CZ:History Workgroup: Difference between revisions

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imported>Richard Jensen
(main search word should come first)
imported>Ben Alpers
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The difficulty with this use of colons in titles is that they subtly enshrine and "hard-code" a certain relationship between the part to the left of the colon and the part to the right.  Why should it be "North Carolina: History"?  Why not "History: North Carolina"?  And why not "History of the South: North Carolina"?  Etc.  Besides, if we use colons in this way here, people will start using them in many other places, when there won't be any clearly understood rules about when to use them and how.  Will we have "Aristotle: Metaphysics" or "Metaphysics: Aristotelian"?  (Reference point: [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/])  It seems we can easily sidestep such potentially difficult problems by omitting the colon. --[[User:Larry Sanger|Larry Sanger]] 18:02, 9 April 2007 (CDT)
The difficulty with this use of colons in titles is that they subtly enshrine and "hard-code" a certain relationship between the part to the left of the colon and the part to the right.  Why should it be "North Carolina: History"?  Why not "History: North Carolina"?  And why not "History of the South: North Carolina"?  Etc.  Besides, if we use colons in this way here, people will start using them in many other places, when there won't be any clearly understood rules about when to use them and how.  Will we have "Aristotle: Metaphysics" or "Metaphysics: Aristotelian"?  (Reference point: [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/])  It seems we can easily sidestep such potentially difficult problems by omitting the colon. --[[User:Larry Sanger|Larry Sanger]] 18:02, 9 April 2007 (CDT)
::We can avoid colons but we can't ignore the problem of standardizing subarticles for geographical regions. It makes more sense to have the main search word first, then secondary search words. thus I recommend: Utah, Utah--History, Utah--Economy, Utah--Geography. (and not: Utah, History of Utah, Economy of Utah, Geography of Utah).  That way the search engines (our and outsiders) will put all the Utah articles together. [[User:Richard Jensen|Richard Jensen]] 18:28, 9 April 2007 (CDT)
::We can avoid colons but we can't ignore the problem of standardizing subarticles for geographical regions. It makes more sense to have the main search word first, then secondary search words. thus I recommend: Utah, Utah--History, Utah--Economy, Utah--Geography. (and not: Utah, History of Utah, Economy of Utah, Geography of Utah).  That way the search engines (our and outsiders) will put all the Utah articles together. [[User:Richard Jensen|Richard Jensen]] 18:28, 9 April 2007 (CDT)
I essentially agree with Richard Jensen in this discussion.  I'm no fan of the colon, but the state (or other geographical unit) should come first, followed by history.  They can be separated with a colon, an m-dash, a comma, or something else (we need to figure out what and stick with it), but I think "History of X" is cumbersome and puts the cart before the horse.--[[User:Ben Alpers|Ben Alpers]] 21:05, 10 April 2007 (CDT)

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Naming convention: need a decision

Editor Benjamin Lowe asks whether Massachusetts: History should be changed to History of Massachusetts . That's a policy issue--what do people think? It's a policy issue for many articles: France: History, Japan: History etc. The Massachusetts: History format naturally leads to MAssachusetts: Economy/Education/Government etc, with the stress on the state. Richard Jensen. Richard Jensen 15:44, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

Here was Larry Sanger's response in a move the other day "17:52, 7 April 2007 Larry Sanger (Talk | contribs) North Carolina: History moved to History of North Carolina (Better to invite a free-standing article without a colon)". That seems to imply his preference. Matt Mahlmann 17:31, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

the goal is to help people find articles. When we have thousands of articles that start History of ... then it's hard to find things. When we have 10 articles that start Massachusetts: History or Massachusetts:Government or Massachusetts: Economy then searching is much easier. I assume people are interested in Massachusetts (rather than in history generally). Richard Jensen 17:38, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

I don't mean always to have my way, but omitting colons used in this way is a good policy. Presumably, we won't be finding articles via alphabetical lists. I rarely do this, and I doubt others do either. The main way to find articles is (1) the search form, and (2) via links from other articles.

The difficulty with this use of colons in titles is that they subtly enshrine and "hard-code" a certain relationship between the part to the left of the colon and the part to the right. Why should it be "North Carolina: History"? Why not "History: North Carolina"? And why not "History of the South: North Carolina"? Etc. Besides, if we use colons in this way here, people will start using them in many other places, when there won't be any clearly understood rules about when to use them and how. Will we have "Aristotle: Metaphysics" or "Metaphysics: Aristotelian"? (Reference point: [1]) It seems we can easily sidestep such potentially difficult problems by omitting the colon. --Larry Sanger 18:02, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

We can avoid colons but we can't ignore the problem of standardizing subarticles for geographical regions. It makes more sense to have the main search word first, then secondary search words. thus I recommend: Utah, Utah--History, Utah--Economy, Utah--Geography. (and not: Utah, History of Utah, Economy of Utah, Geography of Utah). That way the search engines (our and outsiders) will put all the Utah articles together. Richard Jensen 18:28, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

I essentially agree with Richard Jensen in this discussion. I'm no fan of the colon, but the state (or other geographical unit) should come first, followed by history. They can be separated with a colon, an m-dash, a comma, or something else (we need to figure out what and stick with it), but I think "History of X" is cumbersome and puts the cart before the horse.--Ben Alpers 21:05, 10 April 2007 (CDT)