Talk:Eaton

Cleanup attempts

(Relocating from my talk page.)

Hello. You base your wholesale reversions of my edits on WP:MOSDAB and WP:D#Lists, but you selectively apply some parts of those guidelines, while ignoring others.

• You cite the reference in WP:D that states "Lists of articles of which the disambiguated term forms only a part of the article title don't belong here", but you ignore the statement in WP:MOSDAB which states: "However, if you find that another editor has felt the need to create such entries, please do not remove them."

  Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia -- space is not at a premium. The links you have unnecessarily removed are hardly extraneous, are in no way distracting, and are certainly associated with the topic of the page. There is no harm, and much value, in including them on the page. As WP:MOSDAB states, "usefulness to the reader is the principal goal", and there is no indication that including, for example, the USS Eaton is useful, but Eaton Bray is not.

• You also seem to ignore the guideline ("the link should be the first word or phrase in each entry"), when you insist on this awkward wording: "Former name of Eatonia, Saskatchewan, Canada"
• As for the heading "People with the surname Eaton" (and its location), you're absolutely right -- that's what the guideline says. It's nonsensical and unnecessary, and a prime example of when the reference at the end of the guideline ("For every style suggestion above, there's some page which has a good reason to do something else") should arguably come into play. Having said that, the editor who drafted that part of the guideline clearly would disagree with me on this, and I don't have the energy or inclination to seek a change to the guideline. I agree with you, therefore, that it should remain as you edited it.
• You'll have to explain to me why the reference to descendants and to Timothy Eaton after the reference to Eaton family needs to be removed, since a reference to family isn't always understood to mean descendants three generations removed, and adding Timothy Eaton provides clarity (in addition to the indentation).
• Similarly, you'll have to explain why adding Canada to the entry for the Eaton Auditorium is unnecessary, but is okay for Toronto Eaton Centre or Eaton Hall.
• Why have you changed the alphabetical order of the subheadings for places? If you think that there is a more logical order for readers, please explain. Similarly, except for the surnames, as mentioned above, why do you revert the alphabetical order of the other headings?

I hope that helps explain my edits. Skeezix1000 17:09, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• You quote MOSDAB's note on Title County, Title City, Title Hospital, and Title University as if it applied to all articles with Title in them. It doesn't.
• I chose the "awkward" phrasing to avoid indicating that Canada was formerly known as Eaton (or that Sasketchewan was, as your current wording does).
• There's a long discussion on the MOSDAB talk page explaining the sensibility of distinguishing a list of people who happen to have a particular name from the things that actually need disambiguation. A simple "People" heading should be used for people who are known just as Title, not for people with the surname (or given name) Title.
• Reference to family is simple, but no big deal.
• I don't think it's unnecessary, just didn't happen to keep it; no big deal either.
• I didn't use the alphabetical list for places because I favored the ordering of places known as Eaton before places only formerly known as Eaton (whose articles aren't Eaton).
• Again, the order of articles isn't to be alphabetical, but by likelihood. Places named Eaton are more likely to be sought through searching for "Eaton" than Eaton Centre shopping malls in Canada.

I'd suggest seeking input from User:Interiot, who tagged the article for cleanup in the first place. -- JHunterJ 18:05, 10 November 2006 (UTC)