Judgepedia:Naming conventions

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Naming conventions are guidelines on what to call articles you create on Judgepedia. This is a wiki, so the guidelines are suggestions, not rules carved in stone.

As Judgepedia grows and changes, some conventions that once made sense may become outdated. When in doubt, though, we urge you to use these guidelines.

If you disagree with the guidelines or have some suggested guidelines you prefer, please use the Judgepedia Naming convention's Talk Page to start a discussion.

In general, in naming your article, try to make it as easy as possible for a general reader who comes to Judgepedia--someone who isn't already familiar with legalese and all the terminology surrounding the court system and judiciary.

General conventions

People

The naming conventions for people starts from the idea that names in the format <First name> <Last name> are usually the least problematic as page name for an article on a single person. Middle initials are unnecessary except in cases where there are two well known individuals with the same names ("George Bush" vs "George W Bush"), and punctuation (outside of apostrophes) need never be used.

The title of an article on Judgepedia about a person should be the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things.

The title of the article should be:

• The name of the person that is most generally recognisable
• the name that is unambiguous with the name of other articles

Example: Jeanne Stempien.

Avoid abbreviations

Convention: Avoid the use of abbreviations, including acronyms, in page naming unless the term you are naming is almost exclusively known only by its abbreviation and is widely known and used in that form.

For example, an article on an Alaskan court district should start with "Alaska" not "AK".

Lowercase words in titles

Convention: Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is a proper noun (such as a name) or is otherwise almost always capitalized.

Prefer singular nouns

Convention: In general, create page titles that are singular, unless that noun is always in a plural form in English. For example, a page should be named "Court" rather than "Courts".

Use common names

Convention: Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things. For example, "Kris Pickering" rather than "Mary "Kris" Pickering".

Be precise when necessary

Convention: Please, do not write or put an article on a page with an ambiguously named title as though that title had no other meanings. If all possible words have multiple meanings, go with the rule of thumb of naming guidelines and use the more popular term.

Use of "and"

Sometimes two or more closely-related or complementary concepts are most sensibly discussed on a common page rather than a page each. Where an overarching name is not practicable, use each individual name in the article title, joined by "and".

Elections

Convention: The practice at Judgepedia is to name an article about a court's elections in this format: "(State name) + (court name) + elections." Thus, there will always be an article called "Ohio Supreme Court elections" and this article will contain information on the current court election, and prior elections as well. In the event that an article like this becomes so well developed that it merits a spin-off of some information, the main article will remain and a separate page can be created to detail a particular election.

v • d • e Partisan and non-partisan elections of state Supreme Court justices 2008 elections • 2008 election results • Alabama elections • Arkansas elections • Georgia elections • Idaho elections • Illinois elections • Kentucky elections • Louisiana elections • Michigan elections • Minnesota elections • Mississippi elections • Montana elections • Nevada elections • New Mexico elections • North Carolina elections • North Dakota elections • Ohio elections • Oregon elections • Pennsylvania elections • Texas elections • Washington elections • West Virginia Supreme Court elections • Wisconsin elections •

Articles about judges

Federal judges

The naming convention for federal judges is:

• Call articles about federal judges as their name appears in the biographical directory at the Federal Judicial Center, but omit any suffixes or prefixes.
• If the FJC calls your judge "Jose Alberto Cabranes", that's what you should title your article...not "Jose A. Cabranes" or "Jose Cabranes".
• However, if the FJC called him "Jose Alberto Cabranes, Jr.", or "Jose Alberto Cabranes, III", your article should be entitled "Jose Alberto Cabranes", omitting the suffix.
• If you run across an article about a federal judge that does not follow this naming convention, you can change the title of the article or leave it as is, depending on your assessment of whether confusion or duplication is likely to result.

If you are wondering whether an article already exists about the judge you plan to write about, the best way to look using the Judgepedia search box is to enter just the judge or justice's last name. That increases the odds that you will find any relevant articles before you possibly re-create the wheel.

• See also Judgepedia:Judges and justices.

State supreme court justices

• Do not use suffixes or prefixes.
• It's a judgement call as to whether you should use the justice's middle name or middle initial. For current, sitting justices, the convention has been to not use middle names or initials, although you can find exceptions.
• For former state supreme court justices, the current recommendation is that you use the justice's middle name or middle initial if that is how the justice is referred to on any source material you find about former state supreme court justices on official state supreme court websites, but don't use suffixes or prefixes even if the source material does. The thinking here is that by following this naming convention, we maximize the chances that the title of the article will coincide with what someone else who is writing about federal judges will call an article about the same person in his/her capacity as a federal judge. A fair number of state supreme court justices have served as federal judges and vice versa. Note that this naming convention doesn't guarantee a match, since the state supreme court website you're using as a resource may use a different naming convention that the naming conventions used by the Federal Judicial Center.
• Be aware as you are writing the article that in four state supreme courts, the judges who sit on the court are referred to as "judges" not "justices".

Other specific conventions

Books, publications

Convention: Use the title of the work as the article's title.

Categories

See: Categories.

Lists on Judgepedia

Convention: Put a list of Xs as list of Xs, rather than Xs, famous Xs, listing of important Xs, list of noted Xs, list of all Xs, etc.