Talk:TK Maxx

message: I did some Wikification, but I don't have that much experience, so I don't want to take the Wikification 'template' down yet. Have I done a sufficient job to merit its removal? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.133.156.63 (talk • contribs) 19:55, October 18, 2005.
:Looks fine now. Iolakana•T 17:10, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps it is slightly. But what difference does that make? -*- u:Chazz/contact/t: 19:59, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikification

message: Why TK Maxx without full stops, whereas the T.J. Maxx article has full stops? In the "TJX Companies, Incorporated" template, T.K. Maxx has full stops, but the article title and the article itself don't. 86.152.203.212 06:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  TK Maxx vs T.K. Maxx 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on TK Maxx. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090519082334/http://www.rednoseday.com:80/partners/tkmaxx to http://www.rednoseday.com/partners/tkmaxx
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 12:25, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: See discussion at Talk:T.J. Maxx.
Ubcule (talk) 15:51, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-merge proposal for [[T.K. Maxx]] back into [[T.J. Maxx]] 

message: * Move both articles to T. K. Maxx and T. J. Maxx, to agree with J. C. Penney, per WP:CONSISTENCY. Detailed analysis in the "Extended discussion" section, below. Failure to follow the consistency policy on this will result in sentences like "Affected stores included T.J. Maxx, TK Maxx, and J. C. Penney" in our article text. I just encountered and corrected something like this a few minutes ago.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:29, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: It has occurred to me that the 'T' and 'K' do not seem to stand for anything. Maybe they do. If not, we should consider whether MOS:INITIALS applies here. If they do, yes, space them. –Sb2001 talk page 18:50, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't buy it; we also apply the same style to a) fictional characters, for whom any "stands for" meaning is imaginary or arbitrary (and sometimes even conflicting, as with Captain Flint); and b) persons with made-up initials that don't stand for anything either, e.g. Michael J. Fox who would be rendered here as Michael J. X. Fox if he'd used two made-up initials.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:44, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: But is TK Maxx supposed to be a name? It is not the same as Michael J. Fox. I was not, anyway, suggesting that you needed convincing. Instead I was posing the question as to whether we should be treating this as a normal case of MOS:INITIALS, due to the fact that A/ it is not a name, and B/ nobody would know it by anything but TK ... (that is, they would not know it to be spaced and dotted). –Sb2001 talk page 14:05, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I've already addressed all this. It's obviously presented as if a name, so we format it as one, especially if the company itself and the sources are not consistent in how they present it. Whether it's a real person doesn't matter, since we already do this also with fictional ones who aren't real either. Whether the letters really mean anything is irrelevant, since we also use the same style for people whose initials don't mean anything either.  To provide yet a further example, we also do this with Jennifer 8. Lee, whose numeral-name (which is real) isn't really even an initial.  No one said anything about "is the same as Michael J. Fox". Please try to follow the reasoning and extrapolate from the examples, policies, and previous discussions people cite; it helps avoid the need for re-re-re-explanation of the same things.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:52, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments 

message: Detailed analysis: The MOS:INITIALS rule (for "T. K. Maxx", spaced apart) is applied to individuals, to fictional characters for verisimilitude, and – when the real world presents many conflicting style variations for a trademark – to company names that were originally personal names. The canonical example is J. C. Penney (formerly J.C. Penney in one logo, and "JCPenney" in the new one). This is done because the same readability and consistency reasoning applies to all such cases. It doesn't apply to trademarks that are just coincidentally similar in form ("KY Jelly" wasn't someone's name).
The renderings of this company's name "in the wild" are many and inconsistent. Their WP:OFFICIALNAME appears to be "TK Maxx", and of the parent company to be "TJK Companies", but WP generally doesn't care, and we go with the most common name in reliable sources.  WP:COMMONNAME, however, is not a style policy and isn't about punctuation or spacing matters. It's the policy that tells us to call this article  T. K. Maxx/TKMaxx/T.K. Maxx/TK Maxx, etc. – determined by the actual style guidelines and the consistency policy – rather than some other name like "Tee Kay Maxx", "Maxx Company", "A. B. Maxx" or "T. K. Jackson".
We have an article title policy, WP:CONSISTENCY, that wants these titles to have the same format, and considers this more important that catering to regional, individual, or trademark-holder stylization preferences. The previous move was an  attempt to apply WP:CONSISTENCY, that only looked at a single other article. The prior discussion indicates that "T.K. Maxx" was chosen to match T.J. Maxx.  Their logos are actually "T·k·maxx" and "T·j·maxx". We do not emulate cutesy typographic effects, per MOS:TM, like "levitating" the dots, though their presence strongly suggests retaining normal dots here. Nor to we play with letter case  to mimic a logo. We also don't run things together as CamelCase to match a logo stylization, absent the majority of reliable sources treating the name that way (e.g. as they did for DaimlerChrysler). "T.K. Maxx" and "T.J. Maxx" are plain-English approximations of the logos, but not in Wikipedia style. WP just does not emulate logos, as a general matter. 
A complication we can dispense with: Most sources on T. K. Maxx are British and Irish news publications, whose internal house style is almost always to drop the dots in initials to compress print space.  This results in a conflict: "TK Maxx" preferred by one set of writers, and "T.J. Maxx" by another, for two trademarks, identical apart from one letter, owned by the same company, and for essentially identical businesses. WP already dispenses with most British journo desires to drop punctuation; we only permit it (see MOS:MAIN, MOS:ABBR, MOS:INITIALS, MOS:NUM, etc.) for abbreviation by contraction, e.g. for "Dr" and "St", because this is  supported in British/Commonwealth style guides, while dropping it for truncations (including initials and including lower-case acronyms like "e.g.", which have not been assimilated as new words like "laser") is not universally UK-supported but typical of news style, in which Wikipedia is not written as a matter of policy. MOS:ENGVAR, in case anyone would mis-cite it, only applies in absence of a rule to use a specific style consistently, and we have one here ("J. K. Rowling", not "JK Rowling").
Conclusion: Both articles should be moved to T. K. Maxx and T. J. Maxx for consistency with each other and with J. C. Penney, and best overall compliance with the policies and guidelines, without any WP:PRECISE or WP:RECOGNIZABLE issues for any set of readers, in a situation of conflicting styles and no clear "it must be done this one particular way" directive.  I.e., WP has developed a house style for good reasons and should stick to it, instead of entertaining demands for "special" exceptions, which do nothing but decrease consistency and increase the frequency of exception demands based on WP:ILIKEIT preferences. (The alternative would be to overturn – on what basis? – previous consensus that MOS:INITIALS applies to companies named for people, and move them all to JC Penney, etc.) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:48, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I know those feels xD  DrStrauss talk 17:39, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not all bad news, see the Parable of the Ants. Andrewa (talk) 18:37, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

text: There isn't "support running about even between removing the blanks and fullstops and adding another blank, both by guidelines and by head count"; the head count is irrelevant (and is now in favor of T. K. Maxx and T. J. Maxx anyway). More to the point, "MOS:TMRULES actually says that one should not alter punctuation" is obviously a misinterpretation of that guideline (that this isn't the first time it's been turned on its ear is why its wording is under discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trademarks#MOS:TMRULES). Short version: It doesn't apply when the company itself isn't consistent. There is only one policy and guideline argument here that is tenable, and it is for "T. K. Maxx" per WP:CONSISTENCY and MOS:INITIALS, MOS:TM.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:44, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The company is consistent—look at their website etc. Also, a google search shows that TK is—well—the only recognised style, ie all results use this. How can you say that the company is not consistent. Their logo is the only different part of their branding. Opening times, receipts, gift cards, etc all use TK. Also, it is not 'in favo[u]r of T.K.' I count it as 3–3. –Sb2001 talk page 13:34, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extended discussion 

message: RMs like this make me glad I'm involved and can't be expected to close them! We have a poll or survey labelled Comments with support running about even between removing the blanks and fullstops and adding another blank, both by guidelines and by head count, and no compelling evidence that it makes the slightest difference to readers. Changing my !vote to Active neutral. Andrewa (talk) 01:17, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I know those feels xD  DrStrauss talk 17:39, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not all bad news, see the Parable of the Ants. Andrewa (talk) 18:37, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

text: There isn't "support running about even between removing the blanks and fullstops and adding another blank, both by guidelines and by head count"; the head count is irrelevant (and is now in favor of T. K. Maxx and T. J. Maxx anyway). More to the point, "MOS:TMRULES actually says that one should not alter punctuation" is obviously a misinterpretation of that guideline (that this isn't the first time it's been turned on its ear is why its wording is under discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trademarks#MOS:TMRULES). Short version: It doesn't apply when the company itself isn't consistent. There is only one policy and guideline argument here that is tenable, and it is for "T. K. Maxx" per WP:CONSISTENCY and MOS:INITIALS, MOS:TM.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:44, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The company is consistent—look at their website etc. Also, a google search shows that TK is—well—the only recognised style, ie all results use this. How can you say that the company is not consistent. Their logo is the only different part of their branding. Opening times, receipts, gift cards, etc all use TK. Also, it is not 'in favo[u]r of T.K.' I count it as 3–3. –Sb2001 talk page 13:34, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Where to

message: * Neutral. There is no compelling evidence yet offered either way, see above. Andrewa (talk) 18:31, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutral

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:TJ Maxx which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 18:44, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move discussion in progress 

message: Contradictory dates are quoted at different points in the article although I have no idea which, if any, are correct. Gwladys24 (talk) 15:47, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Netherlands store opening dates 

message: The current article is largely about the company and its shops.   There is nothing about the business model which is more interesting.   For instance, in the UK TK Maxx is not acquiring additional shops, but replacing existing shops with larger ones, but no reasoning is given (eg have the shops reached saturation?).   There is no information as to how/where it sources its products. FreeFlow99 (talk) 09:10, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Business Model