Wikipedia:Naming conventions (thorn)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This Wikipedia page is currently inactive and is retained primarily for historical interest. Per Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines: "A historical page is any proposal for which consensus is unclear, where discussion has died out for whatever reason. Historical pages also include any process no longer in use, or any non-recent log of any process. Historical pages can be revived by advertising them. "
If you want to revive discussion regarding the subject, you should seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump.

[proposed] convention: it is not a good idea to use the thorn character (Þ/þ) in Wikipedia page names, except for redirect pages.

1 Rationale
2 What to do
- 2.1 Articles regarding the Þ/þ character
- 2.2 Article titles containing words that in their original version would contain Þ or þ
3 Exceptions
4 See also

[edit] Rationale

The basic "naming conventions" principle refers to recognisability, as formulated per naming conventions policy:

Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

Þ/þ fails this recognisability criterion for many native English speakers (not to mention a large body of EAL visitors of wikipedia).

In article text this is less a problem while there the character can be linked to Þ or þ, which both redirect to the Thorn (letter) article.

[edit] What to do

[edit] Articles regarding the Þ/þ character

For articles regarding the Þ/þ character, replace the character by "thorn" or "thorn (letter)" in the article title. Examples:

Thorn (letter)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (thorn) (this guideline)

Provide redirects:

At least Þ and þ for the first example above;
At least Wikipedia:Naming conventions (þ) for the second example above.

[edit] Article titles containing words that in their original version would contain Þ or þ

For articles where Þ or þ is used as part of a word:

try to find the most common transliteration of the word, not using Þ or þ

Example: Thor for the Norse/Germanic deity.
If that fails, replace "Þ" by "Th" and "þ" by "th".

Example: Both "thane" and "thegn" are common renderings of the Old English þegn - the Wikipedia article is at thegn (þ→th - e→e - g→g - n→n).