| This page in a nutshell:
Article titles should use singular form, except for nouns that are always in their plural form.
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In general,
Wikipedia articles
have
singular titles
; for example, our article on the
Canis familiaris
species is at
Dog
, not
Dogs
. This rule exists to promote
consistency
in our article titles, and generally leads to slightly more
concise
titles as well.
Exceptions exist for two general types of articles.
There are two main types of exceptions to this rule:
- Articles on groups or
classes
of specific things. Some examples:
- Articles on groups of
administrative divisions
(states or provinces), such as
States of Austria
,
States of Nigeria
,
Provinces of Sweden
.
- Articles on groups of distinct entities that are nevertheless often considered together (preceded almost invariably by the word "the"), such as the
Florida Keys
, the
Americas
, or the
Rivers of New Zealand
.
- Things like
Maxwell's equations
,
Legendre polynomials
,
Chebyshev polynomials
, [the]
Cauchy?Riemann equations
, etc. The topic is naturally the
set
or
family
of equations, although in some contexts they may be referred to in the singular. (That is, such a polynomial?for example?is of interest only because it is part of the
polynomial sequence
called the
Chebyshev polynomials
, and the sequence is thought of for most purposes as a unit.) Similarly, one is much more likely to mention
Arabic numerals
than a particular Arabic numeral.
- Articles on particular language groups, as opposed to individual languages, are pluralized, such as
Romance languages
,
Afroasiatic languages
,
Indigenous languages of the Americas
,
Sino-Tibetan languages
.
- Things like
Skew coordinates
. Although one may speak of the second skew coordinate of a point, the article is on the
system
of coordinates.
- Articles that actually distinguish among multiple distinct instances of related items can be sensibly given a plural title when the alternative would be to create an inappropriately large number of short articles, one on each instance. The various
Zeno's paradoxes
, for instance, are incorporated into one article, with a correspondingly plural name.
- Articles on religious, national, or
ethnic groupings
of people.
Hindus
,
French people
, and
Koreans in Japan
are all acceptable titles. Titles like
Belgian
should be recast in the plural, i.e.,
Belgians
. If a
plural
title without the word "people" is available, it is almost invariably chosen; e.g.,
Bangladeshis
is consistently preferred to
Bangladeshi people
.
- List articles use a plural after "List of", e.g.,
List of common misconceptions
. For a list of lists, the title should just be the plural "Lists of ...", e.g.,
Lists of books
. See
Wikipedia:Lists
.
- Cases where the title
exists only in the plural
.
- Articles on items such as
scissors
or
handcuffs
are not located at awkward, unnatural titles like
scissor
or
handcuff
.
- Band names and the names of sports teams such as
The Beatles
or the
Seattle Seahawks
should be at their plural title.
- Articles about measurement units, including compound units, should generally be singular (so "
Foot per second
" rather than "
Feet per second
"). For measurement units formed by combining an object or event with a unit ("
Lines per inch
" or "
Flashes per minute
"), the plural form may be acceptable if overwhelmingly favored in
definitions of the unit
by reliable sources.
- With irregular plurals whose usage far exceeds the usage of the singular, the
common
and
unastonishing
plural titles
Bacteria
,
Algae
, and
Data
are preferred over
Bacterium
,
Alga
, and
Datum
(although some would argue that
data
is a
mass noun
and, as such, is already singular).
In rare circumstances, we
ignore the rules
here in order to make the encyclopedia better.
These rules apply only to
articles
.
Categories
are almost always given plural titles, and many
templates
are as well.
Because most articles (like
Chair
) have singular titles, the normal situation is that a plural redirects to its singular, or to
wherever its singular redirects
. For instance,
Chairs
is a
redirect page
, which takes readers directly to
Chair
;
Panda
redirects to
Giant panda
, and thus so does
Pandas
. For the rare articles that have plural titles, like
Seattle Seahawks
, there should normally be a redirect from the singular form (
Seattle Seahawk
). Such redirects can bear their respective templates, as well:
{{
R from plural
}}
or
{{
R to plural
}}
.
Sometimes, however, a plural form will establish a separate
primary topic
.
Windows
does not redirect to
Window
, but rather to
Microsoft Windows
;
Snickers
is about the chocolate bar, while
Snicker
redirects to
Laughter
. It may also be the case that a singular form (
Axe
) has a primary topic, while a plural form (
Axes
, which is the plural of both Axe and Axis) does not, or vice versa (
Android
is a disambiguation page, but
Androids
redirects to
Android (robot)
).
Discussion and
consensus
among editors, possibly through a
requested move
, determines if there is or is not a primary topic. For instance, discussion and consensus might determine that
Cars
should redirect to
Car
(as it currently does), redirect to
Car (disambiguation)
, or host a topic such as
Cars (film)
.
In making such a determination:
- A plural form is treated like any other topic.
- The relationship between a singular and its plural is important, but not the only consideration. Because readers and editors are used to seeing titles at the singular form, and can be expected to search for them/link to them in the singular form, the intentional use of a plural form by a reader or editor can be evidence that a separate primary topic exists at the plural form. At the same time, readers and editors are used to the fact that plural forms usually redirect to their equivalent singulars and thus are likely to expect to be redirected to a singular title when looking for something else.
- Since normally users can be expected to search/link for/to topics using the singular form, searching/linking with a plural form is likely to be for a topic named with the plural form, when applicable. Example:
Queens
, the New York City borough, is the primary topic for the plural form of "queen". At the same time, since readers and editors expect plural redirects,
Parachutes
is a
WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT
to the
device
rather than being about the
Coldplay album
.
- If the singular is not usually treated as a
countable noun
, that makes it far more likely that a split is the best decision. For example,
time
is a straightforward and obvious primary topic, but usually we don't treat "time" as something with a plural. Accordingly,
times
does not redirect to
time
, but rather to a different topic (in this case
Time (disambiguation)
).
- A plural of a countable noun should never be treated as a partial title match when determining primary topic.
- Encyclopedic
uses are given more weight than
dictionary
uses, per
WP:NOTADICTIONARY
. This may mean that if there is not an article at the singular form, it is more likely that a plural form can establish a separate primary topic.
- Just as with any other title, a plural base title can direct to an article (
Snickers
), or to a disambiguation page (
Suns
). A plural base title can also redirect to an article (
Bookends
redirects to
Bookend
;
Faces
redirects to
Face
).
- If separate primary topics are determined, add a
hatnote
from the plural page to the singular form (or vice versa).
- Sometimes, what appears to be a plural form may also be a separate word, which can influence the primary topic decision. (
Walls
can be the plural of "wall", but can also be a separate placename or surname.)
- Sometimes, even when a singular might be ambiguous and lead to a disambiguation page, a plural might be (relatively) unambiguous and lead to a particular singular use;
Oranges
leads to
Orange (fruit)
, not to the disambiguation page at
Orange
. This is primarily because only a noun can be pluralized, and the only other "orange" whose notability rivals that of the fruit is the color, and even though technically an interior designer
could
talk about choosing among several different oranges for the color of the curtains, usually only the fruit is pluralized in common usage.
[1]
The reverse can also be true, and often is:
Paper
is a stable primary topic, but
papers
is highly ambiguous (since "paper" is typically an
uncountable noun
), and accordingly redirects to
paper (disambiguation)
.
- Using a plural as a separate primary topic is not specifically encouraged or discouraged; this page only describes the conditions where it is appropriate to do so.
- All of these apply to the reverse situation as well (
Scissor
redirects to
Scissors
;
Tropic
redirects to
Tropics
).