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Sorting of fictional characters

Should fictional characters be sorted by last name first as real people are? At Zipper Harris I came across {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Zipper}} and that looked funny to me. —Largo Plazo (talk) 21:54, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I would say so. Thinking of David Copperfield, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Richard Hannay. Kittybrewster ☎ 22:34, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Is there consensus that fictional characters should be sorted by the same principle as real people?
  • Potter, Harry
  • Bond, James
  • Arthur 01 of Britain
  • Snicket, Lemony
If these are correct (rather than H, J, K for King, L) then I'll move all except Bond at Category: Literature portals. If H,J,K,L are correct then I'll move Bond. Or someone who doesn't need confirmation will beat me to it.
By the way, should all of those Portals that have portal Categories be listed as pages in the category? I would have thought those Portals would simply be in the portal Categories, not listed directly. --P64 (talk) 20:59, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
On second thought, whatever may be the answer here, I'll take general note but leave the Portals to others. I'm not sure Harry Potter portal and company should be Biography portals at all. [Oops, they are Literature portals. Yesterday I moved Barack Obama and Shakespeare to O and S among Biography portals. -P64]
For what it's worth, as a reader-browser I would look first under H, A, and L —as I would look for "Harry Potter series", "Arthur(ian) legends", "Lemony Snicket books". --P64 (talk) 15:01, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
P.S. I'll add general notice of the issue at WP Fictional characters. --P64 (talk) 15:01, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any Wikipedia policy or discussion, so I'll go the real world route. The problem being is that in the real world, indexing fictional characters is something not really done until somewhat recently and there is currently no standard on what to do. So, sorting on either the first or last name is appropriate. Sorting on the last name is more common on "real world names"... David Copperfield or Harry Potter. Sorting on the first name is more common in Science fiction type works because names can be "weird". Bgwhite (talk) 21:52, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Categorizing by employers

I'd like to open a discussion on:

  1. Categorizing people by former employers.
  2. Categories such as "Former Foobar." I thought I had seen recently that this was at least discouraged, but I'm not finding that now.
  3. Categorizing freelancers and the like by who they worked for. For me, this has mainly come up regarding writers, but it probably has other applicability that I'm not thinking of at the moment.

My thinking is that categorizing based on employers should be based on how strong the association is between the two. For example, a reporter who earned a Pulitzer at Newspaper A but now works at Newspaper B should probably have a cat for Newspaper A. But a person who served four years in the Army, and whose military experience has had little influence on the rest of his life, should not have an Army cat.

I think categories such as "Former Foobar" should be determined based on the number of current and former foobar articles. When there is plenty of both, "Former Foobar" can be a useful distinction.

I think freelancers and the like should generally not be categorized by who they worked for. Exceptions would be for those who have strong ties, such as if the freelancer has done at least half of his work for a given organization, or the freelancer appears in at least half the productions of the organization. Maurreen (talk) 08:58, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with what you say about "former" employee categories. I would add that there should generally be an X_employee category, and then if justified, it should be subdivided into Current_X_employee and Former_X_employee categories, with all members of the original category being placed into one of the subcategories.
Regarding the strength of association, I tend to favor inclusion in the category if it makes any sense at all. If there is a need to distinguish the different pages in the category, then subcategories are in order.
-- JPMcGrath (talk) 00:47, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Can you provide some example that shows that lack of support? -- JPMcGrath (talk) 03:35, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. Maurreen (talk) 20:34, 24 April 2010 (UTC)


People with several careers

There exist people that have has several distinguish careers, like sports and politics. Should notability be met before categorization should be done? An example is Jon Fossum that met notability on politcs but doesn't met WP:ATHLETE. Should Jon Fossum be categorized as Category:Norwegian orienteers or not?. --Kslotte (talk) 19:44, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe the project page could enlighten this dilemma. --Kslotte (talk) 19:47, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

So my view is that in order not to be categorized as an orienteer, you'd have to do it on a pure hobby basis, say, running twice a month or so. This guy clearly competed in orienteering, winning not one but five national championships. I've never heard that you have to meet specific guidelines for every category, persons are what they are. Geschichte (talk) 20:13, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

"winning not one but five national championships" ... when he is that good, he probably has been competing on international pro level. But the current text doesn't reflect that. At Wikipedia we should not assume things, even if they may be very likely. We need the years he won. If he won before 1962 (EC introduced), then he met WP:ATHLETE.--Kslotte (talk) 21:18, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Categories represent defining aspects of an article. This is independent of the notability of the topic. For instance, Fossum should be in the category 'People from Asker', although being a person from Asker does not in itself make one notable. The issue end up with: does [or should] the articles discuss the matter or not. In this instance, it is clearly within the scope that the article should discuss Fossum's activities as an orienteerer. Had the article reached FA, would there be a paragraph or more about it? Most certainly. This mention is of course independent of Fossum's political career, which is what makes him notable enough for an article [presuming he fails WP:ATHLETE, which I have not checked]. It seems very safe to add this sort of article to the category of orienteerers. Arsenikk (talk) 22:37, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for your valuable comment. It's something I see should be written on main page as a guideline. --Kslotte (talk) 14:58, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Good thing this was brought up before as there is a similar case with Tony Chua, and I'm interested to know what others say on this. The article creator has categorized Tony Chua as a Filipino footballer (association football). The highest level of football that Tony Chua has played was in college and that doesn't make his footballing career notable under WP:Notability (sports) for association football. The article creator is very adamant that Category:Filipino footballers should stand. And although this may not have anything to do with this but looking at the pages within Category:Filipino footballers, Tony Chua is the odd one out. Banana Fingers (talk) 14:13, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Old territorial disputes

Some categories use geographic places, either as the categorizing criteria ("People from Foo") or as an intersection ("Artists from Foo"). With modern people there's little problem, but things may get complicated when we start to work with people from some centuries ago. In many cases an antique country or territory may be considered to have been "spiritually replaced" by a modern one (for example, the Argentine Confederation by modern Argentina, or the Empire of Brazil by modern Brazil), and we can simply work as if it was the same country all the time. However, there are still cases that may be doubtful. For example

  • The man was born at a place that is currently an independent country, but at the time was a colony, part of an empire or other such thing. The easiest example, the 13 British colonies in North America, modern US. Are their people to be categorized as Americans or as British? (notice that this may include both Patriots and Loyalists).
  • The man was born at a country that would be later absorbed by another bigger country, and end existing as such. Should he be included inside the categories of the big country, or at a category of the former country?
  • Two old countries may still exist today, but a specific territory that used to belong to one may be later anexed by the other. If Zorro was real, whould he be categorized as American or Mexican? MBelgrano (talk) 16:01, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I think in many cases, it's OK to categorize under both. If one is to be chosen, it should be based on the stronger link. Anyone from anyplace that is now part of the 50 U.S. states and D.C. should be normally be categorized as American. Exceptions for that would be for people who were essentially passing through. Maurreen (talk) 16:10, 28 April 2010 (UTC) Also, sometimes a subcategory might make the distinctions clear. Maurreen (talk) 16:11, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Policy discussion on this guideline

See Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Inconsistencies.2Fambiguities_in_categories_about_various_forms_of_bigotry. Note especially the creation of Category:People_accused_of_antisemitism. (Quickly deleted.) CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Note my relevant proposal as well:
Under Wikipedia:BLP#Categories.2C_lists_and_navigation_templates add to the first sentence which reads Category names do not carry disclaimers or modifiers, so the case for each category must be made clear by the article text and its reliable sources. Add a second sentence which reads If there is any ambiguity about inclusion in a category that might violate Biographies of Living People, individuals' names should be removed.
Thanks for any input. CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:56, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Archive to 2009

I can see this article needs updating. Archiving old talk would help. Will do hearing no dissent. CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:49, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposals to update/clarify guidelines

Including per current BLP language at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Categories.2C_lists_and_navigation_templates:

Category names do not carry disclaimers or modifiers, so the case for each category must be made clear by the article text and its reliable sources. If there is ambiguity about an individual's inclusion in a category that violates Biographies of Living People policy, the individual's name should be removed. ... Caution should be used with categories that suggest a person has a poor reputation (see false light). ... These principles apply equally to lists and navigation templates based on religious beliefs and sexual orientation, or which suggest that the persons included in the list or template have a poor reputation.
LaterNote: continued discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Inconsistencies.2Fambiguities_in_categories_about_various_forms_of_bigotry have nixed the new "ambiguity" language and other views and language under discussion. However, other changes still need to be made. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:49, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


I've created a couple subsections to make it easier to reply. Current section/subsection names are in bold. If there's any confusion, please quote the section you are replying to.

Two intro sections

  • Keep people categories separate Add something like: Categories with a general subject title that infers a person may have a poor reputation should not include biographical articles and lists of people. No disclaimer should be used to get around this principle. (Note: as is currently done in Category:Antisemitism and Category:Homophobia.)
  • Biographies of living people Add brief sentence: See the above link for the most current and detailed explanation of policy.

"General considerations" section

    • Not all categories are comprehensive: I don't understand what this means. Someone explain so we can clarify language.
    • Exert extra precaution with regard to the categorization of living people: Should be first entry and be stated as a reminder since it is duplicative to second section.
    • Categorize by characteristics of the person, not characteristics of the article: Since we are being duplicative, good place to remind people that this is especially true if it infers person has a poor reputation.

"Creating a new category" section

First, make clear in introduction that this must follow policies stated above.

    • Clearly define the category Again make clear you can't put in disclaimers for categories that might put people in a bad light. Make point about why putting someone in the Category:Atheists is different from putting them in Category:Racism. (Perhaps note that one can create categories for people known to combat racism. Or course, what about anti-atheists? It does get complicated.)

"Experiencing a problematic categorization" section

First change section name to "Dealing with a problematic categorization"

  • Improper categorization Is there an updated place where people deal with these issues? Very dated list. Maybe just list last two years, if there still is such a place?
  • Inappropriate categories
    • "If still needed, find or create a more appropriate category, for re-categorizing this single article." Do we want to create category for just one person? Reword or eliminate this sentence?
    • - updated link/template?

I'm going to post these proposal/discussion points to a couple relevant talk pages. Hopefully we can clean this up. Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:00, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

How are readers going to find misspelled names in categories?

This makes no sense to me:

"For a surname which begins with Mc, the category sort key should always be typed as Mac with the remainder of the name in lowercase—for example, Macdonald, Maccluskey or Macmorris—regardless of how the surname is actually spelled."

Phone books don't do it that way. Last names starting with "Mc" keep their spelling, and are after "MB" (in the business white pages, for example). And the letter after Mc is not changed to lower case.

Readers may have a difficult time finding a "Mc" name in a category if the name is misspelled by changing the spelling to "Mac." --Timeshifter (talk) 05:51, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Looks like one more problem in addition to those I listed above which I haven't gotten around to fixing yet. Not one I can help you with unfortunately. Evidently not too many people watch this page, much as it needs it. CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:17, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) I was bold and removed 2 controversial sections for discussion:

  • The first letter of each word should be in upper case, and all subsequent letters should be in lower case, regardless of the correct spelling of the name. Thus, Lena D'Água sorts as [[Category:Portuguese female singers|Dagua, Lena]]. (Upper and lower case letters sort separately.) (Later note: I no longer want to remove this. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:20, 14 October 2010 (UTC).)
  • For a surname which begins with Mc, the category sort key should always be typed as Mac with the remainder of the name in lowercase—for example, Macdonald, Maccluskey or Macmorris—regardless of how the surname is actually spelled.

Phone books don't do this, and neither should we. We should use common spelling rules. People aren't going to remember weird rules anyway. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:25, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I see your bold and raise you a heck of a lot of existing practice. (IOW, I reverted your change.) There should be a good consensus before changing something that has been in place as long as this has. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:33, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
The consensus that I have seen is that most who have addressed this topic are opposed to the practice. Every so often an editor who has not previously been involved in this controversy questions the practice. Then one of the people who are in favor of keeping the practice because it has almost always been done this way jumps in and says that such a timeworn practice must have consensus to be changed.
I have not been able to find the original discussion of this matter so I have no idea of the strength of the consensus that established the practice. I suspect it was not very strong if such a discussion existed at all.
My own feeling is that the current practice is misleading and inconsistent. A user should not be expected to know that a person's name is not being sorted as it is spelled. We do not group "Stewart" and "Stuart" together nor do we group "Smith", "Smyth" and "Smythe" together.
I think it strange that consensus over rules reliable sources. JimCubb (talk) 21:33, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) There is no consensus (and it can't be shown there ever was consensus) for incorrect spelling.

See this diff. It looks like this idea was more heavily implemented back around the beginning of 2009. I, and others, on other articles, must have missed this, since it is a minor change. Or maybe some people brought it up here, and got the wikignome runaround.

Anyway, whatever the past consensus, (or bullshit consensus because few people watch this page), current consensus is against this illogical idea of promoting bad spelling.

I copied all the related Mc and Mac discussions to an archive. See:

I see no consensus for illogical spelling. In fact over time, more and more examples are shown of places that use actual spelling, and not past spellings. Library of Congress, almost all phone books nowadays, etc...

Most relevant is that people with names like McDonald (Paul McDonald in the discussion) are offended when people try to misspell their name and put them in illogical alphabetical order according to 17th century spelling. Who the hell knows all the past variations of spelling their names? Especially in the United States where many names were changed at the point of immigration. It's just silly. :)

It's obscurity for the sake of what?

Also, it could be considered a BLP violation to misspell someone's name. People take offense at this kind of stuff. Even for sorting purposes. See the examples discussed in the Mac-Mc talk archive.

I looked for consensus in the Mac-Mc talk archive, and found none. It looks like some editors inserted this without consensus, and keep inserting it in spite of opposition. That is not consensus, nor established practice. That is just tag-teaming a guideline. That is not guideline protocol for consensus. Rough consensus has usually been against the misspelling. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:42, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the sub-page. I read what came before I became interested in the matter and I have found an imbalance in the arguments.
The various original proponents of "Only use ′Mac' " merely laid the idea out and, long after it had been attacked for some of the reasons presented now, snuck it into the documentation without comment. There appears to be no attempt at sourcing the position. Later proponents have defended the practice because "it has always been done this way."
The opponents of "Only use 'Mac' ", who could be called proponents of "spell it correctly" (or sic) have offered sources for their position as well as some logic that should be overwheming. As I have noted before, sources and logic availeth naught against tradition and opinion.
What now? If some one changes the documentation to reflect sources and logic it will just be reverted. How does that documentation get changed permanently? JimCubb (talk) 22:02, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
In a word. Stubbornness (and logic). :) --Timeshifter (talk) 01:42, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Any further discussion? --Timeshifter (talk) 23:17, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Apparently not but less than 24 hours after you make the change some one will revert it on the grounds that "it has always been done this way". There will be no other justification for the reversion and probably no attempt at discussion. JimCubb (talk) 20:40, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
OK. It seems that there is justification for making only the first letter capitalized. That is a limitation of the MediaWiki software. See:
I struck out that suggested removal higher up. See later note there.
I still see no justification for changing the Mac/Mc spelling though. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:24, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
I just deleted the paragraph relevant to "Mac". The only justification for keeping it is that it has been done that way for so long. Even the BLP issue has been ignored by the traditionalists. JimCubb (talk) 19:16, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Mc used to be sorted as Mac in British phone books: see eg collation. It seems fairly obvious to me that it is more useful to sort John McDonald and John Macdonald together rather than apart. Occuli (talk) 22:04, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Is it done in British phone books now? It's not done in American phone books. I believe from looking at your talk page that you lean towards American spelling unless obviously wrong. See: User talk:Occuli#Now you mention it. Wouldn't the same logic apply to this sorting rule? There are more Americans than British, and so less people would be confused if we stick to American sorting rules on this particular issue. --Timeshifter (talk) 10:37, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
I lean to keeping the status quo unless it is wrong. Here the status quo is (see Ephebi below) the long-established UK sorting of mac. It is just lazy to sort (say) Macleod, MacLeod and McLeod using ASCII, when there is an established convention to deal with it properly. And indeed Macleod is a Scottish name, not an American one. (There is no established convention anywhere AFAIK to put (say) Stevens and Stephens together.) Occuli (talk) 13:04, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
Just checked and Yes it is. BT has traditionally put considerable effort into the collation of their phone books. I guess American phone companies don't and have just let ASCII do the sorting. Considering your point that there are more Americans on WP than others and so American practice should be followed: firstly the MOS is clear that WP should respect and reflect the most appropriate dialect. Secondly, Mac or Mc is originally a Scottish or Irish name so citing current American usage is irrelevant. Ephebi (talk) 11:02, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) Occuli and Ephebi. It is not a matter of disrespect or laziness in the U.S.. It is the status quo. Also, it is usually considered disrespectful here to misspell or mispronounce someone else's name. One is supposed to make a little effort, or apologize while trying to pronounce a name. Most people in the U.S. wouldn't tell someone else how to spell or pronounce their own name. Macleod, MacLeod, McLeod and a qazillion other names exist in the USA, and their pronunciation and spelling have gone through many permutations as people moved all over the USA. I have roots from Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, American Indian, etc.. Through hundreds of years. Like many other Americans. People end up with the names they end up with. Most Americans are long past remembering any type of "correct spelling" or spelling variations. These are not nationalistic statements on my part, nor xenophobia, nor ignorance. I believe the Manual of Style says to use the most common methods. There are more Americans than British. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:11, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It is because the names Mac etc are not particularly common in the US, unlike (say) in Scotland, and so there is no great need to think of an appropriate way of sorting them. Fortunately Wikipedia does not take into account the number of people adopting particular habits as otherwise we would have to pay a great deal of attention to the English spoken in India (English being an official language in India). (No-one is suggesting that any names should be misspelt. The suggestion is that sorting should be done so that different spellings or capitalisations of the same name should be together rather than separated.) Macleod, MacLeod, McLeod are Scottish names so they should be sorted as the Scottish sort them, namely as if they were all Macleod: see WP:ENGVAR. Occuli (talk) 19:24, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
I just looked at my phone book. It is for a metropolitan area of a couple million people. There are 2 big pages of fine-print listings starting with Mac, and 19 pages starting with Mc. WP:ENGVAR does not cover sorting, and anyway, how could we integrate 2 methods of sorting? --Timeshifter (talk) 13:46, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
"Retaining the existing variety" is what is referred to here, not integrating. There are many cases where we uniformly follow the American way of doing things, and many where we follow the "other" (British, International, Commonwealth) way, and a good few where we do both, a handful where we do neither if we can help it. Rich Farmbrough, 22:03, 8 December 2011 (UTC).

Fictional people

Should sub-categories of fictional characters be included in sub-categories of real people in Category:People by occupation? For example category:Fictional assassins in Category:Assassins or Category:Fictional doctors in Category:Physicians.--Traveler100 (talk) 16:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I had assumed that 'people' included both real and fictional people, so I would say yes. Occuli (talk) 16:53, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
Please don't create new sections about this in more talk pages (this is the third). The main discussion is now at Wikipedia talk:Categorization#categories - real and fictional. This is a minor issue but if you really think something needs input from more places then post a link to the main discussion instead of starting new discussions everywhere. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:40, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

foreigners

Yesterday I created Category:Photography in Japan, which I think and hope usefully combines subcategories, and what may later become subcategories, of stuff related to, well, photography in Japan.

Its most richly populated subcategory by far is Category:Japanese photographers. Although some may have emigrated from Japan when very young and never returned, surely only a negligible percentage didn't conduct photography in Japan, and therefore it's not necessary to look through the article on each to see if he or she had indeed been active and productive in Japan; instead, the whole category can be thrown in.

However, I was also able to add non-Japanese photographers of Japan. These articles are now unsubcategorized, and their number is growing. I'm not so happy about this: somebody looking at Category:Photography in Japan could reasonably wonder why the foreigners are so much more conspicuous than the Japanese photographers, listing of whom requires a click on another link.

I'm therefore thinking of perpetrating something like "Category:Foreign photographers in Japan" (and eventually, if their numbers suffice, "Category:Foreign photographers in France" and the rest). However, outside particularly significant or strong collocations ("foreign relations", etc), "foreign" isn't much used in categorizing. (An exception is "Category:Foreign educators in Japan".) So I'm a bit apprehensive. Any comments on "Category:Foreign photographers in XYZ"? -- Hoary (talk) 10:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

PS Perhaps what worries me are the unwanted meanings of "foreign". These aren't alien photographers; they're simply photographers who don't happen to be Japanese. -- Hoary (talk) 12:51, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I guess I'm confused as to what the qualification would be for being in the Foreign photographers in Japan category. Would it be just anyone who's ever published a book/work/series of photos in Japan? If I'm understanding everything correctly, then, I suppose that the category would make sense. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 13:53, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
For a recent photographer, a handy rule of thumb would be publication of an entire book by a non-vanity publisher. This is not really fair, as a number have produced cliché-drenched and forgettable books, while others (e.g. Elliott Erwitt) have produced fine work that (as far as I know) has never been put out as a volume all to itself; but it's a start.
A "series of photos" in itself wouldn't be enough, but of course if an editor found critical discussion of the series then it would be a different matter. (I think that William Klein for example has turned his Tokyo work into about one quarter of a book but that this has been much commented on.)
All this really starts from my interest in what people are photographing. I think I'm not unusual in being more interested in the fact that a book or exhibition of photographs are of area X than in the fact that their creator is from area Y. So my own ideal Wikipedia would have such categories as "Photographer of Osaka" (for any photographer, whether from Osaka, Ouagadougou or Mars, who'd published a substantial amount of photos of Osaka). But that's not going to happen any time soon. As an interim measure, I'll take the concept (however worded) of "Person who's photographed [country]". But how best to attain this? -- Hoary (talk) 14:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Another possibility would be to have Category:Photographers in Japan, which would have as a subcategory Category:Japanese photographers. If (let's say) American photographers proliferated, there could also be Category:American photographers in Japan; but there'd never be "foreign" or "non-Japanese" anything. Comments? -- Hoary (talk) 14:11, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

And of course likewise for Category:Photographers in India (with Category:Indian photographers as a subcategory), and so forth. ¶ Hello? Anyone there? (If not, I'll just go ahead and make the changes.) -- Hoary (talk) 12:42, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Nobody interested? Then perhaps I'll just do what I want. Incidentally, I notice that User:BomBom created Category:Expatriate photographers in Egypt: an interesting idea, but I don't think there's any other "Category:Expatriate photographers in XYZ", and I'm not keen to create any. -- Hoary (talk) 14:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposal at BLP

Based on a discussion at WT:BLP there is a proposal for changing the way we handle contentious categorization of living people. Gigs (talk) 14:44, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorting of people without family names

I came here looking for guidance about what should be done for people without proper surnames, specifically Icelanders and Scandinavians living before proper family names were introduced. Such people are sorted on their first names in the respective languages, since sorting on the patronymic would only collect siblings, but not other family members, and would also indicate that the father (or sometimes mother) is more important than the subject itself, but I don't know what the English practice is. Is there an uncodified consensus about how these names should be handled?

Andejons (talk) 20:56, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

What I have found in working with {{DEFAULTSORT}} and |listas= is that there are at least two "accepted" sort schemes for Icelanders. One is to maintain the Icelandic sort scheme everywhere so that the sort value is given-name patronym with no comma between them. You can imagine what this does to the very small number of people who insist upon consistency in sorting. The other scheme is a little more complicated. In general the patronym is treated as a surname so that the sort value is patronym, given-name but for Iceland-specific categories the category tag has a pipe that sets the sort value for that category in the Iceland sort scheme.
Scandinavians and Celts who lived before "proper surnames were introduced" cannot be sorted according to their surnames, obviously, and are generally sorted by their names as they appear. (Fee ap Fie ap Fo ap Fum is sorted just like that.)
Arabs, Central-Asians and others who may or may not use surnames are treated on a case-to-case basis. There are articles on some of these naming conventions.
If you are not more confused than you were when you started reading this, let me know. I have merely scratched the surface of the complexities of the issue. I have not touched the personal preferences of various editors. JimCubb (talk) 22:38, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
No, I think I understand - consensus for sorting on first names for categories were patronymics is the norm, but differing opinions on what to do in mixed categories. Thank you.
Andejons (talk) 08:04, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
If you have some time, Category:Biography articles without listas parameter could use your assistance. In many cases the sort value from {{DEFAULTSORT}} can be used but sometimes a sort value must be created. There are over 60,000 pages in the category right now so there ought to be more than enough examples of the various naming conventions. JimCubb (talk) 20:05, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Conclusion of the discussion in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Iceland#Sort_keys_for_Icelandic_names:

  • For Icelandic related categories pipe "first name second name" (no commas)
  • For DEFAULTSORT and other categories use "second name, first name" (with commas). Treat second name as surname.
  • For listas use DEFAULTSORT value (since it mainly categorises in non-Icelandic categories).

-- Magioladitis (talk) 09:07, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

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