What's better: "History of X" or "Xsh history"? This is a dilemma that has plagued Biocrawlerns since the dawn of time. A new naming convention has been proposed to deal with this issue. See Biocrawler:Naming conventions (country-specific topics) for details. - Pioneer-12 12:38, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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Inactivity ?

In the "Links w/in Biocrawler Name-space" section of this talk page there are a lot of naming convention links listed. Why have they not been added to the wikipedia:naming conventions page ?
In the "Conventions under consideration" section there are some topics listed. For how long will they be under consideration, can't that section be merged totally with section 2 - "Other specific conventions". I don't see any major discussions happening on those topics anyway. Jay 05:13, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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Treaty of ..

Compare Treaty of London with Treaty of Madrid and Treaty of Paris. Two styles are in use:

, XXXX
- e.g. Treaty of London, 1359
(XXXX)
- e.g. Treaty of Paris (1259)

Is there a preferred style for this? --Cfailde 21:04, 2004 Oct 14 (UTC)

Personally, I prefer the parenthetical disambiguation form. Makes it easier to hide the date via the pipe trick if desired, for example if you want to include a wikified link to the date along with a link to the treaty. older≠wiser 21:14, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

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Article Titles

There's obviously a great deal of emphasis placed on ensuring similar articles follow a template; wickifying. However, what about article titles? This seems to be a problem widespread across Biocrawler, usually on lists of... articles, for example, the following all exist for the National Park articles:

List of National Parks in country
List of National Parks of country
National Parks of country
Country's National Parks

The same is true for football teams, rivers, and many more. This means for that many people assume a page doesnt exist because nothing appears when they type in the title that is used on other similar articles.

At the very least we should be activly encouraging users to insert redirects, but should be looking to wickify article titles.

Sorry to go on! rant over :P Grunners 14:17, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

See also Biocrawler:WikiProject Rivers, Biocrawler:WikiProject Protected Areas. Rmhermen 16:58, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Amen on consistent titling. I think every list should be entitled "List of X" myself, so as to clearly distinguish non-list articles on the same subject, but not everybody goes along. If there's an associated wikiproject, bring it up there, otherwise "be bold" and do your part to arrange things more sensibly. Stan 15:24, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Consistency is nice in theory, but it doesn't always make sense. National parks of Scotland is an article about National parks of Scotland, not a list of them. Since there are only two of them, and neither are true national parks, List of national parks of Scotland would not be a sensible title. Angela . 03:05, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

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Starting a title with the word The

Discussion moved to Biocrawler talk:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name).

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nd's, st's, th's

This article gets grotesquely spaced-out on my browser by all the superscripted 'nd's and 'th's in the main text. I can't find style for this issue, but I hope it can be discouraged. Any advice? Adhib

I don't see any need for superscripts. Maurreen 04:46, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't see the need either. However, there's no need to write out the number either, so plain "82nd" will suffice. Is there a way to change this, or is this the way the article came out? SujinYH 01:51, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

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Concepts attributed to multiple researchers

What is the proper style for articles about independently or jointly discovered properties? For example, the Hausdorff-Besicovitch dimension is credited to Felix Hausdorff and Abram Samoilovitch Besicovitch, but it is often called Hausdorff dimension. Which name should be used? It seems POV to favor Hausdorff over Besicovitch. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ (http://www.biocrawler.com/encyclopedia/User_talk:Eequor)]] 20:53, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I believe the general convention is to use the name by which something is most commonly known. Maurreen 06:54, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Indeed so. The "most-common-name" rule is the way to avoid POV in such cases. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 03:52, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

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Forbidden characters in page titles

Article says asterix (*) and ampersand (&) should not be used in a page title, but makes no mention of hash (#) and angle brackets (> and <). Biocrawler:Naming conventions (technical restrictions) in its excluded characters list makes no mention of * or &, and says #, > and < cannot be used. Who is right ? Jay 11:27, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Please excuse the gratuitous pedantry, but one of the symbols you speak of is called an 'asterisk', not an 'asterix (http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=asterix)'. --Smack 20:33, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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Hyphenated multiple modifiers

I moved Hardware random number generator to Hardware random-number generator, because the former usage is grammatically improper. It was then promptly moved back by User:Matt Crypto, who cited a Google test (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22hardware+random+number+generator%22&btnG=Search&meta=). Is there a policy on this kind of predominant yet ungrammatical usage? --Smack 20:33, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with you about using the hyphen. In my view, people sometimes misuse Google. Maurreen 05:54, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't have access to my books & papers at the moment, but have a look at Google Scholar, which indexes academic publications. Again, there is a strong trend not to include a hyphen: [1] (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22hardware+random-number+generator%22). — Matt Crypto 10:18, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Here a hyphen should be used as it makes the title unambiguous. I know it's about a generator of random numbers. Without the hyphen it could be a number generator that, for some reason, is random (maybe it's jerry-built or something). Although the tendency is for hyphens to disappear, they are often useful, particularly when dealing with multiple adjectives. Where they are useful, we should think of the reader, and keep them in. jguk 10:50, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Actually, the meaning that is meant is that it is a random "generator of numbers", rather than a generator of "random numbers" (using quotes to disambiguate). Contrast with pseudorandom number generator. It is the generators that are random or pseudorandom, not the numbers. For example, 3 isn't a random number, but the act of rolling a dice is a random number generator. So you'd probably want to hyphenate it "hardware random number-generator", if anything.

However, I do think we should follow the usage conventions of the academic literature. Most grammar rules have exceptions. — Matt Crypto 22:40, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

According to our article on randomness, I gather that randomness is a property of a collection of numbers. --Smack 17:54, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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Ohio school districts

I posted an item for discussion at Biocrawler talk:WikiProject U.S. special districts#Ohio school districts on what to name articles on our school districts. I'd appreciate Biocrawlerns looking at my query and posting comments there. PedanticallySpeaking 18:44, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

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Help naming Feline/Canine Diabetes article please

Hi all -- I have a new article to write, based on all the research I just had to do on Diabetes Mellitus in Cats and Dogs. (Yes I now have a diabetic cat, and there's a lot out there on the topic, but nothing on Biocrawler.) It's bigger than a section in the "Diabetes mellitus" article should be.

But what to call it?

I feel like the article would work best as a single article, as most of the information about dogs and cats is either common to both or has important contrasts between them. But the names that combine the articles just don't look very Biocrawler-like to me.

So should I write the article and leave the naming to a big discussion later?

Thanks in advance, Steve --Steverapaport 00:43, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I vote for "*Diabetes in cats and dogs". Just sounds better to me. Maurreen 05:31, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Diabetes in cats and dogs it shall be. Thanks! --Steverapaport 15:15, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I vote for putting in redirects, especially from the first two names. I'll go ahead and link to them all to make that easier. I've even got a few more: Feline Diabetes, Canine Diabetes, Diabetes in dogs, Diabetes in cats.--Joel 05:21, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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Naming convenion for manuscripts that have no name

An article about an illuminated manuscript was recently listed on VfD for having an "ugly" name. At the time that I created this article I believed that the manuscript had no name, so I created one using the library shelf number as a part of the title. That listing has prompted me to write a proposal for a naming convention for articles about manuscripts without names. The proposal can be found here. Any comments would be appreciated. Thank you. Dsmdgold 11:36, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

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Intactivist

I claim "intactivist" is wrongly named because:

Biocrawler:Naming conventions (adjectives) means it should be "intactivism" instead.

Biocrawler:Naming conventions (common names) means "intactivism" should be "genital integrity advocacy" instead.

Any "genital integrity advocacy" should be merged with the existing "genital integrity".

Opinions? —Ashley Y 23:02, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)

I agree, it should be merged and redirected. -Sean Curtin 06:21, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)

Oppose. - As a noun, intactivist does not fall under the naming convention for adjectives. The origin of the term intactivist (intact+activist) and the fact that it applies to a person, not a movement sets it apart from the term genital integrity. Johntex 01:05, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's worth noting here that activist redirects to activism. There's little that can be said at the -ist page that wouldn't also belong at the -ism page. -Sean Curtin 00:05, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Comment - I should point out in fairness that I created the original intactivist article. As far as I know that does not disqualify my vote, but I think it should be mentioned.. Since the article is new, I am sure more improvements will be made over time if we let it stand. Thank you. Johntex 01:08, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I Oppose the merge. The term is notable enough to remain the topic of an independent article. 65.200.8.178 02:04, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

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Ambiguous but seemingly unique names

A user, The Tom, has been changing the names of a number of articles and I am unsure whether or not I agree with his rationale. Mainly, he has been changing the name of political organizations which do not indiciate their jurisdiction in their official title. eg. He has changed the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform to Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform (British Columbia).

I am torn here as, to my knowledge, "Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform" is only used in British Columbia, however it could very easily be used elsewhere. So, my question is, should the article be called Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform or Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform (British Columbia)? See The Tom's edit history to find other examples of articles he has renamed in a similar fashion.

Also, please not, I do not mean the above as an attack on The Tom, I am just wondering whether this is the right way to go or not -- I am not sure. -- Jord 14:24, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The changes seem needless to me. Maurreen 15:53, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Apologies. In the case of the Citizens Assembly, I was clearing the ground for an article on the similarly-titled organization about to be set up in Ontario. -The Tom 18:04, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'd go even further. Even if the name is ambiguous, if we have only one article that fits that title, that article should sit under that title. For instance, if I write an article about a Joe Bloggs and no-one else has written an article about any other Joe Bloggs, that article should be under "Joe Bloggs". If another article gets written that also belongs under that same title, then some way of disambiguating it should be found. This could be by making "Joe Bloggs" into a disambiguation page, or by making "Joe Bloggs" about one of the (more famous) Joe Bloggses and adding at the top "<sm>this article is about Joe Bloggs, the widget-maker, for other people called Joe Bloggs see Joe Bloggs (politician), or Joe Bloggs (actor), or Joe Bloggs (disambiguation)</sm> or whatever.

To address the specific case in point, if The Tom is about to write about the Ontario Citizens Assemby, fair enough. If not, he should have left it where it is, jguk 00:29, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it's always quite so clear-cut. Especially with personal names, there may be other links to Joe Bloggs which are not the same as the one with the written article. Some judgement is required as to the relative notability of the various Joe Bloggs (if such an assessment is possible). In such a situation, if the Joe Bloggs with a written article is obviously more notable (or even if it is not clear, but it appears unlikely that the other Joe Bloggs will have an article written about them anytime soon), then I'd add a {{otheruses}} template to the top of the existing article and try to populate Joe Bloggs (disambiguation) with whatever basic information might be available about the others. If the existing Joe Bloggs article is only a stub, or if it is obvious that other Joe Bloggs are likely to be of comparable notability and there is a good chance there there would be an article created about them, then I'd be inclined to move the existing Joe Bloggs article to a disambiguated title and turn the Joe Bloggs page into a disambiguation page. Suppose for example, the existing Joe Bloggs article is a stubby entry about some a not terribly illustrious post-Civil War politician. And I happen to come to the link by clicking on a Joe Bloggs link for a not particularly notable 18th century British politician. And looking at What Links Here might reveal yet another Joe Bloggs, perhaps a 20th century Australian politician of no great significance. In such a case, I'd probably move the existing Joe Bloggs article to something like Joe Bloggs (American politician) and turn Joe Bloggs into a disambiguation page (and also change links in the articles to link to something link Joe Bloggs (British politician) and Joe Bloggs (Australian politician). 02:04, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

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Category:Insurance companies

Hi all. I am proposing to change the name of the category to "Insurers" and hence Insurance companies of the United Kingdom to Insurers of the United Kingdom, etc.. The reasons are (1) it's shorter; (2) it takes care of non-company insurers, such as partnerships or other structures, e.g., Lloyd's. --JuntungWu 12:21, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Not a good idea. Insurers of the United Kingdom sounds like those who insure the United Kingdom, not insurers who are in or insure risks in the United Kingdom. Also, apart from Lloyd's all insurers must be in corporate form (usually companies or friendly societies), so I'm not sure what the partnership reference is, jguk 13:08, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

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When the definition of a word is disputed

Sorry if this is addressed somewhere else, I haven't been able to find any guidelines for it. If you're creating a page about a word which can have different definitions, how do you decide which definition to use? For example, "vivisection" means experimenting on animals by cutting them in some dictionaries, but any kind of animal experimentin others. Should the "vivisection" page simply talk about cutting animals, or should it talk about all animal experiments? Should "vivisection" and "animal experiments" be seperate pages, or should they be merged?

I think handling differences in definitions depends on the situation, such as how much information Biocrawler has on each definition and how contentious different defintions are. But they should at least generally link to each other.

In this case, I think they should be different articles. Maurreen 12:05, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps it should go by the primary definition listed in Wiktionary, if there is one present. Miroku Sanna 12:29, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Here's a related question: what if a technical term is used slightly differently by different professions? In materials science, oil and water are the paradigm example of phase (matter) equilibrium, but a solid-state physicist assures me that, despite the stable boundary between these two domains of matter, they are actually the same phase (that is, both are liquid). Should I make a phase (materials science) or phase (engineering) page to cover material on the different usage? Complicating the situation is the fact that in 90% of the definition, we agree, so it would be like writing seperate articles on parallel (euclid) and parallel (projective). Also, I use the term "state of matter" to mean "phase" in the sense he uses it in, but he objects to this due to potential confusion with "thermodynamic state".--Joel 05:35, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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Question about preferred article title

I'm going to be starting an article on the Great Lakes Storm of 1913, and wanted to know in what form the title should be. (eg: 1913 Great Lakes Storm, Great Lakes storm of 1913, etc...) It's more often referred to simply as the Great Storm of 1913 (6 times to 1), would that be better? --brian0918 ™ 01:02, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, looking at Category:Weather, it looks like other similar articles are named something like "Great Lakes storm of 1913". older≠wiser 02:39, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

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Country and State Names

There is no stated convention on the naming of states or countries. For example for the second year running there is a edit war despute between people wanting to name Biocrawler titles in the format of:

State-Name ( Country-Name, State-type )

and those who wish to use

State-Name, Country

Can someone please clarify if there is a preferred Biocrawler format. Also what about the use of brackets, square brackets, angled brackets, etc.?.--Daeron 13:06, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm not aware of an explicit policy on this. But at the state/province level the practice I have seen more often is parenthetical disambiguation. I think the comma-stacked format arose as an EXCEPTION to the general convention of parenthetical disambiguation specifically for U.S. cities and has since become more widespread, but is generally limited to cities/towns, place names, or tertiary political divisions like counties.

There are examples of both types, though I believe the first is more common overall: Georgia (U.S. state), Salzburg (state), Luxembourg (province of Belgium), Konolfingen (district), Montana (region), Dobrich (region)

Or Córdoba Province, Argentina (although curiously the Córdoba (province) disambiguation page lists the link as Córdoba (Argentinan province)), Bolívar, Colombia

Browse Category:Lists of subnational entities for other samples.

Personally, my preference is for parenthetical disambiguation for the simple reason that pipe trick makes it just a little bit easier to automatically hide the parenthetical when typing a link, but really either form is just fine as far as I'm concerned. older≠wiser 14:18, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Could you email me about the type of pipe that you're thinking of. I'd suspect either format is equal for filtering needs.
I personally think the non-bracket format is more comfortable to read and type.--Daeron

See Help:Piped link#Automatic conversion of the wikitext (pipe trick) for info on the Pipe Trick. It simply means that you do not have to re-type the link after the pipe--the software automatically removes the parenthetical portion. older≠wiser 12:57, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

A fix may be to allow the "pipe trick" to work with commas as well? eg. [[Launceston, Tasmania|]] becomes [[Launceston, Tasmania|Launceston]] -- Chuq 21:07, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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"Naming Conventions" naming convention

I have found it misleading that Wikpedia: pages relating to conventions for the names of pages are entitled "Naming conventions". It would be less ambiguous to call them "Page-naming conventions". The ambiguity arises in the case of proper names. For example, the page Biocrawler:Naming conventions (city names) does not make clear that it refers to the conventions for the title of the page describing a city, rather than conventions for referring to the city in the body of other articles. On which note, where are the latter conventions to be found? Joestynes 04:26, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree.
I think there's a wikiproject for cities. Maurreen 06:26, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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Popularity measure

"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." In a case where a clear majority cannot be seen, what kind of sources should be used? How is one to measure this "majority"? Also, in a case a name that was prevalent is changed "officially", but obviously google hits or other searches return more (old) entries with previous names, what can be done to reduce ambiguity? The case especially became important with the case of the city "Calcutta", which was renamed (in English) to "Kolkata" by the Government of the West Bengal. A fairly heated dicussion is going on at the discussion page. -- Urnonav 06:36, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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Ambiguous adjectives

There is a new idea at Biocrawler talk:Naming conventions (ambiguous adjectives). If adopted, this would modify Biocrawler:Naming conventions (adjectives). -- Toby Bartels 08:40, 2005 Mar 7 (UTC)

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The [Name of Country] → [Name of Country]

The following discussion was originally from Biocrawler:Requested moves and has been brought here for further input.

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Proposed moves

[edit]

Discussion from WP:RM

and XXX of/in [Name of Country] → XXX of/in the [Name of Country]

Note: this request is only applicable to names of countries and territories that need the "the" article, such as the Gambia, the Marshall Islands, the Northern Marianas, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom.

There was a debate (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Biocrawler%3ARequested_moves&diff=10494316&oldid=10493874) over the title of the article Netherlands, and the article was moved to The Netherlands. Nevertheless, it has been a general rule that the articles "the" are left out for articles titled "[Name of Country]", but to keep them for articles titled "XXX of the [Name of Country]", except the Gambia (see Talk:The Gambia). This request is for the consistence of titles. — Insta ntnood 01:12 Feb 23 2005 (UTC)

Relevant conventions: Biocrawler:Naming conventions and Biocrawler:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beining of name). — Insta ntnood 03:53 Feb 23 2005 (UTC)

As I stated on RM's talk page, I'm growing greatly concerned with the recent precedent of recommending large blocks of pages. In order to keep the moves controllable and accountable, and to give the contributors a scale of how comprehensive this requested move is, would you kindly provide a list of how many (and which) pages will be affected by this move? —ExplorerCDT 02:46, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- It seems to me that these kind of issues should not be discussed here, but on naming policy talk pages. If there is a consensus there, someone should move them without bringing them up here. john k 03:37, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  - The naming conventions are there with little dispute. This request can be removed once the articles are moved according to the relevant policies. — Instantnood 04:47 Feb 23 2005 (UTC)
    - Actually, conventions are merely guidelines. See Biocrawler:Ignore all rules. —ExplorerCDT 05:50, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- (to ExplorerCDT) The Gambia and The Netherlands to Gambia and Netherlands. There could be more. And subcategories of categories cannot be shown during system recovery of Biocrawler. — Instantnood 03:58 Feb 23 2005 (UTC)
  - I'd like a list of ALL the articles you want to move, and if a block is consistent, then vote on it as one unit, otherwise it may be necessary to vote on certain pages, individually, case-by-case. Not every article you could propose or apply this to has a cookie cutter solution. I do not want just a general XXX of the Netherlands, I want a list. I wager the administrators who would end up executing such a move would like to know where they're going rather than have to hunt-and-peck for articles. Administrators aren't slaves to your request. It's your request...you do the legwork. What articles SPECIFICALLY do you want to change? —ExplorerCDT 05:46, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    - The Gambia and The Netherlands¹ are the only pages identified. Categories are now disabled temporarily for server recovery. — Instantnood 06:30 Feb 23 2005 (UTC)
      - The server is now recovered. Besides The Gambia and The Netherlands, other pages include The Netherlands (disambiguation), Category:Elections in Gambia, Coat of Arms of Bahamas, List of political parties in Gambia, Category:Elections in Netherlands Antilles, Category:Geography of Solomon Islands, Category:Elections in Bahamas, List of political parties in Marshall Islands and List of hospitals in Philippines.² — Insta ntnood 10:32 Feb 24 2005 (UTC)
        I would say that in this kind of 'in' pages, the would be included: Elections in the Netherlands, see for my general comment below, were I am in favour of the move. Gangulf 13:41, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
So far, Oppose as it relates to "The Netherlands" because it isn't just one "netherland" if you know the history of the country (that's akin to saying you'd move the article on the Scottish Highlands to Scottish Highland just because you think it's just northern Scotland and because Biocrawler prefers the singular). As to "The Gambia" I know I've only known the name "Gambia" to be inextricably connected with its definite article, but I'll have to check into questions of usage before I walk away from being Neutral - I do know that we don't generally refer to Sudan and Congo anymore under the colonialist "The Sudan" and "The Congo." —ExplorerCDT 05:46, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Strongly agree. If one looks in a traditiona encyclopedia, one would find both countries under Netherlands and under Gambia. There is no Netherland, I agree, but including 'The' is not necesary. One doesn't move the article Scottish Highlands to The Scottish Highlands. Furthermore, I was surprised that some moved Netherlands to The Netherlands during the discussion on that move with at the same removing the discussion from this page. Gangulf 10:28, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Strongly Agree. The Scottish Highlands example is quite right. Just because we put "the" in front of a name for grammatical reasons doesn't mean that it forms an integral part of the name that has to go in an article title. If we have Netherlands at The Netherlands we ought to move United States to The United States. That would be ridiculous in both cases. In article and category titles like "History of ..." then "the" should clearly be included. — Trilobite (Talk) 00:30, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Support. Since United States is where the U.S. article is, the appropriate names are Gambia and Netherlands. —Lowellian (talk) 01:09, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)
Support. Jonathunder 01:12, 2005 Feb 25 (UTC)
Support, albeit not agreeing to using "the" at all in some cases (Ukraine, Sudan, etc.) zoney ♣ talk 20:16, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Oppose at present. Please confirm that you have placed the required notice on the talk pages of all the articles you contemplate moving, that there has been ample (weeks) time for discussion and that there is no existing controversy for any of them which has not yet been resolved in your favor on the talk pages concerned. Jamesday 09:03, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC).

Please provide a list of pages to be moved. -- ALoan (Talk) 00:26, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- See my comment at 06:30 Feb 23^{Note 1:} and 10:32 Feb 24^{Note 2:}, plus List of hospitals in United Arab Emirates. Thank you. — Insta ntnood 10:48 Mar 5 2005 (UTC)
Oppose. The Biocrawler should use official names in all cases for article titles. BlankVerse ∅ 08:37, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Support. Get rid of all direct articles at the beginning of article titles unless absolutely needed for disambiguation or in titles of books, films, bands etc. "Official" names are often difficult to determine in any case. -- Necrothesp 13:59, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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New discussion

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City names, particularly in India and South Africa

There is currently a very spirited discussion in progress at Talk:Calcutta regarding the article name and whether it should be moved to Kolkata.

The city was apparently officially renamed Kolkata in 2001; that is, there's no dispute about what the official name is.

The degree to which the new name has been adopted is variable. Some news organizations may have adopted it; most appear to be inconsistent in their use. The result of various informal tests to determine which is the "most common" name vary, with "Calcutta" often but not always coming up as more common, and partisans on each side challenging the objectivity or appropriateness of the tests that do not give the desired result.

Apparently many city names in India are undergoing changes from those formerly used, and my perception is that the use of the old names is perceived as reflecting a colonialist POV.

At any event, many supporters of "Kolkata" believe that encyclopedias ought to place articles about cities under their official names. One clearly articulated statement is:

What we have seen is a flaw in the policy. The policy needs to consider the name change especially since the spelling also has changed; plus it is in English. The policy needs to be refined. Maintaining a rigid stance based on an old policy that certainly goes haywire when dealing with Indian cities points to an upheaval and refinement, especially since wikipedia policies are fluid. "Correctness" or accuracy is a major criteria to be fulfilled if this encyclopedia has to gain credibility and definately a cogent point to consider. Nichalp 20:42, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

So, I want to open a discussion: should the policy on city names be established to state:

Whenever a city has an undisputed official name, but the "most common name" is disputed, the article title should be the official name, and other common names for the city should be redirects to it.

Comments:

I think there should be a "buffer period" before the official change is accepted. A very valid buffer period is possibly the time till the next election assuming that the name change was done by the government of that city/country/state. However, this will pose further problems and get us into issues of more discussion and politicalisation. Hence, an arbitrary buffer period could be used. I would say:

Arbitrary duration rule

If a city, state, country or political/administrative unit's name changes and after any arbitrary duration of time, there is no absolute indication of common usage for either the new or the old name, then after the aforementioned arbitrary duration, the new official name will be adopted and used.

I would propose the arbitrary duration be 3 years from the date of the change. This should apply to new name, spelling, transliteration proposal and all sort of variations that affect the English spelling.

However, should there be dispute as to whether there is an absolute indication of common usage based on consensus, the benefit of the doubt should be given to the new name, hoping for a higher probability of getting the name "right".

Absolute indication

A consensus must show an advantage of the greater of 5 (or more) Biocrawlerns or 10% (or more) votes over the opposing group in order to be considered an absolute indication.

The arbitrary duration rule supercedes the absolute indication rule under all circumstances. -- Urnonav 02:18, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure about such a rule. It somewhat invites proponents of "official" names to argue there's a dispute (or indeed, in extremis, create one) to trigger such a "disputed" clause. I'd personally be in favour of a more cautious change (or perhaps simply clarification) that for topics specific to given English-speaking countries (with English as an official language, or a significant minority of English speakers), "common usage" should at least in the first instance be measured against the usage of those countries, in line with the MoS. This might not end such disagreements, but it may at least focus them. Alai 02:42, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrary duration rule takes prevalence in those cases. You will have to wait three (or any other number of) years before you can do the change. So, just because you intentionally start a dispute, doesn't mean the name will change. After a few years, if the official name is still there, it's probably going to stay. I refuse to throw in a clause like "common usage" without defining it. Actually reverting the precedence to make absolute indication rule more important will give proponents an upper hand. -- Urnonav

When I say start a dispute, I mean here on Biocrawler; whether a name change has occurred recently or less recently in official fact is unrelated. Say for example someone decided to start an argument about the official title of New York City, as has already been cited. You may refuse to 'throw in' a clause like common usage, but in fact it's in there already, and I would predict will prove difficult to 'throw out'. Hence my more modest proposal (which would have spared us 90% of the discussion on Calcutta/Kolkata). Alai 09:10, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I like the general idea of your proposal, though I think the language needs tuning. But I have a problem with the three year period. My present understanding is that the official name change to Kolkata occurred in 2001. (Or was that the year in which the city itself changed the name, with some kind of national-level approval occcuring later?) Under your three-year buffer period, applying your rule would amount to changing the name to Kolkata now, whereas from the amount of contention I believe that it's premature. And I think the 5-10% margin is insufficient. The rule of thumb for VfD is that generally a 2/3 majority constitutes rough consensus and I think that's appropriate here. Make the buffer period five years, 2/3 as the consensus guideline, and tinker with the wording and I would agree. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:27, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would go with a longer buffer and a higher majority in case of cities that do not have official English names. Actually in those cases, it doesn't even matter because we will go with International English. For cities with official English names, I would like to lean a little towards the official spelling for what Nichalp mentioned below - people should be informed of a spelling change in a nonambivalent manner.

I continue to fail to see Alai's point; I'm sure he's making a very good point. Are you saying we should flip the precendence of the two rules? Also, when I say I don't want to throw in the term common usage, I mean I don't want to throw it in without a proper definition. You have to give an objective measurable definition. I tried to define it with the margin of consensus definition above. -- Urnonav 23:52, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The precendence of the proposed 'Arbitrary duration rule' and 'Absolute indication'? No, I wouldn't use either. I'd stick with common usage, clarified to be common usage in the national variety of English, where there is one. Consistent with the MoS. Common usage is the general rule of thumb for naming conventions, I don't see the logic of tinkering with it in some what arbitrary, limited instances. Alai 00:03, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There are two issues here:

How do we measure common usage? What proves common usage?

The usual answer to this is Biocrawler consensus and an arbitrary, but accepted, majority.

What happens when there are two or more alternate spellings which are equally commonly used?

This was the main reason why we had to refine the standard.

Your suggestion is good - in fact, great - for cases where a clear obvious common usage is visible, e.g. India (versus Hindustan), Dhaka (versus Dacca), Munich (versus Munchen, in English), New York (verus Nieuw Amterdam), etc. We needed a new standard in the first place because such clear common usage did not exist everywhere. I mean OK, if we use common usage in the case of Kolkata versus Calcutta war, what outcome do we get? Nothing! Why? Everyone has his own measure of common usage. The consensus failed to give a clear result, with Kolkata gaining a slight majority over Calcutta. The consensus being statistical in nature cannot be used in such a close race. Some overriding definitive standard is needed. 'Absolute indication rule' is common usage but with an objective undebatable measure added to it. -- Urnonav 01:40, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

But that debate was conducted in a fog of confusion in which people cited the naming conventions as mandating common usage without reference to what was common usage in Indian English. That clarification may or may not have settled the issue, but as I say, it'd have greatly focussed the discussion. I think my suggestion is a modest conservation improvement, and stands a reasonable chance of acceptance (I'd hope). That it doesn't solve all possible problems is no reason not to make such improvements as are proximately possible. Yours is a total change of system, is self-definedly arbitrary, is far less likely to be accepted, and as I also already pointed out, could produce some very odd results. (Given sufficient "dispute" we'd have to move NYC to "City of New York".) Alai 05:12, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Apologies! I completely failed to see a very valid and in fact very important point. We not only should but must incorporate the idea of native English. So, for city names in India, Indian English must be seen as the ground for common usage. However, I still maintain the need for the buffer period, whose length, of course, is open to further discussion. For NYC and City of New York case, a "sufficient dispute" like in all other cases means a situation where in a consensus the absolute indication rule fails. In other words, if the case for the article location change fails to get an advantage less than a 10% or 5 wikipedians, then we should see when the city name was changed and if the buffer period is over, we should just change it. Actually we might need to work out how the consensus should be worded. For example, the same consensus may be worded "should it be changed" or "should it be changed to some name" and might yield different results.

I know that standards do not always lead to what I or you would consider ideal result, but they do lead to some quick resolution of issues. I would guess you know about the removal of frames from W3C recommendation. I personally would have liked frames, but well it's a standard; it was arbitrary, but it has to be respected unless I can come up with a better proposition. If it not a lot to ask for, could you formally state the standard that you'd like to see being applied? Actually then it would be easier for the rest of us to discuss the pros and cons of your vision. -- Urnonav 19:32, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think a year's buffer would be fine to gauge on the acceptance of the new name especially by government websites owned by the Indian government of India as well as those run by other world governments. I strongly believe that an encyclopedia serves to instruct and if the name is changed, it should be reflected in the encyclopedia. I won't argue on the resons behind the name change, its best not to let politics creep into discussions here. "Common" usage is a point to be debated in the Indian context particularly since 1) many would not know the name change and would like to be informed on the official new name as this is an encyclopedia 2) The name change need not apply to city institutions (many in the -anti camp use it as an incorrect point) 3) The name change is an English spelling as English is an offical language in India and cannot be argued vis-a-vis Moscow, Cologne and other cities. Nichalp 19:39, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

Oh boy, are we going to have fun towards the end of the year when the name of Pretoria (the capital city of South Africa, if anybody was wondering) is probably going to be changed to Tshwane. Not only is English an official language of South Africa (yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as South African English) and the name of the city is thus the (South African) English name, but the original name (Pretoria) is based on a Dutch surname while the (proposed) new name is based on a Sotho language word!

There's actually been a lot of (smaller) city/town name changes in South Africa during recent years. Most of them have already been changed in Biocrawler. None of these changes have unleashed a firestorm of controversy similar to that caused by Kolkata/Calcutta. I wonder why? Elf-friend 22:28, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think the basic problem is stereotyping. People stereotype India as a Hindi-speaking country which is as far from true as it can be. A huge number of Indians particularly in the South and East don't understand Hindi at all. I cannot substantiate this claim, but Indians in general will tell you this is true. India is a huge country with several languages and the states have a certain degree of autonomy which allows them to pick their own official languages. Most people are unaware of and/or are unwilling to acknowledge the existence of Indian English, but that's actually rather objectionable on intellectual grounds. It's like saying "USA does not have an official language". It's a bad analogy I know. USA obviously has a de facto official language. If I went today and made a court complaint in Bangla, would that be acceptable? Obviously no. Leaving it unrecognised doesn't make it disappear. Indian English exists and is more frequently spoken than British English arguably. -- Urnonav 23:52, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't think stereotyping has anything to do with it. I think it's because Calcutta is famous and so more people care about what its article is titled, and nobody really cares about small cities in South Africa that hardly anyone outside of South Africa has ever heard of. Nohat 02:54, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely. And I think if anyone tries to change the name of the Pretoria article to a name most people outside South Africa have never heard of there will be an equally loud protest. It's not about what language people in these countries speak - it's about whether people in the wider world have heard of the cities in question. Who exactly has refused to acknowledge the existence of Indian English? -- Necrothesp 13:44, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Of course, all of us on both sides of this issue need to acknowledge the existence of redirects. It is important to keep in mind that the name of an article mostly affects what you see in big bold type at the top of the page. If the page is moved, it does mean that someone will need to edit all the articles that link to "Calcutta" (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Calcutta)... we really should ask the developers for some kind of automated tool to help with things like that. I don't understand why double-redirects can't be fixed automatically... Dpbsmith (talk) 14:32, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We continue to see the stress on "Calcutta's" being famous. We saw the consensus results: an absolute fame was not claimed by either of the two names. In fact, if we strictly went by consensus, the article location should have been changed! Native English must be used because of the same basis by which you claim that the name known by most of the English speaking World is used - standard. Manual of Style is just as much of a standard as is naming convention. If an Indian English exists, then why are we still talking about what the British or American English calls the city? According to your reasoning, article on every city in the World that has the word "harbour" in it should be relocated to "harbor". In fact native English should be used. The question is not what an American would call Kolkata if s/he knew the city, the question is rather what an American who already knows the city calls it. Native English is "safe" because well at least people speaking Indian English know Kolkata, but how many people who speak American English know the city? All the opponents in the consensus ironically were aware of the alternate spelling; so, one could very well argue that people who know Calcutta also know Kolkata! -- Urnonav 19:32, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The purpose of an encyclopedia should be to inform the reader of current facts, not act as a repository of "common" knowledge. "Calcutta" is, quite simply, no longer correct.

1) Kolkata is just as much English as "Calcutta". It is not the same as renaming "Germany" to "Deutchland", "Venice" to "Venezia", or "Cologne" to "Köln", as the latter is not English, but in the native language (you easily spot Köln, as ö is not part of the English alphabet). The mistake seems to stem from the fact that many languages use the same basic script as English, so some people think that renaming to "Kolkata" is changing the language. This is not true, as Bengali uses a completely different script from English. Moreover it is completely irrelevant as to how the city is referred to in Bengali.

2) Were you to visit Kolkata you would find signs saying "Welcome to Kolkata" not "Welcome to Calcutta". "Kolkata" is the recognized name in Indian English, as well as in the all the official documentation. "Calcutta" is not correct, and referring to it as such is a sign of ignorance, which an encyclopedia should not perpetuate.

3) The naming of the article is not a minor point, as the name is the very first word that occurs in the article, and is given further prominence by being bold, and in a larger font. This seems, to me, to be quite POV in stating an (incorrect) preference.

Following rules such as the "common use" naming policy is fine for most situations, but it simply cannot be applied blindly in ALL cases. Most rules will have exceptions and cases were they should not be applied, and I believe this to be one of those. Making the articles the easiest to find is a laudable goal, but that really does not apply here as there can be a simple redirect from "Calcutta" to "Kolkata" resulting in no meaningful reduction of usability. It should also be noted that both EB and Encarta have changed to "Kolkata" even though they do not have the ease of redirects.

I believe the fundamental purpose of an encyclopedia is to be an authoritative source of current, factual information, and calling Kolkata "Calcutta", just for some vague reason of "common usage" flies in the face of this.

My two cents as a relatively new user. Srs 21:24, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Referring to Calcutta, the city's name for over 300 years, is not "ignorant". Common usage is not ignorance. Confusing the two probably is. And demanding that a name be changed everywhere, and the old name never be used again, simply because a few politicians with an agenda have voted to do so is tantamount to semantic totalitarianism. The usage of names changes over time, not immediately a politician informs the world that it should. Biocrawler's job is to inform of fact at this time, not what those with an agenda would like it to be or what it might be in the future. When more people use Kolkata than Calcutta, then is the time to change. At this time this is not the case and is far from being the case. Ask people what that large city in Bengal is called and I can guarantee that most people in the world at large who have heard of it (probably including most people in India who answer in English) will tell you "Calcutta". That is the bottom line. -- Necrothesp 17:15, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Kindly avoid the arguments; we argued enough on the Talk:Calcutta page and we came to an edit in naming conventions for the very fact that we do realise that the "common usage" rule was not explicitly and efficiently applicable in certain cases, where "common usage" was debated. As for constant reference to Indian Central Government and State Government of West Bengal as "few politicians", I would see that as disrespect to India's government systems; so please avoid referring to the parliaments as "few politicians". Just as a note, opponents to the name change pointed out that the spelling change was done to increase popularity of the ruling party - interestingly, oppositions agreed that the city-dwellers did like such a change. Also, note that it wasn't a few people who supported the change; the decision was carried out unanimously in the state parliament. A proposition to change "West Bengal" to "Bangla" was also made but it wasn't as well supported. So, clearly it's not a matter of political whims but rather a case of actual need to change. The spelling has changed (over time and not by political whim) and people just wanted to see it on paper! In any case, political discussions should not be part of our agenda. We are solely interested in creating a logical convention that resolves this issue. Using either Calcutta or Kolkata on perceived common usage is an obvious POV. -- Urnonav 19:46, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Necrothesp, you're the one who is confused. Srs has hit the nail on the head, something which I have tried to convey all this while. As far as what name Indians use for Calcutta/Kolkatta, might I ask if you are currently living in India? If not please visit India and ask someone what it the official name of the capital of West Bengal. The results will startle you as most people may not use the new name, but certainally use the correct name.

On the personal front, ever since the name change was changed, I was pulled up by my English teachers for using Bombay in my essays and letters. They told me that examiners do cut marks for 'ignorance'. Nichalp 20:13, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Nichalp on the case for Indians' using Calcutta for Kolkata - it is not true! I have not watched Indian television in last two years, but even back in 2003, every channel that I had access to used Kolkata. Televised programmes had the same name and talk shows or hosts used the same name. It was almost difficult to believe that a spelling Calcutta ever existed. Ironically my first knowledge of the entire name change issue came from two sources: BBC and STAR Plus, neither of which is a Bengali TV network! Constant effort to even resist a change to the standard is starting to show a personal favour towards an old spelling - possibly an emotional/political attachment even? -- Urnonav 21:26, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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Article names for people with positions

As far as I know, the Biocrawler style is to leave ranks or honorifics (or whatever the correct word is for things like ranks that go with certain positions) out of article names, so we have Ronald Reagan, not President Ronald Reagan, and George Marshall, not General George Marshall or Secretary George Marshall.

However, although I've looked fairly extensively, I can't find where this is written down. First, am I correct in my understanding of what our policy is? Second, is it in fact not written down anywhere (and it's just one of those unwritten things that "everyone" "just knows")? If so, it's probably worth adding something in writing somewhere. Noel (talk) 17:38, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Not the world's speediest response, but the answer to your question is at Biocrawler:Manual of Style (biographies)#Honorific prefixes. Noisy | Talk 17:29, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Maybe I stepped on my own question by using the word "honorific", because I don't think titles like "General" or "Secretary" count as honorifics - or do they? Noel (talk) 23:02, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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State universities

I find an irritating trend of pages on flagship state universities being at locations like Indiana University Bloomington. Whenever somebody says they went to the University of Michigan, or the University of Wisconsin, or the University of Minnesota, or the University of Maryland, they mean they went to the main campus. This is the principal use of these terms, and the most commonly used name, not using the whole name. For instance, in the NCAA tournament, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is just "Wisconsin," while the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is "Wisconsin-Milwaukee". I can think of a couple of exceptions - SUNY doesn't really have a flagship campus, and although Berkeley is the main campus, and it is, in sports, referred to as California, it is so often referred to as Berkeley, that I can make an exception there. But I'd say that in pretty much all other cases the flagship school should just be University of Maryland or University of Alabama, rather than including the full name. Any thoughts? john k 00:24, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

BTW, University of Alabama is as I would like it - that article is the article on the school in Tuscaloosa. The system is at University of Alabama System. This seems the appropriate way to do this. john k 20:53, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ga! Is anyone at all interested? I've posted this here and at a bunch of individual talk pages. All I'm getting back is a bunch of flak at Talk:University of Maryland, College Park. It seems to me that the naming conventions, as they stand, support my position, based on the use common names principle. john k 03:42, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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British Rail Class XX

I have just moved the discussion on what the naming convention should be for these articles to Biocrawler talk:Naming conventions (British railway locomotive and multiple unit classes) from the talk page of British Rail Class 185. Your comments are more than welcome. Thryduulf 22:02, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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Publications

I noticed that in general newspapers, magazines, etc. seem to be named based on the name on their masthead. Is there a specific policy about this? I noticed that some don't follow this convention, however. I'm moving Baltimore Sun to The Baltimore Sun. Is that a problem? --jacobolus (t) 04:00, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

At least as a rule, the articles should use whatever the publications use. I don't know offhand about this specific example. Maurreen 17:11, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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Clubs and similar organizations

I just stumbled over this problem: How to name clubs, theatres, cinemas,...

Problems: They have often a non unique name (clubs with the same name exist in different cities). Furthermore, the (non-english) names are often hard to translate and translating such names could be of dubious value they are 'proper' names.

I searched the archives of the different Naming conventions pages but was not successfull.

Propositions:

NAME (KIND, PLACE)
NAME CITY (KIND)
KIND NAME (CITY)

where:

NAME is the name of the organization

KIND is the type of organization: Club, Cinema, Theatre,...

PLACE is the place where it is located (Cityname,...)

Translation policy?

When disambiguation is needed, I would lean toward "name (place)". Maurreen 17:09, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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Poll on University Naming Conventions

As a result of unresolved dispute over the name "University of Maryland", a new survey was created to assess consensus regarding naming conventions for colleges and universities. This poll addresses both the specific case of the name "University of Maryland" and asks whether a consensus exists for an amendment to Biocrawler:Naming conventions to specifically address the use of names like "University of Texas" vs. "University of Texas at Austin". Dragons flight 19:11, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

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Non-typeable characters in article names

Should these pages be moved to an English name?

Å → A-ring (only on Dutch or Scandinavian keyboards)
Æ → AE ligature (only on Scandinavian keyboards)
Ð → Eth (letter) (only found on Icelandic keyboards, also not in MacRoman)
Ø → O-slash (only on Scandinavian keyboards)
ª → Feminine ordinal indicator (not on any keyboard I know)
º → Masculine ordinal indicator (also not on any keyboard I know)
Þ → Thorn (letter) (only on Icelandic keyboards, not in MacRoman)
Ñ → N-tilde (only on Spanish and Portugese keyboards)
ß → Ess-tsett (only on German keyboards)

--KelisFan2K5 20:19, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think typability is an important factor because redirects solve that problem, but I would support moving them to their names instead of symbols (just as pi and square root appear at their names). "AE ligature", "N-tilde", and "O-slash" are descriptions, but not really names. How about using these names:

Å: not sure what the name of this one is; might be Å or Aa.
Æ → Æsc, Aesc, or Ash (letter)
Ø: Tough one; the name of the letter is actually Ø, or Œ, or Oe (just as the name of A is "A")
Ñ → Eñe, the letter's name
ß → Eszett, I guess this is the actual name, while Ess-tsett is a phonetic transcription (right?)

—Michael Z. 2005-04-1 21:17 Z

I disagree that symbols are bad. We have the W article at W not double-you (the letter's name). W is as much a symbol as Æ or Þ, just because they don't happen to be on anglocentric keyboard layouts doesn't mean we should treat them differently. The only exception to this is characters that can't be displayed in edit boxes or urls other than as the html entity code, e.g. ť (ť). Thryduulf 21:36, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Choosing titles has little to do with keyboards or edit fields. Any dictionary or encyclopedia would have an entry titled "W", but not "Þ".

W is a known symbol. Anyone with basic English literacy looks at "W" and thinks "double-yew". Most anglophones look at Þ (or 上海, or бюро, for that matter) and think "what the...?". —Michael Z. 2005-04-1 22:20 Z

English Biocrawler isn't only for those with English as a native language, so you can't only consider, what the anglophones think. Also the letters are precise, their other names are not such. A letter can have several meanings and a meaning several letters. Oe is both Ø and Ö. Ø is both that and a diameter sign. When I see a ß, I think it is some letter. But when I see an Eszett, I takes a while to grasp what it's all about. -Hapsiainen 18:07, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is promoting a solution because it's advocated by anglophones (in fact, it really irks me whenever someone suggests preferential treatment of "native English speakers'" opinions on a subject, or suggests grammar tests). And we're not about to start replacing article titles with pictures of stuff.

And contrary to the idea of the glyphs' precision, they are visually ambiguous. The "o-slash" might be a Scandinavian letter (U+00D8, which, as you say, can be equivalent to Oe and Ö), a stroked figure zero, a circled mathematical division operator (U+2298), or a generic negative symbol, as used in "no smoking" (U+20E0). The Eszett looks like a Greek beta. Unicode has different names and values for all of these, and they are all different things, deserving separate articles. In English, as in other languages, we use unambiguous names to identify them. A picture is worth a thousand words, but article titles are more effective if we stick to just a few. —Michael Z. 2005-04-15 20:07 Z

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Song titles and extended information

First order of business would be the Heading for "Album titles and band names" in the Music Section, shouldn't this include Song titles as well, something along the lines of "Song titles, album titles and band names"? (since the convention does make explict mention of song titles)

Secondly, what to do about extended information for song/track titles, things like alternative titles, remixes, and featured artists... The convention I, myself, have adopted is "SongTitle (Other Song Name) (Feat. Jane Doe) [John Doe Edit]"

Thoughts? --Mobius 03:29, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

My only thought is that the square brackets could cause more problems than they solve due to them being used in the wiki syntax. You're relying on the software correctly working out that 'John' isn't a hyperlink. I guess it'll be safe for a bit, but who knows how long? (They thought in 1960 nobody would be idiot enough to still be using that old data and software in 1999). I do wonder how many tracks need all of this. Is there any example were the remix couldn't just be part of the main track article? I'm not saying they don't exist, but a concrete example or two would be nice. Hmmmm.... On re-reading I'm not sure that I picked up on the right bit at all - can you provide a link to the pages you're talking about? — KayEss | talk 17:00, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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Proposal and straw poll regarding place names with diacritical marks

Following a comment by Philip Baird Shearer on my Talk page, I am moving this discussion and straw poll to Biocrawler_talk:Naming_conventions_(use_English)#Proposal and straw poll regarding place names with diacritical marks where apparently there has been previous discussion. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:52, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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