Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography/2013 archive

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Past or present tense when discussing a dead person's beliefs, teachings and writings

In many bios of dead persons the history is written in past tense, but the writings are described in the present tense. Examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin#Theology ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle#Aristotle.27s_scientific_method The MOS only allows past tense for bios of dead persons. I suggest one of these two options: 1. specifying in the MOS: "Writings and theories of dead persons can be described in the present tense." 2. "Writings and theories of dead persons must also be discussed in the past tense." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Markewilliams (talk • contribs) 02:44, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Nationality in the lede?

Somebody pointed out to me that this MOS requires the nationality to be put in the lede? Really? How dumb can you get? It is just silly to put the nationality of a person in the lede when that person's nationality is plainly obvious from the context. That's like saying that Elizabeth II is a (insert nationality here; I'm sure she has a lot of them) is Queen of Canada, Australia, etc., or that Barack Obama is an American politician. In many respects that MOSBIO you cited is just ridiculous. Sorry I am waxing indignant, but that is the way I feel. I have written scores of articles about Notable Americans, and in none of them have I chosen to name their nationalities when it is just obvious that they are Americans. GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:20, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

This guideline does not require nationality; it requires context. If adequate context is given by "Barack Obama is the President of the United States", it is unnecessary to state explicitly that he is an American politician. DrKiernan (talk) 08:26, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. But one should never assume knowledge on the part of a reader. Just because you may think everyone and his wife knows that someone is an American doesn't mean you're right. But as DrKiernan says, if the context is in the lede then further specification of nationality is unnecessary. I assume the article under discussion is Lloyd G. Davies? In this instance I agree the nationality should be in the lede. There is, I think, sometimes a tendency to assume that American (and sometimes British and Canadian) topics (Hollywood and Los Angeles in this case) are so well-known that nationality doesn't need to be specified. This is unencyclopaedic and too much of an assumption. Very well-known does not equate to universally known. I think you'll find that most other encyclopaedias follow suit on this one. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:26, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

No, no and no. This interpretation has to be fought at every point. When did it get slipped into the encyclopedia? One has to assume that a reader is not exactly a dope: It is so obvious that governmental leaders are citizens of the country wherein they serve that to point out that fact is like saying the sky is blue. GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:19, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps, though I am having a hard time seeing why one would get so upset over the notation that Davies was an American politician. Regardless, while you focus on politics here, this MOS considers all biographies, and there are many realms (such as sports) where it is useful to note the nationality. As such, I have reverted your removal of this from the MOS page, barring a consensus decision to remove it. Reso lute 17:56, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Which is what DrKiernan already said, is it not? We do not need to say that "Barack Obama is an American politician who is President of the United States", since that is effectively repeating information. We do need to say that "John Smith is an American politician who served as Mayor of Houston". Do you know in which country every city in the world is? No, neither do I. Neither does anyone else. So it needs to be specified. To do anything else would be to assume that the cities in one particular country (usually one's own) are better-known than those in others, which is biased and foolish. -- Necrothesp (talk) 19:41, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Houston is a town in Canada, duh. As are Rochester, Adelaide, London, Sydney and Paris. Reso lute 19:48, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:SURNAME

There are many more countries that follow Patronymic#Ethiopia naming convention, specially in East Africa. These need to be included in this section. Some examples of affected articles: Meles Zenawi, Fuad Ibrahim, Tekle Hawaryat, Tewodros II of Ethiopia, Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi, Isaias Afewerki, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and many many more through out the region: in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, and South Sudan. There is are too many articles to correct. I have tried my best to correct them. But it is nearly impossible when all news articles refer to people by their fathers or grandfathers name.

According to this MOS, even though titles of articles will refer to people by their most commonly cited name, in subsequent mentions, the given name is used if the name is patronymic. If no objections, I will be adding these countries to the list of Country-specific usage. አቤል ዳዊት (Janweh) (talk) 01:51, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Present tense

I think this recent addition is confusing and should be removed:

Use the present tense when summarizing or quoting written works or other artistic creations:

In his book, Bob begins his argument with an anecdote ...

If there is a shift in the time frame within the world of the text, you may need to change tense. Write as if the actions of the work exist in an eternal present:

At this point in John's story, Jack becomes afraid as he considers what he has done and what it will mean for his future.

"Summarizing or quoting written works" is not the subject of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:23, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Someone has expressed confusion over biographies being generally written in the past tense for dead people. Often biographies of writers will have significant amounts of information about their written works. --JFHutson (talk) 02:35, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

In every writer, artist or philosopher's bio, her works are discussed in the eternal present tense, violating the MOS for BDPs to be written exclusively in the past tense. ^[1] If we don't include a note on how to discuss a writer's/philosopher's/artist's work here, where do we include such a note?Markewilliams (talk) 14:20, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

^ "How (and Why) Do I Write in Literary Present Tense?" (PDF). MOS. Vanderbilt University. Retrieved 9 January 2013.

It's definitely not always going to be appropriate to use the past tense when referencing written works. Context is very important, and I think the wording used should be thought about carefully. Consider:

George Orwell was a British writer. In 1936, he goes to Spain and fights in the Spanish Civil War, according to his book Homage to Catalonia.

When to use past and when to use present is not very easy to succinctly describe, I think. Perhaps the guidance would be better if it were worded to permit use of the present tense in some cases, rather than require it.

Formerip (talk) 15:26, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

If the stylebook indeed REQUIRES the use of any given tense in situations like this, then, yes, it should be changed to permit. (This is not really a style question anyway, but a composition question.) GeorgeLouis (talk) 15:57, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The MoS doesn't require anything, but it confuses the reader by saying that BDPs should generally be written in the past tense. I know what it means, but some (or at least one) people are reading it to mean that all verbs in a BDP should be past tense. At least some qualification needs to be made. Maybe someone should write an essay on Literary present tense and link it if my little guide is too confusing. --JFHutson (talk) 16:30, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm getting increasingly confused. 1) What has WP:BDP got to do with this? 2) Is it suggested that the George Orwell example above, "…he goes to Spain…" is preferred usage? 3) Is there an example from a biography article which a) uses the literary present tense; or b) doesn't but ought to? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Bios of dead persons are to be written in the past tense as per the MOS. However, when referring to the dead person's works (literature, art, philosophy) the MOS does not permit anything to be written in the present tense, yet most articles (see Aristotle and John Calvin) include references to their writings in the present tense. I was going to change two articles to comply with the MOS by making all those references past tense ("Calvin believed...said...argued"), but others disagreed. Finally we found a style manual by Vanderbilt University in which it explained dead person's writings are normally referred to in the eternal present tense. Now everyone discussing this subject agrees and there is complete consensus on referring to works in the eternal present tense. And almost everyone agrees that it needs to be in the MOS, either here or somewhere else that tells how to write a bio, so that the way articles are written now is permitted by the MOS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Markewilliams (talk • contribs) 17:03, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the links. I like the explanation at Talk:John Calvin#Why are Calvin's teachings presented in the present tense?, "it is common to use the present tense when describing written work, because the work still says it." As GeorgeLouis wrote above, it seems more a question of composition than something to be adjudicated in a Manual of Style. I still believe that adding this will confuse readers. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:02, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

"Notable mainly for past events"

This wording is contained in WP:OPENPARA, but it doesn't seem to me to make a lot of sense. Surely everyone who is notable is "notable mainly for past events"?

I would assume that the guidance should say something like "...people whose notability is substantially in the past and who have fallen into obscurity". But there's an alternative view that it just means "...people who first became famous a long time ago...".

This has come up at Talk:Gérard_Depardieu#In_resp._to_all_the_above:_We_have_a_guideline_for_lead_and_natonality, but I don't think the outcome for that article depends very much on this particular issue, so you don't need to worry too much about the detail of the specific case.

Any thoughts? Formerip (talk) 21:09, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Since no-one seems to care enough to comment, I have gone ahead and modified the wording. Formerip (talk) 01:16, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you got from this talk page section to the changes you made to the section in the manual. I'm going to revert your changes. I don't think any consensus has been established to make them. I understand the point about "past events", but I don't understand the rest. Silence may be okay, but now that I've reverted, I suggest more discussion. I also think it would be easier to understand changes to the manual when the actual language that is going to be implemented is included here on the talk page. That way everyone is on the same page, if you'll pardon the pun.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:29, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, well here is the current wording:

In most modern-day cases this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen, national or permanent resident, or if notable mainly for past events, the country where the person was a citizen, national or permanent resident when the person became notable.

To me this is gobbledygook. Nationality being related to citizenship is fine. But nationality being related to being a national is a tautology and being a permanent resident (WP:CRYSTAL) clearly does not give nationality (e.g. Piers Morgan is British, not American). Everything from "notable mainly for past events" is useless for the reason I mentioned above (it applies in all cases), and surely it cannot be intended that a person's nationality at the time of becoming notable should be fixed in amber (e.g. Arnold Schwarzenegger can be described as "Austrian and American", even though he was only Austrian at the time he first became famous).

I think what the wording is trying to say it that nationalities held, for example, during childhood or old age, which constitute biographical detail only, should not be mentioned in the lead.

So, I've tried to render all that into something that makes sense:

Any nationalities the subject has had during their period of notability should be included. In a modern-day context, "nationality" usually means holding legal citizenship and having at some time been a resident of the country in question.

Formerip (talk) 01:56, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

If silence is not good enough: I see no problems with the proposed change. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:54, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with the reasoning. I believe the current wording intentionally relies on items other than citizenship, which, by the way, is often hard to source when a person was born in one country and, for example, later became a permanent resident of another country. Thus, if an actor is born in France, moves to the U.S. when he is 3 and becomes famous, he is an American actor, not a French actor, even though we have no way of knowing whether he became a citizen of the U.S. The citizenship problem is further exacerbated by legal issues. For example, we may assume that a person born in a particular country is necessarily a citizen of that country, but that's not always the case, and we certainly don't want to get into a legal quagmire examining the laws of the natal country.

As for the problem with "mainly for past events", I understand the issue with that, but I think the meaning is clear. The manual is trying to address earlier events in the person's life. For example, a person is born in Britain and at the age of 6 becomes a famous child actor. They stop acting at 17 and never act again. They are not notable for any other reason. They move to Germany when they are 20 and remain there for the rest of their life. They were a British child actor as they are notable for past events.

I may be open to minor changes to the current text to clarify the intent of the wording, but the proposed change, in my view, alters its meaning and intent.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:27, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I notice a persistent silence on this matter, maybe because nobody sees how the proposed wording worsens the current text. Rabid nationalists will continue to apply anachronistic nationalities under the current wording, where the proposed wording seems to focus on "nationality" alone – which raises its own can of worms for almost all Europeans before nation states. I think a simplification of the current 45-word sentence to two sentences with 38 words is an improvement. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:58, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

BOB, BOD styled DMY and commas

Though it's not called for here, many DMY intros have birthplace & deathplace with the dates. Therefore, which is correct?
1- (18 January 1859, Montreal – 25 January 1959, Quebec City) or
2- (18 January 1859 in Montreal – 25 January 1959 in Quebec City).
GoodDay (talk) 06:18, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Don't overburden the lede. Keep it comprehensible. It's a sentence, or a group of sentences, not a race over hurdles.GeorgeLouis (talk) 06:24, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Then, it's best to delete the birthplace & deathplace, like so

3- (18 January 1850 – 25 January 1959)
GoodDay (talk) 06:44, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

But make sure to put the places in the Infobox and prose in the article if not already present. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:04, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

To clarify, if places are in infobox - remove from intro. If there's no infobox - place in intro. GoodDay (talk) 16:25, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Not exactly what I'm saying. The place of birth and death, unless they are important enough to the history and notability of the subject to be placed in the lead paragraph, should be in History, Early Life, Death, etc. sections. If there is an Infobox, they should also be there, per MOS (the Infobox is supposed to summarize and provide easy access to info in the article, not replace it). The birth and death places should not be in the parens with the dates right after the subject's name(s) in the lead sentence. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 02:50, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The place of birth should never be included in the birth date parenthetical in the lead sentence per the examples provided by MOS:BIO and MOS:LEAD. Places of birth and death should be included in the infobox, and may be mentioned in main body text if relevant. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:14, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes. They should not be included parenthetically at all. They should, however, always be included in the text. The infobox should not contain information not included in the text. It's a summary of the text, not a replacement for it. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:01, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Hadrat as an honorific

We have an article on this - Hadrat. The spelling 'Hazrath' is also used in our articles, eg [1], sometimes even in the article's title, eg in this truly dreadful article: Hazrat Sayed Mehboob Ali Shah Chishti Nizami. I came across this at a recent edit here. Dougweller (talk) 13:57, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Guideline needed for honorifics, there are inconsistencies

We seem to need help with religious titles and honorifics. I please request that we discuss, achieve a consensus and write down guidelines. Please see the talk page of the article Gandhi for more details, regarding a proposed move to Mahatma Gandhi. Here is an excerpt from that conversation:

Comment: WP:MoS and current usage. Religious titles derived from formal initiations or high hierarchical functions usually make it to the article's title, e.g. Pope John XXIII, Swami Vivekananda, or Mother Theresa; but this is not true for low-ranking or less known clergy, such as priests or lamas. On the other hand, titles resulting from popular veneration or extolment are inconsistent, e.g. {Saint} Francis of Assisi and {Saint} Paul the Apostle -- but Saint Andrew and Saint Peter. Though WP:COMMONNAME takes precedence, the cases of the Christian apostles show that this is not strictly followed. The honorific Mahatma is the result of popular extolment, but also one with religious meanings.

I think the main issue here is that the common name is also a religious concept, which implies a certain spiritual status (saint, mahatma, mewlana) that is impossible to verify and different from a hierarchical title. Hence the request for debate, consensus and guidelines at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style: is WP:COMMONNAME appropriate in the case of Gandhiji? What about the Christian apostles? What about {Mewlana} Rumi or {Avatar} Meher Baba? Why do popes or the patriarchs of the Catholic Church have their title in their names at Wikipedia? What about leaders of smaller religious organizations in which religious titles are also hierarchical designations, such as {Satguru} Sivaya Subramuniyaswami of Saiva Siddhanta Church? There is no obvious solution. I believe we need to keep in mind common sense, but avoid any subtle Judeo-Christian bias (as in allowing only titles that are familiar to a Western audience due to cognitive bias.)

[Cross-posted from MoS talk page, not sure which place is appropriate.]98.234.105.147 (talk) 04:31, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Meanings of the subject's middle name

I do not seem to be able to explain to User:Cotillards that there is no reason for biographical article, such as Prince Vincent of Denmark, to explain what the subject's middle name (or any first name, for that matter) means. The article about Donald Trump, for example, does not say that "Donald" means "ruler of the world" (hmmm) and that "John" means "God is gracious". That is nothing but trivia. Am I the one who is wrong here? Surtsicna (talk) 23:05, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the literal meaning of a name is trivial, but I think it is relevant to say, for example, that the eldest son of the king of Denmark is called Christian by tradition if the father is called Frederick, or explain that someone was named after their grandmother. However, in the case you mention the material was mostly unsourced or sourced to blogs and wikis, which are not reliable sources (particularly for a living person who is a minor). DrKiernan (talk) 11:07, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood me completely, the actual meanings of the names obviously are irrelevant but explaining that Vincent and his twin sister each have a Greenlandic name and the reason why is relevant in my opinion. Explaining that Vincent was named after the French Saint Vincent of Saragossa, the patron of wine-makers, because little Vincent's grandfather is a wine-maker is very relevant in my opinion. Like it was done with Vincent's grandmother, QMII. Cotillards (talk) 00:48, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Cotillards, I think the reasoning behind royalty's names are significant and merit inclusion. They are carefully selected and usually carry a significant meaning. Donald Trump's parents probable did not know or consider the meaning of "Donald". If they did, we probably cannot find any—let alone reliable—sources to confirm it. However, someone like Donald I of Scotland was most likely named exactly for that reason.

I think the best course of action is label the source (if unreliable) with ^{[better source needed]} and allow its inclusion. A similar situation arose in the Prince William, Duke of Cambridge#Early_life article. A very smart editor there chose to simply label statement as ^{[dubious – discuss]} and start a discussion about the accuracy of the source of the name "William". Of-course the situation is slightly different there because the editor found a source that disputes the reasoning for the name selection. In the case of Prince Vincent of Denmark, the fact is probably verifiable and should not be simply removed.

I am not saying we give definitions of every Henry, John and Mary. However, in certain cultures, situations and languages, the meanings and reasoning behind a name are significant. I understand "Vincent" is a common name. I am not saying we should define it as latin for "to conquer or win". However, that is not what Cotillards is trying to do.— አቤል ዳዊት^?(Janweh64) (talk) 22:34, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Honorifics in royal family templates

Is there any guideline on the use of HM and HRH in royal family templates, specifically? I edited some out (HM The King ==> The King); my edit, summarised MOS:HONORIFIC, was reverted with the airy comment "I believe that only applies to the text". (See history of Template:Greek Royal Family). Pol098 (talk) 23:00, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

"Occupation Titles" A Misnomer?

The section headed "Occupation Titles" appears to be a misnomer as the examples given in it relate solely to inherited royal titles and styles ('king', 'emperor') and elected offices ('president', 'prime minister'). Here's the wording as it currently appears:

When used to describe the occupation, apply lower case; such as: (De Gaulle was a French president; Louis XVI was a French king; Three prime ministers attended the conference).

When used as part of a person's title, begin such words with a capital letter (President Obama, not president Obama). Standard or commonly used names of an office are treated as proper nouns (The British Prime Minister is David Cameron; Hirohito was Emperor of Japan; Louis XVI was King of France). Royal styles are capitalized (Her Majesty; His Highness); exceptions may apply for particular offices.

The definition of 'occupation' in the Oxford English Dictionary in this sense is:

b. A particular action or course of action in which a person is engaged, esp. habitually; a particular job or profession; a particular pursuit or activity.

I won't list here all the examples of historical usage given in the OED for copyright reasons (a subscription is required to the online OED), but none of them, nor the definition itself, suggests that inherited royal positions or elected offices are considered 'occupations'.

I would suggest moving the guidelines in this section which relate to inherited royal titles to the section in the Manual of Style on honorifics, and that the current section either be retitled 'Titles Related to Elected Office', or incorporated into another existing section of the Manual of Style if an appropriate section already exists. NinaGreen (talk) 19:30, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

What NinaGreen is saying is that it should be "Louis XIV was a King" rather than "Louis XIV was a king". I strongly disagree. In this instance, the word "king" is not a proper noun and there is absolutely no reason to capitalise it. Hereditary or not, royal or not, a word is a word. How would NinaGreen deal with elective kingships? Was Joseph II an emperor or an Emperor? Was Sigismund III Vasa a king or a King? Clearly, the proposal makes no sense. It hurts my eyes to even see a capitalised word after the indefinite article. Surtsicna (talk) 19:59, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

I trust other editors can read what I said. I said nothing about changes to the content of the section. I merely suggested that the title of the section was a misnomer, and that part of the content should be moved, and the section retitled. Surtsicna has invented out of whole cloth an argument I didn't make in any way, shape or form, and then shot it down. Hopefully other editors will consider the proposal I actually made. NinaGreen (talk) 20:23, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry if I misinterpreted your comment. Isn't the actual goal to have the word "queen" spelled as Queen, although it is not a proper noun? Why else would it be necessary to make up a (irrelevant) distinction between hereditary offices and elective offices? Surtsicna (talk) 20:30, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Irrelevant distinction? There is obviously a very real distinction between hereditary offices and elective offices, but my comments had nothing to do with that point. I proposed that in accordance with the definition of 'occupation' in the OED, the heading "Occupation Titles" is a misnomer in a section which deals solely with hereditary royal titles and elected offices, and that the content on hereditary titles should be moved as it stands (I suggested no changes) to a related section already on Wikipedia, and the section heading retitled to appropriately cover the remaining content on elected offices. Surtsicna has now invented out of whole cloth another argument I didn't make in any way, shape or form, and then shot it down. Hopefully other editors will consider the proposal I actually made. NinaGreen (talk) 21:27, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

When it comes to grammar and orthography, there is no difference between the words "queen" and "president" and there is no reason to treat them differently in any way. That is obvious to everyone. Surtsicna (talk) 21:40, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Non-applicability for fictional characters

Should the lead maybe include a note that this guideline applies only for real people, not for fictional characters (which are imho to be treated as plot devices)? I'm asking since there are many articles about fictional characters where editors are trying to create a fictional biography by following the advice set out in this guideline. --89.0.241.3 (talk) 07:08, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Honorary Suffixes

Why are editors forbidden to include the honorary suffixes, such as university degrees, of individuals above their picture in the textbox at the right of the article page? The guidelines in this manual unfortunately evade this issue as every other instructional page does on Wikipedia. As John Stuart Mill described in On Liberty, if the reasons are not repeated, the rule, in this case, loses most of its moral and psychological force. Wikipedia administrators, it is up to you to provide a well-detailed and straightforward answer; otherwise, nonconformity will result. --RandomKelvin (talk) 01:43, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Nick names vs just shortened names

This is in reference to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies#Names section.

My question/concern is over the use of "nicknames" vs. just simply shortened names. For example, the article Dizzy Dean begins "Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean". This is obvious nickname that is completely different from his actually first name and "SHOULD'" be included and of course is because its not obvious to decipher from his birth name. Another example would be Bill Clinton which begins "William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton". Although Bill is a common nickname of William, it SHOULD be included because it may not be obvious that the two names are the same because Bill is not an obvious shortened name for William because "Bill" is not included in the word "William". I'm sure there are other examples, but I will leave it at that for now.

In my opinion, biographies about people whose shortened "common name" name is obviously part of the birth name SHOULD NOT be included in the first line. Its overkill if you ask me. Examples are plenty on Wikipedia. A few are Tom Hanks, "Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks", Steve Jobs "Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs", Josh Hartnett "Joshua Daniel "Josh" Hartnett". These shortened names SHOULD NOT be included in the lead because they are obviously just shortened names of the longer birth name and are already included in the birth name, i.e. "Josh"ua, "Steve"n, "T"h"om"as. Most people will get the connection without actually saying it. Anyone who doesn't get the connection is probably living deep in a rain forrest somewhere and probably isn't using a computer anyway.

Either way, a bit of direction should be included in the appropriate section, since there appears to be no discernible guideline on this at all.--JOJ ^Hutton 14:13, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think it's necessary to include any shortenings in the first line. It should be obvious from the article title. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I very strongly agree with removing common names where they are simply shortened versions of the full name, and for that matter I would also exclude very common familiar versions of first names including Bill for William. It leads to a very overloaded opening sentence which does not flow properly, and is really a pointless repetition when the article title always goes by the familiar name pursuant to naming guidelines. It can also lead to potential confusion over whether the common name is an explanation of an abbreviation, or actually an additional name, so it may be better to state a nickname separately - "Jay Hanna Dean, known as Dizzy Dean" for example. Sam Blacketer (talk) 16:44, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is entirely the style I endorse. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:10, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Nationality and the wording of OPENPARA

Looks like we need to add some more clarifying language to OPENPARA. We are getting a lot of insistence on adding incidental and late-acquired citizenships to the lead sentences of living people. For most living people, we should have a single nationality: the one that they held at the time they first became notable. That has always been the intent of OPENPARA, but it's never been worded clearly enough for some editors to "get it". Many editors insist on "claiming" a subject for their own nationality for incidental reasons, understandably ticking off the nationals of the county with which the subject actually does identify, and precipitating edit wars in the process.

We should make it clearer that we should not include countries which the subject happened to be accidentally born in (example Nicole Kidman who identifies as Australian and not "Australian-Amercan"), or citizenships acquired well after the subject became notable (example Charlize Theron, who despite recently acquiring American citizenship still self-identifies as South African and should not be described with the completely inaccurate phrase "South African-born American", which makes it sound like she was an American incidentally born in South Africa).

Hyphenated nationalities and the bastard expression Country-born Othercountry both give completely incorrect impressions of the actual nationality of the subject and should be strictly avoided. We need to make this explicit. In the rare cases of true dual citizenship at the time of achieving notability, the word "and" should be placed between the two nationalities to avoid these false impressions of the superiority of one nationality over the other. An example might be Cary Grant, but I personally think he achieved notability before being naturalized and so should be described as English. OPENPARA says nothing about adding a nationality under which the subject became even more notable, just when they first achieved notability. Yworo (talk) 04:22, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, it is totally unnecessary to identify many people by their nationality at all. I refer you to hundreds of articles where the person has never traveled outside his home country. This may be off your point, but it is something that has rankled me for a long time. In Yworo's case, we should use our common sense, but maybe that is lacking in some WP editors. GeorgeLouis (talk) 14:01, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

No, we don't. But our guidance is to include it except in the exception cases, so your response is not really helpful to the discussion of clarifying the wording of how to include nationality when we do so, which we should be doing on most biographical articles. Yworo (talk) 17:20, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Yworo and apologize. GeorgeLouis (talk) 06:05, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

No need. Thanks for your support. Yworo (talk) 06:10, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I'll be proposing some rewording and some clarifying guidance soon. Hang on, I'm pretty busy. Yworo (talk) 16:29, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Here are some points that we need to include in the revision:

When a notable person adds, rather than changes a citizenship, this does not change their nationality. A person's nationality is usually associated with the country in which they were born and raised. Someone born in France, raised in France, and who became notable in France as say a singer, who five or ten or twenty years after becoming notable also becomes an American citizen , does not suddenly become "a French-born American" or "French American". Unless they have renounced their French citizenship, they are still a French national and should be described as a "French singer". We should mention in the lead section and in the infobox that they have dual citizenship.
- Reason 1: Compound or hyphenated expressions such as "French American" are ambiguous. They are read by many readers as referring to someone born in the US to parents who have French ancestry. Especially for living people, we should not be using ambiguous terminology.
- Reason 2: An expression like "French-born" discounts the persons birth, upbringing and personal association with their own nationality. Most people strongly consider themselves as continuing to hold their original nationality even when they add a citizenship. If there are strong sources that they wish to be publicly known by their new nationality, then of course we should defer to their wishes.
The exception is, when a person relocates and assumes a new nationality before becoming notable, especially if they relocated with their family as a child, then they should generally be described using their acquired nationality. Thus, Isaac Asimov is an American, not a "Russian-born American" or a "Russian American".
- Again, we would make an exception for a living person who chooses to strongly identify with their birth nationality, even if they've never even been back to that country since they were three.

Now, how to reword what we've got to integrate this will take some more work. Yworo (talk) 16:49, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

There is a related discussion going on at Talk:Tina Turner#Tina Turner recieved Swiss citizenship which may aid in developing further consensus about how this guideline should be worded. Additional comments welcome. 03:58, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Changed names in the case of transsexualism

For changed names, it's suggested that the person should be referred to using their name at the time of the mention. While this generally makes sense, it seems a tad disrespectful in the case of someone whose original name never was appropriate for them, specifically transsexuals who have changed their name as part of changing their social, legal and biological sex for all intents and purposes, to bring it inline with their neurological sex.

Indeed, for identity, it's suggested that the person should be referred to using their latest expressed gender self-identification. This seems rather sensible, and I think it might be helpful to clarify whether this should be retroactive or not.

I realise that mentioning such a person's original, inappropriate name is a statement of fact, and may even be relevant to their biography, but I think it's not too helpful to insist upon using their old name on the various other pages that talk about projects they've been involved in before their transition. I think it's safe to say that the person who participated in those projects was the person they actually were, not the person they had to pretend to be at the time.

For example, it seems safe to say that Lynn Conway revolutionised CPU design, or that Lana Wachowski co-created The Matrix (at the very most saying that she was credited as her old name, not that she was her old name). While I understand that reading about Wachowski herself would necessarily entail dealing with her painful past, it would be nice if reading up on tangential works such as the Ghost in the Shell film didn't bring it up.

Would it be possible to have a discussion as to whether the policy on changed names could be amended with such a clause? While it may seem unimportant to most people, I think it would make a welcomed difference to the people affected.

If it's any help, Tobi Hill-Meyer's article Language, Reality, and my Trans Girlhood makes a good argument for this type of phrasing, while Robert Sapolsky has given an interesting lecture on the validity of transsexualism, amongst other things.

Thank you for your time, everyone!

Zoeb (talk) 17:10, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Names in non-Latin alphabets

The widespread custom for biographical articles of people of a nationality where the native script is not a Latin alphabet is to give the native script in brackets. There seems, however, to be no guideline in policy about when this is appropriate, or how it should be presented. Should it be for anyone with a Fooian name (although they might be third or fourth generation emigrants), or only those born in Fooland, or only those raised in a Foo-speaking milieu, or only those whose notability was achieved in Fooland? Should the transliteration be bracketed, or comma separated? Should there be a link to the language, or to the alphabet, or an article on Fooian naming conventions, or no link at all.

Anyone care to propose a policy? (Or direct me to something I've missed) Kevin McE (talk) 19:56, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Isn't this just the biography specific application of the provisions in the introduction of WP:ENGLISH which says "Names not originally in a Latin alphabet .. must be transliterated into characters generally intelligible to literate speakers of English .. The native spelling of a name should generally be included in parentheses, in the first line of the article, with a transliteration if the Anglicization isn't identical." Although possibly some reference should be included here. Sam Blacketer (talk) 20:17, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I think the person needs to belong to the culture. I'd say the litmus-test is whether the orthography can be called "authentic". This would not be the case, for example, for Muhammad Ali or Tom Selleck, but it would be for Omar Sharif and Yoko Ono. Formerip (talk) 21:09, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Omar Sharif (Arabic: عمر الشريف, Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [ˈʕomɑɾˤ eʃʃɪˈɾiːf]; born Michel Demitri Shalhoub, [ˈmɑjkel dɪˈmitɾi ʃælˈhuːb]; April 10, 1932) is an Egyptian actor, of Lebanese origin,
Yoko Ono (オノ・ヨーコ, also 小野洋子, Ono Yōko, born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese ..

The above seem to work fine. I would say add "if possible give the original non Latin-alphabet name in brackets, and again if possible with prounciation)" that's as far as we can go with certainty. The non Latin name for a language like Malayalam for example may be beyond the sourcing abilities of many editors. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:31, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

PS - the "François Mitterrand ...sometimes spelled in English Francois Mitterrand" issue is coming round again. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:32, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Related – If it is included, it should go in a footnote instead of parentheses to keep the lead readable. Very, very few readers are looking for this information ahead of anything else. It's trivia. See my proposal here. —Designate (talk) 01:18, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Office holders

I'm wondering if we should include a brief mention of how to refer to holders of office. I recntly encountered someone who wanted the term "Senator [surname]" throughout an article, rather than just the individual's surname. When I quoted this policy I was told that Senator wasn't an honorific title, so this rule didn't apply. Any thoughts? Paul MacDermott (talk) 13:14, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Just use the surname per WP:SURNAME. DrKiernan (talk) 13:58, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Yup. 100% agree. Never any need to use anything except the surname in an encyclopaedia unless the meaning of the sentence is ambiguous (e.g. referring to an individual and his father, both with the same surname). Anything else smacks of fanboyism. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:38, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

POB in WP:OPENPARA

Are any of these birthplace positions wrong for stubs?

Giovanni Pellielo (born 11 January 1970 in Vercelli)

Giovanni Pellielo (Vercelli, 11 January 1970)

Giovanni Pellielo (11 January 1970) is a ..... Pellielo was born in Vercelli..

In ictu oculi (talk) 02:04, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I've been implimenting the first example - DMY in birthplace/MDY in birthplace. I've also been implimenting - DMY in birthplace – DMY in deathplace/MDY in birthplace – MDY in deathplace. GoodDay (talk) 02:25, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

The nationality of the subject is mentioned in the lead sentence, right before occupation(s). The municipality of birth is usually deferred to a section on "Early life". It should preferably not be in the lead at all, neither in nor outside of the parens. Of course, that assumes some actual biographical content. If there are no sections, then inside the parens as in the first example is best. Yworo (talk) 02:31, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

So, I've been doing it correctly, for stubs? GoodDay (talk) 02:47, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Yworo, can you cite any encyclopedia which does it that way? In ictu oculi (talk) 03:40, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay I see MOSBIO now says:

Birth and death places should be mentioned in the body if known, and in the lead if they are relevant to the person's notability; they should not be mentioned within the opening brackets.

How do we handle stubs? is the question. GoodDay (talk) 02:46, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually my second question would be what about projects that don't use infoboxes? Giant Snowman's bold edit may have the consensus of sports projects for example, but not all projects use info boxes. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:58, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, I hope we can get somekinda clarification on these questions :) GoodDay (talk) 03:01, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

BTW: The stub-intro under dispute is David Wikander. -- GoodDay (talk) 03:13, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually it isn't, there is no dispute over a Swedish composer stub, the edits you made are not in line with Giant Snowman's bold edit above. You cited WP:DATE and then moved the place of birth in front of the date, which has nothing to do with either WP:DATE or Giant Snowman's edit here. Please read the guidelines you cite for edits more carefully. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:19, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I made a mistake in labeling it a WP:DATE edit. The second time, I edited per common practice on English Wikipedia. Most articles (let alone stubs) that have birth/deathplaces in the brackets or the content itself, tend to have them after the dates. IF this is somekinda North America/Europe thing? then I'd like that clarified. GoodDay (talk) 03:25, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

No, Academic American encyclopedia Grolier Incorporated - 1997 Volume 17 - Page 27 "Saint Saens, b. Paris, Oct. 9, 1835, d. Dec. 16, 1921, was a French composer. " or The Encyclopedia Americana Alexander Hopkins McDonnald 1951 - Volume 24 - Page 168 "SAINT-SAENS, Charles Camille, French musician : b. Paris, 3 Oct. 1835 ; d. Algiers, 16 Dec. 1921. He received his musical education in the Conservatory of Paris..." This isn't an American thing, American encyclopedias also (i) include Paris, (ii) put Paris before date. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:39, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

If you wanna go through all the articles & change them to BIRTHPLACE, BIRTHDATE etc, then you've got alot of editing infront of you. Meanwhile, I'd like a clarification by WP:BIO, so I'll know which way to gnome in future, on this topic. GoodDay (talk) 03:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't, why on earth would anyone want to do that? Who says that all articles - including those without infoboxes - have to have exactly the same format. As regards composers please LOOK INSIDE The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers by Julie Anne Sadie and Rhian Samuel on Amazon. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:52, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm waiting to get a clarificaton from MOS:BIOGS. GoodDay (talk) 03:53, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I think placing PoB and PoD in the parentheses together with DoB and DoD is the most concise way of presenting these facts; I don't think the order needs to be regulated or is important. I don't understand why MOS:BIO advises against putting PoB/PoD there. However, I'm prepared to follow that advice, except in stubs where this leads to excessively silly constructs. – Has that bold edit by GiantSnowman mentioned above been discussed and approved anywhere? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:37, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd agree that MOS:BIO is being overly prescriptive. As an article develops from stub onwards, the lede naturally gets expanded and improved. The important thing is the quality of the information, not following little rules. Klein zach 12:41, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Common practice across English Wikipedia, appears to be date & place. GoodDay (talk) 12:49, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

No it isn't, and many of us hate that style. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:08, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

(born 'date' in 'place') and ('date' in 'place' – 'date' in 'place'), is indeed common usage. GoodDay (talk) 15:24, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

It's often (not commonly) used, yes, but common practice implies it's correct practice, which it isn't according to the MoS and in my opinion shouldn't be, and also that it's the common practice, which isn't true either. Some use it, some don't. Some like it, some don't. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:28, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Here is a data set: Category:Stub-Class_Composers_articles. I think there is a fair amount of variation. Anyone like to do some stats? Klein zach 15:35, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I added the bold part of the quote above merely to clarify what was already said, not to try and change the MOS. The existing "Birth and death places should be mentioned in the body if known, and in the lead if they are relevant to the person's notability" indicates (to me at least) that they should not be included in the opening brackets. Good Day, your arguments of "common practice" mean nothing on Wikipedia - it is, after all, common practice to vandalise articles, create articles on your friends etc. Personally I don't use it and don't like it, and I have never seen a featured article which includes the POB/POD in the opening brackets. That probably tells us all we need to know about this. Giant Snowman 17:43, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

It's quite pathetic, when this much fuss is caused by 2 gnome edits. I don't wanna fight In ictu oculi on this minor topic & therefore I'll get out of his way. GoodDay (talk) 18:04, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

GiantSnowman, I think your bold edit does change the meaning - Birth and death places should be mentioned in the body if known, and in the lead if they are relevant to the person's notability - the brackets are still part of lead. Given that "(Place date; Place date)" is normal format for encyclopaedias, and normal format for all other .wps, it wouldn't be a natural reading for me at least. If it was I would have raised it before your edit. In ictu oculi (talk) 19:52, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

We could leave it for more time, but unless there's a sudden rush of support I think someone should remove the edit. If its understood that that will leave those making Euro bio stubs free to follow Britannica/American encyclopedia/Encyclopedia Americana/Grove style in stubs. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:26, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not taking the time to read all the dispute above, but I really prefer to keep things simple, viz.: Joe Blow (1932-1955) was a . . . " This serves to differentiate Blow from all the other Blows with different birth and death dates. GeorgeLouis (talk) 06:45, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

So that's a completely uninformed opinion then? And your example lacks compliance with MOS:DASH.

I concede that GiantSnowman's addition only sharpens the previously existing intent; however, I dispute that intent. It is not common encyclopedic practice to mention the places of birth and death only if they are, in the Wikipedia sense, "relevant to the person's notability"; why should Wikipedia invent such a rule? Taken further, hardly anybody is notable for being born or having died on a certain day, or indeed even in a certain year; should these items be removed them from the lead paragraph as well? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 08:50, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Again I should say that there's no intention to force or standardize anyone to use what is standard print encyclopedic-biographical format, and common on all-but-en.wp wikis, it is only a request to continue to be allowed to use standard encyclopedic-biographical/common on all-but-en.wp wikis format. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:39, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Forgive me folks, but the intro at David Wikander is awkward in appearance. The places of Wikander's birth & death are inconsistently arranged. GoodDay (talk) 14:49, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

PS: I hope we can all agree, that this edit [3] at Chris Robertson (guitarist), simply won't do atall. GoodDay (talk) 15:12, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

GoodDay, thanks for stalking, but yes when I (a) create an article, or (b) source up a speedy delete BLP-Prod, I may format with place of birth according to normal encyclopaedic style - that's what we're discussing. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:09, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

"Stalking"? Don't flatter yourself IIO. You do it too well. GoodDay (talk) 02:10, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually I do flatter myself, because because the time shows I ref-ed and de-PRODed the BLP at 14:43 and you were there at 15:06. Unless there's some explanation that sourcing and de-PRODing a BLP triggers an alert chez Good-Day, you are evidently stalking. Also of the dozen BLPs I sourced and de-PRODed which were at Snowman format date, those you didn't bring her to say "we can all agree .. simply won't do at all" you selected the one where the source given Grassroots Music in the Upper Cumberland 2006 states that being born in Kentucky is an essential part of the Kentucky-tradition music and exactly where a place of birth "(born June 4, 1985 in Edmonton, Kentucky)" is natural, necessary and useful. A good illustration of why we're having this discussion in the first place. Composer David Wikander was awkward because the POB has no en. article, I've fixed by linking to the region. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:22, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I've tried to fix the POB/POD in the Wikander article, but you kept reverting me & then threatened me with an ANI report. GoodDay (talk) 10:54, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

My two bits worth – the proper place for stating a biographical subject's place of birth and place of death is in the article's infobox and in the main body text of the article. (The places of birth and death should also be included in the completed persondata template for searchability.) I can vouch that this is the majority practice in the overwhelming majority of American biographies, which include tens of thousands of articles, and this standard formatting has been widely enforced by various WikiProjects in my four years on Wikipedia.

Individual editors can and will continue to resist the Wikipedia-wide standard practice of not including POB and POD in the birth date parenthetical in the lead sentence, but I suspect in this case the practice is at least partly a function of another non-standard practice that has been the subject of ongoing controversy for several years: the refusal to include infoboxes in musician biographies. It's not an accident that Infobox person includes fields for both POB and POD. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 12:07, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

But, when in parenthesis, where should POB & POD be situated? I recommend they be placed after the dates. GoodDay (talk) 13:22, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

GoodDay, therein lies the problem: there is no good way to present the POB and POD in the birth date parenthetical so that the information can be read at a glance. It's an awkward enough style point when the parenthetical includes only the DOB and POB, but it becomes even more awkward and confusing when both POB and POD are included. Including both defies a basic principle of parentheticals that less is better; when including DOB, POB, DOD and POD (especially when elements of the POB and POD are linked), it would probably be better understood by the reader if one were to write the intended statement as a stand-alone sentence with two clauses, rather than a parenthetical. As a basic rule of thumb, a parenthetical should contribute clarity, not make a sentence more difficult to parse. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:42, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Whether the example cited above, "Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (French pronunciation: [ʃaʁl kamij sɛ̃sɑ̃s]; 9 October 1835, Paris – 16 December 1921, Algiers) was a French composer…" is difficult to parse or not is a personal matter – readers in the Spanish, Italian and German (& probably many other) Wikipedias seem to have no problem with that, and nor do I. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:22, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything yet that suggests that there has been a discussion or consensus by RfC to effectively ban Britannica / Grove / Oxford/ Americana / The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz etc etc etc etc style from en.wp. This format issue frankly looks like an example of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. I've just been flipping through Amazon Look and Google Books randomly checking "Biographical Dictionary of..." and can barely find anything that doesn't have POB DOB POD DOD in some order, (POB DOB POD DOD is the most common) at the head of entry. Based on this and the lack of any link to a discussion here I propose to revert Giant Snowman's addition if there is a seconder. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:57, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

NB. It isn't just classical music references, The Universal Jewish encyclopedia "ZWEIG, STEFAN, writer, b. Vienna, Austria, 1881; d. Petropolis, Brazil, 1942." In ictu oculi (talk) 15:43, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

Oppose reverting GiantSnowman's addition. Furthermore, (DoB PoB - DoD PoD) is more common. GoodDay (talk) 15:00, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

More common where? The inclusion of birth and death places in the first sentence, in the birth date parenthetical or otherwise, is the distinctly minority practice on the English language Wikipedia. Here are a few randomly selected examples of high profile Wikipedia biography articles: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, Tony Blair, David Cameron, Babe Ruth, Joe Montana, Michael Jordan, Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, Charlemagne, Lenin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Pachelbel, Samuel Barber, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Antonio Vivaldi . . . . My random sample did not find a single high profile English language Wikipedia article formatted with the POB and DOB in the first sentence. So, I ask again: more common where? It appears that the majority practice, supported by MOS and a consensus of actual use, is contrary to what you're advocating. Sure, you can argue that other Wikis or other encyclopedias do it otherwise, but let's not deny what the most common practice is on English language Wikipedia. I've made my point, and I will now respectfully bow out of this thread because I see no need to repeat my arguments. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:40, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Of course you'll find that style prevalent in those articles: a) because some editors go around and do nothing else but move the PoB and PoD out of the opening parentheses; b) those articles are not stubs where that practice leads to awkward results. Does nobody else find the phrase "Born in X Town, Y State/Country, <surname> was the leading staplepuller at Acme Inc" awkward and forced? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:56, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

If MOS:BIO chooses to keep POB & POD out of the parenthesis? then I'm all for it. It would certainly solve the dispute between myself & IIO. GoodDay (talk) 15:45, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

GoodDay, this is not about you. This is not even remotely about you. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:00, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

As a gnome, I need to know what MOB:BIO prefers for intros, as this topic effects a big portion of my future edits. GoodDay (talk) 16:03, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

What's to be done with stubs & articles without infoboxes, Dirtlawyer1? In the case of David Wikander (for example), I'd suggest moving his PoB, PoD into the article's content. GoodDay (talk) 16:10, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I'm a big fan of declaratory statements written in plain English. How about adding a one or two-sentence paragraph to the stub in the form of something like "Jones was born on July 2, 1955 in Peoria, Illinois; he died on December 7, 2011 in New York City." I'm sure you could come with something similar, but better with a little thought. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:30, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I could do that, but I would be risking getting myself reported to ANI, by IIO. GoodDay (talk) 16:37, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I've implimented your idea at David Wikander. GoodDay (talk) 17:32, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I still find your arrival at 23:59 after I finished making the initial article at 23:57 rather disturbing based on previous incidents. But whatever, to be quite honest I don't particularly care if you want to to do that, while you've done that I was creating two more bios for two Swedish poets he used as lyricists, and of course I have followed standard print encyclopaedic format, because I have not seen evidence of any RfC or large scale discussion to ban Oxford/Grove/etc style use of POB/POD in brackets. It is this ban that is at issue. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:51, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm just gonna keep puttering along, as I have been. Adding dashes where required, rearranging PoB, PoD where required, etc etc. I use the Random button to seek out such articles. GoodDay (talk) 03:14, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Sports bios vs non-sport bios

Dirtlawyer1, forgive me we're not familiar with each other so I just dropped by your User page to see in what area you create articles and your User page lists many sport bios such as, first entry, Buster Bishop, former Gators men's golf coach. Two comments to add to Michael Bednarek's (a) (b) above. (c) with sport bios the POB and POD are often not remotely significant. Buster Bishop was born, lived, died in Florida. Not particularly interesting. (d) Buster Bishop has POB and POD in an infobox. That is something generic to sports bios, even the tiniest stub has an infobox, it seems.
To randomize a non-sports bio I picked Gábor Fodor (completely at random, I just picked a common East European first name and surname without knowing what I'd get) and got a chemist and a politician.

Gábor Fodor (chemist) (December 5, 1915 Budapest, Hungary - November 3, 2000 San Diego, California, United States of America)
Gábor Fodor (politician) (Gyöngyös, 27 September 1962) is a Hungarian jurist, liberal politician, the former president of the Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ),

I'm impressed with the results. Though that's probably not typical, to benchmark I'll just input "Gábor hungarian footballer", ... and they are about 3/5 with POB in brackets, 2/5 without. Anyway, the point being that bios which are really encyclopaedically notable - chemists, politicians, etc. tend to have interesting relevant places of birth/death, and tend to display them in standard print encyclopaedia format. I have no objection at all to sports bios having a html playerinfo style, standard infoboxes and so on. But I do object to a rule banning everything other than sports bio-infobox style from the encyclopaedia and making 100% of chemists, poets, composers and politicians fit some non-print supported player database style. Why should I as an editor of medieval composer bios have to follow football infobox style - when there hasn't been an RfC to make this a rule? That's my question to you as a colleague. [To make a further comment, I see many of the MOS issues as distractions from WP:IRS, the main priority for time and talk]. Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:51, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Any discussion about making changes to this MoS, should be held here & not between 2 editors on their talkpages. GoodDay (talk) 14:36, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

MOS is meant to apply to all articles, regardless of whether they are sport or not. IIO has admiited on my talk page that this is simply a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. There is no consensus to remove WP:OPENPARA, and the fact that I have not seen a single good/featured article which uses IIO's favoured method of including the POB/POD in the opening brackets strenghtns the conviction that it should remain as it is, and POB/POD should not be found in the opening brackets on any article - the fact that they are on some simply highlights that many articles simply do not meet MOS, as opposed to IIO's mistaken belief that the MOS is wrong. Giant Snowman 14:56, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

In agreement, it applies to all articles. GoodDay (talk) 15:02, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Giant Snowman, yes WP:IDONTLIKEIT: I don't like 1 editor making a change of this sort from a non-mention to an outright ban.

And WP:IDONTLIKEIT that no link to a previous discussion has been offered to justify the edit.

However I'm not so sure the "MOS is wrong" that would depend on whether you can demonstrate previous discussion and consensus that an outright ban on any editor ever using print bio-encyclopedic/interwiki header style was previously discussed and agreed. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:32, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I haven't changed any MOS, I have simply clarified what was already there. I'm not sure when OPENPARA was introduce, I don't really care to be honest, you're the one who has an issue with it, not me. All I know is that is current MOS and therefore every editor needs to abide by it on every article, simple as. Giant Snowman 15:53, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

If you were saying everyone must abide by what it said prior to your edit, simple as, that would be one thing. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:26, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

No, everyone must abide by the MOS that was in place long before I added 9 words to try and clarify it, simple as. Giant Snowman 16:32, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I may have missed on a few occassions, but I'm doing my best to impliment OPENPARAGRAGH. It does make the DoB/DoD in parenthesis, less cumbersome. GoodDay (talk) 16:40, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Delete[4] as confusing and overly proscriptive, and counterproductive. And also note that the correct place to discuss bold changes such as this is here and not on the editor in question's talk page. Apteva (talk) 15:50, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Height and weight

Where are the guidelines for adding this information to BLPs, and what sources are considered reliable? BollyJeff | talk 01:16, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

The only thing I know of is what it says on Template:Infobox_person#Parameters: It should only be included if the height/weight is notable/relevant for the person (model/athlete), and if used, it should also include the year of the measurement. --Musdan77 (talk) 18:59, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Tracking the subject through surname changes

I hoped to find some advice here on this topic. Evelyn Hooker got her PhD under her maiden name, then married, divorced, and married again. She took the names of her husbands. How should the prose refer to her as it is describing these phases of her life? -- ke4roh (talk) 16:41, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Whatever sounds best. Sometimes you have to rely on common sense, or an author's judgment. GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:12, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Proposed guideline

The proposed Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Indic) has been quiet for a year now, but discussions such as Talk:A._C._Bhaktivedanta_Swami_Prabhupada#Honorifics seem to reflect a yen for honorifics on the part of some editors. I'm thinking it's about time to stir the pot on NCIN and see if it is ready to serve up an RFC. Comments at the relevant talkpage from editors here would be welcome. LeadSongDog come howl! 18:15, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Birth and death dates / Infoboxes

(This may well have been clarified elsewhere, in which case please signpost me onwards). If a biog article has an infobox which contains dates of birth and death, does this mean that the dates of birth and death should be removed from the opening sentence? I think that this would be incorrect, and that the dates should appear both in the opening sentence AND in the infobox, but am perplexed by an editor who consistently removes the dates in the opening sentence if they are included in an infobox, on the grounds that the dates don't need to be given twice. I'd be grateful for views, before I get into a battle over it. Jsmith1000 (talk) 12:14, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Infoboxes summarise important data from the article, so yes, the vital dates must appear in the article as well. E.g., in some cases, the vital dates need sources, and the infobox is not supposed to provide sources – the article is. Some devices or some readers may not have access to infoboxes, so the article has to provide all information. These matters are covered at MOS:INFOBOX and Help:Infobox and possibly elsewhere. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:20, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Extremely helpful - thank you very much! Jsmith1000 (talk) 14:47, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Note, though, that the complete dates are not required in the lede of the article, the years alone being preferred by many editors in the lede. But the full date has to be given in the text. Also, infoboxes are not required as a general rule unless adopted for particular types of articles. It's best not to add an infobox if another editor objects. GeorgeLouis (talk) 15:21, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with that - many other editors apparently don't! Jsmith1000 (talk) 16:08, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I certainly don't agree that full dates should not be given in the lead. They always should be, in my opinion. And infoboxes are certainly not universal. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:02, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Nevertheless, there is no clear "rule." Most encyclopedias I have seen don't use the full dates at the outset: My personal opinion is that throwing in the month and date at the outset of an article is intrusive, jarring and unnecessary. Still, I would not remove the full date if another editor has inserted it, just as I would object to the full date being inserted into a biography that I had written without it. Moderation in all things. GeorgeLouis (talk) 16:24, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

This topic is currently under discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Exact birth and death dates in the lede. Feel free to add your voice there. —sroc (talk) 23:33, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Prefixing a person's occupation, office, etc with "former"

I have a "gut feel" objection to describing people as "Joe Blow, former plumber from Anyville" particularly when Joe is dead. This happens a lot with former office-holders or athletes - "John Doe, former Olympic swimmer and former mayor of Anyville". It is particularly prevalent in lists of people.

I think the use of "former" needs to be explicitly deprecated in such contexts. If the person's notability stems from them having won a medal at the Olympics they should be simply described as "John Doe, Olympic swimmer, gold meddalist and world record holder." The fact that the record has been broken umpteen times in the 56 years since he set it, is irrelevant so describing him as a former record holder is incorrect - unless the record itself is the subject, then naming former holders as such is correct. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:49, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Requested move about Gandhi

The question is should we attach the Mahatma (meaning ′the great soul′) before Gandhi or should the article title be his real name → Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or just Gandhi? For full disclosure, in a previous discussion (discussion can be found here) it was moved from Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to Mahatma Gandhi. (here is the latest →move request) Mr T ^(Talk?) ^{(New thread?)} 08:12, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Institution-specific titles/awards and WP:CREDENTIAL

I made this revert and now I am starting to wonder about it. Basically, the editor had replaced a general term in a BLP ("director of governance studies") with an instition-specific title ("Douglas Dillon chair in governance studies"), and I removed it on the grounds that the institution-specific title (which I assume is based on some institution-internal award) is not particularly meaningful for most readers. But since then I've noticed that WP:CREDENTIAL does not have a specific guideline regarding the use of these sorts of titles. I also noticed that some articles do use these titles, if the titles are notable enough that they have their own articles: Noam Chomsky and Stephen Hawking (the latter of which is an example in WP:CREDENTIAL) are both like this. I haven't done a comprehensive survey, but I also found some pages that list institution-specific titles that don't have their own articles (e.g. Howard Lasnik and Barbara Partee). Should there be an explicit guideline regarding these cases? rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:56, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

/* Subsequent use */ added another country specific exception - for India

I added another country specific exception - for India - for subsequent use. This was done in order to accommodate names like Bhagat Singh, which should not be subsequently referred to as Singh, but always as Bhagat Singh, in line with the conventions in everyday life and in scholarly references, as referrenced in the Bhagat Singh talk pages.Khaydock (talk) 19:19, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Does the WP community consider "the late" an honorific, and if so, can it please be added to the honorifics section?

Hi, an editor dropped a question off at the Help Desk. They wanted to know Wikipedia's stance on the use of "the late" to describe a deceased person, because it could be perceived an honorific. Does anybody know what the stance is about this, and can we please add a summary of the prevailing attitude (whatever it is) to MOS:BIO#Honorifics, as it seems useful to be there. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:04, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I can't see how it would be considered an honorific. It is just an adjective which says the person has died, as everyone does, and nothing more. It can be considered a wp:Euphemism, but it is so common I don't think it really is a problem.

LeadSongDog come howl! 22:10, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Late as in "the late DentArthurDent"? It means "dead". I don't think being dead is regarded as much of an honour in most societies, though I'm sure there are exceptions. Is "deceased" an honorific? That said, it's hard to think of a situation where it would be actually necessary to use it. If it is a feature of sub-continental English, then why not just enjoy it as such? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:44, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Being dead isn't considered an honor, but using specific language in your reference to the dead that could be considered an honorific. If I wrote "the dearly departed Sam Jones", that would certainly not have a place in an encyclopedia. Although I think I'm starting to take the position that "late" is not as much an honorific but an euphemism as LeadSongDog and others (at Help Desk) have said, which would suggest also that it has no place in an article per WP:EUPHEMISM. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 08:25, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Just to put this in context, the original questioner said "The use of the word "late" (i.e. dead) is particularly common in articles about people and places in the Indian subcontinent, where it is a form of honorific prefix." I don't know whether this is correct or not, but it would still be helpful to have some guidance about when to use the term.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:49, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

As the person who originally raised the question, I assume my recollection of a guideline about the use of Late was a false memory? as no-one has cited any such guideline. Should it be deprecated? I have mixed views about it - it can be useful to know that a person is dead, especially if they are referred to relation to recent events, but some articles (often obscure villages) list people as "late" who died many years ago. Arjayay (talk) 10:18, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

It's common in motorsport journalismo to say "late", not exactly as an honorific, but as a sign of respect. I agree with Cyphoidbomb: that useage doesn't belong to an encyclopedia. That way, ever article on ancient history should say "late" every time a person is named, which is ridiculous. --NaBUru38 (talk) 19:38, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

It should be used when it is informative and not used when it is uninformative. As a way to indicate that the person is deceased, if that is relevant, then use it. However, there's no need to use it every time the person is mentioned; once you've indicated the person is deceased it isn't needed to repeat the fact. That said, there are few cases I can think of where it would be needed to indicate the person being mentioned is deceased. RJFJR (talk) 19:44, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

"The late" essentially means "recently dead (in case you didn't know)", so it has no place in an encyclopedia. Rothorpe (talk) 19:48, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Here's an example of the usage: Avichi Meiyappa Chettiar (Please ignore the glaring flaws in this article, including whether or not this person's entire list of descendents should be listed.) Whomever submitted this information was obviously trying to communicate that certain relatives had died. Editor Arjayay (who commented above) suggests that this it is a cultural thing in India to use "late" to describe the deceased. What is preferable for Wikipedia? To use "(deceased)" instead? I would think so, since that's the more common convention in English, but I also am also aware that for articles about Englishmen, we use British English, and for Americans, we use American terminologies. Should we use Indian terminologies for articles about Indians? Cyphoidbomb (talk) 20:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

That usage was recently inserted by an IP editor in the "Family" section of the article, which is entirely without references to establish the listing of family as wp:DUE. In any case "(late)" is both wp:Weasel and subjective wp:Recentism. If it is important to tell the reader that the person died recently, it will also be important to say when, e.g. John Smith (1950-2009). LeadSongDog come howl! 21:41, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to have inspired the "ugh" edit summary, but I do appreciate your input! Hopefully this is helpful to the original poster, Arjayay, but I also walk away with more info.

Regards, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 04:34, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Is birth length and weight relevant?

Is the subject's birth length and weight relevant biographical information? Is it relevant when the subject is not a baby? Surtsicna (talk) 20:59, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd say no, except if that actually affected the person's life. --NaBUru38 (talk) 01:40, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

For an adult, no, but for someone who is still a baby (e.g. the new Prince George of Cambridge) then yes, it's a widely-quoted statistic. As he gets older then it will no longer be relevant. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:03, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

What about a 7-year-old? Definitely not a baby anymore. Surtsicna (talk) 12:05, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

See Category:Wrestlers and Category:Jockeys.

—Wavelength (talk) 14:35, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that sums it up! Surtsicna (talk) 19:51, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Contradiction between WP:OPENPARA and WP:BLPPRIVACY policy

The MOS guideline on dates of birth could be (and has been) interpreted by some to be in conflict with WP policy on biographies of living persons, specifically the policy on listing exact dates of birth found at WP:DOB. While ignoring rules is an important part of WP, it is widely accepted that policies trump guidelines; most editors would say that this is particularly true in the case of BLPs.

May I suggest adding to #2 under the opening paragraph section wording to effect of:

"In the case of biographies of living persons, consider the policy on dates of birth before including the exact birth date."

Any thoughts? -Wine Guy~Talk 15:36, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

comment - Policies don't necessarily trump guidelines, since both are written to reflect the community consensus. Of course, policies or guidelines may come in conflict, so it's up to the community to decide which one is most relevant. I think a useful description of the relationship between policies and guidelines may be found on Wikipedia:The difference between policies, guidelines and essays. Edge3 (talk) 01:43, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Petrarch's nationality

So, I edited the page to give Petrarch's correct nationality/citizenship in accordance with WP:OPENPARA, which reads in part: "In most modern-day cases this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen, national or permanent resident, or if notable mainly for past events, the country where the person was a citizen, national or permanent resident when the person became notable". Petrarch was born in, became notable in, and lived in until his death, the independent city-state of Arezzo. He was an Aretine throughout his life. My edit was, however, reverted by User:Rjensen with the comment "Petrarch helped invent the Italian language -- "Italian" does not mean citizenship (which did not exist) but culture".

I don't see anything in the guidance here which says that people should be attributed a nationality based on the language they are reputed to have helped to invent, nor that "culture" should replace citizenship in specific cases; the assertion that citizenship did not exist is one which I find highly dubious given the considerable importance attached to citizenship in Trecento Italy (see for example the citizenship of the Serenissima obtained de intus in 1334 by Iacopo Dondi), but that's one for the mediaeval scholars to deal with. I suggest that nationality or citizenship is based on the national entity of which the subject is a member or citizen. I further suggest that Petrarch is thus not a very good example here, as few will know what an Aretine is; and that these guidelines urgently need some careful thought and attention. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:37, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

the guideline expliictly says it is only about MODERN citizenship. It says nothing about the Petrarch era (Middle Ages). Her played a central role in defining what it meant to be Italian (ie using the Italian language). Rjensen (talk) 04:39, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

So what does the guideline say about nationality/citizenship in the Middle Ages? And where does it say it? (I ask because I can't see it) And if we agree that the modern era began approximately with the Renaissance, what makes Petrarch a useful example here? Especially if you are going to attribute to him a nationality that did not come into existence until some 550 years after he was born? I repeat, I suggest that these guidelines urgently need some careful thought and attention. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:26, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree that all attributions of nationality before the emergence of nation states, and often even after, are meaningless and misleading. On the other hand, it is necessary to place the subjects of biographical articles in some sort of geographical and cultural context. I think the opening sentence of the article on Petrarch achieves that. To use Petrarch in the current manner as an example in this MoS is wrong on at least two levels: 1) he wasn't Italian, and even if he was, linking that term is WP:OVERLINK; 2) linking to the disambiguation page Dark Ages is unhelpful. I sugest either to copy the first sentence from Petrarch's article into this MoS or, preferrably, replace his example with a less ambiguous and more clear cut one. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:46, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Replacing the example would certainly fix the current problem. However, I believe that some guidance here on how to deal with the nationality and/or citizenship of obscure defunct entities might be helpful; and that Petrarch might then be a useful example. The simplest solution would be to remove the word "modern-day" from the current guideline. I don't need to point out that citizenship was an important concept in parts of the Ancient world also. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:58, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Descriptions like "Italian" aren't necessarily citizenships or nationalities, they may simply indicate where the person came from (in terms of a "country" interpreted geographically or ethnically, rather than politically). I think that's entirely normal usage, even in scholarly writings. I agree, though, that the examples given here should agree with the text actually used in the article in question (I've just made one change to another part of this guideline on that basis). W. P. Uzer (talk) 12:38, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Despite the useful remarks above, this has now gone a while without further comment. Perhaps it doesn't matter? I'm not clear if there is consensus here to replace the present wording of the Petrarch example with the wording from the current version of the article, which, following an edit that I made there, gives his nationality/citizenship as Aretine. I suggest that we do that, and remove the word "modern-day" from the guideline as there is no reason to restrict it to modern examples. I'm no classical scholar, but I note that Xenophon is described here as "Greek", while Alcibiades is considered "Athenian"; is there any reason for such a discrepancy? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:00, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Possibly it has something to do with the fact that it is already noted in the first sentence of Xenophon that he was "of Athens". These introductions don't have to be written according to strict rules or universal algorithms, there are many variables that affect what is likely to be the most helpful selection and arrangement of information in a given situation. W. P. Uzer (talk) 12:44, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Use of first names

In an article like Dance Moms, the line between whether the dancers and mothers should be considered as "characters" or not. The issue is that in the article about the show, many of the subjects are only refereed to by first name only or by first and last once and then just first thereafter. If this was an article about the person, then we would be using only the last name throughout the rest of the article after the lead. However, if we treat them as characters in a work such as a movie, play, TV show, then we generally find it ok to use first names only to refer to them. For example, in Death of a Salesman we refer to Willy Loman (the character) as Willy. However, the actor that played him originally has his own article and there we use "Cobb." In the article for the play, we use Lee J. Cobb.

I am in the camp at the moment of thinking that we should treat them as we do any Living person (the show does present itself as "reality" even though parts of it, if not much of it is scripted). So, should the references to the individuals in the Dance Moms article be changed from first name only after the initial full name mention, to last name only after the first full name mention? The other problem being that, on the show they are referred to the majority of the time by only their first names. Thoughts? -Aaron Booth (talk) 03:21, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Here's my take on this... Given that the show's characters are real people and thus covered by WP:BLP, we should take into consideration the editing and portrayal of these people. In other words, scripting aside they are being represented in the way that the show's producer and directors want the cast portrayed for the sake of the success of each episode. That said, in the context of the show and when they are written about I see no issue with referring to them by their first name for clarity sake and continuity with the show. On the other hand, like you've already mentioned, if separate articles are created about these characters as themselves (including assumingly information about them outside of the show), then of course full BLP policy would apply and their last name would be used.

One more thing to consider (and I'm not familiar with the show at all) is that names used in the show may not be the names that these people use or go by in real life. For example, when other actors make reference to Robert De Niro on a show its not unusual for them to refer to De Niro as "Bobby" in familiar way. I don't know if he goes by Bobby, Bob, Robert, or Robbie in real life, but the truth is that the average person doesn't know either so it makes sense to use the same name used theatrically in the episode. Make sense? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 06:15, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:CREDENTIAL (Use of 'Dr' and 'PhD')

Recently I have been involved in a discussion about whether it is appropriate to use the terms 'Dr' and 'PhD' as an academic credential and postnomial respectively in an article about a research scientist. I had referred to WP:CREDENTIAL to point out that we invariably do not put 'Dr' and 'PhD' in articles (or in infoboxes). I was then told that this practice does exist in some articles and I did a search to check this out. The results of the search produced a fair number of examples. I'm not sure those articles should have that style (I will list them somewhere at some point) and I think those articles may have been written by people who were unaware of the preferred style. From a brief glance, I think some of the articles are borderline notable, and are examples of people using the credentials more the way you would in a CV, rather than in an encyclopedia article. Am I right in saying that 'Dr' and 'PhD' should be removed from those articles, or is there a reason to allow that style? Carcharoth (talk) 23:10, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

You are entirely correct. We don't use any academic titles or degree postnoms in articles and any that do exist should be removed. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:03, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

On the strength of this exchange I went ahead and removed a few occurrences of "Dr" and "PhD", along with some other post-nominal university degrees and the like. But I am not sure how to proceed in a case like Faraday Medal, which is anyway not a biography article so perhaps not covered by guidelines here. Should all, or some, or none of the post-nominals be removed? Is there guidance on this anywhere else in the MOS? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:05, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

And of course I did not expect all such removals to go unchallenged. Would anyone care to comment on this diff? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:38, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Child named for parent or predecessor: help?

The examples given were contradictory, confusing, and just plain wrong. Sammy Davis, Jr. uses the comma. And who exactly is "George Welton III"? There is no such article. This subject was last broached in a 20112 archive, where someone suggested using the comma and linking. I don't know offhand of a good example that doesn't use the comma.

And sometimes the suffix isn't used in the article title, even though there is evidence the person used it; for instance, Fulton Lewis was actually Fulton Lewis, Jr. (This sticks in my mind because of a 1960s Laugh-In joke where someone calls Sammy Davis Jr. "Fulton Lewis Jr.".

Another example is the radio and voice actor Alan Reed. This was a stage name he invented, until he had a son Alan Reed Jr., after which he used Alan Reed Sr. professionally. He was known and billed that way as the voice of Fred Flintstone, until his death.

Are there any policies or recomendations (consensus) about this, or is it pretty much catch-as-catch can? Can someone help, please? JustinTime55 (talk) 21:45, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:LASTNAME scope and general guidance

There is some debate^[who?] on how to handle first and subsequent mentions of proper names in non-biographical articles (specifically, film articles, and more specifically, actors' names in film plots). WP:LASTNAME does not necessarily offer general guidance on this, if the scope is inferred to be biographical articles only. What is the preferred style? Is there a more clear guideline elsewhere? If not, can this one be made more clear on the matter? Thanks! --Fru1tbat (talk) 13:08, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Use of "prominent" in lead section

Is it appropriate to use "X was a prominent Y" in the lead section of an article?--Mycomp (talk) 00:51, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

If the person was a good deal more prominent than your average Y would be expected to be, then could be informative. W. P. Uzer (talk) 05:45, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

But how does one determine if he was "a good deal more prominent" than other Ys or not? How does one decide that? The average Y will not pass the notability criteria to have a Wikipedia article to start with. If editor A thinks X is prominent, but editor B doesn't think so, what happens? Can we write, for example, in front of all Barcelona soccer players "prominent", or only in some cases ("X is a prominent soccer player who plays for Barcelona" vs. "Y is a soccer player who plays for Barcelona")? The Manual of Style advises us to avoid "peacock and weasel words". Isn't "prominent" such a word? I think, the facts of the article will show if the person was prominent or not.--Mycomp (talk) 06:13, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Your last sentence seems to provide the answer to your first one (plus the fact that there may be reliable sources which explicitly describe the person as prominent). I agree, though, that in most cases there will be a better and more specific way of conveying this information, as illustrated in the guideline about peacock terms. W. P. Uzer (talk) 07:00, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Ordering of events in a biography

I'm assuming that biographies should be structured chronologically, with exceptions of highlighting highly notable events in the person's life. Am I missing something? Is this included in a guideline or essay somewhere? --Ronz (talk) 16:57, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

RfC on style in royal family templates

I am unable to see a consensus here. From my read, three to four support and two or three oppose, which is a pretty small set of eds for what is likely to be a broad reaching change, but there are reasonable arguments mooted from either side. As such, the default would be to keep the templates as they were. I suggest getting the main editors involved here in a longer discussion to see if some compromise position could be reached.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:01, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should templates in Category:Royal and noble family templates use the article titles or the honorifics? Fram (talk) 14:10, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

The above is the required neutral statement of the RfC subject, the below is my reason for starting this and my position on this: according to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies#Honorific prefixes, "In general, styles and honorifics should not be included in front of the name". There is no reason why these links to other articles should be in the honorific format instead of the normal article title format. I tried to change this on Template:British Royal Family and Template:Belgian Royal Family, but got reverted. A discussion at Template talk:British Royal Family#Removal of HM/HRH followed. Note also problems like the "Prince Harry" / "Prince Henry" discussion[5], where the template doesn't follow the article title.

For consistency, neutrality, and clarity, I propose that these templates should always use the article titles and nothing but the article titles, dropping all honorifics and all variations of titles and names. Fram (talk) 14:18, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Oppose although I agree that honorifics should largely be confined to the section on titles and styles in articles on royalty and nobility, and I strongly agree that the names of titleholders should be clearly included in their links (i.e., "Margrethe II of Denmark" not "The Queen", "Anne, Princess Royal" not "The Princess Royal") both because specific names make links more useful for the readership and because many honorifics are styles peculiar to each royal court whence they originate and where they may be de rigueur, but Wikipedia is international and should refer to royalty encyclopaedically rather than according to national court protocols. However templates need not be compelled to regurgitate article titles verbatim, which are chosen primarily based on ease of recognition for the uninitiated reader rather than on accuracy, whereas I think templates can sometimes afford to communicate more factual or clarifying information. For instance in the case of the Duchesses in Bavaria, some of whom, for ease of recognition, are located at articles which which use their married rather than maiden titles or which incorrectly refer to them as "of" rather than "in Bavaria" (e.g., Elisabeth, Empress of Austria), Maria Sophie of Bavaria, Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of Belgium). Templates might be allowed to deviate from article names to give correct name/title (not style). FactStraight (talk) 17:50, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
No/oppose, mainly per FactStraight, but also due to the arguments I made at Template talk:British Royal Family#Removal of HM/HRH. While I agree that nobody should be referred to as "Her Excellency", "His Majesty" or "Her Imperial Highness" in the running text, it doesn't hurt to include royal styles in templates that list members of a royal family. I believe it's actually rather helpful, because it helps understand the hierarchy. Take Template:Danish Royal Family for example; the head of the family is a "Majesty", while her spouse and the first six people in the line of succession and their spouses are "Royal Highnesses"; the monarch's middle sister is also a "Royal Highness" but the youngest is yet another "Majesty", as the wife of a former head of state; finally, those who are last in the pecking order are mere "Highnesses". The distinction is obviously important and readers benefit from seeing it. Surtsicna (talk) 19:45, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Surtsicna's argument here is persuasive on the benefits of (limited) use of honorifics in royalty templates, and I subscribe to it as informative/clarifying with the proviso that the individual names, not merely titles, of persons be used (i.e. "HRH Henrik, the Prince Consort" not "HRH The Prince Consort"). FactStraight (talk) 20:18, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't that lead to some completely inaccurate (and rather silly) names such as "HRH Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge" or "HRH Marie-Christine, Princess Michael of Kent"? Surtsicna (talk) 20:26, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

No, not silly at all. It may, however, lead to formats which don't comply with a court's protocol, such as "HRH Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge". Omission of the HRH still leaves that title in violation, however (i.e., wives of princes, especially those not themselves born princesses, only use their given names at the Court of St. James's in widowhood or divorce). But since that format tells the reader which Duchess of Cambridge the article is about before opening it, it seems a worthwhile breach of British etiquette. "HRH Marie-Christine, Princess Michael of Kent" would be a form that is never used in real life and that is unnecessary disambiguation: her title/style suffice to distinguish her to readers ("HRH Princess Michael of Kent"), although I fully understand that it irks many who consider it too sexist for the 21st century. FactStraight (talk) 01:38, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Not only too sexist, also much less clear for non-royalty buffs, and giving undue deference. There is no need at all to give the styles in the infobox. Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark is a lot clearer than HRH The Crown Prince, and HRH should only be used in official, protocol-based instances, not when writing an encyclopedia about these people. Do you have spontaneously any idea who HRH The Count of Paris is, or whether his HRH has any legitimacy? Using Henri d'Orléans, Count of Paris is more neutral, factual, and clearer for readers who are not deeply versed in the different French royal pretenders. Fram (talk) 06:49, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

As far as the British (and probably the Belgian) template goes, I find it works well as it is, informing readers of the people's "correct" titles and HRH status, and remaining compact and concise. Article titles have different functions to perform and will not always be most suitable for a template. Different templates might have different needs, so "HRH The Count of Paris" might not be most suitable on a template for whatever topic he would come under. We don't need universal rules. (Coming back to the British template, I can't see why the Wessexs' children should be listed and not the Princess Royal's, but I suppose that's not what this discussion is about.) W. P. Uzer (talk) 18:00, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- Regarding the Wessexs' children - neither do I. I'd support removing them. Surtsicna (talk) 19:14, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- Because the Wessex children, despite being styled as children of a non-royal peer, are still male-line descendants of the monarch. Female-line descendants of a monarch or their siblings aren't considered royal unless these titles are specifically granted to them (ie, Princess Alexandra, Duchess of Fife's daughters, or Princess Margriet of the Netherlands's sons. Peter and Zara are not, by birth, entitled to the style and title of a Prince/ss of the United Kingdom; James and Louise, as male line descendants, are. That's the main difference and probably the reason why they're included. Morhange (talk) 21:26, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
  - Thank you for that explanation, but I'm still not convinced that this technical difference (particularly since the latter two do not in fact take the title of Prince/ss) is likely to lead to any actual difference in readers' interest in finding out about the persons in question. W. P. Uzer (talk) 11:01, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
  - Yes, I understand that "male-line" argument but I too am unconvinced. The Wessexs' children are obviously not intended to be treated as royals, making them as royal as Anne's children - at least for the purpose of inclusion in the template. They are not "Royal Highnesses", which is the criterium for inclusion. Surtsicna (talk) 11:08, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Use article titles – I can see no reason, nor does it seem anybody has offered one, why these templates should disregard MOS:BIO. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:27, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- Two people have offered reasons why these templates should not list people merely by article titles. Whether or not you agree with them is another matter, but they are there. Also, this does not "disregard MOS:BIO". According to MOS:BIO, "in general, styles and honorifics should not be included in front of the name." The guideline allows for exceptions, and this one is a perfectly reasonable exception because, among other things, it aids readers in understanding factual information. Surtsicna (talk) 11:37, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
  - In fact, as a reader, the current infoboxes (with the HRHs and without the names, or with different names than the article titles) doesn't aid me in "understanding factual information", it confuses the heck out of me and makes it a lot harder to find out who is intended by the titles. In what way is it supposed to aid me (and which is lacking in the alternative of using article titles)? Fram (talk) 11:52, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
    - Do you want me to copy-paste what I wrote above about Template:Danish Royal Family and how mentioning styles such as Majesty, Royal Highness and Highness help readers understand the hierarchy of family members? Surtsicna (talk) 12:04, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
      - No, it didn't work for me the first time. Looking at the template, I see some HRHs and some HHs, but this doesn't indicate the line of succession (e.g. Henrik, Prince Consort of Denmark would not become king on the death or abdication of his wife), nor does it indicate the family tree (which is given by the indentations mainly). The only thing the HRHs and HHs seem to indicate, is who can be styled HRH and HH. That is information which should be included (and is included) in the separate articles, but hardly what the infobox is for. On the other hand, Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark is much more informative than HRH The Crown Prince, and Queen Anne-Marie of Greece is much more informative than HM The Queen of the Hellenes. Fram (talk) 12:16, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
        Same here; I have exactly the same problems understanding Surtsicna's argument in favour using styles. I have the impression that usage may be very useful to those versed in these matters, but leaving the rest utterly baffled. Question is: who needs a navigation box more? (Aside: having a single entry, the link to the template "The Royal Family of Greece", hidden in the template "Danish Royal Family" seems, eh, quirky; 1) either they belong or they don't; 2) I'm pretty sure navigation boxes are only supposed to link to articles.) -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:45, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
        
        It isn't supposed to indicate the line of succession. It is supposed to indicate precedence, and it does so. Children of the former, the present and the future monarch, as well as their spouses, are distinguished from the rest of the family. Those are not arbitrarily chosen words. Besides, what you are proposing would introduce a very annoying redundancy. In Template:Danish Royal Family, for example, the word "Denmark" would be repeated 16 times. I'm sure that, by the time it's repeated for the 5th time, everyone's thought would be: "Okay, I get it, this is the Danish Royal Family!" Surtsicna (talk) 12:28, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
        Common sense would suggest to omit all the suffixes "of Denmark" -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:45, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
        Yes, piped links to avoid such redundancy would of course be allowed (or encouraged). But why is "precedence" of so much importance (more important than e.g. line of succession?) When reading about a member of a royal family, I may be interested in easy links to the main living members of the family; but how often would their precedence be of so much interest that I have to have that information in this article? The order of precedence isn't even included in the articles on individual family members, but it is so important that it has to be included in the infobox, never mind that for most people, it will be utterly unclear that that is the intended meaning? By the way, the article Danish order of precedence (the correct place to have that information, but also violating the MOSBIO on honorifics) has a different list, omitting the Greek Queen. Fram (talk) 12:55, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
        Let's assume that the precedence is of interest only 2% of the time. Is that a reason to deny that information to readers? Even if the intended meaning were utterly unclear, it's still not misleading or misinformative in any way. On the other hand, how does the removal of such styles help anyone? The fact that these people are socially entitled to certain forms of address should not be entirely ignored, and by including it only in these templates (and nowhere else), we allow readers to compare the article subject's style with the styles his relatives are entitled to. The inclusion does not hurt anyone, while the exclusion would be unhelpful - if only 2% of the time. Surtsicna (talk) 13:42, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
        The inclusion hurts because as they stand, most of these templates are not clear to the average reader as to who they are about (using honorifics and titles instead of names), and give the impression that Wikipedia believes precedence and honorifics to be so important as to be the main identifying method for these persons. It isn't true that we aren't including it "nowhere else", each article on a member of the royal family has a section on the titles and styles of address (and often an infobox with the same as well), and is is also included in the articles on the orders of precedence, where a better case can be made to said inclusion. Your claim that they are "socially entitled" (whatever that means) to these honorifics doesn't mean that we should give the impression that they are usually described or referred to as such. Is Henri d'Orléans, Count of Paris "socially entitled" to be addressed as HRH? That's very debatable, and can be discussed in his article. Simply including it in the family infobox is not the way to do this. Fram (talk) 14:09, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

With my German background, I understand "socially entitled". There, people are entitled to be addressed as "Prof.", "Dr." – to an astonishing degree: "Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Ulrich Sieber", but even the German Wikipedia eschews that style. As for Her Maj: I understand "Ma'am" will do, although Paul Hogan went probably too far in calling her "Libby". Back to the question at hand: as Fram wrote, names are much more helpful in navigation boxes for the average reader than style or precedence. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:56, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Don't include forms of address per Fram. Wikipedia already errs on the side of too much deference to royal titles. I'm not sure "just use article titles" works though; it certainly won't work for people whose article title references something else (e.g. a hypothetical royalty box for 1690s France shouldn't list the Duke of Anjou as "Philip V of Spain"), so I'm fine with each infobox picking a consistent style and running with it. (For example, both linked infoboxes above baffling omit a *name* for the sovereign, and the British one is almost all strictly titles, but I'm sure there's some good reason for that in rule 76.2b of titlology so will defer to the judgment of the maintainers). SnowFire (talk) 22:48, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Can we please keep the templates formal. Can we please restore the royal style infobo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.211.194.136 (talk) 23:19, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Nationality/ethnicity

The manual currently says:

Name(s) and title(s), if any (see, for instance, also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility));
Dates of birth and death, if known (but for dates of birth see WP:BLPPRIVACY, which takes precedence); for how to write these dates, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Dates of birth and death;
Context (location, nationality, or ethnicity);
1. In most modern-day cases this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen, national or permanent resident, or if notable mainly for past events, the country where the person was a citizen, national or permanent resident when the person became notable.
2. Ethnicity or sexuality should not generally be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability. Similarly, previous nationalities or the country of birth should not be mentioned in the opening sentence unless they are relevant to the subject's notability.

For second generation immigrants, I think the suggested style is fine but for first-generation immigrants, including those naturalised, I think this suggestion is too simplistic and gives too much emphasis to the host country. I agree that the description should not be too cumbersome as in 'born of X parents in country Y then moved to Z where he was naturalised'; detailed descriptions of this nature should be reserved for the body of the article.

This is a hotly disputed subject in many articles and I suggest that this is the place to have a cool and rational discussion of the subject, away from national feelings. To that end, I suggest that in this discussion we try to avoid discussing real examples directly but only refer to country X or fictional countries like 'Rubovia', 'Borsovia' and 'Humperstein' for example.

My suggestion is that, for first-generation immigrants, we adopt the general description 'Rubovian-Borsovian' where the nationalities are in chronological order; details to be worked out here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:10, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I've always used "X-born Y" and see no problem with this if the person mainly identifies with the new country. "X-Y" is the best description if the person still identifies with both countries. Contrary to what the guideline says, I think country of birth is highly relevant. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:59, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I think so too, though maybe not in every case (e.g. if someone happened to be born in some country because their mother was living there temporarily at the time). W. P. Uzer (talk) 13:36, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

There seems to be some agreement that nationality at the time of notability is not the only important thing. On the other hand the current style has the advantage of simplicity. Country of birth can be important but so can nationality of parents, and nationality for most of their life. This can get complicated which is why I am suggesting say 'Rubovian-Borsovian-Humperstein' rather than 'Rubovian born Humperstienian who lived most of his life in Borsovia'. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:24, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I prefer "X-born Y-raised Z actor" (to pick a random profession) or "Z actor of X and W descent". These convey the required level of detail (in the cases where all those details are relevant, surely not the case for all migrants) without being overly verbose for the lede. I don't see the value in compressing it further into long hyphenated strings where the relations of the individual terms get rather unclear. Plain old "X-Y" might mean "Y of X ethnicity" (Italian American), "X of Y ethnicity or former citizenship" (British Indian), "X and Y citizen concurrently", "X and Y citizen successively" "mixed X and Y descent", etc. (and when you say X-Y-Z there's even more possibilities), and it's a disservice to readers to compress all those disparate cases into the same hyphenated term.

Also I'd suggest caution in using the formulation "X and Y actor": it should be limited to the rare cases where the person is actually notable as an actor of both countries, not merely cases where he exercises his profession as a actor in X while also happening to be a proud citizen or descendant of Y (but never appearing on Y television nor aiming at viewers in Y-Land). quant18 (talk) 07:02, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Bear in mind that the body of the article should always make the exact situation clear, as in, 'The subject was born in X of Y parents and, at the age of 5, moved to Z where he studied for 24 years. He then moved to W where he did his famous work, later to become naturalised as a W citizen.', for example. There are always, therefore, going to be some compromises in summarising the situation for the lead. I see two separate issues that need discussion: the form of wording to be used, and which countries/ethnicities should be mentioned.

It is indeed a good idea to try to have a consensual and precise wordings of the guideline on this issue. It typically can generate many endlessly repetitive discussions on some articles. I do not know if it would receive support, but my personal proposition would be to ban ANY reference to nationality/country/ethnicity in the opening section: can't we just say that Einstein was a scientist without having to mention his possible nationalities/religion/etc? That could go a long way in preventing the "I want to claim this famous guy for my country/ethnicity/etc." attitude. Interested readers could then make their own opinions when reading the body of the article. There would probably still be some battle about the wording of the body, but that would hopefully be a bit less passionate, as there would be room to expand on each issue. That would also emphasize the "universal" role of scientists and artists. Of course the problem is that about every current Wikipedia biography go against this, so this would take effort and might not be very consensual. Also, there might be a need to make an exception for professions such as politician.Tokidokix (talk) 12:15, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Wording

This can range from none, through the simple W-Y-Y-Z, to a condensed description as in 'X-born of Y parents, Z educated W'.

Nationalities/citizenship/ethnicities to be mentioned

This is a much harder question, the question of ethnicity being the hardest of all. It is tempting to stick to the current concept of not mentioning ethnicity at all but it might be considered that this discriminates against displaced groups who may have no nationality other than that of their host nation. This is likely to be a very contentious topic, which may be the reason that the current guidance is not to mention ethnicity.

We also need to decide how we give weight to: nationality of parents, birth, residency, education, and possibly other factors. This will not be easy but it is undoubtedly the subject of many disputes and, in my opinion, it is best discussed here, away from national feelings and loyalties. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:46, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

The major problem with the proposed chains of hyphenated demonyms is that they lead to a profusion of Wikipedian-invented terms that aren't used in reliable sources or are not the common name. For example, the Koreans of Kazakhstan were formerly Soviet Koreans and are now Koryo-saram; they've never been "Korean Soviets" nor "Korean Kazakhstanis". And many more places simply don't use these kinds of double-barrelled terms at all: women from Beijing who move to Taipei aren't "Chinese Taiwanese", Indians in Madagascar aren't "Indian Malagasy", etc.

As for ethnicity, the current guideline is not to "not mention ethnicity" but to include it only where it is "relevant to notability". I suppose that could use a bit more explication, though. Personally I agree partly with Tokidokix: there are many situations where even citizenship is not relevant either, and even in the case of politicians location is far more important contextual information than citizenship (we have a politician in Hong Kong who used to carry Thai & American passports, but calling him a "Thai American politician" would be a farce) — which the current guideline fails to recognise either. Your point about displaced groups is another good one: there are many cases where nationality (in the sense of membership in a nation, not in the sense of a legal relationship to a nation-state) is going to be far more relevant than what passport you happen to qualify for. quant18 (talk) 14:05, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

I take your point about non-standard terminology although as we are talking about style rather than content we need to be bound by sources. In fact for some people it is probably possible to find sources to support almost any chosen description.

I can see why mention of ethnicity is currently discouraged in the MOS, it some cases mention of ethnicity could be considered invasive, divisive, or provocative, whereas in other cases not to mention it seems wrong.

Do you think it will be possible to try to produce some more comprehensive style guidelines here or should we just give up and let people just fight it out in individual pages? Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:10, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Having this type of discussion done at a central location (ie here) is in principle a very good thing in my opinion: first it would be the only way to get some consistency across wikipedia articles instead of having variations depending on which "side" manage to gather enough of the editors "that care a lot" to win the edit war of attrition. It could also save a huge amount of time lost in those endless discussions.

However, this can only be useful if there is also some thinking on how to get the guideline enforced on such potentially controversial matters. In my short experience, editors "that care a lot" are happy to ignore and even go in the opposite direction of the guidelines if these guidelines do not support their preferred version... which remove the reason for having a guideline in the first place.Tokidokix (talk) 11:50, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

I think it is worth continuing to try to get some agreement to change here. Enforcement is, and always will be, a problem but that is not a reason to give up completely. I prefer the non-standard X-Y-Z description because it is likely to be the least contentious in practice. Being non-standard, it does not have any strict interpretation which could be challenged. I think the summary version, as in 'X, Y-naturalized' or 'X born Y' can easily get cumbersome as in, 'born of X parents in country Y then moved to Z where he was naturalised'. The non-standard X-Y-Z is intentionally vague, allowing the actual situation to be made clear in the article body. There will still be arguments about which countries/ethnicities get a mention but I think this format will reduce conflict as far as possible. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:51, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree that it "might" be less contentious, but do not forget the potential disputes on whether someone is "X-Y-Z" or "Z-X-Y" or "Y-X-Z"... ;-) Tokidokix (talk) 10:50, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Broad consistency might not be a good thing - there are so many different considerations based on personal and political situations, historical periods, importance of particular aspects in different people's notable achievements, and so on. Perhaps more precise rules could be worked out for narrow categories of persons, but even that may do more harm than good. The problem might not be the inconsistency, but the fact that certain editors are trying to push particular viewpoints - either because they have their own vision of a "rule" that ought to be enforced regardless of genuine case-by-case considerations, or because they have a liking for or aversion towards particular nationalities/ethnicities and try to promote or demote them accordingly. It may be this behavior that needs to be dealt with, rather than anything in the guideline. W. P. Uzer (talk) 11:02, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough, but how would you suggest to deal with people trying to promote/demote nationalities/ethnicities other than having clear, fact-based, understandable and enforceable rules?Tokidokix (talk) 11:32, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

I think we are all trying to deal with the same problem here, that editors often push nationalistic or ethnic viewpoints in individual articles. I have suggested on possible rule (X-Y-Z in chronological order) but that still leaves plenty to argue about.

An alternative might be not to mention nationality or ethnicity at all in the lead (or maybe only do so when it is simple and undisputed).

We could also suggest proposed wording like 'X-born Y' etc. There are two aspects of this issue that can be treated separately though, as indicated by my two headings above. The first is what countries do we mention. Do we only mention nationalities that the subject has had? Do we mention countries of long term residence and education? When should we include ethnicity.

The second aspect is simply one of format; having decided what we should include, in what format do we show it? Martin Hogbin (talk) 14:39, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we should begin by defining "nationality". Is it citizenship, ethnicity, sense of national identity? What of the case when an independent sovereign state does not exist (e.g., Kurds, Basques, Jews prior to the establishment of Israel, Poles between 1795 and 1918) but the individual's national identity is nevertheless important—perhaps most important? Nihil novi (talk) 20:05, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Given the diversity of potentially applicable concepts of "nationality", it may not universally be the case that "one size fits all", and we may just have to settle for treating individual biographees on a case-by-case basis. Nihil novi (talk) 21:05, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Commonality of name vs. parenthetical

If a person is most commonly known as, say, "John Smith" but that article title is already in use and not available for an article about the person, is it better to use the person's middle initial "John Q. Smith" or a parenthetical "John Smith (author)" for the article title? By my thinking, the middle initial is substandard in that the two-part name is more common than the three-part name, and the parenthetical is substandard because it is not the person's name at all; e.g., the parenthetical looks funny in categories. 216.66.5.53 (talk) 18:27, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Try testing any idea for an article title in Wikipedia's search box, to see what existing articles it could be confused with.
If his books are published under John Smith, then the average reader only knows him as John Smith, and will be faced with options such as John Smith (politician) John Smith (zoologist) etc. so John Smith (author) is the solution, as the "man in the street" doesn't know about his "Q", so will not enter the Q in a search. However, if his books are published under a name such as Arthur C. Clarke the initial is important.Arjayay (talk) 21:23, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

It is our standard procedure not to use a middle name or initial as a disambiguator unless it is commonly used to refer to the individual in question. If it isn't, don't use it and use a parenthetical disambiguator instead. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:58, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

a notable exception is Sarah Jane Brown where editors selected a name that has literally never been used in the press.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:30, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

People who change their name

Under the section Names the sub-section Changed names tells editors to use "the name they were using at the time of the mention", but only when "a person is named in an article in which they are not the subject". I don't see where there is any instruction about what to do with a biography article where the person named is the subject. Many articles use name-at-the-time, so Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is referred to in his own article as "Alcindor" for descriptions of his life before the name change and "Abdul-Jabbar" for after. But John Wayne, who was born "Marion Morrison" and even credited in his first film as "Duke Morrison" is referred to as "Wayne" even when writing about his early years (eg; "As a teen, Wayne worked in an ice cream shop...."). With married names, Margaret Thatcher is referred to as "Roberts" (her birth name) for her life before marriage and "Thatcher" after, but Demi Moore is referred to as "Moore" throughout, even when describing meeting here future first husband ("Moore met musician Freddy Moore at the Los Angeles nightclub The Troubadour.") Cat Stevens is referred to as "Georgiou" (his birth name) for his pre-recording life, but hockey player Mike Danton is "Dantin" throughout, even though his birth name is "Jeffereson" and he was drafted into the NHL as "Mike Jefferson" (which the 2000 NHL Entry Draft page correctly reports).

So my question is: Is there any general style policy about what name to use for people in biography articles about them if they have changed names at some point in their lives? Are some of these articles doing it wrong, or is there no general policy about which way to do it? 99.192.71.6 (talk) 18:33, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't know about any policies, but in my opinion, it should normally be the name in use at the time. The "Moore met Moore" example is particularly bad. W. P. Uzer (talk) 19:49, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I was hoping to avoid any discussion about what it should be until after establishing whether there are any current general policies, but since you mention it I agree with you in general. In cases where a notable person had a different surname while married, was known by that name, but has since switched back to a former name it can be better not to use the married name. Roseanne Barr was known as "Roseanne Arnold", but even on her bio page most of the discussion of her during that time is about also mentions Tom Arnold, so just saying "Arnold" for her would be confusing. But that is a case I would count as an exception to a good general rule.

If there is no general policy on names of subjects in their own bio articles currently, I suppose the next question would be whether one should be added to the MOS. It seems odd not to have one. But any discussion of that can wait until after we have established whether or not there is a general policy already. I'm still hoping there already is one somewhere and I just missed it. 99.192.71.6 (talk) 20:11, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

In the Roseanne Arnold case you describe, I think the solution is to use the first name (unless she was still known by her previous surname at that time, in which case that could be used). Another solution is to prefer he and she pronouns over names in cases when that helps. (But that doesn't apply in cases where the person has changed sex... See Chelsea Manning for the confusing writing that ensues when someone is retrospectively changed into a "she" for their whole life on the basis of something they said yesterday.) W. P. Uzer (talk) 06:28, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

What is the reasoning behind the guideline suggesting use of a person's past name? If we are writing in the present tense, we should use the name by which the person is presently known. If we are quoting a past statement, that would be different. I'm thinking specifically of references to Chelsea Manning, but I think this would apply to all cases. Startswithj (talk) 19:56, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Two more ways I thought of thinking of this:

If, after Manning is released from prison, she is invited to speak in a lecture series, I believe her introduction would include a summary of "she did this, she said that…such-and-such person saw Chelsea here, they spoke with Ms. Manning there," etc. (that is, the introductory speaker would presently not use Manning's former name or pronoun in recounting past events).
If you were discussing the movie The Princess Bride, you would not speak of the Dread Pirate Roberts' duels with Inigo, Fezzik, and Vizzini (even though that was his identity at the time). I believe you would speak of Westley's duelings with the trio, because that is now who we all know him to be.

Thank you, Startswithj (talk) 05:37, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I think different conventions would apply in a serious biography than in a polite introduction of the kind you mention. In giving an objective and basically chronological account of the life of Muhammad Ali, say, I would expect him to be referred to as Clay right up to the time of his change of name. The Queen as Princess Elizabeth up to the time of her accession to the throne. Et cetera. The case of someone dressing up as a pirate is a bit different, since their "true" identity already objectively exists at the time (though in any case, care might have to be taken not to given the impression that "Westley" is perceived as "Westley" by those around him; just as care needs to be taken in the other direction to make sure the reader is aware that Clay and Ali, or the Princess and the Queen, are the same person). Common sense should always be preferred over absolute rules. W. P. Uzer (talk) 06:38, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure that, as written, the combination Changed names and Subsequent use is quite robust enough. There is no guidance on what to do in rather common cases such as were the last name of the person in question changes, never mind what to do when all parts of a name changes. If Mary Jones becomes Mary Smith at some point I think there needs to be some clear indication of that fact inside of articles mentioning her in both time periods and right now the guidelines don't seem to address that. This seems like it would be especially important when dealing with someone without an article of their own, since there won't even be the possibility of a wikilink to make clear that the same person was being referred to in both cases. Simple Sarah (talk) 14:04, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Exactly what W. P. Uzer said. This is not a style issue but a matter of writing comprehensible and accurate content. Beware of instruction creep. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:12, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

After further reflection, I realize that my comment is largely tangential to the question 99.192 was asking. I was thinking and speaking more about the guideline in question as it exists, rather than about any sort of expansion to deal with how to refer to the article subject themselves. I apologize on that front. I still do feel my concerns have merit in regards to Changed names as written in regards to mentions of a subject in another article, but I admit that it doesn't really fall under the scope of the current discussion. Therefore, I have struck it. Simple Sarah (talk) 13:13, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:HONORIFIC and "Blessed"

There is mention of possible change to WP:HONORIFIC at Talk:Louis Martin (blessed). In ictu oculi (talk) 02:35, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Describing people

Hi, I can't find a relevant policy or guideline about what we should include in descriptions of people in phrases in which they are characterised (such as "singer-songwriter Bob Dylan", "playwright Harold Pinter" etc). I am assuming that common sense would require that we only characterise people by what is notable about them. We would not say "singer-songwriter, novelist and painter Bob Dylan", even though Dylan has written a novel (sort-of) and painted. Is there a guideline for Lede sections in biographies, in which a person is introduced ("Joe Shmoli was an Italian acrobat and linguist....")? I'm also interested in any guidelines regarding characterisations of persons in other articles in which they are mentioned. ("Gina Shmoli was the daughter of acrobat and linguist, Joe..."). If this has been formalised on a policy/guideline page somewhere, I can't find it. Paul B (talk) 20:45, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Since there has been such a helpful and extensive response to this query (!), perhaps an editor can suggest a better place to raise the issue. Paul B (talk) 19:31, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I would suggest the Village Pump policy section, at least you'll get replies there. My opinion is that the wording and description isn't significant enough, and that editors should just use their best judgement when describing people.--ɱ (talk) 20:31, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Religious titles

There is no advice on when to use religious titles - e.g. Rev., Rabbi, etc. Are these deemed to be "Professional titles", covered by WP:CREDENTIAL, so should not be used?
If so, I think this needs to be made far more specific, as the current vague wording hardly supports the removal of such titles. If not then when should such titles be used? Arjayay (talk) 16:39, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

"Sir", etc. outside of the main article

The MOS makes clear that in the article about the subject (e.g. Elton John) the first use includes the honorific ("Sir Elton Hercules John CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947)..."). What is not clear is usage in other articles. While checking a few articles seems to confirm that we do not use the title in those articles (e.g. John's newest album The Union is "... a collaboration album by singer-songwriters Elton John and Leon Russell..."), is this the case? (This is being discussed at Talk:Little_Dorrit#Honorific_titles.) - SummerPhD (talk) 15:36, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

It depends on the context. Sir Elton John is usually credited professionally as Elton John, so his title is unnecessary in articles connected to his career. However, it would be perfectly acceptable to refer to, say, Sir Winston Churchill in another article, as that is how he's commonly known. For the vast majority of titled people, it is usual to use their titles when referring to them. The one exception is those in the entertainment industry, including popular musicians and actors, who are usually credited professionally without their titles (see the credits of most films featuring a knight or dame, for instance). Classical composers, conductors, singers and musicians, however, usually do use their titles professionally, so these should be used. It's a judgement call. There's no hard and fast rule. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:53, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Use of royal "Titles and styles" and honorific prefixes in articles and templates referring to pretenders to abolished royal titles and their families

I have undone the close of this RfC andhave asked for an uninvolved admin to evaluate the consensus and close the RfC. See my comments near the bottom of the "Threaded discussion" section. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:22, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Previous result text was:

archive top|result= Proposal as written fails, a compromise has been achieved on the main point at issue,which is that "These are traditional, rather than legal, styles and titles sometimes used by courtesy" is allowed to be inserted once into an appropriate place in relevant articles. Sorry about the violation of canvassing policy which I was unaware of.--Smeat75 (talk) 19:48, 28 November 2013 (UTC) (talk) 21:20, 26 November 2013 (UTC)}}

Should royal titles used by pretenders to the thrones of abolished monarchies and their families be clearly distinguished in all WP articles and templates from the titles of members of royal families of currently existing monarchies?Smeat75 (talk) 21:20, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Background

To clarify - when I say "royal titles" I mean what royalty specialists call "Styles and titles", I did not want to make the statement too long. There are thousands of WP articles and templates that do not make a clear, or any, distinction between royal titles held by current monarchs and their families and those of families whose titles were abolished by the governments of their countries, often many years ago. To use Germany as an example, although this applies to numerous other ex-monarchies also, in 1919 all German titles of royalty were abolished by law - "Encyclopedia of Politics, Volume 2 "In Germany, titles of royalty existed from early Medieval times until they were abolished when the region became a republic in 1918 ." Also see [6][7] Note that these reliable sources do not say "the titles were abolished in a legal sense but they still exist because people still use them" or anything like that, no, they state that the government of Germany abolished them and that must be the starting point of this discussion, we do not argue with WP:RS on wikipedia. Now look,as an example of one of hundreds, possibly thousands, of articles about members of deposed royal families, at Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia, who is the person who would be the Emperor of Germany today had the German monarchy not been abolished. You will see a section "Titles and styles" [8] which lists such things as his "title and style" from 1994-present has been "His Imperial and Royal Highness The Prince of Prussia". The infobox on this person says his predecessor was Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia and his heir apparent is Prince Carl Friedrich of Prussia. Underneath that infobox is a navbox titled "Prussian Royal Family" with a long list of persons who are given as, for instance, "HI&RH Prince Carl Friedrich". In my opinion, all of this could very easily confuse and mislead readers. All of these titles have been abolished for nearly a hundred years, they are sometimes used on ceremonial occasions or just to be "polite" , the neutral, technical word for these titles that the "monarchist's handbook" the Almanach de Gotha uses is "Titles of pretence", a very revealing and truthful term, the subject of this article is the Pretender to the throne of Germany and members of his family use "Titles of pretence", they are all pretending by the use of those honorifics "HRH" etc that they are the holders of titles that in reality were abolished many years ago.(And the Manual of Style says "In general, styles and honorifics should not be included in front of the name, but may be discussed in the article" [9])In my opinion every article and template where these abolished titles are listed or referred to should very clearly and unmistakably distinguish between these and titles held by members of currently reigning royal families, or we are misleading the readers. I have tried to amend the templates such as the one in this article, removing the honorific prefixes and changing the name from "Prussian royal family" to "House of Hohenzollern" but leaving the rest of it the same but I get reverted so would like comments from the wider community, I hope this discussion will be participated in by a wide section of WP editors and not only the royalty buffs who are undoubtedly going to turn up here, could I ask the latter please to try to limit use of jargon and historical precedent etc likely to be incomprehensible to those unfamiliar with these matters? Thank you Smeat75 (talk) 15:51, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Please be careful in pursuing this matter. Since taking it up you have consistently encountered reverts on individual bios, dissent on talk pages, rejection on deletion requests and counsel on your talk page to exercise restraint, yet rather than accept that many contributors here simply don't support your insistence that the practice to which you so strongly object be changed, now you are proposing to alter Wikipedia rules to mandate your perspective on articles. In rapidly switching to different WP venues when you encounter resistance, you may be forum shopping. During ongoing polling on the question you have chosen and phrased based on the backgrounder you wrote, you have nonetheless tried to refine and narrow the scope of your proposal after !votes had already been cast on your initial, broader version -- muddying the waters as to what is being decided. Recently you have been canvassing selected individuals to come here and participate in the poll, explicitly communicating to them your interpretation of the issue in your recruitment messages. Clearly this crusade has become consuming for you, but you risk invalidating your own efforts by breaking so many of Wikipedia's norms to solicit the outcome you seek. FactStraight (talk) 08:48, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Please tell me how I have been canvassing, I have been following the guidelines at [10]WP:RFC it says " you may publicize the RfC by posting a notice at one or more of the following locations-One of the Village Pump forums, such as those for policy issues, proposals, or miscellaneous-Noticeboards such as point-of-view noticeboard, reliable source noticeboard, or original research noticeboard-Talk pages of editors listed in the Feedback Request Service. You must select editors from the list at random; you cannot pick editors that will be on "your side" in a dispute", where I have just been going down the list leaving messages on the talk pages of users who have said they wouldn't mind contributing to more than two or so discussions a month, I have no idea if any of these people agree with me about these things, in fact I should think it is more likely that they have absolutely no knowledge of or interest in such esoteric arcana. I purposely did not notify my wiki friend Liz who I consulted and asked her if she thought I was being a jerk about all this, even though she told me she had no opinion about royalty and just reading about this dispute made her eyes glaze over.Smeat75 (talk) 09:05, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Your message to the individuals you have chosen to solicit to participate in this poll says, in part, "...I have opened an RfC about suggested guidelines in the Manual of Style for articles about living members of families whose ancestors were deposed as monarchs of various countries and the titles and "styles" attributed to these living people, at the moment often in a misleading and inaccurate way in my opinion." (italics mine). You have thus biased your description of the issue. FactStraight (talk) 09:14, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

What's the difference between saying that in an invitation to come here and comment and getting here and seeing the same? I have not chosen the individuals, I was just going down the list at Feedback Request Service, as the guidelines say you can do. However, as you object,I have stopped doing it. With reference to, as you say, I have "tried to refine and narrow the scope of your proposal" I have tried to clarify what I meant, not historical pretenders and their families, only living ones, one clarification per article is enough (only those navboxes have to be dealt with) and WP:RFC says about the opening statements [11] "You can also do your best, and invite others to improve your question or summary later" so I thought it would be OK as it says for us all to collaborate here on a proposal that we can agree on.Smeat75 (talk)

You state above that you "have been following the guidelines at [12]WP:RFC", but RFC explicitly states, "...do not argue the RfC. Take care to adhere to the canvassing guideline". You are required to give only a neutral description of the issue under discussion because by stating your own position to those you invite to this poll, those most likely to agree with their inviter are more likely to participate, while those less likely to agree are disincentivized, thereby potentially biaising the outcome and rendering the result open to challenge. FactStraight (talk) 22:08, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Survey

Support,The templates for navboxes about members of deposed royal families should be amended, removing the honorific prefixes and changing the name from "Prussian royal family" to "House of Hohenzollern",for instance, the "Titles and styles" sections of such articles changed to "Courtesy titles" or "Titles of pretence", and articles that use these abolished titles should explain in the body of the text that their use has no significance other than a gesture of politeness.
Oppose, leave all these articles and templates as they are with regard to these matters.
Oppose. If these people are referred to using these titles by reliable sources, we should use them. Our mission is to document and summarize what reliable sources say, not to parse the legal standing of common usage. Obviously articles should make clear that Prussian royalty no longer reigns. But whether a title or style (or nickname, or other form of address...) is "legally recognized" by a particular country is not decisive here. A slightly technical example: holders of courtesy titles in the United Kingdom, are, by UK law, commoners. However, The London Gazette, a government publication of record, will inevitably refer to such a person as "Given name, commonly known as courtesy title." So the idea that because a title is not legally recognized, we can't make use of it, is prima facie invalid. In short: Smeat75, drop the stick and find another cause to protest, because this isn't doing you any good. Choess (talk) 00:06, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Oppose It is vast overkill to mandate that a disclaimer be attached and repeated for every single instance in which a traditional title or style is used in a Wikipedia bio, article section or template in reference to a titled member of a former reigning dynasty (e.g., King Constantine II of Greece, Empress Fara Diba, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Gyalmo Hope Cooke, Henri comte de Chambord, Prince Alfonse de Hohenlohe, Prince Imperial Napoleon, Carlos-Hugo de Borbón Duke of Parma, King Gyanendra of Nepal, Emperor Bảo Đại of Annam, Prince Henri of Orléans, etc). There is already a long-standing rule that English Wikipedia doesn't refer to anyone, enthroned or dethroned, as "Holiness", "Majesty", "Her Grace", etc. in running prose, but these styles and the historical titles borne by former royalty (often the primary way they are known to the English-speaking public, e.g., Queen Anne-Marie, King Fuad II, Duarte Duke of Braganza, Prince Ernst August of Hanover) are formally described and otherwise mentioned in articles for persons who are commonly known as such. It is common to attach a footnote to the use of Count, Baron or Prince when used to refer to Germans, explaning on initial use, that it's no longer a legal title -- what's inadequate about that practice? Why can His Purpleness The Artist Once Again Known As Prince, Duke Ellington and Queen Latifah be referred to in WP by the monikers widely associated with them without explanation, but Ira von Furstenberg can't be? Although WP doesn't refer to the man regarded by Jacobites as the rightful, Catholic King of England as such, we do refer to him as Franz, Duke of Bavaria, citing the Almanach de Gotha and Burke's Guide to the Royal Family, authoritative texts on the correct use of titles and those who bear them, for that usage. Many texts attribute titles and styles to former royals, along with society at large on ceremonial occasions, yet now we're being told to ignore reliable sources, apply synthesis to 1919 laws to ignore what people are called in the real world, and impose an uber-egalitarian POV to living individuals and retroactively to dead exiles. Why fix what ain't broke? FactStraight (talk) 01:28, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Comment - I am not proposing that every single instance of a use of "HRH" etc or "royal styles and titles" in articles about pretenders and their families be accompanied by a disclaimer explaining that they do not carry any official status recognised by the governments of their countries, one per article would be enough, you suggested that over at Talk:Royal family [13], you said "With respect to these articles, it is reasonable to insert a disclaimer for living persons, as appropriate, that any titles and styles are traditional courtesies rather than legal, which addresses the legitimate concern here." That is a very sensible suggestion, I have tried to introduce such clarifications but have been reverted. If such a disclaimer were to be inserted in all of these articles that would clear the issues I have with the body of the text up altogether - but not just by putting it in a footnote, a sentence in the body of the text itself, maybe at the beginning of the section "Titles and styles", just briefly say something like "These are traditional styles and titles sometimes used as a gesture of courtesy, but are not recognised as official by the government of their country". But then we would still have the problem of those navboxes with a list of "Royal Highnesses" The Prince of This or That, do you have a similar sensible suggestion to make about them?Smeat75 (talk) 02:01, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Another comment - I'm proposing this for living pretenders and their families, not historical ones, I nearly put that in the statement but was concerned that would make it too long.Smeat75 (talk) 02:25, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

That is what you have proposed because you did not exclude articles on dead ex-royalty in your proposal, nor that the disclaimer need only be included once per article. Since contributors have already commented and !voted on it, that is the proposal now before us. When I suggested that the disclaimer included in Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia was typical of the kind that is already commonly used and might address your concerns if used consistently, you began citing and targeting it as an example of the problem you seek to fix. So I am confused, though pleased, that you now wish to utilise it. In articles that have "Titles" or "Honours" sections, I'd support "These are traditional, rather than legal, styles and titles sometimes used by courtesy." If there's no section, footnoting the disclaimer as has been done on Wikipedia for years is acceptable. But one disclaimer is enough -- but putting it there, in navboxes, in other sections of the article, or virtually everywhere a person's name is given is unnecessary and cumbersome. What makes better sense is more editorial vigilance to ensure the single mention is included, and I would commit to using it if an agreeable template is guidelined -- but no proliferation of disclaimers in multiple sections. FactStraight (talk) 06:25, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

FactStraight says" I'd support "These are traditional, rather than legal, styles and titles sometimes used by courtesy." I think that is very sensible, it would completely satisfy my concerns as to the body of the text, thank you for suggesting it, but not in a footnote, in the appropriate place in the body of the text, once per article is enough. But I'm afraid I would still be concerned about the neutrality and accuracy of those navboxes that just flatly list a lot of "HI&RH The Princess of This or That" holders of abolished royal titles.And actually the disclaimer as it is at the moment in Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia is not quite clear enough, it says "official in Germany" he is plain "Mister", your formulation is much better, all these articles should say at the start of these sections, or if there is no such section, somewhere else that refers to these abolished titles "These are traditional, rather than legal, styles and titles sometimes used by courtesy.", yes, that is perfect.Smeat75 (talk)

Support, as nominator.Smeat75 (talk) 00:56, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. As proposed, it is overkill, as someone said above. The statement, also quoted above, "With respect to these articles, it is reasonable to insert a disclaimer ..., as appropriate, that any titles and styles are traditional courtesies rather than legal...." (insert = mention within article text), would be fine as a guideline but not strict policy. I wouldn't worry about the navboxes (no disclaimer needed there). Hordaland (talk) 02:39, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Oppose If this meant only to rule out calling Henri, Count of Chambord Henry V of France, I would approve. But he is known as Count of Chambord, even - perhaps especially - to his opponents. To call him Henri Bourbon, or Henri Capet, like his great-uncle, is to adopt a POV, and more seriously, to confuse the reader - who will not find him called that. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:29, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

* Comment on above - I am not proposing anything about article titles in this discussion, only trying to find a suitable way to avoid confusion about the official status of "styles and titles" for pretenders and their families. If it is decided to do as FactStraight suggested at Talk:Royal family [14], "With respect to these articles, it is reasonable to insert a disclaimer for living persons, as appropriate, that any titles and styles are traditional courtesies rather than legal, which addresses the legitimate concern here", that would satisfy me with regard to the body of the text of these articles, but not about all of those navboxes.Smeat75 (talk) 04:01, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Having raised your objection on numerous articles, on bio talk pages, on contributor talk pages, on deletion proposals and here, in no case obtaining a consensus for your position, you have received a good faith suggestion for a compromise to address the gravamen of your concern (a disclaimer whose language we've agreed upon, inserted once in every relevant article), it behooves you to accept a compromise rather than persist in declaring that you must be satisfied on all points in every article, which begins to look like an attempt at global WP:OWNership of all Wikipedia's articles on past rulers and their families. Again, vast overkill in asserting I Just Don't Like It. FactStraight (talk) 22:08, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Emphatically oppose. These titles and styles are not regulated by republican law, they are regulated custom. We are not obligated to refer to someone by their legal name only. If someone is "confused" about the status of a certain family, articles on Wikipedia are pretty well linked, they can read the article on the relevant family to see whether or not it is dethroned if that fact isn't severely underscored as Smeat75 so forcefully desires. Seven Letters 04:15, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Strong support These titles and styles are granted and in many cases, even where a reliable source may call them "princess" a look at such other sources as obits will show that no such title was ever granted. We don't just look for a source that refers to someone as "His majesty" or "prince" or "princess". What we look for is the accurate granting of such titles. Today there are indeed a number of articles on Wikipedia that seem to be attempting to use Wikipedia to advance a fringe idea or theory of a royal line when none can be truly sourced and when such sources are found that contradict long standing beliefs, it makes peoples heads explode because of long standing legend or myth. It is not our place to use these titles or styles just because a source does, it is our responsibility as editors to get the facts straight and not just merely pass along inaccurate information.--Mark Miller (talk) 05:38, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Comment on above - Thank you Mark Miller, I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees things that way.Smeat75 (talk)

Comment:

1)An encyclopedia is expected to be factual and encyclopedias must not present misleading facts.

2)Encyclopedia article titles and content must avoid any real or perceived effort or intention on authors side to purposefull influencing of the readers openion.Here we need to remember core basic principle of neutrality that wiki movement stands for.

3)Here in this proposal while closure of discussion I hope admins and experienced users will uphold the wikipedia's core encyclopedia values as ever.

Mahitgar (talk) 05:38, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. And in that process, !voters and closing admins should remember our core policy, Wikipedia reflects what reliable sources say: The articles in question here are (or can be) footnoted to show that the titles and styles attributed to individuals therein are documented by multiple, solid, current sources. These aren't titles/styles made up by editors reaching back to pre-World War I sources. This proposal mandates that Wikipedia ignore current sources in favor of old law. FactStraight (talk) 22:08, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Oppose Don't fix what ain't broke. Users Choess and FactStraight hit the nail on the head. James ^{(T • C)} • 6:01pm • 07:01, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

It kinda is broken and neither of the two editors you mention have hit anything. Choess clearly stated we use whatever termonolgy (mistaken or not) from the source and that is not even our current guideline. FactStraight doesn't even appear to understand the proposal and suggested that we allow it simply because they are " commonly known as such". Frankly it is indeed this type of support that allows a (past) State legislator to be referred to, or even hinted to be considered, a "prince" when there has never been anyone to grant that title to them, nor even a source to back up claims that the people of that state refer to him as such. We had an article sitting around for a couple of years that actually proclaimed someone as the actual King of the non-existent (currently, to be clear) Kingdom of Hawaii...just because he declared himself such and held his own coronation. No, this is about something broken needing to be fixed.--Mark Miller (talk) 09:13, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

The fix is that you edit the relevant articles to include only properly sourced info, rather than try to mandate a Wikipedia-wide ban on article content. If the problem is that Akahi Nui, Quentin Kawānanakoa, Abigail Kinoiki Kekaulike Kawānanakoa or even Walter M. Gibson make claims that are disputed, the answer lies in citing sources. If reliable sources can be found which state something which remains disputed, the solution lies in adding alternative interpretations based on reliable sources. This is no more the proper fix for Hawaii's "pretender" problems, than is using a floating crane to catch goldfish. FactStraight (talk) 22:08, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Comment Both sides' arguments have merits. My immediate reaction is to follow, as usual, the Wikipedia rules on Notability. But the case of royals and title holders is entirely different from the "case" of people like Queen Latifah or Emperor Norton, whom Surtsicna offered above as examples.

There are three specific and significant distinctions among uses of royal and feudal terms.

(1) Where people use them in an openly non-literal manner, e.g. for purposes of entertainment or advertisement. Such is the case of Count Basie, the King of Rock and Roll, the Queen of Soul, Prince, Queen Latifah, and others. Here, there's no mistaking the purpose. There is no claim by any of these people to be real kings or dukes.

(2) Where people are genuinely and widely accepted title holders, or have been in History. These would be the Codrus, King Of Athens, Elizabeth, Queen of Jamaica, and others. In this and the previous cases, there is no problem whatsoever in how we denote people in Wikipedia.

(3) The problematic category! Where people are pretenders to a title, or former holders of one. In other words, where there is no consensus as to the actual validity of their title. There are notable references of them with their title but there are also notable references of them without their title. There are people in this category who are sincere, yet probably deluded in their claims. There are also people who are proclaimed, often posthumously, to be the rightful owners of a title. Are we, then, supposed to list Anna Anderson in Wikipedia as "Anastasia, Czarina of Russia"? What is Wikipedia to do? Be the arbiter of heraldic disputes?! I do not think so. (And neither does our rulemaker.)

Tentative opinion: To the extent where notable disputes exist, we should be careful to present the full, notable picture. If this means a bit of extra text, so be it. If this means the article looks like it tiptoes on the issue, so be it: there is no issue for us to solve. But I am rather unsure as to how exactly we go about this. Cheers. -The Gnome (talk) 12:11, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Excellent points. And already solved on Wikipedia by current practice using reliable sources. We list Anna Anderson aka Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia under Impostors: False Royal Heritage Claims, as we should. FactStraight (talk) 22:08, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the very well thought out comment. I think you have hit the highlights here. Let me explain a recent example that I have discovered. The article Keelikōlani refers to Ruth as "Princess Ruth Luka Keanolani Kauanahoahoa Keʻelikōlani ", however there is actually no history to show that she was ever granted this title and style HH (which some sources use) in life or posthumously. In fact, the obituary that I found comes right out and states that, while she was referred to as "Princess" she never truly held that title. There are further sources that seem to support that. Ruth's genealogy has been a question even in her own time and I think that continuing this inaccurate claim is not encyclopedic, neutral (taking a stand to support a title never granted) or in the projects best interest. Yes, how to proceed is not so easy, but I would suggest that this proposal is a clear start and one I fully support.--Mark Miller (talk) 12:44, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Strong support as Mark Miller above. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 13:09, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. No need for a change. These titles are facts and are used. They are not spurious, made-up titles, but merely a continued use of titles legitimately granted. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:58, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Oppose per FactStraight - IMHO Vast overkill →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 15:51, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Oppose We are supposed to call people what they are normally called without regard to their legal names. The legal name anyway is debatable, because while the French Revolution may have deprived nobles of their titles in France, they were still recognized in the rest of Europe. Also, I know of no instances where we refer to members of deposed royal families as kings or emperors. TFD (talk) 16:33, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Support, but with reservations. It could be very unsafe for a living person to be described on Wikipedia as a pretender to royalty in a country that long ago overthrew royalty and no longer wants royalty (e.g. Turkey, Iran). Additionally, such living persons may have a low profile and/or may not want to be mentioned and/or may not have any royal ambitions. Wikipedia needs to be very careful about naming such people, and should only do so when there is very clear support in BLP policy and in reliable sources. For example, I think WP:BLP1E often applies here.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:52, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Comment on above - absolutely, that is a very very serious point.Smeat75 (talk) 18:32, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
I strongly oppose any attempt to abandon core principles such as WP:V and WP:UE in favour of synthesis. We should refer to people the way sources refer to them. We should not question an individual's right to such name. We should not take it upon us to "correct" the sources. Surtsicna (talk) 19:05, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Comment on above - it is very easy to verify that German royal titles were legally abolished in 1919 and that the Almanach de Gotha, considered the supreme authority on these matters by those who care about such things, refers to the titles under discussion here as "titles of pretence".Smeat75 (talk) 19:36, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

And to cite a law of some country as a reason not to use the most common name is synthesis, the worst form of original research that I've been trying to warn you about for the past few days. We use the most common name, not the legal name. If sources call someone Princess Consuela Banana Hammock, so do we, without digging through the laws of that person's homeland to see if such name form was "abolished" or in any way outlawed. Wikipedia is not an arm of any government. Surtsicna (talk) 20:18, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Smeat75, you keep bringing up "the law" as if those of us who took the opposite viewpoint were unaware of it or didn't believe it. I agree that these titles are no longer officially recognized in German law. However, we are trafficking here in custom, as well as law. In my brief comment above, I pointed out a case where a country that does still draw a clear distinction between legally titled nobility and commoners explicitly notes, in one of its official organs, that certain titles have no legal standing and are conferred only by custom, and then proceeds to acknowledge their common use. This situation seems perfectly analogous. Titles of pretence, like UK courtesy titles, have no legal standing in their respective countries, and yet are bestowed and widely recognized according to a regularized body of custom. As an encyclopedia, we document this and acknowledge custom. Some of your changes may be reasonable, but as long as you remain willfully ignorant about the reasons we might use or not use titles, it's difficult to take your reasoning seriously. Choess (talk) 20:45, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I am afraid I have to note that Smeat75 is engaging in outrageous canvassing by mass posting and campaigning. He or she has already posted cca 70 biased messages, mostly on user talk pages but also on community talk pages. Needless to say, this kind of behaviour exceeds the limits of appropriate notification (see WP:Canvassing) and becomes very disruptive. Surtsicna (talk) 20:41, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I have been following the guidelines at [15]WP:RFC it says " you may publicize the RfC by posting a notice at one or more of the following locations-One of the Village Pump forums, such as those for policy issues, proposals, or miscellaneous-Noticeboards such as point-of-view noticeboard, reliable source noticeboard, or original research noticeboard-Talk pages of editors listed in the Feedback Request Service. You must select editors from the list at random; you cannot pick editors that will be on "your side" in a dispute", where I have just been going down the list leaving messages on the talk pages of users who have said they wouldn't mind contributing to more than two or so discussions a month, I have no idea if any of these people agree with me about these things. I didn't think the message was biased.Smeat75 (talk) 20:55, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Oppose - titles and styles are still attributed to members of former reigning houses this is the overwhelming practice of reliable sources. The lead of articles like Franz, Duke of Bavaria and Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia clearly show they are from a non reigning royal house so I don’t see how readers would be "mislead" in anyway. - dwc lr (talk) 21:03, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. This is not the place to right great wrongs. I would oppose any strict rule on royal houses, titles, and honorifics (apart from WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:BLP, of course). If good sources say that a person is the archduke of Assyria, then it's OK for us to call them that too - and there's plenty of room in the article text to make context clearer. bobrayner (talk) 22:34, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Oppose There is nothing to fix here. These "titles" are customary and should be recognized, even if they hold little value at the moment. Who is to say that a deposed family may not be re-instated at some point in the future? If they have supporters who recognize their titles, who are we to say otherwise? User Choess and FactStraight are correct. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 04:38, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
Oppose per FactStraight and dwc lr. We go by reliable secondary sources for naming conventions, per WP:COMMON NAME. To bring up the Manning example again, we (now) use Chelsea Manning because that is how she identifies herself. The US government doesn't (to my knowledge) recognize her with that name (yet), but we still use it. No real difference with royalty, who are recognized as such by many different groups. Plus the articles on deposed royalty all generally say that, well, they belong to deposed houses. So no confusion for readers there. Ruby 2010/2013 05:02, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

That was just inaccurate and ridiculous. What does our policy in reflecting the gender identity of a person have to do with this?--Mark Miller (talk) 05:06, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Manning falls under the gender identity policy in addition to WP:COMMON NAME. Not only does she see herself as Chelsea Manning, reliable sources recognize her as such. It is relevant because the proposer of this RFC mentioned governments and laws as reasons why we should avoid using royal titles for deposed royalty, rather than reliable secondary sources. The US government (again, to my knowledge) as yet to recognize Manning as Chelsea, but we still do because of the two reasons I stated previously (self-identification and the preponderance of RS). Ruby 2010/2013 05:15, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Oppose per Choess, Surtsicna and FactStraight. --Yopie (talk) 15:53, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

Here's another example of navboxes in these articles about families of deposed monarchs that give inaccurate or misleading information, this one directly contrary to guidelines in WP:NCROY "Former or deposed monarchs should be referred to by their previous monarchical title....Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha not Simeon II of Bulgaria HM The Tsar"" and yet when you look at that very article, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, you see a navbox named "Bulgarian Royal Family" which says he is HM (that stands for "His Majesty") the Tsar" and he is married to Her Majesty the Tsaritsa. WP:NCROY is guidelines for article titles, not information in articles, but it still seems wrong to me to say he is HM the Tsar in that navbox, which is used in a number of articles, not just this one.Smeat75 (talk) 01:47, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

And that is contrary to existing guidance. Do edit the navboz; she was never Tsaritsa. But I don't see that writing more obscure pages that this violates will help. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:37, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

There hasn't been a Hawaiian royal family since the overthrow in 1893. So, how is it that Quentin Kawānanakoa is supposedly referred to by "the Hawaiian people" as "prince". I don't even see an actual source for this claim. The navbox refers to him as "royalty" (as an occupation?) but the title of prince in Hawaii was a designation that was granted and not passed on to a child. Even his mother was born after the overthrow, Abigail Kapiolani Kawānanakoa is being referred to as Princess directly as a title to her name and she was born twenty years after the overthrow. Not to mention that her father was only an heir to the lapsed throne and that "Queen" Liliuokalani was the last such monarch before the monarchy was abolished and lived until 1917. As far as I know only David Kawānanakoa was ever granted the title of Prince (of this particular line and the article states it clearly) and style of His Royal Highness in 1883 by King Kalākaua. I do believe it is time the MOS here made some clarification as our current guidelines allowed this for far too long.--Mark Miller (talk) 06:34, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

There is a growing trend of indigenous, colonized and displaced peoples re-claiming, re-asserting and celebrating their heritages, which often includes recognizing local, historical symbols of lost sovereignty. Such trends become notable enough to be reflected in Wikipedia as reliable sources document their prevalence. So I am not surprised that there may be folks who increasingly dissent from the notion that Hawaii's native royal family vanished off the earth when the US government conspired to depose its Queen. History may be written by the victors, but as research tools become more accessible, don't be surprised if Wikipedia's validation of past conquests is challenged -- especially around totems, such as royalty. I also don't think this poll is about royal impostors or false titleholders. Quite often their adherents, or those who claim to be related to them, fabricate or "embellish" articles which include ahistorical claims to realms, titles and styles never enjoyed by anybody or to which no one is currently heir. Whereas this poll is about people who are indisputably heirs and descendants of formerly ruling dynasties. Let's not confuse antiques with fakes! FactStraight (talk) 07:33, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

The first line of this RFC: 'Should royal titles used by pretenders to the thrones of abolished monarchies and their families be clearly distinguished in all WP articles and templates from the titles of members of royal families of currently existing monarchies?".

I think you did just confuse this poll. Hey, I'm all about understanding that the Hawaiian Royal Family didn't just disappear off the face of the Earth. But the point is about referencing true title and style and not just propagating inaccuracies because it is common. Hey, there are many people that are just now discovering their links to the Royal Family due to family simply not talking much (if at all) about it. That was the case with mine, but then I am not claiming a title or style never granted me (nor would there even be one available to guess at). There is a great deal of contradicting information but if you want to just allow it becuase it is common then there is going to be a lot of inaccurate information just continuing along.--Mark Miller (talk) 09:44, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia article titles are based on "common usage", but its content is based on reliable sources. Now, if you don't like what some of those RS say... FactStraight (talk) 22:08, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

*BLP violations- is what I think every single one of these articles are in their current state. For instance,look at Prince Ernst August of Hanover (born in 1954), it says in the lead he is the "claimant to the thrones of the former Kingdom of Hanover and the former Duchy of Brunswick." I have tried to change "claimant" to "pretender", which is the neutral and accurate word used for such people by the monarchist Bible the Almanach de Gotha, several times, but it is just reverted. Has this person ever said or stated in writing "I claim the throne of Hanover" (abolished in 1866) or "I claim the throne of the Duchy of Brunswick" (abolished in 1918)? The truth is that people who care about such things work out who would be the King of Hanover had that position not been abolished 150 years or so ago and label them as such, (although sometimes they disagree and squabble about it interminably,see for instance [16]Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, there was only such a thing from 1816- 1861 when it was abolished but there is a long-running dispute "who would be the King of the Two Sicilies" in the fantasy world where that Kingdom is "restored"), I don't see any evidence in these articles that the subjects of the articles themselves make such "claims". Maybe some of the people who are the subjects of these articles are not so deluded as to believe they are "Her Imperial and Royal Highness the Princess of Somewhere that Has Not Even Existed for 150 Years". I know that if it were me I would be insulted by people publishing allegations that I was so foolish as to imagine it was possible to make "claims" on non-existent thrones.Smeat75 (talk) 18:17, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

This is a red herring because a bio referring to someone as "claimant" or "pretender" has nothing to do with the issue (current use of old titles/styles) you are polling us on here, and is a content issue to be taken up on the bios in question. But since you raise it, I dissent from your use of "pretender" vs "claimant": the latter is generally regarded as the more passive, less "royalist" term. And for good reason: You have noted that the Almanach de Gotha refers to outdated honorifics as "titles of pretence", but actually it refers to titres de prétence. The French verb "prétendre" (from which English "pretender" derives) is notoriously a false friend, that is, it has a different meaning and connotation than the English word to which it is cognate. Whereas in English "pretend" suggests that one is knowingly faking something, in French it simply means to assert a due interest in or right to something, i.e. "to claim". I don't know of a single ex-ruler or historical heir to an abolished monarchy who insists that s/he is a monarch (discounting several self-described founders/rulers of micronations like the "Principality of Sealand"). What they usually state, often in a family website or to the Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels (the modern successor to the Almanach de Gotha which, like the Gotha did, fact checks biographical details with heads of dynasties before publication), is that they are the current heirs by heredity to the dynasty's historical legacy which, to some (like Jacobites) includes a defunct throne, while to others it means main heir to the family property or headship of a family which has often had an identifiable "head" for nearly a millenium. In cases like Franz, Duke of Bavaria and Luis Alfonso, Duke of Anjou, there are political and cultural groups ("legitimists") which attribute "rightful kingship" to these individuals and refer to them thusly, without regard to their personal preferences. But our articles do not call them by the reigning titles their advocates do, and indicate that they do not actively lead the movements which would enthrone them (although these articles are frequently edited in that direction by royalists). But we do use other, less grandiose titles for them because that is how they are prevalently referred to in reliable sources. So we already respect BLP limitations by not using titles they don't use or claim themselves. FactStraight (talk) 22:08, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

That is an interesting post FactStraight one of the things I find most interesting about it is your use of the phrase "outdated honorifics", it surprises me that you admit they are outdated, in that case why do we need to use them on WP? Having mentioned the dispute about the pretender, or claimant, to The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, I then noticed that there is an WP article about it, Line of succession to the former throne of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies with two navboxes about two different "Two Sicilies Royal Famil(ies)" and a double set of lists of a long string of "HRH"'s. Is there anybody who really does not think this is all a ridiculous charade? I would really like to hear a reason why those particular navboxes need to call all those people by those "styles and titles" on WP.Smeat75 (talk) 03:14, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Another interesting thing about your post, FactStraight, you say "I don't know of a single ex-ruler or historical heir to an abolished monarchy who insists that s/he is a monarch" so in the case of, for instance,Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia, he doesn't think he is really His Imperial and Royal Highness The Prince of Prussia, nobody thinks he is really His Imperial and Royal Highness The Prince of Prussia, nevertheless sometimes he is called "His Imperial and Royal Highness The Prince of Prussia" and so WP must also call him that. It's just a fantasy world of make-believe, however your very sensible suggestion " I'd support "These are traditional, rather than legal, styles and titles sometimes used by courtesy.", inserted before the section "Titles and styles" in that article would satisfy my concerns about the body of the text, but I would still definitely not be happy about the navbox with a list of,as you very honestly and accurately put it, "outdated honorifics" being used with no clarification.Smeat75 (talk) 06:45, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Some further comments on my part in response to replies above:

In response to Serge's comment about trying to arbitrate on the claims of pretenders, I didn't address this in my original comment (I was trying to be brief for a change), but as noted elsewhere here, we have the Almanach de Gotha and other reliable sources for European titles, which are widely-accepted reference books. They can be relied upon to distinguish undisputed heads of a deposed royal house, document controversies where the headship is disputed (tedious arguments about ebenburtigkeit), and dismiss fringe pretenders like Anastasia or Hilda Toledano. In short, we don't need to make the difficult judgment calls, because we already have and can use reliable third-party sources that distinguish between widely recognized hereditary pretenders and fringe figures.

In response to Anythingyouwant's comments about security, writing a Wikipedia article requires reliable sources. Worrying that we'll uncover reliable sources on, say, the heirs of the Shah that have not come to the attention of the Iranian intelligence services is only slightly less ludicrous than wondering how aliens will assess us on first contact based on reading Wikipedia. Choess (talk) 20:45, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

CANVASSING

Wikipedia:Canvassing says

"Inappropriate notification is generally considered to be disruptive..."

"The following behaviors are regarded as characteristic of inappropriate notification (and may be seen as disruptive)"

"Spamming: Posting an excessive number of messages..."

"Campaigning: Posting a notification of discussion that presents the topic in a non-neutral manner."

Smeat75 posted the following to 60 user talk pages:

"Hello - I have opened an RfC about suggested guidelines in the Manual of Style for articles about living members of families whose ancestors were deposed as monarchs of various countries and the titles and "styles" attributed to these living people, at the moment often in a misleading and inaccurate way in my opinion. Please join in the discussion at..." (emphasis added) --Guy Macon (talk) 21:47, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I must admit that I didn't look at Wikipedia:Canvassing , I only looked at [17]WP:RFC it says " you may publicize the RfC by posting a notice at one or more of the following locations-One of the Village Pump forums, such as those for policy issues, proposals, or miscellaneous-Noticeboards such as point-of-view noticeboard, reliable source noticeboard, or original research noticeboard-Talk pages of editors listed in the Feedback Request Service. You must select editors from the list at random; you cannot pick editors that will be on "your side" in a dispute", it says "one or more" without putting a limit on how many more, and just says "don't pick editors you think will be on your side" which I didn't. However I have clearly broken a policy I was unaware of, for which I apologise.Smeat75 (talk) 22:47, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Would you like to withdraw this RFC? It seems unlikely that it will see enough support to pass, but from the comments the more important issue is that we still have enough guidelines at BLP itself to cover most of your concerns. Perhaps a better route is the projects and their Style guides. I do believe there is such a guide at least one project related to royality. While I agree strongly with your proposal, it seems that the general community disagrees. Combined with your admitted Canvassing mistake, I feel this RFC should be closed as failed. Thanks.--Mark Miller (talk) 02:00, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Not quite yet, Mark Miller, there have at least been a couple of constructive suggestions made in this discussion, maybe there will be a few more.Smeat75 (talk) 03:14, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

That is up to you of course and there are many really great responses I see, however Guy Macon is correct, your messages did violate canvassing. Not something that will likely get you sanctioned (I have seen far more blatant canvassing) but it does kind of put the RFC in a position of violating a guideline and that is not the best position to be in. But I do understand your point and you desire to continue. Happy editing!--Mark Miller (talk) 04:01, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that the canvassing was inadvertent. I have no problem with letting the RfC run its course and letting the closer evaluate whether the canvassing changed the result. If we go that way, I would ask that we leave the closing an admin who is experienced in closing RfCs. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:03, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Comment actually shouldn't we be using the title the persons refer to themselves by... ya know that whole controversial thing we flung feces at each other for a month over? - Floydian ^τ _¢ 06:16, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Are you seriously comparing the use of "He" or "She" in reference to a preferred gender to that of a title or style in this regard? Fine...I demand to be called His Royal Highness, The King of the Compendium! _{I claim the throne for myself. Move over Jimbo!} :-)--Mark Miller (talk) 06:39, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

And if you can footnote WP:reliable sources which have published your new self-proclaimed title, Wikipedia will use it. Of course, the reason we require published sources to affirm names and titulature is precisely because they screen out the silly. So this doesn't work as an analogy, because the articles we're talking about adduce the required footnotes. If they can't, editors like yourself should just edit out unsourced content. FactStraight (talk) 22:08, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I am indeed comparing the two, specifically the self-professed name and identity change that applies in both cases. The use of reliable sources is, has been, and shall be the benchmark for content changes across the encyclopedia. Why do we need additional rule creep, yet again? This proposal and MOS:IDENTITY are both redundant guidelines. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 18:56, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Closing - Almost simultaneously with me opening this RfC,User FactStraight made a very sensible suggestion about the core of my concerns about these article - "I'd support "These are traditional, rather than legal, styles and titles sometimes used by courtesy." FactStraight says above that I "have received a good faith suggestion for a compromise to address the gravamen of your concern (a disclaimer whose language we've agreed upon, inserted once in every relevant article), it behooves you to accept a compromise rather than persist in declaring that you must be satisfied on all points in every article." Yes, fair enough. I hope there will be no objections to actually inserting that short sentence into the relevant place of relevant articles. Apologies again for the unintended violation of the policy on canvassing.Smeat75 (talk) 19:48, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Can Smeat75 just close this RfC willy-nilly? It seems a third party should do that. Also, I am trying to find where this supposed "compromise" was agreed to to add text to every single article about a member of a former royal family regarding their titles being non-legal. I thought we qualified those as "by pretense" and indicated also where they are official. I think this should be re-opened. Seven Letters 00:58, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

The whole point of RfC would be defeated if nominators could close them by claiming a consensus that was never agreed upon. Not only does the supposed compromise include referencing this discussion (!) in Wikipedia articles, it is also severely misleading in that it implies that titles and styles are generally regulated by law. They are not. A princess of Sweden, for example, is legally entitled to her title as much as a prince of Bavaria is entitled to his; there is no law in Sweden that grants her any title whatsoever. Surtsicna (talk) 01:19, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

The person who opens an RfC is allowed to close it. Almost at the moment I opened this one, user FactStraight offered a compromise, which I immediately and enthusiastically indicated I would accept as regards the body of the text of these articles - at 06:25, 27 November 2013 above. User Hordaland above said "The statement, also quoted above, "With respect to these articles, it is reasonable to insert a disclaimer ..., as appropriate, that any titles and styles are traditional courtesies rather than legal...." (insert = mention within article text), would be fine as a guideline but not strict policy. I wouldn't worry about the navboxes (no disclaimer needed there)." Then FactStraight said, addressing me, " you have received a good faith suggestion for a compromise to address the gravamen of your concern (a disclaimer whose language we've agreed upon, inserted once in every relevant article), it behooves you to accept a compromise" which I thought was fair, so I did accept it. It seems the clearest suggested course of action in the discussion. In any case this RfC was likely to fail because of the error I made in canvassing, but I did not rush to close it, I was advised to do so by Mark Miller as you can see at 2:00, 28 November 2013 but said I would wait a little longer, actually I was waiting to see if user Surtsicna, who I had a feeling might not accept the compromise offered by FactStraight, was going to give any indication of intending to oppose it, but he did not. So I closed this RfC, and I am sorry though not surprised to see that Surtsicna immediately removes the agreed on sentence from articles where it has been inserted (not by me).You or somebody else can open another RfC I suppose, this time it would need to be on the specific question Should the sentence"These are traditional, rather than legal, styles and titles sometimes used by courtesy" be allowed to be inserted once into an appropriate place in relevant articles?" although I am not sure MOS talk is the right page for it.Smeat75 (talk) 01:28, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Could I ask if Surtsicna would accept "These are traditional, rather than official, styles and titles sometimes used by courtesy" is allowed to be inserted once into an appropriate place in relevant articles"?Smeat75 (talk) 01:44, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

May I suggest that the word "style" be wikilinked in whatever wording is agreed upon, for example: style. This is not the (most) common usage of the word. Hordaland (talk) 01:55, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

7Letters refers to "a member of a former royal family " and their titles and says "I thought we qualified those as "by pretense" and indicated also where they are official." The whole point I have been trying to make here is that many many of these titles are not qualified in any way whatsoever in numerous articles about a "member of a former royal family" as a matter of fact even to try to indicate in any way at all that these persons are members of former royal families will be instantly reverted with an insistence that they are not former royals just because some government passed some law. You will find large numbers of these articles about these persons that simply list ""Titles and styles":"HRH The Princess of Somewhere".If there were agreement among those who watchlist these articles that those should be,as you say, "qualified by pretense", that would be fine with me although it is a technical term that in my opinion just doesn't sound very nice, I would also accept "courtesy" titles, and thoroughly agree with you that indeed it should be indicated where the titles are official and where they are not, any attempt I have made to do so in any way whatsoever has been instantly reverted, insisting that this distinction cannot be allowed, with detailed listing of exceptions, anomalies, why the way I have phrased it might be true one place but not another, which at least partly accounts for the,as you said ,"forceful" attitude you have discerned in my posts on this matter.Smeat75 (talk) 04:30, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Improper Close? I have a problem with this closing. While it is true that Smeat75 can close his own RfC, usually this is done with a neutral comment such as "withdrawn".

In this case Smeat75 wrote the following summary:

"...a compromise has been achieved on the main point at issue,which is that "These are traditional, rather than legal, styles and titles sometimes used by courtesy" is allowed to be inserted once into an appropriate place in relevant articles."

Besides the obvious problem of not having an unbiased outside closer determines consensus despite this being exactly the sort of RfC (with canvassing) where the unbiased outside closer is supposed to determine whether the canvassing changed the result, it couldn't help noticing that exactly one other person agreed to this alleged compromise.

Now I see that Smeat75 has posted "Are you refusing to accept the compromise reached at MOS talk?"[18][19] to the talk page of an editor who disagrees with him.

Because of these issues, I am undoing the close and asking for an uninvolved admin to evaluate the consensus and close the RfC. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:22, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Assigning royal titles to members of -ex-royal families

German royal and noble titles were all abolished in 1919."In 1919 royalty and nobility were mandated to lose their privileges in Germany, hereditary titles were to be legally borne thereafter only as part of the surname, according to Article 109 of the Weimar Constitution." Nevertheless there are thousands of articles and templates here on English WP that assign the living members of these families "styles and titles" that have not existed since then and lots of templates for ex-royal families that prefix their names with "HRH" or "HSH" and so on, this is simply false information. I have started trying to remove these false use of abolished titles and honorifics, but would welcome clarification here that individuals who do not possess legal titles should not be referred to as such. ThanksSmeat75 (talk) 19:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

The laws of North Korea forbid criticizing the Supreme Leader, yet we criticize the hell out of him. For as long as these people are known in English as Prince X of Y, German law is completely irrelevant. It's Prince Ernst August of Hanover, not Ernst August Prinz von Hannover. Emperor Norton was not an emperor, and Queen Latifah is not a queen. Are you going to propose renaming those people? The answer is simple: use common names. Surtsicna (talk) 22:05, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

The main thing I object to is putting those honorific prefixes before their names, they are not Her Royal Highness or Her Serene Highness or most ridiculous of all His Imperial and Royal Highness, that should all be deleted except for people who really do have royal titles (and there are no Imperial and Royal Highnesses, this is 2013 not 1913).Smeat75 (talk) 23:43, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Really? The Swedish government, for one, disagrees with you and refers to several German aristocrats as Royal Highnesses, Highnesses and Serene Highnesses.[20] The governements of the UK, Monaco and France all refer to Ernst August as "His Royal Highness Prince Ernst August". The "most ridiculous of all", the style of Imperial and Royal Highness, is used by the governement of Luxembourg to refer to the Grand Duke's sister and brother-in-law. There are many, many more examples, if necessary. Wikipedia does not claim that they are legally entitled to such styles; it says that they are styled as such, which is indisputably true. Of course, we should never refer to anyone as his or her anything in the running text, not even when the subject is the monarch of 16 countries. Surtsicna (talk) 00:21, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Ernst August is a special case as he has some sort of rather dubious status as a British prince owing to the fact that he is the pretender to the throne of Hanover (abolished in 1866) and is married to a real royal, Caroline of Monaco. When those officials of foreign countries call members of deposed royal families "HRH" etc they are just being polite, it has no status. If that could be explained every time, it might not be so bad, but a long list of royal, serene and imperial highnesses in an infobox when none of those people have royal titles is false and misleading, there is no reason for WP to observe court ceremonial from a hundred years ago on here.Smeat75 (talk) 00:38, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

We refer to people as they are most commonly referred to in English, not according to their legal title in any one country (Ernst August's family does indeed claim that they are "Prince/Princess of Great Britain and Ireland" but we don't refer to them as such because almost nobody else does). Most media refer to Ernst August as "Prince", probably because that is in fact the way he is usually referred to in "court ceremonial", since royal courts are covered by the media and that or a related circumstance is the most likely context in which he comes to the public's attention (as his article says, when Ernst August married Caroline of Monaco, he was legally required to obtain the formal consent of the Queen in Council, and both she and the Monegasque court officially referred to him with royal style and princely title). There has long been an agreement that English Wikpedia does not use such styles as Holiness, Majesty, Highness or Grace in running text referring to titled individuals, rather confining such styles to historical article sections or protocol info boxes (although often such styles are edited into the articles by Wikipedia editors anyway). It is appropriate and encouraged to indicate when titles are historical and/or not legally recognized, with a standardized footnote to that effect, as here. As for "just being polite", styles and titles have not been obligatory in referring to royalty, at least in Europe, for hundreds of years if ever: even "official" titulature is simply an indication of how a government refers to someone as a matter of form or courtesy -- just as referring to anyone by any honorific is. FactStraight (talk) 02:01, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

These people are not titled, their titles were all abolished in 1919, they should not be labelled "Royal Highness", "HSH", "HI&RI", people in Germany had a revolution to get rid of all that stuff, it's ridiculous to perpetuate it here. I haven't even looked at deposed Austrian, French,Russian members of abolished royal and noble dynasties,I imagine there is the same sort of stuff there, it should all be deleted. Smeat75 (talk) 02:26, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we realize what your point of view is. However, for as long as they are referred to by their "non-existent" titles, the titles should be used in Wikipedia as well. As I said, Queen Latifah is not a queen and Emperor Norton was not an emperor, yet they are referred to by the names used in sources. Surtsicna (talk) 08:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Comment As an outside observer who hasn't even looked at the articles yet or even read the sources I would say that if the sources use the "titles" in their articles then it would be ok to use them on Wikipedia. If the sources do not use the "titles", then its blatant [[WP:|original research]] and the titles should not be used on Wikipedia.--JOJ ^Hutton 02:35, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment Jojhutton, really the source that matters is Article 109 of the Weimar Constitution [Article 109 which says, in part, translated of course "Article 109 - All Germans are equal in front of the law. In principle, men and women have the same rights and obligations. Legal privileges or disadvantages based on birth or social standing are to be abolished. Noble titles form part of the name only; noble titles may not be granted any more." So since then all German noble titles were abolished, they are allowed to legally change their names to "Joe Princeofsomewherethatdoesn'tevenexistanymore" but the use of those honorific prefixes, which are signifiers of royal status, is not done in Germany, I have looked on the German WP, they do not use them, and neither should we. Now there are a lot of genealogy books and charts and websites and royal obsessives and so forth who just pretend that none of the abolition of these titles ever happened, so you can find sources calling them "serene highness" and so forth, but it must be made clear every time that that is just the same as calling your dog "Prince", it has no official meaning at all. The German WP says about one of these members of deposed royal families - "Das dem Namen vorangestellte Prädikat „Königliche Hoheit (K.H.)“ bzw. „Seine Königliche Hoheit (S.K.H.)“ wird ebenfalls noch im gesellschaftlichen Umfeld verwendet, ist jedoch ebenso eine reine Höflichkeitsform ohne rechtliche Relevanz" which means "people call him "royal highness" sometimes at social events, but that's merely a gesture of politeness, it doesn't mean anything". You cannot explain that though in an infobox with a list of fifteen "serene, royal and imperial highnesses" who are no such thing.Smeat75 (talk) 03:03, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

No, the Weimar Constitution does not matter at all. Do you really expect German laws to be able to forbid someone to refer to people in a certain way? It's as absurd as expecting Wikipedia not to include any criticism of Kim Jong-un because North Korean law forbids criticizing him. Jojhutton's solution is the most simple and the most logical one; if sources use them, we use them. Surtsicna (talk) 08:42, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Let me clarify. When I said "sources" I assumed that everyone knew that it meant reliable secondary sources. The Weimar Constitution is a primary source and should not be used as an example of a source.--JOJ ^Hutton 12:59, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I am sure I could find several thousand such secondary sources, here is one - [21] from Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany by Jonathan Petropoulos,Professor of European History at Claremont McKenna College: "aristocratic titles were abolished during the Weimar Republic after the fall of the monarchy. As of 1919 aristocratic titles were merged into the individual's name. Therefore the Prince of Bavaria or the Prince of Baden actually was not a title but a name....(a member of an ex-royal family noted)'actually most people today confuse the name with a title. They also use expressions like "Royal Highness","Highness" and "Serene Highness" (Durchlaucht) and forget that we live in a republic.'" If royal enthusiasts want to pretend that the German Revolution never happened and the country still teems with Serene or Imperial and Royal Highnesses, let them do it somewhere else than on the English WP (the German WP does not use those HSH or HRH honorific prefixes), this is supposed to be a source of accurate and neutral information, not add to the "confusion" noted by the ex-aristocrat above.Smeat75 (talk) 15:00, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Not legally existing any more is not the same thing as not existing any more. The titles clearly do exist and clearly are used and these families clearly are still regarded as royal families by many. They didn't cease to be royal because of a government decree, any more than the history of Russia changed because the Communist government produced revisionist textbooks. It is Wikipedia's job to report the truth, not the truth as the German government (or any other government) has decreed it to be. These are not people randomly giving themselves spurious, made-up titles; these are a family continuing to use the titles they have always used. They would be as horrified as you clearly are if someone claimed to be something they weren't or used a title to which they weren't entitled. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

When the titles ceased to be legal they ceased to have any more significance than keeping a canary in a cage and calling it "Your Serene Highness the Princess of A Place that Doesn't Even Exist Anymore". It is likely that many WP readers would not realise that and particularly the use of those honorific prefixes is misleading.Smeat75 (talk) 15:47, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

And if your caged canary were commonly referred to as "Her Serene Highness the Princess of A Place that Doesn't Even Exist Anymore" by sources, then Wikipedia would also refer to it as "Her Serene Highness the Princess of A Place that Doesn't Even Exist Anymore". That's a basic principle of Wikipedia. Surtsicna (talk) 15:57, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

From the formal point of view, there is consensus to reject the proposal. Even though the proposal was clarified to take into account only living persons by the time some users already voted, there is consensus to reject this new proposal as well. Therefore, proposal is rejected. Concerning the arguments, valid arguments have been raised by both sides. The opponents emphasize that the implementation of the proposal would violate WP:V, whereas the supporters note that in some cases, the existing practice may have problems with WP:BLP, and sometimes there are contradictions between the sources as well, so that it is not clear whether the Manual of Style would apply at all. There have been some attempts to address the issues and to find a common ground. I do not see any compromise found in the discussion, however, I believe such a compromise can be found. I therefore encourage the opposite parties to sit together and draft a proposal which can be reasonably seen as compromise, and eventually open a new RFC. I do not address the canvassing issue here since the RfC failed anyway.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:43, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

WP:HONORIFIC

In my view this is a WP:NPOV and WP:IRS issue first and WP:HONORIFIC second, but anyway, please see comment on opposition to MOS:SAINTS and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (clergy). Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:09, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

The Queen Mother of a Royal Proposal

OK, I started off by making a silly title but this is serious. Tons of RfC's and angry commentary can testify to that. In the discussion, I summed up the problem as follows:

There are three specific and significant distinctions among uses of royal and feudal terms.

(1) Openly False Title Holders Where people use them in an openly non-literal manner, e.g. for purposes of entertainment or advertisement. Such is the case of Count Basie, the King of Rock and Roll, the Queen of Soul, Prince, Queen Latifah, and others. Here, there's no mistaking the purpose. There is no claim by any of these people to be real kings or dukes.

(2) Real Title Holders Where people are genuinely and widely accepted title holders, or have been in History. These would be the case of Codrus, King Of Athens, or of Elizabeth, Queen of Jamaica, for example. In this and the previous cases, there is no problem whatsoever in how we denote people in Wikipedia.

(3) Former holders, Aspirants & Pretenders The problematic category! Where people are pretenders to a title, or former holders of one. In other words, where there is no consensus as to the actual validity of their title. There are notable references of them with their title but there are also notable references of them without their title. There are people in this category who are sincere, yet probably deluded in their claims. There are also people who are proclaimed, often posthumously, to be the rightful owners of a title.

My "tentative opinion" at the time of the latest RfC was that we should be presenting the full, notable picture and if this means means a bit of extra text, so be it.

Building on this, I believe that we need to create sub-categories for every person falling under category #3 as above, i.e. in the "problematic" category. The sub-categories will be clearly distinct, with robustly determined criteria.

Next step, we determine how each subject is denoted in Wikipedia according to the sub-category the subject belongs to.

Finally, we decide which subject belongs to which sub-category. This last step doesn't need to be completed entirely, in one go: Every editor shall be correcting articles, adjusting definitions and titles to the new format as they come to his/her attention.

Can the above be the basis for an attempt as consensus? -The Gnome (talk) 10:58, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Regarding #3... Article titles: these individuals' articles should fall under their titles unless they are specifically notable under a "non-royal" name such as Otto von Habsburg. Regarding their titles and styles, usually given in its own section, I like the following format (I'll make up examples):

1895-1923: His Serene Highness The Hereditary Prince of Fauxburg (since 1919 by courtesy)

Legal name since 1919: Johannes Prinz zu Fauxburg

1923-1987: His Serene Highness The Prince of Fauxburg (by courtesy)

Those born after a family stopped reigning:

1922-present: Her Serene Highness Princess Marianne of Fauxberg (by courtesy*)

Legal name in Germany: Marianne Prinzessin zu Fauxberg

*This explanation can be given either above or below the list of titles and styles so "by courtesy" doesn't have to be placed after each and every title if there are multiples. The lead of any given article can start with, "Princess Marianne of Fauxberg (Marianne Alexandra Luisa Prinzessin zu Fauxberg, born January 1, 1922 in Berlin) is a member of the formerly reigning princely family of Fauxberg and a prominent photographer...". For families that were noble but non-reigning, I don't know... maybe, "a member of the (whatever) family in the former German nobility...". Just a few thoughts. Seven Letters 18:25, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I have been too busy the last few weeks to look at wikipedia but I would strongly support this with regard to clarifying "Titles and styles" with "by courtesy" for members of formerly reigning royal families.Smeat75 (talk) 19:34, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Hurdle: Do sources commonly refer to "by courtesy" titles? We can't invent novel terminology in order to settle an in-house squabble. Formerip (talk) 20:45, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Formerip, this is not novel terminology, it is commonly used in discussions of royalty that members of former reigning families do bear their titles by courtesy unless they are specifically confirmed by another jurisdiction (i.e., the Greek royal titles are recognized officially in Denmark, the Austrian imperial titles are recognized officially in Luxembourg...). Seven Letters 22:55, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. It is commonly used to the extent that you can provide some sources demonstrating its commonly-usedness? Formerip (talk) 23:01, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I may be able to dig some up a little later, currently distracted by family at the moment (yay, the holidays!). Seven Letters 23:02, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

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