Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 5

Not sure if this has already been discussed, or if it's off-topic here. Is it Wikipedia policy to consider Middle East a continent distinct from Asia? Also, is it common to club Egypt with the Middle Eastern countries, perhaps because Egypt is Arab? Ambarish 23:39, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm unaware of a Wikipedia "policy" considering the Middle East a continent. However, it is common practice in English to refer to the "Middle East" as a geographical region. I think most people would include Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia (among others) in that region. Like most regions, it has fuzzy boundaries. I don't think Arab ethnicity is a requirement (e.g., Israel, the Kurdish regions). Different topic: Europe and Asia are connected, and can be referred to collectively as Euroasia. However, they are often treated as though they were separate; blame the Greeks. -- Dwheeler

Case citations

Is there any uniform method for referring to case names in law? Or should we just follow good judgement and local citation rules? Bbtommy 18:01, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There are two major systems for referring to cases in law: the Bluebook and ALWD systems.

Bluebook: Published by law students (specifically, law review members) at several elite law schools, led by Harvard Law.

ALWD Citation Manual: Published by the Association of Legal Writing Directors, a group of professors who coordinate legal writing instruction.

The Bluebook has been around for several decades, while the ALWD Citation Manual was first published in 2000. However, ALWD is gaining considerable ground. About half of the law schools in the country have abandoned the Bluebook in their legal writing courses in favor of ALWD. However, relatively few law reviews have adopted ALWD.

The main differences between the two systems, as I understand them (I'm a law student who's been exposed solely to the Bluebook), are:

ALWD and Bluebook have slightly different rules regarding abbreviations in case names.
The most radical difference is in type styles. Under the Bluebook system, the type styles found in a citation will be different in a law review article than in a court document. Under ALWD, the location of a citation will not affect the type style at all.

Dale Arnett 05:17, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Vote: spaces after periods between initials? (20/24)

The leading style guides in American and International English usage (The Chicago Manual of Style edition 15 paragraphs 8.6 and 15.12, The Oxford Style Manual 3.2, and The Random House Handbook) dictate that initials in people's names, or companies named after them, should be written with spaces after the periods and a space between the initials and the name, e.g. W. E. B. Du Bois. Other, such as Associated Press Stylebook (a style book meant for newspapers where space is at a premium) and The Eonomist Style Guide, dictate against putting spaces between the initials, with a space only between the initials and the name, e.g. W.E.B. Du Bois. At the moment, both styles are prevalent in Wikipedia with frequent use of redirects.

Please vote on this issue:

With spaces

Nunh-huh
Bbtommy
Ruhrjung (We are discussing the titles of the articles, right? I think the default ought to be full names instead of initials.)
User:Dwheeler
Tkinias
Musashiwashi (I fully agree with Ruhrjung)
Oliver P. (re full names: we should use whatever form of a name is most common in the real world)
Paul Pogonyshev (nbsp's could be put automaticaly by software backend)
Ebear422 I think the rhythm is wrong without spaces. I can do without the dots.
LarryGilbert (C. S. Lewis was Clive Staples Lewis, not CliveStaples Lewis!)
Herbee because it's the logical thing to do.
80.255 19:17, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC) This is the only correct way. It should ideally be the policy; however, in the absence of its being the policy, there should be no policy on the matter, for any policy against spaces would necessarily be blatantly incorrect.
Fred 18:23, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC) FWIW, with spaces is the standard at Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreading. I think it looks better and makes more sense than the alternative.
The Anome 17:04, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC) (but please note that the appearance can be altered by post-processing: perhaps this should be an option, like the display of dates).
Beardless 10:58 18 May 2004 (UTC)
Andrew Yong 22:54, 24 May 2004 (UTC) I think it looks strange without
I fully agree with Larry Gilbert, 80.255, and Andrew Yong -- BRG 17:45, Jun 4, 2004 (UTC)
OF course with spaces. Without spaces is ungrammatical. RickK 05:21, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)
Conti|✉ 22:02, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Merovingian✍Talk 08:59, Jul 22, 2004 (UTC)

I'm in favour -- 195.92.194.12 18:11, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Not only correct, but also looks more professional. -Sean Curtin 06:28, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Any respectable manual of style (e.g. Oxford, Yale, etc.) will tell you that the correct format is rather like this: "R. L. This" The User Formerly Known As 82.6.10.139 02:52, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Acsenray 18:01, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 08:53, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Without spaces

Viajero
Taku - in encyclopedia, more compact is better.
Wiki is not paper - Ec

But the size of the display is limited.
Elf - I'm a Chicago devotee, myself, but in this case I prefer no spaces
Stan Shebs - just seems more "natural"
SimonP - looks much better
Hajor - with all necessary redirects, of course.
DavidWBrooks - makes breaks at end of line less likely (e.g., A. / A. Milne)
Use "nbsp" where you think that matters - Ec
No, please don't. Markup like nbsp is very confusing to new editors with no prior knowledge of HTML. Angela
Wik
Morven - looks better to me.
Tannin
Angela - seems to be the most common way of doing it
Emsworth
Sam Spade
Ryan_Cable
Jmabel
J-V Heiskanen - very slight preference, best to have one though.
Piglet - more flowing and clearer in my opinion
Rich0 - looks nicer and is more concise
ugen64 00:36, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC) - isn't this the most common way?
Alcarillo 18:09 26 Apr 2004 (UTC) - I raised this on the J.R.R. Tolkien page; it's simply not modern usage, and using the spaces looks ridiculous, even when not using monospace type. Moreover, this is an online resource, not a book, so following (outdated) style guides for print isn't correct.
older ≠ wiser 17:26, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC) Looks better to me
Chris Jefferies 22:35, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC) - I prefer the appearance of the no-space method, less cluttered and much clearer.
Neutrality 01:13, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)
MK 05:19, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC) - No guiding principle involved; I just think "without spaces" looks better.
nedward 11:36, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC) - ditto
COGDEN 17:42, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC) - One additional area where the no-spaces rule is used is in the legal profession, where spaces are eliminated between any two one-character initials of abbreviations. But that's the only situation where it would be appropriate. For example, you would write "George H.W. Bush", but not ~~"George W.Bush"~~.
Xiaopo ℑ 04:03, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC) - I'm worried about names breaking into newlines as well.
Gangulf 05:57, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC): No space, I would write (but not vote) "George H.W. Bush"

No-vote comments

Jerzy : ~~Vote here should be only re article titles; in fact,~~ i lean twd no spaces in article titles (which are already widened on the page by enlarged font), and probably in lists (which profit from compactness), but spaces in running text (aiding a reader in having info in the back of their mind, on the occasions when they pause to write a name carefully, what the logical and formal standard is). That would mean piping running-text links to such names; that may be tolerable, since the names in question are not that common.
Anthony DiPierro Why not whatever is more popular on a case by case basis?
Nunh-huh : on what basis is it asserted that "Modern typographical practice in book and newspaper publishing leans towards the latter" when book publishing and newpaper publishing clearly differs on this particular question of style? Way to skew the vote!
- It is asserted on the basis of observation. Contemporary books and newspapers have dropped the spaces, and as far as I can tell, have been doing so since ~1960s. It appears to be a case that the style guides no longer reflect the reality -- or that they guidelines are tailored for other purposes, such as scholarly manuscripts. Look around you, can you find a book or magazine with initials formatted with spaces??? -- Viajero 09:49, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  - Yes, actual books have retained the spaces, as is indicated by the style guides for books (as opposed to those for magazines and newspapers). The style guides certainly reflect current good practice, and the latest version of CMS is no more than a year old: it hasn't missed any 40 year old trends. Wikipedia shouldn't be rewriting style guides (especially on the basis of "it looks better" (which is a typesetting issue), or adopting styles proper to newpapers and magazines but not to books. Unless it aspires to be a newspaper, I suppose. -- Nunh-huh 10:46, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
☮ Eclecticology Hmmm! It's an abuse of the voting process to attempt to impose the Tyranny of the Majority. I'll continue to use spaces according to the Style Manuals rather than a phoney vote.
Jia ng: Should be whichever is more popular on a case-by-case basis.
ShaneKing : I'd actually support no spaces and no periods either. I think that style looks as least as good as any other and is the easiest to type and find when using the search box. Although I admit it may offend some grammatical purists.
- (I agree with this also. Tannin)
- Agreed, for more than one initial. Jeandré
- I agree in any context. As Viajero mentioned, I'd contend that it's becoming standard to omit both the periods and the spaces (see style guides for Guardian, Economist). As a Brit, periods look very American, in the same way that Capitalising Every Word In A Title To An Article would do ;o) — OwenBlacker 10:39, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)
Andre Engels: I prefer no space, but am not going to vote, because my opinion is too much influenced by the fact that my mother tongue is Dutch, where the spaces are much more commonly not-given than in English and other languages.
Modern UK usage is no dots. I understand that current US usage is dots. This is just a comment not a vote. Secretlondon 18:15, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
- I've just picked several British books of my shelves at random, and all of them used dots... -- Oliver P. 04:52, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Don't know about English, but in Russian space is mandatory after any abbreviated word (i.e. dot and space; "i.e." in Russian would be "i. e."). <rant> Unfortunately, most people don't follow this rule nowadays. Sad to see how typographical rules are pushed away by computer users. Dashes tend to disappear too being replaced by ugly hyphens. </rant> -- Paul Pogonyshev 23:24, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- And yet, ironically, this issue is much more important to computer users (and their works, like Wikipedia), who must deal with the literal nature of character sequences, than it is to publishers, whose chief goal is appropriate visual presentation. -- Jeff Q 05:08, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)
There's no need to base the vote on anything other than what we Wikipedians think looks best. I can't believe we're scurrying off to check what standards are followed by this book, that guide, or nation XYZ. Many book editors have probably decided on what they thinks looks good! The de facto 'rules' are no more than current common practice. So we should feel free to do what we prefer as long as it is clear, reasonably concise, and looks attractive and business-like. -- Chris Jefferies 22:49, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Whatever, with redirects. - Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 17:50, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
User:Dbachmann: internally I would prefer an encoding with some 'special space' (like nbsp) that (a) can be used by parsers to decide it's not the end of a sentence, and (b) will enable the user to set a preference for rendering. Contributors cannot realistically be asked to insert nbsp after initials, though, so I guess my vote would go to 'no spaces', with the option to automatically insert nbsps (or something) later.

From my talk page

You removed the phrase

Modern typographical practice in book and newspaper publishing leans towards the latter.

from Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions declaring it "unsubstantiated". I don't know where you live but where I live I don't see any books or newspapers using the periods-with-spaces style. As far as I can tell, it went out of fashion in the ~1960s. Fine, you can adhere to the in this case outmoded prescript of the style guides, but that is called pedantry. Also, I would be reluctant to submit every issue on wikipedia to a vote, but it seems that for essentially aesthetical issues, which is what this is, it is not at all inappropriate. -- Viajero 09:35, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I moved it here because I'm not pursuing a private conversation on this matter. "Unsubstantiated" simply means that no facts were offered in evidence. So I looked at three books which I acquired in the past week, all first published in 2003: Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival published by Henry Hold; Poundstone, How Would You Move Mount Fuji? published by Little, Brown; Cahill, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea published by Doubleday. These are all major publishers. I also looked at the December 2003 issue of Scientific American. All used spaces between the initials. The previously cited C.M.S. and O.S.M. (note that I do not use spaces here because the initials are standing alone) were both published in 2003. That's out of date?

Contrary to the intended tone in its use, I do not find the use of the word "pedantry" to be wholly negative, although it may perhaps have been misapplied in the present circumstances. According to Fowler, "Pedantry may be defined ... as the saying of things in language so learned and demonstratively accurate as to imply a slur upon the generality, who are not capable or not desirous of such display. The term, then, is obviously a relative one; my pedantry is your scholarship, his reasonable accuracy, her irreducible minimum of education, and someone else's ignorance. It is therefore not very profitable to dogmatize here on the subject; an essay would establish not what pedantry is, but only the place in the scale occupied by the author, and that, so far as it is worth inquiring into, can be better ascertained from the treatment of details... There are certainly many accuracies that are not pedantries, as well as some that are; thare are certainly many pedantries that are not accuracies, as well as some that are; and no book that attempts ... to give hundreds of decisions on the matter will find many readers who will accept them all."

Given the evidence, a vote purposed by one person's aesthetic cravings is completely inappropriate. ☮ Eclecticology 11:20, 2004 Feb 18 (UTC)

Just to be pedantic :-), it isn't one person's aesthetics since there are official style guides that recommend omitting spaces too. This looks more like one of those situations where publications have to decide on a "house style"; while we generally follow Chicago, in the past people have argued strenuously that some of its recommendations are wrong, for instance on points of capitalization and date format. In the print world, one would have an editor-in-chief to hand down our reality from on high :-), but in the absence of one, discussion and voting is the next-best.

Just to trot out a couple standard aspects that I haven't seen mentioned here yet - is this an English dialect (American/British/Australian/etc) dependency, and would one or the other form make it easier to process automagically? For instance, could thin spaces be inserted as part of creating the HTML page, and which form would make it easier for software to detect and change reliably? Stan 14:44, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I love your idea, Stan. I think this is rather software issue like whether to have an empty line after headings. A nice thing about wikipedia is that it is a software that produces a nice format. Writers should not be too bothered with formats and conventions. Software solution is usually the best. The heated date format discussion we had in the past is an good instance of this. In short, I bet the results of this policy would become obsolete in the future with the advent of the brilliant parser that automatically generates aritcles compliant to any standard setting. -- Taku 19:33, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think that it's an American vs. British issue. Chicago is American, and Oxford is British, which is why I made a point of citing both. (I would have been much less enthusiastic about this issue if these two had disagreed.) I don't know about the Australians. I couldn't find a specific rule in the Canadian Globe and Mail Style Book, which is primarily for newspapers. Where relevant names are cited in the text it uses spaces; one notable exception there was the use of the name "J.A. (Sandy) McFarlane", one of the authors, on the title page of the book. The Associated Press Style Book is one that prefers no spaces, but it does give reasons which are similar to those raised by David W. Brooks above.

I am not well enough versed in the technical operations to comment on the automagical aspects, but I suspect that the "thin space" compromise could lead to the same kind of difficulties that were mentioned by Angela about "nbsp".

I know that no one is in a position to promulgate edicts from on high, presuming that such an issue would not be of momentous importance to Jimbo. I do agree that a discussion of the matter is healthy, but I find voting on such issues and treating the results of such a vote as a binding rule to be an evil aberration. There are clear differences about what is more "natural" or "aesthetically pleasing", both of which are subjective matters, and using a vote to impose either view is unduly restrictive.

Like Ruhrjung I would prefer full names in titles, but I've already been through that fight over David Wark Griffith. Without getting into details the date format and capitalization issues should also remain open. Taking positions that differ significantly from the major style guides should only be done with extreme caution, and should be supported by at least some measure of scholarship.

The point has also been raised about whether the debate is only about article titles. Technically yes. It is also only about personal names in situations where the person is known as using two or more successive initials. In looking for evidence in the various sources that I have used I found very few people to whom this situation would make a difference. If it is only about article titles the argument about separated initials would not be important since the initials would normally be at the beginning of the title. ☮ Eclecticology 20:22, 2004 Feb 18 (UTC)

I've just picked several British books of my shelves at random, and all of them used dots with spaces between them. Omitting spaces would just look ugly! -- Oliver P. 04:52, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Village pump discussion

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump on February 21, 2004.

Some style guides dictate that initials in people's names, or companies named after them, should be written with spaces after the periods and a space between the initials and the name, ie W. E. B. Du Bois. Others dictate against putting spaces between the initials, only a space between the initials and the name, ie W.E.B. Du Bois. Modern typographical practice in book and newspaper publishing leans towards the latter. (Currently, Wikipedia has a mixture of both.)

Please cast your vote: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions

-- Viajero 09:26, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The very latest editions of the most popular style guides have not, despite what is stated above, shown any tendency toward the "condensed" version: they continue to recommend spaces after periods. Can these alleged "other" style guides that dictate against spaces be named/referenced? -- Nunh-huh 09:41, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The Economist Style Guide, 3rd Ed. 1993 -- Viajero 16:03, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

High quality typography uses a thin space after initials. I believe that the practice of using no space dates from the days of typewriters which used fixed-width characters. The period character always had the dot to the left of center, so typing "A.B" meant that there was already a half-space after the period (and 1.5 spaces looked excessive). However, in Wikipedia we don't have the option of a thin space; we have to choose between all or nothing. I don't like either. --Zero 10:17, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Another advantage of a "thin space" over the space bar is that it combined the initials into a single "word" so they wouldn't get separated by the end of a line. To accomplish the same thing, I think Wikipedia should *not* put spaces in initials, or we're more likely to get browser views like this:

He was as good a children's author as A.

A. Milne

DavidWBrooks 15:51, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thin spaces are an option. HTML supports thin spaces, as well as a few other space sizes (see the entity reference). In particular, we could have some clever wikicode that automatically detects initials and inserts an HTML   after the period. Examples:

A.A.Milne (no space)

A. A. Milne (thin space)

A. A. Milne (full space)

Automatic thin-space insertion could potentially insert thin spaces where we don't want them, but it's one possible solution. Preventing line-breaking in the middle of someone's initials is easy though - we could just use the non-breaking space  , or CSS to specify that breaks should not occur after a thin space. If done right, it wouldn't have to ugly-up the wikitext either; just let the PHP do all the work. -- Wapcaplet 16:21, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thin space comes up as an unknown character on my computer ("A box A box Milne" isn't very easy to read). Before everyone jumps on me and tells me to get a better font, I'll point out that many people we are aiming Wikipedia at will not have administrator privileges on the computers they use at work/school. This is the first time that a character (which isn't part of a foreign alphabet) has not displayed on my machine while surfing Wikipedia. fabiform | talk 17:14, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

OK, guess that isn't a great idea then :-) What browser/platform are you using, out of curiosity? Does it work to use the numerical equivalent  ? (used here: A. A. Milne) I wonder if this affects other entity references like —. -- Wapcaplet 17:50, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thin spaces are in the HTML spec, but most browswers do not yet support them. (Browser? Character set? Or both? I can't remember.) The upshot is the same either way, much as they would be the best—and also an asset for the mdash—but, alas, it ain't practical. Try again in a decade or so. Tannin 10:31, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm on Windows 2000, and crazy browser (which is based on IE). So pretty much your middle of the road non-techie user demographic! The numerical equivalent didn't work either, but I've never had any problems rendering mdashes etc, so don't panic too much! :) fabiform | talk 22:07, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I get the same thing with Windows XP Pro, IE6. --Rlandmann 23:33, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

On Win2K IE5.5 I get boxes in the first instances, and spaces in the second BUT the thin spaces display wider than the standard space! --HappyDog 00:23, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Here (Win NT IE5.5) I am getting very wide spaces instead of narrow spaces in all instances. Basically using the numeric code or the ampersand code is a non-starter. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 12:04, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Why don't we have the option of no periods after initials? I always type A A Milne, H G Wells etc, and I think it looks much cleaner. Adam 22:28, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't know of any' style manual that allows for initials with no periods. Can you offer some, any, justification other than "I think it looks much cleaner"? Acsenray 18:10, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

FWIW, I think that in a case where Oxford and Chicago agree, it is silly to go against them. The above-cited AP style manual is not exactly an example of good guidelines for typography; among other things, it advises against serial commas (i.e., it demands "A, B and C" vice "A, B, and C") and does not use italics at all. It is very specifically geared to print newspapers, and in particular to the technical restrictions of the teletype machines of bygone eras. (For that matter, following AP style means omitting all diacriticals from non-English names, something that is clearly inappropriate for Wikipedia.)

As far as the line-breaking problem goes, simply follow good Web style and use the   entity. This is also standard LaTeX practice: One writes, for example, W.~E.~B. DuBois. --Tkinias 23:39, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thin spaces look like DOUBLE normal spaces on my browser. So instead of a thin space I see two full spaces. Optim 02:44, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia article titles for specific literary works

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump on February 21, 2004.

Today, someone had initiated a series of articles with titles like Mother Earth (Asimov) for short stories by the author whose last name is Asimov. Isn't there a better way to title that sort of Wikipedia article? Bevo 22:03, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

No. :-) I would probably do Mother Earth (Asimov short story) rather than just Mother Earth (short story) since the title is so generic there are probably lots of authors who've used the title. When title searching is back you can do a little exploring to see what other people have done. Stan 22:11, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Actually, that was done by User:Ausir. He and User:Lefty are both new here, and have both been doing great work over at the Foundation Series. As for the Mother Earth (Asimov), since it's such a generic name, I think he made the best choice possible. IMHO, Mother Earth (short story) is a *terrible* title and Mother Earth (Asimov) is a much better choice. →Raul654 22:19, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

Has this been thought out completely? What if it had been written by someone like Robin Cook or Stephen King whose last names have generic meaning and could be confused with categorizations outside authorship? I'd like to encourage either the form Mother Earth (short story) or a variation on Stan's as Mother Earth (short story, Asimov). Isn't there a Wikipedia help page somewhere already that suggests some patterns to follow? Bevo 23:15, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I did a quick survey of existing titles and found these embellishments: (novel), (book) and (series). This (Asimov) qualifier is something new entirely. I suppose it will become an example of an alternative for us to study when it is completed, but is sure is irregular as it stands. It may actually turn out to be a "good thing", but I sure wish they had set the bar just a little bit higher when they wanted to do something better than current practice. Bevo 00:40, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think it's a good initiative. Probably these embellishments should only be used when there's a dismbiguation article of some sort, which there is in this case at Mother Earth. My only worry is that I'm not completely sure how this differs to the now-discouraged practice of using subpages, but it seems it does. If the author's name is such as to be misleading, such as (King), then just use a longer version, as in (Stephen King). Andrewa 02:41, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Maybe this needs to be moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions? Do we move the entire discussion when that happens? (maybe without this "meta"-comment) Bevo 02:52, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Agree discussion should continue somewhere else. Andrewa 08:42, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

To be fair, this is consistent with what's done with music. Since there are eight billion "Symphony Number 1"s, it's usually postfixed with (Bach) or whoever. I'm not sure if either is "better". -- Dwheeler

I'm rather new here, so I wasn't entirely aware of the naming convention. Should I move them (the other ones are Reason (Asimov), and Evidence (Asimov)? Ausir 18:26, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

As I say above, I'd like to see a naming pattern for literary works that would have employed
Mother Earth (short story, Asimov), Reason (short story, Asimov), etc. But at this time, that's just my feeling. I don't recall seeing clear guidance in a Wikipedia style guide, so you do what you feel is right (including leaving it as you have it now if you want to). What we need to do is try to either find that there is already a Wikipedia style guide that we can folow, and perhaps amend, or create one. Bevo 00:43, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I would like to promote with your suggestion that Title (type, author) would be the most usable and scalable. This would allow commonly titled works to be distinguished and differentiated by type and author. This could also cover how written works outside "literature" could be named to avoid conflicts, which would have a much higher instance of possible overlap. For instance "Muscle Cars" is a title of numerous works, and with overlapping subject matter, but would be distinguishable by author. I think this proposal has the most scalable options, yet is not overly long or unwieldily to implement. Lestatdelc 19:35, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

I've added a suggested convention for literary works to the bottom of the main meta page. I did this because I couldn't find any other clear guidelines, and I was having misgivings about my choice of name for The Stranger (book), which perhaps really ought to be "The Stranger (novel)" instead. Comments, suggestions, and improvements are all welcome. —LarryGilbert 02:33, 2004 Apr 2 (UTC)

Lists

If an article is a list of internal links to more specific lists (e.g. List of fictional species), what should it be called? "List of fictional species", "Lists of fictional species", "List of lists of fictional species"...? — Timwi 03:04, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Lists works for me. --mav

Deities and mythology

The goddess Venus: main page at Venus (mythology). Venus (goddess) is a redirect to that page. The god Mars: main page at Mars (god). Mars (mythology) is a redirect to that page.

Likewise: the mythical Chimera is at Chimera (mythology), but the mythical Kappa is at Kappa (mythical creature).

Should the naming convention be "name (mythology)", or something more specific? I support the former, personally. The main argument I can think of in favor of the latter is that it helps avoid disambiguation in the case of mythical beings sharing the same name, but those are the exception rather than the trule anyways. -Sean 06:58, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think (mythology) is more standard - I would suggest going for that. Martin 21:49, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

They used to be spread out at (god), (goddess), (God), (Greek god) and all sorts of other disambiguators. A long time ago, I standardized them all to (mythology), but many more have been created or moved since then, so re-standardization is necessary. Tuf-Kat 21:52, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)

Wouldn't maintaining NPOV require not making a judgement call over whether a god is `legitimate' or not? Using _(mythology) seems to imply that the deity in question isn't the object of real religion. I'm sure you would have unhappy poeple if you changed Jesus to Jesus Christ (mythology)... Tkinias 02:48, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Seconded - (god) and (goddess) (and other deities) should be labeled as such, and not 'dismissed' and mythology in a POV manner. 80.255 19:23, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thirded. Rmhermen 15:36, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. Mythology is not about legitimacy vs illigitimacy of the religion. It's about a certain realm of subject matter: the explanation of the mysteries of the universe. As such, all deities belong under the category and disambiguation of mythology. The conflict comes in the misunderstanding on what the word mythology means. Remember, we're talking about how to distinguish the usage of the artcle name from other uses... and the usage that has an overwhelmingly larger link base tends to get the undisambiguated name, while other usages get a disambiguation mark. When there is no clear cut primary usage, then all usages get the disambiguation. Jesus Christ would never be Jesus Christ (mythology) because the mythos usage is the primary usage. However Category:Christian mythology should be used on Jesus Christ. - UtherSRG 16:43, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Buildings

I'm about to write an architecture article on the Auditorium Building in Chicago. I was wondering if there's any convention on architecture. I'm hesitant to use Auditorium Building as that just seems like disambiguation nightmare, so I've considered Auditorium Building, Chicago, and [[Auditorium Building {Sullivan)]]. Comments anyone? Isomorphic 02:37, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

--

I am dealing with a similiar problem with the name of a bridge. I think your use of Auditorium Building, Chicago is fine presuming there are not more than one Auditorium Buildings in Chicago. If that were the case, a longer name would ovbiously be necessary. Cacophony

Inactivity ?

In the "Links w/in Wikipedia Name-space" section of this talk page there are a lot of naming convention links listed. Why have they not been added to the wikipedia:naming conventions page ?
In the "Conventions under consideration" section there are some topics listed. For how long will they be under consideration, can't that section be merged totally with section 2 - "Other specific conventions". I don't see any major discussions happening on those topics anyway. Jay 05:13, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Name of the article about a nationality: singular or plural (Tatar vs. Tatars)

I am surprised the issue is not discussed earlier. Some nations go singular, some plural. (Some nations have names without this problem: Roma and Sinti, Sami.) Below is a discussion from Talk:Tatars. IMO the issue must be resolved here once and for all. Mikkalai 21:12, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Why singular title, not plural? --Shallot 11:59, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

By a misunderstanding. "Tatar" is a representative of the "Tatars" nation, and there is nothing more to write about the term "Tatar". The original article was about the nation. Wikipedia:Naming convention specifically speak about usi singular an plural in the title. Specifically, plural is used when the name is used only in the plural. The name of the nation is "Tatars", not "Tatar". Hence I am moving the article back. Mikkalai 20:45, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
On the second thought, 90% of cases of mentioning a nationality is an adjective, and it creates inconveniences when creatig references: It is an easy way to refer "tatars" to "tatar" by the bracket trick: [tatar]s, but not vice versa. An additional confusion is that tatar may refer to language as well. So I see a grain of wisdom in Shallot's decision now. In any case, before any further article renaming I am putting the issue for discussion at the Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions. Mikkalai 21:05, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I see no reason why this should be any different from the standard policy - not only is Tatar also usable as an adjective, but presumably one member of the Tatars is Tatar? (I know nothing about the topic, so feel free to tell me that this is not the case.) Thus the standard reasons apply for using the singular in the title - ease of linking, consistency across the project, etc.

People seem to constantly question this policy, but I see almost no circumstances under which we need make an exception. It would seem to me that bacteria were something almost always discussed in the plural, but you can have one bacterium, and so that is where our article should be. If you're not convinced, follow the same logic through for ants, or chickens: sure, we could have a mixture, but where would you draw the line? So, if it's possible to have one Tatar - i.e. the s is a genuine plural, not a linguistic oddity like physics, et al - then that should be the name of the article. If you come across any other examples that break this rule, you have my support in moving them. - IMSoP 21:54, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and note if you haven't already that there is a seperate page dedicated to this rule with its own discussion, to which this discussion should perhaps ultimately be moved. - IMSoP 22:00, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and note that was exactly my reference, if haven't read my argiments about tatars above: "tatar" an "tatars" are different notions: tatar is a person, tatars is a nation. Mikkalai 22:09, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm afraid the distinction doesn't carry for me: surely one instance of the nation of Tatars is a Tatar, in just the same way that one member of a colony of honeypot ants is a honeypot ant? I think it is far tidier to use the same convention throughout, and simply use the singular whenever feasible, but I guess I may not represent the majority on this. See also (once I've saved it) a more general comment I'm preparing in another browser-tab as I type this one. - IMSoP 22:39, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Identity

Could Hyacinth or someone else explain to me the rationale for these conventions, perhaps giving some examples? It seems to be concerned with general terminology, not article naming in particular (which is what the page is about, I think?). —LarryGilbert 21:47, 2004 Apr 5 (UTC)

This is very much a big issue in article content, but is also a current naming issue. MSM, which was about the term "MSM" which refers to people, now redirect to Gay sex the activity, which used to be Same-sex sexual practices, which used to be Homosexual behavior. The convention as stands is written by me and will most likely be opposed by some and need to be worked on. Hyacinth 22:37, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Same/different sex/gender

I would put forward and advocate that the use of the "same-sex" and "different-sex" be changed to "same-gender" and "opposite-gender". Not only does it remove any connotation of "different" being at times seen in a context of "normal" and "different" but also more cohesive to many of the issues surrounding gender and gender identity. For example, what about issues and articles which discuss people who are inter-sexed (i.e. people with indetemrinante gentalia or gender)? The term gender is more expansive and inclusive and takes into account the issues surrounding gender and how they relate to chromosomal sex and the social construction of gender. On a more grammatical and pedantic note, it is also less ungainly than saying for instance "same-sex sex" or "different-sex sexuality". Lestatdelc 23:19, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

What is the opposite-gender of inter-sexed? anthony (see warning) 23:32, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Your question goes to my point. What most people use "sex" as a descriptor for is in actuality "gender" which is a psychological and sociological construct. Hence the need to use that term since in such cases, chromosomal sex is disconnected to gender (the outward presentation of masculine or feminine, etc.), not to mention that intersexed people can often be of indeterminate sex, so their gender is how they are perceived both externally and how they perceive themselves. The suggestion about "opposite", vs. "different" is because there is (especially in certain "contreversial" context) and implied POV or bias within the term. Something being "different" can often within a social context be mildly, or even overtly negative. I posit that the terminology I have suggested is non-bias and better segues into the issues when discussing sex and gender within the context of trans, intersexed people and so on. This is also how many sociologists and people in the mental health field are defining things and trying to establish a more clear schema of terminology for and surrounding such issues. Lestatdelc 23:52, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

Can you dig up examples for "opposite-gender" being recommended by sociologists and mental health techs? Also see: User:Hyacinth/Style guide.Hyacinth 00:13, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I am at work at the moment and I would literally have to dig out and try and find some of my old papers on the issues of gender terminology when I was working for an advocacy group when we were going to be testifying at a city council meeting here in Portland when a transgender anti-discrimination ordnance was being discussed (and passed), but off the top of my head you can check out The mission statement of the APA's div 44 group on transgender issues not to mention the joint resoultion on ussage of "gender" instead of "sex" when such issues have come up when crafting a bill in parliment. There are also a lot of stuff I would have parse through again when I was sifting through the APA's discussions about Gender dysphoria and how it relates to trans issues. There is a lot of discussion in the litaratre when merge the DSM-III-R categories of Transsexualism and Gender Identity Disorder of Adolescence or Adulthood, Nontranssexual Type (GIDAANT) in the DSM-IV but I don't have anythign handy on it at the moment. Lestatdelc 00:42, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

Replacing same-sex with same-gender seems extremely questionable to me, particularly when it comes to sex (the action). Because same-sex usually refers to, excuse the word, same plumbing, same with different-sex. Same or different plumbing leads to certain technical things, nothing more and nothing less. Same and different gender on the other hand leads to a number of questions, including those of identity, identifying the relation (no matter how long- or short-lived it may be) and some more. In Human sexuality the two things are mixed up, leading to rather confusing information. (But then, the article is very confusing anyway.) Two people who have the same gender can have same-sex sex or different-sex sex, depending on the particular plumbing of both. Although most of the time it will be same-sex sex, which makes the replacement with same-gender even more pointless.

Also, when talking about other stuff, it makes also sense to describe exactly what you are talking about. The marriage question for transgendered people is seen as a question of "same sex" for some, especially its opponents, and "different gender" for others. So replacing "same sex" with "same gender" would in this case too, produce a false description. I'd say instead of some broad half-baked PC replacement, which does work even worse than the expression it replaces (which does not work too well, either), same-sex and different-sex should be replaced where necessary and with whatever term actually makes sense in a given context. -- AlexR 20:34, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Good point, could you write up a short guide for when "same/different(/opposite) gender" is appropriate and when "same/different sex" is appropriate? Hyacinth 21:31, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

"Short guide" is not so simple, because especially "same and different sex" is used in various meanings:

Same and different physical sex, which can only be partially changed, compare the arguments about chromosomes which are often used for example to declare marriages, usually of transgendered people, as invalid.
Same and different anatomical, particular genital sex, which makes sense when talking about sexual activities (but only then); although refering to say, sex between a lesbian couple where one partner happens to be a pre-op transwoman as "different sex" would be seen by many as extremely insulting, see Talk:Homosexuality. Also, the sex taking place would in all likelihood not be quite the same as ordinary male-female sex; the transwoman involved at least would probably not be particularly interestes, even if the hormones usually taken would not prevent that in most cases, anyway.
Same and different legal sex Tricky, because many documents and laws do indeed refer to sex instead of gender, so technically, these terms are not entirely incorrect, although "gender" certainly makes more sense here.

Since the problems with "same and different sex" only apply to transgendered and many intersex people, though, which are a minority, it would probably make sense to stick to "same and different sex", especially when talking about medical or legal matters and only add that matters can be more complicated when transgender and intersex people come into play at all.

Same and different gender makes sense to use when talking about identities or gender roles, but are tricky when refering to medical or legal matters. In relationships between people (not just with significant others, but between all people), it is gender that counts.
The only exceptions are either particularly obnoxiously impolite people who know the other person to be transgendered or intersex and who insist on refering to them as people of their birth gender; or transgendered people who are very bady adapted to their new gender role, although that is in almost all cases a temporary problem.
And of course there are usually "gender problems" for transgendered and some intersex people before they transition or even know the name for the problem, but that is of course the core problem of transgendered people.
I don't think it makes sense to refer to these exceptions very often.

Another problem of course is to be certain what exactly is same sex or same gender when refering to many transgendered and intersex people (different is usually not a problem). Even if we stick to peoples self-identification and the appearance of their bodies, which by no means all people do, many transgender and intersex people do see neither their bodies nor their gender (identitiy and/or role) as clearly male or female, making it rather difficult to find people who are "same sex" and/or "same gender". As I already said in Talk:Homosexuality, different-sex, different-gender gay (or lesbian) relationships are just as possible between transgendered or intersex people and cisgendered people as different-sex, same-gender gay or lesbian relationships or same-sex, same-gender gay or lesbian ones. And that is just self-definition descriptions.

So a "short guide" might be a bit of a problem. The only solution is to decide in each case what exactly one is refering to at the moment and use the proper words. Proper words are probably more than just same/different sex/gender, though. -- AlexR 23:16, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Lists of pieces

Lists of pieces has a format borrowed from Lists of solo piano pieces, which lists pages by composer, style or period, and nationality or culture. Now a list of pages itself and every alphabetical page clearly violates the "Do not use an article name that suggests a hierarchy of articles" convention, example: List of solo piano pieces by composer: G. Do we add lists such as this as an exception to that convention or make the "lists" one list instead of many? Hyacinth 08:54, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Jr., Sr., Inc., etc.

I would like to recommend an addition to the rules for personal names. I suggest we follow the standard practice in the United States, as set forth in the Associated Press Stylebook, and omit any commas preceding suffixes such as "Jr." and "Sr." in personal names as well as suffixes such as "Inc.," "Ltd.," and so forth in company names. acsenray

That's not "standard practice", it's one of two equally acceptable standard practices, one of which uses no commas, and the other of which places them before and after the "Jr." or "Sr." element. (Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., 6.49). - Nunh-huh 21:00, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Medicine

Since the start of WikiDoc (continued in Wikiproject (Clinical medicine) there have been discussions whether articles on medical conditions should be named by their scientific title (myocardial infarction) or their common names (heart attack). Arguments in favour of common names:

The articles are easier to find
Most readers are not medical professionals

But there are also arguments in favour of redirecting these terms to articles titled by their scientific terminology, such as is common practice in Chemistry and Biology articles:

Lay terms are imprecise. "Heart attack" does not specify what part of the heart is affected, and by what mechanism.
Lay terms are bound by geographical constraints (many diseases have different names in different parts of the world).
Some terms are suggestive of something that the disease is not (heartburn is not cardiac, nor does it involve burning).
Nobody has ever died from being redirected

I've previously raised this on Wikipedia:naming conventions (common names), eliciting only a response from people whom I'd informed. Hopefully it will find more of an audience over here.
JFW | T@lk 12:02, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

I would note that "It is in harmony with the general Wikipedia policy of using naming common names." is another argument in favor of common names, and a strong one too. I don't see why the article can't just be at the common name but use the technical name throughout in the body of the article, with the first sentence saying something like "a heart attack, known technically as a myocardial infarction is ..... Myocardial infarctions are .... etc. I don't see any strong reasons not to conform to policy of placing the article at the most common English name. Nohat 23:59, 2004 May 9 (UTC)

Considering Naming Conventions

How and by whom are the "Conventions under consideration" (Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Conventions under consideration) under consideration? When and how are they adopted or abandonded? Hyacinth 21:39, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

I don't think there is a policy on how draft policy becomes policy. Normally someone knocks up a page, with an "is a draft" notice. It gets knocked about a bit for a few days on the talk page and then becomes stable. Shortly afterwards people start refering to it as policy, and the "draft" warning gets quietly dropped. So its a natural organic evolution usually. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 22:43, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. Still I have a question: Specifically, this isn't a page (article), but simply sections (headers) of a page, and there are many "Naming Conventions Under Consideration" which are definitely not under consideration, making it a total misnomer in those cases. Is there a precedent for how long something goes without comment before it is assumed to be unapposed? To provide context, I am specifically thinking of Wikipedia:Naming Conventions#Album titles, Wikipedia:Naming Conventions#Pieces of music, and Wikipedia:Naming Conventions#Identity. Hyacinth 23:38, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

I assume it's a sort of thing like Postel's tradition naming Internet standards RFC (Request for Comment). The actual decision-making process at Wikipedia is vague, to say the least, so there's really no point at which it can ever be said that anything is in any state other than "under consideration." I assume that, Wikipedia being Wikipedia, you could always delete the phrase "Under Consideration" and see whether anyone reverts it. Since it's not likely that changing the phrase would have any noticeable effect on how actual editors actually give names to actual pages, it doesn't actually matter much. Dpbsmith 21:25, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Seems like a pretty good assessment. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:28, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Suffixes

How should the naming of pages deal with suffixes. For instance, neofeudalistic, neofeudalist, neofeudalism, and neofeudal, could all have articles. Obviously some suffix is required, at the least -al. This has important implications for both the grammar, content, and neutrality of articles. For instance, Neofeudalism has to describe one disputed (in wiki and in the external world) "movement"/"trend"/"goal"/"belief", while neofeudal could describe a variety of otherwise unconnected things. Hyacinth 01:11, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Being as this is an encyclopedia, I think the default should be the noun form of the word. MK 05:39, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Airports

I just stated Wikipedia:WikiProject_Airports and I had wondered about naming conventions. This is the proposed style: [Proper Name of Airport] [Place Name] [Type of Airport] Airport, thus the airport for Toronto would be Lester B. Pearson Toronto International Airport. The other possibility is [Place Name] [Proper Name] [Type of Airport] Airport. What do you think? Burgundavia 03:08, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I would suggest going with the complete and correct name of the airport, followed by location and then the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) identifier. So, for Toronto, that would be: Lester B. Pearson International Airport (Toronto, Ontario, Canada )(CYYZ). Colin

If you're talking about article titles, I think that would be a little much. —Mike 04:15, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

First name/last name ordering in article titles

I can't believe I couldn't find this in Wikipedia:Naming Conventions... On the talk page for Talk:O. Henry, HamYoyo suggested that "the page ought to be filed under "Henry, O." I wanted to point to the naming convention that says that in Wikipedia article titles, names are given in normal order rather than inverted order (surname; comma; first name; middle-name(s)-or-initial(s)). But I couldn't find it! Where is it? Dpbsmith 18:55, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

We always give names in the "natural" order, hence "George Washington", "Mao Zedong", "José Ortega y Gasset". -- Jmabel 20:31, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

I know we do. What I don't know is, where we say that. Dpbsmith 23:04, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Any definition of name-part ordering that does not reflect the nationality of the individual concerned is probably doomed to failure. DIfferent countries have different formats for name order: personal-name usually precedes family-name in the west but will follow the family-name in much of Asia. Similarly scandinavian counties don't use a family-name but are based on the personal-name of the same-sex parent. First-name is a null concept therefore, and the term surname has particular connotations which should be unacceptable on a world-wide usage basis. It could be useful however to have a page detailing a standardised format for each country/nationality rather than attempting such a thing globally. --VampWillow 20:34, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

It appears to make the category pages a bit of a mess. --bodnotbod 22:54, May 31, 2004 (UTC)

Use the "pipe trick" to sort names, see the User's Guide. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 16:25, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)

Sure, but I was trying to respond to a (fairly) simple question about our established practices with ordinary Western-style names. Even in the complex cases, the principle is that we use the commonest, most familiar presentation of the name. The point is, we just use the name as is, rather than trying to rearrange it for collating purposes. And what puzzles me is that I haven't located where this practice is spelled out. Dpbsmith 23:04, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

We mostly go by most common name (this should be somewhere in the guidelines) in English. There is no way that Henry, O. is more common than O. Henry. Dori | Talk 06:03, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)

Minor correction to VampWillow: The only Scandinavian country to still use patronymics by default is Iceland; at least in Sweden and Finland family names are now the only lawful surname types. Also, patronymics are always based on the father's name, regardless of the sex of the child. -- Jao 19:57, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Theorems and "lemmas"

If you were to go to List of lemmas, you will find that they are all listed as "XXX's lemma", with a small L. However, many redirect to pages with a capitalized L. I know that Urysohn's lemma was actually moved to Urysohn's Lemma. This all confuses me, and I posted a comment on the talk page there.

What is the convention for titles of theorems, paradoxes, lemmas, and the like?

- RealGrouchy 14:52, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Saint vs. St. in place names

Seems I recall seeing some discussion of this somewhere, but i can't see to find it now. It strikes me as odd that places that are pretty uniformly referred to just about everywhere as "St. Someplace" have articles under the title "Saint Someplace". older≠wiser 19:24, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The normal convention in Wikipedia is 'Saint' for titles of articles about saints (eg Saint Neot), 'St' or 'St.' for articles about places (eg St Neot and St Neots). In the UK it's common to leave the dot out these days, though some prefer to put it in. The dot would always have been used earlier this century. And of course practice will differ from country to country, there are also many other abbreviations for saint in other languages.

So the convention is reasonably clear, especially for articles on saints (people). - Chris Jefferies 20:39, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Is this spelled out anywhere? 'cause someone, awhile back changes a whole bunch of U.S. places to use "Saint" instead of "St.". For example, look at most of the places listed on Saint Charles. And for that matter, is there an article about the actual Saint anywhere? older≠wiser 20:47, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC) (I might add that most of the changed titles were a result of an ugly cut-n-paste move).

I also noticed this in list of colleges and Universities and individual articles about colleges. Given the large number of schools named after Saints (Saint John, Saint Mary's, Saint Michaels, Saint Josephs, Saint Andrews), there does not appear to be a convention either way . There is also difficulty in schools that are based in cities named after saints (Saint Louis University, University of Saint Thomas). I personally think that Saint should always be spelled out at the very least in the title of the article and can be abbreviated in the article. User:Leonsimms 23:08, 28 July 2004 (UTC)

Company/Business names

Here is a list of possible company or business names. Please comment on which naming convention is most appropriate to use for the main article. In each example, the full legal name is #1, a shortened form (no punctuation) is #2, an even shorter version (less likely to change during normal business) is #3. Please voice any other suggestions. -- Netoholic 03:26, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

A1 FooBar & Son, Inc.
A2 FooBar & Son Inc
A3 FooBar & Son
A4 The version that the company refers to itself as
A5 The version used most commonly in normal dialogue

B1 BarFoo, LLC
B2 BarFoo LLC
B3 BarFoo
B4 The version that the company refers to itself as
B5 The version used most commonly in normal dialogue

C1 WidgetCo Enterprises, Inc.
C2 WidgetCo Enterprises
C3 WidgetCo
C4 The version that the company refers to itself as
C5 The version used most commonly in normal dialogue

Here is an example of one such company. Please give me suggestions on what the main article should be named. -- Netoholic 15:54, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Marvel Comics currently has the content, but the legal company name here in the US is Marvel Enterprises, Inc. according to their own website. In casual speech, Marvel or Marvel Comics is used frequently.

I think that number 1 should be the main article, with links from the shortened forms. As you mentioned, companies tend to re-brand themselves. Also, if you look at other things like "Canadian federal election, 1867", which is redirected from "1867 Canadian election".

I would suggest that the main article be the current name of the company, and previous names redirect to it. RealGrouchy 14:34, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Album titles

The current text of this article section does not reflect real-world usage. It is certainly a well-established practice to follow general English title capitalization rules in the music industry, but it's largely ignored, and has been for quite some time, by music publishers, artists, and indexers (e.g., libraries). The library case is relatively simple — they just lowercase everything except the first letter and proper nouns (e.g., "A long way down from Stephanie"). One might ignore that special situation. But pick up any 100 CDs, and you'll be hard-pressed to find more than a handful that actually follow English capitalization rules. The vast majority of modern popular music albums (in the most generic sense) follow one of three practices:

Uppercase everything.
Lowercase everything (including initial letters and proper nouns).
Capitalize everything.

The remaining albums and/or songs (perhaps 10%-15%) are quite inconsistent in what they do and don't capitalize. My favorite example is The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine", whose songs include "All together Now", "It's all too much", and "March of The Meanies" — three different examples, none of which completely follow "standard" capitalization rules. (I go into more detail about this at Talk:List of songs whose title includes personal names#Capitalization). And I haven't even covered classical music, which tends to favor a unique combination of "standard" English rules and all-lowercasing for some terms.

I would like to propose following one consistent practice that (A) is in much more common use than the "standard" rules, (B) is easy to understand and follow, and (C) doesn't detract from the text in which it is included. To this end, I suggest we promote #3 above — capitalize everything in a title — as the only practical combination of these factors. I invite questions and comments. -- Jeff Q 23:01, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Alive: plane crash

I have an article naming conundrum. I've just been looking for an article on the 1972 plane crash in the Andes following which the survivors turned to cannibalism in order to live. Wikipedia, has references to the event at 1972, in Cannibalism and for the film Alive: The Miracle of the Andes. There is also a good external reference at [1].

Now it seems to me, there should be an article for this event in and of itself - but what should it be titled? I can only think of Plane crash Chile (1972), which isn't brilliant. --Solipsist 08:27, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

For commercial airliner crashes, the standard seems to be "<Airline name> Flight <flight number>", for example Air New Zealand Flight 901 (see List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners grouped by location). Since this was a Uruguayan air force plane, and I can't find a flight number, I might suggest Uruguayan Air Force Fairchild FH-227D if that's not too obscure! -- Arwel 10:43, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I have always found the standard odd, because it does not mention that it is about a crash. Also, the Uruguayan Air Force may have other planes of type Fairchild FH-227D.--Patrick 11:09, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Personally I think the article should be named by what the incident is most commonly known as. I do note that in the United States it is common to call air disaster after the flight number. But in other parts of the world it is not. Example while US people refer to Pan Am Flight 103 people in the UK refer to it as the Lockerbie disaster. Now getting back to original question. There doesn't seem to be a common name. Andies disaster has been used by some media, but there have also been other crashes in the Andies. -- Popsracer 11:23, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I suspect the Airline Flight 001 naming standard comes from general air incident investigations, the majority of which don't end in a crash. I'm not sure that Uruguayan Air Force Fairchild FH-227D works, because it sounds like it would be about a type of plane in the Uruguayan Air Force. So now I'm leaning towards Andes Flight Disaster (1972) or Uruguayan Air Force Flight (1972). An analogous problem occurs with the 1994 crash of a Chinook helicopter on the Mull of Kintyre, killing several top UK anti-terrorism experts. It seems to mostly be refered to as The Chinook Helicopter Crash/Disaster, even though I would have thought it was not the only Chinook to crash. -- Solipsist 12:23, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Naming convention for maiden and married women

What is Wikipedia convention for redirecting pages for the following scenarios :

Unmarried girl gets married and changes to her married name. The media begins referring to her by her new name.
Unmarried girl gets married and changes to her married name. The media continues referring to her maiden name because thats too popular to be changed.

I couldn't find any pointers in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). Jay 09:47, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The more redirects the better. --Jia ng 10:37, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Both cases call for a redirect. The actual article should probably be at the most popular moniker. -- ke4roh 11:16, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Both names should be redirected to each other......just for fun Slizor 12:06, 2004 Jun 27 (UTC)

Standard Wikipedia naming convention rules should be followed. The article should be at the most common name in general use. All other variants should redirect to it. So we should, in contentious cases, look through real world usage to see what's actually done. The introductory paragraph should give both name versions (bolded). —Morven 12:22, Jun 27, 2004 (UTC)

How do we find the most common usage ? Google test ? Jay 13:48, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think that the "most common" rule is entirely inappropriate here. We don't have to comb the universe for evidence of what to call people when they have just told us. Articles should be titled with the persons name. Hyacinth 21:10, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Entirely inappropriate? We have ALWAYS had that convention for peoples' names too. After all, the article is at Tony Blair instead of Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, Bill Clinton instead of William Jefferson Clinton. Someone's official birth-certificate name is NOT what we use to decide where to place an article. Therefore, it should be the same with post-birth name changes also (marriage being only one of those cases): we use what's commonly used to refer to that person. In the vast majority of cases this will be what the person chooses to call themselves; what they will introduce themselves as. (which is often not the birth-certificate or marriage-certificate name).

The naming of biographical articles in Wikipedia is complicated by the fact that one individual may be known under several different names at the same time, and may change their name a number of times in their life. For example, we have an article at Cat Stevens (his stage name) even though he was born as Stephen Demetre Georgiou and changed his name to Yusuf Islam. To be neutral, our only choice is to examine popular usage.

In the case of marriage, if a woman chooses to change her name at that time, both names are equally 'correct'. She had one name she chose to go by before marriage and one after. Neither may be exactly equivalent to the legally documented name. And it may be indeed that neither name is actually the most commonly used, if a stage name or nickname is employed.

To emphasise: establishing a convention that the subject of an article gets to choose their own Wikipedia article naming is irredeemably POV and anti the spirit of Wikipedia. This is not to say that their opinion is not valid or relevant, but it is not binding. —Morven 23:20, Jul 8, 2004 (UTC)

Alphabetizing conventions for names with "von"

I don't know if this issue has been addressed before, but what is the consensus on alphabetizing names which begin with "von"? Should a name like Baron von Munchausen be listed under "V" or "M"? I've seen examples of both ways. And I assume the same convention would cover similar names beginning with van, du, della, da, de, etc. MK 05:35, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Style manuals take pages and pages to cover this, and there's been no real "issues" about it here so far that would lead to concensus. But for what it's worth, the Chicago Style Manual points out that considerations of the individual's personal preference, if know, traditional usage and nationnal usage all enter into consideration, and cross referencing is advisable. In general, names with particles are alphabetized according to the name without the particle:

Beauvoir, Simone de
Ben-Gurion, David
Costa, Uriel da
da Cunha, Euclides
D'Amato, Alfonse
de Gaulle, Charles (note this is an exception because de Gaulle is almost always seen as a unit)
di Leonardo, Micaela
Keere, Pieter van den
Kooning, Willem de
La Fontaine, Jean de
Leonardo da Vinci
Medici, Lorenzo de'
Van Rensselaer, Stephen

Basically, Merriam-Webster's Biographical Dictionary is a good guide.

Compound names are usually alphabetized according to the first element

There are special rules for foreign names: name with Abu, Abd, ibn, Mc, or Fitz are alphabetized as written Arabic name prefixed by al- or el- are alphabetized under the following name

-Nunh-huh 05:59, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

For French names containing "de," do not take the "de" into account EXCEPT when the surname alone is one syllable long (e.g. "de Gaulle, Charles). For names containing "von," "van," etc., collate without taking the word into account EXCEPT when the word is capitalised by family usage (e.g. Von Braun, Werhner). -- Emsworth 13:36, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Duplication & Titles

First, apologies if this is dealt with elsewhere - I have looked ...

I was lookingup genie - to find out whether 'genie jokes' got a mention, and found a story of a feral child, plus a link to jinni. This page was what I sought, indeed it admitted that genie is the English word.

I feel that jinni should be genie - that's what 99.99% of English-language users would seek - I further feel it is more entitled to that title than the feral child. So two questions:

Assuming for a moment that I'm right, what should I do?
Where would this advice be found? Not here?
Where should I best raise this to see what others think?

Thanks! Heenan73 11:27, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've moved the short case-study 'Genie' from the page of that name, allowing that page to take the text from Jinni. Not only was in intuitively appropriate, but some 30 internal links to Genie virtually all refer to genies, not Feral children. Heenan73 18:10, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Political parties

Convention: There doesn't seem to be a convention for party names, so choose either the English translation or the original version. If you choose one of the options, please make a redirect version from the other option to the chosen option.

Since there is no convention, I've moved this from Wikipedia:Naming conventions. It doesn't make sense to add it when this convention is not agreed. Angela . 21:03, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

I was under the impression that the most common English translation was preferred or policy (not that I necessarily agree). Hyacinth 23:59, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's right, but that applies to everything, not political parties specifically, so it doesn't need to be a separate section here if that is already covered in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). Angela . 11:02, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Diacritics in names from other languages

Since the use of diacritical marks (where technically possible) seems to be common for article titles, but the policy is not clearly stated, a proposed policy is being discussed at Talk:Agustin Stahl. --Michael Snow 23:49, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Television series and shows

The main page was temporarily protected due to this dispute. For the main discussion of the reasons, please see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television).

Netoholic. People are still voting. The issue is not resolved. Please stop reverting. Mintguy (T) 19:35, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You missed a long discussion, and a vote. Concensus was reached, and now you choose to fight a revert war rather than discuss. You have now exceeded the three revert rule and have shown extremely poor behavior, even after I added a note about your dispute into the section. Here are the diffs as proof: (moved down to my next comment) -- Netoholic 20:02, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- The first is not a revert (and the last is not my edit). The first was establishing the section correctly, in that the issue is not resolved (which it isn't!). It just so happened that the wording that you yourself before you changed it to state (incorrectly) that a consensus had been reached, were adequate for the purpose so I used those words. This is not a revert. I have now reverted the page three times as have you. Mintguy (T) 22:08, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  - Here is my last edit where I changed the message to indicate the convention was established and no longer "in progress" [2]. You reverted to that "in progress" message four times, [3] [4] [5] [6]. -- Netoholic 23:50, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    - As I said the first instance isn't a revert. It's a correction. If I was reverting I would have been reverting to something someone else had contributed, or to the last edit, but I changed it to read that the issue was not resolved (which it isn't) and used your own words. Mintguy (T) 00:01, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      - That's an interesting spin, but your history shows that you're an agressive revert-er. It's very unbecoming for an admin. I really won't argue much more, since your history also shows you like long arguements, and I hope someone else will chime in agreeing with my assessment in this case. -- Netoholic 01:43, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
        Agressive reverter, for sure, someone has to be with people like User:Kenneth Alan around. you might want to look more closely at those reverts. But I don't break the three revert rule. Mintguy (T) 01:46, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"I don't break the three revert rule. Mintguy" - I was really hoping you'd say that. Now, while I don't know the full story of your issues with User:Kenneth Alan, the fact remains you violated the Three Revert Rule on those occasions also.

New England - User:Kenneth Alan makes some changes here, then you revert five times on Aug 13 (1 2 3 4 5)
Yorkshire - User:Kenneth Alan and an IP user make some changes here, then you revert four times on Aug 13 (1 2 3 4)
Robin Hood - User:Kenneth Alan makes some changes here, then you revert five times on Aug 13 (1 2 3 4 5)

There are similar violations of WP:3RR on George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, and maybe further in your history. And where you don't always break the rule, you do push it extremely frequently. I may recommend that this go to WP:RFC, since I don't believe you act as a proper editor, and may not still deserve to be a sysop. -- Netoholic 02:25, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well I'm staggered. Have you actually looked at those edits I reverted in those cases? User:Kenneth Alan is a well-known troll who has been causing problems for months. Take a look at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Kenneth_Alan. After Kenneth Alan continued to add nonsense and continued to revert I was forced to block his account for 24 hours and I then brought the matter to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration. This is THE exception to the rule. You may note BTW that Kenneth alan also exceeded the 3 revert rule. Do you expect me to leave an article with abject nonsense in it? Mintguy (T) 02:49, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't like the way you've turned this into a personal matter. Mintguy (T) 03:02, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You are an admin, so you need to be the one upholding policy and acting with more civility than others. I do not consider this a personal matter, but I do dispute your attitude and actions - in the namiong convention case, and on your past. -- Netoholic 03:09, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

My actions in this case are to correct the inaccurate statement that the policy regarding the naming of television programmes has been approved by a majority of users interested in those matters; for clearly this is not the case. My actions in previous cases are neither here nor there, they have no bearing on this issue. I suggest that you don't try to query my judgement about matters in which you do not have knowledge of the full circumstances. My attitude in this case has become strained due to your persistence in insisting that a matter that is still under consideration, or perhaps has been closed and is now once more up for consideration, is a cut and dried policy. Clearly a number of users have expressed disquiet about the naming convention that you unilateraly authored and applied. I can only question an attitude where an individual takes absolutely no notice of the opinion of half a dozen users who question his decisions, and indeed quotes back to those users a Wikipedia policy that was self-authored merely hours before as if it was enshrined in stone. Mintguy (T) 03:22, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I tried to move this discussion to User talk:Mintguy, but he reverted it. Since I doubt he'll honor anything I do, if someone else could confirm that his talk page is the appropriate place for this, please respond. Thanks. -- Netoholic 14:51, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't see how it could be. Stop trying to make this a personal battle between you and Mintguy (who has clearly demonstrated that he didn't break the 3 revert rule yesterday), and discuss what's actually at issue here - whether your policy has consensus support. (By all means report him on RFC if you want, but you'll no doubt be told that you're being ridiculous.) Proteus (Talk) 15:31, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Countries

is there a central list of "commonly misnamed" countries, and what they should be referred to on Wikipedia? This might seem fairly obvious, but sadly not all country names are as simple as Canada, Australia, Brazil or France. This refers to both in article names, AND just as importantly, as a short form (see bolded examples below).

Examples:

Republic of the Congo / Democratic Republic of the Congo - I have seen these referred to as Congo and Congo DR.
People's Republic of China / Republic of China / Taiwan - I have always referred to these as China and Taiwan. (I'm 26 and read atlases/world maps a lot when I was young) Only in the last couple of years have I see the convoluted names above being used to refer to these countries. Is this an American thing (I'm Australian), or some recent change in political correctness? What are acceptable short names now? China PR and China ROC/Taiwan (ROC) ?
Georgia (country) vs Georgia (U.S. state) - I see this is being handled on Talk:Georgia.
Macedonia and Azerbaijan have similar conflicts, except the country's priority is a lot more defined that in the case of Georgia - however the naming scheme doesn't reflect this. Is Macedonia FYR an acceptable short form?
I have seen Federated States of Micronesia referred to as Micronesia FS to differentiate it from the region.
East Timor or Timor Leste (or even [[Timor-Leste]) ?
Yemen vs North Yemen vs Yemen Arab Republic (aka Yemen AR)
South Korea vs Korea, and North Korea vs Democratic People's Republic of Korea (aka Korea DPR or DPR Korea)
How many different Yugoslavia's have there been?
British Virgin Islands (or U.K. Virgin Islands) and U.S. Virgin Islands. I've also seen Virgin Islands used by itself in a list - alongside the other two!

I'm sure there are others! I found most of these while doing up the table at Template:WikiProject Olympics Country Table and needing short forms of the country name for the table - not to mention article names like Democratic People's Republic of Korea at the 1992 Summer Olympics are a bit of a mouthful! -- Chuq 06:59, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Such a list would be helpful: I've just disambiguated a couple of the links in the 2004 summer olympics series where an article existed but did not show up in the 04 olympics template because of misnaming. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 15:16, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Speaking of naming conventions...

Should Naming conventions link directly to Wikipedia:Naming conventions? I think the idea of naming conventions might make a good article in and of itself, (although admittedly, I'm not ready to write such an article myself). AdmN 17:56, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Until there is an article about naming conventions, I think it's ok to keep the redirect. The links to "naming conventions" should be changed to link to Wikipedia:Naming conventions instead if an article is put there though. Angela . 00:28, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

Public limited companies

There seems to be no convention on naming PLCs. Some keep plc or PLC (e.g. Tesco PLC, BAA PLC) and some don't (BAE SYSTEMS, Cable & Wireless, Safeway, Reuters). Personally I think they are not necessary. ed g2s • talk 22:01, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree that they're not necessary. Somebody recently moved the page to AstraZeneca plc, which I disagree with. Mackerm 22:08, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I, too, agree.

James F. (talk) 22:09, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

But if you look at the article Public limited company, every entry on the list has the extension applied to it. The question comes down to: if you are writing an article about a company: do you use its formal name, as used on the London Stock Exchange company page (OK - that uses upper case ;-) ) or do you use the brand name of the company? As I stated in my justification on the talk page, the legal notice on the company website says "References to "AstraZeneca", "Group", "we", "us" and "our" are references to AstraZeneca PLC and its affiliates."

Anyone searching for an article on a company wouldn't bother with the corporation status of the company, so that is one good reason for not using 'plc' (unless there was a possibility that disambiguation was needed). That has to be weighed against using the formal term.

The start of my interest in that particular company was that there were four synonyms for that article, with the main article lying under a clearly incorrect version (having a space in it, thus Astra Zeneca). When I cleaned it up, I checked on the company site for the formal name of the company, and checked on Public limited company for naming convention (the first three companies listed use 'plc' in the article name: some of the later ones are redirects) before making the move. I then went and elided all the redirects shown on the 'What links here'. What other action could I take?

If there is a policy on using trade name over formal name of a corporation, then all well and good, and I will abide by that. Will there then be a general effort to tidy up all the other entries that follow suit? [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 01:18, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any convention specific to corporations, but the general naming convention is to use the most commonly used name. This took me a while to get used to, having a tendency to prefer "official names", but in practice I think it works pretty well in that the name people tend to link to ends up being the actual article title rather than a redirect. [[User:Bkonrad|older≠wiser]] 01:39, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The contention of using the plc extension in article names as an information carrier, rather than as a form of disambiguation, seems to produce a number of unresolved secondary issues. Would the abreviation "plc" relate exclusively to public limited companies under British law, or could it be used for any company that meet similar criteria regardless of jurisdiction? If it should apply only to entities under United Kingdom jurisdiction does that imply that entities existing under other jurisdictictions need separate articles, like Astra Zeneca AB? If it on the other hand could be used for companies which are not British, like Sampo plc, does that mean that all examples of other (local) abreviations ought to be changed to plc in order to conform to convention? Etc.

Mic, as far as I know, plc is just British usage, but it may well be a more general form, and the article may need to be expanded to take account of that. (I have expanded the article to mention the other types of companies, and the fact that they must be registered at Companies House - a new article I've just created.) [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 21:15, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In my opinion using abreviations like plc and similar for the purpose of carrying information introduces a set of problems that are, as unnecessary as they are, easily avoided by employing the principle of using the most commonly used name. -- Mic 18:26, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think the important policy here is the "most commonly used name" policy. Although the list of Public limited company lists +" plc" - many of them redirect to common name pages. Unless someone objects to the implementation of the "monst common name" policy - I will take up the task of cleaning up this list. ed g2s • talk 17:06, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(Back to the margin.) In general, the 'common name' policy seems to be favoured by the few who have participated in the debate. I have one more argument that I would like people to respond to before I conceed. The 'common name' tends to be a trademark, and this is something that changes over time, whereas the company name stays static. For instance, the UK bank that is now called Abbey (bank) is still registered as Abbey National plc. On the other hand, Barclays Bank isn't Barclays Bank any more ... it is just Barclays, and is registered as Barclays plc. In the more general sense, if a company uses a number of trademarks, do you pick the most famous one to put the company details under? It strikes me that this could turn into a fairly major project, with a useful item being an infobox giving logo; Trademarks; company registration name; FTSE shortform; head office location; subsidiary companies; and maybe other stuff as well. Should that sort of stuff be talked about before embarking on some sort of standardization exercise? [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 21:15, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I feel that the company article should be under their legal name: and that any colloquial names should point back to the legal name. And, as per Noisy, above, strongly feel that we should reach consensus before arbitrary moves are made. --Tagishsimon

I fear it is too late, and ed has gone all Netoholic on us and proceeded with some moves while the discussion is still on-going. [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 22:57, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I apologise if you think I have jumped the gun here, but several users agreed that including Plc or plc or PLC is only going to be problematic, and there is no reason why the common name policy shouldn't apply here. I am hardly making up new standards - merely applying existing ones. ed g2s • talk 23:08, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

P.S. in the unlikely event that we do decide to standardise on some plc ending for these companies - at least I've cleaned up the list on Public limited company - so it won't be much of a task. ed g2s • talk 23:17, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Apology accepted; but I too feel you have jumped the gun, and are making assumptions that do not hold up. Noisy's main paragraph, above, with the Barclays and Abbey examples starts to blow away this concept of common names. Is it Boots, or Boots the Chemists? National Westminster, or NatWest? Lloyds, Lloyds TSB, BOC or British Oxygen ... and on it goes. I suggest we organise a vote on the Talk:Public limited company - I'm happy to set that in motion over the next few minutes. And, for the record, a convention which I think is far better established than the naming precedent on which Ed is depending, is that you consult before making wholesale changes of the sort now underway. --Tagishsimon

Discussion moved to Talk:Public limited company. Go to it, people.

There is no discussion there. Just a polarising vote. This does not help.

IMO: the long-standing, overriding Wikipedia naming convention is Use common names. It is not common practise to refer to a company with 'PLC', 'Ltd', 'Corporation' or the like on the end. The other problem is that which letters are after a company's name varies over time. As I recall, PLC only dates from the 1980s; most of the companies we're talking about are older than that. Even after that date, some companies have changed from 'Ltd' to 'PLC' status, I believe. Wikipedia articles are about the historical company as well as the modern one.

I think we should be picking as commonly used a name we can for any article on a company given the need to disambiguate. Of course, redirects should exist from any other name a company may be referred to as. —Morven 21:07, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, another voice of reason. The vote suggests that I'm in favour of removing plc from all article names which I am not. I am merely in favour of respecting the naming convention which has been around since the beginning. Very few companies are most commonly known by their name with plc on the end. Those that are should stay there, those that require it for disambiguation should also stay there. Requiring all PLCs to use their full name would be absolutely ridiculous as it would be it complete defiance of one of Wikipedia's basic conventions. ed g2s • talk 21:49, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Jeez. [Personal attack removed.] --Tagishsimon

Choking the process

It's rather interesting that one of the main themes of this discussion is the ongoing attempts to thwart any possible resolution by rushing blindly ahead into various ad hoc solutions. Whether it is out of ignorance or just a lack of knowledge of Wikipedia dispute resolution might be an open question, but apparently there is a need to review the basics.

To get a grasp of Wikipedia dispute resolution those interested in participating could start with taking a look at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. It is perhaps necessary to understand that Wikipedia is not a democracy and that is why building a consensus is always the preferred choice. The first entry in this discussion is less than two days old and possibilities of reaching a consensus on this are only scratched upon, and far from exhausted. However, after that the next step would be to invite third parties to the discussion to help to further it towards a consensus. This should be allowed to the necessary time, without anyone trying to derail the process by forcibly implementing their own pet agendas.

Only if all this should fail a survey would become necessary, and in such a case the procedures in Wikipedia:Survey guidelines should be followed. Among the basic provisions there has to be a consensus on the nature of the survey, like what questions to be asked and when the deadline should be, before any voting even can take place. It is recommended that the process of reaching a consensus about the nature of the survey as such, be allowed to take about a week to determine. When a survey is called it is also to be announced so that it will be possible to participate, etc.

Because the voting called upon above, at Talk:Public limited company, satisfies none of the basic requirements for Wikipedia dispute resolution, any result produced by would be moot and has no hope of acquiring necessary validity. That unfortunate process should be called off, preferably by the one who initiated it and discussion be brought back here as soon as possible. It is important that the fundamental rules of the resolution process actually is respected and cared for by all involved parties. -- Mic 20:40, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Seconded. The proposal is also gratuitously UK-centric, most notably regarding multinationals.

Susvolans 14:47, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)