Tolkien Gateway:Naming policy

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The naming policy of Tolkien Gateway governs the article title, the article title being the large header displayed at the top of the article's content. When considering an article title, an editor should consider the naming guidelines below.

Usually, the title is the name of the concept/subject of the article, or it may be a descriptive phrase. However, the limitations of MediaWiki software dictate that no two pages can have the same title. As a result, Tolkien Gateway needs to have a policy in place to regulate the naming of articles in order to differentiate between several different concepts.

Naming guidelines[edit source]

In naming any article, please take into account the following guidelines (similar to those used on Wikipedia):

  • Recognisability - the title of the subject should be easily recognisable to someone familiar with the subject area. For example, "Gondolin" is much more recognisable than "Lothengriol";
  • Conciseness - it should be as short as possible. For example, "Gandalf" and not "Gandalf the Grey";
  • Naturalness - an article title that someone is likely to actually search for. For example, "Faramir" is preferable to "Faramir, son of Denethor".
  • Precision - it accurately describes the subject without confusing it with another. For example, "The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)" distinct from "The Lord of the Rings";
  • Consistency - so that all articles in the same subject area are similarly named. See the specific naming conventions below for more details on some of these;
  • Canonicity - the article title should be a canonical name for the character. For example "Frodo Baggins" as opposed to "Bingo Baggins".

Should there be more than one concept of the same name, please refer to disambiguation below.

Specific naming conventions[edit source]

  • Definite/indefinite article - avoid the definite article ("the") and the indefinite article ("a"/"an") unless addressing the titles of books, series, films, etc. For example, that "Fellowship of the Ring" is the article for the group of characters, whereas "The Fellowship of the Ring" is the article describing the first volume of The Lord of the Rings. Of course, there are some exceptions, like "the One Ring" or "the Shire".
  • Groups - contrary to Wikipedia policy, the name of groups should be plural rather singular. For example, "Elves". However if plurals are disputed - especially the case with Elvish words - then they should be in the singular, e.g. "Mallorn".
  • Lists - lists can be difficult to maintain. However, should you decide to set up a list they should be named "List of ...";
  • Real-world people - real people should be listed on the name they are most commonly known, preferably not a pseudonym.
  • Video games - if the title has been used elsewhere, then the article title should have "(video game)" at the end, for example "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (video game)". If the video game's name isn't used elsewhere then "(video game)" isn't necessary, for example "The Lord of the Rings: War in the North".
  • Years - real-world years are simply the year, such as 2014. For in-universe years, the title should be the age followed by the year, such as "Year of the Trees 1250", Second Age 750" and "Third Age 2043".

Disambiguation[edit source]

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TG:DISAMBIG

Disambiguation is the process of resolving the ambiguity between two or more similarly-named concepts. Because certain names may be used more than once we have a disambiguation policy to regulate this.

Methods of disambiguation[edit source]

There are a number of ways to differentiate between similarly-named articles, these are the most common:

Disambiguation pages[edit source]

When there are three or more concepts - or two concepts of equal notoriety - we create a disambiguation page. If one of articles is clearly more notable than the others then that articles gets primacy to the title, if not then it should redirect to the disambiguation page.

For example:

The structure of disambiguation pages is as follows:

  • The first line of the page should have the concept name in bold with an arbitrary line about the disambiguation. For example, "Gandalf can refer to the following concepts:"
  • The list of disambiguated articles. The list should be split up, when necessary, between legendarium-related links and Real-world links (see examples at Minas Tirith (disambiguation) and Tom (disambiguation)). In-universe concepts always take precedence in the list.
  • At the end of the article, add {{disambig}}
  • Further categorization is not necessary.

See also[edit source]