Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions

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[edit] Use Engish words

Someone needs to check the examples rather more carefully a Google search on "Edvard Benes" (there is a bug in Google's search returns, one has to go to the last page returned to find the real numbers):

  • Web 368 of 368 English pages for "Edvard Beneš" -"Edvard Benes" -wikipedi
  • Web 571 of about 11,700 English pages for -"Edvard Beneš" "Edvard Benes" -wikipedia.
  • Books 351 - 360 of 602 on "Edvard Beneš" -Edvard-Benes.
  • Books 461 - 467 of 467 on -"Edvard Beneš" "Edvard Benes".
  • Scholar 321 - 321 of 321 for "Edvard Beneš" -"Edvard Benes" (a number (most?) of these are not in English)
  • Scholar 511 - 515 of 515 for -"Edvard Beneš" "Edvard Benes".

I have not checked the others names, but I think any page that is listed in Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Use English words should reflect English usage! --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:15, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

And PamD made a small change after your change, Philip. Guys, one of the things we're focused on currently at style guidelines and a few policy pages (this would be a likely one) is to get input from a lot of different people, in the hope that we can get some stability in style guidelines. So, thanks for the example, Philip. But this is a policy page. WP:BRD doesn't apply. The top infobox says, "Before editing this page, please make sure that your revision reflects consensus." Wasn't the point of those examples to show that we sometimes keep diacritical marks, even though that looks foreign to us? Have you guys seen a pattern that leads you to believe that there's a consensus now for stripping diacriticals? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:08, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
It has nothing to do with accent marks and everything to do with using examples were there is a clear common usage. Most of the words with accent marks do not make good examples because often the usage is not clear cut. Using lots of examples with accent marks implies that is in the WP:UE guideline as somehow being more correct than not using accent marks. It is not. What the guideline says is use the most common English spelling. Names should only have accent marks if thy are more common than the word without in verifiable reliable sources. Equally names should only not use accent marks if they are more common than words with accent marks in verifiable reliable sources. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 22:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
For whatever reason (probably coding), English publications do not ordinarily use š. Based on a search, the English name usage are ranked as:
  1. Edvard Benes (1)
  2. Eduard Benes (2)
  3. Edouard Benes (3)
  4. Edward Benes (4)
  5. President Benesch (5)
  6. Edvard Beneš (6)
  7. Eduard Beneš (7)
GregManninLB (talk) 16:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, sorry, perhaps I should have joined in conversation here instead. I cured one aspect of the change which seemed unhelpful (Madrid as an example - as far as I know there's only one way to spell it), but didn't fix the other problem - omitting cases where we do use diacriticals in English. Google searches are likely to under-represent diacriticals: many writers on the web don't know/care how to find them. http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide is a better guide to usage, at least in UK English. Málaga might be a good example. PamD (talk) 06:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
It is policy to use common Engish names if names are not usually spelt with accent marks then neither should Wikipedia given the constraint we use WP:V reliable sources and not just blog pages etc. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 22:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I've added that to my list of style guidebooks. Good call on Madrid. I often rely on Google searches, but I agree with you, diacriticals are not going to be properly represented on Google searches. I'm not sure what the best examples would be, I'll go ask over at WT:FAC. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
École Polytechnique massacre and Søren Kierkegaard are both FAs, so presumably there's consensus for the diacriticals, I asked at WT:FAC. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
See below Søren Kierkegaard may be an FA but it is not clear what the name should be so it is best not to use it as a naming examle. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 22:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Even thoughMadrid is cited in WP:UE, I don't think it adds anything helpful to this page: there is no choice to be made. The original format, contrasting a series of examples using diacriticals with others using anglicised forms, was helpful. If we are going with the current model, I'd rather see Málaga as the "local form" example instead of Madrid, as it illustrates the fact that we use diacriticals in article names where this is standard English usage (not necessarily as shown on the web by Google). PamD (talk) 10:47, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Just to illustrate that Google doesn't reflect accepted English usage: there are 1.2 million hits for "Charlotte Bronte" but only 0.3 million for "Charlotte Brontë". Britannica and Oxford dictionary of world history etc all use "Beneš" but he is variously "Edvard" and "Eduard"; the British Library catalogue at http://catalogue.bl.uk goes for "Beneš, Edvard". PamD (talk) 18:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, if I could ask a favor, could I take a week off from this? I'm still interested, but I'm snowed under with wiki-stuff. No one responded at WT:FAC regarding École Polytechnique massacre and Søren Kierkegaard, so either of those probably has consensus as a demonstration of diacriticals; I'll revert back to the long-standing example, but replacing Beneš with Søren Kierkegaard, because I don't get enough online hits in references such as dictionaries to make Beneš an easy call, and there are so many other easy calls. PBS hasn't made an argument in support of his removing diacriticals, that I have noticed ... have you, PBS? On another subject, notice that I had to strike out my "BRD doesn't apply" above, based on a current thread at WP:VPP, but the plain meaning of the infobox still holds. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I did no pick the names at random (as seems to be the case with Dank55 choice. I picked words used as examples in the more detailed guideline WP:UE. I have now included some wording from that guideline to explain why those three words were chosen. As for the choice that Dank55 made. See Søren Kierkegaard

  • web 831 - 838 of about 136,000 English pages for Søren-Kierkegaard -Soren-Kierkegaard -wikipedia. (last page 84)
  • web 821 - 829 of about 234,000 English pages for -Søren-Kierkegaard Soren-Kierkegaard -wikipedia. (last page 83)
  • book 489 of 499 on Soren-Kierkegaard -Søren-Kierkegaard. (last page 49)
  • book 421 of 441 on Søren-Kierkegaard -Soren-Kierkegaard. (last page 43)
  • scholar 971 - 980 of about 2,310 for -Soren-Kierkegaard Søren-Kierkegaard (last page 98) but many of these are foreign language papers from page 83 onwards.
  • Scholar 981 - 990 of about 4,570 for Soren-Kierkegaard -Søren-Kierkegaard (last page 99) butmany of these are foreign language papers from page 86 onwards.

Google seems to have a bug it its counter that means it is best to go to the last page to see what the real number returned is -- or it is not a bug and they do not return all the pages that are in the search. In this case it is not at all clear what is the most common usage and as such it is not a good example to use. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 22:36, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

PamD you wrote above I'd rather see Málaga as the "local form" example instead of Madrid, as it illustrates the fact that we use diacriticals in article names where this is standard English usage (not necessarily as shown on the web by Google). How do you prove that Málaga and not Malaga "is standard English usage"?
  • scholar: about 19,500 for -Málaga Malaga Spain.
  • Scholar: about 14,400 for Málaga -Malaga Spain.
  • Books 1 - 10 of 2020 on -Málaga Malaga Spain
  • Books 1 - 10 of 1065 on Málaga -Malaga Spain
These numbers will shrink dramatically if one looks at the last page returned but it does suggest that Málaga is not a good example to use as there is probably no clear usage.. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 22:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I chose it as an example because it's in the Guardian Style Guide http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide and I take that as current English usage. My example on Charlotte Brontë above shows how unreliable Google is in showing whether diacriticals are standard English usage: even on Google Scholar there are three times as many without the diacritical, yet I believe that this reflects technical problems getting text onto the web rather than English usage! PamD (talk) 23:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Why do you believe Charlotte Brontë is common English usage and not just an affectation used by some people? Why put into the guidelines examples that are not clear cut? Why include examples like Málaga instead of Madrid? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:33, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
WP:MOS#Foreign terms says, "Use anglicized spellings; native spellings are an optional alternative if they use the English alphabet. The choice between anglicized and native spellings should follow English usage (Besançon, Edvard Beneš and Göttingen, but Nuremburg, role, naive, and Florence). In particular, diacritics are optional, except where English overwhelmingly uses them, whether for disambiguation or for accurate pronunciation (résumé, café)." WP:UE#Modified letters says: "Wikipedia does not decide what characters are to be used in the name of an article's subject; English usage does." and "Beware of over-dramatising these issues: as an example Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles) may be mentioned, which, as a side-effect, regulated use of diacritics regarding Ireland-related articles – peacefully – before, during and after an extensive dispute on the question of diacritics in 2005, e.g. Inishmore, not Inis Mór; Tomás Cardinal Ó Fiaich, not Tomas Cardinal O'Fiaich". Perhaps this is being over-analyzed here. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Replying to question re Charlotte Brontë: Britannica and Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for starters, as well as long-established WP article where no-one appears ever to have tried to move or challenged the name... you could always try, and I'll sit back and watch the fur fly! Do you have a WP:RS which uses "Bronte", other than web sites which are affected by technical problems? PamD (talk) 07:05, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Let me make myself clear. I am in favour of common English usage (in verifiable reliable sources), and if you read the recent debate in the section GoodDay or the Croatians on Talk WP:UE you will see that I specifically mention Ireland under the National varieties of English. I did not ask to move "Charlotte Brontë" what I asked "Why do you believe Charlotte Brontë is common English usage and not just an affectation used by some people?" All you have done is mention two books out of the total set of books that does not show that it is not an affectation used by some people. If on the other hand you had pointed to a Google Book search, then it would have been clear that it was more than an affectation used by some people.
But nice as it is to debate generalities with you, lets get back to the sentence in the guideline we are discussion. My point is that it is better to include examples where there is no debate over the common English usage rather than words like Málaga where it is not clear that that spelling is the most common English spelling. I hope that the additions to the sentence explaining the three options makes it clear and is acceptable to you. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
For my part, I have never seen a reasonably printed book use anything other than Charlotte Brontë, and I would be astounded to see one use anything else. It was indeed an affectation, but it was her father's affectation, and his children used it consistently. So do modern sources. 23:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  • That PBS jibs at following the Oxford DNB does astound me. It is the standard work of reference on its field. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Septentrionalis one swallow do not a summer make. See my remark "Let me make..." above. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 05:50, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
(left) All the sources at Charlotte Brontë use Brontë; so do 95% of the titles including her name at the university collection where I checked that we were spelling the titles correctly. This is not a single swallow, and does make a summer. One dissentient, however, does not make policy; is there anyone else who agrees with PBS on this matter? There are several who disagree in this discussion alone. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
I think we are arguing at cross purposes. My point is that it is better to include examples where there is no debate over the common English usage rather than words like Málaga/Malaga where it is not clear what the common usage in reliable sources is. It can not be beyond the wit of the editors of this page to choose names that used accent marks (or not) and are clearly the most common usage in reliable sources in English otherwise the examples contradicts the text. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 14:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Charlotte Brontë was introduced to illustrate that Google searches can produce results which differ from standard English usage. I didn't expect that the form I consider to be standard usage would be called an affectation! But yes, let's find some examples which do use diacriticals and can be agreed on (will that be possible?) as standard English usage. How about the three original examples of Besançon, Edvard Beneš and Göttingen? PamD (talk) 14:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Or Charlotte Brontë, as a substitute for one of them? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
I woulodn't have thought the average reader would have heard of any of the three originals - what about Café as a well known and obvious example? Abtract (talk) 14:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
It's been disputed at WT:MOS; you may have to go into the archives. The problem here is that any extremely common word will have been anglicized quite often, but we still need guidance about Besançon.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Is Galápagos Islands any use? (Guardian style guide agrees with Wikipedia title choice) PamD (talk) 14:40, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
I suspect, however, that it has the same problems as Malaga. Our article and the Guardian's style may both be obeisances to Ecuadorean usage. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:53, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

We really need to write somewhere prominent that Google results about diacritic use are almost largely meaningless due to the restrictions of the optical character recognition algorithm they employ. In any search there are so many false positives and omissions that any numerical comparisons are spurious. For example PBS's search to pick out cases of Soren and excluding Søren. Of the first five results we can see the text of, four use Søren on the title (Y, Y, Y, Y, N). OK, so maybe the OCR doesn't work on the title (never mind that this is the spelling people might actually remember most), but it even happens in the text - Søren gets Googlified as S0ren, Søren OCR'ed as Seren, text says Søren, OCR says Soren, OCR gives and f1nally SAren Kierkegaard - sometimes it even struggles with English! The 148 results for University of D0sseldorf tells us nothing about English usage and likewise neither do the above searches for Kierkegaard. You can clean up your results to be meaningful: you must first go through the results weeding out the false positives (and these are not rare - in my check they were the majority of results above) and then secondly try and perform an exhaustive search for all combinations Google might have OCR'ed the diacritic as (eg for ł try t, 1, l, k...) to avoid missing out large numbers of cases where an English writer did use the diacritic but Google has morphed it into something that you might not search for. However, it might be better to just admit Google is not up to the job on this one and try a more reliable method. Knepflerle (talk) 12:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Added to WP:UE accordingly. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:11, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Doubt it'll be the last time it'll have to be pointed out, but it's a welcome start! Knepflerle (talk) 18:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
As an amusing non-diacritic aside, this is a far more extreme example (thankfully!) than most... any guesses what "A8-SI02TOBS TO BIHXS HAKTTVACTTTBXNG-' COMPAHY" means? Answer here. (Clue - it's not L33t!) Knepflerle (talk) 18:27, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Interesting as the diversion over OCR is, are we now satisfied that the examples given are commonly spelt this way: Besançon, Søren Kierkegaard and Göttingen? If so how has it been determined? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Any objection to removing the style sidebar?

It might confuse people into thinking this page is a style guideline...it's not, it's policy. I'll post this question on a few non-style-guideline pages, and if there's no objection, I'll remove it from all non-style-guideline pages. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:08, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Move Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to Mahatma Gandhi

According to WP:Naming Conventions, it would be best to move the article to Mahatma Gandhi, as this is the common name for the person in India and abroad. N0 one calls him Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. People call him Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi is appropriate because we use Bill Clinton to refer to William Jefferson Clinton and Le Corbusier to refer to Charles-Édouard Jeanneret. Nikkul (talk) 23:15, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-[National Sentiment] Guidelines

I've been editing the anti-Americanism article. I've been looking at some other anti-national sentiment articles, that were mentioned in the (archived) Talk pages of the article. They all tend to push POV on political matters. The anti-Japanese article, for example, has a section on whaling protests, calling the opposition to whaling racism against Japanese [1]. Meanwhile, the anti-Americanism article cites a protest against a US military base, in the wake of Marines raping a child, as an example of anti-Americanism. (The article has a "Discrimination" sidebar that comes and goes, and includes anti-Americanism in the same category as racism, slavery, and genocide.) All of this is interpreting and labeling the views of other people and societies, often negatively, on political matters. Usually, an "anti-XYZ" term has a pejorative connotation, implying bias. However, people do sometimes self-identify as anti-American.

Wikipedia should not label people as anti-[national sentiment]. It should discuss the fact that people have opinions about anti-Americanism, and discuss people who self-identify as such. That can be neutral. Other labeling--anti-Mexican sentiment (the article suggests concern with illegal immigration is prejudice against Mexicans [2]....), anti-Japeanese sentiment, etc--is just POV pushing, usually with a negative innuendo, often about living people and cultures.

A related policy: Naming conventions (identity) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_%28identity%29

I propose anti-[nationality] labeling following the same guidlelines, pretty much for the same reasons. From that page:

Where there is doubt, aim for neutrality.

  • Some terms are considered pejorative, or have negative associations, even if they are quite commonly used. Even though people may use these terms themselves, they may not appreciate being referred to by such terms by others (for example, faggot, nigger, tranny). Note that neutral terminology is not necessarily the most common term — a term that the person or their cultural group does not accept for themselves is not neutral even if it remains the most widely used term among outsiders. Life.temp (talk) 23:53, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Airplane Accidents and Crashes

The talk page for Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 contains a debate about the inclusion of airliner names in mid-air collision articles. In this article is an entry about the collision between Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 and DHL Flight 611. However, though most mid-air collision articles feature year and location to identify the collision (for collision between two commercial airliners as opposed to collisions between one commercial airliner and one general aviation aircraft, which has the name of only the commerical airliner), there is no accepted norm in Wikipedia. Thus, I am requesting a naming convention to be created for Aviation Accidents, and more importantly, mid-air collisions. --Vreddy92 (talk) 01:23, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Naming conventions (Burmese)

Please come over to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Burmese) and state whether or not you would like to approve our naming conventions. We don't have many, so it won't take much of your time. Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 15:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Really, we won't bite. Kaldari (talk) 17:11, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Provinces of Ecuador

Should the name of each of the Provinces of Ecuador include the extra marks, such as ñ, á, etc. The CIA world factbook list the 24 provinces without any extra marks, as in: Azuay, Bolivar, Canar, Carchi, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, El Oro, Esmeraldas, Galapagos, Guayas, Imbabura, Loja, Los Rios, Manabi, Morona-Santiago, Napo, Orellana, Pastaza, Pichincha, Santa Elena, Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas, Sucumbios, Tungurahua, Zamora-Chinchipe. Thanks. GregManninLB (talk) 00:42, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] indexation

Where can I find out about title qualifiers, e.g. Article Title (qualifier)? dorftrottel (talk) 18:18, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

They're called disambiguators in Wikipediese. See Wikipedia:Disambiguator. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:51, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is this acceptable?

There are two songwriter-guitarists with the name Al Anderson: Al Anderson (NRBQ) and Al Anderson (The Wailers). However, I'm not sure if this naming convention is acceptable. Would it be more acceptable if they were Al Anderson (rock musician) and Al Anderson (reggae musician), respectively, or is the existant naming just fine? Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 17:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Difficult to disambiguate: some examples. In view of that, both Al Anderson (NRBQ) and Al Anderson (The Wailers) appear acceptable to me. Al Anderson (rock musician) and Al Anderson (reggae musician) might be acceptable too, though. Guidance has no straightforward answer here, I'm afraid: it comes down to a consensus of editors, basing themselves on general principles like broad recognisability of the disambiguator, KISS, etc. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
The reggae one already has "reggae, rock" as his genres in the infobox. What happpens if NRBQ then have a reggae phase? The NRBQ one should have a disam hatnote, like the Wailers one, then we're sorted. Johnbod (talk) 02:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Diacritics in tennis

(also posted at VPP) I'm not sure I can fully keep up with everything that's going on regarding moves of tennis players, but the main discussion seems to be here. The question is whether foreign tennis players' names should include diacritics. In any case I think we badly need a general policy on such matters, so it isn't decided separately (and likely inconsistently) for every sport or particular line of activity.--Kotniski (talk) 08:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Current guidance: WP:UE#Modified letters (that is, after a lot of rejected guidance, including Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics) - unless for those tennis players that are also Nordic demi-gods, in which case Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Norse mythology) might apply ;) --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:03, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] numbers and dates

I propose that exceptions be allowed to Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Numbers and dates: if a particular number is most likely to be typed into a search box by an ordinary user to mean something other than the date, then the article whose title is the number by itself should be a disambiguation page, and the year should be moved to [[number (year)]]. Specifically, I propose that the question, "Ask yourself: When readers enter a given term in the Wikipedia search box and pushes "Go", what article would they most likely be expecting to view as a result?" (as mentioned at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Deciding to disambiguate) should be used not only to decide whether to disambiguate at all, but also be used to decide whether an article whose title is a number by itself should be a disambiguation page or a page about the year. There is a legitimate argument against, though, in that many Wikipedia articles currently have dates that are wikified in such a way that if you click on the year it sends you to the article for that year.

See also talk:911#requested move (2nd nomination). 69.140.152.55 (talk) 16:17, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

With the current state of the MediaWiki software there's a technical reason why, currently, this is not very well possible. That reason is explained here: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Autoformatting and linking (autoformatting of full dates according to user preferences, which currently would be broken if a year has a page name represented by something else than simply a number). There is a bug report to fix the whole "date autoformatting" feature of the MediaWiki software, currently discussed (again) at WP:VPP#Date links suck. - note: "All of our attempts to get the developers at Bugzilla to decouple autoformatting from linking have met a dead end. Brion Viber there doesn't seem at all keen to push things forward, despite a petition I organised more than a year ago with nearly 90 WPian signatories (I'm quite sure I could raise many hundreds now). See HERE (Comment 35 ff)." - where User:Brion Vibber is the chief software developer.
Anyway: let that not stand in your way to add a suggestion for a solution to the problem of "non-year numbers" as you mentioned above to the bug report linked to in the quote above.
PS, these things should better be discussed at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (numbers and dates) - but since a pointer was placed on that page to here, I suppose it's OK here too. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:53, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Strong oppose. In addition to problems on specific articles (relating to date autoformatting, etc.), this would break many of the year, decade, and century templates. (Probably not any millennium templates, but....). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:36, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
This could probably be worked around with a maintained {{year article}} template in those navigation templates, which would make {{year article|911}} point to 911 (year), but that template would be used in (at least) all year, decade, century, and millennia articles, so each change would force redisplay of those articles. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:40, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. I think this is an area in which we do need to be systematic, rather than case by case, ie all undisambiguated integer article names should be used for the same subject area. But there are many possible subject areas.
Personally, I'd use the undisambiguated article names as the names of the articles on integers, so for example 3 would be the name of the article now at 3 (number), but then I'm a mathematics enthusiast. My second choice would be to use the undisambiguated names for diambiguation pages, so then 3 would be the name of what is now at 3 (disambiguation). Years CE, as currently, would probably be my third choice, a very poor third at best but acceptable, and it's working well and it's a lot of trouble to change it.
Some of this trouble we can predict, for example many millions of external links would be broken, but I'm sure we will also find problems we haven't even guessed with a change of this size. Andrewa (talk) 01:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I would support this, if the technical issues can be overcome without excessive effort. For low numbers, some other meaning, such as the integer, is probably the most likely, and in any case 6 is no more significant than 6 BC. Johnbod (talk) 02:22, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Comment: I want to mention that the scope of my proposal is rather narrow; it only affects numbers that are "most likely to be typed into a search box by an ordinary user to mean something other than the date." Also, the reason for the proposal was to allow only 911 to be moved. There was a proposal to move 911 before, but this failed the first time was because of this policy, hence my proposal to change it. However, then I realized that emergency numbers are different in each country, and so the move-request has sort of snowballed. If WP:IAR would allow 911 (either by itself or in addition to a select few other emergency phone numbers) to move without changing the policy, then go right ahead. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 05:52, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
That may be the intention, but the effect of this proposal as you've described it above, if adopted, would be to rename many other articles as well. I think there needs to be more work done, both on the exact wording of the proposal and on estimating how many articles would be affected by it. And I suspect it won't be adopted even then, but I could be wrong. Andrewa (talk) 11:13, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Agree that case by case basis would be very messy here. Perhaps if only four-digit number article names are for years? But even so, the workload sounds extremely heavy; who will do all the work? -- Jao (talk) 11:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm particularly concerned that the criteria for this proposed case by case basis are unclear. The intention was to affect only one article. That has now become nine. I think this underlines the difficulty in determining whether a number is most likely to be typed into a search box by an ordinary user to mean something other than the date. Andrewa (talk) 14:00, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose - reasons given are insufficient to move away from the status quo; and allowing exceptions simply opens the door to pov and tendentious arguments ... imho. Abtract (talk) 12:58, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Conflict between this page and WP:NC-KO

Hello. I just noticed a conflict between a guideline on this page and one at Korean naming conventions. The example used on this page for "People" is the UN Secretary General. It states his name should follow Western name order, "Ki-moon Ban." The method outlined in Wikipedia's Korean naming conventions is the exact opposite, "Ban Ki-moon". In my experience, it is this latter method that is used on nearly all Wikipedia articles, both in titles and contents. In fact, it's the method used for Mr. Ban's article; "Ki-moon Ban" is just a redirect. This conflict of info could be quite confusing, especially for new editors or those without experience editing articles about Korean subjects. :) Thanks for your time. --hamu♥hamu (talk) 16:02, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood - the example is given as an example of the problem, not of the solution - note it gives both methods. Editors are directed to Korean naming conventions for the solution. --GRuban (talk) 19:58, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Oh I did misunderstand! I see some rewording has been done. Thanks so much for addressing this. :) --hamu♥hamu (talk) 23:58, 12 June 2008 (UTC)