Archive 1Archive 2

RFC on egg naming convention

The following discussion 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.


In a recent move request, the topic of how to disambiguate the Fabergé eggs was discussed, as this category shows multiple naming conventions. It was outside the scope of the RM itself, so I am starting an RFC in an attempt to codify the naming procedures for these eggs. Primefac (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Proposal 1

  1. If the base name (everything minus "egg") is available, have the page name be the base name. Basket of Wild Flowers, Steel Military
  2. If the base name is taken, disambiguate with (Fabergé egg). Mosaic (Fabergé egg), Alexander Palace (Fabergé egg)

This makes it clear that any non-base-name page is a Fabergé egg, not just a generic "egg". Primefac (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

  • Support - As mentioned in the RM, names like "Red Cross with Triptych egg" can be confusing - is it a triptych egg, or an egg with a triptych on it? Adding the specific egg type removes all ambiguity. Primefac (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose per below. No need to complicate the naming conventions; point 1 is superfluous if Point 2 is held to. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 04:51, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Support This is the standard way articles are titled on Wikipedia. Quoting Born2cycle on Talk:BREACH (security exploit), adding parenthetic descriptive information to titles when it's not needed for disambiguation [is] a huge problem because it's an unsustainable practice with no basis in policy, guidelines or conventions for very good reasons Pppery 00:42, 20 March 2017‎ (UTC)
What about when it is needed to help identify a class of articles on a broader category? When I first started looking through the Fabergé egg articles I was only certain I got where I was going when I saw the parenthetical "Fabergé egg" located after the egg's name in the title of the article. I totally agree that parenthetical disambiguation can get out hand and generally should not be used... But in this instance, as a lay person, I was totally expecting it. Every time. KDS4444 (talk) 10:19, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Proposal 2

  1. If the base name (everything minus "egg") is available, have the page name be the base name. Basket of Wild Flowers, Steel Military
  2. If the base name is taken, disambiguate with "egg" (case up for discussion). Blue Serpent Clock Egg, Diamond Trellis Egg

This option more closely matches the bolded name given in the lead of the article. Primefac (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Proposal 3

Append all Fabergé eggs with "(Fabergé egg)". This would turn Kelch Chanticleer into Kelch Chanticleer (Fabergé egg) and Memory of Azov Egg into Memory of Azov (Fabergé egg). Removes all need for disambiguation. Primefac (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

  • Weak supportOppose This becomes unnecessary disambiguation for a fair number of the eggs. I do, however, prefer this immediately behind Prop 1. Primefac (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Support All the eggs need a term to signify that they are small representational art objects rather than the thing being represented, which their unqualified titles seem to imply (e.g. here Kelch Chanticleer isn't a bird or a figure from French literature); and this seems to be the best. A second choice, which follows more closely the practice of catalogs I've seen, is to append "Egg", which is in upper case in catalogs, rather than lower. Even in the context of a book on Fabergé, the distinction has to be made, since there is usually a variety of objects under discussion. The page for Kelch Chanticleer very quickly makes the distinction that it is an an egg, in lead and infobox if not in the title. Dhtwiki (talk) 21:01, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Support as most useful title for readers unfamiliar with Fabergé egg conventions and details. These are, after all, those most likely to turn to an online encyclopedia for help. Experts and connoisseurs and others familiar with these art objects are more likely to be supplying better sources to these articles than reading them. If you didn't know what it was already, what would the titles "Steel Military" or "Danish Palaces" or "Clover Leaf" mean in isolation? At this time, only the last of those is descriptive enough to indicate what the article is about. By appending "(Fabergé egg)", these articles comply with WP:NDESC and WP:PRECISE. Appending this uniformly also avoids ambiguity on naming conventions and simplifies rules, always something to be striven for. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 06:15, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Still unnecessary unless there are other challenging topics using the same name. George Ho (talk) 08:08, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
Switch to neutral - I still thought this proposal adds extra disambiguation. Nevertheless, I favor this as a stopgap. --George Ho (talk) 00:06, 20 March 2017 (UTC); switching back to "oppose" per below !oppose votes. 00:17, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
@Pppery: Are you aware of any particular guidance anywhere written on using disambiguation for uniformity in a set? I know the usual rule would prohibit this, but it is argued here that there should be an exception for sets of concepts. I know this issue comes up regularly. I have seen in tags about offices of government, like tagging Category:Government ministries of India. Some people say to uniformly tag them all as "India", and other people say to do this only if it conflicts with another government's exact name. Most governments have approximately the same name for most of their ministries and from an editor perspective, having a uniform naming standard with disambig per country would make similarly named ministries easier to differentiate in lists. If there is centralized discussion on disambiguation for sets then I am not aware of it, but I think it would be useful to have to settle these sorts of discussions. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:57, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
I think this is covered by WP:PRECISE, which gives this sort of example as valid exceptions to the rule.--Trystan (talk) 19:03, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
Trystan, yes, thanks for that. The example there is putting state names after city names to mark them as all part of a set. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:17, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
Because the state is generally part of the common name. One can't really make an argument about consistency there, considering some major cities, like Seattle and Boston use the comma-less form/ Pppery 11:32, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
The third and fourth examples are US highways and U.K. ridings, both of which have naming conventions that say to always include parenthetical qualifiers even when not necessary for disambiguation.--Trystan (talk) 12:11, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: I've created an alt proposal below, do you prefer that? Laurdecl talk 06:00, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Given that there are eggs with names like "Pelican" which are complicated for several reasons ("Pelican egg" vs "Pelican Egg" vs. "Pelican (Fabergé egg)" vs. plain ol' "Pelican") This option is, I think, the way that most of our readers will expect to be encountering the Fabergé egg articles. And I think that giving the readers an expected title, even if it goes against the usual rules for the use of parentheses, is an instance of WP:IAR for the improvement of the project (with the caveat that I hope it does not set any trends, which would be disappointing). KDS4444 (talk) 10:26, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
This is exactly how I feel. While it is true that this disambiguation is unnecessary, in the end it helps the reader, which is who we should be thinking about and not arbitrary guidelines. As for trends, perhaps the naming policy could be updated to allow disambiguation when the title is obscure or seemingly unrelated. Laurdecl talk 09:19, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
I agree. Is a title like "Steel Military" (while simple) really intuitive, though? Because my sense is that it probably is not. The same would go for many of the egg names when presented without some kind of word following the name (Memory of Azov, Kelch Chanticleer, Empire Nephrite, etc.). Simple, yes. Intuitive...? Someone interested in reading an article on one of these eggs will begin typing the name and will end up getting a result that will look very odd to them at first ("Empire Nephrite? Is that article about the egg? Hm. Well, nothing more obvious is showing up, so maybe it is..." as opposed to "Empire Nephrite (Fabergé egg)— now that is definitely the article I am looking for!"). Just a thought. KDS4444 (talk) 03:23, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
@KDS4444: I see your point, but if the egg is named "Steel Military", I don't think people will be that confused by the article living at Steel Military. This is a common issue for artwork articles. For example: The Coronation of Napoleon, Brushstrokes, Golf Ball, Oath of the Horatii, Pyramid of Skulls, etc. Fabergé eggs aren't unique in this regard. If a new convention was appropriate for Fabergé eggs, it should probably be applied to all artworks. I'm not opposed to the idea entirely, but it seems awkward to have a special rule just for Fabergé eggs. I've changed my "oppose" to "weak oppose" as I don't feel strongly on the issue. Kaldari (talk) 20:04, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
@Kaldari:(It is one of the subtle points of the names of the eggs that Fabergé did not assign names to any of them as he did not consider them in need of naming— which makes them unlike almost any painting or other "art" work. Fabergé was creating jewellery, in his mind, rather than art, and no one names their jewellery, and neither did he— except now we think of his work as art, and want to assign names to it, which is part of why all this is so darned messy! I think the eggs fit into a different class of creation from paintings, which may mean they aught to have a different naming convention. KDS4444 (talk) 20:45, 24 March 2017 (UTC))

Proposal 3 alt

One of the issues raised above is that the use of a parenthetical disambiguation is contrary to policy and unnecessary, and that creating an exception for Fabergé eggs in particular is unusual. I propose that instead of Kelch Chanticleer (Fabergé egg) and Memory of Azov (Fabergé egg) we have Kelch Chanticleer Fabergé egg and Memory of Azov Faberge egg (without the parenthesis). This is more natural and doesn't conflict with any established policy. Laurdecl talk 09:30, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Proposal 4

Append all Fabergé eggs with "Egg" (case up for discussion). This would turn Kelch Chanticleer into Kelch Chanticleer egg and Rothschild (Fabergé egg) into Rothschild Egg. Removes all need for disambiguation. Primefac (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

  • Oppose This becomes unnecessary disambiguation for a fair number of the eggs. Primefac (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Support "Egg" forms part of the common name of these items, as evidenced by the usage throughout the articles on them.--Trystan (talk) 19:07, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose because of the possibility of confusion. For example, is "Red Cross with Triptych egg" a Red Cross with-Triptych-egg or a Red-Cross-with-Triptych egg. Laurdecl talk 12:45, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
    • But is "Red Cross with Triptych" a triptych and a red cross (such as this Japanese print, or is it a Fabergé egg? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:09, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
      • It is an egg whose outside is marked with a distinct Red Cross red cross but whose insides contain a triptych as opposed to the other externally identical egg with a large Red Cross red cross on the outside but which has inside a series of royal portraits (i.e., the Red Cross with Portraits egg). Aren't ya glad ya asked?? These two eggs were given during the same calendar year to two different ladies, you see. KDS4444 (talk) 10:34, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
        • If the name doesn't include "egg" somewhere in it, then how will the would-be searcher know that this is the piece of art that is triptych+Red Cross+egg vs the piece of art that is triptych+Red Cross with no egg? It's not the only piece of art that has a distinct Red Cross and a triptych, after all. (Red Crosses [as in humanitarian aid, not just crosses that happened to be red] were a major theme in Japanese art for a while.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:44, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Partial support I'd like to see most Fabergé eggs include the word "egg" in the title (with or without the word Fabergé). I'd be happy to see occasional exceptions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:09, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose mostly on the grounds of "Pelican Egg", which just won't fit this paradigm (though I hate the word "paradigm"). In reliable sources, this is the way the eggs are referenced. Thing is, in those sources, the readers all know that "Pelican egg" means the Fabergé variety and not the avian because of the context. On Wikipedia, this is not the case: there is no context here KDS4444 (talk) 10:34, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose and comment. Egg is not part of the proper name of these eggs; definitely don't capitalize if this ends up being chosen. I suspect the reason they usually appear with the word egg in outside sources is because of some default desire to disambiguate/categorize in a catalog, which we don't need on Wikipedia, as we have our own disambiguation policies here. ʙʌsʌwʌʟʌ тʌʟк 05:37, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Proposal 5

Change nothing. Primefac (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

What happened to using WP:COMMONNAMES? Should we rely on sources using names for such eggs? George Ho (talk) 08:08, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

What George Ho said, pretty much. Use the common name in reliable sources. If that common name is already taken and so requires disambiguation, then do so. If it doesn't, use it as is. We already do that for every article, there's no need to make complex rules for this particular case. Do it as we always do. Seraphimblade Talk to me 12:06, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho and Seraphimblade: at the RM that started this whole thing off, there was a huge debate about what the COMMONNAME actually was for these eggs. For example, is the common name Steel Military or Steel Military egg? It wasn't in the scope of the RM, so I started this discussion. What if one source calls it the former while another source calls it the latter? There was concern that there were too many options for possible names. Of course, if you think we should keep the status quo, there's always #Proposal 5. Primefac (talk) 12:14, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
Then, that RM decides it for that particular article. If it needs to be decided for a different one, then a different RM decides it there. It may be that a particular convention is the common name for one but not the other, so it should always be case by case. Seraphimblade Talk to me 12:19, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
Shall we withdraw this RfC and start another RM on "Triptych egg" then (and others individually)? This time, use COMMONNAMES. George Ho (talk) 17:51, 14 March 2017 (UTC); struck. 00:08, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm not particularly inclined to do so, though obviously if Proposal 5 passes then that's what we'd end up doing. Primefac (talk) 02:31, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
Would proposal 3 be accompanied by revisions to the lead sentences, to bring them in line with MOS:LEAD? e.g., "Steel Military is a Fabergé egg..." or "The Steel Military egg is..."--Trystan (talk) 16:40, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
Trystan, yes, and I'd be happy to make those changes. Primefac (talk) 17:58, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
(Also, there are no Fabergé egg sources which use the phrase "Steel Military" in a sentence on its own without the word "egg" attached to it— you will never see, "The Steel Military was retained by the Provisional Government"— it is always "The Steel Military egg was retained..." KDS4444 (talk) 10:40, 23 March 2017 (UTC)).
Would proposal 3 make the changes permanent or stopgaps? George Ho (talk) 00:08, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Synthesis so far: What we seem to have discovered at this point are these things:

  1. Adding "egg" to all the titles, even though this is the way that all of the eggs are referred to in reliable sources, is likely to cause confusion for readers (e.g. Red cross with triptych egg).
  2. Adding a parenthetical to the end of all of the names contradicts common practice and naming policy
  3. Adding a parenthetical only to the end of those names that require this disambiguation results in some articles with counter intuitive names (e.g., Steel Military)
  4. Adding "egg" only to those articles whose names would require disambiguation still leaves us with counter intuitive article titles.
What I would love to end up with is a result that is organized by some kind of rule or expectation that doesn't contradict policy and that is simple and intuitive, one that results in "Steel Military egg" or "Steel Military (Fabergé egg)" but not "Steel Military"; "Red Cross with Triptych (Fabergé egg)" but not "Red Cross with Triptych egg" or "Red Cross with Triptych"; "Pelican (Fabergé egg)" and obviously not "Pelican egg" or "Pelican egg (Fabergé egg)" (perhaps "Pelican Egg" would be adequate? Note that there are four bird-themed eggs: Hen, Pelican, Swan, and Peacock); "Memory of Azov Egg" or "Memory of Azov (Fabergé egg)" but not "Memory of Azov"; "Chanticleer Egg" or "Chanticleer (Fabergé egg)"; "Moscow Kremlin Egg" or "Moscow Kremlin (Fabergé egg)"; "Order of St. George Egg"... but maybe not "Order of St. George (Fabergé egg)"; etc. Some of the articles already exist under these kinds of titles.
Maybe we could agree on this: that the title should make clear that the subject is a named, non-avian egg ("Memory of Azov Egg", "Moscow Kremlin Egg", and provide alternative parenthetical disambiguation in those instances where this is clearly necessary either because of possible confusion with an actual bird ("Swan (Fabergé egg)") or confusion in the meaning of the title (Red Cross with Triptych (Fabergé egg)". This would limit the use of parentheses to those instances where pretty much necessary, and would still allow each article title to clearly indicate that the subject of that article is a non-avian egg (man, this is complicated). KDS4444 (talk) 04:11, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
What we'd do is the same as in every case. We'd title the article the same as the common name for it. A local consensus here would not override that. The common name would be decided, case by case, for each particular article. Seraphimblade Talk to me 11:38, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
The common name for each of these eggs, in context, is "Whatever-it-is Egg", including "Swan Egg" and "Peacock Egg"... As well as "Red Cross with Triptych Egg". I take it you mean that the bird-egg names would get parenthetical disambiguation, like "Swan Egg (Fabergé egg)", yes?. Fabergé himself never gave any of these eggs anything like a title, and so names have varied somewhat, but each consistently has the word "egg" (capitalized or not) at the end whenever discussed in reliable sources.KDS4444 (talk) 20:37, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
I don't agree that adding a parenthetical qualifier to create consistency in a set is contrary to policy. There is a reasonable debate about whether a standard naming convention is desirable for this set, but MOS:PRECISION allows it.--Trystan (talk) 13:33, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
Trystan, looks like you are right. So while there is a standard and accepted policy for using good ol' common names for most everything, we can also establish a separate naming convention for the Fabergé eggs which would override the common name section of the article titles policy page and which would allow us to put "(Fabergé egg)" at the end of each for consistency and clarity, even if this caused the appearance of some unnecessary disambiguation. This means slightly awkward titles like "Swan Egg (Fabergé egg)" but then, maybe that really is the best way to title all of these. I'd support that if it helped close this discussion. KDS4444 (talk) 20:37, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
I agree that we should include the word egg in all (or nearly all) titles. I would prefer that it not (usually) be done in parenthetical labels. Of the four points above (which I've just numbered for convenience), I agree with #1, #3, and #4. (I have no opinion either way on #2: I'd have to spend a while with the dab people to figure out what their current thinking is.) On the point of specific examples, "Swan Egg (Fabergé egg)" seems acceptable but a bit clunky. I might prefer "Swan Fabergé egg" or "Swan (Fabergé egg)" myself, but the exact implementation at each article is something that could be discussed separately.
I realize, as is typical for a good compromise, that most people aren't going to get everything they want with this sort of outcome. I hope, though, that it would all be something that's good for readers/searchers, and not obviously inaccurate in the view of editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:55, 30 March 2017 (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.

All this unnecessary disambiguation is contrary to policy

Folks, you can't just make up new guidelines out of thin air that are contrary to how all the other articles on WP are titled. I just found Danish Palaces (Fabergé egg) and Danish Palaces did not even exist. Of course I moved Danish Palaces (Fabergé egg) to Danish Palaces [1] to fix that. The reasoning in the above close is absurd: "... can be confusing to people unfamiliar with the subject". We have NEVER titled WP articles to be recognizable for people who are unfamiliar with a given topic or topic area. If we did that, we'd have to rename most of our articles. The guiding principle has always been recognizability for those who ARE familiar, not those who are NOT familiar. Now all the other ones that don't require disambiguation have to be fixed. Or do we have to go to move review? --В²C 03:51, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

The above RM is invalid

  1. The above RM should have been proposed as a multi-move RM, with notices on pages of all potentially affected articles. That didn't happen.
  2. The consensus of the discussion is not at all clear. Option 1 had only 1 oppose. Option 3 was opposed by five participants, but consensus was found to favor it? That makes no sense.
  3. The reasoning given in the close is absurd (see section I created just above).
  4. The close was done by a non-admin; non-admins should not be closing such complex and controversial RM discussions. This is exactly why.

--В²C 04:06, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

I've removed all unnecessary disambiguation from those titles where the disambiguation is unnecessary except for Memory of Azov due to a technical issue. If anyone wants to propose adding all the unnecessary disambiguation, you need to make a proper multi-move RM per the instructions at WP:RM, which will cause all the necessary notification to be made correctly, and an admin needs to close it. --В²C 04:47, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
Local consensus can "override" policy guidelines. The correct response to "I don't agree with the move RFC" isn't to simply revert all of the page moves. You first ask the closer to reconsider (which you have done), then you request a formal review of the closure. This avoids starting move wars and other unpleasantness. I'm not sure where the whole "an admin must close", as I've seen plenty of valid non-admin closures. Primefac (talk) 12:47, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
As a participant in the RFC who supported one of the unsuccessful options, I would like to say that I felt the close was appropriate. It's not just about counting supports and opposes. The closer addressed objections that had been raised with an accurate description of relevant policy (WP:PRECISE).--Trystan (talk) 13:53, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
Thankyou for that Trystan - I appreciate that my closure wasn't going to please everyone, but I do feel that I paid attention to all relevant policies and having re-checked my closure of the above RfC I still think it was appropriate. Exemplo347 (talk) 14:16, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

I see my reverts have been reverted. That's fine. I'll start a proper multi-page move request at RM when I have time. --В²C 16:31, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

New RM discussion affecting Fabergé egg article titles

SEE: Talk:Danish Palaces (Fabergé egg)#Requested move 2 May 2017 --В²C 20:58, 2 May 2017 (UTC)