Wikipedia talk:Article titles

Should Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK Parliament constituencies) be further modified to only require "(UK Parliament constituency)" or "(Scottish Parliament constituency)" when there are multiple constituencies such as North East Fife (UK Parliament constituency) and North East Fife (Scottish Parliament constituency) and otherwise use Clacton (constituency) instead of Clacton (UK Parliament constituency) and Orkney (constituency) instead of Orkney (Scottish Parliament constituency). At #RfC on pre-emptive disambiguation in constituency article titles there was consensus to move unambiguous articles to the base name such as Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (UK Parliament constituency) to Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket but this RFC deals with removing extra disambiguation when the topic does need disambiguation because of a different use such as a settlement or district. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:03, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

• Pinging people who participated in the previous RfC and have recently been involved @162 etc., Amakuru, Andrew Gray, DankJae, DimensionalFusion, Doktorbuk, Elli, Extraordinary Writ, JHunterJ, GothicGolem29, Graham11, Mdewman6, ModernDayTrilobite, PamD, Surtsicna, Thryduulf, and Yoblyblob: as well as significantly involved in the 2014 discussion.
• Support it makes no sense to have a title like Clacton (UK Parliament constituency) or Leeds North West (UK Parliament constituency). While it could be argued that Leeds North West (constituency) would be helpful as it shows its not about the north west part of Leeds the RFC was clearly against that (of which I agree) but I can see no reason why "UK Parliament" is helpful and at least in England few are ambiguous (as opposed to in Scotland) so few would actually need the longer title anyway so consistency doesn't seem a problem here anyway so Georgia (U.S. state) would be the exception while New York (state) and Washington (state) would be more common. In terms of common usage apart from people saying "MP for Clacton" people do refer to "my constituency" by not "my UK Parliament constituency" of which the latter only seems to get 2 results while the former gets lots of results so I don't see how this is even commonly used extra disambiguation when people need to specify them in real life. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:03, 9 November 2025 (UTC)
• Support. This policy says: "Titles should unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but should be no more precise than that." Surtsicna (talk) 22:05, 9 November 2025 (UTC)
• Support. No need for unnecessary disambiguation Yoblyblob (Talk) :) 22:25, 9 November 2025 (UTC)
• Support, the disambiguation tag does not need to be more specific than it needs to, especially in England where there is only one constituency type. Accidentally already did it in Wales twice when NCUKPARL was at first fully retired, happy to move those back pending this discussion. I assume this discussion will basically fully retire the convention? If the constituency name is the only article (or noteworthy redirect) with that name then it doesn't need the disambiguator tag. The full dab made some sense when it was applied 100% consistently until that discussion, so now no real reason to keep the full disambiguator when it is not needed. Follow standard disambiguation rules. DankJae 22:42, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

  I think we would just modify the guideline again to say to only use "constituency" is disambiguation is needed but there is only 1 constituency with the name. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:17, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

• Support. This is really a no-brainer. Personally, I would also like to go further and omit the UK Parliament part of the disambiguator, unless there's actually another constituency of a different type with the same name. So we'd retain Cardiff Central (UK Parliament constituency) and Cardiff Central (Senedd constituency), but for unambiguous ones like Rugby (UK Parliament constituency) we'd just move this to the shorter Rugby (constituency). I guess that's a separate proposal though.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:14, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

  @Amakuru: Moving Rugby (UK Parliament constituency) to Rugby (constituency) is what is being proposed in this proposal, that is to say omitting the "UK Parliament" part when not necessary. Cardiff Central (UK Parliament constituency) and Cardiff Central (Senedd constituency) are ambiguous so would be kept as is. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:17, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

  @Crouch, Swale: Oh, right, that's me not reading the proposal properly! I thought we were still at the Rugby and Kenilworth (UK Parliament constituency) vs Rugby and Kenilworth stage, but now I see that that one has already been settled and I guess Rugby and Kenilworth just hasn't been moved yet. Well great. Definite support then.  — Amakuru (talk) 20:14, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

• I don't particularly mind either way, but a plea again (as with the old discussion) to leave the consistent "(UK Parliament constituency)" redirects in place whatever we do - it'll be a real headache for future editing otherwise. Andrew Gray (talk) 23:26, 9 November 2025 (UTC)
• Supoort to be logically consistent with disambiguation across other topics- the qualifier is only as long and detailed as is necessary to distinguish it from other topics. Mdewman6 (talk) 00:17, 10 November 2025 (UTC)
• Support(Thanks for the ping). There is no reason to have Uk parliament noted in the title if it is not necessary and if there is only one constituency full stop then it is not necessary so we should remove that from the titles and so I support this proposal.GothicGolem29 (Talk) 02:51, 10 November 2025 (UTC)
• Comment I am a man of simple means. When Wikipedia had no constituency articles at all, editors came together to formulate what would become the UK politics project, and using the Wikipedia culture of the time, chose the disambiguation technique because it was the only tool we thought would be accepted by the wider community. As the project expanded we thought consistency mattered so extended the format to Scotland, Wales (Assembly and Senedd) etc. I'm fully aware that the tide has turned and I won't try to protest too much against what I consider a dismantling of the consistency model. All I ask is that the new naming fformat, and crucially the redirects, don't cause confusion or misunderstanding. Use (UK Parliament constituency) unless you absolutely cannot; use (Scottish Parliament constituency) unless you absolutely cannot. As the next wholesale boundary review could be a decade away if it happens at all, we might not have to look at the wider consequences of our decision here for some time doktorb _words^deeds 15:30, 10 November 2025 (UTC)
• Support (Summoned by bot) Correctly calibrating disambiguation is tough but I think this change makes sense and fits the policy. Smallangryplanet (talk) 20:24, 10 November 2025 (UTC)
• Support, provided that there is no conflicting name in another country that even sometimes uses the term constituency for their electoral districts. In Canada, for example, the term electoral district is used in legal contexts at the federal level, and at the provincial level, terms like electoral district or electoral division are used for legal purposes; however, outside of legal contexts, constituency (or riding) is commonly used. Graham11 (talk) 00:36, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

But preferably mark NCUKPARL as historical per Extraordinary Writ. Graham11 (talk) 02:41, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

• Just get rid of NCUKPARL, as the closer of the previous RfC originally interpreted the consensus. In practice that's no different than this proposal (so I'll stick in a bolded support as a second choice), but if we all want to treat UK constituencies the same way we treat any other kind of constituency, we don't need the clutter of a separate guideline for them. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 00:55, 11 November 2025 (UTC)
• Support per unnecessary disambiguation. I also Support Extraordinary Writ’s astute proposal to remove the guideline in question entirely, since this proposal obviates the only content the guideline has. В²C ☎ 05:08, 11 November 2025 (UTC)
• Comment, ​ should this be closed? DankJae 00:02, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

  @DankJae: Yes I think it should, there is a clear consensus and this has been open for nearly 3 months. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:33, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

I was hoping this would not be controversial, but I do not think it is appropriate to use Bill Clinton and J.K. Rowling as examples in this section. I made a BOLD change to mostly arbitrary but still famous examples of the same issues, Bill Hader and N.K. Jemisin. This change was reverted because Bill Clinton and J.K. Rowling are pages with higher daily page views and "it's better to stick with the higher-pageview ones that are likely more familiar to readers". While I concede Bill Clinton and J.K. Rowling are highly-visited pages (so much so that it is much less feasible to seek out alternatives with that additional criteria), I do not think Wikipedia should use them as examples in a policy document because they are both highly controversial figures. Bill Clinton is tied to the Epstein Files in a serious way, to say nothing of the (ongoing, really) controversies of his presidency related to his restrictive reforms to criminal law and welfare. J.K. Rowling is as famous now for her transphobia as for Harry Potter. Because the examples on this page are practical, I do not think curation based on page views is a good enough reason for the page to stay as it is. The reader of this policy understands what is meant by "Bill, not William" and "author initials, not full author name." The reader would understand this even if they had never heard of the example before. Reminding the reader of these controversies in the context of this page is entirely unnecessary, and alternatives should be chosen. Courtesy ping for @Extraordinary Writ:. lethargilistic (talk) 19:37, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

I mean, I think that's a wild reach. Every example we ever use is going to be controversial to some extent, and that really has nothing to do with the Wikipedia. If Wikipedians can't handle an example being a person they don't think is a good person, we are well and truly screwed Red Slash 17:47, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Visual arts § Parenthetical vs. natural disambiguation for public sculptures. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:56, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

You are invited to join the discussions at Talk:Twitter § Requested move 9 February 2026. Some1 (talk) 04:25, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

(This would possibly be a better fit for WP:PG, but I'm not allowed to edit that page. If you agree, please post a short pointer to this discussion over there.)

I have a fundamental disagreement with another editor about the relationship between policies and guidelines. You can find the details here, but let me try to give you the gist.

The question is whether or not to apply MOS:TM to the article (737 MAX or 737 Max). The main argument against it is that WP:COMMONNAME (a policy) would override MOS:TM (a guideline (I think)). I pointed out that this interpretation would render MOS:TM completely useless: Either COMMONNAME and MOS:TM would agree (ie. MOS:TM would be redundant) or they would disagree and COMMONNAME would overrule MOS:TM. Under this regime, I see no situation in which MOS:TM would have any effect.

Taking a step back, I don't see a conflict between COMMONNAME and MOS:TM, mainly for two reasons:

1. My understanding is that COMMONNAME and MOS:TM are in different categories, ie. one is addressing semantics, the other formatting.
2. Even assuming that there is no such distinction between categories, COMMONNAME would regulate the general case, while MOS:TM addresses more specific issues. I think that in general, the specific rule should take precedence.

Taking another step back, I think I understand why policies and guidelines exist, and I support the distinction. This interpretation of the rules however seems to me to be far too inflexible, and would be out-of-character for the Wikipedia.

What do you think? ~2026-85501-6 (talk) 01:42, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

The way to reconcile them is found later in the policy, at WP:TITLETM: follow standard English text formatting in the case of trademarks, unless the trademarked spelling is demonstrably the most common usage in sources independent of the owner of the trademark. I'm guessing you've seen the 2019 discussions by now (first RM, second RM, move review): some people made some suboptimal arguments there, but there was also a lot of reasonable disagreement over whether MAX cleared the "demonstrably the most common usage in sources" threshold, and ultimately the article wasn't moved. It's definitely been long enough that you could start a new RM, but if you do that I'd recommend having a fair amount of data on what the breakdown is in independent reliable sources. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 02:12, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

See below for WP:TITLETM.

Incidentally, you fell into another trap related to conflicting rulesets: Under the policy, "Max" would not require a demonstration of most common usage, "MAX" would. Accd. to TITLETM, the article would default to "Max" if neither can be demonstrated. It's a mess.

So far I couldn't find the time to review the earlier RMs, but it's on my list.... :-)

In any case, this is not only about trademarks, but about the general relationship between policies and guidelines. I suspect that a lot of guidelines would be useless if the strict regime describe above would be followed. --~2026-85501-6 (talk) 02:30, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

There is a partial contradiction between WP:AT and MOS:TM (as I understand them). There is some overlap, but they two rulesets don't fully match.

WP:AT says:

Article titles follow standard English text formatting in the case of trademarks, unless the trademarked spelling is demonstrably the most common usage in sources independent of the owner of the trademark.

MOS:TM says:

Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization practices, even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official", as long as this is a style already in widespread use

The way it's written, WP:AT would require a pretty extensive study of the sources (and a lot of debates), and would be transient, ie. could change again and again. MOS:TM would only require a decent number of sources ("widespread use"), and not a majority.

First, I think this should only be regulated in one of the two rulesets, and replaced by a pointer in the other one.

Second, as you can probably guess, I favor the version in MOS:TM.

• This is about style, not about a factual difference, I don't see that Wikipedia's typical (and fully justified) penchent for RS is necessary here.
• Given the nature of MOS:TM, there would be no functional difference regarding WP:CRITERIA.
• It's a lot easier to work with.

~2026-85501-6 (talk) 02:20, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

There isn’t really a contradiction. Like all guideline pages, MOS:TM begins with a statement that this is what we generally follow - however, it also notes that there will be exceptions. WP:AT discusses one of these exceptions (source usage - ie COMMONNAME). And yes, determining whether that exception applies (or not) does require a fairly extensive review of source usage. That’s a good thing. Nobody said editing was easy. Blueboar (talk) 13:08, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

We should not be deviating from standard English text formatting and capitalization practices unless the stylized version is virtually universally used. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 19:13, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Most articles about legislation do not have italic titles, and neither WP:Article titles#Italics and other formatting nor Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles of works#Italics include legislation in types of works requiring to be italicised. The exception appears to be Canadian legislation, using the basis that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Legal#Canada points to the article Citation of Canadian legislation: "The short title and the long title of a statute or regulation are italicised". So there's a contradiction. Should English Wikipedia maintain a consistent standard for article titles on legislation and not use italics, or should articles about Canadian legislation follow Canadian style and be italicised? (Pinging fellow editor @Mr Serjeant Buzfuz: who's helped me to understand this). Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 11:17, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't know how they make the titles italicized, but from my understanding this most commonly happens for titles which are Loanwords from other languages, which English-language legislation titles are not. Glide08 (talk) 01:06, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

This isn't why they're italicised. It's a matter of style. Does the Canadian convention on citing legislation trump Wikipedia's Manual of Style? Shhhnotsoloud (talk)

I think there's a problem with WP:NAMECHANGES the way it's written, and I would like it to be changed, although I'm not sure how exactly to fix it. There have been a number of requested moves relating to names of things that have changed in the past few months, some of which have succeeded and some of which haven't. These tend to lean heavily on the following wording: "If the reliable sources written after the change is announced routinely use the new name, Wikipedia should follow suit and change relevant titles to match." The issue here is that reliable sources (almost always the news, because high-quality academic and book sources take longer) will basically invariably use the new legal name, regardless of what name is in actual common use. This is a problem because the new name sometimes strongly fails WP:RECOGNIZABILITY, which can be seen even within the news sources as they tend to use verbiage like "newname, the organization/product/building formerly known as oldname". Obviously, if the new name had picked up, they wouldn't have to use that kind of language, but based on how it's written now, an article with that language would count straightforwardly for the new title, even though it's actually an indicator that the old title is more commonly used. The language should be adjusted to acknowledge this. I don't know how exactly to correct this but some adjustment is needed. Ladtrack (talk) 03:38, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

The issue here is that reliable sources (almost always the news, because high-quality academic and book sources take longer) will basically invariably use the new legal name, regardless of what name is in actual common use. I have not known that to necessarily be the case. The best example that comes to mind is X (social network), which was renamed from "Twitter" almost 3 years ago but whose article was moved only last month. This is because a significant number of reliable sources (especially news sources) continued to use its old name due to its recognizability. I think the current wording reflects the fact that, in a vast majority of cases, recongizeability will not be a problem with "someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in" the subject after a rename. In cases where the subject is demonstrably more recognizeable under its old name, the reliable sources will almost immediately reflect that. Obviously, sources covering the rename itself might not be the best indicator, but any sources covering events after the fact should be a good indicator of whether the rename has stuck. - ZLEA ^TǀC 04:22, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

I'll add that WP:NAMECHANGES only states that sources published after a rename should be given extra weight. If some users are misinterpreting it as "we should move the article as soon as possible", my response would be WP:NORUSH. If we have to wait to see what reliable sources settle on, then we wait. If a reasonable time has passed and there still isn't a clear consensus among sources, then we handle that accordingly. - ZLEA ^TǀC 04:36, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

The X/Twitter case is a little different because there was a moratorium that held the article in place until after the "formerly known as" stuff faded, and the name turned out to have stuck. That's great, and I do agree that X is sufficiently recognizable that moving was a fine choice. A better example of what I mean would be something like Scouting America, which was the Boy Scouts of America for 115 years and has now been renamed for just over one year. Most news sources do use Scouting America, as it is the official name, but very often add "formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America" because they (correctly IMO) realize the name is not recognizable. The RM still closed moved, as the policy as written does say that that is what should be done, but even the closer said that was probably the wrong decision for the article and it was the policy that needed modifying. But honestly you could go further back: for example, I seriously doubt that Willis Tower is actually the building's most recognizable name, and from a very cursory search of headlines, I still see mention that it used to be called the Sears Tower, even seventeen years after the name change. They're not going to call it Sears Tower because that's not what it's officially called anymore, but that's clearly the more recognizable name. However, NAMECHANGES as written demands the newer one. I just think the wording could be tinkered with to fix this. Ladtrack (talk) 06:48, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Those are all good examples of borderline cases that demonstrate the subjectivity of recognizability. I think they do an amazing job of demonstrating why the current version of WP:NAMECHANGES necessary to minimize the influence of this subjectivity and avoid using anachronisms unless absolutely necessary. - ZLEA ^TǀC 10:06, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Do you actually think any of these new names are more recognizable than the old one? I know it is subjective to an extent but the policy as written basically defaults it to the new one regardless of which name is more recognizable. Ladtrack (talk) 16:59, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

As I said, recognizability is subjective. Individual users’ opinions on a name’s recognizability are not good metrics, so it would be inappropriate for me to give mine here for your select examples. I strongly disagree that this policy basically defaults it to the new one regardless of which name is more recognizable. In fact, X/Twitter is the perfect example of why this simply is not true. On top of that, we have redirect pages for cases where recognizability is still a concern, so this simply isn’t as big of an issue as you seem to think.

If you have a specific wording in mind, feel free to start a RfC propose it. I personally will oppose any changes that might needlessly introduce anachronisms and will likely open or re-open lengthy naming disputes, but if it’s a good idea and clearly won’t have any unintended consequences, then you will likely get the support you need to change the policy. Either way, you have nothing to lose. - ZLEA ^TǀC 18:22, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

To concur with and expand on ZLEA's argument: some other prominent articles where Wikipedia continues using the older name of an officially renamed subject are Kanye West (rather than Ye (rapper)Ye (rapper)) and Denali (rather than Mount McKinleyMount McKinley). The city of Port Elizabeth changed its name to Gqeberha in 2021, but it took a year and a half (and five RMs) before the article title followed suit. Anecdotally, I've also seen lots of lower-profile cases where an RM is launched for a recently renamed corporate entity or similar and gets rejected in the discussion because there isn't sufficient evidence of the new name becoming used, though I don't remember any single examples well enough to link them now. In short, I too disagree that NAMECHANGES in its current form basically defaults it to the new title unless sources are already doing so. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 20:14, 19 March 2026 (UTC)