Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 7

SOME_article_titles_should_be_plural
See Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/archive5

Diacritics in minor planet names
Following a strong consensus outcome in this discussion, I propose that we establish a naming convention that diacritics are included in the names of articles on minor planets and named features of astronomical bodies, following the International Astronomical Union rules on this. This guideline is especially important as many significant astronomy sites don't use the diacritics for technical reasons (you'd be amazed how many observatory computers still run MS-DOS or DR-DOS and/or store their data using 7-bit ACSII), so Google is somewhat misleading.

Unless there is an objection raised to this process here (or someone beats me to it) I will add a proposed standard to Naming conventions. Andrewa 04:20, 31 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I've added this to WP:UE, as that is the naming conventions guideline that (thus far) centralised info on use of diacritics. --Francis Schonken 12:25, 31 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's helpful. I think it there should be some mention of it at Naming conventions as well. I'd imagined an explicit mention of astronmical names names, but a section on diacritics pointed to WP:UE would be an alternative. Andrewa 02:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Issue removed from WP:UE by user:haukurth, with something I can only see as a "fake" argument, diff - I'm thinking I should start a WP:RfC on Haukurth, for disruption on wikipedia policies and guidelines, and wiki-stalking of myself. Andrewa, would you join me on this RfC? --Francis Schonken 11:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I didn't notice that the idea of mentioning the asteroid names in the UE guideline had already been brought up here and met with some approval. We can certainly work some mention of it into the Use English guideline if that's what people want. Personally I think Andrewa's original idea of making a new convention is better and I would support such a convention as I supported the Gunlod > Gunlöd moves.


 * Alas, I did come here through checking Francis' contribution log (he wasn't commenting on any of the pages on my watchlist and it occurred to me that he might be addressing the issues we've been discussing somewhere else). I gather from his comment above that he would rather I did not look up his contribution log so I'll refrain from it in the future.


 * I still hope we can resolve our differences without resorting to the formal dispute resolution process. - Haukur 11:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I am (recent) member of the WikiProject Astronomical objects and I would like to see the cited "guidelines" or "rules" by the IAU! Looking through its web site, I did not find any mentioning of diacritics in any "rule". Instead, there is an ASCII based list of official names, which would violate that "rule" if it existed. I myself would keep the non-diacritic name as article title and have the name with diacritic in the text to describe the eponym. Awolf002 15:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for you input. But these issues were already considered at Talk:657 Gunlöd.


 * Let me quote the URL you give above:


 * Proposed names should be: * 16 characters or less in length * preferably one word * pronounceable (in some language) * non-offensive * not too similar to an existing name of a Minor Planet or natural Planetary satellite.


 * So you're quite right, there's no mention of diacritics, either way. See however the USGS Astrogeology Research Program URL given in the previous discussion and we find IAU rule 10: When more than one spelling of a name is extant, the spelling preferred by the person, or used in an authoritative reference, should be used. Diacritical marks are a necessary part of a name and will be used.


 * The list you mention appears to be in ASCII for technical reasons, as are many others. Again, this was dealt with previously. Andrewa 23:04, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I read the given USGS page and was confused. These rules are about naming planetary features, not minor planets. How did you decide that this is applicable to this discussion? I can be persuaded to go both ways with diacritics, but I still do not see any IAU rule for minor planets that could guide that decision. Awolf002 23:20, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Good point that I had overlooked!


 * So, are there any rules? It would surprise me greatly if they weren't the same for Astronomical bodies as for the features of those bodies. But you're right, we should look further.


 * I am personally quite happy to go either way on this. My feeling is that either convention will do quite well, just so long as the other name is a redirect, but that it's vital to have these redirects, as both the ASCII and the diacriticised names are in common use. My agenda is simply to make and document a decision, either way, so we don't need to have this discussion repeatedly, and can get on with the job of writing the encyclopedia.


 * We've had an unproductive diversion into WP:UE, where no consensus seems likely on anything, even on whether WP:UE is relevant to this or any other specific discussion. Hopefully we don't need to follow the circles that people have been running in for a year down there! Andrewa 23:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed! We should just find a policy that is as close as possible to the IAU intentions and use redirs to cover all the bases. I will scour through the IAU's web site to see if there is more info available, otherwise we just stick to what we have and write a proposed policy to "fix" things. Awolf002 00:17, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Parentheses
Someone once mentioned to me that the naming guidelines said that unless an article fell into one of the categories mentioned, or had other articles of the same name it could be confused with, that the guidelines were to remove any parentheses. I've been trying to find this in the various guidelines but I can't. --maru (talk) Contribs 18:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)


 * In general, it's best to use a qualifier between brackets in a page name for disambiguation purposes only.
 * I know, we had Islamofascism (term), which stayed at that name after a WP:RM vote recently, but that was far from an "unanimous" vote, and my feeling is that many wikipedians would feel reluctant to extend the technique to other examples.
 * Neither Naming conventions (precision), nor Disambiguation seem to call for anything in the sense of passing subliminal messages on a topic via the page name - rather explain the issue (whether misnomer, or political (in)correctness of a term or whatever) in the article in a NPOV way, than trying to pass that info via the page name. --Francis Schonken 09:23, 2 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Alright. Thanks for the reply- I was thinking partially of Islamofascism, as I was, err, involved in it, but mostly I was thinking of how I made Inquisitorius into a redirect to Inquisitorius (Star Wars). --maru (talk) Contribs 01:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Indian Honorific Names
Hi, I am trying to determine the appropriate name for the main article for the 68th Sharkaracharya (pontiff) of Kanchi. The article Chandrasekharendra Saraswati contains a redirect to the article Kanchi Mahaswamigal. Chandrasekharendra Saraswati is the personal name of the pontiff, just as "John Paul" would be the personal name of Pope John Paul II. It is also the name of 7 other Shankaracharyas. Kanchi Mahaswamigal is an honorific title bestowed upon him. It refers to a great learned religious teacher of Kanchi.

To appreciate the issue, note that Mahatma Gandhi is the main page for that person, and Mahatma is an honorific meaning "Great Soul", not a personal name. Similarly, there is a main page for A.C. Bhaktivendanta Swami Prabhupada. "Prabhupada" is an honorific meaning "One who serves at the feet (of God)".

My inclination at this point, to make naming consistant would be to have the main page be named "Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Kanchi Mahaswamigal", and have both Chanrasekharendra Saraswati and Kanchi Mahaswamigal contain redirects to that page.

Please advise regarding your opinion of the correct way to do this.

Also, I note that there is no section in the Naming Conventions page for Indian names, nor for Tamil names, which follow a somewhat different pattern than North Indian names. Should such a section be started?

--BostonMA 16:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)


 * There are several ways this could be approached:
 * Start a new project page, e.g. Manual of Style (India-related articles) - I don't say that should be the name of the page, several other variants are possible, e.g. Naming conventions (people of India and Sri Lanka), etc... depending on what you want in.
 * Note that for ancient Romans similar honorific-related issues had to be solved (e.g. "Augustus", which is the name of a single emperor, named after the honorific he received halfway through his career - see Augustus -, but also an honorific most other emperors added to their name - see Augustus (honorific) - without other emperors having that honorific as part of their wikipedia page name). I suppose the "rule" (if there is any...) that has been applied for ancient Romans is that one only adds the honorific to the wikipedia page name, if the person is generally known by that name, see naming conventions (ancient Romans). Hence, e.g. Caesar in Julius Caesar, Africanus in Scipio Africanus, but Tiberius and not Tiberius Caesar Augustus, etc. Whether the same sort of solution would work for people of India and Sri Lanka, I've no idea.
 * For clergy/monarchy/nobility-related honorifics and titles, it is also possible to ask the question at wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles)
 * --Francis Schonken 18:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

See also Portal talk:India --Francis Schonken 08:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Short titles
I think we should insert somewhere into the conventions a note to the effect that short titles are preferable to long titles, since it's pretty much the expected norm and de facto policy. But Francis disagreed with me that the intro was the best place to put it. What do the rest of you think? --maru (talk) Contribs 01:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Move to delete 99% of all Lists and Categories of Jews
Please read the sixteen point introduction at Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession and related discussions at Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession. Thank you. IZAK 11:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Street Naming
I've just recently begun a project to make articles for all of Paris' notable streets. I was trying to come up for a suitable naming model to follow, and I've been scratching my head at it for a few days now. The names of many of Paris' streets are common to many of France's cities and towns, not to mention in other Francophone countries, and to avoid future conflict it seemed a good idea to put the name of the city after the street in brackets, as in "rue Sainte-Anne (Paris)". Actually my original proposition was to also put the name of the country in brackets - "rue Sainte-Anne (Paris, France)". It was suggested to me that this would be taking it too far.

It was also brought to my attention that in page naming, brackets are only used for disambiguation. What I guess I was actually proposing (without even thinking to disambiguation) was pre-disambiguation - Wiki is still relatively small (as far as I know) for subjects such as these, but I was thinking to the future when other cities will have their "notable areas" articles too.

Does anyone have any suggestions or prior experience with a problem such as this? I would really like to know what options I have - and I don't want to start into something that will make a lot of work for someone later. Thanks for any input. T HE P ROMENADER 22:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Why not Rue Sainte-Anne, Paris - for places (but I'm not sure that includes roads) I think there are more examples of having the city behind a comma (and not between brackets).
 * Examples: Victoria Square, Birmingham, Victoria Square, Adelaide, Bloomsbury, London, etc...
 * Although there's also Queensway (London) and other examples with bracketed disambiguator in Category:Streets of London - note that there are only very few London streets needing a disambiguator, although many of them would be street names also available in other cities/towns. The idea is that you only add the disambiguator when there would be ambiguity with an *existing* wikipedia article.
 * Yeah, and for Paris, I don't think that - except for the Wim Wenders film - there would be confusion with Paris, Texas if you use a French street name, so no need to add ", France". --Francis Schonken 08:02, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The comma seems the best solution, and more than a good enough one to get this project going - thanks a mil.
 * T HE P ROMENADER 12:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Page Titles and POV
What is the convention for naming things and events where there is clearly a division in POV and cultural bias. For example (and this may seem silly), the Vietnam War is known as the American War in Vietnam. To me, naming this the Vietnam War appears to be a violation of NPOV (see this and this). How do we reconcile this difference? And how can we use the Google test without perpetuating the bias? - Spaceriqui 04:33, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Another example, Yom Kippur War see Talk:Yom Kippur War


 * See NPOV tutorial. --Francis Schonken 07:43, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I see that, but how about when there's clear alternatives, that are NPOV? which takes precedence... NPOV or Common Names? -Spaceriqui 18:45, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * In the case of the Vietnam War; the name Vietnam War should dominate on the English Wikipedia; as that is what the conflict is called throughout the English-speaking world. Interestingly enough; on the Vietnamese Wikipedia, it's called Chiến tranh Việt Nam (which I imagine translates to "Vietnam War") rather than the Vietnamese equivalent of "American War".  Certainly, the Vietnamese Wikipedia should use whatever name is most commonly used by Vietnamese speakers.  (It may be the case that the Vietnamese Wikipedia is primarily used by expatriate Vietnamese; due to official disapproval of Wikipedia by the Vietnamese government.) --EngineerScotty 21:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for new naming convention: Latin party names
A discussion is currently going on at Talk:Labour Party (Mexico) concerning translations of its party name. In that back-drop I'd suggest the following naming convention. There are a variety of political party names with similar generic meanings (Labour party, Workers Party, etc.). The usage is, however, generally carries a clear political connotation. I propose the following scheme for translations.
 * Partido Obrero - Labour Party
 * Partido de los Trabajadores - Workers Party
 * Partido del Trabajo - Party of Labour
 * Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores - Socialist Workers Party
 * Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores - Workers Revolutionary Party
 * Partido Obrero Revolucionario - Revolutionary Workers Party

Some comments concerning this scheme:
 * Parties called 'Labour Party' in English (like the British, Israeli, Norwegian, etc.) are generally translated as 'Partido Laborista' in Spanish newspapers and litterature. However, to my knowledge there is no party in the Spanish-speaking world using this name, so there is no immediate risk of confusion.
 * In the case of PST/SWP, POR/RWP and PRT/WRP these are names commonly associated with the Trotskyist tradition. In all cases groups exists using these names both in the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking worlds. It is clear that the usage of names correspond to international naming convention within that political movement. Of course, PST could literally mean 'Workers Socialist Party', but there is no usage like that in the English-speaking world. The name 'Partido Obrero Socialista' would of course cause a challenge to the scheme, but to my knowledge there is no country were there is both a POS and a PST.
 * The convention would hold for French, Portuguese, Catalan, etc. I'm not sure about Italian myself, comments would be appreciated on that issue. --Soman 15:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Sporting tours
What's the best pattern for sporting tour titles? The Category: British and Irish Lions tours are of the form " tour to ", eg, 2005 British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand. For cricket there is a form " in in ", eg, New Zealand cricket team in Zimbabwe in 2005-06. The only other rugby tour I'm aware of is " tour", ie, 1981 Springbok Tour. This last one seems hardly adequate as the location is not mentioned (not to mention the capitalisation of Tour). Use of the word "to" in the Lions tours strikes me as peculiar. In the days when teams travelled by ship they were something of "tours to" but these days (and back then) "tour of" seems more appropriate. Should we have a consistent pattern across all sports? Nurg 06:30, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * See also naming conventions (numbers and dates). What the most appropriate names of the "events" or representation of "teams" are, I couldn't say, what follows regards only how years are represented in the title:
 *  tour to  and  tour, acceptable, Naming conventions (numbers and dates)
 *  in in , not OK: if the year is at the end don't use "in", but separate with comma, so  in,  would be acceptable according to Naming conventions (numbers and dates). Note however that years are preferably not abbreviated, so not New Zealand cricket team in Zimbabwe, 2005-06 but New Zealand cricket team in Zimbabwe, 2005-2006.
 * Since the numbers and dates NC guideline became effective some days ago, some prefer to standardise even further, Naming conventions (numbers and dates) would make the last example New Zealand cricket team in Zimbabwe (2005-2006)
 * PS: The above examples are merely about wikipedia pagename formatting, whether these examples would qualify in terms of Wikipedia notability criteria I couldn't say. --Francis Schonken 08:52, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Naming conventions for disambiguating television shows
I started a discussion of disambiguation of television shows at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation to hopefully establish a convention for naming television shows. (Sorry for the wrong placement) any input you have would be appreciated. --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 17:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

A draft version of a new poll to determine naming conventions for television content is available for comment. Relevant comments are here and here Voting for a new convention will begin on January 25, 2006. Thanks for any input --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 22:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The poll (Naming conventions (television)/poll has begun. Please vote until February 15.  --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 05:46, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The proposed TV naming convention is now a guideline, though is still as always under improvement. Your comments are appreciated. --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 15:41, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposed overall policy
I haven't seen this one before. I have seen instances of it (such as use of common English names for things), but how about adapting, as an overriding principle:


 * Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists.

In other words:


 * What is convenient for editors (whether individual editors, WikiProjects, etc.) should take a back seat to what is convenient for readers.
 * In particular, renaming of articles (or adapting naming conventions) for the convenience of macro/template writers is discouraged.
 * As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, rather than specialist literature, everyday common names should be used for things where possible. Thus, black widow spider over Latrodectus mactans, Hurricane Katrina over Atlantic Tropical Cyclone 11 (2005) (or whatever storm number it was), etc.

--EngineerScotty 21:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, sounds good. Can go in Naming conventions intro as far as I'm concerned. First I thought this would be stuff for naming conventions (common names), but no, it's definitely broader than that. Would work as an over-all principle I gather. --Francis Schonken 07:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

"X and Y"
Sometimes 2 related but distinct ideas are discussed under a single article. Some such articles use the form "X and Y" (e.g. Acronym and initialism, Weak form and strong form) while others use only one name in the title and mention the other in the intro (e.g. content word redirects to function word, which is its opposite). Should there be a policy for such cases? Where there are 2 concepts, I think it makes sense to use "X and Y" as title, with each as a redirect, unless one term is overwhelmingly more common. (If there were more than 2 concepts, I wouldn't favour "X and Y and Z" but I guess there would be a genus name to cover all the species.) Joestynes 08:31, 17 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, that certainly seems sensible to me - any guideline should remind editors to create redirects at both single terms (obviously), and at the alternate order (e.g. initialism and acronym - which I just created to follow my own advice) so that anyone who knows the terms are combined into one article doesn't leave redlinks typing it from memory. As long as that's done, this scheme seems preferable for cases where the two terms are equal in status and usage level. One thing to consider is should there be a guideline on which order the terms come in - should it be alphabetical, "whichever feels natural", just completely arbitrary, or...? - IMSoP 12:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)


 * This alternate order issue is also relevant to things named after a number of people. For example I'm think specifically of the Euler-Bernoulli beam equations (common name) which is more properly (but more rarely) called the Bernoulli-Euler beam theory and sometimes the Galileo-Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. Just something else to consider in writing this guideline.--Yannick 19:14, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Naming convention for Companies and Businesses
Can someone develop a naming convention for companies (I will help)? Clicking on just a few links in any of these lists will show how inconsistent the naming has been


 * NASDAQ-100
 * List of S&P 500 companies
 * Companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange
 * Fortune 500

Just a few of the problems
 * Inc. vs Incorporated
 * Co. vs Company
 * Corp. vs Corporation
 * Company Name vs. Company Name Incorporated

There doesn't seem to be any consistency in any direction and a naming convention would definitely help. --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 21:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The simple solution is to use the correct name for the company. That can be interesting in some cases.  One company I worked for was offically Corp. and not Corporation. So any policy would need to cover that.  For easy of readers, it might be best for the article titles to drop the qualifier (Inc, company) since most people don't know what it is.  Vegaswikian 22:10, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that would be one solution, but the "correct" name is not always the one chosen for article titles. Sometimes the most common usage is used over official usage South Korea North Korea.  Honorifics and titles are removed for the title (King, Sir, Duke, Saint) though they may be the "correct" name.  Middle names are usually not included in titles.  In these cases the official name is given in the first sentence.  I've been busy with the TV naming convention, but I guess I can start this one up after this.  --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 05:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't forget the use '&' or '=' in the name for some entities along with others. I know everyone wants to replace the '&' which is correct, with 'and' which is the guideline but doing that changes the name of the company.  When you have the time this would be another mess.  I'm still busy with the 'U.S.' stuff and some IATA cleanup.  Vegaswikian 23:11, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

A draft poll for company naming conventions
A new draft poll to establish naming convention guidelines for companies and businesses is available for comment until February 10. --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 17:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Naming conventions (companies)/poll
Voting has begun and will continue until March 5. Please resolve this lagging issue. --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 22:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Policy v. guideline
Does it make sense that this page has a "policy" notice at the top, when AFAICS all the detailed sub-pages it points to are only declared to be guidelines? Palmiro | Talk 15:16, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
 * For more info on policy and guidelines, please see Policies and guidelines, which explains why certain rules become policies. Thank you!--Urthogie 16:43, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
 * ...and see above Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/archive6 – the same question was asked, and got some answers. --Francis Schonken 17:18, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Theres your answer, Palmiro.--Urthogie 23:05, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
 * So am I to take it, as per Steve Block in that section, that "conventions on the main page are also guidelines, rather than policy"?
 * This arises from a disagreement between Urthogie and me on how to apply the "common names" guideline, in particular; I consider that the summary on this page has to be interpreted in the light of the detailed guideline; Urthogie has a different interpretation and considers (if I've understood correctly) that the detailed guideline is not to be taken into account because this page is policy. Palmiro | Talk 19:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Which article(s) is the disagreement about?
 * Re difference between policy and guideline:
 * a policy means that a very large part of the wikipedians recommend to do something a certain way;
 * a guideline means a large part of the wikipedians recommend to do something a certain way.
 * This makes a "policy" a little easier to enforce, and a little harder to change, than a "guideline". But unless you're successful in changing the guideline, I don't see a difference why "common names" should be applied when it would be a policy, and not when it's a guideline: that would be a false presentation of the guideline idea.
 * Further, and that's something I'd like to add to what I wrote in above, there's a paragraph in the intro of Naming conventions I definitely think sums up the naming conventions policy:"Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature."That's policy in the full meaning of the word. Note that also here "exceptions" are not made impossible: the paragraph starts with "Generally, ..." which always implies the possibility of exceptions.
 * Note that in a previous section on this page (see ) it is proposed to add following sentence to the policy formulation:"Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists."I supported that idea for the expansion of the policy part of naming conventions, how d'you think about that? Would that make the discussion you're involved in now easier? --Francis Schonken 19:42, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd agree with Palmiro on the discussion if the pages were policy. But they're not.  If you get them to be policy, then you'll be correct- until then I'm going to go to work on improving those guidelines.  Thank you--Urthogie 21:51, 20 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Just out of curiosity: I still don't know which page name(s) you and Palmiro were discussing about. Would you care mentioning?
 * Did you consider Naming conflict? Would that be of any help?
 * Re. changes to NC guidelines: I'll probably comment on them after I know what all this is about. --Francis Schonken 08:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Voting is currently going on at Talk:islamist terrorism. Please vote, thanks!--Urthogie 18:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Coats of arms
Is there a naming convention for articles on coats of arms? Is there some reason why nearly every article in Category:National coats of arms has the word "Arms" capitalized? Unless someone can point out some good reason to disobey the general convention of using lowercase in titles, these all should be renamed. dbenbenn | talk 01:35, 21 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Because it is a Proper Noun? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Help me understand "Avoid non alpha-numeric characters used only for emphasis"
Does this apply to using italics in article titles? For example, I need to how to correctly title this article: The Smurfs and communism   or   The Smurfs and communism    ? BTW, I'm not trying to be cute. This is a real point of confusion, about a real article! ike9898 16:01, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


 * "Avoid non alpha-numeric characters used only for emphasis" was something put together by User:Xaosflux (see above Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/archive6), you can always ask this user.
 * Although not specifically mentioned at Naming conventions (technical restrictions), trying to trigger italics in a page name with two accent marks seems not to work: The Smurfs and communism does not make a link to an article named "The Smurfs and communism", instead it shows as The Smurfs and communism in article text.
 * Further, I think there was a recent AfD or something like that (or maybe I saw it at WP:RM, I don't know any more) about an article connecting "Smurfs" and "communism": saying that The Smurfs and communism doesn't work technically, is not the same as saying that The Smurfs and communism would be a good idea! --Francis Schonken 17:18, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I authored that section, in a resposne to articles that started with characters other then A-Z or 0-9, when used for no reason other then to bring attention to the article or it's name. Additionaly it dealt with various other issues linking, indexing, or the searching of articles.  This was originally proposed to ward off article names such as ***The Smurfs and communism, when generally used to attempt to have them listed in odd places (such as at the begining or end of alpabetic listings).  This section also deals with puting quotation marks around things that really don't need them in the title.  The goal of this section is not to change the fonts used, although as Francis Schonken said above, it doesn't work.  Nothing of this goes to stating what the content of the article should be, and an article title of The Smurfs and communism or References to communism in The Smurfs, etc are all fine article names, quotations or italices are not needed around the title, as the capitilization provides sufficient information as to the context.  Please feel free to Talk Page me if you want more of my thaughts on this.  xaosflux  Talk  / CVU  04:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

U.S. Roads naming conventions
See WikiProject Highways/U.S. state highway naming conventions for the proposal. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  04:28, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Please note that if this is a proposal for a naming convention per se it should a) be marked as such, and b) be placed in a standard, centralised NC location, not a wikiproject subpage. On the substance of this, there's clearly a need to have some sort on unified discussion of this, as at present what tends to happen is that renames come up on RfM, CFD, and TFD, and typically get no consensus either way, with the result that the status quo of various inconsisent names remains in place.  OTOH, a fresh naming convention seems redundant to me, as this is already covered by existing NCs:  here and here.  The names in question are are not proper nouns, and not "otherwise almost always capitalized", and thus should be lower-case.  It's therefore problematic to propose a further naming convention that'll essentially just say "use the general rules", though I wouldn't quite rule it out either, as this seems to be difficult to resolve otherwise.  Alai 07:18, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * However, here we are requesting the opposite. We are requesting that the phrase "California State Route" should always be capitalized, whether it is part of a article name, a list name, a template name, a category name, or a stub name. This is because the phrase is "California State Route". The capitalization indicates that we are referring to the specific classification. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  03:06, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Lenght of a name
Isn't there some guideline that short names are preferable to long ones (not abbreviations)? See Talk:Polish-Lithuanian-Muscovite_Commonwealth for the context of my question.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 07:47, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
 * well, the common name is preferred, which is usually short. Unless needed to be made longer for precision.
 * I started "Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders" a few days ago. Didn't see a way to make that one shorter. --Francis Schonken 10:11, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Naming conventions/Geographic names
Seems like the discutants have run out of steam. Unless there are other comments, we will probably move for some formal voting soon.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Ohio schools
How does a convention get from proposed to accepted? I proposed Naming conventions (Ohio school districts) in April 2005. Nobody has objected or commented to it since. I'd like to be able to cite it as official policy as we have a number of articles being created on Ohio schools. (See Category: High schools in Ohio for example). PedanticallySpeaking 16:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
 * It seems that the reason why nobody commented on your original proposal was that you never publicised it WP:RFC, WP:VP, and other discussion pages. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 20:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I did post notice of it on the talk pages of several Ohio education related articles. I'm reposting it with notice on the pages you suggested.  PedanticallySpeaking 16:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I slightly reformatted Naming conventions (Ohio school districts), as a proposal. Hope you don't mind. Might I suggest to start comments at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Ohio school districts)? --Francis Schonken 16:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Still a suggestion: there's the WikiProject about Schools: maybe an idea to leave a note at Wikipedia talk:Schools (and/or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools): some of the people of such projects might be interested to get involved. --Francis Schonken 17:20, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Sierra Leone Krio people
I'd like a second opinion on a discussion going on at Talk:Sierra Leone Krio people. Another editor believes that in order to distinguish from peoples with names similar to "Krio people", it is a good idea to call the article Sierra Leone Krio people. I think that Krio people would be correct, with a leading disambig line for any peoples they might be confused with. NickelShoe 04:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Geography of Poland - terminology (proposal)
I started a vote on naming of Polish powiats and gminas. Anyone interested is welcome to vote Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Geography_of_Poland--SylwiaS | talk 04:00, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Brunswick/Braunsweig
Why do we have articles at both Braunschweig and Brunswick-Lüneburg? A google test shows a 10 to 1 preference for "Brunswick", but I'm not sure how the vote on that page went... Borisblue 15:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Highways proposal
I've started Naming conventions/Numbered highways. I'm not sure about the exact process, so if it needs to be submitted anywhere, someone should do so. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates! ) 20:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi SPUI, the last paragraph of the intro of naming conventions reads:"If you wish to propose a new naming convention, do so on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, whilst also publicising the proposal at Requests for comment and the Village Pump, as well as at any related pages. Once a strong consensus has formed, it can be adopted as a naming convention and listed below."
 * "Requests for comment", that would be Current surveys or Requests for comment/Policies
 * "Village pump", that would be Village pump (policy) or Village pump (proposals)
 * "any related pages", I suppose in this case at least WikiProject Highways
 * --Francis Schonken 07:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
 * It's not ready for that. Right now it's just being worked out. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates! ) 20:56, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Words as words
I just saw the article Pronunciation of Celtic which I assumed from the name was about the Phonology of Celtic languages but is actually about the English word "Celtic" and whether it can be pronounced with an initial /s/ or /k/ sound. Is there any convention for highlighting that a word in an article title is the word, not its reference (use-mention distinction). There is football (word) but that's because football is a separate article. Joestynes 16:12, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Naming conventions (precision) should be able to help you. But I suppose it's too general to be of any practical help.
 * So, question: what would you propose would be the best page name for the content now on Pronunciation of Celtic?
 * Then, if it makes sense, use the "move" tab, and move the page there.
 * Then, if you think you've done something that might help others later, if they encounter a similar issue, you might consider expanding/improving Naming conventions (precision) a bit. --Francis Schonken 08:44, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Colleges and Universities
Have Infobox University become the standard for college and university pages. Withen the template, on the location line, instead of having City, State abbreviation Country (ex. Akron, OH USA) have it all written out with a comma between the state and country. I dont know if this has already had a convention but I feel it needs to be changed. American Patriot 1776 19:36, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
 * the "Naming conventions" series of guidelines & policies does not deal with formatting of text on pages (including infoboxes), that's rather the topic of the WP:MoS ("Manual of Style") series of guidelines.
 * There's WikiProject Universities - what I see from that page is that they're involved in working on the type of templates you speak of, developing a sort of MoS on that. Maybe drop your question/suggestion at the talk page of that WikiProject.
 * If you'd like a more general description of how formatting of City/State/Country sequences on wikipedia pages should be, you'd have to look in the MoS (and its subpages), I'm sure you'd find something there.
 * Re. page naming, I still found these naming conventions: Naming conventions (places) (specifies "State abbreviations" not being allowed in Wikipedia article names) and Naming conventions (city names) --Francis Schonken 22:30, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Naming convention for Dutchmen
I don't know if this is the right venue to discuss this, but I have noticed two problems with the naming convention on wikipedia for Dutchmen whose family name starts with the word "Van" (eg Marco van Basten):


 * 1) The letter "v" in "van" is invariantly spelt with a lowercase; however from my knowledge and experience many Dutchmen do have names with a capital "V" in "Van".
 * 2) When being categorised "van" would invariantly be treated as part of the given name (ie Marco van Basten would be categorised by means of, say,  ).  However from my understanding the word "van" is part of the family name, not give name (ie "Mr. Van Basten", not "Mr. Basten").

Please let me know where shall we have the above issues resolved. Thanks. --Pkchan 16:54, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

P.S. The above has also been posted at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people).


 * PPS: That's where the discussion is too; it led to a little expansion of Categorization --Francis Schonken 20:11, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Kingdoms, phylums, classes, orders and families
Do we have a convention about whether kingdoms, phylums, classes, orders and families should be capitalized? Is it different for each? I've only found information on genus and species. If they are only one word, it does not matter for the name of the article, as the first word is always capitalized, but there is the matter of whether to capitalize the name within the article, such as Lepidoptera. -- Kjkolb 01:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
 * All taxa above species should be capitalized. Genus and below should be italicized. Derivitize words should not be capitalized. Eg. Humans are in the Hominidae family. Humans are hominids. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:28, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Naming issue at Flag of Western Sahara
Hi there! I posted this at WP:RFC/P, but was hoping I might get some additional interested people here. There has been an ongoing argument at Flag of Western Sahara about the name of the flag.

Western Sahara is a region claimed by Morocco and a government in exile of indigenous people, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Both parties control a portion of the territory and both claim the whole of it. The flag is the flag flown by SADR, but it is generally known as the "Flag of Western Sahara", mainly because Morocco does not recognise the term Western Sahara (calling it Moroccan Sahara), so there is no other flag which also might bear the name. There have been extensive discussions about comparisons with Flag of Tibet, and Flag of Taiwan, but up until now no conclusion.

To break the stalemate, a vote has been proposed here, and we would very much appreciate any and every input. The more the merrier!

Thanks and greets, The Minist   e   r of War   (Peace) 08:55, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

page overflowing with section stubs
Anyone agree with me that this page needs to be reogranized so its not just a bunch of section stubs? Perhaps make one section that links to the subsections? Just looks like a mess right now.--Urthogie 13:08, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Do you mean the talk page or the project page?
 * Anyway, don't think a "big bang" approach would be a good idea for either of these pages. Incremental improvements for the project page are always possible (I still did some this morning). --Francis Schonken 15:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The project page. Look at its table of contents:

* 1 General conventions o 1.1 Lowercase second and subsequent words o 1.2 Prefer singular nouns o 1.3 Redirect adjectives to nouns o 1.4 Use gerund of verbs o 1.5 Use English words o 1.6 Use common names of persons and things o 1.7 Be precise when necessary o 1.8 Prefer spelled-out phrases to acronyms o 1.9 Avoid the definite article ("the") and the indefinite article ("a"/"an") at the beginning of the page name o 1.10 Use of "and" o 1.11 Do not use an article name that suggests a hierarchy of articles o 1.12 Be careful with some special characters o 1.13 Avoid non alpha-numeric characters used only for emphasis * 2 Other specific conventions o 2.1 Aircraft names o 2.2 Animals, plants, and other organisms o 2.3 Books - literary works o 2.4 Broadcasting + 2.4.1 North America o 2.5 Categories o 2.6 Chemistry o 2.7 Chinese o 2.8 Comics o 2.9 Elections o 2.10 Film titles o 2.11 Government departments, ministers etc.         o 2.12 Historical names and titles o 2.13 (Ice) hockey o 2.14 Identity o 2.15 Initials o 2.16 Ireland and Irish names o 2.17 Isotopes/Nuclides o 2.18 Japanese o 2.19 Korean o 2.20 Languages, both spoken and programming o 2.21 Legislation in the United Kingdom o 2.22 Lists o 2.23 Literary works o 2.24 Manuscript names o 2.25 Mormonism o 2.26 Music + 2.26.1 Pieces of music + 2.26.2 Album titles and band names + 2.26.3 Operas o 2.27 Numbers and dates o 2.28 Organizations (such as political parties) o 2.29 People + 2.29.1 Monarchs and nobility + 2.29.2 Ancient Romans + 2.29.3 Western Clergy o 2.30 Places + 2.30.1 City names + 2.30.2 Country-specific topics + 2.30.3 Specific countries o 2.31 Russian names o 2.32 School names o 2.33 Ship names o 2.34 Slovenian vs Slovene o 2.35 Stub templates and categories o 2.36 Time (dates, periods, etc.) o 2.37 Ukrainian names * 3 Conventions under consideration o 3.1 Airports o 3.2 Arabic names o 3.3 Companies o 3.4 Computer and video games o 3.5 Currency o 3.6 Czech names o 3.7 Diacritics (on standard letters) o 3.8 Ethno-cultural labels in biographies o 3.9 External links o 3.10 Geographic names o 3.11 Hebrew and Israeli names o 3.12 India and Sri Lanka (people) o 3.13 Military units o 3.14 New Zealand placenames o 3.15 Non-standard letters o 3.16 Numismatics (currencies, coins and banknotes) o 3.17 Ohio School Districts o 3.18 Polish monarchs o 3.19 Roads and Highways o 3.20 Sexuality o 3.21 Subnational entities o 3.22 Suffix o 3.23 Television (industry and programming) * 4 Conventions currently archived o 4.1 Provinces o 4.2 More issues * 5 See also Utterly useless, and filled with section stubs.--Urthogie 17:19, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Alas, if comparing with * 1 General conventions o 1.1 Lowercase second and subsequent words o 1.2 Prefer singular nouns o 1.3 Redirect adjectives to nouns o 1.4 Use gerund of verbs o 1.5 Use English words o 1.6 Use common names of persons and things o 1.7 Be precise when necessary o 1.8 Prefer spelled-out phrases to acronyms o 1.9 Avoid the definite article ("the") and the indefinite article ("a"/"an") at the beginning of the page name o 1.10 Use of "and" o 1.11 Do not use an article name that suggests a hierarchy of articles o 1.12 Be careful with some special characters o 1.13 Avoid non alpha-numeric characters used only for emphasis o 1.14 Categories o 1.15 Lists o 1.16 Stub templates and categories * 2 Specific conventions o 2.1 Animals, plants, and other organisms o 2.2 Books o 2.3 Broadcasting + 2.3.1 North America o 2.4 Elections o 2.5 Film titles o 2.6 Isotopes/Nuclides o 2.7 Languages, both spoken and programming o 2.8 Legislation in the United Kingdom o 2.9 Music + 2.9.1 Pieces of music + 2.9.2 Album titles and band names + 2.9.3 Operas o 2.10 Numbers and dates o 2.11 Organizations (such as political parties) o 2.12 People + 2.12.1 City names + 2.12.2 Country-specific topics o 2.13 Russian names o 2.14 School names o 2.15 Ship names o 2.16 Slovenian vs Slovene o 2.17 Ukrainian names o 2.18 Others... * 3 Conventions under consideration * 4 Conventions currently archived * 5 See also This even more disasterous, so I revert to previous. --Francis Schonken 19:55, 19 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't just revert, discuss first. Thank you,--Urthogie 19:58, 19 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't force unilateral elaborate changes. Discuss first. Thank you, --Francis Schonken 20:06, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I put your proposal at Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Urthogie's rewrite - I propose we take it from there. --Francis Schonken 20:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Prposal moved to User:Urthogie/Naming conventions/Urthogie's rewrite. Bebestbe (talk) 17:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Foreign organisations/trade unions
Hi! Upon writing the article Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden, I realized there didn't seem to be any proper naming standard for foreign trade unions. What are the naming conventions for non-english organisations/trade unions? As of now, there seems to be a lot of different styles: etcetera. To me, it seems that the most common style is to keep it in it's original language or translating it directly to English. A standard should be established, or, if one exists, should be applied! I, for one, am in favor of keeping the original language in the title. Jobjörn 11:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden (Translated from Swedish Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation.)
 * Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (Kept in original Spanish language, translates as National Confederation of Labour.)
 * Christelijk Nationaal Vakverbond (Original Dutch language, translates as The National Federation of Christian Trade Union.)
 * Confederación General del Trabajo (Spain) (Likewise kept in original Spanish language, but with suffix "(Spain)" added. No mention of English translation is mentioned within the article.)
 * Corrected language error; see also above --Francis Schonken 12:14, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Ooops. My mistake - it was late ;) Further, I do not see how could be applied to said trade unions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jobjörn (talk • contribs)
 * Both Confederación Nacional del Trabajo and Confederación General del Trabajo (Spain) relate to romance languages (misnamed "Latin" by User:Soman). My only suggestion was to maybe contact Soman (e.g. on his/her user talk page), (s)he was working on similar issues - "parties" are not really companies/businesses, neither are "trade unions", otherwise I'd have suggested to take a look at the developing Naming conventions (companies). I have no clue how far Soman got with his/her proposal (didn't see no NC guideline or update to the general NC page resulting from his/her suggestions yet). --Francis Schonken 13:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
 * As a matter of fact, I contacted Soman before I asked my question here, as he moved Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden from Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation. He asked me to ask here. Jobjörn 14:19, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. Sorry, I see now my reply wasn't really helpful. (new suggestion:) Why not start Naming conventions (organisations) or something in that vein? I started Naming conventions (Swedish) just recently, but I suppose that's not really what you're looking for. However, feel free to extend that guideline proposal, if you'd be primarily interested in solving the issue for Swedish organisations. --Francis Schonken 14:46, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't propose using the exact parameters for political parties as trade unions. TU names are often not translated in international context, or they use English names that are not direct translations of their original names. --Soman 13:16, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

caps mid-word
When cleaning up random pages I came across Garmin ique, but the actual company name is "Garmin iQue." It makes sense to move the page to Garmin iQue, but is it okay? Akrabbim 02:01, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
 * If that's the name, then that's what the title should be. NickelShoe 02:36, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Absolutly, iQue IS the correct form. Qyd 21:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
 * FYI - when a capital letter appears in the middle of a word, it may sometimes be reffered to as camelCase. - UtherSRG (talk) 21:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Województwa vote
A vote on which translation of the Polish word województwo should be used in Wikipedia articles has started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography of Poland. Ausir 13:01, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Workers Party
In several cases political parties with names like Workers Party, Socialist Workers Party etc. have been moved to Workers' Party etc. While the apostrophe is grammatically correct English, it does not correspond to the actual usage of the names of these organizations. In cases like the US or UK Socialist Workers Parties, apostrophes are never used on posters, leaflets, etc. Thus I propose that the apostrophe is scrapped in wiki article names as well. --Soman 13:24, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Help needed with respect to parenthetical disambiguation
I recently moved all the articles in Category:California state highways from "California State Route X" to "State Route X (California)", as the name of each route is "State Route X", not "California State Route X". (For instance, there are 26900 vs. 148 matches for each on the Caltrans website.) I am currently in a revert war with JohnnyBGood and Gentgeen, among others, who keep moving them back to the incorrect names. I would appreciate some help, to at least make them understand that a few people does not make consensus. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates! ) 19:51, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Those are not the consensus defined names. Also the state and local news agencies often refer to them as CASRs... Also all of SPUIs controversial edits were made against conensus and his so called "edit war" was initiated by him with six editors in full opposition to his edits which I might add he also refuses to discuss. He is violation WP:CON.JohnnyBGood 19:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * "Also the state and local news agencies often refer to them as CASRs." Excuse me? 1 vs. 231 Google News results for "California state route" and California "state route". --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates! ) 19:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Spui,

Above, about a month and a half ago, you announced the start of a guideline proposal: "I've started Naming conventions/Numbered highways. I'm not sure about the exact process, so if it needs to be submitted anywhere, someone should do so."

To which I replied,
 * Hi SPUI, the last paragraph of the intro of naming conventions reads:"If you wish to propose a new naming convention, do so on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, whilst also publicising the proposal at Requests for comment and the Village Pump, as well as at any related pages. Once a strong consensus has formed, it can be adopted as a naming convention and listed below."
 * "Requests for comment", that would be Current surveys or Requests for comment/Policies
 * "Village pump", that would be Village pump (policy) or Village pump (proposals)
 * "any related pages", I suppose in this case at least WikiProject Highways

You again: "It's not ready for that. Right now it's just being worked out."

Since that moment I didn't see any highway naming proposal turn into guideline; can't even remember to have seen any announcement at RfC or VP (did I miss something)?

At first sight this seems a big leap: "not ready for publication", and the next thing one hears is that you start implementing your proposal (without there being a consensus for it) as if it had been promoted to Naming Convention.

Wouldn't you guys better first sort out which of the two competing proposals (WikiProject Highways/U.S. state highway naming conventions or Naming conventions/Numbered highways is going to end up in Category:Wikipedia archives/Category:Wikipedia rejected proposals, and which is the one proposed as Naming Convention, before starting to move articles around? I'd be very grateful! --Francis Schonken 21:47, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * This is an application of existing conventions for disambiguation. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates! ) 23:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Wrong! This is you thinking your opinion on interpretation and application of existing wikipolicy is of greater importance then a Wikiproject and mulitple other wikieditors. This has turned into an egotrip pure and simple. Your flippant comments are perfect evidence of that. As is your blatant disregard of other many other editors opinions in the matter... JohnnyBGood 23:27, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * (@SPUI:) If it was a part of existing guidelines, why would you need to start Naming conventions/Numbered highways anyway? Then it can be archived straight away...
 * Note that "Permission to edit-war/move-war" is no part of extant guidelines. Might I advise to have a look at naming conflict, and if that wouldn't bring a solution nearer, maybe consider WP:RM (btw, that also might help making clear which of the two alternate "highway" NC proposals is most likely to be broadly supported) --Francis Schonken 23:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * The proposal was mainly about establishing a consistent naming within each system, a different issue. WP:RM really doesn't get much input from outside the people already involved. I know what naming conventions say about these, but others refuse to listen to reason, and listing it on RM won't do anything to fix that. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates! ) 23:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * No listing on RM will get a final approval for it one way or the other... JohnnyBGood 23:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * No shit, isn't that what I just said? --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates! ) 23:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * No. You said listing it there would do nothing... which is dead wrong.JohnnyBGood 23:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Eh, I misinterpreted your lack of punctuation. However, it won't give a final answer, as I explained - only those that are already involved will vote. Oh sorry, I mean "vote". Because OMG WE DON'T VOTE ON WIKIPEDIA. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates! ) 23:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, I still suggest: Either: work with existing NC guidelines, which means going to WP:RM with articles about which there is difference of opinion on how existing NC guidelines need to be applied;

Either: go through the usual motions for promoting a sensible naming scheme to naming convention. These "motions", are, as I already mentioned twice above:
 * [...] the last paragraph of the intro of naming conventions reads:"If you wish to propose a new naming convention, do so on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, whilst also publicising the proposal at Requests for comment and the Village Pump, as well as at any related pages. Once a strong consensus has formed, it can be adopted as a naming convention and listed below."
 * "Requests for comment", that would be Current surveys or Requests for comment/Policies
 * "Village pump", that would be Village pump (policy) or Village pump (proposals)
 * "any related pages", I suppose in this case at least WikiProject Highways

These recommendations are as valid for individual wikipedians taking an initiative, as for members of a WikiProject. --Francis Schonken 00:00, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Reverting the NC page. We're still working on it. Here what SPUI is doing is declaring his viewpoint correct and applying it without consensus. We've started a Med Cabal page regarding this. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  04:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Religious Organizations
Currently, there is an unending controversy at Roman Catholic Church about whether the article should be named Catholic Church, Catholicism, or stay as it is. Currently, Catholic Church redirects to Roman Catholic Church. Catholicism, which in popular use refers to a specific system of beliefs, is in fact a discussion about the small-c meaning of "catholic" (universality). Confusingly, that's exactly what our article on Catholic is also.

The problem is, the Catholic Church, which calls itself: "The Catholic Church", is institutionally constituted of several dozen dependent "particular Churches": the Ukrainian Catholic Church, the Byzantine Catholic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, the Coptic Catholic Church, the Greek Catholic Church, etc., and, alas, the Roman Catholic Church. But the distinction between the Churches is not by any stretch of the imagination an insignificant or negligible ecclesiastical issue, especially when you're writing an article about, inter alia, the structure of the Church! Of course, the Roman Church is the largest, and has the most "members", and the Bishop of Rome is immediately the head of it. But the Bishop of Rome also occupies a higher office: that of Pope, by virtue of which he is also Supreme Pontiff of all the other particular Churches. For more, see here.

So it is factually incorrect to equate Roman Catholic Church with Catholic Church. Many of us have repeatedly requested to move the article. But the waters are muddied because some Protestant Christians claim to believe in a small-c "catholic Church", albeit in a less institutionalized sense than the Pope and we Catholics believe it. In any event, they claim that making Catholic Church the main article would effectively endorse the Church's exclusivist claim to be "the" Catholic Church. (Despite the fact that we equate the two anyway by redirecting.)

A compromise that I offered was overwhelmingly rejected. (It consisted of moving the article to Catholicism--since that seems to suggest a system of beliefs rather than "universality" or small-c catholicity--and dictionary.com supports me on that.)

So this incorrect (and frankly insensitive) status quo continues. I don't believe it's proper for any religionists to use articles on Wikipedia to support or oppose a POV. By naming the article Catholic Church, we would not be endorsing that Church's claims about itself. We would simply be naming it by what it is called! Naming it something that it is not called suggests a POV. And launching into discussions of the "ambiguity" of various terms like Catholicism, Catholic, etc., also suggests a POV. Most people, when searching for those terms, are simply not looking for an article on (what is properly called) catholicity -- and you'll notice there's no article for that.

Anyway, I noticed the article Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the other day. According to our other article, Latter Day Saints, "Latter Day Saints consider themselves to be 'saints' in the earliest Christian sense of the word, meaning members of the original church that they believe Jesus organized before his death in the First Century, AD." It occurred to me that, as a Catholic, I believe this very thing--about the Catholic Church, but emphatically not about the LDS Church! Should we change the title of the article because other religions make exclusivist claims on the concept of Latter Day Saints? If not, then neither should we name the Catholic Church based on analagous objections.

We would have to rename our Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Mormonism or Joseph Smith's Church or something like that. But that is absurd. We should stay out of ecclesiological debates and simply name religions after the names they claim, and by which most people know them.

Similarly, if there was a political party that called itself The Best Party, and other parties not identically named also claimed to be "the best party", then should we disambiguate The Best Party article? Of course not. We should name organizations by the names they claim for themselves. If there are two that claim the exact same name, then we can disambig.

I am asking for a naming convention that would ensure consistency here. I look forward to reading your comments! --Hyphen5 03:00, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Hyphen5 is correct about the redirect already equating them and the article should either be moved or a disambiguation page should be created. It should be a disambiguation page unless almost all searchers and linkers would be looking for the Roman Catholic Church. In that case, the Roman Catholic Church article should be moved to Catholic Church and link to a disambiguation page should be put at the top. However, since it is called the Roman Catholic Church a significant percentage of the time in formal writing, I suspect that "Catholic Church" is sometimes ambiguous. From the sources I looked at, Catholic Church refers to other churches, such as the Eastern Catholic Church and the Old Catholic Church, and to Christians as a whole. There are also the Catholic Churches within the Catholic Church in Rome mentioned above. -- Kjkolb 05:50, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
 * FYI - Eastern Catholic Church is an umbrella term for all particular Churches within the Catholic Church, except the Roman Rite. So, Eastern Catholic Church refers to what I was talking about. Old Catholic Church, as I understand it, is not affiliated with the Pope. I do think that the overwhelming proportion of people who type "Catholic Church" into Wikipedia, or any search, will be looking for that Church of which the Pope is head. Therefore, Roman Catholic Church should be moved to Catholic Church. --Hyphen5 06:25, 21 March 2006 (UTC)