in fact a clear differentiation between terms based solely on capitalization. BD2412 T 15:33, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
- Ditch. Ditch ditch ditch. We haven't outgrown it, it just was never a good idea. People don't think, write, and search in the manner that the people who instituted this rule seem to think. I mean, I never use caps in Google to refine my searches. I just don't. Should I? Do you? Does Google even differentiate between caps and non-caps words? I don't think it does. Well, it's Google's world, and we just live in it, and people aren't going to switch their mindset for individual websites' search pecaddilos. Herostratus (talk) 01:11, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
- Ditch. I've thought about this a lot over the years, and the fact of the matter is that our demographic are not grammarians, and the younger our average pool of readers gets the less careful they are (or even understanding of) capitalization. It was a poor titling-distinction criterion to start with, and as time goes on it just gets less and less reliable. Per Francis Schonken's reasoning, though, do keep something that gets this gist across: "if two article titles look very much like one another, then proper disambiguation techniques should be put in place". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:07, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
- Comment – You say "Ditch" but you mean "strengthen the guidance" don't you? Currently, according to the DIFFCAPS guidance, article titles that look like spelling variants, but in fact are not, should be disambiguated as if they were homographs. Ditch that guidance, and such disambiguation is no longer required. Which would be a disservice to the spelling-insensitive demographic, not the other way around. Instead, for the spelling-insensitive demographic, a strengthening of the guidance, for instance by pointing to article-title disambiguation instead of merely boilerplate disambiguation or DAB page disambiguation, as an often more desirable alternative, is what we're heading for if reading the above comments without their opening "Ditch"es. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:38, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
- I agree SMALLDATAILS might not necessarily be sufficient in some cases but strong oppose forcing both capitalizations to point to the same place like Friendly fire/Friendly Fire. As many people have already said many people aren't worried about capitalization so that tends to mean that they don't bother to capitalize rather than adding excessive capitals!! Red Meat indeed was a bad example which is probably one of the reasons why DIFFCAPS was rejected by so many (I was the one who made the proposal to disambiguate it) because it was felt that it wasn't sufficient which indeed makes sense since the meat got over 71x the views so its likely that even if only 1% of people typed with the capital "M" that we would be inconveniencing most people and that the DAB is the best compromise. With Friendly fire the other meanings get around a third of the views of the military meaning so its likely that those bothering to capitalize the 2nd "F" are not overwhelmingly likely to be looking for the military meaning but those that are are served well by seeing "Friendly fire is the inadvertent firing towards one's own or otherwise friendly forces." so we are still spelling it out as the primary topic without requiring those that bother to capitalize to make 2 clicks. Furthermore its debatable that by PT#2 the capitalized version passes that criteria since its not really an accurate name for it, again spelling it out seems sufficient for this to. As a general rule making the Title Case version a DAB page (or redirecting it to one) makes most sense as a reasonable compromise but generally we should not doubly inconvenience readers who have bothered to capitalize correctly should we? With WP:PLURALPT we do generally point the singular and plural to the same place, that is to say if the singular has a primary topic (like Car) we tend to point the plural form (Cars) to the same place since the vehicle is correctly and commonly known in both the singular and plural but since readers and editors usually use the singular we frequently turn the plural into a DAB (like Walls) (or redirect it to one like Freaks). When however the meaning changes with respect to singular/plural such as Paper/Papers and Orange/Oranges we do then often have them pointing to different places. In any case with respect to DIFFCAPS even without it you could apply both tests for Friendly fire/Friendly Fire and say for PT#1, "some readers might want "Friendly fire" when searching for "Friendly Fire" but unless most readers want the generic term its not primary for the Title Case version (readers bothering to capitalize the 2nd "F") and having the military meaning spelled out is sufficient anyway. For PT#2 "some sources might call the military meaning "Friendly Fire" but unless that's what the Title Case version primarily refers to its not primary for it. There probably are some cases where the generic meaning has such a strong claim that it might be primary for the upper case to but that should be the exception, not the rule, too many people seem to think one or the other meaning should be primary when there's nothing wrong with having a WP:NOPRIMARY situation. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:04, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
- Keep per Crouch, Swale. I'm going to illustrate with numerical examples. Obviously primary topic is not determined solely by pagecounts, but I'm using it as a proxy for significance, you can reimagine it as a subjective "importance score" if you want. Let's say normally when there are two topics, 2/3 of pageviews are enough to make one of them primary topic. But when they differ in capitalization, we need something more drastic, like perhaps only accepting a primary topic if Red Meat got 95% of pageviews or if Red meat got 99%. (I'm giving them different thresholds because it's much more likely to search in all lowercase out of laziness than to miscapitalize a lowercase term.) Again, these numbers are purely hypothetical and for illustrative purposes only. Anyways, beyond this threshold we can of course ignore WP:DIFFCAPS if one of the options is so thoroughly dominant. But there's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, as capitalization is a factor that should be considered, just not the only factor. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:52, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Examples
Example 1
A fairly recent example (I started the related –and necessary according to the WP:SMALLDETAILS policy– disambiguation less than three weeks ago):
That's why this policy-level guidance should stay. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:27, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
A DIFFCAPS example
Differentiation of the article titles only depends on a different capitalisation:
Disambiguation by other techniques than an explicitly disambiguated article title. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:11, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Three redirects
Until this morning
were three redirects, going to three different places (here, here and here respectively) none of the redirect targets particularly suitable to do some other type of disambiguation, so if no disambiguation is possible via mainspace text, where these topics are only mentioned in passing, and a disambiguation page would only disambiguate redirects, at least the similar redirect links should all go to the same place, per WP:SMALLDETAILS (and the principle of least surprise: there is no explanation why they should go to different places – they all refer to the same hymn afaik), I suppose. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:23, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Sorted now,
- Aus der Tiefe is a dab page, where variant spellings (etc) redirect to
- Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir is a (minimal stub) page about the hymn.
All conform to WP:SMALLDETAILS (I think?) --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:58, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Other DIFFCAPS example
--Francis Schonken (talk) 12:34, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Using WP:COMMONNAME for article titles is wrong
I don't see why we should be using common (to some, or in some regions) name instead of the officially given name. I would understand it if Wikipedia did not have redirects, but it does. This is clearly one-to-many relationship, with one proper name and tons of aliases. Thus, the aliases should refer to the proper name. This ensures that search works, but it also ensures that people and things are called by their given names, which is more dignified (for people) and removes uncertainty (for things). Mikus (talk) 00:01, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- "I don't see why X" is not the same as "X is wrong". You can use the talk archives for reference to the previous discussions on it, but there's no need to repeat them here. If you really want to re-propose the change, it will certainly require an RFC. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:16, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- In many instances Mikus is quite correct, or at least in my opinion. We should be weighing each situation independently, with WP:COMMONNAME only providing a bit of guidance, much like an essay rather than an inviolable rule. As Mikus correctly points out we have redirects providing effortless and foolproof guidance to an article no matter what search term is used, provided the redirects have been created and maintained, which usually isn't a big deal. In my opinion WP:COMMONNAME is one of many considerations in deciding on a title for an article. In my opinion WP:COMMONNAME is too forcefully used in many conversations pertaining to the optimal title for an article. Bus stop (talk) 16:55, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- WP:VPP, which at best will lead you to WP:RFC. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:35, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
No it isn't. It's entirely right. That's why we do it. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:06, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- Necrothesp—perhaps a nuanced approach concerning article titles vis-à-vis WP:COMMONNAME is in order. Bus stop (talk) 17:12, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- The current situation works perfectly well and has done for many years. If it ain't broke... -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:15, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- For instance, you may want to see Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, 3rd Baronet and Anthony Charles Lynton Blair as article titles, which is presumably what User:Mikus means by given names and "more dignified"; but I'm quite happy with Ranulph Fiennes and Tony Blair with the redirects going the other way. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:18, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- Mikus, are you really proposing that San Francisco be changed to "City and County of San Francisco" and DuPont be changed to "DuPont de Nemours, Inc." and Rhode Island be changed to "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations"? If so, I will oppose this every step of the way. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 17:32, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- Cullen328, sure, why not. These are the official names, and for any other name there is a redirect. Maybe this will force Rhode Island administration to revise the official name and remove the plantations from it ;) As I said, this is clearly a one-to-many situation, with one official name and a zillion of unofficial, however common, names. They can be nicely served with redirects. Mikus (talk) 19:27, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- No, you are incorrect, Mikus, and your opinion is not widely shared among editors who have thought about these things. There are not a zillion unofficial common names for San Francisco, Rhode Island and DuPont. Only one each, and it would be utterly bizarre to change those article titles to the official titles. Bizarre and contrary to consensus. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 21:39, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- As with so many decisions concerning optimal title for an article, there are pros and cons. What are the pros to changing "Rhode Island" to State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations? Bus stop (talk) 19:44, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- You are both picking "low-hanging fruit". WP:COMMONNAME can be taken to the point of ridiculousness. Many such discussions involve number of g-hits per competing term with reasoned discourse unwelcome. Bus stop (talk) 17:56, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- Cullen328, sure, why not. These are the official names, and for any other name there is a redirect. Maybe this will force Rhode Island administration to revise the official name and remove the plantations from it ;) As I said, this is clearly a one-to-many situation, with one official name and a zillion of unofficial, however common, names. They can be nicely served with redirects. Mikus (talk) 19:27, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- Mikus, are you really proposing that San Francisco be changed to "City and County of San Francisco" and DuPont be changed to "DuPont de Nemours, Inc." and Rhode Island be changed to "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations"? If so, I will oppose this every step of the way. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 17:32, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- For instance, you may want to see Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, 3rd Baronet and Anthony Charles Lynton Blair as article titles, which is presumably what User:Mikus means by given names and "more dignified"; but I'm quite happy with Ranulph Fiennes and Tony Blair with the redirects going the other way. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:18, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- The current situation works perfectly well and has done for many years. If it ain't broke... -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:15, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- WP:COMMONNAME can be misused just as some other policies can be misused. Policy doesn't exist to be used as a cudgel to beat opposing opinions into submission. The problem with WP:COMMONNAME is that it shields a discussion from reasoned analysis. WP:COMMONNAME is commonly reduced to number of Google hits per term. Bus stop (talk) 18:51, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- Our common name policy (one of our better policies, imo) is there for a good reason and that is that we want articles to be at the name that is the most recognizable to most of our users. Obviously it can be misused, and sometimes be utterly ridiculous (yogurt anyone?), but, as you point out, so can all our other policies and that doesn't mean we just throw the whole shebang down the drain. If we chuck common name out, everything will just end up at the official name and that's often unrecognizable. --regentspark (comment) 19:43, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- You will still be able to find the article by common name by means of redirects. And if you navigated onto a page via link, you will see the official name in the title and the common names in the very first paragraph. Nothing is lost. Mikus (talk) 20:28, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- The reason we don't do that is that the official name is not easily recognizable. For example, a user who typed Germany in the search box but ended up at Bundesrepublik Deutschland would be taken aback. Everyone recognizes Germany, while very few do Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Official names are not necessarily the best choice for article titles. --regentspark (comment) 20:44, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- No one suggested using native-language names in the English wikipedia. It is called Federal Republic of Germany, and this is what the article should be called. I can see that in some cases the official name is not the "one" in the assumed by me one-to-many relationship. I prefer to name the article with the "one", not with the one out of the "many". In most cases the "one" will be the official name, but sometimes it is not. For example, China: the current official name is the People's Republic of China, but if the article is named like this, it should exclude everything earlier than 1949. During China's history there were many official and common names. So, in this case, "China" as the article's name is better because it is more inclusive, and it is the "one". It should have a subsection titled People's Republic of China, where the "People's Republic of China" name should link to. People's Republic of China has no history before 1949, but China does. Anyway, countries is a touchy subject. When I started this topic I was bothered by more technical and unambiguous names like Compact Cassette. Mikus (talk) 20:49, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- The reason we don't do that is that the official name is not easily recognizable. For example, a user who typed Germany in the search box but ended up at Bundesrepublik Deutschland would be taken aback. Everyone recognizes Germany, while very few do Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Official names are not necessarily the best choice for article titles. --regentspark (comment) 20:44, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- You will still be able to find the article by common name by means of redirects. And if you navigated onto a page via link, you will see the official name in the title and the common names in the very first paragraph. Nothing is lost. Mikus (talk) 20:28, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- Our common name policy (one of our better policies, imo) is there for a good reason and that is that we want articles to be at the name that is the most recognizable to most of our users. Obviously it can be misused, and sometimes be utterly ridiculous (yogurt anyone?), but, as you point out, so can all our other policies and that doesn't mean we just throw the whole shebang down the drain. If we chuck common name out, everything will just end up at the official name and that's often unrecognizable. --regentspark (comment) 19:43, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- WP:COMMONNAME can be misused just as some other policies can be misused. Policy doesn't exist to be used as a cudgel to beat opposing opinions into submission. The problem with WP:COMMONNAME is that it shields a discussion from reasoned analysis. WP:COMMONNAME is commonly reduced to number of Google hits per term. Bus stop (talk) 18:51, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- What's wrong is people using COMMONNAME as the sole criterion, rather than considering it just one strategy to support the WP:CRITERIA. As Bus stop says, "WP:COMMONNAME is too forcefully used in many conversations pertaining to the optimal title for an article." I do support the gist of COMMONNAME, but I oppose those who see it the only tool for naming. Dicklyon (talk) 22:22, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- Not everything that is notable also has an official name. COMMONNAME is a generic policy that one should be able to apply to all article titles, that guarantees that one can use the "best-sourced" name for a subject. What would the official names of European migrant crisis, or World War II be then? --Ritchie92 (talk) 23:44, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
- I basically endorse the principle of common name on the principle of least astonishment, or WP:SURPRISE. But the principle of common name is not an absolute. There can still be room for discussion and the second most common name or the third most common name can be considered as well. Bus stop (talk) 01:54, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
- COMMONNAME is pretty good, but not absolute. If reliable secondary sources do not use an OFFICIALNAME, it is not for Wikipedia to correct the world. Wikipedia follows reliable sources and should not try to lead. Wikipedia makes a valiant effort to respect BLP chosen names, and in this area provides an excellent example for how COMMONNAME is not absolute, but that other factors may always be considered, and the ultimate decision making is by WP:Consensus. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:26, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
- WP:COMMONNAME is for our readers, and I strongly support it. Going with a barely known new name, even for a BLP subject, can be an issue. Like SmokeyJoe stated, "it is not for Wikipedia to correct the world. Wikipedia follows reliable sources and should not try to lead." But like others also stated, we don't always go by WP:COMMONNAME. One example of this is for medical topics; see WP:NCMED. Our article on heart attack is not titled "Heart attack." And, of course, if a company changes their name, it's not accurate to continue to have the article use the old title. That old name should go in the lead, though, per WP:Alternative title. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 05:36, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
- Common name is certainly better than "official name", the latter being chosen by someone else who has no interest in, nor respect for Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and which is thus subject to manipulation, influence, or even misinformation. In a sense, WP:COMMONNAME depends on the core principles of WP:Verifiability and WP:DUEWEIGHT, ascribing an article title to the name that is verifiable by the preponderance of reliable, independent, secondary sources, rather than whatever minority view that the legal owner, or official owner, of the topic in question would wish it to be, for reasons of self-interest. And aligning article title policy with Wikipedia's core principles, is exactly how it should be. Mathglot (talk) 08:35, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
- Actually, the exceptions to WP:COMMONNAME are even fewer than the above two comments would suggest:
- On BLPs' personal preference for how they call themselves, MOS:IDENTITY actually advises us to stick to the common name, and the question of the subject's own preference only kicks in if there's no clear answer as to what the common name is. In reality it's rare for published sources to deviate often from a subject's preference, so in the majority of cases we will be following it anyway. The only exception to this is where there is a MOS:GENDERID issue involved as well. We explicitly do honour a subject's preferred gender-specific designation, but again it's very rare for sources not to do so as well.
- When companies change their name, we apply WP:NAMECHANGES, which again instructs us to keep following WP:COMMONNAME, except that sources published after the name change carry more weight than those published before.
- Overall, to answer the original question in this section, COMMONNAME is absolutely the correct policy to apply for most naming decisions. We are not a specialist resource for in-depth knowledge on topics, we are a resource which collates published information and presents it to ordinary readers using language and terms they can be expected to recognise and understand. — Amakuru (talk) 09:19, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
- By "are even fewer than the above two comments would suggest", I take it you are including my post in that? Like you, I was clear that "COMMONNAME is absolutely the correct policy to apply for most naming decisions" and noted exceptions. With regard to companies, I've seen us change the company title to the new title even without considering the "except that sources published after the name change carry more weight than those published before" aspect of WP:NAMECHANGES. Similar goes for publications and organizations, such as GLAAD. At the time that the GLAAD article title was changed, the organization was mainly known as the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. But the Wikipedia article title was changed anyway. Of course, I'm not stating that we always do that. As for MOS:GENDERID? Although it is at times used by Wikipedians to argue for changing a title, that guideline is not about article titles, WP:Article title is policy, and we have at times waited before changing the title of an article in such cases (including the case of Chelsea Manning). Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 02:17, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
- Actually, the exceptions to WP:COMMONNAME are even fewer than the above two comments would suggest:
- Actually, refreshing my memory on the GLAAD matter, the organization had also already been known as GLAAD for years; so changing the article title to that name wasn't something that could have been argued as causing an issue. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 02:26, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
- "City and County of San Francisco" isn't the official name for the settlement of San Francisco but only for the administrative territory. Moving it wouldn't make sense anyway for that reason. The article (and the likes of Washington, DC) should probably be edited to reflect that "City and County" only refers to the name of the city (administrative territory) not city (settlement) like Swansea. The fact that WP tends to have combined articles on settlements and administrative territories when they have the same name or are more or less concurrent (which makes sense) doesn't mean that the "official" name applies to the settlement. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:15, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
- Even that's not really accurate. The City and County of San Francisco isn't any kind of "territory" or "settlement" at all, it's a legal entity, a government body. No one lives in the City and County of San Francisco, unless perhaps they are illegally squatting in a government office. Heh. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:00, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
- This is obviously going to be a WP:SNOW failure if floated as an actual proposal, so we might as well just move on. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:02, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
RfC: Official title v commonname for television episodes
The Television Wikiproject have a strong consensus to default to official titles rather than common names per this discussion: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Television#Episode_title_discussion. The RfC was notified here among other venues, so the assumption is that the matter has broad consensus. As such, if it is agreed that there is a broad consensus, it would be appropriate to make some form of amendment to the policy to indicate that WP:COMMONNAME does not apply to television programmes. I am not advocating one way or another, but setting this up so there is some clarity on the issue and prevent conflict between community policy and WikiProject practise.
The question is: Should WP:COMMONNAME be amended to allow television episodes to default to official titles? SilkTork (talk) 14:55, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
- No because there is already an exception to the WP:COMMONNAME policy, it's called WP:IAR (see Sarah Jane Brown for an example of COMMONNAME being IAR'd outside of the TV area). As most TV shows will have the common name be the same as the official name, I don't see any need to change the policy here. Iffy★Chat -- 15:50, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
- I think Sarah Jane Brown would be an example of the sort of long running contentious debate this RfC is aiming to avoid. ;-) SilkTork (talk) 18:26, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
- It isn't possible to avoid such debates when complicated cases arise (either complicated in an of themselves, or – as in this case – complicated in their interaction with various WP policies and guidelines. That's just how it will be any time there is any system of nomenclature for anything. It doesn't mean the system is broken, it simply means it is in fact a system. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:04, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
- I think Sarah Jane Brown would be an example of the sort of long running contentious debate this RfC is aiming to avoid. ;-) SilkTork (talk) 18:26, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
- Comment – I think this RfC is based on a misunderstanding. The AT policy is summarized in WP:CRITERIA. WP:COMMONNAME, at best, relates to three of the five criteria, that is #1 Recognizability, #2 Naturalness, and #4 Conciseness. #3, Precision is mostly not helped very much by a common name. And #5, Consistency, is the domain of particular naming conventions guidance. Sometimes this "consistency" deriving from particular guidance wins over the common name (e.g. Moonlight Sonata → Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven) per the guidance at WP:MUSICSERIES). This does not require an update of the WP:AT policy page. Sometimes the particular guidance isn't followed, e.g. Sarah Jane Brown, incompatible with WP:MIDDLENAME: no problem, while the "guideline"-level guidance allows exceptions more easily than policy. And insomuch as policy allows very occasional exceptions, it does not need to be rewritten for one outlier. It seems very unlikely that this guidance for television episodes would jump from WikiProject guidance (which, according to the WP:CONLEVEL policy is more or less of the same level as essays) to policy-level guidance. What would be useful, however, is to test whether the WikiProject guidance could be promoted to naming convention, i.e. guideline-level guidance. If the consensus is broad enough, it could probably be appended to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television)#Episode and character articles. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:13, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
- Oppose, for the reasons explained in my "Comment" above: this is not a suitable level of detail for a policy page. Take to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television) to see whether this could be adopted in that guideline. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:13, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
- I think I may have set this up with the wrong question. The reason we have guidelines and policies is to guide us to toward a uniform approach which avoids conflicts and endless discussions. If there is a dispute on how to proceed, we look to guidelines and policies. If a guideline and policy conflict, then the policy takes precedence because it has the wider consensus. See WP:POLCON. The RfC I linked has a consensus that official names are prioritised over common names, while policy says the opposite. If there is a dispute about this, then one side will quote local consensus and one side will quote policy. Depending on the situation, how many people support one side or the other, and the interpretation of anyone closing the discussion, we could see conclusions wavering one way and the other for years, similar to the Sarah Jane Brown situation. The solution to Sarah Jane Brown does not follow policy, and so it continuously gets challenged. Either a solution to Sarah Jane Brown is found that meets policy or policy is amended to incorporate situations like Sarah Jane Brown, or that dispute will continue for years to come. It only appears to get paused when a moratorium is placed on opening another move request. Saying no it can't be incorporated in policy, but yes it can be incorporated in guidelines is not a solution, and not what we try to work toward - see WP:ADVICEFORK. SilkTork (talk) 10:16, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
- Re. "The reason we have guidelines and policies is to guide us to toward a uniform approach..." – wrong, and I've stopped reading from there on: slapping on more misunderstandings in your reply doesn't help. Guidelines and policies also exist to explain multiple equally valid approaches, which is quite different from the sometimes quite popular demand for a uniform approach in every case. Wikipedia doesn't work that way: it has multiple freedoms, and doesn't regulate where no regulation is opportune. In this case, the policy says that there are five equally valid major considerations for how to name an article. "Consistency" is as valid as "Recognisability" (etc., for the other three CRITERIA).
- Further, the claim to "Consistency" on official title for TV episodes is, at this point, still very weak. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television#RfC: Should episode article titles default to the broadcaster's official title? had very low attendance, was never officially closed (the attempted tendentious pseudo-closures at WP:ANRFC#RfCs rather damaged than strengthened the solidity of the RfC outcome), only pertains to the acceptance of essay-level guidance, and contains currently unassessed, but potentially valid, arguments by opposers. This should never have been brought here before uninvolved closure of the essay-level RfC, and a solid consensus reached in a subsequent discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television). --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:56, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I misunderstand, so much as I'm not explaining myself clearly. For clarity, I am NOT arguing for TV episodes to use official titles rather than common names (nor am I arguing against it). That's not why I set this up. The discussion was on Requests for Closure - [3] so I looked into it. What I am looking to do is bring closure to the issue one way or the other. The discussion has a strong consensus of agreement that television titles should use official titles rather than common names, but as that is against policy, the RfC cannot be closed that way because - as I link above, and will link again here as you say you have not read the above - if a guideline and policy conflict, then the policy takes precedence because it has the wider consensus per WP:POLCON, and we do not create guidelines that conflict with policy per WP:ADVICEFORK. The folks at that discussion appear to feel that despite WP:POLCON and WP:ADVICEFORK that they have consensus to ignore WP:Commonname because the RfC was notified at this venue. I have set up this RfC to establish if they have that consensus or not. The answers that are saying - take this to Naming conventions (television) or allow IAR are not giving the matter the appropriate closure. I think it is because I set up the wrong question. What question do you feel I should be asking? SilkTork (talk) 11:18, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
- The major virtue when an RfC is listed at ANRFC is mostly "patience" I think: trying to precipitate it only highlights that the issue is far from solved. Piling on another RfC before the earlier one is formally closed is usually counterproductive in a consensus-seeking process (that's experience speaking). --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:43, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks for your comment Francis Schonken. Sorry for delay answering. Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Television#Episode_title_discussion had been archived after the clear consensus in the discussion that the WikiProject should use official names rather than common names. Because the discussion had not been formally closed, yet was running counter to policy, there was a request that it be looked at. Views expressed at ANRFC is that the situation was awkward because it was running against policy, and there was a suggestion that it be brought here to the policy page that was being impacted. I unarchived the discussion and mentioned the concerns, and suggested that the discussion be raised here. Nobody at the WikiProject appeared to wish to do that. One participant felt that as the matter had been advertised here, that implied they had the broad consensus to carry the suggestion into action. Maybe they have. Maybe they haven't. This RFC is to get a definitive answer to that question. And if the answer is yes, they do have consensus, then that should be recorded here in the policy otherwise we have a conflict per WP:POLCON, in which this policy will take precedence over the WikiProject's local consensus. Essentially, unless the WikiProject can get consensus here to adjust the policy, then their RFC needs to be formally closed as a rejected proposal. At the moment this RfC is not returning the right answer because I asked the wrong question, so I'm not sure that there can be closure on this either way. SilkTork (talk) 13:24, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
- You could simply have closed the RfC (which was overdue anyhow) since you seem to have had no prior involvement with it: that would likely have saved some editor time. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:44, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks for your comment Francis Schonken. Sorry for delay answering. Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Television#Episode_title_discussion had been archived after the clear consensus in the discussion that the WikiProject should use official names rather than common names. Because the discussion had not been formally closed, yet was running counter to policy, there was a request that it be looked at. Views expressed at ANRFC is that the situation was awkward because it was running against policy, and there was a suggestion that it be brought here to the policy page that was being impacted. I unarchived the discussion and mentioned the concerns, and suggested that the discussion be raised here. Nobody at the WikiProject appeared to wish to do that. One participant felt that as the matter had been advertised here, that implied they had the broad consensus to carry the suggestion into action. Maybe they have. Maybe they haven't. This RFC is to get a definitive answer to that question. And if the answer is yes, they do have consensus, then that should be recorded here in the policy otherwise we have a conflict per WP:POLCON, in which this policy will take precedence over the WikiProject's local consensus. Essentially, unless the WikiProject can get consensus here to adjust the policy, then their RFC needs to be formally closed as a rejected proposal. At the moment this RfC is not returning the right answer because I asked the wrong question, so I'm not sure that there can be closure on this either way. SilkTork (talk) 13:24, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
- The major virtue when an RfC is listed at ANRFC is mostly "patience" I think: trying to precipitate it only highlights that the issue is far from solved. Piling on another RfC before the earlier one is formally closed is usually counterproductive in a consensus-seeking process (that's experience speaking). --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:43, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I misunderstand, so much as I'm not explaining myself clearly. For clarity, I am NOT arguing for TV episodes to use official titles rather than common names (nor am I arguing against it). That's not why I set this up. The discussion was on Requests for Closure - [3] so I looked into it. What I am looking to do is bring closure to the issue one way or the other. The discussion has a strong consensus of agreement that television titles should use official titles rather than common names, but as that is against policy, the RfC cannot be closed that way because - as I link above, and will link again here as you say you have not read the above - if a guideline and policy conflict, then the policy takes precedence because it has the wider consensus per WP:POLCON, and we do not create guidelines that conflict with policy per WP:ADVICEFORK. The folks at that discussion appear to feel that despite WP:POLCON and WP:ADVICEFORK that they have consensus to ignore WP:Commonname because the RfC was notified at this venue. I have set up this RfC to establish if they have that consensus or not. The answers that are saying - take this to Naming conventions (television) or allow IAR are not giving the matter the appropriate closure. I think it is because I set up the wrong question. What question do you feel I should be asking? SilkTork (talk) 11:18, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
- I think I may have set this up with the wrong question. The reason we have guidelines and policies is to guide us to toward a uniform approach which avoids conflicts and endless discussions. If there is a dispute on how to proceed, we look to guidelines and policies. If a guideline and policy conflict, then the policy takes precedence because it has the wider consensus. See WP:POLCON. The RfC I linked has a consensus that official names are prioritised over common names, while policy says the opposite. If there is a dispute about this, then one side will quote local consensus and one side will quote policy. Depending on the situation, how many people support one side or the other, and the interpretation of anyone closing the discussion, we could see conclusions wavering one way and the other for years, similar to the Sarah Jane Brown situation. The solution to Sarah Jane Brown does not follow policy, and so it continuously gets challenged. Either a solution to Sarah Jane Brown is found that meets policy or policy is amended to incorporate situations like Sarah Jane Brown, or that dispute will continue for years to come. It only appears to get paused when a moratorium is placed on opening another move request. Saying no it can't be incorporated in policy, but yes it can be incorporated in guidelines is not a solution, and not what we try to work toward - see WP:ADVICEFORK. SilkTork (talk) 10:16, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
- Oppose. Francis Schonken + Iffy got to every point that I would have raised. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:05, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Redundant pointless hatnote verbiage at the WP:CONCISE section.
Sdkb (talk · contribs) has reverted my revert of his addition of
at the level 3 heading Wikipedia:Article titles#Conciseness, aka WP:CONCISE.
I see this as clutter. This policy is already problematically long, and clutter makes it worse. I can't image many editors being confused between the essay WP:TLDR and this policy section. Remove this new hatnote. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:46, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
- I came to this page because I typed WP:CONCISE, assuming that that would take me to the essay about being concise that I remembered seeing at some point. It took me here instead, and I figured out after a minute that what I was remembering was WP:TLDR, which has the shortcut WP:BECONCISE. I added the hatnote here so that others in the future who do the same will have an easier time navigating to the page they're trying to get to. It seems very plausible to me that there will be others in such a situation. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 08:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
- WP:TLDR should not be referred to by BECONCISE. that was the problem. Proliferation of redundant shortcuts (which are not even short) is the problem. Hatnotes in response to prolific shortcuts is just more verbiage. Ironic. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:14, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
- What I remembered was reading an essay about conciseness, not the WP:BECONCISE shortcut, so you removing the shortcut listing there as you just did isn't likely to do much. I guessed that WP:CONCISE probably led to the essay about conciseness. Apparently it doesn't, but I think enough others probably go down the same path I did that we need to disambiguate. It's worth noting that WP:BECONCISE is currently ranked the 9th most impactful essay on Wikipedia, so it's a major page, not some random editor's musings. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:07, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
- WP:TLDR should not be referred to by BECONCISE. that was the problem. Proliferation of redundant shortcuts (which are not even short) is the problem. Hatnotes in response to prolific shortcuts is just more verbiage. Ironic. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:14, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
- Useful hatnote, no reason to remove it. buidhe 00:35, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- The hatnote makes sense to me, and we have evidence of its usefulness. -- Tavix (talk) 01:14, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- Remove it. WP:CONCISE has always redirected to the relevant policy on article titles, and as SmokeyJoe rightly says, there's little chance of a Wikipedian who is already knowledgeable enough to type in "WP:" shortcuts being confused as to what it means. Whereas having the hatnote simply adds more gunk for people to read when navigating to that page. — Amakuru (talk) 01:19, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
RfC: Titles which are part of an ambiguous series
It has been general practice to disambiguate only when necessary, and otherwise choose a title that best incorporates the naming principles described at WP:CRITERIA. The logical conclusion of this, is that parenthetical disambiguation is not permitted unless the base title contains a disambiguation page, another article (i.e. the primary topic), or a primary redirect to a different page. In particular, the base title is not allowed to be empty or a primary redirect to the aforementioned parenthetically disambiguated title. However, there is a notable exception in WP:MUSICSERIES, which mandates that Haydn's 100th symphony be called Symphony No. 100 (Haydn) even though he was the only composer to have written 100 notable symphonies, and in fact Symphony No. 100 redirects there. The intuition behind this naming convention is that a name like "Symphony No. 100" is inherently ambiguous and should not contain an article on Haydn's work simply by happenstance. This principle may, perhaps, have relevance outside of generically numbered musical works.
Question: What is our view on parenthetically disambiguated titles which are not strictly necessary from a disambiguation point of view, but are part of a numbered series whose meaning is inherently ambiguous? Borrowing from the Koran, should they be: 1) required; 2) recommended; 3) permitted; 4) discouraged; or 5) prohibited? Examples and further explanation to follow. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:17, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- Clarification of options:
- Required: Universally accepted with almost no exceptions, e.g. including the state name for non-AP U.S. cities under WP:USPLACE.
- Recommended: Default option unless a strong case is made against it, e.g. omitting the definite article in university names per WP:THE.
- Permitted: Can be taken into consideration as one of many naming principles, e.g. using pageview statistics to determine the primary topic.
- Discouraged: Should not be done without compelling evidence in favor, e.g. partial disambiguation on Thriller (album) even though there are other albums called Thriller, because it is so much more important than the others.
- Prohibited: Essentially never allowed, e.g. redirecting New York to New York (disambiguation) (the disambiguation page should simply reside at the base title).
- Background: This issue came to my attention from Talk:H.R. 40 - Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act#Requested move 16 April 2020, where it is suggested that a U.S. proposed legislation be moved to simply H.R. 40 as the most significant bill by that name. However, it was pointed out (including by me) that such a title would be ambiguous, as H.R. numbers reset every two years, not to mention the various state legislatures with H.R. numbers. I noticed that there were similar bills titled H.R. 2189 (113th Congress), H.R. 3174 (113th Congress), etc. Let's assume for the sake of argument that this bill is the primary topic for "H.R. 40", just like "Symphony No. 100". Without considering the specifics of this particular bill (e.g. any potential WP:COMMONNAME titles that omit the H.R. number), should we nonetheless prefer "H.R. 40 (116th Congress)" as the title, and make "H.R. 40" a primary redirect to it? (Again, this is just an illustrative example, go to the RM if you want to !vote on this specific case.) King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:17, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- Recommended. If there is no COMMONNAME, and the title would be otherwise generic (such as in both the Symphony No. 100 and H.R. 40 examples), I believe the parenthetical disambiguation should be used unless there is a clear reason not to, because in the majority of cases it won't be clear from the title alone what the primary topic is. —烏Γ (kaw) │ 03:50, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- Leave it to topic-specific naming conventions, which should define recommended schemes to handle such numbered series. For example, at WP:TVSEASON we say
"A consistent naming scheme should be used for all season articles of a TV show"
. While that NC can't define specifics for individual shows, we at least have the principle that all seasons for a show (and seasons within a franchise of shows like Big Brother) should all follow the same pattern. The "required" option here is too inflexible, and anything more relaxed than "recommended" is ad hoc or opposes basic WP:CRITERIA. -- Netoholic @ 04:00, 25 April 2020 (UTC) - Oppose set-up of this RfC, which omits to refer to the full set of WP:CRITERIA, which also includes (as fifth criterion):
This is a classic attempt to get some of the WP:CRITERIA get an upper hand over some of the other WP:CRITERIA, and wouldn't work in the long run (not even in the short run). --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:21, 25 April 2020 (UTC)Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) as topic-specific naming conventions on article titles, in the box above [on the WP:AT page].
- Apologies; I assumed that consistency was so obvious/implied that I forgot to mention it. I've replaced the reference to WP:CONCISE/WP:PRECISE with a general link to WP:CRITERIA. Do you wish to offer your opinion on the matter now? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:11, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- You write, in the opening statement,
... while what follows after that is in no way a "logical conclusion" of WP:CRITERIA (it only is if one omits at least one of the criteria). So, your "cosmetic" tweak to the opening statement did not alter its fundamentally flawed set–up. No need to alter my !vote in any way. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:22, 25 April 2020 (UTC)The logical conclusion of this, ...
- I don't understand what exactly you're opposed to. —烏Γ (kaw) │ 09:12, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- I "Oppose [the] set-up of this RfC" – I don't very well see what is unclear about that? It is recommended that RfCs are well-prepared: this one likely wasn't. It steers for making the AT policy (which is already long and complex, but has clear principles summarized in WP:CRITERIA) more bloated than it needs to be. The RfC fails to list more obvious choices, like "don't weaken WP:CRITERIA", which is an option I might have chosen if it would have been available (but it isn't in the current set-up). --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:20, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- This RfC cannot possibly weaken WP:CRITERIA. Consistent with any particular view of WP:CRITERIA, one and only one of the five choices can be correct by process of elimination. I am not necessarily looking to make it "more bloated" - in fact there is no proposal to make any specific change to policies or guidelines at the moment. I am merely soliciting opinions on a matter where I think the community's input would be valuable, and then we can decide what to do from there. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 14:42, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- This page is for improving the AT policy, not for answering whatever question an editor may have via RfC. Your question can be answered (and already has been) without needing an RfC format. So I removed the RfC tag, and struck the RfC reference in the section title. Again, RfCs should be well-prepared, which this one wasn't. --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:39, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- As you can see, there are many different opinions on this matter. For example, JHunterJ's interpretation of consistency is completely different from yours. We need to come up with some global guidance so that we're not fighting battles in the trenches of RM one by one. I am not merely asking a clarifying question; if the answers point towards action, then I will make a proposal towards implementing it. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:13, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- This page is for improving the AT policy, not for answering whatever question an editor may have via RfC. Your question can be answered (and already has been) without needing an RfC format. So I removed the RfC tag, and struck the RfC reference in the section title. Again, RfCs should be well-prepared, which this one wasn't. --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:39, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- This RfC cannot possibly weaken WP:CRITERIA. Consistent with any particular view of WP:CRITERIA, one and only one of the five choices can be correct by process of elimination. I am not necessarily looking to make it "more bloated" - in fact there is no proposal to make any specific change to policies or guidelines at the moment. I am merely soliciting opinions on a matter where I think the community's input would be valuable, and then we can decide what to do from there. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 14:42, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- I "Oppose [the] set-up of this RfC" – I don't very well see what is unclear about that? It is recommended that RfCs are well-prepared: this one likely wasn't. It steers for making the AT policy (which is already long and complex, but has clear principles summarized in WP:CRITERIA) more bloated than it needs to be. The RfC fails to list more obvious choices, like "don't weaken WP:CRITERIA", which is an option I might have chosen if it would have been available (but it isn't in the current set-up). --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:20, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- I don't understand what exactly you're opposed to. —烏Γ (kaw) │ 09:12, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- You write, in the opening statement,
- I didn't "interpret" consistency – I quoted the policy on it, which I'll do again:
If it's unclear to you (which it apparently is because of your "The logical conclusion of this, ..." where there is no such logical conclusion the way you describe it), and you ask me to clarify I'll do my best to oblige. A messy opening statement based on wrong assumptions is, in itself, however not a question for clarification: thus far I've been addressing some wrong assumptions underlying your RfC question. It's a bit difficult to answer a question based on wrong assumptions: get these out of the way, and I think you'll start to realise this is much ado about nothing. --Francis Schonken (talk) 04:59, 26 April 2020 (UTC)Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) as topic-specific naming conventions on article titles, in the box above [on the WP:AT page].
- Suggestion: see Talk:Wiegenlied, D 498 (Schubert)#Requested moves: all article titles in that confirmed multi-page move request have a, for disambiguation purposes, redundant "(Schubert)" at the end of the article title. If you want to get rid of "(Haydn)"s, or those redundant "(Schubert)"s, in article titles where these aren't needed for disambiguation purposes, you'd have to do a similar multi-page move request on such pages. Or try to get Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven) moved (back) to Moonlight Sonata, to get rid of an avoidable "(Beethoven)". In the unlikely event that such RMs wouldn't fail, the WP:MUSICSERIES guidance will be updated (at least by choosing other examples, or more fundamentally by changing its principles, if several RMs have consistently illustrated the current principle is no longer effective). The current RfC is however not likely to change guidance that to all extents and purposes seems to be working very well in mainspace. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:27, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- I don't want to get rid of redundant identifiers for music articles; how did you get that impression? Instead I'm suggesting that it may be wise for other areas, such as numbered legislation, to follow the lead of what WP:MUSICSERIES is doing. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:54, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- Nor the place (WT:AT), nor the format (RfC) are very suitable to lead to a useful result there. I suggest a few RMs where you think it might make sense in that subject area; and/or find a WikiProject that might support the idea; and/or start or update a relevant naming conventions guideline, and try to find consensus for the new guidance. But this, meaning the RfC you initiated, is clearly not working. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:09, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- WP:DROPTHESTICK. You've made your point. I, and presumably King of Hearts, disagree. —烏Γ (kaw) │ 08:04, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- Nor the place (WT:AT), nor the format (RfC) are very suitable to lead to a useful result there. I suggest a few RMs where you think it might make sense in that subject area; and/or find a WikiProject that might support the idea; and/or start or update a relevant naming conventions guideline, and try to find consensus for the new guidance. But this, meaning the RfC you initiated, is clearly not working. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:09, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- I don't want to get rid of redundant identifiers for music articles; how did you get that impression? Instead I'm suggesting that it may be wise for other areas, such as numbered legislation, to follow the lead of what WP:MUSICSERIES is doing. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:54, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- Apologies; I assumed that consistency was so obvious/implied that I forgot to mention it. I've replaced the reference to WP:CONCISE/WP:PRECISE with a general link to WP:CRITERIA. Do you wish to offer your opinion on the matter now? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:11, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- Prohibited option 5, WP:PRECISION, WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, etc. There is no conflict with the consistency part of WP:CRITERIA, since we're talking about a disambiguating qualifier. If the Haydn part of the title is needed even without ambiguity, then it shouldn't be in parentheses and should be formed naturally in the title (also part of the WP:CRITERIA). The pursuit of "consistency" of parentheticals has been rejected by the community (most recently as far as I know with the NYC subway station articles). Consistency is maintained (and so no conflict) by consistently titling the articles correctly, and only when ambiguity occurs consistently using the disambiguating qualifiers. We most definitely should not leave this to the topic-specific naming conventions, because essays do not get to violate policies as a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, which led to the whole bird-naming cold war. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:10, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- The community hasn't rejected consistency of parentheticals; the NYC subway RfC is simply one precedent, just as the discussion which led to the adoption of WP:MUSICSERIES is another precedent. In any case, I don't think these two situations are quite the same, as a numbered series which could exist for a large category of entities (e.g. composers, congressional sessions, U.S. states) is far more ambiguous than subway station names. There are other reasons besides consistency, like WP:PRECISE, for this change as well: "titles should unambiguously define the topical scope of the article". The subject-specific guidelines are not essays and are not WP:LOCALCONSENSUS so long as they have been adopted through a widely advertised RfC. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:23, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- I think this is best left to individual topic areas, if editors in some field think this is the best way of doing it then we should let them. In the case of the Haydn symphony it would be very odd to refer to that piece as just "Symphony No. 100" without mentioning Haydn somewhere, unless the context made it obvious that you were talking about him. The disambiguation is therefore part of the most common usage. I'm sure there are similar examples in other topics. Hut 8.5 18:22, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- Discouraged, but permitted -- this is best left to individual topic areas. I ran into this in military unit naming (e.g. similar to 33rd Battalion (Australia)), and I think it makes perfect sense. Blanket prohibition would potentially have many unintended consequences. Renata (talk) 19:46, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
- Meh... why are we having this discussion at this particular time? Is there any problem which needs solving? If not, then I'd suggest we just leave things the way they always have been. Which I suppose means "permitted". There is no rule against having parentheticals on unambiguous titles if the circumstances merit it. — Amakuru (talk) 01:22, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- Well the editor is trying to figure out if a given article should be title "Symphony No. 100 (Haydn)" or "Symphony No. 100", and she realizes that if she uses the name required by our (often enough petifogging) rules she'll have to use the less desirable title (just "Symphony No. 100"), and of she doesn't someone will come along and "fix" it anyway, so she's perhaps hoping for a general exception to be adopted that'll let her use the better title. I think. Herostratus (talk) 02:41, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- Permitted at least, I guess. Certainly "Symphony No. 100 (Haydn)" is preferable to just "Symphony No. 100" since it, after all, describes the entity a whole lot better. "Symphony No. 100" pretty much leaves you all at sea unless you're a music professor or whatever; there's hella symphonies with hella numbers and we don't expect our readers to have them all memorized, nor to have to start reading the articles to figure put if it's what they want or not. Right? So just put in whatever rule allows that sort of thing when necessary. "Serve the reader" is the goal here. Herostratus (talk) 02:41, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- I am not a fan of the forced disambiguation (per WP:CONCISE). (I have similar issue with PLACE conventions.) There are many topics where you do not know at first glance what the article is about; we do not require titles to tell you everything there is to know, only that they distinguish themselves adequately from other titles to scope the article to an atomic topic (and sometimes not necessarily even that per DABCONCEPT). I do believe there is reasonable consensus for conventions to standardize what the text of a parenthetical disambiguaion is, but that is not the case discussed here. --Izno (talk) 12:54, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- "we do not require titles to tell you everything there is to know..." Well but why the heck not? Is it a good thing, that we don't? Should we hold that up as a virtue?
- Of course, I don't mean that titles should tell you everything about the subject. That's what articles are for. However, we ought to require titles to identify what the article is about, within the scope of what a title for an encyclopedia article could reasonably be expected to do or be. Right? Am I wrong here?
- Obviously we don't want the title to be "Symphony No. 100, which was written by Josef Hadyn in 1793 (or 1794), when he was living in London, and is in standard four movement form scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum and strings". Right? That would be silly. It's good to have a rule that prevents that! But that's not the issue here. The issue is between (and this is the just the example we're using) "Symphony No. 100" and "Symphony No. 100 (Haydn)". So lets see... Compared to "Symphony No. 100", "Symphony No. 100 (Haydn)"...
- Is longer, but it's not a lot longer. It's one word longer.
- In return for adding that one single word, provides a great deal of useful information, both to people accessing the article, and people seeing the title on a search results list. Let's take me for an example. I'm a schlub, literate but not highly educated, don't know much about classical music, but I recognize the name Haydn and can vaguely place him in general context. That seem like a common enough archetype? OK. So, "Symphony No. 100" tells me almost nothing. It tells me it's a symphony. In order to find out if it was written in 1815 or 1915 or 2015 or anything else I have to start reading the article. Adding the single word "Haydn" tells me much more! I can instantly say "Oh, don't want that one, I'm looking for 20th century American classical music" or conversely "Yes! 18th century classical music is exactly what I'm trying to learn about!".
- It's a reasonable title. If you came across a title like "Symphony No. 100 (Haydn)" in say Britannica, you wouldn't dash the volume to the floor while shouting "What the hell kind of title is that!? What sort of ridiculous publication is this!?". It's perfectly normal and unexceptionable, if you consider the real world and don't overly naval-gaze on our little world here. If our history had gone differently, we could be following a rubric that you should often add a parenthesized word or to titles, if it's judged a useful net benefit, rather than only when strictly required by our (somewhat arcane) rules. That'd be fine, in fact I'd be in favor of that. That ship has sailed I guess, but we don't have to make an iron core virtue of what is, after all, a random historical accident. We can make exceptions you know.
- Obviously we don't want the title to be "Symphony No. 100, which was written by Josef Hadyn in 1793 (or 1794), when he was living in London, and is in standard four movement form scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum and strings". Right? That would be silly. It's good to have a rule that prevents that! But that's not the issue here. The issue is between (and this is the just the example we're using) "Symphony No. 100" and "Symphony No. 100 (Haydn)". So lets see... Compared to "Symphony No. 100", "Symphony No. 100 (Haydn)"...
- So, let's do some math, try to squeeze out something a little more than "I think such-and-such rule ought to have exceptions/Well I don't". So, I figure that including "(Haydn)" in the title will cost every reader about .33 person-seconds per access, which comes to two person-hours a year. Not including "(Haydn)" will cost some readers about 5 person-seconds; whether that comes to more than two person-hours a year, we can't know. But, probably IMO. Details below. Herostratus (talk) 19:03, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- So... it surely takes longer to read "Symphony No. 100 (Haydn)" than just "Symphony No. 100". let's say it takes... 1/3 of a second longer (that's a guess). The article is accessed about 35 times a day, so that's about 12 person-seconds a day added. 12 x 364.25 = 4380 seconds, which is about an hour and and quarter. So, 1:15 added, yearly, to the burden placed on our readers. Since some people are reading it on a list and never actually access the article and so aren't included in that 35-reader count, let's add them in and bump that all the way to... 2 person-hours, let's say.
- However... However, if you have to open the article and start delving into it to figure what it's about, you have to read the whole first half of the first sentence ("The Symphony No. 100 in G major, Hoboken I/100, is the eighth of the twelve London symphonies written by Joseph Haydn") to figure out who wrote it, so that you can place it in context and decide if you want to read it or not. Let's say that takes... I dunno, four seconds. (If you just took the 1/3 second we allocated for reading and understanding the world "Haydn" by the ~20 words in that passage, It'd be 7 seconds. I'm just spitballing here, but it's somewhere in that ballpark I think.) Sometimes people will have to actually fetch the article from the server (if they're just seeing the title on a search results list or something), so let's make it... five seconds average.
- (In spending that five seconds, you're getting a lot of information you probably don't need for your purpose at the moment, which is determining if you want to even read the article, such as the key signature and Hoboken number, by the way.)
- Anyway. 2 hours divided by 5 seconds is 1440. If 1440 users per year are wasting five seconds by having to delve into the article and read the first part of the first sentence and then determining that it's not an article they want to read, the two title choices are a wash (mathematically). We've got 12,748 readers a year (364.25 x 35)... 1440 is what, 9% of that? So... if 90% of our readers are able, with just "Symphony No. 100", to quickly and correctly determine if they want to read the article or not, but 10% require the extra word "(Haydn)" to quickly and correctly determine if they want to read the article or not, without having to open the article... then "Symphony No. 100 (Haydn)" would be the better title, it says here. Is it 90/10? I don't know... neither do you. We just have to make our best judgement based on our the knowledge, experience, and intuition that we've been granted in life so far. My guess is that "Symphony No. 100 (Haydn)" is better. Herostratus (talk) 18:54, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
- I dispute the premise "It has been long-standing policy to disambiguate only when necessary". That is not policy, but an obsession by a few. Policy is that both Recognizability and Consistency are part of the balance.
- For Recognizability, look at actual titling in sources. Eg "Symphony No.100 in G major, Hob.I:100 (Haydn, Joseph)"
- for Consistency, look at the category. eg: Category:Symphonies by Joseph Haydn
- --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:46, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- An RfC that begins with a false assertion should be speedy closed. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:48, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- @SmokeyJoe: I don't think the overall setup of my RfC is flawed; I begin with a premise, and then challenge the premise a few sentences later, establishing the purpose of this RfC. Perhaps it could have been worded a little better though. I have changed "long-standing policy" to "general practice" to soften the absolute nature of the statement (which was not my intention) and reflect the fact that we avoid unnecessary disambiguation in a vast majority of cases, but nonetheless do so when prudent. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:19, 27 April 2020 (UTC)