Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)

message: So I noticed I can create a page name ending with a colon (e.g. ":Page:", ":Article:", and ":Discussion:"), unless the name (sans the colon) is a registered namespace prefix (e.g. "Help:", "Category:", and "Talk:").  So what happens if the admin registers the namespace "Discussion" when the page :Discussion: exists? —Sledged (talk) 18:56, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Whenever a developer makes new namespace or interwiki prefixes, nasty things happen to existing links and pages.  There is a maintenance script that runs through the raw database tables and fixes things like that, moving pages and changing links, to make sure that there are no invalid links (that point somewhere other than where the software think they do).  Happy‑melon 21:31, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Namespaces and Page Names Ending with a Colon 

message: RfC Please see here. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:30, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italicized titles 

message: The addition of  to  has effectively made italics the standard for comic book titles. I have no particular opinion on this matter, I just thought it should be noted. — the Man in Question (in question) 23:45, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comic books 

message: Is this bullet still true from WP:NC-SLASH?
* Subpages are still enabled in the talk namespace as they are widely used for archiving old discussion. Therefore if an article has a forward slash in its name, its corresponding talk page may display a redundant subpage level-up link at the top (for example Talk:R/2004 S 1 has a link to Talk:R at the top).
It seems no longer true as of MediaWiki 1.16. I created some test pages in a namespace that has no subpages, while its talk namespace does, and no bogus parent links showed up. Djbwiki (talk) 19:38, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Look at Talk:R/2004 S 1 right now... --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:41, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

text: (ec) I'm still seeing them at Talk:R/2004 S 1 and Talk:AC/DC, so I guess it must still be true. (Perhaps in your test example the higher-level pages didn't exist - if they're redlinks they won't be displayed.)--Kotniski (talk) 19:41, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slash disclaimer still true? 

message: I think it should be explained that # can't be used specifically because it's a location hash, NOT because of 'wikitext syntax.' Avindratalk / contribs 13:57, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: And it's used as a location hash in wikitext syntax, right? So why is it "NOT because of wikitext syntax"?--Kotniski (talk) 14:19, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Location hashes are a general web standard. They're definitely not limited to wikitext. Also, afaik, they do not originate from wikitext. Avindratalk / contribs 15:26, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

text: Looks like they're definitely not from wikitext. It's defined in rfc. The official name seems to be fragment identifier, though I and others I know refer to it simply as the "location hash." Avindratalk / contribs 15:29, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, like with some of the other restricted characters, their special uses aren't exclusive to wikitext; but it's the specific fact that they're used that way in wikitext that prevents their being used in Wikipedia article titles. --Kotniski (talk) 15:48, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Kotniski. # has a special meaning in url's but it would have been possible for MediaWiki to allow it in article titles and wikitext if MediaWiki automatically changed it to something else in URLs. It would be an unnecessary complication to get into this instead of simply saying that it cannot be used in page titles, as we do now. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:06, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forbidden character - # 

message: Yes I dont understand how something ca/ be video or audio and reproduced or sold with permussion or even knowledge just because someine diesnt understand stupid computers dies that give simeone the right to take advantage  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.54.39.168 (talk) 08:10, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  video or audio that has no permussio 

message: In #Forbidden_characters, it shows an example:
* ¡Uno! is located at Uno! (Green Day album)
The article ¡Uno! does exist, and is a redirect to Uno!. Also, neither '¡' nor '!' are mentioned as forbidden characters. What is this example meant to show? —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 05:55, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%C2%A1Uno!&action=history shows it being moved a week ago because of WP:NCTR :) Ask ? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:31, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's wrong with ¡Uno! 

message: Isn't there a rule that for common noun the article title should use the singular form (e.g. tool), and not plural form (e.g. pliers)?--Michel192cm (talk) 12:39, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals). --Zundark (talk) 13:02, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for the info. --Michel192cm (talk) 09:43, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  singular vs. plural form for common noun 

message: One of the examples in the article is
* C# (programming language) is located at C Sharp (programming language)
If I'm looking for information on C# and type that into the search field, what will come up is C. Fortunately, C# is a popular topic, so the C article has a note at the top that anticipates this problem and tells me where to find C#, but this solution isn't universally applicable.
If I search for What the #$*! Do We Know!?, I get the totally unrelated article What The--?!. The actual article I'm looking for in this case is What the Bleep Do We Know!?. There is no way to create a redirect to help users who know only the stylized version of the title. (That's not particularly unlikely; the "Bleep" version of the title was completely absent from publicity when the film was first released in theaters.) That's really annoying behavior. I think it's fair to call it a bug.
Am I wrong? Am I misunderstanding how users are supposed to look for something like What the #$*! Do We Know!?, or is there just no way to find such subjects?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.98.2.5 (talk) 18:31, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I was actually trying out #willpower, since that is a given example here. If I go first to Special:Search then the expected result comes up first (and with C# but nothing for What the #$*! Do We Know!?) but if using the search box that the general public would use then you get the front page! Don sure where (else) to report this to get attention of the right people. Thought of asking on the front pages' talk page but decided not to. comp.arch (talk) 15:06, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can't even ''search'' on forbidden characters? 

message: But according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:TITLESPECIALCHARACTERS, underscore is also forbidden. A typo?
2401:FA00:40:E:CE52:AFFF:FE3D:C43A (talk) 05:42, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forbidden char list doesn't include underscore (_) 

message: Why not move a problmatic page that contains the colon to the similar ratio symbol (∶. It would look better to the reader. - TheChampionMan1234 05:07, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Among other problems, the Unicode ratio character '∶' instead of a colon ':' would confuse people who have seen the title and try to link or search it by typing a colon. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:36, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why not do it this way for the colons? 

message: I understand people have touched on the lowercase first letter before, and that this article explains it's due to a technical restriction caused by the configuration, but I'm curious — what is the actual reason behind the MediaWiki software being configured in such a way? That particular setting has been in place for as long as I can remember, but I've never bothered to inquire about it before. Can anyone with more technical familiarity of the backend explain? ☉ nbmatt 05:26, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about the lowercase first letter 

message: From the article:
:Similarly a title cannot contain HTML character entities such as / and –, even if the character they represent is allowed. In the unlikely event of such sequences appearing in a desired title, an alternative title must be constructed (for example by inserting a space after the %, or omitting a semicolon).
This doesn't work - some browsers (notably older MSIE) will still interpret the entities without a trailing semicolon. 184.147.176.73 (talk) 20:45, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Omitting semicolons does not correct HTML entities 

message: Hello, the article says  "[A Username] may not be more than 85 bytes long." I think I came across names longer than 85 characters, but then, how many characters does 85 bytes equal? Thanks, 79.241.199.66 (talk) 13:03, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Dear IP address (it's too long, no way I'm writing that), I realize you've posted this eight months ago, but I will reply anyway. I believe that a byte is equivalent to the number of characters (letters, spaces, etc.,) Hope that helped! UNSC Luke 1021 (talk) 15:13, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Does the codepoint 132F9 count as 2 characters or only a single letter? --Brynda1231 (talk) 15:35, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: ASCII characters (e.g. English letters, digits, space) are one byte. Many Unicode characters are more than one byte. The current limit is 85 bytes. The limit has varied in the past. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:42, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you make it so 0000-ffff is 1 character. --Brynda1231 (talk) 20:18, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The software limit on username lengths cannot be changed locally and it always counts in bytes. One byte is only two hexadecimal digits like 00-ff. Four hexadecimal digits use two bytes. There are other software features which count Unicode characters and not bytes, for example . PrimeHunter (talk) 22:07, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: OK! --Brynda1231 [Talk Page] [Contribs] 14:57, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  85 bytes equals? 

message: Can your username contain non-characters or unassigned code points?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brynda1231 (talk • contribs) 15:34, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unassigned characters or non-characters or surrogates 

message: Are non-characters forbidden as well? --Brynda1231 [Talk Page] [Contribs] 14:40, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-characters? 

message: � ����� �� ������ �� ������� ���� ��� ����� �, ��� � ������.
I tried to create an article with the title �, but I failed. --Gerrit CUTEDH 13:01, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=�&action=edit gives MediaWiki:Title-invalid-utf8: "The requested page title contains an invalid UTF-8 sequence." It's Specials (Unicode block)#Replacement character. It makes sense this "character" cannot be used in page names although a page only by that "name" might have redirected to the linked section. I don't think we should mention it in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions). Please link your current username in your signature. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:36, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  I noticed that it links to MediaWiki:Title-invalid-utf8 and I don't know why.  It's a perfectly valid UTF-8 encoding for the Unicode Replacement character.  I think it should be mentioned, and I did see it mentioned somewhere else but I can't find it now.  Thank you for suggesting me to update my signature; I have updated it. --Gerrit CUTEDH 17:19, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for making your signature compliant with WP:SIGLINK. The replacement character is used to replace invalid UTF characters (I don't know whether MediaWiki does this itself), so it makes sense to me that MediaWiki says "The requested page title contains an invalid UTF-8 sequence." It doesn't know you deliberately entered the character directly. Apart from the single case of redirecting the character alone, I see no reason for editors to use it in page names. It seems too obscure to increase the complexity of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions) which is a guideline for editors of the English Wikipedia and not a technical specification of MediaWiki. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:26, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  ���? 

message: At top of Talk:S/MIME, there is a paragraph
This is the talk page for S/MIME, the Wikimedia software has some funny ideas about the slash, please ignore this technical oddity.
I like this notice; I think it is useful for users to understand that this is a known issue of MediaWIki, so that they will not come discussing this as a new bug. Maybe it is worthwhile to have a template called ? In addition, if this issue is solved in future, we will be able to track those pages. --Franklin Yu (talk) 19:30, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Create a template for odd talk pages 

message: Change
*[title of show] is located at title of show
to
*[title of show] is located at Title of show 209.52.88.226 (talk) 19:02, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Done DRAGON BOOSTER  ★ 19:29, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 14 April 2018 

message: Please add and before vertical bar in the "Forbidden characters" section. 208.95.49.47 (talk) 15:45, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Done, thanks! ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 15:51, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 26 November 2018 

message: 2409:4053:2089:AC67:DDA8:709A:B444:F393 (talk) 09:11, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. AntiCedros (talk) 11:34, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 12 December 2018 

message: I want to add the "Wolfram|Alpha is located at Wolfram Alpha" text into the forbidden characters section. This is because "Wolfram Alpha" is sometimes called "Wolfram|Alpha" (with a vbar). That name is technically restricted.
: Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. DannyS712 (talk) 14:15, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request: [[User:Google Maps Plus|Google_Maps_Plus]], [[User talk:Google Maps Plus|Talk]], [[Special:Contributions/Google Maps Plus|Contributions]] 06:52, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

message: Is an asterisk at the end of the subject, as with NM5* okay to use or should that be added to the technical restrictions in some way? Using it in search will not bring up the create an article option. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 20:17, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Search treats * as a wildcard, which is why it doesn’t suggest creating articles containing this character. But there’s no problem using * (in any position) in article names, as far as I can see. --Zundark (talk) 07:00, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Asterisk at end of subject 

message: I look at cat and I see at the top of the page: "For technical reasons, "Cat #1" redirects here. For the album, see Cat 1 (album)." This is a lot of clutter for an album that doesn't look all that notable. How would it be if it redirected to a section at the bottom of the page instead? I'm sure you can do that with #'s and anchors. The Language Learner (talk) 15:28, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Must # redirect to the top? 

message: I suggest this addition to the end of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Restrictions and workarounds:
:Do not use Unicode characters which look similar to a wanted character, for example Chinese colon characters instead of a normal colon. Such titles would be difficult to type in links and could confuse searches, screen readers and other features.
This is the established practice and all examples avoid such characters but it should be stated explicitly. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:01, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Characters which look similar to a wanted character 

message: "change Meeuverma8 to Meetuverma8" Meeuverma8 (talk) 23:22, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: *Not done - ,  please specify what in the article you'd like changing Ed6767 (talk) 23:24, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: If you want another username then see Wikipedia:Changing username. Since your account only has this edit, you can also just abandon it and create another. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:38, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 14 May 2020 

message: As I was adding to the Magic Hat Brewing Company article recently, I thought of adding a redirect article for their flagship beer, known simply as "#9". Of course, if you're reading this talk page, you probably know that isn't possible, as there's no # allowed in article titles (as I just learned). It's no big deal, as there's no way that the #9 beer is notable enough to justify its own article. But, it got me to thinking - what if there was something whose name started with # that deserved an article? I have to think that this has happened before. What does Wikipedia do in this case? JimKaatFan (talk) 21:44, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: We come up with another name. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Forbidden characters for examples. There is an old redirect at Magic hat 9. #9 might be mentioned at 9 (disambiguation) if it was really notable. 3 (disambiguation) has several entries for things called #3. Some other numbers have similar entries. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:49, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:   Yeah I added it at Number nine, since that's the name of the beer. I don't think adding it at 9 (disambiguation) is appropriate, since the beer isn't known as "9", it's actually known as "#9". I was just curious. Sounds like there's no place that I could put a useful redirect. Thanks for the info! JimKaatFan (talk) 00:13, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: See also Number 9 Dream, the John Lennon song which is officially titled "#9 Dream". --Metropolitan90 (talk) 21:49, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hypothetical question 

message: #Why is double space not allowed? (e.g. "Soviet Union" is treated the same as "Soviet   Union.")
#Why are colons not allowed to begin articles? It never really says why. Gioguch (talk) 19:51, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Double space/colon 

message: I decided to change the sections in alphabetical order to make the sections easier to find. I looked at the section titles correctly to arrange them. Seventyfiveyears (talk) 14:54, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alphabetical order sections at [[WP:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Other problematic characters|Other problematic characters]] 

message: The hatnote to Cat #1 at cat is quite annoying, is it really necessary? Please reply at Talk:Cat#Cat_#1_redirects_here Troll Control (talk) 04:37, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing "for technical reasons" when there's a dab 

message: It would appear that the "Lowercase first letter" section is obsolete, and should be removed.  It mentions as examples eBay, e (mathematical constant), iOS, iPod, man page, and pH, but those article titles now start with a lowercase letter.  — Mudwater (Talk) 02:04, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not obsolete, but the use of  (which is explained in the "Lowercase first letter" section) hides the problem to some extent. --Zundark (talk) 06:47, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I see.  Thanks.  — Mudwater (Talk) 11:20, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lowercase first letter 

message: The first letter restriction is not true anymore, and even the given example does not have such a restriction. Plutonical (talk) 17:42, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  First letter restriction is untrue 

message: ===Request one===
Please remove this sentence:
 In other cases (such as names containing restricted characters) it is necessary to adopt and display a different title.
and add this:
 In other cases (such as names containing restricted characters) it is necessary to adopt and display a different title.  Furthermore, certain characters can be used in titles only under certain conditions.
Much of this page discusses characters like :/?% that can be used sometimes but not always. 49.198.51.54 (talk) 22:32, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the  template. - FlightTime (open channel) 22:49, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Why?  The content's already on the page; how could it be contentious to summarise this content?  Would you revert such a change if someone else made it?  Before today, this page has had just seven discussions in the last two years; it's highly unlikely that someone will reply. 
 49.198.51.54 (talk) 23:00, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

text: According to List of Latin phrases (E)#exempli gratia, "some writing styles give such abbreviations without punctuation, as ie and eg.". Therefore, the current form is ok. --Ferien (talk) 09:17, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 18 March 2022 

message: Please remove this sentence:
 In other cases (such as names containing restricted characters) it is necessary to adopt and display a different title.
and add this:
 In other cases (such as names containing restricted characters) it is necessary to adopt and display a different title.  Furthermore, certain characters can be used in titles only under certain conditions.
Much of this page discusses characters like :/?% that can be used sometimes but not always. 49.198.51.54 (talk) 22:32, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the  template. - FlightTime (open channel) 22:49, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Why?  The content's already on the page; how could it be contentious to summarise this content?  Would you revert such a change if someone else made it?  Before today, this page has had just seven discussions in the last two years; it's highly unlikely that someone will reply. 
 49.198.51.54 (talk) 23:00, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Request one

message: In the subsection on semicolons, please replace "eg." with "e.g." because the current form isn't correct.  See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/exempli_gratia (which uses only "e.g.") and https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eg. (which lists it only as an abbreviation of words in Nordic languages). 49.198.51.54 (talk) 22:32, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: According to List of Latin phrases (E)#exempli gratia, "some writing styles give such abbreviations without punctuation, as ie and eg.". Therefore, the current form is ok. --Ferien (talk) 09:17, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Request two