Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (common names)/Archive 1

message: I am confused by this header. I would have expected it to read Don't Overdo it, which makes more sense if only to me personally. Is the current one perhaps (a) a US usage which I don't know about, (b) a clever pun, or something, which I don't get, or (c) a mistake? If it's A then fine, if B then dubious because others may also miss the joke, if C then it needs changing. All enlightenment gratefully received. Nevilley
:That was me not being careful. If the term is too Americentric then please replace it with something better - these pages can be edited at will so long as the meaning isn't changed. --mav
:It's fine now even from my fuddy-duddy UK perspective! :) Nevilley 12:14 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)
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What about kings, queens, princes, princesses, etc? IE, Laurent, Prince of Belgium ? Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom or Elizabeth Windows ? Martin
That is all covered in the naming conventions pages on royal titles. STÓD/ÉÍRE 20:57 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)
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In the UK and the Republic, people who are members of the Welsh (or London) Assemblies have AM after their names. Members of the Parliament at Westminster use MP after their names. Members of the Scottish Parliament put MSP after their name. Members of the NI Assembly put MLA after their names and Members of Dáil Éireann put TD after their names. Here's what i'm wondering, should a Wikipedian refer to a person who is a member of a body that uses a TLA with that TLA or without the TLA? Like this:
John Doe, TLA
or 
John Doe
hoshie
:The TLA certainly shouldn't be in the article title. I don't think we have a policy on whether to include them in articles themselves - personally, I'd leave them out as they rarely add very much and are potentially confusing if you don't happen to know what they mean, but it's a matter of taste I suppose - I wouldn't actually edit them out of an article. --Camembert
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In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was fairly common practice on the Continent that a person was called by their last given name rather than the first one as is common today.  So the French painter Alexandre-Georges-Henri Regnault was commonly referred to as Henri Regnault.  His father Henri Victor Regnault was probably called Victor when he wasn't called Monsieur.  In cases like this, it makes sense to list the person by the given name they were most frequently called by, rather than a full name or the name we could guess from our modern conceptions of name order.  Agreements?  Disagreements? Shimmin 03:27, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds reasonable to me, Shimmin. I am all for putting things where they cause the least surprise, and this seems to be an example of that. Of course, we should have redirects from other versions of trhe name as appropriatew. Tannin 03:42, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Don't Overdue it

message: When used, which one are we to prefer:
*John Doe Sr
*John Doe, Sr
*John Doe Sr.
*John Doe, Sr.
*John Doe, Senior
*John Doe Senior
The first four variants showed up quite often on Daniel Quinlan's redirect-project. -- User:Docu
: John Doe, Sr. is the one that people seem to prefer. (See e.g. John F. Kennedy, Jr..) -- Oliver P. 04:46, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Jr/Sr

message: At Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)#Don't Overdo it, i have converted "unreasonably offensive" to "commonly regarded as offensive" in the following two passages:
: Also, some terms are in common usage but are unreasonably offensive to large groups of people (Eskimo, Black American and Mormon Church, for example). In those cases use widely known alternatives (Inuit, African-American, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for example). 
: when the commonly used term is unreasonably misleading or offensive to one or more groups of people.
I am making no argument against the usage of these preferred terms.  Nevertheless, it is a PoV to say that the reason is unreasonable offensiveness.  Another PoV (mine and perhaps others) is that these are matters of politeness, rejected in modernized societies not bcz they are offensive but for more pragmatic (but IMO equally good) reasons.  Actually, to the extent they are offensive, it's bcz the alternatives are polite (or considered polite, arguably the same thing).  
It'll take me a while to put across my explanation; three anecdotes help in that: 
* In about 1964 a cartoon, probably by Jules Feiffer and definitely in his style, appeared.  It had 6 or 8 frames, each consisting of a head presumably modelled after Stokely Carmichael, and the words being spoken by the head's owner.  The wording (actually all caps) was something to the effect of "The term Black" [new frame] "will now replace the term 'Afro-American'" / "which replaced the term 'colored'" / "which replaced the term 'nigra'" /"which replaced the term 'nigger'" / "which replaced the term 'black'."
* In probably 1982 or '83, the New York Times ran a front page article describing the consensus that had emerged among African-American leaders that that term had become the proper one, perhaps in place of "Afro-American".  (I'm not sure whether i erred in including "Afro-American" in reconstructing the cartoon, or whether "Afro-American" had made a comeback, or whether i am mistaken about what preceded "African-American".)
* In reading the WP passage that i quote above, i did a "take", saying to myself, "how'd they get it backwards; 'Afro-American' was assimilative and everyone is saying 'Black' now."  Again, i misread "African-American" as "Afro-American", and as already said, i may have garbled the order.
My point with all three of these is that what is "unreasonably offensive" grabs a reasonable person by the throat, without them stopping to deal with the nuances that this terminology has gone thru, and doesn't change in a year or two.  What we have here is a social convention, or rather a series of them; i happen to regard each of them as a good social convention in its time (that's my PoV), but i think it is a fact (or much closer to an objective fact) that they are conventions, and that these conventions have served the role of helping African-Americans reorganize and propagate their collective goals and self-conceptions, and enlist different forms (or nuances) of support from sympathetic people of more privileged racial identity. It's IMO unreasonable to violate any of these conventions in its own time, but not unreasonably offensive.  Unreasonable, and offensive, but offensive only because the convention is accepted as important (which i agree with); that's my PoV, and the idea of "unreasonably offensive" is another PoV. But whether they're "commonly regarded as offensive" is a fact. --Jerzy 21:51, 2004 Jan 19 (UTC)
:Actually, the preferred reference to 'Mormon Church' would be:  "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints":  there was recently even a (marginally unsuccessful) page-move vote on including the "The" in the article text (marginally problematic, given wikipedia page-naming policy on leading "the").  No reason not to include it in references, though (and indeed, in links).  Not that this rises to the level of 'offensive', but some people are very sensitive to referring to the church by its correct/official title.  Alai 22:14, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreasonably Offensive 

message: On Talk:Citric acid cycle, there has for a while been a disagreement going on about how to title the page. There is some evidence from Google searches that "Krebs cycle" is a more common name than "citric acid cycle", and no-one has, as far as I can see, argued that this is not true. 
::You missed this reply from Lexor dated 21:34, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks very much for the hint. Accepting it as true, I guess we can't say whether it would be more correct call it an "excellent" point or a "trivial" one.168... 05:50, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

text: No, Wikipedia is not just a general encyclopedia; it is an encyclopedia of integrated specialized, general and concise encyclopedias. Many articles serve roles in more than one of those encyclopedias (or at least they should), so we have to often compromise by using news style, summarizing / spinning-off detail into daughter articles and heading every entry with a summary (suitable for use as an entry in a concise encyclopedia).  The case of CAC and KC is not a clear one. KC has historically been more often used, esp in non-specialist areas. However, CAC is much more used by specialists and is also starting to gain greater use in the non-specialist arena. Given that, and the fact that the Google numbers are really fairly similar, I see no reason why the topic should be moved to KC. --mav 12:56, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Common forms vs. current standards 

message: There seems to be some confusion about how changes of name should be handled. The policy here says use the commonly used name, which implies ignoring the name change since the old name would be more familiar and used in old texts etc.I disagree with this since I think accuracy and being up-to-date are more important, especially since the old name will redirect to the new one and nobody will have any trouble finding the article.
In any case in practice this is applied inconsistenly. Examples that (justifiably I think) violate the current policy:
* Bombay shifted to Mumbai.
* Calcutta shifted to Kolkata.
* Yugoslavia shifted to Serbia and Montenegro and replaced with disambiguation.
* WxWindows shifted to WxWidgets
While I found a big argument about another similar case:
* Kiev
I'm sure there are many other examples. Somebody needs to clarify this point in the policy page.
Hans Zarkov 11:40, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Name changes

message: From User talk:SamuelWantman / User talk:Tillwe, after I moved "G. Spencer Brown" back to "George Spencer Brown". Could someone help us?
Welcome too! I just reverted your move of the content of George Spencer Brown to G. Spencer-Brown. I did this for two reasons: firstly, Wikipedia name policy is to use the most common form of the full name. I'm not sure if this is "George Spencer Brown" or "George Spencer-Brown"; in German language texts by Luhmann I only have see the former. So I made George Spencer Brown again the main entry and turned George Spencer-Brown as well as G. Spencer-Brown into REDIRECTs. The second reason is, that for moving a page -- which is essentially what you tried to do -- you should use the "move" function. It copies not only content, but also history. If it doesn't work, this means there is an article with history already; in such cases maybe an admin can help by deleting that article. BTW: If you want to use abbreviated names in an article, you can do so like this G. Spencer-Brown. -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 19:31, 31 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, I'm want to talk about this with you before reverting to G. again.  Until I found Wikipedia's article, I had never seen G. Spencer-Brown's first name in print.  His first name well may be George, but he published under the name G.  I think this is equivalent to H. Rap Brown, J. Edgar Hoover, or F. Scott Fitzgerald.  You'll notice that none of those abreviations redirect to the full name, nor should they, because this is the name they are known by.  Likewise, G. Spencer-Brown is what George is known by.  I'm willing to be convinced by argument that I am wrong, but if not convinced, I think it should revert, once again to G. Spencer-Brown.  Also, you reverted to an old version, not the one posted at G. Spencer-Brown.  --Samuel Wantman 23:18, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

text: I just did some research, and found: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names).  So you are incorrect, there is no policy to use full names.  On the contrary the policy is to use the common name.  So the only question is is the more common name G. or George.  He published under the name G. and that is what he is known by, so that is his common name.  Please put everything back the way it was.  --Samuel Wantman 23:54, 31 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, sounds difficult. Maybe you are right that G. Spencer Brown is much more common than George Spencer Brown -- I know the name form German works (i.e. Luhmanns), and there it is always George Spencer Brown. So I assumed that this is what is commonly used (a similar probleme arised between Theodor Adorno and the more common form -- in Germany, but not in English literature -- of Theodor W. Adorno. If this isn't the case in the English-Speaking world, than of course it should be G. Spencer Brown. (BTW: Is Spencer a part of the surname or of the lastname?). Maybe we should ask some third person for an opinion? For that I copied this discussion to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (common names). -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 11:28, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Noted that the article is not at G. Spencer Brown with redirect from George Spencer Brown. -- sabre23t 08:21, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  George Spencer Brown 

message: I'm fresh from stumbling into a naming convention dispute at Mahatma Gandhi. Shoulda known better, but it brought me here, where I was suprised to read the following:
We want to maximize the likelihood of being listed in other search engines, thereby attracting more people to Wikipedia. Also, the Jimmy Carter page has the string "Jimmy Carter" in the page title. This is important because other search engines will often give greater weight to the contents of the title than to the body of the page. Since "Jimmy Carter" is the most common form of the name, it will be searched on more often, and having that exact string in our page title will often mean our page shows up higher in other search engines.
I thought that's what redirect pages were for. I mean, I wouldn't expect any other reference work to list Jimmy Carter as "Jimmy Carter." I guess I'd be in the "James Earl Carter" camp myself, though I wouldn't make a huge deal about it on Wikipedia.
But that's beside the point.
I just can't help thinking that maximizing hits and properly naming entries may sometimes be mutually exclusive goals. I can understand how a redirect page named for the common usage of a less commonly known term might foul up search engine results. But isn't the whole point of Wikipedia -- or any encyclopedia -- to inform people about less commonly known facts?
That said, I also don't think that this is an insurmountable problem, though perhaps one that might require some technical elbow grease. How about if there were some way to include the first 100 or so words from the "redirected-to" page on the redirect page itself? Why not retool the #REDIRECT template to include that text in its META tag?
I admit I don't know the nuts and bolts of Wikipedia coding, but what if the code that #REDIRECT whatever produced also took a small chunk of text from the beginning of the whatever article and put it in the redirect page's META tag, so that search engines would display it while remaining invisible to Wikipedia users? That way contributors would have more flexibility in presenting information without compromising Wikipedia's "searchability."
Again, I don't know how feasible this is, but I hope that we can figure out some way to prevent Wikipedia's necessary pursuit of hits from compromising its pursuit of knowledge. --Dablaze 00:54, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)
:I agree that hits should not be the No. 1 priority. But "Jimmy Carter" is listed that way in my Concise Columbia Encyclopedia. Maurreen 05:06, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree completely with what you say here Dablaze. So long as a google search picks up the redirect title, the listing is still there, and secondly the user is instantly educated about the more correct/alternate title for the article (according to Wikipedia consensus). Donama 23:01, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming articles for hits or accuracy? 

message: I'll add my voice to those who prefer that articles be under full formal names where possible and common names as redirects...to do otherwise is to abdicate the role of place people go to look up more than they already know.I don't see the idea of calling people whatever they want to be called as logical either...it benefits the egotistical at the expense of the modest.(For this reason I have always disliked pinyin transliteration of Chinese,an invasion of the Roman alphabet created by those who do not use it without regard for its conventions).There is no reason that Chinese cities should have to be called by their native-language names while European ones are not.(Athens hosted the Olympics and didn't insist on being called Athinai,Peking insists on being "Beijing" and that probably gave Turin,the intervening Winter Olympic host,the idea of promoting "Torino").--L.E/le@put.com/12.144.5.2 18:38, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: General Disagreement

message: One of the obvious differences between Wikipedia and almost every other reference work is that we list people by first name instead of by surname.
I understand the rationale for wanting to use the most common name for a person but it has some drawbacks.  For example, any automated alphabetical listing of biographical entries will not be ordered by surname.
Is there any way to have a special tag for the formal name of the person for sorting, etc.?  It should also automatically become a redirect.
:It is a second rate solution, but WikiWax may be able to help you here:  Donama 23:04, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Surnames

message: I'd like to start a discussion on striking this convention.
I'll keep my initial argument short (by my standards) and to the point by countering the three primary points made in the article.
I'll name them the three points and please refer to them (or my response) by number if you need to.
:1) "We want to maximize the likelihood of being listed in other search engines, thereby attracting more people to Wikipedia. Also, the Jimmy Carter page has the string "Jimmy Carter" in the page title. This is important because other search engines will often give greater weight to the contents of the title than to the body of the page. Since "Jimmy Carter" is the most common form of the name, it will be searched on more often, and having that exact string in our page title will often mean our page shows up higher in other search engines."
A good article should have the full name as well as the common name.
A search engine indexing the page would find both.
So this point boils down to that of the title of the article (and the thus the purpose of the naming convention).
I will call this a technical problem that is being patched by naming articles after common names.
For example, if the article of Jimmy Carter was really named James Earl Carter, Jr. then the title of the page returned should be something of the order "James Earl Carter, Jr. -> Jimmy Carter" or "Jimmy Carter <- James Earl Carter, Jr."
This change in the title of redirect pages would void this point since the common name would still appear in the title.
Naming people with their full name or other articles by official titles builds in an automatic disambiguation.
Very possible to have another "Jimmy Carter" but much less to have a "James Earl Carter, Jr."
:2) "We want to maximize the incidence of accidental links (and reduce duplication)."
By creating an article at it's full name or official title and redirecting reduces duplication (no one will make a page at Jimmy Carter).
Fundamentally, naming the article after the common name and redirecting from the proper name is no different than naming the article after the proper name and redirecting from the common name: both names are covered and get you to the article.
:3) "Using full formal names requires, if one wants to link directly to the article, both that people know the full formal name and that they type it out, both of which are a royal pain. If one links to a redirection page, there's a "redirected from" announcement at the top of the page."
This is under the presumption that linking to redirects is a Bad Thing (TM) and that "redirected from" announcements are also a Bad Thing (TM).
Linking to a redirect is only bad when the redirect name becomes ambiguous (e.g., another "Jimmy Carter"; and believe it or not, IMDB shows 4 other "Jimmy Carter"s but none as notable).
I would contend that linking to redirects is not a bad thing.
How trivial is it to take a script/bot and have all uses of "Jimmy Carter" be changed to "James Earl Carter, Jr.|Jimmy Carter" when "Jimmy Carter" becomes ambiguous?
After something like "Jimmy Carter" becomes ambiguous then it will require more attention to what links are named regardless of which naming convention is used.
Summary of points:
*Name people and things after their proper/official name/title
*Linking to redirects is not a bad thing
*Ensuring search engine listing is a technical issue to overcome
One final point to make.
Due to the limitation of wikipedia (it has no namespaces for content, only (roughly) functionality) the further population of popular/common terms will require more disambiguations in the future.
For example, since there's no way to seperate Cyrano de Bergerac the person from the play and films, it must be done by altering the article name (e.g., Cyrano de Bergerac (play), Cyrano de Bergerac (1950 film), & Cyrano de Bergerac (1990 film)) instead of being able to seperate the three articles into different namespaces or into a hierarchy (like the subcategorization of articles in Wolfram's World of Science, though the web pages are still all in a single directory).
The best solution would be to have "people/Cyrano de Bergerac", "plays/Cyrano de Bergerac", "films/1950/Cyrano de Bergerac", & "films/1990/Cyrano de Bergerac" to which a disambiguation page at "Cyrano de Bergerac" & "films/Cyrano de Bergerac" could automatically be generated based on the articles in "subdirectories", which would also easily lend to an implicit category creation.
But this is a huge tangent.
Cburnett 22:21, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strike this convention 

message: Several edits are taking place, (see for example the Kerala page) where the "Initials in names should each be followed by a period and a space" is applied for South Indian names. This is not correct, as the two or three first letters in a South Indian name are not the same as a Western initial. The general naming convention in India is to write the name without spaces between the letters indicating the father's name and home-town name, such as A.K. Gopalan, etc. --Soman 09:42, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The proper rule is that each initial is followed by a period, with a space between the initials and spelled out name.  But two or more initials together should be closed up, with no space between them (the dots provide sufficient spacing).  There's no reason for it not to apply to South India as elsewhere, even if you do produce some evidence of a general, universally followed locally rule.  There are local variations like that elsewhere, too. It's like the British writing titles as Mr and Dr and the U.S. and Canada writing Mr. and Dr. (how does India do that?). There is also considerable variations as to whether or not a space is used when the dots are omitted, aren't there? Show some evidence, not just a bald claim. Furthermore, many of those initials which you claim to be patronymic and toponymic should probably be omitted entirely from the names of the articles, except when needed to distinguish otherwise similar named or when the person is generally known by those initials rather than one of the given names, though they'd be fine in the article itself. Gene Nygaard 10:57, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Another variation you can tell us about is "AK. Gopalan". Or "AK.Gopalan".  Just more reasons for a consistent Wikipedia rule.  Gene Nygaard 10:59, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  South Indian names 

message: The current convention says that middle names are only to be used when the person is normally known by them.  However, it seems to me that it is preferable, when it is necessary to disambiguate, to use a middle name, if available, rather than a parenthetical explanation, which seems awkward and unnecessary if we can avoid it.  Any thoughts? john k 16:31, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The most sensible parenthetical designation after a "John Smith" would have been a death date (birth dates being often moot), even a circa death date. Is it too late? Redirects are always in order, even if they lead through a disambiguation page. Not everyone can find Chester A. Arthur by knowing the spelling of his middle name. --Wetman 22:51, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: (written before Johnk's message above--caught in an edit conflict) If a middle name is known, I prefer using either the middle initial or the full middle name in the title. Although in other contexts (like geographical features) I am a big fan of parenthetical disambiguation, I think it only makes sense for personal names when there are truly two persons with exactly the same name (i.e., they do not have middle names or are unknown, or the middle names are also the same). If the person has a strong association with something, like an occupation, I think that is better than using dates. Dates sometimes become necessary when there are multiple persons with the same name and similar occupations (like both U.S. politicians from Virginia). older≠wiser 23:50, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the main point.  My feeling about dates is uncertain - if it's absolutely clear what someone's occupation is, maybe.  But sometimes it can be awkward.  I don't know. john k 02:07, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Middle names and disambiguation 

message: I am looking for a clear specification on what is meant by common. What kind of numbers should be used as an indicator that something is common? (Related to discussion on renaming article Calcutta to Kolkata!) -- Urnonav 06:38, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Definition of "common"

message: I'm one of those who think that the "Names and Titles" naming conventions guideline could be written in a format that makes it sound less as an exception to general wikipedia principles on article namingref.
The issue has been discussed recently on severeral talk pages, and there appears to be a group of wikipedians that neither wants to get really involved, neither is particularily fond of the present complications for naming a "lucky-by-birth stiff who had some pretentions to a hereditary right to rule others or had the remotest ancestral connections to such a person"ref
The problem is, these wikipedians have no alternative: either it's the complicated "exception" rule, either it's only the basic rules that lead to ambiguity in many cases of article naming on persons.
That's why I announce here my plan to start a  guideline for dealing with article naming of articles on people. I think the logical name for such guideline would be:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)Using a guideline name differing from the existing ones, as long as it's merely a proposal, also helps not to disturb existing rules (and their talk pages) too much: while in the end it might result in no more than a few ideas of this proposition being "absorbed" by other guidelines (or the other way around). But that's for the wikipedia community to decide then. First I try to cooperate in building a valid alternative, better in line with general Naming Conventions guidelines. --Francis Schonken 11:56, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  New initiative (articles on persons) 

message: Hi there, I think that it would be great if this guideline explicitly stated that stage names are more appropriate than real names of famous people (of course, if they are better known by their stage names), and included examples of, for instance, Sting (musician) and Madonna (entertainer). --Dijxtra 12:49, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is handled at wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Nick names, pen names, stage names, cognomens --Francis Schonken 12:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: PS, note that also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Qualifier between brackets or parentheses has the example Prince (artist) --Francis Schonken 12:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Thanks, I managed not to see the obvious... --Dijxtra 13:54, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stage names 

message: I'm trying to make the example section less focused on US politicians. I think Bill Clinton is a good and very illustrative example and I'd think that would be enough. Francis says that George W. Bush is also a very useful example. Very well, I won't wage a revert war over that. But I do think Ted Kennedy is a particularly bad example. A search on books.google.com yields the following:
*10500 pages on "Edward M. Kennedy"
*5710 pages on "Edward Kennedy"
*3850 pages on "Ted Kennedy"
His own homepage lists him as "Edward M. Kennedy" and so do Britannica and Encarta. I think that this guideline would suggest that his article be moved to Edward M. Kennedy. I will not, however, request such a move since I've never edited the article and I feel move requests from "outsiders" are a bit invasive. That talk page has enough conflict already.
But the Kennedy example should be removed from this guideline. - Haukur 14:14, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the Kennedy example is bad and just wanted to note that it was added only six days ago . We could give Tony Blair not Anthony Charles Lynton Blair as an example of a non-U.S. politician. Also, why are we using the nowiki tags. We other names given should in my opinion always be redirects and I think we could do well to emphasise that. Stefán Ingi 14:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me. Please make those changes. - Haukur 14:29, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

text: The Tony Blair example seems like a good idea to me too. Search me, why the nowiki-tags are used, I suppose they must've been there for ages, and was continued to keep the same format. --Francis Schonken 14:32, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done, I also removed the colons, they seemed unneccesary and their usage was not consistent. Stefán Ingi 14:41, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I must have crossed your edit, hope I didn't embarass you --Francis Schonken 14:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kennedy 

message: "Melos" is not more technical than Milo.
:Agreed. And not more scientific either. - Haukur
Milo is the French name of the Greek island, Melos isn't even the current version of the Greek island in English (which seems to have moved to Milos, after "Aphrodite of Melos" was sometimes used to refer to the statue in the Louvre).
Note that that example effectively marks an exception to the "use English" guideline, that's why I'm particularily fond of keeping it in the list: while most of the art production by French artists are at an English title in wikipedia, this one, totally irrational, is at a French name (and based on the Latin equivalent of the Greek godess that is supposed to be portrayed by it). The example is good while in English it is indeed "common" to name the statue thus (try websearch...: virtually unanimous with a very high score, apart from a few dozen "Aphrodite de Melos") --Francis Schonken 14:32, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. Though it may be worth noting that the Use English guideline does say that we should use non-English names where they are more common in English usage than the English names. - Haukur 14:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples, continued 

message: This is not a word. Could the lead be changed to:
Examples of common names that Wikipedia uses instead other versions which may be fuller, more formal, scientific, specific, or elaborate:
This is long but at least the sentence doesn't branch into four distinct sentences. Stefán Ingi 14:53, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know about the "fuller", but I'm no native English speaker. FYI, abbreviations in people's names is a subsection of wikipedia:naming conventions (people), so the "common names" NC is not meant to be the "nec plus ultra" about that topic. --Francis Schonken 15:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, never mind the fuller. It currently stands at Examples of common names that Wikipedia uses instead of a more elaborate, more formal or more scientifically precise version include: I'm certainly happy with that. The other comment suggests to me that we need to decrease the ratio of Shortened names/Other examples from 4/3 to somethink like 1/3. I'd be happy to do that by throwing out Bush, Blair and Caesar and leave only Clinton but I'm pretty sure that would get reverted. The other plan is to find 9 more examples in the Other examples category, I'm not sure why removing Burping is a good first step. Stefán Ingi 15:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  and/or 

message: @ Philip: note that I never removed the example, instead I started & elaborated the "Exceptions" section, noting that several NC guidelines implicitly or explicitly contain exceptions, but that the one surpassing all others in this respect was the names & titles NC.
Then, later, for the brief period I thought that three weeks of "current surveys" listing + notification of the same for the same period on several talk pages (including the names & titles NC talk page) without receiving a single negative comment was enough to move that guideline to wikipedia:naming conventions (Western nobility) I had exchanged the link to the names & titles NC guideline for a straight link to what I thought was agreed to be the new one.
Now, we know how all that ended, I don't think I have to explain. Anyway, the "Western nobility" NC page is a redirect to the "names & titles" NC guideline page, and still indicated as the "major exception" in the "Exceptions" section of the common names NC guideline. I have no problem the link is made without the redirect via "Western nobility" (I must say, I kind of forgot about it after the "Western nobility" vote).
But my proposal is to keep the treatment of "exceptions" in the "Exceptions" section, and not scatter it all over the guideline.
@ HaukurÞ: The same goes for Þ's new proposal to add more examples of exceptions (or "counterexamples") all over the place: I don't think this a good idea. Keep exceptions in the "Exceptions" section. The "Don't overdo it" section is only meant to illustrate that using "common sense" is always what should be done, and is not the same as "exception", or to put it more technically, that there's no real tension between the "common names" guideline and the current version of the "Precision" NC guideline, if both are well understood. In fact both guidelines are two halves of the same idea: "maximum recognisability for English speaking people", which is about the only thing that is core issue of the "official policy" regarding naming conventions, see wikipedia:Naming conventions, third paragraph of the intro.
I do agree that Tsunami/Tidal wave is not a good example. "Tidal waves" exist (actually, they're called Tidal bore), but they're not interchangeable with Tsunami. Also Tidal wave is a disambig page now, separate from the Tsunami page. So that example should be dropped IMHO. --Francis Schonken 16:49, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Re. "Exception" status of "names & titles" NC guideline / Re. "Counterexamples"

message: There's a poll at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Numismatics#Currency_Rename_POLL to rename a bunch of articles on currencies to the [adjective denomination] format. The controversy is that the format being proposed for the sake of "consistency" clearly runs counter to the "use common names" rule. I really don't see the need to violate this rule for the sake of imposing a consistency that does not exist. Those wishing to comment on this should take a look at the page as this affects a good number of articles.--Jiang 01:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should currencies be an exception to the rule? 

message: e.g., up till now other guidelines only advise to seek a "third less common solution" in the case of a British/American English dichotomy. Not in the case of (for example) two synonyms exist in English, that can not be assigned to either British or American variants. This guideline should not suggest "exceptions" that are no way covered by other guidelines. For the "exceptions" the idea is to point to these other guidelines, not reformulate them, while in the end these other guidelines might be reformulated too at some point in time.
Just pointers towards the guidelines where presently such exceptions are elaborated.
Anyway,When adherents of two different spellings cannot reach an agreement sometimes a third alternative is chosen to end the conflict. That alternative may be less commonly used than either spelling of the common name. For example there is currently an article at the somewhat technical term fixed-wing aircraft to avoid a conflict between aeroplane and airplane.is a presently unsupported extrapolation of WP:MoS, which *only* advises the less common for British/American English problems. Not as a general principle to be applied in all kind of circumstances. --Francis Schonken 10:53, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is just a description of facts it's not supposed to imply that there is a guideline for it. I'll comment it out while we discuss it. - Haukur 11:08, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am discussing this. What do you mean? That you're going to put back a no-consensus version? That would be WP:POINT --Francis Schonken 11:14, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please stop thinking of your contributions to the guideline as consensus-edits and my contributions as WP:POINT-edits :) I'm not trying to disrupt Wikipedia - I'm just trying to clarify the guideline a bit. I haven't made any major changes to it - just added a couple of non-prescriptive observations and linked to other guidelines. I've already commented out the specific parts you've objected to. Let's keep discussing this and hope other people comment. - Haukur 11:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  This guideline is not intended to extrapolate other guidelines 

message: This guideline should put itself in the context of our naming conventions as a whole. That means explaining where the boundaries between it and other guidelines lie and then linking to those guidelines for more detail. That's exactly what the guideline has been doing and I didn't add much. I think a brief mention of diacritics and "use English" is useful here because those two guidelines often come up in those kind of debates. 
If you think anything I added is a not a true description please let's discuss that. - Haukur 10:57, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: But not expand other guidelines beyond the borders of these guidelines: the borders of these guidelines are sometimes resulting from meticulous negotiations, etc... The "common names" guideline should not try to shift those balances, which would be WP:POINT --Francis Schonken 11:12, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  This guideline and other guidelines 

message: I've reverted to Philip's last version while we discuss our differences. This discards all changes made by Francis, Stefán and me for the last couple of days (even though I think most of them were quite helpful). I hope more people will comment so we can get a broader feel for what people think is useful to have in this guideline. - Haukur 11:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverted to what I hope is neutral ground 

message: I propose starting the Exceptions section of this guideline with something like the following:
While the basic principle of this guideline enjoys wide support there are some cases where its application is disputed or overridden by other concerns. A few such cases are listed here. 
*Sometimes a technical limitation prevents the use of the most common name. For example "C Plus Plus" is used while "C++" is technically not possible as a page name.
*In the past, conflicts have often arisen between those who prefer British spellings and those who prefer American spellings. An armistice is in effect which states that both spellings are acceptable for article titles. This is irrespective of which spellings are more common. For example, a request to move aluminium to aluminum on the grounds that the second yields more Google hits will not succeed. 
*When the native name of an entity contains characters with diacritics some Wikipedians prefer to use those diacritics in the relevant article title, even in cases where they are more often omitted in English texts. Others prefer to apply the most common principle throughout. For more details on this dispute see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English).
*The naming conventions on royalty and people with titles systematise the relevant article titles, sometimes at the expense of the most common name for a person. For example William I of England is used as an article title instead of the more common William the Conqueror. For more details see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles).
I think it's useful to mention that the most common principle does not apply to British vs. American spellings. That's often what people new to the debate start doing - counting Google hits for "aluminum" or calculating the number of Indian English speakers who spell it "colour" etc. Stating here that this won't get you anywhere may help prevent those little fights.
I also think it's useful to briefly mention the diacritics debate and link to more on that in the "use English" guideline. Then we can avoid giving any examples with diacritics over here.
Finally I think the King William example is useful and makes it clearer at a glance what this mysterious "names and title" convention says :) 
Thoughts? - Haukur 12:31, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good to me.  ナイトスタリオン ✉ 13:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  My proposed additions 

message: From a somewhat naïve newcomer to this debate: Why is it a problem to have Jimmy Carter as a primary lookup? Cheers Io 19:59, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Just a question

message: I don't feel Thomas à Kempis v Thomas of Kempen is a very instructive example or very relevant to the vote that took place. The choice in the vote was between Thomas à Kempis and Thomas a Kempis - no-one was arguing for Thomas of Kempen and it didn't even exist as a redirect until Francis created it — helpfully and correctly — today. I think the dog example, on the other hand, is very good and shouldn't be removed.- Haukur 10:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thomas of Kempen 

message: Please read the sixteen point introduction at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession#Move to delete 99% of all Lists and Categories of Jews: Sixteen reasons why this should become a fixed Wikipedia policy and related discussions at Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession#Proposed amendment: remove all Jewish-related lists. Thank you. IZAK 11:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move to delete 99% of all Lists and Categories of Jews 

message: What is the policy regarding POV titles... If there is an article with a name used by one of the participants in the conflict, isn't that considered POV?  If there are alternate titles, which are used in other encyclopedias and are NPOV, but perhaps not the 'common name', wouldn't it make sense to use that one instead?  - Spaceriqui 21:14, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you give an example? --Philip Baird Shearer 14:52, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, an example would be good. I'm personally in favor of reading "most common" to mean "most common in reference works" a lot of the time :) - Haukur 15:04, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Spaceriqui do you mean a name of conflicts like the Bangladesh Liberation War which is one I am discussing on the Talk page at the moment, or do you mean disputed names of the sort which appear on WP:RM all the time? --Philip Baird Shearer 19:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See also wikipedia talk:naming conventions#Page Titles and POV. --Francis Schonken 07:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Naming Conventions and POV