KCpedia:Naming conventions
From KCpedia
Naming conventions is a list of guidelines on how to appropriately create and name pages.
It is important to note that these are conventions, not rules written in stone. As KCpedia grows and changes, some conventions that once made sense may become outdated, and there may be cases where a particular convention is "obviously" inappropriate. But when in doubt, follow convention.
Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. If there is an existing subject file on record in the Kenyon College Archives, it should also be used unless there are strong reasons to do otherwise.
In addition to following the naming conventions it is also important to follow the linking conventions. Following consistent conventions in both naming and linking makes it more likely that links will lead to the right place.
General conventions
Lowercase second and subsequent words
Convention: Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is a proper noun (such as a name) or is otherwise almost always capitalized (for example: Philander Chase, but not Ultimate Frisbee).
Due to technical limitations inherent to the MediaWiki software, the first letter in an article title always needs to be a capital letter. Ordinarily this isn't a problem, but it poses an issue when a proper noun's first letter is lowercase. The first letter of an internal wikilink need not be capitalized and will direct the reader to the same page (for example, ultimate frisbee or Ultimate frisbee can be used interchangeably as needed).
Prefer singular nouns
Convention: In general only create page titles that are in the singular, unless that noun is always in a plural form in English (such as scissors or trousers). Category names follow different pluralization conventions, see KCpedia:Naming conventions (categories).
Redirect adjectives to nouns
Convention: Adjectives (such as democratic) should redirect to nouns (in this case, democracy).
Use gerund of verbs
Convention: Use the gerund of verbs (the -ing form in English) unless there is a more common form for a certain verb.
Use English words
Convention: Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly used in English than the English form.
Use common names of persons and things
Convention: Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things.
Be precise when necessary
Convention: Please, do not write or put an article on a page with an ambiguously named title as though that title had no other meanings.
Prefer spelled-out phrases to acronyms
Convention: Avoid the use of acronyms in page naming unless the term you are naming is almost exclusively known only by its acronym and is widely known and used in that form (laser, radar, and scuba are good examples).
Avoid the definite article ("the") and the indefinite article ("a"/"an") at the beginning of the page name
Convention: If the definite or indefinite article article would be capitalized in running text, then include it at the beginning of the page name. This would be the case for the title of a work such as a novel. Otherwise, do not include it at the beginning of the page name.
Examples: The Hague, The Old Man and the Sea]' but: the Netherlands.
This page is derived from [Wikipedia] and is covered under the [GNU Free Documentation License].
