Talk:OCR (examination board)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus. JPG-GR (talk) 01:53, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

According to one user, I have to discuss why I want to I want to follow Wikipedia policy before doing it! Apparently, following policy is 'controversial'. (I really hope no one shows this user be bold or they'd really freak!)

So, here goes:

I suggest moving OCR (examination board) to Oxford Cambridge and RSA Examinations.

The reasons for this are blindingly obvious, but I shall go through them anyway: the article cannot be at OCR because that already exists as a disambiguation page. Therefore, some form of disambiguation of this page is needed. The rules for abbreviations clearly state that the article should reside at its spelled-out name:

'Articles should be at the spelled-out phrases and the acronym should be a disambiguation article providing descriptive links to all of them. See, for example, AJAR, which disambiguates between Australian Journal of Agricultural Research and African Journal of AIDS Research.'

In this case, the spelled-out name is 'Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations' (reference), so that's where the article should be, with OCR being a disambiguation page (as it already is). The most common use of OCR, optical character recognition, already follows this convention. Furthermore, the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) and Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC) articles follow exactly the same convention. The only controversial aspect is why this article was put at such a stupid name in the first place.

So, does anyone object to me following established Wikipedia policy or can I just get on with it? - Green Tentacle (talk) 22:41, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

"(I really hope no one shows this user be bold or they'd really freak!)" - Thanks, but let's get rid of the sarcasm, m'kay? Being an administrator, I'm well, well aware of the policies of Wikipedia, and for your information, MoS for abbreviations is not policy, but instead a guideline - as clearly stated at the top of the page, "Editors should follow it, except where common sense and the occasional exception will improve an article". With that in mind, I believe this article makes more sense here, at OCR (examinations board), because that is precisely what the company is known as, just as the BBC is known as the BBC and not the British Broadcasting Coorperation, or AQA is known as AQA, and not the Assesments and Qualifications Allience (and depending on the outcome of this discussion, I will be suggesting that said article is moved to AQA). Now, it is standard practice on Wikipedia to discuss contraversial changes before bulldozing them through, and this is no exception. We shall wait a while for this discussion to progress before blindly ignoring those that disagree with you and moving regardless. Finally, just to highlight your misunderstanding: "So, does anyone object to me following established Wikipedia policy or can I just get on with it?" - there is no policy involved here, only guidelines. _TalkIslander 22:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hold on, I think I've got it! It's not a 'policy', it's a 'guideline' and it's controversial to follow a 'guideline'. Oh, thanks!

I took a moment to look at warning on the move page and the page it linked to. I note with surprise that reason number two is 'the title does not follow the wiki's naming conventions'. Silly me for following the instructions again!

Seriously (seeing as you don't like sarcasm), I take your point about the acronym being the common name and if OCR and AQA were only exam boards, you might have an argument for putting them at OCR and AQA, but this is not the case. Unlike BBC, OCR and AQA stand for lots of things, of which the exam boards are not the dominant meanings, so they cannot be at simply OCR or AQA: some form of title disambiguation is needed. Therefore, any benefit of putting the names at their acronyms is lost. Most people who type the names in are going to arrive at the articles via the disambiguation page. This means we have to consider how best to disambiguate the name. Here, it becomes obvious that Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations should be used, as it follows the guidelines. Yes, the guidelines say to break them if it improves the article, but having it at OCR (examination board) doesn't improve it because no-one's going to type that in and provides less information than the spelled-out name.

The reason I moved the page twice was because I thought you'd misunderstood why I moved the page, so I did it again, with an explanation. I didn't realise then that you were an administrator and knew everything.

Finally, a question to consider. What's more controversial: following a guideline or breaking it? - Green Tentacle (talk) 23:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vote

Move the page to Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations, as per the Wikipedia guidelines

1. Green Tentacle (talk)

Move the page to OCR (examination board)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.