User:Jheiv/ArticleNaming

Background
In November 2011, I made the following proposal on WT:Naming conventions (companies): The guideline states the following:


 * Whenever possible, common usage is preferred (such as The Hartford for The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. and DuPont for the E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company).

I have to say, this seems quite foolish and nearsighted. I believe it should say something like the following, which is almost the complete opposite of what is stated:


 * Generally, articles should be titled by the legal name of the corporation (e.g. American International Group instead of simply "AIG" or The J.M. Smucker Co. instead of "Smuckers"). Note that the rules outlined in other sections of this article with respect to inclusion of "Corporation", "Incorporated" apply.  Of course, where applicable, redirects from commonly used names should be employed.


 * In some cases, companies with extraordinarily long or complex names can have their article titled by a common name, but this should be the exception and not the rule (e.g. DuPont instead of "E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company").

My reasoning is this, the common name of companies is so subjective, and subject to frequent change (e.g. a company's decision to "rebrand" itself, etc.) that it results in many unnecessary discussions about article titles. For example, the PricewaterhouseCoopers article is currently titled PwC -- although there is a Request for Move discussion going on currently -- despite the fact that "PwC" was simply a marketing rebranding of the company. Similarly, there have been a number of discussions about what to call the Eastman Kodak article, with some advocating for the legal name "Eastman Kodak" while others advocating for the common name "Kodak". With a guideline like I propose, these discussions would be unnecessary and editors would be free to spend their time on more beneficial tasks.

Lastly, in an encyclopedia, consistency is almost as important as content. With every company's article being titled by a seemingly random "common" version of the company name, consistency is lost. If, however, the guideline were updated to require the legal name, unless an extenuating circumstance existed (e.g. DuPont), then the matter would be settled. Note that, of course, redirects should be used from all common names.

Here is a list of articles where I think we have it right.

I'll also point out that I think we probably have The Hartford wrong. It probably should be titled The Hartford Financial Services Group and a redirect from The Hartford should be used. If 3M was still Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, I'd probably be okay with either, but I'd lean toward the full "Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing". If IBM were still International Business Machines, I'd undoubtedly advocate for that and redirect IBM. jheiv talk  contribs 07:51, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not convinced I did a great job selling the proposal, as a lot of the points I brought up later in the discussion I felt were crucial to understanding where I was coming from, for example:

There is no reason that justifies such hodge-podge naming. It's not "user surprise" because the redirect from all common names would still exist (and still come up in the AJAX search bar). Similarly, any surprise they get by being seeing the title Honda Motor Company rather than the expected Honda would be resolved in the lead. I'll also point out that they would experience a very similar surprise if the article were simply Honda since the legal name would still be in the lead. So thats not a real compelling argument. "If the common name changes" is simply too subjective for an encyclopedia. What is the definitive source of a company's common name? Themselves? The WSJ? People you encounter at the local supermarket? This is a serious question and reasonable minds could disagree. Then what happens when one editor advocates that the common name changed? Should they just be bold and change the article title based on their interpretation of the prevailing common name? A policy like this is simply flawed and nearsighted and will bring a lot more confusion and time wasted discussing the prevailing common name than is necessary. The current discussion regarding whether the Eastman Kodak corporation's article should be named Eastman Kodak or simply Kodak is a prime example. jheiv talk  contribs 19:51, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

and

I agree, that some companies' legal names are prohibitively long. (It is also true that some companies' legal names contain non english words or characters -- another case which I think should be exempted). However, the I believe the proposal adds some structure and eliminates a significant amount of ambiguity (there are at least two discussions about corp. article names that would be resolved by a guideline like this -- Eastman Kodak/Kodak and PricewaterhouseCoopers/PwC -- and that's just two I've come across. In fact, it is what prompted me to make this proposal).

As a reader, not much is different in my experience.


 * Common name titles: Common name in title, both common and legal names in lead, both common and legal names as suggestions-as-you-type in the search box.
 * Legal name titles: Legal name in title, both common and legal names in lead, both common and legal names as suggestions-as-you-type in the search box.

Note: underlined text differs

Is it possible that someone could turn away from the article because of the possibility of a confusing title, who would have otherwise stayed had there been a more recognizable title? Sure, but I suggest that that possibility is minuscule. On the other hand however, the guideline resolves a great deal of ambiguity and subjectiveness from the process of creating and maintaining these articles and introduces some consistency akin to a printed encyclopedia. I acknowledge there is a (trivial) downside, but I argue that the upside far outweigh it.

jheiv talk  contribs 04:00, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

As such, I plan on re-proposing this guideline after I have some time to mull it over and fine tune it, as well as after I see more issues regarding article naming arise that could have been prevented with such a proposal

Benefits of such a propsal

 * Brings consistency to article naming (akin to a printed encyclopedia)
 * Clearly resolves the inevitable "most frequent common name"-debate (See PricewaterhouseCoopers/PwC, Eastman Kodak/Kodak)
 * Makes creating and maintaining these articles easier, as companies change their legal name much less frequently than they "rebrand"

Limitations of such a proposal

 * Some legal names involve non-english words or characters -- this is fairly straightforward and binary. (See the list of exceptions for examples)
 * Some legal names are prohibitively long -- this is a bit more subjective than I would like, but certainly better than our current policy of someone's interpretation of the most commonly used name. (See the list of exceptions for examples)
 * May cause confusion with readers who get redirected from AIG to an article titled "American International Group". (But is that not the case with all redirects?)

Arguments and responses

 * We use WP:COMMONNAMES for the rest of our articles, why do it differently for companies / corporations?
 * We do use common names for most of our articles (for example, as enumerated in the link above: Guinea pig (not Cavia porcellus), Caffeine (not 1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)-dione)). However, corporations are in the unique position to (a) have a quickly identifiable legal name that is (b) in plain english...

Proposal (updated)
Under construction

Articles where we have it "wrong"
Coming soon