Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)/Archive 14

/Talk archive before March 2003

I would like to propose name convension about Japanese emperor. My new convention is simply:

{era name or given name} emperor

There is no ambiguous name basically so putting "of Japan" is redundant.
My world history book uses this notation, which seems conventional. Google attests too.
For example, because meiji is an era name not ruler name so it is sometimes misleading to say Emperor Meiji of Japan, which sounds Meiji is a name of ruler just like other monarcy in westerns.

Any objection? -- Taku 17:10 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

I'm afraid so.

I think we should follow the same basic structure for all monarchs. Allowing exceptions opens the doors to 'and what about . . . ' arguments which waste time and effort.
I think we should always put of of where even where as in this case given the name it might seem clearcut. There are wiki users who might think that some other state exists in that region that has an emperor and that maybe it might refer to it. (I know, but remember many Wiki users are unsure about basic facts and are using wiki to learn them. Even if 90% know it can only refer to Japan, I think we owe it to new people learning facts to make titles as clear and unambiguous from the start as it can be.
History books come from one culture, where everyone may have a basic level of knowledge or cop-on. But wiki has to deal with many culture where not everyone has the instinctive knowledge about some facts.

So I would strongly oppose dropping the words 'of Japan'. It makes things easier with them in and conforms to universal style, while removing them simply opens the prospect of confusing some people. I really don't see any point to dropping it. It isn't as if it is a large complicated title or anything. It is only two worlds. STÓD/ÉÍRE 01:06 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)

Actually this convension has a conflict with the basic nameing convension, that is the title should be most common and should not have educational perpose. Many advocate place names should be a real name that are actually used in there people are living. But the title is merely a label and should be nothing more than that. Current convension might make a confusing because you have to know the convension emperor {ruler name} of {country}. If we started to use title for educational perpose, I am afraid we should put more info to the title, say pappus's law (mathmatics) not simply pappuss's law. or not algol but algol programming language and so on so on. I understand your concern but it is simply not the purpose of the title. -- Taku 01:42 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)

In the area of monarchs it is. Monarchical nomenclature can be difficult to decipher so it is important to have as much clarity as possible, eg., British monarchs have reigned over different land masses, and unless you clarify, you end up with thinking Richard II had the same area of rule as Queen Victoria, who had the same area as Elizabeth II. I think in royal and imperial nomenclature you have to be much more specific. And it isn't as those being specific is complicated. Emperor of Japan seems perfectly straightforward, easy to type with absolute clarity. Where is the problem? STÓD/ÉÍRE 03:29 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)

I agree. Westerners couldn't be expected to know that Japan is the only country which has emperors with that particular name. Or am I misunderstanding the nature of the problem? Deb 17:26 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)

Again, the title of an article shoud not be employed for educational purpose. The problem is simply the current usage is peculiar. We reached the convention that says putting of {country} because there is some conflict such as what you pointed out. But if not any, there is not reason to use that. Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia. The title should be used for teaching westerns but should be one that people least surpirse. Besides, there are already a handful of articles using different convention like emperors of Rome or those of China. I don't see any reason that only Emperor of Japan need to stick to western style. -- Taku 00:27 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

I don't understand (Yeah, I know big surprise). But the whole point of the specific naming convention for monarchs was to disambiguate between modern European rulers (which pretty much excludes anything before the Renaissance or that is outside of Europe). It would be very silly to have the article on Pericles at Pericles of Athens. IMO the same holds true for Asian monarchs (there are exceptions such as Hirohito who is commonly called 'Emperor Hirohito of Japan by Westerners - but the extra words are not needed to disambiguate Hirohito from any other person or thing). --mav

I agree with Mav, and I have a more general concern that some experienced users are viewing naming conventions as rule set in stone, rather than helpful guidelines. Naming conventions shouldn't be that big a deal, for several reasons.

Firstly, it's easy to move articles if we decide they are misnamed, so users creating articles shouldn't have to worry too much if they are breaking a naming convention - it can always be moved later. And users certainly shouldn't have to feel that they need to carefully consult a rulebook before they create a new article. Back in the earlier days of the Wikipedia, we didn't have the move feature, so it was important to get article names right first time. That's not the case now.

Secondly, if conventions are kept short and simple - which I think they should be - they will not be able to anticipate every future naming issue that might come up. In some cases they might lead to article titles that seem odd, and out of line with common sense. Where a 'non standard' article title seems appropriate, contributors should feel free to depart from the convention and agree on an alternative title. Redirects can always be used so that links to the 'conventional' title still work.

Provided that article titles are sensible and unambiguous, we should be reasonably tolerant about naming. In particular, I've occasionally seen good, experienced contributors saying broadly 'you must do things this way, the convention says so, it cannot be broken'. That can be a bit intimidating to new users who are just trying to write articles, and it's not necessary. Enchanter 01:11 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

What Mav said. Tannin