Wikipedia talk:Article titles

Proposed move of Bahamian Creole to Bahamian DialectBahamian Dialect

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Bahamian Creole § Page move proposed. The discussion concerns a proposal to move Bahamian Creole to Bahamian DialectBahamian Dialect, which currently redirects to Bahamian Creole. Outside opinions will be very much appreciated. Thank you in advance! Pineapple Storage (talk) 12:50, 31 August 2025 (UTC) Pineapple Storage (talk) 12:50, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

RFC to change WP:NCAUST

There has been an RFC started which proposes changes to WP:NCAUST. Interested editors may participate at Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#RFC: Dropping state/territory from place names by default. TarnishedPath^talk 00:50, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

What do re: naming if names from WP:RS titles vs. prose are different

I have been informed by Royiswariii on Talk:Ronald dela Rosa# Requested move 7 September 2025 that WP:RMs have been closed on arguments that what was used was how the subject was named on the sources' title vs. how it was actually referred to in the prose. This can be an issue if the names used on the sources' headline/title is different from how it is written in the prose; usually the names on headlines/titles are shorter or abbreviated. Is this the correct interpretation? Howard the Duck (talk) 12:28, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Don’t use headlines as sources. See: WP:HEADLINES. Blueboar (talk) 12:50, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Just as what I thought, Thanks! Howard the Duck (talk) 00:12, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

RfC on pre-emptive disambiguation in constituency article titles

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

After nearly two weeks of discussion, I think it's safe to say that it's WP:SNOWing unseasonably early in Essex this year. There is a clear consensus in favour of the proposed change to remove unncessary disambiguators from articles on parliamentary constituencies, per our main guidelines on article titles and disambiguation. There is thus consensus to overturn WP:NCUKPARL, which I will mark historical. After discussion on my talk, I have restored NCUCKPARL, modified to be in line with this consensus. (non-admin closure) Cremastra (talk · contribs) 22:50, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

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Should the titles of articles about parliament constituencies (e.g. in Essex) always contain the parenthetical "(UK Parliament constituency)" or only when one is needed for disambiguation? Surtsicna (talk) 00:27, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Examples

With pre-emptive disambiguation	Without pre-emptive disambiguation
Southend West and Leigh (UK Parliament constituency)	Southend West and Leigh
Luton South and South Bedfordshire (UK Parliament constituency)	Luton South and South Bedfordshire
Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (UK Parliament constituency)	Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket

Surtsicna (talk) 00:27, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Discussion (parliament constituencies)

• Only when needed. I do not see any reason for these articles not to conform with our article titles policy. As WP:CONSISTENCY says, the use of a parenthetical disambiguator in Georgia (country) does not mean that we should have Azerbaijan (country) and Armenia (country) as well. On top of that, some of these constituency article titles are absurdly long, taking up two rows and for no apparent reason. Surtsicna (talk) 00:27, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
• Only when needed. Unnecessary disambiguation, is, well, unnecessary. See our guideline at WP:D2D. 162 etc. (talk) 00:34, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
• Only when needed, i.e., overturn Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK Parliament constituencies). Per WP:PRECISION, titles should unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but should be no more precise than that. I've seen no good justification for departing from this baseline: WP:CONSISTENT is fairly clear it doesn't call for this, and I don't agree that recognizability is such a major concern here as to require such an unusual step. This rule has always been a dubious one built on what I would consider local consensus (as JHunterJ valiantly argued back in 2014), and I'm glad that the community has been moving away from it recently, for instance by declining to extend it outside the UK context. We should get rid of it altogether. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 01:21, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

  The fact that a guideline so clearly contravenes policy is in itself quite dubious. Surtsicna (talk) 06:31, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

• Only when needed, per the above rationales. We should also be more concise in the disambiguator for the cases where it is still needed. So Clacton (constituency) rather than Clacton (UK Parliament constituency), to match the usual disambiguation rules and WP:CONCISE. We only need the full disambiguator if there's a constituency in some other parliament that has the exact same name.  — Amakuru (talk) 07:12, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
• Only when needed. I can see the utility of preemptive disambiguation for some cases, such as when the disambiguation is sufficiently short or natural (e.g., I have no problem with Toyota Prius being the article title over Prius). But I don't see any particular advantage to taking that approach here; parenthetical disambiguation is one of the least natural DAB options, and this particular disambiguator is close to twenty-five characters long. In cases where it's not actually needed for understanding, we should go ahead and jettison it. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 13:38, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
• Only when needed. I view any naming convention or other guideline that calls for an article title to be "X (Y)" when there are no other uses of X to conflict with WP:AT policy, specifically WP:QUALIFIER, which states that only topics covered in Wikipedia should be disambiguated with parenthetical disambiguation (and then, only when other forms of disambiguation aren't appropriate). In such a case, there is no appropriate place for the base name to go. It can't be a disambiguation page, because such a page would have only one blue link, and it shouldn't redirect to the disambiguated title for reasons discussed at WP:MISPLACED. Note that the other classic example cited at WP:PRECISION regading Michigan state highways still exists at Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(U.S._state_and_territory_highways), and WP:NCEPISODE was recently revised to allow for including the TV show in parentheses for numbered episodes even when there is no other use of the base name, allowing the base name to be MISPLACED or even not exist at all, which is counterintuitive to how parenthetical disambiguation works. I believe all of these naming conventions should be changed as they currently conflict with AT policy. Mdewman6 (talk) 22:29, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
• Only when needed. I've always found the UK method of constantly, unceasingly adding the disambiguation to be very off, and rather out of step with other naming conventions. Having the disambiguation would be WP:CONSISTENT, yes, but it's equally important that they be WP:NATURAL, which this is not. In lots of cases, the article title can only be referring to a parliamentary constituency and the name can just be the name. Disambiguation should obviously be kept for things like Grampound (UK Parliament constituency) and Grampound. DimensionalFusion (talk · she/her) 23:16, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
• Only when needed; not convinced that it's necessary to break our general guidelines around disambiguation here (especially as it's not natural disambiguation). Elli (talk | contribs) 23:56, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
• I am expanding this RfC to parliament constituencies in general if nobody minds. Extraordinary Writ, 162 etc., Amakuru, ModernDayTrilobite, Mdewman6, DimensionalFusion, Elli. Surtsicna (talk) 06:15, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
• Only when needed – There is no reason why parliamentary constituencies would be an exception from our general titling rules. We don't include parenthetical disambiguators when no disambiguation is required. Graham11 (talk) 03:07, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
• Only when needed, I wondered why it was like this when I saw some pages like this a while ago but did not look into it. If it is the only thing with that name then there is no need for parenthetical disambiguation Yoblyblob (Talk) :) 14:35, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
• As long as the disambiguated titles are always blue links I don't have a strong opinion about whether they're articles or redirects. Thryduulf (talk) 17:36, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  I would agree with @Thryduulf I think, no strong opinion, but keep the redirects if we do change.

  In practice I think we've found having a consistent disambiguation has been very useful for editors working in this area (myself included), as well as those linking to our content from outside, since it avoids having to constantly check what form is being used for a given seat. However, that shouldn't be a blocker to moving pages - redirects and piped links mean that as long as we can rely on the old style (UK parliament constituency) titles existing as redirects then it doesn't matter so much what title the pages actually live at. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:17, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

• Only when needed per what Extraordinary Writ said on WP:PRECISION. There is no need to depart from what it says in that policy. GothicGolem29 (talk) 18:14, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC regarding military unit naming conventions

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Military_history#RfC:_Proposal_to_remove_call_for_preemptive_disambiguation_from_MOS:MILUNITNAME. Mdewman6 (talk) 23:00, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Template:Verbatim title

That temlate doen't explain when this should be used, and what's the point (unlike Template:Italic title). Getting some titles italicized is hard, so sure, we need a template for that. But quotation marks? Shouldn't they be just used directly when needed? Should this template be deleted? If not, its documentation should explain when it should be used. PS. There is also Template:Italic verbatim title. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:15, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Side note: It isn't a very popular template, is it? It's in use in only 40 articles, 74 pages altogether. {{Italic verbatim title}} is used in only 6 articles. Not that it's usual to enclose article titles in quotes anyway: There are only around 240 (ignoring redirects) that begin explicitly with a double quote. Largoplazo (talk) 12:48, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

RfC about updating U.S. state highway naming conventions to avoid unnecessary disambiguation

Should Wikipedia:Naming conventions (U.S. state and territory highways) be revised with regard to the naming conventions for state routes in Kansas and Michigan so that the parenthetical disambiguators "(Kansas highway)" and "(Michigan highway)" are only used when disambiguation is necessary, or another format entirely is used instead? Mdewman6 (talk) 22:25, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Currently, the naming convention calls for articles about state highways in Kansas and Michigan to be titled K-X (Kansas highway) and M-X (Michigan highway), respectively, where "X" is the route number. These are unique among the states and territories, as all others include the state or territory name in the article title. Indeed, even North Carolina and Puerto Rico, where official route names use the format "NC X" and "PR-X", respectively, nevertheless call for article titles to be North Carolina highway X and Puerto Rico highway X, respectively.

I am not completely familiar with the history regarding consensus for these naming conventions, but do know they arose many years ago after much contentiousness, to the point that there was an ArbCom case in 2006. Nevertheless, the Michigan highway convention became an example of local consensus for unnecessary disambiguation at WP:PRECISION, calling for inclusion of the parenthetical qualifier even if the base name of "M-X" does not have other meanings covered in Wikipedia. Given the recent RfC regarding the naming convention for parliamentary constituencies, which was the other such example at WP:PRECISION, overwhelmingly rejected this call for unnecessary disambiguation, it seems timely to revisit the highway naming convention.

The most straightforward option would be revise the naming convention to call for titles along the lines of Kansas highway X or Michigan highway X (Option 1), thus utilizing WP:NATURAL disambiguation as is done for all other states and territories. Kansas state highway X or Michigan state highway X are also possibilities that offer more precision, given the existence of other classes of highways (county highways, U.S. routes, interstates) in these states.

Alternatively, if there remains consensus that the best format for Kansas and Michigan highways per WP:CRITERIA and particularly WP:COMMONNAME is the existing "K-X" and "M-X" format, then the naming convention should be amened to clarify that the "(Kansas highway)" and "(Michigan highway)" qualifiers should only be added if there are other uses of "K-X" or "M-X" covered in Wikipedia, per WP:QUALIFIER (Option 2). If the "K-X" and "M-X" names are really the common names, then the qualifiers shouldn't be needed just for recognizability. Calling for inclusion of the qualifier in all cases regardless of whether it is needed conflicts with WP:CONSISTENT, which makes clear that parenthetical qualifiers shouldn't be used for all articles within a particular topic just because some require them for disambiguation.

In many cases, there are multiple uses of "K-X" or "M-X" that would make the current disambiguation valid, particularly at lower numbers of X, often ships in the case of K and weapon systems in the case of M (though many of these are in my view should be disambiguated per WP:SMALLDETAILS instead). But there are dozens of cases where the "K-X" or "M-X" base names are WP:MISPLACED redirects to the "K-X (Kansas highway)" or "M-X (Michigan highway)" pages hosting the article, e.g. K-145, K-179, M-154, M-179.

To summarize, I feel the naming conventions should be revised in some form to address this longstanding issue and bring them in compliance with WP:Article titles policy. Mdewman6 (talk) 22:30, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Discussion (U.S. state highways)

• The "Pennsylvania Quadrant" entry is another; e.g., State Route 1002 redirects to State Route 1002 (Lehigh County, Pennsylvania). Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:31, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I'm not sure what to do about that. It's unclear to me why we have "Pennsylvania Route X" but others are just "State Route XXXX", or why the disambiguator can't just be "(Pennsylvania)"- for the latter I assume there can be multiple uses of "XXXX" in the state in different counties? Mdewman6 (talk) 22:40, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

• I suspect the reason for the "always disambiguated" titles is to make script and bot updates easier. While that may sound like a non-issue, there's a lot of intricate code in the infoboxes and junctions list for roads (probably the most complicated next to rail line infoboxes, those things are insane) and when those infoboxes need to be updated or patched or whatever, and said patch requires a bulk parameter change in the articles, the ability to have a script and/or bot do it is most helpful. A benefit of having a uniform name for the entire set of articles is to minimize the number of "Special case" article titles the script or bot has to deal with. Dave (talk) 22:53, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

I wonder if that so long as a consistent version like "M-X (Michigan highway)" exists as a redirect, then scripts and bots can be run with minimal disruption depsite page moves? I do not know, I have little experience with that side of WP. Mdewman6 (talk) 23:02, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

At a minimum the script/bot would have to recognize the db response was a redirect, and then parse the "real article". However, I only know enough about the template and lua coding to be dangerous. I don't know if that's easy or difficult to do, and the people I used to rely on to help me with such coding have since left Wikipedia. Dave (talk) 23:21, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Modules (like Module:Pagetype) can recognize redirects (using isRedirect attribute of the title object, and so can templates (like {{is redirect}}). I assume that means a bot could as well, but don't take my word for it. Mathglot (talk) 00:03, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose—there are several factors to consider in article titles. Outside of this discussion, would anyone know what "M-185" referenced on its own? A reader might assume it's a Messier number for a galaxy, a motorway in a country that follows that numbering convention, a military equipment number, or a variety of other topics. One can make article titles too short and deprive others of the context.
  We need to balance all of the factors: "Recognizability", "Naturalness", "Precision", "Concision", and "Consistency". Having some of Michigan's highway article omit the "Michigan highway" portion would be concise for those specific examples, but it wouldn't be consistent with the remainder of the article set. Removing it would harm recognizability as noted above.
  My last point is that Michigan's highway articles have had stable titles ever since WP:SRNC and the ArbCom case in 2006. That's a long time (19 years this month), and it would be strange to disturb such a stable precedent and convention. All of my comments here should be equally applied to Kansas mutatis mutandis. Imzadi 1979 → 04:31, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

@Imzadi1979: so what would be the drawback to option 1 above, i.e. changing the titles to "Michigan Highway X" or "Kansas Highway X"? North Carolina highways use this format rather than "NC X", so why are these two states the only exceptions?

Either "M-185" is the common name of the highway and is recognizable on its own, or per WP:ACROTITLE, it's not and abbreviations shouldn't be used as the title. We can't have things both ways by using an abbreviation and a parenthetical qualifier, even when the abbreviation isn't ambiguous. MOS:ACROTITLE advises against using abbreviations with parenthetical disambiguation- instead, the title should just be the unabbreviated form.

And I strongly disagree with the argument that these conventions were settled on 19 years ago and therefore shouldn't be changed. Just because these were the outcome of a contentious debate long ago doesn't mean we should be stuck with them and they can't be revised as needed, especially when they conflict with article title policy. And I see no distinction between this call for unnecessary parenthetical disambiguation and that for the parliamentary constituencies that was just unanimously stuck down in the last RfC. Mdewman6 (talk) 21:37, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

The “M-” is not an abbreviation. Ditto the “K-”. Your option 1 uses a falsehood and cannot be implemented on that basis. The letter is an integral part of the designation and does not expand to another word. Option 2 fails the consistency and recognizability criteria.

Any change to the naming convention should go through ArbCom as they imposed the process to settle the various naming conventions as part of the Highways 1 case in 2006. Discussions about changing these conventions have been considered a third rail ever since, and any changes to the conventions really need to go to ArbCom based on the decisions of that case. I would strongly advise you that nothing here is broke and needs to be fixed in the strongest possible terms. Seriously, please leave this all alone. Imzadi 1979 → 22:43, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

How is "M" in "M-185" not an abbreviation for Michigan? Mdewman6 (talk) 21:59, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

It is not an abbreviation and never has been. It may match the first letter of the state's name, but neither the Michigan State Highway Department nor Michigan Department of Transportation have ever said it is an abbreviation for anything in the 106 years the naming scheme has been in use. Never. Imzadi 1979 → 23:36, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't have any strong opinion regarding how these articles should be titled, but I do disagree that it's necessary (or even beneficial) for people to go to ArbCom if they want to change this titling convention.

• First off, I reviewed the final decision at WP:RFAR/HWY and ArbCom didn't impose the current guideline in the first place—they encourage[d] the community to adopt a formal policy on the naming of state highways, and placed a restriction on moving highway articles [u]ntil a formal naming convention policy regarding state highways is reached. That is to say, while ArbCom may have encouraged the creation of the existing guideline, they explicitly left the actual shaping of the guideline in the community's hands, and any content restrictions that they placed have elapsed now that that guidance exists.
• Second, while I wasn't active in 2006 and can't attest to what arbitrators thought then, current-day arbitrators consistently take the stance that ArbCom should not be in the business of ruling on article content (see the proposed decision subpages at WP:HJP or WP:ARBTRANS for recent high-profile cases where arbs expressed that view). If this debate were to be brought before ArbCom, it's almost certain that they would (rightly) decline it as outside of their remit.

In short, this is exactly the kind of debate that should be hashed out within the general community, and in that respect I think that—however the discussion ultimately resolves—the venue chosen for it was exactly correct. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 23:44, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

• Support for the same reason NCUKPARL was recently changed. Crouch, Swale (talk) 23:37, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Constituency article titles (UK etc)

I direct editors to long standing and agreed policy (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK Parliament constituencies). This has been in place for many years and I would ask that any moves made by the RFC are reversed.

Thanks

doktorb _words^deeds 23:21, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

That was a guideline, not a policy; and it was a guideline that contradicted policy. The RfC has overturned it; the consensus was unanimous. I would ask fellow editors to help with moving more pages to titles that conform to WP:AT policy. Surtsicna (talk) 23:32, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

I refute that decision which was not made by wide enough discussion (did you consult the UK politics project group members?). I'm trying to revert changes now doktorb _words^deeds 23:34, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

The RfC was properly advertised at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(UK_Parliament_constituencies)#RfC. Mdewman6 (talk) 23:43, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

It feels like every single decision we made, in good faith, are now reversed by future editors who don't know or don't understand the project, or the reasons we made those decisions. We put in so much effort to standardise constituency articles across Wikipedia. This isn't the first time I've wondered why we put in such effort. I'm very deflated, again, by a decision which ends a long standing period of standardisation. doktorb _words^deeds 23:46, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Also at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies. If you want to challenge the RfC closure, you should follow the process for doing that rather than just trying to unilaterally overrule it. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:45, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

RM discussion

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Violations of non-combatant airspaces during the Russo-Ukrainian war (2022–present) § Requested move 26 October 2025. –Gluonz ^{talk contribs} 01:00, 27 October 2025 (UTC)