Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions

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Contents 1 Proposal to reduce naming conflicts - avoid preemptive disambiguation 2 Renaming of this article North Sea Geological History 3 "Rock 'n' Roll Train" or "Rock N Roll Train" 4 Erosion of naming conventions/guidelines 5 Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora) 5.1 Joshua Tree update 6 Album vs. title track 7 WP:Update 8 Common subset names 9 Use of racial or ethnic prefix to nationality of subject biography: African-American, etc. vs American 10 Unnecessary precision: Bounty 11 Proposal to common names statement 12 Question about applicability 13 Units of measure 13.1 List of ambiguous unit names 14 Inconsistency in titles such as kilometre, milliampere, etc. 15 RfC on voting as a component of consensus

[edit] Proposal to reduce naming conflicts - avoid preemptive disambiguation

The current wording in the section on common names, Use common names of persons and things, is at the root of much conflict over article names. It currently states:

Convention: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things; use the naming conflict guideline when there is a conflict. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded and must not carry POV implications.

Rationale and specifics: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)

The first clause, "Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication", is at the root of most naming conflicts and arguments. For a category of names in which "the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things" is generally difficult if not impossible to determine (names of royalty is a good example), other conventions are useful in providing naming guidance. But those cases are not exceptions to the common name convention, since "the most common name of a person or thing" is not determined and so cannot be used. Those are cases where the use-the-common-name guideline is insufficient, and more guidance is required.

But in those cases where the most common name is blatantly obvious, it should be used as the title of the article, period. That would eliminate all the back and forth arguing between those in favor of using the more common name and those in favor of using the more precise title per some predisambiguating format/convention.

Also, conventions that call for naming articles according to a particular preemptive disambiguation format instead of the most common name create situations where editors of articles with another use of that name are tempted to improperly claim primary usage for their article since the other article is at some other predisambiguated title. This problem surfaces time and time again, and would be eliminated if editors would look to the most common name for all articles as their default, and only resorted to the more detailed conventions and guidelines when disambiguation was required per the "when necessary" clause of WP:PRECISION: "Be precise when necessary".

As such, I propose changing the current wording with regard to common names to the following:

Convention: Whenever the most common name of an article topic is known, and it does not conflict with the names of other article topics, use it as the name of the article. When the most common name cannot be determined, or it conflicts with other notable uses of that name, other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions should provide appropriate guidance; use the naming conflict guideline when there is a conflict. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded and must not carry POV implications.

Rationale and specifics: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)

Note that I am also proposing we replace the "person or thing" wording with the more general "article topic" term.

There is always resistance to change, but it is worth it when it reduces work and conflict in the long run. This approach has been proven to reduce conflict on a smaller scale (such as for TV episode article names which explicitly states that editors "should avoid preemptive disambiguation"). With that proven success, what I'm proposing here is essentially uniformly applying that simple rule, "avoid preemptive disambiguation", for all articles in Wikipedia.

Of course, corresponding changes to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) and other affected convention pages to be in compliance with this policy change are implied.

Comments? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:21, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes. It's a bad idea, Serge, even if "person or thing" is replaced by "article topic".

It has not significantly reduced edit wars on TV episodes, as the major wars on those are not the name, but whether an episode article should be summarily merged into the article on the season (US)/series (UK) or series (US)/programme (UK). That war has resumed, in spite of 3 RfAr's. (The question of whether EpName may better refer to EpName (Show1) than EpName (Show 2) even if EpName (Show1) redirects to Show1 (season 2) also would be a cause of edit wars....)

I don't have a specific proposal at the moment, but I suggest that it be made clear that project-specific protocols be specifically allowed to override the anti-disambiguation clause of WP:NC(CN). As an extreme case, we used to have articles for "Highway 23 (King's highway, Ontario)", or something like that. It's now "Highway 23 (Ontario)", but it could just as easily be "Highway 23 (King's highway)" under your guideline, as there might be no other Wikipedia article on a "King's Highway" which is route 23.

I suggest, at a minimum, that the convention be changed to:

Convention: Whenever

1. the most common name of an article topic is known,
2. the article topic is the most common use of that name,
3. and the name does not conflict with the names of other article topics,

use it as the name of the article, unless a specific protocol specifies otherwise. When conditions 1, 2, and 3 are not all met, other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions should provide appropriate guidance; use the naming conflict guideline when there is a conflict. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded and must not carry POV implications.

Commentary on this proposal: It explicitly allows other guidelines to override WP:CN(NC). Clause 2 specifies not only is the topic known by the name, but someone seeing the name would expect to see the topic. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:16, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Preemptive disambiguation is not the cause of this problem. In fact if preemptive disambiguation was the rule there would be almost no problems. Disambiguation does place articles that were not disambiguated in a position of power and gives them the ability to resist moving to a disambiguated name even when other guidelines call for this to happen. If we are going to change any wording, that change needs to make clear that disambiguated pages must be considered as rightful candidate for the main name space. The article at the main name space does not enjoy any special privilege by currently being at the main name space. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:27, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have requested a clarification of the current guidelines to add clause 2. Vegaswikian has a proposal for a completely different part of WP:NC, which I also agree with. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:46, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Arthur, of course my proposed change is not a panacea that would eliminate all edit wars. It wouldn't even eliminate all debate over naming (the issue of whether a given usage is primary, for example, would still have to be resolved the same regardless of whether we go ahead with this change or leave it the way it is, or go with your suggestion). But, in cases where there are no conflicts with the most common name of a given topic, it should eliminate debate over whether the article's title should be it's common name or follow some predisambiguated format. Again, I point to the TV episodes for where exactly that has occurred. Since your proposal includes the clause, "unless a specific protocol specifies otherwise", it perpetuates all problems caused by predisambiguation.

Vegaswikian, you say predisambiguation is not the cause of "the problem". What do you mean by "the problem"? The problem of debates over whether an article's title should be it's common name or follow some predisambiguated format is certainly caused by the practice of predisambiguation. You recognize the problem of predisambiguated articles being at a "power" (your word) disadvantage compared to topics with the same name that are not predisambiguated, which is why you contend that if predisambiguation would be the rule then there would be almost no problems. How so? Say one use of A is predisambiguated to A (B) and so is at a disadvantage to any other use of A which is not predisambiguated. The other uses of A, even if the A at A, B is more common or even the primary usage, will try to be at A. You contend that if the other uses were predisambiguated too, say at A, C and A, D, then there would be no problem. Again, I ask, how so? The issue of which one, if any, is primary use still has to be dealt with. Should A be a dab page, or redirect to one of the disambiguated As? All predisambiguation does is obscure these issues and make them much less likely to be noticed and managed correctly. What only disambiguate when necessary accomplishes is that it forces editors to deal with, and resolve, these issues, one way or another. Partial predisambiguation creates the obscuring problem, and universal predisambiguation (assuming it were even practically possible, which it is not) would only make it worse.

You suggest that the wording state clearly "that disambiguated pages must be considered as rightful candidate for the main name space", which would be useful and helpful assuming the problem is noticed. But only if the rule is only disambiguate when necessary will many of these cases even be noticed. Look at how many years went by before anyone noticed the conflict with the city in England being at Plymouth. Sure, once it was noticed maybe the wording you suggest would have helped our position, but if the U.S. cities were not automatically predisambiguated this problem (and a myriad of others) could and would have been nipped in the bud. That's one of the problem with predisambiguation. It obscures naming conflicts. The other problem is it creates unnecessary debate. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:33, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll add that in addition to obscuring naming conflicts and creating unnecessary debate, a third problem created by predisambiguation is that the practice makes Wikipedia titles much less reliable for readers to determine the most common names of topics. If only disambiguate when necessary was the rule, then Wikipedia article titles could be relied on to convey the most common name of the given topic to the reader. Not only that, but all titles would instantly convey whether the given topic is the primary use of that name or not (if it's not disambiguated then it is the primary use, if it's disambiguated then there is at least one other usage significant enough to make this one not primary). That is currently the case with TV episode names. For example, simply because the House episode 97 Seconds is not disambiguated, we know that not only is 97 Seconds its most common name (if not its only name), but that this topic is the primary use of that name. There is no notable restaurant, bar or hotel named 97 Seconds, no film, book, play or computer game, with that name, nothing else. We know all that simply because TV episode names follow the disambiguate only when necessary rule. If House episodes were predisambiguated, so that this article was at 97 Seconds (House), we could not tell from the title alone anything about any other potential uses of 97 Seconds. For a name within a category that predisambiguates, like royalty names, we just don't know. To use Philip's example from above, the article title William I of England tells us nothing about the most common name for that ruler (which happens to be William the Conqueror, much less whether this article has primary use of that name. All that information about common names and primary use that is easily and implicitly automatically conveyed in articles titles when we have only disambiguate when necessary, is lost because of the practice of predisambiguation. And this is not only potentially valuable information to the reader, but any editor creating an article whose common name may already be used benefits from clarity in naming in this area.

And a fourth problem with predisambiguation is that the practice creates orphans - disambiguated articles without proper links from the common name. For example, if House articles were predisambiguated, 97 Seconds (House) might easily exist without even a redirect or dab link from 97 Seconds, which is the case for countless articles that belong to classes of names that are predisambiguated.

And a fifth problem is the one pointed out by Vegaswikian - predisambiguation of one class of articles gives undue priority to alternate uses of that name for an article that does not predisambiguate.

So there you have the five problems of predisambiguation, all explained in detail above:

1. creating countless unnecessary debates over whether the most common name should be used for a given article, or the predisambiguated name according to some convention for a class of articles to which that article belongs.
2. obscuring naming conflicts
3. makes Wikipedia titles much less reliable for readers and editors to determine the most common names of topics
4. creates "orphans" - articles at predisambiguated titles without appropriate links/references from the undisambiguated name.
5. gives undue priority for claiming primary usage for names by topics that don't belong to a class that is predisambiguated.

All these problems can be easily resolved by universally adopting the simple rule of disambiguate only when necessary (and wouldn't exist if that rule would have been adopted universally in Wikipedia from the beginning). To resolve all these problems, I urge everyone to give serious thought to adopting the policy change I'm proposing at the top of this section. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:26, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, your attempt to implement this in WP:PLACES is exactly what is causing the edit wars. If you hadn't started it, then US cities would be located at City, State and there wouldn't have been a problem. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:45, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, please. As if I'm the only one proposing and supporting the movement of U.S. cities which have primary usage for their names to [[Cityname]]. I was mostly dormant on that issue for over a year during which time there were quite a number of attempts to have various cities moved, some of which recently succeeded, until finally someone proposed moving the entire so-called AP list. That would have all happened without me (it did happen without me); you can't seriously believe one Wikipedian could have so much influence, that without my efforts over there there wouldn't have been an issue. That's ridiculous. Yes, I defend my positions with consensus-supported assumptions, logic and reason (because that's how I form my opinions, including the one behind this proposal), but, if anything, my overbearing style probably backfires with respect to persuading others. But the fact that all those moves were proposed -- how many times did people propose moving just Los Angeles, California to Los Angeles? Four? Five? -- and debated, is evidence that supports point #1 in the list of problems created by predisambiguation I listed above. And that's evidence from just one subcategory of names. Similar examples can be found in just about any category that predisambiguates, and will continue to be produced (along with causing the other problems in the list above) as long as we continue to have naming conventions that disambiguate preemptively. Note that categories of names that do not predisambiguate do not have these recurring debates. Anyway, this isn't about me. Please stop with the ad hominem attacks and address the proposal and supporting argument I have presented above. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:52, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I would gladly support this proposal if it applied only to parenthetical disambiguation. I would assume when seeing 97 Seconds (House) that there's another 97 Seconds. I can't say I have a real problem with Kennebunkport, Maine and Gustav V of Sweden though. -- Jao (talk) 12:42, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Why the distinction with parenthetical disambiguation? If a given topic has a clear and obvious most common name, then either its article title is that, or it is disambiguated. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:13, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose - Also, as someone wise once noted: redirects are cheap. So (to use an example above) place the article at Los Angeles, California (as is the - wait for it - common convention for cities in the U.S.), and have any number of redirects, as appropriate. - jc37 12:53, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
  • It is true that redirects are cheap and they solve search problems - when and if editors remember and bother to create the appropriate redirects (and/or dab page references). Problem #2 in the list is that preemptive disambiguation obscures naming conflicts. In fact, one of the appeals of preemptive disambiguation is the misconception that predisambiguation allows the new article creator to avoid the hassles of dealing with naming conflicts because he can use a predetermined/reserved/unique name that almost certainly has no conflicts. This is a fallacy that the wise editors of TV episodes recognized. Predabbing saves you nothing. You still have to check and see if the most common name for the topic is available, and, if it is, create a redirect there. If it's already being used, then you still have to deal with the conflicts, starting with determining which use, if any, is primary, and create all the appropriate dabs/references to the relevant pages. That predisambiguation saves the creator from any of this work is not only a myth, but the notion is detrimental to Wikipedia since it inhibits editors from doing this necessary work by allowing them to easily create articles without doing it. Dealing with the conflicts becomes drudgery and a low priority. In contrast, the practice of disambiguate only when necessary forces the article creator to deal with the potential naming conflict issues before creating the article - it makes it a priority. That's what I mean by preemptive disambiguation obscuring naming conflicts, and one of the reasons why editors of TV episodes dispensed with the practice. --Born2cycle (talk) 15:12, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

comment on All predisambiguation does is obscure these issues and make them much less likely to be noticed and managed correctly. The only place were I know we defininately predisambiguate as a rule is numerical divisions and royal names. The reason for this is that if I put in the 240th Division and it is a red link, then when someone gets around to writing the article the link may or may not point to the correct article. Having a determined disambiguation format (see for example 10th Division) helps the editor, who knows the rule from Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide#Naming conventions to link to the correct article, if the article exists or if it is created in the future. Similar considerations are true for the naming of kings and queens, the rules help people to navigate more quickly once they know the rule and redirects take care of the rest. An exception is made for "If a monarch or prince is overwhelmingly known, in English, by a cognomen, it may be used, and there is then no need to disambiguate by adding Country." (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles)). User:Born2cycle you, have highlighted some of the general problems of predisambiguation, and perhaps we need a sentence about it in the section "Be precise when necessary" or in one of the guidelines linked to that section. --PBS (talk) 15:16, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Philip, with my proposed change the first clause would be, Whenever the most common name of an article topic is known, .... With numbered divisions and almost all royalty names the most common name of the topic is not known, certainly not widely known, and so other guidance would be sought. Same with highways and any other class of names for which the most common name is not clear and obvious. But topics that have actual well known primary distinctive names, like famous people, books, films, most places, etc., they would go by their most common name, unless there was a conflict with other uses of that name to work out. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:13, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, royalty, some place names (most of the US, almost all of Canada and Australia), and highways are predisambiguated, that I know of. (In regard highways, if we, at the moment, only have one route 7105, doesn't mean that another one won't appear.) It's not done using our usual Wikipedia disambiguation conventions, but using WikiProject Highways conventions, but it's still preemtive disambiguation. Perhaps disambiguate when likely to become ambiguous in a predictable manner would be a better general guideline than disambiguate only when necessary. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:09, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

So if there was only one route 7105, you'd insist that the title be route 7105 rather than Texas state route 7105? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:40, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

If there was consensus that the most common name used to refer to the highway was Route 7105 then I would argue that the article about it should be at Route 7105, unless there was a conflict over that name with other uses and there was consensus that this highway 7105 was not the primary use. If the most common name was Route 7105 but it was at Texas state route 7105 with a redirect from Route 7105, then if some other article whose topic name is Route 7105 is created, it would be tempting for the editors of that article to note that Route 7105 is merely a redirect to Texas state route 7105 (thus implying that Route 7105 is a considered to be a name of secondary priority to the Texas highway), and to replace it with an article about the new South African highway. That's the problem with predisambiguation; this kind of thing happens time and time again because of it. If you don't see this pattern at WP:RM, you're just not paying attention.

What would be much better is if initially the article was at Route 7105 with a redirect from Texas state route 7105. Then, if and only if another topic whose name is Route 7105 (could be a movie, book, or whatever, as well as another highway) becomes sufficiently notable to warrant a Wikipedia article, the editors seeking to create that article will naturally look at Route 7105 and initiate a discussion about whether the existing article should be moved to Texas state route 7105, or whether the Texas highway has primary use and so the new usage should be referenced via a hat note at Route 7105. That's a necessary discussion and it's good if the naming conventions force necessary discussions to occur (which is exactly what disambiguate only when necessary accomplishes). What we want to avoid is naming conventions that obscure conflicts and create inconsistent/unresolved situations, which is what the practice of disambiguate when merely likely to become ambiguous causes). --Born2cycle (talk) 06:50, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

To completely answer your question, Arthur, if consensus was that Route 7105 was not the most common name used to refer to the one and only topic ever referred to as Route 7105 (and I agreed with that consensus), then I would not argue that Route 7105 should be the title. If no distinctive common name could be agreed upon, that would be a case where "other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions should provide appropriate guidance" (wording from my proposed change to this common name policy), and I would favor Texas state route 7105 or whatever title the appropriate convention indicated. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:02, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguate when likely to become ambiguous is pre-emptive (i.e., unnecessary) disambiguation and creates the very list of five problems I'm trying to address/resolve with this proposal. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:13, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense. I ask other editors to see whether the hypothetical route 7105 discussion above shows that Serge's (umm, Born2cycle's) proposal supports edit wars, and, perhaps more importantly, incorrect links. If Utah state route 7105 were to exist but not be considered notable, and an article on Utah referred to route 7105, it would be better for all if it (the article route 7105) were a red link or a 1-item disambiguation page, rather than a redirect. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:03, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Arthur, I did not understand you were suggesting in your hypothetical that route 7105 remain a red link or become a 1-item dab page. So, how would you keep editors from "fixing" the red link by creating the "missing" redirect, or from "improving" the 1-item dab page into a redirect? Relying on red links to remain red, and for 1-item dab pages to not be converted to redirects, seem like unnatural and unenforceable practices, even if some others agreed that they had merits. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:21, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

It's a problem; the redirect should be deleted and possibly salted as being intrinsicly misleading except as a dab page, and 1-item dab pages should be explictly allowed. But that's a proposal for modifying other guidelines, and not really appropriate for discussion here. The bot-assisted disambiguation-link-removal process would gradually fix the links to [[route 7105]] to [[Texas state route 7105|route 7105]] or redlinks as appropriate, if it remained a 1-item dab. Your proposal wouldn't help. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:24, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

My proposal wouldn't help what? With the red link and 1-item dab page problems created by your proposal? You're right, but with my proposal they would not exist. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:33, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Examples of rare non-disambiguations are Route 66 (which is a separate disambiguation from list of highways numbered 66) and Highway 401. --NE2 13:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

This seems like a proposal for increasing naming conflicts, not for reducing them. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:49, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I've explained in detail why the proposal would decrease naming conflicts. Please explain why you think they would be increased. Remember that putting an article at a predabbed name does not reduce by one iota any conflicts the most common name for that topic has with other topics; if it does anything predabbing only obscures these problems. So you're right, it may seem like this proposal would increase naming conflicts, but that's because the conflicts would no longer be obscured by the predabbing. But it wouldn't actually increase the conflicts. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:33, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

It's a solution in search of a problem. Give me a holler if this ever comes to a vote. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:39, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm willing to accept that you (Serge) believe that your proposal would reduce disputes, but I see no evidence for it, and have seen evidence against in the US settlement area. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:52, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

And I'm willing to accept that you believe that this proposal would not reduce disputes, but I see plenty of evidence for it (and not just in the US settlement area), and am not aware of any evidence against. Hopefully we can at least agree that both of us can't be right about this. For the US settlement area, look no further than archives of the following discussion pages for plenty of evidence caused by predisambiguation of US cities: Talk:Los Angeles, Talk:Miami, Talk:Chicago, Talk: New Orleans, Talk:Boston, Talk: San Francisco, Talk:Seattle... need I go on? Not quite as obvious, but perhaps even more damaging, is that the preemptive disambiguation of U.S. cities is arguably a significant contributory cause for problems such as that illuminated by the recent naming dispute at Talk:Plymouth, where the naming conflicts with the city in England were obscured and missed for many years due to preemptive disambiguation of all U.S. settlements, including those named Plymouth, and the editors of the city in England have essentially homesteaded Plymouth as a result. Can you cite the evidence that you believe shows that my proposal would not reduce disputes in the long run? (granted they are likely to increase in the short run until the consistency of uses the most common name; don't disambiguate unless necessary is understood and appreciated by a plurality of editors). --Born2cycle (talk) 04:53, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Will, a solution in search of a problem? I've listed, numbered and explained the five problems of disambiguation above that this proposal would solve. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:53, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• Comment User:Born2cycle a point I think we need to consider is cultural (and which is currently reflected in the settlements guideline). The U.S. has a tradition of naming cities by city and state (apart from a few well known ones as highlighted by the current settlements guideline. In Britain and Ireland, this is not the case. Most British people would never write York, Yorkshire, or an Irish person Limerick,Limerick. In a similar way cities such as Hastings, New Zealand are named after the country, (see WP:NC (New Zealand)) but the WP:NC (settlements) explicitly says for the U.S. "United States city's article should never be titled "city, country"" (why not unless it is because Americans think it looks odd?) To insist that Plymouth and Limerick, are moved seems to me to have problems which clash with national varieties of English and I think is reflected in the recent move debate. This is not to say that there is a hard and fast rule over this and common sense has to be applied. For example few if any editors are likely to want to move Boston, Lincolnshire to Boston because an unqualified use of the word Boston anywhere in the English speaking world including England would refer to the US city. Just in passing I hear on US films people referring to "Jersey" when they mean "New Jersey" does anyone ever refer to "York" when they mean New York or is York well enough known to Americans who live in NY to cause confusion? --PBS (talk) 10:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• The cultural differences with respect to disambiguating/qualifying city names are very real and I certainly do not mean to imply there aren't any, or they aren't very important. Of course they are. But these differences should only be relevant when disambiguation/qualification is necessary (per WP:PRECISION). This is why, for example, the city in Ireland is not at Cork, Ireland or Cork, County Cork or Cork, Munster, but at Cork (city). But regardless of the culture the most common name used to refer to any city anywhere is, well, the name of the city. So when disambiguation/qualification/precision is not necessary, and the name of a given city has primary use for that name, then, to be consistent with widespread Wikipedia naming conventions and guidelines, the title of that article should be the name of that city, without qualification. That's just applying the more general rule to city names, the more general rule being: when disambiguation/qualification/precision is not necessary, and the topic of a given article has primary use for the name most commonly used to refer to it, then the title of that article should be that name, without qualification. If, instead, we use preemptive disambiguation that adds precision when not necessary to the most common name not only contrary to the basic notion of this policy, but also in violation of WP:PRECISION, the we foster the creation and perpetuation of the five problems of predisambiguation (see above). --Born2cycle (talk) 17:45, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• It would be more impressive if someone agreed with you in this thread. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:10, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• I agree. But there hasn't been much input given from anyone, except you and a little from Will, both of whom I have a long history of butting heads. It's not clear to me exactly how much Philip agrees or disagrees. Seems like he's still thinking about it. My main goal for now is to get the proposal out there and hopefully get some people thinking about it, especially whenever there is a dispute about any article's name. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:44, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• I'm totally confused by the Plymouth reference. Clearly the Plymouth at the main name is NOT the primary use. So to state that it should not be moved due to cultural differences is rather odd. If there is a problem with the British settlement naming convention it is that it does not adequately deal with cases where disambiguation is needed. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:08, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

• I continue to oppose this; Serge does not see the advantage of predictable names, but he is almost alone in this inability. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:50, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

• I do see the advantages of "predictable names" (predisambiguation), which are mostly for editors when creating links. But I see their disadvantages too, which eliminate and exceed the advantages, by far. See above. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:07, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

• • • Find a second editor to uphold your position, and we can discuss with that person. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:54, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

• You're going to discuss whether I see the advantage of predictable names with someone else? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:38, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
  • No. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:13, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

• Weak support. I generally like the idea and completely understand the reasoning behind the proposal. I also understand the reasoning against this proposal (i.e., for the position that preemptive disambiguation is not harmful). I just want more evidence that the harm of preemptive disambiguation outweighs the advantages. Maybe the pros and cons of both sides should be elaborated. --seav (talk) 08:07, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
  • The harm of pre-emptive disambiguation for kings, or for American municipalities, is quite slight; thpse are the chief cases where we use it. Most of them need to be disambiguated anyway; look at the dab page Springfield or Henry IV to see why; pre-disambiguation does two things: avoid having to move pages when we find that one of them isn't ambiguous after allk, and provide a standard form, so we don't get articles on Springfield, Illinois and Springfield (Illinois). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• Sadly, those are not the chief cases where preemptive dabbing is used. The general guidelines and conventions are being ignored willy nilly more and more. The result is titles riddled with unnecessary precision such as Russian submarine K-239 Carp, which could and should be Carp (submarine) (since its name is Carp and submarine is an informative and sufficient disambiguator). You may also notice that there is not even a hat note to the article about the sub at Carp (an all too typical example of how predabbing editors tend to not even think about their article's most common name, much less making sure it links or redirects to their article). And over at Talk:Harris, it has even been argued - by conflating topic titles with their most common names -- that since all other meanings and uses of Harris have had their titles disambiguated (including all the cities in the U.S. that were predabbed), that they are essentially not to be considered when determining whether the place in Scotland has primary use of the name Harris! This is just the tip of the iceberg of the travesties that the widespread (and getting wider) practice of predabbing has wrought. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:24, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
• Also, avoiding having articles on Springfield (Illinois) and Springfield, Illinois is not an advantage of predabbing over not predabbing, it's an advantage of having a convention for what to do when dabbing is necessary. That is the one and only logically consistent purpose of class-specific naming conventions: to specify how articles in that class should be named if and only if naming according to the broad/general conventions/guidelines leads to a conflict. So, if there is only one San Francisco (or there are conflicts but it is the primary topic for that name), then San Francisco (per WP:UCN and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC), otherwise San Francisco, California (per WP:NC:CITY). Simple. Clean. Unambiguous. All predabbing does is muddy the waters, to a much greater extent than even I realized, and probably still don't realize the full extent of the damage. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:36, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming of this article North Sea Geological History

A conversation has been entered into at Geology North Sea about the naming North Sea Geological History . Should it be renamed Geology of the North Sea? SriMesh | talk 20:55, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Probably. The use of history as a metaphor in covering times before writing is not helpful. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:40, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Rock 'n' Roll Train" or "Rock N Roll Train"

AC/DC's new single "Rock 'n' Roll Train" (short discussion at talk page), should it be titled as the CD cover says ("Rock N Roll Train"), the vinyl cover says ("Rock N' Roll Train") or how i would write it with the apostrphes representing the two missing letters, this is what seems most correct to me. I suppose this issue is also connected to Rock 'n' Roll and Guns N' Roses, i am beginning to assume the title should be written as trademarked, because changing where the apostrophes are is changing the trademark? So, i am not sure, please review the issue, thanks! k-i-a-c (hitmeup - the past) 10:44, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking the article's title should reflect how it is shown on album credits (for example Hot N Cold - no apostrophes), although on the song's Talk Page I added links to images of the vinyl album and CD cover scans - one has an apostrophe and no space (Rock N'Roll) and the other has none (Rock N Roll). - eo (talk) 12:31, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay since this place has been absolutely no help, where should i go to get a reply? k-i-a-c (hitmeup - the past) 08:22, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. Anyway, my opinion: It's not the job of Wikipedia to interpret song titles in any way, but to documentate them. --80.130.136.81 (talk) 17:38, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Erosion of naming conventions/guidelines

Is anyone else noticing the erosion of the efficacy of the primary naming conventions and guidelines such as WP:NC, WP:COMMONNAME, WP:PRECISION, WP:D and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC? Here are just a few examples, just the tip of the iceberg:

• No one but me is supporting my proposal to move the predabbed Los Angeles County, California to Los Angeles County at Talk:Los_Angeles_County,_California#Requested_move to be consistent with the above guidelines. The reasons the predab-loving opposers cite has nothing to do with following the above guidelines, or any guidelines for that matter, and amount to nothing more than personal preference.
• The criteria cited in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is being largely ignored in the decision about whether to move Heavy metal music to Heavy metal at Talk:Heavy_metal_music#Requested_move (an example of where I support a move to be consistent with the guidelines but contrary to my personal preferences).
• At Talk:Harris#Requested_move, titles are being conflated with names, and the conflicting uses of the Harris name are not being considered in determining whether the place in Scotland is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC because the titles of the articles about those other meanings have been disambiguated.
• At Talk:Harrisburg the relative primacy of the capital of PA to all other uses is being ignored by the proposer.
• At Talk:Russian submarine K-141 Kursk the point of their titles being riddled with unnecessary precision (contrary to WP:PRECISION) is gaining no ground, nor is the point that per the above guidelines Russian submarine K-141 Kursk should and could be at Kursk (submarine) (and Russian submarine K-239 Carp at Carp (submarine), etc.)
• Few seem to recognize much less care that the guideline-ignoring practice of predabbing leads to myriads of examples of articles created at their predabbed names, without any consideration given to the most common name of the article topic, much less to make sure that it links or redirects to the article (e.g., there is no link to the submarine article at Carp (disambiguation)).

The efficacy of the Wikipedia naming guidelines and conventions are slowly eroding, like the life of a lobster placed in a pot of cold water on a stove... Are you going to do anything about it before it's too late? Or is it already too late? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:22, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree, and I boldly updated WP:PRECISION to make the point about avoiding overprecision in titles; comments/improvements welcome. Let me know if I can help with this issue in any way, and if I see moves that need to be reversed I will do so. UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:05, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I has raised the issue of primary topic being ignored on several occasions. It seems that I am one of a few editors who seems concerned. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:17, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but you don't seem to be much of a defender of the primary topic guideline when the topic in question is a U.S. city. When U.S. cities are automatically predabbed at [[Cityname, Statename]], a practice I believe you continue to support, they lose consideration in determinations about whether some other use of the same name is the primary topic for that name. That's one of the reasons it's difficult to argue that there is no primary use for Harris at Talk:Harris (e.g., PMAnderson has argued that "nothing else is normally called plain Harris", despite all the U.S. cities named Harris), and is probably why Plymouth remains the city in England, and is not a dab page. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:22, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, the US settlement naming conventions makes sense for many reasons and simply doesn't create problems. In addition one could argue that they in fact do represent common usage as well as well as primary usage. While I consider these conventions as a style sheet and not pre disambiguation, you don't. I should also note that when using the AP guidelines for some cities was added, this had an interesting effect in that it should have also been applied to all of the other cities in that they should be used with the state. So to answer your question, yes, I will bend to a specific naming convention that makes sense. These are not like radio stations where you could have QQQQ, QQQQ (AM), QQQQ-FM or QQQQ (FM) depending on other factors or calling the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine which is the oldest tree on earth and a name that everyone know it as by the relatively unknown Pinus longaeva. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:07, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

What you and I consider does not matter nearly as much as what the guidelines say. In this case, WP:NCDAB says:

With place-names, if the disambiguating term is a higher-level administrative division, it is often separated using a comma instead of parentheses, as in Windsor, Berkshire. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements).

So, per the disambiguation guideline page, it is disambiguation to add a disambiguating term that is a higher-level administrative division (like a state), by definition. Also by definition, if you add a disambiguating term in the title to the name of a topic, when the topic of the article is the primary topic for that name undabbed, and so disambiguation is not necessary, it is predisambiguation. As to the problems this causes, I gave you two recent examples above, and these are just the tip of the iceberg. Also, even if predabbing of U.S. cities caused only a few problems directly, predisambiguation in any one area serves to legitimize the practice in other areas too, which serves to accelerate the erosion of the efficacy of the general naming guidelines throughout Wikipedia, including spreading the notion that, essentially, specialized guidelines can do whatever they want, including contradict the general guidelines, such as WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (look no further than the comment from Wwoods below for an example of how prevalent this belief has become). I can imagine no stronger statement in support of the need to respect and be consistent with the general guidelines, than to put all articles about U.S. cities that are the primary topic of their names at [[Cityname]]. Only then it could be argued that special naming guidelines must complement, not contradict, the general naming guidelines, for which the U.S. city specialized naming convention is the flagship example. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:08, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Specialized guidelines necessarily take precedence over general guidelines. —WWoods (talk) 08:14, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

The is also a problem that needs to be considered. Take heavy metal as an example. It depends on ones cultural outlook. For those interested popular music it is obvious. But for those who are not it is not as clear cut as that. The section Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Be precise when necessary covers this --PBS (talk) 10:42, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's the crux of it. Do specialized guidelines take precedence over general guidelines, or do they "pick up the slack", so to speak. What I mean by the latter is that specialized guidelines provide additional guidance when the general guidelines are insufficient. With the latter approach, specialized guidelines complement rather than contradict the general guidelines. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:14, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora)

Not sure if this is directly related to the examples given above, but why does Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora) appear to get a blanket exemption from using common names? Recently many articles have been moved from the common name to the scientific name. Just a few examples: Joshua tree to Yucca brevifolia; White oak to Quercus alba; Bur oak to Quercus macrocarpa. It is understandable that the scientific name might be preferred in cases where there is no single well-known common name or where the common name is ambiguous. But it just seems wrong to systematically prefer the scientific name, even in cases where there is a well-established, unambiguous common name. older ≠ wiser 19:16, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Check out Poison oak for an example of that. WP:UCN is completely ignored. Another fairly recent example of WP:UCN being ignored is the failed move proposal of Public house → Pub at Talk:Public house. Turns out that "pub" is an abbreviation of "public house", and that's good material for the article, but clearly the most common term is "pub" (and Pub redirects to Public house), and so, per WP:UCN, that should be the title. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:43, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with older≠wiser, and suggested on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (flora) to that the two first paragraphs from Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(astronomical_objects)#General_guidelines or something similar should be included in the flora guideline, but some of the editors are resisting a {{disputedtag}} on the guideline, "your presonal objection is not worthy of a dispute tag being added to a policy page that was adopted by the community, and which clearly has strong support.", while we talk about changes to the page (let alone any other changes to the page). I would appreciate it if some others would explain the the guideline must be in compliance with the Naming Convention policy, or else it leads to needless disharmony over article naming. --PBS (talk) 20:06, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

This issue should be raised at the Village pump/policy. I started a discussion over there, at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora). UnitedStatesian (talk) 20:53, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Joshua Tree update

The proposal to move the article at Yucca brevifolia back to Joshua Tree was rejected due to supposed lack of consensus, despite voting to be 2:1 in favor of the restoration, and the fact that it was moved unilaterally from Joshua Tree without any discussion much less establishment of consensus only last month.

This is another victim of the belief that specific conventions should trump general guidelines (rather than specific conventions should complement, and not contradict, general guidelines). --Born2cycle (talk) 18:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

No it isn't. Hesperian 03:02, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Album vs. title track

If an album and its title track both have articles, I usually don't add a qualifer to the album, and add "(song)" to the name of the song's article (e.g. Brand New Girlfriend and Brand New Girlfriend (song)). Is this the standard pattern for cases like this? Is there any standard for cases like this? Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 20:01, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The standard is the same as for all WP articles: If the name has a primary topic, then the article about that topic should be at the name alone, and the other should be at that name disambiguated. If there is no primary topic then a dab page should be at the name alone. However, when there are only two topics, then it's reasonable to pick the "more important" (even if it does not meet primary topic criteria) for the name alone, and link to the other through a hat note. So then, how do you decide which is "more important"? Arguably, the song usually comes into existence first, and the album is simply named after one of the songs on the album. Further, isn't it true that the song is usually better known than the album? So I think I would lean in favor of putting the song at the name alone, and dabbing the article tile about the album (Name (album)). But there are always exceptions, where maybe the album becomes much better known than the song that is its namesake. The album may be sufficiently notable to be on Wikipedia, but not the song, for example. In short, I don't think there is a convention, and I don't think there should be one. Most things should be considered on a case by case basis, and I think your question falls into that category. In each case the editor should do the work of figuring out which, in that case, should be at name alone, and which should be dabbed. Don't avoid that necessary and useful work by seeking a mindless convention. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:34, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP:Update

If someone can fix the broken link to the list of conjunctions, then I won't have to report a broken link in the monthly WP:Update. This was kind of complicated; there was an older list of conjunctions that got deleted, then the link got redirected somehow to FANBOYS, then that link was changed on Nov 7 ... still, I'd prefer not to have to report on broken links in a content policy, it doesn't look right. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 16:27, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Common subset names

I'm having repeated battles over some articles where the common use of a term is a subset of the general meaning. The argument I make (always successfully so far) is that the wikipedia is a general work, and therefore needs to cover all examples of a term, not just the most common usage.

For example:

• internal combustion engine

normally taken to mean 'piston engine' but also covers Wankel engine

the general definition includes gas turbines, jet engines, ramjets and rockets

we ended up using the general definition

• jet engine

normally taken to mean turbojet or turbofan

general definition includes anything emitting a jet to move, ramjet jet boat rocket engine

we ended up using the general definition

• steam engine

normally taken to mean a piston engine powered by steam

but lots of steam ships and power generation uses steam powered gas turbines

we ended up using the general definition

Current discussion:

• glider

normally taken to mean sailplane

general definition includes anything gliding, but a glider is normally something intended to glide including the Space Shuttle

discussion is ongoing...

I personally think in situations like this we have little choice but to use the general definition; and I loathe having to battle it out each time, I get personally attacked and it causes all manner of ill-will all round.

Is it agreed that it is desirable to preferentially use the general definition wherever at all reasonable? If so I'll add it as policy. Can anyone think of a clear counter-example?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 18:59, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree the general definition should be used when possible. As another example, consider Hollywood (which is currently unfortunately a redirect to the unnecessarily precise Hollywood, Los Angeles, California; see Talk:Hollywood, Los Angeles, California for a discussion about fixing this) in which the district of L.A. as well as its closely related use as metonym is covered. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:28, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't consider that it would apply in situations where they're not a strict subset/superset; I think in the example you give Hollywood the place and Hollywood the industry aren't subsets, one's geographical and the other is business related. I would probably lean to Hollywood being the studio system on popularity grounds though.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 23:32, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

How would you propose we should modify WP:NAME#Use the most easily recognized name? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 19:30, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I think we should simply clarify that the bit that says "with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity" means that where a general sense is reasonably well known that it should be used in preference to any subset/restricted sense, even if that restricted sense may be somewhat more common, otherwise we'd just be encouraging ambiguity.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 02:34, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

In the case of glider for example, if you ask almost anyone whether a paper aeroplane is a glider, they will say yes, but it is a glider in the general sense, not the restricted sense of sailplane, so the generality rule would make glider be the general concept rather than sailplane concept.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 02:36, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

It wouldn't apply if it was truly an obscure usage though.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 02:36, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Use of racial or ethnic prefix to nationality of subject biography: African-American, etc. vs American

The use of race and ethnicity prefix descriptors seems arbitrary. If the intent is to give nationality, then racial or ethnic prefix is inappropriate. For example, below is an extract from 1940, Births:

snip: October 23 - Pelé, Brazilian footballer
October 25 - Bobby Knight, American basketball coach
October 27 - John Gotti, American gangster (d. 2002)
November 1 - Ramesh Chandra Lahoti, Chief Justice of India
November 12 - Glenn Stetson, Canadian singer ("The Diamonds")
November 15 - Sam Waterston, American actor (Law and Order)
November 15 - Roberto Cavalli, Italian designer
November 17 - Luke Kelly, Irish ballad singer (The Dubliners)
November 21 - Richard Marcinko, U.S. Navy SEAL team member and author
November 25 - Joe Gibbs, American football coach
November 27 - Bruce Lee, Chinese-American martial artist and actor (The Green Hornet) (d. 1973)
November 29 - Chuck Mangione, famous American flugelhorn player
December 1 - Richard Pryor, African-American actor and comedian (d. 2005)
end snip:

Pele not listed as African-Brazilian
Knight not listed as White-American
Gotti not listed as Italian-American
Stetson not listed as Scottish-Canadian or Ulster-Scottish-Canadian

On the other hand:
Lee listed as Chinese-American (he was born in the San Francisco.)
Mangione listed as "famous" as opposed to the many obscure American flugelhorn players catalogued in Wikipedia?
Pryor listed as African-American.

Is there any policy that can explain the various distinctions? I suggest all non-nationality qualifiers be saved for the subjects biography page.

Ebesch1 (talk) 03:55, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Another aspect of this is categorization. WP:CATEGORY says that we should only use categories to reflect what is in the text. So if a subject is not identified in the text as an "African American", then we should not categorize him or her that way. So, if not in the lead then where? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:44, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unnecessary precision: Bounty

There is a proposal getting a lot of support to move Bounty (ship) to a name with considerably more (unnecessary) precision here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bounty_(ship)#Requested_move

--Born2cycle (talk) 19:18, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to common names statement

Common names currently states:

Convention: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things; use the naming conflict guideline when there is a conflict. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded and must not carry POV implications.

The first clause, "Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication", unnecessarily leaves the names of myriads of articles open to endless debate. The root issue is whether specialized conventions should complement or contradict the more general conventions like "use the most common name". After being involved in countless discussions about article names, I'm convinced that if specialized conventions complemented, and did not contradict, the more general conventions, we would have much more clarity on how articles should be named. A good first step in moving towards that direction would be to remove that first clause to create:

Convention: Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things; use the naming conflict guideline when there is a conflict. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded and must not carry POV implications.

By the way, this clause was added with no discussion, so far as I can tell, about two years ago in this change. Prior to that it simply said: "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things.".

If no one objects (if you do, please explain why), I will edit the page accordingly. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) would have to be updated accordingly, of course. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:06, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I support the sentiment that specific naming conventions ought not contradict these general ones. But rather than simply removing the sentence, it may be better to recast it into a statement to the effect that specific conventions give guidance on how these general conventions are best applied within a particular field or domain.

A related issue is that there seems to be a tendency to put "use the most common name" alone on a pedestal, whereas it is really one of many priorities, some others being accuracy, non-ambiguity, neutrality, and consistency. I would like the first clause to be more explicit in recognising that there are multiple priorities.

Hesperian 03:01, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad we agree that specific naming conventions ought not contradict these general ones.

With respect to accuracy, WP:PRECISION specifically calls for more accuracy only when necessary; I know of no justification for veering from the most common name in the name of more accuracy. Non-ambiguity is a well understood problem and is addressed by WP:D and WP:PRIMARYUSAGE. Neutrality is addressed in the current and proposed wording. I don't know of any general guidelines that call for consistency explicitly, especially for consistency in naming within a given field or domain. In fact, the underlying problem I'm trying to address here is the contradictory notion that consistency of naming within a field trumps using the most common name for some given article.

Anyway, how about this:

Convention: Use the most common name of a person or thing when it does not conflict with the names of other people or things; when there is a conflict, use the naming conflict guideline to resolve it, which includes referring to more specific guidelines for disambiguation guidance. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded and must not carry POV implications.

--Born2cycle (talk) 05:05, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

No; that wording constrains specific guidelines to offering guidance on disambiguation alone. In addition to providing domain-specific guidance on disambiguation strategies, specific conventions may provide guidance on other aspects of the naming conventions, such as domain-specific strategies for achieving sufficient precision; domain knowledge on the relative common-ness of names; or advice on avoiding certain domain-specific terminology that betrays a subtle POV.

For example, the WikiProject Birds naming convention should have every right to say "because of the widespread adoption of standardised common names, the standard common name of a bird is invariably the name in most common use. Therefore, the standard common name should be used as the title for all bird articles."

Hesperian 06:05, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that wording constrains specific guidelines to offering guidance on disambiguation alone. If the general guidelines indicate a name without disambiguation issues, what role can the more specific guidelines possibly have except to contradict the outcome of the general guidelines?

such as domain-specific strategies for achieving sufficient precision - if the name indicated by the general guidelines requires no disambiguation, how is it possible that the precision achieved is insufficient? Why would more precision be necessary?

domain knowledge on the relative common-ness of names I don't understand how determining common-ness of usage of names might vary from domain to domain. The topic of determining common-ness is covered at length at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), including the section Do not overdo it which covers the issues of avoiding most common names that are misleading (like Tidal wave).

advice on avoiding certain domain-specific terminology that betrays a subtle POV - I'm inclined to give you this one, except what it ultimately means is that the most common name used to refer to a particular topic might not be used because it "betrays a subtle POV". That has got to be a very rare exception. I certainly can't think of any examples. Can you? Anyway, I'm willing to flesh out the last sentence to indicate this utility of the more specific guidelines.

Ultimately, leaving the impression that specific guidelines can override the general conventions is opening the Pandora's box I think we should be trying to close. Limiting the scope of specific guidelines to only those situations in which disambiguation is required is probably the only way to close it, and keep it closed. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Question about applicability

Born2cycle has implied here (and I admit that I might have misconstrued) that the statement "Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject," is not as important as the statement "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." I'd like some clarification from other editors; is the use of reliable sources in determining the common name not as important as a "Google test"?--Curtis Clark (talk) 20:04, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

The statement on reliable sources is a (relatively recent) guide to how to execute the statement on most easily recognize, which is - and always has been - the purpose of this convention. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:12, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

So let me get this straight. Because two editors interpret the statement about reliable sources to be a "guide" (despite it being part of a policy), and because Wikipedia:Reliable sources is itself a guideline and not a policy, it is permissible to simply attest that a name is the commonest? I'd be interested in a third opinion from an editor not involved in the discussion about the flora guidelines.--Curtis Clark (talk) 20:21, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Curtis, as I explained at the flora talk page, I did not say nor mean to imply that one statement is more important than the other, though I'm curious what I wrote that caused you to think I did.

Anyway, I think that the only reasonable way to interpret the two statements is such that they are complementary rather than contradictory. Therefore, the way one determines "what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize" is by "seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject". In other words, what determines "what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize" is "what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject". The assumption is that English speakers are influenced by these sources.

I too would like to know what others think. --Born2cycle (talk) 08:40, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that "what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize" is unknowable and unmeasurable—an unattainable ideal. One can imagine a great many metrics by which to approximate the answer, and we could argue until the cows come home over which metric is best. Fortunately this policy tells us which metric to use: "Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject." Hesperian 10:34, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any contradiction between whatBorn2cycle and Hesperian have written here. Reliable sources is not defined in this policy it is defined in the WP:V policy by linking verifiable reliable sources to WP:SOURCES, it is not linked to the guideline WP:RS. This was a useful explicit addition to the naming conventions policy because when the original Naming Convention was written WP:V did not exist, but it is a principle of Wikipedia that policies must not be read in isolation and so it would be very silly if this policy, using unreliable sources (eg internet forum) was in conflict with the content policies so that the name of the article was not used in the text of an article. All that was done with the additional sentence was to make explicit what implied by taking the content policies and the naming conventions policy as a whole. Making it explicit (including the use of English sources) solved lots of problems with blog sites in foreign languages being used to justify page names. --PBS (talk) 21:08, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I have a problem with the requirement that sources be in English. There are some things in this world that are not well known (perhaps not known at all) by English speakers; what then? --Una Smith (talk) 06:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

If there are no English language sources at all then presumably most English speaking people will not have heard of it. A question of notability comes into it, but see WP:NONENG and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)#No_established usage. An example that came up last year was a battle for which the editors had not found an English source and the translated name was different between Polish and Lithuanian! The best we can do in such cases is either agree on the talk page of the article to use a descriptive name, or fall back on "the name used by the first major contributor after the article ceased to be a stub." --PBS (talk) 11:21, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Units of measure

It would be good to have a formal guideline for the disambiguating phrase to use with units of measure. Currently, most such articles are disambiguated as "(unit)", but a number use "(quantity)" (where quantity = "mass", "length", etc.), a few use "(unit of quantity)", and a couple use something else entirely. For some of the more obscure units, it probably doesn't matter much, but for key SI units, such as pascal or newton with hundreds of incoming links, it seems fairly important to have a stable and predictable naming system, backed by a reasonable consensus. So let's hear some opinions. For consistency, if possible, please label your !vote as unit, quantity, unit of quantity, no convention (i.e., a formal naming guideline would not be desirable), or other (explain). For the purpose of this discussion, let's ignore units and pseudo-units perhaps better disambiguated as (domain), e.g., cent (music) or pinch (cooking), and stick to measurements of physical quantities.

Survey

• Unit. It's short to type, easy to remember, and avoids potential disagreements on what exactly to call the quantity. For example, though stone is nominally a unit of "(mass)", it's virtually always used in the sense of a "(weight)". Is knot a unit of "(velocity)" (per Category:Units of velocity) or "(speed)" (per its most common use)? Other quantities have long or awkward names: do we want henry (unit), henry (electrical inductance) (per Category:Units of electrical inductance), or henry (inductance)? Should it be gauss (unit) or gauss (magnetic flux density)? While there is something to be said for having the disambiguator indicate what kind of quantify is being measured, the vast majority of units do not have a disambiguator at all, so the phrase should just suffice to distinguish the unit from other meanings of the term. In the (very rare) case of ambiguous unit names that cannot be otherwise resolved (e.g., pound (force) currently redirects to the arguably more accurate pound-force), I'm fine with either "(quantity unit)" or "(unit of quantity)" as the disambiguator. Hqb (talk) 11:20, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
• Unit with any necessary further disambig being "Unit of X" (eg "Minute (unit of time)" and "Minute (unit of angular size)"). "Unit" is the most generic term and requires no pre-existing knowledge of what the term actually measures. This doesn't mean redirects can't be added (they are cheap). --MASEM 11:55, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
• Unit. I think it's a sufficiently unambiguous shorthand for unit of measure. If there is more than one unit possible, it could be further disambiguated, as in "pound (unit of mass)" versus "pound (unit of force)".RockyMtnGuy (talk)
• Unit. Of great value for hassle-free linking, and I don't see a downside. what Gene says below makes sense. But it would seem important to fix all the redirects.--Curtis Clark (talk) 18:30, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
• Unit. As far as I know, this must be a rather consistent convention here since that is what I would have typed to find it. Greg L (talk) 22:00, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
• Leave as is. Much of this has already been done—and we aren't likely to be inventing a whole bunch of new units of measure deserving a Wikipedia article which do not already have one. Most of the rest of what the original poster raised (e.g., "it seems fairly important to have a stable and predictable naming") is easily handled by redirects; make sure that the appropriate ones exist. Foot (unit) works just fine, for example.
• The fact that newton (unit) doesn't link to the proper article is just due to idiots moving articles around haphazardly and not fixing the redirects properly. You are just leaving the door open for more idiocy along the same lines if you try to make wholesale changes in what exists now. Fix that one on an individual case basis by moving from the verbose disambiguation now used to newton (unit) and check any other redirects to the mess someone has created, otherwise leave well enough alone. Gene Nygaard (talk) 00:09, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

• And look here for an example of what some well-intentioned editor did when trying to fix the problems