User:Andrewa/RfC on sporting club names

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This page in a nutshell: Article names for sporting clubs that include abbreviations such as AFC should omit the fullstops sometimes inserted into the abbreviation

This is a working draft only. The RfC if eventually proposed will be proposed on an appropriate talk page.

RfC on sporting club names

Should we consistently use terms such as AFC and FC in the titles of articles on sporting clubs, deprecating the fullstops used in some club titles in terms such as A.F.C. and F.C.?

Background

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (sports teams) is an official naming convention that was split from WP:AT some years ago. It has always in some circumstances deferred to the official name of the club, contrary to the Wikipedia default of preferring the common name.

In RM discussions on sporting club article names, arguments appealing to the common name and arguments appealing to a primary source as giving an official name are both frequent, sometimes referring to the policy and/or the specific naming convention, but often not. Football fans in particular tend to have strong opinions where team names are concerned.

Talk:AFC Bournemouth#Requested move 27 July 2018 is just the latest in a long series of often bitterly controversial RMs. In a disputed close there, it was suggested that an RfC might consider revising the specific naming convention, taking account of the arguments put forward there to remove the fullstops. A similar suggestion was made at Talk:FC Porto#Requested move 20 January 2015 (which removed fullstops) but there appears to have been no follow-up.

Accordingly, it is here proposed to change the specific naming convention so as to consistently use terms such as AFC and FC in titles of articles on sporting clubs, deprecating the fullstops used in some club titles in terms such as A.F.C. and F.C..

Rationale

This proposal is to oil the wheels by reducing the administrative overhead of deciding on article names for sporting clubs, and eliminating a frequent and fruitless cause of friction between editors.

Even within primary sources the official name is not always consistent. Primary sources such as a club's logo, website, and promotional merchandise can and often do give different versions of the name, sometimes with the fullstops, sometimes without. And in most if not all cases, the club is referred to by both names in reliable secondary sources, following the individual preferences and style guides of each of these sources. Wikipedia is similarly free to follow our own local convention, and there is no reason not to do so.

The current convention defers to the official name only in cases where there is no ambiguity as to the official spelling of a club's name in English. [1] In practice this ambiguity or lack of ambiguity has proved impossible to decide when the question is whether or not to include the fullstops.

It has no downside at all to readers, who are our bottom line. Terms such as AFC and A.F.C. in a sporting club name are equivalent and equally recognisable. Redirects cope seamlessly with any readers who for any reason go to the deprecated article name, again at no inconvenience to the reader, and so incorporating the principle that these redirects should always exist into the naming convention is a slight benefit.

There is no strong reason to prefer either AFC or A.F.C., so it is proposed to use the shorter, for no other reason than that it is trivially more concise.

Detailed proposal

The proposal is partly change but also partly clarification. The current naming convention is problematic. It might even be better to do without it and rely on the normal default of common name. However, this would be likely to lead to a series of controversial RMs. It is better still to fix it.

So it is proposed that the words should be added:

Fullstops are not to be added to common abbreviations such as AFC and FC that occur in the names of many clubs. These terms are equally recognisable and identical in meaning whether or not the fullstops are added, so the decision as to whether or not to use them is one of style not of meaning. To aid readers in finding the article, a redirect should always exist from the name with the fullstops inserted.

A short list of examples should be given, but this list will not necessarily be exhaustive.

As noted above, incorporating the principle that a redirect should always exist into the naming convention is a welcome side effect. Many such redirects already exist because of (many) page moves. There is no policy preventing them from being created in any case, without requiring this clause in the naming convention, and there would be no case for deleting them. But making it explicit is still a small plus.

Survey

Please do not edit this section, the RfC is not yet open. Discuss on the talk page.

Support as proposed

Support change but not as proposed

(Please provide a brief description of the preferred change)

Change to....

Oppose

Threaded discussion

Please do not edit this section, the RfC is not yet open. Discuss on the talk page.