Help:Article titles

Introduction

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Chosing a name for a page title is not a trivial task, because a title can designate only one page. If you make a bad choice and if you wish to change it later, that is possible, and Mediawiki will automatically redirect queries from the old to the new title. But you will be able to use it again only if you modify all the links previously created towards the old use of the title.

Criteria of choice are:

• A good title must be short, clear and non-ambiguous.
• It should contain words that the user is the most susceptible to query (above all the first word); an indication is given by headwords in usual dictionaries and encyclopedias.
• It should be distinctive enough to be recognised easily in a category, where it will appear by default in alphabetic order. For example, we preferred "Céleri cultivé (Candolle, 1882)" to "(Candolle, 1882): Céleri cultivé" because the last option would have classified all the 199 pages within letter C. Moreover, in the French version, you only have to type the first letters of the word "céleri" in the box "Search" to find the relevant articles (but not Apium graveolens which is the main page).

Typography

Mediawiki allows to use all the Unicode characters, apart those used in the software syntax. In the French Wikipédia, a decision in favour of the use of all the letters of the extended Latin alphabet has even been taken: decision. It is nevertheless anticipated that particular decisions can be taken for given languages. In Pl@ntUse, we recommend not to use accented capitals in titles.

In general terms, when a given use is usual in French or is standardised, this use is followed. So we write Tokyo, and not Tôkyô or Tōkyō, except of course within the article when reproducing the standardised graphical form of transcribed Japanese.

Arab words offer particular problems, as they have been subjected to various conflicting transcription standards and various ways to apply them (narrow or simplified). On the other part, publishers often have not had at their disposal the necessary fonts until recently, and publications present many variants. Unicode now allows to use scientific standards, which sould be done within an article (see Noms des plantes en arabe). But should we do it in the title?

A titre d'exemple, si l'on copie l'URL du titre de l'article en anglais sur Abū Ḥanīfa Dīnawarī, on obtient http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ab%C5%AB_%E1%B8%A4an%C4%ABfa_D%C4%ABnawar%C4%AB ce qui est correct (cliquez, vous verrez !) mais incompréhensible. Cela dit, avec l'URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abū_Ḥanīfa_Dīnawarī, on trouve aussi la page ! Mais pour trouver directement ce titre, il faut taper les caractères en Unicode, ce que bien peu de personnes feront, et ce qui demande de disposer d'un ordinateur récent. Il est possible avec Mediawiki de créer des pages de "redirection", mais il semble plus simple, une fois que l'on a stabilisé la graphie normalisée d'un nom, de ne retenir pour le titre que les mêmes caractères mais sans aucun signe diacritique, autrement dit : Abu Hanifa Dinawari. Cela est plus facile pour l'utilisateur, qui peut utiliser son seul clavier.

References

Wikipedia a beaucoup réfléchi à cette question, ce qui se conçoit quand on sait que le nombre de pages se compte par millions dans les principales langues. On consultera avec profit les versions anglaise et française. Même si l'on n'est pas d'accord avec les choix retenus, les arguments exposés sont intéressants.