CZ Talk:Naming conventions

I added a sentence about naming articles based on people so that we can be consistant throughout. If this is not the way we want to do it, lets change it fast. --Matt Innis (Talk) 09:28, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

There are a few special cases for personal names which need to have a convention soon:

• Chinese-style names - Mao Zedong or Zedong Mao?
• Transcription from non-latin writing systems - Mao Zedong or Mao Tse-tung?
• Primarily known by pseudonym: Mark Twain or Samuel Clemens?
• People who part their name on the left: F. Lee Bailey or Lee Bailey or Francis Lee Bailey Jr.?
• Primarily known by last name: Liberace or Wladziu Valentino Liberace?
• Nobility and royalty: Queen Elizabeth II, Elizabeth II of England, Elizabeth Windsor-Mountbatten, or something else? Hirohito or Hirohito of Japan or Emperor Showa? William Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate or William Wedgewood Benn or 1st Viscount Stansgate?

The conventions don't need to be hard rules - the article on the second Viscount Stansgate may be better titled as simply Tony Benn, in violation of some other convention, because of his notability under that name. Also, there should be redirects from most of the common alternates. I have my preferences as to which ones we choose, but establishing some conventions is more important than my preferred choices. Anthony Argyriou 18:58, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

DEFAULTSORT template

Wikipedia has a nifty template we should consider borrowing. Called DEFAULTSORT, it automatically seats an entry in the right place in any catgories into which that entry is included. Thus, the list of categories for Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals Justice Rosemary Barkett reads:

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barkett, Rosemary}}

[[Category:1939 births]]

[[Category:Living people]]

[[Category:Mexican-born United States political figures]]

[[Category:Florida state court judges]]

[[Category:Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit]]

[[Category:Living people]]

[[Category:People from Tamaulipas]]

[[Category:Syrian Mexicans]]

The article therefore shows up under "B" in all of the above categories. (note: I am not endorsing this category scheme, just the template).

Cheers! Brian Dean Abramson 20:11, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

Looks pretty useful to me--those who want to use it should be able to use it, no? I mean, I don't see any reason why not. --Larry Sanger 21:51, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

One Word Titles

We need a much more detailed policy on naming conventions, I believe. For one, I do not think we should ever have any main entries which begin with a miniscule letter; such use flies in the face of any and every reference work I have ever used or contributed to; the first word should always be capitalized. I note that with the example given, computational complexity theory, the actual article does indeed have its first word capitalized!

Another aspect not covered here is one-word entries (Automobile, Novel, Television) which it should be made clear are capitalized (although the wiki itself doesn't mind, consistentcy here looks best, I think).

Lastly, the alphabetical issue is far larger than just names -- we would not want, for instance, an entry on "Fossil Fuels" to index under "Fossil," but under "Fuels, Fossil", and the same might apply to many phrases or three or more words (Trans-Siberian Railway, European Economic Community, or Functional magnetic resonance imaging).

Russell Potter

Thanks for your comments, Russell. As you pointed out, the wiki does not care whether the first letter of the title is majuscule or minuscule. Therefore, I'd say we don't really need a naming policy about it; the system will capitalise everything on its own. What's more of a problem, I think, are the rare cases where the title should not be capitalisd, such as iPod and e (the number).—Nat Krause 15:47, 8 April 2007 (CDT)