Francis Schonken (talk | contribs) |
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:Re. your newly added list of examples... I don't know what you're driving at... [[The Origin of Species]] '''''is''''' at [[The Origin of Species]], it follows the books NC, etc... what is your problem? --[[User:Francis Schonken|Francis Schonken]] 08:19, 14 April 2006 (UTC) |
:Re. your newly added list of examples... I don't know what you're driving at... [[The Origin of Species]] '''''is''''' at [[The Origin of Species]], it follows the books NC, etc... what is your problem? --[[User:Francis Schonken|Francis Schonken]] 08:19, 14 April 2006 (UTC) |
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::Sorry, I should have explained the history here. See [[Talk:How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare, robbed a grave, made a new friend who might not have really been there at all, and while he was at it committed a terrible sin which everyone was doing even though he didn't know it|Talk:How Hedley Hopkins.......]]. I thought the move on that one would be uncontroversial, but I was wrong, and I wound up in an argument over what is and isn't a subtitle, and a major theme was ''but that's the title, isn't it?'' I think the examples I've given show that common practice is already to abbreviate long titles, even when it's unclear if the dropped part is a subtitle. In order to inform future discussions, I think it would be helpful for this guideline to reflect and encourage the practice. Of course, I'm willing to try RM, but I don't want any article to be discussed in a vacuum. |
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::As for your concerns: |
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::*Innuendo: perhaps I should have spelled out that multi-line titles are ugly. |
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::*Undue weight: I know it sounds nonsensical, but I'm serious. In [[:Category:Documents of the Catholic Church]], for example, we might as well have a flashing marquee around the problem title. I never would have even noticed Hedley Hopkins (and I wouldn't be on this talk page now) if it hadn't displayed itself so prominently. The short stuff may get read, but the in-your-face stuff gets clicked on. |
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::*WP:NC(CN): The "Examples" section in particular contrasts "common names" with "a more elaborate, more formal or more scientifically precise version". My point is that the "but it's the correct title" counter-argument conflicts with the spirit of that guideline. |
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::*My list of examples: [[The Origin of Species]]'s full title is "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life", and the others are similar. The point is that we already often drop parts of titles other than the subtitle. I am not proposing a change from that practice; I would like to get it on the record. |
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::As for what my problem is: believe it or not, I am here to build a consensus in an area where I think people will agree with me. I am not as experienced as yourself in the policy sphere; your tone could be a little more encouraging. [[User:Melchoir|Melchoir]] 09:13, 14 April 2006 (UTC) |
Revision as of 09:13, 14 April 2006
For this naming conventions guideline proposal, either contribute directly to the project page, or leave your ideas here:
I have several comments on this:
- In the sense that this naming convention uses, the subject of the article Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry is a manuscript, not a book. It is a single item, kept in a particular location, each page has separate characteristics etc. Therefore the manuscript naming convention automatically applies. This might be better clarified in a general section that discusses the term book and that section should include the discussion of Ancient use of the term "book"
- Eventhough trilogy is a very common form of a collection of books it should not be given as the first example of such a term without an explaination.
- The section Title translations: Why should we always translate a title which is not in the Latin alphabet? We should always transscribe it, but the translation question should be the same question for German, Greek and Chinese books. E.g. Tao Te Ching is kept at an old transscription method of its Chinese title, maybe we could start a three way WP:RM for it, Tao Te Ching, Dao De Jing, and The Book of the Way and its Virtue and see what happenes.
- Why should the first version of a title be the most authorative. In the example we currently give, Salome, the first English version was overseen by the author and that is a good reason for considering it the most authorative. In general, it seems to me that there is usually a good reason if a title is changed and we should be free to consider that reason and not be restricted by a convention.
- The Subtitles and the Standard disambiguation sections are contradictory. From the Subtitles section it seems more common to use the last name of the author as a disambiguation method.
Respectfully, Stefán Ingi 14:35, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
- I updated, trying to take account of your suggestions - not always literally, but have a look at the updated version, maybe, and see whether you'd like it better.
- Only re. your fourth remark, I didn't do anything with it, as you obviously misread Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#When title version "best known in English" can't be determined. Please don't deform the text as it is proposed, making an argument about something that isn't there. --Francis Schonken 10:22, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
- There doesn't seem to have been much structured discussion about the title of Dao De Jing at Talk:Tao Te Ching#Name change for article and it seems that there were two people for Dao De Jing and two people for Tao Te Ching. I think it would be better if more people weighed in before we took it as an example in this convention. Would you object if I started a WP:RM for the book to see if more people would come and give their opinion? Stefán Ingi 11:20, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
- Of course I don't object to that (why would I?). Such vote would in all probability be concluded before this is turned from proposal into guideline anyhow, and if needed we modify the example if the vote would show something different than the present situation. --Francis Schonken 11:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
- After reading further upon this, it seems that there is will to be consistent with the spelling of Dao/Tao. There is even an article on it: Daoism-Taoism Romanization issue. I don't want to suggest a series of moves of articles on a subject which I am not throughly familiar with. Rather I suggest we link to the relevant article and write something like
However, in some cases, when a transcription or transliteration of a title, originally not in Latin alphabet, is better known or less ambiguous, that version of the title can be used. An example of this is Tao Te Ching which is used as a title rather than The Book of the Way and its Virtue or other possible translations. See Daoism-Taoism Romanization issue for the question on the two different forms Tao Te Ching and Dao De Jing.
- Stefán Ingi 12:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
- Anyhow, the Tao Te Ching page name is not going to change anywhere soon, and since I don't think this guideline needs to expand on Daoism/Taoism issues, I chose a "much" shorter version for the example, for the time being. --Francis Schonken 12:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
- Yeah, this is much better. But I don't like the and/or thing, it isn't a word. See wiktionary:or#Conjunction for why it is not needed. Stefán Ingi 12:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
- On that page "and/or" is defined as a synonym. I prefer to use that synonym in some cases (mostly, however, I write "or"). Matter of style, afaik not bound by rules. I've seen you change that some times before. There's no need to do that: if you write something, please do so in the style you prefer.
- Further, wiktionary:or#Conjunction seems contradictory to wiktionary:and/or#Conjunction: (...) in other words, to indicate that "inclusive or" is meant where "or" alone might be taken to mean "exclusive or". - which I think more correct: "in five or six days" would never mean "in eleven days", so: "exclusive" or in that context. --Francis Schonken 13:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
- Yes. The non-word and/or is used to indicate that "inclusive or" is meant where "or" alone might be taken to mean "exclusive or". In the sentence "when a transcription or transliteration of a title is better known or less ambiguous" there is no question that an "inclusive or" is meant. Imagine someone coming along saying that a title which is both better known and less ambiguous does not fit into this exception. Anyway, I don't think there is any point to keep this argument going. I was going to say you would be free to revert it but I see that you already have. Stefán Ingi 11:21, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
- Yeah, this is much better. But I don't like the and/or thing, it isn't a word. See wiktionary:or#Conjunction for why it is not needed. Stefán Ingi 12:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
- Anyhow, the Tao Te Ching page name is not going to change anywhere soon, and since I don't think this guideline needs to expand on Daoism/Taoism issues, I chose a "much" shorter version for the example, for the time being. --Francis Schonken 12:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
- After reading further upon this, it seems that there is will to be consistent with the spelling of Dao/Tao. There is even an article on it: Daoism-Taoism Romanization issue. I don't want to suggest a series of moves of articles on a subject which I am not throughly familiar with. Rather I suggest we link to the relevant article and write something like
- Of course I don't object to that (why would I?). Such vote would in all probability be concluded before this is turned from proposal into guideline anyhow, and if needed we modify the example if the vote would show something different than the present situation. --Francis Schonken 11:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
- There doesn't seem to have been much structured discussion about the title of Dao De Jing at Talk:Tao Te Ching#Name change for article and it seems that there were two people for Dao De Jing and two people for Tao Te Ching. I think it would be better if more people weighed in before we took it as an example in this convention. Would you object if I started a WP:RM for the book to see if more people would come and give their opinion? Stefán Ingi 11:20, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
"confusion" example
Someone added following example to the guideline proposal:
In other words, use Legalized Cannibalism in America (book) not Legalized Cannibalism in America.
I move it here for further discussion: I'd rather like to have a "real" example than a fictional example, especially as, for example, Stupid White Men is presently not at Stupid White Men (book):
- could someone name a real example?
- or do we think that Stupid White Men should be moved to Stupid White Men (book) (in which case a WP:RM should better be conducted)?
--Francis Schonken 07:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
- Nothing against Stupid White Men (book), but given the logistical issues, it may be easier to point to something that already exists. I recently made this move for exactly this reason. BYT 13:41, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
- The edit history of The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism [1] shows some move warring on this book article, your last move yesterday was only the fifth of such revert moves. Maybe better put it to the test, by WP:RM, proper procedure, if we want to consider this as an example for this guideline? --Francis Schonken 14:12, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
- Fine -- could you introduce it, as I'm an interested party? BYT 14:15, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
- From what I've understood from helping out at WP:RM, "(anything)" at the end of a title is required when there is need to distinguish between it and another article of the same name.
- In the case of Stupid White Men, there are no other articles titled "Stupid White Men", so there is no need to add "(book)" to the article title.
- However, in cases where the book title happens to also be something else, e.g. Leviathan (book), the "(book)" addition is used, to distinguish it from Leviathan and the other articles titled Leviathan, listed at Leviathan (disambiguation).
- Of course, if the book is considered to be famous enough to be the main article, the addition of "(book)" is not required, e.g. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and it is the film that requires the addition of "(film)", thus: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film)
- Well, that's what I understand of it anyway! --Lox (t,c) 18:29, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
See:
--Francis Schonken 14:39, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
- Issue here is not whether the article will be mistaken for another article, but rather whether the book title describes a phenomenon that may be mistaken for the subject of an encyclopedia article, when in fact no one is writing an article on that topic.
- Say someone wrote and published a fictional saga entitled Increased Longevity among Wikipedians -- we need a policy that instructs people to add "book" or "novel" to that article title, lest people believe that there is a demonstrated causal effect between long life and contributions to WP. BYT 19:41, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
- I absolutely agree with BYT's views above on this, When the title of a work sounds like the the subject of an article, particuarly when the title is not well known (I don't suppose many paeople will confude A Midsummer Night's Dream with an article about sleep studies), then the qualifier should be added, even (perhaps especially) if there is no other articel at a simialr title from which the artilce about the book needs to be disabiguated. Indedd I would favor a move from Stupid White Men to Stupid White Men (book). DES (talk) 19:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- I cannot see how anyone could mistake the article Stupid White Men for anything other than the book Stupid White Men since it firstly follows the Manual of Style for titles (i.e. uses italics) and secondly has the phrase "is a book by Michael Moore" in the first line! I cannot see anyone mistaking said article for one that considers caucasians with below average intelligence! --Lox (t,c) 08:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Anyway,
- The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism (book)/The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism not used as example in this guideline (the WP:RM vote ended on a draw)
- The new section about "precision" uses some other examples: if any of these examples changes (by consensus!), the guideline can be adapted accordingly.
--Francis Schonken 08:48, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Title translations
I reworded the "Title translations" section a bit. I tried to keep the original intent of what was there, but just make the writing a bit more clear. --Elonka 02:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
- Possibly you're a native English speaker and I'm not, nonetheless I'm going to revert. Some comments:
- "The following guidelines should be applied:" - rulecruft
- "if there is a commonly-used English version of the title, and" - redundant repeat of "If the book is best known by an English title, use that version of the title" - the "and" also makes the last paragraph of the section less clear: the example (Ensaio sobre a Lucidez) had no "commonly-used English version of the title" from 2004 to 2005 (the two competing versions Lucidity and Essay on Lucidity were used nearly as often): the intent of the guideline is to recommend translation of the title nonetheless, while, on average, someone who understands English, would not necessarily understand Ensaio sobre a Lucidez. Similar for Alles went behalve een vent: there's no "commonly-used English version of the title", so I translated it myself: One gets used to anything, except a guy (in fact: I distilled it from several alternate translations I found on the internet). This is just application of WP:UE.
- --Francis Schonken 10:16, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
- Well, I wasn't trying to change the intent, just the wording. As a native English speaker though, I do think that a couple parts are difficult to follow. What would be the best way to suggest a rewording? --Elonka 18:29, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Article title length
Wikipedia:Naming_conventions (technical restrictions)#Title length is currently the only restriction on article title length, describing an upper limit from the software. I believe it is inadequate, and that we should discourage really long titles for articles. For example:
- Dante And Randal And Jay And Silent Bob And A Bunch Of New Characters And Lando, Take Part In A Whole Bunch Of Movie Parodies Including But Not Exclusive To, The Bad News Bears, The Last Starfighter, Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom, Plus A High Scho
- How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare, robbed a grave, made a new friend who might not have really been there at all, and while he was at it committed a terrible sin which everyone was doing even though he didn't know it
- Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders
- See User:Interiot/Reports/LongTitles, many of which are similar if not as bad.
It's been suggested that these titles need no shortening under Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Subtitles as they do not technically have subtitles. I think the inclusion/exclusion of subtitles based on length considerations actually has a similar spirit, such as the existing recommendation
- History of Western Philosophy (Russell), not A History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day
My main reasons are:
- Shorter titles are easier and more natural to link to.
- Long titles can take up several lines of the page, since they are displayed in such a large font.
- Long titles adversely affect the formatting of categories when they are categorized with short titles. For example, this looks okay in my browsers, but this, this, and this do not.
- On a related note, those categories then place undue weight on the prominent long titles.
- Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) already advises that the full and proper title of an article's subject is not necessarily the best choice.
I don't have a simple solution in mind, but I think this guideline should list length as a consideration for article titles and offer advice on how to shorten titles. (Sorry for writing so much!) Melchoir 23:12, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Other examples where a long non-subtitle is and should be omitted: The Origin of Species, When the Pawn, Robinson Crusoe, An Essay on the Principle of Population, The Tale of Tsar Saltan (Rimsky-Korsakov), Joseph Andrews, Table Alphabeticall... Melchoir 07:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Maybe instead of theorizing, propose some alternatives:
- Dante And Randal And Jay And Silent Bob And A Bunch Of New Characters And Lando, Take Part In A Whole Bunch Of Movie Parodies - still long enough, but I suppose one could say the part that starts with Including but not exclusive... could be seen as the start of the subtitle; this could go to WP:RM as far as I'm concerned. Note however, that this is a video game and not a book (so maybe some other guideline applies).
- How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare - the typoscript of the image of the book's front cover shown in the article makes it perfectly reasonable to say the "subtitle" starts after ... Did a Dare; this could go to WP:RM as far as I'm concerned.
- Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders - ...sorry, still see no viable abbreviation of that title... but please, if you have a reasonable suggestion: propose it, conduct a WP:RM over it, I don't see where your trouble is.
- When building the books NC guideline, I tried to reduce The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism (book) to The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism per WP:RM... unsucessfully (see above). So, in this instance the wikipedia community kept to the longer version of the title for the time being.
- etc...
- Replies to your main reasons:
- Shorter titles are easier and more natural to link to.
- Of course, this is general naming conventions principle. Sometimes a redirect might help for those page names where a viable "short" alternative has not yet been found, then use the redirect for linking. For instance, I always link William the Conqueror, without pipes, although the article name for that person is somewhat longer.
- Long titles can take up several lines of the page, since they are displayed in such a large font.
- Yeah, and? Was this an innuendo or is there a point somewhere?
- Long titles adversely affect the formatting of categories when they are categorized with short titles. For example, this looks okay in my browsers, but this, this, and this do not.
- On a related note, those categories then place undue weight on the prominent long titles.
- Long titles adversely affect the formatting of categories when they are categorized with short titles. For example, this looks okay in my browsers, but this, this, and this do not.
- The "undue weight" is quite nonsensical. soon we'll be accusing "short and powerful" titles to give undue weight, while as everyone knows (or should know...) in web usability research it has been shown legion times that the short stuff gets read, while the long stuff doesn't.
- Agree that the long titles can be somewhat layout-disturbing in the Category pages. But can't see a *reason* there, other than: avoid subtitles wherever possible.
- Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) already advises that the full and proper title of an article's subject is not necessarily the best choice.
- I wrote about half of the present content of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), including Some [...] guidelines [...] might lead to article names that are rather "the most obvious" than strictly spoken "the most used", however I never read nor wrote what you allegedly cite...
- Re. your newly added list of examples... I don't know what you're driving at... The Origin of Species is at The Origin of Species, it follows the books NC, etc... what is your problem? --Francis Schonken 08:19, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Sorry, I should have explained the history here. See Talk:How Hedley Hopkins........ I thought the move on that one would be uncontroversial, but I was wrong, and I wound up in an argument over what is and isn't a subtitle, and a major theme was but that's the title, isn't it? I think the examples I've given show that common practice is already to abbreviate long titles, even when it's unclear if the dropped part is a subtitle. In order to inform future discussions, I think it would be helpful for this guideline to reflect and encourage the practice. Of course, I'm willing to try RM, but I don't want any article to be discussed in a vacuum.
- As for your concerns:
- Innuendo: perhaps I should have spelled out that multi-line titles are ugly.
- Undue weight: I know it sounds nonsensical, but I'm serious. In Category:Documents of the Catholic Church, for example, we might as well have a flashing marquee around the problem title. I never would have even noticed Hedley Hopkins (and I wouldn't be on this talk page now) if it hadn't displayed itself so prominently. The short stuff may get read, but the in-your-face stuff gets clicked on.
- WP:NC(CN): The "Examples" section in particular contrasts "common names" with "a more elaborate, more formal or more scientifically precise version". My point is that the "but it's the correct title" counter-argument conflicts with the spirit of that guideline.
- My list of examples: The Origin of Species's full title is "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life", and the others are similar. The point is that we already often drop parts of titles other than the subtitle. I am not proposing a change from that practice; I would like to get it on the record.
- As for what my problem is: believe it or not, I am here to build a consensus in an area where I think people will agree with me. I am not as experienced as yourself in the policy sphere; your tone could be a little more encouraging. Melchoir 09:13, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- As for your concerns: