Talk:Naming conventions for British units

I used to prefer "UK" as the page name suffix for British units because:

• it's very short.
• "British" doesn't seem to sit well with Irish regiments.

After 2 years' experience of using the site I've noticed some problems with "UK":

• it doesn't seem to sit very well with units that are named after a geographical area outside the UK, eg "Suez Canal Defences" or "Lines of Communication Palestine".
• it looks too similar to "US", which I think we should keep.
• it could be confusing because category names always use "British", and "UK" is omitted from page names if the unit name already includes the word "British".

Now I think it might be better to use:

• "British Army" where a unit was in the Army for most or all of its existence (this still solves the Irish problem).
• "British" where a unit was never in the Army or changed services and was outside the Army for a significant part of its career (eg 63rd (Royal Naval) Division, Volunteer Training Corps units, air units that switched from RFC or RNAS to RAF in 1918).

It's still possible to change this using Special:ReplaceText but it's not something to be done lightly. Does anyone have any thoughts on this issue? --GavinRobinson (talk) 09:09, 8 January 2017 (PST)