| Revision as of 17:45, 17 August 2012 editPBS (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled116,854 edits →Proposed verbiage 5← Previous edit | Latest revision as of 15:23, 10 January 2025 edit undoLowercase sigmabot III (talk | contribs)Bots, Template editors2,303,661 editsm Archiving 2 discussion(s) to Misplaced Pages talk:Article titles/Archive 61) (bot | ||
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| == Is this a valid disambig page? == | |||
| == Precision problems == | |||
| An article I have watchlisted ] has been turned into a disambig page, with the article that was there previously moved to ]. Added to the new disabig page are ], ] and ]. All three of the 'non-Eliza Smith' articles have been around for a while with no need for a disambig page (particularly one that isn't Eliza Smith). Is this not a case where hatnotes would be preferable to a disambig page, given they have 'natural' disambiguators? (I ask this from a position of complete ignorance on disambig pages, which I rarely get involved with... - ] (]) 09:10, 2 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| 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... ] (]) 17:33, 7 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : The place to ask such questions is usually ], but I can tell you right now that the answer you will get is that this is a perfectly fine disambiguation page. Any person with a given first name and last name is likely to be identifiable by that name, irrespective of whether a middle name (or maiden name) is interposed. If there is an argument that ] is the primary topic of the page, then the disambiguation page can be moved to a "Foo (disambiguation)" title, but it seems unlikely that such a short article on a person prominent so many decades ago would be primary. ] ] 12:49, 2 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::That's great - thanks very much. I don't think the writer is likely to be the primary (or at least, if she is, it'll be by a very narrow margin and I'd be surprised),but it's good to know. Cheers - ] (]) 12:55, 2 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :Of course not, but it could become clearer if the Disambiguation page is improved for readability. ] (]) 09:07, 29 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Remove UE as a whole. == | |||
| The history of this provision is summarized here: ]. 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. ] (]) 18:09, 7 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| It makes no sense that anything that has a non-English name is translated in English. I think this should be revised considering that in Québec, we fought tooth and nail to protect our language, and now English Misplaced Pages mindlessly follow the English-language newspapers without ever considering what the majority of French-language newspapers says. ''''']''''' <sup>(] / ])</sup> 04:31, 24 October 2024 (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! ] (]) 19:02, 7 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : |
:This Misplaced Pages is written in English. We follow English-language usage. If you prefer to read Misplaced Pages in French, then the link is http://fr.wikipedia.org. ] (]) 04:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | ||
| ::English or not, when the French name is the only official one, whether sources use another name is not important. Maybe I'm wrong when it comes to the PLQ, but there are plenty other examples where it's not the case. ''''']''''' <sup>(] / ])</sup> 04:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::>''whether sources use another name is not important'' | |||
| :::Well, it is. Per the policy, ''"Misplaced Pages does not necessarily use the subject's official name as an article title; it generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable, English-language sources.)"'' | |||
| :::I seriously doubt that you'll find consensus to change that. ] (]) 05:00, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::UE doesn't hold that titles should be ''universally'' translated to English, it only holds that titles should use the form that's most common in English-language RS. (In this respect, it basically extends the principles of ] and ].) This often results in the adoption of translated titles, but also allows for moves in the other direction if sources support it: for instance, the article ] used to be titled after the magazine's translated name ''Bluestockings'', but moved to its current title by RM consensus because ''Seitō'' was more prevalent in English sourcing. ] (] • ]) 18:16, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :{{tq|It makes no sense that anything that has a non-English name is translated in English.}} Then you should be pleased to learn your premise is mistaken: the guideline doesn't call for that (read it again: it says "should follow English-language usage", not "should translate into English"), and not everything that has a non-English name ''is'' translated to English here (though it may be transliterated): ] (not "The Mirror"), ] (not "Daily Newspaper"), ] (not "The Land"), ] (not "Don't touch my TV!"), ] (not "Love's a Bitch"), ] (not "News"), ] (not "Leghorn"), ] (not "Mechlin"), etc. Even with respect to Quebec: we have ], not "Three Rivers". | |||
| :As far as I know, what's been fought for in Quebec is the primacy of French and the use of authentic French words when speaking and writing in French, not to dictate to users of English how to speak and write English when they ''are'' speaking and writing in English. In any event, this isn't ''Misplaced Pages for Quebec'', it's English Misplaced Pages for the entire world. | |||
| :Further, French Misplaced Pages has articles titled ] and ] and ], not "United Kingdom" and "United States" and "California". Why should English Misplaced Pages follow a different approach? ] (]) 18:33, 24 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :Why would we consider what French-language newspapers say when we ARE WRITING IN ENGLISH? I don't tell you how to speak and write French, your attempt tell us how to speak and write English is monstrously offensive. --] (]) (]) 15:48, 30 October 2024 (UTC) | |||
| : And to the list of examples, one could add ] (not ''My Struggle''), ] (not ''Sun Circus''), ] (not ''Truth''), ] (not ''Deutschland''), and on and on. I can only agree strongly with ]: your premise is mistaken, your argumentation is baseless, and your proposal has no chance. Feel free to raise it again, though, after you have fixed the titles of the following articles at French Misplaced Pages so they all have the proper English titles: '']'', '']'', '']'', '']'', '']'', and '']''. Et passez une très bonne journée ! ] (]) 06:08, 18 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :] is also pertinent here, since part of the basis of the OP's idea seems to be that because the organization's official name is English, en.WP has to write it that way regardless what the preponderance of English-language sources are doing. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 10:44, 24 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * We don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but USEENGLISH is, in my view, second only to COMMONNAME in how much there's a disconnect between what people think it says and what it ''actually'' says. Misplaced Pages ''deliberately'' does not have a preferred form of English, yet, for example, I often see people in NZ-related RMs try to pull the "Māori-derived terms aren't ''really'' English" card (which coincides with the recent anti-indigenous pushback amongst white conservatives in AU/NZ politics). I think we do need a ] equivalent for the article titles policy, because even though some older people halfway across the world might still call it "Ayers Rock", the COMMONNAME for years has always been ]. ''']''' (]) 19:11, 24 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| **If I were king for a day, I would just delete the ] redirect and call it ] instead. When it's the shortcut that's causing the misunderstanding, no amount of nuance in the policy itself is likely to help. ] (]) 20:18, 24 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Clarification regarding language of ] == | |||
| ::: Let me say how much I appreciated your contribution: thanks to your restoring edit, the section title "Precision and disambiguation" and the shortcut ] 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 ]. ] (]) 08:31, 8 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| Hello, | |||
| See what I mean? In , 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. ] (]) 19:25, 7 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| I am writing to inquire about the phrasing {{Talk quote inline|...the subject area...}} in the Recognizability description. '''Does {{Talk quote inline|...subject area...}} refer to the general topic area of an article's content or specifically the subject matter of the article in question?''' I ask because I have been participating in multiple ] discussions, especially in the context of ]. In addition, how {{Talk quote inline|...subject area...}} is interpreted can affect my !vote rationale. | |||
| 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? ] (]) 19:32, 7 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| {{Collapse top|Example for those confused about my inquiry}} | |||
| 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. ] (]) 23:17, 7 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| To illustrate my point, consider the example of the article title for Emperor ]. If {{Talk quote inline|...subject area...}} is defined to be ] broadly speaking (i.e. a general topic area for the emperor), I would argue that ''Alexander III of Russia'' meets ] '''as is''' because he does not have the name recognition of ], ], or even his son ] to go by just a '']'' or a ] without the "of Russia" qualifier. | |||
| : 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.<p>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 (where 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? --] (]) 01:05, 8 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::The thing is, "no more precise than that" means that titling the article ] is against policy -- it ''must'' be named ]. "Not overly precise" disallows ], but allows ]. --] 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.<p>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 ". 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). --] (]) 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? ] ≠ ] 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. --] (]) 16:33, 9 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| In contrast, if {{Talk quote inline|...subject area...}} is defined to be Emperor Alexander III of Russia (i.e. specifically the emperor himself), I would argue that ''Alexander III of Russia'' meets ] '''by truncating the article title to '']''''' because as someone familiar with the Russian ruler, I do not need the article title to tell me he is affiliated with Russia. | |||
| 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? ] (]) 04:43, 8 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| {{Collapse bottom}} | |||
| : Fine with me. --] (]) 16:33, 9 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| '''Please note that I am not asking this to rehash or pre-empt a move request involving ]''' <small>(In any case, I am skeptical that the Russian emperor is the ] for ''Alexander III'' because <strike>]</strike> ] had the same regnal name and number)</small>. I am asking this because I have never received an explicit clarification on this matter in the various RMs I have participated in. | |||
| My prediction: months from now, someone will justify ] because of this new text. --] (]) 10:35, 10 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, | |||
| === Alternative proposal === | |||
| Let's be practical: | |||
| # Sometimes, we prefer titles that are ''more precise than needed'' to be unambiguous. For instance, we prefer: | |||
| #* ] over ]. Although ] is ''unambiguous'', and hence ''precise enough'', we prefer a more precise and more easily recognizable title (see ]). | |||
| # Sometimes, we prefer titles that are ''less precise than needed'' to be unambiguous. Namely, the titles of articles which refer to a ] are, by definition, ''ambiguous'' (see ]). Indeed, they are disambiguated by means of a subtitle (e.g. "''This article is about the country. For other uses, see ]''"). For instance, we prefer: | |||
| #* ] over ] (see comment above by Enric Naval; see ]) | |||
| #* ] over ] (see ]). | |||
| #* ] over ] (see ]). | |||
| '''''] (]) (])''''' 19:41, 1 November 2024 (UTC), last edited 14:48, 3 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| <s>Everyone agrees</s> Consensus has been already reached about this! (see ] and ]). Is it so difficult to translate it into a criterion? None of the sentences suggested above to describe this criterion is sufficiently detailed to explain this. We need some more detail. For instance: | |||
| {| class="wikitable" | |||
| |- | |||
| ! Current (30 July 2012) | |||
| |- | |||
| | {{policy shortcut|WP:PRECISION|WP:PRECISE}} | |||
| Name an article as precisely as is necessary to unambiguously define its topical scope, but avoid over-precision. For instance, ] is inappropriate, as the less detailed title ] is precise enough to indicate exactly the same topic. On the other hand, ] would not be precise enough to identify unambiguously the famous classical pianist ]. | |||
| |- | |||
| ! Proposed <br>({{gi|the text in green is identical to the original}}) | |||
| |- | |||
| | {{policy shortcut|WP:PRECISION|WP:PRECISE}} | |||
| Usually, titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that. {{gi|For instance, ] is inappropriate, as the less detailed title ] is precise enough to indicate exactly the same topic. On the other hand, ] would not be precise enough to identify unambiguously the famous classical pianist ].}} | |||
| :N | |||
| Exceptions to the precision criterion, validated by ], may sometimes result from the application of some other ]. Most of these exceptions are described in specific Misplaced Pages guidelines, such as ], ], or ]. For instance: | |||
| :Virtually nobody remembers Alexander the Great's regnal number, so he is obviously not a candidate for the primary topic.--] (]) (]) 21:16, 2 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * ] is precise enough to be unambiguous, but not as commonly used and easily recognizable as the preferred and more precise title ] (see ], and the naturaleness and recognizability ]). | |||
| * ]<s>]</s> is not precise enough to indicate unambiguously the <s>musical instrument</s> physical quantity (see ]). However, it is preferred over "Energy (physics)", as it is more concise, and precise enough to be understood by most people (see ], and the conciseness and recognizability ]). | |||
| ] (]) 12:22, 10 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| |} | |||
| ::Thank you for noting this. I admit that I thought about that when I was writing my query, but I also believed that Alexander the Great could still be the primary topic for ''Alexander III'' on technical grounds. I probably should have used ], who ''is'' commonly known by that regnal number, to illustrate my point. '''''] (]) (])''''' 14:48, 3 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :It is not true to say that ''Everyone agrees'' about prefering ] over ]. Born2cycle among others have argued long and vigorously against that convention. The situation has been fairly quiescent recently, as there appears to be a sort of grudging acceptance of the U.S. city convention now addressed in occasional individual move discussions. ] ≠ ] 13:11, 10 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::Taking the revised version of the OP's scenario, of "Alexander III" in particular: in English-language sources, the Scottish monarch still only has only a bit more than half as much RS coverage as the Russian one . Whether 12K sources for the Scot and 20K for the Russian firmly establishes the latter as the ] might be open to some disputation (which would not be the case if it were something like 3K to 175K split). But the Scottish one clearly is not primary, and he would probably be the leading contender against the Russian by a wide margin. To answer the OP's more general question, "subject area" in this sense means heads of state and comparable figures (such as Popes and a few other people usually known by "Foobar IV" regnal-style numbering, perhaps inclusive of major non-states like duchies in some cases). It doesn't mean anything narrower that's dependent on the specific article content and context (like being Russian or from a particular era). <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 10:56, 24 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Request for comment on the relationship between ] and ] == | |||
| ::Also British places are usually specified more precisely than American places for cultural reasons. It is quite common for Americans to say for example "]" while a Brit is very unlikely to say (or write) "]" or "]", to a certain degree it is a "National varieties of English issue" coupled to natural language usage. -- ] (]) 13:34, 10 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| {{archive top|status=no|result= | |||
| ::: Consensus has been reached about the two statements above, but currently the precision criterion would reject the first statement! The alternative criterion suggested by Born2cycle is too strict and would reject both! If the criterion is based on previously reached consensus, as I proposed, we can avoid further useless and time consuming fights. It is wise for everybody to abide to consensus. ] (]) 13:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| There is consensus that '''] does not take precedence over ]'''. Editors should continue to balance all relevant guidelines and policies when determining article titles, without giving inherent precedence to either section. | |||
| Most participants agreed that both sections are integral parts of the ] policy and should be balanced and considered equally when determining titles in a ] discussion, on a case-by-case basis using the context of an article. Editors argued that neither section should override the other universally; instead, contributors should weigh all relevant factors alongside the policy's text. Some editors also suggested that ] and relevant sections in the ] were an additional important consideration in RM discussions. | |||
| ::::It's probably more complicated than that. Some cities in the U.S. are automatically primary topics. British cities are supposed to be more closely defined, but often are not. And Canada has a whole group of editors who have determined city by city whether any has a duplicated name and which can be listed as a primary topic. This has resulted in some very esoteric Canadian names with no other information in the title that would even identify it as a town. The point I am trying to make is that there are country-by-country local naming conventions. ] (]) 15:00, 10 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| The minority of contributors supporting the primacy of ] communicated that the strong and direct language in the section (e.g. "do" / "must" rather than "should do" / "can do") established precedence. However, opposing participants argued that policies are not set in stone, and that disagreements over their interpretation should be resolved through consensus-based discussions rather than strictly following the exact wording of the policy (] and ]). Furthermore, while editors supporting primacy also contended that enforcing precedence would prevent potential conflicts and maintain internal consistency within the policy, opposing editors rebutted that such disharmony and inconsistency was not widespread under the status quo. | |||
| I modified my proposal (see above). The goal is the same, but now I distinguished more clearly the (strict) criterion from the (codified) exceptions. I think the text is now better structured, much easier to understand, and less questionable. See above. | |||
| ] (]) 06:11, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| Neotarf, what you wrote is true, but I would not worry too much about it. We cannot specify every detail of ] in this general article. My proposal is already more detailed than the previous ones. A more detailed proposal is likely to produce disagreement, rather than solving this never-ending conflict. In my proposal, | |||
| {{nac}} | |||
| * <s>]</s>] is the example for a valid title that is as precise as needed to be unambiguous (no more, no less). | |||
| }} | |||
| * ] is just an example for a valid title that may appear ''too precise'', while | |||
| * <s>]</s>] is just an example for a valid title that may appear ''not precise enough''. | |||
| Being more detailed than that is a suicide. What's important is writing a criterion that allows for some flexibility (tradeoff with other criteria), but not too much flexibility (undetermined level of freedom). Valid exceptions must include both <s>]</s>] (ambiguous and hence ''not precise enough'', according to the current version of the criterion) and ] (unambiguous, but ''too precise'' according to the text proposed by Born2cycle, as there exists a less precise title that is also unambiguous). We will stop fighting about nothing and move on if we can accept this. ] (]) 11:40, 11 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::I think you may be conflating issues. Precision is not the reason (or at least not the only reason) that ] and ] are prefered over ] and ] even though the shorter terms are redirects to the primary topic. Other stylistic matters affect the determination beyond precision alone. ] ≠ ] 12:23, 11 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::: Your criticism is not constructive. I am trying to solve a fight. Are you interested in helping me? If possible, find another example in which other stylistic matters do not affect the determination. But I think that a title is ''never'' selected according only to a single criterion. ] (]) 12:47, 11 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::: I don't think you've explained what fight it is that you're trying to solve very clearly. Substituting one possibly problematic example for another is not progress. ] ≠ ] 13:04, 11 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: The example about ] is not "possibly problematic", but ''totally'' inappropriate, as ] is not a precise title! In other words, it is a proper example for an exception to the precision criterion, not for its application. (see my proposal above) ] (]) 13:57, 11 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: ] to my mind remains a far clearer illustration. ] IS precise enough for it to be the title of the article. "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" IS an actual, official name for the subject. "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)" on the other hand is an entirely artificial contruct. There is no obvious reason why anyone would want to use that as the title. ] ≠ ] 00:44, 12 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::: I agree that ] is precise enough to be a title for an article about "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". But not as precise as needed to be unambiguous. You are right about "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)". So, let's use ] versus ], which should make both of us happy. ] (]) 04:32, 13 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| I modified my proposal, taking into account the contribution by Bkonrad (alias "older ≠ wiser"). Other advices? ] (]) 14:20, 11 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :Paolo, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I think that Bkonrad made a good point that you missed when he said "Other stylistic matters affect the determination beyond precision alone." That is, precision is but one criterion; it doesn't need to specify any hard rule that would then need exceptions to get around it. You can just as well point out that Bothell is plenty precise, but Bothell, Washington is much more recognizable (to most people, "Foobar, Washington" is "recognizable" as a city in Washington state USA, even it doesn't exist). And guitar (instrument) is very precise, but almost nobody would think that ] would be anything else, or less precise, so precision provides very little to go against conciseness on that one; that's what primaryname is supposed to go, but it gets way overapplied in genuinely ambiguous situations (like Perth, famously). Certainly ] is precision enough, or at least certainly primary, so why didn't we use that more concise term than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? In this case, it's probably recognizability again that tilts the scale. I think your proposal comes close to falling into Born2cycle's style of trying to making naming into an algorithm. It would be better if we could just describe the virtues of precision, recognizability, and so on, fairly, in a way like we used to, and let editors do the tradeoffs. ] (]) 03:46, 12 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :: Thank you, Dicklyon. You may have misunderstood my goal, or I may have not explained it yet clearly enough. I am not describing a rigid "algorithm". On the contrary, I am helping the readers to understand that the policy allows for some flexibility ("tradeoffs" with other criteria). I do not give rules for that flexibility. I only give examples. In other words, I do understand Bkonrad's sentence, and your comments about "tradeoffs" between criteria, and indeed I think we should mention this idea in ]. A vague text like the current one in ] only obtains the effect to be challenged by editors who legitimately want a stricter criterion, just because it is less vague. In other words, the wide consensus existing about flexibility, and its sound rationale, must be explained as they are not immediately understood by editors. That's why I modified my proposal accordingly two days ago. ] (]) 04:32, 13 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| I modified my proposal again today, taking into account Dicklyon's contribution. For instance, I agree that, for most people, ] is precise enough to be unambiguous. I did not use the example about ], as it may be controversial, but I used ] instead of ], as ] is a more ambiguous term (at least for people who are not familiar with physics). I also explained that a primary topic is not precise enough to be unambiguous, but ''precise enough to be understood'' by most people (see also my latest answer to Bkinrad about ]). ] (]) 04:32, 13 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :@Paolo.dL I am finding some of what you are proposing reasonable, but from some of what you have written I think you are off target. For example you write "We cannot specify every detail of ] in this general article". This is not a general article it is a policy. PLACE is a naming convention (guideline) that explains and supplements this policy. US places have the format they do for Wikipdia historic reasons -- back in 2002 a bot was used to create 1,000 of them using the format they have (see ] and ]). So US place names are not useful examples to use because so many have already been created and they have a format that differs from the rest of the planet. I am broadly in agreement with what older/wiser wrote above and your dismissal "Your criticism is not constructive. I am trying to solve a fight. Are you interested in helping me?" does not seem to me to be solving a fight but creating one. older/wiser asked "I don't think you've explained what fight it is that you're trying to solve very clearly." Nor do I. What is the fight you are trying to solve? -- ] (]) 07:23, 13 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :: There has been an edit war recently, discussed right above my proposal, in ], and below, in ]. It has not been solved yet, and seems to be about some changes made in 2009 (Dycklyon calls them "the turmoil of 2009"). This war is so difficult to solve that Born2cycle, in section ], requested "the assistance of an uninvolved administrator to restore the stable wording of the precision criterion". | |||
| :: ] provides an example of over-precision. It would be nice if we could say that it is the only example. However, according to older≠wiser, there are several other examples, which include "royalty and some aspects for the tree of life topics and any number of other exceptions". Please let me know if you have other examples. If you agree, in this proposal we can say something like that: | |||
| ::* The only examples of insufficient or excessive precision are described in specific guidelines, such as ], ], ]. | |||
| :: But I would like to know also Dicklyon's and older≠wiser's opinion about that. A similar sentence already exists, but it only refers to "the main" exceptions to the precision criterion (not all of them). I think that this approach is more conservative, more realistic, and less questionable, but I will abide to consensus. | |||
| :: The discussion at the beginning of this section (before my proposal) is about these exceptions to the precision criterion. I started this proposal with this sentence: "Let's be practical". I mean that these exceptions exist and are used profusely. They are not sporadic. We only need to find the most appropriate way to describe them. This is the wisest way to deal with their existence. Providing information about the interaction between different criteria is enlightening. We won't get stable consensus about vague statements. ] (]) 12:39, 13 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::Thank you it helps put it in context but, I am not sure how much of the archives you have read. There was a loooooooooong discussion about this issue in the last quarter of last year. It revolved around some titles that Tony1 wanted to rename. I think the first example was in the section ] but there are lots of sections after that. Misplaced Pages tend to use the official short legislative names as used in the Commonwealth (The official short name for an Act followed by the year) -- unless thre is a well known common name for the Act. We do not normally include the country/state in the name unless it is needed for disambiguation purposes. Tony1 is/was of the opinion that we should add more to the name not for disambiguation purposes but for clarity. Acts of parliaments are a good test example to use--because legislators already give Acts unique names, so making the names longer is usually about additions for clarity rather than disambiguation--but the principle can be extended to other fields. He did not find a majority of editors in favour of making this change. -- ] (]) 17:48, 16 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::: Since the change was rejected, this seems to be another example for titles that need to meet the precision criterion. Even if the change had been accepted, I don't think we should discuss in ] every possible specific exception to the principle criterion. We only need to warn readers that | |||
| ::::# exceptions do exist, | |||
| ::::# they can be only accepted when they are supported by other sufficiently "heavy" stylistic considerations (e.g., other naming criteria, or ]) and validated by ] | |||
| ::::# most of them are (luckily) described in specific guidelines. | |||
| :::: For that, we just need two examples of validated exceptions: one for excessive precision, and the other for insufficient precision. Let me know if you agree. ] (]) 16:11, 17 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| Thinking about PBS's latest contribution, I modified the proposal to make clear that all the exceptions to the precision criterion need to be "validated by ]". The first sentence of ] alredy says that this is required whenever there is more than one possible title "for any given article". In this case, consensus is even more important. Dicklyon, I hope you agree that this is not an algorithm. ] (]) 16:11, 17 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| Notice that the first sentence of the proposal is almost identical to the first sentence in ] (just less vague). The following sentence is only meant to briefly summarize what you all explained in this talk page, so that you won't have to repeat it again. It is neither meant to be an algorithm, nor to authorize or encourage a change like that proposed last year by Tony1 and described above by PBS (17:48, 16 July 2012). The proposal has been modified repeatedly according to your comments. I just made it even shorter. I believe it is now mature for publication. ] (]) 16:18, 24 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : If the unnecessary precision of ] - which is titled contrary to how most WP articles are titled, including most articles about cities - is an example of anything, it's ]. The so-called "convention" has never had consensus ''support'' - it has merely also failed to develop consensus in opposition. It's a stalemate at best, and has been for years. Such an example has no place at ]. Changes to policy wording that portray aberrations as if they are the norm are unacceptable. <p>But thanks for showing how such aberrations, if accepted, would unnecessarily complicate the policy by riddling it with messy exceptions and contradictions. --] (]) 16:59, 24 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :: I described them as exceptions, not "the norm". Also, since most of them are described in guidelines, it is obvious that most editors agree that they are not "aberrations", but valid exceptions. I know that you don't like it, but I am just describing the current situation. You might be able to change it in the future, and in that case the second sentence will be removed. It does not matter whether we agree that these exceptions are valid or not. They do exist and they are by no means rare, so we just need to warn editors about their existance. Sharing knowledge is useful. Simply, more people will be aware that some exceptions are described in specific guidelines. Some people may regard them as stylistically valid, some others as aberrations. ] (]) 17:14, 24 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::: I would argue rather that it's normal, and not an exception, to title cities with city, state. The so-called "unnecessary precision" is an exception to B2C's minimalism; that interpretation of "precision" and "recognizability", where "conciseness" trumps all, is itself widely disputed. So I think that listing these as "exceptions" goes too far in shoring up his interpretation as "normal". ] (]) 17:35, 24 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::: Apparently, Born2cycle does not agree with you about the fact that this proposal shores up "his interpretation as normal". This proposal simply describes the true situation much more clearly than the current text, which is too vague. Notice that my text does not say that "city, state" is "not normal". It only says it is a valid exception to one criterion, supported by a guideline. In our opinion, it is "normal" that some title may not completely meet ALL criteria, as some criteria cannot be (totally) met without disregarding others. In the opinion of others, it is not "normal". ] (]) 18:01, 24 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: I understand, but I disagree that this is an example over-precision, and don't want to see it portrayed as such. ] (]) 18:12, 24 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: But you can't deny that, although "city, state" is as precise as needed to be natural and recognizable, it is in some cases more precise than needed to be unambiguous. I am stating nothing else. ] (]) 20:09, 24 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::What I deny is that it's more precise than the usual precision criterion calls for. ] (]) 21:06, 24 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::: I know, but the "usual precision criterion" (i.e. the current version of the criterion) is purposedly vague, not because we don't know how to make it clear, but just because we are afraid to. It is not designed to explain, but to conceal. Not to be readable, but ambiguous. See below. I am sure you understand. ] (]) 13:51, 25 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::: But if your intention is to make the usual precision criterion more clear, you need to first arrive at a clear understanding of what the community supports. Your edits seem instead to be bolstering the minimalist interpretation, which has never had widespread support, and directly contradicts the way the provision was accepted prior to 2009, which said that titles should be precise enough to define the topic of the article; B2C threw that out in favor of precision being a bad thing, such that you want just enough to not make names collide. ] (]) 15:07, 25 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| Again, you became too suspicious. In short: | |||
| # I wrote "precision is a goal, over-precision should be avoided" | |||
| # I even added examples to show that in some cases over-precision is good. | |||
| And you reacted as if I had written "precision is bad"! You wrote twice in the article "...but avoid over-precision". I added the ] example just to explain this sentence of yours. How can you fail to notice that, without mentioning exceptions, this sentence of yours is not only vague, but even more "minimalist" than my proposal? That's why Born2cycle hates my proposal. BritishWatcher below was afraid as you are, but he eventually understood the neutrality of my proposal. You are probably the only one who thinks I am biased. Let's be practical. What examples of specific titles are incorrectly explained or not allowed for in my proposal? ] (]) 20:48, 25 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :Paolo, it's not you that I'm suspicious of. But I don't like supporting the notion of "over precision", which inherently treats precision as bad; so, yes, "precision is good"; but no to calling good precision "over precision". ] (]) 21:00, 25 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :: I think you are being picky on my text, but not on yours, which is much worse. Let me explain. My text explicitly states that being over-precise may be good in some cases. The drawback you see in my text is trifling. Your text says "avoid over-precision", without explaining the boundary between precise and over-precise. This can be easily interpreted as more strict, less flexible, more negative and more minimalist than my text. Moreover, it is certainly less clear! ] (]) 21:30, 25 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::I don't have a text, and if I did it wouldn't include a negative spin on precision like "avoid over-precision"; I'd phrase it positively, more like it used to be when it said something like "precise enough to clearly indicate the topic of the article". Many of our titles are not nearly that precise, due to the interpretation that more precision than is needed to avoid collisions is "over precision". ] (]) 21:39, 25 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::: Whether you like it or not, you inserted a paragraph containing the sentence "avoid over-precision" at the very beginning of ]. Later, you used the same sentence in ]: | |||
| ::::# (''Precision and disambiguation'': say what precision is for first, then what we need to do if that's not enough) | |||
| ::::# (''Deciding on an article title'': rephrase precision bullet more positively) | |||
| :::: The current versions of both ] and ] still contain that sentence, and have a significant drawback: they do not explain the boundary between precise and "over-precise". | |||
| :::: ] (]) 12:13, 30 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| === Summary === | |||
| In my opinion, both Born2cycle and Dicklyon seem to be afraid to state the obvious, possibly because neither likes the current situation. They both prefer being vague, either by hiding the existance of a number of validated exceptions which actually do exist, or by using a vague formulation of the criterion (the current formulation) which makes it difficult for the reader to understand the difference between precise and "overly precise". But being vague is not a good service to the readers, who deserve to know what we all (including Born2cycle and Dicklyon) know and the article does not explain. Does anybody agree with me? ] (]) 20:09, 24 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : I have just arrived at this debate and read through briefly the conversation, sorry but id just like to check something as the bits about country articles concerned me. Would this proposal in anyway impact on the position of any current country article, or would this alteration have no impact on the current positions which go by ]? Common name in my opinion is far more important than precision when it comes to article titles, particularly of countries. Which is why almost every single country article on wikipedia is at a common name, not the full official precise name. If this alteration would change the balance in terms of precision vs commonname, then i strongly oppose any change. ] (]) 21:25, 24 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :: On the contrary, it makes clear exactly what you wrote, i.e. that there exist validated exceptions to the precision criterion, which result from the application of other ]. Currently, readers are not even warned that ] may in some cases prevail over ]! My proposal is only meant to explain the current situation from a neutral point of view, not to change the balance in terms of precision vs commonname. Notice that ] is based on two naming criteria: ''naturaleness'' and ''recognizability'', which are exactly the two ] I mention in my first example (about ]). ] (]) 06:46, 25 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::: Ah I see, thanks for clarifying. ] (]) 09:11, 25 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| '''Rationale'''. The current versions of both ] and ] contain the similar sentences "...not overly-precise" and "...avoid over-precision". They have a significant drawback: they do not explain the boundary between precise and "over-precise". This can be easily interpreted by readers as a strict and minimalist approach, which does not allow for the more flexible approach adopted in some guidelines (e.g. ], see comments above by Bkonrad and BritishWatcher). | |||
| My proposal is bold enough to define the boundary between precise and over-precise, but more importantly and nothwithstanding this: | |||
| * It '''explains''' that being over-precise (e.g. ]) or slightly ambiguous (e.g., ]) is a good idea in some cases. In other words, it explains that flexibility is appreciated in some cases, provided that there's a good reason to be flexible (see below). | |||
| * It '''explains''' what Dicklyon called "tradeoff", and BritishWatcher called "balance" between criteria, which is the reason why we want to be flexible in some cases (not only in the application of the precision criterion). This balance is not an invention of mine, nor Dicklyon's, nor BritishWatcher's. It is already described in ] (..."''It may be necessary to favor one or more of these goals over the others''"...). | |||
| * It cannot be interpreted as a policy change, as it just '''explains''', carefully and more clearly than before, the "balanced" approach currently adopted in Misplaced Pages, as already described in guidelines such as ], ], or ], which is neither too strict (or "minimalist"), nor too flexible. | |||
| So, my proposal is a significant improvement with respect to the current text. Also, notice that my proposal was repeatedly modified, taking into account the contributions of Bkonrad (alias "older ≠ wiser"), Neotarf, Dicklyon, and BPS. I am asking you to compare my proposal to the current text, not to an hypothetical (either minimalist or more flexible) approach that you would like to be adopted. ] (]) 12:13, 30 July 2012 (UTC) | |||
| Since nobody objected to my rationale, after modifying my proposal according to your comments, I inserted it in the article with this edit summary: "This text is the result of a long discussion (see ]). Even though some may not like it, the precision criterion is ''currently'' applied with some flexibility, according to guidelines." ] (]) 15:00, 7 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : As you may realize, I still object to the idea that ] is an example of "overly precise". Let's see what others say on that. But one more thing you might want to consider fixing is the language that came in with : "When additional precision (or ''detail'' in more recent versions) is necessary to distinguish an article title from another...", where previously it had the admittedly awkward "When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name...". The point is that precision and ambiguity are not about distinguishing titles, but about distinguishing topics. Work on that? ] (]) 16:11, 7 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :: I know. I read your previous comments with extreme attention. By the way I wish to thank you, as well as Bkonrad, Neotarf, BPS, Born2cycle, and BritishWatcher, for providing precious information throughout this discussion. As I explained in more detail above, the previous text did not specify whether ] was overly precise or not, but being extremely vague it was likely to be interpreted that way. | |||
| :: I removed the sentence "] is overly precise", and simplified my proposal. My proposal was not meant to simply state that ] is "overly precise" from any possible viewpoint. It was meant to explain that ] is precise enough ''to be unambiguous'', which implies that ] is over-precise ''']''' your ''only'' goal is to be unambiguous, but as precise as needed to be natural and recognizable. And I am sure you agree that this is true. This way to describe flexibility is extremely helpful. Nothwithstanding the strict definition of the precision criterion, the examples make it difficult for readers to deny that flexibility does exist and is supported by guidelines. | |||
| :: You are perfectly right about the fact that precision is "not about distinguishing titles, but about distinguishing topics". See my edit. Feel free to edit yourself. | |||
| :: ] (]) 17:06, 7 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::Looks good; thanks for replacing "] is overly precise" with a more appropriate statement. ] (]) 17:20, 7 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == Problem with common name of one page == | |||
| I do not know is this right place for my question and if it is not, please direct me to page where I can ask my question. There is problem with name of this page: ]. Page was started in 2 May 2006 and original name of page was "Nedić's Serbia": . Looks that name of page was changed multiple times and that last change was made by User:DIREKTOR in 7 May 2012: . I read ] policy and this policy say: "Misplaced Pages does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources." I think that last name of page do not conforms to WP:TITLE. There is just one source in English language that support name "Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia": . I proposed voting for new name for page: . But User:Peacemaker67 defend current page name and claim that current title conforms to WP:TITLE. My question for expert administrators here is: do name backed by only one source in English language conforms to WP:TITLE? There are several more names that Misplaced Pages can use for this page and all of them are backed by more sources than current page name (some of other names are "Military Administration in Serbia", "Nedić's Serbia", "Serbia under German occupation"). What you think which of listed names is best supported by WP:TITLE? ] (]) 20:42, 4 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| : The article talk page is the appropriate place to address this issue. If you cannot get a consensus there to support your proposed change it is entirely inappropriate for you to be seeking to enlist support for your argument here. This page is about article titles in general and not about a disagreement on the title of a specific one. - ] ] 05:03, 6 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::I think discussion of WP:COMMONNAME is off base in this case... that policy provision really applies to articles that use "names" as their title, and the current title is more a description of the subject than a name for it (indeed, I am not sure that there ''is'' a common "name" for the historical geo-political area that is the subject of the article) ... we allow some degree of flexibility when it comes to ''descriptive'' titles. I will leave it to discussion at the article talk page to determine whether or not there is a ''better'' description of the subject that could be used as an article title. ] (]) 22:51, 6 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == COMMONNAME: ] == | |||
| A discussion in which at least one contributor has recommended that we should title an article using the individual's full name (although she didn't use it) in order to avoid parenthetical disambiguation. Contributions welcome. -- ] (]) 16:04, 6 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == ] == | |||
| Use of this should be recommended in the guidance with respect to COMMONNAME. It allows you to compare words and track new content, so you can see what is most used at the moment, within the last 12 months etc. It also allows you to filter by country (although, unfortunately, only one country at a time), so it is possible to focus on English-speaking countries and cut out the noise from other sources around the world. Lastly, you can filter it to return only news sources if you want to. | |||
| This seems to me to be much better suited to our purposes than Google News and Google Books, which is what is recommended at present. ] (]) 22:49, 10 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| For any proposed article title determined by the application of ] the proposed title should nonetheless comply with ] (ie ] has primacy over ]). ] (]) 00:03, 18 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :Link to Google Insights for the benefit of others: ] (]) 23:13, 10 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| For simplicity, comments can be made as a ''Yes'' or ''No'' to the RfC proposition. | |||
| ::I wonder if this can be Google-bombed? In any case, as a test, I took a look at the ever popular Sega Genesis versus Sega MegaDrive naming dispute. It seems like it gives a slight edge to the former. ] (]) 00:27, 11 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::You can get a comparison in one graph by separating with a comma: . The feature I really like, though, is filtering by country (this graph shows why this article title is such a problem: ). ] (]) 00:50, 11 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| It certainly better than Google News, which includes a lot of non-English sources. (With News, you can type in ''Search_term location:United States'' or whatever, but how many people know that?) ] (]) 08:39, 15 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ===Background=== | |||
| :If I understand it correctly, Google Insights is based on what people are searching for, not on content sources (reliable or otherwise), so it is only of indirect value - to get a perspective on what the man in the street (rather than reliable sources) is using (at least as a search term, not necessarily in normal writing).--] (]) 10:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :*The secret of good SEO is matching the article title, and the words near the top of the article, with what a majority of searchers are searching for. If it's not found then it's not read. So surely Google Insights is very relevant to choosing an optimal title. | |||
| :*This is one of the strongest arguments for not using diacritics in article titles: Google Insights shows that, even in Brazil, about half of the searches use Pele and half ]. Of course the proportion of searches using Pele rather than Pelé is very much higher in English-speaking countries. Forcing Misplaced Pages to use redirects for popular articles is a waste of resources. Opinions like "] seem about as stupid to me as "Chinese or Japanese kanji '''must''' be used in English Misplaced Pages Article Titles". | |||
| :*The Google Keyword Tool allows you to find the most searched-for words in certain websites (reliable sources that you choose). | |||
| :*Google Search allows you to see search keywords highlighted '''in the content''' by clicking on "cache" in the search-engine results page—you can even do a site search (prefix domain to search with "site:") to check usage in a reliable source of your choosing. | |||
| :*I have previously tried repeatedly to summarize how to research the most ] article title, and to link WP:AT to ], but have been repeatedly reverted. ] (]) 12:11, 15 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::But Misplaced Pages is not in the business of SEO. --] (]) 20:22, 15 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::*If Misplaced Pages articles are not found by searching in search engines, and not read, then they become irrelevant—and the people who created the articles were largely wasting their time. Are you saying that Misplaced Pages in the business of being irrelevant? ] (]) 05:04, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::*That's an interesting notion. If Misplaced Pages is in the business of being irrelevant, then we're doing it wrong. We're the #1 information resource on the planet. I don't think you've thought that argument through, LittleBenW. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 05:10, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| At ], it is stated: {{tq|The following points are used in deciding on questions ''not covered'' by the five principles; consistency on these helps avoid duplicate articles}} . | |||
| == RM not required == | |||
| {{rfc|policy|rfcid=AB659B8}} | |||
| Proposed rephrase so editors do not think RM is the only legitimate way of discussing proposed moves. This has caused confusion and frustration. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 15:32, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ; In a nutshell: having move discussions in places other than FM is being cited as a sanctionable policy violation. Current practice and ANI say it isn't. Can we change the verbiage to reflect that? | |||
| The current instructions in '''Considering title changes''' include | |||
| {{blockquote|''Any potentially controversial proposal to change a title should be advertised at ], and consensus reached before any change is made. Debating controversial titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help ].}} | |||
| This is written as an absolute. RM is not always necessary, there are other avenues. Policy is descriptive not prescriptive; longstanding practice has not required this. We have had at least one case of an extended wikilawyering due to taking this as a no-exceptions absolute. I think the section text should be changed to {{blockquote|''Any potentially controversial proposal to change a title should seek broad consensus before any change is made. Listing at ] or holding a ] is advisable. Debating controversial titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help ].}} | |||
| This more accurately reflects actual practice while retaining important caution about seeking wide consensus. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 02:26, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| The meaning of any particular part of a policy should be construed within the fuller context and not in isolation. The question considers whether the two sections exist in harmony with each other or whether the application of any of the five criteria can be construed to over-ride any of the matters detailed in ]. | |||
| :Hmmm... my experience has been that title changes that are ''controversial'' are almost always raised at WP:RM (ie seeking third party opinions at RM is the widespread longstanding practice) Can you give us some examples of controversial title change proposals that were ''not'' advertised at WP:RM? ] (]) 13:57, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::I know of several, but the one which brought me here is ]. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 15:32, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::(ec) It seems to me that a lot of the confusion described in that ANI would have been avoided had the move proposal been listed at RM and not combined with a number of other issues in one RfC. The purpose of listing RM's is to allow for broad-based discussion ''focused on the title''. I haven't done an analysis of the participants in the RfC but I'm guessing it was mainly involved editors. Would you agree? <font color="#500000">]</font><font color="#005000">]</font> 16:35, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I think that would have prevented the problem of the wikilawyering and subsequent debate on ANI; I do not think that is addressing the problem. RM was originally created for technical moves only. While I appreciate that it has morphed into primarily a page for discussion about controversial moves, I do not believe it should be the ''only'' place for discussion. The editors of this page did not anticipate an issue with using Rfc, nor should they have, as the result of the ANI report shows. While it might have ''prevented'' problems, that is taking a prescriptive approach, which is not how Misplaced Pages traditionally does things. We write what practice ''is'' in policies, not what we think it would be in a perfect world. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 16:51, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::a) Since RfC is not recommended in this article for page moves, I would think editors may well have anticipated such issues. b) As I understand it, your proposal also takes a preventative approach. Aren't you also attempting to address the issues that arose at Men's rights? <font color="#500000">]</font><font color="#005000">]</font> 17:21, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::No. those "issues" were addressed at ANI, where it was found that an Rfc is perfectly acceptable mechanism for such a move discussion. THIS is to prevent frustration and confusion to future editors. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 17:28, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| This RfC does not propose a change to the wording of this policy nor does it preclude a change. ] (]) 00:16, 18 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Oppose''' RM has a specific purpose--to list and advertise potentially controversial title changes. RFCs are an umbrella process that can cover just about anything under the sun and thus don't get the focused attention by those interesting in title policy. Conducting an RM under the guise of an RFC does not provide any benefit to WP or its editors, it merely is a way to obfuscate a move. The example provided wasn't very clean and would have been much better handled as an RM. Is an RFC for a title change subject to ]? and a ]? We don't conduct RFCs for deletion debates, nor should we for title changes. --] (]) 16:34, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::That was , nor is it borne out by how the tools are laid out. Moves can be done by anyone. If we are to have a single page only location for these discussions, it is important to have another Rfc and discuss moving the ability to move pages to admins only, as in delete ion debates, Your example does not hold water. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 16:51, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::: I would like a specific answer to this? ''Is an RFC for a title change subject to ]? and a ]?'' In other words if an editor closes an RFC on a title change, can that decision be judged in light of ] and/or can the editor's decision be reviewed at ]? --] (]) 17:06, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::That is outside the scope of this discussion, and so far as I know no discussion regarding that has been held on WP. MRV is brand new; certainly no previous moves had such a page available to them. If you think moves made by methods ''other'' than RM should be open to MRV, I suggest you start a separate Rfc, and also suggest you wait until this one is over. Do you think ''any'' page move should be subject to MRV? ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 17:12, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| '''Note:''' Just as there are five principles listed at ], there are eleven matters (sections) to ]. The proposition deals with the relationship between ] (as a whole) and ] (as a whole). 08:25, 18 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Rfcs have been used since at least 2004 to discuss potentially problematic moves. RM was created for technical moves only, its role in potentially problematic moves is far more recent. Your verbiage claiming an Rfc on a move is intended to '''obfuscate''' is an insult to everyone who ever created, participated in, or closed such an Rfc, and I request you retract such hostile and accusatory phrasing. It does not advance the discussion at hand. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 17:26, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: I think the point I am trying to make here is that I seriously question what advantage an RFC has in making a title change over the RM process which has a set of long-standing closing instructions and a new, but tested, Move Review process. Currently in the ] there are 110 entries. No one can discern which ones (if any) are for title changes by reading the RFC title. Additionally, RFC ] provide no guidance what so ever about making policy/consensus based title decisions. The fact that an Admin has to close an RM where the target title already exists if the move is being made over a redirect is irrelevant. Many RMs have been preceded by RFCs where editors discussed and reached consensus on alternative titles and article scope. The subsequent RM becomes much cleaner, but still was subject to ] and ]. What I haven't heard yet is why we should allow ''potentially controversial'' title changes to be made outside the long-standing RM process. What advantage does that have for the community? --] (]) 17:28, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: I suppose the fact that it is accepted practice means nothing? YOu want a policy which does NOT accurately describe current accepted practice? Begging for problems and wikilawyering and wasted time and effort? The '''only''' way to ensure RM is always used is to make it an admin only feature, which I find inadvisable, but if as you state it should be handled like Afd then that is the only way to do it. And no, the original purpose of the RM page and process is '''not''' irrelevant, as you were citing it's only "purpose" to be the more recent one, usually formerly done by page discussions and Rfcs, to be its '''only''' purpose. That is inaccurate. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 17:34, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| '''Intent''' The intent of this RfC is to determine what the policy is actually telling us as written (how it should reasonably be construed) as opposed to what editors ''think'' the policy should be telling us. If there is a disjunction between the two, then an amendment to the policy is indicated but that would be another issue. | |||
| * '''Oppose''' and ''propose to remove words "potentially controversial"''. The rare exceptions when the title change should not be passed though WP:RM — typos, AfD outcomes, etc. — should be noted in the policy, but any non-trivial title change ''is'' potentially controversial and should be done via WP:RM. — ] (]) 16:48, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::Then it must be made an admin-only feature. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 16:51, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::Many non-typo, bold moves are made every day without any discussion. Requiring all of them to go through RM would create unnecessary bureaucracy. I think the phrase "potentially controversial" is spot on. <font color="#500000">]</font><font color="#005000">]</font> 17:02, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::Indeed, especially considering the backlog already present. -— ] ] 17:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Indeed, the backlog is one reason some editors choose to avoid RM if the discussion has no anticipated problems. An Rfc fits neatly between BOLD, page discussion, and the other end of RM. Why go to RM if no issues are anticipated? And yet the opposes on this page feel everything but typo's should. I consider this needless ]. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 17:44, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Look . A ton of moves, which people disagreed with, being handled in a civil fashion on a talk page. This is how problems with moves normally work - RM is not used for most moves, ad MRV is not needed to correct moves with which people disagree, most of the time. It is that simple. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 17:51, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::And people can do that, but it's best keep policies simple. Encouraging people to start out ignoring RM is not going to help anything. -— ] ] 18:53, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Good grief, no one is suggesting anyone "start ignoring RM" where on earth did you get that idea???? ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 22:34, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Oppose'''. This doesn't really seem needed, considering both versions apply to potentially controversial ones and both mention getting a consensus, and requested moves should be a good way to bring in the uninvolved editors needed for any meaningful consensus. If something needs an RfC, most folks who could make that judgement would know how to go that route anyway whilst keeping to the intent of the policy, and it seems others could be directed that way after the request if needed as well. But what do I know? -— ] ] 17:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| *:You are aware of the recent two days and thousands of words expended on this, because an editor was under the impression that an RM is required, and the decision on ANI that Rfc's are acceptable mechanisms for such discussion? I hope to clarify actual practice in this page, to prevent such wasted time and effort. As it reads now the policy is inaccurate. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 17:41, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| *::I think the problem there was that it was on ANI. That said, RfCs can certainly achieve the same results, but given that they are neither directed at people familiar with the process nor any subset more likely to actually care (like those frequenting WP:RM), that route doesn't seem advisable in most cases. For the ones for which it would be, well, policies are just policies, not the absolutely law of the land, especially when they only say 'should whatever'. -— ] ] 17:50, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| *:::No, the problem was that one user thought RM was absolutely required, whcih is what the current words say. It isn't, which is the decision on ANI.NOTLAW was cited about a dozen times to the complaining editor on the article talk page, to no avail. THAT's why it went to ANI. The problem is the wording above. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 17:53, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| *::::People will always find a way to misinterpret policies regardless of the wording, as well as the nature of policy in general on the project - that there are those who would consider the current wording grounds for taking measures against those not using WP:RM is proof enough of that, but all we can really do about such things is deal with them as they come up. Having policies with wording that applies best to common cases best such that people have a baseline from which to start, however, should always be best practice, and in the meantime ] applies to the rest, same as with anything.<br/>That's not to say the wording here can't be improved, however. Maybe mentioning the need for consensus first in order to emphasise that that's the more important thing and then bringing in RM as the example would work better? Though there are many ways to achieve a consensus, WP:RM is the most applicable to these and its use should certainly be encouraged if discussion is needed. -— ] ] 18:53, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| *:::::Indeed, I'm wide open to phrasing suggestions. My aim is to ensure this is ''accurate'', I'm not married to my suggested phrasing. The phrasing Dave Souza tried would work for me, as would probably hundreds of other ways to phrase it. My issue is that the verbiage is ''inaccurate'' right now, and leading people to think sanctions are in order if RM is not used. We need to address that, because that is false. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 22:57, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| * The recent phrasing implies that RM is essential, contradicting the RM page itself which states "In some situations, the appropriateness of a move may be under dispute, and discussion is necessary in order to reach a consensus. It is not always necessary to formally request a move in these circumstances: you can start an informal discussion at the article's talk page instead." If an informal discussion can be appropriate, an RfC fully meets the requirement for advertising. It also goes against the informed discussion , which concluded that ""An appropriate mechanism (RfC) was used, a clear consensus for move was achieved". Obviously RM isn't the only way to get the needed consensus, as an improvement I've made a minimal modification to this titles page: | |||
| {{quote|Any potentially controversial proposal to change a title should be advertised appropriately, either by holding an ] or listing at ], and consensus reached before any change is made. Debating controversial titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help ].}} | |||
| :Please propose improvements rather than reverting to an unclear version which contradicts RM. . ], ] 18:57, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| Pinging editors that have already commented: {{U|WhatamIdoing}}, {{U|Thryduulf}}, {{U|Voorts}}, {{U|SnowFire}}, {{U|Adumbrativus}}, {{U|Extraordinary Writ}}, {{U|Novem Linguae}} and {{U|Mdewman6}}. ] (]) 10:35, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :: I reverted the change until such time as there is clear consensus that we want to '''make''' title changes via RFC as well as RM. If that is the consensus we should then make the appropriate changes to ] and ] to ensure they cover RFC generated title changes. --] (]) 20:13, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::Ho hum. You seem to be edit warring to make Misplaced Pages self-contradictory and unworkable. RM has a backlog to 13 July, and you want to force all "potentially<s> contentious </s> controversial" discussions there instead of them being resolved on the article talk page as it says you can at RM? Since these linked pages are specific to RM, not sure why they should apply to moves resolved in talk page discussion, but feel free to reword them to comply with RM. . ], ] 20:44, 16 August 2012 (UTC) controversial corrected, 21:28, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::Mike, There has ''always''' been consensus that Rfc is a method to determine consensus to make changes. It is RM which is the newer method. And clearly, Rfc has not been put to pasture. You are acting like I'm suggesting a change in how things are done. I am not. I'm saying we need to correct the error on this page, because it is confusing people. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 22:34, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: One must always take care in using absolutes. '''Always''' The RFC process was born on Feb 1, 2004, the RM process on Oct 9, 2004 and the RM process incorporated ''controversial and potentially controversial'' moves on Sept 9, 2006. We have been operating the current RM process to make title changes for nearly 6 years. It may be a newer process, but it is not a new process. I have seen no evidence of the mass confusion this proposed change seems to fix. One hard-headed editor in an ANI discussion doesn't represent confusion among 138,000 editors. --] (]) 22:56, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Making Rfc a method used two years longer than RM, and nowhere has anyone ever said it could no longer be used - along with less structured talk page discussions and mediation. The point is that the words on the policy page say RM is the'''only''' way, and it isn't. It may be your preferred way, and it may be the best way. But it sure hell is not the only way. And I didn't claim "mass confusion" I claim, correctly as it happens, that the policy page is phrased incorrectly, and gives inaccurate information. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 23:18, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ===Comments=== | |||
| :::: Interesting. We are talking apples, oranges and peaches here with the obvious anomaly that they are all in the same basket. First, ] makes no reference to ] (peaches), but instead suggests resolving title issues through informal talk page discussion (oranges). I fully support informal talk page discussions, but would not consider ] as an informal discussion. Second, RMs (apples) take place on the '''same article talk page''' as would a title change related RFC. To suggest that RMs are not a talk page discussion, even by implication, is disingenuous. The major differences between the two processes are this. '''RMs''' are a formal title change process (since 9-9-2006) for controversial move, fully supported by a set of closing instructions that emphasizes consensus and title policy considerations, a centralized method of advertising where in one list, every RM underway can be seen with a brief rationale as to why a move is being suggested, and a format review process to deal with controversial RM closes. On the other hand, RFCs are a formal, broad brush process. When used for a title change, there are no set of closing instructions to emphasize the need for consensus and title policy considerations, no method of advertising them as ''title change RFCs'', and no method for review if someone is unhappy with the RFC close. Both these processes would take place on the same talk page. | |||
| *'''Yes''' (as proposer) The wording at the intro to TITLEFORMAT states the considerations detailed therein are {{tq|''not covered'' by the five principles}} - matters raised therein fall outside the scope of CRITERIA. The matters identified at TITLEFORMAT mainly exist for technical reasons that ''should not'' be over-ridden (noting that it is rare to use ''must not'' on WP). Reading the subject guidance in the full context of this policy, the proposition represents both the ''spirit and intent'' and the letter of the policy. Accepting the proposition asserts a harmony between the two individual sections. Rejecting the proposition creates tension and disharmony within the policy. That would assume that the drafters of the policy lacked the perception to see such a conflict of ideas and/or, that such a conflict should exist. By ] (or at least its corollary) the reasonable (simplest) view is that the intention is one of harmony between the two sections. ] (]) 00:46, 18 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::''… to make Misplaced Pages self-contradictory and unworkable. RM has a backlog to 13 July, and you want to force all "potentially contentious controversial" discussions there instead of them being resolved on the article talk page as it says you can at RM? Since these linked pages are specific to RM, not sure why they should apply to moves resolved in talk page discussion'' | |||
| :'''PS''' Many of the eleven matters identified at TITLEFORMAT use unambiguous emphatic language such as ''do not'' or ''use'' rather than ''should use''. Such language serves to tell us that these matters are not optional. They are definitely not informing us on {{tq|how to balance the five criteria}}. These are things that a proposed title ''cannot violate''. Such language quite clearly establishes the relationship with CRITERIA and the primacy of the matters at TITLEFORMAT collectively. ] (]) 08:51, 18 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *For context, this stems from ] (about ]), where I was asked as closer to disregard !votes that invoked consistency. I declined to do so since I feel consistency is a policy consideration (]; ]) that editors are allowed to balance against other factors, but if editors think that style guidelines like ] should always take precedence, I'm happy to be recalibrated. ] (]) 01:08, 18 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I think your math is weak here and but the motivation clear. By encouraging RFCs (30 days) as an alternative to RMs (7 days) the potential for large backlogs is even greater. Because title change RFCs are not advertised as such, you would have to seek out closers, instead of relying on closers to work RMs via the advertised list. Finally, since an RM and an RFC on a title would be conducted on the very same talk page, the last comment indicates that you would prefer to make title changes sans any set of closing rules or review process. | |||
| *:Just to be clear, it is not that ] takes precedence (at least not directly). It is that ] is part of ]. The weight given to ] comes from within ]. ] (]) 01:26, 18 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''No''' ] should not have primacy over ]; both are part of the ] policy and should carry equal weight. ] addresses issues not directly addressed by ], in other words, it informs how to balance and invoke the 5 criteria, but is not something that the criteria can 'violate' or not. In the case of that RM, the fundamental question is whether "battle" is part of the proper noun or not, which essentially is a ] question- how do ] normally write it. Thus, we have ] and, more specifically, ], which are ], which are specific invocations of a combination of ] and ], which are both ]. I don't think ] arguments should be completely discounted, but it's up to the RM participants and the closer to determine how much weight they carry. ] states consistency should be the goal {{tq|to the extent it is practical}} and ] (an essay) discusses consistency arguments {{tq|when other considerations are equal}} so it seems clear consistency should not be ''the only'' consideration. Personally, I think most battles significant enough to be known as "battle of x", "battle" is clearly part of the proper noun (the event usually being more important than where it occurred), but we must follow reliable sources. ] (]) 03:06, 18 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''No'''. Both policy sections include various factors that are used to determine an appropriate title on a case by case basis. In an RM discussion, any relevant factors should be balanced and weighed against one another to reach consensus. I don't see evidence of disharmony or major inconsistency requiring a massive change to policy. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. ] (]/]) 22:29, 18 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:This RfC does not propose a change to policy. It is a question of how the ''spirit and intent'' and the letter of two different parts of the policy, as they exist, should be ''reasonably'' construed. ] (]) 03:37, 19 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::That's splitting hairs. If there's only one way of reasonaly construing a policy, then that construction becomes the policy. ] (]/]) 14:32, 19 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:::Reading CRITERIA and the supporting sections addressing the five principles (within the full context of the policy), it is essentially telling us that a proposed title is determined by weighing each principle and that each principle need not be given equal weight in a particular case. However, TITLEFORMAT tells us that the matters therein are {{tq|questions ''not covered'' by the five principles}} - ie they are outside the scope of CRITERIA and the five principles. The matters at TITLEFORMAT are clearly quite separate from CRITERIA. The eleven matters at TITLEFORMAT tell us to do a certain thing, to not do a certain thing or that certain things might be done in narrowly construed circumstances. Compared with CRITERIA (and the five sections that explain the individual principles) TITLEFORMAT uses emphatic language. Reading the individual sections in the fuller context of the whole policy, TITLEFORMAT is essentially telling us to discard or modify a proposed title if it does not conform to any of the eleven matters therein. At no point does it suggest that any of the five principles might {{tq|cover}} any of the matters at TITLEFORMAT. Consequently, it is not reasonable to posture that any of the five principles, either individually or in combination, might over-ride or supplant any of the matters at TITLEFORMAT - especially those which are made emphatically without exception. | |||
| *:::Yes, there ''is'' only one way that a rule, law or policy ''should'' be ''reasonably'' construed if it is robustly constructed - eg without ambiguity. But that is not always the case. Consequently, in the real world, rules and laws are often tested to determine how they should be ''reasonably'' construed. I make a ''reasoned'' case that the letter of the policy is that, matters at TITLEFORMAT have primacy over CRITERIA. In consequence there is harmony between the two sections internally and a harmony between ] and other associated P&G. The internal and external harmony evidences that construing the relationship between the two sections this way represents not only the letter of the policy but the ''spirit and intent'' of the policy. Asserting otherwise creates tension, ambiguity, inconsistency and disharmony between the two sections and related P&G where none exists otherwise. Is there a ''reasoned'' argument that the alternative accurately represents the letter of the policy and the ''spirit and intent'' or is it just an opinion that ''I don't like it'', then it should be made. | |||
| *:::Yes, {{tq|n an RM discussion, any relevant factors should be balanced and weighed against one another}}. However, arguing an internal contradiction within a policy where none ''reasonably'' exists would be illogical and flatly contradict the policy. Accordingly, it should be ]. ] (]) 02:07, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::::Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines are not statutes. They are not written by a single body at a single point of time; there's no legislative drafters or style guide; and the overriding concerns are not precision, consistency, or rule of law. Rather, they are written by several editors—many with opposing viewpoints—over the course of decades according to a process that values ], with the recognition that ] is an overriding principle. Your interpretation of AT as written might be correct, but it's beside the point. In current practice, RM discussions generally involve editors making arguments based on COMMONNAME, CRITERIA, TITLEFORMAT, or any of the various naming conventions, and then weighing between those arguments. One discussion might conclude with a consensus that consistency is more important than concision, while another might result in using a common name instead of a precise title. ] (]/]) 02:23, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:::::{{tq|If there's only one way of reasonaly construing a policy, then that construction becomes the policy.}} We can only construe a policy base on what is written. The purpose and intent of this RfC is to determine how the relationship between CRITERIA and TITLEFORMAT should be construed ''based on what is written within the fuller context of the policy''. This is exactly the ''point''. Proposing a title (be it the initial title or at an RM) is about balancing the five criteria for any particular case. That is what the policy is telling us and it is not disputed. But this is not the question posed by the RfC nor the ''point'' of the RfC. If the policy is telling us to comply with TITLEFORMAT, then that is what we do too. The intent of the RfC is not to determine what editors think the policy should say but what it actually says. If it doesn't say what the community think it should say, then it is ""broke" and should be fixed. However, that would be another matter since it is not the intent of this RfC to change the policy. Furthermore, IAR is not a ''get out of jail free'' card to be exercised whenever one just doesn't like the rules. ] (]) 10:06, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::::::I'm a lawyer. I love getting in the weeds and arguing about the meaning of the law. But that's not how Misplaced Pages interprets or creates rules. Editors operate based on consensus, not ] of P&Gs. Please review ] and ]. ] (]/]) 14:10, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''No'''. Voorts puts it well. Both sections contain factors that need to be considered in the context of an individual discussion and neither can be correctly stated as stronger than the other in all cases. ] (]) 23:02, 18 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::In my opinion, encouraging the use of RFCs to make title changes in ] is bad policy and will cause more work and more contention. ] must be consistent with ], not the other way round. Informal discussions are fine, but formal RFCs have zero advantage in title changes over our long standing RM process. Until such time as someone provides serious rationale why a potentially controversial title change should be handled via an RFC instead of RM, we should not change the policy. --] (]) 22:20, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| *This RFC could use some examples placed prominently towards the top somewhere. I read it twice and do not understand it. If I spent another 5 minutes reading the linked policies I could probably puzzle it out, but including that information here would be helpful. –] <small>(])</small> 23:35, 18 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:{{U|Novem Linguae}}, it is a question of whether CRITERIA (or any particular principle therein) would over-ride any (one or more) of the eleven matters at TITLEFORMAT, noting that for many of these matters the language used is emphatic rather than optional. My response to Voorts might better explain the issue. I will give some examples if this helps. Some of these are related/analogous to article title discussions that have occurred. | |||
| *::Would a proposed title that uses title case over-ride LOWERCASE on the basis that article titles using title case are more RECOGNISABLE or more NATURAL than article titles written in sentence case? | |||
| *::Would a proposed title of ''#tag'' over-ride ] on the basis of recognisability/COMMONNAME? | |||
| *::Would a series of sub-articles on a topic in a format similar to "Azerbaijan/Transport" (though using some character other than "/") on the basis of CONSISTENT, NATURAL or CONCISE over-ride ]? | |||
| *::Would one have a title "The Department of Foo", over-riding ] on the basis of CONSISTENT and COMMONNAME (we always see "the Department of Foo" in sources) or "Wild horses", using a similar argument to over-ride ]. | |||
| *::Would we have "X Plate" for the names of individual tectonic plates citing CONSISTENT because all WP articles use "X Plate" over-riding LOWERCASE even though none of the individual plate names are consistently capped in sources. Or do we change all of these to lowercase on the basis of CONSISTENT because the majority of cases are consistently not capitalised in sources? | |||
| *::Would CONCISE over-ride ] to use "¿" for an article about the inverted question mark? | |||
| *:] (]) 02:19, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''No''', Voorts is correct. ] (]) 02:37, 19 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *RMs are not required for controversial moves. Any discussion in the talk page, a RfC, a AfD, can result in a page move. This was made clear at the ANI discussion. We should tweak the wording to reflect current consensus on wikipedia. --] (]) 21:51, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| *'''No'''. If any one guideline should have precedence, it's ], which is the titling equivalent of how Misplaced Pages handles everything else (e.g. ] for when sources disagree on more factual matters). Perhaps ], too (the titling equivalent of ]). (Not seriously mentioning these as counterproposals, just an "IMO" on priority.) | |||
| :There's no reason why an RfC could not be combined with a requested move discussion to gain wider discussion and that is easily added to the quoted language. The problem is that most of the people who know the ins and outs of article titling in detail would only come across an RfC by happenstance but monitor WP:RM. Also, RfCs are much more subject to only those involved in a particular article being aware of it--there are far fewer editors at large who monitor RfCs in general, than there are those who participate in move discussions on article they are uninvolved with. So it is better that all controversial moves be listed at WP:RM. Policy language is always subject to improper treatment as invariable statutes. As Isarra said above though, "having policies with wording that applies best to common cases best such that people have a baseline from which to start, however, should always be best practice, and in the meantime ] applies to the rest, same as with anything." Adding the language proposed speaks to the rare case and suggests RfCs are just as good a mechanism for debating highly contentious moves as is WP:RM, and that's not true. So I have no problem with a change that suggests WP:RM is not the only possibility but is the preferred and better forum for discussions expected to be contentious, but oppose any language that simply provides other options as if equivalent.--] (]) 22:02, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ** Part 2: I don't want to sidetrack, but I also disagree that this is even applicable to the sample RM that caused this (which I did not participate in). Suppose an editor performs a, for purpose of discussion, indisputably incorrect ngrams analysis. They screwed something up, made a typo, who knows. But the results of that faulty ngram analysis indicate some rule in TITLEFORMAT should predominate. But... it doesn't matter, because ], so the would-be TITLEFORMAT guidance doesn't even really apply. Okay, the case of a clear error isn't common, but what's more common is a ''contested'' ngram analysis. Cinderella said in that RM and in others that ngrams can overstate the rate of capitalization, but a lot of people disagree and believe that ngrams can understate the rate of capitalization by mixing in normal uses of the term. Which side is "right" isn't important here, but the point is, if the raw evidence is contested, a closer shouldn't just close "because (some policy in TITLEFORMAT) says so". There's really ''two'' claims afoot here, one of raw evidence and one of how to apply policy, and the first is often harder to parse! I've seen RMs close on arguments that are (IMO) inarguably at variance with the facts on the ground, and I'm sure that others think the same in reverse of me. Point is, it's not even clear that this proposed change does what it's implied to do, and if it does it would lead to absurdities like my example before of a faulty analysis somehow prevailing because it invoked the "right" policy on the wrong grounds. ] (]) 00:00, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::The current wording doesn't say "expected to be contentious", it says "Any potentially controversial proposal". Surely it's best to start with the option of talk page discussion, as recommended at RM, and if the issue proves contentious, then take it to RM and accept the delay of at least 7 days, potentially 5 weeks at current backlog, before the move is actioned by an admin. Proving that someone should have expected a move to be contentious just adds another route for argument about editors instead of getting on with improving articles. . . . ], ] 22:15, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| **:{{U|SnowFire}}, firstly, there is no change to WP:AT proposed here at all. The question is about how the existing letter and ''spirit and intent'' of the relationship between CRITERIA and TITLEFORMAT should be (correctly) construed. Secondly, while the discussion with Extraordinary Writ may have led to this RfC (one followed the other), the RM being discussed there was not the only matter leading to this RM. In that RM it was argued that the CONSISTENT over-rode LOWERCASE - not because of source evidence that the title should be lowercase but because of an unsubstantiated claim that of a convention to use alternative capitalisation regardless of what sources did for a particular case. While CONSISTENT exists, if a cited policy exists it must also be reasonably construed if it is to be given any weight. This RM has nothing to do with the evidence presented at that or any other RM. But addressing your point without getting sidetracked, it is the role of commenting editors to present ''appropriate'' evidence to support their case and for editors opposing that case to interrogate such evidence to confirm it does evidence what it is purported to (noting that capitalisation is essentially a statistical question that requires a polling of sources to determine the proportion of capitalisation in prose). This RM is not just about the relationship of LOWERCASE to any one or more of the principles at CRITERIA. It addresses the relationship of CRITERIA to all of the matters covered by TITLEFORMAT, where I have seen discussions relating to LOWERCASE, SINGULAR, DEFINITE, subsidiary articles, persons names, TCS and trademarks that have prompted this. That is the reasons why this RfC is about the relationship between CRITERIA and TITLEFORMAT rather than CRITERIA and LOWECASE. Perhaps I might put this in perspective for you and link to your comment (response to me) , even though it is about the relationship between CONSISTENT and LOWERCASE. ] (]) 03:22, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::Fuhghettaboutit, you say RM is the "preferred method" - preferred by whom, precisely? Some prefer not to use RM. The current wording makes it sound like they will be risking sanctions if they do not use RM. Yet that is '''not''' the case. Why lie to the end editor and confuse them? ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 22:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| **::Don't want to talk too much about a specific RM rather than the overall change, but if I had !voted in that RM, then yes, I would have placed very little weight on WP:CONSISTENT. And I agree with you that the community should take CONSISTENT less seriously. But I also think that this is a matter already mostly handled fine by our consensus process. If other editors in good standing want to prioritize CONSISTENT in areas I disagree, that's their right - the MOS is inherently ''suggestions'' rather than mandated right or wrong things, as it has to be because language changes over time. | |||
| *'''Oppose''' Keep the policy simple. Use RM for potentially controversial moves. An RM results in an RfC format anyway and it has clear guidance and automation for notifications. Providing another route with RfCs is likely to increase controversy due to inconsistent notification procedures. <font color="#500000">]</font><font color="#005000">]</font> 22:09, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| **::The larger issue for me is the ngrams one - I'm thinking of stuff like the "Eurasian P/plate" RM where there was just a failure to agree on reality, and the closer bought the ngrams argument over the "here's what geologists who actually work in the field say" argument (which was a crazy thing to dismiss as "vibes"!). If you say that this isn't the issue you're raising here, fine, I could be persuaded to abstain, but I think ''that'' was the core of the original Battle of Panipat discussion, common name as decided by ngram analysis. If hypothetically it was ''indisputable'' there was completely no common name at all and just wild variance, then sure, lowercase b, and if hypothetically it was ''indisputable'' the > X% Battle usage threshold was met (where X varies by editor), then clearly it should be capital B. But as mentioned above, it is rare for the matter to be indisputable! So fiddling with which policy "wins" should have had little effect in my book, as the question was truly one of COMMONNAME, and that is clearly one where people just greatly disagree. (i.e. that we're just talking about a different reason to not move, that of "didn't make a convincing enough COMMONNAME case.") ] (]) 03:57, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::How you define what moves aren't potentially controversial? This looks like a way of delaying all moves, and wasting admin time. . . ], ] 22:15, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| **:::Picking ngrams over reliable sources is just incorrect. COMMONNAME itself says we should follow the most reliable sources. ] (]/]) 04:07, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::I think the RM page provides good guidance on that. "If you have no reason to expect a dispute concerning a move, be bold and move the page." To answer your question directly, a potentially controversial move would one for which you have a reason to ''expect'' a dispute. <font color="#500000">]</font><font color="#005000">]</font> 22:51, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| **::::I couldn't agree more, but, unfortunately, that's not always how move discussions have gone in the past. I strongly believe the usage in relevant reliable sources should trump the usage of ngrams, which take into account a large swath of sources that may be unfamiliar with proper usage and capitalization. ] (]) 16:02, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::We are not suggesting we "provide another route" we are suggesting the currently accepted practice be accurately outlined on the page. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 22:34, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| **:::::Ngrams are generally the gold standard for assessing common name because unlike your search for "relevant reliable sources", which is an undefined and imprecise definition, they provide an objective and unbiased look at a wide variety of sources with a clear measure that isn't defined by anyone on Misplaced Pages, not to mention analysis by year. And book sources are usually presumed to be at the upper echelons of reliability too. Far too many RMs use cherry-picked lists of sources, many of which are part of the ] phallacy and are often just designed to support whatever viewpoint the RM nominator wants to convey. — ] (]) 23:15, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| **::::::Ngrams ''can'' be useful when it is clear that a single phrase refers to only a single topic and is used only in a single context. However when a single phrase has refers to multiple topics and/or is used in multiple context then it is not an accurate representation of any of them. ] (]) 01:08, 21 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| **:::::::This is exactly my point of view, and it's why every title with a common noun in it, whether a proper name or not, seemingly ends up being downcased. ] (]) 14:24, 21 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| **:::{{Ec}} Another case where an ngrams argument was simply incorrect was a situation where there were two topics with the same name, one was a proper noun and the other a common noun (it was an article about a geographically named regional railway line in England but I forget which one). One participant did not understand that there were two distinct topics - a specific individual railway line (the subject of the article) and railway lines in general in the same place - and kept insisting the ngrams showed that it wasn't a proper noun. However in reality the ngrams did not (and could not) distinguish between the two. There needs to be flexibility to interpret the context of the specific discussion and that is lacking from this proposal ] (]) 04:08, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''No''', it's the other way around. Recognizability, naturalness, precision, concision, and consistency are more important than things like "Use singular form" and "Avoid definite and indefinite articles" and "Do not enclose titles in quotes". It should usually be possible to comply with all of these, but I pick the first set of principles over the little details. ] (]) 06:52, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''No''', voorts is correct that our goal is not applying ] analysis to whether ] is making those eleven points secondary to the five points of ] or the superseding formatting guidelines. Any of these sixteen concepts can be the means to decide a requested move. ] ( ] ) 16:15, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''No''' per WhatamIdoing. ] (]) 22:14, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''No'''. ] is by far the most important thing to consider for titles (and yes, that often means looking at ngrams as well as other evidence). Where there's a clear common name, the policy and longstanding practice mean we rarely fail to use that - even where consistency might not be met. If and only if the common name is unclear, then we invoke the five criteria directly and try to reach a consensus on which title fits them best. If after all that there's still a lack of clarity, then I'd invoke TITLEFORMAT at that point, but not any earlier. — ] (]) 23:20, 20 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Yes'''. Cinderella157's analysis is correct, and many of the TITLEFORMAT points are non-optional, while all of the criteria are a prioritization juggling game of various preferences, any of which can be sacrificed when outweighed by other considerations, while much of TITLEFORMAT cannot. To the extent anything in TITLEFORMAT is actually optional, the solution is to separate its material into two lists, of mandatory versus conditional matters. The "No" commenters here all appear to be missing the point, and seem to have been triggered into strange defensive contortions by wording like "supersede" or "override". <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 02:03, 21 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:The only truly non-optional point under TITLEFORMAT is TSC because that's a technical, rather than style, issue. At least four of the TITLEFORMAT points have exceptions—including singular form, don't use abbreviations, use nouns, and trademarked names—so they are not required in all circumstances. Several of them don't really ever come into play in RMs, like use sentence case, subsidiary articles, don't use quotation marks, and italics, largely because nobody could credibly argue against those. For example, I can't think of a circumstance where we wouldn't italicize a film or book page title. The follow reliable sources point is just an amalgam of several of the CRITERIA. Regarding your analysis of the no !votes: the RfC is expressly asking us whether a certain part of a policy should supersede another. Indeed, Cinderella157 has used the phrase "over-ride" 8 times in this discussion so far. It's not a "strange defensive contortion" to respond to those points. ] (]/]) 02:27, 21 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::The constant flood of over-capitalization RMs of multi-word titles tells us that "use sentence case" is actually quite important; while no one proposes "Use title case!", what they want effectively amounts to that, so this line-item in the policy is an additional shield against their over-stylization whims (though lack of consistent support in independent RS is more often the main one, whether it be a ] or ] or ] or ] or ] question). The point about quotation marks actually does come up, though rarely (mostly with regard to phrases from conventional quotations or from Internet memes, and exceptionally with regard to titles of works that have internal, or are surrounded by, quotation marks of their own, like some famous David Bowie material). Italics: we have a long-term, persistent contingent who hate that WP house style is to put all major works in italics regardless of medium (they want to deny this style to electronic publications). I have to rather amusedly note that your engaging in another defensive contortion, handwring over {{em|just how many times}} the proponent used a term that triggered your defensive reaction, has rather the opposite of your intended effect of disproving my point.<!-- --><p>The question here is quite simple: which section of the policy has precedence when there's a perception of conflict beteen them? The answer has to be TITLEFORMAT because making it secondary would regularly (not strangely exceptionally, when sources really seem to dictate it) produce inconsistent titles even within the same category of subjects, yet {{em|CRITERIA includes CONSISTENT}}. That is, CRITERIA is effectively telling us, in CONSISENT, that it is secondary to TITLEFORMAT.</p><!-- --><p>A potential way around the problem, or perceived problem, here would be to merge these sections one way or another, so that all the actual title criteria we employ, including formatting ones, are in one place. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 07:05, 21 November 2024 (UTC)</p> | |||
| *:::Please stop calling the no !votes defensive contortions. You said no !votes were using words like "override"; I was pointing out that it was Cinderella using that word. ] (]/]) 14:29, 22 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::::Except I said {{em|nothing like that at all}}, but quite the opposite, namely that Cinderella157 did in fact use these terms and then you and various other "No" !voters are reflexively and emotionally reacting to what they could mean in some other context instead of analyzing their actual meaning and implications in this context. So, your apparent anger at me here really has no basis. You either do not understand the argument I am making, or are striking the pose that you don't understand, because you don't like it but can't seem mount a sensible counter-argument. Regardless, I predict no utility in me going round in circles with you any further. This kind of ] stuff is just pointless and anti-consensus. Instead of responding to anything substantive I said, you've retreated to an "offended" posture, in which bluster is used as a ] to dodge every single element of the substance, and that bluster is based on blatantly misreading everything I wrote. ]. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 10:41, 24 November 2024 (UTC); tone revised 15:28, 24 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''No''' The point at issue is an attempt to lower-case an article title. ] states that "{{tq|...the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice ... Disagreements are resolved through consensus-based discussion, not by tightly sticking to rules and procedures}}". We had a consensus-based discussion and that establishes the accepted practice. If there then seems to be inconsistency in the rules then the rules should be loosened, not tightened, so as to accommodate the accepted practice. ]🐉(]) 08:24, 22 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:No, the point at issue is not an attempt to lowercase an article title. It was prompted by quite a number of discussions where the issue was not just LOWERCASE but other matters at TITLEFORMAT v CRITERIA. {{tq|The intent of this RfC is to determine what the policy is actually telling us as written (how it should reasonably be construed) as opposed to what editors think the policy should be telling us.}} This is stated in the ''Background'' section. It continues: {{tq|If there is a disjunction between the two, then an amendment to the policy is indicated but that would be another issue.}} An inconsistency or a disjunction have the same result: if there is something wrong with how the policy is written then it needs to be amended and improved. It is unfortunate that responses here are more concerned with defending what people think the policy says than considering whether that is what it is saying in both the letter and the ''spirit and intent'' represented by consistency with other P&G. ] states: {{tq|Remember, the participants in any given discussion represent only a tiny fraction of the Misplaced Pages community whose consensus is reflected in the policy, guidelines and conventions to which all titles are to adhere.}} There is a difference in CONLEVEL between P&G and an RM. Arguments at an RM are to be assigned weight {{tq|giving due consideration to the relevant consensus of the Misplaced Pages community in general as reflected in applicable policy, guidelines and naming conventions.}} If there is an inconsistency in P&G in what it says or what it might be thought to say, then this should be remedied else it is a case of ''garbage in, garbage out''. An unwritten principle of WP is continuous improvement. Even Voots grudgingly acknowledges I ''might be right''. ] (]) 10:16, 22 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::We are told above that {{tq|For context, this stems from ] (about ])}}. I did not participate in that discussion and am here as a member of the wider community following the listing at ]. Insofar as there's a wider issue, it's that this policy page is so huge (about 5,000 words) that it contains numerous competing considerations. How these should be balanced and used has to be decided on a case-by-case basis and that's what the RM discussion did. There isn't a formal order of precedence and so the answer is still '''No'''. ]🐉(]) 15:36, 22 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''No''' per all of the reasoning above (nomination request to simply say 'Yes' or 'No', so no, of course not). ] (]) 14:04, 21 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::Any proposed move where more than one editor is likely to oppose the move on some grounds meets this criteria. What we are losing sight here of is our actual title policy ] and its supporting MOS and Naming Conventions that are so conflicted, that just about any rationale for a title change can be supported with some aspect of policy. Our policy makes the likelihood that a title change will be controversial very high. Yet on the other hand, ] enjoins admins to close RMs based on policy and consensus. I am a bit baffled by this math ''This looks like a way of delaying all moves, and wasting admin time''. If an RM lasts 7 days and an RFC lasts 30 days, which process delays a title decision longer. Indeed, if an admin must make the title change, which wastes more time—reviewing 7 days of discussion or 30 days of discussion? --] (]) 22:41, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| *'''No.''' To draw an analogy to broader Misplaced Pages governance—if the CRITERIA are the five pillars of titling, TITLEFORMAT is its MOS. In that sense, while we should follow TITLEFORMAT as much as is practical, it's nevertheless still possible for an argument to achieve consensus that a given article's title should diverge from TITLEFORMAT's norms in order to serve the overarching principles behind the titling process. Indeed, many of TITLEFORMAT's sections essentially enshrine this line of thinking outright, whether by noting standard exceptions (], ], ]) or directing us to follow the usage by RS (] or ]). ] (] • ]) 15:52, 21 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Yes, RM is a great method. It avoid errors that sometimes happen in other methods. However, it is ''not the only method'' and that is falsely stated on policy page. Why are we lying to editors? ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 22:53, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| *'''No''' per Voorts, Andrew, SnowFire and others. They make the point much better than I could. ~~ ] (]) 15:47, 22 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''No''' - Probably over-kill at this point but simple formatting issues are not nearly as important as the issues that ] addresses. ] (]) 22:12, 24 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| {{archive bottom}} | |||
| == Reduce bloat, banners, and bananas == | |||
| :::Please stop claiming "accepted practice". Using an RfC is clearly not accepted practice for page moves project wide. That is evident in the opposition your proposal is encountering. "Practice exists in the community through consensus" and we're working on consensus right here. <font color="#500000">]</font><font color="#005000">]</font> 23:08, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::No, it isn't at all "clear" that it isn't accepted. In fact, the exact opposite - it is "an accepted mechanism." I'm going by the recent ANI decision and 8 years of Misplaced Pages experience. Rfc was used before RM ever existed, and while it has flaws (so does RM) it is an accepted method. See dave souza and Eric Navaal on this page for confirming opinions. You may not prefer RM, but that doesn't make it illegal or unaccepted. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 23:15, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::It's not "illegal" or "unaccepted ''under the current language'', nor is that language a lie. It simply states the typical and reliable way that pages move discussions normally happen, under a method that draws far more people steeped in article titling to it than any other method we might choose, and let's be clear: RfCs alone are a vanishingly rare way of discussing page moves as compared with WP:RM. You happened to cross paths with one editor who treated the language in the policy as a hidebound statute and this is fresh in your mind. Step back and ask yourself how many times has this happened in the past because of this language? Once ever? Never before? The language appears fine as it is to me and we shouldn't be writing policy to address what can best be described as a one-off. But I will nevertheless throw some language out there that wouldn't bother me as a change:{{blockquote|''Any potentially controversial proposal to change a title should be advertised at ], and consensus reached before any change is made. Debating controversial titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help ]. In some cases for especially controversial moves or where wide discussion is thought necessary, the requested move discussion can be combined with a ]. Though not unprecedented, using an RfC alone for a page move is not recommended as it will not likely draw comment from those most familiar with article titling and tends to reach only those already involved with the page at issue.''}}--] (]) 23:59, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| There's too much inaccessible content around this wiki. Also the sections in the article are trying to convey few things in many round-about ways. Verbosity is understandable, but not at the expense of wasting time of readers. Time is finite. For example, there's a wall of purple stuff right above this editor, there could be a yellow / red call-out above that, but I'm writing here, not in my browser's address bar. ] (]) 09:02, 29 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: Interesting language, but how would it work in practice? Do I open and RM and RFC simultaneously? What if an admin comes along and closes the RM after 7 days one way, and then another editor comes along and closes the RFC after 30 days the opposite of the RM close. Which takes precedent? Do I run an RFC, find an admin to close it with a move decision, then run an RM? What happens if the RM closer decides differently from the RFC? RFCs are useful for sorting out the best choice of alternative titles when there are many possibilities as to what a new title should be. A 30 day discussion among editors familiar with the topic is useful pre-RM. However, once an RFC determines the most appropriate alternative title, the RM process ensures wide-community opportunity for involvement and is supported by instructions and processes that ensure ] policy is adhered to. --] (]) 00:19, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::: I'm delighted you're offering alternative suggestions, but I'm afraid I agree with Mike that this won't work. The suggested verbiage seems to say that if there is a lot of contention, then there should be both an Rfc and an RM, and the implication seems to be that RM is ok for minor issues, but you should add Rfc for major ones. This is not addressing the concern which is the reason for this Rfc, and it adds, rather than removes, complexity and requirements. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 00:24, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :The best way to reduce, is to remove entire sections, and then engage contention. Since it is categorised as contentious topic, resolving all raised concerns by humans here can be solved with active contention. ] (]) 09:04, 29 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ===Arbitrary section break=== | |||
| *The point is that the current verbiage is ''inaccurate''. If you don't care for the verbiage I suggested, fine. Work with me here. But those who think I'm suggesting we change '''anything''' other than the way things are worded is misunderstanding completely. I'm not suggesting we change current practice, or put RM on the sideline. Secondly, insofar as "preferred method" - well, the preferred method is on the talk page. Next best would be RM and Rfc. Next best (by which I mean things are bad now) is Mediation. And of course the last place anyone wants to be is in some ArbCom ordered vote like ]. So no one is saying RM isn't a wonderful solution. We're saying the verbiage on the policy page is, unfortunately, wrong. Let's fix that, shall we? ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 23:10, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::The wall of purple text is a closed talk page section. At this page, talk page sections are automatically archived 60 days after the last comment in that section if more than 5 sections are present. ] (]) 09:19, 29 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :: I will ask and re-ask this question. Before we change policy, Why would we prefer or encourage the use of RFC over RM to make title changes. What advantages does it have? The fact that's it is a method used in the past, does not require us to change policy to encourage it in the future. Why would an RFC be preferred over an RM on an article talk page? --] (]) 23:58, 16 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::And I will answer and re answer. I'm NOT talking about changing policy. I'm NOT talking about preferring Rfc over RM. In fact, I'm perfectly fine if you suggest wording which strongly prefers RM over any other method. BUT I'm NOT fine with the current wording, which lies and says RM is the ONLY method. Please let me know if this is still unclear to you. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 00:14, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == Notice of move discussion == | |||
| :::: I would disagree, you are talking about changing policy. Currently ] says: ''Any potentially controversial proposal to change a title should be advertised at Misplaced Pages:Requested moves, and consensus reached before any change is made.'' That's today's policy. You are proposing changing that to add RFCs as a title change process. The fact that title changes have been made by other means is irrelevant. What is relevant to your position is the need to provide some logic as to why the community would want to encourage RFC as a means of making title changes, when an effective RM process exists to do that. What is the advantage of making a title change via RFC instead of RM when in fact both type of discussions occur on the same talk page? That's the relevant question. --] (]) 00:26, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Policy is descriptive, not prescriptive, and currently the policy ''page'' is inaccurate. I don't care if Rfc's are even mentioned. That was just my suggestion. But the words that make it seem like RM is absolutely required need tweaking. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 00:41, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' "fixing it" and moving away from the long standing custom of using WP to advertise controversial moves. To get a wider participation sometimes moves are also advertised with RFCs, but that does not preclude their listing RM. Two points: | |||
| *#Whatever the reason for starting RM, in less than 24 hours it had already started to become a process that handled controversial moves.. | |||
| *#At a practical level, after an RfC has run for a month, the bot removes the RfC banner, then what? There is no process in place for deciding who decides if a consensus has been reached, or if the consensus was for moving the page to make the move (thanks to bots messing about, it ie often it is not possible to move a page to a redirect without admin intervention (due to edit histories)). What does an editor do? go to ANI and ask for an administrator to move the page, or go to RM and put in a request? It seems to me that it is simpler to place the initial request into the RM process and allow that process -- that had been tailored to handle moves -- take its course. -- ] (]) 00:03, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I'm '''not''' suggesting we "move away" from RM. I'm suggesting a wording tweak. Please see my explanation to Mike, above. I really don't see why this is being so difficult for me to convey, but apparently I just suck at explaining this. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 00:16, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Why did a user ask you to close the debate? Why did they not post a request at RM a week before the RfC was due to close? Why didn't you advise them to put in a request at RM for the move? I am not at all sure that your nutshell "In a nutshell: having move discussions in places other than FM is being cited as a sanctionable policy violation. Current practice and ANI say it isn't. Can we change the verbiage to reflect that?" at the start of this section is accurate. As far as I can tell no one is suggesting sanctions against you, rather they were asking you to reconsider you move, (or another administrator to revert it) as it had not been listed at RM. In the current policy wording where is the "sanctionable policy violation" described for an administrator who decides to close a move debate that has not been advertised on RM? Also in practice an editor who makes a bold controversial move is not sanctioned, (unless they do it to game the system -- say in the middle of a RM) and even then not for a first offence), instead all that happens is the move is usually reverted and a RM is then initiated. -- ] (]) 00:44, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| A ] is underway concerning the titles of several articles which may be of interest to this project. Interested parties can ]. ]'']'' 10:29, 30 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ===Proposed verbiage 4=== | |||
| I'm counting dave souza's attempt as 2, and Fuhghettaboutit's as 3. | |||
| * What about changing the verbiage from | |||
| {{blockquote|Any potentially controversial proposal to change a title should be advertised at Misplaced Pages:Requested moves, and consensus reached before any change is made.}} to {{blockquote| Any potentially controversial proposal to change a title should seek broad consensus before any change is made. Listing at Misplaced Pages:Requested moves may be advisable}} | |||
| This avoids any mention of Rfc. Feel free to offer alternate phrasing - perhaps "is advisable" or "is encouraged" etc. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 00:50, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::This addresses my objections in spirit but perhaps not in exact wording. However, as I understand it, the Men's rights move proposal did not follow your proposed rewording since no broad consensus was sought. Would you agree? <font color="#500000">]</font><font color="#005000">]</font> 01:42, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::I have no idea what you're talking about regarding the Men's rights. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 04:25, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::I suggest changing "seek" to "obtain". Then, maybe, "Listing at Misplaced Pages:Requested moves is recommended to notify editors with article title experience and interest." <font color="#500000">]</font><font color="#005000">]</font> | |||
| :::That would work, although I confess "obtain" doesn't quite flow for me... maybe "arrive at" or "achieve". But yes, your wording would work too. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 04:18, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :Unfortunately I can't agree with that change. RM is a specific process that appears on a list frequented by people who are often well versed in that specific process. It's the best and most obvious place for a desired move to be listed. I've found myself mildly frustrated on occasion in the past for missing a move discussion where I felt I had valuable input because it wasn't done as an RM and thus didn't appear on the RM list. Refining the system into specialised parts is a good thing, I don't think it's advisable to encourage using the broad tool of RFC to address something specific like move requests when we already have a specialised Move Request tool to accomplish just that; removing the strong suggestion to use RM in the wording would be a movement in the wrong direction. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-size:0.75em">– ] <span style="display:inline-block;vertical-align:-0.4em;line-height:1em">‹]›<br/>‹]›</span></span> 02:44, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::We're NOT looking to add Rfc specifically, how many times do I have to say this??? Seriously. It isn't even in the verbiage you're responding to, at all. Not looking to replace RM, either. Just looking to tweak the verbiage so it does not use the word "should" which is strongly prescriptive and implies this is the only possibility. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 04:13, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::"List all potentially controversial title changes at Misplaced Pages:Requested moves to notify editors with article title experience and interest."? <font color="#500000">]</font><font color="#005000">]</font> 02:59, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == Overprecision in (sports)people == | |||
| Suggested revision: <blockquote>Do not implement potentially controversial proposals to change a title without broad consensus. List potentially controversial title changes at Misplaced Pages:Requested moves to notify editors with article title experience and interest.</blockquote> | |||
| <font color="#500000">]</font><font color="#005000">]</font> 15:46, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| Could you please check ]. ] (]) 23:09, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ===Proposed verbiage 5 === | |||
| Well, one way to address the issue KillerChihuahua perceives as a problem, is simply to start the existing sentence with "<u>It is recommended that</u> any potentially..." This keeps in the strong language but would not allow by a fair reading the charge which led here that the policy expressly only allows moves to be discussed at WP:RM. As above, I don't think there is actually an issue with the current language, but I don't think this change introduces any problem.--] (]) 03:09, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :"It is recommended" would indeed address the issue. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 04:16, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::Be careful with "recommended". This ''is'' the policy document for titles. If everything's going to be recommended, the page should immediately be made a style guide. ] ] 04:22, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::We see on this very page, under '''Treatment of alternative names''' the words ''"alternative names, or there is something notable about the names themselves, a separate name section is '''recommended'''. (see Lead section). These may include alternative spellings, longer or shorter "'' Recommended is not a word to avoid, it is a word to use accurately. And this is a policy page about RM, which is not ''required''. Recommended is apt. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 04:33, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::...as well as Images, Edit warring, and Proposed deletion, Bot policy, Harassment, and probably others, as well as the blocking policy, which i find most similar to this situation. Undoing another admin's block is, as we all know, a very bold move indeed. It is not prohibited, but it is a serious matter. Yet the instructions on Blocking policy say "'' If the blocking administrator is not available, or if the administrators cannot come to an agreement, then a discussion at the administrators' noticeboard is recommended.''" Now that is a serious situation, and yet it is only "recommended". I suggest that even a very strongly adhered to standard may be correctly described as "recommended." I think Fuhghettaboutit has suggested an excellent choice of phrasing. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 04:55, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| Edit: actually, the issue applies to all people: ]. ] (]) 23:48, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Support''' Fuhghettaboutit's phrasing. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 05:17, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Support''' as a considerable improvement. The full wording could be reviewed if ] gains consensus. . . ], ] 07:54, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Most Strongly Oppose''' - This suggests that it's okay to make a change that is potentially controversial ''without consensus''. It only "recommends" getting consensus. It's contrary to the spirit of the project and will lead to disruption. <font color="#500000">]</font><font color="#005000">]</font> 15:10, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| "charge which led here that the policy expressly only allows moves to be discussed at WP:RM" Please could you provide a diff where this charge was made. -- ] (]) 10:11, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :Did you read the ] that brings us here? How can I provide one diff when that was the tenor of the entire discussion? Okay well, from the opening post of that discussion "...but the participants in this recent RFC ignored the established principle in titling policy at WP:TITLE: '''all moves that are likely to be controversial should be processed through the formal procedures laid out at WP:RM.'''" (boldface in original).--] (]) 11:45, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::I did read that, and my understanding was not that discussion on a talk page which are controversial should only be advertised on RM, but they ought to be advertised at RM -- something that does not seem unreasonable to me. -- ] (]) 17:45, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| *This seems to me the better wording until now. --] (]) 15:21, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == Plural form in foods (important) == | |||
| == Bulls in a china shop, chefs in a crowded kitchen == | |||
| I would like to understand why, unlike some Italian foods (for example ] and ]), which are written in the plural, "]" isn't written in the plural, although in the most common name is the plural; for English names this rule doesn't apply? ] (]) 20:07, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| Um ... why are we seeing undiscussed changes, as though there are six cooks in a small kitchen. Well, there have been multiple spillages and burnings, so please slow down. Kim B, no, that's ''not'' good wording. May I remind editors that this is a central policy page specifically marked out for ArbCom discretionary sanctions (notice is at top of talkpage), and subject to rulings about discussing first, editing later. ] ] 03:54, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :Generally, we use the singular form unless the plural form is the overwhelming use in English. ] (]) 20:16, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :I count three, not six - and Kim's edit isn't even in the same area. Please AGF. I am certain everyone is trying to ensure this policy is as well written as possible, and no one has made more than one edit. There is no need to remind experienced editors of DS when there is very active discussion ongoing, and no edit warring in sight. ]<small><sup>]</sup></small> 04:22, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::{{Ping|DrKay}} exactly, and "hot dogs" is a ''slightly'' more common name than "hot dog", according to . ] (]) 20:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::I'm struggling to work out what was deficient with the wording. I can find nothing to recommend the hasty and ill-considered edits over the past day or two. ] ] 04:33, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::I said ''overwhelming''. ''slightly'' doesn't cut it. ] (]) 20:21, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::Your struggle seems to arise from a failure to see that the wording is ambiguous: "should" was probably taken by many editors as a recommendation, a perception reinforced by the sensible guidance at ] and ] which differ from the wording in this policy. Unfortunately "should" can be read as prescriptive, and give the misleading impression that RM is the only permitted venue. See below. . ], ] 07:57, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::{{Ping|DrKay}} all right. ] (]) 20:22, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::RM is not the venue the talk page is the venue, and although it can be advertised in other places it should (also) be advertised at RM. As I asked before if there is a debate on a page move that is not advertised at RM, what is the mechanism for deciding on the consensus and who makes the move (Given that we frequently see editors complaining about the judgement of a neutral administrator who makes a move at RM)? Or put another way, RM has rules and presidents that have developed over time -- such as moving a page back if moved during a debate so that malignant editors making pre-emptive moves can not then argue that you need a consensus to move it back -- if the move is not advertised at RM then do RM rules apply? -- ] (]) 10:09, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :''Panini'' and ''cannoli'' are a problem here. In English, they ''are'' singular. "I'd like a chicken panini, please, and a dozen cannoli(s) to go." I'd say English speakers are familiar enough with "-i" plurals (from "spaghetti", "linguini", etc.) that they may understand the use of these forms for the plural as well as for the singular, but they may not: it's "one cannoli", but either "two cannolis" ''or'' "two cannoli" is possible. | |||
| :::: I have to second PBS here. RM is a '''talk page discussion'''. It is an established process that ensures title changes are made consistent with title policy and community consensus. It is supported by a long-standing, well thoughtout set of closing instructions and a more recent community established review process. No one in this and the discussions above and below has yet to establish any advantage for conducting title changes via other '''talk page discussions'''. Until such time as such advantages (if any) are clearly understood, we should not be changing title policy to encourage any other type of title change discussion in lieu of RM.--] (]) 15:06, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :See the second paragraph of the Etymology section of the ] (you provided the wrong link) article. I see that the ] article is confused about this, beginning, appallingly, with its first words, "Cannoli is". This is outright incorrect whether you're following Italian usage (in which case you'd have "Cannoli are") or English usage (in which case you'd have either "A cannoli is" or "Cannolis are"). See also ], which takes the approach of treating the word as plural, "Biscotti are". | |||
| :But one thing you generally won't hear from English speakers is "Can I have a panino/cannolo/biscotto, please"? And we don't even mean by "panini" or "biscotti" what Italian speakers mean by them. The same goes for "gelato". ] (]) 00:25, 12 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::{{Ping|Largoplazo}} what Americans and English, unfortunately, don't understand is that even we Italians don't usually say "spaghetto", because types of pasta are written in the plural even in Italian, but at the same time we Italians know which Italian foods to write only in the plural and which in both forms (however, it's written "linguine" and "fettuccine", not "linguini" and "fettuccini").<br />In any case, '''could you please correct the ] and ] pages?''' I'm not a native English speaker ('''also ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and ]'''). Thanks in advance. ] (]) 18:01, 12 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| {{cot|indent=4.8em|bg=darkseagreen|O/t sidebar on favorite foods and recipes}} | |||
| :::I enjoy the occasional spaghetto as a light snack. ] (]) 07:17, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::You're funny, in a good way. ] (]) 09:07, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Do not forget that triumph of Italian-American cuisine called ], {{u|JacktheBrown}}. ] (]) 09:21, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::{{Ping|Cullen328}} I didn't know this brand. ] (]) 22:05, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::{{u|JacktheBrown}}, you were better off not knowing about it. Very bland and mushy. ] (]) 23:32, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::{{Ping|Cullen328}} as you well know, I love Italian cuisine very much and I consider it one of the three best in the world (''I'm not a snob''), but I also love other cuisines, such as Greek, Japanese, and Mexican. Since Italian-American cuisine was mentioned, could you recommend some Italian-American dishes to try? Obviously exclude all styles of American pizza. ] (]) 09:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::{{u|JacktheBrown}}, I would highly recommend ] with San Francisco ] to sop up the broth. Fresh ] is beloved in California and coastal areas to the north, and is the ingredient that makes Cioppino unique. I also enjoy ], if well made. I think that flavor of the marsala wine sauce is delightful. That dish would be easier to duplicate in Italy than Cioppino, which is a Pacific coast thing. ] (]) 10:23, 15 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::: ], Cullen may indulge you, but in reality, this is a ], which is serious business at some level, with a goal to discuss and improve our policy on Article titles. If you would like to ask Cullen for recipes, a better venue would be ] or your own Talk page, where a certain amount of latitude is given (and we are all human, and need to decompress sometimes). But please remember that we are here to ]; this is ], and policy talk pages especially are not. Thanks for your understanding. ] (]) 10:00, 15 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::{{Ping|Mathglot}} you're right, we were temporarily off topic. ] (]) 10:48, 15 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::: ], looking back, I see you were not the instigator. I just want to add that I am as guilty as anybody else of little asides like this. I find a single humorous off-topic comment, maybe a reply or two, is fine (even beneficial, sometimes, to lighten the mood), but if it generates a lot of back-and-forth it starts to be a distraction. I think collapsing this part about recipes is appropriate at this point, and I hope you don't mind. I apologize for singling you out by name, and appreciate your gracious response. Collapsed. ] (]) 19:55, 15 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| {{cob}} | |||
| :::{{tq|... we Italians don't usually say "spaghetto", because types of pasta are written in the plural even in Italian ...}}: I'm supposing Italians don't usually say "spaghetto" because it's extremely uncommon for someone to have a reason to speak of a single spaghetti noodle and that, if an Italian ''did'' have a reason to refer to a single spaghetti noodle ("You dropped a spaghetti noodle on the floor"), they ''would'' call it "un spaghetto". Is that not correct? ] (]) 13:07, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::{{Ping|Largoplazo}} exactly, well done, obviously also for this reason. Not to be picky, but it's spelled {{lang|it|'''uno''' spaghetto}}. ] (]) 21:41, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Ha, I know that rule, but forgot to apply it. It's been a while. Thanks. ] (]) 22:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::{{Ping|Largoplazo}} don't worry, I'm glad that you tried. ] (]) 22:30, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * It's not just Italian cuisine. Some foods are naturally eaten in the plural: ], ], ], etc. Hot dogs are more of a one-at-a-time food, even in a ]. ]🐉(]) 11:05, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| **{{Ping|Andrew Davidson}} ] is also a food to be eaten one at a time (it's big), ] ("panzerotti"). ] (]) 22:15, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| **: It is important to remember here, that two things do not count in trying to decide what the title should be: 1) logic, and 2) how it's done in Italian. This has nothing to do either with irrationality or anti-Italian sentiment, it's simply that in English Misplaced Pages we call things the way they are used in English (in published, reliable sources) and with words of Italian origin, sometimes it is the same as how it's done in Italy, and sometimes it's different. When it's different, we follow English usage. I don't know the policy at Italian Misplaced Pages, but I bet it is the same thing with English loanwords (with Italian usage being decisive, of course). Every language does this; it is nothing surprising. The phrase ''two computers'' in Italian is ''due computer'', and any anglophone that shows up at Italian Misplaced Pages and tells them, "No no, it has to be ''due computers'' because you have to add -s in the plural" would have no leg to stand on. Other plurals: ''il film'' ⟶ ''i film''; ''il bar'' ⟶ ''i bar''; ''lo sport'' ⟶ ''gli sport''; ''il club'' ⟶ ''i club'', and so on. The situation here is the mirror image of that: we do not check what is correct in Italian when trying to determine what is the right title here; it plays no role. ] (]) 06:42, 14 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| **:I'd be fine with panzerotto as that's what the has. That dish is similar to ] which we have in the singular form. ]🐉(]) 07:23, 14 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| **::Would you please ]? I already tried months ago, but I didn't convince anyone. ] (]) 07:42, 14 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| **:::"Calzone" notwithstanding, I think it will be a challenge to show that "a panzerotto" is more common than "a panzerotti". The use of the Italian singular form "calzone" as the English word doesn't show that English speakers are prone to using the Italian singular and plural correctly. In this case, "calzone" came through in singular form, but then in English no one calls more than one of them "calzoni", they're "calzones". (I'm not even sure how many people pronounce the "e".) And I guarantee that the plural of "pizza" is virtually always "pizzas" and not "pizze". The bottom line is: Stop trying to apply Italian grammar to the use of these words in English! It will only frustrate you. (Besides, it isn't as though Italian does a good job reflecting proper singular and plural of words it borrows from English{{emdash}}it doesn't bother with the plural form at all! ''Il film, i film'', ''il computer, i computer'', etc.) ] (]) 00:35, 16 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ***:::{{Ping|Largoplazo}} the point is that the ] article had, since its creation, the title "panzerotto", and this until the move, which occurred this year. ] (]) 09:38, 16 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ***::::I took a look at the move history and this doesn't appear to be the case—the article was created at "panzarotti" in 2006, and remained there until being ] in 2014. Then, over the course of this year, the article was moved three times (] in January, ] in June, and then ] shortly afterward). In any case, even if panzerotto had been the long-term title, longevity alone isn't necessarily an indicator of suitability; it's the reasoning that counts. ] (] • ]) 14:48, 16 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ***:::According to the , in AE it rhymes with ''bone'', and in BE it rhymes with ''bony'' (both of which happen to agree with my perception of it, not that I get a vote). And yes absolutely agree with the bottom line: please forget everything you ever knew about Italian grammar and pronunciation, and stick strictly to English sources. Everything else is just a big waste of everybody's time. {{ec}} ] (]) 00:48, 16 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ***::::(FWIW, using the same word for singular and plural goes way back in English. One sheep, two sheep. One fish, two fish. One cannon, two cannon. So one panzerotti, two panzerotti, welcome to the club.) ] (]) 06:24, 17 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ***::::: This whole discussion reminds me of a big wall, where everyone feels compelled to write their own graffito. ] (]) 06:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ***::::::Well but that's how you know you're on Misplaced Pages ] (]) 17:00, 17 December 2024 (UTC)cv | |||
| * The OP seems keen to rewrite such culinary topics in Italian rather than English. I have started discussion about one such case at ]. ]🐉(]) 19:16, 17 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ==Proposal for considering uncontroversial title changes== | |||
| *:I agree with JackTheBrown on that one. I'll comment there. ] (]) 23:43, 17 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| The section under discussion is ], but up until the section dealt only with controversial or potentially controversial title changes. This effectively contradicted both ] and ], both of which give sensible guidance on less controversial changes. My proposal is that wording from these guidelines be adapted as introductory paragraphs to the ''#Considering title changes'' section, proposed wording follows. ], ] 07:57, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == Problematic "Use of" titles == | |||
| {{quotation|Any ] user can use the '''''' tab located at the top of any page to perform most moves (see ]). If you have no reason to expect a dispute concerning a move, ] and move the page. However, it may not always be possible or desirable to do this. Sometimes technical reasons will prevent a move: see '']''. | |||
| <p><p>If you believe the move might be controversial, consider using the {{tl|movenotice}} template to draw attention to the proposed move and new title, and start discussion on the talk page in order to reach a ]. If there is an existing article at the target title or there has been any past debate about the best title for the page, or if someone reasonably disagrees with the move, it should be treated as controversial.}} | |||
| :No, it didn't contradict MOVE or RM, because it dealt only with controversial moves. As you say, we already have those two pages that provide the guidance: we don't need it repeated here because it's not suited to being policy. It's not suited to be being policy because in my mind it is first, because this page is only going to be used in resolving disputes over pagemoves, which are controversial cases, and not for guidance on uncontroversial moves; second, an uncontroversial move can be performed in any number of ways and proper guidance is necessary on using the correct one - so for example the summary above mentions technical moves but really impels the reader to read that as well because it doesn't give any indication of what these reasons are. In other words, the conscientious mover is already obliged by the summary to read the other information provided. But I have to say that first and foremost this page is going to be cited when someone makes a move like that and they get reverted, or during a move discussion. Clear guidance at this stage is necessary, not a proliferation of options and other things to read. There will always be more guidance, but this should be policy. However, there might be some merit in mentioning the movenotice specifically. (The second part of that paragraph, less so, because we already have guidance here.) <span style="color:#3A3A3A;background-color:#FFFFFF">'''Grandiose''' </span><span style="color:gray;background-color:#FFFFFF">(], ], ]) </span> 09:06, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::Good points, the primary problem was that the paragraph was headed '''Considering title changes''', and if it doesn't deal with uncontroversial changes it should be headed '''Considering potentially controversial title changes'''. Policy should be descriptive, and at the least should indicate where editors can get guidance: if it says editors can do something, it doesn't compel them to do it. Also, this page is likely to be used by editors wondering what names are suitable even when there's no dispute. Anyway, more concise wording linking to the guidance would be welcome, as long as it is clear where to get guidance as to whether or not a title is controversial.. . . ], ] 09:35, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::This would appear to require the additional burden of a second talk page discussion before moving a page. In actual practice, there may not be anyone participating in the move discussion who is knowledgeable about the subject matter of the article itself; the decision and any associated rearrangement of disambiguation pages is then based on MoS and other policy considerations. Of course, more discussion is always better than less, and moves go more smoothly when there are several editors who have reached a consensus and can present the reasons for the move succinctly in terms of WP:TITLE when the RM is initiated, but this is not always possible and should not be mandated by policy. ] (]) 14:53, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| '''Oppose''' any change to this section other than maybe the section heading. If it needs to include the words ''potentially controversial or controversial'' then fine, that will make everyone feel better. The real issue here is that any proposed title change that is likely to be opposed by an editor for any reason (and there are loads of them in our conflicting title policy) is potentially controversial and '''should''' go through the ] process. Any attempt to circumvent that process does harm to WP. If ] contradicts ] and ]--a process and how-to guideline, then they need changing, not the policy. The fact that one admin resolved an ANI which was essentially a pissing match between two editors, by saying an RFC was OK, does not require us to change policy to encourage that. --] (]) 13:45, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
| It's come to my attention that there's a proliferation of un-encyclopedic titles being prefixed with the phrasing of "Use of". Is there a part of the guideline, aside from concision, that discourages this kind of unnecessary genitive possessive phrasing when simpler phrasing is clearly preferable? You notably won't find a single "Use of" article on Encyclopedia Britannica. Here, there's a plethora, such as ], which as an example could be more concisely and encyclopedically phrased as "]". In other examples, the phrasing is simply unnecessary or redundant, e.g.: ] – which could just read ], or ] – which is no different from ] or ]. It occurred to me that both ] and ] partly apply, since the "Use of" phrasing tends away from both simple and singular nouns. But is there anything else that more firmly guards against this? Thoughts? ] (]) 08:30, 2 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Reminder - this page is under arbcom restrictions == | |||
| :I’m not sure that this is something that needs a policy to fix… just file RMs and propose a better title. ] (]) 21:23, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Editing this article without discussion to obtain consensus may subject you to ]. Please see the notice at the top of this page. <font color="#500000">]</font><font color="#005000">]</font> 15:20, 17 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
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Is this a valid disambig page?
An article I have watchlisted Eliza Smith has been turned into a disambig page, with the article that was there previously moved to Eliza Smith (writer). Added to the new disabig page are Eliza Kennedy Smith, Eliza Bland Smith Erskine Norton and Eliza Doyle Smith. All three of the 'non-Eliza Smith' articles have been around for a while with no need for a disambig page (particularly one that isn't Eliza Smith). Is this not a case where hatnotes would be preferable to a disambig page, given they have 'natural' disambiguators? (I ask this from a position of complete ignorance on disambig pages, which I rarely get involved with... - SchroCat (talk) 09:10, 2 October 2024 (UTC)
- The place to ask such questions is usually Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Disambiguation, but I can tell you right now that the answer you will get is that this is a perfectly fine disambiguation page. Any person with a given first name and last name is likely to be identifiable by that name, irrespective of whether a middle name (or maiden name) is interposed. If there is an argument that Eliza Smith (writer) is the primary topic of the page, then the disambiguation page can be moved to a "Foo (disambiguation)" title, but it seems unlikely that such a short article on a person prominent so many decades ago would be primary. BD2412 T 12:49, 2 October 2024 (UTC)
- That's great - thanks very much. I don't think the writer is likely to be the primary (or at least, if she is, it'll be by a very narrow margin and I'd be surprised),but it's good to know. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 12:55, 2 October 2024 (UTC)
- Of course not, but it could become clearer if the Disambiguation page is improved for readability. RealAdil (talk) 09:07, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
Remove UE as a whole.
It makes no sense that anything that has a non-English name is translated in English. I think this should be revised considering that in Québec, we fought tooth and nail to protect our language, and now English Misplaced Pages mindlessly follow the English-language newspapers without ever considering what the majority of French-language newspapers says. LilianaUwU 04:31, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- This Misplaced Pages is written in English. We follow English-language usage. If you prefer to read Misplaced Pages in French, then the link is http://fr.wikipedia.org. 162 etc. (talk) 04:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- English or not, when the French name is the only official one, whether sources use another name is not important. Maybe I'm wrong when it comes to the PLQ, but there are plenty other examples where it's not the case. LilianaUwU 04:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- >whether sources use another name is not important
- Well, it is. Per the policy, "Misplaced Pages does not necessarily use the subject's official name as an article title; it generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable, English-language sources.)"
- I seriously doubt that you'll find consensus to change that. 162 etc. (talk) 05:00, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- UE doesn't hold that titles should be universally translated to English, it only holds that titles should use the form that's most common in English-language RS. (In this respect, it basically extends the principles of WP:COMMONNAME and WP:RSUE.) This often results in the adoption of translated titles, but also allows for moves in the other direction if sources support it: for instance, the article Seitō (magazine) used to be titled after the magazine's translated name Bluestockings, but moved to its current title by RM consensus because Seitō was more prevalent in English sourcing. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 18:16, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- English or not, when the French name is the only official one, whether sources use another name is not important. Maybe I'm wrong when it comes to the PLQ, but there are plenty other examples where it's not the case. LilianaUwU 04:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
It makes no sense that anything that has a non-English name is translated in English.
Then you should be pleased to learn your premise is mistaken: the guideline doesn't call for that (read it again: it says "should follow English-language usage", not "should translate into English"), and not everything that has a non-English name is translated to English here (though it may be transliterated): Der Spiegel (not "The Mirror"), Mainichi Shimbun (not "Daily Newspaper"), Haaretz (not "The Land"), Touche pas à mon poste ! (not "Don't touch my TV!"), Amores perros (not "Love's a Bitch"), Izvestia (not "News"), Livorno (not "Leghorn"), Mechelen (not "Mechlin"), etc. Even with respect to Quebec: we have Trois-Rivières, not "Three Rivers".- As far as I know, what's been fought for in Quebec is the primacy of French and the use of authentic French words when speaking and writing in French, not to dictate to users of English how to speak and write English when they are speaking and writing in English. In any event, this isn't Misplaced Pages for Quebec, it's English Misplaced Pages for the entire world.
- Further, French Misplaced Pages has articles titled fr:Royaume-Uni and fr:États-Unis and fr:Californie, not "United Kingdom" and "United States" and "California". Why should English Misplaced Pages follow a different approach? Largoplazo (talk) 18:33, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
- Why would we consider what French-language newspapers say when we ARE WRITING IN ENGLISH? I don't tell you how to speak and write French, your attempt tell us how to speak and write English is monstrously offensive. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:48, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
- And to the list of examples, one could add Mein Kampf (not My Struggle), Cirque du Soleil (not Sun Circus), Pravda (not Truth), Germany (not Deutschland), and on and on. I can only agree strongly with Khajidha: your premise is mistaken, your argumentation is baseless, and your proposal has no chance. Feel free to raise it again, though, after you have fixed the titles of the following articles at French Misplaced Pages so they all have the proper English titles: Californie, Irlande, Le Cap, Chambre des lords, Parc national de Yellowstone, and La Nouvelle-Orléans. Et passez une très bonne journée ! Mathglot (talk) 06:08, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
- WP:OFFICIALNAME is also pertinent here, since part of the basis of the OP's idea seems to be that because the organization's official name is English, en.WP has to write it that way regardless what the preponderance of English-language sources are doing. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:44, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
- We don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but USEENGLISH is, in my view, second only to COMMONNAME in how much there's a disconnect between what people think it says and what it actually says. Misplaced Pages deliberately does not have a preferred form of English, yet, for example, I often see people in NZ-related RMs try to pull the "Māori-derived terms aren't really English" card (which coincides with the recent anti-indigenous pushback amongst white conservatives in AU/NZ politics). I think we do need a WP:NWFCTM equivalent for the article titles policy, because even though some older people halfway across the world might still call it "Ayers Rock", the COMMONNAME for years has always been Uluru. Sceptre (talk) 19:11, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
- If I were king for a day, I would just delete the WP:USEENGLISH redirect and call it WP:USEENGLISHSOURCES instead. When it's the shortcut that's causing the misunderstanding, no amount of nuance in the policy itself is likely to help. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:18, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
Clarification regarding language of WP:RECOGNIZABILITY
Hello,
I am writing to inquire about the phrasing ...the subject area...
in the Recognizability description. Does ...subject area...
refer to the general topic area of an article's content or specifically the subject matter of the article in question? I ask because I have been participating in multiple WP:RM discussions, especially in the context of WP:NCROY. In addition, how ...subject area...
is interpreted can affect my !vote rationale.
| Example for those confused about my inquiry |
|---|
|
To illustrate my point, consider the example of the article title for Emperor Alexander III of Russia. If In contrast, if |
Please note that I am not asking this to rehash or pre-empt a move request involving WP:NCROY (In any case, I am skeptical that the Russian emperor is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for Alexander III because Alexander the Great a Scottish king had the same regnal name and number). I am asking this because I have never received an explicit clarification on this matter in the various RMs I have participated in.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you,
AndrewPeterT (talk) (contribs) 19:41, 1 November 2024 (UTC), last edited 14:48, 3 November 2024 (UTC)
- N
- Virtually nobody remembers Alexander the Great's regnal number, so he is obviously not a candidate for the primary topic.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:16, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for noting this. I admit that I thought about that when I was writing my query, but I also believed that Alexander the Great could still be the primary topic for Alexander III on technical grounds. I probably should have used Alexander III of Scotland, who is commonly known by that regnal number, to illustrate my point. AndrewPeterT (talk) (contribs) 14:48, 3 November 2024 (UTC)
- Taking the revised version of the OP's scenario, of "Alexander III" in particular: in English-language sources, the Scottish monarch still only has only a bit more than half as much RS coverage as the Russian one . Whether 12K sources for the Scot and 20K for the Russian firmly establishes the latter as the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC might be open to some disputation (which would not be the case if it were something like 3K to 175K split). But the Scottish one clearly is not primary, and he would probably be the leading contender against the Russian by a wide margin. To answer the OP's more general question, "subject area" in this sense means heads of state and comparable figures (such as Popes and a few other people usually known by "Foobar IV" regnal-style numbering, perhaps inclusive of major non-states like duchies in some cases). It doesn't mean anything narrower that's dependent on the specific article content and context (like being Russian or from a particular era). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:56, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for noting this. I admit that I thought about that when I was writing my query, but I also believed that Alexander the Great could still be the primary topic for Alexander III on technical grounds. I probably should have used Alexander III of Scotland, who is commonly known by that regnal number, to illustrate my point. AndrewPeterT (talk) (contribs) 14:48, 3 November 2024 (UTC)
Request for comment on the relationship between WP:CRITERIA and WP:TITLEFORMAT
NO There is consensus that WP:TITLEFORMAT does not take precedence over WP:CRITERIA. Editors should continue to balance all relevant guidelines and policies when determining article titles, without giving inherent precedence to either section.Most participants agreed that both sections are integral parts of the Article titles policy and should be balanced and considered equally when determining titles in a requested move (RM) discussion, on a case-by-case basis using the context of an article. Editors argued that neither section should override the other universally; instead, contributors should weigh all relevant factors alongside the policy's text. Some editors also suggested that WP:COMMONNAME and relevant sections in the Manual of Style were an additional important consideration in RM discussions.
The minority of contributors supporting the primacy of WP:TITLEFORMAT communicated that the strong and direct language in the section (e.g. "do" / "must" rather than "should do" / "can do") established precedence. However, opposing participants argued that policies are not set in stone, and that disagreements over their interpretation should be resolved through consensus-based discussions rather than strictly following the exact wording of the policy (WP:NOTLAW and WP:IAR). Furthermore, while editors supporting primacy also contended that enforcing precedence would prevent potential conflicts and maintain internal consistency within the policy, opposing editors rebutted that such disharmony and inconsistency was not widespread under the status quo.
Frostly (talk) 06:11, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
(non-admin closure)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.
For any proposed article title determined by the application of WP:CRITERIA the proposed title should nonetheless comply with WP:TITLEFORMAT (ie WP:TITLEFORMAT has primacy over WP:CRITERIA). Cinderella157 (talk) 00:03, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
For simplicity, comments can be made as a Yes or No to the RfC proposition.
Background
At WP:TITLEFORMAT, it is stated: The following points are used in deciding on questions not covered by the five principles; consistency on these helps avoid duplicate articles
.
The meaning of any particular part of a policy should be construed within the fuller context and not in isolation. The question considers whether the two sections exist in harmony with each other or whether the application of any of the five criteria can be construed to over-ride any of the matters detailed in WP:TITLEFORMAT.
This RfC does not propose a change to the wording of this policy nor does it preclude a change. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:16, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Note: Just as there are five principles listed at WP:CRITERIA, there are eleven matters (sections) to WP:TITLEFORMAT. The proposition deals with the relationship between WP:CRITERIA (as a whole) and WP:TITLEFORMAT (as a whole). 08:25, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Intent The intent of this RfC is to determine what the policy is actually telling us as written (how it should reasonably be construed) as opposed to what editors think the policy should be telling us. If there is a disjunction between the two, then an amendment to the policy is indicated but that would be another issue.
Pinging editors that have already commented: WhatamIdoing, Thryduulf, Voorts, SnowFire, Adumbrativus, Extraordinary Writ, Novem Linguae and Mdewman6. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:35, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
Comments
- Yes (as proposer) The wording at the intro to TITLEFORMAT states the considerations detailed therein are
not covered by the five principles
- matters raised therein fall outside the scope of CRITERIA. The matters identified at TITLEFORMAT mainly exist for technical reasons that should not be over-ridden (noting that it is rare to use must not on WP). Reading the subject guidance in the full context of this policy, the proposition represents both the spirit and intent and the letter of the policy. Accepting the proposition asserts a harmony between the two individual sections. Rejecting the proposition creates tension and disharmony within the policy. That would assume that the drafters of the policy lacked the perception to see such a conflict of ideas and/or, that such a conflict should exist. By Occam's razor (or at least its corollary) the reasonable (simplest) view is that the intention is one of harmony between the two sections. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:46, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
- PS Many of the eleven matters identified at TITLEFORMAT use unambiguous emphatic language such as do not or use rather than should use. Such language serves to tell us that these matters are not optional. They are definitely not informing us on
how to balance the five criteria
. These are things that a proposed title cannot violate. Such language quite clearly establishes the relationship with CRITERIA and the primacy of the matters at TITLEFORMAT collectively. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:51, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
- For context, this stems from this discussion (about this RM), where I was asked as closer to disregard !votes that invoked consistency. I declined to do so since I feel consistency is a policy consideration (WP:CONSISTENT; WP:CRITERIA) that editors are allowed to balance against other factors, but if editors think that style guidelines like MOS:CAPS should always take precedence, I'm happy to be recalibrated. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 01:08, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
- Just to be clear, it is not that MOS:CAPS takes precedence (at least not directly). It is that WP:LOWERCASE is part of WP:TITLEFORMAT. The weight given to MOS:CAPS comes from within WP:AT. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:26, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
- No WP:TITLEFORMAT should not have primacy over WP:CRITERIA; both are part of the WP:AT policy and should carry equal weight. WP:TITLEFORMAT addresses issues not directly addressed by WP:CRITERIA, in other words, it informs how to balance and invoke the 5 criteria, but is not something that the criteria can 'violate' or not. In the case of that RM, the fundamental question is whether "battle" is part of the proper noun or not, which essentially is a WP:COMMONNAME question- how do reliable sources normally write it. Thus, we have MOS:CAPS and, more specifically, MOS:MILCAPS, which are WP:GUIDELINES, which are specific invocations of a combination of WP:COMMONNAME and WP:LOWERCASE, which are both WP:POLICY. I don't think WP:CONSISTENT arguments should be completely discounted, but it's up to the RM participants and the closer to determine how much weight they carry. WP:CONSISTENT states consistency should be the goal
to the extent it is practical
and WP:TITLECON (an essay) discusses consistency argumentswhen other considerations are equal
so it seems clear consistency should not be the only consideration. Personally, I think most battles significant enough to be known as "battle of x", "battle" is clearly part of the proper noun (the event usually being more important than where it occurred), but we must follow reliable sources. Mdewman6 (talk) 03:06, 18 November 2024 (UTC) - No. Both policy sections include various factors that are used to determine an appropriate title on a case by case basis. In an RM discussion, any relevant factors should be balanced and weighed against one another to reach consensus. I don't see evidence of disharmony or major inconsistency requiring a massive change to policy. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:29, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
- This RfC does not propose a change to policy. It is a question of how the spirit and intent and the letter of two different parts of the policy, as they exist, should be reasonably construed. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:37, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
- That's splitting hairs. If there's only one way of reasonaly construing a policy, then that construction becomes the policy. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:32, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
- Reading CRITERIA and the supporting sections addressing the five principles (within the full context of the policy), it is essentially telling us that a proposed title is determined by weighing each principle and that each principle need not be given equal weight in a particular case. However, TITLEFORMAT tells us that the matters therein are
questions not covered by the five principles
- ie they are outside the scope of CRITERIA and the five principles. The matters at TITLEFORMAT are clearly quite separate from CRITERIA. The eleven matters at TITLEFORMAT tell us to do a certain thing, to not do a certain thing or that certain things might be done in narrowly construed circumstances. Compared with CRITERIA (and the five sections that explain the individual principles) TITLEFORMAT uses emphatic language. Reading the individual sections in the fuller context of the whole policy, TITLEFORMAT is essentially telling us to discard or modify a proposed title if it does not conform to any of the eleven matters therein. At no point does it suggest that any of the five principles mightcover
any of the matters at TITLEFORMAT. Consequently, it is not reasonable to posture that any of the five principles, either individually or in combination, might over-ride or supplant any of the matters at TITLEFORMAT - especially those which are made emphatically without exception. - Yes, there is only one way that a rule, law or policy should be reasonably construed if it is robustly constructed - eg without ambiguity. But that is not always the case. Consequently, in the real world, rules and laws are often tested to determine how they should be reasonably construed. I make a reasoned case that the letter of the policy is that, matters at TITLEFORMAT have primacy over CRITERIA. In consequence there is harmony between the two sections internally and a harmony between WP:AT and other associated P&G. The internal and external harmony evidences that construing the relationship between the two sections this way represents not only the letter of the policy but the spirit and intent of the policy. Asserting otherwise creates tension, ambiguity, inconsistency and disharmony between the two sections and related P&G where none exists otherwise. Is there a reasoned argument that the alternative accurately represents the letter of the policy and the spirit and intent or is it just an opinion that I don't like it, then it should be made.
- Yes,
n an RM discussion, any relevant factors should be balanced and weighed against one another
. However, arguing an internal contradiction within a policy where none reasonably exists would be illogical and flatly contradict the policy. Accordingly, it should be discarded. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:07, 20 November 2024 (UTC)- Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines are not statutes. They are not written by a single body at a single point of time; there's no legislative drafters or style guide; and the overriding concerns are not precision, consistency, or rule of law. Rather, they are written by several editors—many with opposing viewpoints—over the course of decades according to a process that values consensus, with the recognition that ignore all rules is an overriding principle. Your interpretation of AT as written might be correct, but it's beside the point. In current practice, RM discussions generally involve editors making arguments based on COMMONNAME, CRITERIA, TITLEFORMAT, or any of the various naming conventions, and then weighing between those arguments. One discussion might conclude with a consensus that consistency is more important than concision, while another might result in using a common name instead of a precise title. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:23, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
If there's only one way of reasonaly construing a policy, then that construction becomes the policy.
We can only construe a policy base on what is written. The purpose and intent of this RfC is to determine how the relationship between CRITERIA and TITLEFORMAT should be construed based on what is written within the fuller context of the policy. This is exactly the point. Proposing a title (be it the initial title or at an RM) is about balancing the five criteria for any particular case. That is what the policy is telling us and it is not disputed. But this is not the question posed by the RfC nor the point of the RfC. If the policy is telling us to comply with TITLEFORMAT, then that is what we do too. The intent of the RfC is not to determine what editors think the policy should say but what it actually says. If it doesn't say what the community think it should say, then it is ""broke" and should be fixed. However, that would be another matter since it is not the intent of this RfC to change the policy. Furthermore, IAR is not a get out of jail free card to be exercised whenever one just doesn't like the rules. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:06, 20 November 2024 (UTC)- I'm a lawyer. I love getting in the weeds and arguing about the meaning of the law. But that's not how Misplaced Pages interprets or creates rules. Editors operate based on consensus, not legalistic readings of P&Gs. Please review WP:RAP and WP:PPP. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:10, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines are not statutes. They are not written by a single body at a single point of time; there's no legislative drafters or style guide; and the overriding concerns are not precision, consistency, or rule of law. Rather, they are written by several editors—many with opposing viewpoints—over the course of decades according to a process that values consensus, with the recognition that ignore all rules is an overriding principle. Your interpretation of AT as written might be correct, but it's beside the point. In current practice, RM discussions generally involve editors making arguments based on COMMONNAME, CRITERIA, TITLEFORMAT, or any of the various naming conventions, and then weighing between those arguments. One discussion might conclude with a consensus that consistency is more important than concision, while another might result in using a common name instead of a precise title. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:23, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- Reading CRITERIA and the supporting sections addressing the five principles (within the full context of the policy), it is essentially telling us that a proposed title is determined by weighing each principle and that each principle need not be given equal weight in a particular case. However, TITLEFORMAT tells us that the matters therein are
- That's splitting hairs. If there's only one way of reasonaly construing a policy, then that construction becomes the policy. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:32, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
- This RfC does not propose a change to policy. It is a question of how the spirit and intent and the letter of two different parts of the policy, as they exist, should be reasonably construed. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:37, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
- No. Voorts puts it well. Both sections contain factors that need to be considered in the context of an individual discussion and neither can be correctly stated as stronger than the other in all cases. Thryduulf (talk) 23:02, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
- This RFC could use some examples placed prominently towards the top somewhere. I read it twice and do not understand it. If I spent another 5 minutes reading the linked policies I could probably puzzle it out, but including that information here would be helpful. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:35, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
- Novem Linguae, it is a question of whether CRITERIA (or any particular principle therein) would over-ride any (one or more) of the eleven matters at TITLEFORMAT, noting that for many of these matters the language used is emphatic rather than optional. My response to Voorts might better explain the issue. I will give some examples if this helps. Some of these are related/analogous to article title discussions that have occurred.
- Would a proposed title that uses title case over-ride LOWERCASE on the basis that article titles using title case are more RECOGNISABLE or more NATURAL than article titles written in sentence case?
- Would a proposed title of #tag over-ride WP:TSC on the basis of recognisability/COMMONNAME?
- Would a series of sub-articles on a topic in a format similar to "Azerbaijan/Transport" (though using some character other than "/") on the basis of CONSISTENT, NATURAL or CONCISE over-ride Do not create subsidiary articles?
- Would one have a title "The Department of Foo", over-riding WP:DEFINITE on the basis of CONSISTENT and COMMONNAME (we always see "the Department of Foo" in sources) or "Wild horses", using a similar argument to over-ride WP:SINGULAR.
- Would we have "X Plate" for the names of individual tectonic plates citing CONSISTENT because all WP articles use "X Plate" over-riding LOWERCASE even though none of the individual plate names are consistently capped in sources. Or do we change all of these to lowercase on the basis of CONSISTENT because the majority of cases are consistently not capitalised in sources?
- Would CONCISE over-ride WP:TSC to use "¿" for an article about the inverted question mark?
- Cinderella157 (talk) 02:19, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- Novem Linguae, it is a question of whether CRITERIA (or any particular principle therein) would over-ride any (one or more) of the eleven matters at TITLEFORMAT, noting that for many of these matters the language used is emphatic rather than optional. My response to Voorts might better explain the issue. I will give some examples if this helps. Some of these are related/analogous to article title discussions that have occurred.
- No, Voorts is correct. Adumbrativus (talk) 02:37, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
- No. If any one guideline should have precedence, it's WP:COMMONNAME, which is the titling equivalent of how Misplaced Pages handles everything else (e.g. WP:DUEWEIGHT for when sources disagree on more factual matters). Perhaps WP:NPOVNAME, too (the titling equivalent of WP:NPOV). (Not seriously mentioning these as counterproposals, just an "IMO" on priority.)
- Part 2: I don't want to sidetrack, but I also disagree that this is even applicable to the sample RM that caused this (which I did not participate in). Suppose an editor performs a, for purpose of discussion, indisputably incorrect ngrams analysis. They screwed something up, made a typo, who knows. But the results of that faulty ngram analysis indicate some rule in TITLEFORMAT should predominate. But... it doesn't matter, because garbage in, garbage out, so the would-be TITLEFORMAT guidance doesn't even really apply. Okay, the case of a clear error isn't common, but what's more common is a contested ngram analysis. Cinderella said in that RM and in others that ngrams can overstate the rate of capitalization, but a lot of people disagree and believe that ngrams can understate the rate of capitalization by mixing in normal uses of the term. Which side is "right" isn't important here, but the point is, if the raw evidence is contested, a closer shouldn't just close "because (some policy in TITLEFORMAT) says so". There's really two claims afoot here, one of raw evidence and one of how to apply policy, and the first is often harder to parse! I've seen RMs close on arguments that are (IMO) inarguably at variance with the facts on the ground, and I'm sure that others think the same in reverse of me. Point is, it's not even clear that this proposed change does what it's implied to do, and if it does it would lead to absurdities like my example before of a faulty analysis somehow prevailing because it invoked the "right" policy on the wrong grounds. SnowFire (talk) 00:00, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- SnowFire, firstly, there is no change to WP:AT proposed here at all. The question is about how the existing letter and spirit and intent of the relationship between CRITERIA and TITLEFORMAT should be (correctly) construed. Secondly, while the discussion with Extraordinary Writ may have led to this RfC (one followed the other), the RM being discussed there was not the only matter leading to this RM. In that RM it was argued that the CONSISTENT over-rode LOWERCASE - not because of source evidence that the title should be lowercase but because of an unsubstantiated claim that of a convention to use alternative capitalisation regardless of what sources did for a particular case. While CONSISTENT exists, if a cited policy exists it must also be reasonably construed if it is to be given any weight. This RM has nothing to do with the evidence presented at that or any other RM. But addressing your point without getting sidetracked, it is the role of commenting editors to present appropriate evidence to support their case and for editors opposing that case to interrogate such evidence to confirm it does evidence what it is purported to (noting that capitalisation is essentially a statistical question that requires a polling of sources to determine the proportion of capitalisation in prose). This RM is not just about the relationship of LOWERCASE to any one or more of the principles at CRITERIA. It addresses the relationship of CRITERIA to all of the matters covered by TITLEFORMAT, where I have seen discussions relating to LOWERCASE, SINGULAR, DEFINITE, subsidiary articles, persons names, TCS and trademarks that have prompted this. That is the reasons why this RfC is about the relationship between CRITERIA and TITLEFORMAT rather than CRITERIA and LOWECASE. Perhaps I might put this in perspective for you and link to your comment (response to me) here, even though it is about the relationship between CONSISTENT and LOWERCASE. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:22, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- Don't want to talk too much about a specific RM rather than the overall change, but if I had !voted in that RM, then yes, I would have placed very little weight on WP:CONSISTENT. And I agree with you that the community should take CONSISTENT less seriously. But I also think that this is a matter already mostly handled fine by our consensus process. If other editors in good standing want to prioritize CONSISTENT in areas I disagree, that's their right - the MOS is inherently suggestions rather than mandated right or wrong things, as it has to be because language changes over time.
- The larger issue for me is the ngrams one - I'm thinking of stuff like the "Eurasian P/plate" RM where there was just a failure to agree on reality, and the closer bought the ngrams argument over the "here's what geologists who actually work in the field say" argument (which was a crazy thing to dismiss as "vibes"!). If you say that this isn't the issue you're raising here, fine, I could be persuaded to abstain, but I think that was the core of the original Battle of Panipat discussion, common name as decided by ngram analysis. If hypothetically it was indisputable there was completely no common name at all and just wild variance, then sure, lowercase b, and if hypothetically it was indisputable the > X% Battle usage threshold was met (where X varies by editor), then clearly it should be capital B. But as mentioned above, it is rare for the matter to be indisputable! So fiddling with which policy "wins" should have had little effect in my book, as the question was truly one of COMMONNAME, and that is clearly one where people just greatly disagree. (i.e. that we're just talking about a different reason to not move, that of "didn't make a convincing enough COMMONNAME case.") SnowFire (talk) 03:57, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- Picking ngrams over reliable sources is just incorrect. COMMONNAME itself says we should follow the most reliable sources. voorts (talk/contributions) 04:07, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- I couldn't agree more, but, unfortunately, that's not always how move discussions have gone in the past. I strongly believe the usage in relevant reliable sources should trump the usage of ngrams, which take into account a large swath of sources that may be unfamiliar with proper usage and capitalization. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:02, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- Ngrams are generally the gold standard for assessing common name because unlike your search for "relevant reliable sources", which is an undefined and imprecise definition, they provide an objective and unbiased look at a wide variety of sources with a clear measure that isn't defined by anyone on Misplaced Pages, not to mention analysis by year. And book sources are usually presumed to be at the upper echelons of reliability too. Far too many RMs use cherry-picked lists of sources, many of which are part of the WP:OFFICIALNAMES phallacy and are often just designed to support whatever viewpoint the RM nominator wants to convey. — Amakuru (talk) 23:15, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- Ngrams can be useful when it is clear that a single phrase refers to only a single topic and is used only in a single context. However when a single phrase has refers to multiple topics and/or is used in multiple context then it is not an accurate representation of any of them. Thryduulf (talk) 01:08, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
- This is exactly my point of view, and it's why every title with a common noun in it, whether a proper name or not, seemingly ends up being downcased. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:24, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
- Ngrams can be useful when it is clear that a single phrase refers to only a single topic and is used only in a single context. However when a single phrase has refers to multiple topics and/or is used in multiple context then it is not an accurate representation of any of them. Thryduulf (talk) 01:08, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
- Ngrams are generally the gold standard for assessing common name because unlike your search for "relevant reliable sources", which is an undefined and imprecise definition, they provide an objective and unbiased look at a wide variety of sources with a clear measure that isn't defined by anyone on Misplaced Pages, not to mention analysis by year. And book sources are usually presumed to be at the upper echelons of reliability too. Far too many RMs use cherry-picked lists of sources, many of which are part of the WP:OFFICIALNAMES phallacy and are often just designed to support whatever viewpoint the RM nominator wants to convey. — Amakuru (talk) 23:15, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- I couldn't agree more, but, unfortunately, that's not always how move discussions have gone in the past. I strongly believe the usage in relevant reliable sources should trump the usage of ngrams, which take into account a large swath of sources that may be unfamiliar with proper usage and capitalization. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:02, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Another case where an ngrams argument was simply incorrect was a situation where there were two topics with the same name, one was a proper noun and the other a common noun (it was an article about a geographically named regional railway line in England but I forget which one). One participant did not understand that there were two distinct topics - a specific individual railway line (the subject of the article) and railway lines in general in the same place - and kept insisting the ngrams showed that it wasn't a proper noun. However in reality the ngrams did not (and could not) distinguish between the two. There needs to be flexibility to interpret the context of the specific discussion and that is lacking from this proposal Thryduulf (talk) 04:08, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- Picking ngrams over reliable sources is just incorrect. COMMONNAME itself says we should follow the most reliable sources. voorts (talk/contributions) 04:07, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- SnowFire, firstly, there is no change to WP:AT proposed here at all. The question is about how the existing letter and spirit and intent of the relationship between CRITERIA and TITLEFORMAT should be (correctly) construed. Secondly, while the discussion with Extraordinary Writ may have led to this RfC (one followed the other), the RM being discussed there was not the only matter leading to this RM. In that RM it was argued that the CONSISTENT over-rode LOWERCASE - not because of source evidence that the title should be lowercase but because of an unsubstantiated claim that of a convention to use alternative capitalisation regardless of what sources did for a particular case. While CONSISTENT exists, if a cited policy exists it must also be reasonably construed if it is to be given any weight. This RM has nothing to do with the evidence presented at that or any other RM. But addressing your point without getting sidetracked, it is the role of commenting editors to present appropriate evidence to support their case and for editors opposing that case to interrogate such evidence to confirm it does evidence what it is purported to (noting that capitalisation is essentially a statistical question that requires a polling of sources to determine the proportion of capitalisation in prose). This RM is not just about the relationship of LOWERCASE to any one or more of the principles at CRITERIA. It addresses the relationship of CRITERIA to all of the matters covered by TITLEFORMAT, where I have seen discussions relating to LOWERCASE, SINGULAR, DEFINITE, subsidiary articles, persons names, TCS and trademarks that have prompted this. That is the reasons why this RfC is about the relationship between CRITERIA and TITLEFORMAT rather than CRITERIA and LOWECASE. Perhaps I might put this in perspective for you and link to your comment (response to me) here, even though it is about the relationship between CONSISTENT and LOWERCASE. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:22, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- Part 2: I don't want to sidetrack, but I also disagree that this is even applicable to the sample RM that caused this (which I did not participate in). Suppose an editor performs a, for purpose of discussion, indisputably incorrect ngrams analysis. They screwed something up, made a typo, who knows. But the results of that faulty ngram analysis indicate some rule in TITLEFORMAT should predominate. But... it doesn't matter, because garbage in, garbage out, so the would-be TITLEFORMAT guidance doesn't even really apply. Okay, the case of a clear error isn't common, but what's more common is a contested ngram analysis. Cinderella said in that RM and in others that ngrams can overstate the rate of capitalization, but a lot of people disagree and believe that ngrams can understate the rate of capitalization by mixing in normal uses of the term. Which side is "right" isn't important here, but the point is, if the raw evidence is contested, a closer shouldn't just close "because (some policy in TITLEFORMAT) says so". There's really two claims afoot here, one of raw evidence and one of how to apply policy, and the first is often harder to parse! I've seen RMs close on arguments that are (IMO) inarguably at variance with the facts on the ground, and I'm sure that others think the same in reverse of me. Point is, it's not even clear that this proposed change does what it's implied to do, and if it does it would lead to absurdities like my example before of a faulty analysis somehow prevailing because it invoked the "right" policy on the wrong grounds. SnowFire (talk) 00:00, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- No, it's the other way around. Recognizability, naturalness, precision, concision, and consistency are more important than things like "Use singular form" and "Avoid definite and indefinite articles" and "Do not enclose titles in quotes". It should usually be possible to comply with all of these, but I pick the first set of principles over the little details. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:52, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- No, voorts is correct that our goal is not applying textualist analysis to whether WP:TITLEFORMAT is making those eleven points secondary to the five points of WP:CRITERIA or the superseding formatting guidelines. Any of these sixteen concepts can be the means to decide a requested move. ViridianPenguin 🐧 ( 💬 ) 16:15, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- No per WhatamIdoing. Ajpolino (talk) 22:14, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- No. WP:COMMONNAME is by far the most important thing to consider for titles (and yes, that often means looking at ngrams as well as other evidence). Where there's a clear common name, the policy and longstanding practice mean we rarely fail to use that - even where consistency might not be met. If and only if the common name is unclear, then we invoke the five criteria directly and try to reach a consensus on which title fits them best. If after all that there's still a lack of clarity, then I'd invoke TITLEFORMAT at that point, but not any earlier. — Amakuru (talk) 23:20, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
- Yes. Cinderella157's analysis is correct, and many of the TITLEFORMAT points are non-optional, while all of the criteria are a prioritization juggling game of various preferences, any of which can be sacrificed when outweighed by other considerations, while much of TITLEFORMAT cannot. To the extent anything in TITLEFORMAT is actually optional, the solution is to separate its material into two lists, of mandatory versus conditional matters. The "No" commenters here all appear to be missing the point, and seem to have been triggered into strange defensive contortions by wording like "supersede" or "override". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:03, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
- The only truly non-optional point under TITLEFORMAT is TSC because that's a technical, rather than style, issue. At least four of the TITLEFORMAT points have exceptions—including singular form, don't use abbreviations, use nouns, and trademarked names—so they are not required in all circumstances. Several of them don't really ever come into play in RMs, like use sentence case, subsidiary articles, don't use quotation marks, and italics, largely because nobody could credibly argue against those. For example, I can't think of a circumstance where we wouldn't italicize a film or book page title. The follow reliable sources point is just an amalgam of several of the CRITERIA. Regarding your analysis of the no !votes: the RfC is expressly asking us whether a certain part of a policy should supersede another. Indeed, Cinderella157 has used the phrase "over-ride" 8 times in this discussion so far. It's not a "strange defensive contortion" to respond to those points. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:27, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
- The constant flood of over-capitalization RMs of multi-word titles tells us that "use sentence case" is actually quite important; while no one proposes "Use title case!", what they want effectively amounts to that, so this line-item in the policy is an additional shield against their over-stylization whims (though lack of consistent support in independent RS is more often the main one, whether it be a MOS:CAPS or MOS:TM or MOS:SIGCAPS or MOS:DOCTCAPS or MOS:SPORTCAPS question). The point about quotation marks actually does come up, though rarely (mostly with regard to phrases from conventional quotations or from Internet memes, and exceptionally with regard to titles of works that have internal, or are surrounded by, quotation marks of their own, like some famous David Bowie material). Italics: we have a long-term, persistent contingent who hate that WP house style is to put all major works in italics regardless of medium (they want to deny this style to electronic publications). I have to rather amusedly note that your engaging in another defensive contortion, handwring over just how many times the proponent used a term that triggered your defensive reaction, has rather the opposite of your intended effect of disproving my point.
The question here is quite simple: which section of the policy has precedence when there's a perception of conflict beteen them? The answer has to be TITLEFORMAT because making it secondary would regularly (not strangely exceptionally, when sources really seem to dictate it) produce inconsistent titles even within the same category of subjects, yet CRITERIA includes CONSISTENT. That is, CRITERIA is effectively telling us, in CONSISENT, that it is secondary to TITLEFORMAT.
A potential way around the problem, or perceived problem, here would be to merge these sections one way or another, so that all the actual title criteria we employ, including formatting ones, are in one place. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:05, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
- Please stop calling the no !votes defensive contortions. You said no !votes were using words like "override"; I was pointing out that it was Cinderella using that word. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:29, 22 November 2024 (UTC)
- Except I said nothing like that at all, but quite the opposite, namely that Cinderella157 did in fact use these terms and then you and various other "No" !voters are reflexively and emotionally reacting to what they could mean in some other context instead of analyzing their actual meaning and implications in this context. So, your apparent anger at me here really has no basis. You either do not understand the argument I am making, or are striking the pose that you don't understand, because you don't like it but can't seem mount a sensible counter-argument. Regardless, I predict no utility in me going round in circles with you any further. This kind of argument to emotion stuff is just pointless and anti-consensus. Instead of responding to anything substantive I said, you've retreated to an "offended" posture, in which bluster is used as a hand-wave to dodge every single element of the substance, and that bluster is based on blatantly misreading everything I wrote. Straw-man. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:41, 24 November 2024 (UTC); tone revised 15:28, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
- Please stop calling the no !votes defensive contortions. You said no !votes were using words like "override"; I was pointing out that it was Cinderella using that word. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:29, 22 November 2024 (UTC)
- The constant flood of over-capitalization RMs of multi-word titles tells us that "use sentence case" is actually quite important; while no one proposes "Use title case!", what they want effectively amounts to that, so this line-item in the policy is an additional shield against their over-stylization whims (though lack of consistent support in independent RS is more often the main one, whether it be a MOS:CAPS or MOS:TM or MOS:SIGCAPS or MOS:DOCTCAPS or MOS:SPORTCAPS question). The point about quotation marks actually does come up, though rarely (mostly with regard to phrases from conventional quotations or from Internet memes, and exceptionally with regard to titles of works that have internal, or are surrounded by, quotation marks of their own, like some famous David Bowie material). Italics: we have a long-term, persistent contingent who hate that WP house style is to put all major works in italics regardless of medium (they want to deny this style to electronic publications). I have to rather amusedly note that your engaging in another defensive contortion, handwring over just how many times the proponent used a term that triggered your defensive reaction, has rather the opposite of your intended effect of disproving my point.
- The only truly non-optional point under TITLEFORMAT is TSC because that's a technical, rather than style, issue. At least four of the TITLEFORMAT points have exceptions—including singular form, don't use abbreviations, use nouns, and trademarked names—so they are not required in all circumstances. Several of them don't really ever come into play in RMs, like use sentence case, subsidiary articles, don't use quotation marks, and italics, largely because nobody could credibly argue against those. For example, I can't think of a circumstance where we wouldn't italicize a film or book page title. The follow reliable sources point is just an amalgam of several of the CRITERIA. Regarding your analysis of the no !votes: the RfC is expressly asking us whether a certain part of a policy should supersede another. Indeed, Cinderella157 has used the phrase "over-ride" 8 times in this discussion so far. It's not a "strange defensive contortion" to respond to those points. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:27, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
- No The point at issue is an attempt to lower-case an article title. WP:NOTLAW states that "
...the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice ... Disagreements are resolved through consensus-based discussion, not by tightly sticking to rules and procedures
". We had a consensus-based discussion and that establishes the accepted practice. If there then seems to be inconsistency in the rules then the rules should be loosened, not tightened, so as to accommodate the accepted practice. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:24, 22 November 2024 (UTC)- No, the point at issue is not an attempt to lowercase an article title. It was prompted by quite a number of discussions where the issue was not just LOWERCASE but other matters at TITLEFORMAT v CRITERIA.
The intent of this RfC is to determine what the policy is actually telling us as written (how it should reasonably be construed) as opposed to what editors think the policy should be telling us.
This is stated in the Background section. It continues:If there is a disjunction between the two, then an amendment to the policy is indicated but that would be another issue.
An inconsistency or a disjunction have the same result: if there is something wrong with how the policy is written then it needs to be amended and improved. It is unfortunate that responses here are more concerned with defending what people think the policy says than considering whether that is what it is saying in both the letter and the spirit and intent represented by consistency with other P&G. WP:RMCI states:Remember, the participants in any given discussion represent only a tiny fraction of the Misplaced Pages community whose consensus is reflected in the policy, guidelines and conventions to which all titles are to adhere.
There is a difference in CONLEVEL between P&G and an RM. Arguments at an RM are to be assigned weightgiving due consideration to the relevant consensus of the Misplaced Pages community in general as reflected in applicable policy, guidelines and naming conventions.
If there is an inconsistency in P&G in what it says or what it might be thought to say, then this should be remedied else it is a case of garbage in, garbage out. An unwritten principle of WP is continuous improvement. Even Voots grudgingly acknowledges I might be right. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:16, 22 November 2024 (UTC)
- No, the point at issue is not an attempt to lowercase an article title. It was prompted by quite a number of discussions where the issue was not just LOWERCASE but other matters at TITLEFORMAT v CRITERIA.
- We are told above that
For context, this stems from this discussion (about this RM)
. I did not participate in that discussion and am here as a member of the wider community following the listing at WP:CENT. Insofar as there's a wider issue, it's that this policy page is so huge (about 5,000 words) that it contains numerous competing considerations. How these should be balanced and used has to be decided on a case-by-case basis and that's what the RM discussion did. There isn't a formal order of precedence and so the answer is still No. Andrew🐉(talk) 15:36, 22 November 2024 (UTC)
- We are told above that
- No per all of the reasoning above (nomination request to simply say 'Yes' or 'No', so no, of course not). Randy Kryn (talk) 14:04, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
- No. To draw an analogy to broader Misplaced Pages governance—if the CRITERIA are the five pillars of titling, TITLEFORMAT is its MOS. In that sense, while we should follow TITLEFORMAT as much as is practical, it's nevertheless still possible for an argument to achieve consensus that a given article's title should diverge from TITLEFORMAT's norms in order to serve the overarching principles behind the titling process. Indeed, many of TITLEFORMAT's sections essentially enshrine this line of thinking outright, whether by noting standard exceptions (WP:SINGULAR, WP:DEFINITE, WP:NOUN) or directing us to follow the usage by RS (WP:TITLETM or the guidance on initials). ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:52, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
- No per Voorts, Andrew, SnowFire and others. They make the point much better than I could. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 15:47, 22 November 2024 (UTC)
- No - Probably over-kill at this point but simple formatting issues are not nearly as important as the issues that WP:CRITERIA addresses. FOARP (talk) 22:12, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
Reduce bloat, banners, and bananas
There's too much inaccessible content around this wiki. Also the sections in the article are trying to convey few things in many round-about ways. Verbosity is understandable, but not at the expense of wasting time of readers. Time is finite. For example, there's a wall of purple stuff right above this editor, there could be a yellow / red call-out above that, but I'm writing here, not in my browser's address bar. RealAdil (talk) 09:02, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
- The best way to reduce, is to remove entire sections, and then engage contention. Since it is categorised as contentious topic, resolving all raised concerns by humans here can be solved with active contention. RealAdil (talk) 09:04, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
- The wall of purple text is a closed talk page section. At this page, talk page sections are automatically archived 60 days after the last comment in that section if more than 5 sections are present. DrKay (talk) 09:19, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
Notice of move discussion
A move discussion is underway concerning the titles of several articles which may be of interest to this project. Interested parties can join the discussion. SerialNumber54129 10:29, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
Overprecision in (sports)people
Could you please check Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(sportspeople)#Overprecision. fgnievinski (talk) 23:09, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Edit: actually, the issue applies to all people: Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(people)#Edit_request_in_NCPDAB_(overprecision). fgnievinski (talk) 23:48, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Plural form in foods (important)
I would like to understand why, unlike some Italian foods (for example panini and cannoli), which are written in the plural, "hot dog" isn't written in the plural, although in Ngram the most common name is the plural; for English names this rule doesn't apply? JacktheBrown (talk) 20:07, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- Generally, we use the singular form unless the plural form is the overwhelming use in English. DrKay (talk) 20:16, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- @DrKay: exactly, and "hot dogs" is a slightly more common name than "hot dog", according to Ngram. JacktheBrown (talk) 20:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- I said overwhelming. slightly doesn't cut it. DrKay (talk) 20:21, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- @DrKay: all right. JacktheBrown (talk) 20:22, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- I said overwhelming. slightly doesn't cut it. DrKay (talk) 20:21, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- @DrKay: exactly, and "hot dogs" is a slightly more common name than "hot dog", according to Ngram. JacktheBrown (talk) 20:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- Panini and cannoli are a problem here. In English, they are singular. "I'd like a chicken panini, please, and a dozen cannoli(s) to go." I'd say English speakers are familiar enough with "-i" plurals (from "spaghetti", "linguini", etc.) that they may understand the use of these forms for the plural as well as for the singular, but they may not: it's "one cannoli", but either "two cannolis" or "two cannoli" is possible.
- See the second paragraph of the Etymology section of the Panini (sandwich) (you provided the wrong link) article. I see that the Cannoli article is confused about this, beginning, appallingly, with its first words, "Cannoli is". This is outright incorrect whether you're following Italian usage (in which case you'd have "Cannoli are") or English usage (in which case you'd have either "A cannoli is" or "Cannolis are"). See also Biscotti, which takes the approach of treating the word as plural, "Biscotti are".
- But one thing you generally won't hear from English speakers is "Can I have a panino/cannolo/biscotto, please"? And we don't even mean by "panini" or "biscotti" what Italian speakers mean by them. The same goes for "gelato". Largoplazo (talk) 00:25, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Largoplazo: what Americans and English, unfortunately, don't understand is that even we Italians don't usually say "spaghetto", because types of pasta are written in the plural even in Italian, but at the same time we Italians know which Italian foods to write only in the plural and which in both forms (however, it's written "linguine" and "fettuccine", not "linguini" and "fettuccini").
In any case, could you please correct the panini and cannoli pages? I'm not a native English speaker (also biscotti, crostini, grissini, panzerotti, pizzelle, salami, spumoni, and zeppole). Thanks in advance. JacktheBrown (talk) 18:01, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Largoplazo: what Americans and English, unfortunately, don't understand is that even we Italians don't usually say "spaghetto", because types of pasta are written in the plural even in Italian, but at the same time we Italians know which Italian foods to write only in the plural and which in both forms (however, it's written "linguine" and "fettuccine", not "linguini" and "fettuccini").
| O/t sidebar on favorite foods and recipes |
|---|
|
... we Italians don't usually say "spaghetto", because types of pasta are written in the plural even in Italian ...
: I'm supposing Italians don't usually say "spaghetto" because it's extremely uncommon for someone to have a reason to speak of a single spaghetti noodle and that, if an Italian did have a reason to refer to a single spaghetti noodle ("You dropped a spaghetti noodle on the floor"), they would call it "un spaghetto". Is that not correct? Largoplazo (talk) 13:07, 13 December 2024 (UTC)- @Largoplazo: exactly, well done, obviously also for this reason. Not to be picky, but it's spelled uno spaghetto. JacktheBrown (talk) 21:41, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- Ha, I know that rule, but forgot to apply it. It's been a while. Thanks. Largoplazo (talk) 22:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Largoplazo: don't worry, I'm glad that you tried. JacktheBrown (talk) 22:30, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- Ha, I know that rule, but forgot to apply it. It's been a while. Thanks. Largoplazo (talk) 22:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Largoplazo: exactly, well done, obviously also for this reason. Not to be picky, but it's spelled uno spaghetto. JacktheBrown (talk) 21:41, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- It's not just Italian cuisine. Some foods are naturally eaten in the plural: corn flakes, baked beans, sprinkles, etc. Hot dogs are more of a one-at-a-time food, even in a contest. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:05, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Andrew Davidson: panzerotti is also a food to be eaten one at a time (it's big), yet someone has decided to write this food in the plural ("panzerotti"). JacktheBrown (talk) 22:15, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- It is important to remember here, that two things do not count in trying to decide what the title should be: 1) logic, and 2) how it's done in Italian. This has nothing to do either with irrationality or anti-Italian sentiment, it's simply that in English Misplaced Pages we call things the way they are used in English (in published, reliable sources) and with words of Italian origin, sometimes it is the same as how it's done in Italy, and sometimes it's different. When it's different, we follow English usage. I don't know the policy at Italian Misplaced Pages, but I bet it is the same thing with English loanwords (with Italian usage being decisive, of course). Every language does this; it is nothing surprising. The phrase two computers in Italian is due computer, and any anglophone that shows up at Italian Misplaced Pages and tells them, "No no, it has to be due computers because you have to add -s in the plural" would have no leg to stand on. Other plurals: il film ⟶ i film; il bar ⟶ i bar; lo sport ⟶ gli sport; il club ⟶ i club, and so on. The situation here is the mirror image of that: we do not check what is correct in Italian when trying to determine what is the right title here; it plays no role. Mathglot (talk) 06:42, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- I'd be fine with panzerotto as that's what the OED entry has. That dish is similar to calzone which we have in the singular form. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:23, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- Would you please propose a title change? I already tried months ago, but I didn't convince anyone. JacktheBrown (talk) 07:42, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- "Calzone" notwithstanding, I think it will be a challenge to show that "a panzerotto" is more common than "a panzerotti". The use of the Italian singular form "calzone" as the English word doesn't show that English speakers are prone to using the Italian singular and plural correctly. In this case, "calzone" came through in singular form, but then in English no one calls more than one of them "calzoni", they're "calzones". (I'm not even sure how many people pronounce the "e".) And I guarantee that the plural of "pizza" is virtually always "pizzas" and not "pizze". The bottom line is: Stop trying to apply Italian grammar to the use of these words in English! It will only frustrate you. (Besides, it isn't as though Italian does a good job reflecting proper singular and plural of words it borrows from English—it doesn't bother with the plural form at all! Il film, i film, il computer, i computer, etc.) Largoplazo (talk) 00:35, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
- Would you please propose a title change? I already tried months ago, but I didn't convince anyone. JacktheBrown (talk) 07:42, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Largoplazo: the point is that the panzerotti article had, since its creation, the title "panzerotto", and this until the move, which occurred this year. JacktheBrown (talk) 09:38, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
- I took a look at the move history and this doesn't appear to be the case—the article was created at "panzarotti" in 2006, and remained there until being moved to "panzerotti" in 2014. Then, over the course of this year, the article was moved three times (to panzerotto in January, back to panzarotti in June, and then to panzerotti again shortly afterward). In any case, even if panzerotto had been the long-term title, longevity alone isn't necessarily an indicator of suitability; it's the reasoning that counts. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:48, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
- According to the Cambridge dictionary, in AE it rhymes with bone, and in BE it rhymes with bony (both of which happen to agree with my perception of it, not that I get a vote). And yes absolutely agree with the bottom line: please forget everything you ever knew about Italian grammar and pronunciation, and stick strictly to English sources. Everything else is just a big waste of everybody's time. (edit conflict) Mathglot (talk) 00:48, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
- (FWIW, using the same word for singular and plural goes way back in English. One sheep, two sheep. One fish, two fish. One cannon, two cannon. So one panzerotti, two panzerotti, welcome to the club.) Herostratus (talk) 06:24, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- This whole discussion reminds me of a big wall, where everyone feels compelled to write their own graffito. Mathglot (talk) 06:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- Well but that's how you know you're on Misplaced Pages Herostratus (talk) 17:00, 17 December 2024 (UTC)cv
- This whole discussion reminds me of a big wall, where everyone feels compelled to write their own graffito. Mathglot (talk) 06:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- (FWIW, using the same word for singular and plural goes way back in English. One sheep, two sheep. One fish, two fish. One cannon, two cannon. So one panzerotti, two panzerotti, welcome to the club.) Herostratus (talk) 06:24, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Largoplazo: the point is that the panzerotti article had, since its creation, the title "panzerotto", and this until the move, which occurred this year. JacktheBrown (talk) 09:38, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Andrew Davidson: panzerotti is also a food to be eaten one at a time (it's big), yet someone has decided to write this food in the plural ("panzerotti"). JacktheBrown (talk) 22:15, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- The OP seems keen to rewrite such culinary topics in Italian rather than English. I have started discussion about one such case at Salami. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:16, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with JackTheBrown on that one. I'll comment there. Largoplazo (talk) 23:43, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
Problematic "Use of" titles
It's come to my attention that there's a proliferation of un-encyclopedic titles being prefixed with the phrasing of "Use of". Is there a part of the guideline, aside from concision, that discourages this kind of unnecessary genitive possessive phrasing when simpler phrasing is clearly preferable? You notably won't find a single "Use of" article on Encyclopedia Britannica. Here, there's a plethora, such as Use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war, which as an example could be more concisely and encyclopedically phrased as "Chemical weapon use in the Syrian civil war". In other examples, the phrasing is simply unnecessary or redundant, e.g.: Use of Nazi symbols in Taiwan – which could just read Nazi symbolism in Taiwan, or Use of torture since 1948 – which is no different from Torture since 1948 or Torture (1948–present). It occurred to me that both WP:SINGULAR and WP:NOUN partly apply, since the "Use of" phrasing tends away from both simple and singular nouns. But is there anything else that more firmly guards against this? Thoughts? Iskandar323 (talk) 08:30, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
- I’m not sure that this is something that needs a policy to fix… just file RMs and propose a better title. Blueboar (talk) 21:23, 3 January 2025 (UTC)