Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality/WIP-naming-guidelines

Discussion
When there are multiple names or terms used for a sex act, position, or practice, we ought to enable all of the more common ones to work through redirect. The primary article name could be one of them, or could be called by the "scientific" term most commonly used. By scientific, I mean that which might be used in polite conversation, a technical or research article on the act, position or practice. An example might be "cunnilingus" or "felatio". There are some cases where the colloquial term is very commonly used, and the "scientific" term might be obscure, a neologism or not yet in use. In this case, the most commonly used name might be good for the primary article, with redirect from the infrequently used term going to the primary article. Examples that come to mind are "Rusty Trombone" (is there a scientific term? "Manual genital anal-oral stimulation"? (no active scientific term, or very obscure)  Or "Handjob" used for "Manual Genital Stimulation". (scientific term infrequently used, colloquial term not considered to be vulgar. Atom 22:17, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

When a google search turns up equal number of hits for different terms, probably the scientific term would be best.

When a google search turns up one term predominant over the other, the more common term, asl long as it is not considered vulgar, ought to be used.

Examples: "Rimming" = 1,680,000. "Anal-Oral" = 902,000 "handjob" = 5,250,000. "Manual Genital Stimulation" 266,000. "Cocksucking" (vulgar) = 1,090,000. "Fellatio" = 3,730,000.

On the one hand, we want to be encyclopedic, and therefore use correct terminology, but also want to be user friendly, and use terms that people know and use in everyday life frequently. We don't want to be an academic journal as much as we want to be everperson general reference.Atom 22:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I strongly disagree to deciding anything primarily by number of Google hits. See WP:GOOGLE.  Also note that if you search for "Manual genital stimulation" properly, by enclosing it in quotes, Google only returns 564 hits. --Strait 23:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

This was illustration, and is useful for that. It is not useful for deciding things, only for informational use. I agree with your points entirely. If used correctly, it can be one of several tools an editor could use to help them make a decision themselves. I should have been more accurate in my search technique when using those as an example. Atom 23:08, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

No term to reference
When the name of a sex act, position or practice has no widely accepted name, or when the term is used for a variety of activities, then the most commonly used term that can be cited by a reference should be used. (I disagree --Strait 22:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC).)

Okay, what wording would be better? The way I view it, is if it can't be referenced by a citation, then no name should be used. If someone can provide a citation for a term, that term is better than no term. If differing citations can be provided, it is purely an editorial decision, probably based on the perception of most common usage Atom 23:08, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with "if it can't be referenced, use no name". I disagree, however, with the idea to use any citable name in the case of a concept having no generally accepted name. I can easily find a magazine article which names some position "the golden horse" or whatnot, but I do not want that name to be on Wikipedia (except perhaps in a list at the bottom of an article on "things X has been called by someone"). I think that such a term is worse than no term. Let's set the bar a little higher. If we have no reason to believe that a concept has any generally accepted term, I would prefer to not call it anything. Failing that, let's require at least two high-quality citable sources to use the same term for the same thing. --Strait 23:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Agree, disagree? --Strait 21:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I can agree "if it can't be referenced, use no name".

When I say use "any" citeable name, I mean that to sue a name would require a citation, not that the citation must be used. If there are alternatives, then an editor, or editors judgment would be used to determine which was the best. If a position had one cite on google, that might be overlooked, and no name given, where if it had 100,000, and the other names for a position has 100, 1200, then I would, of course lean toward the very heavily cited name. If a position had twnety different citeable names of equal magnitude in usage (more or less) I think I would say "No agreed upon name". Your sugegstion of at least "two high-quality" sources would work for me. Atom 21:59, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, let me know what you think of my edit to the guideline. --Strait 00:57, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

It looks good. I will give it a second pass proofreading tomorrow. Atom 03:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Failure to reach a consensus
It appears that this proposal has not attracted broad-based support and is not likely to. It should either progress or be marked as rejected. --Kevin Murray 18:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)