Battle of Foo versus Foo, Battle of. Other terminology

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

I don't have extremely strong feelings other than it would be wise to be consistent among authors.  Note that since we have control of the sort order, the title may be selected to be euphonious rather than sort-optimal.  For example, I wrote "Battle of Tarawa" as a link and "Battle of Normandy" as a title. Richard, if I understand correctly, created the article as "Tarawa, Battle of".

Ignoring that the battle principally took place on Betio (the island) as opposed to Tarawa (the atoll), either works, but I'd like to have a convention everyone follows. My sense is that the reader, looking directly for an article rather than following a link, is more likely to look for "Battle of Foo." I'd like consensus, and I'm not wedded to either way -- and we will, in any events, be able to use redirects.

More problematic is where to draw the line between "Battle" and "Campaign".  For example, I just wrote on "Battle of Normandy", and, as it was, that needed a plethora of operational code names -- to say nothing of the background of Bolero, Sledgehammer, and Roundup. "Normandy Campaign" might have worked; there's no particular standardization for this case.

There definitely are different conventions for "Leyte Campaign" vs. "Battle of Leyte", so it's clear that the Battle of the Surigao Strait, Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, Battle of Cape Engano, and one of several names for the Action off Samar.

Going to Vietnam, there were a number of semi-nameless battles, such as "LZ X-Ray" within what I think of as the Ia Drang Campaign. X-Ray really consisted of 2-3 individual engagements. OTOH, something like Ap Bac was clearly one battle.

Could we reach some consensus, with due regard for the roles of sort ordering, redirects, and beginning user search strategies?

[RJensen]

I strongly believe that people are unlikely to be interested in battles in general, and will want instead to hear about very specific events at Hastings, Lepanto, Gettysburg, and Pearl Harbor. It's quite common practice to refer to Hastings, Lepanto, Waterloo  and Pearl Harbor rather than Battle of Hastings, Battle of Lepanto, etc.  ("Lee lost at Gettysburg" sounds better to my ear than "Lee lost the Battle of Gettysburg.")  Few people use the term "battle of Pearl Harbor" or "battle of Ft. Sumter" or "Battle of Normandy." On the other hand writers on the "Battle of Britain" always uses the full phrase and it has become the standard term.

When a campaign consists of numerous smaller battles the main article should, I think, be something like "Normandy Campaign" or "Normandy Invasion."

We just had a curious naming issue re the Allied invasion of North Africa in 1942. Most authors call it "Operation Torch" so that is the title I used.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

I strongly believe that people are unlikely to be interested in battles in general, and will want instead to hear about very specific events at Hastings, Lepanto, Gettysburg, and Pearl Harbor. It's quite common practice to refer to Hastings, Lepanto, Waterloo  and Pearl Harbor rather than Battle of Hastings, Battle of Lepanto, etc.  ("Lee lost at Gettysburg" sounds better to my ear than "Lee lost the Battle of Gettysburg.")  Few people use the term "battle of Pearl Harbor" or "battle of Ft. Sumter" or "Battle of Normandy." On the other hand writers on the "Battle of Britain" always uses the full phrase and it has become the standard term.

It's not even a question of "what people want to hear about", but often a question of disambiguation. When I see an article entitled "Pearl Harbor" and then find it's about the geographic feature, it is confusing. My experiences with professional audiences, more and more, is to find the preference for disambiguating the battle and the place.

"Battle of Normandy" is awkward, but it describes a fairly explicit period of time and sequence of events that do not match precisely to the various operational names, ranging from Neptune to Utah to Goodwood to Cobra.

When a campaign consists of numerous smaller battles the main article should, I think, be something like "Normandy Campaign" or "Normandy Invasion."

"Invasion" really doesn't fit, given that covers, at best, Neptune and the associated air assaults, not the overall security of the Norman communes before the breakouts, attacks on Cherbourg and other fortifications, etc.  "Campaign" can work as long it does not conflict with officially code-named phases.

We just had a curious naming issue re the Allied invasion of North Africa in 1942. Most authors call it "Operation Torch" so that is the title I used.

Why is that curious? As a code name for general operations, it was descriptive, and clearly distinct from generic North African campaigns that could conflict with operations in the Western Desert. Given that there were reasonably separated landing areas and task forces, would you prefer them to be separate terms, and then combine for things such as the Battle of Kasserine Pass?

[Hayford Peirce]

For what it's worth, I think the "Battle of New Orleans" is just about always referred to as such. Maybe because of the Johnny Horton mega-hit song of 1959? But even before then, I think....

[RJensen]

Operation Torch is one of the very few major battles that is usually called by its code name.  That makes it curious.

[Chris Day]

It's quite common practice to refer to Hastings

Mmm, it is? I have always heard it as Battle of Hastings. But I acknowledge there are examples of just the place name being used too.  Context is everything.

What is the rationale for the place name first since they will sort with their place name.  In fact, it might be better to have the word battle first since when i scan down the entries for in the H section the first word will be Battle.

[Aleta Curry]

Like Chris, in English History we always said (The)"Battle of Hastings", ever since I was little, and if I were writing that's how I would refer to it.   I've never heard any British or Commonwealth person refer to "Hastings", Richard, but on the other hand, they do refer to simply "Agincourt", and "Waterloo" goes both ways.

I don't really care about this overly much, but I ask you all to remember that if you start naming articles "Hastings, Battle of", Noel will be up to his eyebrows in redirects and requests for mergers and deletions of duplicate articles.

As to Battles and Invasions and Campaigns, you all can fight that one out, so to speak. 

[Joe Quick]

I don't have an opinion on whether it ought to be "Battle of Hastings" or "Hastings" but I don't think it should be "Hastings, battle of".  As Chris points out, the abc field of the metadata template allows us to alphabetize [[Battle of Hastings]] as "Hastings, Battle of".  I doubt very much that anyone will try to link to [[Hastings, Battle of]] in an article without piping the link but many people are likely to link to [[Battle of Hastings]].

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Operation Torch is one of the very few major battles that is usually called by its code name.  That makes it curious.

Just as an observation, that certainly isn't the practice for all nations. Admittedly, the Japanese orders, for whatever code name, tended to be "the Imperial Fleet will sweep in from all the points of the compass, and all the enemy ships will decisively sink." On the Eastern Front, I'd certainly use "Operation Barbarossa" rather than "German invasion of the Soviet Union".

Torch was arguably a campaign rather than a battle; the task forces were far more independent than the Neptune invasion forces.

As far as current U.S. practice, the public relations absurdity of things called "Operation Just Cause" and "Operation Iraqi Freedom", given the actual code names were, respectively, BLUE SPOON and POLO STEP, fails to inform. I've created articles for these names, but used many redirects and muttered several things that would fail family-friendliness.

Really, one would have hoped that Rumsfeld would have read Operation Rankin Case C before planning the occupation of Iraq.

[Larry Sanger]

Even historians refer to battles as "Battle of X."  There is no excuse to title our articles "X, Battle of."  Ostensibly, the reason for titling any article in Richard's comma format is to make them easier to find in alphabetical listings.  Putting aside the fact that we have finessed that problem with the 'abc' field in our metadata, there is no reason to think people will be more likely to look for an article about the Battle of X under X than under Battle.  This is, of course, because the proper names of those battles whose names are in the form "Battle of X" are, in fact, in that form, of course.  If anyone refers to them, as it were, on a "first name basis" as "Shiloh" or "Gettysburg" or "Waterloo," it is because it is obvious that they're talking about the battle.  This does not entail (of course!!!) that, in titling an encyclopedia article, one can do without the words "battle of."  So let's use "Battle of X," please.  I also think it is implausible that people are not interested battles per se but only in the places where the battles occur.  With a few exceptions, most places where famous battles have taken place are famous only because they are the sites of famous battles.  Would nearly as many of us have heard of Pearl Harbor, Hastings, or Waterloo without battles being fought there?  In short, there is absolutely no good reason, Richard notwithstanding, not to follow our standard CZ naming conventions in this case.  Therefore, let's do so.  Please do rename the relevant "battle" articles as appropriate; if anyone gives you grief about it, let me know, and please, don't expect me to do this because you're intimidated by Richard.  I have too much to do myself.  Just be bold!  :-)  I'm giving you the right!

As an aside, it seems to me that this discussion has dragged out because Richard has taken a counterintuitive stance and then proceeded to defend it--and, in my humble opinion, weakly.  I see that so far, he has persuaded no one (and several have made extremely strong points in reply).  So, in this case, since the person taking the stand is one of our few active History Editors, and he seems to have made up his mind and wishes to establish his opinion as our policy, I guess it is incumbent upon me to declare that I am overruling him, as Editor-in-Chief.  (Sorry, Richard.)  Generally, I try to give editors the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes I do have to overrule them, which I assure you I never like to do.

[RJensen]

CZ has a procedure for handling this sort of issue, that is taking it to the Editorial Council: "The Citizendium's Editorial Council will deliberate about and decide questions of editorial policy....The Council will have broad authority to settle matters of editorial policy, including, but not necessarily limited to:  Naming conventions" 

The rules are pretty clear and do not seem to allow for intervention by anyone else.

[Larry Sanger]

Well, as the author of most of our rules, Richard, I can tell you that you are mistaken.  First of all, our present naming conventions recommend using the common names for things; this means we use [[Battle of Gettysburg]] etc., since those are, obviously, the common names.  When there is a disagreement about editorial matters, in lieu of a decision made either by a workgroup (with a quorum) or by the Editorial Council, the Editor-in-Chief makes the decision.  More generally, it is precisely the job of the Editor-in-Chief to interpret and enforce our editorial rules.  That much is implied, I submit, by the very title "Editor-in-Chief."  Indeed, there is no Editor-in-Chief if I do not possess the authority to overrule, individually, rank-and-file editors such as yourself.

Now, if you dislike my decision, Richard, it is up to you to take it to the History Workgroup (that is, if you can find at least 3-4 history editors who are willing to weigh in on the issue) or to the Editorial Council.  I am very confident that either body would overrule you on this issue, just as I have done.  But do feel free to prove me wrong.

[Larry Sanger]

Also, Richard, I notice that you did not even do me the favor of answering my arguments, which I believe utterly demolished any reason you would have for bringing this to any other decision-making body.

[RJensen]

I did answer Larry's argument on Talk:Gettysburg Campaign
here's my statement:
        from Richard Jensen: My positions are as follows:
    * the original question was whether this "Gettysburg Campaign" article should be renamed "Battle of Gettysburg". No, I argued. First of all the article is about a month-long campaign and its aftermath and image; second, historians in recent years write a lot about Gettysburg but always avoid the title "Battle of Gettysburg." (The one exception I found was an article about how historians battle each other over the meaning of Gettysburg.)
    * As for battles generally, I think the author should name them according to the current usual practice of scholars writing about the battle. Thus "Battle of Britain" is appropriate (and I used it.) "Battle of Pearl Harbor" is not used by serious writers.
    * A blanket CZ rule based on unobserved hypothetical searches by hypothetical CZ users is not as useful, in my opinion, as CZ following the standard practice used by most experts in the field.
    * The standard practices can be observed by looking at recent scholarly books and articles. For example, books by university presses and articles in scholarly journals. This is easy to do thanks to books.google, Amazon.com, questia,com (all free) and ABC-CLIO (via libraries) and other online services.
    * What the "general public" thinks about Gettysburg, and how they got that way, is an interesting topic and indeed is covered in the last part of this article. The general public looks to CZ for expertise and best practices.
    * CZ in my opinion best serves its mission by stretching the minds of readers and exposing them to the best current thought on a topic. Catering to their ignorance is much too common on Wikipedia.
    * Historians (and editors at journals and publishing houses) spend a good deal of serious thought on how to title their books and articles. Some once-common usages have been largely abandoned (for example, "History of XYZ" is now rare as a main title.) Looking at real life examples by recent writers is the best way for CZ to discover the current best practices. The "intuitive" ideas of people who have not been following recent historiography probably reflect the environment years ago and not today; their ideas are old, not intuitive. (Keynes said people who think they are free of economic theory are in reality slaves to some defunct economic nostrums.)
    * If the dozens of historians who have recently written on Gettysburg have stopped using the title "Battle of Gettysburg", that should be useful information for us when we title a CZ article. Richard Jensen 22:04, 15 June 2008 (CDT)

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

In my opinion we do need to prepare a properly-discussed Naming Conventions proposal to go to the Editorial Council. However, a precursor to preparing such a difficult proposal is extensive discussion on the Forum about what we like, or dislike, in the current Naming Conventions and possibly what is missing from it.

For my part, it is quite clear that non-historians know important battles as "Battle of XXX". THe fact that historians deeply acquainted with such things abbreviate them to "XXX" is of no relevance. By analogy, pianists refer to the Rachmaninov Third Piano Concerto as "Rach 3"; such information is trivial and certainly should not inform the title of the article!

It is not up to me, or anyone else, to speak for the Editorial Council. However, as Larry has pointed out, there is a dearth of voices supporting your position, Richard.