Consistency needed for articles titled either US (or U.S.) or United States foo

[Joe Quick]

If there is someone who is interested in the topics and does not know the meaning of "U.S." then that person should not be reading this encyclopedia until we set up a children's version.

That's more than a little insulting.  The point that Hayford and I were making is that people from one region of the world may not know the acronyms used in other regions.  US is just an example.  Children have nothing to do with it.

All in all, I think "U.S. Department of State" works best. It is the term most frequently used by serious writers and another major advantage is that when readers copy CZ usage they will have an acceptable name in their termpaper (which is not true, and thus a serious weakness of "Department of State, U.S.")  Note that the department also uses "US Department of State" using US instead of U.S.

Again, there's nothing wrong with using common terms once the thing's official name has been introduced.  Users, if they copy our usage, will copy our usage in the article.  Besides, I can't imagine people getting lower grades because they use official names.

I'll allow that the official name of the Department of State is not "United States Department of State" but in that case, the "United States" bit is an adjective to distinguish it from other Departments of State.

[Denis Cavanagh]

This argument is pretty much a yawn fest (In terms of the disagreement behind it), but speaking as a left leaning European type I find it EXTREMELY oversensitive to think we would be offended by US as opposed to UNITED STATES...

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Or did you mean the Weans would be offended by the us? http://www.grand-blanc.k12.mi.us/qip/weans.htm

[Aleta Curry]

Time out

"it's WRONG" says Aleta. well no, is it not wrong regarding "U.S.", which is our main topic here. 

Well, no, she didn't quite say that.  She said she uses 'US' advisedly in formal writing (and she points out that she distinguishes among 'US', 'U.S.' and 'United States') because not to do so is WRONG.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled programme.

speaking as a left leaning European type I find it EXTREMELY oversensitive to think we would be offended by US as opposed to UNITED STATES...

Yes, Den, but you're also speaking as a 15-second soundbite generation type (and there's nothing wrong with that, I hasten to add)

I think the points in Martin's post

Are really well-taken and we should bear them in mind.

[Denis Cavanagh]

Whats a 15 second soundbyte generation type? 

[Chris Day]

Whats a 15 second soundbyte generation type? 

May be she is thinking of the type that would give their two cents... Whether they know anything about the subject or not! 

But, Aleta, if Denis were a 15 second soundbyte generation type, would he even be here? As opposed to trolling wikipedia?  I think not.

[Aleta Curry]

Whats a 15 second soundbyte generation type? 

[opens mouth wide enough to change feet]

When I was in school, we used to jest that one could measure generations in the changing advert soundbites.

Something like that.

Made sense to me.

Je vous demand pardon. 

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

[opens mouth wide enough to change feet]

Hmmm. The specific US or U.S. or United States quote was by Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, about Secretary of State William Rogers: "He is the sort of bureaucrat that only opens his mouth to change feet."

Somehow, for some strange reason, the attribution seems important.

One must never forget national culture. In my field of network engineering, one of the key devices is a device called a router. In the U.S., it is usually pronounced "row-ter". The British tend to pronounce it "root-er", and our staff was carefully advised to use the former when addressing an Australian audience.

Even more vaguely apropos, a Canadian friend called me with the news that her pet carpet python, the late Talis, had shed his skin for the first time. On mentioning this to an English colleague, he paused, and then inquired, "was that the Full Monty Python?"

[George Swan]

Before I weigh in here, let me thank Hayford for starting this thread, and raising some important points. I agree completely that consistency is important.

Several other people have made excellent points.

Full disclosure -- I started several of the stubs Richard is using as examples, including http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=United_States_War_Department&oldid=100217361 United States War Department and http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=U.S._Department_of_State&diff=100343137&oldid=100217359 United States Department of State.  I chose the articles original names in good faith. 

With regard to whether we should use the "common name", or the "official name", as the base name for the article -- I agree with someone who mentioned the importance of picking truly unambiguous names.  And I agree with the suggestion that, as a practical matter, we should pick names that don't confuse the robots that build the databases used by search engines.

I still consider myself a newbie here.  I am still trying to figure out the rules.

I'd like to suggest that -- if an institution's official name is ambiguous -- we should consider using a base name that is unambiguous, even if that name is neither the common name, or the official name.

I agree with Martin that, like the citizens of other nations, USAians can be parochial.  I agree that it can be a problem when locals think their shiboleths are univerally understood.  This is not solely a problem with the names of United States institutions.

Few nations have had a "War Department".  Few nations have had a "State Department". 

On the other hand, many nations have a Supreme Court.  So, should the base names of the articles on national Supreme Courts all be internally consistent -- "Supreme Court of Xxxx" or "Xxxxian Supreme Court" -- or should  they share the local official name, or a translation thereof?  I am still a newbie.  I still haven't figured out how much of a voice I have arriving at decisions about these issues.  Having said that I would recommend that picking an unambiguous international-friendly naming scheme is more important than honoring what the locals have chosen as their official name.

Richard, you are a historian, and one of the project's subject field experts.  And you have done some research on this issue.  So I would appreciate it if you would take a few minutes to answer some possibly naive questions for me.

[1] Weren't many US and other institutions named prior to an appreciation of picking an internationally unambigous name?

[2] In your research to what extent did you find attempts to rename US and other institutions with new names that are internationally unambiguous to have been haphazard, piecemeal, and, well, frankly amateurish?

Regarding picking names with search engines in mind...  There are certain common words and phrases that search engines don't count.  Other common words have special meanings.  Common articles are, I believe, ignored.  AND & OR have special meanings.  I strongly suspect "OF" may be one of the words search engines ignore.  And this could be a problem when using "United States OF America" in place of "U.S.A."

Robots are stupid.  They get confused by distinctions humans don't even notice.  Robots are going to have terrific difficulty distinguishing between the word "us" and the acronym "US".  So, I suggest, for practical purposes, it would be a big mistake to use "US" in place of "United States" in the base names of articles.

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

I note that nobody has answered George's points, particualrly those concerning robot searches. It may well be that the easiest way to name all U.S. institutions that don't have a country name in them, is simply to append (USA).

[RJensen]

To respond to George's q about how the US named its institutions: 1) It ignored the usages in other countries. For example, all the cabinet departments were "Department of XYZ", not "United States Department of XYZ".  I can't offhand think of any titles copied from Europe, except War Department. (Britain had a War department)
2) Encyclopedias seem to vary a great deal re naming articles. The older ones (like Ency Brit, World Book, Americana and Columbia) are locked into a naming system set up decades ago. Wikipedia is simply ill-informed about the issues.