SGCommand:Naming conventions

Naming conventions are a list of guidelines on how to create and name pages. These are conventions, not rules carved in stone. As the Stargate Wiki grows and changes, some conventions that once made sense may become outdated or otherwise inappropriate. When in doubt, follow convention.

Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

If an article has been named inappropriately, it can be renamed by moving the article to a more appropriate title. See Help:Moving a page for more information.

Lowercase second and subsequent words in titles
Convention: Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is almost always capitalized in English (for example, proper names). Thus, capitalize Daniel Jackson and Free Jaffa Nation, but not Naquadah Generator. The first letter of an item should not be capitalized just because it is a wikilink; upper and lower cases will direct readers to the same page (for example, naquadah generator and Naquadah generator).

Prefer singular nouns
Convention: In general only create page titles that are in the singular, unless that noun is always in a plural form in English (such as "scissors" or "trousers").

Category names follow different pluralization conventions, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories).

Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals)

Redirect adjectives to nouns
Convention: Adjectives (such as democratic) should redirect to nouns (in this case, democracy).

Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (adjectives)

Use gerund of verbs
Convention: Use the gerund of verbs (the -ing form in English) unless there is a more common form for a certain verb.

Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (verbs)

Use English words
Convention: Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly recognized by readers than the English form. For example, use Stargate rather than Chappa'ai or Astria Porta.

Use official names of persons and things
Convention: Always use the most recent, most official name (for example, Langara rather than P2S-4C3, Lantea rather than Atlantica, Jonathan J. O'Neill rather than Jack O'Neill, zat'nik'tel rather than zat, and gateship rather than puddle jumper).

Be precise when necessary
Convention: Please, do not write or put an article on a page with an ambiguously named title as if that title had no other meanings. If all possible words have multiple meanings, go with the rule of thumb of naming guidelines and use the more popular term.

Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) and Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Disambiguation

Prefer spelled-out phrases to abbreviations
Convention: Avoid the use of abbreviations, including acronyms, in page naming unless the term you are naming is almost exclusively known only by its abbreviation and is widely known and used in that form. Therefore, instead of abbreviations like ZPM and SGC, use the expanded forms Zero Point Module and Stargate Command.

Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations)

Avoid the definite article ("the") and the indefinite article ("a"/"an") at the beginning of the page name
Convention: If the definite or indefinite article would be capitalized in running text, then include it at the beginning of the page name. This would be the case for the title of a work such as a novel or an episode. Otherwise, do not include it at the beginning of the page name.

Examples: "Canon" instead of "The Canon", or "Keeper" instead of "The Keeper". However: The Changeling, The Alliance (novel), etc.

Rationale, specifics and exceptions: See: Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name)