Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (events)

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Discussion at Talk:2025 New York City shooting § Requested move 29 July 2025

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 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:2025 New York City shooting § Requested move 29 July 2025. There is some disagreement over the chosen name for the "where" of WP:NCWWW. —Locke Cole • t • c 19:31, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Talk:Annunciation Catholic Church shooting § Requested move 28 August 2025

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 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Annunciation Catholic Church shooting § Requested move 28 August 2025. There is a significant amount of non-WP:PAG based opposes to including the year in an event that occurred just a few days ago. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:24, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I ended up here because that article is on my watchlist. I'm curious why this guideline suggests using a year in the title for singular events. The year is going to appear in the intro...and having it in the title 'does' make it seem like it's a disambiguation. I don't want to argue on that page. --Onorem (talk) 14:46, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why include the place if there's no disamb needed?
Because it is basic information needed to identify it. PARAKANYAA (talk) 15:31, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

NoYear

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CONSENSUS AGAINST
There was consensus against this proposal, meaning that there will be no change to WP:NCWWW as a result of this discussion. A secondary proposal, to modify WP:NOYEAR by Locke Cole, also failed to gain consensus. —Ganesha811 (talk) 01:43, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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.

Should WP:NCWWW be rewritten to only recommend adding a time to the article title when needed for disambiguation? See the following for an example wording. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:31, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Where the incident happened.
  • What happened.

If these descriptors are not sufficient to identify the event unambiguously, a third descriptor should be added:

  • When the incident happened.

Survey

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  • Support as nom: See the comments in the Discussion section—which used to be the WP:RfCBefore discussion—below. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:31, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    All this proposal does is remove the requirement in historic perspective, the event is easily described without it for dropping the "when" from the title. If the "when" would be a useful disambiguator, the title without the "when" would fall under If these descriptors are not sufficient to identify the event unambiguously and still remain there, and other titling policies like CommonName would still run in parallel, so common names with years in them are not affected either. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:38, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support removing the years if not needed. From a purely esthetic point of view, I do prefer the years in the title, but they are often redundant and go against WP:CONCISE. Agree with Aaron Liu's remark that the short description will already provide the context, meaning the page title only has to focus on disambiguation. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:38, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Moved from discussion below where it became disconnected from the comment it was replying to —Locke Cole • t • c 22:07, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Moved from a reply to @Chaotic Enby:, whose !vote was misplaced in the discussion section. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:59, 20 September 2025 (UTC) The Survey section is above, but to reply a little, the short description is not shown in all places a reader might interact with articles from Wikipedia. A reader facing a list of articles with just a title to work from will likely be frustrated by having to click through just to determine which one is the actual article they're searching for. And this issue isn't limited to just existing articles, sometimes events have occurred multiple times, but for whatever reason, we only have 1-2 articles. Having the years makes it clearer in those situations that we lack an article altogether. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:14, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    they're searching for but the short description is shown in the search bar, and I've never seen the date not included in the search result listing's excerpt of each result, whether in Google or this site's search engine. I don't see any other occasion where a reader would be confused by the lack of a year in the title.
    When an event's occurred multiple times at the same location, that's when the year would be necessary for disambiguation. That doesn't mean it should be the default forced upon unique incidences too. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:59, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    but the short description is shown in the search bar Because the only way to search Wikipedia is on Wikipedia, of course nobody would utilize any other search engine or tool. When an event's occurred multiple times at the same location, that's when the year would be necessary for disambiguation. And what of events that have occurred at the same location but simply do not have articles or are not notable enough for an article? Those people just get to guess if this article is the right one until they've actually started reading it, instead of knowing immediately from the title including the temporal location? —Locke Cole • t • c 22:09, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I mentioned other search engines. There is precedent to disambiguate events against similar non-notable incidents. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:12, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm still not seeing the problem your proposal is solving, but I am seeing the problems it creates. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:13, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. It is not for disambiguation. The year is one of the most important identifying aspects of any event. The purpose of a title is to be identifying and outside of cases with very clear common names not including the year is like not including the place, it is far less informative. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:07, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per PARAKANYAA, and also note that guidelines are meant to reflect communal norms. As demonstrated below, just within United States mass shootings, a supermajority of articles from the past 15 years include a year in their title. I know Aaron broke it down subjectively by what he considers "precise" or "vague" locations and claims that years are more common in the broader "where", but that loses sight of the benefit to our readers in knowing that the event they're looking at is (un)likely the one they're searching for (as omitting the year then requires readers to click-through title-only search results to determine when the event happened). WP:PLA plays an important role here. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:11, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Parakanyaa. Short descriptions are helpful, but are not guaranteed to include the date (and including the year in the title gives more space for other pertinent information in the short description) and are not easily visible in all contexts (e.g. categories). Almost all of the discussion is regarding articles about mass shootings, but the guideline applies to far more articles that are not about that topic than ones which are. Thryduulf (talk) 20:16, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – as I said, including a year is a form of disambiguation that runs afoul of our policy to avoid unnecessary disambiguation, concision, and naturalness (all part of WP:AT). If the article is the only event of that kind, then it loses no precision and is just as recognizable, as readers will recognize the "what" more than the "where" and exponentially more than the "when" (the COMMONNAME in sources rarely includes the year). Consistency is not a factor when disambiguation is concerned, as no one would expect Blue to be titled Blue (colour) to be consistent with Orange (colour). WWW explicitly goes against two of our core criteria for article titles, and brings us no closer to the other three. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 21:44, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    According to WP:CONCISE: The goal of concision is to balance brevity with sufficient information to identify the topic to a person familiar with the general subject area. Someone familiar with mass shooting events (or weather related events, which also follow NCWWW) are more likely to be looking at the event from a temporal perspective. When is a very integral part of identifying the topic of event articles, and omitting it in the name of concision actually runs AGAINST WP:AT. I will not address your strawman argument about colors, as it has no bearing on this discussion. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:04, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Identify" as quoted in Concise means disambiguate, so this just brings us back to If these descriptors are not sufficient to identify the event unambiguously, a third descriptor should be added. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:07, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Which is a bad idea, as I've explained above. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:11, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Then that would violate WP:AT. "The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles." For the same reason as WP:USPLACE, it is consistency. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:13, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    #c-Alalch_E.-20250916114300-Locke_Cole-20250916035700 Aaron Liu (talk) 22:14, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, and this is not one of those topic areas. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:15, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Once again, see Wikipedia:Consistency in article titles#Inconsistency resulting from primary topic determinations. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 22:16, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This is not about disambiguation, but identification, so that is irrelevant. Policy says "The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles". PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:17, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Please explain how including the year in articles is not a form of disambiguation. 2025 Midtown Manhattan shooting is exactly the same as Midtown Manhattan shooting (2025). The year is disambiguation. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 22:21, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's not what a disamb is. By this logic, how is the "Midtown Manhattan" part not a disamb? The location distinguishes it from other shootings that happened. If we don't have a common name we are left to neutral descriptors based on basic facts: those facts are place and year. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:23, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure what you mean. Natural disambiguation is the topic area. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:17, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    No, it's not. We do not include the years but to precisely identify what event we are talking about, for the same reason we include the place. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:18, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My so-called "straw-man" is a modification of Wikipedia:Consistency in article titles#Inconsistency resulting from primary topic determinations. Would love to hear how making article titles longer without adding precision goes against WP:AT. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 22:11, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Essay < Naming convention guideline —Locke Cole • t • c 22:12, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Still does not address how my argument is apparently a straw man. Explanatory essays are explicitly endorsed by the relevant policy or guideline and are therefore higher in the consensus level than regular, single-editor essays. I am getting tired of your constant bludgeoning of this RFC and related move requests. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 22:14, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Apparently anyone who disagrees with you is bludgeoning the conversation. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:29, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. While the ten year test is usually about notability, it's a useful way to think about titling, too. How would people refer to this event in ten or more years? If we're avoiding "recentism", then I think it's clear that the year frequently comes up in referring to such an event. Take something like 2004 Madrid train bombings - for sources discussing this event in 2025, re-establishing the year is common and useful, while omitting it invites confusion. Wikipedia should do the same. SnowFire (talk) 22:23, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Like Thryduulf, I am not convinced that mass shooting editors frustrated that they cannot establish a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS justifies reverting WP:NCWWW to its 2015 wording. When creating 2024 Cité Soleil massacre, I found inclusion of the year as a useful disambiguator against other violence in this Port-au-Prince municipality, allowing the short description to focus on non-temporal info. Regarding the two move discussions that sparked this thread, a specific location with a unique name will generally be a sufficient disambiguator for mass shootings under the existing WP:NOYEAR wording, such that Talk:Annunciation Catholic Church shooting#Requested move 28 August 2025 correctly did not move, while Talk:Perry High School shooting#Requested move 3 August 2025 probably should. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 03:40, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @ViridianPenguin: Sorry, I don't follow how "a specific location with a unique name will generally be a sufficient disambiguator" is an argument in favour of Annunciation Catholic Church shooting; Annunciation Catholic Church isn't a unique name. Is it more that the combination of the location's name and the kind of event is unique – i.e., there are no other "Annunciation Catholic Church shootings" from which to disambiguate? Ham II (talk) 11:34, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    By "unique name", I mean relatively unique, which is satisfied by only two notable places being called Annunciation Catholic Church per the disambiguation page. I realize that it is unsatisfying to have "relatively unique" as a fuzzy standard, but the below sub-RFC suggests that folks would rather maintain Wikipedia's organized chaos than a rigid rule that an article title should have a year if the location name is shared by at least one other place. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 13:00, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There are more than two articles that could be at the Annunciation Catholic Church dab page; others are scattered across Annunciation Church (disambiguation) and Church of the Annunciation (disambiguation). The article title for the church where the shooting occurred isn't Annunciation Catholic Church (Minneapolis) but Church of the Annunciation (Minneapolis). Suppose the article title for the shooting matched that and were Church of the Annunciation shooting; then the location's name would be so ambiguous as to potentially refer to everything in all three dab pages. I'm sure there are more churches dedicated to the Annunciation altogether (Catholic ones alone, never mind the other denominations) than there are Perry High Schools. But Church of the Annunciation shooting would still not be an ambiguous title if no other shootings have occurred at churches dedicated to the Annunciation (and are the subjects of articles). The same, I assume, applies to the article title Perry High School shooting? Ham II (talk) 13:59, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Looking at your comment in the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting RM thread, I agree that the page title should use the words "Church of the Annunciation" instead to match the church's article title, and that would create ambiguity with the similarly named churches, necessitating inclusion of the year in the article title. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 14:42, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I find the inclusion of event year to be a very useful clarifier to place that particular event in a chronological context. WWGB (talk) 07:06, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. We already effectively recommend adding a time to the article title only when needed for disambiguation, but we do it in a structurally and linguistically convoluted way, via first saying to generally add the time, and then saying not to add the time in great many cases, whereby the remaining cases remain precisely for a disambiguation reason (WP:NOYEAR). The proposal offers cleaner language and reflects best practices.—Alalch E. 09:25, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Why do you regard omitting the year as "best practice"? Thryduulf (talk) 10:02, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    From their comments, I doubt that most participants disagree that Annunciation Catholic Church shooting is better than 2025 Annunciation Catholic Church shooting, as they're all arguing that the year is needed when the event specified reoccurs in the location. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:42, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Per PARAKANYAA. Further, there are many topics when year or years are naturally part of the title and important distinctive property, so an outright recommendation against it doesn't serve us as. The War of 1812 is literally the main name of that war. Also if you try to go to European history, it's basically a necessity. The Siege of Vienna is about as clear of mud without time disambiguation for the most part, it was besieged so many times and even if you wanted to narrow it down to who besieged where and went for Turkish Siege of Vienna, that's not enough, there was two, 100 years apart and they bear the name 1st and 2nd most commonly (see de-wiki de:Erste Wiener Türkenbelagerung and de:Zweite Wiener Türkenbelagerung. For some reason the en-wiki article for the second one is bearing the name of the de:Schlacht am Kahlenberg, which was just the last battle after a two months siege and a subsidiary article on de-wiki, so it's strange that en-wiki is basically inverse of it). Or various laws passed, that often bear the year as the signifier, not necessarily for disambiguation, e.g. Human Rights Act 1998, 2020s critical race theory controversies or even more recent, 2025 United States boycott. Of course I just randomly picked some events that came to mind randomly, but the point I am trying to make is that an outright "please avoid year except for disambiguation" is too tight and can lead to non-WP:COMMONNAMEs suddenly being the title of an article, which I don't think is the right balance. So I'd rather lean on some expertise from users to decide on a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS if strict following of avoiding the year/time is the right move. Raladic (talk) 11:41, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This is not a recommendation against including the year. This is dropping the recommendation to include the year. It's not positive to negative; it's positive to zero, if you know what I mean. This still allows and actually recommends titles that need disambiguation to include it. (There's been multiple wars named "War", there's been multiple sieges of Vienna, multiple critical race theory controversies, etc. All of these will need the year for disambiguation.) I do not see how this will be used to argue for moving titles that need disambiguation away from it, as so many seem to believe it will, like how this policy is currently being weaponized to RM titles that do not need disambiguation in a bureaucratic attempt to override local consensus: WP:NCWWW, per above, overrides almost every argument presented so far. See also WP:LOCALCON.
    I'd like to ask how this proposal could cause "War of 1812" to be moved to "War", "2024 Cité Soleil massacre" to "Cité Soleil massacre", "Siege of Vienna (1529)" to "Siege of Vienna" or "2020s critical race theory controversies" to "Critical race theory controversies", with all the unanimous consensus here against those moves. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:40, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Your proposal would cause a strong preference to exclude when from the title as the exclusive first rank decision maker. This ignores that certain events in history are NOT actually disambiguation. The time is part of the natural common name.
    The “War of 1812” is such an example, no one gives it a single thought of where or who, it is just simply known as the war of 1812 by historians and most people. Sure it has some other alternative names like the second British-American war or Mr. Madison’s war (why does en-wiki not list the alternative names in the info box or lead?), but what I’m saying is that your proposal would force us to move the article to Mr. Madison’s war. As the word/number “second” is also a when (When did it happen? After the first one.), so by the default being to judge between “What, When, Where,” and are not forced to pick the minor alternative name purely because it exists and would satisfy a stricter policy, but are free to pick the common name, which in this case is What and When.
    Its also why the Second Turkish Siege of Vienna [de] article should be at that title - it’s the common name in local history, but due to en-wiki’s long messy history of article titles it instead sits at “Battle of Vienna”, which is historically simply wrong, full stop. The Battle of Vienna, or more precisely Battle of Kahlenberg [de] was the last day of a months long siege. The effect that en-wiki’s policies have had is that they can contribute to historic citogenesis as we assume that en-wiki, being the biggest project, is generally right, which when it comes to history articles is quite often rather mixed bag. It’s a bit similar with WP:NCROYAL, which has had some similar peculiar outcomes that fly in the face of WP:COMMONNAME due to the limiting language of the NC guidelines or the showcase of the recent WP:ARBATC2 on capitalization.
    I think sometimes we overdo it a bit on restricting things in the article title space, which typically only leads to more discussions, so I’d like to remind us all to just stick to good judgement, and remember that sometimes just a spoonful of WP:COMMONSENSE may save many hours of discussion.
    Last point that just popped into my head - WP:GLOBALIZE. Once you leave the U.S. if you talk to some people around the globe and mention some events based on our article title policies, they won’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Raladic (talk) 21:39, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see how this proposal would cause RMs from e.g. "War of 1812" to "Mr. Madison's war" either. There is nothing in the text against including common names (or other article titles) with "when"s in them.
    Nothing much has changed since this text was first in place from 2007 to 2015. I'm asking why you think titles would be forced to lack a "when", and why those reasons did not apply during those most active years of Wikipedia. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:26, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose this is not helpful to the reader. Maybe support for something like Great Banana Flood (2011) if it is the only instance of a Great Banana Flood so that readers don't think that there are multiple. JuxtaposedJacob (talk) | :) | he/him | 19:45, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Personally, I would be more likely to interpret a parenthetical year after the event as indicating that an event of that nature had occurred more than once per WP:NCDAB. Defense Production Act of 1950 is titled as such based on the short title despite there only being one piece of legislation called the "Defense Production Act" in the world. If the page were titled "Defense Production Act (1950)", a reasonable reader would assume this law has a short title which has been used in multiple years. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 21:39, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Parakanyaa. The year provides important context to many events.  novov talk edits 01:17, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Parakanyaa et al. Even when not strictly necessary for disambiguation, including a year provides two benefits. (1) If a reader knows (even approximately) when an event they're searching for occurred, including the year in the title helps them immediately identify a given destination as correct or not; (2) including the year in the tile can help to communicate that an article is about a specific event. Here's an example from my own experience. A while back, I was searching for the article on a food safety scandal that I recalled having happened in China in the late 2000s; this led me to 2008 Chinese milk scandal, and the presence of "2008" helped me immediately know I was in the right place. I continued reading in the topic area and subsequently found protein adulteration in China, which—although the title makes it sound like a broad-concept article—is in practice an event article about a similar food safety scandal in 2007. Including a year in this title would have made it easier to identify the type of content that this article included. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:56, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per ModernDayTrilobite. I can see a potential benefit for moving the year to the end instead of the beginning of the title, but including the year in the title is helpful basic information to identify a topic, even when not strictly necessary for disambiguation purposes. There are already a lot of cases where the year is omitted from article titles, which I think is OK, but I see no benefit for pushing the guideline more explicitly in that direction. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:34, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Having a year doesn't make something not concise. It's usually an important identifier even if not absolutely needed for dab. Reywas92Talk 13:24, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. We should be following the names given by the reliable secondary sources — i.e. those written later, relying on sources contemporary with the event — rather than making up names. If the event gets multiple names in secondary sources, well, we have to pick something, but we shouldn't feel bound to include the year. And if all available sources are from the time of the event (as is the case with many event articles), the article needs to be deleted or redirected, because we shouldn't have articles on subjects covered only by primary sources. Nyttend (talk) 09:05, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as instruction creep. Stifle (talk) 10:57, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This is less instructions. It removes the instruction to include a year. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:49, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's definitely not a reduction. It changes the rule from "include the year by default" to "include the year if necessary for disambiguation or some other reason", you can count that as either staying the same or increasing by one depending how you parse it (both are valid, but I tend towards it being the same). Thryduulf (talk) 15:08, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The status quo rule is "include the year by default, {examples that seem like it's starting another topic}, unless it's easily described without it in historical perspective, {month or days not needed} and no time should be included at all if the event is unlikely to recur". Though the "month or days not needed" would still be included in the proposed rule, the very essential information buried in the "month or days" would no longer be needed, and it would make more logical sense only in the proposed text to only mention examples after the actual policy text.
    I'd say the Annunciation discussion is a textbook example of the harms of Creep, The longer, more detailed, and more complicated you make the instructions, the less likely anyone is to read or follow whatever you write:
    • Oppose per NOYEAR: The date is not needed when the article pertains to events that are unlikely to recur.—Alalch E. 16:46, 28 August 2025 (UTC)
      WP:NOYEAR contains no such exemption for unlikely to recur. Mass shootings occur frequently in the United States. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:49, 28 August 2025 (UTC)
      I quoted NOYEAR. Here is the same quote with the customary formatting to alleviate any confusion The date is not needed when the article pertains to events that are unlikely to recur (the green text is a quote of WP:NOYEAR). —Alalch E. 17:08, 28 August 2025 (UTC)
    (Apologies if that accidentally pinged anyone.) Aaron Liu (talk) 15:23, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Not sure why you quoted this conversation. As I was being accused of WP:BLUDGEONING I bowed out of that whole mess, but my reply to Alalch would have been to point out that WP:NOYEAR does not contain the text he's referencing. It comes after, when discussing the dates in general. And their selective quoting omits the context provided by the examples. Specifically:
    The date is not needed when the article pertains to events that are unlikely to recur, such as Rescue of Giuliana Sgrena, or murder or death articles that can only happen once (such was Killing of Neda Agha-Soltan or Assassination of Boris Nemtsov).
    All the examples are for situations for individuals (and only one of the three are possible to reoccur, as the latter two are impossible).
    I don't know if instruction creep is the problem more so than people clinging to a few words in a guideline and ignoring the context the whole sentence contains (and then trying to tie it back to a link to the previous paragraph in WP:NOYEAR). —Locke Cole • t • c 15:49, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per PARAKANYAA. Basically, this proposal looks like there's already a valid solution and this proposal is looking to create a problem. Steel1943 (talk) 18:54, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per PARAKANYAA. The section already allows an exception for when there is a common name in reliable sources. The reality of it is that most event articles are not so notable that they would be readily recognizable without a year in the title, so having that helps. Depending on short descriptions is also faulty, as they are not shown everywhere (Wikipedia:Short_description#Why_can't_I_see_any_short_description?), most relevantly for this discussion in the results at Special:Search. While WP:SDDATES suggests a date if it does not violate WP:SDDUPLICATE, that is not always followed, and not having a date allows the short description to use its limited space WP:SD40 for other helpful disambiguation factors. -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 18:57, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – per Chicdat. If it is necessary, it will still be kept on a casa-by-case basis. The language isn't so strict. (ping on reply) FaviFake (talk) 16:23, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is this mostly about recent events? Because I don't think I've ever heard someone say that the article for Gunpowder Plot needs to say Gunpowder Plot of 1605. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:01, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Take another look at the proposal. The first sentence of the guideline currently states If there is an established, common name for an event (such as the Great Depression or Cuban Missile Crisis), use that name. That takes care of "Gunpowder Plot". The proposal is to make a tweak to what the guideline calls for in situations other than those, and it's to not include the year when the year isn't required to distinguish the event from similar events. Largoplazo (talk) 20:44, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That is true. And of course, this preserves the existing recommendation for when the year is needed to distinguish. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:07, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    the year is needed to distinguish It would be amazing if you stopped repeating what is demonstrably false. —Locke Cole • t • c • b 12:55, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Could you (presumably) repeat why it is false? I reviewed your replies, and it's fine that you believe the year is really often needed for the subject's identity. That doesn't stop it from disambiguating. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:07, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The examples make it quite clear when is simply there as part of the title to aid the reader, not to distinguish from similarly titled events:

    Examples of "when", "where", and "what" titles

    • 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
      • When: 2011. There are no other "Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami" articles in Wikipedia, but the year is a useful identifier.
      • Where: Tōhoku
      • What: earthquake and tsunami
    • 1993 Russian constitutional crisis
      • When: 1993. There are no other "Russian constitutional crisis" articles in Wikipedia, but the year is a useful identifier as constitutional crises reoccur, and other incidents in Russian history could be construed as a constitutional crisis.
      • Where: Russia
      • What: constitutional crisis
    Including when can certainly be used to distinguish event articles from one another when there are more than one, but it is not the reason we include it. —Locke Cole • t • c • b 16:47, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You're correct in what the guideline says, but I read this preserves the existing recommendation for when the year is needed to distinguish as two syntaxical units: preserve the existing recommendation (that a year be included in the title) in cases where the year is needed to distinguish, which is technically true, as opposed to one syntaxical unit that makes an incorrect statement about the current guidance being that we include years in titles only to distinguish. That would line up with the proposal, which strictly favours precision and concision over recognizability in the factors listed at WP:CRITERIA (incorrectly IMO). -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 18:51, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Patar is reading me correctly. I disagree over whether the year helps recognizability (and agree that recognizability should come before concision), which is probably what you're reading from the discussion below, but I recognize (hah) that the reason people oppose this proposal is because they believe it will erode recognizability. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:21, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Be that as it may, for the closer of this discussion, I want to be clear that the current guidance is not to include when for purposes of distinguishing but rather to include when as a useful identifier for event names. The former is a novel and new interpretation of the current guidance, the latter is the current guidance as it is implemented and used. —Locke Cole • t • c • b 19:33, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RFC: Tighten up NOYEAR

[edit]

I propose changing WP:NOYEAR as follows:

−
'''Some articles do not need a year''' for [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation|disambiguation]] when, in historic perspective, the event is easily described without it. As this is a judgement call, please discuss it with other editors if there is disagreement.
+
'''Some articles do not need a year''' for [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation|disambiguation]] when, in historic perspective (after XXX from the date of (or last day of a multiple day event)), the event is easily described without it. As this is a judgement call, please discuss it with other editors if there is disagreement.

Where XXX in the proposed text may be one of:

1.: three months
2.: six months
3.: one year
4.: or Oppose: no change to WP:NOYEAR (reject this proposal entirely)
X.: Some other value agreed upon in the survey.

—Locke Cole • t • c 23:18, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tighten up NOYEAR survey

[edit]

Discussion

[edit]

In 2015, WP:NCWWW used to say this:

  • Where the incident happened.
  • What happened.

If these descriptors are not sufficient to identify the event unambiguously, a third descriptor should be added:

  • When the incident happened.

This was changed when @Kaliforniyka noticed that most titles on transportation incidents started including a "when" by default (again, back in 2015), a rationale I would describe as WP:WeakSilence and she rationalized as in hindsight, we know things do not need the year for disambiguation purposes; but we can't foresee that for recent things. She commented about making this change in Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (events)/Archive 1#Year in the title and @Bluerasberry (the only other editor that responded) agreed. I do not think this was a prominent discussion at all; "Year in the title" was previously a three-person discussion about whether the year should be prefixed or postfixed to titles, so none of the three participants (@RGloucester, @CapnZapp, @Bsherr) in the 2018 discussion Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (events)/Archive 1#These guidelines are not representative of any consensus found it and all thought it to be WeakSilence.

This issue has now come to a head as e.g. new school shooting articles generally do not include a year. Talk:Perry High School shooting#Requested move 3 August 2025 is in a weird limbo, while Talk:Annunciation Catholic Church shooting#Requested move 28 August 2025 failed to add a year to the title. I've also analyzed all the non-redirects by year within Category:High school shootings in the United States; x and y indicate whether the year is present in the article title:
1974: y 0%, doesn't really matter
1990s: xyyyyyyyy 11.1%
2000s: xyyyyy 16.7%
2010s: xxyyyy 33.3%
2020s: xxxyyyy 42.9%

A participant in the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting RM analyzed Category:2025 mass shootings in the United States as follows:

all of the articles that include the year in their page name are either named after broad geographical locations (Chicago, Midtown Manhattan, Lexington) or have been site to another shooting previously, justifying the disambiguator (History_of_Florida_State_University#Shootings). Those that do not feature a year are named after the specific building where the shooting occurred. I'd say it depends on whether or not you believe "Annunciation Catholic Church" to be a unique enough place name to rectify not having the year in the page name as a disambiguator
— User:Quidama 16:25, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

It's still debatable whether transportation incidents have followed a similar trend, but I don't think that matters either as it is also debatable whether those events need disambiguation. Events such as bus crashes are common enough that they are not unlikely to reoccur in the same city, and titles for these incidents often use the entire city as the "where". Meanwhile, only Murray–Wright High School has ever experienced a school shooting twice as part of a wider 1980s "epidemic of youth violence in Detroit".

Participants in requested moves often cite the perceived lack of need for disambiguation and "people do not type the year first when searching for a school shooting", and the year was even removed from Oxford High School shooting in 2024 because of this. NoYear also says Some articles do not need a year for disambiguation when, in historic perspective, the event is easily described without it. But prescribing adding the year and saying exceptions can be made seems like a pointless extra layer of bureaucracy over "add year if needed". Looking at the Annunciation RM, those opposing adding the year initially said no other mass shooting has taken place at this location, no reason for disamb, to be met with WP:NCWWW, per above, overrides almost every argument presented so far. They were left alone when they added quoting Some articles do not need a year for disambiguation [...] to their arguments. So, the current status of NoYear forces participants to add a bunch of policy boilerplate to state what their arguments stated in the first place. Forcing to quote the letter to follow the spirit really isn't what I think we should expect of guidelines.

Should we change that, and do we need an RfC to change that? Sorry for the wall of text, but it seems such an empirical guideline requires hefty analysis for discussion. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:37, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Aaron Liu: I appreciate the analysis and rationale, and I find it persuasive.
Yes, it is labor intensive and a waste time to debate whether to include the year in articles so routinely, especially for high-traffic articles like these where having rules and order in advance is helpful. Because of that, we should have a simple standard rule to save everyone time debating.
Yes, I am persuaded that if enough articles within a category need disambiguation, then preemptively setting a rule to make them all uniform makes sense. 20% seems like a reasonable line to me, meaning that if 20% of a set of articles need disambiguation, then we could consider disambiguating all of them. The old 2012 discussion you cited at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (events)/Archive 1#Year in the title also made arguments by counting the percentage of articles needing disambiguation, so I think there is an agreement that if this happens enough, we can have a rule for this.
To put these points together, I favor including the year by default in these types of articles, because they so often require a year, and because the current rules lead to unnecessary, labor-intensive, distracting debates that we should avoid. It is not a good look to so often expose readers to a bureaucratic title naming debate. The Catholic school article you cited has gotten about 300,000 views in the last 2 weeks, and when we have name debates, these go on a banner at the top of the article. We do not need to put a year naming debate in the most valuable space of our articles, and it would be preferable to have a rule which helps us avoid these discussions.
Let's see what other comments there are and if anyone else wants an RfC. I think just discussing for now is the best start. Bluerasberry (talk) 20:37, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Having the year included by default would not solve the debates that favor dropping the year. A quick skim doesn't reveal any RMs that successfully added a year either. There would be less distracting debates only if the year is not included by default. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:25, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Aaron Liu: I am looking for the path to prevent title debates from happening. Can you suggest one? I want a solution that minimizes the number of exceptions. Right now the current rule seems to have about a 20% rate of exceptions. I am looking for a path to nearly 0. How reasonable do you think that is as a goal? Bluerasberry (talk) 14:06, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"More exceptions" can mean "less debate". If we get rid of the arbitrary suggestion to include a year by default even when many believe it pointless, I believe there'd be less debate, as was true before the RMs in the past months. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:52, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
many believe it pointless *gestures at table below where 2⁄3 of articles conform with WP:NCWWW and include a year...*
If 65.9% (and 66.7% from 2010-2014 (inclusive), prior to NCWWW existing) of articles from the past fifteen years are following this convention that hardly screams as a situation needing change. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:00, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Pages that need disambiguation will of course obtain disambiguation, as has been the practice for disambiguation (most iconically in parentheses) since I knew Wikipedia was a thing. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:03, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And what of being WP:CONSISTENT? Of course the year can be a method to disambiguate identically named events, I don't think anyone has suggested we don't do that. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:57, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Having a standard moving part that is added when needed is consistent. WP:CONSISTENT says ... there has been a history of consensus among editors regarding several areas where consistency does not control titling ... This is also the case with natural disambiguation: the existence of Chihuahua City does not mean we have to have Guadalajara City instead of Guadalajara. Adding a year to disambiguate is a form of natural disambiguation, or, if you disagree that it's a form of natural disambiguation, it is at the very least functionally equivalent. The existence of 2022 University of Virginia shooting does not mean that we have to have 2024 Perry High School shooting instead of Perry High School shooting. "2022 University of Virginia shooting" and "Perry High School shooting" are not inconsistent relative to each other, they are consistent. —Alalch E. 11:43, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would oppose any change. The year is very helpful in identifying the event. If the incident is extremely well known then it is not needed but that doesn't go for most of them. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:40, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the time the year is not needed to identify unless the location is big enough. I wouldn't call the Annunciation shooting very well-known either, and certainly much less well-known than e.g. 2025 New Orleans truck attack. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:47, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and those should not be named like that either. But it is a recent one so I don't expect consistency with usual consensus. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:13, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've listed many older ones that were the results of RMs. I don't think the year is that essential; among me and my friends, at least, the name of the location lasts longer in the mind than the specific time ("a few years ago" as opposed to "2022"). Aaron Liu (talk) 21:47, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, any case where there is going to be an RM is going to be higher profile and likely more able to be "discussed in historical perspective" than the supermajority of articles already with years. This is not for disambs but for identification. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:49, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is not for disambs but for identification.

I was talking about the mental identity of events in my last reply, but could you elaborate on the functional difference between the two?
I don't see the historical perspective on, say, the Oxford High School shooting. I don't see evidence that the precise year incidents happened is such a major part of their identity that outweighs all the advantages of not having the year when unambiguous. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:03, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The title should have enough information to identify what we are talking about, per WP:AT. A city or place's name is not enough because people do not have knowledge of where every single place is. There have been decades of crimes; a shooting from 1984 or 1966 will be in a different historical context than one from 2017. The year is crucial information necessary for identifying the event. Hiding away crucial information in a short description is terrible.
Oxford should have a year, imo. But expecting 100% consistency in this field is simply impossible. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:07, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see why we need to know where a location is.
I think this comes down to how I do not believe titles should contain the subject's full identity. WP:AT synonyms "identify" with "distinguish", and it only mandates including enough detail so anyone familiar with the subject area will read the title and know what it is, not represent the full contexts and claim to fame/significance—your usage of "identity". When the Pawn... is famous for being a critical era and breakout for Fiona Apple and having the longest album title in the world; that's not in the title. Killing of Brian Thompson is known for its enthusiastic aftermath among rising political tensions in the past ten years; that's not in the title. Events are in the historical contexts of the year in which they occurred; that doesn't mean it must be in the title. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:38, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then why aren't you suggesting we remove "where the incident happened" from the naming guidelines? It doesn't have to be full identity (i am not suggesting we do titles like, 25 September 2017 New Orleans shooting or whatever) but year is a reasonable, consistent format, that is useful for identifying it in accordance with WP:AT. We couldn't have the full title of When the Pawn even if we wanted to because article titles have length limits, so what does that have to do with this? Killing of Brian Johnson is something that definitionally could only happen once; the guideline already exempts such articles, death/shooting/killing of person, on such grounds. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:43, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because it's good for disambiguation.
I'm confused here by the pivot back to "identify" as in "distinguish"/disambiguation; what was the argument you were making with historical context, then? Why is that countered by a lack of need to disambiguate? Aaron Liu (talk) 22:46, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not for disambiguation. And if it is for disambiguation, why not remove that too?
A title should clearly describe what it is, so the reader can identify the article they are searching for, per WP:AT. This does not require disambiguation, which is distinguishment from other articles. An article needs to be clearly titled even if no other articles it could be confused with exist. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:52, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Clear, only to the point where anyone familiar with the subject area will be able to distinguish it from reading the title. Only suggesting inclusion of the year when Precision isn't achieved is exactly what I'm proposing. Indeed, WP:PRECISION means components for disambiguation should be removed when they are not needed for disambiguation. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:57, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and that isn't the case when you only have a place, unless the incident is well known. Place is not enough to identify events. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:00, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why wouldn't anyone familiar with the subject area be able to distinguish it from reading such a title? That is all the policy requires of identification, and all it should. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:03, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because it isn't enough detail to do so? PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:06, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What do all the yearless examples above need to be distinguished from? Aaron Liu (talk) 23:07, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Most people do not have an awareness of all, or even most, mass shootings that have occurred, and would not recognize them. Giving the year makes it recognizable. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:08, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Someone who does not recognize "Oxford High School shooting" would not recognize "2021 Oxford High School shooting" either. Same for the other examples. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:10, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree with that. Oxford was a substantial talking point in 2021 so for those who have forgotten the precise place saying 2021 makes it far clearer. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:11, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Especially for us adults, the years blur and you do not remember the specific year in which you received a news report. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:16, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nor do you remember the specific place. That's why we have both! PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:17, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All of these examples have consensus that not having the year is enough to distinguish the topic, and RMs asserting otherwise are likely to fail. Simply that these examples exist means the current recommendation to always include the "when" by default is doing harm, as it has wasted editor time in the form of RMs that don't change anything. What is a case where "add year if needed to distinguish" (what is proposed here) would be a net negative over "add year by default"? Aaron Liu (talk) 23:14, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, it doesn't, because RMs are more likely to be opened on high profile cases, which are more likely to be able to be described in historical perspective. It's sample bias. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:16, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Time being wasted on high-profile cases is still a net negative, as I don't see the benefit to cancel it out: Even in low-profile subjects, articles that need distinguishing will have it anyway whether this proposal passes or not. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:26, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Time being wasted will happen either way. We have more RMs for precise location, assassination/death/killing, every time. The only way to avoid it is not editing current events. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:28, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, it would always be nonzero, but this would reduce it. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:44, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it would. We would have to spend years moving all the other articles, which would be even more of a waste of time. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:51, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, common sense would make titles that need a year have a year, as was the case before 2015. From data of that era, there's no reason to believe the contrary. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:44, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Remember that this is not just about mass shootings. Say someone is looking for a railway accident that occurred somewhere in London in the early 1950s but they don't remember more precisely than that. Adding the year to the title will make finding the article they are interested in significantly easier. Thryduulf (talk) 23:15, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I agree 100%, but that is all Liu seems to have in mind, so it is the examples I used. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:16, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how. If using the search bar, one would not be able to find Lewisham rail crash (which has a redirect with 1957 in front of it) with that information. Same for 1944 Ilford rail crash, which isn't any easier to Google either. If using a list, you'd find the incident regardless because these lists always include a year next to each event regardless of the article title. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:43, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Not everybody uses the search bar - in fact that's pretty difficult if you don't remember the location
  2. Not everybody browses using lists - in situations like this I often go to an article about a similar event I do remember the name of and then use categories to find the article I'm interested in.
One of the guiding principles when dealing with navigating Wikipedia is that not everybody navigates in the same way you do, their way is just as valid as yours. Thryduulf (talk) 23:54, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The London category only has two daily average pageviews, UK zero, while the list has 219. I don't see why we should prioritize browsing by categories so much when lists and navboxes are far more effective at locating articles by time. If you were the person looking for the rail crash in your scenario, what would you use, in the current status quo where most rail crash articles lack the year in their title? Aaron Liu (talk) 16:28, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Once again you are treating your personal preferences as automatically superior to other methods of finding content when all are equal. I've already explained that I do use categorise so there is no need for hypotheticals. Thryduulf (talk) 21:38, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You personally prefer using categories to find a railway accident that occurred somewhere in London in the early 1950s?
It's not my personal preference, but the preference of the community at large if pageview statistics are anything to go by. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:20, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That was just one single example, but just because something is less common does not mean that other methods are better or that we should go out of our way to make the method some people do use harder without bringing any benefits to those who use more common methods. Thryduulf (talk) 15:43, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It benefits the far more common method of searching, c.f. WP:Concision. It's more likely or at least not less likely that a reader remembers the specific location over the year, and iff the year isn't in front, typing the memorable word "Annunciation" immediately suggests Annunciation Catholic Church shooting, whereas "2025" does not give 2025 Florida State University shooting. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:02, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A few things:
  • @Blueboar and @Dharmadhyaksha were also a part of that first discussion, which was started in 2012, before finally resulting in changes in 2015.
  • This notion that it's WP:WEAKSILENCE is folly: four editors participated in the 2012–2015 discussion, and the 2018 discussion you pointed to (which if anyone reads it, is an excellent example of WP:AGF being tossed out the window) that involved three editors did not seem to result in any significant changes. That means it underwent discussion over the span of years, a change was finally made when another editor joined the existing conversation, and that consensus has held for over a decade. As correctly pointed out in 2018, this is classic WP:EDITCON. Now if there had been zero edits to WP:NCE in the period since 2015, I'd give a little credence to WEAKSILENCE, but as many other editors have edited the page since then and nobody thought to challenge or remove it, it's consensus.
  • The two article examples you cite are, IMO, an example of WP:RMUM being selectively used:
    What happened with admins and page movers amounted to WP:SUPERVOTEs, instead of following the simple technical process, editors put their finger on the scale in something they alone disagreed with.
Now, to the current guidance. I think including the when in an event title helps readers easily understand when viewing article titles through search results (or other lists) that they're finding what they're actually looking for. As editors, we may be more likely to know that there's only been one shooting ever in a certain place or at a certain school, but for readers, they may struggle with finding an article on a recent or current event with the year missing. I view it less as a disambiguator for identically named events (though it does obviously serve that function when that happens), and more as a navigation aid for readers. Per WP:NOYEAR, with historic perspective, the year can be omitted from events where it clearly isn't necessary (some excellent examples are given at NOYEAR). For most recent events, the year typically remains until NOYEAR or WP:COMMONNAME become relevant.
As to data, if we turn our attention further afield (to all mass shootings, not just school shootings), we can look at Mass shootings in the United States:
Year
Total[a]
Title Include Year
%
No Year in Title
Page is a Redirect
 Notes
2025 9 7 77.8% 2 1
2024 18 14 77.8% 4 0 Julio Foolio, a biography, is categorized in this; that page has been omitted from the numerical results
2023 28 28 100.0% 1 1 2023 El Paso shooting is a redirect resulting from a merge to Cielo Vista Mall; 2023 shooting of Palestinian students in Burlington, Vermont is something perhaps deserving of follow-up as I've never seen an article title include the nationality of the victims
2022 22 15 68.2% 7 7 2022 shooting of Kentucky police officers is another odd one that includes the occupation of the victims in the title
2021 15 11 73.3% 3 11
2020 6 4 66.7% 2 5 Haynie family murders is excluded in this count
2019 18 9 50.0% 9 0
2018 16 5 31.3% 11 2
2017 17 5 29.4% 12 2
2016 14 8 57.1% 6 2
2015 12 9 75.0% 3 1 Excluded is Murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward which I think is an obvious example of not needing when
2014 7 7 100.0% 0 3
2013 7 4 57.1% 3 0
2012 14 8 57.1% 6 2 2012 shootings of St. John the Baptist Parish police officers is another event that includes an occupation in the title, Minneapolis firm shooting is a hopelessly vague title
2011 7 5 71.4% 2 1
2010 7 4 57.1% 3 0

Notes

  1. ^ Not counting lists, redirects and certain other titles (see Notes)
Now maybe we need separate naming conventions for mass disaster/shooting/attack events? But I think with most recent page titles coming in at > ~70% compliance with WP:NCWWW, is there even a problem that needs addressing beyond education about the naming convention and making sure closers aren't allowing a WP:LOCALCON to overrule this guidance? The only years that stand out as being interesting are 2017 and 2018. But the rest are usually over 50% and many are over 70%.
Our naming conventions should employ WP:PLA and be consistent for our readers. Unless an event is clearly notable under a common name (WP:COMMONNAME), or the event is old enough to be understood without the year (WP:NOYEAR, such as Uvalde school shooting or Columbine High School massacre), we should include the year so the titles will be predictable. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:59, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I will simply repeat what I said back in 2012… adding dates to a title is a function of disambiguation. If there is no need to disambiguate, don’t. When there is, remember that there are lots of different ways to disambiguate. Adding the year is often a good way. But it isn’t the ONLY way. Look at all the options. Discussion about how best to title an article is GOOD. Endless argument about it is not. Be ready to Compromise. Blueboar (talk) 18:38, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The very first comments in the topic were about a very different topic, as I mentioned. Saying that the majority of articles should have a year was only brought up in the final comments between two editors across two days of March 2015. I'll let the other here decide whether that counts as being int he same discussion or not.
The 2018 discussion did not claim the change was made in bad faith or conscience.
I believe the RMUM concern is just (no offense) pointless procedural, the contesting of which was right in light of the opposition.
In my very personal opinion, that purpose is more than served by Wikipedia:Short descriptions (a brief phrase intended to complement and clarify the page title, particularly in contexts where this is seen in isolation from the page itself), and they are a net positive compared to putting the year in the title. Those articles already have a short description with broader location, attack type, and the year anyways.
I agree with the analysis I quoted about the broader mass shootings category. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:01, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a barchart for the past five years by specificity, excluding redirects and what you excluded: Y axis labelYear0510152025202520242023202220212020Non-specific, has yearSpecific, w/o yearSpecific, has yearNon-specific, w/o yearExclduedPresence of year and specific location in En... My observation from this is, with the outlier of 2023, articles with specific locations in title omit the year most of the time. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:31, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The declining is not the reason, it is the result. The reason, which was provided and then repeated after you asked me on my talk page, is mentioned in the RMUM section you link: move wars are disruptive. The BEST solution to any possible issue on Wikipedia is to reach a consensus on the topic at hand. It is not to reach around and ask for ostensibly non-controversial actions while you are aware that a similar request was contested less than a month ago and bloomed into a mixed discussion. You accuse people of supervoting when one's only horse in the race is to prevent further move warring to whichever title another expects to be "correct". DatGuyTalkContribs 16:33, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If preventing move warring was your goal, then maintaining the status quo (including the year) and then opening an RM would have been the correct course of action (as all prior article titles included a year). WP:RMUM's "move wars are disruptive" is explicitly talking about editors considering moving a page back to a reverted title, not to editors reverting undiscussed moves (as I was trying to do, and that you put your thumb on the scale to prevent). —Locke Cole • t • c • b 17:23, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am assuming (or hoping) your reference to the text succeeding "move wars are disruptive" acknowledges that it is a specific example. You apparently believe the status quo is whichever version you believe appears to be correct, and not whichever the standing one is. RMUM is not the quasi justification for whichever title one prefers, be it through asking myself, page movers as an ostensibly uncontroversial technical request, or simply doing it yourself. DatGuyTalkContribs 19:39, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I love how admin's who get caught being wrong cling to WP:THEWRONGVERSION to justify their bad actions. No, you are wrong. The status quo included a year, through multiple moves. It was only the most recent move that omitted the year, and unfortunately I was asleep when it happened and someone edited the source page making a simple reversion impossible because lowly plebs can't apparently be trusted to move pages over redirects with no practical edits. So I requested technical assistance, and you chose to supervote instead of perform the very basic, technical request, that was asked of you. Also, your diffs and other examples of...? ...are cute? I guess? I'm sure there's some point in there somewhere or are you just trying to vaguely threaten me? WP:AN/I is over there, or WP:RFAR if you're feeling really excited things. —Locke Cole • t • c • b 19:59, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The links portray a pattern that I was previously unaware of. You are welcome to file to whatever noticeboard you'd like when you believe many administrators have wronged you in the past, or vaguely threaten you in the present. I am happy to have responded to the fallacious accusation and have no desire to engage further. DatGuyTalkContribs 22:24, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The links portray a pattern that I was previously unaware of. Please stop casting aspersions. The "pattern" appears to be not following what your supervote desired, maybe you need a trip through WP:ADMINRECALL? Because admins who supervote and double down on it aren't really something I think this project needs. —Locke Cole • t • c • b 22:29, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(reply to the OP) Yes, we should change that, and we do need an RfC to change that. It needs to be worded more simply the way it used to be.—Alalch E. 20:24, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I planned to notify VPP of this Before but just realized I forgot to do that. Should I do that before or after I start the RfC? Aaron Liu (talk) 21:04, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't need to be an interval of time before starting, so immediately before/after is all the same (after being more practical IMO). —Alalch E. 21:30, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I will agree with what Mr Blueboar said above. My objection to the 2015 change was that it was being used to impose a straitjacket on articles across the project, removing the facility for editorial discretion. Prior to the change, there were numerous potential options that could be used for disambiguation, such as adding the year after the title, adding the year before the title, or, if no disambiguation was required, having no year at all. This is why WP:NCMILHIST's guidance is distinct from WP:NCEVENT. At the time I 'objected' in 2018, mass moves were being carried out by particular editors, changing article titles that would have been acceptable under the old guidelines to the sort of title 'required' by the 'new' guidelines. The result is that article titles for event articles are more uniform across the encyclopaedia, but inevitably less concise or natural than they were before. RGloucester — ☎ 22:00, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Only include the year if there is no obvious primary topic. This is pretty obvious common sense. Our WP:AT policy recommends we be concise, and our precision criterion includes that we avoid unnecessary disambiguation. The WWW non-consensus runs afoul of both. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 19:36, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Should this RfC be listed at {{CENT}}? Aaron Liu (talk) 16:31, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, the more eyes the better. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:12, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We should abolish WP:NCWWW or entirely rewrite it, and then stop creating these unhelpful low-quality articles. If the event doesn't have a common name, it should be covered in an article about the location and/or a list of similar events. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 19:50, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Killing of Brian Thompson has no common name and is something that deserves a standalone article, for one. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:59, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Even events that are clearly notable often do not have a common name, because they will be referred to by the perp's name. I once had a case where there were 2 full length books and a docuseries about an event and it had no common name because they were all titled after the perpetrator. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:04, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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.

Notice of RfC regarding NCWWW

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There is a Request for Comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Weather#RfC on the naming of tornado articles regarding the use of NCWWW on tornado articles going forward. Feel free to participate. Departure– (talk) 16:45, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]