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Minor tweak to end pointless confusion between WP:NATURALNESS and WP:NATURALDIS

I changed this: * Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.

to this: * Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title (exclusive of any added parenthetical disambiguation) usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.

This clarifying addition should save us quite literally thousands of future editor-hours that would be wasted in continued pointless debates in which WP:NATURALNESS and WP:NATURALDAB are being confused (by a very small number of people, but with a truly remarkable degree of tenacity). If any further confusion results, we should simply change "Naturalness" and "naturally" here to "Intuitiveness" and "intuitively", and reserve the word "natural" for natural disambiguation (or find an alternative to that phrase; either way will work).

I'm sure we're all sick nigh unto death of these ridiculous AT and RM arguments in which someone refuses to acknowledge that it's logically impossible for WP:NATURALNESS to include any added parenthetical disambiguator, since no one in the real world is actual named, for example, "Jane Smith (composer)". Please, just let this be the end of it, once and for all. We have way better things to do with our editorial time than to entertain for even one second longer any more of this nonsense/pretense to the contrary.

PS: I've thought carefully about this. This clarification really does apply only to that clause. A parenthetically disambiguated title actually does still have to be, in its entirety, a balance between recognizable, precise, and consistent, as well as something that editors (aware that it needs disambiguation) would naturally use to link to the article. Even the "readers are likely to look or search for" sub-criterion applies to paren-DABed titles, to an extent; we value consistency in paren DABs precisely because this consistency helps both editors are readers get to the right article, and many RM discussions are about making paren DABs consistent between similar articles for this reason alone.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:44, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

  • I support the addition. This does not mean that (when disambiguating) we shouldn't consider non-perenthetical alternatives (sometimes they are appropriate)... but adding a parenthetical does not change the naturalness of the base name. The addition makes that clearer. I also think it would help clarify things if we found another way to refer to "natural disambiguation" (such as "non-parenthetical disambiguation") and got rid of the potentially confusing short cut "WP:NATURALDAB". It makes no sense to have two shortcuts (pointing to different sections of the policy) that can be confused with each other. Blueboar (talk) 18:15, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
Re: This does not mean that (when disambiguating) we shouldn't consider non-perenthetical alternatives – Right; that's WP:NATURALDIS. I also have suggested we use something other than "natural disambiguation"; either that or change WP:NATURALNESS to WP:INTUITIVENESS or something. But we can try one change at a time.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:39, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
The following comment has been refactored into this discussion from User talk:GregKaye#Naturalness criterion and natural disambiguation.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:12, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
  • SMcCandlish I want to thank you for the edit to WP:AT that made here which adds the content "(exclusive of any added [[#Disambiguation|parenthetical disambiguation]])" to the text so that it now reads:
Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title (exclusive of any added parenthetical disambiguation) usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.
I have edited to:
Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title (exclusive of disambiguating additions) usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.
As mentioned, the text that that is presented at Wikipedia:Article titles reads: "An article title is the large heading displayed above the article's content. The title indicates what the article is about and distinguishes it from other articles."
The immediately following content says "Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects. (See § Precision and disambiguation, below.)" and I am very glad of the clarification of the definition of "title" previously used.
What would you think of the use of a text:
Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title (exclusive of disambiguating additions) will convey what the subject is actually called in English.
Lastly, I was concerned about your edit comment regarding "utterly pointless RM debates". What do you mean? Which utterly pointless RM debates? If you want to make an accusation then please make it clearly. GregKaye 02:26, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
There are no "disambiguating additions" that are not parenthetical. That wording is very likely to confuse editors into thinking it might also in some way involve natural disambiguation; i.e., it would reintroduce the exact same NATURALNESS vs. NATURALDAB confusion that we're trying to prevent! Look at the 5 forms of permissible disambiguation listed at WP:AT#Disambiguation (in the order given in WP:AT):
  1. Natural: When we use Siamese cat instead of Siamese (cat), the naturally disambiguated phrase is, by its nature as natural in English, among the ways that the subject is actually named in English.
  2. Comma-separated: Exactly the same thing applies; it is actually just a variant of natural disambiguation that happens to be punctuated: Bangor, Maine; Diana, Princess of Wales. These are real names for these subjects, used in English-language sources, with that punctuation style. I.e., they already fit WP:NATURALNESS by definition (though some are not the WP:COMMONNAME; we sometimes don't use the most common name, but another common and naturally disambiguating one, when it allows us to avoid using the most common name with a tacked-on parenthetical disambiguator).
  3. Parenthetical: Something, most often the name of (or shortening of) a Wikipedia Category, is added in round brackets after the basic title (almost always the clear COMMONNAME), to prevent page title collisions. This is the only disambiguation case to which the exclusion, in the "Such a title (exclusive of any ...) usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English" clarification, can logically be applied.
  4. Descriptive name: This type, e.g. Campaign history of the Roman military or List of birds of Nicaragua, doesn't involve the naturalness criterion, but simply either fits pre-existing patterns of WP naming, or like Pontius Pilate's wife, is just the best we can come up with after a consensus discussion, for topics that are notable but which have no clear common name. In both types of case, these titles are essentially artifices of WP itself. (Truth be told, this doesn't appear to be clearly addressing disambiguation, and should be modified to include only examples that, unlike the Roman one, are titles that disambiguate.)
  5. Combination of parenthetic and comma-separated: Already covered by "exclusive of any added parenthetical disambiguation", for the parenthetical part, and by #2, comma-separated, for that part. It's not a separate class of disambiguation, but instruction on how use two classes at the same time.
So, there is no rationale for using something vague and confusing like "exclusive of disambiguating additions". It would almost certainly be misused by detractors of natural disambiguation to launch a series of tendentious RMs against names they don't feel fit WP:COMMONNAME but regarding which consensus has already decided to balance COMMONNAME and NATURALDIS. I.e., using "exclusive of disambiguating additions" would easily be misinterpreted as a major change to, not clarification of, article title policy – an "alliance" between COMMONNAME and NATURALNESS against NATURALDIS. We are not contemplating anything like such a sweeping change here, and years of stability at RM in the interplay between the naming criteria tells us there would be no consensus for such a change.
Next, we can't change "usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English" to "will convey what the subject is actually called in English" (a discussion that's been had before, I believe), because it's often not true (for many subjects, we cannot determine a certain COMMONNAME). More importantly, this simply isn't the place for it; it already has policy elsewhere on the page: Whether the name is or is not the most common name in English (and whether we use that or not) is governed by WP:COMMONNAME and its interplay with other aspects of naming policy, including all of the WP:CRITERIA. That is to say, WP:NATURALNESS is making a side observation, not setting a rule, when it says "usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English". The point of it is simply a hint in the right direction, and it is actually kind of tautological, since if a title is in fact the common name (in English) of the subject, then it already automatically meets the naturalness criterion, by definition. It would actually be safe to entirely remove the clause. But altering its meaning into a new, very strict rule, would be major policy change, and it would upend thousands of article titling decisions.
Either of the two (perhaps unwittingly) major changes to policy you've proposed would need separate, well-advertised consensus discussions, and I cheerfully would bet everything I own against their success.
Finally, observing the pointlessness of RM debates that confuse NATURALNESS and NATURALDIS is not an "accusation" against anyone, it's an observation about a certain kind of debate (an inanimate noun) and its pointlessness. All RM debates that have confused NATURALNESS and NATURALDIS were wastes of editorial time and energy, not just those involving any particular editor(s).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:12, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
  • @Peter coxhead: In another section, below, you wrote: "Read carefully the explanation of naturalness: The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Not the one, but one, and it clearly applies to titles that are formed by natural disambiguation (as opposed to ones formed by parenthetical disambiguation)." The rest of that line of the policy reads "Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English". I infer from this that you think that the clarification I added, in "Such a title (exclusive of any added parenthetical disambiguation) usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English", is not necessary. You procedurally reverted it as part of mass-revert of all recent changes, on the grounds of insufficient discussion. I'm uncertain why you say it clearly doesn't apply to titles formed by parenthetic disambiguation. Some editors demonstrably think otherwise. It's very unmistakeable that GregKaye does, at least in the formal logic of the wording, if not in how most of us choose to interpret it in practice (I'm fairly certain he doesn't believe that a majority of editors interpret it that way, only that some can and do). I also observe that some can and do, even if it bewilders me a little, and would bemuse me if it weren't so much trouble when it happens, sometimes months and months of extremely incivil trouble. Do you see some kind of harm in adding this clarification? I believe it will short-circuit a substantial amount of recurrent, pointless strife at WP:RM. Furthermore, the clarification applies only and exactly at the point where it should, the clause about external usage. It's not actually true that parenthetic disambiguations aren't included in "the title is one that ... editors would naturally use to link to the article" rule; the reason we strive for consistent parenthetic disambiguation patterns is so that editors can relatively naturally use them. Even non-editing readers can and do use them when looking for articles, when they are experienced enough to expect that the title will be disambiguated. E.g., any long-term WP reader will know intuitively by now that the TV show Vikings will most likely be found at the WP article title Vikings (TV series) because hundreds if not thousands of other TV show articles are disambiguated this way, and we use no other disambiguation pattern for them (except when having to be even more specific, e.g. with "(Canadian TV series)", etc.).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:01, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: the point I was making was about the whole title formed by parenthetical disambiguation, which is clearly not "natural", particularly in the sense that it will require piping in a wikilink. But I agree that the non-parenthesized part should be "natural", although I doubt that this needs to be stated, since (at least in my experience) first it's agreed that there is a title that overall satisfies the AT criteria but can't be used because it exists already, and then a parenthesized term is added to this title. But I can't see any harm in adding this qualification, although I would like to see some comments from others first, since sometimes bitter experience shows that wording that seems obviously clear and helpful to some editors turns out in practice to be neither. Festina lente should be the norm with changes to AT, MOS, etc. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:26, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead:: I don't think we disagree any of the substance underlying this discussion, then. The rationale for the addition is that it's just demonstrably true that for some editors "this needs to be stated", because they have trouble parsing the entire "first it's agreed ... but can't be used because ... and then" logical flow of WP article title disambiguation policy. Many of the extant discussions on this page prove this conclusively (even if they don't show the number to be very high, but we know they're higher than we'd like because of the kinds of confused arguments people often present about disambiguation in RM discussions). I'm fine with "hastening slowly", as long as we don't fall asleep, which is what usually happens when changes like this get over-discussed instead of just tried and tested, then adjusted if necessary. That said, the restructuring proposal, below, for the disambiguation section may make the concern moot, if that proposal goes anywhere.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:03, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose this change. The disadvantages outweigh the advantage in overloading the bullet points in the section "Deciding on an article title". -- PBS (talk) 08:49, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

How may this relate to other forms of disambiguation?

SMcCandlish You say that "There are no "disambiguating additions" that are not parenthetical."

Two arguably relevant topics relating to WP:NATURAL are: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Sarah Jane Brown in which WP:NATURAL has been a well used argument in both cases. WP:NCDAB specifically states:

Two clearly relevant topics relating to WP:COMMADIS that are specifically mentioned in the guidelines are Windsor, Berkshire and Diana, Princess of Wales. Windsor is normally called Windsor. Please consider Ngrams for princess diana,diana princess of wales. In comparison"Diana Princess of Wales" hardly shows. She was very often known simply as "Diana".

Some of the best examples of descriptive and naturally presented titles are were generated in a number of RMs that that we worked on together (editted):

Not by you but another move that went through was:

Tango (music) → Tango music

In all of these moves one of our main, if not our principle argument was on the basis of WP:NATURAL. The number of article that rely on additions for their disambiguation are legion. A great many of them, without the text change, might fail WP:NATURALNESS

16:08, 28 April 2015 edited GregKaye 16:48, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

All of that has seemingly been for no point other that to try to find some way to interpret 'there are no "disambiguating additions" that are not parenthetical' in a way that allows for further pointless argument. If you like: 'There are no "disambiguating additions" that are not parenthetical, to which WP:NATURALNESS applies', then, though it's a reasoning error to classify as "additions" the examples you give. Note also that I already gave a detailed analysis demonstrating precisely why the other forms of disambiguation don't qualify for the exclusion we're making with regard to the parenthetical ones, so it's a moot point anyway. But just to clear it up: "Diana, Princess of Wales" does not really involve a disambiguating addition. (Addition to what? It can't be "Diana"; if that has a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC it would probably be the goddess.) Rather, it is a more complete, source-supported, natural-language name, as an alternative to the many other choices ("Diana Spencer", "Princess Diana", "Diana (Princess of Wales)", "Diana Spencer-Mountbatten", etc.). Similarly, "Windsor, Berkshire" does not involve a disambiguating "addition" to the name, it's simply a more complete/detailed name. In both cases, the full names of those articles are subject to WP:NATURALNESS. QED: By extending the specific "exclusive of any added parenthetical disambiguation" to the vague "exclusive of any disambiguating additions", and interpreting various non-parenthetical forms of disambiguations (ones that are self-integral, natural-language, sourced, real-world phrases) as such "additions", you have painted yourself into a logic-trap corner from which there is no escape. So let's move on, if any of the rest of this actually needs to be addressed.
[T]opics relating to WP:NATURAL ... : Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Sarah Jane Brown – So what? There are always unusual, outlying cases where naming can be difficult to arrive at, and it completely normal for any of various parts of WP:AT to be considered in resolving those cases. This is why consensus discussion and common sense govern Wikipedia, not slavish adherence to the exact wording of policies and guidelines as if they are some kind of holy writ. As I said in the earlier thread, the existence of uncommon examples that illustrate an obscure case you're trying to rely on does not establish a norm. I'm not sure what lengthy quotation you were going to insert from WP:NCDAB, but I'm glad you forgot it; we don't need block quotes when pointers will suffice.
Can I also remind you [of some RMs involving WP:NATURAL]? – To what end? You've taken up a large chunk of talk page space to "remind" us of what we all already know, and have seemingly done so purely as an ad hominem tactic. Of course RMs involve WP:NATURALDIS, just as all the other segments of AT policy are relied upon in other RMs. We don't need lists of them dumped onto this talk page.
Every proposal of any kind on WP is proposed by someone, necessarily. Proposals do not come from thin air. The proponent, as such, is the "main supporter" of the proposal, by definition. If multiple proposals are consistent, such a person will also be the, or among the, "most regular supporter[s]" of the related proposals. This is all true across all topics of WP discussion. Please don't try to spin the normal and necessary into something impliedly suspicious.
Moving on, we've already had a lengthy discussion at your talk page about how it is logically impossible for WP:NATURALNESS to have actually meant what you seem to suppose it could have meant or what it could have been misinterpreted by some to mean, namely that "a great many of [the titles in question in your list above] might fail WP:NATURALNESS". [Aside: It's interesting that such an unsupportable argument was not actually made by anyone in those RM discussions, which were more numerous that your selective list, though an equally poor one was often proffered: The opposition was mostly based on the WP:Specialist style fallacy that the supposed WP:COMMONNAME when accepting only primary/specialist sources (i.e. what is actually the WP:OFFICIALNAME) somehow required that only the breed name in isolation be used (e.g. "Siamese"), disambiguated with a parenthetical when needed, and that natural-language phrasing like "Siamese cat" was somehow forbidden by policy, despite also being attested in more general-audience sources. This argument failed dismally.] Whether you accept the logical proof I gave in your talk page discussion is actually irrelevant. We both already concurred that the wording at WP:NATURALNESS was poor because someone might potentially be confused, and it has now already been clarified. The matter is simply moot.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:01, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
There is a significant content of supporting evidence that I've written up and which I think demonstrates why the above suggestion is less than ideal.
Its not a long text but, in the context of concerns such as those regarding editor time, I'll cut to the chase and suggest:
  • Naturalness – The title is one that will enable readers to easily identify the subject and is composed with phrasing that readers are likely to use in searches and that editors would naturally use in links to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.
GregKaye 10:49, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
Well, "composed with phrasing" is awkward, and the whole thing now borders on a run-on sentence. I think it would also fairly likely have some unintended consequences, because such a new rule about "phrase composition", with which you are trying to address disambiguations more broadly, would also apply to the core or base title without any disambiguation. It's entirely unclear what effect this would have. It's not even clear what it means in such a case. I understand the underlying idea, but we need others' input on this. I've already covered in more than enough detail why simply excluding parentheticals with a minor clarification will resolve the matter, and why including other forms of disambiguation in that clarification is logically invalid. No one has raised any questions about it other than you, and I've already addressed them, in two different venues. I have to suggest again that we try this for a few months and not revisit the issue unless this solution somehow proves to be a failure. If you add a spice to a stew, you need to let it percolate in there for a while to see what effect it will have on the flavor, not immediately dump in some other herb on the suspicion that the first change won't be good enough.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:39, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
  • In the context that this page is currently extremely active I think I will wait a while before trying for this again. Its all nice and neat to want to present a title as having a kind of whole oneness in description of naturalness but this breaks down. The new edit, if anything, increases the influence to a prescription of Natural disambiguation. In many cases, if you want to do an internet search on a subject whose Wikipedia article has a title with parenthetical disambiguation, you will likely need to use terms from both the "base title" and the parenthesis to conduct a meaningful search. GregKaye 12:51, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
I'm glad that you're not pursuing this further, at least for now. I don't understand your parting message, though. The only way that the entire title having a natural-English quality to it "breaks down" is when a natural title (almost always the WP:COMMONNAME has a parenthetical disambiguator attached to it; such a title cannot possibly be "natural". (No one is really named "John Smith (composer)" with the parenthetical. We've been over this many times already). All other titles, including those disambiguated by other methods, are subject to WP:NATURALNESS. All this edit would do is clarify that. It doesn't do anything to "increase the influence [of] a prescription of natural disambiguation"; that's covered in a completely different section of the policy. You seem to be confusing WP:NATURALNESS with WP:NATURALDAB again. I agree with you that experienced readers familiar with our disambiguation methods may use common WP disambiguators like "(film)" when searching Wikipedia; I made this point myself earlier. But that has nothing to do with the WP:NATURALNESS criterion.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:20, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to change sub-header

Proposed change:

When deciding on which disambiguation method(s) to use, all article titling criteria are weighed in:
  1. Natural disambiguation Alternative names as disambiguation: If it exists, choose an alternative name that...

As we have been discussing (above), there seems to be some confusion in terminology between "Natural disambiguation" and "Naturalness"... I think this relatively simple (and limited) wording change would help prevent such confusion, without changing the meaning of the policy in any way. Blueboar (talk) 13:33, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

  • Oppose as written; change WP:NATURALNESS instead. As I said when such a change was proposed in less concrete terms earlier, the naturalness or intuitiveness of WP:NATURALDIS titles (to the general public, not as jargonistic terms of art among specialists, who are much more tolerant of less natural but more precise constructions in insider works) is a key factor that we cannot afford to lose here. Without that aspect, alternative titles do not actually work well. The important part is that they are natural/intuitive in English, and many potential alternative titles are not. Another issue is that they are not all names, so "Alternative names as disambiguation" does not work. (Yes, this is a problem in the extant wording of WP:AT; in the restructuring proposal above this has already mostly been addressed). Next, "alternative foo as disambiguation" would seem to encompass everything other than parenthetical disambiguations, not just what we call natural disambiguations. Yet the restructure proposal above will not necessarily divide all disambiguation into natural vs. parenthetic (though I argue that it should).

    As I also said above at least twice, it's just as reasonable to change WP:NATURALNESS to use some other word, like "intuitiveness", and leave WP:NATURALDIS alone. In fact, the more I think about it, the more certain I am that's the better option, less likely to lead to unintended consequences. What is presently shortcutted as WP:NATURALNESS is a general guiding principle, with little dispute ever arising about it. "Natural" in that context has a broad, loose meaning, with "intuitive" as an obvious (and less vague) alternative. WP:NATURALDIS, by contrast, is specific, and set against other forms of disambiguation. "Natural" in that context has a vary narrow meaning, relating to the natural language processing of English speakers, and what they write.

    People frequently argue, sometimes very heatedly, about these disambiguation styles, and we have a lot of time and energy invested in sorting out those disagreements. To change this segment's core wording will change its interpretation, and in turn change the interpretation of its relation to the rest of WP:AT#Disambiguation, and probably to the rest of WP:AT more broadly. There be dragons. I was involved in around six straight months of RM debates about natural vs. parenthetic disambiguation just in one topic area, and the deciding factors were a) natural disambiguation is clearly favored by the policy over other disambiguation methods (it unmistakably leads with the instruction that if a natural DAB exists, then use it); and b) that what determines whether something qualifies as natural disambiguation is its natural-language quality, evidenced by actual use of that exact label for the subject (or a pattern in the same format covering the entire class to which the subject, perhaps something very new, belongs). The policy implicitly acknowledges this with "If it [i.e. a natural disambiguation] exists": We are taking it, already existing, from the real world, even if it's not the most common usage; we definitely aren't inventing it. Debates that hinge on this quality, this very particular kind of "naturality", if you will, are still going on even now; the RM at Talk:Gait (dog) involves that kind of "Is it something someone would actually write/say?" concern deeply. (It's about whether to use the attested and arguably natural but kind of awkward and too-limiting "Dog gait", the parenthetical "Gait (dog)", or a descriptive, WP-crafted, broader title like "Canine gait", "Gait in canines", etc.).

    A natural disambiguation on WP is one that works because of how the English language works and is used, in a fairly formal register of nonfiction writing. I must reiterate that this is a distinction we cannot afford to excise or even muddle. While I admit it may be possible to find an alternative word, I've been hitting the thesaurus and haven't found anything suitable to replace the "natural" in WP:NATURALDIS. Changing "Naturalness" to "Intuitiveness" is probably the cleanest solution, since they're essentially synonymous in the WP:NATURALNESS context, but not in the WP:NATURALDIS context.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:24, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

    Update: I rescind for now to the suggestion to modify WP:NATURALNESS either; some of the redrafting proposed in a thread higher up would clarify the relationship between these sections.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:22, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

  • Oppose Firstly, I don't accept that any change at all is needed. I see no convincing evidence that the use of "natural" in both contexts causes serious confusion, any more than any other context-dependent use of English words does. There's a clear commonality of meaning: part of what makes a good title is that editors find it "natural" to use as a wikilink without the need for piping, and this applies to first-choice article titles as well as to second-choice ones forced on us by the need to make titles unique. For this reason, I profoundly disagree with changing "naturalness" as one of the five key characteristics to be balanced. Read carefully the explanation of naturalness: The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Not the one, but one, and it clearly applies to titles that are formed by natural disambiguation (as opposed to ones formed by parenthetical disambiguation). Secondly, I agree with SMcCandlish that "alternative name" is not at all the same as "natural disambiguation", and would in fact be misleading. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:02, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
Um... I think you guys need to read the paragraph in question again... it actually defines "Natural disambiguation" as using an alternative name... (to quote: If it exists, choose an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title)... That's fairly clear... so I don't see how you can say that natural disambiguation isn't the same as "alternative name". Blueboar (talk) 16:41, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
I see an important difference of emphasis between using the phrase "alternative name" in expanding on "natural disambiguation" and replacing the latter. The alternative name has to be "natural", as currently worded. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:37, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
Um... can you give me an example of an alternative name that isn't natural? The original intent of the provision wasn't really about naturalness... it was simply to say that using a reasonably common alternative name is acceptable when the most commonly used name is ambiguous. For example, let's say that some other "Bill Clinton" becomes notable (and notable enough that the former President would not be considered a "Primary topic") ... in such a scenario, it would be acceptable to use the alternative William Jefferson Clinton as an unambiguous title for our article on the President. Blueboar (talk) 15:18, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
Variants of an individual's name are clearly all to some degree "natural", so I don't think this is a good example. Consider the current title Breed type (dog). It has been proposed in passing that it be moved to "Dog breed type". This is clearly an alternative title. Other alternative titles are "Canine breed type" and "Breed type for dogs". The issue is whether any of them are sufficiently "natural" to be an improvement on the parenthetically disambiguated title. My objection to the proposed change is that it takes the focus off the question of "naturalness" and onto the rather vacuous one of whether it's an "alternative title". Peter coxhead (talk) 19:56, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
(ec) It's not clear what you're asking for, in "can you give me an example of an alternative name that isn't natural?", so it's hard to answer clearly. If you want an example of a Wikipedia article title that fits that criterion, it may be hard to find one, except a former article title that was renamed via RM processes, since per this very policy, we aren't supposed to have any alternative titles at aren't natural. If you're just asking for made-up examples of alternative titles that could exist and which are less natural, I think Peter's example suffices. Various of those alternatives are "alternative wordings" (and one is a parenthetic disambiguation), but "dog breed type" is obviously natural, while "breed type for dogs" and various other choices like "breed type of dog", "breed types of the dog", etc., are not, or are at least much less so. ("Canine breed type" is out, because there is no other domesticated canine besides the dog, thus no canine other than the dog to which the word "breed" applies). As an aside, it's not very civil to assume that people just didn't bother reading very closely, or didn't understand what they read, just because they disagree with your proposal, especially when they've already clearly spelled out the exact nature of the disagreement. (Maybe I'm being hypocritical, since I'm wondering why you didn't seem to notice or understand those already-posted clear explanations. Then again, your "Um... I think you guys need to read the paragraph in question again" response doesn't indicate an understanding of what Peter and I posted, while our posts do indicate an understanding of your proposal.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:33, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
The problem with using Breed type (dog) vs Dog breed type (or some other potential title) as an example is that there is no disambiguation (much less "Natural disambiguation") in the first place... The parenthetical "(dog)" is not being used to distinguish two separate topics that both share the same name - but as a way to designate a sub-topic. We start with the broad parent topic "Breed type"... and split it into sub-topics that arguably could be entitled "Breed type (dogs)", "Breed type (cats)", "Breed type (cows)" etc. In other words... the parentheticals are not actually disambiguating two topics that could both have the same title... they are separating sub-topics of a broader topic. Now, I am not saying that these are (or are not) the best titles for the sub-topics - although they are certainly logical ones - my point is that the underlying reason for the parenthetical has nothing to do with disambiguation, and so citing "Natural disambiguation" is misplaced. (Naturalness, on the other hand, is a legitimate issue). Blueboar (talk) 01:46, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
It is a disambiguation, since there are breed types in other domestic livestock, such as horses, whether we have articles on those concepts yet or not. Regardless, this is way too much verbiage spent on trying to disprove this one, simple, off-the-cuff example, when obviously any of a zillion others could be used. Many are even found in the same category, e.g. Dog daycare (the actual article title, naturally disambiguated from Daycare), vs. Daycare (dog) (parenthetic disambiguation), vs. Daycare for dogs, Daycare involving canines, etc. (unnatural or less natural, non-parenthetic, descriptive phrases as disambiguations). So, let's back away from the dead horse, please.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:38, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

PS: I've checked, and we have a general Breed type article, but it's just a stub, and there don't appear to be other breed type articles than the dog one yet. So the example isn't ideal to use to illustrate the policy, but we weren't contemplating that; Peter just used it as an example in answering Blueboar.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:20, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

PPS, re: "in such a scenario, it would be acceptable to use the alternative William Jefferson Clinton as an unambiguous title for our article on the President – While, as Peter points out, that's not really a good case to illustrate naturalness, it's not necessarily categorically true, anyway. Most often we do not disambiguate this way, by changing to a biographical subject's full but less common name. We far more often do use a parenthetic disambiguator. I'd almost bet money on that being the outcome in such a hypothetical as outlined for the future of the title "Bill Clinton".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:26, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

OK... Let's look at another example of what I am talking about: We have a series of articles about the Battle of Gettysburg... the sub-articles are: "Battle of Gettysburg, First Day", "Battle of Gettysburg, Second Day", etc. This is another case where we are not actually disambiguating two topics that could take the same article title - there are not several separate "Battles of Gettysburg" that need to be disambiguated, but one long battle that can be divided up into logical segments (in this case, days). However, we have chosen a consistent title format to show that the sub-topics are related to each other.
Now, we easily could have used parentheticals as the format - "Battle of Gettysburg (first day)", "Battle of Gettysburg (second day)", etc. Doing so would be reasonably natural. However, I would agree that using a comma instead of parentheticals gives us a more natural format (and so I would not suggest changing the formatting).
In other words... the formatting decision for choosing the titles of the various Battle of Gettysburg articles does involve applying the criteria of Naturalness... but it does not involve applying the provison of Natural disambiguation (because there is no ambiguity, no matter what title format we choose). Blueboar (talk) 12:28, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
So? No one anywhere in this discussion has said that WP:NATURALNESS, one of the basic WP:CRITERIA, is subordinate in some way to WP:NATURALDISambiguation; the opposite is the case. Naturalness (or intuitiveness) is a general principle, that's why it's in the criteria. And we already know that commas can be used in article titles for reasons other than disambiguation (the #Proposal to restructure is addressing this explicitly). What you're talking about is a WP:SPLIT issue, and the naming of a series of articles. It's unclear to how this relates to any alleged or actual confusion about the meaning of WP:NATURALDIS. This appears ultimately to be a reply to Peter coxhead, so I'll reiterate what he said: "I see no convincing evidence that the use of "natural" in both contexts causes serious confusion, any more than any other context-dependent use of English words does." These Gettysburg examples actually seem to illustrate Peter's point, not argue against it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:42, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
I suppose we will simply have to agree to disagree then. Just for the record... I was not arguing that NATURALNESS is subordinate to NATURAL-DIS. However, the opposite is not true either - NATURAL-DIS is not subordinate to NATURALNESS - Since NATURAL-DIS comes under the heading of the criteria of PRECISION not NATURALNESS). That's what I was attempting to clarify. Blueboar (talk) 11:57, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
That's not my meaning of "subordinate"; I'm not talking about which of the criteria of which NATURALDAB may be clarified a subset. Rather, I'm observing (with you, here, and with Greg, above) that the WP:CRITERIA are overarching policy that apply to all article titles (including disambiguated one), while NATURALDAB is not, it's just rules for how to disambiguate after we've already determined what the ideal title would be. The real logic flow of AT is "Use COMMONNAME and CRITERIA to arrive at the preferred name. If it needs to be disambiguated, see #DISAMBIGUATION. Then check the result against the CRITERIA again. Return to #DISAMBIGUATION as needed to select another disambiguation method until something passes CRITERIA." You can observe this logical flow being consistently applied in years and years of RMs. You can also see frequent attempts to skirt it, because it takes work. Often, people leap straight to parenthetic disambiguation even though there may be more natural alternatives, since the parenthetical tack-on is not actually subject to the WP:NATURALNESS criterion. I's temptingly convenient (i.e. lazy) to try to skip naturalness analysis entirely by resorting to parenthetic disambiguation right from the start.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:53, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Even as things are I think that the wording of naturaldis over emphasises preference for this option. It currently presents:

"Natural disambiguation: If it exists, choose an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names...."

I would prefer it to more subtly say:

"Natural disambiguation: If disambiguation is necessary, and an alternative name is available that is also used to commonly describe the subject in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title and which doesn't require the use of parenthesis, use this alternative name. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names...."

or, perhaps by swapping the word "name" for "description":

"Natural disambiguation: If disambiguation is necessary, and an alternate description is available that will still meet the requirement for the use of a commonly recognizable name, then the use of this alternative description may be preferable on the basis of an avoidance of additional punctuation. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names...."

I don't think that it helps to give the instruction before presenting the parameters of the instruction. Editors often do not get it. Presenting "If it exists". We resent a non specific "it" and then present it within mention, in effect, of existence. We don't say "It sat on the mat" - "What was it?" - "Oh, the cat". The "what" comes first and the "hows" and the "wheres" come later.

My suggested content could equally begin, as previously and sensibly suggested, with:

Alternative names as disambiguation: ..."

or with:

Alternative descriptions as disambiguation: ..."

I think that it is inappropriate to use a directive such as "choose" and would be dubious in regard to swapping this with "use". Editors should, I think, be free to choose the most suitable disambiguation method so as to enable the best possible presentation of the topic of any particular article content. Editors should be free to use any of the optional disambiguation methods available so as to achieve best effect. I don't think that it is relevant to prescribe. GregKaye 15:28, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Greg's grammatical point is valid... but his solutions are too complex... the simplest fix would be:
"Natural disambiguation: Choose an alternative name (if one exists) that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names." Blueboar (talk) 00:39, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
That's not an improvement over the current wording (though much easier to parse that Greg's proposition). "Choose ... if one ..." doesn't make sense. There is no "choice" involved unless there are multiple options, so that a misuse of the word "chose", even if it's a fairly common error. The underlying logic in Greg's version is also better, even if it rambles, because it also preserves the fact that natural disambiguation is preferred over parenthetic. It's something he doesn't agree with, but his draft wording preserved it, while your version would lose that crucial point. That would be a significant change to policy.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:53, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Greg, I agree with you that "choose" is a poor word choice here. Yet you immediately follow your objection to "choose" with "Editors should, I think, be free to choose", so you seem to be contradicting yourself. I'm not sure what your objection to "use" could be. Either we do want people to use a name selected by AT policy logic, or we don't need AT policy; there's not really a middle ground. We already covered the "editors should be free to choose" business yesterday (different thread, above). Editors are not free to willy-nilly choose any disambiguation method that appeals to them. The methods are specified in, and are consistently applied at RM in, a descendingly preferred order. It's clear that you would like it if there were no such preference, since you've proposed removing it in at least two threads here within the same day or two. But that would be very substantial policy change, and would lead to potentially thousands of re-opened RM disputes. Can't support that at all. Next, "alternative descriptions" immediately following "Natural disambiguation" doesn't work, because only some kinds of natural disambiguation are descriptive. That's why descriptive titles have their own entry, along with alternative "name", and comma-separated, and finally parenthetic. "Alternative descriptions" as an entry after an "Alternative names" entry doesn't work either, because it's not an alternative description, it's just a description, period; the other disambiguations options are not descriptive. Finally, "alternative names" is wrong, because many of them are not actually names. (This is a problem in the extant wording of the policy, not just these wording suggestions by Greg or Blueboar; I've already covered this in detail in previous but still-ongoing threads, above.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:53, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
  • This thread could be mooted by #Proposal to restructure, above, in which all of these ideas are also being covered in more detail and in the context of other changes to the section. If we continue here, I would suggest the following:
1. "Natural disambiguation: Use an alternative name (if one exists) that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names."
I agree that the grammatical point is valid, though only marginally. The problem, though, is that too many other (major) changes are being worked in, whether inadvertently or not, for GreKaye's or BlueBoar's suggestions to be viable. If we just want to fix the problem of "it" having no referent until later in the sentence, then don't change anything else, and it's highly unlikely anyone would object.
However, this can be shortened further without altering the meaning of the policy in any way:
2. "Natural disambiguation: Use an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names."
It's tautological that if something is commonly used in reliable source, it necessarily exists. The unnecessary verbiage on that is also blatantly redundant with the instruction that follows it, to not make up names that don't exist.
Another way to improve this is to replace "name" with "label" (since not all of them are names, per se):
3. "Natural disambiguation: Use an alternative label that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names."
Or some other word besides "label", e.g. "designation". Just not "name" (which is a subset of label/designation), not "description" (which is something different, with its own entry), and not "title" (which is a superset, including all types of WP article titles).
Note that "names" in the final sentence is correct, though. WP's own style of descriptive titles (whether as disambiguations or not) are made up labels/designators we have to use sometimes, but are not made-up names for the subject.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:06, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
There most certainly is choice... a) first there is the choice of how best to disambiguate (whether to disambiguate by using an alternative name or by adding a qualifier). Second, within each there is a choice of how best to disambiguate - in "Natural disambiguation" there is often a choice of alternative names... within parenthetical disambiguation and comma disambiguation there is the choice of what terms to use in the added qualifier. Which of these choices will be considered best are intentionally left to consensus on an article by article basis... but they are choices, and all should be explored. Blueboar (talk) 11:27, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I would still prefer a description based text such as:

"Natural disambiguation: Use an alternate description that meets the requirements for the use of a commonly recognizable name, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names."

A potential example of where this situation may be applicable is: Masjid al-Haram which Britannica presents as "Great Mosque, Mecca." Evidence of usage is also provided in Ngram results and in search results (in these cases from books) as follows:

A search in books on:

also presents practical usage.

There is some dispute on the page with plenty of, as I see it, non policy based arguments being presented. I would be happy for other opinions. However I think that there is a good opportunity here to productively merge with the concepts of descriptive title. GregKaye 11:45, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Use commonly recognizable names (as and/or in a title)

The opening text of Wikipedia:Article titles#Use commonly recognizable names currently reads:

  • Names are often used as article titles – such as the name of the person, place or thing that is the subject of the article. ...

There are ~3654 article titles just from "List ..." to "List of Azusa Pacific Cougars head football coaches".
There are also a large number of articles that use natural disambiguation that add to title names so as to form appropriately descriptive titles.
A simple change to the text would be:

  • Names are often used in article titles – such as the name of the person, place or thing that is the subject of the article. ...

Other options may include:

  • Names are typically used either as or otherwise within article titles and these names may be of the person, place or thing central to the article's subject. ...

I think that some subjects have some latitude in regard to title and content. For example, the article British people has sections/subsections including:

4 Culture
4.1 Cuisine
4.2 Language
4.3 Literature
4.4 Media and music
4.5 Religion
4.6 Sport
4.7 Visual art and architecture
4.8 Political culture

In other examples such as the aforementioned List of Azusa Pacific Cougars head football coaches, Azusa Pacific Cougars fills the role of the, within title, commonly recognisable name.

Ideally I would prefer us to change:

to:

WP:UCRN refers to names that are used within titles.
GregKaye 08:57, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Using launch dates in place of hull or pennant numbers in ship article titles

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is consensus to support the proposal. No specific language was presented and so there is no consensus on what that language is supposed to be. The majority argument centred around the fact that it was easier to disambiguate ships, that hull numbers are often reused, and that it is done on commercial ships already. AlbinoFerret 22:04, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
TLDR: as a general reader, what seems easier to you: USS Nevada (BB-36) or USS Nevada (1914)?

This RfC proposes to replace hull or pennant numbers in article titles with launch dates. As my views have previously been made abundantly clear, I'll present them here.

Currently, Wikipedia's ship name policy specifies that hull and pennant numbers (e.g. USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70)) be used to disambiguate ships when appropriate. This is a change from an the older policy, which used them wherever possible, but there is at least a significant minority that still favors the approach.
Why should a general reader with no knowledge about warships know that they would need to type in something like (CVN-70)? At best, this is useless jargon for non-specialists. Worse, an argument for consistency falls flat when only a minority of countries use them; we only have these numbers for American and British/some Commonwealth ships. Now:
  • With American hull classification symbols, it's a lot of unneeded fluff in the title, and WP:PRECISE should force us to drop it (unless another ship shared the same name, obviously). These numbers have been changed in a non-trivial number of cases, like the Knox-class frigate.
  • With British pennant numbers, they're reused. If you can honestly tell me what ship HMS Ark Royal (91) is without looking or guessing, I'll give you a cookie. Not a single person can argue that pennant numbers are helpful to a general reader when they type a ship name in the search bar. As my colleague Parsecboy said, "Which is more helpful to non-experts trying to find the WWII Ark Royal in the auto-fill drop down - a list of articles with (91), (R07), and (R09) as dabs, or a list of articles with (1937), (1950), and (1981) as dabs?"

So given that it's pretty apparent that we've been perpetuating a system that is completely useless to helping our readers, I'm proposing that WP:SHIPNAME be changed to mandate the use of launch dates rather than hull numbers when disambiguation is necessary. We already do this for ships that predate hull numbers, and such a system would be far easier to navigate for our readers, who (a) are why we are here and (b) again, typically have little to no specialist knowledge about ships. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:58, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Before complaints roll in: I've placed this RfC here after the previous failure to obtain consensus at the Milhist talk page, the obscurity of our ship name policy page, and the desire to get comments from the wider Wikipedia community. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:58, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Support/oppose

  • I would tend to agree with this suggestion predominantly for the reason given above of jargon. --Izno (talk) 17:04, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • I agree with using launch dates, but think a provision should be made for hull/penant numbers as redirects if such numbers have entered popular culture (I don't know of any).--Jim in GeorgiaContribsTalk 17:38, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
    Oh, of course we'll have redirects. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:05, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • In general I oppose a "dumbing down" or "lowest common denominator" approach, but given there isn't universal availability, & given RN practice to reuse, this proposal makes sense to me. (I somehow missed it last time. :( ) TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 20:52, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Doesn't Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships control this sort of thing? I understand aright, it is that Wikiproject that is responsible for our non-standard use of non-parenthetical disambiguation placing the disambiguation terms at the front of the title (that is, we use "Russian light cruiser Aurora" rather than "Aurora (Russian light cruiser)" and so on). So why not ask them what they think? Herostratus (talk) 21:02, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
    • Of course, and they had input into the Milhist discussion as well, but no consensus was reached. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:05, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
    • WikiProjects control nothing. They are simply groups of editors that happen to congregate to edit similar topics. --Izno (talk) 03:03, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
      If Wikiprojects control nothing, why do we have titles like "Russian light cruiser Aurora" instead of "Aurora (Russian light cruiser)" and so forth? Herostratus (talk) 14:10, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

      Presumably because a group of editors (who may or may not identify as participating in a particular WikiProject) got together and decided to put together some naming guidelines? WP:SHIPNAME is a Wikipedia-wide guideline, so if I could manage to get enough support (unlikely), we could make the name of the article on Aurora "Aurora famous boat".

      That aside, the reason why I said what I said is WP:LOCALCON (if you want, I can point you to the extensive discussion regards the naming of birds...). --Izno (talk) 14:17, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

  • Support - it's so much clearer and accessible this way. Red Slash 21:06, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Support, the year of launch only happens once and is a good disambiguator if it is needed. Easy-peasy Cuprum17 (talk) 21:34, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The common way to distinguish between ships with the same name is to use the hull number. This isn't something we made up at Wikiepdia. Calidum T|C 21:37, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose: the main reason to use the hull number is that this is how most reliable sources disambiguate ambiguous ship names (although this may be something that is US centric.) In other words, disambiguating with the hull number will give you a more recognizable and natural title than disambiguating by year of launch. Blueboar (talk) 21:39, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Strong support: I've argued for this a number of times. It seems to me that this is the best way to disambiguate ships (not perfect - but better than the current system); we already do it for ships without hull or pennant numbers, and for ships that pre-date such things; it helps readers in an intuitive manner, rather than presenting them with a list of jargon (both casual and specialist readers can benefit - I know a fair bit about ships but I still can't remember which Ark Royal was pennant number 91 - nor do I want to); worse still, hull numbers (as opposed to pennant numbers) are US jargon, and they change - more often than you would think (USS Langley had 3 in her lifetime, and there are many, many examples); you can still distinguish in the text between two US ships by hull number - but this is about disambiguating every similarly named ship in existence - what works for a book doesn't necessarily work for what is in effect a database; please let's do what we should have done from the beginning and use dates as disambiguators. Shem (talk) 23:41, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Support: Aids in editing ship articles too if I don't have to read through each ship's history to figure out which one existed at a certain time.Llammakey (talk) 00:56, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Support because too many of the numbers are reused. If it were not for that fact, I'd would agree with the "common way to distinguish" rationale. The "main reason is that's how many RS do it" rationale is a non-starter, though. We have our own criteria for naming, in a delicate balance, and "do what the specialist publications do" isn't among them. That would be a variant of the WP:Specialist style fallacy. We write for a general audience. It coincidentally turns out that this specialist style is also fairly common, at least for US ships. But this doesn't get around the WP:PRECISE problem posed by reuse of the numbers.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:37, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Support U.S.N. hull numbers are purely administrative and are by no means fixed. They need to be discussed within an article just as does DANFS. To repeat my reply over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships to someone "hearing" hull number is part of the name:
Hull number is not part of the name as can be seen by ships with the same name and multiple hull designations and even numbers. They are not "renamed"—they are "redesignated" or "reclassified," sometimes in mass batches by memorandum and notice changing all of a certain classification to another, as to the Navy's view of their function/type. An example of mass change is with "CL/CA - Light and Heavy Cruisers." No names were changed, just the hull classifications, for the eight ships "redesignated as "heavy cruisers" (CA)" as a result of the London Naval Treaty. A quickly located single ship example is Markab which has a page here USS Markab (AD-21). Since I just picked that one at random a moment ago it is interesting what a good example it is of not very good use of hull number. From DANFS with my emphasis: 1) "Markab (AK‑31) was built as Mormacpenn by Ingalls" 2) "she was redesignated AD‑21" and 3) "she was redesignated AR‑23, 15 April and recommissioned 1 July" (1960). So, why is the Wikipage not (AK-31) or (AR-23)?
As Markab demonstrates, for disambiguation hull numbers are only incidental factors and may change as the Navy changes its view of a ship's function or even records housekeeping. Even now there may be a proposal circulating in Navy to get rid of three and four letter designations indicating "guided missile"—an obsolete term fitting all destroyers now—turning all the DLG and DLGN and DDG into just DL, DLN and DD. No hull ever has an initial launch twice—even if reconstructed. Further, unlike commercial companies, the Navy keeps good records of the launch dates for ships built for Navy (it sometimes blunders on commercial hulls taken in for naval service). saberwyn makes a proposal I could support with qualifications, the first being KISS and avoid "attack transport" when "transport" is good enough (there is that hull designation again: AKA and AP). The single exceptions should be those non commissioned U.S.N. craft that are not "USS" and bear the hull number as the "name" such as the PTs of WW II and the yard vessels of today. Palmeira (talk) 12:50, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
Of course. It would be difficult to talk about USS PT-109 without referring to the hull number. ;-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 15:38, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
Ah yes, but neither was PT-109 commissioned so "USS" is also not the case. Just an informed guess, but I think we can be fairly sure the majority of the vessels and craft in the U.S.N. inventory are not. Palmeira (talk) 16:06, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
Wow, point to you. I've learned something today. In any case, that's the name of the boat, so it would remain in the article title. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:50, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
The USS misuse is only somewhat off topic here. Navy is very precise as that title "United States Ship" has both service and some legal weight. In formal Navy use it applies only to a ship while in commission, even being dropped during temporary decommissionings. In informal use the honorific attaches to vessels once in commission, but not to vessels that have never been commissioned. Here the common misuse for vessels never commissioned is somewhat similar to having articles titled "President Humphrey" or "President Goldwater"—could have been, served their country, but they never stood there taking the presidential oath to get that title. Palmeira (talk) 21:29, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Strong support - this is the standard way to disambiguate merchant vessels, and naval vessels in service before hull/pennant numbers were invented. It seems a logical extension to apply it to all naval vessels where disambiguation is required. If there happens to be two or more vessels of the same name launched in the same year, we can further dab by builder. Mjroots (talk) 17:26, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
    • I personally disagree with second-level disambiguating by builder, because I think that is an incredibly obscure factoid. I know a lot about ships in the area that I'm interested in, but I couldn't even hazard a guess as to where most of them were constructed. If the point of this proposal is to make it easier for readers to get to where they want to go by removing obscure codes from the disambiguation, replacing it with an even more obscure piece of information that subject experts can't recall can't be helping. -- saberwyn 02:21, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
      • @Saberwyn: So, how would you disambiguate SS Espagne (1909) then? Mjroots (talk) 06:15, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
        • As an aside, where are the conventions for civilian ships codified? WP:SHIPNAME has some general stuff, then the rest is almost consistently military. Can't find where some of the more esoteric rules for civilian ships alluded to here and elsewhere in this discussion are kept.
          • The very first section covers the naming convention for civilian ships. Mjroots (talk) 08:00, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
            • Thank you, Mjroots. Must have not read the section heading that clearly, and with it being so generalised and lacking some of the specific hoops mentioned/alluded to for civilian ship naming, I assumed it was the overarching general stuff. -- saberwyn 08:16, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
        • @Mjroots:: The articles in question are SS Espagne (Anversois, 1909) and SS Espagne (Provence, 1909). Under what I think are the current conventions for non-military ships (see caveat immediately above), something along the lines of Belgian freighter Espange (1909) and French ocean liner Espange (1909) (dates left in to further disambiguate from other French and Belgian ships of these names and types launched). Under my suggestion of by-type disambiguation below, SS Espange (freighter, launched 1909) and SS Espange (ocean liner, launched 1909), although would also settle for Belgian freighter Espange (launched 1909) etc... shackling civilian ships to prefixes in this particular situation seems to make it harder rather than easier to identify and disambiguate the vessels. I don't have a clue where what the companies Anversois or Provence are (and what ties to these ships have to these locations companies post-construction? What if the build location was in Scotland? a Scottish company built these French/Belgian ships?), but under either of the above, I now know what the ship is called, what it is, and where it is from. Yes, this runs into problems with possible impressions of national ownership (but we identify companies by their nation of origin even if they're not nationalised, so doing the same for civilian ships shouldn't be a problem) and with flags of convenience (not sure how to get around this one, maybe "Foo-flagged shiptype shipname" for vessels with no association beyond flag of convenience?). -- saberwyn 07:37, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
          • @Saberwyn: The form "Nationality (ship type) (ship name)" is used for naval vessels which do not have a ship prefix. Thus HMS Speedy (1782) or French brig Speedy (no year disambiguation as it was the only one). It is not used for powered merchant vessels where thre prefixes PS, SS, MV etc are available to use. Another reason not to use ship type is that these can be changed during the ship's lifetime. A cargo ship may become a passenger ship, and vice versa. Mjroots (talk) 07:54, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
          • BTW, the disambiguation is by builder, not location. Mjroots (talk) 07:56, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
            • Why not? Those prefixes can be just as unclear to the uninitiated as the hull/pennant numbers are. And if ship types change (as they do for military ships in both prefix and non-prefix navies) this is a job for redirects and article-local consensus on the name. -- saberwyn 08:13, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
            • My apologies for the mixup, I have struck and tweaked my post. I think it highlights how unhelpful to non-experts identifying by builder can be. -- saberwyn 08:13, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
              • We don't want to go down the flag route. Ships change flags as often as they change names, if not more often. I try to find something that is a constant to use as a disambiguator. The builder is one thing that isn't going to change, whatever name or flag the vessel is under. The creation of appropriate redirects is an important part of article creation, as is the creation of shipindex pages. Mjroots (talk) 08:33, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
                • @Mjroots: If was going to ask permission to have a second go at this, and disambiguate by a more refined date. This works for the Dutch freighter SS Espagne (February 1909), but not for the French ocean liner, which doesn't have anything more specific than 1909 provided. -- saberwyn 03:36, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
                  • That might also work, and is a stand-by should dabbing by builder not be an option. Dunno what we'll do if two ships built by the same builder were both launched in the same month and carried the same name at some point in their careers. Mjroots (talk) 06:44, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Neutral, leaning oppose. Here we go again. The hull number vs launch year argument keeps cropping up every now and again: one side gets up, makes a few speeches with some valid points, and waves their shotguns in the air, the other side gets up, makes a few speeches with some valid points (either for their side or for maintaining status quo), and waves their shotguns in the air back, then the conversation peters out and nothing happens. My theory is that this is because there's nothing sufficiently broken to warrant the changes being asked for here. The system may be a little eccentric, but it works. The impression I get from the proposal is that the poor little readers come along to look for a ship, type the name into the search box, see a list of article titles appear with numbers in brackets, can't determine which one they want, then ragequit (or select one, find its not the one they want, then ragequit). I find this odd when the top response is the name without any disambiguators, which leads to a disambiguation page where a list of all the articles and further context to help people determine which ship they want. This disambiguation page is/should be clearly linked at the top of each subject page, again helping readers get to where they want to go if they end up where they don't. Is there any evidence of readers or proto-editors being driven away because of the current disambiguation schema? I think Hull/pennant numbers are a perfectly valid disambiguator and search term, because for the nations that regularly use them, a lot of the material involved with or referring to the ship clearly indicates it. I imagine that some people who come here have come across a ship baseball cap or other piece of apparel/promotional material, or an image with a number writ large on the side and are using it as the basis of their search. Texts like DANFS refer to the hull number when they refer to ships in the text. And yes, they change (more frequently when you use the British/Commonwealth process of recycling pennant numbers), but that's what redirects, disambiguation pages, and clear linking are for. I also agree with the logic behind the launching being the one common event in all ship's lives, but if the hypothetical reader is searching for a ship in the context of a date, the date is going to be for an event in the ship's history, which will likely be well removed from the launch year (I also disagree with using numbers without context, but I've already yakked on about that below). -- saberwyn 02:21, 28 April 2015 (UTC) Update: Shifting to full oppose at this time, because if this needs fixing (and I'm not certain it does), a contextless string of four digits as a disambiguator is far worse that the system currently in use, both between ship articles, and between ship and non-ship topics. -- saberwyn 13:03, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
    • I do not see this suggestion so much for the reader as for having a single, clear distinction in the title to serve as the target for exactly those ship disambiguation pages you mention. That is where the naive reader should first land and those need to have enough description to identify a ship in time, type and indeed hull number(s). That should place the correct article one search and another click away. Go to the naming convention page we are discussing. Look at the hull number if/then options. One bunch of "ifs" in those instructions:
If a ship had several hull numbers in her career, use the best-known (Best known by the naive editor? By what survey of readers?) for an article title. In the article's lead section list all of her hull numbers. Make redirects from the others:
USS Bogue (CVE-9) should have redirects from USS Bogue (ACV-9) and USS Bogue (CVHP-9)
USS Bogue CVE-9/ACV-9/CVHP-9 is best known (Best known by the the naive reader? You mean dad's service aboard was during a brief and obscure hull designation time?) for her actions in the Second Battle of the Atlantic, when she was CVE-9.
If none of the several hull numbers is clearly the best-known, use the first:
USS Goldsborough (DD-188) should have redirects from USS Goldsborough (AVP-18), USS Goldsborough (AVD-5), and USS Goldsborough (APD-32)
Strike all those. Use year in the title as the target ID. Make sure each name/hull# has a redirect. Make sure the ship disambiguation pages show concise, but clearly identifying information for the naive reader or expert to quickly locate the target. Palmeira (talk) 03:18, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
      • "Best known" per consensus on the relevant article's talk page, with reference to reliable published sources, as with any article name? And any other possible options will be redirected and mentioned in the lead and on relevant disambiguation pages, as with any other article name. If anyone has a problem with a particular article title, that is where they should be going.
      • What about the if/thens for date-based disambiguation, to which your arguments could as easily be applied to?
        If the year of launch is not known (and how is the naive new-article-creator going to know where to find something like this if its not immediately evident) use <other milestone date> (What? With or without clarification as to what the date associates to?).
        In instances where a ship was captured or otherwise acquired by a navy or shipping company, or simply renamed, and the article is placed at that title, use the date that is in agreement with the name and prefix (actually in the current version of SHIPNAME)
        HMS Canopus (1798) rather than HMS Canopus (1797) (despite being launched by the French a year earlier, so.... don't use launch year when the ship name used for the article was not the ship name at launch? Now what?)
        In a few cases, one ship is so much better-known than her namesakes that she need not be disambiguated (Better known by the the naive reader? You mean dad's service was aboard a briefly-lived and obscure ship of the same name?)
      • The problem with trying to find One Rule to Rule Them All is that there are always going to be exceptions, if/thens, and caveats. -- saberwyn 07:51, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
        • Can you give an example of a ship with a hull number that doesn't have an identifiable launch year? I'd understand if they reached back to the 18th century (or earlier), but they're a 20th century construct, and I haven't found a 20th century warship that has that problem. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:20, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
          • @The ed17: I've had great trouble in finding construction dates for the Armidale-class patrol boats (modern ships currently in service) or their predecessors, the Fremantle-class patrol boats, and still don't have launching or laying down dates for most of them (and not even Jane's Fighting Ships or the Royal Australian Navy webpages on them (example for HMAS Bathurst (ACPB 85)) list anything other than commissioning date), because laying down and launching of small patrol boats is apparently too minor to report on. Many of the Attack-class patrol boats have launch dates in the articles, but they are not supported any sources I have been able to find, so could be incorrect. And although the article for HMAS Warrego (D70) says that the ship was laid down in the UK, built, dismantled, and shipped to Australia where she was laid down a second time, I cannot prove with complete certainty that the ship was not launched twice. -- saberwyn 04:08, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
            • @Saberwyn: Hmm, perhaps I'm just spoiled with the record-keeping of the US Navy. What's wrong with using a different date, or even a general decade, instead? I deliberately left this proposal vague in case something like this came up. Regarding Warrego, why can't we trust our editors to pick the best or most relevant year? That's just like the current system when there's more than one pennant number involved. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:38, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
              • @The ed17: Its not so much the record-keeping as the record-publication... someone knows, but its not verifiable through a reliable, published source. I personally have no problem with using an alternate year when necessary if disambiguation-by-year is what the policy ends up calling for, but picking and choosing dates is fraught with the same if/then that Palmeira (talk · contribs) wants this policy change to do away with in favour of One Rule: are the editors we are trusting to pick the "most relevant year" the same ones Palmeira does not trust to select the most relevant hull number above?
              • That said, what I do disagree with is just using a contextless year as the disambiguator. I think that using just (1917) requires readers and editors to bring a lot more assumed knowledge to the table: they have to know that the number is a year, that the year is specifically the launch year, and know (or once 'trained', assume) that the launch year is the launch year for that specific ship. Using a contextless year is also a problem because:
                1. It implies that the noteworthiness of the ship is anchored to that specific year, when it isn't. It works for things that occupy a specific point in time like a battle in 1448 or a film released in 2006, but a ship launched is still under construction at this point, may not enter service for another year or two at least, and will typically have an ongoing history spanning decades.
                2. If readers or editors are looking for the article with a specific year as the only other piece of context they have, launch year is not going to be the year-of-context they possess. If someone came looking for the HMAS Sydney that was sunk during World War II, they are going to be looking for something closer to (1944) than (1934) and be wrong.
                3. Once we train the general masses to assume that the contextless number in the brackets is the launch year, the necessary exceptions to this rule will mean that we are inadvertently misinforming readers and editors when the contextless year for this exception is used instead.
              • Instead, I would prefer (launched 1917), similar to the (born 1917) used in biography articles when 'by-type' disambiguation (which, per below, I would prefer as my first choice overall) is insufficient. It provides so much context to the number in the brackets. It does not falsely imply that the sum total of the subject's history is anchored to this year (as an example, my first assumption for a (1901 Australian politician) is someone involved in the Federation of Australia, not someone in nappies at the time like the (Australian politician, born 1901) ). It makes the logical sequence of successor articles clearer (an article tagged (launched 1944) generally means that something happened to the one tagged (launched 1934) ). And when exceptions are required, change launched for (laid down 1917), (completed 1917), (commissioned 1917), (first recorded 1917), or whatever provides equivalent context without fostering false assumptions. -- saberwyn 03:23, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
                • @Saberwyn: I'm not against that approach. As you say, it would resolve any ambiguity on the part of the reader. Can we get through this, agreeing that a change is needed, then hold a subsequent RfC to determine what exact change will be made? That's not uncommon in these scenarios. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:24, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose I am not opposed to using the launch year as a disambiguator per-Se, however, whichever of these two methods we use it is going to cause issues in certain cases, especially to the uninitiated. I do not see the big problem we are trying to solve here. If we opt for a change then there is a whole lot of work involved for no actural benefit to the readers. Who is going to do that work, what good is served by all that effort? If we were just starting out then I suppose this discussion would be fine and we could proceed with whichever method we choose to use. Personally, if it were up to me I would use the method often used by (for example) the Royal Australian Navy and DANFS which is to use a Roman numeral after the name, eg HMAS Melbourne II, USS Enterprise I and so on, when the name is otherwise ambiguous. This has the added advantage of brevity. However, the current system has been in use for a long time and I fail to see the need to expend all the energy that would be needed to make the necessary change for no real benefit to the project. - Nick Thorne talk 09:08, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
  • @Nick Thorne: So how would you get around the core problem here, that the hull numbers are reused willy-nilly? They're not categorically unique, so they can't categorically be used as a form of disambiguation, pretty much by definition. Next, the fact that "the uninitiated" (i.e. everyone but ship experts) have trouble with it is a reason in itself to avoid it. No one has to be an expert at anything to understand a year. Third, "we've been doing it this one way for a long time" and "it'll take a lot of work to change" border on "arguments to avoid" in discussions like this. If they were valid, we'd never change anything.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:08, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
I Think you grossly overstate the size and nature of the "problem" here. We have not exactly been inundated with huge numbers of problematic articles. Also, you present a straw man version of my argument. I am not saying that we should not make the change only because it would require a lot of work, I am asking for a benefit that would justify that amount of work. The two go hand in hand. If there is a valid problem of sufficient scale to warrant so much work then we should go right ahead, but then if we are going to do all that work, lets not make the change to another system that has its own problems. I am not convinced that the purported problem with the current system has been causing so many issues with the project that cannot simply be handled by some particular action confined to those few instances where it occurs.

This proposal is asking us to make changes to all the articles even though the very great majority work perfectly well under the current system. If we are going to go ahead with a broad scale change, then I submit that the proposal in my previous post would be far superior as there can only ever be one first ship of a given name, and one second ship and so on. The sequence is simple, natural and brief.

As for people coming here being the uninitiated, none of these methods will prevent those people from being confused. That is what DAB pages are for and they would continue to assist readers find the article they want. Do I really have to remind people here that the first item in the actual policy page of which talk page this discussion is occurring states The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize. This very policy explicitly states that we should chose titles that those familiar with the subject will recognise. Choosing therefore a naming standard on the basis of what people unfamiliar with the subject might think or do is perverse. - Nick Thorne talk 14:08, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

People familiar with the subject area can tell pennant numbers apart? Did you even read the Milhist discussion, where people familiar with the topic area were unable to accurately tell ships apart when given a pennant number? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:51, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
OK, so I can agree that the hull classification number system can appear arbitrary, but the launch year does not make things any better, especially with ships that a long period between launch and commissioning or that have extensive career in more than one navy. If we are going to put all the work in required to make this change lets use a system that does not suffer from those issues. I am becoming more convinced that where there is more than one ship in a given navy that has born the same name then using Roman numerals after the name to indicate which ship of the sequence we are talking about makes a lot more sense than either of the options on the table here. - Nick Thorne talk 05:21, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
@Nick Thorne A practical problem with numerals is that they do not allow the pipe trick to be used and secondly it makes it look like part of the official name as in civilian ships such as Queen Elizabeth 2, Because the suggestion is to use Roman numerals, ships with royal names can look even more confusing as for example HMS George with Roman numerals will look as if it is named after a specific king (see HMS Royal George, HMS King George V, the redirect HMS George III) Also by coincidence HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) would become HMS Queen Elizabeth II when the RN deliberately chose not do that. Year disambiguation does away with that confusion. -- PBS (talk) 09:19, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose I haven't had time to read all of this very lengthy section, but I agree with various others that don't see forcing either version to be necessarary nor that there is enough of a problem to warrant action. There's cases where hull/pennant numbers are not helpful, and cases where they are. There's cases where a launching or commissioning year would be helpful, and lots of cases where it wouldn't be helpful (and what about vessels that are never launched, like the Montana class battleships of the USN that reused names of earlier battleships like USS Ohio & USS Maine, names that were later used again for subs). For the other variants proposed- nationality would be very problematic for there are numerous vessels that change nation of service. distinguishing by ship type/role can also be probelm because definitions of ship type can varry over time and even by navy. In my own usage of wikipedia when searching for ships, there has been tons of times where the pennant numbers in the drop down box allowed me to figure out immediately which article I wanted, and liek wise there's been cases where the year allowed me to do the same for vessels which predate hull numbers- but there's also been cases where the year number caused me to select the wrong article, so I usually just go to the disambig page when looking a US Navy vessel from the age of sail. The few times I've had reason to search for articles about ships from other navies, I don't recall it being an issue. Also changing to year usage would require changing templates like the USS template. In short, I'm not convinced there is a problem, nor that forcing either system into the "recomended" format would solve the proposed problem and would in fact create an actual problem. Thanks for reading. Gecko G (talk) 21:41, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support per WP:JARGON. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE    ) 14:37, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Soft support. Seems a straight-forward enough argument, especially as this is already the approach utilized for ships predating these classification frameworks. That added consistency and the WP:JARGON aspect seem to be sufficient argument for the change, though I'm not exactly sure that either approach is particularly problematic. Snow let's rap 02:00, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Comments and multi-threaded discussion

  • As opaque as pennant and hull numbers can be, using a contextless year has the potential to be as well (drive-by readers are not going to know that the year is the year of launch, and if they are looking with a date in mind, it will be the date of a specific career event). Pick the British Commonwealth warship Vampire that served in World War II: HMS Vampire (1917), or HMS Vampire (1943) (The correct answer is both, but Casual Reader is going to ignore the former and be disappointed when they find the article on the submarine as opposed to the destroyer). Also, while readers will come here looking for "named ship that was involved in a specific war/incident", others will come looking for "unknown ship I saw a picture that had a specific number printed in honking great characters on the side". And for all the complaints of US hull number changes, three in a lifetime (which accompany major changes in role) are nothing compared to the Bathurst-class corvettes: those that came into service near the end of the war received a new pennant practically every year (at commissioning, service with the British Pacific Fleet, post-war) despite doing the same job. Also, in the event that this is a split "USN continues using hull numbers, RN ignores pennants in favour of launch years" (avoiding such as split is probably why this issue has gone on-and-on-and-on for so long), which side is going to force their view on the rest of the world (particularly on navies like Australia's which were part of the British system until the 1970s, then switched to a US-analogue)? I'd like to suggest a third option, where we disambiguate by ship type at the first level, then additionally by year of launch when multiple ships of the same type exits. The average reader has a general understanding of warship types (at minimum, they know the difference between an aircraft carrier, a submarine, and a warship... the rest is usually just sorting by size), more so than they would launch dates (particularly if the date they're looking for is well removed from launching) or obscure naval codes. The above example of Vampire become "HMAS Vampire (destroyer, launched 1917) (to disambiguate with HMAS Vampire (destroyer, launched 1956)) and HMS Vampire (submarine). This also has the benefit of paralleling the disambiguation scheme currently used for non-prefix-using navies, which follows the pattern of (not an actual ship) "French cruiser Vampire (year-o-launch-if-required)"... see Japanese destroyer Akebono for this in practice. -- saberwyn 02:42, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
Comment. Iff this naming convention is adopted, we should omit "launched" and use the naming convention already used for civilian ships, e.g. HMAS Vampire (1917 destroyer). However, this does not mean that I support this proposal in general. Tupsumato (talk) 04:40, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
@Saberwyn: I disagree. While you bring up good examples, no naming system is perfect, and we won't be able to prevent confusion in all cases. That said, we can mitigate it as much as possible with the use of the launch date, and I believe that this will be sufficient in most cases. Regarding paralleling: I'd like to drop the jargon and see all the warship articles on Wikipedia named similarly (ie HMAS Vampire -> Australian destroyer Vampire), but I'm realistic and realize that that idea has an approximately zero percent chance of passing. ;-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:34, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
We don't disambiguate people by dropping a date behind their name and assuming that every reader and editor will implicitly understand that the context of that string of four numbers is a year, specifically the year of birth. We disambiguate them by what they are famous for doing. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Disambiguating states that if two people of the same name exist, then they should be disambiguated by what they are most well known for (the vast majority of the time being their career), and if two people of the same name and career have articles, to additionally disambiguate with a date, in a format that indicates the context of the date (usually "born xxxx", but occasionally "died xxxx" if that is the more appropriate context). Eli Cohen (disambiguation) has the example of one (actor), two (politician born xxxx) and two (footballer born xxxx). Organisations and entities are disambiguated in a similar fashion, by their industry/role, then by date if necessary. Greater consistency across articles, combined with clearer context for readers should make it easier for them to find what they want. Also, specifying the context of the date in the disambiguation means that when necessary, the date can be changed to something more relevant for the subject... how can we disambiguate by launch year if that is unknown, and if we place another date in its place, won't some people incorrectly assume that this is the launch year?
@Tupsumato:, that's why I suggested adding "launched" in the disambiguation string. My first impulse on seeing (1917 destroyer) is that its a 1917-class destroyer or something equivalent. It also implies to me that most-to-all of the ship's history is pinned to that date, when your average ship is still months or years away from entering service.
@Palmeira:, fully in support of KISS ship-types for disambiguators. -- saberwyn 01:16, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
Another point I think is in favour of by-type disambiguation for ships is that it makes it easier to disambiguate from non-ship topics. Compare Søren Larsen (footballer), Søren Larsen (physicist), and Søren Larsen (1949). -- saberwyn 00:06, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Questions: These questions have occurred to me:
    1. what is the text of the proposed mandate?
    2. what evidence do you have that readers are not able to find the correct ship using the disambiguation methods currently in place?
    3. if this proposed disambiguation method is adopted, what plans have you made to ensure that it is quickly and accurately implemented?
    4. what are the impacts on the template suite used by WP:SHIPS especially those that operate on ship names?
—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:05, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
  1. @Trappist the monk: Thank you for these excellent questions. This will change Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships)#Naming articles about military ships to mandate launch dates instead of hull numbers in military ship article titles where disambiguation is necessary. We already do this for navies without hull numbers or warships that predate the system, so this would extend that.
  2. That's an unfair question. Readers generally don't comment or edit, so evidence for or against it is unobtainable. That said, logically speaking, it's pretty obvious: everyone knows what years are, versus an (admittedly unscientific) survey of my friends revealed only one that knew what hull numbers were. I wouldn't expect that to change much for the general population, and I'd be surprised to see someone argue that point.
  3. I think you've got the cart before the horse, but my general plan is to find a coder that will determine whether it needs a dab or not, and if so use the launch parameter in the infobox to move the article. There is no need to quickly implement it, as (a) I'd like to make sure we do it right and (b) Wikipedia won't be finished soon anyway.
  4. I'm not familiar with all of the SHIPS templates, but I'm not planning on taking unilateral action without consulting with the template experts. Again, it's a process—first consensus, then the other items. In any case, (and speaking off the cuff) I don't expect it to have earth-shattering/world-ending effects. The templates already have to deal with launch years for ships like HMS Victorious (1785). Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 15:38, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
  1. Yes, but you've just restated the proposal and not answered the question which was: what is the text of the proposed mandate?
  2. I understand that readers don't generally comment but, if there is no evidence of need, I have to wonder if this is a solution looking for a problem rather than the other way round. If there is evidence that the current disambiguation mechanism is broken, let us fix it. If there is no such evidence, then at the end, a deal of work may have been done to no great effect.
  3. Generally it is a good idea to know beforehand how to get from where you are now to where you want to be. If it is only you who will be doing the work, that's one thing. But if you expect others to do the work then before the workers give their consent, don't you think that you should be able to tell them what that work entails?
  4. I guess I was hoping that as someone committed to this change, you would have already considered the impacts of what you are requesting. A big part of doing it right is knowing beforehand as much as possible about what we will need to do before we commit to doing it.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:05, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
  1. The proposal doesn't make that clear?
  2. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to get the evidence you're looking for. It's similar to the problem faced by the WMF and the Visual Editor—very few of the comments on it came from the people it was aimed at (new users) and there are no good ways to obtain them.
  3. I don't understand the question, as I've laid out what work it would entail. I don't personally know how to code it, and I think it would be unnecessary to require that of every similar RfC proposer on Wikipedia.
  4. Again, it's the cart before the horse. If there's consensus to make the change, we have all the time in the world to talk about potential problems and implement it. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:03, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
  1. No, it just says that if this proposal is adopted then we will make some edits to WP:SHIPNAME. The edits could be a simple or a complex. If we could know now how you intend to change WP:SHIPNAME, that might help editors make a decision now and perhaps forestall another long discussion about the text change later. It's that planning thing I mentioned before.
  2. The proposal then is to apply a fix to the ship article disambiguation system without evidence that the system is broken.
  3. You don't have to understand template markup to ask someone who does to help you understand what impacts your desired change will have on the current template suite.
  4. Not cart before horse at all. It's 7 Ps. If you know that information then editors here can make a more informed decision now so that we don't have to take all the time left in the world to have more discussion. Concluded RfCs carry a certain weight of authority that binds editors to the conclusion. I don't understand how editors can approve this or any RfC when they don't know what they are committing to do.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:38, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
  1. Given comments above, I've proposed to Saberwyn that there be a second RfC after this to determine the exact options that will be selected. I envisioned a slightly less formal process to determine the exact textual changes, but given your and Saber's comments, it seems like this will be necessary.
  2. Yes. Either you buy into the idea that the current system is wholly inadequate, which it seems like most people have, or not.
  3. Well, feel free to tell me.
  4. See #1. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:30, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
Flippant answers and hand waves to serious questions do nothing to support your case. I people take the time to properly engage in this discussion please do them the courtesy of responding in the same manner. These are serious matters and they deserve considered responses. - Nick Thorne talk 05:28, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment: First, this really is the wrong venue to discuss something like this. The proper place would be one of the relevant WikiProjects. I gather that there has already been some discussion at the project level, and that no consensus has been reached. Trying again at the policy level smacks of Forum Shopping. Second, whatever the consensus here may be (and it does look like it is leaning toward supporting the proposal), I would strongly oppose actually adding anything about ships to this policy page... to do so would be inappropriate instruction creep. The WP:AT policy needs to remain generalized (applicable to any and all article titles) and should not descend to giving instruction that only relates to a narrow range of articles - all in one specific subject area. That's what project level naming conventions are for. Blueboar (talk) 12:16, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
    • @Blueboar: Please read the proposal. First, WikiProjects don't control policy. Second, this is a proposal to change WP:SHIPNAME, which falls under this policy. Thanks! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 15:38, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
      • Ah... I missed the link to WP:SHIPNAME buried in the proposal (my apologies). I would think that a proposal to amend a naming convention, should take place at the talk page of the naming convention in question (ie at WT:SHIPNAME and not here). This talk page is for discussing edits to this policy (ie WP:AT). That said... I am also concerned that there is nothing at WT:SHIPNAME alerting editors to the fact that a discussion is taking place (here) which would affect that naming convention. At a minimum that notification needs to be done (I will take care of it). Blueboar (talk) 16:05, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
        • It's pretty routine to bring discussions like this to the main policy or major guideline page which "governs" them if there are WP:LOCALCONSENSUS concerns, or potential ones, about the subsidiary page in question, or just a concern that not enough editors will notice. Such discussions can even be taken to Village Pump if people want to. Many NC issues get discussed at WT:AT, just as many MOS sub-guidelines' content are discussed at the main WT:MOS page. A substantial number of editors find this preferable, or it would not so routinely happen. I certainly agree that notifying the talk page of the would-be-effect page is necessary (and see that you've done so).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:46, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
    • Also, this is not at all WP:FORUMSHOPPING. It's routine, though not required, to try in a wider, better-watched WP forum to resolve a dispute when a more localized attempt fails to come to consensus. Forum shopping is either attempting to get one's way by taking a proposal to a new forum after it's been explicitly rejected in one, or trying to get one's way by launching the same proposal in multiple forums at the same time in hopes that one of them will go the way the proponent desires. An accusation of forum shopping is an accusation of bad faith.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:26, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
      • Blueboar - I agree with SMcCandlish's comments. The whole idea of having the discussion here was to bring in a wider range of editors' input, i.e. not just those who write ship articles. Of course it means that those of us who do write ship articles might need to argue the case a bit more strongly than would otherwise be the case, but that is not a bad thing in itself. Mjroots (talk) 15:15, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
OK... My point was that this talk page should really be for discussing changes to WP:AT. That's why I was initially confused and thought someone was proposing that we add something about ships to this policy (which I would have opposed as instruction creep).
What I would have done (had I been the creator of the proposal) was to set up the actual discussion at WT:SHIPNAME... but to gain a wider audience and participation I would have posted a notice here on this talk page (and at the Village Pump (policy) page), asking people to participate in that discussion. I agree that we want those who know this policy to be involved in any discussion... I was just quibbling about where the discussion should take place (mostly to explain my initial confusion).
In any case, since the discussion is already taking place here, I would agree that we shouldn't move it. Just make sure that anyone who might be interested (such as the MILHIST project) is notified. Carry on. Blueboar (talk) 15:53, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
I concur that the discussion being located at WT:SHIPNAME, with a pointer to it posted here and elsewhere, would have been better.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:52, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
My thought process, which was included at the end of my opening statement, was that the Milhist page did not get consensus despite being a far more trafficked page than this one. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:48, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. That's useful to know. I would probably be wise to drop talk page notices to participants in the debate and invite them to this one.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:12, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The examples in the "Descriptive titles" line of the Disambiguation section are inappropriate

The descriptive titles line in WP:AT#Disambiguation does not actually, in its examples, illustrate the use of descriptive titles that disambiguate; the three examples it gives seems to be randomly chosen descriptive titles. They should be replaced with descriptive ones that were clearly chosen as disambiguations. If we can't find any, that probably calls into question the rationale of that line even being in that section, and it should be relocated and worked back in where it makes more sense.

We do need the policy to cover these titles, which often amount to WP-only phrases. They're even of two distinct sorts. One is for cases where the article is a list, glossary, or other specially formatted page for which we have a codified or de facto naming style ("List of", etc.), and not a normal article. Arguably, the base name of the topic included in such a title (e.g., "Roman military" and "birds of Nicaragua", in the examples given) is subject to the same analysis an any regular article title, to determine the best text string to use based on the interplay of WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CRITERIA. The other kind of case is where we have simply arrived at what consensus determines to be an adequate description when there is no common name for the subject, as in the case of Pontius Pilate's wife (though Wife of Pontius Pilate would actually be preferable, since it puts the subject first [and I have filed an RM to this effect]; the extant examples at "Descriptive titles" are problematic for more than one reason). Another such case is Albinism in popular culture. It's a WP-invented label for a subject that exists in reliable sources under no consistent term (often POV-laden or highly context-specific ones, like "albino bias", "the evil albino stereotype", "the magic albino trope", etc.) Even when such descriptive titles are arrived at in the course of a disambiguation discussion, they are rarely what could be described as "disambiguations" or "disambiguated titles"; in the vast majority of cases there are simply alternative titles arrived at through a need to disambiguate if an originally proposed name were to be kept, and a desire to not go that route and to instead replace it with a different name. (This is also true of comma-separate titles in most cases, and most "natural disambiguations", really).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:06, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

It's not that they are wrong so much as they have little to do with disambiguation. bd2412 T 18:10, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
That seems to be what I said.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:14, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
In that case, I agree with you. bd2412 T 13:50, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to restructure

Propose a rearrangement of project page content. I'd suggest either of three options in regard to rearranging content that may solve this and, in the case of options 2 and 3, potentially other problems.

  1. we could move the "descriptive titles" content up to the previous subsection, WP:AT#Precision
  2. we could move both the "descriptive titles" content together with the Leeds North West (UK Parliament constituency) / M-185 (Michigan highway) contents down to a new article subsection which might be given a new heading such as "Clarification" or Clarification and description". At present the subsection on "Precision" contains a fair bit of superfluous information on disambiguation which is just a repetition of content that is presented in the immediately following sub-section on WP:AT#Disambiguation. I suspect that the reasoning for this is that it was regarded that a context was needed for the Leeds North West and M-185 contents. Another option is
  3. we could rearrange the section WP:AT#Precision and disambiguation as WP:AT#Disambiguation and precision, cut the disambiguation information from WP:AT#Precision and place the "descriptive titles" content at this point.
GregKaye 06:20, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
Agreed, and I favor the third option as the cleanest. We need to cover descriptive titles generally, and illustrate their various styles. When listing disambiguation choices, we also need to include the use of descriptive titles as one way to disambiguate, and provide examples that are both descriptive and actually disambiguating.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:05, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Take 1

Proposing to replace:

When deciding on which disambiguation method(s) to use, all article titling criteria are weighed in:

  1. Natural disambiguation: If it exists, choose an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names.
    Example: The word "English" commonly refers to either the people or the language. Because of the ambiguity, we use the alternative but still common titles, English language and English people, allowing natural disambiguation. In a similar vein, mechanical fan and hand fan are preferable to fan (mechanical) and fan (implement). Sometimes, this requires a change in the variety of English used; for instance, Lift is a disambiguation page with no primary topic, so we choose elevator as the name of the lifting device.
  2. Comma-separated disambiguation. With place names, if the disambiguating term is a higher-level administrative division, it is often separated using a comma instead of parentheses, as in Windsor, Berkshire (see Geographic names). Comma-separated disambiguation is sometimes also used in other contexts (e.g., Diana, Princess of Wales; see Names of royals and nobles). However, titles such as Tony Blair and Battle of Waterloo are preferred over alternatives such as "Blair, Anthony Charles Lynton" and "Waterloo, Battle of", in which a comma is used to change the natural ordering of the words.
  3. Parenthetical disambiguation, i.e. adding a disambiguating term in parentheses after the ambiguous name: Wikipedia's standard disambiguation technique when none of the other solutions lead to an optimal article title.
    Example: The word "mercury" has distinct meanings that do not have sufficiently common alternative names, so we instead use parenthetical disambiguation: Mercury (element), Mercury (mythology), and Mercury (planet).
  4. Descriptive name: where there is no acceptable set name for a topic, such that a title of our own conception is necessary, more latitude is allowed to form descriptive and unique titles.
    Examples: List of birds of Nicaragua, Campaign history of the Roman military, Pontius Pilate's wife (see WP:NCP#Descriptive titles)
  5. Combinations of the above: exceptional, in most cases to be avoided per WP:CONCISE
    Example: "#2 comma-separated" + "#3 parenthical": Wiegenlied, D 498 (Schubert) (see Talk:Wiegenlied, D 498 (Schubert)#Requested moves)

by:

When deciding on which disambiguation method(s) to use, all article titling criteria are weighed in:

  1. Natural disambiguation: alternative name without commas or parentheses, which can be a less ambiguous synonym and/or a descriptive title:
    1. Less ambiguous synonym: if it exists, choose an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names.
      Example: elevator instead of lift for the lifting device (see also WP:ENGVAR)
    2. Descriptive title: generally equally a common name in reliable sources and not a neologism:
      Example: mechanical fan and hand fan instead of fan (mechanical) and fan (implement)
    A specific case are (recent) events like disasters where reliable sources would immediately report on the event but the most commonly used name for the event in these sources might be more difficult to determine: in such cases the fifth article titling criterion, i.e. consistency, gets the most weight and the naming convention to follow is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events) – the preference there is to use description rather than the other disambiguation techniques explained below:
    Example: Hurricane Katrina rather than Katrina (hurricane)
  2. Comma-separated disambiguation. With place names, if the disambiguating term is a higher-level administrative division, it is often separated using a comma instead of parentheses, as in Windsor, Berkshire (see Geographic names). Comma-separated disambiguation is sometimes also used in other contexts (e.g., Diana, Princess of Wales; see Names of royals and nobles). However, titles such as Tony Blair and Battle of Waterloo are preferred over alternatives such as "Blair, Anthony Charles Lynton" and "Waterloo, Battle of", in which a comma is used to change the natural ordering of the words.
  3. Parenthetical disambiguation, i.e. adding a disambiguating term in parentheses after the ambiguous name: Wikipedia's standard disambiguation technique when none of the other solutions lead to an optimal article title.
    Example: The word "mercury" has distinct meanings that do not have sufficiently common alternative names, so we instead use parenthetical disambiguation: Mercury (element), Mercury (mythology), and Mercury (planet).

Exceptionally, the disambiguation techniques explained above are combined:

Example: "#2 comma-separated" + "#3 parenthical": Wiegenlied, D 498 (Schubert)

Such combinations should usually be avoided per WP:CONCISE: don't proceed with them without clear consensus (for the example above the consensus was found here and here).

--Francis Schonken (talk) 06:43, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Francis Schonken is it possible to edit back from or clarify "i.e. consistency, gets the most weight and the naming convention to follow". I don't think this retains clarity that issues like Recognizability and NPOV remain our primary concerns. GregKaye 09:20, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
  • This is a good start, but I have several concerns about it:
    1. It is not broadly illustrative enough with examples. Francis, you've included and quite elaborated upon cases that mean a lot to you, but we've lost much of the rest, and that's not optimal, even if some of the originals needed to be replaced.
    2. As I've said now for the fourth time on this page, comma-separated is just another form of natural disambiguation. "Diana, Princess of Wales" = natural, preferred; "Horse, Mustang" = not natural, not acceptable. When we must use an unnatural style, we have a prescribed format for it: parenthetic. Comma-separate should thus be nested under natural disambiguation, along with synonym and descriptive.
    3. The proposed structure, in its present draft, could easily be read as changing policy to favor multiple forms of natural disambiguation equally, when in fact AT has long favored what this above calls "less ambiguous synonym". We need to retain this preference, or chaos is likely to ensue. We only use descriptive titles or comma-separated ones when a less ambiguous synonym isn't available or isn't viable as a title for some reason.
    4. It's an even more major policy change to require a consensus discussion in order for combined disambiguation to be used, and there appears to be no justification for that. It would effectively make it forbidden for the author of a new article to select that disambiguation style no matter how much sense it made, and that obviously flies in the face of WP:BOLD policy, WP:COMMONSENSE, etc. A "don't proceed without ..." rule on this is simply not viable, and is "un-Wiki". On the up side, if this were reworded, e.g. to "Such combinations should usually be avoided per WP:CONCISE, and are mostly arrived at via consensus discussion (for the example above, the consensus was found here and here).", I think this may resolve the dispute I have with including those talk page links, since it's using them as examples in context, and no longer citing them as precedents for a rule.
    5. "[G]enerally equally a common name in reliable sources and not a neologism" isn't right, because if it's an alternative to the WP:COMMONNAME then it isn't equally common, by definition. Not that we have any real way to measure how close to equal it is. Just changing "equally" to "also" will fix this.
    6. They're often not names at all. It's pointless to improve the original's "Descriptive name" to "Descriptive title", then reintroduce the same error later on the same line. So, "generally also a common label [or term?] in reliable sources" should do.
    7. "Not a neologism" is confusing, and liable to be taken to mean the same thing it means at WP:NEOLOGISM, i.e. a recent coinage in the real world. This should probably say "not a Wikipedia neologism".
    8. This raises yet another issue, which is that we're going have to distinguish descriptive titles (usually from RS) used as disambiguations, vs. descriptive titles that are made up Wikipedian wording, e.g. Glossary of cue sports terms, or List of The Walking Dead episodes. We've spent all this time trying to resolve the confusion between naturalness and natural disambiguation, it makes no sense to create the same kind of terminological confusion between two kinds of descriptive title. So, maybe call this one "descriptive label", and the other one "descriptive title". I think this makes sense because we're using an externally sourced descriptive label as a title here, but the other case is us inventing a descriptive title as as Ding an sich.
    9. Relatedly, we also need to remember that we were talking about covering non-disambiguating use of descriptive titles separately, and would need to figure out where to put it, in what form, at the same time as implementing a change like the one proposed here, or it will leave a gap in titling policy coverage.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:24, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Take 2

When deciding on which disambiguation method(s) to use, all article titling criteria are weighed in:

  1. Natural disambiguation: alternative name without a comma-separated or parenthical disambiguator (as explained below). Such alternative name can be a less ambiguous synonym and/or a descriptive title:
    1. Less ambiguous synonym: if it exists, choose an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names.
      Examples:
    2. Descriptive title: generally the same applies as for the less ambiguous synonyms described above, i.e. a common name in reliable sources and not a neologism:
      Example: mechanical fan and hand fan instead of fan (mechanical) and fan (implement)
    Generally articles on events follow this disambiguation method per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events):
    Example: Hurricane Katrina instead of Katrina (hurricane)
    Formatting of descriptive titles may be Wikipedia-specific, following applicable guidelines:
    Example: List of English-language poets, not English-language poets (list) per WP:LISTNAME
    Note that not all descriptive titles are necessarily disambiguating, see e.g. above #Non-judgmental descriptive titles.
  2. Comma-separated disambiguation: a disambiguating qualifier is added at the end of the article title, after a comma. Although conventionally it is distinguished from the natural disambiguation described above, this type of disambiguation can only be applied when it leads to an article title with a higher degree of naturalness (WP:CRITERIA #2) than the one that would be obtained by applying the third disambiguation technique described below.
    Some topic areas where this is a common disambiguation technique:
    However, titles such as Tony Blair and Battle of Waterloo are preferred over alternatives such as "Blair, Anthony Charles Lynton" and "Waterloo, Battle of", in which a comma is used to change the natural ordering of the words.
    Note that commas can be part of an article title without indicating a disambiguating term, e.g. Ite, missa est. In order to avoid confusion with other uses of commas in article titles: the expression after the last comma in an article title is a disambiguator when it starts with an upper case letter or a number, and it is not part of the title of a creative work. For example Julia, daughter of Julius Caesar can not be disambiguated in this way: parenthical disambiguation as explained in the next point leads to a better solution: Julia (daughter of Julius Caesar).
  3. Parenthetical disambiguation, i.e. adding a disambiguating term in parentheses after the ambiguous name: Wikipedia's standard disambiguation technique when none of the other solutions lead to an optimal article title.
    Example: The word "mercury" has distinct meanings that do not have sufficiently common alternative names, so we instead use parenthetical disambiguation: Mercury (element), Mercury (mythology), and Mercury (planet).

Exceptionally, the disambiguation techniques explained above are combined:

Examples:

Such combinations should usually be avoided per WP:CONCISE, and can only be applied when there is no better way to comply to WP:CRITERIA.

Tried to pick up some of the ideas offered above. Suggesting to present your own alternative on this talk page if you think you can do better. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:09, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

OK, I will take a stab at it, below.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:26, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Take 3

When deciding on which disambiguation method(s) to use, all article titling criteria are weighed in. Redirects are often created from more than one style of disambiguated title to the actual article.

  1. Natural disambiguation: When an alternative label exists, without a parenthetical disambiguator (as explained below), then use it. Such an alternative label can take one of three forms, in order of decreasing preference:
    1. Less ambiguous synonym: Choose an alternative label that the subject is also called in reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. English-language sources are given more weight. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names.
      Examples:
    2. Descriptive title: generally the same applies as for the less ambiguous synonyms described above, i.e. a common name in reliable sources and not a neologism:
      Example: Mechanical fan and Hand fan instead of Fan (mechanical) and Fan (implement)
      Generally, articles on events follow this disambiguation method, per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events):
      Example: Hurricane Katrina instead of Katrina (hurricane)
      Formatting of descriptive titles may be Wikipedia-specific, following applicable guidelines:
      Example: List of English-language poets not English-language poets (list), per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Stand-alone lists § Titles
      Note that not all descriptive titles are disambiguating, per § Non-judgmental descriptive titles, above.
    3. Comma-separated disambiguation: Add a disambiguating qualifier after the preferred-but-ambiguous title, separating them with a comma. This type of disambiguation is only applied when it yields a title with more naturalness than one produced by parenthetical disambiguation (as described below).
      Some topic areas where this is a common disambiguation technique include:
      However, titles such as Tony Blair and Battle of Waterloo are preferred over alternatives of the form "Blair, Anthony Charles Lynton" and "Waterloo, Battle of", in which a comma would be used to change the naturalness of the word order.
      Note also that commas can be part of an article title without indicating a disambiguating term, e.g. Ite, missa est. To avoid confusion with other uses of commas in article titles: The expression after the last comma in an article title is a disambiguator when it starts with an upper-case letter or a number, and it is not part of the title of a creative work. For example Julia, daughter of Julius Caesar is not disambiguated in this way: parenthetical disambiguation (as explained below) leads to a better solution: Julia (daughter of Julius Caesar).
  2. Parenthetical disambiguation, i.e. adding a disambiguating term in parentheses (round brackets) after the ambiguous name: Wikipedia's standard disambiguation technique when none of the other solutions lead to an optimal article title.
    Example: "Mercury" has distinct meanings that do not have sufficiently common alternative natural disambiguations, so we instead use parenthetical disambiguation: Mercury (element), Mercury (mythology), and Mercury (planet).

In unusual cases, the disambiguation techniques explained above are combined:

Examples:

Such combinations should usually be avoided per the conciseness criterion, and are only applied when there is no better way to comply with the naming criteria.

Detailed log of changes from the last iteration:
  1. Added an observational (not instructional) note about redirects.
  2. Made comma-separated disambiguation a subset of natural disambiguation, which it is; this also obviates the need for so much explanatory text about it, that was basically saying it's actually a form of natural disambiguation anyway.
  3. Shifted the "when it exists ... use it" instruction to the top of natural disambiguation, and made order of preference explicit, not just implicit by the order in which they're presented. This also eliminated a misleading use of "and/or".
  4. Re-explained comma-separated, more succinctly and with more consistent wording.
  5. Changed incorrect use of "name" to "label" (which is broader, and inclusive of both "terms" and "names"). As I noted before, many of these kinds of titles are not actually names, but simply source-attested terminology.
  6. Removed over-use of "commonly". That it be attested in reliable sources is sufficient, while including that word in that clause will simply lead to unnecessary strife over whether something is "common ... albeit not as common" enough to satisfy someone with a bone to pick or axe to grind.
  7. Used leading-capital article titles, e.g. Elevator, not in-sentence usage, e.g. elevator, as the rest of this policy does. The odd "fan (mechanical)" isn't anything, neither a WP article title, nor in-sentence usage.
  8. Used full names of WP policies, guidelines, etc., and {{section link}}. We could shorten "Wikipedia:" to "WP:" in these, but should do so consistently throughout the entire page.
  9. Used commas to avoid run-on sentence. Moved comma in another line, for consistency with other examples.
  10. Used full sentences where practical.
  11. Fixed misspellings of "parenthetical".
  12. Disambiguated "English".
  13. Fixed anchor: {{anchor|Wikipedia:COMMADIS}} doesn't make sense, since we'd never link to [[Wikipedia:Article titles#Wikipedia:COMMADIS]]; the "Wikipedia:" in it is extraneous, and will make the anchor not work as intended.
  14. Added some anchors.
  15. Removed inappropriate use of "e.g."
  16. Consistent "per ..." links to other pages/sections.
  17. Removed unnecessary use of "necessarily".
  18. Changed incorrect use of a colon to a period (stop).
  19. Avoided "WP:SHORTCUTHERE" jargon when practical.
  20. Fixed ungrammatical "comply to"; it "comply with".
  21. Removed "Place names: with place names" redundancy.
  22. Changed "is" to "would be" in a case where we're illustrating what not to do.
  23. Change one case of "e.g.," to "e.g." without the comma, to be consistent with the rest of the use of "e.g." and "i.e." (though they could all go the other way, depending upon editorial preference in that regard; I eschew the comma except when "e.g." would introduce a multi-item list, as do many other editors).
  24. Changed "the one" to "one" in reference to parenthetical disambiguations (since there is often more than one possible way to do those).
  25. Linked and italicized some cases of "naturalness" so it unmistakably a term of art with a specific meaning in this context. This should forestall many interpretation debates.
  26. Clarified vague use of "such as".
  27. Changed a "Note" to "Note also", since it followed a similar clarification.
  28. Shortened "In order to" as simply "To".
  29. Capitalized first letter of a full sentence the followed a colon.
  30. Changed "can not be disambiguated in this way" to "is disambiguated in this way", and "can only be applied" to "are only applied"; this policy's raison d'etre is to provide instruction and observe best practices, not intimate what is possible or not.
  31. Removed some unnecessarily strident italics-as-emphasis.
  32. Added correct italics around foreign-language phrase, just as we did around title of a creative work in a previous example.
  33. Changed 'The word "mercury" ...' to '"Mercury" ...', since two of its example uses are proper names, not words, and it'd be unnecessary verbiage even if that weren't the case.
  34. Changed an instance of "alternative names" to "alternative natural disambiguations", for clarity. Only some natural disambiguations are "names".
  35. Changed "parentheses" to "parentheses (round brackets)" on first occurrence, for British readers, who do not commonly use the term "parentheses" for these character. It's also important because "parenthetic[al]" can also be applied to other styles, such as separation by dashes. While that broader usage isn't overwhelmingly common, it does exist, and we don't want to imply that all means of parenthetical markup, broadly construed, in English can be used for parenthetic disambiguation in WP article titles, only those punctuated with round-bracket parentheses.
  36. Added hyphen to compound adjective ("upper-case letter").
  37. Struck contentious example, but have no found a replacement yet.
  38. Changed "Exceptionally" to "In unusual cases"; the meaning of the word "exceptional" has been shifting in English for several generations, and now mostly is interpreted as a laudatory term. We're not trying to encourage the combination of different disambiguation styles, but discourage it.
  39. Changed order of combination examples to descending numeric.
  40. Had to futz with the indentation a bit to get the re-done list to render correctly (1.3 was showing up as a second 1.1).

We could and perhaps should change examples of the incorrect, like "Julia, daughter of Julius Caesar", from links (which are inconsistently showing up red or blue, depending on the examples and whether anyone bothered to create redirects), to {{!xt}}-marked-up negative example text. They are not article titles and arguably need not even be redirects in most cases (even if it's helpful if they are), because they're in formats we don't use (at all, or for that kind of article, as the case may be). If we do keep linking them, then none of them should be redlinks, I would think.

I have to strenuously object to the inclusion of Pharaoh's daughter (wife of Solomon); there's an ongoing WP:RM, at Talk:Pontius Pilate's wife about whether this explicitly possessive title style is appropriate in reference to people, and the editor who inserted this know this full well, and is a participant in that debate, arguing strenuously for using the -'s construction. This is not the place for activism on that topic. The use of that example in this policy is also being disputed in another thread on this talk page, so replacing with an alternate example that raises the same issue looks slightly WP:POINTy and/or WP:GAMING.

I also have concerns that a made-up addition, The expression after the last comma in an article title is a disambiguator when it starts with an upper[-]case letter or a number, and it is not part of the title of a creative work.", is likely to reflect the articles titles its author is most familiar with, but unlikely to cover all cases. Needs some analysis and discussion. There's probably a way to search for all WP article titles containing a comma. This [1] should work, but does not; it apparently filters out punctuation. Some external tool would have to be used, but since the demise of the Toolserver, I don't know where these sorts of things might live these days.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:50, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

SMcCandlish A lot of this seems to me as giving free reign to Natural disambiguation over other concerns. In many cases WP:UCRN, the central focus of WP:RECOGNIZABLE, gets left by the wayside in a way that may leave the doors open to rampant application of WP:OR. Where we currently have:

  • Natural disambiguation: If it exists, choose an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. ...

All restraint risks being lost in a use of:

  • Natural disambiguation: When an alternative label exists, without a parenthetical disambiguator (as explained below), then use it.

I see no valid reason to prescribing one form of disambiguation as being preferable over other forms of disambiguation or necessarily placing false caps on content. Instead editors should be left free to choose the most appropriate disambiguation method for a title of any particular subject and they should be free to, within reason, to choose an appropriate length of wording to provide for clear, precise and, as possible, simple identification of subject. In cases where editors consider that this is best achieved by parenthetic disambiguation then so be it.

Natural description often works in a form such as:

  • Descriptor - base subject

Whereas titling with parenthetic description works on the format:

  • Base subject (topic clarification)

Cases in which parenthetic disambiguation may be best applied may be either in cases in which a subject needs a lot of description or in which the base subject has a strong value in recognition. For instance we don't currently use:

I have been bemoaning Wikipedia habit of developing non-common name contents like "John Robert Green", "Graeme C.A. Wood", "Mary Luana Williams", "John Gibson Smith" and "John Lucian Smith". Up to now these problems have been minor issues but text as suggested risks opening the flood gates. To me this is very reminiscent of the earlier one sided, as I see it, addition of "(exclusive of any added parenthetical disambiguation)" to Naturalness. Natural disambiguation, by definition, also contains disambiguating content. GregKaye 12:03, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

The above seems to misinterpret virtually everything that could possibly be misinterpreted in the Take 3 draft. Short version: It's impossible for it to modify the applicability of the main WP:CRITERIA, including WP:UCRN, because they govern all titles. The preferential cascade of natural over parenthetic, and more specifically of alternative label/synonym over comma-separated, comma-separated (when it rarely applies) over descriptive phrase, then descriptive phrase over parenthetic, already exists in the extant policy. Your supposition that it doesn't is pure fantasy. Editors are not free to pick randomly from the disambiguation methods and then the name just sticks; WP:RM would never address RMs involving disambiguation if this were true. We can't use a title like "The planet Mercury", because other rules prevent it, namely WP:DEFINITE, and this draft can't somehow change them from a distance. Whether to disambiguate by adding someone's middle name or not is a case-by-case interpretational application of policy (and I mean the existing one) for the talk pages of specific articles, hinging on whether or not the longer name is common enough to be recognizable. That's completely irrelevant to this draft, which would have no effect on such a discussion (again, tweaks to the disambiguation section cannot somehow undo the core criteria, including WP:RECOGNIZABLE / WP:UCRN). The "(exclusive of any added parenthetical disambiguation)" edit from a few days ago is irrelevant to this draft (which would probably make it moot anyway), and you still clearly do not understand it at all, even though we've been over it in great detail several times. The WP:NOTGETTINGIT circularity of these discussions is getting very frustrating.
Detailed version
WP:UCRN (WP:RECOGNIZABLE) would not be affected in any way by the Take 3 draft. Like the rest of the WP:CRITERIA, it's a policy that applies to article titles generally. And anything that failed WP:RECOGNIZABLE would "naturally" also fail WP:NATURALDIS (both as it currently exists and as redrafted here); if it's not recognizable then it's not natural. Adjustments to the disambiguation section cannot somehow alter overarching policies like WP:CRITERIA, that apply to all titles. WP policy simply doesn't work that way.
The current policy text already prescribes one form of disambiguation, natural, as being preferable to the others. It does this unmistakably with "If it exists, choose an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources". That automatically means we do not use parenthetic DAB, or comma-separated, or a made-up descriptive title, if there is a alternative label we can use, found in RS. You seem to think that this material has been lost, but it has not, it's simply been reworked in Take 3. The "If it exists, use it" part is kept at the top, since this draft folds some things into natural disambiguation, but the part specifically about "chose an alternative name [sic - it's not always a name] that the subject is also commonly called in English[-language] reliable sources" has necessarily been moved to the first subsection, on alternative labels (less ambiguous synonyms). The fact that the extant policy favors this form of disambiguation, then descriptive phrase, then comma-separated, and finally the non-natural parenthetic, in that order, is explicitly preserved from the extant policy. Nothing at all has changed about it that order of precedence. Editors today, right now, are not "left free to choose the most appropriate disambiguation method" in the way you seem to mean here (I'm reading it as "left free to chose the disambiguation they like best"). Rather they are and long have been directed to use the name that WP:AT policy indicates is the most appropriate disambiguation, following a stepwise rubric that has not actually been altered in this draft. That this is already current practice is readily proven by hundreds of RMs over the last year alone in which natural alternative-label names have consistently been favored over others, comma-separated (when applicable, which is rarely) has been chosen over a WP-internal descriptive phrase, and parenthetic has been avoided whenever it is practical to avoid it. You're imagining that I'm inventing and inserting a preferential cascade in this draft, but it already exists, and has for years. Your "so be it" comment indicates a scenario in which something like "the disambiguation format chosen by the first major contributor should not be changed", but we have nothing even vaguely similar to such a rule, and never will.
Nothing about this draft makes "The planet Mercury" any less an implausible WP article title than it was before. Our avoidance of "The ..." phrases like this, except in the titles of published works (The Lord of the Rings) and a few other conventional types of cases (The Beatles, The Hague, etc.), has nothing to do with disambiguation, but is clearly governed by a totally separate part of the policy, one that applies whether disambiguation is needed or not. This is WP:DEFINITE, which is elaborated upon in interpretive detail in the NC guildeine, WP:THE. It simply isn't relevant here. Alternative labels a.k.a. less-common synonym are found in reliable sources, but they also have to pass the rest of the naming criteria. "The planet Mercury" fails that test, so we can't use it, whether as a disambiguation or not. This is really very simple: We have naming WP:CRITERIA and other naming rules like WP:DEFINITE. We also have disambiguation instructions, for cases where names collide. How we arrive at the final title is a step-wise process. Determine the best name via these criteria and rules. Determine whether it is ambiguous. If so, disambiguate it via the first method, if possible. Re-check it against the other rules. If it does not pass, try to disambiguate it by the second method, and re-check it again. Repeat as necessary, until you arrive at parenthetic disambiguation as a last resort. There really isn't any more to it.
Insertion of middle names to disambiguate, in cases like "John Robert Green", has nothing to do with this discussion. I'm aware you don't like it, and various others don't (I'm on the fence myself), but it's not affected in any way, pro or con, by the Take 3 draft. It's an issue of interpretation and application of this part of the policy (as it already exists today) to highly specific facts in individual instances. The question is one of whether, in a specific case, the full/longer name is "sufficiently" common enough in RS to subjectively satisfy editors in the titling discussion that it's natural enough to use, or whether the WP:COMMONNAME should be used with a parenthetical disambiguator. The Take 3 draft has no effect on this.
Again, you're just imagining problems that are not there, and adding in issues that aren't relevant. The "(exclusive of any added parenthetical disambiguation)" edit has nothing to do with Take 3, and might even be mooted by it. "Natural disambiguation, by definition, also contains disambiguating content." So what? That has nothing to do with anything. A naturally disambiguated title (by any of the three natural methods - alternative synonym, comma-separated, or descriptive phrase) must still be subject to WP:NATURALNESS. No one has ever interpreted it otherwise, and it's no accident that both sections use "natural". The only thing naturalness cannot logically apply to is the title as a whole when it has a tacked-on parenthetic disambiguator. It's impossible for such a name to be natural, because no one/nothing in the real world is literally named "Jane Garcia (painter)" or "Carbon fiber (material)", and this is why it's the choice of last resort. We've been over this I think five times now, on three different talk pages. Please just absorb this and move on, I beg you.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:30, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Re. "..., in order of decreasing preference: ..." – obviously not so: United States presidential election, 2000 (1.3 in #Take 3) is preferred over United States presidential election of 2000 (1.2 in #Take 3): So no, such unhelpful advice should not be added to WP:AT. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:03, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

There are always exceptions to general "rules" (policies, procedures, best practices) on Wikipedia, which get arrived at through consensus discussions that come to a conclusion to make such an exception (or which determine that the more surface-obvious interpretation is wrong. That's the case here. The number of situations in which we use comma-delimited disambiguation is quite limited, confined almost entirely to a handful of specific topic areas where this exception is made consistently, for specific reasons. Event series are one of them, because "event title, date" is a more natural usage, matching everyday English, than the longer-winded "of" construction, in most cases (there are many exception to that as well). Also, when reliable sources consistently use "event name 3 December 2024" format (without the comma) for certain series of events, or lead with the year, in "date event name", so do we, unless there are good reasons not to. We do this because WP:COMMONNAME and the WP:CRITERIA have primacy over WP:AT#Disambiguation concerns in the naming analysis. That fact does not in any way change the fact that the general preferential order is the one I've stated: synonym, comma, descriptive, parenthetical. They have been listed this way in the policy for years for a reason, and years of RM discussions consider them in this order of descending preference.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:57, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
SMcCandlish please, do you ever get into discussions in which you are non combative. Above you falaciously accused me of an ad hominem tactic which seems to be rich when you, admit to being "on the fence myself" with a title like "John Robert Green", and then you make ludicrous statements regarding "WP:NOTGETTINGIT". For goodness sake - "Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural." Please, you may come up with various requests but you generally leave it to others to do the fielding at WP:RM with requests that very frequently are made with little basis in policy and guideline. Others have to deal with the shit - so yes I fairly and rightly object to your removal of reference recognisability.
Of course I agree with the concept of the "preferential cascade". This is exactly why we have to repeatedly and continually keep referring back to recognisability. We can't just make stuff up. We have to directly and recognisably call people and things what they are called. Spades are called spades. We have no other standard. GregKaye 15:03, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Sigh... You wrote We have to directly and recognisably call people and things what they are called as if this statement were unproblematic. As I'm sure you actually know well, it's precisely because it's not unproblematic that it's hard to write down a coherent policy. Repeating the obvious:
  • People and things are called by more than one name; we have to choose one for a title.
  • Language is context-sensitive; in normal use we will know whether "spades" refers to spades or spades. Article titles aren't contextually bound, so we have to decide which of the senses of "spade" (see Spade (disambiguation)), if any, to put at Spade.
  • Having put the digging implement sense of "spade" at Spade, we have to decide how to disambiguate any other sense of "spade" for which there's an article.
You wrote we have to repeatedly and continually keep referring back to recognisability. Yes, but we also have to repeatedly and continually keep referring back to the other criteria, such as precision. Review the endless discussions at Talk:Maize if you want evidence of the need for a careful balancing of the criteria. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:59, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Greg, there is no "removal of reference recognisability". As I already explained: ":WP:UCRN (WP:RECOGNIZABLE) would not be affected in any way by the Take 3 draft. Like the rest of the WP:CRITERIA, it's a policy that applies to article titles generally. And anything that failed WP:RECOGNIZABLE would "naturally" also fail WP:NATURALDIS (both as it currently exists and as redrafted here); if it's not recognizable then it's not natural. Adjustments to the disambiguation section cannot somehow alter overarching policies like WP:CRITERIA, that apply to all titles. WP policy simply doesn't work that way.". It simply is not logically possible for a restructuring and clarity adjustment to WP:AT#Disambiguation to change in any way WP:RECOGNIZABLE or the rest of the WP:CRITERIA, because the disambiguation rules are secondary to and dependent on them, not vice-versa. I hope this is the last time we have to go over this; I refuse to keep re-re-re-explaining things.
I agree with all that Peter said, and think he has adequately addressed how this works.
On the personality conflict stuff: I don't see what point you are trying to make with the "seems to be rich" thing. The ad homimem you were using in a different discussion (singling out RMs in which I've personally been involved to try to make my position seem inconsistent, which is more specifically the ad hominem tu quoque fallacy), has nothing at all to do with the use-middle-names-to-disambiguate cases about which I'm on the fence, for reasons entirely unrelated to anything at all in your list of breed name RMs. They're different threads about different issues. Of course I have discussions that are not combative. It's like asking you "do you ever have discussions that aren't circular-reasoned wastes of time?" When another participant in the discussion cannot or refuses to follow arguments that have already been presented and keeps rehashing the same thing over and over again, as if it had not already been addressed, it mires the discussion in unproductive repetition. You said that my referring to WP:NOTGETTINGIT was "falacious" [sic]; what fallacy are you citing? It seems very directly applicable to me. I have no idea what "shit" that "others have to deal with", that you're referring to. What "fielding" must these nebulous "others" do? What on earth are you talking about? If you find AT and RM this stressful, please take a break from them. Now, can we get back to the point? We're supposed to be talking about how to clarify this disambiguation section. The concerns you've raised with the Take 3 draft of that clarification have now all been addressed.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:57, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Taxonomy

I'd like to propose a different approach:

  1. First explain the taxonomy of disambiguation techniques (examples in this section only explaining how it is done, not why)
  2. Add a few examples explaining how the "weighing" of the different WP:CRITERIA works after that

Taxonomy could be something like this

  1. No separate disambiguator (traditionally known as natural disambiguation):
    1. Less ambiguous synonym, e.g. elevator instead of lift for the mechanical device
    2. Description, e.g. mechanical fan instead of "fan" + separate disambiguator
  2. With a separate disambiguator: such disambiguator is always at the end of the article title and can never be italicized:
    1. No interpunction: e.g. " discography" in Porgy and Bess discography
    2. Comma-separated, e.g. ", Texas" in Paris, Texas
    3. Parenthical, e.g. " (film)" in Paris, Texas (film)
    4. Combined, e.g. " in B minor for violin and piano, D 895 (Schubert)" combining all three types of explicit disambiguators to disambiguate the generic "Rondo" name, in Rondo in B minor for violin and piano, D 895 (Schubert)

The examples that follow after this should explicit how, for each of the subsequent examples of disambiguation, all five of the WP:CRITERIA are weighed in (without going into too much detail on what belongs to the domain of the topic-specific naming conventions). --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:29, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Attempting a "further specifications" format for presenting additional examples:

Further specifications:

--Francis Schonken (talk) 10:01, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Proposed specific examples

--Francis Schonken (talk) 12:07, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
That one is too detail-laden for many editors to muddle through. Given that there's an open RfC on removing another attempt to cite a misc. RM discussion as some kind of "precedent" in WP:AT policy, the last thing we need to do right now is add another one. Especially since you're trying with this edit to radically change policy, by enshrining a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS as a "convened" "standard". That won't fly. Anyway, in a separate post, I've proposed replacing the example that most obviously does not belong with an ideal one. PS: I find it disturbing how often in these classical-related discussions the alternative titles are and remain redlinks, when many of them are real titles of individual pieces covered by a blanket article, or are conventional names used by some reliable sources, and thus likely search targets. I think WP:CLASSICAL needs to get its own house in order before it starts trying to upend long-stable title policies.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:05, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
Agreed; it would probably be of value to include one as an example.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:05, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
  • The example Pontius Pilate's wife needs to be replaced. It is in the segment of WP:AT#Disambiguation on "descriptive phrases" as disambiguation solutions. But it is not a case of disambiguation at all. It is a case of picking a descriptive name for something for which there is no WP:COMMONNAME. It's not relevant as an example at all. Furthermore, there's an ongoing WP:RM at about it, at Talk:Pontius Pilate's wife. The example Bach's church music in Latin is probably ideal, because it could have virtually no other title for practical purposes, and is a case of several forms of disambiguation happening all at once. This is one of the few cases in which we virtually must use a possessive -'s construction, because all other alternative names are too confusing. "Latin church music of Bach" implies a "Latin church"; "Church Latin music of Bach" suggests either "Church Latin" language or "Latin music"; and so on. Using this example need not wait for resolution of the above questions of restructuring this section, since we'll need an example like this no matter what.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:07, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
  • If a current RM results in the use of Canine gait in place of Gait (dog) then I think that this might be a good example. "Dog gait", while arguably not having great recognizability, is more commonly used than "Canine gait" yet "Canine gait" has greater breadth of meaning while having a form that is more clearly based on adjective use. GregKaye 10:12, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
Agreed.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:36, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Queen - to rock, or not to rock, can there be a question?

Subject of a running RfC, see #RfC on proposed Precision/Conciseness/Disambiguation update. Don't fragment the discussion. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:46, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I think that the text at WP:AT#Disambiguation (as accessed by shortcuts such as WP:NATURAL) is unnecessarily prescriptive.

The text currently states:

  • "... According to the above-mentioned precision criterion, when a more detailed title is necessary to distinguish an article topic from another, use only as much additional detail as necessary. For example, it would be inappropriate to title an article "Queen (rock band)", as Queen (band) is precise enough to distinguish the rock band from other uses of the term "Queen"..."

Seeing that the current section of text is entitled "disambiguation", the reference to "necessary" is most logically read to say "... use only as much additional detail as necessary (for disambiguation)" but this, as far as I can see, is in direct contradiction to examples that have only just been given in the earlier text. We had only just been shown that acceptable titles can include: Leeds North West (UK Parliament constituency) and M-185 (Michigan highway) even though titles such as Leeds North West and M-185 would, on there own, not be ambiguous.

Ironically the instruction "use only as much additional detail as necessary" is, itself, ambiguous.

As far as the second sentence is concerned I would prefer to present something like:

Britannica, inc. present as their titling as:

  • "Example text"

This kind of presentation is not "inappropriate" and I think that it borders on slander to suggest that it is.

I find the use of the imperative to "use only ..." and the statement that "it would be inappropriate ..." to be unnecessarily prescriptive. GregKaye 15:42, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Combined proposal

moved down from another section of this page while there is more than one current discussion section that relates to this

Combining what has been said above about disambiguation and examples I'd replace WP:AT#Precision and disambiguation (the entire policy section) by the following two sections (including subsections):

==Precision and conciseness==

Often, but not always, precision, the third article titling criterion, and conciseness, the fourth of these criteria, are each others counterpart: adding precision to an article title usually leads to a less concise title, and the conciser a title the less precise it gets. The overarching principle to resolve such issues is that no more precision should be added to an article title than to make it discernible among topics that would usually be intended by that name, or the other way around, an article title should be no more concise than to keep it evident as referring to the scope of the content of the article. As this sometimes needs some interpretation, and as there are a few exceptions, these principles are further specified in this section.

Precision

Shortcuts
"MOS:PRECISION" redirects here. For the precision of numbers, see MOS:UNCERTAINTY.

Usually, titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that. For instance, Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta is too precise, as Mother Teresa is precise enough to indicate exactly the same topic. On the other hand, Horowitz would not be precise enough to identify unambiguously the famous classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz.

Exceptions to the precision criterion may sometimes result from the application of some other naming criteria. Most of these exceptions are described in specific Wikipedia guidelines or by Wikipedia projects, such as Primary topic, Geographic names, or Names of royals and nobles.

Conciseness

Shortcut

The goal of conciseness is to balance brevity with sufficient information to identify the topic to a person familiar with the subject area.

For example:

Exceptions exist for biographical articles. For example, neither a given name nor a family name is usually omitted or abbreviated for conciseness. Thus Oprah Winfrey (not Oprah), Jean-Paul Sartre (not J. P. Sartre). See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people).


==Disambiguation==

Shortcut
Further information: Wikipedia:Disambiguation

It is not always possible to use the exact title that may be desired for an article, as that title may have other meanings, and therefore may have been already used for other articles. According to the above-mentioned precision criterion, when a more detailed title is necessary to distinguish an article topic from another, use only as much additional detail as necessary. However, when an article topic is the primary topic for an otherwise ambiguous article name (e.g. Second Rhapsody usually referring to the piece by Gershwin and not to pieces with somewhat similar names by composers like Bartók, Enescu and Liszt), then that name can be its title without modification, provided it follows all other applicable policies. If the topic is not primary, the ambiguous name cannot be used without modification and so must be disambiguated.

Basic disambiguation techniques

Shortcuts

The basic disambiguation techniques are summarized as follows:

  1. No separate disambiguator (traditionally known as natural disambiguation):
    1. Less ambiguous synonym, e.g. elevator instead of lift for the mechanical device
    2. Description, e.g. mechanical fan in order to disambiguate from other types of fan
  2. Using a separate disambiguator, which is a non-italicized disambiguating expression at the end of an article title:
    1. No interpunction Separated by space, without other separating punctuation marks: e.g. " discography" in Porgy and Bess discography
    2. Comma-separated, e.g. ", Texas" in Paris, Texas
    3. Parenthical, e.g. " (film)" in Paris, Texas (film) – note that in this case the italicized ", Texas" is not a part of the disambiguator
    4. Combined, e.g. " in B minor for violin and piano, D 895 (Schubert)" combining all three types of explicit disambiguators to disambiguate the generic "Rondo" name, in Rondo in B minor for violin and piano, D 895 (Schubert)

Disambiguating: some specifics and examples

The basic disambiguation techniques are further specified as follows:

  • Except in rare instances where an actual proper noun includes a parenthesis, e.g. Magna Carta (An Embroidery), parentheses in article titles should be reserved for the purpose of disambiguation.
    Example: Orlando (A Biography) → Orlando: A Biography – subtitles of literary works are separated by a colon per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Subtitles.
  • When several types of explicit disambiguators are presented at the end of an article title, the sequence is determined as follows: the "No interpunction" variant is always the first, and the "Parenthical" type is always the last.
    Example: Adagio and Allegro (Fantasia) in F minor, K. 594 → Adagio and Allegro in F minor for a mechanical organ, K. 594
  • Although the so-called natural disambiguation usually will have an advantage regarding the WP:NATURALNESS criterion, also all other relevant WP:CRITERIA regarding article titling need to be factored in.
    Example: United States presidential election of 2000 → United States presidential election, 2000, weighing in all relevant criteria (note: as also in subsequent examples, an italicized criterion is weighed in but is not decisive while a bolded criterion is decisive for the example):
    1. Recognizability (no difference)
    2. Naturalness – slight advantage for the former
    3. Precision (no difference)
    4. Conciseness – slight advantage for the latter
    5. Consistency is decisive in this case (while the rest weighs out against each other), per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates)#Year at the end, with comma
  • In other cases relevant naming conventions guidance favours natural disambiguation.
    Example: English-language poets (list) → List of English-language poets, weighing in all relevant criteria:
    1. Recognizability (no difference)
    2. Naturalness – slight advantage for the latter
    3. Precision (no difference)
    4. Conciseness – marginal advantage for the former
    5. Consistency – decisive, WP:LISTNAME
  • Most often most criteria coerce in the same direction, without it being relevant to single out a most decisive one (in other words: in most cases any available topic-specific guidance would confirm what would be the outcome anyway).
    Example: Mercury can have several meanings, disambiguating the planet: Planet Mercury → Mercury (planet), weighing in all relevant criteria:
    1. Recognizability – slight advantage for the latter (the former might be recognized as a book, see Precision criterion for this example)
    2. Naturalness – advantage for the former
    3. Precision – slight advantage for the latter, Planet Mercury might refer to ISBN 9783319121161 (note that even with a separate article on that book the planet and not the book would remain the primary topic but nonetheless there is a small precision advantage for the latter article title: clearly separating the disambiguator by parentheses can have such precision advantage)
    4. Conciseness – slight advantage for the former
    5. Consistency – advantage for the latter per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (astronomical objects)#Disambiguation
  • WP:CRITERIA also apply to the disambiguator content.
    Example: La Caroline (Bach) → La Caroline (C. P. E. Bach), weighing in all relevant criteria:
    1. Recognizability (undecided which one would have the advantage)
    2. Naturalness (no difference)
    3. Precision – slight advantage for the latter: there is no ambiguity with any other Bach-related La Caroline when there are no initials in the disambiguator, but they specify the composer as C. P. E. Bach, not the best known composer with that surname
    4. Conciseness – advantage for the former
    5. Consistency – decisive, per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music)
  • Not everything is covered by naming conventions guidelines, which also may have exceptions, contradictions, interpretation issues, or may otherwise lead to sub-optimal disambiguation solutions, none of this being a mathematical science anyhow.
    Example: The Devil's Advocate (West novel) → The Devil's Advocate (Morris West novel)
    1. Recognizability – advantage for the latter (West may not immediately be recognizable as an author's surname)
    2. Naturalness – slight advantage for the latter: this novelist is not usually introduced with his last name only
    3. Precision – slight advantage for the latter: although the criterion is satisfied without adding "Morris" to the disambiguator (there are no other West novels with this title), the latter is obviously somewhat more precise
    4. Conciseness – advantage for the former
    5. Consistency – appeared to be undecisive during two consecutive WP:RM's that confirmed the latter at a time when the disambiguation recommendations at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books) would have given precedence to the former.

Using minor details to naturally disambiguate articles

Shortcuts

Titles of distinct articles may differ only in small details. Many such differences involve capitalization, punctuation, accentuation, or pluralization: MAVEN and Maven; Airplane and Airplane!; Sea-Monkeys and SeaMonkey; The World Is Yours and The Wörld Is Yours. While each name in such a pair may already be precise and apt, a reader who enters one term might in fact be looking for the other, so appropriate hatnotes with links to the other article(s) and disambiguation pages are strongly advised. Special care should be taken for names translated from other languages and even more so for transliterated titles; there is often no standardized format for the English name of the subject, so minor details are often not enough to disambiguate in such cases.

This form of disambiguation may not be sufficient if one article is far more significant on an encyclopedic level or far more likely to be searched for than the other. For instance, an album entitled JESUS would probably have its article located at JESUS (album), with JESUS continuing to be a redirect to Jesus. If the album or other possible uses were deemed by editors to be reasonably likely search results for "JESUS", consensus among editors would determine whether or not JESUS would be the location for the album article, a redirect to Jesus, a disambiguation page, or a redirect to the existing disambiguation page Jesus (disambiguation).

Plural forms may in certain instances also be used to naturally distinguish articles; see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals)#Primary topic for details.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 14:01, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Comments on #Combined proposal

  • Nothing that is said in the proposal is really "wrong" ... However, I don't think WP:AT is the appropriate place to say it. Adding all of this to the WP:AT policy page would be an unnecessary amount of instruction creep. Especially since we have a linked WP:Disambiguation guideline. Wouldn't that be a more appropriate page to us to further explain when and why to use the various forms of disambiguation (and give examples)? All we really need to do on WP:AT is quickly summarize what WP:Disambiguation says. Blueboar (talk) 11:52, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
Note that guidance content regarding disambiguation is actually reduced compared to the current policy page, even the number of examples is reduced compared to the current policy page, and also there is less quotation of subsidiary naming conventions guidelines as if those guidelines were part of "policy" (on the whole there is definitely less "instruction" in the current proposal). Some examples are a bit more elaborate, as to show how application of the basic five WP:CRITERIA works in practice. That was needed as shown by much discussion on this page (#Minor tweak to end pointless confusion between WP:NATURALNESS and WP:NATURALDIS, #The examples in the "Descriptive titles" line of the Disambiguation section are inappropriate, #Proposal to change sub-header to name only a few non-archived ones), discussions that contain a lot of talking next to each other while the available examples didn't illustrate what they had to illustrate, leading to assorted misapprehensions, and I'm speaking about misapprehension by the "regulars" here... one can only imagine the level of misapprehension by the casual Wikipedia editor. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:16, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
As for disambiguation content I've tried to sort out what needed to be said at "policy" level, discarding surplus content that is adequately covered in the guideline on that topic. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:24, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
To my mind... even that is more than we need to say... I think all we need to say on the subject of disambiguation at the Policy level is something along the lines of:
  • When a potential title for an article is ambiguous, another (disambiguated) title should be used. See the WP:Disambiguation guideline for details.
Leave the details to the guideline. Blueboar (talk) 13:26, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
Then at least choose a phrasing that avoids adding a new instruction overriding the guideline...
  • See WP:DISAMBIGUATION regarding when and how ambiguous article titles should be disambiguated.
(in other words: avoid the new & contradictory instruction that also ambiguous primary topics "should be" disambiguated when the current wording leaves the choice not to).
What would you do with the current related policy shortcuts? I chose to keep them in a place where they would still make sense for editors unaware of an update along the lines of the proposal, which is a continuity concern. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:21, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
I did say "something like"... I am not insistent on any phrasing (but out of curiosity, how did the phrasing I used "add new instruction that overrides the guideline"? That was not my intent.) As for the shortcuts... If they are no longer needed here at WP:AT, perhaps there are appropriate sections of WP:DISAMBIGUATION that they could point to? Blueboar (talk) 15:13, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
Again, current guidance *allows* ambiguous article titles like Second Rhapsody for being a primary topic. Your tentative proposal implied all ambiguous article titles (so, including those of primary topics) "should be" disambiguated, which is not only adding instruction creep, but also "overriding" at policy level the dedicated guideline. Shows some effort goes in finding the right phrasing.
On the whole I prefer my current proposal (distinguishing between a very limited set of policy level guidance, essentially only pertaining to formatting of disambiguators, and secondary levels of guidance on the same), lest a guideline containing such questionable instruction creep as "Natural disambiguation is generally preferable to parenthetical disambiguation", not really supported by topic-specific guidance, would de facto become the highest level of guidance on disambiguation. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:22, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
OK... I understand now why you had a problem with the language I used. thanks for explaining. While my language may have been flawed, the point I was trying to make isn't... details on disambiguation are unnecessary instruction creep when stated here in the policy... but they are perfectly appropriate in the guideline. Whatever the specific language... I still think that WP:AT should keep its mention of disambiguation to a very short (almost minimalist) statement ... and point readers to the WP:Disambiguation guideline for the details. Blueboar (talk) 17:17, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
I read: no problem to take this first step at simplification etc then, as proposed above. Further steps can follow in later stages per WP:CCC. I wouldn't agree for now to take the policy part down entirely, while I see no benefit, and continuity problems when too much is cut in one step. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:24, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
You misread... to make it clear, I am not sure about taking this "first step"... because I am not at all convinced that it really is a "simplification" ... and, even if it is, I don't think it is simple enough. I have to think on this more... So, don't assume "no problem" - it's more a case of "have not made up my mind yet". Also... I think a significant change to a policy like this needs more than just three or four editors to approve it before we implement. Blueboar (talk) 17:23, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Overall, I like it. I have no problem with bringing some discussion of disambiguation titling into WP:AT. In the section on "Using a separate disambiguator", I would like to see an explanation of why certain disambiguation schemes are used for certain kinds of titles (i.e., comma place name reflects real world usage, as does no comma before discography). This doesn't need to be on this page, but should be explained somewhere, with a link on this page to that somewhere. Also, note that I have collected a great deal of guidance about policies and practices relating to consistency at Wikipedia:Consistency in article titles. Cheers! bd2412 T 14:28, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
for the record... I have no objection to Wikipedia having a more extensive explanation of why we use the different disambiguation schemes in different situations. I just don't think the explanation belongs here in the WP:AT policy. It would be very appropriate if placed in the WP:Disambiguation guideline. Blueboar (talk) 15:13, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Adopting the "Combined proposal" would require a full-scale RfC with many more editors participating than the handful so far. I agree with Blueboar that explanations of why different disambiguation schemes are used belong at WP:Disambiguation and not at WP:AT. WP:AT needs to be short and succinct. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:57, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
I would prefer reference, in the mentioned contents, to be kept with regard to:
- Leeds North West (UK Parliament constituency) and
- M-185 (Michigan highway)
and, if anything, the section to be called "Precision and clarification".
Conciseness is an overriding principle while the other two issues offer specific examples. Even today we have had the proposed move of:
- Metro M1 (Prague) → Metro M1
Even with the current condition of the guidelines, I don't think that the message is conveyed to editors in regard to the value of explanation.
Now that I have said this can I please request editors such as BD2412 and SmokeyJoe to please not launch into any outlandish, scaremongering examples of out of control titling now that I have once again expressed a simple view that "I think that "clarification" deserves a mention".
Towards one side of things Britannica, I think, utilises a more explanatory titling policy than we do and I think that this is well presented in compilation of titles presented at:
- WP:List of Johns whose Britannica article titles contain broad description.
While I am not suggesting that Wikipedia completely emulates this example, I personally think that Britannica has a strength in titling description that we frequently lack. Titles are meant to describe and inform. They serve far more (sorry) "fundamental" purposes than merely to disambiguate.
Our job is to provide clarity and clarification is important. GregKaye 12:45, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

RfC on proposed Precision/Conciseness/Disambiguation update

At Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Combined proposal I proposed an update to the Wikipedia:Article titles policy part that explains and illustrates Precision, Conciseness and Disambiguation as applied to article titles (currently at Wikipedia:Article titles#Precision and disambiguation). After some preliminary comments at Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Comments on #Combined proposal, this seems ready for RfC. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:36, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Survey

  • Oppose - as I said above, we already have the WP:DISAMBIGUATION guideline. It may be that that guideline needs better explanation and examples... but if so, that guideline page is the place to add them. I think adding more here, on this policy page is unnecessary instruction creep. Blueboar (talk) 13:09, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
Blueboar I am unsure about instruction creep and, in some ways, consider that instruction is being lessened. Currently there is a section entitled WP:AT#Precision and disambiguation. As far as I know the most quoted and used disambiguation related policy is, under various guises, WP:NATURAL which relates to the text, "If it exists, choose an alternative name...". As far as I can see this would be replaced by a less prescriptive presentation of options presented within the proposed #Basic disambiguation techniques section above. GregKaye 17:02, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
OK... let me clarify my view... Sure, the proposal may reduce the instruction creep... but it leaves a lot of unnecessary instruction creep still in the policy. My objection is that it does not reduce the instruction creep enough. I feel that all of this is (and should be) covered at WP:DISAMBIGUATION. Since that guideline exists, the only thing we need to say here in the AT policy is that when two topics could potentially be given the same title, they need to be disambiguated... and then point editors to the relevant guideline. That's it. Blueboar (talk) 19:18, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
I don't think that changing the location of instructions will necessarily decrease instruction creep. My concern here relates to the, I believe, relatively significant proportion of WP:Article titles that require some kind of topic clarification for the reason that a most recognisable name or reference for that subject overlaps significantly with the name of another subject. It seems to me that there are an very significant number of girls coming to the AT party wearing the same dresses. While I do not think that it is necessarily desired to lay down rules about accessorising, I think that it is worth presenting the parameters of what can be done. GregKaye 21:28, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:
Fair enough. Please consider though that this would be something you could have politely said via your talk page even if just in an edit summary of one of your content deletions.
Edit conflict:

Within #Basic disambiguation techniques I genuinely like the use of the terminology "No separate disambiguator" as it better specifies what the involvements of related forms of disambiguation.
If the three forms of disambiguation were to follow the formats:
  [clause], [clause, clause], [clause (clause)]
then I would prefer the description "Sans two clause disambiguation".

The problem for me comes with the later reference to "No interpunction".
All we get from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/interpunction is:

  • Latin interpunction-, interpunctio, from interpunctus (past participle of interpungere to punctuate, interpoint, from inter- + pungere to prick) + -ion-, -io -ion — more at pungent

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/interpunction more helpfully presents:

  • interpunction (ˌɪntəˈpʌŋkʃən) noun the insertion of punctuation marks in a piece of writing

According to Template:Punctuation marks this is immediately inclusive of:

  • ’ ' [ ] ( ) { } ⟨ ⟩ : , ، 、 ‒ – — ― … ... . . .  ! . ‐ -  ? ‘ ’ “ ” ' ' " " ; / ⁄

and then need to get to the next category to get to the "·" Interpunct.

My suggestion for the text to the esteemed Francis Schonken has been:

  1. Using a separate disambiguator, which is a non-italicized disambiguating expression at the end of an article title:
    1. comma-separated disambiguation, e.g. ", Texas" in Paris, Texas
    2. parenthetically separated disambiguation, e.g. "(film)" in Paris, Texas (film) – note that in this case the italicized ", Texas" is not a part of the disambiguator
    3. disambiguation following italicisation: e.g. "discography" in Porgy and Bess discography
    4. disambiguation through use of a combination of techniques, e.g. " in B minor for violin and piano, D 895 (Schubert)" combining all three types of explicit disambiguators to disambiguate the generic "Rondo" name, in Rondo in B minor for violin and piano, D 895 (Schubert)

GregKaye 20:08, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

No, " discography" in Adele discography is as much disambiguator as in Porgy and Bess discography. Besides, the examples in my proposal make that clear: #4 is Rondo in B minor for violin and piano, D 895 (Schubert) (FYI: per WP:NCM), not Rondo in B minor for violin and piano, D 895 (Schubert). --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:17, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
In my view the usage of "interpunction" reduces the clarity of the whole. GregKaye 21:10, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
Porgy and Bess discography is a subject. GregKaye 21:41, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
Don't kid yourself, the proposed variation threw clarity out. The word interpunction can be linked, no need to go looking for Webster's or whatever. --Francis Schonken (talk) 22:08, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
  1. How does it help to use of a redirect to an over 3,000 word article, which makes no direct mention of "interpunction", and which covers the general topic of punctuation?
  2. How am I kidding myself?
  3. How does the 28 item listing presented at Porgy and Bess discography constitute a disambiguation?
  4. What is it disambiguated from?
GregKaye 04:25, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

My problem is that I choke on the precision/concision misunderstanding in the Mother Theresa example before being able to assess your proposal. Can we first drop the example? Who wrote it? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:34, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Could you write an example explaining "Precision" to your taste? Most likely the example is going to stay in unless someone comes up with better content for the policy.
Re. "Who wrote it?" – I have no clue, seems like a question with low relevance to me.
FYI: I don't see the problem with the example. E.g. Teresa of Ávila would be a "Mother Teresa" too, so whatever way it is turned "of Calcutta" adds precision. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:50, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
Francis, I take your point. Am working with difficulty on something better to my taste. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:04, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Moving explanation of "commonname" to UCRN hatnote

Currently the UCRN content is, as far as I see, split by an explanation of "commonname" which also acts to prioritise commonality over recognisability. As far as I can see this just focusses on the means and not the desired ends.

I would prefer to use an, I think, discrete presentation as:

See also: Wikipedia:Official names and a within policy definition of "commonname"[link]

We currently use:

  • "...the most recognizable and the most natural. This is often referred to using the Wikipedia short cut term: "COMMONNAME".[link]
Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name ..."

The link is anchored to the following footnote:

  • "Where the terms "COMMONNAME" and "common name" appear in this policy they mean a commonly or frequently used name, and not necessarily a common name as used in some disciplines in opposition to scientific name."

I would sooner have a straight forward explanation of content and would like to move superfluous references to definitions etc. to the periphery.

GregKaye 14:47, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Francis Schonken There was a discussion started in Jan this year by BarrelProof now at WT:Article titles/Archive 50#Stylization of the "common name" in which it was proposed that a clarification should be given that "common name" "does not necessarily refer to using the most common stylization of the name".
In contrast my proposal is merely to move the link to the related footnote so that, as far as I can see, it would be less disruptive within the flow of text. I have no understanding as to any reasoning behind your objection. GregKaye 10:28, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Was rather referring to Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 49. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:36, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
The October 14 discussion, presuming that this is what you are talking about, was started by PBS and related to an inclusion of an explanation of "COMMONNAME" / "common name". My proposal presents a different suggestion related to a move of the reference to a less obstructive and I think less leading use in a hatnote. GregKaye 11:16, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Re. "different suggestion" – same difference. Again, oppose: I think indeed that anything that needed to be said about that passage was said trice over and more at Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 49#Remove the sentence: this is often referred to ... "COMMONNAME" and related talk page sections. Finding supposedly new things to say about the same doesn't convince me. Really, on the content of what you propose: oppose, that passage of the policy doesn't need to be shredded any further (moving a part to a hatnote or whatever) than it already is. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:30, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
What same difference? It is a different suggestion!!
Of course things that needed to be said were said and that is beyond debate. All I am suggesting, as something new, is that the same reference can be made within a less intrusive hatnote rather than in the middle of the context of the text. 21:10, 21 May 2015 adding ping to encourage response to my query regarding your objection. Francis Schonken GregKaye 14:45, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
  • I agree that the current language is reasonably straightforward. However, overall the page is a little convoluted, and far from the widely espoused "concise". There is always a need to improve, to say otherwise is to vote to lock in a particular version and to lock out new opinions. While I agree with the OP's motivation, I am not confident with the details of his suggestions. But neither do I find Francis Schonken in Archive 49 easy to understand. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:43, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
SmokeyJoe, RGloucester, Blueboar - to clarify my issue here is that, while the policy relates to the use of a commonly recognizable name, far more attention is lavished on the former issue than the latter. While it is clearly advantageous to present the horse before the cart, my worry in WP:RM discussions is that the cart often gets forgotten. In the text of WP:AT wording containing "common" is used 41 times while wording containing "recogn" is used just 13 times. I do not think that placing emphasis within text with mention that "This is often referred to using the Wikipedia short cut term: "COMMONNAME"." is in any way helpful. GregKaye 09:12, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
That, I agree with. The COMMONNAME short cut is agreed to be unfortunate, and I think it is unhelpful to all to continue to advertise it as recommended parlance. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:02, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
I agree that the term "COMMONNAME" is unfortunate (requiring lots of explanation)... However, it is far to late for us to try to downplay it. The term has become ingrained in the Wikipeida culture. Because it is used so much, we have to take the time to explain it.
As far as "cart before horse" goes... I am not sure it is a big problem. It is simply a matter of focusing on process rather than end goal... The end goal is for the article title to be recognizable ... Looking through sources to see if there is a COMMONNAME is the process by which we determine what is recognizable. The theory is that the COMMONNAME (if there is one) will be the most recognizable name. Blueboar (talk) 12:07, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
I don't know what makes you think "too late". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:48, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
Blueboar we are not here in anyway saying to "downplay it". The only thing that is here proposed is that it is unnecessary and perhaps gratuitous to present that "This is often referred to using the Wikipedia short cut term: "COMMONNAME"." I see no necessity to highlight this one short cut and not others as being an often used term of reference. GregKaye 14:32, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
We have had discussions about this sentence before... read the archives to see why we added the sentence, and why it should be kept. It really does help in distinguishing between the the various meanings of the word "common", and clarify which meaning we are referring to in this policy. The fact is, the wiki-jargon term COMMONNAME (in all caps) gets used a lot in discussions... and it has a distinct meaning that is unique to wikipedia. We have to define it. Blueboar (talk) 21:31, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Surely the same content can be presented in hatnote form as either:

See also: Wikipedia:Official names and a within policy definition of "commonname"[link]

or

See also: Wikipedia:Official names and a within policy definition of "COMMONNAME"[link]

GregKaye 13:16, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

  • Oppose, I don't see this as any improvement and in fact makes the explanation more obscure. It is appropriate for a concept this important to naming policy to have an explicit callout in the text. older ≠ wiser 13:28, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose, but have alternative suggestions: I'm sympathetic to GregKaye's goals here, and vaguely handwaving repeatedly about discussions that may be somewhere in the archives isn't helpful. (This is not a perennial debate that the archives are full of, after all.) The purpose of the usage sentence and its footnote is explaining a confusing peculiarity of WP jargon; pushing that explanation away to WP:OFFICIALNAME doesn't help at all. I don't think the usage note biases anything. While I do agree that WP:RECOGNIZABLE is often forgotten and that some people obsess about using the literally most common name at the expense of all WP:CRITERIA, the problem has nothing to do with this side note. I have an alternative proposal below. PS: even if we wanted to go with GregKaye's suggestion, it's worded confusingly due to a missed grammar point: compound adjectives are hyphenated. It should thus read "a within-policy definition", which can be tightened to "an in-policy definition" with no loss of meaning. And yes, if it's run together it should be "COMMONNAME", the actual shortcut; editors don't normally write "commonname" but "common name" if using lower case.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:53, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Alternative proposal

Consider all of the following severable proposal points; going with even one of them and punting the rest for later or rejecting them would still be a marked incremental improvement.

  1. Here's the actual, main problem: The misprioritization actually comes from our use of this wishy-washy phrase, which appears to make the criteria subordinate to commonness instead of the other way around: 'Editors should also consider the criteria outlined above.' This is easily fixed by simply stating clearly: 'The title meeting the above five criteria is the goal; choosing the most commonly used name is the most frequent but not infallible means of arriving at a title that does so.'
  2. Also replace the shortcut: Because it really is never too late on a wiki, we can minimize the misprioritization by replacing the shortcut WP:COMMONAME with WP:MOSTCOMMON. It might take a few years for people to stop using COMMONNAME, but who cares? It took several years for people to absorb that notability wasn't "fame and importance", too. When there's an ingrained, widespread confusion like this we have to take incremental steps in undoing it. We've already started addressing this by using "the name that is most commonly used", breaking the word "common" away from the word "name". But confusion of the WP:AT concept with biological common name is is just one of multiple interpretation errors that arise; see points 4 and 5, below.
  3. Use clearer, more straightforward writing: It's best to state a rule clearly, then explain definitional nuances after the basic rule has been understood. To that end, I would rewrite the extant text slightly, to drop the parentheses, and use two sentences: Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used, as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources. Such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural. If either or both of my clarifying suggestions below are adopted, we should simply add them after the extant material in this paragraph. I wouldn't try to work them into the main sentence, as it would make it harder to parse.
  4. Undo the AT/MOS confusion while we're at it: I would also clarify that 'When considering what name is most commonly used, disregard any style concerns like capitalization, hyphenation, or diacritics (Wikipedia's usage in such matters is guided by our Manual of Style).' That would forestall an enormous number of pointless, confused WP:RM debates. I have to explain that the common name doesn't mean most common styling of a name so often at RM and elsewhere, I've created a template, {{ATandMOS}} so it doesn't have to be manually repeated any more.
  5. And avoid dependence on specialized sources: I would further clarify: 'Common usage is principally determined by sources written for a general audience.'; that would eliminate another large convoy of disruptive RM fights, in which one camp argues (correctly) for the most common name in sources most people have access to and and can understand, while another demands the most common name in specialist literature you usually need JSTOR access to find and a degree to understand; the latter faction are sorely confusing the idea of reliable sources for scientific facts about a topic, cited in article, vs. reliable sources for how the English language is used by the general public, our readership. This comes up so frequently, I had to write an essay several years ago to address it.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:53, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

I would definitely oppose #4... The COMMONNAME most certainly can (sometimes) include styling. These situations are rare, but they are usually situations where source usage indicates that we need to make an exception to MOS guidance. Blueboar (talk) 15:07, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Common name people - removing (the) pulp?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the discussion.

The result of the discussion is: Meh. The discussion is too diffuse to be able to draw anything much from it. I have no idea how to resolve the issue, or even whether there is actually a problem to fix (it seems unlikely given the closing comments). I can only suggest that single changes are proposed (e.g. "Add Fat Boy Slim or Remove Marion Morrison"). The discussion includes several lists all of which have some support and some commentary from which unqualified support or opposition cannot easily be discerned. Guy (Help!) 11:44, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

On this I will risk bothering "Hillary Rodham Clinton" RM deliberator, Mdann52, as content in this discussion I think demonstrates arguable search anomalies (re: Liberace, Syahrini and Bill Clinton) which may, arguably, relate to a search related controversy that was raised in final stages of the HRC discussion.

We currently present:

People

I suggest: People

Reasoning:

Arguably some subjects may lack some of the noteworthiness of some of the others and here I was thinking of

at least that's what I thought from looking at the looking at raw results. Arguably oddly:

Liberace (Pianist OR entertainer OR performer) gets to "Page 38 of about 376 results" (the first page of the search indicated "About 320,000 results")
Syahrini singer gets to "Page 22 of about 218 results" (the first page of the search indicated "About 320,000 results")
"Bill Clinton" democratic gets to "Page 22 of about 218 results" (the first page of the search indicated "About 20,200,000 results")
"Bill Clinton" president gets to "Page 36 of 355 results" (the first page of the search indicated "About 25,700,000 results")

Thank goodness for Ngrams (and here's a closer look at the "Beyoncé,Beyonce,Billie Holiday,Bono,Cat Stevens,François Mitterrand,Lady Gaga,Liberace,Syahrini,The Edge" end of the scale).

Alphabetical order was chosen over presentation chronologically to give better representation of people of the feminine persuasion.

I would personally prefer:

over:

  • Beyoncé (not: Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter) who did not perform (sorry) well in Ngrams and
  • Bono (not: Paul Hewson)

on the basis that the first two relate to other specific areas of policy namely disambiguation and WP:THE.

While personally I would prefer a shorter list, other possible options include:

Some "howevers" may also be of note:

Given inclusion of Bill Clinton and Billie Holiday in the main list perhaps we could also add:

and also later add:

However we also use:

  • Gary Ridgway (despite prevalent reference being made to the "Green River Killer")
  • Peter Sutcliffe (despite prevalent reference being made to the "Yorkshire Ripper")
Ngram reference for Gary Ridgway and the Green River Killer
Ngram reference for Peter Sutcliffe and the Yorkshire Ripper

GregKaye 14:14, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

  • oppose:
    • oppose reducing this to WP:PSEUDONYM examples only
    • oppose using examples with disambiguators a few sections above where the concept is explained
    • oppose irrelevant use of Google in this context. If you don't know how to use it => stay away from it
Where this would be an improvement fails me. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:13, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
I don't think that the noteworthiness of the subjects should be a factor in this - most subjects covered by Wikipedia are on the less noteworthy end. Our examples focus on more noteworthy people not because they are more worthy of mention but because the reader is more likely to recognize the name. That said, I think that we benefit from having more examples rather than fewer. I would propose that we create an examples subpage and prominently link to it, and include on that subpage a substantially larger selection of people grouped by various factors - those commonly known by an informal name over a formal name (e.g., Bill Clinton), those primarily known by a stage name over an earlier or later-used legal name (e.g. Cat Stevens), and those primarily known by a mononym (e.g. Cher, Bono), including those more recognizable by a mononym with a disambiguator than by their legal name (Madonna (entertainer), Usher (entertainer)). bd2412 T 20:00, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
Really? I thought by now people knew about WP:NCP. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:06, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
I have in mind a page with a lot more, perhaps a few hundred examples outlining different issues. bd2412 T 20:47, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
Francis Schonken:
The pseudonyms from the present list are: Bono, "Cat Stevens" (effectively given current naming) and Lady Gaga.
The pseudonyms in the proposed list are: Billie Holiday, George Eliot, The Edge and Voltaire. Which do you object to?
  • "oppose using examples with disambiguators". Why? Most people I would guess would, by the time they have got to read WP:AT, have become reasonably familiar with a range of Wikipedia contents and would have likely become fairly familiar with article titles displaying "parenthetical disambiguation". I don't think that you need to be a genius to be able to figure out what is happening with a title such as Madonna (entertainer).
  • "Example text" I will gladly welcome instruction from any one. As it is I am reasonably confident that other examples that I have mentioned have levels of notability and familiarity that are generally higher than the likes of Liberace and Syahrini.
- "Where this would be an improvement fails me". In addition to the desire to increase the level of recognisability within list content it struck me that that the current list is pretty much the domain of the white male. It only contains one non white person (Mahatma Gandhi) and one woman (Lady Gaga). The proposed list contains: Billie Holiday, George Eliot, Madonna in addition to Mahatma Gandhi. Additionally the subjects presented have an improved level of general familiarity.
You might at least have found humour in the pulp common people reference. Tough crowd.
GregKaye 20:59, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
Re. pseudonym overload, sorry, was referring to your sublist starting with Rita Hayworth, my bad. Note that all your women fall under WP:PSEUDONYM (the guideline, includes stage names like Madonna). Other ideas: Marie Curie (Marie Sklodowska-Curie); Margaret Thatcher (Baroness Margaret Thatcher; Maggie Thatcher)
Maybe get William the Conqueror (William I of England), alternatively Catherine the Great (Catharine II of Russia), in, to make clear this is about more than people of the last one or two centuries and that royals are not entirely excluded from this?
WP:AT will for many (probably even most) newbies be the first guidance relating to article titles they get to see, so no, no jumping ahead: there are plenty examples without disambiguators for this second section of the policy.
Re. number of examples: not too many in *policy*, per Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance#Role of examples, 1st principle of that section. I don't oppose getting rid of a few that illustrate the same principles. Those wanting to produce an additional collection of examples: please go ahead and propose. How it should be linked from policy: probably not, maybe from WP:NCP. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:54, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Maybe:

  • replace Clinton by Thatcher
  • replace Bono by William the Conqueror
  • replace Mitterand by Marie Curie
  • replace Gaga by Chanel
  • replace Syahrini by Beyoncé
  • sort them logically: first illustrate "first name" + "last name" (Curie/Thatcher); add middle name initial (Kennedy); honorific replacing first name (Gandhi); nick replacing first name (Chanel); nick instead of last name (the Conqueror); stage names: retaining last name (Liberace), retaining first name (Beyoncé), completely different (Cat Stevens)

--Francis Schonken (talk) 23:13, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Historically at least reference to Margaret Thatcher as "Maggie" went out and, as the designation "Maggie Thatcher" did not stick, I think that Clinton better fits the bill of an example of exceptional article title use. Also, while Thatcher may have been a prime example of a successful woman on many scales, it is widely regarded that she did not do much for women's causes. She, arguably, did little with the promotion of women to her cabinets.
If this is working from the original list then this removes both clear examples of the use of pseudonyms:
which just leaves the not greatly notable:
I think that a good example of a pseudonym/mononyn would be:
  • Pelé (not: Edson Arantes do Nascimento)
It also helps us get away from the presentation of a succession of musicians.
Strongly agree with a presentation of:
and especially of:
  • Beyoncé (not: Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter)
Unlike examples such as Madonna (entertainer), Prince (musician), Slash (musician), Rihanna etc. the Beyoncé brand has grown in recognition over time.
I appreciate the mention of categories and suggest a surname related use of:
  • Morrissey (not: Steven Patrick Morrissey) - Here are the Ngrams (for what they are worth in this situation)
While Pelé may replace Bono as a non U.S. centric representative on the list, the miserable Morrissey can be regarded to represent an extreme of one British persona.
I also think that we might borrow from the text of WP:Naming conventions (people) and present:
People
Most biographical articles have titles in the form <First name> <Last name>, as with Albert Einstein and Margaret Thatcher. Exceptions notably include:
...
Others may disagree but I think it would be possible to present just one representative example from type of use.
GregKaye 07:04, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

With all due respect... I think this is going nowhere. Under the guise of being less discriminatory, now political discrimination is used as an argument... Better make clear to whoever reads this guidance that an article title is an article title, whatever the topic. As far as article titling goes Wikipedia doesn't distinguish the good from the bad (nor in any other respect). I don't think people not grasping that should be left near policy updates. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:33, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

With respect do you have any legitimate objection? Nothing has been done under the guise of anything. The people presented are more notable. The quotation from "Naming conventions (people)" is helpful. The examples suggested are not 89% male and 89% white. There was nothing wrong with raising a valid caution against letting the list go in a U.S. centric direction. GregKaye 08:16, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
Re. "do you have any legitimate objection?" – yes: time sink with no net improvement of the policy page. I would support replacing Clinton by Thatcher (replacing one of two "democrat" "US" "male" "president"s by a "conservative" "UK" "female" "prime minister"). Whether that person did or did not do "much for women's causes" is irrelevant in the discussion. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:45, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
One thing that exists as a constant background problem is the creation or moving of articles to titles such as "John Robert Green", "Graeme C.A. Wood", "Mary Luana Williams", "John Gibson Smith" and "John Lucian Smith" which just do not reflect reality. We need to present usable examples of good practice. I have been aware for a long time that there have been what I have viewed as inadequacies in the current presentation. Your comments have been amongst the comments that have helped develop proposed content below. I thank you for that. GregKaye 09:51, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
I'm afraid there's no consensus to settle that at "policy" level. At guideline level that is settled by WP:NCP. Not so long ago there were extended discussions at that guideline's talk page to modify the current guidance in that respect one way or another, without much change to the wording and examples, but enough disagreement to show no policy-level consensus. So, no, again this is going nowhere. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:10, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
With respect I relatively rarely see you in various discussions notified at WP:RM. I honestly think that an overhaul of this content is very much in order and this is what I think I have fairly proposed. GregKaye 12:17, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
Big advantage, avoids bad taste like pushing guideline updates in order to skew the outcome of an ongoing WP:RM deliberation (see fine print under section header). Would like to halt this thread and subthreads as non-productive, until the WP:RM in question has been concluded. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:13, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
Francis Schonken Please do assume bad faith or censor discussion as you did, without notification, here. I have a genuine interest in clarifying these guidelines, went through a range of searches, I saw how search results related to a previous discussion, I made as ping (which may or may not have been regarded) giving notification of actions in small type. You are an involved editor. I have removed your collapse. GregKaye 10:20, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
Is fine in the new section #Changes to Use commonly recognizable names section on People until any cheesy pinging is removed. Suggesting to AGF? Simple, remove the fineprint under the section header. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:37, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
On the one hand,I agree with Francis that this seems like churn with little or no actual improvement. On the other hand I disagree about removing Bill Clinton from the list. In countless discussions of common name, Clinton is frequently used as a commonplace shorthand example. I think it is good that the examples given here reinforce such commonplace usage. older ≠ wiser 12:20, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Proposed list revision

Can we use the following?:

People

Most biographical articles have titles in the form <First name> <Last name>, as with Albert Einstein and Margaret Thatcher.
Exceptions include:

Alternatives to J.K. Rowling include authors: E.B. White – Elwyn Brooks; A.A. Milne – Alan Alexander; C.S. Lewis – Clive Staples; H.G. Wells – Herbert George; H.P. Lovecraft – Howard Phillips; J.D. Salinger - Jerome David; F. Scott Fitzgerald - Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald; S.E. Hinton - Susan Eloise; J.K. Rowling - Joanne K. Jo Rowling added a "K" for Kathleen (her grandma’s name) at her publisher’s request; E.E. Cummings - Edward Estlin; L.M. Montgomery - Lucy Maud; W.B. Yeats - William Butler; T.S. Eliot - Thomas Stearns; L. Frank Baum - Lyman; P.G. Wodehouse - Pelham Grenville. ; W.H. Auden - Wystan Hugh; J.M. Barrie - James Matthew; J.R.R. Tolkien (not: John Ronald Reuel) (there is no reason for choosing authors especially.)

Alternatives to Paul McCartney can be found at: Middle name#Some notable anglophones known by their middle names

O.J. Simpson?

Re "Bill Clinton" it might have been appropriate to have used Kate Middleton.

GregKaye 09:32, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

No, too much artists (worse than current), too much "white" "democrat" "US" "male" "president"s (no improvement). What's wrong with Golda Meir (Golda Meyerson), "labour", and changing one of the US presidents to a "conservative" example? Or with Cleopatra (Cleopatra VII Philopator) replacing one of the "artist" mononyms? Further I keep to the Cat Stevens example while it illustrates precedence over two alternatives (will ignore inappropriate "not greatly notable" argument).
Oppose dragging in NCP ground rule.
Oppose expanding list. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:01, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
We currently present:

People

"too much artists", my proposal was to present:

and I had proposed:

and now gone back to the very notable:

We currently use:

"too much "white" "democrat" "US" "male" "president"s"

A common thing with names that I think we should cover is the shortening of a first name to a form like "Bill", "Liz" or "Greg". This is demonstrated in the long list at: Wiktionary:Appendix:English given names. For potential replacement of Bill Clinton I would be happy for anyone to pick a preferred option from any relevant content with anyone notable starting from: Abby or Abe

The options of altered first names could include:

In place of John F. Kennedy I would be happy for anyone to pick from another option such as: Michael J. Fox, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Philip K. Dick, Cecil B. DeMille, George W. Bush, George C. Scott, William F. Buckley, Jr., John D. Rockefeller, Johnny B. Goode, James Q. Wilson, Ulysses S Grant, E.E. cummings, Lyndon B. Johnson, Susan B. Anthony or anyone else.

Re: "Cleopatra (Cleopatra VII Philopator)" could work as a straight swap for Beyoncé.

GregKaye 11:50, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Changes to Use commonly recognizable names section on People

I have added an initial note as taken from the text of WP:Naming conventions (people) and changed the seventh and the last examples presented while removing the fifth example which I considered superfluous given the use of the initial note. (However I would have no objection to the reintroduction of François Mitterrand in place of Albert Einstein if so desired).

In place of:

People

I have used:

People

Most biographical articles have titles in the form <First name> <Last name>, as with Albert Einstein and Margaret Thatcher.
Exceptions include:

The rationale here was to remove unnecessary repetition of pseudonym examples and to present an, I think, logical sequence of: first name usage, last name usage, full name usage. I hope that this provides a suitable route by which to satisfy previously stated views regarding an over use of pseudonyms and an inclusion of Beyoncé and Thatcher.

I hope that the new content will help enable an avoidance (as previously mentioned) of either the creation or adoption of article titles such as: "John Robert Green", "Graeme C.A. Wood", "Mary Luana Williams", "John Gibson Smith" and "John Lucian Smith"

I would also like to propose that a logical sequencing might present:

People

Most biographical articles have titles in the form <First name> <Last name>, as with Albert Einstein and Margaret Thatcher.
Exceptions include:

GregKaye 08:28, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

→ No "ground rule" of WP:NCP introduced at policy level please.

Would support reducing focus given to examples per above. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:07, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

No one is suggesting a ground rule. We do have a policy/guideline and that simply that we "Use commonly recognizable names". I am hoping that these examples presented will not obstruct the application of this policy and will support its use. I would also be happy to remove all examples and to simply reassert that Wikipedia prefers the use of commonly recognizable name. GregKaye 10:32, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
"initial note as taken from the text of WP:Naming conventions (people)" is the "ground rule of WP:NCP" - whatever you call it (couldn't care less what you call it), don't introduce it at policy level. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:37, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
In whatever form the information is presented I think that a very relevant inclusion would be made of: George Bernard Shaw (as known by full name) GregKaye 10:39, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
WP:MIDDLES already illustrated by George W.; WP:NCP#Nicknames, pen names, stage names, cognomens already illustrated by Clinton, Liberace, Cat Stevens. On both counts: Shaw redundant. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:44, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

This reduced list would work for me too:

--Francis Schonken (talk) 11:31, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

  • Comment... I have no problem with shortening the list of examples... we don't need to try to cover every possible permutation. The point of giving a few examples is simply to illustrate how COMMONNAME works... and the best examples are obvious ones. Blueboar (talk) 14:22, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
Agreed but if we are not to use the <First name> <Last name> opener then I think that we should at least start with a straight forward first name - last name example. Possibilities include:
GregKaye 14:36, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Suggest as list:

or:

GregKaye 18:00, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

..."most obvious"...? This may come closer:

--Francis Schonken (talk) 18:24, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

For each example... I think it would be helpful to follow it with a counter example:
This would better demonstrate that in COMMONNAME situations, it is source usage that drives our decision as to which name is used. Blueboar (talk) 21:41, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
Really. Jumping from reducing number of examples to doubling them. Whatever happened to "we don't need to try to cover every possible permutation"?
Reiterating first approach: this is going nowhere. --Francis Schonken (talk) 22:11, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
I think it is a nice touch to balance between the Curie and Jolie examples so as to balance the losing and the keeping of a maiden name reference. I would personally like at least one pseudonym example - Bono, Voltaire, Billie Holiday, George Eliot or similar in place of or following Bill? An example of a Mononym such as Cleopatra, Beyoncé, Michelangelo or Geronimo or similar would also debatable be helpful and, again, a use of Bono, Voltaire or other would cover this. Otherwise I think that the changes made would be of great benefit. The personal and regular use of full name is not common and I am sceptical as to whether people outside the US will have heard of William Jennings Bryan. That is another way of saying that I did not have a clue and was surprised to see similar Ngram results for Bryan and Shaw. The proposed format by Francis breaks style but uses less than a third of the physical space of the current listing which would, I think, be of great help to readers who want to take reference from information both above and below the example content. I would prefer the Mandela entry to read: Nelson Mandela (not: Madiba or Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela) but this is a small point. GregKaye 06:50, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Minor changes ok?

GregKaye 13:15, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

No. Unfolding a lengthy discussion is one thing, reading what others have contributed in it apparently another. Did you only want to unfold that part of the discussion because you think yourself thus interesting?
For my own preferences, also no: when limited to four examples, keep it to the obvious, which doesn't include the relatively rare case of mononyms. Also in that case, one alternative per example, reserving the "middle name" alternative for the last example. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:30, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
quick comment - this relates to the suggestion of adding Madonna (entertainer), which was made earlier... I think we should try to avoid examples that need disambiguation. It adds an unnecessary element of potential confusion. Blueboar (talk) 13:56, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Francis Schonken If you want to cast question on motivation or anything else then please consider starting your discussions on user talk pages. As long as it is respectfully written etc. I will not delete your inputs. One example covers pseudonyms and mononyms while giving very clear illustration of a preferred use of "the name that is most commonly used". GregKaye 14:57, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Francis Schonken The currently presented content is inclusive or three mononym and three pseudonym examples as:

  • Bono (not: Paul Hewson) existing mononym/pseudonym example
  • Lady Gaga (not: Stefani Germanotta) existing pseudonym example
  • Liberace (not: Władziu Liberace) existing mononym example
  • Syahrini (not: Rini Fatimah Jaelani) existing mononym/pseudonym example

I would have thought the presentation of a single example of such use would be in order. GregKaye 10:42, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Use commonly recognizable names

Can this be added before Gandhi? As Colombus was more notable. 78.149.204.111 (talk) 19:47, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

There is not yet a single simple <First name> <Last name> type example in the text. Possible options for this could include: *Nelson Mandela, Charles Darwin, Margaret Thatcher, David Beckham, Thomas Edison or Justin Bieber.

Francis Schonken you have previously presented I think valid objection to the use of pseudonym type examples, to the use of a long list of examples and have proposed the use of a "Navbox" format for the listings.

On this basis I inserted the compact content as follows:

This reduced the use of pseudonym examples from three to just one, reduced the entire length of the people list from nine items to four and made use of your proposed navbox format. It also gave better representation to women, to people from non-white ethnic groups and to people originating from locations other than the US and UK.

Do you have any objection to the use of this list either in this format or in a non-nav box type format?

I don't personally have an objection to the inclusion of the Columbus example but suggest that a more simple first name, last name example might be used in the list first. GregKaye 14:35, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Re. "people" examples I can agree to:

Long version:

Short version:

Reasons are explained above. The other alternatives I cannot agree to, again, for reasons explained above.

Re. Christopher Columbus: if such example were used it should be made clear that this isn't steering for anglicized names in general, e.g. by retaining the François Mitterrand example or by including someone like Leoš Janáček. I'd prefer to keep out of the WP:USEENGLISH arena with these people examples (that aspect is treated elsewhere in the policy), so oppose including Columbus and non-anglicized counterparts in the people example list. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:06, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Francis Schonken we currently present a list with three pseudonym and three mononym examples as the equivalent of:

You have presented your preference for the use of the navbox formating, against the presentation of long lists and against the use of pseudonyms. You have since rejected the use of a list that reduced a presence of three pseudonym / mononym examples to one. I personally think that, in the context of three fairly conventional examples of UCRN application, a single slightly radical example of a clear commonname usage would be advantageous. If you want to install a version of the list with fair and prominent inclusion of a standard first name, last name examples as per WP:Naming conventions (people) then go right ahead.

However, in the context that you have pronounced the: ""people" examples I can agree to:" I think it would be fair for you to state reason for objecting to the inclusion of just one pseudonym/mononym example perhaps along the lines of:

I also think that, should we present examples like Victoria Beckham and Nelson Mandela then we should do this as:

In other examples we generally present long versions of names. We do not only use first name, last name article titles in cases where there may be exceptional alternatives.

I also think that the inclusion of an example such as: Victoria Beckham (not: Posh Spice) would lead to problems at WP:RM if this is not done with the accompaniment of an example that demonstrated the actual use of a Posh Spice type pseudonym. GregKaye 10:16, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Proposed amendments to alphabetised list

Red Slash has, I think, constructively alphabetised the UCRN list of examples of people so that it now reads: People

Discussion above has involved issues such as using examples with greater noteworthiness; using more direct <First name> <Last name> examples; using fewer psudeonym/mononym examples, and not having too many artists.

I suggest using:

to replace

and

to replace

This would then give a list as:

In addition I think that one way to shorten the list would be to use:

to replace

GregKaye 14:41, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

The policy should not list a redirect like J.K. Rowling. As the space-or-not between two consecutive initials is at this time somewhat contentious (and changing), see WT:NCP archives, such examples tend to be too unstable for policy-level. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:57, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
I support most of Greg's proposed changes, with the minor (and welcome) correction that Rowling's page is at J. K. Rowling... but I can't help but think that Cleopatra's a bad example because she is so overwhelmingly known only as Cleopatra that it kind of defeats the point. Like, most people would not even begin to think that there even exists another name for her. Maybe Sting (musician) or something? Red Slash 21:56, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
I am sort of reluctant to get rid of John F. Kennedy (it's a great example of a COMMONNAME where the middle initial is almost always included... and when juxtaposed by Bill Clinton, does a lot to illustrate how WP:UCN works.) Blueboar (talk) 12:22, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
ty Red Slash I don't know what Francis Schonken had in mind with his/her proposal of Cleopatra but I personally think that this example provides an extremely valuable counterbalance to otherwise quoted article format of titles such as Diana, Princess of Wales.
ty Blueboar A lot of that third proposal was for the sakes of shortening content while providing a little more male female balance. I agree on the value of the John F. Kennedy example and have used him in demonstration of how common name may result in a lengthening from a secondarily commonly known alternative. That leaves us with François Mitterrand and Lady Gaga. These first name/last name and female examples could either be kept as they are or be changed for a single example such as like: George Eliot (not: Mary Ann Evans); Angelina Jolie (not: Angelina Jolie Pitt); Victoria Beckham (not: Victoria Caroline Beckham or Posh Spice) or, indeed, J.K. Rowling (not: Joanne Rowling) .. or someone else. I personally think that the George Eliot example would fit well in the sequence but have no strong view. Any opinions?
Francis has also proposed the use of a navbox format to which I have no objection and which is still up for consideration. GregKaye 09:16, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

How about replacing these three:

By these three:

? --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:05, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

c'td

  • oppose introduction of additional middle name examples. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:32, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose any changes to this section. This ridiculous discussion is going on and on and on, when there is no clear consensus that anything in particular is wrong with the extant examples! This discussion has approximately doubled in length since the last time I pointed this out. It's clearly going nowhere. Please close this mess, and start over. If you feel a particular example is faulty, propose changing that pariticular example, with a rationale for doing so. This is a massive waste of time with the present "let's propose random changes to all the examples at once for a zillion different reasons" approach.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:43, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
I don't disagree... however I do think the current list has become bloated. A lot of our current examples were added primarily to illustrate secondary issues ...over time, editors have felt the need to add an example of a COMMONNAME that includes a diacritic, an example of a COMMONNAME that includes a middle name, a COMMONNAME that includes... whatever (as well as examples that don't include these secondary issues). I understand how we got to this state... I have fallen prey to this tendency myself.
However, I think the primary criteria for any example in this section should be that it clearly (and fairly obviously) illustrates the basic core concept of COMMONNAME. For this reason, part of me want's to be ruthless and cut the list back dramatically (to something like three or four examples). The problem will be to decide which examples to cut. Each of the "secondary issue examples" (whatever it may be) will have supporters that will not want that example to be "removed from policy"... for fear that removing it from the list will re-open old debates. I admit that I would have the same reaction to removing some of the examples... So part of me would have a hard time removing the bloat. On one hand I want to cut the bloat, yet I hesitate to actually do so for fear that doing so would open a can of worms. Not sure how to resolve the dilemma... or even if we can resolve it. Blueboar (talk) 14:45, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Italicization question

The League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) is the proper name of the a League of Legends league. Should the words "League of Legends", normally italicized because it is a video game title, still be italicized? Nearly no media outlets tend to use the italicized form for the LCS anywhere. It just looks odd because half of the title is italicized and the other half isn't.--Prisencolinensinainciusol (talk) 20:47, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles#Series titles seems to indicate that the current partial italicization of the article title (League of Legends Championship Series) would be acceptable. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:03, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Agreed with Francis Schonken. We don't really care what "media outlets" are doing with regard to style nit-picks like this, because they're wildly inconsistent. A large proportion of them don't even italicize game titles, while others italicize all software titles including non-games, and others use quotation marks instead of italics, and whatever. MOS/AT's collective goal is just consistent presentation in Wikipedia, not siding with any particular off-Wiki style camp.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:15, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Just to give you a contrary view on Policy, which ends up with the same result... Consistency is a goal, but it is also topic specific. We absolutely do indeed care what "media outlets" (and other sources) do... If an overwhelming majority of sources present a specific name using a style that is contrary to our guidance, COMMONNAME would indicate consistently making an exception to our style guidance for that specific name.
However, in this case (as SMC notes) the sources are all over the place regarding italics , and no particular stylization standing out as being overwhelmingly more COMMON than the others. Therefor, we would not be justified in making this an exception to MOS guidance. (I agree that MOS guidance indicates that we should use partial italics). Blueboar (talk) 20:15, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
The Daily Dot is one of the few sources do use formal italicization for video game titles and they seem to use the italicization in League of Legends Championship Series. Recently, they seem to be using the name in full, opting to just say League Championship Series (not a proper noun), or just LCS. Interesting.--Prisencolinensinainciusol (talk) 22:07, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
Don't just look at one or two sources... look at all of them (or at least lots and lots of them). Try to see if there is a distinct majority one way or the other. If you can detect one, then you may have a better case for arguing that this should be an exception to the MOS. Otherwise, no. Blueboar (talk) 23:10, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

RfC on porn star article titles: (pornographic actress)/(pornographic actor) or (actress)/(actor)?

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pornography#RfC: Should a person who has appeared in exclusively pornographic films be described as "(actor/-tress)" or "(pornographic actor/-tress)"? Rebecca1990 (talk) 00:13, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Large RM on decapitalization

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Talk:Lindy Hop#Requested moves of the remaining inconsistent dance-related articles, 27 June 2015  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:36, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Abuse by abbreviations

This rule should be updated because some mainstream people (such as Joseph McGinty Nichol) started to abuse naming with abbreviations, and it causes a pollution of the Wikipedia article namespace as well as the English language.

As nycmstar put it on the talk page for the article on Mr. Nichol, "Elton John and Madonna [...] both do not result in new case-sensitive words added to the English language."

Also, should Wikipedia take lead in avoiding the pollution - by using the real name in the absence of a stage name that is case-insensitive and includes at least one vowel - it could be a positive example for other sites, writers and editors to follow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Naxa (talk • contribs)

  • I might agree with this, except I can't be sure my interpretation is correct. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:13, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose rewrite of policy based on one contentious example. If you have a problem with McG as a page name, take it to WP:RM (the discussion in Talk:McG/Archives/2015#Naming appears stale but shows the article title issue to be too contentious for a page move without RM). If such RM would be successful and fairly unanimous we can see about a policy or guideline update later, but I believe we'd need a lot more examples of similar cases before this can affect guidance (in short: we don't write policy just for a single case of applicability, the current policy is long and complex enough with a lot of guidance on issues that have a fairly broad applicability). --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:27, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
    • Examples:
      • P!NK redirecting to Pink (singer) is already covered by WP:AT#Article title format.
      • Expanding MNM (radio) to a non-acronym version seems undesirable.
      • Case sensitive stage names without a vowel include QT (musician), Drs. P, Mr. T – don't see where these should be moved according to the new rule proposal.
      • Le Corbusier was not by far composed of English words before being introduced and used as pseudonym. Don't see what "was an English word before" has to do with anything. eBay was a "new case-sensitive word added to the English language", and danah boyd introduces two "new case-sensitive words added to the English language", what does that have to do with anything? More examples: Cher, k.d. lang, and the above-mentioned Drs. P.
    Oppose rulecruft that would be written as to either "only" apply to the contentious McG example, or, written more broadly, would affect page names that don't need changing.
    Please add more examples if you know of any, tx. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:02, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
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