Wikipedia talk:Article titles/RFC-Article title decision practice

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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What is Community practice regarding Wikipedia article title decisions?

When one evaluates titling decisions and especially contested titling decisions in our WP:RM process, it is very rare to find Recognizability or Naturalness invoked as a policy reason for a title change. It is also rare to find any holistic policy based discussions on titling decisions. These and other elements of our titling policy have been contentious over the last few months. So following the mantra that many of us subscribe to, that policy should follow and document practice wherever possible, I decided to think about this differently. What are the major choices the Wikipedia community of editors has made relative to article titles, and what were the alternatives to those choices that we’ve essentially rejected through policy statements and practice. If the community could agree on that, we might be able to agree on the most functional policy wording to convey that practice to the rest of the community, including new editors. So the following list displays in my view the choices the community has made and the alternatives we had. It is organized by priority. In other words, think of it as a policy ladder where a previous choice has precedence over and informs the following choices. I have bold faced the choices I think the community has made. I’ve intentionally left out neutrality as it requires some special thinking which can be addressed later. Also, this list does not ignore that fact/practice that individual title decisions are decided by WP:CONSENSUS, but instead conveys the policy elements/choices that such consensus is based on. This list is not intended to convey the detailed methodology by which each decision area is adjudicated or applied to individual title decisions.

• Sources (What is the source of the title wording?)
  • As supported by reliable English-language secondary sources
  • As contained in original research, primary sources, etc.
  • Pure fantasy, made up names, fanciful constructions, et. al.
• Type of name (names of most things have alternatives and those alternatives can be characterized as follows)
  • Official names (names issued by official organizations, entities, etc. these might be scientific names, legal names (people and entities), government names, etc.) – Organization X is the official name keeper and it determines that XXXXXX is the official name (most restrictive and least encyclopedic).
  • Authoritative names/specialist names (names that an authority on a subject uses; authoritative/specialist names are usually found in sources that are scholarly, or at least come out of some type of structured, disciplined process) – John Doe is the authority on subject XXXXXXX and says XXXXXXX is the name used for this subject. An authoritative name may be an official name, but an official name is not necessarily the authoritative name (less restrictive and more encyclopedic than official names).
  • Common names (names that are most widely used by all types of sources—official, unofficial, authoritative/specialist and general media) – A common name may indeed be official or authoritative, but it is the commonness that is the important characteristic (least restrictive and the most encyclopedic for a generalist encyclopedia).
    • Descriptive names can also be constructed from terms that reflect common usage in reliable sources.
• Ambiguity (names may or may not have some level of ambiguity)
  • Uniqueness (Demanded by the Wiki software.)
  • Little or no ambiguity (Titles require enough detail to leave no doubt as to what the subject of the article is about. The more articles that exist with a related title, the most disambiguation information must be added to the title to ensure no ambiguity between articles exists.) This represents the idea of detailed disambiguation.
  • Moderate ambiguity (Titles should contain sufficient detail to allow readers to make informed navigational and search decisions, but without ensuring that every navigational or search decision is unambiguous.) This represents our current practice of reasonable levels of disambiguation.
  • High levels of ambiguity (Titles require only sufficient differentiation to make them unique, as long as titles are unique, it doesn’t matter whether or not there is serious ambiguity of titles among a bunch of related articles.) This represents the idea of no unnecessary disambiguation. It discourages even moderate disambiguation if a more concise alternative exists.
• Style (What is the visual form that we like to see in our titles?)
  • Rigid consistency – All titles must conform to rigid style standards to include parts of speech, capitalization, punctuation, abbreviation, structure etc.
  • Moderate consistency – Basic style standards are delineated through MOS and naming conventions and should guide the visual form of our titles (literally and comparatively), but not in a rigid, one size fits all way.
  • No consistency – Basic style standards are irrelevant, anything goes.

So there is only one question that I seek an answer from the rest of the community. Does this list accurately reflect the choices we’ve made as a community and community practice regarding titles? Whether editors individually agree with these choices is not the question. Please indicate your view in only one of the sections below. Discussion or challenges to an individual editor's position on this is not required or relevant to the outcome and should be avoided. I encourage all editors who have created articles or participated in article title decisions to participate in this RFC. Your individual view of WP practice is important. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:15, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

The choices highlighted above faithfuly reflect the title decision practice of WP

• Dicklyon – the highlighted passages represent typical practice, but there are lots of variations, for both good and bad reasons, which are too complex to represent in the other categories of poll response, imho. Dicklyon (talk) 21:40, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Some of the choices (but not all) highlighted above faithfully reflect the title decision practice of WP

If your position falls here, indicate which category/choice is inconsistent with practice and why.

• [Username], [category/choice is inconsistent because:]
• SarekOfVulcan (talk · contribs), Sources doesn't take account of the need to occasionally create neutral titles because the majority of current sources use a name specifically chosen to be non-neutral. "Climategate", for example, implied a scandal involving researchers into climate change, but when the investigations concluded, the only scandal was the right-wing deniers of man-made climate change using it for their own purposes.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:19, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The choices highlighted above fail to include this important title decision practice

• Casliber (talk · contribs), (1) Exactness has to trump common nameness. (2) to that end, many areas use Official names that more sharply and uniformly define their subjects, thus birds use official names, and plants, fungi, bacteria, and almost all invertebrates use scientific names. Many medical articles use official names rather than common names. The standard among stars is to use Bayerian designation beyond those of first magnitude.
• Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:16, 17 February 2012 (UTC) I agree with Cas, and I would also add (3) that the role of projects in setting and maintaining consistency within their topic-related articles is overlooked
• Medical articles generally used the formal name rather than a lay term. One would expect to find the proper name for a medical subject in an encyclopaedia. This is not against policy because these formal names are not rarely used by reliable sources, though they may be rarer in everyday speech among the general population. The example of Heroin in this policy is in fact an exception (though a reasonable one): it is extremely rare to use the brand-name (which is what Heroin is) for a drug article title. Rather than Wikipedian's arguing over the correct name, we defer to authorities such as the INN for drug names. So I don't understand the above text saying that the official name is "most restrictive and least encyclopedic".

The above discussion opens with a logical mistake. It assumes that because "Recognizability or Naturalness" are rarely invoked in disputes or page moves, that these reasons are not important. The mistake is to give weight to these edge cases. A page move implies someone disagrees with an earlier choice. Most of our article names are obvious and undisputed. These attributes are perfectly good indicators of a suitable name. Someone disputing a name is more likely than the average to be somewhat pedantic about it: hence qualities like precision and consistency may be more likely to be noted during disputes. Colin°^Talk 09:02, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

• Boson (talk · contribs) Plethora of criteria: In my experience, decisions are often made on the basis of the evidence in favour of different alternatives, based on a number of criteria, including many others beside the highlighted ones, disputes occurring when different editors weight the criteria differently. For instance, there are an enormous number of "foreign" persons, places, offices, institutions, and books in Wikipedia. In those cases where there is more than one possible title, the decision process may involve weighing up several criteria and reaching a decision that is topic-dependent. The criteria include, for instance: the common name according to reliable English language secondary sources (where they exist), the name used by reliable English language tertiary sources (e.g. other encyclopaedias), the official name, the name used in reliable foreign language sources, the name used in English and foreign primary sources (I presume this includes an organization's official website or the name actually used by the person concerned), the neutrality of the proposed title, what is thought to be the correct translation of a foreign term (e.g. a word for "district", "valley", etc.), consistent translation of names or parts of names, sometimes based on authorities). I think, even when there are disputes, many of these naming decisions are made without any formal RM process, which is perhaps fortunate, because many of the problems involved are at first meaningless to those not familiar with the topic. --Boson (talk) 00:49, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

• I've always considered "namesake-hood" to be a factor worth considering (i.e. if X is named after Y, then this speaks to Y being a more primary topic than X). This is one reason why Avatar is about the Hindu concept and not the 3D film by James Cameron. --Cybercobra (talk) 09:53, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
• I agree with Casliber to an extent:
  1. I think that we need to give exactness/precision a little more weight over WP:COMMONNAME although in practice (ie. if we're discussing is rather than ought) the weighting tends to vary from field to field. WikiProjects often, but not always, prefer a slightly more formalised naming system which is influenced by naming conventions in that field; this is generally OK with me, but occasionally I think it goes too far, and sometimes it can lead to what I can only describe as synthesis - that is, where sources do not actually attempt to fit an item into that field's usual naming conventions, editors here try it nonetheless, and create a title which looks consistent to a wikiproject stalwart but which doesn't actually reflect what sources say or what readers are looking for.
  2. On the other hand I disagree with the namesakehood suggestion. We are, ultimately, here to serve readers; the more highbrow among us may dislike the fact that Avatar_(2009_film) has much higher readership than Avatar, but that's what readers want. Sometimes namesakehood has influenced decisions but often it has had little weight. As a European, a little part of me is proud that so many New World cities were named (probably by homesick settlers) after little old-world towns and villages; but it is right that Boston points to the large city in Massachusetts rather than the small town in Lincolnshire.
  3. I am also wary of putting too much emphasis on English-language sources only, since this can sometimes cause problems with naming of foreign subjects. Certainly this encyclopædia should be written in English, but I think we could afford to give a little more weight to accuracy, in cases where the most accurate name is still readable for people who speak English. I don't want to open the diacritics can of worms, but... removing diacritics doesn't make a spelling English, it makes a spelling wrong. In practice (returning to "is" rather than "ought") this area has seen very diverse interpretations of policy, depending on which subject you look at. bobrayner (talk) 17:08, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Some of the choices (but not all) highlighted above faithfully reflect the title decision practice of WP and the choices highlighted above fail to include this important title decision practice

If your position falls here, indicate which category/choice is inconsistent with practice and why and describe the missing practice.

• [Username], [category/choice is inconsistent because:],[describe missing practice]

This RfC doesn't make sense

• The RfC appears to be some kind of information-fishing, but is vague, poorly worded, assumptive of many things on many levels, rambling, unfocused, and has no clear goal(s). Certainly not any basis from which to change WP:AT. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:22, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
• Concur. It seems to anecdotally presume that WP:Article titles doesn't reflect consensus and asks what WP's first principles for article naming should be. Nothing is substantially wrong with WP:AT to begin with. --Cybercobra (talk) 09:35, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
• The points are mixtures of descriptive and normative statements. If you really wanted information about the practice, you should not in the same sentences simultaneously brandish some alternatives as "less encyclopedial".
  My experience from several fields of science is that the "official caretaker" or the "informed specialist" views often are considered as having relatively more weight than use in general. Within my own field, mathematics, there are at least two good reasons for heeding "experts", usage in text books, et cetera: The concept often are fairly unknown to people outside math, and the non-expert terminology sometimes are based on direct misunderstandings of the subjects. Titles closer to what a student of the subject might ask for thus IMHO may have a greater encyclopedial value than titles based on misunderstanding and confusion. JoergenB (talk) 21:42, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
• I've now read this page three times and am none the wiser: I do not even understand where this RfC would go - I mean if everyone voted that the choices highlighted above faithfuly reflect the title decision practice of WP, there is no suggestion about what would happen next. More generally, what is the purpose of discussing a user-created list of criteria, rather discussing changes (or not) to the actual policy, WP:AT? Babakathy (talk) 09:50, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
• Article naming is a huge and diverse area which is also, often, controversial. Asking people to summarise their current understanding of policy & practice across the whole landscape may not yield very useful results; most people will focus on particular areas (whether consciously or not). Some will describe what we currently do, whilst others describe what they think we should be doing. In principle it's good to get a fresh perspective on article naming, but in practice I think we're unlikely to get a lot of useful replies here (and I include my own replies in that grim assessment). bobrayner (talk) 17:17, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
• To be of any value, an RfC needs to be sharply worded and focussed. This isn't, so it isn't of value. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:49, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes. Exactly. I see what Mike Cline has done now. He has organized the content of some talk pages about titles. But the conversation on the talk pages isn't working either, --because it's also not focused.
  • There is also a difference between the standards for writing a new article and renaming/moving articles or creating disambiguation pages. Neotarf (talk) 16:59, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment

I would comment but a page about article titles that is as clear as mud with a title that doesnt make sense doesnt really help. Why not just tell us what is wrong with the Wikipedia:Article titles and what you suggest. Going away to look up "title decision practice". MilborneOne (talk) 19:38, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree - I had to read this a few times to figure out exactly what I was supposed to do (and might not have gotten it right) Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

But you did, and thanks for your input. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:57, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I miss Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision). I think not having that page has helped lead to some of the ambiguity being discussed here. (I restored it just now for illustrative purposes.) Is the info merged onto to some tldr long page "somewhere"? probably. But I might argue that that isn't as helpful. When it comes to naming conventions, I think more separate specific pages is much better than a couple voluminous pages. - jc37 23:57, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I think that article titles are adequately covered under the current policy (WP:AT). Yet, article titles are often the basis for many heated disputes, probably partly because of the open-endedness of the criteria provided under the policy. However, I think a proposal User:Steven Zhang and I are working on called "binding article titles" will help these issues. Best, Whenaxis talk · contribs 01:29, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Sigh... I appreciate the attempt by Mike to get a reasonable discussion going, but the post above makes it clear that yet another half-hidden attempt to impose uniformity is on the road. This is a community of volunteers, not the US Army. There is a current arb case precisely because the MoS fanatics are attempting to impose blanket rules on people who give their time for free. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:22, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

You'd prefer a fully-hidden one? — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:17, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Jim, yes I too laud any attempt by those really wishing to consider our position and come to a satisfactory conclusion. However, I don't know how many bird project editors have much left to say by now. We have already lost quite a few of those that used to contribute in years back, and mostly because of the wiki politics. Of those that remain I would imagine that many are now talked out, tired of the constant hammering, and are now just waiting for the axe to fall at which point many will make the personal decision to continue contributing to the wiki or not. It is evident that there has been a drastic curtailing of any work being done now on the bird project. It just sort of takes the enthusiasm away from doing the real work for the project when one's precious free time is just consumed by this one discussion. It makes one feel not wanted.Steve Pryor (talk) 09:48, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Jimfbleak: Why you this is related in some way to our lack of Wikimedia Foundation paychecks is mysterious, but seems important to you, since you make these "we're volunteers" statements frequently. We all volunteered to edit here, for many different reasons, so we don't need to be told we're volunteers. Being a volunteer has nothing to do with whether one style or another should be followed in article naming or in prose.

Cuckooroller: Anyway, if members of a project collectively aren't working on articles, just on debates, I have to suggest that it's because they're choosing to be too political, and are misusing the project talk page as a locus of advocacy and activism, instead of a place to discuss article improvement collaboration. People do in fact leave the project over politics, like people leave any project over politics, but they get involved and invested in the politics of their own volition. If political bickering takes too much your precious time, stop engaging in political bickering. I got an amazing amount of templating, and glossary articles cleanup, done this week, by doing just that. Try it. It works. Just walk away and forget the debates for a while. Feels good.

It's also important to understand that it's entirely natural for early participants from the "visionary" stage of any organization (of any kind) to leave as the entity grows, matures, stabilizes and becomes more consistent and rule-bound; there are entire books about this. Organizations at different stages of development attract and are maintained by different kinds of participants. It's normal and expected. Just in the last 5 years, Wikipedia has massively transformed, from an idealistic pile of barely controlled chaos to one of the top 5 most used sites in the world. People coming and going as a result is inevitable, and it really doesn't have anything at all to do with whose sources are better than whose, or what style is preferable for what audience, or which guideline or policy should be applied to what; it's about attitudes, expectations, temperaments, philosophies, personal cost:benefit analysis, etc.

PS, Jimfbleak: That WP:BCD proposal Whenaxis is promoting won't go anywhere. As it's own introduction says: "the idea of binding resolution of content issues may seem to fly against the principles of Wikipedia". It would appear to be an attempt to erase WP:CCC for any case in which an article title is controversial. So of course, like 95% of WP proposals, it will fail. Why you think it's something to throw up your hands about, I don't know. It's just noise, man. Ignore it. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:17, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

• This RfC seems to be asking us to say what currently happens. This is not a good way of finding the answer because respondents will tend to have an axe to grind and will spin their presentation to suit their agenda. What's needed is a page like WP:OUTCOMES which lists the various types of article and provides some good statistics and examples of how they are named. Does this information not already exist somewhere? Warden (talk) 18:05, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I want your views and positions, whether you chose to spin them your way or not. Everyone's input is valuable regardless of agenda. Don't try and read to much into this, just tell me what you think about our title policy. Thanks --Mike Cline (talk) 21:21, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

• I think it should be left alone unless and until someone raises a problem with it in a way that is far clearer than this unfocused, wandering RfC has done. It's a time waste, because it's not asking for anything concrete with any clear purpose, nor with a specific goal (or set of possible goals to choose from) in mind. It seems to be fishing for information of some kind, but I'm not a trout. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:17, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Interesting that this should come up now, because it has been bothering me for some time.  Generally, I think things are working well as is, at this time  I think there should be hard rules about capitalization.  I seem to see this problem often.  Another, is starting the title with "The" or not.  Variations on Acronyms is another.  But, the one that seems to be the biggest disambiguation problem, naturally, is people.   I hate those damn parenthesis, but there seems no easy way to get around them.  And, it is going to become a bigger problem because there are more people with the same name everyday.  Besides the above mentioned concerns, I had the thought that setting up a hierarchical structure for disambiguation of people may be a good idea before it becomes a real problem.  Unfortunately I have a tendency to lean towards the military way, but a person would first be defined as living or dead, then by their primary notability, then maybe secondary notability or nationality or birth place.  I'm not real sure after the living or dead criteria.  :- ) DCS 23:49, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

• "it is very rare to find Recognizability or Naturalness invoked as a policy reason for a title change" Rubbish! Recognizability = WP:COMMONNAME. And I've successfully invoked unnaturalness of a disambiguator a few times in moves requests. --Cybercobra (talk) 09:30, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm talking about disambiguating two Physicists named John or Jean Smith, one was a white female born in Los Angeles, CA, USA in 1998 and graduated from UCLA in 2025 and discovered the CHIPHEDISN (the CHIna Pink Hyper-symetrical Extreme Down Inverted Spin Neutrino) and the other was a white male, of Hispanic origins, born in Santa Monica, CA, USA in 1999 and graduated from USC in 2026 and discovered the CHAPHEDISN (the CHArm Pink Hyper-symetrical Extreme Down Inverted Spin Neutrino).  I might not be sure which one I'm looking for.  :- ) DCS 02:43, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Where is it broke...and what is the fix suggested?

I read through this discussion and I don't see where there is a problem established and a fix suggested. This may simply be a matter of individidual preference in regards to certain titles and I am uncertain what to comment on. Let me at least make a couple of observations. Wikipedia policy is to use the most "common" known name. This is not always accurate, but the community makes that decision. The article The Rocky Horror Show is the title of the Wikipedia article...it is not the title of the stage play. The actual name is "Richard O'Brien's The Rocky Horror Show". This is also a published book with an author. In order to produce this stage play it must be titled in this manner and is actually regulated in terms of the size of the author's name etc. There are references for this, but the attempt I made to move the article to it's legitimate name was reversed and editors felt that the most common name should be kept. Who loses here? Me as the editor? No, Wikipedia loses because the article continues to deny the accurate information. This is true with all kinds of information because we are open source and work with the consensus of other editors. Another more recent sitution was brought up at Wikipedia Project Greece and Rome, where a number of articles with the same name and only different dates are listed: Quintus Tineius Rufus (consul 127), Quintus Tineius Rufus (consul 182), Quintus Tineius Rufus (consul 195). These are not the same person and the actual names do differ as these are all relatives of each other, but the articles themselves (just tiny stubs) are making incorrect claims.

If the idea here is to give better direction to editors in regards to naming I can see this as an issue, however I am not so sure this is broken. What does appear to broken is the guidelines for naming "section headers" as many are unaware that article title policy covers section titling and this becomes an issue when people cannot agree on section naming and look for policy and guideline. Perhaps part of this discussion should be (A)What specific problems have been identified? (B) What solutions are being suggested? And (C) Is the section header policy in guidelines a part of this discussion and if so what could be done (if anything) to help guide editors in this regard?--Amadscientist (talk) 20:28, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Just a thought but...the editing page here has this disclaimer: "The purpose of this page is to discuss Wikipedia:Article titles/RFC-Article title decision practice. If your post is about a specific problem you have, please ask for help at the Wikipedia:Help desk or see the New Contributors' Help Page." Since the discussion began as a question itself...should this question: "What is Community practice regarding Wikipedia article title decisions?" have been more appropriately asked at the help desk? Just a thought, not a criticism.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:59, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the question is, but I will answer it anyhow, since I have had a real-life example in mind for several days, a question about an article I want to write, and this gives me a chance to find the title naming page and test it.

First of all, Word Count Tool says "Number of words: 5136". Not a good beginning. But there's an index so you can look up what you want, right? Nope. The whole thing is a rant, that includes such gems as "use nouns" and "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball". Did I say it was a crystal ball? Does anyone? Do people try to use adverbs in titles then wonder what went wrong? This is insanely insulting. Already I am getting ticked off, first because it assumes I am inane, and second because it assumes my time is not valuable. I have a question; I want the answer so I can write the piece and then go do something else. I will end up doing what I have already had to do so far with Wikipedia, either google it and find a source outside of Wikipedia to explain it (as I have had to do with markup) or simply make up my own best practice.

Was that what you wanted to know? Neotarf (talk) 22:06, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Clear as mud

I have made my way through this page and, unless my PG Tips hasn't kicked in yet, there is nothing in here which makes sense. Wikipedia is an organisation which relies on volunteers to get things sorted through consensus. Is this RFC asking editors to check some pre-determined list of acceptable practices? Is this list flexible in case of a terrorist attack or natural disaster which requires an article starting without referring to the results of a article title decision practice? What exactly does decision practice mean?

We all like uniformity and order in its right place. This RFC doesn't seem to know what it's asking, so could we please begin again with an explanation. doktorb _words^deeds 09:41, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I concur. If anyone intends that this RfC should go somewhere, then I would suggest it be a RfC for proposed changes to the actual policy, WP:AT. Babakathy (talk) 09:52, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree as well.--Amadscientist (talk) 20:10, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

This RFC is a disaster. Nullify. Carrite (talk) 07:26, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.