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.

Should the language If the regnal name and number are unambiguous, use them: Louis XVIII, Edward VIII, Alfonso XII, Gustaf VI Adolf. Adding a country to the article title, when there is no other country with a monarch of that name, goes against WP:PRECISION. be part of the guideline Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)? User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 19:29, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This language was added after a 2020 RFC which was fairly wide-ranging in the changes proposed. However, recent RM proposals at Talk:Edward IV of England (a discussion I closed) and Talk:Edward I of England have reached no consensus based on opposition to that specific line being policy. I feel it is necessary to either demonstrate a clearer consensus in support of this rule, or to remove it as an official guideline. I am neutral as-to which is done. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 19:29, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Procedural note: I plan to mass-ping participants in the 2020 RFC as well as those two move discussions (and potentially other discussions that are pointed out to me) in about 24 hours, unless this is SNOW closed because of a drafting flaw. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 19:34, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Mass ping: From Talk:Edward IV of England: @Векочел, 99to99, Deb, GoodDay, Walrasiad, Dimadick, Agricolae, PatGallacher, HouseBlaster, Mrmedley, Born2cycle, Peter Ormond, Huwmanbeing, Adumbrativus, Usernamekiran, JIP, Roman Spinner, Srnec, SmokeyJoe, ModernDayTrilobite, and Jayron32:. From Talk:Edward I of England: @Celia Homeford, Surtsicna, Dudley Miles, Edouard2, LindsayH, Mysterymanblue, Andrew Lancaster, and Harrias:. From the previous RFC: @MrX, Interstellarity, Sandstein, Opera hat, Shakescene, Rosbif73, SergeWoodzing, 3 kids in a trenchcoat, Billreid, DrKay, Rreagan007, and AnomalousAtom: User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:07, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• The monarch bio names should be all changed back to Monarch # of country naming style. GoodDay (talk) 19:46, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I agree. It's nice to be able to see where they're from without having to click on it. Benjamin (talk) 22:00, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Monarch names should be without country names only if the monarch is well known by exactly that name, such as Elizabeth II. Having an unambiguous name is not enough if the monarch isn't well known enough. Having a country name for every monarch would also work. JIP | Talk 23:37, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove the language. I think there are rare cases where a monarch is so iconic that they can rightly be referred to by just their name, but these are very much the exceptions. If done for all those with unique combinations as the guideline suggests, it would result in a single line of succession alternating between one style and the other. As such, there should not be a guideline mandating this type of inconsistency.Agricolae (talk) 23:44, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove. Monarch names should have name of country in title, improves recognizability and facilitates searches. Walrasiad (talk) 23:55, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Definitely keep. I see no reason to treat monarch article titles differently from all other titles on Wikipedia. In general, a WP article title is not supposed to describe the article topic, it merely uniquely and concisely identifies it such that the topic is recognized from the title by anyone who is familiar with the topic. Anything in addition to that should only be added to the title when necessary for disambiguation. Monarch article titles should not be an exception. Using unnecessary bulk in monarch article titles sets a contrary precedent and introduces complexity and ambiguity to the title decision-making process. —В²C ☎ 00:21, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  If this is a decision in line with existing broader policy, then surely this line is WP:CREEP? Then the name can be chosen between concision, precision and common names. In fact, the only reason to keep the line in question is for consistency. — HTGS (talk) 19:23, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per Born2cycle. There is no need to pointlessly disambiguate monarchs whose name and regnal numbers unambiguously identify them. Total consistency between article titles has never been a standard on Wikipedia.  Mysterymanblue  02:08, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. As Born2cycle said, there's no need to disambiguate rulers with unique names. After all, we don't have Joe Biden, President of the United States or Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. As for the matter of consistency, there have been for many years articles like Cleopatra or Elizabeth II or James VI and I (in those cases all FAs by the way) and Wikipedia is still here. Векочел (talk) 05:14, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I agree with GoodDay. All articles shoulf follow the Monarch # of country style, which is far less confusing. Dimadick (talk) 05:16, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Alternative (Summoned by bot) I don't understand why titles would not ordinarily follow the regnal name, title, of country format ie Edward I, King of England. This seems to be fully informative and not to invent 'faux' titles ('Edward I of England' does not seem to me to be a description anyone would ordinarily use - it is equivalent to Joe Biden of the United States to me, neither fish nor fowl). There may be exceptions for monarchs who are very, very well known or who are commonly known by a 'short' form (eg Margaret of Anjou), but the default position should be for clarity over brevity and avoiding 'faux' constructions which mislead as implying an actual royal title. Pincrete (talk) 06:37, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. "Of country" is typically not part of the WP:COMMONNAME, so its function is disambiguation. If there is only one person with the regnal name and number, then adding "of country" is unnecessary disambiguation (WP:PRECISION). The desire that titles of monarchs should follow a single format is reasonable, but does not outweigh the other criteria. Consistency considerations are also less persuasive when titles already use different formats for various reasons (e.g. Elizabeth I (May 2020 RM), Queen Victoria, James VI and I). As for whether a topic is "iconic" or "well-known enough", it can factor into primary topic determinations (not relevant to this guideline about unambiguous cases), but otherwise is not part of the WP:CRITERIA. The guideline here wisely leaves a monarch's iconicness out of the analysis. Lastly, making the title more descriptive is also not a good reason to require "of country", as Born2cycle said. Adumbrativus (talk) 08:02, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove. I'm flabbergasted by the idea that "Edward I of England" is a 'faux' title. It's the way he is normally referred to outside England. Unless of course you'd prefer to change the article title to "Longshanks" or "Hammer of the Scots" in accordance with the common name convention. Deb (talk) 08:33, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove as per the explanation of Agricolae. I would add that what seems unambiguous to people in one country (e.g. Henry V must be the English one) is not always unambiguous to people in another, and WP is international. I do not have a strong opinion about the proposal of Pincrete. My main concern is not over-doing the "Precision" priority.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:21, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove. The cited passage, and in particular the second sentence, inappropriately suggests that WP:PRECISION is the only relevant criterion when actually there are others we must consider, notably WP:CONSISTENT. Per our WP:CRITERIA, a good article title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles, and the nature of names in this case means that many will require a clarifier regardless of what the convention states. If a set of articles titles changes from all being in the form "Monarch of Place" to all but one or a handful being in the form "Monarch of Place" (as would likely happen in many sets like this), I fail to see how that would be an improvement, either for our readers or for meeting our good article title goals. This along with some of the considerations raised by Walrasiad and others makes it clear to me that a consistent naming convention, consistently applied, is definitely preferable. ╠╣uw [talk] 09:32, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove the language. When there is a conflict between policies and/or guidelines, sometimes we need to just make a decision as to which is best for us. I think that Wikipedia:Consistency in article titles is more useful here as guidance. Consistent patterns are more useful to readers. Randomly removing the "of <country>" bit in a haphazard way as we have been doing recently is confusing to readers and editors, and I know we have reasons for doing so (there's always a reason). I'm just saying that the reasons are not as important as keeping a consistent system of titling articles. --Jayron32 12:00, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Just as an addendum, there are going to be WP:IAR cases where some monarchs are better served as not having the "of <country>" appellation. I'm still okay with that, things like Queen Victoria doesn't bother me. However, those examples should be the exception, and handled on a case-by-case basis. --Jayron32 12:02, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Remove the language, largely per the WP:CONSISTENT arguments. For many royals, the "of country" disambiguation is necessary to avoid confusion (e.g. Henry I of England vs. Henry I of France); having this pattern abruptly drop off when we pass a certain number leads to a messy appearance, and makes it more difficult for readers to predict the title of later articles. (As Agricolae and Jayron32 have mentioned, there will likely be some exceptions - for instance, I'd argue that Henry VIII is sufficiently well-known to not need "of England" appended - but I think such cases are rare enough to remain as exceptions, rather than be codified into the rules.) ModernDayTrilobite (talk) 13:58, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove. Makes it more easy and precise to search and handle royalties.-- Dewritech (talk) 15:00, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove the language, resume consistency of naming (with a very few exceptions as noted by others) and avoid WP:GLOBAL bias. Rosbif73 (talk) 15:31, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove the second sentence which is not constructive. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 16:21, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove--the reader needs orientation., ssnd titles in an area should be consistent. DGG ( talk ) 20:43, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove. I have changed my mind on this issue as I have several times proposed moves to short names. I now think clarity is more important and would prefer Edward I, King of England and Alexander II, Emperor of Russia. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:28, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep paragraph - the title is intended to identify the subject, not define it. For example, in a recent requested move which is now at Talk:Lapid, Israel, all votes to move the page away from Lapid were based on PRIMARYTOPIC and could be summarized that the old name was insufficient to identify the subject, not that so few people had heard of this small town that we need to define it. Edward V should be enough to identify the subject, that is to distinguish him from other topics that readers may be looking for. Animal lover 666 (talk) 19:04, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove, but without preference for adding the country. The line currently prefers concision against both precision and consistency (and sometimes common name). Perhaps we should consistently prefer precision over concision, but I don’t think the present discussion is about that. — HTGS (talk) 19:37, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove. Standard monarch titles should be Monarch # of country, for CONSISTENCY, for predictably, for RECOGNISABILITY, for the readers. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:16, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove the language. It seems unnecessary rulemaking being overly constrictive, and is contrary to external usage. Sometimes sources *do* say “Louis XVIII of France”. If an article mentioning historical events mentioned that phrase, it would not be so bad a thing for an article that we need a rule banning it. Also it seems unworkable for the less famous names and nations and confusing for the ordinary reader - exactly how does one know if Baudouin is unique ? And if another nation in the future crowns a King whose name was unique that would suddenly recast existing text to being wrong. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:16, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove as article titles for this subject are already covered under guidelines and policies such as WP:PRECISION and WP:COMMONNAME, which already provides for titles such as "Queen Victoria" or "Wilhelm II" as well as "of country" titles. I note that the RfC isn't about implementing an "of country" guideline but removing of a guideline. --Spekkios (talk) 22:25, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove. As written the language under discussion requires us to remove the country attribution when the result is unambiguous. I think that's inappropriate. I could see individual articles having discussions that lead to not including the country (Alfred the Great would be one possible example), but those should be case by case, and they should be rare exceptions. Rare, because the point would have to be that they are so well-known under a common name that it's best to leave them there -- this can't possible be true for more than a few monarchs. And if consensus ends up being that all monarchs need the country name included, I'd be OK with that too, though I doubt we have to go that far. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:34, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove: This seems to come down to WP:CRITERIA, and considering #1 (recognizability) against #4 (concision); the current text supports concision, removing it would support recognizability. The latter of these is self-evident, while the former can be demonstrated by considering Adalbold I, Aloys II, Denis I, Tassilo II, and Ulrich IV; I don't believe many would have any real idea what these names refer to.

I personally believe hold that #1 is more important than #4; it is more important that a title be useful in recognizing the subject, than it is to keep the title concise, and so I support removing the text.

By the way, 力: You missed Talk:Louis IX of France#Requested move 11 October 2021. BilledMammal (talk) 05:28, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Remove. It clearly doesn't have consensus in actual RM debates, and guidelines reflect consensus, not the other way around. This shouldn't be taken as license to move away from COMMONNAME arguments when there is one - go ahead and move Ed to Edward Longshanks if desired, but the country is generally quite relevant, relevant enough to include in the title. Note: I'm not sure it needs to go in the guideline, but in the cases of monarchs with multiple relevant domains where "privileging" one domain would be controversial / problematic, omitting the domain might be reasonable. But this is rare enough that it probably doesn't need to be an explicit guideline. SnowFire (talk) 04:48, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove the language. The previous scheme offers considerably more recognisability, and affords some understanding of the topic to the general reader of an unclicked-on wikilink. Folly Mox (talk) 12:12, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. @Power~enwiki: To ensure wider and less biased input, a notification of this RfC discussion should probably also be placed in Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Walrasiad (talk) 05:14, 15 October 2021 (UTC).[reply]

Done. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:51, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Expanding on my comment above: The norm of Monarch # of country was the norm on Wikipedia for over a decade,and lasted until last year (September 2020). It should be restored. It worked well on many grounds, e.g.

• (1) immediately recognizable, informative and helpful in searches,
• (2) identifies the topic as a monarch rather than a cryptic surname ("Malcolm X") or a movie sequel ("Rocky III"), or a ship ("Mary II") or any other myriad uses for these combinations,
• (3) ensures consistency both vertically (across time) and horizontally (across countries)
• (4) it does not prejudice one country over another, avoiding presumptions of national superiority (e.g. "George III of Great Britain" does not trump "George III of Georgia") (note: an item asked already in the guidelines but which has not been respected since this penchant for shortening began).
• (5) lets Wikipedia maintain its policy of avoiding honorifics in the article titles (in common usage, almost nobody uses "George III" alone. When they want to shorten it, they always prefix the title to it, "King George III"). The usage "...of country" avoids us having to include the honorific "King" (or "Duke" or "Prince" or whatever) in the title, by having the title implied already in the name of the kingdom/duchy/principality. The original norm "George III of Great Britain" functioned already as a concise version of what should be the proper article title "George III, King of Great Britain"),
• (6) It remembers that the audience of Wikipedia is WP:GLOBAL, and does not assume all our readers are deeply versed in European (or often even more narrowly British) royal kitsch, and would instantly remember the country by name & number alone. It is notable that it is mostly English monarchs that get this shortening treatment, which tends to reflect more the Anglocentric focus of our editors, rather than the serve our wider audience.

A fair, consistent norm for sovereigns, applied equitably across countries, is useful, helpful, improves recognizability and avoids toxic nationalist squabbles. The gain is great, the cost is negligible or none.

The norm worked well on Wikipedia for over a decade. It was broken in the Summer of 2020 because of a narrow nationalist squabble over whether some British monarch should give priority to Britain or Canada. It was a rather parochial affair. But it led to its hurried inclusion in multi-item RfC, which was approved without too much attention paid to different items. It has never found general acceptance, continues to be resisted, has not passed in many (probably most) RMs that attempt it. It will likely continue to be sore point in the future. There is a lot of cost and practically no gain to shortening. The wording should be removed.

Naturally, exceptions can always be made on a case-by-case basis. But it should not be included as part of the general guidelines. Walrasiad (talk) 05:14, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please explain why titles of monarch articles should be treated differently from all other titles on WP. Is there something different about these articles or titles that justifies the difference in treatment? What? —В²C ☎ 08:13, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

They literally just enumerated 6 reasons. It's OK to have a different opinion because your favorite rationale is more important to you, but don't disrespect someone who disagrees with you by refusing to acknowledge the considerable effort they put into making a cogent argument. --Jayron32 14:19, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Jayron32, I appreciate Walrasiad’s effort, but frankly it’s déjà vu… I’ve seen so many variations of this argument so many times. Each of those six reasons arguably applies to other categories of articles on WP, some reasons as-is, others slightly modified. Do I need to spell it out? Consider each of the six reasons as-is, or slightly adjusted as appropriate for the category, as basis for always adding the country to titles of articles about heads of state, capital cities, car manufacturers, corporations, etc. More generally, almost all of our titles could meet Reason 1 and the others better if more information was added to the title. So, this list doesn’t explain why monarchs should get this treatment while other topic categories and all titles in general do not. My question stands. —В²C ☎ 15:28, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you think that other categories of article need to be treated the same? All systems are arbitrary, and mostly exist because "that's the way we've been doing it". The fact that "somewhere else it is being done differently" is an unconvincing argument as far as I am concerned. There has been a system in place, mostly unchanged, for 15 years. "But other groups of articles don't do that" is both true, and irrelevant. Various types of articles, such as articles about cities, or articles about roads, or articles about musical acts, or whatever, have developed their own conventions which are particular to that topic, whether it is in organizing the text, titling the article, having standard sections, whatever. We have a system here that has been working fine for 15 years. The impetus is on people to explain why doing it differently would be more useful and It is different than how other articles do it is not a reason that imparts much usefulness. --Jayron32 16:13, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Jayron32, why do I think other categories of articles need to be treated the same? Good question. It's because we will only achieve title stability by establishing and adhering to consistent rules. I wrote about this on my page over ten years ago, if you're interested. Introduced here: User:Born2cycle#A_goal:_naming_stability_at_Wikipedia, and more details in the following section: User:Born2cycle#The_role_of_title_criteria_on_stability. --В²C ☎ 04:00, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

in common usage, almost nobody uses "George III" alone. When they want to shorten it, they always prefix the title to it, "King George III" — I disagree. I would never use the title when referring to Henry VIII or Louis XIV or Napoleon III or Robert the Bruce. Is it perhaps a British/US difference? The play was called The Madness of George III but when they made it into a film the title was changed to The Madness of King George. Opera hat (talk) 14:48, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

User:Walrasiad is spot on here. The "of country" convention was created after a lot of thought and discussion in around 2005 and worked pretty well despite the obvious drawbacks. Unfortunately "common name" stuck its ugly head into the discussion so now we have a random assortment of article titles which tends to favour the lowest common denominator in terms of historical knowledge. Personally I would re-adopt the original convention unless there is a reason not to. I would certainly resist any move to shorten existing monarch article names. Deb (talk) 08:33, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Conventions like "Monarch of Place" serve (among other things) to make sets of similar articles more internally consistent and predictable, which is one of the fundamental criteria of good article titles, and the benefits of that should be self-evident. Efforts to reduce titles to their shortest form regardless of other titling goals seem to ignore this, and in my experience don't tend to give much consideration to the interests of our readers. ╠╣uw [talk] 09:50, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

An encyclopedia can actually have a simple, precise, consistent and quarrel free format for all royalty:

• Men: "Name (and number if applicable)" "of Country" (and if identical names, "(Year)" when he became royal there by birth or appointment)
• Women: "Name" "of Country (as per marriage if married)" "(birth country or maiden surname)" if applicanle

I dream of such. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 16:33, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If memory serves me correctly, Elizabeth II was one of (if not the) first monarch bio articles to be moved to name only style (after repetitive RMs). Behind those repetitive RMs were possibly Canadian monarchists who were merely annoyed to see "...of the United Kingdom" in the bio article title, because in their eyes it belittled Canada. Eventually, an RM resulted in the bio article title being changed, ignoring weight which points out that Elizabeth II is first or foremost associated with the United Kingdom. GoodDay (talk) 16:46, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative consideration — I'm thinking that the actual title of the article should include the most relevant country or realm, but that when it's generally agreed that nearly all queries have one single monarch in mind (e.g. Queen Victoria, Henry VIII, Elizabeth II, Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Emperor Constantine}, then we continue to link directly from the query to the main article, rather than to a disambiguation page (" 'Elizabeth II' can refer to..."). I think that there's validity to both of the considerations above: (1) that landing on a page should let you know immediately whether you're seeing an article about (say) Elizabeth II of the U.K. or Elizabeth II of Russia — especially when an unclear Wiki-link from another page doesn't indicate the realm, while (2) search box queries should not require strange, cumbersome titles (like Victoria of the United Kingdom) that few outsiders from the non-specialist general public would think to enter. ¶ I.e., Leave a country or realm indicator in the article's title, but continue to allow commonly-understood short titles to link directly to the generally-accepted target (with the usual hat-note about alternative targets), rather than to a disambiguation page. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:01, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• • I also think that with stand-alone names that do not have a number attached need a title so that monarchs (e.g. "Victoria of the United Kingdom") can be readily distinguished from other names of the form "Name of Place". e.g. John of Gaunt, Katherine of Aragon, Joan of Arc. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:41, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Barring the unexpected, Sweden will someday have its own monarch named Victoria. GoodDay (talk) 16:38, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Introduced here:

• User:Born2cycle#A_goal:_naming_stability_at_Wikipedia,

and more details in the following section:

• User:Born2cycle#The_role_of_title_criteria_on_stability.

—В²C ☎ 21:42, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We require consistency among these many monarch bios article titles. It will be interesting when (barring the unexpected) Victoria ascends the Swedish throne & keeps her name. GoodDay (talk) 22:07, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What we do with all other categories is address each disambiguation situation as it actually arises. Again, I see no reason to treat monarchy articles differently. —В²C ☎ 03:04, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We obviously (and for quite sometime) have disagreed on this topic. Doubt we're going to convince each other of the others' position. GoodDay (talk) 03:06, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I’m just trying to see if you have a policy-based argument or whether it’s just JDLI rationalization. —В²C ☎ 04:41, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is no policy for what you claim, concerning this topic. GoodDay (talk) 04:45, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Born2cycle: You're (again) wrongly suggesting that policy hasn't already been invoked to support removal: it has. WP:CRITERIA advances a number of goals for good article titling, and states explicitly that consensus-building is sometimes needed to decide which to favor in certain situations, and to find the best balance among them. That's what we're doing here. The policy also specifically acknowledges the validity of "topic-specific naming conventions for article titles" that vary from each other, and does not insist on identical treatment of every article.

In this case you clearly favor a different balance than most others, and that's fine... but opening a whole new section seemingly for no other reason than just to reiterate your belief that other's aren't getting it isn't helpful — and nor is repeatedly dismissing everyone else's views as JDLI. You've made your points; others have too. Probably best now to just listen. ╠╣uw [talk] 11:25, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Born2cycle - May I respectfully suggest that it is you, not everyone else, who is not seeing the big picture? You might do well to actually spend some time working on articles in this area and then you would be better qualified to comment. Deb (talk) 07:00, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Time and time again, it’s the editors who work on a particular area of articles that feel “their area” requires special treatment, especially with emphasis on “consistency” within their area, not with all other titles outside their area. So, thanks, but no thanks. —В²C ☎ 17:33, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:CONSISTENT supports those editors: good titles are consistent with the pattern of "similar articles", not necessarily all others outside their area. ╠╣uw [talk] 21:25, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• If we are talking about consistency, I believe GoodDay makes an excellent point that next we will need to consider stripping "Pope" from the titles of articles on Popes. (And likely from the Eastern Patriarchs.) And perhaps there will be other articles where the aristocratic titles or professional titles need to be stripped.
  I'm not taking a stand for or against the original proposal, merely pointing out given a large enough picture "consistency" can be used to justify any desired convention. -- llywrch (talk) 21:16, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I think the argument for "Pope" to be in the title would be the same as including "of country". "Pope" is generally included when talking about the person anyway, e.g: "Pope John Paul did xyz today" --Spekkios (talk) 09:10, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Pope" has been included as an exception to the general rule of "no titles", and I know that there was a discussion on this. I think it probably relates to the fact that popes don't use their real names as their papal titles, so in a sense it's not a name at all and doesn't need to conform. Deb (talk) 09:29, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Over the last 12+ months, an editor (who I shall not name) went around boldly moving article titles to the Name only style, removing the of country bit. He sometimes used the technical move requests, to accomplish this. I've undone a tiny few of his bold page moves, since. TBH, I found it quite annoying that the individual bypassed the RM route. GoodDay (talk) 23:49, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You mean undiscussed controversial unilateral moves like this one? Except you did that, and it’s not a revert [EDIT: Not a revert of a recent undiscussed RM —В²C ☎ 16:50, 19 October 2021 (UTC)]. —-В²C ☎ 13:43, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It was page that was moved without going the RM route, so I reversed it. GoodDay (talk) 15:04, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Except it was moved with a comment citing policy and had been stable for over a year there. While that user may claim ignorance over the inherent controversy in such moves, due to your involvement here you certainly cannot claim that you didn’t know and the move you made should have gone to RM. It’s one thing to revert a recent unilateral move, but once 3-6 months have passed, let alone over a year, that title is arguably stable and since it had been moved, moving it again is clearly controversial. Requires RM. —В²C ☎ 15:28, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

They were moved without going through the RM route, thus I reversed them. In another area of Wikipedia years ago, one or two editors did the same thing (bypassing RM) to establish their preferred article titles. If you bypass the RM route, don't be surprised if you get that move reversed in the future. I just happened to come across them yesterday. GoodDay (talk) 15:41, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Moving without RM is acceptable if the move is not controversial. Claiming such a move was controversial and reversing it accordingly is one thing, and acceptable, if it was a recent move. Doing so over a year later is quite another, and unacceptable. —В²C ☎ 16:32, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I made a technical request to revert your undiscussed move, noting that you considered it a revert of the previous undiscussed move. However I also noted that that other move was over a year ago and the title has been stable since. Your move was reverted accordingly. Have a GoodDay. —В²C ☎ 19:34, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Deb, said it better then I ever could. GoodDay (talk) 21:02, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

GoodDay I wouldn't waste any more time on this. You may as well go and bang your head against a wall. Deb (talk) 17:20, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

All sneaky page moves should be summarily reverted, not validated on the notion that successful sneakiness has WP:Silent consensus. It’s a known WP:GAME, by fanatics of brevity over consistency and recognisability in titles, to do sneaky page moves on barely watched titles to break CONSISTENCY, to weaken later arguments that consistent titling is consistent. The sneaky page move *should* have known it was a controversial bold page move, and should be warned that it was disruptive gaming. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:30, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I’m well aware of the game as it’s played by IIO repeatedly. But we AGF and don’t revert their sneaky moves unless they’re caught soon enough. One year later is never soon enough no matter how quiet the activity on that article. —В²C ☎ 22:51, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. But seeing as you've successfully restored the 2020 unilateral page move? I'll be opening an RM there, next month. GoodDay (talk) 22:55, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

One year is not long enough if only bot and gnoming edits intersperse for the sneaky page move to be recognised as status quo ante. If the editor who did the bold page move doesn’t do the right thing by self-reverting, hold a formal RM, and no consensus defaults to the prior title. This goes for both sides of the ideological battle lines. Sneaky bold page moves are disruptive to the project, bad page moves make for a lot more trouble than bad edits, and experienced RM participants should be held to a higher standard. SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:39, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Interstellarity:, your are aware of this RFC. Being the fellow who made the aforementioned unilateral page moves. It would be appreciated, if you'd give your input 'here' or in the survey. GoodDay (talk) 18:27, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello GoodDay,

When deciding on an article title, I think it is important to go through the criteria to see if we can make a good title for the article. I know that some people mentioned the consistency part of the article title. However, I think there are a few article titles where consistency is not that important and that recognizability would be important. For example, we have Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Queen Victoria, and Elizabeth II. All the titles are easily recognizable to match their subjects. I would actually put recognizability above consistency when it comes to renaming articles because it is important that we serve our readers. I think having concise titles such as Juan Carlos I when disambiguation is not necessary is helpful. The lead explains that he was the king of Spain. If disambiguation is needed, then we can add the country. This is how I feel about the whole issue. Interstellarity (talk) 12:53, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In future, would you please go the RM route, rather then unilaterally 'move' pages? GoodDay (talk) 16:56, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I can do that from now on. Interstellarity (talk) 19:33, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Wikipedia editors, I have opened a discussion regarding WP:COMMONNAME policy and individuals preferred name that will be relevant to the ongoing discussion about regal titles. The discussion can be found here. Thank you. cookie monster 755 00:13, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Now that the RFC template has expired. I've put in a request for closure at the Wikipedia:Closure requests page. GoodDay (talk) 20:23, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]