Wikipedia talk:Article titles

8½ or 8 1/2

I saw that the Fellini film 8½ has "½", which seems to be a special character, and the title should be 8 1/2. Am I wrong? I was surprised to see that there has never been a discussion to move it. I consider myself pretty keyboard-savvy but don't know of a way to make ½ when browsing the Internet. EDIT: Same concern with 9½ Weeks. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 15:41, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

1) For navigation, just use 1/2 – it will redirect anyway. 2) To type ½ on a desktop – use Compose key, on some mobile keyboards – long tap on the digit 1, in Wikipedia source editor – "Special characters → Symbols". —⁠andrybak (talk) 16:39, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Gotcha, and I found a more direct answer: MOS:FRAC mentions that Ranma ½ is okay to have, so that logic applies to these films' titles too. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 17:05, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Capitalisation of Titles

I have been warned that this topic will not be well received. I have worked for decades in Quality Management. Wikipedia The Free Encyclopaedia. Is a title and you have therefore capitalised it. Why do these same rules not flow through the site? All page titles should be capitalised, no? My example was Chinese Water Torture. This should be capitalised as the page title, but continually when in use as it describes a specific person, place, organisation, or thing? I thought that this describes the rules well? https://writer.com/blog/capitalization-rules/ I haven't gone to edit anything as I await advice or concuss from the administrators. This is my first time here so hope I have done this correctly? Thanks. 2A0A:EF40:833:2101:5446:6A9:57E3:A13 (talk) 19:14, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

One principle I recall from quality management (which, by the way, you had no reason to capitalize!) is that it often doesn't matter which approach an organization chooses to accomplish something as long as it chooses an approach and sticks to it. The approach at MOS:NCCAPS is the approach used for titles (and section headings) here. Largoplazo (talk) 20:22, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

My thoughts from a document design perspective:

• Capitalisation within article titles loses information. In some cases, the information which distinguishes between two different articles. So it's undesirable for that context. Readers need to be able to see the difference between a word used as a common noun and the same word used as a name. For example (I've not checked whether their articles both exist) a red dwarf and the TV comedy Red Dwarf.
• Different capitalisation conventions apply for different things. The way a book title is treated on its title page might differ from the treatment of a chapter title, a section heading within a chapter, etc. Maybe the chapter title is all in in uppercase at the start of the chapter, but lowercase in running heads within the chapter where it serves a different purpose. Library catalogues use sentence case for book titles regardless of what the book itself does, but bibliographies typically don't. And so on.
• I don't like the capitalisation of The Free Encyclopaedia, but I don't think it's being used in the same way as an article title, more like a slogan or name or trademark, so I don't really see a clash of style.

—The important thing is that each kind of text is consistently presented, and is clearly distinguishable from other types of text when necessary. (If it's done well, the reader will be unaware of it and simply find it easy to navigate and read the text.) Musiconeologist (talk) 21:22, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

The disparate treatment between the title of the website and the title of things within the website is comparable to the use of italics to denote book or magazine or album titles versus the use of quotation marks to denote chapter or article or song titles. It's actually normal to use contrasting styles. Largoplazo (talk) 22:26, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Exactly—maybe also comparable with designing a book cover or title page differently from its contents? It's all part of making things which are different look different. (For myself, I'd like book subtitles to be in sentence case to distinguish them from the titles, but we don't do that one IIRC.) Musiconeologist (talk) 23:03, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Feedback requested: Change of title for Adolphe Schloss page

On the talk page for Adolphe Schloss I am suggesting that the title be changed to 'The Schlosse Collection'. Presumably this would mean it would no longer come under the biographies heading. If you have an interest, please comment on the talk page. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 09:08, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

add TITLEVAR clarification, justifies "local names"?

Hi, I've seen arguments being made that WP:TITLEVAR means that article titles should use local names such as at Talk:Iarnród Éireann. That we should only consider Irish sources, and for cities in India, only consider what Indians use not the rest of the English-speaking world. I think this is an incorrect interpretation, we should consider the overall WP:COMMONNAME, regardless of where the source is from, not give one source preference to another.

So if TITLEVAR is only about spelling/grammar (I assume it is), can it be clarified to (adding "spelling"):

If a topic has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation, the title of its article should use that nation's spelling variety of English

or some other clarification. As it's being used to against the overall WP:COMMONNAME across all English-language sources.

Unless their argument is correct, and we should use only local names? If so then that should be clarified too. DankJae 13:16, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

• TITLEVAR says "If a topic has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation, the title of its article should use that nation's variety of English" - if in Indian English usage a city is referred to in a particular way that is different to British English that appears to be an example of strong ties to a national variety of English. With Irish English, Irish Gaelic words have been incorporated into general Irish English usage. English is a very diverse language, and incorporates some significant differences in English-speaking countries such as the United States, India, Ireland and the United Kingdom. I don't think varieties of English is purely a centre/centre, labor/labour or organisation/organization issue. AusLondonder (talk) 13:47, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

  "variety" purely refers to varieties of English, standard differences in spelling, grammar etc, I don't think that applies to alternative names. It gives Defence vs Defense. I do not think TITLEVAR means "ignore overall common names, prioritise names used in the variety of English used". If it does, surely it should be added to WP:COMMONNAME, "use the common name per local sources", but it doesn't, it just says "English-language sources". Of course, if all sources overall use the Irish name then we should too, but not limit it to "we should only look at Irish sources, any foreign source is irrelevant".

  Even if you're correct, TITLEVAR can benefit with clarifying that, article titles should use the national standard name over any alternative international name. DankJae 14:37, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Delete naturalness

Of the 5 criteria, recognizability is mentioned 3 times, precision 12, concision 8, consistency, 7, naturalness only once, in the criteria list. Each has a section except naturalness. There are references to 'natural', but they are tied-up with recognizability, or another criteria. Recognizability is the dominant criteria through common name; it's a minority of cases where the other criteria come into play, right? I can't think of one example where 'naturalness' becomes the decisive criteria, superceding recognizability i.e. where having only the 4 other criteria would ever create a problem. i can't think of where a recognizable name is unnatural. Recognizability seems to make naturalness redundant. If so, then good to delete to simplify, Tom B (talk) 23:12, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

@Tpbradbury: one case where "naturalness" is often invoked is avoiding the need for parenthetical disambiguation. For example, the orchid genus Calypso cannot be at Calypso, which is a disambiguation page. It could be at Calypso (plant), but as the genus has only one species, Calypso bulbosa, this is considered to be a more natural title for the article. Monospecific genera needing disambiguation are regularly at the sole species. See WP:MONOTYPICFLORA and WP:MONOTYPICFAUNA. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:56, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Peter coxhead, thank you, that's natural disambiguation? Which is in the precision section. This is my point, discussion around naturalness always ends up falling under one of the other criteria. Calypso bulbosa is a precise title. There is no article on the genus so no title needed, but if there were it might be the precise: Calypso (genus). There is no natural or naturalness section on the policy page, unlike all the other criteria. What is concise? Keeping things short. What is natural? We can still keep all discussion of natural, and simply delete naturalness from the top section, as it is never used by itself or is ever the decisive criteria, thanks again, Tom B (talk) 10:36, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

@Tpbradbury: "natural disambiguation" might be in the precision section, but it's not precision. There's nothing more precise about Calypso bulbosa than Calypso (plant). (By the way, "Calypso (genus)" isn't used because of consistency; there are many cases of animal and plant genera having the same name, so for consistency and hence predictability we use an disambiguator based on the type of organism involved.) The material needs some reorganization, so that the 5 criteria are discussed more precisely. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:28, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

thank you, yes we should take it out of the precision section then! where should we move it to? Bulbosa is more precise, about one species, than 'plant'? You talk consistency: again, we immediately fall into discussing a different criteria because naturalness is so vague, Tom B (talk) 13:18, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

The fact that our criteria overlap (and reinforce each other) is not a problem. They are all still things that we should consider when deciding on an article title. It may be rare for “naturalness” to outweigh the others, but we should still take it into consideration. Blueboar (talk) 12:49, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

thank you, overlap is a problem per wp:avoid instruction creep, which suggests I explain my opposition. I oppose this one criteria, as there appears to be no situation where it is needed. Decisions on titles can be more easily solved by editors using their best judgment, to apply the other 4 criteria. If naturalness rarely outweighed the others I would keep it and have a section explaining it. But there is no example where that is case? In the Calypso example Peter helpfully provided, that is more easily solved with just the other criteria, we don't need 'naturalness' which has no section defining it. Would deleting it affect any decision, apart from speeding them up? It looks like a consensus is building that the policy page needs tightening-up at the very least! thanks again, Tom B (talk) 13:38, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the moves page, there might be about 1,400 move discussions annually. If we assume simplifying would save only 1 minute on average, as it rarely gets brought up, except as a distraction, that would save 24hrs, or 3 days editing. More conservatively, let's say it takes 5 minutes on 5% of moves i.e. 70 moves, that still saves 6 hours, or a days editing. A small change but worth it! Tom B (talk) 13:55, 11 June 2024 (UTC)