Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 10

message: my cousin User: Dustind tried to do this but it was changed back. He tried to rename Chris Young (musician) to Chris Young (Country) because of two reasons 1. His website name [www.chrisyoungcountry.com] and the cmt.com name for him as Chris Young (Country)  and I second this choice so can we move him?
Dustinwayne 22:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No because Chris Young is not a country, he is a musician. --Goyston 21:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

text: The next place to take this if you wish to pursue it is requested moves, but I'd have to agree with Goyston that it's not a good idea. IMO if you do take it to RM, it will be rejected. But feel free to try! Andrewa 20:47, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chris Young 

message: Does it meet the intent of everyone to simply replace the current convention line in the "Use common names of persons and things" with the entire "guideline in a nutshell" text from the linked Rationale and specifics: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)? This appears to be a minimal-disturbance change that would clarify any perceived conflict between the two pages. --Scott Davis Talk 22:11, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That would seem to be a reasonable way to implement Option 2, if indeed it were supported.  But since we haven't even started the voting yet, we have no way of knowing. --Serge 22:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't really see how they can be "two separate principles, of equal validity". Are you saying that it would actually be a change to the policy to include "in English" in the nutshell? I can't see that is the case. Johnbod 10:59, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, first: neither WP:NC(CN) nor WP:UE are "policy" (they're guidelines). But further my consideration was only practical: WP:UE has many trappings (see e.g. WP:UE#Disputed issues). Currently WP:NC(CN) has no "disputed issues" (only well-described "exceptions", remember), I fear, as has been attempted before, that the WP:UE unresolved disputes would re-affect the Common Names guideline. Perhaps we could promote Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics) from "proposal" to "guideline", that would be one disputed issue less for WP:UE. Still another handful to go. When all these disputes are resolved, my remark is moot (but it isn't yet now). --Francis Schonken 11:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible minimalist solution

message: There is a similar debate going on at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scouting/Translations. English Subtitle 22:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Cross referencing arguments

message: Recently the page "Alternate history (fiction)" was renamed "Alternate history fiction". Is there any convention for the right name to use here? Most people refer to the genre simply as "alternate history", but the "(fiction)" was originally added to distinguish it from terms for other nonfictional classes of works, like counterfactual history which is a more serious academic analysis of what-if questions in history, or Alternative history in histiography. Hypnosifl 10:26, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Convention for genre terms/classes of works? 

message: Hello! I am going to translate some stubs about destroyed synagogues of Poland from PL Wiki and I want to ask if there is any naming convention regarding buildings and structures. I mean there are several "New Synagogues" and "Great Synagogues" etc. For example how about Wrocław New Synagogue, should it be moved to "New Synagogue, Wrocław", "New Synagogue (Wrocław)" or to "New Synagogue of Wrocław" ? Thank you. - Darwinek 12:05, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (architecture)  has a "buildings" section. It didn't make it to the "guideline" stage though. Maybe revive it as a , and add what you think to be the best solutions regarding synagogues (etc). --Francis Schonken 12:41, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Buildings 

message: Heading says it all, really. I've come across articles and categories using both of these adjectival forms for Argentina. is there a specific preference, or is it a case of "people are Argentinian, things are Argentine" or similar? Grutness...wha? 06:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Argentinian or Argentine? 

message: Yeepers, five-ten  minutes of searching, and I still can't find the appropriate tag for when an article should start out non-capitalized, but has to because of the Wiki software, i.e. the eXile. I know there is a tag line similar to 'This page starts with a capitalized letter due to software restrictions...' type thing, but I can't find it... MadMaxDog 06:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions) is your friend. — mholland 15:31, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-capitalized first letter??? 

message: Currently, WikiProject British TV Channels has a merger slated of Channel 3 (UK) into ITV. The former is the legal name from 1990 (heck, there's even ITV plc, which owns 11 of the 15 regional franchises of the network) and the latter is the pres name (heck, there's even ITV plc, which owns 11 of the 15 regional franchises of the network). To make things more complicated, the full name that is abbreviated as ITV is Independent Television. The policy says "use the legal name, or else the pres name". In this case, ITV will be a very likely search term as a pres name, whereas Channel 3 is the legal name. Even more complicating is that someone would need to make a decision about the meaty ITV (disambiguation) if ITV was merged into Channel 3 (UK): move it to ITV proper or make ITV a redirect to Channel 3 (UK)? Even worse, Channel 3 proper is a disambiguation page, and another long one at that. We can't merge the two disambiguation pages on one entry each. Could you get that project straightened up a bit? TRKtvtce 21:54, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broadcasting in the UK: Pres name or legal name? 

message: Have I done the right thing incorporating them into "Bianchi (bicycle)" or should I have created a separate "Bianchi (motorcycle)"?  Bianchi also made cars from 1900 to 1939 (no article). (Autobianchi, a three manufacturer consortium, are an offshoot from 1955.) I have not found a guide to vehicle article naming conventions (?).  Seasalt 02:42, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bianchi motorcycles 

message: There is currently a discussion/survey whether or not the article "KISS (band)" is to be moved to "Kiss (band)" and in how far a certain section of the naming conventions (namely WP:NC#Album titles and band names) and the manual of style regarding trademarks (WP:MOS-TM) apply in this particular case. I am writing this in the the hopes of getting some input at aforementioned discussion by people who deal with these kind of issues all the time. - Cyrus XIII 14:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Full capitalization of band names 

message: I would like to receive input on whether using "Burma/Myanmar" is fine in naming a Wikiproject, or whether one alternative is better than the other. The discussion can be found here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Burma/Myanmar#Project_name. Thank you.--Hintha 04:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Burma v. Myanmar 

message: This policy exhorts us to "use the most common name" for an article.  What happens when the most common name is, to put it bluntly, wrong?  For instance, L'Hôpital's rule is not the most common name for its subject: the most common name drops the diacritic.  Rose Parade is much more common than Tournament of Roses Parade.  Ivan the Terrible is much more common than Ivan IV of Russia.  In each case, I think the situation is fine as it stands - the articles don't belong at the "slangier" names, even though those names are more common.  Is there any policy that supports using the "more correct" name?  If not, can we make one? LWizard @ 16:56, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There was a discussion on naming to avoid Norfolk Island Pine or Wollemi Pine (neither of which are "true pines"), but I can't find the full conversation right now. I think that decision relied on a guideline somewhere. The conversation I recall may have been about one of those, and used the other in the argument - I don't recall. Sorry. --Scott Davis Talk 22:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking through Talk:Wollemia, we find a link to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)#Don't overdo it, which states "In cases where the common name of a subject is misleading, then it is sometimes reasonable to fall back on a well-accepted alternative". --Stemonitis 22:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You really don't want to rely on this discussion for anything.  In fact both trees belong to Division: Pinophyta, Class: Pinopsida, and Order: Pinales  and I suspect that the fallback to scientific names was an attempt at appeasement.   By saying they're not pines in one place then listing they ARE Pinophyta, Pinopsida and Pinales in the taxobox, no one has gained.  In the case of KP Botany 22:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  When the most common name is incorrect or inaccurate 

message: Is there a policy on the naming of sports events and venues? There are many questions running around in my head, such as:
*Do we use names that contain sponsor names?
*Do we just use the official name?
*Do we use the most common name in everyday use?
*Do we use historical names?
Hopefully these issues have already been addressed somewhere on Wikipedia. GK1 20:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sporting events/venues 

message: Haven't noticed if this subject, is on this page. Should English Wikipedia article title be ALL English? or should there be exceptions for Foreign names (diacritics)? GoodDay 02:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are currently plenty of exceptions. The section directly above this one is a debate about this topic; currently there are some editors hating on diacritics and umlauts, but see Talk:Dürer's Rhinoceros, where that article achieved Featured Article and Main Page status in October 2006 with its umlauted ü in the title. This policy currently states "Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly recognized by readers than the English form" so you should be arguing about what is more commonly recognized by the majority of potential readers rather than what constitutes English or not. — coelacan talk — 03:18, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the phrase "Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly recognized by readers than the English form" is very dangerous, as it is widely used on Wikipedia. Every kind of "Prefer the most commonly recognized form..." must be banned on a serious encyclopedia. An encyclopedia must always chose the most correct form and more generally the most correct facts, rather than the most common form or facts. An good example is about Emperor Shōwa of Japan. He is officially known as Emperor Shōwa in every official texts, in every official japanese governmental documents, in every Japanese texts (for example on his article on Japanese Wikipedia). On English Wikipedia, it's even written "The use of his personal name instead can be considered overly familiar, or almost derogatory." But some consider his personnal name Hirohito is more "commonly recognized", so the article must be named Hirohito. It's a good example where an incorrect form is preferred to a correct form only because the incorrect form is more common. An encyclopedia must set out correct facts, not received ideas. It's made to teach the reader, not to back up what he thinks he already knows. Švitrigaila 15:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I peaked in on discussions about 'Diacritics' in the English Wikipedia. What I've found are 'lack of consensus', continued disagreement, bio pages being moved, then moved again. Perhaps an Arbitration Committee Ruling on Diacritics in English Wikipedia article titles, is the only way to end the instability. GoodDay 18:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess my main concern, is lack of clarity. On the usage of 'Diacritic'. GoodDay 18:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

text: If we can agree to a guideline here (concerning diacritics), do we all agree, that this 'Naming conventions' article should have authority over all other 'Naming conventions'. There's simply too many 'Naming conventions' concerning Diacriticals. GoodDay 22:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We do not all agree about anything, sorry. But seriously, what is the issue? Are there conflicting conventions regarding diacritics and umlauts? Can you show me where the contradictions are? — coelacan talk — 22:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm not concerned if diacritics & other special characters are used in English Wikipedia articles titles or not. I just want us, to have a guideline (on this page), to address these 'Diacriticals' issues. Do we use them or not? 1)If a guideline is to use them, (all bio articles title -where needed-) use them. 2) If a guideline is not to use them, don't use them. Whatever we decide, should be applied to ALL bio article titles on English Wikipedia. GoodDay 23:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I already showed you the example of Dürer's Rhinoceros, which made it to "Today's Featured Article" on the Main Page. Therefore, you may use them, unless the policy changes in the future. — coelacan talk — 23:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Placing the policy (example: Durer's Rhinoceros (sorry don't have diacritical keys), as the guideline on this page. I'm going to add these changes (by moving NHL Euro/French Canadian bio articles) to Diacritics on article title (where needed). You guys, may have to back me up. Using the guideline of this page, for all NHL Euro/French Canadian bio article titles. GoodDay 00:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do we have an agreement. PS- if this guideline, isn't heeded, the next step- Arbitration Commitee. GoodDay 00:04, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Consensus reached- guideline to allow usage of diacritics (where needed) in Bio article titles & content. I've added the new guideline to this page. GoodDay 00:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I can't move bio articles to 'Diacritical' versions. I don't have diacriticals on my keyboard. GoodDay 00:37, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Uhm, no. You do not add a self-contradictory clause to the page based on 5 or 6 people agreeing. If the current rule is to use the most common, then adding a blanket "use diacritics" rule in direct contradiction to that existing rule is the height of bad form. --tjstrf talk 00:43, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I confess, my main concern is NHL Euro/French Canadian bio articles titles. A current (soon to be closing) Rfc on Wikipedia: WikiProject Ice Hockey/Player pages format is being held. Already the legitimacy of it is in question. It's been argued WikiProject have no authority, over its relating articles. GoodDay 00:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My mistake, Rfc at that page can't be closed (under current Rfc guidelines), until a consensus is reached/dispute is resolved. GoodDay 00:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm thowing in the towel. I've tried (in this new year), to bring about a compromise for all Euro/French Canadian bio articles (then included All bio articles). See my talk page conversations. There seems to be no end to this 'Schism'. Want to reach me? contact me at my discussion page. GoodDay 02:08, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

text: There's only one way to resolve ALL Diacritics dispute at English Wikipedia. Get a ruling from the Arbitration Committee. GoodDay 21:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  English or Non-English article title 

message: Hi there.  I had a question about a week and a half ago at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization) which never received a response; would someone mind taking a look and responding?  —ShadowHalo 11:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Any help would still be much appreciated; so far I've only gotten one confused response.  ShadowHalo 05:40, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Foreign language titles 

message: May I refer to Talk:I ♥ Huckabees#Requested move 2, in which the naming issue has been in dispute again, due to the following reasons:
#The producer's inconsistant use of the name (I ♥ Huckabees vs I Heart Huckabees); and
#Whether the use of the heart symbol constitutes a exception of the "symbols generally discouraged" rule.
Please vote and comment as appropriate. --Samuel CurtisShinichian-Hirokian-- TALK·CONTRIBS 12:35, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The symbol dispute at [[Talk:I ♥ Huckabees]] Again 

message: There are some quarrels going on over at Talk:Kyrill (storm). Some editors want the article moved to a more generic title, whilst others want to keep it at a title including the storm name. The problem seems to be that there is no "official" English name, but the German language areas and Eastern Europe have adopted the name "Kyrill" that was issued to the storm by a Berlin university and is in common use in the local media. This is a borderline case of the "Use English" rules, I think, and comments would be appreciated at the article's talk page. --doco (☏) 15:01, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It may well be more appropriate to take it to the section discussing this on the relevant wikiproject as it is a broader issue affecting all storms of this class.--Nilfanion (talk) 15:11, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming convention for the recent storm in Europe 

message: There are serious problems with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events). The title implies that it is a guideline for naming conventions for events in general. In fact, from the way the page is written, and the introductory sentence ("The following guidelines apply to events and activities such as military conflicts and terrorist incidents."), it is obvious that the guideline was really written to resolve editing conflicts over the names of, well, military conflicts and terrorist incidents. In particular, the heated debate aroused by the words massacre and terrorist. Obviously, these are only partcular sorts of events. It says nothing about how to name other events (both current and historical), apart from two links at the end to the Military History WikiProject naming convention, and the subsection of 'Naming conventions (numbers and dates)'. The proper title for this guideline should be Wikipedia:Naming conventions (massacres and terrorist incidents). And a much more wide-ranging guideline should be at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events) instead. Carcharoth 20:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Characterising that as "serious problems" seems a bit over the top to me. Feel free to propose additions to that guideline at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (events). --Francis Schonken 20:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not proposing additions. I'm proposing a rename. I'm amazed that the guideline title says it covers events, when it looks like a very small start to what should be a much longer guideline. 'Events' does not equal 'massacres and terrorist incidents'. The guideline seems to be equating the two. I'll add a section to show you what I mean. Carcharoth 21:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For renaming, as for rewriting, some sort of community approval would be appropriate. It is an *active* guideline, and people might expect to find it, err, where it is now, with the content that was approved after a community process. --Francis Schonken 22:10, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And since the considerations would apply, for example,  to the Holocaust, which is neither military nor a terrorist incident, the complaint here is not with the name of the guideline, but with its introduction. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to change that, and Francis reverted me. I've asked him to contribute to the discussion here. Would you have time to add your thoughts there as well? Anyone coming late to this thread should head over there as well, as that seems to be the best place to discuss all this. I agree that my initial rename suggestion was not quite right. I've now suggested Wikipedia:Naming conventions (controversial event names), which seems to me to sum the content up better than the current name of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events). Carcharoth 22:43, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems with [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events)]] 

message: From the intro:
:The naming convention used by the earliest contributor takes precedent.
This is bad grammar; but it is worse policy. It is even now being used on Talk:St. Florian's Gate, to defend the position that "I wrote the article; I get to name it". A reference, as with Anglo-American naming disputes, to a  previous long period of stability, would be fine. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The "previous long period of stability" sounds fine to me. As long as no better name is uncovered in the meantime. It could just be that no-one got around to spotting the problem before. If there is a clear-cut case for a rename, then that always takes precedent. Carcharoth 22:46, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed sentence 

message: Due to my participation of some WP:RM discussions on some articles (now known as Lucky Star (manga), We Love Katamari, I ♥ Huckabees and Nostradamus ni Kiite Miro), I have thought about the "symbol as title" problem and hence propose the replacement of the following in WP:NAME#Special Characters
:Non-language characters such as "♥", "★", and "*", sometimes found in advertisements or logos, are not the common English usage. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English).
to
:Non-language characters such as "♥", "★", and "*", sometimes found in advertisements or logos, are not the common English usage and, hence, should be avoided. 
:However, when the usage of the symbol convey more than one text readings, such symbols should be kept for accuracy. 
:Examples of the rationale:
:*We Love Katamari not We ♥ Katamari because ♥ in this title only meant love.
:*Lucky Star (manga) not Lucky ☆ Star because ☆ in this title is purely stylistic and do not convey any meaning.
:*I ♥ Huckabees should be kept because the producer intentionally used the ambiguity of ♥ to convey both the meanings of love heart, and the big-box retail advertisement theme related to this movie. 
:In all cases, all possible readings should be set up as redirects, and the article should start with the original name with symbols.
:Also see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English).
What do you think? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Samuel Curtis (talk • contribs) 03:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm a little concerned about accessibility issues with some special characters.  Will a heart symbol show up as such on all computers?  How will it be processed by a text reader, which a blind person might use to access Wikipedia? -GTBacchus(talk) 08:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal of the usage of special characters 

message: I've found several cases of edit wars regarding diacritics in the topic's name. E.g. Marek Špilár is moved to Marek Spilar and vice versa. Although I agree national characters can be hardly written if you don't use proper keyboard settings. But moving articles to names without diacritics is a loss of the information - it's nice to see how it is written in the original - specially in case of persons names. I propose to use topic's name as the most close to the original - in the national sound with diacritics, special german S, finnish characters etc. But with duty to create a redirect with plain us-ascii. ≈Tulkolahten≈≈talk≈ 13:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Only when English does; crossing the l's in Stanislaw Ulam violates both English usage and his own practice in English. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are and have been hundreds of others badly named in the same way.  Just because a name can possibly be written with diacritics does not mean that it should be in the English Wikipedia.  Furthermore, a great many people have used different spellings of their names over time, in different languages, and so on.  Gene Nygaard 05:05, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I've posted a related query at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#Accented names. -Will Beback · † · 00:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diacritics 

message: The policy says, "In band names and titles of songs or albums, unless it is unique, the standard rule..." (WP:Naming_conventions#Album_titles_and_band_names). What does "unique" mean in that context? John Cardinal 17:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I always felt this bit was somewhat ambiguous, given that it would be directly at odds with Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums#Capitalization if it really referred to uniquely capitalized titles. And it would also more or less path the way for a lot of stylized typography to be carried over to Wikipedia (see related discussion below). I'd suggest to give preference to the clearer variant the WikiProject Albums has come up and worked with and clarify this policy accordingly. - Cyrus XIII 04:01, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums#Capitalization is short and sweet, and clear as a result. Do you think it might be worthwhile to add a comment that it overrides unusual capitalization of album and song titles, to make it explicit? John Cardinal 04:30, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unless it is unique? 

message: What do I call an article about the Flora of a region?  One reason this is important is these are articles hard to search for on Wikipedia unless they have some commonality of titles.  Should an article be titled Flora of Turkey?  Or Vegetation of Turkey?  From a botanical stand-point in English the two are used somewhat differently.  The first would simply be a collection of the plants native to or naturalized in Turkey, while the second would describe plant communities found in Turkey.  A flora might also contain descriptions of the vegetation, and a manual of vegetation might also contain plant lists under each association.   But, in general, what should the articles be titled?  Also geology?  Should it be Geology of Turkey, Geology of Iran? This seems more intuitive than the plants.  KP Botany 00:50, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This seems to be an interesting case where category naming conventions are ahead of article naming conventions; given that we already have :Category:Flora by country, and even :Category:Flora of Turkey, I think that Flora of Turkey would be the preferred title.  -- Visviva 02:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flora of a region, article title? 

message: Hello, would people with experience in naming conventions for articles please chime in at the Discussion page here: Talk:Dominator UAV.  I am flexible on the article name, but I want to ensure people using search engines like "Google" and "Wikipedia" will find it quickly and easily.  Thank you Headphonos 16:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, you are talking about article names within the scope of WP:Air, which has standards on aircraft article names. You have tried to move this article to a name that does not conform to those standards, which have been present on Wikipedia for years. You cannot just name an article willy-nilly. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 17:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Dominator UAV]] 

message: What is the policy for situations where there is a commonly used name and a more precise scientific name. I am concerned mostly with language names: 'Ebonics' vs. 'African-American Vernacular English (AAVE)'; 'Patwa/Patois' vs. 'Creole'? There is also the possibility that the less formal names could be considered offensive by some. Makerowner 02:06, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scientific or common name? 

message: I've made a draft proposal for separate subpage at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (political parties). Any opinions? If ppl are ok with it, then it could be linked and categorized. --Soman 15:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Political parties 

message: should there be a separate convention on trade unions? imho, its generally quite confusing when names of say CGT, CNT, are translated into english. --Soman 16:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  trade unions 

message: What do in cases like Silent Hill: 0rigins? The most common name is Silent Hill: Origins but the logo in the package says 0rigins. --Mika1h 19:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We should use the name that the makers use in publications that we use as sources.  As far as I can till, the makers usually use the letter O.  I think that the use of the number 0 is mostly limited to the logo.  Either way, one should be a redirect to the other.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 22:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stylized logos 

message: This guideline doesn't seem to provide specific guidance on when the published title of a work has irregular capitalization, such as anyone lived in a pretty how town. The guideline (especially sections like "Album titles and band names" and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization)) would seem to suggest we're to "fix" capitalization that was left irregular by the creator... this isn't the case, is it? We don't fix when the title of a work has intentionally incorrect grammar or spelling, for example. If we're to fix capitalization, why does  even exist? --W.marsh 02:28, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The general consensus and practice (at least as far as my experience with works of music and film goes), is to apply title case to ... well, titles, as outlined at Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums#Capitalization. This appears to be in line with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks) (which points out a few exceptions that might require the lowercase template), in order to reduce non-standard capitalization for a more coherent style throughout Wikipedia. This article outlines the reasoning behind "unofficial" capitalization very well, in my opinion. - Cyrus XIII 03:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Cyrus and I have already discussed this a bit on our talk pages... I was kind of hoping we'd get some more input. Perhaps I should list a request at WP:RFC? --W.marsh 15:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Work titles with irregular capitalization 

message: I just finished assessing a bunch of articles on Japanese emperors for WPBiography and noticed that, unlike western royalty, the emperors are not identified by their country. Shouldn't the articles all be titled "Emperor ______ of Japan"? Mocko13 02:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In short, no. Naming conventions for Japanese emperors are not the same as those for European monarchs. The reasons for this are many and I think I'll let someone more knowledgeable than I explain the matter more fully. Alkari (?) 01:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japanese emperors with country identifier? 

message: How is it possible that this page has survived this long without any mention whatsoever of Wikipedia:Requested moves, the very procedure we have set of for dealing with this very issue? Or was it there at some time and improperly removed?  It just makes no sense whatsoever to me. Gene Nygaard 14:45, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added links to Help:Moving a page and Wikipedia:Requested moves to the lead.  The latter page directs people where to go for category and image renames.  There may be a better way to include the information I added, but at least there's something there now. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Glaring omission:  [[Wikipedia:Requested moves]] 

message: Can anyone help me with a hypothetical situation.  There is an island called Bogistan.  That is clearly the most widely used name for the island, which is not disputed.  Some inhabitants of the island do not like the name, and would rather it were called something different.  Editors are going around putting multiple examples of use of alternatives names for Bogistan in the page, which they have trawled off the net.  Is this original research?  Is it acceptable?  Are there any other policies that cover it?--86.31.225.220 18:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your question is actually specific to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names). Generally, for a non-historical article, the name should be the English translation of the official name of the place, as recognized by the sovereign government. You can list the other names, along with the context, as long as the attribution leads to reliable sources. Dhaluza 19:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My question is actually a bit more general than that.  To give another example, if I wanted to write that Stettin is still used in the English language today, do I simply need to find a mention of Stettin on an English-language website, or do I need to find secondary sources discussing use of the term?--86.31.225.220 19:53, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is actually a parallel example of this case for Gdansk and Danzig at the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) page. You will note that they both point to the official name Gdańsk, but list both alternatives, as well as others. I think you are fine with one primary reference for including mention of an alternative name. If you want to provide more context around the alternative, then a secondary source is needed. Dhaluza 20:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for help 

message: I apologize if it's relatively obvious and I'm just not seeing it, but is there a policy/guideline/custom for or against using birth & death years as disambig qualifiers? I would like to disambig two samurai named Suwa Yorishige, and I can do it by years, by century, or by historical period - one would become "Suwa Yorishige (Nanboku)" and the other "Suwa Yorishige (Sengoku)". What's preferred? Thanks. LordAmeth 20:56, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambig qualifiers 

message: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) have very similar scope, and I think they should be merged. Comments?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  04:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I may not remember it correctly, but wasn't the former at one point split from the latter because it was growing too long, thus overwhelming other types of geographic names?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 12:59, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge? 

message: Is there a policy or guideline on how articles on churches should be named? For example, should Church of St. Peter, Brighton be named as such, or can it be named St Peter's Church, Brighton (in accordance with its website)? I am asking because I want to be sure of my facts before if I change that article's name (and others). I have been told by another user that an admin had said there is a policy or guideline on this, but I'm doubtful there would be and anyway I haven't been able to find such a policy or guideline. Thanks, A bit iffy 11:42, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles on churches 

message: Would interested editors have a look at what's been happening at The 11 O'Clock Show?  A user, after an abortive attempt to argue that we should change the capitalisation rules to allow the capitalisation of the preposition in "o'Clock", waited a while and then renamed this article.  I've listed it as a (controversial) move back.  Discussion would be welcome. --Mel Etitis  (Talk) 22:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, I think it should stay that way.  The O probably should be capitalized, most modern usage of the "O'Clock" has it capitalized I think. Nol888(Talk)(Review me please) 12:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The "o" in "o'clock" 

message: I've made an argument in the discussion page for coeliac disease (and won't clutter by repeating it here) that not all naming conventions are free of deadly consequences. Coeliac (your, and the UK spelling) or Celiac disease is common and vastly underdiagnosed. Most physicians are extremely poorly informed about it, and it kills. The article here contains not a few very helpful facts not so easily discovered, that can (and will) save lives. Choosing a rare spelling (as Wikipedia has inadvertently done) will cost lives by limiting search query relevance, I argue there - the only cause being that years ago the first entry on the illness had the UK spelling. Pity.
Ndaniels 22:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Redirects, anyone? I'd also say that it's not really our duty to save lives. --tjstrf talk 23:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I've never seen it spelt Celiac disease, but obviously someone has, as that redirect has been in place since July 2002, and the variant spelling is also in the lead sentence to make sure people who found it from that name know they have the right page. --Scott Davis Talk 23:24, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

text: It may sound brutal, but User:tjstrf is right - Wikipedia is not about saving lives; it's just an encyclopaedia. Also, there's a disclaimer somewhere that says something like Wikipedia should not take the place of advice from informed professionals. As has been indicated twice above, someone searching for "celiac" within Wikipedia will be redirected to the correct article. Furthermore, people searching outside this encyclopaedia (e.g., via Google) will come across relevant, useful links anyway, of which Wikipedia is one.--A bit iffy 08:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Also: there was once a proposal to rename the article, but this was turned down. See Talk:Coeliac disease#Requested move.--A bit iffy 08:30, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

text: (edit conflict with Grutness) We read it, but it doesn't change the answer. There is a redirect from the US variant spelling, so people entering that spelling in the search box get the article. Several variant spellings are in the article so people using internet-based full-text search engines find the article with whatever spelling they use. The Wikipedia convention is that the first major dialect of English used in an article is the one kept for that article. A formal move request was soundly defeated, complete with a World Health Organisation Organization reference.. --Scott Davis Talk 12:18, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

text: From what I gather, he seems to think that it is a very common genetic disorder which is severely under diagnosed and therefore people need to have access to high quality information about the disorder which they may not get if they search with the 'more common' (supposedly) spelling. Of course, I don't quite get how people who don't know they have a disorder will know how to spell the disorder they don't know they have in the first place nor do I get why someone is going to take the trouble to research the disorder but yet somehow miss out our article just because it's a little lower down because we use a different spelling from them. Then of course I also don't get why people should be relying on our article in the first place, especially since ironically searching for celiac gives a bunch of links at the very top which help in searching for information on the disease from arguably better sites for this sort of thing. Nil Einne 12:25, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coeliac disease - changing our spelling could save lives 

message: I assume that Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Prefer_spelled-out_phrases_to_abbreviations means that if the spelled out phrase is also used "commonly," one has to prefer this over the abbreviation? At least that is what I get from "is almost exclusively known only by its abbreviation." Exclusively here sounds like I would need to have a hard time finding the spelled out phrase in an academic paper for example, for me to not use it. Intangible2.0 08:59, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  abbreviations 

message: Should schools have the word the added before the school's name when speaking of them in the article proper? An example would be, should Ohio State be referred to as I'm going to Ohio State university, or I'm going to the Ohio State University. There currently is some discussion of this matter at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-03-11 Ohio State University. Any clarification of whether or not this guideline is relevant to the discussion there is welcome, if it is relevant, then which version is correct. Thanks. —— Eagle101 Need help? 21:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: further clarification shows that this is not the right guideline, but another naming convention is involved. Please ignore the request. —— Eagle101 Need help? 22:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Names of schools 

message: I've had a couple of editors recently insisting that prepositions over four letters should be capitalised, and claiming that it was the MoS guideline.  I was surprised, because that was never our approach, and I didn't remember seeing it discussed.  I finally tracked it down to here, and indeed that qualification (all words over four letters should be capitalised) had appeared.  Checking the Talk page, I found that it had been added by one editor, had been disagreed with by another, and somehow the issue was ignored or not noticed.
Some style manuals capitalise everything, including prepositions, articles, etc., some capitalise no articles or prepositions (always our approach in the past), and some place limits of various word lengths.  If we're going to change the guideling, I think that we need to discuss the issue first. --Mel Etitis  (Talk) 17:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm confused by the claims that the capitalisation used by the manual of style is somehow standard English. That aside, what happens when the artist(s) of a song use other capitalisations, for example When The Sun Goes Down contains an image of the CD with that capitalisation. Dmn € Դմն 23:48, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalisation 

message: How long can an article name be? — Ocolon 12:22, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 255 bytes - see Help:Page name#Maximum page name length.--A bit iffy 12:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. :) — Ocolon 15:22, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maximum article name length 

message: It's been suggested at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation#New Proposal that deciding to name station articles based on what signs at the station say is original research. That seems ridiculous to me; can someone back me up? --NE2 03:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There continue to be problems here. Please help us decide how to determine the common name. --NE2 13:13, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Choosing a name: original research? 

message: Regarding the List of Formula One drivers, which has been deemed a featured list, I was just wondering how some names should best be ordered alphabetically. Should Cristiano da Matta and Hermano da Silva Ramos be sorted under D, as they are now, or should they be sorted under M and S respectively? I'm not familiar with how the Portuguese-speaking are sorting names of this kind. The same can be said about some other people from countries in which Romance languages are spoken, and also some South Africans. I already know that the German "von" should not be regarded as a part of the name when sorting it alphabetically.
These questions have been addressed earlier (now in archive 4), but I find it's not clear to me how all the names should be sorted. Help would be appreciated. John Anderson 23:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I am not sure, but it seems more natural for me to do like in German, sorting Cristiano da Matta under M. Hermano da Silva Ramos would be sorted under R, because you should sort just by the last name. But I don't know if there is a convention about it. Probably not, because when the gymnast Daiane dos Santos had her floor skill named after her name, they called it dos Santos, and they always pick the last name. Fregonassi 17:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Interesting points. Having recently created an article on French actress Emma de Caunes it had seemed natural to include the "de" in the sort order. I wonder what other encyclopaedias/directories do - can someone have a look?. Also, I've looked at the French Wikipedia to see how they do things there. It appears they include "de" and so on as part of the family name (see here), but exclude it in the sort (see here).--A bit iffy 11:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Emma de Caunes should definitely be sorted under "C", as per the French Wikipedia. --Mel Etitis  (Talk) 16:56, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alphabetical order of some non-English names 

message: I raised a question at the Anatomy Wikiproject, and the question was brought to Clinical Medicine Wikiproject on how to name topics that apply generically or specifically to humans vs animals, eg Tooth vs Tooth (human) or Human tooth vs Tooth (animal) - Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Clinical medicine#Human vs. animal? for some of the conversation. I would appreciate any input. - Dozenist talk 14:10, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I strongly favour using the human term as the undisambiguated main page title, with animal concepts being disambiguated from there. As pointed out in the CLINMED discussion, Wikipedia is still HPOV (human point-of-view), apart from the fact that generally more is to be said about human than animal anatomy. JFW | T@lk 06:29, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What about topics like herd behaviour and others like that are derived from a term originally used to describe either animal features and/or behaviour but are also now used to descibe human facets? --Philip Baird Shearer 08:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tooth 

message: I've been trying to figure out if there is a convention about this, and WP:PLACE is a bit unclear.  My question is about the names of articles about places or buildings within a city, such as Humboldt Park, Chicago.  Is there a rule to help us choose between "Humboldt Park, Chicago", "Humboldt Park, Chicago, Illinois", "Humboldt Park (Chicago)", and "Humboldt Park (Chicago, Illinois)?  Smmurphy(Talk) 20:11, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Places within cities in the US 

message: Please take the time to review and contribute to the discussion regarding naming conventions & disambiguation for baseball player articles going on here. Thanks, Caknuck 20:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming conventions for baseball players 

message: Given a choice, should NPOV be considered when choosing a title? Let's mention something about such situations in the policy. ←Humus sapiens ну? 22:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Any examples of recent cases? --Soman 08:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two names are equally popular. You have to choose between a POV and NPOV one 

message: I just finish my first article on wikipedia. I have to type the full name of my article in order to find my article, My question is how to make the other search for Abbreviation of the article title and found it. At the moment I have to type the whole title name to find my article. 
                                   Thank you very much for all you guys help
                                                      Gonk60 12:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help please 

message: ...and that kinda states the problem in a nutshell. The article discusses the series, but in context to the films, which are described first, After the series, the cartoon and animé and comic books are discussed. I was thinking that Highlander (franchise) or Highlander (universe) come a bit closer to the mark, but something better is clearly needed. A helping hand might be what the doctor ordered. :) Arcayne (cast a spell) 12:25, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Er, I was actually looking for some constructive input, folks...Arcayne (cast a spell) 17:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Rosenknospe 13:39, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Highlander (series)]] 

message: There is only one thing called Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue, but the article is at Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue (New York City Subway). I've looked for guidance from the naming conventions but have found nothing concrete. --NE2 18:54, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is the disambiguation suffix necessary? 

message: The naming convention demographics of... (country) is not correct. It should be demography of... according to both the demography and the demographics page. I propose that this should be changed accordingly. Virgule82 19:45, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No its not.  What the heck are you trying to pull?  Demographics means (Websters): "The characteristics of human populations and population segments, especially when used to identify consumer markets: The demographics of the Southwest indicate a growing population of older consumers."  That's exactly how the word is used in all the articles.  Please revert your edits before you get penalized for vandalism.  Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:12, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  demography 

message: The words
:In a few cases of naming conflicts, editors have been unable to reach a strong consensus to support one name above another name. In these instances, both names are allowed. 
from the section on controversial names are an invitation to abuse; one side need merely come up with enough WP:ILIKEIT !votes to be able to deny consensus with a straight face; they do not need to discuss the case, or comply with the rest of this page. I suspect that there is a valid thought here, but the wording should be much less sweeping.  Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:22, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I support removing the sentence, as it does not make sense - to "allow" both names means to have an article of equal standing under each title - two articles on the same topic should be merged, reigniting the dispute in the first place. --Scott Davis Talk 10:54, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Švitrigaila 12:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I fully agree. At the very least, new wording should be changed to make it crystal-clear, even for newbies, that this clause only applies in those cases in which no clear common English usage could be determined in the course of the discussion. - Best regards, Ev 18:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I really needed to read edit histories more carefully.  I sincerely apologize to Alex Bakharev for not doing so.  Rklawton 18:58, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unable to decide 

message: Please, take a quick look at the discussion at "NPOV is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia", and this edit, in relation to the current naming dispute at the article on the Shatt al-Arab waterway. It's just the latest example of something I have encountered very often, and which takes a lot of time and effort to deal with: editors arguing that "WP:NPOV demands that we use double titles in articles about disputed regions, zones, territories, etc... Using one single name would imply ownership or endorsement of one side of the dispute".
In this case, users are relying on this interpretation of WP:NPOV to advocate for "Arvand Rud/Shatt al-Arab" (Persian/Arab names, in alphabetical order, when "Shatt al-Arab" is the one commonly used in English - it's the English name, for crying out loud :-). I have encountered the same argument in favour of "Kosova/Kosovo" (viewed as "Albanian/Serbian" names) and basically every other article related to Kosovo... "Using Kosovo alone implies endorsing Serbian claims over the region".
So, to finish these arguments once and for all, and saving me and others lots of time... how about adding some clear wording to this policy, something that every newbie could understand, along the lines of:
“NPOV does not advocate the use of double titles "to keep articles neutral". We aim to write neutral, fair, unbiased articles; but we aim to write them in English, using the names the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize.”
Or any other wording to that effect. Something I can just link to instead of having to spend time more sterile discussions... What do you think ? - Best regards, Ev 18:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV & naming conventions 

message: Clearly, many people have a lot invested in differences of spelling within the English language and its different varieties, let alone differences in actual wording or naming of titles that reflect cultural ambiguities. See the discussion page about the naming of the Yoghurt article. There are several ways of dealing with this which I will outline and then comment on after.
1) Every article could have a single definitive title containing no ambiguities that represents the 'standard' - i.e. a title that would be most easily recognised by the largest number of speakers of English. Such articles would contain a section covering the differences in possible titles and spellings of words in the title, as well as being the article to which all such possible titles and spellings would be re-directed. The advantage of this is simplicity.
2) Articles about which there are differences of POV about naming/spelling, that are reflected by actual differences in usage as demonstrated by sources on the topic, could reflect those differences in the title of the article. The order in which the different names appear could reflect the proportion of interested linguistic populations using the respective names/spellings. The differences would be elaborated on within the article.
3) Articles that appear to be about a single topic may be subject to significant dispute about the naming/spelling of the title, and to significant disputes within the article itself about aspects of its content. Such situations could be resolved by creating as many smaller articles as necessary that both meet WP criteria and limit the potential for ongoing disagreement, with each article as far as possible having a single name and with spellings consistent throughout.
Option 1) appears simple, but has the potential to create ongoing disputes and overly-long WP articles (of which there are plenty). And while it may appeal to a utilitarian spirit, will likely result in problems arising from the dominance of a certain kind of English, with attendant issues of POV contained within that variety of the language. The differences between the varieties of English is more than a few differences in the way some words are spelled. In some instances, the differences in meanings are more like a different language. Such differences can be difficult to reconcile. Given that WP is not a paper encyclopedia, it doesn't need to try to be a final arbiter and resolve things to the 'lowest common denominator' for publication. The advantages of a wiki-encyclopedia are that actual differences in the world can be registered and documented rather than having to be glossed over. Paper encyclopedias attempts to present a NPOV have been criticised for their POV-ness. NPOV is more a matter of scope of ovreall coverage than something that can be applied equally to every single article. WP as a whole should be able to provide enough links between related pieces to result in a NPOV overall, but attempting to do this for each and every article is impossible.
Option 2) has the problem that once an article acquires more than one name in its title, or uses more than one spelling, the question arises about how the rest of the article should proceed to be consistent with the article's name. Although this consistency is desirable, even when WP articles use a single name/spelling, inconsistencies do occur, with some articles becoming overly long as more and more POVs are added about what the article is 'about'.
Option 3) Is suggested as a way of overcoming the difficulties raised with the previous two options. Its based on what already happens in WP. As long as there are sufficient internal links between articles about similar topics, that have different names, then users of WP would seem to be well-served and overall, NPOV upheld.Eyedubya 21:21, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  thanks for the link, interesting. But now that I've read it, I don't think that's quite what I meant. Its not necessarily about SPOV. Its about articles not getting too big or contested and allowing editors to spend more time and energy on content itself. Take an example. This furore over the Yoghurt article's title. So, what's the harm in there being an article called 'Yoghurt' and one titled 'Yogurt' and even another one called 'Yogourt', each of which contains pretty much the same information including links between them? Each one can be edited by those who favour one particular spelling. Does it matter that they sit side by side in WP? And as for the names of cities, well, why can't the same thing happen there as well? As long as there is a link saying 'this article is the sibling of article X', then those who want the totally comprehensive view can noodle between them. But as it is, WP tends to result in unstable pages and supression of some PoVs. Yes that does sound like Wikinfo, but it doesn't have to be. I don't see why people will get bored and vandalise in the way you propose. But I'm relatively new around here, so ... who knows.Eyedubya 07:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not suppose that you advocated the SPOV, and it won't happen on Yoghurt; but look at the mess on Talk:Persian Gulf, and consider what would be likely to happen if we actually had a Arabian Gulf alongside it. Bad enough as it is, but at least the Persians and the Arabs to some extent neutralize each other, providing leverage for the rest of us to keep both sides in bounds.   Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:07, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A rose by any other name 

message: I'm proposing this be entered after a discussion on Wikipedia_talk:Manual of Style (trademarks):
:Convention: Follow standard English text formatting for article names that are trademarks. Items in full or partial uppercase (such as Invader ZIM) should have standard capitalisation (Invader Zim).
:Exceptions include article titles with the first letter lowercase and the second letter uppercase, such as iPod and eBay
:Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks).
I agree, mystery person.  Sign your posts. BenB4 01:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Apologies, that post was mine. ●BillPP (talk|contribs) 01:30, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Draft "Use standard English for titles even if trademarks suggest otherwise" 

message: The members of the Baseball Players Task Force (a part of WikiProject Baseball) have been discussing a set of naming conventions for baseball player articles. I have posted the draft copy here. Please feel free to discuss/propose changes at the talk page for the draft copy. Thanks, Caknuck 04:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There should be one standard naming convention for athletes in all professional sports (and arguments can be made to say this for all named athletes in general). There is nothing unique to baseball here: professional sports have similar naming issues with articles (such as American football's Gene Washington). B.Wind 16:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming conventions for baseball players 

message: Is it necessary to use diacritical marks on people's names?  I say this because this is the English Wikipedia, and therefore it may make sense to Anglicize names. Hallpriest9 (Talk | Archive) 03:21, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia editors have not been able to reach an agreement on this issue, and as far as I know it's currently being considered on a case by case basis. See the "Naming conventions (use English)" guideline, specifically the "Disputed issues" section. - Best regards, Ev 01:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ev is correct, we handle it on a case-by-case basis. Some people are best known by names with diacriticals, and so their articles should reflect that common usage. For example, Pedro Almodóvar. Others have names which are spelled with diacriticals sometimes, but not in English-language publications, and so we shouldn't do so either. For example, Roman Polanski.  ·:·Will Beback  ·:· 05:04, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diacritical marks 

message: We would be grateful for some input on the above guideline. The short paragraph in Wikipedia:Naming Conventions does not specify whether one or two parameters should be used to disambiguate school titles. The suggestion is that we follow the existing Wikipedia conventions for place names when disambiguating school articles. There are however so many inconsistencies in the existing policies that it is very difficult to decide on a consistent global policy for disambiguated school titles. There seems to be general consensus that schools in America and Canada should be disambiguated as Any High School (Municipality, State/Province). UK schools are currently disambiguated purely by place name, eg, Forest School (Walthamstow). We then however have schools in other countries where there do not seem to be any clear guidelines. For example, there is a New English School in Jubriya, Kuwait and another one in Amman, Jordan. There might well be other schools of the same name in other countries. Should these disambiguated by place name, by country, or by both place name and country? Dahliarose 09:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (schools)]] 

message: There are often disputes on that languages (lang-XX templates) must be listed in article introduction section for objects, people, companies, metro stations etc. Issue arrice from fact that some editors believe that Russian names can be omitted or must be listed first, or transliteration must be listed for both Ukrainian and English. The only guideline I was able to find on this matter is WP:NCGN - but it referrer to geographical names and editors has objections that it's not applicable for others objects or people. 
Is it possible for community to define correct set of guidelines for this ? For example 10% people rule using this alternative name, listing combination of English, Russian, Ukrainian names in foundation documents, listing names on official websites, usage of other language version in the past, etc... ? Thanks in advance for your support. --TAG 19:42, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We should  write one; I think the principles of WP:NCGN have fairly wide support, and a similar page on people or things might well have consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:03, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Listing name (for objects, people) in more then one language 

message: Hopefully, the final tweak has been made to the proposed naming conventions for baseball players. The discussion on the guidelines can be viewed here and here. Please review the proposal here and add any comments/suggestions/feedback on the talk page. If there are no major issues, we'll put this thing to a straw poll in a few days, and if successful will then submit for formal inclusion on WP:NC. Thanks, Caknuck 04:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Baseball player naming conventions 

message: We at WikiProject New York City Public Transportation are voting on station naming conventions: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation/New York City Subway/Station naming convention --NE2 12:34, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New York City Subway station naming conventions 

message: Is there any general advice for merging of disambig pages for abbreviations, for example BAM was merged with Bam (taken from the list) and BAM now redirects to Bam. This seems sensible to me... A topic which has been discussed (Without a clear outcome) is ADA and Ada. Would it be sensible to merge these?? It seems confusing to have 2 different pages with significant overlap. Also, if these should be merged, which one should be the main article, ADA or Ada. Generally Ada would seem to be the sensible title, but how about disambig pages such as TFT which should then be called Tft with a redirect from TFT. My apologies if this has been discussed, but I couldn't find any information on it... NPalmius 02:08, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  General advice on abbreviations 

message: I came up with this title, rather than crime victim, victim-proneness (as suggested by WP:AR1), or victim (criminology).  There is also an article on Victimization.  I have redirected the other possible names to Victim of a crime.  Is there any advice as to whether this is correct?  I am not happy either with the content of the article as it stands. Should I request a renaming, a move or a merger? Bearian 15:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Victim of a crime]] 

message: At Talk:Ftr#Requested move, there is a proposal to move ftr to FTR (bus), claiming that the lower-case trademark "ftr" should be presented in standard English as all capitals. I don't see that the guideline explicitly addresses this situation, in that "ftr" is not really an acronym and perhaps not even strictly speaking an abbreviation. WP:MOSTM recommends that lower case trademarks like adidas should be presented as proper nouns and capitalized accordingly as "Addidas". Input on this question is welcome at Talk:Ftr#Requested move. older ≠ wiser 17:20, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Input requested on requested move 

message: Please see the new proposal I've proposed at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Tibetan)/proposal 2 and discuss at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Tibetan)/proposal 2. I also added a brief introduction here —Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 20:54, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New proposal for Tibetan naming conventions 

message: As it seems that some would want to deny that Palestinian People is a controversial name; I added it to the list so that everyone can see that it is similar to the other controversial names which include: Roman Catholic Church vs. Catholic Church; BC/AD vs. BCE/CE; Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia vs. Republic of Macedonia vs. Macedonia. Itzse 20:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversial names 

message: Let's say we have a subject that applies to both humans and other species (perhaps just animals, perhaps all forms of life, it doesn't matter). Now this subject is too broad not to have both an article describing it in general, and an article that deals only with the human aspects of it. A good example is cannibalism - it's widespread in many organisms, but there's also a huge amount that can be written about human cannibalism alone (and the term itself was originally used for humans, then borrowed by zoologists). Now the question here is what is the human-only article to be called? In this instance, it's called Cannibalism for humans, and Cannibalism (zoology) for the more general form. But in other cases an article is given the normal name for the more general article, and a human-specific attachment for the human focussed article. An example: Behavior vs. human behavior. But there seems to be no consistency in this area. This is no doubt a case by case matter, but there needs to be some general guidelines here for making such decisions. For example, the article on infanticide discusses humans only besides a two line mention at the bottom (at least as of today, I plan to expand it myself as time permits), but a huge article could easily be written without even mentioning the existence of humans. At this stage the only other article that briefly treats the subject is the cannibalism (zoology) article linked above, and the savaging article. Infanticide is by no means necessarily cannibalistic though, so eventually there will be need for an article on general animal infanticide. The question is what should be taken into account when deciding whether to place the article at Infanticide (zoology) or take over the infanticide article and shift most of the human material to human infanticide or something similar. 
Possible factors that could be taken into account:
*Which article had the name to begin with (like the spelling rule, though I doubt this could suffice on its own)
*Whether the term applied to humans originally (in the case of cannibalism and infanticide this is an important consideration).
*Which article is the reader more likely to be looking for (but again, we're hardly going to redirect a geographic article to a recent movie or video game just because there are more readers looking for that).
*How greatly the subject applies to humans over other animals (for example if an article on humour in animals was created, it would be unlikely to take the existing one's name since there are few animals that show even a primitive and somewhat subjective form of humour. On the other hand, evolution is hardly going to be about humans only - it applies to all forms of life.
*How large each respective article is (again not ideal, but perhaps somewhat practical if one is very underdeveloped). 
Richard001 09:30, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As you say, this really needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis, but in general, I would advise the following. Where the topic in humans is not fundamentally different from that in other species (e.g. neither human behaviour nor human cannibalism are qualitatively different from other species' behaviour or cannibalism, although they may be much more complex and may have been studied in much greater detail), the generic title should be used for a general article, with a link to the human topic either as a hatlink, or above a section using summary style. Where the two are different (e.g. the human/vertebrate mandible is not homologous with the arthropod mandible; I'm sure there are better examples), then we apply the usual criteria laid down in the naming conventions for determining which, if any, takes the simple title and which will be disambiguated. That method would indeed suggest moving cannibalism to human cannibalism or cannibalism (anthropology), since H. sapiens is just one species in which it occurs, and even then rather rarely. I don't think that the argument about inwhich field the term was first used is important, only how the term is used now. Similarly, we should not use the article's current size as a measure of importance; we might use how big it could/should be, but not how big it is. Cannibalism (zoology) is currently a fractions of the size it could and should be. --Stemonitis 10:44, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I came over here from the infanticide article.  I think the list of reasons to consider is a good one, and agree that much will have to  be decided on a case by case basis.  I would give more weight to what the reader is likely to be looking for, and how the term is used now.  It would seem tedious to have many articles retitled, e.g. aggression (human). By this criterion, infanticide (zoology) would make sense. BrainyBabe 16:28, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A google search could also be considered as a criterion. For example with infanticide, all the first ten hits had nothing to do with zoology. But this is really just an extension of the 'what people are looking for' argument. Regarding renaming articles, this would only be done if there were two articles - we wouldn't rename human aggression as such simply because there could be such an article. But having said that, if there were two articles on aggression, it seems very inconsistent to have the aggression article on humans when aggression is a behavior, and behavior is not about only humans. Another example is play (activity), for which there is a great deal that could be written on the subject. Perhaps another criterion then would be what the 'parent' topic is named - for example all behaviors could be about all relevant species by default, unless there were additional circumstances requiring consideration for the article in question. Richard001 02:06, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human focussed vs. general articles 

message: Is there any consensus about the naming of buildings with ambiguous names? Buildings seem to be noticably absent from this guideline. There are rather a lot of buildings and the naming systems are in a complete mess. I've found a historical page called Wikipedia:Naming conventions (architecture). I've tried browsing through some of the sub-categories within :Category:Buildings and structures by country but there is no clear pattern. There is a complete lack of consistency both within countries and even within sub-divisions of countries. There seem to be two main formats: St. Peter's Church, Anytown and St. Peter's Church (Anytown). As far as I can establish the comma format seems to be the most prevalent for buildings. Place names are already disambiguated with the comma format but most other disambiguation pages (books, films, TV programmes etc) use the parentheses format. WikiProject Schools is trying to formulate a policy for the naming of schools at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (schools). The current suggestion is that the parentheses format should be used. Does this policy go against existing practice and consensus? There seems to be no point naming schools in one way, and then using a different format for churches and other buildings. Dahliarose 10:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming of buildings 

message: The current guideline for the naming of cities is badly in need of change, and is in my opinion inconsistent with Wikipedia's other naming conventions, especially in regards to the United States section. Attempts to build consensus have stalled at the talk page. Please take a look at the discussion and give your opinion. Λυδαcιτγ 02:50, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming of US cities 

message: We are having a discussion on the College Football wikiproject about how to properly identify the American football team pages for each university.  Input would be appreciated here.  Currently, they are located at - "University X" "Nickname" football.  I have proposed that they should be located at "University X" "Nickname" American football. Jmfangio| ►Chat  06:03, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  American football vs football 

message: I would like some input on the naming of Animal colouration. The article is lifted from 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica and uses British English. But our article color uses US english. I don't like having daughter articles that use a different spelling - can't we just be consistent and use 'color' for all articles with color in the title? Another example might be behavior and animal behavior (in this case a bad example, since animal behavior just redirects to ethology...), but there are many such as this. Should consistency be given some (perhaps even greater) priority than the original name?
Speaking of which, I don't even see a reference to spelling differences for article names in the policy page. Shouldn't there be something about it? Richard001 10:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We generally do not recommend such changes, since they cause arguments grossly out of proportion with the amount of improvement that may result. However, if you can get consensus for the change on the article's talk page, it shouldn't be an issue, and we sometimes make similar renames for things like a category and its title article. So it's not totally out of the question. --tjstrf talk 01:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was the one who moved it to its current name in the first place, so it's not like it has always been there. There reason I moved it is that the spelling in the article was not consistent with its title.  But having a quick search it seems we have plenty of inconsistency in articles with 'color/colour' in the title, so I guess I'll just leave it as is until we come to considering a more general article on coloration, when the matter will no doubt come up again. Richard001 04:15, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consistency across Wikipedia 

message: I have come across several articles that I'm not sure are properly titled.  This could also be considered a wp:d issue, but i felt this was the best place.  Example: The George S. Halas Trophy is handed out by the Newspaper Enterprise Association to "their" NFL Defensive Player of the year.  There is also the George S. Halas Courage Award and the George Halas Trophy (given to the NFC champion.  Shouldn't George S. Halas Trophy be renamed Newspaper Enterprise Association Defensive Player of the Year Award?  Jmfangio| ►Chat  17:52, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Titles for Awards/Trophies 

message: Reviving this discussion from Archive #10.
Yes, I know there has been much talk about it but nevertheless I feel the need to rediscuss the word "unique" in WP:NC#Album_titles_and_band_names. In Talk:Of_Montreal#of_Montreal_or_Of_Montreal we argued about whether the title should be changed to "of Montreal". I argued for it, because I think "unique" has to be interpreted to be consistent with WP:V and if we have enough sources to confirm a certain spelling (like in this case interviews and album titles who all stress the lower-case "o" as correct (and pages like last.fm changing it)). PEJL argued that the interpretation of "unique" as it currently is does not allow it which I think collides with WP:V but before using WP:IAR to just change it, I wanted to get some more input. --SoWhy Talk 07:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was hoping someone else would pipe up defending the normalization of capitalization of titles since, as noted in the previous discussion linked above, the consensus and general practice is to do so. I can understand why no-one has, as this has been discussed numerous times in the past, as noted for example here (referenced from the discussion above). Proponents of not normalizing capitalization often mention that the guideline uses the phrase "unless it is unique". As I said on Talk:Of Montreal, I believe this phrase "is often misunderstood, and in practice generally disregarded. From what I can tell that clause stems from an attempt to allow for alternate capitalization for classical music." Perhaps someone here remembers the intent of the phrase when it was added? I think it would be most helpful if that phrase was clarified, to avoid these repeated discussions in the future. --PEJL 11:18, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, yes, you said how you think "unique" is to be understood. I disagree with that on basis that no guideline should lead to including information that we know is wrong and if it's only a single letter. Based on WP:V it is impossible to have it written in a way that contradicts every official source and the band's own statements. It's basically a choice between following a guideline and including correct information. I for myself think, no guideline is that powerful that it forces us to capitalize things wrong on purpose. --SoWhy Talk 20:13, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If no-one here can explain precisely how the "unless it is unique" clause is meant to be interpreted, I propose we remove it. --PEJL 13:49, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did so. --PEJL 18:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalizing band names and misspellings on purpose vs. the current guidelines 

message: I feel someting should be added in about how a correct name favours over a common and incorrect name. I have ecountered several move request that vote in favour of the incorrect name simply because it is more common. What have we become? A supermarket tabloid? We are supposed to be an encyclopaedia that gives correct information. Can we please introduce a new policy on this? Reginmund 21:53, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Could you provide an example so we have some context? Are we talking about drug names, species names...? Richard001 22:11, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Coincidentally, this issue is being discussed at WT:ALBUM#Album article names vs WP:UCN, where the issue of album titles which include quotation marks has been brought up. Am I right in interpreting WP:NC#Avoid non alpha-numeric characters used only for emphasis as not applicable to proper names such as album titles (because the quotation marks aren't used "only for emphasis" for such titles)? --PEJL 22:28, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Some stubborn Wikipedians are saying that the Millennium Dome is still the common term for The O2 (the name of the facility was changed a few months ago). They are using the defence that the media still uses the term. A Google search indicates that The O2 gets 35 times more hits than the Millennium Dome. They still use the defence that it is the "common name" even though it is wrong. On the Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster article, Wikipedians are voting to change the name to "Big Ben" since it is the more common name (and they are currently in the lead), even though it says that it is incorrect at the top of the article cited by three different sources. As an encyclopaedia, I think we should incorporate the correct names of things like this. That is, after all, the purpose of the encyclopaedia―to learn things... the right way. Reginmund 23:34, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Define incorrect. If the name is in common use, it doesn't incorporate POV, it doesn't misrepresent its subject, and it doesn't cause confusion, then it is correct, is it not? Jacob Haller 00:30, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

text: That is my point is that it does. By using the common but incorrect name (see the page on the Clock Tower, we are further contributing to the incorrect usage. Reginmund 06:42, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What would you propose be added to the naming conventions page then? Richard001 22:56, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

text: A facility or company etc. should be referred to by its proper name over its colloquial name, especially if that name is deemed incorrect (i.e. Clock Tower, palace of Westminster not Big Ben). If a name of a facility is changed, the Wikipedia article on the facility should change with it, even if the facility is still colloquially refered to by its predecissive name (i.e. The O2 not Millennium Dome). This probably should be noted here also. Reginmund 23:42, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Given what names are (ways people identify things), the colloquial name (how people actually identify the thing) is by definition the correct name (how people actually identify the thing). Official names are useful only when they avoid confusion, and are useless when they create it. Jacob Haller 00:34, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

text: That contradicts itself as suc colloquial names like "Big Ben" even though it is very common is deemed completely incorrect by three different sources on the article. When the official name is used in both cases, it doesn't create confusion at all, it just reminds us of what is correct. (i.e. the Millennium Dome is incorrect nowadays) and although it is still sometimes used, it is still incorrect as the name of the facility has changed and I think we should remind people of that. Reginmund 01:57, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The name is whatever people call it. If the town. company, etc. doesn't change what people call it it hasn't really changed its name. Since most things have more than one name, I'm all for using which name creates the least confusion, and includes the least bias; I'm not for privileging an "official name" over the actual names people use. I'm not sure what people actually call the structure. I'm not editing those pages. Jacob Haller 02:06, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

text: And what if people call it by its incorrect name? If something has changed its name then it doesn't mean that it hasn't just because people call it something else. The name that would create the least confusion would be the correct name and not the colloquial name since the colloquial name would be deemed either slang or retro. We are an encyclopedia. We should report on what is right, not what is wrong just because some people think it is right. Otherwise, why don't we just assume that all urban legends are true? Reginmund 08:27, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I must admit I'm in broad agreement with Reginmund - as an encyclopaedia we should be use official, proper ("correct") names wherever they exist.  The only problem with this is where an entity has several official names, or where an official name is disputed (such as with the British Isles).  My preference for the policy would be to always use the official name (with appropriate redirects from other common names).  Where there is no official name, or where an official name is disputed (or there are several official names), then use the current policy of using the most common name. Waggers 10:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm most definitely up for that.  I'm in that latter category of experienced users who don't like the current policy but have learned to live with it.  Given that there are already exceptions being made to the policy in a wide variety of areas, and that there's (apparently) a common dislike of the current purely popularity-based convention, perhaps now is indeed the time to push for such a change. As you say, it would need a broad consensus - hopefully that can be achieved. Waggers 10:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am very wary of this indeed, especially as it relates to foreign names, of places and people. These are the ones that attract the most impassioned debates, especially when two different (non-English) nationalities are involved, like Giulio Clovio and Gernika-Lumo.  If this goes through, watch out for Domenicos Theotokopoulos, Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, (the article name until I changed it recently), Paolo Cagliari, and many more. We have WP:COMMONNAME for a reason, and I support it.  The O2/Dome dispute is just about what the common name actually is currently - clearly there is a process of change going on, but personally I think the Dome is still ahead for now. Johnbod 15:17, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

text: What I am most concerned about is the fact that this rule has been pushed so far that even the names that have been considered the most blatantly official have been questioned. Things like "British Isles" I can understand why that would create some heat as they aren't a national entity, but things like The O2 have only one name and anything is colloquial and should be considered subordinate from the page's title. The use of the common name policy over the correct name tends to bring superfluous heat which is uneccesary. It makes us look like a supermarket tabloid. I would definitely support a change in rules. Reginmund 18:21, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes.  And with the foreign name thing, the wording can be that the official English-language name is used.  And again, if there isn't an "official" English name, the policy reverts to the most commonly used English name as opposed to a foreign-language official name.  Problem solved. Waggers 08:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

text: PS - isn't the official name "The O2 Arena" as opposed to "The O2"? Waggers 09:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I think it's worth adding to any/all of these options that where an unofficial name is massively more commonly used, it should be used as the title; it must be possible for very common names to outdo uncommon official names, albeit less often than under the current guidelines. This means that the change would be just a shift in weight of the various aspects of naming rather than a complete overhaul, and also allows for more common sense in naming. As an example, the "South Island Wren" is not called that anywhere where it lives, and a recent move request saw it moved unanimously to Rock Wren (New Zealand) in defiance of the "official" name. I also expect that if any "official" name is given outright preference, as you seem to suggest, it will lead to arguments over what counts as official, which are likely to be very divisive. --Stemonitis 09:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be necessary, but leads to further definition issues.  I still prefer option 2, the existing policy. I would rather have Kingston upon Thames than The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, which I think the other options would lead to.  Johnbod 12:31, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I am not quite sure I understand what would qualify as an "official name". A person, certainly, has an official name. It is clear that we should use that name. Also businesses and various organisations have an official name, by virtue of their legal status. I have never heard of a building having an "official name". My guess is that the only "official name" for Big Ben, is something like "Listed building (Class X) number 2395102945". Although it may be discribed on the planning applocation as "the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster", this is a discription, not a name. My guess is that trying to apply such a rule to buildings, sports, wars, artistic movements etcetera will only cause arguments as to what constitutes an "official name". Thehalfone 14:41, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: True; we haven't renamed Whistler's Mother as "Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother", nor have we renamed Uranus as "Georgium Sidus". At the other extreme, the most common name for February is "Febuary". Assuming no Option 2 partisans want to rename the February article accordingly, no possible policy will eliminate all the arguments. Art LaPella 05:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that's a pertinent example, since "Febuary" is not at all common in writing.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 05:23, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

text: This is not a question of eliminating arguments. There are already arguments and there always will be, unless we adopt some very restrictive blanket policy (which is neither likely nor desirable). The only intention is to make it more likely that the somehow "proper" names will be chosen instead of the somehow less proper common names. Buildings can definitely have official names, as Reginmund's original example of The O2 demonstrates. There are many other stadia where the naming rights are for sale. Actually, I think stadia with naming rights are the worst sort of official names, because they will change every time the advertising contract is changed, but they are official names nonetheless. Uranus does appear to be the official name sanctioned by the IAU, and "Whistler's Mother" is massively more common than "Aranngement…", so I don't think either of those would be affected by the proposed change. There are separate articles for the settlement Kingston upon Thames and the larger Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, so that would also be unaffected. It could probably be worded in such a way that places would not be forced to long-winded titles anyway — I can't think of a phrasing at the moment, but there must be a way of saying that one should drop all the "Independent People's Democratic Republic of…" guff from a name and just leave the core behind. Better examples might include Hull and Holland; the city is at Kingston upon Hull rather than Hull (city), and the area people normally mean when they say "Holland" is (correctly) at the Netherlands. --Stemonitis 06:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Maybe I was pushing what I was trying to say a little bit far. My main point was that an article's name doen't necessary have to be official, but possibly a shortening [i.e. United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)]. Obviously, just "United Kingdom" is acceptable, especially among the government. However, if a name is considered incorrect, it should not be the title of the article, regardless of how common it is. I don't see how that would be an ambiguous rule to enforce. Reginmund 08:12, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

text: In the case of a river, there is no reason not to use the English name. Here's why: in contrast to the O2, it is not a corporate entity and thus doesn't have naming rights to it. However, The O2 does. Reginmund 22:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would be interested in a lawyers view about what "naming rights" actually are. As far as I understand having read Naming rights, it is merely a contract by which one gets a company to agree to call (eg their stadium) by the name that one chooses. I don't see how this makes it an official name. It is a commercial name, certainly but anyone else can call the stadium anything they like. It's name is what people call it, and the most appropriate name for us to use is the one that the most people call it, regardless of who has paid who money. Thehalfone 07:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect name 

message: ====Option 1====
*Where a single English-language official name exists, this is the name that should be used for the article.
*Where there are several official English-language names, (ie. different countries have different official names for an entity) OR where there is no official English-language name, use the most commonly used English language name unless specific naming conventions dictate otherwise (ie. the current policy).
====Option 2====
*Always use the most commonly-used English language name unless specific naming conventions dictate otherwise (ie. the current policy).
====Option 3====
*Where a single English-language official name exists, this is the name that should be used for the article.
*Where there are several official English-language names, (ie. different countries have different official English-language names for an entity), and the article has strong ties to a one of those countries, use that country's official English-language name for the entity.
*Where there are several official English-language names, (ie. different countries have different official English-language names for an entity), and the article has no strong ties any one of those countries in particular, use the most commonly used English language name unless specific naming conventions dictate otherwise (ie. the current policy).
*Where there is no official English-language name, use the most commonly used English language name unless specific naming conventions dictate otherwise (ie. the current policy).
Waggers 09:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's worth adding to any/all of these options that where an unofficial name is massively more commonly used, it should be used as the title; it must be possible for very common names to outdo uncommon official names, albeit less often than under the current guidelines. This means that the change would be just a shift in weight of the various aspects of naming rather than a complete overhaul, and also allows for more common sense in naming. As an example, the "South Island Wren" is not called that anywhere where it lives, and a recent move request saw it moved unanimously to Rock Wren (New Zealand) in defiance of the "official" name. I also expect that if any "official" name is given outright preference, as you seem to suggest, it will lead to arguments over what counts as official, which are likely to be very divisive. --Stemonitis 09:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be necessary, but leads to further definition issues.  I still prefer option 2, the existing policy. I would rather have Kingston upon Thames than The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, which I think the other options would lead to.  Johnbod 12:31, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I am not quite sure I understand what would qualify as an "official name". A person, certainly, has an official name. It is clear that we should use that name. Also businesses and various organisations have an official name, by virtue of their legal status. I have never heard of a building having an "official name". My guess is that the only "official name" for Big Ben, is something like "Listed building (Class X) number 2395102945". Although it may be discribed on the planning applocation as "the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster", this is a discription, not a name. My guess is that trying to apply such a rule to buildings, sports, wars, artistic movements etcetera will only cause arguments as to what constitutes an "official name". Thehalfone 14:41, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: True; we haven't renamed Whistler's Mother as "Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother", nor have we renamed Uranus as "Georgium Sidus". At the other extreme, the most common name for February is "Febuary". Assuming no Option 2 partisans want to rename the February article accordingly, no possible policy will eliminate all the arguments. Art LaPella 05:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that's a pertinent example, since "Febuary" is not at all common in writing.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 05:23, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

text: This is not a question of eliminating arguments. There are already arguments and there always will be, unless we adopt some very restrictive blanket policy (which is neither likely nor desirable). The only intention is to make it more likely that the somehow "proper" names will be chosen instead of the somehow less proper common names. Buildings can definitely have official names, as Reginmund's original example of The O2 demonstrates. There are many other stadia where the naming rights are for sale. Actually, I think stadia with naming rights are the worst sort of official names, because they will change every time the advertising contract is changed, but they are official names nonetheless. Uranus does appear to be the official name sanctioned by the IAU, and "Whistler's Mother" is massively more common than "Aranngement…", so I don't think either of those would be affected by the proposed change. There are separate articles for the settlement Kingston upon Thames and the larger Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, so that would also be unaffected. It could probably be worded in such a way that places would not be forced to long-winded titles anyway — I can't think of a phrasing at the moment, but there must be a way of saying that one should drop all the "Independent People's Democratic Republic of…" guff from a name and just leave the core behind. Better examples might include Hull and Holland; the city is at Kingston upon Hull rather than Hull (city), and the area people normally mean when they say "Holland" is (correctly) at the Netherlands. --Stemonitis 06:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Maybe I was pushing what I was trying to say a little bit far. My main point was that an article's name doen't necessary have to be official, but possibly a shortening [i.e. United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)]. Obviously, just "United Kingdom" is acceptable, especially among the government. However, if a name is considered incorrect, it should not be the title of the article, regardless of how common it is. I don't see how that would be an ambiguous rule to enforce. Reginmund 08:12, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

text: In the case of a river, there is no reason not to use the English name. Here's why: in contrast to the O2, it is not a corporate entity and thus doesn't have naming rights to it. However, The O2 does. Reginmund 22:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would be interested in a lawyers view about what "naming rights" actually are. As far as I understand having read Naming rights, it is merely a contract by which one gets a company to agree to call (eg their stadium) by the name that one chooses. I don't see how this makes it an official name. It is a commercial name, certainly but anyone else can call the stadium anything they like. It's name is what people call it, and the most appropriate name for us to use is the one that the most people call it, regardless of who has paid who money. Thehalfone 07:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Some options for discussion

message: *Where a single English-language official name exists, this is the name that should be used for the article.
*Where there are several official English-language names, (ie. different countries have different official English-language names for an entity), and the article has strong ties to a one of those countries, use that country's official English-language name for the entity.
*Where there are several official English-language names, (ie. different countries have different official English-language names for an entity), and the article has no strong ties any one of those countries in particular, use the most commonly used English language name unless specific naming conventions dictate otherwise (ie. the current policy).
*Where there is no official English-language name, use the most commonly used English language name unless specific naming conventions dictate otherwise (ie. the current policy).
Waggers 09:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's worth adding to any/all of these options that where an unofficial name is massively more commonly used, it should be used as the title; it must be possible for very common names to outdo uncommon official names, albeit less often than under the current guidelines. This means that the change would be just a shift in weight of the various aspects of naming rather than a complete overhaul, and also allows for more common sense in naming. As an example, the "South Island Wren" is not called that anywhere where it lives, and a recent move request saw it moved unanimously to Rock Wren (New Zealand) in defiance of the "official" name. I also expect that if any "official" name is given outright preference, as you seem to suggest, it will lead to arguments over what counts as official, which are likely to be very divisive. --Stemonitis 09:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be necessary, but leads to further definition issues.  I still prefer option 2, the existing policy. I would rather have Kingston upon Thames than The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, which I think the other options would lead to.  Johnbod 12:31, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I am not quite sure I understand what would qualify as an "official name". A person, certainly, has an official name. It is clear that we should use that name. Also businesses and various organisations have an official name, by virtue of their legal status. I have never heard of a building having an "official name". My guess is that the only "official name" for Big Ben, is something like "Listed building (Class X) number 2395102945". Although it may be discribed on the planning applocation as "the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster", this is a discription, not a name. My guess is that trying to apply such a rule to buildings, sports, wars, artistic movements etcetera will only cause arguments as to what constitutes an "official name". Thehalfone 14:41, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: True; we haven't renamed Whistler's Mother as "Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother", nor have we renamed Uranus as "Georgium Sidus". At the other extreme, the most common name for February is "Febuary". Assuming no Option 2 partisans want to rename the February article accordingly, no possible policy will eliminate all the arguments. Art LaPella 05:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that's a pertinent example, since "Febuary" is not at all common in writing.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 05:23, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

text: This is not a question of eliminating arguments. There are already arguments and there always will be, unless we adopt some very restrictive blanket policy (which is neither likely nor desirable). The only intention is to make it more likely that the somehow "proper" names will be chosen instead of the somehow less proper common names. Buildings can definitely have official names, as Reginmund's original example of The O2 demonstrates. There are many other stadia where the naming rights are for sale. Actually, I think stadia with naming rights are the worst sort of official names, because they will change every time the advertising contract is changed, but they are official names nonetheless. Uranus does appear to be the official name sanctioned by the IAU, and "Whistler's Mother" is massively more common than "Aranngement…", so I don't think either of those would be affected by the proposed change. There are separate articles for the settlement Kingston upon Thames and the larger Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, so that would also be unaffected. It could probably be worded in such a way that places would not be forced to long-winded titles anyway — I can't think of a phrasing at the moment, but there must be a way of saying that one should drop all the "Independent People's Democratic Republic of…" guff from a name and just leave the core behind. Better examples might include Hull and Holland; the city is at Kingston upon Hull rather than Hull (city), and the area people normally mean when they say "Holland" is (correctly) at the Netherlands. --Stemonitis 06:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Maybe I was pushing what I was trying to say a little bit far. My main point was that an article's name doen't necessary have to be official, but possibly a shortening [i.e. United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)]. Obviously, just "United Kingdom" is acceptable, especially among the government. However, if a name is considered incorrect, it should not be the title of the article, regardless of how common it is. I don't see how that would be an ambiguous rule to enforce. Reginmund 08:12, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

text: In the case of a river, there is no reason not to use the English name. Here's why: in contrast to the O2, it is not a corporate entity and thus doesn't have naming rights to it. However, The O2 does. Reginmund 22:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would be interested in a lawyers view about what "naming rights" actually are. As far as I understand having read Naming rights, it is merely a contract by which one gets a company to agree to call (eg their stadium) by the name that one chooses. I don't see how this makes it an official name. It is a commercial name, certainly but anyone else can call the stadium anything they like. It's name is what people call it, and the most appropriate name for us to use is the one that the most people call it, regardless of who has paid who money. Thehalfone 07:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Option 3

message: The above is an essay on a base system that covers as much as Wiki as possible. No doubt, no matter the method used, there will always be some conflicts and exceptions, but the above is the best means I have found to date to keep these to a minimum. I'm sure that some will provide conflict examples as a criticism of the above, but I'm certain that these will remain infinitely minor in number in comparison to the total weight of Wiki articles. If they're not, well, we've got something more to talk about below.
Another issue may be Consensus-created "exceptions" (such as non-disambiguated "famous" placenames), but this is a second level of debate - and one, in my humble opinion, that should only be imposed upon an already-functional and coherent article naming system.
Fire away. THEPROMENADER 15:23, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Other Issues