Wikipedia talk:Article titles

Bios, Non-Bios & Diacritics

We should consider a Wikipedia compromise on this topic. Have bio-articles with diacritics & have Non-bio articles 'without' diacritics. GoodDay (talk) 21:56, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Are you suggesting "Souffle", "Frappe coffee", and "Gottingen"?--Boson (talk) 22:29, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, a very naive suggestion. Dicklyon (talk) 23:12, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

@Boson - While I disagree with the premise, in the US I see it spelled "Souffle" and "Frappe coffee" all the time. Same with words like "Resume" or "Cafe." Can't say I've ever seen Gottingen in any context in the US but googling I do see the album Live in Gottingen, and in UK travel guides such as traveling to Gottingen. Certainly Göttingen is the preferred spelling in English, but not so your other examples. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:44, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

What are you talking about? If you look at the first 10 books with previews in GBS, none have soufflé without the acute accent. For the frappé it's a good mix, but frappé seems to be preferred. Dicklyon (talk) 00:28, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

This was the second hit I got for souffle. I got 28,000 hits with the diacritic out of 108,000, or 26 percent usage. I doubt if any diacritic has majority usage on English-language GBooks. Kauffner (talk) 03:11, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

If you look, you'll see that the hit you linked does use the acute accent; in some styles, it is customary to omit such accents from capitals, as done there. Also, Google's OCR and indexing is not suitable for estimating the relative frequency of diacritics, as you can easily tell by looking. On the first page of your search with "diacritic out" there are still NONE without the acute accent (except one name not referring to a soufflé). Dicklyon (talk) 03:21, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I didn't do a "diacritic out" search. I divided the "diacritic in" number by total results. Kauffner (talk) 03:45, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I see I misread; so did you find any without the accent? Dicklyon (talk) 04:20, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

@Kauffner wrote: "I doubt if any diacritic has majority usage on English-language GBooks."

I have not come across any examples so far. Even for frappe we have this: [1], the use of the diacritics version is dwarfed and also in a steady decline. It also occurs to me that we keep a lot of articles at loanwords, while the English translated version is more common. E.g Toilet water per [2]. MakeSense64 (talk) 06:19, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Again you are trying to draw conclusions from flaky OCR'd books. Look at the book images instead. Dicklyon (talk) 06:36, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

At how many book images can a person reasonably look within a given amount of time? It's far simpler to use technology that can read all books, and even if it makes a few errors, that's not going to make a big difference within the bigger picture. By the way, when we look into gbook search or gscholar search, we are generally depending on just the same google ocr technology, except for the documents that already exist in electronic format (as is the case with more recent sources). And it's not as if ocr is so bad that it cannot record words like "toilet water" vs "eau de toilette".

The bias introduced by a human being able to look into just a small portion of English-language usage, is likely to be much bigger than the error introduced by well-developed technology looking into all books usage. Most objections to ocr seem to come from the "idontlikeit" corner. I have yet to see any source confirming the reservations that people have expressed. MakeSense64 (talk) 06:59, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the first page of 10 hits is often enough to tell you whether your interpretation is way off or not. Yours is way off. Dicklyon (talk) 07:16, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Any mathematician will be able to explain you how looking at the first 10 hits (out of a sample of maybe 1000s) will easily introduce an unintended bias, depending on what where the criteria that put these 10 hits on the first page. MakeSense64 (talk) 07:29, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that, without the help of any mathematician. I've explained before that capitalization is much more common on the first pages of hits, as the search seems to prefer terms found in titles and headings. But still, if you look, you'll see that your conjectures about the counts relative to toilet water and souffle and such are just all wrong. Dicklyon (talk) 15:56, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

From How to Build a Digital Library by Ian H. Witten, David Bainbridge, David M. Nichols:

“ Unfortunately, the OCR operation is rarely presented with favorable conditions. Problems occur with proper names, with foreign names and words, and with special terminology—like Latin names for biological species. Problems are incurred with strange fonts, and particularly with alphabets that have accents or diacritical marks, or non-Roman characters. [...] These problems may sound arcane, but almost all OCR projects encounter them. The highest and most expensive level of accuracy attainable from commercial service bureaus is typically 99.995 percent, or 1 error in 20,000 characters of text [...] Each page is processed twice, by different operators, and the results are compared automatically. Any discrepancies are resolved manually. ”

The book then estimates that uncorrected OCR generally costs 50 cents per page, while manual correction to an error rate of 3 incorrect characters per page costs $1.25 per page, and prices rise steeply after that. Errors are more likely than not on rare and foreign words, because of the heavy reliance on dictionary files. Google uses fully automatic OCR, and I have already given an example of how it reads a crystal-clear page. Xanthoxyl ^< 07:26, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

What Xanthoxyl and others say is correct.

But even with accurate OCR, the OCR cannot improve a low-quality source. Most English books on Google-Books are of sub-encyclopaedic quality in many ways, including orthography. @Kauffner wrote: "I doubt if any diacritic has majority usage on English-language GBooks." That is probably correct. If it were not for WP:IRS, the ability to distinguish which sources are reliable for what then François Hollande would be at "Francois Hollande," but he isn't because en.wikipedia's content-providers don't follow "reliable sources for other things but not French spelling" they follow reliable sources for the context, in this case reliable for French spelling.

This is expressed here: If there are too few reliable English-language sources to constitute an established usage, follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject (German for German politicians, Portuguese for Brazilian towns, [has something been removed here?] and so on). but expressed badly because it doesn't express If there very many unreliable English-language sources for this context, but too few reliable English-language sources for this context, follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject (German for German politicians, Portuguese for Brazilian towns, and so on.

As a further point, why are the examples given not blue-linked? It is perfectly possible to bluelink a category category:German politicians, why not blue-link the category example given to enable the category example to be seen? Does anyone object to the examples being linked? In ictu oculi (talk) 22:19, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

There should also be guidance somewhere helping people do meaning source comparisons, eg.

Evidence that 1000 sources have "Frappe coffee" 100 have Frappé coffee is meaningless, unless the 1000 sources are divided into those that are unreliable-for-purpose vs reliable-for-purpose. In this case all 1000 are simply unreliable-for-purpose, not reliable-for-purpose per WP:IRS.

Wheras a test that 100 sources have "Frappé coffee" and don't have "Latte" (Italian, no accent) is meaningful because the pool is only reliable-for-purpose sources.

In ictu oculi (talk) 22:32, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner's conjecture "I doubt if any diacritic has majority usage on English-language GBooks" is already solidly refuted by "soufflé". It's hard to find any book that omits the acute accent on that one; "souffle" in English would suggest a very wrong pronunciation, and would be an obvious error to any half-serious editor. Dicklyon (talk) 01:31, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Are you for real? I wonder if any "half-serious" editors work for AP.[3] Kauffner (talk) 17:43, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps not, but it's rather a different issue there. The AP wire service is widely reported to be limited to 7-bit ASCII encoding, and so their style guide is explicit about the impossibility of including diacritics. Dicklyon (talk) 18:20, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I guess you can always come up with a theory that allows to ignore any source that is inconvenient. The AP style guide is very widely used, a standard in the industry. It is not specific to a software setup that the AP had or has, and certainly not, "an obvious error to any half-serious editor." Kauffner (talk) 05:43, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Dicklyon, yes you are correct. Correct use of French é is becoming the norm in many loandwords, personal names and place names. Though, I would guess more cookery books would be un-"reliable for the statement made" re. smörgåsbord. Ultimately we cannot treat every e.g. cookery book in English as automatically "reliable for the statement made" and an authority on Swedish spelling. (I think you'd agree with this?) In ictu oculi (talk) 01:49, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally the 3rd example missing on this page after category:Towns in Brazil, compared to WP:UE is category:Rivers of Turkey. These really should be blue-linked for convenience. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:55, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand your point about smorgasbord and reliability of cookbooks. I should think most books are reliable indicators of the spelling that they use, and that in aggregate they may be reliable indicators of usage in English. But trying to assess that via google book search snippets is not likely to get one anywhere useful. When you sort out the hits about cookery first, so that they're on-topic, then you sometimes do find the Swedish spelling (e.g. [4]). But most English books that have adopted the term for other purposes drop the decorations. I don't know of a better way to judge the usage than by studying the books; too much flaky counting is often seen in these parts. Dicklyon (talk) 02:20, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes I'd agree with those comments. My only point was a cookery book is more likely to get a French word right than a Swedish one. But ultimately en.wp isn't a cookery book anyway and doesn't have to imitate one. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:46, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

An important point... it is not necessarily for our titles to use the "right" or "correct" spellings and usage... correctness is not one of the principles or goals of this policy. Recognizability, on the other hand, is... If a non-english name or word is more recognizable to the average English language reader with a diacritic, then our title should include it. If that name or word is more recognizable without the diacritic, then our title should not include it. This means we are intentionally inconsistent as to whether our titles should or should not contain diacritics. One title will, another will not. For this reason, I strongly oppose any and all attempts to set a mandate on either the use or the non-use of diacritics. Blueboar (talk) 14:15, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi Blueboar. That prompts a question; are you aware of any modern bio on en.wp (after say monarch Napoleon) where the title-name is spelled "inaccurately" because it is more "recognizable" to the average English language reader?

Btw. Do you object to proposal above to bluelink the examples in the article category:German politicians, category:Towns in Brazil, category:Rivers of Turkey to aid navigation? In ictu oculi (talk) 21:37, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I know of multiple page move debates for bio articles that center on diacritics... debates where it has been argued that a title-name is spelled incorrectly because it lacks diacritics, and counter argued that the title-name is more recognizable without diacritics. It is a common debate on bio articles about Czech or Swedish NHL hockey players for example. Blueboar (talk) 11:29, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi Blueboar, Yes, hockey names has a troubled history leading to the main editor behind the anglicisation of Czechs being blocked. Do you know of any non-Czech-player-in-Canada hockey bio on en.wp (after say monarch Napoleon) where the title-name is spelled "inaccurately" because it is more "recognizable" to the average English language reader? Also do you object to proposal above to bluelink the examples in the article category:German politicians, category:Towns in Brazil, category:Rivers of Turkey to aid navigation? Cheers In ictu oculi (talk) 23:45, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Franz Josef Strauss. We should not link to categories because the article titles in such categories may or may not have been decided upon using this policy. For example Iio I have been following what you say on pages such as Talk:John Márquez and you seem to have made up your mind at to what the "correct" spelling of a name and try to have that implemented whether or not reliable English language sources use that spelling. If a minority of editors, but a majority who express an opinion a specific page move request agree with your arguments, the page may end up at a name that does not follow this policy and so is not a good example to use on this policy page. The trouble with your arguments (which includes taking sentences out of context from guidelines and policies that support you POV) ignore usage in reliable sources, which contradicts both this policy and the three major content policies. While it is not possible to decide aesthetically on whether a word looks better with or without accent marks, editors in good faith can decide on the common usage in English language sources, and if there is no common usage on the steps that can be taken to decide on the most appropriate spelling to use. Why English language sources? Because this is an English language encyclopaedia. Some of the arguments you have put forward over recent weeks would have Germany under the name Deutchland and Spain under España, which by simply following usage in reliable English language sources prevents this from happening. Few if any editors would argue against Germany and Spain as the names to use for those countries in this encyclopaedia. However the names of two countries are open to debate and have had several RMs these are Burma and Côte d'Ivoire, and this is because reliable sources English language sources are split over the names. I do not see the arguments that you put forwards for deciding the article title of a biography are justified for those biography articles any more than they are for deciding on the article titles for an article on a county. By following usage in reliable English language sources to decide on the article title, we are meeting this policy and those of WP:V and WP:NOR and I find it amazing that editors who would otherwise always follow usage in reliable sources, will wilfully ignore such sources if they think that the aesthetics of spelling used in reliable sources is not to their liking. -- PBS (talk) 14:58, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

If by aesthetics of spelling you really mean the styling (e.g. of names with diacritics), then we do have a long tradition of following our own manual of style, rather than just copying whatever style we find most common in reliable sources. The Associated Press, for example, is widely regarded as a reliable source, but we don't use their styling because their newswire distribution is limited to 7-bit ASCII, no diacritics. Sources that reproduce their content usually do not add back the diacritics, but some do; not because they think the AP is wrong as a source, but because they have a preferred style that says not to drop diacritics. Deciding when diacritics are appropriate in WP is not a trivial matter; let's try not to reduce it to a counting argument, especially since the tools that get called up in support of counts are so inadequate to even that. Dicklyon (talk) 17:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi PBS,

First are you happy with the indenting I am using here?

Second, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from personal comments such as "you seem to have made up your mind at to what the "correct" spelling of a name and try to have that implemented whether or not reliable English language sources use that spelling." - this is not the case, I have repeatedly referred yourself to WP:IRS "The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context." the issue there, as I have explained at length three times is the choice between

(A) a letter from the office of John Márquez with his name as John Márquez in print and in signature

(B) a local newspaper website which cannot spell "Francois Hollande" (sic) correctly, and spells "Gabriel García Márquez" correctly in one article and "Gabriel Garcia Marquez" incorrectly in another.

Most en.wikipedia editors would apply WP:IRS to (A) and (B) and determine that under "The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context." (B) fails. an amateurish local newspaper with an inconsistent MOS is not "a reliable source for the statement being made." It is that simple for most editors editing BLPs.

Third, as far as "The Associated Press, for example, is widely regarded as a reliable source," the question is for what? The Associated Press is not regarded by anyone as a reliable source for foreign names.

Fourth, if "I find it amazing that editors who would otherwise always follow usage in reliable sources, will wilfully ignore such sources if they think that the aesthetics of spelling used in reliable sources is not to their liking." then I suggest that you please do what I politely suggested that you do 2 months ago and compare newspaper/GoogleBook popular MOS and en.wikipedia BLPs. Try category:German politicians, category:Towns in Brazil, category:Rivers of Turkey and ask yourself, are category:German politicians, category:Towns in Brazil, category:Rivers of Turkey following your understanding above "We should not link to categories because the article titles in such categories may or may not have been decided upon using this policy" - and see, have category:German politicians, category:Towns in Brazil, category:Rivers of Turkey been decided upon using your understanding of existing policy? Have those categories' titles been filled using low-MOS popular/majority/Associated Press type sources?

Note that apart from the old special letter Eszett ß which is not included, all the other diacritics are: Gerhard Schröder. Now, compare: do popular English sources use diacritics?

PBS - I really think it would be very helpful if you would please look at the categories before making any other comments, before starting any other topics, before picking new items from what is above. Please click on the categories and see if it is so - are they using more "European" spellings than can be found in the majority of popular English sources?

Thank you. Cheers In ictu oculi (talk) 15:39, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean by European? Do you not consider English a European language? -- PBS (talk) 19:35, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Groan. Xanthoxyl ^< 21:56, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, groan. PBS, how many times have you asked this, and how many times have you been answered? PBS, would you please stop avoiding your own question - would you please click through on category:German politicians, category:Towns in Brazil, category:Rivers of Turkey and answer your own question re "We should not link to categories because the article titles in such categories may or may not have been decided upon using this policy" Have category:German politicians, category:Towns in Brazil, category:Rivers of Turkey been decided upon using your understanding of existing policy? Have those categories' titles been filled using low-MOS popular/majority/Associated Press type sources? As far as you can tell, yes or no? In ictu oculi (talk) 22:35, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Iio you ask "and how many times have you been answered" I don't think you have answered the question once (if you have then please provide a diff). If you have and you do think that English is a European language why do you write are they using more "European" spellings than can be found in the majority of popular English sources as it implies that you do not think English to be a European language. -- PBS (talk) 17:02, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

It is well-known that English is a European language (or at least it originated there), so "European spelling" has to mean Continental European spelling. Can we move on? Art LaPella (talk) 21:56, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

PBS, firstly does my indentation meet with your approval?

Secondly I am not sure how I can go on a search for the various different times you have taken issue with the use of the word European name or Latin-alphabet European language to describe continental European languages. The first extensive uses of this argument are on Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons/Archive_34.

In ictu oculi you wrote "Tony Benn is not a European language name." Do you believe that English not a European language? -- PBS (talk) 09:29, 27 April 2012

For others, scroll down using "European" to find them. The As Xanthoxyl says "groan", as "Art LaPella" says "Can we move on?" Another example of Talk:John Márquez where you respond to the question of the reliablity of the San Francisco Chronicle website "Again The San Francisco Chronicle the reason it is not a reliable source for spelling of European names is there in the links given. Please click them. Or run any other European name on the website's search engine." by not clicking the examples given, not running a European name, but running a search on Tony Blair to see if Tony Blair has Spanish accents:

"sfgate's search on Tony+Blair seems to work fine on that European name"

Now PBS, would you please address your own statement re. bluelinking category:German politicians, category:Towns in Brazil, category:Rivers of Turkey and answer your own question re "We should not link to categories because the article titles in such categories may or may not have been decided upon using this policy"

Are category:German politicians, category:Towns in Brazil, category:Rivers of Turkey at fully correctly spelled German, Portuguese and Turkish names, or are they in the kind of accent-stripped MOS we would find in sports websites and tabloid newspapers?

Please, PBS, would you please look at these cats and comment on how en.wp actually is. Thank you. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:49, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I for one have never understood this "recognizability" business. If Wikipedia has any expectation of being taken seriously as a serious encyclopedia, all names and words rendered in a Latin-based alphabet should be spelled correctly, with all appropriate diacritics. That's the magic of redirects - they automatically take the reader to the wanted page. I can think of only two exceptions to this: where a word or term is so thoroughly Anglicized that its spelling is changed in English usage, always omitting the diacritics; and people who have specifically and deliberately respelled their own names for professional reasons, in which case the properly spelled birth name should always be provided in the lead. Putting the correct spelling in the article title immediately gives the reader valuable information. Dumbing down entries for so-called "recognizability" is a joke, and makes us look ignorant. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:17, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

"should be spelled correctly, with all appropriate diacritics" precisely if we follow usage in Reliable English language sources then all words will be as they usually appear in reliable English language sources with all appropriate diacritics, or are you suggesting that we do not follow English language practice? -- PBS (talk) 14:52, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I thought I had anticipated that question: "[as an exception], where a word or term is so thoroughly Anglicized that its spelling is changed in English usage, always omitting the diacritics". What, in turn, is a "reliable English language source"? Reliable sources are frequently inconsistent from one to another. Thus where English sources are inconsistent, use the diacritics rather than omitting them. Or, in lieu of having to check multiple sources before titling, include diacritics until it is demonstrated that English sources uniformly omit them. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:16, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

PBS, the problem again here, as Milkunderwood expresses is what is a "reliable English language source" for context as per WP:IRS. In this RM Talk diff you respond to the invitation "Again The San Francisco Chronicle the reason it is not a reliable source for spelling of European names is there in the links given. Please click them. Or run any other European name on the website's search engine" by running a test on the name "Tony Blair" rather than a Spanish name with diacritics like José María Aznar. I ask again the same question I asked there "Is San Francisco Chronicle website a reliable source for the spelling of a European name. Yes/no?" 00:13, 16 June 2012 (UTC) and which you have ignored the end of the question "for spelling of European names" in your reply immediately underneath it 15:32, 16 June 2012 (UTC) I have there now rephrased the question: is the San Francisco Chronicle a reliable source for the spelling of José María Aznar and François Hollande? yes/no? In ictu oculi (talk) 01:37, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not otherwise familiar with the Chronicle, but they appear to use a style guide that discards diacritics in the spelling of names. This would not mean the Chronicle is necessarily an unreliable source for other kinds of information, but it does mean their practice of name spelling cannot be followed. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:00, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

It appears the New York Times is inconsistent, which in a way is even worse. They give "Jose Maria Aznar", but "José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero". Milkunderwood (talk) 05:15, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Milkunderwood, yes: I'm not sure the SF Chronicle even has a MOS, but does very rarely include some Spanish names in its "Arts" columns. The NY Times is supposed to be using an all-Spanish/French/German MOS for some years now. I guess some slipped through... Applying a consistent MOS is expensive (working with one foot in publishing I sympathize) In ictu oculi (talk) 11:34, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Could others also comment on the proposal to bluelink category:German politicians, category:Towns in Brazil, category:Rivers of Turkey in WP:AT. Thanks! In ictu oculi (talk) 23:55, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Categories should not be linked into a policy page because the examples in such categories may or may not reflect usage as recommended by this policy. As article can be added and removed from a category at any time, such examples are not stable. -- PBS (talk) 14:52, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

PBS

I cannot see where you have addressed the question that has been asked above. How many times over the last 3 months have you been asked to look at how en.wikipedia articles actually are? You are still making comments on how en.wikipedia should be, but have responded to this by ignoring the question you yourself raised: Do the categories category:German politicians, category:Towns in Brazil, category:Rivers of Turkey reflect use of diacritics, yes/no.

As to whether they are stable or not, that can be reflected by adding an example in brackets category:German politicians (e.g. Gerhard Schröder), category:Cities in Brazil (e.g. São Paulo), category:Rivers of Turkey (e.g. Kızılırmak River) to demonstrate the point. In fact that's my proposal, to add in those as meaningful examples into WP:Article titles. Does anyone object to these as examples (recent chancellor, largest city, largest river)? In ictu oculi (talk) 01:37, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Quibble: How about Üçköprü instead of Kızılırmak River? Kızılırmak River looks normal unless you notice that the "i"s aren't dotted. Art LaPella (talk) 04:03, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Art LaPella, yes, good idea. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:34, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

So with Art LaPella's suggestion, can we include these examples? In ictu oculi (talk) 02:41, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

No to linking to categories for the reasons I gave before. Examples such as São Paulo and similar do not make good examples because there has not been a comprehensive debate with evidence of usage in reliable English language sources since that requirement was added to this policy. the last debate over the name was in 2005 (see Talk:São Paulo/Archive Move debate and is (by the standards of this policy as it is now) a less than rigorous examination of English language reliable sources. -- PBS (talk) 12:37, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

PBS, sorry but can you please link to me to where you have addressed the question you yourself raised: Do the categories category:German politicians, category:Towns in Brazil, category:Rivers of Turkey reflect use of diacritics, yes/no.?

Second as for São Paulo there has not been a comprehensive debate since one is not needed; no en.wp editor has proposed it should be at Sao Paolo. Do you consider Sao Paolo is an English exonym for São Paulo? In ictu oculi (talk) 15:35, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

• Is there anyone else who shares PBS objection to bluelinking these categories? In ictu oculi (talk) 15:35, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Bluelinking to categories is principally incorrect because, as stated already by PBS, categories may or may not reflect recommended policy usage and even if they do they can easily diverge in time as categories are not content controlled based on policy compliance. IIO, perhaps you can have the courtesy of actually responding to that specific argument. I see distractions but no clear response. --Wolbo (talk) 20:51, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Hello Wolbo,

Please see above. I had the courtesy of actually responding to that specific argument above on 01:37, 17 June 2012 by the reply "As to whether they are stable or not, that can be reflected by adding an example in brackets category:German politicians (e.g. Gerhard Schröder), category:Cities in Brazil (e.g. São Paulo), category:Rivers of Turkey (e.g. Kızılırmak River) to demonstrate the point. In fact that's my proposal, to add in those as meaningful examples into WP:Article titles. Does anyone object to these as examples (recent chancellor, largest city, largest river)?"

Perhaps you missed the reply. Anyway, as you are here, and as you are one of those who appears to not be fully enthusiastic about en.wp's use of European accented names, may I ask you two questions:

Q1. The same question as I have asked PBS and MakeSense64: Can you please name 1 non-stagename/emigrant BLP article where the native name contains accents on en.wp where you are happy with the way it is.

Q2. As I note that you are Dutch, how about the use of Dutch diacritics? André Rieu, Léon Frissen, Ineke Dezentjé Hamming-Bluemink, André van der Louw, W. R. van Hoëvell, René de Clercq, Michaël Zeeman, Henriëtte Bosmans, Matwé Middelkoop ... are you happy with these Dutch people being at Dutch names even though otherwise reliable English sources often omit their accents BBC website "Violinist Andre Rieu (sic) makes pop chart history with album" In ictu oculi (talk) 03:51, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Bio articles

I've found that Bio articles which have diacritics sources & non-diacritics sources for their name, tend to be titled with diacritics -- particulary if the subject is French, Czech, Polish, Slovak, Swede, Finns etc etc. Why is this so? GoodDay (talk) 04:17, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi GoodDay

I'm glad you're asking this. They don't all have. French, Czech, Polish, Slovak, Swede, Finns (i.e. Latin alphabet) Bio articles pre the Reformation often don't, and up to the Napoleonic era maybe they do or don't. It seems to be only from around 1850 that those Bios consistently do (unless there is a change of nationality or stagename involved). This may be related to the 1848 Spring of Nations and that national identity is more reflected in sources, from that point onwards. Particulary with French, Czech, Polish, Slovak, Swede, Finns (i.e. Latin alphabet) BLPs. The only living people whom en.wp deliberately deprives of their national identity are a few of those who play tennis Nikola Čačić and hockey Dominik Halmoši, where there are 1 or 2 editors who want to give them "common English names" (a description not mine, meaning the spelling found on sports-websites, tabloid newspapers, and similar sources) "Sasa Hirszon is how his name is spelled in English." etc. This appears never to happen outside tennis and hockey, for some reason. Why tennis and ice-hockey? In ictu oculi (talk) 16:04, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The fact that wp may title an article without diacritics does not "deprive" anyone of their "national identity". Blueboar (talk) 12:55, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, Blueboar, let's assume you're right for a second, firstly one would have to ask why, if that's the case, why is this practice described in Talk discussions as giving "common name in English" "English names for the English Wikipedia" and so on rather than "giving someone their accent-free French name" "giving someone their haček-free Czech name" etc. Any answer on that? And secondly anyone is welcome to try de-accenting foreigners' names in the real world. It's one thing to do it on Wikipedia, it's something else to go down to the high street with a bucket of white paint and paint out the accents on a French or "przekreślone L" on Polish shopkeeper's front, then tell him "It's your English name" or "It's your diacritic free Polish name." Be interesting to see someone try that and then report back here to WP:AT how that goes. I'd like to assume that all those who object to François Hollande's cédille and want to turn the name into Francois Hollande do it from the best multicultural motives, but it may not always be how it perceived by those on the de-accented end. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:14, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

PS Blueboar, you may be unaware of this but a third point: A frequent argument on RMs every month at en.wp is that when someone comes to America - like Martina Navratilova - then losing the Czech accent is part of becoming American. Same with other English speaking countries. Anglicizing surnames is part of the process of gaining a new identity, both historically and to a lesser extent today. If you don't believe me, check where en.wp articles are. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:20, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Non Bios articles

Likewise, I've found the same trend with Non-Bios articles - such as places. Why are diacritics sources given preference over non-diacritics sources? GoodDay (talk) 04:20, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Probably because if both forms appear in English sources, editors prefer to use the one that is more complete and correct relative to the original. Dicklyon (talk) 04:23, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

What makes the diacritics sources more correct, though? GoodDay (talk) 04:26, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Actually, Dicklyon's phrase was "correct relative to the original", that is, the diacritic would be correct if we were writing in the original language. That isn't the same as correct in English. When an English source omits diacritics, it could be because that is how we write the name in English, like Aristotle not Aristoteles, or it could be that the diacritics were omitted just because they were too difficult or impossible to type. We seldom know. Art LaPella (talk) 05:17, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Indeed; I was just trying to describe why editors probably prefer the diacritics when both forms appear in English sources; I wouldn't say that either is more correct or wrong in English in such cases. Dicklyon (talk) 05:30, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

GoodDay, I suspect the answer to this is Lonely Planet. In the 1970s guides like Frommers used to spell towns like Mariánské Lázně as "Marianske Lazne" (if they even had guidebooks to Eastern Europe pre-1990), nowadays all guidebooks spell Latin-alphabet towns fully. The accuracy for towns is much higher than for people. No guidebook will misspell or "English name" a non-notable Czech village, but they might well misspell or "English name" the Czech president. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:11, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, only the most well-known people and places will have Anglicizations of their names widely accepted. Those are mostly the ones we argue about. Plus the tennis players and such, who may not be so famous but are known in English only through their names as promulgated through the diacritic-free tennis associations. Dicklyon (talk) 16:20, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

These languages spell phonetically, and diacritics determine pronunciation. For example, Łódź is not pronounced "lodz", as it would be without diacritics, but "wootch". The markings are not decorative. Xanthoxyl ^< 21:56, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Correct, well said, they add information with no loss of meaning to those who do not understand them (and every English speaker understands é in Beyoncé or René. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:35, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

According to Miriam Webster, the English language pronunciation of Lodz is "Loodz" (with a distinct "L" sound and the rest sounding like the words huge or Stooge). Blueboar (talk) 02:07, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

This doesn't surprise me, I have found Merriam-Webster (Lodz which gives geographical name \ˈlüj, ˈlädz\ = wrong) increasingly at odds with reality in pronunciation of some East European place names since the Berlin Wall came down and EU enlargement. Maybe M-W is struggling to keep up. The BBC pronounces names like Łódź correctly, as "Wootch" in this case, as search "Łódź pronounced" in Google Books shows Lonely Planet, Frommers, etc all being higher quality sources than M-W in this area. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:42, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Who are we to declare that a major US dictionary is "incorrect". Indeed, we need to get away from the whole "X is correct" argument. Article titles do not need to be "correct". Blueboar (talk) 12:58, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi BlueBoar, who are to declare that Lonely Planet, Frommers, etc are all incorrect and that M-W is correct. As for "we need to get away from the whole "X is correct" argument" - that's your view. I'm not one of the editors who believes that Wikipedia should knowingly reproduce crap. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:03, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Ah... you see I don't say that Lonely Planet, Frommers, etc are incorrect? I allow for the fact that there could be more than one "correct" pronunciation in the English language (English is weird like that). I say that both Mirriam-Webster and Frommers are correct (note, this is what we actually do in the Lodz/Łódź article... we list all of the alternative pronunciations, and do not label one as "correct" and the others as "incorrect").

We do the same when it comes to words that can be spelled in different ways (such as aluminum vs alumininium). We list the different spellings as alternatives to the one we pick as our article title, and do not call one "correct" or the other "incorrect".

Unfortunately we can not be as neutral when it comes to choosing an article title... we can not list multiple spellings in an article Title. So we compromise by going with which ever one will be most recognizable and natural to the average English language reader... we determine this by finding the WP:COMMONNAME... by looking at the sources and see if one spelling is used significantly more often that the others. Now... I have no idea whether "Łódź" or "Lodz" is used more often in the English language sources (I suspect "Lodz"... but I could be wrong)... but which ever one is used more often will be the most recognizable. That's the one that should be the article title. Blueboar (talk) 23:01, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Of course, regardless of what we think about the correctness of sources (or lack thereof), there's WP:DUE ("Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint."). Of course, the loophole there is to declare that any sources with which we disagree are unreliable in their specific statement at issue. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:59, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Blueboar, pronunciation is something of a side issue here. We could debate whether every mispronunciation of a place-name deserves inclusion in a lede: " Leicester (pronounced ligh-sesta by some Americans), " or "Arkansas (pronounced ar-kansas by some British)," etc. but since this is WP:AT lets stick to titles. In the case of Łódź it has a complete Polish spelling in the title because like Piotrków Trybunalski‎ but unlike Warsaw and Cracow it doesn't have a "English name". Not a great deal else to discuss. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:36, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

It may not have a distinctly separate English "name"... but it does have two distinct spellings that are accepted in the English language - one with diacritics (Łódź), and one without diacritics (Lodz). Both spellings are used by English language sources... and it isn't just ignorant Americans or Englishmen who use the version without diacritics (for example: the University of Lodz, a Polish source, spells its name without diacritics on their English Language website). Now, I am not arguing that we should change the current title of our article, I am simply using it as an example to point out the flaw in the "diacritics are correct" argument ... My point is simply that the English language can have more than one "correct" spelling for things... and spelling something without diacritics is recognized as being "correct" in the English Language. And... when faced with two correct spellings for something, we resolve the question by seeing which is more commonly used. Blueboar (talk) 12:10, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Blueboar, as we know websites are not WP:RS for spelling foreign place names and not followed on en.wp. And to use your phrasing "ignorant Americans or Englishmen" then that website may have been subconsciously subcontracted to webdesigner who will use an Anglo MOS to attract "ignorant Americans or Englishmen" to do courses. We don't know. We do know that Gdańsk has Gdańsk and Danzig but not Gdansk (sic). The accentless Gdańsk doesn't exist as an exonym as Warsaw or Cracow. Neither is Lodz an exonym for Łódź, it's a typographic convenience. Someone who puts "Gdańsk (English Gdansk)" is just being the sort of person who puts "Gdańsk (English Gdansk)"... In ictu oculi (talk) 15:00, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Iio you write "websites are not WP:RS for spelling foreign place names" Really? What about for example U.S. Board on Geographic Names: Foreign Names or The British Foreign office: travel and living abroad to name but two? The guideline Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) is laced with links to online sites, so what is the source for your assertion? -- PBS (talk) 12:04, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Hello PBS,

1. Can you please link to where you have answered my question about naming 1x en.wp article that you are agreed with where it is. (Remember that we are looking for 1x common or garden example of an accented Latin-alphabet European living person name, not monarchs, not stage-names, nor ß, nor names which do not have accents originally like Tony Benn or Tony Blair).

2.

Yes I wrote "Blueboar, as we know websites are not WP:RS for spelling foreign place names and not followed on en.wp." and the websites you have produced sure enough show "websites are not WP:RS for spelling foreign place names and not followed on en.wp". Evidently a comparisn of those websites and en.wikipedia shows that what I said to Blueboard was correct. en.wikipedia does not follow the MOS of www.fco.gov.uk and earth-info.nga.mil websites. (Perhaps since WP:IRS requires "the best such sources" not "the worst such sources."?)

1.

Okay so having dealt with www.fco.gov.uk and earth-info.nga.mil back to question 1. You have said you do not agree with the examples of categories or articles named above. Also going back in WP:AT edit history you made similar objection to *Pelé is not a good example as "Pele" without the squiggle is the common English spelling) and "Replaced with words taken from WP:UE that are clearly English usage, see talk page and the problems with Edvard Beneš)" etc. But in 2012 Pelé is still at Pelé, Edvard Beneš is still at Edvard Beneš. The place names of en.wikipedia.org are all at what you call "squiggles." Hence the need for question 1. Please link to where you have cited 1x category:Living people article you agree with. I am asking because I cannot find where you have answered, and I genuinely want to understand your edits to WP:AT over the last 5 years. Best regards. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:30, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

You did not initially write "en.wikipedia does not follow the MOS of www.fco.gov.uk and earth-info.nga.mil websites" what you wrote was "websites are not WP:RS for spelling foreign place names". It is true that "en.wikipedia does not follow the MOS of www.fco.gov.uk and earth-info.nga.mil websites" what it follows the WP:AT policy, and under that policy both www.fco.gov.uk and earth-info.nga.mil would be considered reliable sources to be considered when considering an article title. That some articles titles are decide upon without following AT policy is unfortunate, but over time such anomalies will probably sort themselves out. -- PBS (talk) 09:38, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi PBS,

1. What I wrote, twice, was "Blueboar, as we know websites are not WP:RS for spelling foreign place names and not followed on en.wp." It would help if you would not truncate other users' sentences when citing them. This remains what I said, and remains correct. The two websites you gave as examples www.fco.gov.uk and earth-info.nga.mil are perfect examples of what I said to Blueboar:

The population of Poland is approximately 38.6m. The capital Warsaw (population 1,706,624) is the financial and commercial centre. Other major cities in Poland are Krakow (756,336), Lodz (753,192), Wroclaw (635,280), Poznan (567,882) Gdansk, Bialystok, Poznan and Katowice (population data from 2007). www.fco.gov.uk

Aside from the fact that www.fco.gov.uk apparently believe that there are two towns in Poland called "Poznan" for which of these towns apart from the exonym Warsaw does en.wp follow? In fact can you give 1x example of any non-exonym accented European town article on en.wp which follows www.fco.gov.uk and earth-info.nga.mil rather than following the native spelling? You may wish to start with Category:Cities and towns in Poland.

2. and,

You say "That some articles titles are decide upon without following AT policy is unfortunate, but over time such anomalies will probably sort themselves out." You said the similar on either WT:MOSPN or WT:AT back 2006 or so. I wasn't here then. So in the meantime, what has happened since then? I ask again, can you please cite 1x a non-stagename/emigrant/monarch living person with a Latin-alphabet accented name who is at the correct title on en.wp in your view? Just please cite 1x article that isn't per Pelé, or Edvard Beneš, "anomalies will probably sort themselves out"

Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:19, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

"Consistency" criterion being trumped by ENGVAR and RETAIN

Am I the only person who sees a problem with having article titles on topics and subtopics spelled differently? Why do we have windshield but windscreen wiper? Why do we have tire and snow tires but rain tyre and slick tyre? Not only do this dichotomies violate our consistency criterion, but they make it hard for readers and editors to correctly predict the title of a related article, and they make it appear that we lack professional editing standards. Frankly, it makes the encyclopedia appear unprofessional to have spelling on related topics mixed like this. Powers ^T 14:05, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

ENGVAR and RETAIN apply within articles, they do not require separate articles to follow the same standard. Nobody needs to "predict" an article's title, redirects exist to make snow tyre and windshield wiper work as valid links. Roger (talk) 14:18, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Well we could move snow tire to 1239458671230 and it would work just as well thanks to redirects, but we don't, right? One of our five bedrock naming criteria is "consistency", and that's being violated willy nilly. And if ENGVAR and RETAIN only apply within articles, then why are they being used to justify abrogating the consistency criterion? Powers ^T 18:17, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

There's no problem here. Wikipedia is not going to be Britipedia or Yankeepedia any time soon. We accept that there are spelling differences, and titles will be various. Binksternet (talk) 18:48, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Who is "we"? I accept no such thing. We should all want Wikipedia to be as professional looking as possible. Powers ^T 17:24, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

We want Wikipedia to be professional looking? What does that mean? That we should ignore British spelling and move everything to US spelling? Or is it the other way, dump US spelling for British? I challenge you to indicate which one of those is more "professional looking". Binksternet (talk) 17:53, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

No, that's a ridiculous oversimplification of my position. I suppose if anything, I'd suggest that ENGVAR and RETAIN be clarified to indicate that they apply collectively to groups of articles, rather than to single articles. I don't care if we use "color" in some places and "honour" in others (as long as they're consistent within any given article), but all articles with "color" or "colour" in the title should use the same variant. Powers T 19:16, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Let me put it to you this way: Why do you think we have a rule that says that whichever variant of English is chosen, it must be consistent throughout an article? Powers T 19:17, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

It's difficult enough to select a spelling style for certain articles; groups of articles will be exponentially more difficult. There's a phrase I've heard: "Do you want to die on that hill?" It pertains to choosing your battles. I don't think this battle is the one in which you will want to invest your energy. If I'm wrong, good luck. I'll remember you to the folks back home. Binksternet (talk) 19:25, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

So now you're saying you agree with me, you just don't think it's worth the effort? Powers ^T 15:54, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree this makes us look pretty clowny, although RETAIN does that already without this issue. I'd rather we just picked British or US or something, but I realize this is unlikely to happen, so I try to worry about other things instead. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 22:22, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

WP:PRECISION does not respect naming criteria. WP:NCDAB does.

When we speak about disambiguating titles, obviously we must do it in two equally important pages:

1. WP:Disambiguation (section WP:NCDAB)
2. WP:Article titles (section WP:PRECISION)

WP:PRECISION states that Natural disambiguation should be preferred to Parenthetical disambiguation. On the contrary:

1. WP:NCDAB states that there's no hard rule for that choice.
2. There are several sentences in WP:NAMINGCRITERIA which in some cases would suggest to choose Parenthetical disambiguation rather than Natural disambiguation, even when natural disambiguation exists.

For instance, we recently renamed Musical mode to Mode (music), according to a general naming criterion: consistency (see WP:NAMINGCRITERIA). Indeed, Mode (music) is consistent with other articles in the same disambiguation page:

Mode

• Mode (music)
• Mode (statistics)
• Mode (literature)
• Mode (computer interface)

Similarly,

Scale

• Scale (music) (<-- new title requested for Musical scale)
• Scale (string instruments)
• Scale (album)
• Scale (descriptive set theory)
• Scale (ratio)
• Scale (map)
• Scale (social sciences)
• Scale (physics)

Also, we should allow for the possibility that, in some cases, editors may reach consensus about the fact that "Parenthetical disambiguation" is more "natural" than "Natural disambiguation" (forgive me for the apparent paradox). Indeed, WP:NAMINGCRITERIA says: "Naturalness. Titles are those that readers are likely to look for or search with", and readers are in some cases used to and hence "likely to" look for parenthetical disambiguation.

For instance, Mode (music) is in my opinion more "natural" than Musical mode. In most encyclopedias and dictionaries, people are used to look for "Mode", not for "Musical mode", when they want to know the meaning of the word "mode" in music. For instance, see:

• Mode in Encyclopedia Britannica (first item is Mode (music))
• Mode (point 5) in Webster's online dictionary.

(Scale (point 6) would be an even more relevant example)

I conclude that WP:NCDAB is consistent with WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, while WP:PRECISION is not. Therefore, I strongly suggest to fix WP:PRECISION. This includes copying the following sentence from WP:NCDAB to WP:PRECISION:

"If there is a choice between using natural and parenthetical disambiguation, such as Mathematical analysis and Analysis (mathematics), there is no hard rule about which is preferred. Both may be created, with one redirecting to the other. The choice between them is made by consensus, taking into account general naming criteria (e.g., consistency with the pattern used for similar articles)."

In short, I suggest to make a specific criterion (WP:PRECISION) consistent with the relevant general criteria (WP:NAMINGCRITERIA), and to make two sections about the same policy (WP:NCDAB and WP:PRECISION) consistent with each other.

Paolo.dL (talk) 17:09, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

I view WP:NCDAB a reflection of this guideline, while I agree they should not contradict each other. From a disambiguation perspective, it does not matter how any non-primary topic article is disambiguated from the base name, as long as it is disambiguated somehow; indeed, from a purely disambiguation-project point of view, I'd expect that parenthetical disambiguation would be preferred to natural disambiguation: you've identified the best possible title for a topic article, but you can't use that title because the topic isn't primary, so you simply pop on the appropriate parenthetical. It's the topic-specific lens that lends preference for natural disambiguation over parenthetical disambiguation. The choice of qualified titles (natural or parenthetical) is then up to the WP:Article titles and the extensive hierarchy of genre-specific naming conventions. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:51, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

At the same time, people more interested in disambiguation are likely to view WP:PRECISION as a reflection of WP:NCDAB. Indeed, WP:NCDAB was more complete than WP:PRECISION: the comma-separated method was not even listed in WP:PRECISION before I copied it from WP:NCDAB. The same topic (title disambiguation) is seen from two different and equally important points of view:

1. disambiguation criteria, and
2. naming criteria.

Paolo.dL (talk) 18:10, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

More interested in disambiguation than I? I suppose it's possible. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:16, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

:-). If the disambiguation standpoint tends to favour parenthetic (as you say), while WP:Article titles favours natural, isn't it wise for a fair policy to allow both with equal freedom, only limited by general criteria such as WP:Consensus andWP:NAMINGCRITERIA? Let's be equidistant from the two opposite points of view. Paolo.dL (talk) 18:57, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, that's not what I meant. I meant that if it were just a dab question, why not go with the parenthetical all the time? Solves ambiguity, and we're off to other tasks. But it's not a dab question; the only reason dab exists is because WP technically cannot have two articles at the same title. Dab says, let them be dabbed. Article titles (and the hierarchy of naming conventions) say, we'll do so thusly. And it's done. Dab project should be agnostic as to how the articles are titled (or formatted, or kept, or deleted) and instead concern itself with how disambiguation pages are titled (or formatted, or kept, or deleted). The main overlap IMO between the two is when article titling specifies title X, and there's ambiguity, but there's a question of whether the topic at hand is the primary topic for X. If the topic is primary for X (by WP:PRIMARYTOPIC), then we're set, if not, it's back to the titling conventions to figure out what to title it instead. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:09, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Parenthetical disambiguation is what people expects in some cases (see my examples). So, it is wiser for us to be neutral in WP:PRECISION. Parenthetical and comma-separated disambiguation can be both natural! Your recent edit summary in WP:DAB ("comma-separated dabbing seems to be a type of natural dabbing") brings you close to this conclusion.
Paolo.dL (talk) 19:21, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

About consistency (see definition in WP:NAMINGCRITERIA). below, JHunterJ called "foolish consistency" a controversial application of the consistency criterion. In that case, I agree. However, here I showed that it is not foolish to consistently use a given disambiguation method (either natural, parenthetical or comma-separated), whithin the list of articles appearing in a given disambiguation list, such as Mode, Scale, Transposition, Interval.

About naturalness (see definition in WP:NAMINGCRITERIA). "Natural" and "non-natural" disambiguation is a controversial distinction. Parenthetical disambiguation is in some cases "natural" for most encyclopedias and dyctionaries (e.g. see Mode in Encyclopedia Britannica), and hence expected by readers.

Example. In a recent discussion in Talk:Musical scale most editors agreed that the article title should be Scale (music) because parenthetical disambiguation is both natural (people are "likely to search" for articles disambiguated with parentheses) and consistent with other titles listed in Scale.

Paolo.dL (talk) 18:58, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

The Wikipedia-construct of a parenthetical (music) might be expected by someone familiar with Wikipedia, but that doesn't make it "natural". If independent reliable sources might use the term "Scale (music)" in running prose, then it would be "natural". -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:35, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

See definition of "naturalness" given in WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. It is controversial that a (disambiguated or not) title is "natural" only when used "in running prose", unless you use WP:PRECISION as a dogma. When used "in running prose", a natural title (a title that people are "likely to search" is both natural and prosaic. So we can have:

• (Natural and) Prosaic (non-separated disambiguation)
• (Natural and) Parenthetic (separated disambiguation)
• (Natural and) comma-separated (separated disambiguation, of course)

Of course, non-natural titles should not be used, even if they are prosaic. This simple adjustment makes WP:PRECISION consistent with both WP:NAMINGCRITERIA and WP:NCDAB. Paolo.dL (talk) 07:45, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Paolo, I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. "Scale" is a natural title. However, it requires disambiguation. "Scale (music)" is not a natural title -- no one would deliberately use that form unless required to for purposes of disambiguating from other senses of the term. older ≠ wiser 00:34, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I think his point is that musical scale is also something about which "no one would deliberately use that form unless required to for purposes of disambiguating from other senses of that term". That is, even though it doesn't have parentheses, it's no more "natural". The general point is that "natural" and "no parentheses" is not a simple equivalence, and non-parentheses forms should not necessarily be preferred over parenthetic forms. Now, how to explain this clearly in the policy? --Born2cycle (talk) 01:52, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Huh? "Musical scale" is a natural language contruct and is commonly used in a variety of contexts as a simple google search shows. "Scale (music)" is an artificial construct that no one would use apart from exceptional situations. older ≠ wiser 02:01, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. I don't know which is a better title for the article (and as noted below, no one asserts that one type of disambiguation always is preferred), but to my knowledge, the distinction between 'natural disambiguation' and 'parenthetical disambiguation' has never been "controversial". —David Levy 02:22, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

In general, we do prefer natural disambiguation (e.g. Electric light over Light (electric), Cheque over Check (finance), Apartment over Flat (domicile), Portland, Maine over Portland (Maine) or Portland (Maine city)).

Of course, this isn't indiscriminate. If a particular instance of natural disambiguation is relatively uncommon or unusual, it shouldn't be used purely to avoid parenthetical disambiguation. Perhaps that's what we need to mention. —David Levy 02:22, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Paolo:
You're relying on an inapplicable connotation of 'natural'. You claim that the distinction is "controversial", and this would be true if your interpretation of the terminology were the one intended. But I've never encountered it before.
When we refer to 'natural disambiguation', we don't mean 'the most logical choice'. We mean 'a type arising outside Wikipedia's page titling scheme and similar'.
I strongly object to your replacement of 'natural disambiguation' with 'running-prose disambiguation', which makes the explanation much less clear for the sake of eliminating wording that doesn't appear to be causing widespread misunderstanding.
If anything, WP:NAMINGCRITERIA should be modified to use a term other than 'naturalness' (perhaps 'commonness', 'prevalence' or 'predominance'). But given the absence of confusion, I'm not sure that even this is necessary. —David Levy 02:22, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

There's a terminological problem, in my opinion. But most importantly, let's not forget that there is a contradiction between WP:PRECISION and WP:NCDAB. There's a lot of people who thinks that WP:PRECISION should not express a preference for "natural" over parenthetical disambiguation, and that this preference sometimes conflicts with the consistency criterion as in WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. I am not the only one! I am here to represent those who wrote (without my help) WP:NCDAB, and a large number of editors who in several articles preferred parenthetical to "natural" disambiguation, contrary to what WP:PRECISION suggests (e.g. Interval (music), Scale (music), Mode (music) instead of Musical interval, Musical scale, Musical mode). People often does not care about fixing policies. But they will appreciate if we fix them. Paolo.dL (talk) 20:34, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

There's a terminological problem, in my opinion.

Who, other than you, has the terminology confused?

But most importantly, let's not forget that there is a contradiction between WP:PRECISION and WP:NCDAB.

For the most part, they simply focus on different aspects. We do generally prefer natural disambiguation, but this isn't a hard rule, so both pages are essentially correct. We probably could improve them by harmonizing some of the wording, thereby conveying more details in each location.

There's a lot of people who thinks that WP:PRECISION should not express a preference for "natural" over parenthetical disambiguation,

Who are these people? You've cited instances in which parenthetical disambiguation was deemed preferable, but these aren't indicative of opposition to the policy (which doesn't require that natural disambiguation always be favored).

and that this preference sometimes conflicts with the consistency criterion as in WP:NAMINGCRITERIA.

When dealing with millions of articles, such conflicts are inevitable and don't necessarily indicate that one of the rules is wrong and must be changed. As Jenks24 explained to you on his talk page, it's normal to discuss a particular application and determine which course of action makes the most sense (as was done in this instance).

Our rules are intended to cover most cases. They aren't set in stone; there always will be exceptions, which is fine. You're attempting to solve a nonexistent problem. —David Levy 21:34, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Denying the problem makes no sense. Before joining this discussion, JHunterJ started a parallel discussion on what you call a "nonexistent problem": WT:DA#Preference for natural disambiguation. In Talk:Scale (music)#Requested move to "Scale (music)", editors discussed about the above mentioned contradictions. WP:PRECISION says:

• Parenthetical disambiguation: If natural disambiguation is not possible, add a disambiguating term in parentheses.

Discussing about the existence of the problem is a waste of time. Paolo.dL (talk) 10:08, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

You've misunderstood. I noted above that it would be advisable to harmonize the wording of WP:PRECISION and WP:NCDAB for greater clarity. I don't think that anyone disputes that.

By "a nonexistent problem", I was referring to instances in which our general preference for natural disambiguation clashes with our general goal of achieving consistency. You seem to believe that this is indicative of a problem with the policy, and I'm explaining that such conflicts are normal, unavoidable, and routinely resolved via discussion/consensus. The examples that you cited serve as evidence of that. —David Levy 11:07, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Meaning of "natural" as opposed to "parenthetical"

We should at least agree that the word "natural" is used in WP:PRECISION to mean: commonly used in running (English) text. Of course, not as commonly as the ambiguous name, which is defined as the "most commonly used name".
Notice that, as stated above by others, we mean "commonly used in running text" (or "running prose"), and not "commonly used as a title in textbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias". Otherwise, Scale (music) would be natural, as I proved above, and as stated by a large majority of editors in Talk:Scale (music).
Sometimes, a "naturally" disambiguated title consists of an alternative name which does not require disambiguation (e.g., Apartment instead of Flat (domicile)), and sometimes it contains an additional term (e.g., English language instead of English). The additional term may be:

• An adjective placed before the ambiguous name (e.g. "Electric", in Electric light)
• The name of a cathegory or class, placed after the ambiguous name (e.g. "people" in English people)

JHunterJ, Born2cycle, older≠wiser, David Levy, can we at least agree about this? Paolo.dL (talk) 14:49, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

We use the term "natural disambiguation" in reference to terminology arising naturally during the course of ordinary English communication. This can include speech; it isn't limited to running text or writing in general. —David Levy 15:44, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

@Paolo.dL, the question of whether parenthetical disambiguation is preferable to an alternative "natural language" title is something to be determined on a case by case basis. But in general, I think there is a preference for natural disambiguation in article titles. I do not think you proved that "scale (music)" is a natural language title -- you may have convinced editors that it is a better title, but it is in no way a natural language title. older ≠ wiser 16:17, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Since we do not easily understand each other, I would appreciate if we could start by reaching consensus about a non-ambiguous definition for the term "natural" as used in WP:PRECISION. Can we say "commonly used in running English?" (running text or running speach), as opposed to "commonly used in titles of encyclopedia articles, textbooks, or textbook chapters"? As I wrote above, "commonly used in English" is ambiguous and may lead to the conclusion that parenthetical is natural in this context (English used for encyclopedia titles), or at least that titles such as "Musical scale" or "Musical mode" are not natural in this context (as they are rarely used as titles). Bkonrad, you may have missed the word "Otherwise" in my comment above (14:49, 29 June 2012). Paolo.dL (talk) 16:42, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Is there evidence that the terminology has caused widespread confusion? You keep trying to clarify it via the use of descriptions that apparently make sense to you but aren't helpful to the rest of us. (For example, "running English" is unfamiliar in the above context; it appears to be a billiards term.) —David Levy 18:09, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Not sure what either "natural" or "running" English might be. Something to do with "reliable sources"? To call something "natural" isn't exactly NPOV, since it assumes by default that everything else is "unnatural". Wouldn't want anything unnatural, now, nosiree. Unnatural acts might even be illegal, who knows? I don't think "running English" is a pool term though: the linked article refers to "putting English on the ball", referring to the practice of getting the cue ball to hit off center to produce a spin, and therefore a curved trajectory. Very hard to do with American pool balls; they're heavier than the British ones. Maybe "natural" is meant to refer to conversational English. You don't usually pronounce punctuation, but I wouldn't go so far as to call parentheses unnatural. After all, And Yet It Moves was differentiated from And yet it moves solely with capital letters, and you certainly don't pronounce those. Neotarf (talk) 19:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Most of the above appears to have been written in jest, but as previously noted, we're referring to neither written nor spoken English exclusively.

"Portland, Maine" constitutes natural disambiguation because that formatting is commonly used in ordinary writing. Conversely, "Portland (Maine)" and "Portland (Maine city)" are not. —David Levy 19:48, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

David, since you can't seem to marshal any actual, you know, reasons against what I just wrote, and since you can't seem to pinpoint what a "natural" title is supposed to be, I take it that you agree with me and that your above comment is written in jest. Neotarf (talk) 04:36, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I'd already explained what "natural disambiguation" means (and provided several examples), and I addressed the on-topic portion of your message. Are you waiting for me to discuss unnatural acts and the differences between American and British cue sports? —David Levy 04:51, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Neotarf, I have created much of the substantive pool and billiards content on Wikipedia and I am an expert in real life. Running english (not normally capitalized in this context) is an incredibly common term. It is the counterpart to reverse english and refers to sidespin that widens a ball angle when it hits a rail. Sorry, but what you've described about American pool balls is utterly wrong. In fact the larger and much heavier billiards balls used in carom are much easier to impart english to and with accuracy than smaller and lighter balls.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:41, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

If you say "running english" is a pool term, I'm willing to take your word for it, but it doesn't appear in the linked article. And billiards is pretty specialized, not the sort of thing you find in the local neighborhood bar, at least not in my neck of the woods. At any rate, it doesn't seem like a very useful term for disambiguation. Neotarf (talk) 13:59, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Meaning of "natural" as opposed to "parenthetical", continued (arbitrary break)

David, indulge me, please. Neotarf's contribution shows that I am not the only editor who thinks that the use of the term "natural" in WP:PRECISION is somewhat questionable. However, my main point is not about terminology (see my comment above posted at 20:34, 29 June).

This subsection is meant to be just a small tile of a large mosaic. In order to continue the discussion without being hindered by repeated terminological misunderstandings on both sides, I would appreciate if we could first agree about this:

• "Natural" disambiguation, as currently defined in WP:PRECISION, means "commonly used in ordinary written or spoken English", as opposed to "commonly used in titles of encyclopedia articles, textbooks, or textbook chapters".

Paolo.dL (talk) 20:41, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Neotarf's contribution shows that I am not the only editor who thinks that the use of the term "natural" in WP:PRECISION is somewhat questionable.

As noted above, Neotarf's message appears to be primarily jocular.

However, my main point is not about terminology (see my comment above posted at 20:34, 29 June).

See my reply, posted at 21:34, 29 June 2012 (UTC).

In order to continue the discussion without being hindered by repeated terminological misunderstandings on both sides,

I've seen no evidence of terminological misunderstanding by anyone other than you (no offense intended).

I would appreciate if we could first agree about this: "Natural" disambiguation, as currently defined in WP:PRECISION, means "commonly used in ordinary written or spoken English", as opposed to "commonly used in titles of encyclopedia articles, textbooks, or textbook chapters".

That seems accurate (though titles of encyclopedia articles, textbooks or textbook chapters might also contain the same names/formatting). —David Levy 21:34, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I would not necessarily exclude "commonly used in titles of encyclopedia articles, textbooks, or textbook chapters". It may be necessary to consider whether such works use some specialized conventions, but that would be true of most other specialized usages as distinguished from common, generalized usage. older ≠ wiser 22:44, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

David may be trying to laugh off my comments, but "natural" is in fact a loaded term, similar to the loaded terms of the recent wikipedia-wide Abortion debate debate. As far as I can tell, "natural" means "a title I like", the insinuation being that other titles are "unnatural", which I have already pointed out has resonances with practices that have been considered unsavory or even illegal in some places. The biggest problem with the anti-parenthesis comments is that there don't seem to be any actual reasons for not using parentheses: the comments rely on rhetorical tricks like treating other viewpoints as a joke or giving another viewpoint a loaded name. Don't get me wrong, I have my own idea of what I like, and I'm not all that fond of parenthetical titles, but the conversation needs to get back to the level of WP:AGF, even if it means that some editors, including me, may end up changing our minds about what we like. There seems to be a huge battleground mentality surrounding WP:TITLE these days, where editors line up to defend big bluelinked slogans, while the title policy remains bloated with verbiage and practically unusable. The first step to moving forward is to unpack the labels. Neotarf (talk) 05:40, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't "trying to laugh off [your] comments". From my perspective, they seemed so outlandish and irrelevant that it didn't even occur to me that you might be making serious points. My remark that you appeared to be joking reflected an assumption of good faith (i.e. that you weren't trolling).

Please don't interpret these statements as insults or attempts to belittle your views. But honestly, I barely know how to begin addressing your criticisms, which stem from perceptions that I have difficulty understanding.

As far as I can tell, "natural" means "a title I like"

That isn't close to its meaning, which has been explained above. I don't know what else to add.

the insinuation being that other titles are "unnatural", which I have already pointed out has resonances with practices that have been considered unsavory or even illegal in some places.

Again, I don't even know how to respond to that. It's simply bizarre and has no basis in reality. I just spent several minutes trying (and failing) to come up with a gentler way to phrase that. I'm at a loss. I honestly don't mean to be rude or disrespectful, but in more than seven years at Wikipedia, I've never encountered such a claim.

The biggest problem with the anti-parenthesis comments is that there don't seem to be any actual reasons for not using parentheses

The rationale has been explained. In general, we prefer names/formatting familiar to readers through their use in the course of ordinary English communication (i.e. outside contexts in which disambiguation is being appended to resolve naming conflicts and the like).

I honestly don't know what other explanations you seek. I apologize if I've misunderstood something that you wrote or offended you in any way. —David Levy 06:34, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Better amused than angry, say I. Certainly no offense taken. But your response illustrates the basic problem with the argument against parenthetical disambiguation. The strongest arguments are "it's simply bizarre", "I don't know how to respond", and "I've never heard of it before", variations on "personal point of view" arguments like WP:IDONTKNOWIT and WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I didn't participate in the "Big vs. Big(movie)" discussion because the only arguments I could think of were "because I say so" and "that's just WRONG". Opposing arguments have to do with how easy it is for someone searching for a particular topic to find it, or to recognize what the topic is about. If you say something is "natural" that is, coming from nature, it is only a point of view, it is only natural to you, and not verifiable for someone else. Neotarf (talk) 13:59, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

You're applying a definition of "natural" other than that which is intended in this context.

The comments that you quoted/paraphrased refer to your conclusions, not to parenthetical disambiguation itself (which I don't dislike or regard as bizarre). —David Levy 14:53, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

In that case, my apologies, I misunderstood; what you must find hard to understand is the assertion that referring to non-parenthetical disambiguation as "natural" English is not NPOV. Maybe more a recent example would be better. Take "natural cereal". If you Google it, and look at the images, it is very quickly evident that everyone wants to tack the word "natural" onto the front of their packaging. But what does "natural" mean? Nothing. When you buy a "natural" cereal, you might be getting conventional (not organic) ingredients, as well as pesticides, genetically modified ingredients, or industrial waste. It's nothing more than a fancy label. But who would want to buy a non-"natural" cereal? I'm not saying that all the recent acrimony over titling is due to some Sapir-Whorfian reaction to the word, but it is certainly a coup for the anti-parentheses crowd to have the "natural" label tacked to their product. I think if you examined it more closely, "natural" English would have just about as much meaning as "natural" cereal. Neotarf (talk) 17:55, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Bkonrad, your contribution makes sense. It is definitely a topic which needs to be discussed. Can we first find an agreement about the following analysis? "Natural" disambiguation (as defined above) may be obtained as follows:

1. Substitution. An alternative name is used, which does not require disambiguation (e.g., Apartment instead of Flat (domicile))
2. Further specification. A disambiguating term or expression is added (also known as disambituating tag). For instance,

• An adjective is added before the ambiguous name (e.g. "Electric", in Electric light)
• The name of a cathegory or class is added after the ambiguous name (e.g. "people" in English people)
• Comma-separated disambiguation. For geographical names, the disambiguating tag is typically the name of a higher-level administrative division, added after the ambiguous name and separated from it by a comma (e.g. "Berkshire" in Windsor, Berkshire)

Listing comma-separated disambiguation as an example of "natural" disambiguation was suggested by JHunterJ, and already accepted in WP:NCDAB. Is this correct in your opinion? Does it need adjustments? Paolo.dL (talk) 10:47, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Parentheses do not come from nature, but neither do adjectives or commas. Neotarf (talk) 13:59, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

That's not bad. Some qualification on "geographical names" -- the practice of comma disambiguation for place names varies somewhat based on regional practices. And the term "geographical names" may be to broad -- there is a distinction between how settlements and administrative divisions are disambiguated (often, but not exclusively with the comma convention) versus how natural features such as rivers, islands, lakes etc. are disambiguated (usually with parentheses -- and sometimes by administrative division and sometimes by other means such as by the river into which a tributary flows or the body of water in which an island is located). I'm not sure how best to capture that distinction, but it is slightly misleading to imply that comma disambiguation with administrative division is used for all geographical names. older ≠ wiser 13:52, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. Thank you. What if we say:

• Comma-separated disambiguation. For some ambiguous place names (mainly names of human settlements or administrative divisions), the name of a higher-level administrative division is often added after the ambiguous name and separated from it by a comma (e.g. "Berkshire" in Windsor, Berkshire). For further details, see WP:PLACE.

Paolo.dL (talk) 09:15, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Natural in the context of WP:AT comes from the word ordering usually used in English. When this encyclopaedia was first created, article titles could have been structured as: "Blair, Anthony Charles Lynton", "Waterloo, battle of", "United Kingdom, London, Waterloo, train station" format loved by bureaucrats the world over and frequently used in Encyclopaedias, databases. The choice was made to go with natural ordering as would be found in English texts. Some of the naming conventions encourage this type of natural ordering for dab pages for example the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) encourages the use of prescript eg RMS Titanic rather than Titanic (ship) and "RMS Titanic" is more natural than "Titanic (ship)" although of course "Titanic (ship)" is more convent for the pipe trick. Personally I have never had a problem understanding what natural means, and I think that terms like "commonly used in running English" do not help (It makes me think of the old Chinese Communist term Running dog and to me seems about as foreign). Why use five words when one will do and it has a perfectly sound OED definition "Natural language 2.a" A language that has evolved naturally, as distinguished from an artificial language devised for international communications or for formal logical or mathematical purposes. -- PBS (talk) 11:58, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Interesting contribution. Thank you. Unfortunately naturalness is defined differently, and in my opinion more completely and less questionably, in WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. In my opinion parenthetical disambiguation is quite naturally used in encyclopedia titles and dictionary entries. Nobody forced encyclopedia and dictionary editors to use parenthetical disambiguation. That method evolved naturally, spontaneously. Since we are dealing with titles, I find it quite biased an approach which calls "natural" only the disambiguation methods (or alternative terms) commonly used in ordinary English over disambiguation methods commonly used in titles. For instance, "Ordinary disambiguation" would be better, in my opinion. However, it is difficult to find consensus about terminology, and terminology is not my main point.

On the contrary, it is easier to find consensus about facts, and this is what I am trying to do (see my analysis above). For instance, what you wrote about formats previously used in Wikipedia is quite interesting. I agree that these formats look awful. I think it would be useful to insert a sentence such as this:

• "Except for the above mentioned place names, comma-separated disambiguation should be avoided. For instance, Tony Blair and Battle of Waterloo are preferred over "Blair, Anthony Charles Lynton" and "Waterloo, battle of".

This is true, independently of the fact that we call "Waterloo, battle of" innatural, non-ordinary, or whatever.

Paolo.dL (talk) 19:17, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure how you come to the conclusion that WP:NAMINGCRITERIA differs from that OED definition, because it seems to me to be the same thing only expressed in different words.

The structure in article titles in many encyclopaedias are not in natural language they fall under the "as distinguished from an artificial language" in the OED definition because the rules of the language used to define the index of such structures is precise and limited (easy to describe in Yacc or Bison). Indeed in that respect it is a great pity that we can not use a full blown relational database to model our article titles.

You wrote "For instance, what you wrote about formats previously used in Wikipedia is quite interesting". I think you have misunderstood my point. Wikipedia could have gone that way (as it has for Categories), but editors at the start of the project rejected the idea and went for natural language article titles.

Russian names are naturally disambiguated by the middle name (son of). Some others can be naturally disambiguated by using a middle name or initial, or cognomen -- it depends on what the reliable sources use (We could if needed have "Bomber" Harris). There are other cases where a comma is useful for example we use them in WP:NCROY (see the dab page David Boyle). We also use "the elder" and "the younger" as a cognomen. So it is quite possible to use Fred Smith, the elder and Fred Smith, the younger (as is done in the ODNB and other references, because that is how they were referred to in their lifetimes and it has continued in reference works about them down to the ODNB), placing a comma after the name and before the cognomen allows the pipe trick to be used. Earlier this year I worked on a Scottish family who for several generations were members of the Scottish judiciary who are known by these types of differences (as they tended to be very unimaginative their use of Christian names and were frequently MPs and judges: See Robert Dundas of Arniston, the younger#Family. As another example I chose to place "alias Cromwell" in brackets Richard Williams (alias Cromwell), because usually I would write it that way (because although well known for Oliver Cromwell's family), it is unusual and it needs a footnote to explain it, but I could have used Richard Williams, alias Cromwell as it is often written that way in reliable sources. These are examples I can find easily because I have worked on them, but there are bound to be lots of other examples where disambiguation is done through commas. -- PBS (talk) 00:06, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I explained in my first comment the reason why I believe that "WP:NAMINGCRITERIA differs from that OED definition". Please read that comment before continuing the discussion. Basically, there's a difference between "commonly used in encyclopedia titles" (and hence expected by readers), and "commonly used in ordinary english" (running text or speech).

You may be or may be not right about the fact that parenthetical disambiguation is not natural language, as defined in OED. Let's assume that you are right. I see that you care much about this, but I don't. I do care much more about the fact that parenthetical disambiguation is commonly used in encyclopedias. And there are a lot of good reasons to follow suit.

Example. For instance, the ambiguous term "scale" is used to mean "(musical) scale" much more often than the non-ambiguous expression "musical scale". In most cases, we speak about (musical) scales in contexts where the word "musical" can be easily deduced and hence is omitted (e.g., we rarely say or write "C-major musical scale"). In other words, contexts in which the expression "musical scale" appears somewhat innatural. That's a good reason not to use "musical scale" as an article title. Either "(Musical) scale" or "Scale (music)" are more appropriate titles than "musical scale", and that's one of the reasons why "Scale (music)" is commonly used in encyclopedias.

This is consistent with what we do in the first sentence of the introduction: "In music, a scale is ...". By the way, we don't even care to add: "(sometimes also called musical scale)".

However, we had to fight a time-consuming battle on Talk:Scale (music) against editors who correctly maintained that, according to WP:PRECISION,

1. Musical scale was "natural" (← I don't really care about terminology), and
2. it should have been preferred over Scale (music) (← this is what I am really concerned about)

I conclude that WP:PRECISION, in other similar cases, may either prevent editors from taking the right decision, or make their job more difficult and time consuming. And that's why I started this discussion.

Paolo.dL (talk) 12:51, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Overuse of Disambiguation term...

Example: Let's say that there is a famous television show called Muke. There are 26 episodes in the First season, which are named A, B, C, .., X, Y and FlanaFlana666. Obviously the first 25 episodes would have their article's named A (Muke Episode), B (Muke Episode), etc. But it seems inappropriate to have the last episode be called FlanaFlana666 (Muke Episode) because FlanaFlana666 would be adequate. But there are others who work on articles about Muke who want all of the articles to be consistent in name. What is the proper Wikipedia policy to reference to get the FlanaFlana666 (Muke Episode) moved to FlanaFlana666, or is this a case where consistency would lead to an IAR situation? Naraht (talk) 19:48, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Naraht: WP:PRECISION is the proper reference to get the article moved from the overly qualified title to the correctly qualified title. Forcing non-natural qualifiers on the titles that don't need them is a "foolish consistency". -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:24, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

When disambiguation is not needed, there's no need to be consistent. See above for an example in which consistency is not foolish.Paolo.dL (talk) 18:58, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

common vs. official country name discussion

The issue of using the common English name vs. the official name of a country for the article title is being discussed at this move proposal: Requested Move: Côte d'Ivoire → Ivory Coast. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:25, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Groan not again! -- PBS (talk) 12:07, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

California Adventure

Disney California Adventure Park was just moved to Disney California Adventure rather than to California Adventure for what I think are reasons not supported by WP:AT WP:CRITERIA. My main concern is that as long as the title remains inconsistent with WP:AT WP:CRITERIA, it will remain unstable. Why not just fix it now? Discuss here: Talk:Disney_California_Adventure#RM_decision_based_on_inaccurate_premise.3F. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:42, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

You want to propose a move because if you don't someone might propose a move? Good thinking. Dicklyon (talk) 02:02, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't think the last two words were constructive ... Art LaPella (talk) 02:16, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Right, sorry. I meant bad thinking. Dicklyon (talk) 02:34, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I like that better. Art LaPella (talk) 03:29, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

With respect to any proposed move, A → B, the following should always be considered: With the article at A, we know we have a WP:CRITERIA based A → B argument, but let's imagine the article was at B, would there be a reasonable WP:CRITERIA based B → A argument? If not, then the A → B move should be supported.

And that's what we have here. There are good WP:CRITERIA based arguments to move Disney California Adventure to California Adventure, but if the article was at California Adventure, what might be a good WP:CRITERIA based argument to move it to Disney California Adventure? There isn't one, so the article should be moved. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:05, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Proposed naming conventions and guidelines

I have taken the step of reporting a user to ANI for creating a redirect "WP:Naming conventions (French)" in contravention of the section Proposed naming conventions and guidelines. In the ANI I have proposed that the redirect be deleted or redirected to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). My preference is to delete it as it does not contribute any guidance that does not exist in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English).

WP:Naming conventions (French) is a particularly harmful redirect because it redirects to a MOS page not a Naming convention and to a section Accents & ligatures bypassing the section General rules which advises "The most general rule of the Wikipedia is that editors should use the most common form of the name or expression used in English (WP:ENGLISH)." (bold emphasis as it is in the guideline). This means under a cursory glance the redirect is misleading. -- PBS (talk) 12:06, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (French) has been deleted as the creator agreed to deletion -- PBS (talk) 11:20, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi PBS

There are number of problematic aspects to this.

(1) As other admins commented, you appear to be attempting to resort to ANI for a content dispute, in this case the content of your preferred wording to the diacritics section here. May I ask have you resorted to ANI before when encountering disagreement on the Talk page of WP:AT?

(2) The main problem however is your view on diacritics, and your history of edits to WP:AT being in opposition to use of diacritics in en.wikipedia article titles. Can you please link to where you have answered the question I have given you upwards of a dozen times to cite 1x article that you agree with (and hopefully there is no need to repeat the caveats "modern non-monarch, non-WP:STAGENAME, non-ß").

(3) Wikipedia does have WP:Naming conventions (language xxx) for some other languages, would you kindly explain why some are acceptable and some are not. And in doing so please provide a link for the approved process for creating e.g. WP:Naming conventions (French). I am more than happy to follow the process, if it helps Users easily find guidance conforming with existing consensus guidelines such as Wikipedia:Manual of Style/France & French-related. Where is it the relevant process described?

(4) As regards the shortcut you deleted, for the record, when you deleted it, it said

Wikipedia does not currently have a page titled WP:Naming conventions (French). However see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/France & French-related

That is what the link had, now it has you using your own admin tools to delete the page:

A page with this title has previously been deleted. If you are creating a new page with different content, please continue. If you are recreating a page similar to the previously deleted page, or are unsure, please first contact the deleting administrator using the information provided below. 10:27, 3 July 2012 Philip Baird Shearer (talk

— contribs) deleted page Wikipedia:Naming conventions (French) (Creator agreed to deletion as its creation had not followed WP:AT policy see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive758#User:In ictu oculi

Should your use of admin tools when "involved" in defending your own POV on French diacritics also go to WP:ANI? (I'm not saying it should, I'm asking you why it shouldn't)

(3) You still have not explained why your definition of "reliable" appears to be different from the definition in Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources? Do you accept the definition in WP:IRS or not?

(4) Wikipedia:Manual of Style/France & French-related#General rules does not deal directly with naming conventions, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/France & French-related#Accents & ligatures does, so why you are concerned about linking to one rather than other doesn't make much sense. But frankly this is a minor issue as to where on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/France & French-related a convenience redirect would link. WP:MOS-FR WP:FRMOS link to the top. I don't care about this.

(5) Back to WP:AT, we are still discussing what can be done to improve:

The choice between anglicized and local spellings should follow English-language usage, e.g., Besançon, Søren Kierkegaard and Göttingen, but Nuremberg, delicatessen, and Florence. If there are too few reliable English-language sources to constitute an established usage, follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject (German for German politicians, Portuguese for Brazilian towns, and so on). For ideas on how to deal with situations where there are several competing foreign terms, see "Multiple local names" and "Use modern names" in the geographical naming guideline.

Evidently one thing stands out - there is no example of a personal name in "but Nuremberg, delicatessen, Florence, and Lech Walesa (sic, redirect to Lech Wałęsa) " I mention Lech Walesa because of your own comments on the (failed) Lech Wałęsa RM. But it could be your comments Talk:Gerhard_Schröder#Requested_move cf Talk:François_Mitterrand#Requested_move

The basic issue seems to be this, correct me if I'm wrong, you seem to believe, again correct me if I'm wrong because it is difficult to find out what you believe when you don't answer questions, that because e.g. an English newspaper, say the Daily Express, or a mass-market paperback on Googlebooks, has "Lech Walesa" "Gerhard Schroder" or "Francois Mitterrand" that Daily Express, or that mass-market paperback on Googlebooks qualifies as a "reliable" source under the section of WP:IRS:

Context matters The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context.

In surveying your, and in fairness some others', edits to WP policy and guideline pages since 2006 this seems to be the nub of the problem, and the nub of the dislocate or lag between the ambiguous wording in these pages and the reality of where 100,000s of European latin-alphabet bios and geo articles actually are titled on en.wp.

(6) If I make a comment, I find discussion with you slightly difficult because you seem rarely if ever to answer questions, they seem to pile up unanswered. I would now like to ask a direct question of an example relating to the nub of the issue, and I would like you to answer it. Question: Do you consider The Daily Express a WP:IRS source reliable for the statement being made concerning the spelling of the names François Mitterand, François Hollande, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing Jean-Luc Mélenchon? This question can be answered by a simple yes/no. Or please give yes/no then expand, but please do not post "tenacious" (your own word) quantities of text without addressing directly a simple yes/no question. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:58, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Deciding on an article title: Consistency

In the section "Deciding on an article title", under Consistency, I added:

For consistency, it is also advisable to do an Advanced Search to check if some or all of the alternative terms are already used as Wikipedia Category names.

but it was reverted. I do not see that this addition is other than helpful. A basic Wikipedia search does not turn up Wikipedia Category names, and it is not obvious how to search Category names. LittleBen (talk) 05:43, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I reverted this somewhat longer bit that you added:

Where there are several possible alternatives, search engines can be used to research which is most frequently used, as discussed in the section below. For consistency, it is also advisable to do an Advanced Search to check if some or all of the alternative terms are already used as Wikipedia Category names.

because it seems like an unnecessary addition to a section about the principles for choosing a title. To introduce a counting approach and emphasize commonness here is counterproductive, as well as duplicative. I'm not sure what the category thing is about. Let's see if others can see what it's helpful. Also, it wasn't "under Consistency" in the sense that I think you meant, though it was below it on the page. Dicklyon (talk) 05:52, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I see from this that you weren't even aware of the existence of this policy page until today. So it's not surprising, perhaps, that you don't know that editing policy pages without discussion first, and/or without a good edit summary, is quite often going to be met with pushback. We don't want lots of willy-nilly changes in important project-wide policy and guideline pages. Dicklyon (talk) 05:57, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

My reason for trying to find guidelines on article naming, and guidelines on how to research the most appropriate naming, comes from seeing articles named, renamed, and moved willy-nilly — without adequate research. Article names and category names are frequently inconsistent because editors don't adequately research them before naming or moving articles. In my experience, most editors don't know how to search for existing category names. For an example of the problem, see here. This is why I attempted to explain that it's important to research category names and ensure consistency—and link to an explanation of how to do this, since it's not obvious and not widely known. (My Category naming edit was also reverted). LittleBen (talk) 11:09, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Deciding on an article title: Recognizability

The section Common names expands on Recognizability in the section "Deciding on an article title" by explaining that "Titles are often proper nouns, such as the name of the person, place or thing that is the subject of the article. The most common name for a subject, as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources, is often used as a title because it is recognizable and natural. ... In determining which of several alternative names is most frequently used, ... a search engine may help... (F)or detailed advice on the use of search engines and the interpretation of their results, see Wikipedia:Search engine test.

So by adding :

Where there are several possible alternatives, search engines can be used to research which is most frequently used, as discussed in the section below.

I am attempting to link Recognizability to the section that explains how to determine this.

I can't see how this could be construed as anything other than a useful, good-faith edit that is self-evident and doesn't require lengthy discussion. LittleBen (talk) 01:20, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we can agree your edits are in good faith. But if it's self-evident, we don't need it. A bit of discussion of what problem you're trying to solve and whether this is a good solution is presently in order. At present, I don't even understand what you mean by "I am attempting to link Recognizability to the section that explains how to determine this." A common problem and topic is discussion in titles in recent years is the use and abuse of search engine counts, and the over-emphasis on "most common" as opposed to the other important criteria. You'll get pushback (from me at least) on edits that seem to endorse that direction. Dicklyon (talk) 18:53, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Also, it's not normal talk-page etiquette to change the time/date of your sig to be later than my reply. Dicklyon (talk) 01:38, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

You might at least look at the link that I added before removing it. Surely it supports your viewpoint. It's just below this. LittleBen (talk) 08:52, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

LittleBen, I don't think anyone understands what you are trying to do here. The link you put in seems to be a "how-to" essay, but you have put in on a policy page. Some people might think this will make it a requirement for all 3,993,843 articles in Wikipedia, not to mention the bots. A lot of people agree with you that the process for writing article titles needs a better explanation; I agree with that too. If you would explain what you are trying to do here, as many people have asked you to do, I'm sure you would find people who are willing to help you. Neotarf (talk) 13:24, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

So tell me then, where in Wikipedia is the term Recognizability defined, and the criteria for Recognizability discussed? If it's not related to anything else on Wikipedia then it's an orphan, and doesn't belong. I have attempted to link it to the Common name section, which says that "The most common name for a subject, as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources, is often used as a title because it is recognizable and natural. I have also attempted to link it to Notability in the search research guidelines article which is already linked from way down the bottom of the Common name section on the same Article titles page, and which describes how to research the best-compromise terminology, based on Wikipedia's criteria. It even provides a tutorial. LittleBen (talk) 15:53, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Ben, I did look at the link. But the idea of enshrining such a connection between "recognizability" and "search engines" in a general section on goals seemed very wrong to me. Has anyone supported this? I have no objection to the search engine how-to itself, but I don't like the implication that recognizability can be assessed by the use of search engines (even though that's one tool that is often used, and often poorly as the linked page points out). Dicklyon (talk) 16:15, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

As I have already pointed out several times, the Common name section already links to these search guidelines. If there is no way of assessing "recognizability", and no guidelines as to what constitutes "recognizability" anywhere in Wikipedia, then surely the term should be removed or changed to something like "notability". LittleBen (talk) 16:22, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it already links it where it says "for detailed advice on the use of search engines and the interpretation of their results, see Wikipedia:Search engine test." I have no problem with that. But it seems much less appropriate in the bulleted list titled "Wikipedia article titles have the following characteristics". Dicklyon (talk) 16:28, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

So how would you address the problems with using the poorly-defined or undefined term "recognizability", then? LittleBen (talk) 16:36, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Deciding on an article title: Does anybody know or care about this guideline?

If you look at Page view statistics on the History tab, you will see that:

Wikipedia:Manual of Style has had 77042 pageviews in the last 60 days.

Wikipedia:Categorization has had 33652 pageviews in the last 60 days.

Wikipedia:Categorization/Naming seems to overlap with Wikipedia:Categorization and has had only 18 pageviews in the last 60 days.

Why are so few people aware of this guideline, Article titles, which has had only 10557 pageviews in the last 60 days?

Surely the major reason is that anyone can create an article without any suggestion that they review this Article title guideline, as discussed here starting with the scenario "If you search Wikipedia for an article ABCDEF..."   This is surely a problem that could easily be fixed.   Does anybody care?

The same "nobody knows about it/them" problem seems to apply to the Wikipedia Regional MOS guides.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles has had 1724 pageviews in the last 60 days.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Philippine-related articles has had 1430 pageviews in the last 60 days.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/France & French-related has had 1399 pageviews in the last 60 days.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Korea-related articles has had 1311 pageviews in the last 60 days.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/China-related articles has had 604 pageviews in the last 60 days.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Singapore-related articles has had 596 pageviews in the last 60 days.

I tried to add a link from MOS:Foreign terms to Regional MOS guides, but this was reverted for no reason other than it lacked an edit summary.

Surely the spirit of Wikipedia is to cooperate and communicate with other editors, to enable and encourage, in order to help Wikipedia to succeed, not to secretly revert and sabotage other editors' work regardless of its merit? Surely Wikipedia should not be a dysfunctional place like Dilbert's company, where it is not fun to contribute or participate in any way? LittleBen (talk) 16:00, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

The number of page views may or may not be a good indicator of whether people care about the guidelines. Another gauge might be the number of talk page edits that mention them. In any case, this is just the "titles" guideline and I'm not sure what statistics about other guidelines are telling us about this one. Please tell us what these numbers mean to you and how you arrived at your conclusions. I have left you a note on your talk page about issues you have raised that don't concern article titles. Jojalozzo 16:34, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi LittleBenW, personally I'd agree with you that the content on this page could do with improvement (or reversion of some unhelpful edits which have 'sat' here). I'm not totally surprised by your page view figures, and I wonder if WP:AT itself contributes to that. As regards your edit, it wasn't unreasonable, but it was reverted by one of the most sensible contributors to guidelines, Dicklyon, and as the tag at the head of this Talk page (why on Talk page not article????) says edits to this page should be discussed first. I'd support your edit, perhaps in more concise form. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:50, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

• NB before Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#Restored_16_May_deletion_to_WP:COMMONNAME_status_quo_23_March moves off the head of talk into archive, can we please make sure wording has been restored to status quo 23 March. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:54, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Precision problems

We had a bunch of edits to the precision section today, but they do nothing to clarify or restore the meaning of "precision". They seem instead to be designed to only re-inforce the idea that precision is for nothing but avoid title collisions. Can we work on restoring a bit of what precision was for? I'll look again at the history and try to pull out a good description... Dicklyon (talk) 17:33, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

The history of this provision is summarized here: Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles/Archive_36#Some_history_of_the_.22Precision.22_provision. I have incorporated the breifest hint of a positive value for precision, based on the old versions before a few editors whittled it down to nothing but disambiguation, and bofore Born2cycle tried to cast precision as a strictly negative property of a title. Let's keep the positive aspect of precision a bit distinct from the avoidance of over-precision in the case of article title collisions. Some further elaboration and separation seems like a good idea, but the bare hint of what we mean by precision as a good property of a title is now restored to the precision section at least. Dicklyon (talk) 18:09, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

My edits today were not supposed to solve that problem. They only cleaned, tweaked, simplified and rearranged the existing text. They were not at all designed to reinforce the idea that precision is to avoid title collision. They were designed to reinforce whatever was already written there with too many words. They helped you to see better than before a problem which was already there, and that I had not detected. Otherwise, I would have corrected it myself! Paolo.dL (talk) 19:02, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Paolo, and I appreciate your help in tuning it up. Sorry if I implied that your edits were part of some other agenda; I've become overly sensitive to such things in this policy page. Dicklyon (talk) 19:09, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Let me say how much I appreciated your contribution: thanks to your restoring edit, the section title "Precision and disambiguation" and the shortcut WP:PRECISION eventually and for the first time made sense to me. However, I still cannot understand why there's a separate section for precision, and not for other criteria listed in WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. Paolo.dL (talk) 08:31, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

See what I mean? In this edit, Born2cycle restores the more negative interpretation of precision as something to be avoided, claiming it's "well understood and long supported", essentially saying that there is no positive role for precision to "indicate accurately the topical scope of the article" as it had been for many years before the turmoil of 2009. See the history linked above. I think we need to fix this. Dicklyon (talk) 19:25, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I have moved his phrasing about identifying to the topic unambiguously to the positive side; at least that says we want some precision. Is this an OK compromise? Dicklyon (talk) 19:32, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

B2C has now done multiple additional edits to try to re-establish his position that precision is bad, essentially reverting me and SarekOfVulcan; and without joining this discussion. That's a problem. Dicklyon (talk) 23:17, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I simply restored the longstanding wording at this point. As I said in my edit summary, I don't understand Sarek's objection to the version he reverted, as the part he reverted was longstanding wording as well. I disagree with your characterization of the longstanding wording as having no positive side.

This is the longstanding wording:

Titles usually use names and terms that are precise, but only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously.

The whole first clause, everything before the comma, is positive. Then, after the comma, there is a limitation clause.

Before Sarek's revert, this is what was there:

Titles usually use names and terms that are precise enough to identify the topic of the article unambiguously, but no more precise than that.

Let's say that's Version 2. To me, V2 has the same meaning as the original longstanding wording, but the positive part is more predominant, which is what I thought you wanted. Version 1 is the version you had, and to which Sarek reverted:

Titles usually use names and terms that are precise enough to identify the topic of the article unambiguously, but not overly precise.

The "not overly precise" language in V1 is new. The "no more precise than that" wording in V1 simply is rewording of the longstanding wording which said "only as precise as [that] (where [that] refers to necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously). Is the "no" a problem? How about this?

Titles usually use names and terms that are precise enough to identify the topic of the article unambiguously, but only as precise as that.

Personally, I think "no more precise than that" is more clear than "only as precise as that", but the intended meaning is ultimately the same. No? --Born2cycle (talk) 01:05, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

The thing is, "no more precise than that" means that titling the article Bothell, Washington is against policy -- it must be named Bothell. "Not overly precise" disallows Bothell (city), King and Snohomish Counties, Washington, USA, but allows Bothell, Washington. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 01:25, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and US city names are one of the very few exceptions to that. Anyway, now you're talking about changing the meaning of the wording, which is not how this endeavor started.

The problem with V1 is "but not overly precise" is vague as compared to the original "only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously", or V2's "no more precise than [enough to identify the topic of the article unambiguously]". I know that's exactly what you and Dick are trying to remove, but it's been in there a very long time, for good reason, and does reflect actual practice, both past and current (except for US city names). --Born2cycle (talk) 01:31, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

And except for royalty and some aspects for the tree of life topics and any number of other exceptions. Do we really need to encode a pretense in policy? older ≠ wiser 01:51, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Precision has gotten more influential in royalty. Plant articles that use scientific Latin names when the common English name is sufficiently precise are an exception too. There might be a few others that favor following a pattern per consistency, but those are the exceptions. Those exceptions aside, which are accounted for with the use of "usually" in the wording, the precision criterion as written certainly applies to the vast majority of our articles, and always has. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:33, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

We went round and round on this before. Maybe an RFC is in order, where anyone can propose a rewording of the precision section, and we discuss a bit and then vote for which ones we think move us in the right direction. After that, a bit more discussion, and decide what to do. Does that seem reasonable? Dicklyon (talk) 04:43, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Fine with me. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:33, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

LittleBenW's link

Why should the recognizability provision link to the search-engine how-to page here? This only reinforces the flaky notion that recognizability can be determined by search engines, a notion which routinely causes a lot of trouble. Dicklyon (talk) 04:41, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I have answered this once again at the bottom of Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Deciding on an article title: Recognizability. LittleBen (talk) 16:02, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

The editor who inserted it expressed concern that the page did not have enough page views. It seems to be a good faith edit, but I don't think anyone understands it. Further explanation was requested, but none was given. Neotarf (talk) 06:43, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Surely it's obvious that all the data about page views refers to the Regional MOS, which have recently been linked from the appropriate foreign terms sections of Wikipedia MOS but are not linked from Article titles because you (Neotarf) removed the link for no good reason. LittleBen (talk) 16:02, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Heh, I didn't just remove one link, I removed everything that was disputed. The edits were going back and forth, adding and removing the same stuff, sort of a "yes it is", "no it isn't", "yes it is" circular discussion. Plus it was too hard for observers (all the people who have to keep up on the policy for editing or for programming bots), to follow what was going on from the edit summaries. The guidelines for discussion say BRD Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle not BRRRRRR. Time for discussion. Neotarf (talk) 09:38, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Ben, sorry, I had forgotten we had started a discussion section on this above last week; I'll take it back there. Dicklyon (talk) 16:12, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Last stable version?

Several sections seem to be going through rapid changes; I have reverted back to what seems to be the last undisputed edit by Paolo.dL on 19:09, 7 July 2012‎. Sorry, I didn't see a discussion had already been started before writing "please discuss" in the edit summary, but no matter, it seems there is little agreement as yet. Neotarf (talk) 12:58, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Born2cycle will likely dispute that version again, since it includes the positive statement about precision: "precise enough to indicate accurately the topical scope of the article". Dicklyon (talk) 16:18, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Then let him give some rationales. There are two things wrong with what Born2cycle has put up. One is that the wording is awkward. I don't know what it is, consonants, maybe? Parallel construction? But it just doesn't read smoothly; read like policy. When you read it, the words pull at you, snag at you. I don't know how to explain it any better than that, maybe there is a name for it somewhere. The second thing is that it doesn't explain what he thinks it explains. He has an idea of what he wants to express, but it isn't coming out in his explanation. He writes phrases that mean something to him, but they aren't global, they aren't universally understood by everything to mean the same thing. When he gives examples, they often illustrate the complete opposite of how I interpreted his explanation. His examples I think are very good, very explanatory. And he has some good points about naming conventions for American cities, which seem very odd to me. (Primary topic based on sports teams??!?).

Also, I see a dynamic tension between the naming principles. Some people prefer titles that describe the subject thoroughly, some prefer minimalist titles that are merely able to function with the programming. There is no consensus about this, and I think the policy will have to reflect this. I don't see a problem with inconsistent naming criteria, if the community itself is inconsistent. Neotarf (talk) 10:05, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

If you can create a better wording, or favor a better past version for a logical reason, then say so. But simply reverting other people's edits for no real reason is not constructive, and does not help Wikipedia. Any professional copywriter will tell you that a slogan or an ad or article title has to be as brief and focused as possible — because people can't remember long rambling slogans, titles, or articles. If you haven't heard of this then you should read Strunk & White.

Surely it can only be described as disruptive editing to repeatedly revert a link from "For a list of transliteration conventions by language, see..." in the Foreign names and anglicization section to the Regional MOS. It's surely obvious from the pageview data quoted previously that few people are finding the Regional MOS. LittleBen (talk) 10:59, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Ben, please see my explanation above about WP:BRD. There is no point in several people just replacing the same texts over and over without discussion. Best to have the discussion in one place instead of spread out all over— Dicklyon has indicated he is willing to discuss the differences on the same thread as before. Neotarf (talk) 12:05, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Also, it is considered good practice to provide a summary for every edit. See WP:EDSUM Neotarf (talk) 12:21, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with WP:BRD. Regional MOS are Wikipedia Manual of Style guides. If you and Dicklyon know nothing about these, then your continuing to revert a single link to them can surely only be described as disruptive editing. They have already (recently) been linked to from the main WP MOS (after equally meaningless reversions). These Regional MOS are virtual orphans, and very difficult to find, as I have already explained repeatedly. LittleBen (talk) 13:38, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

You didn't revert to the stable version of the precision wording. I just did. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:14, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Why does this matter?

We should consider the reader first and foremost, and I would contend that, providing adequate redirect and disambiguation pages are in place (and in the main they are), for a reader the actual title and therefore URL of an article are barely relevant.

This fetishisation of the precise title of an article serves no real purpose and diverts attention and editing effort from the primary goal of content creation.

Now in raising this here, I expect plenty of objections. What prompted the observation was that at least one dispute over an article title (Perth) has ended up in arbitration. That's crazy. And as I am sure we all know there are plenty of examples of similar disputes.

But if I come to Wikipedia for the first time looking for (as an example) Perth, whether I am a Scot or an Aussie (or somewhere in between) it's not really a big deal if I get the article on Scottish Perth with a hatnote, or Australian Perth with with a hatnote, or a dab page. I can get what I want with a click. Similarly, to use an example from the policy, if I search for Bill Clinton and via a redirect end up on a page that happens to have the title William Jefferson Clinton, that makes absolutely no difference to me and the chances are I would not even notice.

So why do we make such a big deal of, and expend so much energy debating, article titles? Maybe I am missing something, but I would like the article naming policy to say something to the effect that as long as any common use of a search term can reach the desired article in no more than one click, the title doesn't matter. After all that is the de facto position already for many search terms, hence the need for hatnotes. Mcewan (talk) 22:10, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

As for "consider the reader", I agree. As for the rest, yes, it is perfectly routine that in any discussion that people care about, someone who doesn't care will show up and expend a few paragraphs to say so. Dicklyon (talk) 22:33, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry I don't understand the second part. Do you mean to imply that I don't care? Because I assure you I do. Mcewan (talk) 22:49, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I think the communications problem is that Mcewan cares about Wikipedia, but in his own words, "the title doesn't matter". Happy again? Art LaPella (talk) 00:01, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

The real problem is not just the title, or just the lack of a hatnote, it's the user experience for a first-time user. If you are a registered user, and are logged in, a search will display a page of results — so that you can choose from them. But if you are not logged in, and there is an article that matches what you typed into the search box, you are not given a choice — you are rudely bumped directly to that article without being shown any related results. In many cases the articles that match popular search keywords are of poor, or very poor, quality. (One example: "web design"). Many new users won't stick around to try to find out how to search for related articles. The search box for users who are not logged in should work the same way, and ideally be in the same place, as the search box that logged-in users get. LittleBen (talk) 03:02, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, when I clicked "Log out" I couldn't tell the difference, despite several experiments with what you might mean. My best guess is: Type something like "web design" in the search box. Instead of hitting Enter, click the magnifying glass. Since the page exists, it doesn't give me options, it goes to the web design article. But trying the same thing logged out gives the same result. Or maybe it depends on Wikipedia:Preferences. Or maybe everybody else knows what you mean. Art LaPella (talk) 04:25, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

The search box appears at top right when you are logged out. If you enter "web design" and hit return (rather than figuring out that you are supposed to click on the magnifying glass icon) you will get dumped straight at the web design article. The search box appears at middle left when you are logged in. If you enter "web design" and click on "Search" then you are shown snippets of a choice of articles to go to, just like on Google — but "Go" is the default, if you hit return rather than clicking "Search". Note that "Go" is not the default in Google. Google gives you a choice. And the design and position of the search box is different in Wikipedia depending on whether you are logged in or not. LittleBen (talk) 05:39, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

When you're logged in, your personal preferences control the look. I use the old monobook layout, as you probably do, too. When you're not logged in, you get the new default. But the search box works the same in both, as far as I can tell. Dicklyon (talk) 06:54, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, with my default Vector skin, being logged in or out results in a search box in the upper right. If you enter "web design" the word "Search" disappears so I couldn't possibly click it. Art LaPella (talk) 14:54, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it might be better to go to a list of results, rather than the article. But that is a separate issue from that of the article title. I still don't know why we treat it as so important. Imagine running a script that moves all 3.9M articles to an arbitrary name (a number, or a guid or something) and leaves behind a redirect to the new page. Would we we be worse off? If so, that's the reason we care about titles, if not, let's relax a bit about them. Mcewan (talk) 07:37, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

If you don't know why, remember there is a built-in problem with a volunteer project: things that make individual people look important are much more likely to get done. Actually, there is an oft-exaggerated problem with a clearly wrong title (it would be confusing to have the word "Germany" at the top of the France article, whether or not it interfered with navigating to it). Art LaPella (talk) 14:54, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

In the vast majority of cases the effect on the reader between the two titles in consideration is negligible. In the very rare cases where it does matter that of course should be the issue. But if you look at say the current crop of move nominations at WP:RM, I bet you might not find a single example where the effect of either title matters much to the reader.

That said, if you consider readers not familiar with each topic in question, you could probably "improve" the vast majority of our titles to make them more likely to be recognized from the title alone by any such reader. That's why we have the to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic limitation incorporated in the recognizability criterion.

Accordingly, the "only as precise as necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously" aspect of precision is not to help the reader, but to make our titles more consistent, more predictable, less contentious and more stable. The greater the size of the pool of acceptable potential titles from which we can all choose our favorite, the more likely we will be arguing about titles indefinitely, and there will be no way to choose a stable version. Precision is an easy, obvious, natural and harmless way to whittle the size of that pool down.

Title stability is an important consideration, especially when the effect on the reader is negligible, and that's mostly what the precision criterion addresses. Anyone who doesn't understand and appreciate this, is likely to be frustrated with many if not most of our titles. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:27, 9 July 2012 (UTC)