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Naming convention: need a decision

Editor Benjamin Lowe asks whether Massachusetts: History should be changed to History of Massachusetts . That's a policy issue--what do people think? It's a policy issue for many articles: France: History, Japan: History etc. The Massachusetts: History format naturally leads to MAssachusetts: Economy/Education/Government etc, with the stress on the state. Richard Jensen. Richard Jensen 15:44, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

Here was Larry Sanger's response in a move the other day "17:52, 7 April 2007 Larry Sanger (Talk | contribs) North Carolina: History moved to History of North Carolina (Better to invite a free-standing article without a colon)". That seems to imply his preference. Matt Mahlmann 17:31, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

the goal is to help people find articles. When we have thousands of articles that start History of ... then it's hard to find things. When we have 10 articles that start Massachusetts: History or Massachusetts:Government or Massachusetts: Economy then searching is much easier. I assume people are interested in Massachusetts (rather than in history generally). Richard Jensen 17:38, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

I don't mean always to have my way, but omitting colons used in this way is a good policy. Presumably, we won't be finding articles via alphabetical lists. I rarely do this, and I doubt others do either. The main way to find articles is (1) the search form, and (2) via links from other articles.

The difficulty with this use of colons in titles is that they subtly enshrine and "hard-code" a certain relationship between the part to the left of the colon and the part to the right. Why should it be "North Carolina: History"? Why not "History: North Carolina"? And why not "History of the South: North Carolina"? Etc. Besides, if we use colons in this way here, people will start using them in many other places, when there won't be any clearly understood rules about when to use them and how. Will we have "Aristotle: Metaphysics" or "Metaphysics: Aristotelian"? (Reference point: [1]) It seems we can easily sidestep such potentially difficult problems by omitting the colon. --Larry Sanger 18:02, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

We can avoid colons but we can't ignore the problem of standardizing subarticles for geographical regions. It makes more sense to have the main search word first, then secondary search words. thus I recommend: Utah, Utah--History, Utah--Economy, Utah--Geography. (and not: Utah, History of Utah, Economy of Utah, Geography of Utah). That way the search engines (our and outsiders) will put all the Utah articles together. Richard Jensen 18:28, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

I essentially agree with Richard Jensen in this discussion. I'm no fan of the colon, but the state (or other geographical unit) should come first, followed by history. They can be separated with a colon, an m-dash, a comma, or something else (we need to figure out what and stick with it), but I think "History of X" is cumbersome and puts the cart before the horse.--Ben Alpers 21:05, 10 April 2007 (CDT)

Well, if the goal is to help people find the articles, then I think that it is more likely that they will be searching History of Massachusetts and not Massachusetts: History - I certainly would do that. --José Leonardo Andrade 10:13, 23 April 2007 (CDT)

I think people are interested primarily in Massachusetts. People will lose out if they try "History of the state of Massachusetts" or "History of Massachusetts Bay Colony" or "History of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." But I suggest the scheme is mostly for the benefit of editors so WE can keep track of all the Massachusetts-spinoff articles (on politics, economy, society, environment, etc). Richard Jensen 15:50, 23 April 2007 (CDT)

I didn't notice this debate (still) going on here until now. This really isn't an issue for the History Workgroup, per se, to decide, because it is a perfectly generalizable issue.

I don't think that any naming schemes (in the main namespace) should be made simply for our own benefit. The question is what is going to be most inviting and useful for our users; and "History of Massachusetts" is a lot more inviting to me, anyway, than "Massachusetts--History" or whatever you'd like the convention to be.

Richard wrote: "That way the search engines (our and outsiders) will put all the Utah articles together." I don't see how this is the case. Search engines, ours and others, for the most part don't care about alphabetization, nor should they, in my opinion. Let human beings make meaningful groupings; don't make ugly titles so that machines can do it better more efficiently.

Also: "It makes more sense to have the main search word first, then secondary search words. thus I recommend: Utah, Utah--History, Utah--Economy, Utah--Geography." But these aren't search terms, they are titles. As such, it's actually very important that they be inviting and immediately comprehensible. "History of Utah" is more inviting and immediately comprehensible (to the user of a search engine) than "Utah--History".

There's also the argument I made above, in the paragraph starting, "The difficulty with this use of colons in titles is that they subtly enshrine..." That's important to me. It's bound to cause trouble.

Just a friendly hint--this isn't a paper encyclopedia. --Larry Sanger 17:45, 23 April 2007 (CDT)

Yes it does matter how to search. We want a simple system that any user can quickly master. If users want information on a state they will search on the state. It is highly unlikely that users will want information on generic history, where any place will do. We need some way for users and editors to see what is available on a georgraphical unit. (This issue comes up in other ways as well, but let's start with geography.) It's not true, I suggest, that "history of xyz" helps anyone. The user will NOT know whether to search on

"History of Colonial Massachusetts"
"History of Massachusetts before 1776"
"History of Witches in Massachusetts"
"Social History of Colonial Massachusetts"
"Economic History of Massachusetts"
"Farming in Massachusetts History"
"History of Massachusetts Bay"
"History of Puritan Massachusetts"

The bottom line is that the most useful keyword should always come first in a title. Richard Jensen 18:10, 23 April 2007 (CDT)