Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Macedonia/other page titles

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

This page is for discussion of the page titles of various sub-articles dealing with the Republic of Macedonia or other Macedonias. (such as "History of...", "Cuisine of...", "... in the 2008 Summer Olympics", etc.)

All letters on proposals were derived from proposals made during the first phase of the discussion.

For a survey of pages potentially affected by these guidelines, see here.

Please endorse only one proposal, and leave a (preferably) short comment if you wish. Direct any discussion of other users' endorsements to the talk page.

Statement of question

• What titles should be used for the sub-articles dealing with the Republic of Macedonia or other Macedonias?

Proposal A: Case-by-case decisions

1. In page titles, the country should normally be referred to as either "Macedonia" or "Republic of Macedonia", or by the adjective "Macedonian" (where syntactically and stylistically appropriate)
   1. Plain "Macedonia" or the adjective "Macedonian" can be used wherever the topic is unambiguous, especially where the topic itself is practically restricted to modern country-level contexts. Thus: "Macedonia at the 2000 Summer Olympics", "Macedonian accession to the European Union", "Macedonian presidential election, 2004", "Macedonian–Serbian relations".
   2. Plain "Macedonia" or the adjective "Macedonian" can also be used where an article has a particularly strong claim to being the primary topic compared to any competing articles relating to the other Macedonias.
   3. In all other cases of conflict with a similar title dealing with one of the other Macedonias, "Republic of Macedonia" is the preferred disambiguator. Thus: "Flag of the Republic of Macedonia" (vs. Flag of Macedonia (Greece)); "Army of the Republic of Macedonia" (vs. Macedonian army, which deals with ancient Macedonia).
2. In cases of such conflicts, the usual considerations about "primary topics" apply regarding disambiguation technicalities (see WP:DAB). They must be decided on a case-by-case basis, with the only legitimate decision criterion being the question of predominant usage. A simple, non-disambiguated version of the title should always exist at least as a redirect or a disambiguation page; it should lead directly to one of the competing articles only if that article has a strong claim to being the primary topic. In borderline cases, the option of a disambiguation page is preferable.
3. Using other disambiguators within sub-topic page titles, such as "Macedonia (country)", is usually syntactically awkward and therefore not recommended.
4. Where plain "Macedonia" is chosen as part of the definition of the topic in the page title, the corresponding wording in the lead sentence may contain the full formal name "Republic of Macedonia" in its stead, to remove any remaining ambiguity.
5. In the interest of simplicity of page titles, this proposal applies also to topic domains where within the article itself a longer phrase ("former Yugoslav...") might be used (see open issues at international organisations subpage). Thus: "Macedonian accession to the European Union", not: "Accession of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the European Union".

Rationale

• Simplicity is the most important criterion for page titles. See WP:NAME: "article naming should prefer what the greatest number 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." – WP:COMMONNAMES: "Page names should be as simple as possible without being too general or ambiguous." (or according to an older version of the same page: "use the most common name of a person or thing that does not cause ambiguity with other people or things. Use the naming conflict guideline when there is disagreement" [1])
• There is no ambiguity problem that would force a more complex term, in cases where the topic domain itself excludes other meanings (e.g. inherently country-level topics such as international relations)
• In many cases, the simple (non-disambiguated) versions of such page titles already exist as redirects anyway, without causing any problems (see survey).
• There is no reason why readers would be any less tolerant of a natural residue level of variation and ambiguity in page titles than in article text, where the term is also naturally found in different forms and different meanings depending on context.

Rationale against

• Puts the burden on the editors rather than being a concise proposal for a naming convention
• Creates the need for repeated disambiguation discussions to be spawned about what is the primary topic for every single Macedonia-related article.
• Lacks consistency by using varied proper nouns to refer to the same entity throughout Wikipedia.

Users who endorse Proposal A

• —Nightstallion 10:44, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• First choice. Second choice would be B, with the understanding that the use of parentheses would be kept down to the absolute minimum since it's extremely awkward otherwise. Hans Adler 11:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• This is the most orderly way to handle it of the proposals. Hiberniantears (talk) 14:20, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:22, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• First choice as more comprehensive (C would be a close second). Constantine ✍ 08:48, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
• Indifferent between A and C; I would prefer a mixture: Disambiguate only when necessary, with no cut-off date. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:06, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposal B: Use a single unambiguous name in all page titles

By this proposal, all page titles of articles related to the country or any other meaning would use one single name in all contexts. That name should be either the official Republic of Macedonia (most natural solution e.g. military of the Republic of Macedonia) or Macedonia (country), or "(state)" or "(republic)" where title of the example would be "Military of Macedonia (republic)". The same principle will apply to all other articles about other meanings. For example "Macedonia (Greece)" will be used in all article titles concerning that region like e.g. history of modern Macedonia (Greece). Consistency is sought for. As an example most articles about the US do not use varied titles but use "of the United States" everywhere. e.g. Elections in the United States even though American would be unambiguous in the context of elections (that is the primary meaning of American in that context). That name is used for consistency regardless the fact that most media coverage of the Elections use the term "America" in their headings.

When a reader browses Wikipedia from subject to subject it would be awkward to stuble upon various different variations of one name and not be confused as to when the name is used for the country and when it is used for other meanings

Rationale

• Use consistent naming across Wikipedia's page titles
• Avoid multiple discussions spawning in different article talk pages about titling. That would be unproductive and detrimental to the purpose of improving the content of the articles.
• However all the redirects that use the single word "Macedonia" should be handled with common sense and on a case by case basis redirect to the main topic (similar to proposal A). Also this proposal does not override common sense about titles where the adjective "Macedonian" is used commonly in a non ambiguous way nor do does the "of the Republic of Macedonia" scheme is applicable to those pages - specifically the titles of Macedonian language (only one perceived as a different "language" in contemporary context), Macedonians (ethnic group) (only group of Macedonians that is considered an ethnic group, Macedonian denar (only denar related to Macedonia) etc. - apply common sense )
• This method is neutral and is followed by various libraries including the Library of Congress regarding "Macedonia" related headings

Rationale against

• Leads to unnecessarily complicated titles, when titles should be maximally simple
• There's nothing inconsistent or confusing about using disambiguation in a case-by-case, context-dependent way; that's what disambiguation is all about.
• This would force moving many pages back to a more cumbersome title that have been at plain "Macedonia" for months without ever causing controversy (see survey).

Users who endorse Proposal B

• This is not the Simple Wikipedia, so there is no reason for titles to be "maximally simple" at the expense of accuracy. I like how this is a neutral, workable solution that has already been applied with success by other libraries such as the Library of Congress. The consistency in naming that it leads to across various articles is an added bonus that goes well with WP:NCON. Finally, there's no reason why calling an article History of the Republic of Macedonia would prohibit us from having an additional disambiguation article at History of Macedonia, which could also link to History of the Region of Macedonia... so this article works perfectly well with WP:DISAMBIG, too. --Radjenef (talk) 22:54, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• I aggree with this choice.--Dimorsitanos (talk) 22:33, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
• As the original filling party of this proposal I endorse it for the reasons I included in the draft. Proposal 'A' would be unacceptable since it does not offer anything helpful to the community. The reason however that I prefer 'B' over 'C' (which partly addressed those concerns) is because proposal 'C' focuses only with the country-related pages naming and violates Wikipedia policy for the following reasons: An arbitrary cut-off date (1 June 2009 ??) is nowhere stated in policy as being a reason enough to assume a primary topic. Proposal C violates neutrality by using specialized criteria in order to assume a primary topic for the country and does not use the same criteria for the other meanings. If we applied the directives of 'C' neutrally it might be the case that in some titles the primary topic would be would be one of the other meanings and therefore there should not be a dab page there. On the other hand this proposal ('B') handles all those cases with redirects as WP:NAME instructs us to do and also avoids any possibility of the word "Macedonia" oscillating in page titles from one article to the next from being the country to being the ancient kingdom or something else. Using redirects to unambiguously named primary topics is better, adhering to both WP:DAB and WP:NAME (in a nutshell). Shadowmorph ^{^"^} 05:28, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
• Very clear solution. Neutral, easy to apply in the future (no confusion). I would like to ask everybody to read carefully what B proposes. Originally, after surveying this page I wanted to support C, but with a big caveat. In fact I was on the verge of writing a proposal D (I know, I know, the deadline has passed), until I noticed that I did not pay enough attention to B. B is exactly what I wanted, only that the description/explanation is written in the opposite order than the one I wanted to write. Look more carefully at the objections against for A and C: they are bound to lead to another series of conflicts in the future. B, however, can settle things once and for all. Let me describe why I believe objections against B do not stand a thorough logical scrutiny:
  • Leads to unnecessarily complicated titles, when titles should be maximally simple. "X of the United States of America" is not a complicated title, so "X of the Republic of Macedonia", resp. "X of Macedonia (Greece)" shouldn't be. Look for clarity and avoid confusion. Complication comes, IMHO, from lack of clarity and from confusion, not from an extra word (which BTW is totally legitimate).
  • There's nothing inconsistent or confusing about using disambiguation in a case-by-case, context-dependent way; that's what disambiguation is all about. Insonsistances and confusions of proposals A and C do not come from usage of disambiguation here and there. On the contrary, proposal B explains "use common sense!" Common sense sometimes dictates to create disambiguation pages. So, in fact proposal B is not ruling out disambigs. It tells us to use disambigs when "common sense" requires it, where they are necessary. We are not parrots, we can have common sense when editing.
  • This would force moving many pages back to a more cumbersome title that have been at plain "Macedonia" for months without ever causing controversy (see survey). This is like "let's not end the war with a treaty, let's hope a stalemate would settle by itself". If you know anything about Balkans, you should be aware that the worse treaty is much better than the best stalemate: a stalemate means the parties are preparing for new military action, the longer the stalemate, the more inevitable is the resumption of war. So mind-twisting are the Balkans... People from the Balkans would complain anyway about any solution, even if it is super-perfect to them. As long as they know they cann't overturn it, there will be complains and peace (eventually the complains would stop). But a stalemate (which, imho, proposals A and C are) only incites the Balkan fever until there is another eruption. Dc76\^talk 20:14, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Proposal C: Disambiguate only where needed, with cut-off date

1. For sub-articles of the country, use either "Macedonia(n)" or "Republic of Macedonia":
   1. If a sub-article of the type "X of the Republic of Macedonia" competes with an existing article "X of Greek/ancient Macedonia", a regular disambiguation page pattern according to WP:DAB with no "primary topic" will be used (i.e. "X of Macedonia" will be a disambiguation page), or "X of Macedonia" will be used for a common roof article covering all senses. In all other cases, the country-related article can be at "X of Macedonia".
   2. If a new naming conflict arises because a new competing sub-article dealing with the Greek or ancient sense is created after 1 June 2009, it will be assumed that the country-related topic is the "WP:PRIMARYTOPIC", and that article will therefore remain at the simple page title. A dab page will be created at "X of Macedonia (disambiguation)", if needed.
2. The same rules are to be used in an analogous fashion for sub-articles containing "Macedonian(s)" as an ethnic name (e.g. "Macedonians in country X").
3. With sub-articles containing "Macedonian" as a language name, the topic related to the Macedonian language will be assumed to be primary (i.e. Macedonian dialects, Macedonian grammar, Macedonian alphabet).
4. If needed, disambiguate the meaning of Macedonia in the lead sentence (same as Proposal A)
5. No special rules for international organisations using "F.Y.R." (same as Proposal A)

Rationale

• This proposal preserves the preference for simple titles expressed in Proposal A, but avoids the danger of Proposal A: proliferation of yet more "primacy" disputes into every possible sub-article. Instead of having repeated debates over every single case, there will be a single, simple decision criterion.
• This proposal reflects the fact that readers will naturally expect a country to have a larger and more diversified set of sub-articles than a subnational region or historical entity. It is therefore a reasonable default assumption for future conflicts that the country-related article will in most cases be the primary topic.
• The number of actual conflicts between similarly named pages is quite small (see survey).
• The cut-off criterion of whether an article already exists now can serve as a common-sense indicator of a topic's potential notability. Many editors have in the past made systematic efforts to extend the coverage of either the country or Greek Macedonia with sub-articles. If a sub-article has not been written by now, its topic is probably not very notable.
• The cut-off date also removes the incentive for editors to go on a WP:POINT race of artificially inflating coverage of their favourite Macedonia with new sub-articles, only to force disambiguation on the other side.
• The extra rule for the linguistic articles corresponds to existing practice and overwhelmingly predominant use in the literature.

Rationale against

• This solution is complicated. A simpler solution might be better applicable.
• Inserts assumptions and an arbitrary cut off date for dealing with titles, it may also go against the spirit of the WP:DEADLINE essay.
• Lacks some amount of consistency by using multiple names to refer to the same entity.

Users who endorse proposal C

• Since I filed both A and C, I'll register here my preference for C (shared with most who voted during the preliminary phase). Practical reason: A would lead to proliferating debates over what the "primary meaning" is in cases like "Flag of Macedonia" and an unknown number of other cases. I think we can spare ourselves that hassle, but still go for simplicity in the majority of cases where that presents no problem whatsoever. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:24, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• Most practical solution. (Taivo (talk) 15:25, 26 June 2009 (UTC))
• Endorse this approach. Simplicity is best here. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:09, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• First choice, by a wide margin. Option A will lead to wikilawyering, option B to parenthetical links everywhere (I can envision edit wars over piping, with one side attempting to eliminate parentheticals through piped links, and the other side removing the pipes). Horologium (talk) 20:08, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• C -- Imbris (talk) 01:02, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
• C is my first choice. Second choice B. In my opinion, the recent disturbances in Macedonia-related Wiki articles were totally unnecessary, as unlike cited reference cases like Ireland, Luxembourg or America, there is a recognized international dispute here, and an accepted binding obligation to resolve it. While the latter is yet to happen, it is already clear at this stage of the process that neither ‘Republic of Macedonia’ nor ‘Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ would be among the eventual choices. Apcbg (talk) 06:43, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
• I hesitated between A and C. I accept from the editors above, who know these articles better, that C will be easier in practice; hence I support it. Andrew Dalby 13:57, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
• First choice but I could be persuaded to move to A after more thought. Ugly parenthesis (proposal B) that would be shown on every Macedonian subjectss is undesirable.--Caspian blue 14:16, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
• A would be my second choice, but the problem with it is that it'll probably lead to long debates about what the primary topic is in each case. Jafeluv (talk) 17:16, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
• Indifferent between A and C; I would prefer a mixture: Disambiguate only when necessary, with no cut-off date. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:07, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
• First choice, followed by A. Best, simplest, least conflict afterwards. Jd2718 (talk) 03:18, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
• Per Andrew Dalby. Skäpperöd (talk) 21:29, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
• First choice, as noted previously. I believe choice A only serves to perpetuate the dispute and the resultant disruption to our project. Kafka Liz (talk) 21:32, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
• Simplest, clearest, least prone to warring. --Folantin (talk) 21:37, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
• I agree w/Andrew Dalby. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:28, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
• Agree. Complicated solution, but choice A would lead to perpetual arguments; B is unwieldy. // Chris ^{(complaints)•(contribs)} 16:15, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Notes

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.