Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (books)/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

SUBTITLE

Suggest that a counter example be added of a recent book where recognizable common name is not the truncated version. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:06, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

I actually think this section needs to be removed all together. Usually, a Wikipedia article on a book (or other medium, such as a movie, TV special or video game) does not include its subtitle in the Wikipedia page name is just false as can be seen by a simple search in our database with some examples here Captain America: The Winter Soldier (GA), Captain America: Civil War (GA), Resident Evil: Apocalypse (FA), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (GA), The Flintstones: Jogging Fever, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (GA), Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, Command & Conquer: Red Alert, Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge, Young Lust: The Aerosmith Anthology, Tough Love: Best of the Ballads. --Gonnym (talk) 12:05, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

@Gonnym: I've made what I believe are reasonable not overly controversial edits reflecting your evidence above sum of two edits here. I've also added that these examples are older literature. These are probably where the edits should rest for the moment awaiting further eyes. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:12, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

• Good that it's being revised, and I agree with the examples given. That said, I think that there are a specific group of works, like those given above, where the subtitle forms an integral part of the title (e.g. "Civil War" is an integral part of "Captain America: Civil War"). I think that rather than saying sometimes we include the subtitle, sometimes we don't, we should attempt to explain when we decide to include them, and why, making it clear that subtitles should pretty much always be omitted when are not an integral part of the title, unless they're going to be used as disambiguators. I'm not 100% sure how to express this (would "integral part of the title" with an example or two be clear enough, or is there a better way to describe what distinguishes these works?). ‑‑Yodin^T 10:50, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Looking at the examples again, what we're calling a subtitle in these cases is really the work's primary title, and the series name before it is more of a prefix to the title than the main title itself (there are a few exceptions there like Young Lust: The Aerosmith Anthology & Tough Love: Best of the Ballads – which seem to be straightforward cases of disambiguation – and numbered titles, like Terminator 2: Judgment Day) – this tends to be reflected in the articles' text, where they normally drop the prefix after using it once in bold at the start of the lead. ‑‑Yodin^T 11:14, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

• To be honest, I think that the only real cases where one can argue that a subtitle is not part of the name is for old works where common usage has shortened them. Any recent work is almost always known by either its full name or by a short colloquial name, such as Warcraft: Orcs & Humans called simply "Warcraft 1". Even more, newer books (and other media) use the subtitle as the main title and the title as the prefix such as (the former examples I've gave and) Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25, Michael Vey: Battle of the Ampere and The Lost Fleet: Dauntless, The Lost Fleet: Fearless - which both use the prefix for the title of the series and the subtitle for the current story. If we were to go with the subtitle omission rule, we'd have "The Lost Fleet (first book)" and "The Lost Fleet (second book)".
• Regarding your second comment - take the GA and FA articles as better writing examples, they continue using the full title a lot in those articles (with some inconsistency still present between full title, prefix only and subtitle only usages, which is granted as no paid editor is in-place to make sure a consistent style is followed). --Gonnym (talk) 11:35, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

• Yep, I agree that there's a clear difference between the old fashioned subtitles (as originally described in this guideline, which should only be included to help with disambiguation), and recent use of subtitles (which should include the full title), and the policy should reflect this to help new editors choose a good article title. ‑‑Yodin^T 15:18, 13 September 2018 (UTC) P.S. I'd say we still need this policy to prevent things like On the Origin of Species being moved to On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, etc., just need to make it clear that subtitles in more recent books don't tend to follow the same patterns! ‑‑Yodin^T 15:23, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

• Current phrasing is still not good enough. Sometimes, a Wikipedia article on a book (or other medium, such as a movie, TV special or video game) does not include its subtitle in the Wikipedia page name, per WP:CONCISE, sometimes it does (for example in films such as Captain America: The First Avenger) - the reason why the short name is used, is not per CONCISE, its because of COMMONNAME. There is no reason whatsoever to shorten a name of something per concise unless it's an extremely long name (which is really an exception to the rule, and not the rule itself). I'd say the phrasing should be something like:

Older books may be more known by a shorter name rather than by their official one. In those situations, the article should be named by the short version per WP:COMMONAME. In situations when using the shorter name requires disambiguation, then the full name should be used instead per WP:NATURALDIS. - the reason why I'm not even addressing the subtitle issue, is that even the first example given is not pure title only - The Social Contract, not On the Social Contract, which just strengthens my belief that it's not a subtitle issue but a commoname one. --Gonnym (talk) 16:09, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

I've started to take a look through the examples that link to WP:SUBTITLE and WP:SUBTITLES (more than 200 talk pages), which are pretty interesting, most of them being recent books. Random examples that I came across were:

• Indra's Net (book) (rather than Indra's Net: Defending Hinduism's Philosophical Unity) [2014 book]
• Isaac's Storm (rather than Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History) [2000 book]
• American Sniper (book) (rather than American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History) [2012 book]

It looks to me like the extended subtitle is surprisingly still going strong in books, is often the subject of dispute (read: fans of books who want the full "official" title vs. other editors looking for consistent article naming) and I think in a lot of these cases CONCISE does play a part (especially for books that aren't really well known enough have a widely used name), though I wouldn't object to COMMONNAME being put first. Even if it was purely COMMONNAME and unrelated to subtitles, I think having a guideline like this discussing subtitles in general is helpful, and all the talk page discussions that have linked to it mean that it should be preserved in a way that would make sense to anyone checking the policy in future in relation to the article that they were interested in. To me it boils down to explaining when to include a subtitle in the title (i.e. as you say, where the COMMONNAME includes the subtitle – which tends to be quite a new approach to using subtitles) and when not (most of the rest of the time, subtitles aren't normally part of the COMMONNAME, and are often not CONCISE). Totally agree that it should be reworded though! Will give it a bit more thought! ‑‑Yodin^T 11:38, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• I reverted the recent changes by In ictu oculi. I'm not a process wonk, and I agree that the guideline needs updating, but I think that the changes were ill-thought-out and some ironing out on this talk page is needed before any updates go live. Saying "sometimes we do, sometimes we not" has a pretty low usability as guidance. My (quick) thoughts:

Subtitles are not usually included in work titles, except:

1. When they are part of the common name of the work, i.e. it is more commonly referred to with subtitles (the recent The Gene: An Intimate History case)
2. In cases when the short title is ambiguous, they may be used for natural disambiguation if sufficiently well-known and reasonably short.
3. Any other... ?

No such user (talk) 13:16, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

• In my opinion you are going this backwards, it is not "when subtitles are included", but "when should they not be included". I've checked some of the recent books that have come up for discussion, and the sites that talk about them, each time first mention them by the full name, then they use the short title, but that does not mean that the short title is the commonname, it just means that for brevity, the title is shortened as to reduce text. It is the same thing as when you mention someone by their full name, then only use their last name. So for me (as I've shown above) #1 would be use commonname; #2 same as yours; No need to mention subtitle at all, as that is not the factor by which commonname is decided. --Gonnym (talk) 14:42, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

• Hm, in my opinion, you are going about this backwards :) But let's do this constructively: rather than relying on personal impressions, let's see some data:
  • Category:2016 non-fiction books: subtitle used in 25/161 article titles
  • Category:2017 non-fiction books: subtitle used in 23/147 article titles
  • Category:2018 non-fiction books: subtitle used in 15/66 article titles

We can delve further into details, but even those quick results (63/374=17%) support the thesis that subtitles are not usually included in titles on Wikipedia. Now, WP:COMMONNAME, WP:NATURAL and WP:CONCISE constitute the policy indeed and we could completely get rid of WP:SUBTITLE, as the former three provide complete guidance (and, judging on the category contents above, they are being followed). I hope that we agree on the essence. However, I believe it would be beneficial to provide some guidance as to the use of subtitles, and the challenge here is how to formulate it. The "old" wording was misleading at best (as it did not consider COMMONNAME at all), but the one recently introduced was totally off: Sometimes, a Wikipedia article ... does not include subtitle, sometimes it does... One exception to that [to what?!] is... No such user (talk) 15:19, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

You're checking Wikipedia article names to see if a subtitle is used? That is a little flawed way of going around, of course that will be the case as that is what the guideline said and not what I was referring to. I meant, that in the real-world, the articles I read which were reviewing those books always used the full name to talk about the book in the first instance. If you have a good guideline that keeps the subtitle phrasing in, go ahead, I'm not against, but I just believe that a lot of the times people use the short version of the name just for brevity. As an example see this where the article title uses just "Fear", then the first mention in the actual article uses the full name, then future uses use the short version again. (In a related topic, but not related to this issue, don't forget about books that the subtitle is more known than the title itself such as Dune: The Butlerian Jihad.) --Gonnym (talk) 17:57, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Well, I am checking Wikipedia article names to investigate what the current practice is. Ideally, our guidelines should reflect both the practices currently in de facto use and real-world naming of topics. They are seldom imposed "top to bottom" (in this case, encouraging use of subtitles that you seem to advocate), and doing so would require a well-attended RFC. While I hear what you are saying, I'm afraid that doing that is out of scope for this informal discussion on a guideline talk page. My view is that we should simply tweak the current wording to reflect what the current practice is – in this case, I would simply like to de-emphasize recommendation for short titles and put the focus on WP:COMMONNAME of the book, be it short or long. Yes, I agree that Dune: The Butlerian Jihad is a better title than e.g. "Dune (2002 book)" but that is so on both the COMMONAME and WP:NATURAL grounds. Is there an example where the short title is unambiguous, but we still [should] use the "title:subtitle" format on the basis of COMMONNAME? Not being well-versed in recent publications, I struggle to find one. For example, I see that Logical Family redirects to Logical Family: A Memoir but it's hard to use a short stub article as a viable example. No such user (talk) 15:13, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with your conclusions that the current practice is a "grassroots" action and not editors following the strict wording of the guideline. Just this past week an editor requested a lot of articles to be name changed without the subtitle (which another editor moved without discussion per this guideline on a technical reason). And as I've previously stated, this guideline is based on a false assumptions that all media does this, which is plainly wrong. With film and television not even mentioning subtitle in their guideline. This section of the guideline goes against a policy, which basically means that some very minority localconsensus has decided that book names should be titled differently. TBH, I've pretty much given up on trying to change guidelines, as the local watchdogs tend to block changes. Luckily, I can just disregard this guideline and keep using policy. To your question, I'll point to the flawed way of which is presented. You are going from the assumption that the short titles are the commonname, I argue that the commonname is the long version and the short title is just that, short for brevity. One easy way of checking is if its sold in stores/online as only "title" and not "title:subtitle", but from those I checked that isn't the case. --Gonnym (talk) 15:25, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with your conclusions that the current practice is a "grassroots" action and not editors following the strict wording of the guideline. – but how can we reasonably know either way? I'm well-versed in WP naming conventions of all sorts, but this week is the first time I learned about SUBTITLE; I don't think it's a widely known convention (but then, I don't frequent book articles). I share your sentiment about "local watchdogs" and I don't want to act as one here. But the fact is, we have a wide gap between the practice (however it came to be) and what you think it ought to be. This discussion was triggered by that swath of RMs indeed, and we agree that the guideline is broken (or at least, open to interpretations), but I just don't see a way forward now. No such user (talk) 15:53, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

...except, maybe, to delete the whole goddam section. It does not bring any clarification to the existing policies, and just adds a layer of confusion. As you said, if NCFILM and NCTV can go along without mentioning subtitles, it does not seem terribly useful here either. No such user (talk) 15:58, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree, we can't know, which is the problem (chicken and an egg...). I was in an opinion it should be deleted, but Yodin thinks it can be salvaged into something, which is fine by me if it can actually be salvaged. My basic premise here is that whatever reliable sources use is what we should follow, be it title only, title + subtitle or subtitle only. --Gonnym (talk) 17:04, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

How about something like this:

• Like all articles, books (and other media, such as films and video games) that have a subtitle should use the work's commonly used name (following WP:COMMONNAME). For books with verbose subtitles, this often means using a concise form in preference to a full "official" name (see WP:CONCISE and WP:OFFICIAL), but be aware that many modern titles (especially those that are part of a series, for example Dune: The Butlerian Jihad) often contain subtitles that are a central part of the name of the work. When another article shares the most commonly used name, the full title and subtitle might be suitable to be used as a form of natural disambiguation (see WP:NATURALDIS).

Could also give some examples (as well as or instead of those currently there). The final paragraph could also be included (info on redirects and standard formatting seems like a good idea). Not trying to be awkward, absolutely agree that it should change, but I think it's a good idea to preserve a guideline for subtitles, even if it's just pointing out which are the relevant naming policies for new editors wondering whether they should include a full title + subtitle or not. What do you think? ‑‑Yodin^T 21:08, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

@Yodin: Thank you. I had something very similar in mind. I think it represents the essence of the practice. I support replacing the current version with that paragraph of yours, and any small clarifications and examples may be added later. Gonnym, In ictu oculi, what do you think? No such user (talk) 14:32, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Seems good. I wouldn't link to WP:OFFICIAL as that is an essay. --Gonnym (talk) 14:37, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks both, happy for the mention of WP:OFFICIAL to be removed. ‑‑Yodin^T 16:59, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

• Some changes must go through - the guideline as it stands is untrue. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:25, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, yes, I agree. But I don't see that we currently have a consensus what would those be. No such user (talk) 15:13, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

RFC: Does this guideline cover plays and other literary works?

The following discussion 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.

---

Does this naming convention apply to plays and other literary works? --woodensuperman 09:15, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Per various current move discussions, here, here and here various editors are claiming that this is not the case, yet WP:BOOKDAB says "To disambiguate, add the type of literary work in parentheses, such as "(novel)", "(novella)", "(short story)", "(short story collection)", "(dialogue)", "(essay)", "(play)", "(poem)", "(poetry collection)", etc." I would take this to read that plays should follow this naming convention, and thus if additional disambiguation is required, surname of the playwright should be used, and not the year of production. If this is not the case, then there appears to be no guideline to give guidance on this issue, and we are ending up with inconsistencies, as some are disambiguated by surname, and others by year. To my mind, a play is far more identifiable by its author, as it can have many different years of production. Quite frankly, it would be ridiculous to have something like One for the Road (Pinter play) sitting at One for the Road (1984 play). --woodensuperman 09:21, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

• I saw the RM discussions but didn't know how I felt about them. I would say that if the play refers to the written play and its adaptations, then it falls under this guideline, however, if the play refers to a production (such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (play)) then it should follow film/tv guidelines. --Gonnym (talk) 10:58, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

If it is about a specific production, then I'd have thought that it should not be disambiguated "(play)", but something like "(stage production)". Looking at your example of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (play), that details more than half a dozen productions from multiple different years, so if additional disambiguation did become necessary, I'd still think the author's name should be used. --woodensuperman 11:07, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Also, there is a book. --woodensuperman 11:15, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

• Does not apply per the guideline lede: "other literary and artistic works such as plays, films, paintings etc.. Plays are titled here per their production year, i.e. Dracula (1924 play). Randy Kryn (talk) 12:15, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

That is with regard to capitalization, not disambiguation. Please could you point me to the guideline which states that plays should be disambiguated by production year, because this is the only guideline I can find that mentions them. And not all plays are disambiguated the same way currently, it's some and some, which is causing inconsistency. --woodensuperman 12:23, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

The point is that it separates plays, films, and paintings from books. Which is correct. The {{Dracula}} template, for example, has a 'Plays' section separated from its 'Literature' section. It lists Dracula (1924), Dracula (1995), and Dracula (1996). How else would you differentiate these three plays and still keep an understanding of chronological sequence? "The play's the thing", but a play is not a book. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:39, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

The bit about capitalization shouldn't be in the lede to this guideline, let alone whether or not it should mention plays. A play is a literary work, period. It would be pretty strange if we started disambiguating Oedipus (Voltaire play) and Antigone (Sophocles play) by year. A production of a play should perhaps be listed differently. And who cares what the {{Dracula}} navbox does (although chronological order could easily be maintained there!). We all know how poorly maintained navboxes are. That's not a guideline. Dracula (1996 play) should clearly be at Dracula (Dietz play), it doesn't even mention a production. The only guideline we have to cover these situations is this one. --woodensuperman 12:51, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Oh, and to quote the same part of the lede that you have been, when we are talking about "books", this is "usually meaning the title of the literary work contained in the book". --woodensuperman 12:58, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

A play is on its written level a literary work, but is not a book. The lede, aside from your focus on capitalization, differentiates this, and reads "other literary and artistic works such as plays, films, paintings etc." The templates you and I have on our watchlists are likely well-maintained, but where would you put the three plays on the 'Dracula' template - under 'Literature' or, as they are now, under the separate section 'Plays'? Randy Kryn (talk) 13:01, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

As I've pointed out, that part is only written in reference to capitalization. It's clumsily written and should not be in the lede (it is covered at WP:NCB#Article title format, which also uses Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, another play, as an example), and you're wikilawyering to make it apply to the whole guideline. Also, I'm not interested in the layout of a nabox, but whether it is this guideline or another that we should be referring to when disambiguating plays. As no-one can offer another guideline where this is addressed, this seems to be the only guideline which we have. --woodensuperman 13:09, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Nonetheless and your emphasis on capitalization considered, it's right in the lede of the guideline that plays are not books. Nor are films (some have scripts that are sold). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:16, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

No, it does NOT state in the lede that plays are not covered by this guideline, that is merely what you are inferring from a clumsily placed sentence. As I pointed out, a play is specifically used as an example on how to capitalize. --woodensuperman 13:26, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, it does. The catch is, we do not have any other NC that reasonably covers all sorts of literary works, so the scope of this one should be clarified. For the start, it should be renamed to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (literary works). In any case, I don't see anything particularly specific about plays in comparison with other types of literary works concerning disambiguation principles, save for Gonnym's remark about articles focused on specific stage productions (of which I think we wont find too many).
  Plus, this NC is rather poorly maintained (just look at my latest swath of cleanup [1] and I think I only scratched the surface). I don't think it covers all reasonably common use cases, but hey, it's all work in progress; let's settle its scope first and then work on the details. No such user (talk) 10:28, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
• No, it does not, or at least it doesn't accurately describe what is widely done. If I were to try to characterize the practice, it would be something like this: "Disambiguate between modern plays by year of first production or publication, but if the disambiguation list includes pre-modern plays (where exact years are often not known), disambiguate by the name of the author." That seems to be how it is most commonly done. So, for example, the various Dracula plays are distinguished by year, while plays called Antigone (which includes 2 ancient versions and 3 modern ones) are distinguished by author. That said, it isn't an entirely consistent practice. Some modern plays are distinguished by author name, and there are even mixed cases, such as The Gold Diggers (1919 play) and The Gold Diggers (Aleichem play) (both modern). But some inconsistency isn't surprising given that we have several thousand articles about plays.

As far as the reasoning goes, plays are both literary works and performance events. As performance events, they tend to involve more collaboration than a purely literary work typically does, and it does seem more common to have multiple authors for plays than for novels, short stories, etc., which can make disambiguation by author name more difficult. For example, Greenland (2011 play) has four co-authors; Greenland (Buffini, Skinner, Charman and Thorne play) seems like a bit much in comparison. In this respect plays seem more similar to movies, which we typically disambiguate by year. --RL0919 (talk) 20:34, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Surely disambiguation of modern plays such as One for the Road (Pinter play) or Post Mortem (Coward play) by anything other than the author's surname is wrong. And I'd see your example of Greenland (2011 play) as an exception to the norm, because to list that many authors is impractical. Greenland (1988 play) would be much more identifiable at Greenland (Brenton play). Both articles make a clear point about how they're not to be confused with each other, something that would ordinarily be confined to a hatnote. --woodensuperman 11:02, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Also, I don't think it is the most common practice. I just went through the categories for each year in Category:1980s plays, and I didn't see a single one other than Greenland disambiguated by year. A couple with full name of the author, rather than surname, and one used "(Bulgarian play)", but common practice for plays from the 80s at least is to use author's surname. --woodensuperman 15:07, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Category:1990s plays seems a little more evenly split (although full name seems more prevalent), as does Category:2000s plays (probably slightly in favour of name, with one using both name and year), so your claim that the common practice is that years are used if additional disambiguation is needed for modern plays seems false on this evidence. --woodensuperman 15:12, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

• Does not apply. Plays are not books. Calidum 04:27, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

A poem is not a book either, but poems are covered. As I've noted above, this is the only guideline we have that could potentially cover this issue, and it specifically mentions the disambiguator "(play)" in the relevant section. --woodensuperman 09:01, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

• Should be included. Regardless of whether plays are books, it makes more sense for them to be covered by the author name than the year, and treated like other literary works. I'd suggest including plays and changing this guideline to "Naming conventions (literature)".--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:16, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
• Comment. Does it overly complicate matters that a script for a play is sometimes referred to as "The Book", "The Prompt Book" and perhaps other book-like terms? (I seem to remember one of my edits reverted some time back due to my ignorance of (British?) theatre terms.) Paine Ellsworth, ed.  ^put'r there  20:05, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
• No, does not apply. When people are on stage, they are performing, as it's a presentation art. That is their craft. Actors and actresses perform in plays, musicals, television and film. They are all shows people watch. People don't go out to a theater to read, they go to see a show. The vast world of theatre consists of not only musicals, but plays too. Plays, musicals, television and film should be and remain consistent with one another. Yes, plays are written, as are pantomimes, but so are also musicals, television shows and films. Theatre and the silver screen are harmoniously linked together as presentation art in the form of entertainment. It is this form of entertainment that we watch and not read. Best, --Discographer (talk) 01:56, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

The majority of the time we are not talking about a performance, but the written play. Take the example of The Heiress (1786 play). Specific productions/performances could be treated (and disambiguated) differently. Also, an author far better fits our titling policy WP:RECOGNISABILITY. --woodensuperman 09:19, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

A play put into book form is not the play, just like a film script in book form is not the film. They are a written guide as to how to present the primary - the play or the film. An example would be if a book is written on how to perfectly duplicate the Mona Lisa in paint, including what canvas to use, which paints to obtain, and how to apply each brushstroke. Same thing. A rose by any other name is not a rose on Wikipedia (it is a redirect). Randy Kryn (talk) 11:54, 7 December 2018 (UTC) (copied from my comment elsewhere)

What fresh nonsense is this? A play is a play, whether it is in book form or not. It is a written literary work and it has an author. A performance of a play is a production of that literary work. The majority of the time, the articles are about the play, not a performance. Literary works are best disambiguated and best recognised by their authors, not the years of productions. --woodensuperman 12:02, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

The majority of plays and films are never published as written works. The script is a "how to", a guide on "here's how to present the scene and here's what to say". They are not written to be published, but to give performers something to perform - which is the primary, or, "The play's the thing". Randy Kryn (talk) 12:09, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

You really don't get it do you? How is The Heiress (1786 play) more appropriate or recognisable than The Heiress (Burgoyne play)? Does the article relate to a 1786 performance, or a play written by Burgoyne? Does Dracula (1924 play) relate to a 1924 performance, or a play by Deane? It's the author, every time. --woodensuperman 12:12, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I didn't really want to bring musicals into this discussion, but see also the difference between Cinderella (musical) and Cinderella (2013 Broadway production). Or Othello and Othello (Orson Welles stage production). --woodensuperman 12:37, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Aladdin (disambiguation) is a good example to follow, as it represents many types of the medium and stays aligned with consistency, of which we should support and not oppose. As with what already applies at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (films) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television), should also apply for plays, too. Most Broadway, West End and touring productions are written, either originally or specifically, for the stage, just as television shows and films are written specifically for the screen. Scripts may accommodate these releases (but don't have to), as with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a non-literary theatrical work specifically made for the stage. Rowling though does have seven literary Harry Potter books. Best, --Discographer (talk) 14:02, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

And dating the play gives context. Anyway, I guess the point some of us are making is that plays aren't books, and so a books guideline shouldn't blanket them into it. Semantics and definition at the core of it. If someone writes a play named Hamlet I can see using the Shakespeare name, but maybe adding the year gives it the context that some editors are seeking. So two problems there, dating it and differentiating a play from a book. That's my take on the context of the RM's in question, and of automatically including plays in this guideline. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:06, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

The author gives it context. Plays are identified by who wrote them. People talk about a Beckett play, or a Pinter play, or a Shakespeare play, or a Shaw play, or a Sheridan play, or a... you get my drift. The year does little to help identify which play it is. --woodensuperman 14:18, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Aladdin doesn't have any plays that need disambiguating from one another as far as I can see. And you're confusing productions with literary works. TV series and films are productions. We should not be following that method for plays which are literary works. If the article is concerned with a specific production, it shouldn't be disambiguated "(play)" - see Cinderella (2013 Broadway production) and Othello (Orson Welles stage production). --woodensuperman 14:18, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Oh, and scripts will always exist - how else is the actor to learn their lines? --woodensuperman 14:20, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

• I'm open-minded about what might be the best guidance for disambiguating plays, but it's pretty clear that the guidance we have needs to be re-evaluated. At the moment there is just an offhand mention of a couple of plays as examples focusing on other elements of naming. There is no detailed guidance about plays as such. From the current guideline an editor will get nothing about disambiguating a musical from a non-musical play with the same name, how to name articles about specific productions, etc. It's just assumed that plays should be handled identically to books, short stories, etc. The argument that plays are essentially books is terrible and fundamentally misunderstands what makes most plays notable. Yes, there are plays, usually older ones, that are best known today as scripts and are rarely if ever performed. But there are also plays that are notable entirely based on performances, whose scripts have never even been published, and many millions of people have seen plays that they have never read. Maybe the guidance for plays can be part of this guideline -- I'm not against that as such -- but we need to develop guidance that is specific to plays, whether that is here or on some other page. --RL0919 (talk) 15:59, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I think this again is the difference between a literary play and a stage show (usually a musical). Maybe we need different guidelines for each. I cannot see it being appropriate for anything by Arthur Miller or Harold Pinter to ever be disambiguated by anything other than surname, but The Wizard of Oz (1942 musical), The Wizard of Oz (1987 musical), The Wizard of Oz (2011 musical) are probably in the right place. --woodensuperman 16:24, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

The distinction isn't very clear cut, especially if you look across history. The 19th and early 20th centuries are littered with lowbrow comedy and melodrama that is significantly less "literary" than Les Misérables (musical). Plays in this era were a primary form of popular entertainment, until movies and television displaced them. There were ambiguous semi-musical plays like The Crinoline Girl, with a few songs interspersed in what is otherwise a regular comedy. There were plays primarily created by an actor-manager, who might work with a barely-known scriptwriter. I understand that there are plays that are known primarily for their famous author, and there is probably a place for surname disambiguation in specific guidance for naming articles about plays. But first we need to agree that there should be specific guidance for that, rather than piggybacking on guidance created with novels in mind. --RL0919 (talk) 17:37, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

• While there's no other guideline of course it applies The alternative to not applying the Book guideline is editors randomly applying the film guideline as in (1996 play), but plays are known by authors not by year. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:37, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Finding a way forward

The discussion above so far is pretty clearly a "no consensus", which isn't very helpful considering the inconsistency that exists among various articles and the multiple open move requests that also don't have consensus. Given that people arguing in favor of the guideline applying to plays are giving it the backhanded support of saying there isn't an alternative guideline to use, it seems to me that we should focus on writing better guidance. Then we could say, "yes, there's clear guidance in this guideline that is specific to plays and other theatrical works" and have consensus for it. Considering that the guideline has subsections about comics, poems, etc., it hardly seems out of line for it to have similar detail for theatre. --RL0919 (talk) 05:40, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Plays are already mentioned in WP:BOOKDAB, which recommends that author surname is used if additional disambiguation is needed. As this is the status quo, we have to take this as our base and build on this. I guess the first question is whether we should treat plays and musicals differently. However, I'd be more inclined to let the RFC run a little longer. --woodensuperman 10:40, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Still no consensus here and most of the individual RMs have closed with no change. I continue to believe that the best way forward is to add guidance that clearly applies to works written for performance. That should include addressing disambiguation by form (plays, musicals, etc.) and resolving the year vs. author dab question. If we recommend author, we should provide guidance on multi-author collaborations, which are somewhat common for plays and very common for musicals. We might also want to say something about naming articles on specific productions, although those aren't very common. --RL0919 (talk) 22:19, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree, regardless of the outcome of the above discussion on whether or not the current guidelines applies to these articles, it seems a good idea to have a clear section dedicated to them. ‑‑Yodin^T 22:50, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

A couple of editors above suggested this guideline is renamed Wikipedia:Naming conventions (literature). I guess this might be the first step, to reflect the fact that this guideline is not restricted to "books", but that it is also the guideline for poems and other forms of literature. However, the problem with making any changes while the RFC is still open is that editors may claim that these changes are against consensus. Could we do an RM? --woodensuperman 14:33, 19 December 2018 (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.