CZ:Naming conventions

How to title articles

It is important to choose the right title for an article.

The title should describe the contents of an article accurately. If you have written an article about a topic, only to discover that your article concerns only one aspect of the topic (such as its history), then it is preferable to write a short article about the topic, and then link from that short article to a page with a more accurate title. For example, if you were to write an article about Russia only to find that you had written exclusively about the history of Russia, then you should move your article to history of Russia, and link to that new page from a brief article about Russia on the Russia page.

Generally, prefer common names. The common names for things--if accurate--should be used in preference to the recondite or obscure, although this may have a few exceptions. For instance, we might better place the article about the 90s U.S. president at Bill Clinton rather than William Jefferson Clinton.

Typographical and stylistic rules

Prefer lowercase. The article title should be lowercase unless it is typically written uppercase when used in a regular sentence. So: computational complexity theory; but American Chemical Society.

First name first. Unless there is a compelling reason not to, articles about people should begin with the person's first name first; e.g., Albert Einstein. Note that there is a way to list names in categories by last name first; e.g., the code [[Category:CZ Live|Einstein, Albert]] files the Einstein article in the "CZ Live" category last name, first.

Use natural phrases, not punctuation. (to expand)