Wikipedia talk:Article titles

RfC on "(constituency)" alone

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.

WP:SNOW closure in favour of Support. There is no argument presented for why UK electoral constituencies should be disambiguated any differently to any other article. This renders WP:NCUKPARL defunct, and I will tag it as historical. If any of the affected pages need to be moved without leaving redirects, feel free to ping me as I have pagemover perms. (non-admin closure) Athanelar (talk) 23:04, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

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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)

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.

Italics in article titles of Canadian legislation

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)

Except the italics for Canadian statute names is already part of the Manual of Style:Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Legal, and it's not just Canadian statutes; it's also Australian statutes, as set out expressly in the MOS Legal, which recognises the use of italics for the names of the statutes, even though that is not the same as the general MOS on italics. Using italics for the statute titles is an exception, not just to names of articles, but also within the articles.

Ultimately, this discussion raises the question: does Wikipedia have one and only one system of styles (modelled on American style), or does it accept that different articles with ties to different countries have styles tied to those countries? So far, the general trend is that style can vary with articles that have ties to particular countries. See: MOS:DATETIES (some articles use mdy dates, others use dmy dates, depending on the article's ties to a particular country). See also: MOS:ENGVAR (some articles use US English, some use British English, some use Canadian English, some use Indian English, etc.).

The use of italics for statute names in some countries, consistent with the legal style guides for those countries, is an accepted variant, just like the way of citing cases varies with the legal style guides. Another example is that Canadian court cases are not cited according to the US Harvard Bluebook, used for US court cases.

This issue has come up before, in articles citing Canadian statutes, and the use of italics has always been accepted. Since italic titles are accepted for the body of the article, then they should be accepted in the article title, just like other texts that use italics for the name in the article, and in the name of the article.

Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) (April 3, 2026)

My feeling is that if we are consistently italicising the titles of (Canadian) legislation in the text, then it makes sense to also italicise those in the article title - though any guidance should be clear that it's specific to the relevant countries and still to be avoided elsewhere. Andrew Gray (talk) 21:07, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

Possible change to NAMECHANGES

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)

RfC on disambiguation of sculptures

There is an RfC open at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Visual arts § RfC: Disambiguation of public sculptures. Comments are welcome. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:38, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

The "unsupported characters" bullet point is outdated and redundant

On WP:TSC we read that we should avoid including special characters in titles because some OSes and browsers may not support them. Wikiblame indicates that this was added in 2009, when Unicode support was essentially non-existent. Nowadays browsers generally support most characters a user is likely to come across and tofu is rare. In addition, this line is completely redundant to the one directly above it which already says that symbols should be avoided in titles altogether. So it's not like removing it will lead people to think that emoji titles are now fine. I think there's no reason not to be bold here so I'll just remove it straight away. Warudo (talk) 00:25, 16 April 2026 (UTC) edited at 02:38, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Article titles ending in periods

I just tried to shared a link to Charles W. Engelhard Jr. in discord, but the period at the end of the title got cut off and it sent people here instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_W._Engelhard_Jr The same thing happened on Bluesky and Facebook. Is there a policy on this or does it need to be developed? Kire1975 (talk) 06:27, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

The issue isn’t with WP… but with some browsers not allowing ending punctuation. That said, we have a simple fix: create a redirect at the the non-punctuated title pointing to the punctuated version. That way different browsers can all get you to the correct article. Blueboar (talk) 11:11, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

For transparency, I've gone ahead and created the redirect for this particular case now. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:05, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm worried that that may not be Unique. Do we have multiple non-redirect articles which have the same "Base Name" after any punctuation at the end is deleted?Naraht (talk) 18:21, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

You mean like how Oooh doesn't redirect to Oooh.? 162 etc. (talk) 18:23, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes. We have a lot of them. Incomplete list at User:Pppery/Dots. I have been ensuring since about July 2024 that for every such article the article with the period can be found via some combination of hatnotes and disambiguation page entries from the title without the period, though. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 16:12, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Importance of "Concision" versus other guidelines

I've participated in a few RM discussions, but not a ton. I've found that people insist on WP: CONCISE concerns over the other four stated pillars of good article titles. It seems the average RM discussion hinges first on whether the proposed article title is shorter and then whether it butts up against the other guidelines. It seems many people will (without malice ofc) only comment Support or Oppose per WP: CONCISE and leave the rest of the guidelines to the side. It is certainly valuable to have shorter names. But a shorter name that is less natural or causes confusion is a detriment to the user, even it saves character space.

I was wondering if anyone would support an addendum basically affirming that concision is only one part of the guidelines and that shorter is not an automatic improvement (e.g. Walt Whitman's lectures on Abraham Lincoln is not inferior to "Walt Whitman on Abraham Lincoln" or Transport during the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics is not better as "2024 Olympic and Paralympic Transport," even if both could be parsed properly). Dizzycheekchewer (talk) 05:50, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

WP:CRITERIA states that concision is one of the five things we strive for, and that article titles are determined by consensus. It also states that "it may be necessary to favor one or more of these goals over the others." That sums it up pretty well, and I see no reason to change that or add any further explanation. 162 etc. (talk) 16:48, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Currently, Consistency is primarily a list of exceptions and Concision is primarily a list of exemplars. Even if it states the principle earlier, someone who is linked to just the Concision subsection may think that there is no real limit except for a stated naming convention.

Idt it would hurt things to add a third example like one of the above where shortening is not necessarily an improvement. Dizzycheekchewer (talk) 18:24, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Isn't this something you can just note during the discussion? The same thing arises when people in other sorts of discussion focus on exactly one aspect of WP:FORRED or WP:COMMONNAME, and others draw their attention to the fact that multiple factors are given by the guideline that need to be weighed. Largoplazo (talk) 19:23, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

• My experience is a bit different… I find that both Recognizability (ie COMMONNAME) and Consistency usually outweigh Concision… but not by much. A lot may depend on the topic area you are primarily editing in. As others have said, we look at all five of the goals when determining the best title - and one is not “more important” than the others. Ideally all five are met. Blueboar (talk) 12:38, 5 May 2026 (UTC)