Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (precision)

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• Adding context to article titles: eg American Airlines flight 11 (WTC attack)
  • +: makes more sense if you see a title in recent changed
  • +: more descriptive
  • Patrick, Tannin
• Keeping titles as common as possible (but no more)
  • +: Context can be given within the article
  • +: searches should pick up info from the body of an article, or from category pages
  • +: makes linking easier
  • +: makes our naming conventions clear
  • mav, Martin, Tannin

(Yeah, yeah, I just contradicted myself. I guess it comes down to having the simplest possible title that is not misleading. It all depends on the particular example. Take Korean Air flight KAL-007. That one is not confusing, because it was major headline news in its own right. American Airlines flight 11, on the other hand, was just yet another part of the WTC attack, and should be named that way. Tannin)

Contents 1 mobile phone 2 Capitalization differences (and apparent contradiction) 3 Shortcuts 4 Talk:Hirohito#RFC:_Appropriate_Emperor_Name 5 "By topic" secn and its sole subsecn, "Philosophy"

[edit] mobile phone

I've asked the same question on the talk page. Shouldn't the title be mobile telephone? Cacophony 19:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

If you think Mobile phone should be renamed to Mobile telephone you can take that up at WP:RM - the procedure for renaming with approval is explained on that page.

Note however:

• There are approx. 25 times as many "google hits" for mobile phone as for mobile telephone;
• These two expressions are synonyms, without ambiguity (so not really "wikipedia:naming conventions (precision)" matter);
• You would need fairly good grounds to promote a page renaming against a clear google test result, as explained at wikipedia:naming conflict#Ambiguity persists;

If you think this a matter of British vs. American English (I didn't think so, Americans would say "cellular phone" I believe) - in that case best also have a look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English.

--Francis Schonken 20:30, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Close, but IME(xperience), cell phone predominates, cellular telephone is ponderously formal and proportionately rare, and cellular phone and cell telephone would be clear but otherwise unthinkable mixes of formality and informality.
--Jerzy•t 22:13, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization differences (and apparent contradiction)

I'm trying to sort out lame edit war at Iron maiden , and hoped to find the basis in this policy... and I found it less clear than desireable. The edit war in question revolves around the question where the iron maiden (torture device) should reside (see Talk:Iron maiden#Requested move). Having closed that RM, I concluded that the band is the primary topic for "iron maiden" (despite the older meaning of the phrase). Thus, "When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", what article would they realistically be expecting to view as a result?" dictates that iron maiden should redirect to the band.

I thought that having different articles at titles with slight capitalization difference is frowned upon (with possible exception of acronyms, like Pin vs. PIN). "Special" naming conventions like WP:NCF and WP:NCTV already state something similar, e.g:

When there is no risk of ambiguity or confusion with an existing Wikipedia article, let the title of the article be the same as the title of the film. But where it is the same as a subject in science, a novel, or whatever, unless the film title is the primary topic for that name, title the film article like this: Film Title (film).

However, this very page provides an opposite example: Red meat vs. Red Meat. I think that the latter title is inadequate, and that it should be moved to Red Meat (comic). But in general, I think this page should be clearer on the topic (should it?).

Thoughts? Duja► 07:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The conclusion obvious from the RM was that the band is the primary topic for Iron Maiden. I (continue to) disagree that it is the primary topic for iron maiden, which was not the subject of the RM anyway, and think this situation falls in the Red meat vs. red meat example. IMO, capitalization differences are fine for differentiating articles, especially since the article with the other capitalization can be easily handled with a hatnote. -- JHunterJ 11:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I have no particular opinion on my own (I'm not lazy to use Shift key) what is best. The common practice (as enshrined in WP:NCP and WP:NCTV) is to not differentiate on capitalization only, but it's not universal, as Red M/meat and Iron M/maiden demonstrate; however, those are exceptions rather than the rule. Another difference between the two is that the primary topic in red meat case is the meat, so the "lazy typist" will arrive there immediately by typing "red meat". However, the "lazy typist" (which is the band's fan likely to be< >;) ) would arrive to the torture device in the band's case.
There are actually two aspects to consider: internal linking (which is less of a problem, at least in iron maiden case, as any sane editor will title-case the wikilink to the band) and searching (which is the problem at hand, with "lazy typist" readers). Duja► 12:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I also have no aversion to the shift key. In this case, though, the failure of Iron maiden (torture device) to be moved to Iron maiden should have resulted in the retention of Iron maiden (torture device), Iron Maiden, and Iron maiden as a redirect to Iron maiden (disambiguation) -- at which point, the dab page should have been moved over the redirect, or a different discussion about whether this should continue to be an exception to the WP:NCP/WP:NCTV guidelines should have been held. I like Iron Maiden (I have a few of their albums) and don't have much affinity for iron maidens (never owned any), but the primary topic of "iron maiden" should be the device (IMO of course). Similar musical confrontations, without the benefit of being able to distinguish by caps: Muse vs. Muse (band), Madonna vs. Madonna (entertainer), although the fans were sure that the band or entertainer was the primary topic. -- JHunterJ 16:04, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Some other examples of titles where capitalization has been decided to be insufficient disambiguation are Lethal Injection (album) and Death Certificate (album). The former was recently moved from Lethal Injection, citing the latter as precedent. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Many typers mistakenly use the wrong case or type all in one case or another. Because of this, titles differentiated only by case should be disambiguated. In a two-word title, a case change means there is only one letter of differentiation — easy to make a mistake. If there are other variables such as periods/full-stops, these can fall outside of any guideline. —  AjaxSmack  22:22, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shortcuts

WP:NC(P) links here, and WP:NC (P) links to the naming conventions for people. Clearly we need more precision in our shortcuts. How should we straighten this out? Dekimasuよ! 09:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Hirohito#RFC:_Appropriate_Emperor_Name

An RFC on content related to this convention has been opened, comments are welcome. MBisanz ^talk 01:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "By topic" secn and its sole subsecn, "Philosophy"

The text of the secn & subsecn has been around "forever" essentially unchanged. If philosophy epitomizes the problems that all topic areas (not topics!) share, let's tweak the text and retitle the headings. If not, surely we have done the corresponding job elsewhere, sometime in the last 5 years, and we should move this text to that place, or to the place that for philosophy corresponds to that myriad of other places, and provide lks to all those places.
--Jerzy•t 21:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)