BR Bullpen talk:Naming Conventions

I have several possible suggestions about the naming conventions:

1. It should be clarified that baseball people should be called by their accepted baseball name, i.e. Babe Ruth instead of George Ruth or Honus Wagner instead of John Wagner.
2. In cases where two people with the same name can be distinguished by different nicknames, titles, etc. we should use those in place of the (id) convention. That lets us use common, easy to remember names instead of obscure ids that we have to look up. For instance, the two Ken Griffeys should be called Ken Griffey Sr. and Ken Griffey Jr. rather than Ken Griffey (griffke01) and Ken Griffey (griffke02). If we want to make a change that's less clear cut- like my idea of calling George Burns (burnsge01) George J. Burns and George Burns (burnsge02) "Tioga" George Burns- we can discuss it on the relevant disambiguation page.
3. There are tons of minor league players, executives, etc. whose names conflict with major leaguers. We need a systematic, non-conflicting way of generating those ids. I'd suggest that for people who never reached the majors we reverse the id, so the number is first and the name part second. That would make it easy to spot the difference between a major leaguer and a career minor leaguer and guarantee that the id wouldn't later be taken by a major leaguer.
4. Diacritical marks are unfamiliar to many American contributors, so we should ensure that there are always redirect pages for the unmarked version of a name.
5. For duplicated team names, should we use the full division name, or should we use the 2 letter ISO abbreviation? The ISO abbreviations are easier and agree with their use when giving city names, but I guess that there might be conflicts between them and some league abbreviations (i.e. IL for both Illinois and International League).

--Roger 12:39, 24 August 2006 (EDT)

1. In terms of point 1, I also think it would make sense to use a direct link to Pants Rowland instead of listing Clarence Rowland and redirecting. In cases where there are two used names (Junior Gilliam, Jim Gilliam; Rich Gossage, Goose Gossage), we can have a redirect and use either name in the articles.
2. The two-letter abbreviation is used now for duplicate team names and I see no reason to go through and revise everything. Ex. Springfield (MA) Giants.
3. I agree overall with Proposal A. We need to work out something for minor leaguers and the like.
4. I agree with the Proposal for Place Names. If we're using city, state/province/prefecture for other countries than Mexico, Japan, Australia, Canada and the US, then we should go through and edit accordingly. This is a major project.
5. "If there is more than one team with that name in the same place, use the format Offical Name (league), where league is an abbreviation of the team's league." is iffy - often we've had one page for a team in five different leagues and the team often is the same. We can differentiate between minor and major league teams (ex. the AL Baltimore Orioles from IL Baltimore Orioles) or unrelated MLB teams (ex. NL Baltimore Orioles from AL Baltimore Orioles)
6. What do we do about transliteration consistency? Given that there is none in MLB (Akinori Otsuka instead of Ohtsuka while Kenji Johjima instead of Jojima) presently, do we just use either and have redirects set up. We're very inconsistent on these.

- --Mischa 12:52, 24 August 2006 (EDT)

5) "If there is more than one team with that name in the same place, use the format Offical Name (league), where league is an abbreviation of the team's league." is iffy - often we've had one page for a team in five different leagues and the team often is the same. We can differentiate between minor and major league teams (ex. the AL Baltimore Orioles from IL Baltimore Orioles) or unrelated MLB teams (ex. NL Baltimore Orioles from AL Baltimore Orioles)

I agree that we need to straighten this one out. For major league teams, we seem to be willing to accept that a team retains continuity even if it switches leagues, changes its name, and moves to a different city; the Dodgers are a good example. I can understand having different pages for a case like the Browns/Orioles, where the team itself seems to ignore much of its history, but there's no need to have a separate page each time the team picks a different nickname. I don't see any need to have separate pages if the team moves from league to league- or has league after league fail around it- either. As long as there is team continuity, there should be a single page across name and league shifts.

6) What do we do about transliteration consistency? Given that there is none in MLB (Akinori Otsuka instead of Ohtsuka while Kenji Johjima instead of Jojima) presently, do we just use either and have redirects set up. We're very inconsistent on these.

We should keep the official transliteration, even if it doesn't follow any standard set of rules. Like it or not, that's the spelling that player will be known under, and trying to correct it would just make the player's entry harder to find. FWIW, are Otsuka and Johjima really an inconsistency? I know that in standard transliterations "O" and "Oh" represent different sounds, so the difference in spelling might represent a genuine difference in the way their names are supposed to be pronounced. --Roger 20:32, 24 August 2006 (EDT)

Actually, it was Ohtsuka in Japan and became Otsuka only in the US. Depending on the website you go by, some use the Oh and some the O - Ohnishi vs. Onishi, Saito vs. Saitoh, etc. It's a common dispute in sites discussing Japanese baseball. - --Mischa 20:38, 24 August 2006 (EDT)

Personally, I'm in favor of using redirects rather liberally. In the case of diacritical marks I think they're absolutely necessary, and in the case where a player is known by two names (Gossage), they're also very helpful. But also in the case of others like Rowland, I see no reason why we can't have a redirect for Clarence... it's not like there's another Clarence Rowland out there confusing things, and if someone comes to the Bullpen in search of info on "Clarence Rowland", it will take them to where they need to go. -Chisoxfan 21:22, 24 August 2006 (EDT)

OTOH, we have a redirect from Ernest White to Ernie White, when in fact, there was a player named Ernest White in the minors. That's the problem with too many liberal redirects - you wind up with "covered" pages which in fact are not. - --Mischa 21:24, 24 August 2006 (EDT)

The Ernest->Ernie thing is an inevitable problem with a growing wiki, and it's solvable because nothing is set in stone. As long as there's no page for the minor leaguer, it makes sense to have the redirect page there. If somebody wants to add a page for Ernest, he can replace the redirect page with a regular page for him. If it turns out that there was another minor league Ernest White who played in 1883, we can replace the Ernest White page with a disambiguation page that links to all three of them. --Roger 00:12, 25 August 2006 (EDT)

After some thinking, I dislike the suggestion of City Team (Division) for cases where there's more than one city with the same name. I think that it would be better to go with City (Division) Team instead. As I see it, there are several advantages. One strong point in its favor is that it's already being used. It's also more logical to put (Division) directly adjacent to City rather than at the end, since it's really modifying City not Team. Finally, City (Division) Team is obviously more compatible with the City Team (League). It lets us unambiguously distinguish Springfield (IL) Cardinals from Springfield Cardinals (IL) from Springfield (IL) Cardinals (IL). --Roger 23:08, 27 August 2006 (EDT)

I agree, we've already been using City (Division) Team, probably because it intuitively makes sense. So let's just stay with it --Just me 23:11, 27 August 2006 (EDT)

Were any consensus ever reached? --MichaelEng 08:04, 9 October 2006 (EDT)

Japanese High Schools

I know this section has been brought about given my rampant editing on the Koshien section of the wiki...

I guess my reasoning for doing the things I've done are as follows:

1) I understand that we are writing things in English, but I would rather keep them similar to what people in Japan would refer them to (i.e. Aikoudai Meiden, Komadai Tomakomai, Waseda Jitsugyo, etc.). That being said, I would prefer not having the words "High School" included at the end and just refer to it as "koukou". It is after all, "koukou yakyu"... In addition, anything that specifies the type of school - Kougyou, Shougyou, Shoukou, etc. should just be left as is and not have koukou after it.

That's also why I haven't edited some of the schools yet on the 87th National Championship site is because I want to make sure I have the correct name.

2) I would also prefer showing the long vowel sounds as there is a difference in pronunciation. I know that this may be a double standard given prefectures such as Toukyou, Kyouto, Oosaka, etc. are listed without the long vowels, so perhaps using the macrons would be best, though a bit more time consuming...

So I guess what I would choose would be a mix of the Transliteration Version and Proposal A, with a few adjustments - if that's possible...

-KaminaAyato 18:17, 11 October 2006 (PDT)

I looked at ~150 high school websites to see if and how the schools refer to themselves in English, from this I took a sample of 100 schools (full list and came up with the following breakdowns:

• 13 refer to themselves as a "Senior High School"
• 76 refer to themselves as a "Senior High School"
• 9 refer to themselves as a "Junior and Senior High School"
• 2 refer to themselves as a simply Gakuen
• 26 retain their Prefectual name
• Of the 12 schools with gakuen or gakuin in their name none translated it an four left it out completely
• Of the 11 schools with daigaku in their name, all translated it to "University"
• Of the 7 schools with a direction in their name, only one translated it
• Of the 3 schools with shougyou in their name, all translated it to "Commercial"
• Of the 4 schools with kougyou in their name, all translated it to "Technical"
• Agricultural (農業) and fisheries (水産) were translated but 第一 and 実業 were not (to number one and jitsugyo, respectively)
• Of course no proper names were translated

From this it would seem that in general, adjectives indicating purpose (Commercial, Technical, Agricultural, etc.) are translated as are type (High -, Senior High -, etc.). Adjectives indicating location (city names, directions, etc.) are not translated. So it appears that Proposal B would be the best way to go with an addendum that directions and proper names should not be translated. --MichaelEng (talk) 18:34, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

While I understand that this is how they refer to themselves on their webpage, it seems that they are using proper translations, which is fine. But at the same time, that is not how they are referred to when discussed during Koushien broadcasts, i.e. Teikyou Koukou and Oogaki Nichidai (which I know I did differently). And more often than not, if you'd ask where a student where they attended, they aren't likely to give you the full name. I think that the default should be Proposal A where the term for high school, or type thereof, is left untranslated i.e. Koukou, Shougyou, Kougyou, Gakuin, Gakuen, etc.

-KaminaAyato 23:32, 1 April 2007 (PDT)

But at the same time, that is not how they are referred to when discussed during Koushien broadcasts, i.e. Teikyou Koukou and Oogaki Nichidai (which I know I did differently).

I think that in some ways we are talking about different things. Remember we are talking about written names not spoken names (which is why, for example, the player whose name on broadcasts is roughly "Shawn Figgins" is at here rather than at Shawn Figgins).

This is also a predominantly English-language site with over 90% of the site's traffic coming from North America. For instance we have the page for the Austrian capital at Vienna rather than Wien, Japan rather than Nihon or Nippon, etc. I would think the majority of the audience would not understand that Koukou means high school, Kougyou means technical etc.

A better hypothetical question might be to ask a person to write down, in English, what high school they went to.

It might be best to think of the naming process as occurring in the order below:

1. Most commonly used name in English
   • If a native spelling uses different letters than the most common English spelling (e.g. Wien vs. Vienna), only use the native spelling as an article title if it is more commonly used in English than the anglicized form.
2. Current undisputed official name of entity
   • If you are talking about a person, country, town, film, or book, use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article, as you would find it in other encyclopedias and reference works. This makes it easy to find, and easy to compare information with other sources. For example, Christopher Columbus, Venice.
3. Current self-identifying name of entity
   • If there is no commonly used name in Latin-characters, use an accepted translation of the name in the original language.

Let's use this format for the school referenced above; Teikyou Koukou versus Teikyo University Junior and Senior High School.

1. no consensus
2. no consensus
3. Teikyo University Junior and Senior High School

While I understand that this is how they refer to themselves on their webpage, it seems that they are using proper translations, which is fine.

Shouldn't we respect the institutional self-identifying name.

And more often than not, if you'd ask where a student where they attended, they aren't likely to give you the full name.

While people tend to use shortened versions of names in colloquial conversation, that is due to the informal natuer of the conversation as well as some preexisting knowledge. In your example, you have already asked the person where they attend high school so the presumption on the part of the responder is that you know that the school is a high school.

--MichaelEng (talk) 09:45, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

Naming conventions for people: Proposal B

The primary benefit of this proposal is to get rid of the use of ugly, problematic, and unnecessarily redundant use of the arbitrary bbref playerid and other parenthetical statements in the names of the pages of people. For instance having pages with the names Joe Smith (smithjo01) and Joe Smith (smithjo02) does not help with determining which person is which. It also requires the use of pipe links [[links like|this]] in each instance of the link which is problematic.

Important Notes:

• In all cases notability supersedes this process. For instance if there have been at least two players named "Dixie Walker", one from 1909 to 1912 and another from 1931 to 1949. The second player is decided to be more notable than the first so the second receives the page name of "Dixie Walker" while the first's page is named using the first step of the process, using the player's given name. In this case the first player's page will be at "Ewert Walker". If there was another player by that name, then a the process would continue until an acceptable name for both is found.

• Also, initial names are to be based on the preference of the person in question. For instance the page on Roberto Clemente, the former Pittsburgh player, is at Roberto Clemente rather Bobby Clemente even though that name was commonly used in the United States media. Additionally, diacritical marks should be used.

note in all cases the players played as "Joe Smith"

1. Two (or more) players who have different given names
   • Joseph Smith -> Joseph Smith
   • José Smith -> José Smith

1. Two (or more) players who have different middle names with different initial letters
   • Joseph Alfred Smith -> Joe A. Smith
   • Joseph Billy Smith -> Joe B. Smith

1. Two (or more) players who have different middle names with the same initial letters
   • Joseph Carl Smith -> Joseph Carl Smith
   • Joseph Calvin Smith -> Joseph Calvin Smith

1. Two (or more) players who have different first names with the same initial letters
   • Cecil Joseph Smith -> Cecil Joseph Smith
   • Charles Joseph Smith -> Charles Joseph Smith

1. Two (or more) players who have different middle names with the same initial letters, with one having just a single initial
   • Joseph Donald Smith -> Joseph Donald Smith
   • Joseph D. Smith -> Joe D. Smith with the otheruses hatnote ({{otheruses}}) linking to Joe Donald Smith

1. Two (or more) players who have the same names and are related (single generation)
   • Joseph Edward Smith (father of below) -> Joe Smith, Sr.
   • Joseph Frank Smith (son of above) -> Joe Smith, Jr.

1. Two (or more) players who have the same names and are related (multiple generations)
   • Joseph George Smith (grandfather of below) -> Joe Smith, Sr.
   • Joseph Hal Smith (grandson of above) -> Joe Smith III

1. Two (or more) players who have the same paternal name but different maternal names
   • José Smith Ibanez -> José Smith Ibanez
   • José Smith Jiménez -> José Smith Jiménez

After this all naming conventions use parenthetical statements and would require piped links:

1. Two (or more) baseball personalities have the same name, but different occupations - disambiguate using the occupation
   • Joe Smith (manager)
   • Joe Smith (player)
     • Partial list of occupations: player, manager, coach, executive, writer, broadcaster, author

1. Two (or more) baseball players who play predominantly (e.g. >75%) different positions, the general position should be added to the article name.
   • Joe Smith (pitcher)
   • Joe Smith (infielder)
     • List of positions: pitcher, catcher, infielder, outfielder
       • When two pitchers share the same name, but one was a left-hander and the other was a right-hander, then this may be used to disambiguate
       • Joe Smith (left-handed pitcher)
       • Joe Smith (right-handed pitcher)

1. Two (or more) baseball personalities who were predominantly associated (i.e. multiple years) with different "leagues" (not including the modern American and National Leagues of Major League Baseball), then the league name can be used to disambiguate.
   • Joe Smith (Major League Baseball player)
   • Joe Smith (Negro League player)
     • This should be avoided for minor league players (i.e. no Joe Smith (Minor League Baseball player)) due to the high number of players with limited or missing biographical data and the general lack of comprehensive coverage of the entirety of minor league players.
     • Partial list of "leagues": Major League Baseball, Negro League, Nippon Professional Baseball, collegiate, Pacific Coast League, International League, etc.
     • Also note in the above example to reach this point, both Joe Smiths would have had to have played the same position (i.e. if the MLB Smith had been a pitcher and the Negro League Smith had been a catcher then the disambiguation would have already been solved). However, only the occupation is listed for ease since adding the the playing position would add to the disambiguation (also why the middle names -- if they were known -- are missing). If there were two MLB Smiths, were both are catchers then the additional disambiguation would be needed.

1. Two (or more) baseball personalities who were predominantly associated with different time frames, then the time frame can be used to disambiguate. Centuries should be used first, then decades; for all disambiguated people the same length of time should be used.
   • Joe Smith (1900s player)
   • Joe Smith (1950s player)
     • Only player is listed for the reasons above. Also, this could be used in combination with leagues disambiguation above or in place of it (and vice versa).

1. Two (or more) baseball personalities who were born in different years, then the birth year can be used to disambiguate.
   • Joe Smith (born in 1950)
   • Joe Smith (born in 1960)
     • Only born is listed for the reasons above. Also, this could be used in combination with leagues disambiguation above or in place of it (and vice versa).

1. All of the naming conventions may be combined in the following order:
   • name ([years] [league] [occupation {position}], [born in year])
     • where name includes all choices through #8

Examples

• Chris Young: > Chris R. Young; > Chris B. Young
• Joe Smith: > Salvatore Smith; > Joseph M. Smith
• Ben Taylor: > Ben H. Taylor (Major League Baseball player); > Ben H. Taylor (Negro League player); > Ben E. Taylor (in practice the resolution would likely be placing the Negro Leagues player at Ben Taylor [with a hatnote], and the two major league players at Ben H. Taylor and Ben E. Taylor)
• Craig Wilson: Craig Wilson (wilsocr01) > Craig Wilson (infielder), Craig Wilson (wilsocr02) > Craig F. Wilson, Craig Wilson (wilsocr03) > Craig A. Wilson
• Koichi Ogata: Koichi Ogata (ogatako01) > Koichi Ogata (infielder), Koichi Ogata (ogatako02) > Koichi Ogata (outfielder)

--MichaelEng (talk) 15:15, 16 October 2007 (EDT)

1. I don't think it makes sense to list people under names they are not known by - ex. Ewart Walker instead of Dixie Walker just because there was a more famous Dixie Walker.
2. Overall, I think this is a good system. - --Mischa 17:54, 16 October 2007 (EDT)

Personnally, I like the current system. The page names may be strange, but it ensure that everyone will have his own page, and that page will link automatically to the appropriate B-Ref page. One can use the qualifier (i.e. Joe Smith "pitcher" versus Joe Smith "executive") on a disambiguation page to make it easier for someone to find the right person.

Other systems have their own confusions built in: what is the middle name of Chris Young the pitcher? I have no idea, it's never used in an article or by a broadcaster. How would I know whether he's the Chris R. or the Chris B. ? What if a second Chris B. comes along, or a situation like the three pitching Michael Anthony Smiths ? You just risk getting into ever-increasing and unescapable rings of complication. --Philippe 11:12, 17 October 2007 (EDT)

I tend to agree with Philippe here. The BR names are very strange, but they are systematic and they work. The disambiguation pages could be more descriptive to help distinguish the players better. In fact, I've wondered if we shouldn't fix some of the guys we named Ballplayer(minors) or Manager (managers), Tommy Thompson i.e. --Jeff 11:16, 17 October 2007 (EDT)