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Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan times two

There are (at least) two people called Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan (= Sultan, son of Zayed, of the Nahyan). One (b. 1881 - d. 1926) ruled Abu Dhabi from 1922 to 1926; the other, birthdate unknown, is currently the UAE's deputy prime minister. Any ideas on how to distinguish these? Tagging "(1881-1926)" to the first would be unambiguous, but what, if any, would be an appropriate qualifier for the second? Jpatokal (talk) 00:47, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Major/minor

I see no need to assert that Latin maior is not translated by Major. In fact, it is; see these results for Cato Major, and consider Canis Major; the objection to it is that only specialists will understand it correctly, and that Major, which has other meanings, will be more misleading than Minor. Saying that maior is not translated by Major is exactly like saying Iulius is not translated by Julius; although I suppose it may be useful to remind the argumentative that this is not Greater/Lesser. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:50, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Followed some of the links from your Google scholar query but was a bit ambiguous. "Major" seems at least rather old-fashioned in this sense, but agreed: references can be found. Most of the links generated by that query however lead nowhere (I mean, to pages that don't even have the word "major" on it). I suspect some OCR errors too (but not sure).
Note that it is not only about Latin names, e.g. Aias maior (a non-Latinised transliterated Greek name with the epithet in Latin) makes sense. The Latinised version with English epithet can apparently be found too: Ajax Major - I always thought that was an error, sorry for the mistake.
Please note that your text for Aias minor is in German; the Germans do not Latinize, when we do (compare de:Thukydides). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:43, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Re. "the Germans do not Latinize", too bold a generalisation: de:Ajax der Große - Non-latinisation also occurs in English THE AIAS OF SOPHOKLES --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:58, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it was a generalization, but a sound enough one that I am surprised to see the German WP use Ajax. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:43, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Note that for Ajax/Aias the maior/Major epithet *is* usually translated by "the Great" or "the Greater" (as opposed to that of his namesake Ajax minor: "the Lesser") --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree about Ajax; Ajax Major was built like an ox, and as bright as one, and Ajax Minor was a small, clever man, although not as clever as Ulysses. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Dismbiguating football players named Steve Smith

Recently, these pages had been located at Steven Smith (American football) and Steve L. Smith (American football). Now, they have been moved to Steve Smith (Carolina Panthers) and Steve Smith (New York Giants). Can someone tell me what is the best way to do this. They are both BEST known as "Steve Smith", but their teams might change so I don't like the article names including current teams.►Chris NelsonHolla! 23:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Using year of birth to disambiguate between two people of the same name

Yes, I know the naming convention says not to. But nevertheless, there are examples of this where two different people have the same name, same occupation, and are from the same country (Graeme Smith (footballer born 1982) and Graeme Smith (footballer born 1983), for example).

There is currently a discussion over at Talk:Kim Ki-duk (director) where the same problem occurs: two film directors with the same name from the same country. If anyone has any suggestions over the prefered disambiguation, your input would be most welcome. Thanks. PC78 (talk) 02:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I started Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Difficult to disambiguate: some examples --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Creating redirects from other forms of the name - and wider issues of disambiguation links

Would it be appropriate to include a note reminding editors to create redirects from all forms of a name which are likely to be used, in particular from the full form which they may use in the lead. Thus after saying "For people, this quite often leads to an article name in the following format: <First name> <Last name> (examples: Billy Joel, Margaret Thatcher)", the article would go on to say "Redirects should be provided from the full form of the name (William Joseph Martin Joel, Margaret Hilda Thatcher) and from other forms which a reader might plausibly type (William Joel, Maggie Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, etc)".

I'm constantly finding articles where the lead sentence starts with a full form of the name from which no redirect has been made, and occasionally finding articles where a second article has been created at a plausible variant from which no redirect was made. We need to do whatever we can to encourage people starting articles to be generous with redirects, both to help information-seekers and to minimise the chance of duplicate article creation. It strays slightly beyond Naming convention, but is so closely allied that I hope we could include it here. PamD (talk) 18:38, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds eminently reasonable to me. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:12, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
IMHO, fails the first point of WP:CREEP#Avoiding instruction creep - Sorry for the creepy way to express that point, the question is: is there an actual problem?
See also more extensive treatment at Wikipedia:Redirect#Alternative names – which is outside the scope of this guideline per the last bullet of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Scope of this guideline. In other words: I'd refer you to the WP:REDIRECT guideline if you think a more comprehensive treatment is needed on this point. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:18, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Further comments:
(a) There's a helpful note saying "Important: provide redirects wherever possible (or appropriate disambiguation where redirects are not possible) for all other formats of a name that are also in use, or could reasonably be typed in Wikipedia's "Search" box by someone looking for information about that person." in the section on middle names and initials. I'd like to see this either repeated elsewhere, or moved to the lead section of the article to make it clear that it covers all names.
(b) WP:REDIRECT has little to say about personal names, and is more of a catalogue of categories of redirects rather than any suggestion as to when to create them.
(c) The last bullet of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Scope of this guideline, cited above, says that the guideline does not cover names for redirect pages. I'm suggesting that it ought to cover the provision of redirect pages, which I think is different. Of course, redirect pages will have names which don't comply with the guidelines, because the compliant name will be the one used for the article title.
(d) In fact, the navigation question is wider: there needs to be a guideline saying "When creating an article name which includes anything in addition to "first name" "last name" (eg middle initial or name, or disambiguation in brackets), ensure that this article can be reached from the un-disambiguated name, either by a hatnote on the article at the un-disambiguated name, or through a disambiguation page." This is definitely a real problem - until I changed matters this morning, any reader or editor typing James Dixon would not have been directed to the article at James Dixon (football player), let alone the various James [initial] Dixons that I found and added to the dab page I created. I think this ought to be included in the Naming convention page - not instruction creep, but a reminder/instruction to editors to include vital navigational links which help people find articles. PamD (talk) 16:04, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Ad (a), I typed that note in that guideline section because it addressed a problem. Believe me or not, but measured by talk page volume, differences in dotting and spacing of generally used initials was the single most extended problem this guideline ever faced. Note that since then a bot takes care of this problem (see lengthy discussions above on this page), and as a consequence I've been thinking lately we would better turn down the language of that note, at least make it less prominent. I oppose extending its use to non-problems, per what I said above: fails the first point of WP:CREEP#Avoiding instruction creep. The chances that anyone would type "Hilda" in a query when looking for Margaret Thatcher, are imho near to non-existent. Anyway not something to base a guideline upon.
Ad (b), yes, exactly, so try to get it in that guideline, if you think there's a problem that needs to be addressed.
Ad (c), I see no need to extend the scope of the guideline, it's complex enough as it is, and even the "excursion" regarding redirects for dotted/non-dotted spaced/non-spaced initials variants should rather be reduced (adhering to the scope), than the scope extended to cover non-problems, or problems that would more reasonably treated elsewhere.
Ad (d), "there needs to be a guideline saying..." – maybe. Maybe not. Anyway, it wouldn't be this guideline in that case (although it's possible to link to such guideline when it contains such wording), but rather, for example, Wikipedia:Disambiguation. Some of the names needing disambiguation might for example be fictional characters (e.g. apparently Jim Dixon, listed on James Dixon (disambiguation)), or not similar to people at all (e.g. James S. Dixon Trophy). That's a general disambiguation issue. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:15, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Providing a non-English name

Under what conditions should a non-English name be provided alongside the English name for a person, place, or thing. For example, it is clear that Chinese dictator Chiang Kai-shek should have his Chinese name provided next to the commonly used English transliteration. The novel War and Peace should have it's original name next to it as well. What about an American actress such as Ming-na Wen or Shannon Lee? Is this the right place for addressing such an issue, or is it already addressed elsewhere?Readin (talk) 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Diacritics

From what I understand from this convention is that article name should be the most common name and most generally recognisable. Also WP:UE says that we should use English.

But what these conventions are not clear on are diacritics. There are lots of articles that use diacritics, although there are no diacritics in English. Take for example articles on some of the top 20 tennis players: Novak Đoković, Tomáš Berdych, Fernando González, Carlos Moyà, Ivo Karlović and Guillermo Cañas. Also, for all of them English language media use the names without diacritics.

Can someone clarify if it is OK to use diacritics in article title for people or it is not OK? --Irić Igor -- Ирић Игор -- K♥S (talk) 23:17, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if this can be described as clarification, but see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)#Disputed issues. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:05, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I think said section could be in fact described as obfuscation, if it's read as modifying the basis guideline. There's no consensus for diacritics to be systematically used, independently of whether for a given name, they're used used in the common spelling in English. Absent such a consensus, the general principle of applies: which is, to use them when they most commonly appear in appropriate sources in English, and to not use them when they're most commonly omitted (or, transliterated differently, as in Novak's case). Alai (talk) 02:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
You say that there is no consensus for diacritics to be systematically used. You are right about that, but what am I talking about is thet they are systematically used!--Irić Igor -- Ирић Игор -- K♥S (talk) 16:54, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Givenname Maidenname (Marriedname) in article space

Want to add your opinion on naming styles? Talk:Hollywood_blacklist needs more opinions about whether a style unique to this page should be used or not used. The format is used in the book that is used as a source for the article, but contradicts the naming conventions used throughout Wikipedia. What is your opinion? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a Wikipedia:Naming conventions issue. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:47, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Difficult disambiguation case

I created an article at Daniel Wakefield Smith for a fellow who is known for his photojournalism, his work as a theatre director recreating Golden Age radio dramas, and for his work as a musician and a composer. MisfitToys moved the article to Daniel Smith (photojournalist), because Smith doesn't generally go by his middle name. Daniel Smith is a disambiguation page, and Daniel W. Smith wouldn't work because it's ambiguous with Daniel Wayne Smith. Is it OK to use a middle name as a disambiguator when someone is notable in more than one field? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Not really, unless he's known by his middle name. Pick the most obvious disambiguator and create a redirect from the others. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:05, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Double-barrelled surnames

for Jane Watson-Smith, for instance, should we use a hyphen or ndash? Happy‑melon 20:18, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Ahem! Cough cough! Happy‑melon 11:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
WP:MOS#Hyphens and WP:MOS#Dashes? Don't think this is a WP:NCP issue. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:03, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Francis is right, but to answer the question, it's a hyphen. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Is "most generally recognisable" in conflict with BLP?

The project page states that the article name should be "The name that is most generally recognisable". What about when a famous person marries, changes her last name, but it is not yet as generally recognizable as her maiden name? Does this "most generally recognisable" criterion violate BLP, which requires as much accuracy as possible? Should we editors wait until the general public has gotten as used to the new name as the old one? Who can guess precisely when that will have occured? Wouldn't it be much better to use the most accurate name for the name of the article (as BLP demands accuracy), and redirect the more generally recognizable name to the new name?

This issue came up recently with regards to Jenna Bush. It may take years for the general public to get used to "Jenna Hager", but don't we owe it to all living persons to be as accurate as possible when naming their biographical articles? --Art Smart (talk) 09:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The issue has been brought up at WT:BLP, see:
My stance: unless this is mentioned at WP:BLP (which is afaik not yet the case), I see no need to include any ruling about that here: once this is mentioned as a BLP issue on that policy page, it will be easy to refer to it from WP:NCP. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Okay, at your suggestion, I've kicked the can down to WT:BLP#BLP Articles: Legal Name vs. Most Recognizable Name. Feel free to discuss this issue there. Thanks. --Art Smart (talk) 12:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

←Folks at BLP seem to agree that this is not particularly a BLP-specific issue (to quote Moonriddengirl, "Presuming we move Dr. Demento to Barret Eugene Hansen, would we then move it back when he died?") That said, I don't see any reason to deviate from the basic Wikipedia naming principle of "most generally recognisable" in service of a slavish devotion to "real legal name" for unexplained reasons. "Informal" or "technically incorrect" is not the same as "false." --Orange Mike | Talk 13:47, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Moving Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to Mahatma Gandhi

There is a discussion about moving Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to Mahatma Gandhi. Please add your thoughts here. Thanks Nikkul (talk) 05:39, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

D. D. Lewis (Seattle Seahawks) and D. D. Lewis (Dallas Cowboys)

Not sure how to proceed here. There are two D.D. Lewis's who are both professional football players. Right now, one is identified as D. D. Lewis (Seattle Seahawks) and the other is identified as D. D. Lewis (Dallas Cowboys). This helps distinguish the two, but I think it is a poor precedent to set, as professional athletes change teams, and thus may be identified with more than one team. In this particular situation, each play has different first names, although they are both commonly called "D.D." Thus, I propose changing the articles as follows: D. D. Lewis (Dallas Cowboys) to Dwight Douglas Lewis and change D. D. Lewis (Seattle Seahawks) to DeAndre DeWayne Lewis, while retaining the redirects so D.D. Lewis leads to a disambiguation page. Does this sound right? Any comments? ThanksJohnelwayrules (talk) 04:11, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I would be in favour of that, but see the section above #Re: Using the full name rather than common name to avoid disamb parenthesis [now in archive 4], the current wording of this guideline discourages this, which I think is a mistake. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:40, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't really think it's a problem. The Dallas Cowboys player is retired, so he's not going to change teams (and seems to have spent his entire career with one team). The Seattle Seahawks player can be maintained with the name of his current team in parentheses. It's not difficult to rename the article if he moves. It's not ideal, but it works well enough. As I've said above, I favour sticking to the convention without making exceptions. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:39, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your thoughts -- One additional problem worth considering -- what if D. D. Lewis (Seattle Seahawks), the active Lewis, signs with the Cowboys? Then we would have two men who: 1) Share the same (nick)name; 2) Played professional football; 3) Were linebackers; 4) Played for the Cowboys. We could change the active Lewis to D. D. Lewis (Seattle Seahawks, Dallas Cowboys) but, note the following example of name disambiguation: "James Stephen Smith – not Steve Smith (Edmonton Oilers, Chicago Blackhawks), nor Steve Smith (ice hockey defenceman b. 1963 in Scotland), nor Steve Smith (British-born ice hockey player)". This seems to indicate a preference for the use of a middle name over certain, more complicated kinds of description. (Remember, we would retain the Disambiguation page, so anyone looking up D.D. Lewis would get to choose between the older and newer models). Johnelwayrules (talk) 17:11, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
The point is that the article name always indicates what the person is actually called. A policy that says "we'll use the name by which they're actually called unless dismbiguation is a problem in which case we won't" makes a nonsense of this rule. James Stephen Smith doesn't indicate a preference, but is merely an instance of an incorrectly named article. As for the other Lewis possibly signing for the Cowboys, surely that's a bridge to be crossed if it happens, not to be worried about beforehand! -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:03, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it makes a makes a nonsense of this rule, and reading WP:Precision, Wikipedia:Naming conflict and Wikipedia:Disambiguation does not do so either. --PBS (talk) 22:04, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Sports "revolt"

While the vast bulk of Wikipedia articles on human beings appear to follow this guideline's instructions that disambiguated article titles be referential to the person in an occupation, instead of the field of occupation - Mike Z. McDoofus (chemist), not Mike Z. McDoofus (chemistry) - it is increasingly obvious that many sports WikiProjects are completely ignoring this, and declaring their own micro-consensuses to do whatever they like. Examples of the form Mike Z. McDoofus (baseball), Mike Z. McDoofus (basketball), Mike Z. McDoofus (ice hockey), and Mike Z. McDoofus (rugby) are all over the place. Some projects and main articles have literally held !votes for highly localized consensus to simply ignore this guideline and use the name of the sport rather than the occupation (Mike Z. McDoofus (baseball player), etc.). This has been true of baseball, and is apparently currently ongoing with regard to rugby; others I'm not sure about.

I'm not really sure what to make of this, other than to say either that their nascent "guidelines" be edited to conform to this WP-wide real guideline with enormous amounts of buy-in (see User talk:SMcCandlish#Mike White (baseball) for documentation on why this would be actually legitimate and feasible), or that this guideline change to simply remove that recommendation. The third alternative, to simply make an exception for sports because the sports editors are insistent, is untenable, since then everyone will want such an exception, and we're right back to option 2, but with a lot of hairpulling.

The gut feeling I have about option 2 is that it screams to the editorship-at-large "if you can, through sheer numbers of policy-ignoring edits, pull off a fait accompli, you can ignore policy with impunity". I think that WP:SPORTS and its subprojects have to make a good case here that consensus should change with regard to the naming conventions for people, or bring their project-created "guidelines" into conformity with the real thing. PS: I say this as the founder of a sports WikiProject, and author of two draft style/naming guidelines (which are tagged {{Essay}}; I don't have the chutzpah to put {{Guideline}} on them) relating to it, which take pains to not conflict with extant WP-wide Guidelines. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:04, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:55, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

As a member of both WP:FOOTY and WP:RU, I can't understand why both topics ignore the naming conventions as laid down by WP:NCP. In the case of football in particular, we often see cases where football managers are disambiguated as "footballer", despite being much more recognisable as a manager than as a player. I suggest that all such articles be disambiguated by the subject's field (e.g. "football"), and not by their occupation (e.g. "footballer"). – Pee Jay 23:36, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm, I seem to have read your spiel incorrectly. However, my opinion on the matter stands, regardless of what current naming conventions are. People should disambiguated by field, not by occupation, particularly when their occupation within that field may change any number of times during their career. – Pee Jay 23:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Just so everyone can be on the same page, Wikipedia:DAB#Naming_the_specific_topic_articles (under "Biographies") is the section SMcCandlish is refering to.
At Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(baseball_players)#Naming_conventions.2C_redux, a similar argument was made to the one Pee made. Personally, I mainly want to see a standard, whatever that standard is. Before Wikipedia:Naming conventions (baseball players) was hashed out, baseball naming was chaos and the subject of many revert wars.
Actually, I was referring to this guideline; the section as WP:DAB is also relevant, but very summary. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Pee Jay's reasoning. It can be applied across all sports. Many players become coaches, managers, executives, etc... later in life. It makes little sense to disambig them as (Sport player) when that was only one occupation they've held in that sport. Gateman1997 (talk) 23:51, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
The reason the hockey project uses (ice hockey) instead of (hockey player) is very very very many players go on to other occupations in the sport from being coaches to executives to scouts to trainers to agents and on and on. You can't simply pick one occupation they held in that sport. I think sports falls under this part of the WP:NCP guideline as an exception. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ice hockey) is what our version of the guidelines say. -Djsasso (talk) 00:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Beyond that, Lanny McDonald (ice hockey player) is clunky. Simply put, I think the sporting conventions fit the spirit of WP:NCP fine. It associates people with their profession, namely their association with a sport. Resolute 01:19, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

[Outdent, since I'm replying to pretty much everyone at once.]This is not a sports-unique issue, though. See William A. Spinks, who was a pro billiards player, inventor, oil company executive, and farmer/horticulturist, and arguably notable in at least three of those occupations if not all four. The point of parenthetical disambiguations is not to fully encapsulate someone's life, but to provide (just) enough disambiguation to not confuse a similarly-named rocket scientist and lumberjack (or whatever). If a player becomes a coach or sportscaster, so what? Which line of work are they most notable for? If equal, pick one; it doesn't matter, as long as it clearly disambiguates. Several notable snooker players have something other than "(snooker player)" as their disambiguator, because of later occupations, but the disambiguations work just fine.

Furthermore, there is no need to use "(ice hockey player)" instead of "(hockey player)", or "(ice hockey)" instead of "(hockey)" should consensus go for using the field instead of the occupation as the disambiguator, unless an ice hockey player and a field hockey player are both notable enough for articles here and have the same name, which is very unlikely. WP:NCP already made this really clear with the guitarist example (i.e., don't use "rock guitarist" unless there are two guitarists with the same name who must be disambiguated by their main genre).

I've brought this topic up here to get consensus more broadly, one way or the other, but I want to advocate the current way as specified in this guideline, because it is simply more logical and much less ambiguous. For example, Janey-Sue Schmidt (baseball) implies that "Janey-Sue Schmidt" is a brand of baseball, not a person. This is less of a problem with something like Janey-Sue Schmidt (rugby), but consistency is also important. The main thrust, really, of all of WP's Manual of Style pages and naming conventions is consistency. Finally, per very clear language at WP:CONSENSUS, WikiProjects are not in a position to make up a new "guideline" that conflicts with established, general ones. That's really the main thrust of this issue. Get consensus at the controlling Wikipedia-wide guidelines for a change, don't just ignore the guidelines.

PS: The rugby case isn't hard either, under the clear guidelines at WP:NCP. Use "(rugby player)" unless there are two with the same name in different codes, in which case use "(rugby league player)" and "(rugby union player)". How often with this happen in all of Wikipedia? Twice? Zero times? It's a non-issue. The disambiguator is not there to inform the reader what kind of rugby the person plays (that's what the article is for); it is there to tell the reader that this person is a rugby player, not a professor, journalist or astronaut.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I made the same point as Peejay here. Before the standard (rugby league) was adopted, we had 'players', 'footballers' and 'coaches' all over the place. I understood that the disambiguators in brackets should only be as long as they need to be to distinguish articles from others of the same name. Something abaout google search results?--Jeff79 (talk) 01:45, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, they should only be as long as they need to be, within the bounds of what the guidelines specify, one point of which is that disambiguated humans should have a noun describing them (generally occupationally, though there are exceptions), not words that describe to the field they are known for. This is so that we do not end up with stupid DABs, like "Jane Smith (restaurant)" or whatever. If sports editors demand some pointless exception to this, the entire NC/DAB for people is likely to fall apart. Sportspeople articles make up an enormous percentage of bio articles here, and are highly visible. Editors will see that NC/DAB are being ignored with impunity when it comes to sports, so they'll ignore it when it comes to scientist, journalists, etc. WP stability and consistency are more important than WikiProject whim. That's my main theme here. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Part of the problem is how someone gets listed. In baseball, as in most team sports, there are a large number of players who have gone on to careers as managers, or executives, or owners. One prominent example is Connie Mack (baseball), who has been all of the above. Does he get labeled Connie Mack (baseball manager)? Connie Mack (baseball team owner)? He's likely equally famous as both of those, and he was also a player for a fair amount of time. Player or manager would likely be the most difficult to decide upon. Should we someday have to disambiguate them, where would we place Dusty Baker? Don Baylor? Joe Torre? Frank Chance? Red Schoendienst? Gil Hodges? What of Larry Dierker, who might be player, manager, or broadcaster? Jerry Coleman as well, and his name is common enough that a disambiguation is likely in his future. I do not look forward to the edit wars that will result, and I do not doubt that the same situation exists in all team sports. If this comes to a vote, I support keeping the current guidelines. -Dewelar (talk) 01:48, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
As noted above, it doesn't matter whether he's "(baseball player)" or "(baseball manager)", as long as it is distinguishable from "(serial killer)" or "(general)" or whatever. Again, you seem to be misapprehending the nature and purpose of DAB parentheticals. They are not intended to encapsulate everything about an article subject, only to distinguish between one article subject and another. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
"For example, Janey-Sue Schmidt (baseball) implies that "Janey-Sue Schmidt" is a brand of baseball, not a person" Uh... I would never get this confused, nor would I think anyone else would, that I know anyway. Adding "player" for the sake of adding it doesn't seem like it matters to me, just feels like having to type in more to get to a person. Wizardman 01:49, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
But our readers do not type in disambigs like this. No one comes to Wikipedia and enters "Joe Peabody (scientist)" into the search box; they enter "Joe Peabody", get a DAB page, and click on a link. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
"The point of parenthetical disambiguations is not to fully encapsulate someone's life, but to provide (just) enough disambiguation to not confuse a similarly-named rocket scientist and lumberjack (or whatever)." — Would this statement not, in fact, argue in favour of how the sports projects currently disambiguate articles that fall within their realm? If a person is most notable for their association with the sport, then would not (ice hockey) provide just enough info not to confuse with people of other professions?
No, see above; DABs should be as short as possible, within the boundaries set by the relevant WP guidelines, like WP:NCP. NB: I tend to concur, actually, that a shorter DAB like that should be sufficient (actually just "(hockey)"; specifying "(ice hockey)" is not necessary unless an ice hockey and field hockey article would have the same name - see NCP on "(musician)" - don't use "(guitarist)" much less "(rock guitarist)" unless "(musician)" would not sufficiently disambiguate between two articles). The problem is that consensus has long ago been forged, WP-wide, that bio articles should use human descriptions like "(billiards player)", not activity/field descriptions like "(billiards)".
The ultimate point of this RFC-of-sorts is to either get consensus among sports editors that they will abide by the relevant guidelines and stop making sports-specific exceptions, or that they will collectively push (in a new topic here) for these guidelines to change to encompass the way they would prefer to do things (in a manner that is not sports-specific - that simply won't work, because the average editor would not even know there was a sports-specific exception). The present situation of everyone but sports editors adhering to NPC and DAB, and sports editors effective pretending these guidelines don't exist, is not tenable and will lead to a lot of chaos and strife. If one of these results doesn't emerge from this discussion eventually, the matter will have to go to the ArbCom, who have already (in a case about TV show episodes and characters) made it clear that enforcement of WP:POLICY, including WP-wide guidelines, does not require justification or explanation; i.e., they will definitely side with DAB and NCP as they stand at the time of the case. So, it is to sports editors' benefit to try to convince everyone involved in DAB and NCP that changes are needed (or just drop the matter and do what DAB and NCP presentl say). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Personally, I find this to be a solution in search of a problem. As has been stated above, using such a specific qualifier creates problems with many athletes, so forcing everyone into unnecessarily strict naming conventions adds a lot of unnecessary work, imo. I suppose a really simple question is whether requiring such a change would benefit the project? Does it improve things to change this, and if so, is the benefit worth the time cost? Resolute 01:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
It creates no problem whatsoever, since nothing about an article title like "J. B. Snickers (swimmer)" precludes the article also covering the fact that Snickers became a swimming coach later on, and such an article title is perfectly sufficient to distinguish between this person and "J. B. Snickers (actor)", even if someone is looking for a swimming coach. Yes, it will benefit the project, or I wouldn't have brought it up. More precisely, it will prevent harm to the project in the form of the DAB and NCP guidelines being increasingly ignored across-the-board, because sports bios are setting a bad example that says "these guidelines don't matter, do whatever you like". Consensus can change, but it doesn't change by just saying "yeah, whatever" and ignoring the existing consensus rules. There is effectively no time cost at all, other than the 1 second or less it takes to type "baseball player" instead of "baseball" (assuming consensus did not change, and the sports projects were directed to use the longer form). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Right. I think the problems caused by having administrators labelled as players and former players labelled as coaches will be greater than the (arguably non-existent) problems caused by readers thinking these people are in fact sports equipment brands.--Jeff79 (talk) 02:02, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
If that were actually true, then the entire naming conventions and disambiguation system that we presently have would have collapsed long ago or never have arisen in the first place. Tens of thousands of bio articles (at least) are on people who have had more than one career, yet only the sports projects (and even then, only a few of them - I've only identified four so far) can't seem to deal with it without violating the people naming conventions. Doesn't that seem a little strange to you? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Clearly less strange than labelling all individuals involved in a sport as players. And you yourself seem to understand the conflict in requiring both the most succinct suffix as well as requiring an occupational noun. I understand what you're saying about consistency. But within the smaller communities dealing with sportspeople the consensus to just use the sport appears to have been quite successful in solving the previous problems editors were having. I'm not sure that should just be discounted on the grounds of consistency with a naming convention that seems not to have taken those problems into account. This discussion is really about the options we have before us. I think it's good that it's been brought up and the discussion should go higher than mere wikiprojects. I'm arguing that going back and forcing the occupation-only guideline will not be the most painless solution.--Jeff79 (talk) 04:51, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Leave the "player" out. WP:SENSE. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
That may well be how this plays out, but you're going to have to convince NCP and DAB to change to sanction what you are doing against their specifications. WP:CONSENSUS, which is an outright policy, not a guideline, already condemns the way you are going about this (it states, twice in different wording, that small consensuses of a limited number of editors (e.g. WikiProjects or editors working intensively on a particular article) cannot trump broadly-consensus-built, site-wide guidelines and policies).
I hope I've made it clearer that I ultimately do not care what these disambiguators are; what I care about is damage to the trust in, and mass agreement to abide by, Wikipedia guidelines when there are not overwhelmingly compelling reasons to IAR. And minor editor typing convenience is not such a reason. Neither is the confused idea that a disambiguator must be dropped if it does not describe a bio subject in perfect detail (e.g. because the person was eventually a team owner as well as a player) - there is nothing whatsoever at WP:NCP or WP:DAB or WP:MOSDAB that supports such an idea. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Well we're not arguing for disambiguators with more detail are we? We're arguing for less: sufficient detail to differentiate between other individuals of the same name and nothing more. As you know it is not an idea that the sport wikiprojects made up on their own (...try to limit to a single, recognisable and highly applicable word regarding the person at hand.). It's not "whim" and it's not "pointless" as you describe it. There is a conflict in the guidelines here.--Jeff79 (talk) 05:04, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Then start a new thread here about changing the guidelines to drop the requirement that human name DABs be in the often longer form "chemist", "badminton player", etc., in favor of (allowable, not mandatory) alternatives like "chemistry", "badminton", etc., so that what the projects want is sanctioned by NCP instead of violative of it. And it's not a conflict. All guidelines have to operate in synch, which requires compromises to make them compatible, including with themselves. If (as it does) WP:NCP says to use a person-descriptor not a field-descriptor for human name disambiguation, that obviously has an effect on "try to " (emphasis added) limit any such DAB to a single word. If "hockeyist" is not a word (which it isn't), and NCP indicates that one should not use "hockey" (it does), then necessarily it has to be "hockey player" under the current rules, so try to limit it to two words (i.e. don't add "ice" for no disambiguation reason). Simple stuff, folks! Again, my issue isn't really with whether the advice in WP:NCP is the best possible advice, it is that four (maybe more) sports projects are ignoring it instead of (in their view, and potentially mine as well) fixing it. Wikipedia process is important when it comes to article writing and naming standards; beyond important, it is vital, as it is the only thing that makes Wikipedia readably, understandably cohesive. If you disagree with something in that process, or can't seem to make it work for you, work to change the process, don't simply go around it by creating an alternative process, as these four projects have been doing. That isn't even a new issue, as WP:CONSENSUS directly addresses it in very clear terms, and the TV episode/character ArbCom ruling also made it clear, "don't go there". If what has been going on is not whim and not pointless, then it is missing the point and making rash decisions based on a misunderstanding of what DAB parentheticals really do and how they work, and way more to the point, directly violating WP policy at WP:CONSENSUS in a way that is very detrimental to at least two of our most important guidelines. That is the issue. Either concede that there's no problem with the extant guidelines and adhere to them, or fix them properly by standard consensus-changing methods. Easy-peasy. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't start a thread here to change the guideline in the correct way. Guilty as charged. I apologise for that, and for contributing to the change of the naming convention for some athletes in an inappropriate way. I totally understand your concern about ignoring wikipedia guidelines and I appreciate your having created a new thread here so that it can be dealt with properly. The issue didn't reach this point in the most appropriate way, but now it has and I'm glad for it. I am listening to your suggestion and putting forth the case for (as you so helpfully worded) changing the guidelines to drop the requirement that human name DABs be in the often longer form "chemist", "badminton player", etc., in favor of (allowable, not mandatory) alternatives like "chemistry", "badminton", etc. I figured the discussion here was boiling down to this anyway. The softening of the naming requirement has merit for all the reasons that were brought up and agreed to on the four separate wikipeojects. For me, the fact that four separate wikiprojects were encountering the same problems and, totally independently of eachother, found exactly the same solution, which resulted in apparent naming-convention harmony within their respective areas, further strengthens the case for the guidelines making allowances with regard to some sports. I also want this discussion to deal with what it's intended to deal with: the way forward from here. I think that if following the person-descriptor rule results in a suffix that is: a) longer than necessary and b) too specific (as is the case with some individuals whose playing career wasn't notable enough to justify their article's creation, but their coaching or administration career is) then perhaps an allowance for exceptions being made should be worked into the guidelines.--Jeff79 (talk) 09:56, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I myself use "[Name] [sport] player" although it's not bad when I see "[Name] [sport]". However, I thought the specific WikiProject can override the WP:NC? That was what i was told when someone reverted my move of Magic 89.9 (by far the most popular name) to DWDM (very few knows Magic 89.9's callsign). –Howard the Duck 05:36, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

There's no policy or guideline anywhere that says WikiProjects can override general consensus in WP-wide guidelines, and WP:CONSENSUS, which is policy, says exactly the opposite. For some reason, a lot of WikiProject participants seem to believe the opposite is true; I've yet to figure out why this is. (No criticism of WikiProject participants in general intended; I am one, in spades). PS: If I were you, I'd take the Magic 89.9/DWDM issue up at WP:RM if what you say can be reliably sourced. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Check out this discussion ("Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication"). I know this is totally off-topic but if you're willing to talk about it let's do it elsewhere.
For the record on the topic at hand any convention is fine but there should only be one convention. –Howard the Duck 10:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The central rule in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Qualifier between bracketing parentheses is "[...] try to limit to a single, recognisable and highly applicable word regarding the person at hand," thus:

Both examples are consistent with current practice, and with the actual rule.

  1. There's no Sports "revolt"
  2. Where's the problem? --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Um, well, read the thread, Francis. I cannot imagine how I could possibly make it clearer. As for "cycling would be more appropriate", it is specifically forbidded by the rest of this guideline, which says to use descriptors of the person ("cyclist"), not the field/activity ("cycling"). So, the "cycling" and "baseball" examples are not consistent with current practice as sanctioned by WP:NCP, nor NCP's actual wording. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Re. "...which says to use descriptors of the person". It doesn't. It says: use a "... word ..."
I'm sure every non-issue can be elevated to the heights of a problem, there's no need for it though. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:27, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Reboot: Sorry, but somehow this just isn't sinking in. This conversation has effectively gone like this:

  • We want "(baseball)"!
  • The long-accepted guideline says you can't have "(baseball)" and mandates "(baseball player)", very clearly ("try" to make it one word notwithstanding). You can fix this if you try.
  • No, we want "(baseball)"!
  • Why don't you try to change this guideline (and the related passage at WP:DAB, if necessary) to permit that? If you did that, guess what? No more problem.
  • No, we want "(baseball)"!
  • Right. Gain consensus to change WP:NCP to permit that (or forget about it and just do what the guideline says); simple - take your pick.
  • No, we want "(baseball)"!
  • Look, if you don't do this properly and this goes to ArbCom (and I will take it to ArbCom myself, because you are harming the fabric of Wikipedia's consensus system by treating well-established guidelines like pieces of crap, in an incredibly public way), you will lose, because out-of-band attempts to get around policies like WP:CONSENSUS are not going to go over well there; here's what that policy says, and here's what the ArbCom's already said about policy matters of this sort. Just do it properly, okay? It's easy!
  • No, we want "(baseball)"!

So, like, snap out of it, huh? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Re. The long-accepted guideline says you can't have "(baseball)" and mandates "(baseball player)" – it doesn't, sorry, non-issue. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:27, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Francis, it's in plain English (again, please read what I've written already; having to repeat the same material is getting tiresome, surely for everyone) at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Naming the specific topic articles: "Biographies: For biographies, use a formal disambiguating noun that describes the person, rather than an activity, genre, or affiliation." (And sorry, I should have said "one of the two long-accepted guidelines", since both WP:DAB and WP:NCP are relevant here.) NCP's own text doesn't specify this in prose (that would be redundant, after all) but illustrates it clearly, with every single example being in this format with the sole exception of a "(hockey)" case that is glaringly out of place (and I'd bet real money it was a late interpolation). It's not a non-issue at all. Either the policypages need to change to agree more closely and to stop requiring human name disambiguations to have a "noun that describes the person, rather than an activity...", or the WikiProjects need to abide by what WP:DAB states very clearly. One or the other, very simple. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:46, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Since that is something that you edited as recently as today I am not sure how much weight that holds, also I refer you to WP:IGNORE which is a policy not a guidline. Simply logic says what you are describing doesn't make sense and reasons have been given explaining why. Paul  Bradbury 10:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
WP:WIARM. WP:IGNORE is very frequently misinterpreted (as here). Also, all I did at that page was remove redundant language (the fact that exceptions exist was mentioned immediately below the passage, so it did not need to be mentioned twice). How can plain English not "make sense"? I've quoted the guideline, directly. Either it says prefer a descriptor of the person not the activity, barring unusual exceptions, or it doesn't. And, well, it does. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:31, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Actually not in this case, WP:IGNORE is quite clear and unambiguous in its language. You are advocating blind adherance to a rule while not questioning the validity of the edits. You have not disagreed with the argument explaining why (football) is used not (footballer) simply stating that it is against a guidline, which you edited to make less ambigous in your favour while in the middle of the discussion about trying to enforce it. Paul  Bradbury 10:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Just to add my thoughts, it has long irritated me that the disambiguators applied to sportspeople are different from the disambiguators applied to just about anyone else. As far as I'm concerned the disambiguator should be "(ice hockey player)", "(baseball player)" or whatever, just as it is for people in any other field of endeavour. The fact they may go onto other occupations is no more relevant than it is to any other field - the disambiguator states their best-known occupation (if that is "(football manager)" or "(baseball coach)" rather than "player" then that is what the disambiguator should be). Incidentally, I seem to recall that this form used to be the one used up until a couple of years ago when the "players" etc started to be removed from the end of the disambiguators - there is no long-standing precedent here. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:51, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about other projects, but insofar as ice hockey goes, when I started here, we had articles suffixed with : (hockey), (ice hockey), (hockey player), (hockey coach), (hockey team), (ice hockey coach), and who knows how many others. With very few exceptions, that has all been standardized to (ice hockey). Net improvement to the project, I think. Does changing it again to {ice hockey foo) serve to improve the disambig process even more? I have yet to read a compelling argument. Rather, it would appear based on how this discussion has gone so far that WP:NCP and WP:DAB are what needs looking at rather than the standards set by several sporting projects. Resolute 17:19, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Solved and other topics (section break)

  • Problem created 17:52, 24 February 2008 by SMcC [1], while since 2005 WP:NCP read "... try to limit [the bracketed disambiguator] to a single, recognisable and highly applicable word regarding the person at hand." [2]
  • Problem solved [3] --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:52, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
First off, can someone point out the discussions that led to the SMcC change pointed out above? Second, can we please scale back on the seriousness? I'm seeing a lot of scary words and phrases like "revolt" and "condemns" and "damage to the trust" and "you're going to have to convince"... It's sounding more like an attack on our very way of life than what it really is - a naming convention. I don't have to convince anyone of anything, I'm not part of some sort of a revolt and I'm not condemning or damaging the trust of anything if I simply say I disagree with it. —Wknight94 (talk) 11:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
BTW, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television) apparently has a convention that says episode articles don't have to have "episode" in the disambiguator. So is this article talking about a type of trash that is a firefly? No one seems to get confused even in cases like that. Is that allowable because the phrase "Naming conventions" is in the title? —Wknight94 (talk) 11:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Actually, yes that is potential for confusion, as I have discussed in the past here - Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(television)/Archive_4#Qualification. With TV show names being particularly vague, such as 24, Medium, House, etc, it is quite likely that people will be confused. But that is a whole other kettle of fish. So far as the topic at hand goes... pretty much every politician requiring disambiguation has their article tagged with (politician), not (politics). Every musician is labelled (musician), not (music). Doctors are not at (medicine), architects are not at (architecture), soldiers are not at (military), actors are not at (theatre), (film) or (television). So why are sports people so special? -- Chuq (talk) 12:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
"Special"? No. Just that there is no handy name. There's no such word as "baseballer" or "hockeyist". For me, that's literally the only issue. In contrast, there is no advantage to "medicine" over "doctor" so I don't care either way. If there were, I would want the shorter version in those cases as well. I don't find Trash (Firefly) confusing at all. It's not like I came there by accident. I looked through the Firefly episode list. Or people would start typing "Trash (Fi..." in the search box and now Trash (Firefly) comes right up! That the title doesn't include the word "episode" poses no problem for me whatsoever. —Wknight94 (talk) 13:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
You know what? If the TV series article name is dabbed (like "One Tree Hill (TV series)"), every article that is related to that TV show must have an additional word to modify the dab. Ergo, that article should be at Trash (Firefly episode) since it IS confusing to someone who didn't watch Firefly. Don't ever assume that someone already knows something about the article prior to reading it. If the TV series article name is not dabbed (like "Beverly Hills, 90210"), articles related to that show may not have an additional word to modify the dab. An exception would be if the disambiguated articles are related, for example, articles related to "Gossip Girl (TV series)" (sorry for my bias for teen shows) may not add anything else to the article title if it is dabbed, like "Nate Archibald (Gossip Girl)" since the articles related to Gossip Girl are all related. –Howard the Duck 14:35, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm honestly not sure what you mean. How does disambiguation of the show's title relate to disambiguation of the show's episodes' titles? If the show has a common name - like Firefly - but the episode doesn't - like Our Mrs. Reynolds - the episode may not be disambiguated at all, let alone disambiguated following the instruction creepy way you seem to be advocating. —Wknight94 (talk) 15:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm only referring on article names which have to be disambiguated. There's no sense of disambiguating if there is no need to disambiguate at all.
P.S. I'm surprised episode articles are still alive. But that's an issue for another place... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Howard the Duck (talk • contribs) 16:00, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Well then I still don't understand how episode name disambiguating has any relationship to series name disambiguating. But I guess that's also an issue for another place (WT:TV-NC). —Wknight94 (talk) 16:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
If the TV series article name is disambiguated, for every episode/character article that needs to have disambiguation at the article name, instead of generic "<Episode title> (<TV series>)", the article name should be "<Episode title> (<TV series> episode)". If the article name of the TV series is not disambiguated, any related article names that need to be disambiguated won't need another modifier. Another modifier has to be used since like Trash (Firefly) is completely ambiguous. What is that article about? Trashy fireflies? Trash that is named "Firefly"? Hence, it should be at Trash (Firefly episode). Now if there's a Beverly Hills 90210 episode called "Trash", it'll go to "Trash (Beverly Hills, 90210), unless of course there's another related Beverly Hills 90210 article titled "Trash." Now if the episode title doesn't need disambiguation, no matter if the TV series parent article is disambiguated, there's no need to add "(<TV series name>") as a disambiguation. –Howard the Duck 16:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Ah ha! I just got where you're going. Not sure I entirely agree but at least I understand now.  :) —Wknight94 (talk) 16:30, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
With the indulgence of Francis Schonken, this will be my last reply to this issue here.
The thing is a lot of TV series articles are disambiguated. Like 24 (TV series), Chuck (TV series), Smallville (TV series), Heroes (TV series), The Office (U.S. TV series), etc, So another modifier to a disambiguating phrase is absolutely vital to remove ambiguousness.
If anyone feels strongly about the issue they can start a new discussion at the proper place. –Howard the Duck 16:44, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Again, WT:NCP is not the right venue for the discussion of naming conventions of TV series and their episodes. Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television) is. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
No, it isn't solved in any way. You've just changed a bit of wording. Different thing entirely. You seem to be trying to end discussion by saying "it's solved" - you've now done this twice and it's a tad irritating. Just because you think it's solved does not mean everyone agrees with you. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:11, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
My point still stands. You can't stifle discussion by saying "it's been solved". That's for the community to decide, not you. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:03, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm as much part of the community as Necrothesp, who tries to revive a discussion by saying "No, it isn't solved in any way", when, in fact, all disparity in guidance has been worked away, and the guidance is again what it has been for nearly three years.
  • If you don't agree, continue the discussion, by all means, but I haven't seen an argument compelling enough to change the long-standing guidance on this point. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:12, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
I didn't say you weren't a part of community. I merely said that you are saying "it's solved" as though you are trying to unilaterally end the discussion. That is not your right, my right or anyone else's right. I think this is a valid point that needs discussion, and I am obviously not the only one who thinks this. If nobody else cares to discuss it then so be it. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:19, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Re. I merely said that you are saying "it's solved" as though you are trying to unilaterally end the discussion – I didn't, and your far-fetched interpretation is a bit nauseating. The problem of the inconsistency between the guidelines is solved, thus making SMcC's "long standing guidance" argument for the more recent guidance he introduced half a year ago moot, that's all. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps pettifoggery should redirect to this section.Pianomikey0 (talk) 22:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

"Confusing"

I've read arguments like this a couple times:

"You know what? If the TV series article name is dabbed (like "One Tree Hill (TV series)"), every article that is related to that TV show must have an additional word to modify the dab. Ergo, that article should be at Trash (Firefly episode) since it IS confusing to someone who didn't watch Firefly. Don't ever assume that someone already knows something about the article prior to reading it."

And I have to ask, is this really a problem? The only way this really is confusing is if you strip all context out of where these disambigs will be used.

Where are we most likely to see Trash (Firefly) used?

Well, first off, at Trash, which is a disambig page. It states that Trash (Firefly) is "the eleventh episode of science-fiction television series Firefly". No confusion there.

It is also in the Firefly template, using a piped link: [[Trash (Firefly)|Trash]]. Again, placed in context within that template, no confusion. The same can be said of its uses within article text.

So I really have to ask, how on earth is "Trash (Firefly)" confusing where "Trash (Firefly episode)" is not? Likewise, how is "Mike Vernon (ice hockey)" confusing where "Mike Vernon (ice hockey player)" is not? Resolute 17:32, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

This is not Trash.
Lemme put it this way: which is less confusing? "Trash (Firefly)" or "Trash (Firefly episode)"? Which is confusing on its own? Of course in the Firefly template it is within the episodes area so no confusion there. I was referring to the article title on its own. You don't name articles like this: ""Trash" is the eleventh episode of science-fiction television series Firefly.
As for Mike Vernon, I really don't care but Mike Vernon (ice hockey) looks stupid. It's like a ice hockey named Mike Vernon. Of course when you put it into context, such as on a template or on the lead of an article it automatically manifests itself but on its own it looks silly. –Howard the Duck 18:07, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but on the other hand, let's say that Mike Vernon started coaching a club. On the Mike Vernon disambiguation page, you see an article titled "Mike Vernon (ice hockey player)". Well, is that the same guy as "Mike Vernon (ice hockey coach)"? Maybe, maybe not. So maybe you decide you're going to create that article, and now you've got articles duplicating each other. "Mike Vernon (ice hockey)" won't quite as confusing in that regard. Now, if the dab page would actually say "Mike Vernon (ice hockey player): a former NHL player and current coach" you might not be confused, but how many dab pages actually have that kind of detail? -Dewelar (talk) 18:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
In Howard's defense, of course "Mike Vernon (ice hockey player)" is sufficient DAB (actually just "Mike Vernon (hockey player)" would be) for a player who became a coach, since the other entries on the DAB page will be things like "Mike Vernon (singer)", "Mike Vernon (journalist)", "Mike Vernon (politician)". If the player-coach is more notable as a coach than as a player, then one could use "Mike Vernon (hockey coach)" to the same effect. Just a minor point; I think that "Mike Vernon (hockey)" (or "Mike Vernon (ice hockey)" if you insist, though that is not necessary) is okay now that the guidelines have been altered to account for it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
(after ec) The purpose of the parenthetical disambiguating phrase is only to distinguish between similarly named articles. I don't see why it should be expected to provide additional information about the subject. That is, the article could, if there were no other ambiguous article titles, be titled as simply the base name -- with absolutely no additional clarification. Why should we expect the disambiguation phrase to provide additional information other than to distinguish it from similarly named articles? Looking stupid is a rather subjective criteria and is not very persuasive. older ≠ wiser 18:35, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
(ec)See and I don't take paranthesis brackets to mean that its an ice hockey named Mike Vernon. I take it to mean this Mike Vernon is related to ice hockey. Anything in the brackets to me means "related to". Just like in your firefly example this version of Trash is related to firefly. Its not a firefly named trash.-Djsasso (talk) 18:37, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Exactly. For all I care, you could disambiguate the article names with Trash (1) and Trash (2) and Trash (3). It's nice to have more descriptive text instead of a numeric unique ID but, in reality, I've never heard of anyone ever being confused by what is actually in the parentheses. "Related to" is more than sufficient. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:40, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Well then "Trash" is a kind of Firefly? You know, this would really be confusing for someone who has not seen or even heard of Firefly (TV series), especially since that show isn't that well known. All I know about that was that the girl from Terminator was there.
It all boils down in dab pages; our eyes separate the blue links from the rest of the text. Ergo, what the blue link says must be clear once and for all, even without the help of the description right after it.
As for stupidity at least the reader won't be that confused as in the first Firefly example but it still looks stupid. If you people wanna have stupid sounding article names, fine with me. I'd rather be continuing using "basketball players" instead of "basketball" when naming articles that need to be dabbed. –Howard the Duck 03:12, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Where is there a blue link that says "Trash (Firefly)"? —Wknight94 (talk) 03:21, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Trash? At least on that page "Firefly" is italicized so it conveys the idea that "Trash" comes from a fictional work. Actually, it should read as "Trash" (Firefly) but that's just me. If it was not italicized it would be confusing. –Howard the Duck 03:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
"I was referring to the article title on its own. I am aware of that, and that is my entire point. Unnecessarily stripping context from the issue might lead to some very mild confusion, but that is not something that is likely to occur in the real world. And anyone who finds themselves confused momentarily will have that eliminated by reading the article. And this is where I find the argument breaks down. The vanishingly small percentage of people who happen upon these articles who are midly confused will have an easy way of eliminating that confusion. Resolute 21:56, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
A certain level of confusion is inevitable. When I saw the words Aigle Azur just now, I got confused. Then I clicked on it, and saw that it's an airline. So what? Does that confusion need to be resolved too? I think my level of confusion there was higher than the confusion of seeing Lee Smith (baseball). "OMG, is there a baseball called 'Lee Smith'?! That is such a confusing coincidence since there was also a baseball player named 'Lee Smith'!" Come on. Give our readers some credit. —Wknight94 (talk) 22:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Rather than rigidly conform to the guideline, since the majority of people in this discussion are in favor of amending the guideline, why don't we just try to come to a consensus on altering the naming conventions guideline to make both options acceptable? There are obvious arguments in favor of both things, but in the great scheme of things, the field as a noun and the occupation as a noun are really both effective methods of disambiguation. matt91486 (talk) 00:17, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

What I've been saying all along. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
No, not really. You started off with this: "I think that WP:SPORTS and its subprojects have to make a good case here that consensus should change with regard to the naming conventions for people, or bring their project-created "guidelines" into conformity with the real thing." That's not the same as what you've said here. Perhaps if you'd started out saying this, the tone here might not have been so reactionary. -Dewelar (talk) 01:01, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't retract what I just said; I believe you are misinterpreting both my words and intentions. I indicated that people should either adhere to the guideline as it stands, or come to consensus to change it. Quite simple. And I hinted strongly in at least 3 places that the latter might be the better option. There appears to be consensus to change it. Great. Please drive through. PS: If you think my tactics were accidental, you are mistaken. They had the fine result of the sports wikiprojects very strongly justifying their position. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough -Dewelar (talk) 18:39, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
It's what I said above yesterday but no one seemed to notice. --Jeff79 (talk) 04:06, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I noted it. I also thought the issue was resolved by Francis' removal from the guidelines of the wording that seemed to be at its root (and that happened to have been introduced into the guidelines by SMcCandlish in the first place). -Dewelar (talk) 04:15, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
So what? It accurately described actual consensus Wikipedia practice at the time (which is what guidelines are for; see WP:POLICY for details on that), and has been stable and unchallenged for many months. A guideline is not "bad" or "good" based on who codified it. I'm not unhappy to see it altered, of course, because I think that in the intervening many months, consensus arguably changed, so the guidelines either have to match that new consensus, or the new consensus has to be dropped in favor of the old one. This discussion went the former direction, and that is perfectly fine. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Actually that is the point, it did not accurately describe the actual consensus. The actual consensus obviously through its high use is to disambigute the way it is currently being done which is to list the shortest possible way and still make sense ie (baseball) instead of (baseball player). -Djsasso (talk) 17:31, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
And how, pray tell, is that not what is presently advises, while also still capturing the overwhelming preference for using forms like "(chemist)" instead of "(chemistry)" absent any reason to do otherwise? PS: The guideline does not say "shortest possible", which would probably be "(chem.)" in that example. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:18, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
You know what I mean when I say shortest. Now you are just picking. -Djsasso (talk) 18:22, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Wasn't intending to pick; people sometimes do abbreviate DABs, and the section of WP:DAB that says not to do this was added because people were doing that. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:11, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Also: I didn't see any discussion on the talk page (or anywhere else, really) that led to your change to the guidelines, so whether it was ever consensus is up for debate. I'm guessing that may be why it was removed, rather than an actual consensus to remove it. -Dewelar (talk) 18:39, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I've already addressed this about 5 times, above and below, so I'm not going to say it again here except in very short form; the debate is on, at the newer topic below. It was removed because one editor decided unilaterally that deleting it would make the original debate ("Mike Smith (baseball)" vs. "Mike Smith (baseball player)") just go away (and presumably thought it would do no harm). There's nothing inherently wrong with that. WP:BOLD is policy. But so is WP:CONSENSUS. I object to the deletion (because it will do harm); we do not have consensus, as the deletion has been neither reverted nor justified. No one objected to the original addition, so per WP:CONSENSUS there was no consensus problem (silence = assent). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:11, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Again, fair enough. However, objections raised to it now, due to an interpretation of the guideline that has never before been brought to bear, would suggest that consensus no longer exists. Its removal was certainly premature, but if the discussion here is any indication, the reason it is a contentious passage is because you're the first one to present the interpretation that naming conventions that predate the addition of the language are nonetheless bound by it despite the general belief of the sports community that such preexisting conventions are allowed exceptions according to other, equally valid guidelines. Silence = assent works both ways, after all. Perhaps if you'd brought this up back in February when you added what you, at the time, thought was a noncontroversial edit, things might have been more cordial. For that matter, if it was someone other than the person who made the apparently unilateral edit that were bringing this up, things might not have devolved. As it stands, you asked for a fight, and you got it. -Dewelar (talk) 22:52, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough in turn, though when a guideline addresses something site-wide, it is inevitable that local things will change to conform with it (usually guidelines are in fact written because most editors are doing something X way, and a small subset are doing something Y way, so the Y way pretty much by definition has to pre-date the guideline, or the guideline would be WP:CREEP!) But I think all of this is moot, since the "proposed addition" (proposed restoration, really) is a version in which the contentious interpretation no longer exists. The fight I asked for was between "everyone will do what this passage says unless otherwise noted in the guideline specifically" or "amend the guideline to no longer require specific exemptions", with "tell the guide line to go #$%* itself because wikiprojects don't have to listen to guidelines they don't like" be an out-of-process nonoption. As I predicted (and hoped) the conclusion was that the wording was too restrictive. The fight is over, sports editors won. The decision to be made, below, is whether to amend the text to just say "there are exceptions, deal with it, and no we aren't going to enumerate them as a list, it's a general principle", as I did (or at least think I did - others might not like the exact wording of the reverted version), or to simply delete the text entirely. So, it's a different discussion at hand. Obviously, I think the delete option will lead to chaos (not in sports articles, but everywhere else). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:10, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
I can agree with this, and so will bow out of the discussion. -Dewelar (talk) 02:10, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
To be honest I'm not fussed one way or the other about the use of the form Jack McRedlink (footballer), Jack McRedlink (association football) or Jack McRedlink (football), but if the ....(football) form was adopted then how would we further disambiguate Paul Smith (footballer born 1962), Paul Smith (footballer born 1971) and Paul Smith (footballer born 1979), for example...? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:47, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
The hockey project does it about the same way you have shown except it would be football not footballer...I think the discussion here is mainly about the main word. How you further disambiguate is always a mess. That being said I don't think anything needs to change from how its already being done. As many other people have mentioned this is a solution in search of a problem. There was obviously no problem with how things were already being done as there is only a very small number of people in this discussion thinking it should change from whats being done right now. -Djsasso (talk) 14:49, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Despite generally siding with the way this is going, I have to observe that this reasoning is faulty. The discussion right now is very pro-"(hockey)" specifically because I went to pains to invite people from the projects that prefer this style to comment here, since it was their out-of-band usage that was at issue. If this were done as a WP:RFC and editors from outside the sports space were commenting in large numbers, you would see a very different ratio. In the end, I doubt such an RfC is worth the effort, because the end result is very likely to be a consensus that exceptions have to be made and that rugby, etc., arguably qualify. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't believe that the ratios would be any different with more people from outside the sports world. The overriding factor is WP:SENSE and the long held idea that you should use the shortest possible disambiguator. Those two combined outweigh pretty much any confusion that might arrise (however unlikely) from something being named (baseball) instead of (baseball player). -Djsasso (talk) 17:37, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Except that the preference for using person-descriptors "(chemist)" instead of field-descriptors "(chemistry)" is long-standing and almost totally pervasive of biographical articles. I think we are arguing past each other here. You are arguing for "(baseball)" being okay, because "(baseball player)" is too long and has other problems such as players becoming coaches, etc. I'm agreeing with you, but observing that absent such problems in specific cases there's a longstanding consensus to go with -er/-ist forms. Our views are not actually in conflict. Everyone can be happy. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:18, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Chris, again, I would just follow common sense. Stay with "footballer" if that makes more sense and it has consensus. For baseball, we use (baseball), but when we need to break down by position, we use the occupation like (pitcher) or (outfielder) - and further, (pitcher born 1952). Echoing Djsasso, no one really makes a fuss there so we just let it stay that way. —Wknight94 (talk) 16:13, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
On that last point, you actually are in conflict with the guidelines, longer standing ones that I've had nothing to do with, as they deprecate using birth dates for disambig. purposes, on the common sense basis that it is far more likely for a reader to come seeking a birth date for a notable person than already knowing it. I.e., using the date does not significantly aid in disambiguation. It would probably be more useful to use something like team name player is currently with or most remembered for being a part of, or some other specific that is more likely to be known that a birth year. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree that year on its own is not useful, but year combined with field is enough to pull at minimum 2 people out of a list of X number of people and go ok the person I want is one of these two people. That being said lets keep this discussion on the topic of the main disambiguitor itself. -Djsasso (talk) 17:34, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, if you want to undo the guideline's deprecation of using dates as disambiguators, you have a completely different debate on your hands. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:10, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
That's only done in the most extreme examples anyway - when two right-handed pitchers both named Fred Smith played in the National League from 1961-1968, but one was born in 1940 and one in 1941. It's the least of all evils in a few cases. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Maybe so, though DABing by team or geography might be better. Anyway, WP:IAR exists for a reason - if a rule really does get in the way of creating the encyclopedia in some specific case, policy sanctions ignoring it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Page names for US legislators

We currently have a lack of consistency with regard to article names of non-uniquely-named U.S. Representatives. Some examples:

I tried to get a consensus to change these to a consistent scheme at Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Congress, but not much interest was mustered. Do folks here have an opinion? Or should we leave it be as is?--Appraiser (talk) 17:20, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

For reference, the discussion on WP U.S. Congress is Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_U.S._Congress#proposal_for_renaming_reprepresenatives_with_common_names here. I'm not sure that a 100% consistent schema is possible, but some of the more egregious inconsistencies (such as using years of birth/death or U.S./U. S./US or capitalization) could be repaired. older ≠ wiser 17:47, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
It seems simple to me. From least to most level of disambiguation:
  • First Last (politician)
  • First Last (US politician)
  • First Last (State-name politician) - geographic disambiguation is often more helpful than more specific details, of which readers are often unaware (the details are what they are trying to find the article for, not by). But see below; just "(State-name)" by itself is not very helpful.
  • First Last (...) - something more specific, e.g. "First Last (State-name Governor)" and "First Last (State-name legislator)"; or "First Last (State-name State Senator)" and "First Last (State-name US Senator)"; or "First Last (State-name State Representative)" and "First Last (State-name State Senator)"; or whatever is needed to distinguish between like-named politicians of the same US state.

Start at the top and don't go any farther down than absolutely necessary.

Since political careers sometimes leap jurisdictions, one might have to get creative in a few cases, or even undo some level of disambiguation. E.g. if we had "Joe Bootimeister (Texas US Senator)" and "Joe Bootimeister (New Hampshire US Senator)", and the latter became the US ambassador to Iraq and was most notable in that role, one could argue for changing these, respectively, to "Joe Bootimeister (Texas politician)" and "Joe Bootimeister (diplomat)" (or "Joe Bootimeister (US diplomat)" if there was also a "Joe Bootimeister (Canadian diplomat)").

In keeping with the principle of keeping disambiguators short, constructions like "U.S." (much less "U. S."!) should be avoided. "Representative" is far too vague by itself. Birth/death dates are not used at all, per strong wording in the guideline about this. "Congressman" is also too vague, as it means "US Representative" to some readers, "US Representative or Senator" to others, and "US or state Representative or Senator" to yet others (and something non-US entirely to people in other places for whom "representative" means something different). "American" is unnecessarily long. "Alabama" doesn't really make sense without further elaboration, and is a poor disambiguator (if I see some loudmouth politician on the news and what to read up on what his trip is, I may have no idea where he is from; occupational disambiguators are more more useful). Official titles should be capitalized. I think that covers it all. Oh, I would add that short forms can be used when they are common or at least clear. "Joe Bootimeister (US Secretary of Defense)" might as well be "Joe Bootimeister (US Defense Secretary)" if ever such a level of disambiguation were needed. I don't know of any cases where it is. PS: Using "politician" at the upper levels is fine, despite its lack of specificity. It is clear, and it doesn't make any assumptions about what phase of a politician's professional life is more notable (most politicians don't simply appear out of nowhere and run for Congress or Parliament or whatever, but have been involved in politics for a long time before going for a national position; someone who was a major city's mayor for some time before becoming a congress[wo]man may well be more notable as a mayor). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I can be on-board with most of this, however I disagree with you on capitalization. I believe governor, ambassador, senator, and representative should only be capitalized when they precede a person's name—like Doctor Smith, but Joe Smith (doctor).--Appraiser (talk) 21:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
You would write, "George W. Bush is the president of the United States"? Doctor would obviously not be capitalized in the parenthetical, but I think official elected (or royal, or whatever) titles are generally regarded as proper nouns when used of a specific person, aren't they (and note I didn't capitalize "legislator", because it's not an official title but a general descriptor)? I'd probably have to dig out the Chicago Manual of Style, and it may well be that they generally aren't, but in some cases are treated that way by convention, or whatever. Not sure really. Anyway, I wasn't intending to insist on the capitalization, but rather the logic flow of the disamgibuation specificity, which I think you understand. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:59, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

GENERAL preference for person-descriptive not field-descriptive disambiguators

Some folks are chain-reverting me on something that should not be controversial in any way.

WP:DAB has long said that there's a general preference for using person-descriptive not field-descriptive disambiguations like "(chemist)" not "(chemistry)". That there is widespread consensus on this is undeniable, as almost all disambiguated biographical articles use this convention, even most sports ones.

It was arguably right of Francis to remove this from WP:DAB since it is more relevant at WP:NCP. But it needs to be in WP:NCP, since the purpose of NCP, per WP:POLICY is to accurately capture what WP-wide consensus practices are with regard to the naming of biographical articles. That particular aspect of those practices is important, and without it we'll soon have a rash of more really stupid article titles like "Jane Doe (Song-title)", "Jane Doe (TV-show name)", "Jane Doe (pool)", "Jane Doe (feminism)".

The revised version of the text gives plenty of leeway for sports and other exceptions where following the general advice would lead to undesirable, blathery results like "J. Q. Public (baseball player and coach)". Since I expect it to be reverted again, given the pattern so far, I give it in full here (emphasis added for clarity): "...a single, recognisable and highly applicable word regarding the person at hand. It is generally preferred to use a noun that describes the person, rather than an activity, genre, or affiliation (chemist, not chemistry), but this can sometimes lead to awkward or overly-long disambiguations. Years of birth and death should not be used..."

This accurately captures both the general principle, which is by vast majority the principle applied across biographical articles as a whole, and the need to ignore it when in rare cases, as in several sports, it produces shoddy results. If wording changes are desired, that's cool, but the core observation that "Jane Doe (chemistry)" is not the default preference, is important to retain, to prevent a general breakdown in biographical article naming (see new topic on US politicians here which amply illustrates how screwed up this can get when people do not follow this guideline (or if no such guideline existed).

There is no consensus at all to completely strip this from all relevant guideline pages. Either it lives here where it probably really belongs, it goes back in WP:DAB where it was, or a larger discussion happens and an actual consensus to remove it completely is arrived at (which strikes me as unlikely). Just deleting it without consensus or justification is a no-go. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:47, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

As I said above, it was also added by you back in February without any apparent discussion. You say there was discussion, but it is on neither the WP:DAB talk page nor the WP:NCP talk page any time around the date it was added. While I haven't been participating in the reversions, I'd like to see the context of the discussion, please. Now, certainly, it's possible that consensus has changed, but it's also possible that there never was true consensus in the first place. -Dewelar (talk) 19:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
You have been reverted by four different people in the last day, and I would be a fifth if you tried again. Obviously your change to this guideline page does not have support. I think at this point, you have two real options: let sleeping dogs lie, or open an RFC and look for a wider discussion on whether this supposed de facto guideline has consensus in reality. JMHO. Resolute 19:04, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Now you have tried to tell me this is a move from WP:DAB, however reading what was removed there. It specifically stated that exceptions to the rule in things like sports. Why on earth are you trying to make an issue out of nothing? Feel free to take it to RFC but that will be a can of worms that will decide nothing in the end. -Djsasso (talk) 19:08, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
You're looking for consensus to remove it. I think this discussion is it. —Wknight94 (talk) 19:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Um, 10 minutes of discussion by people some of whom were directly involved in the editwarring, doesn't make a consensus. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:46, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure I was the one who added the sports qualification to begin with, and the version here simply makes the exception more general, but on the same bases - dogged adherence to the advice can lead to long-winded or otherwise unhelpful disambiguators - since there's nothing magically special about sports in particular. Who added the material when is of no relevance. What is relevant is whether the material (now) accurately describes actual consensus in practice on Wikipedia - use the -er/-ist form unless that would somehow be problematic in a specific case or type of case. I think you're going to have a hard time convincing the community at large that it does not, given that probably 95% or more of disambiguated bio articles follow the pattern (and were following the pattern before it was codified; all it did was write down what was seen to be consensus already, which is what guidelines are supposed to do). That its text needed to be, and was, modified to account for widespread alternative forms like "(baseball)" doesn't affect this, except positively (i.e. the advice better reflects consensus now than it did before, making its deletion from any/all relevant guidelines even less justifiable).
Not every change needs to be discussed to death; WP has since its inception worked on the basis that silence equals assent, and guidelines are modified every day to add obvious points like this one, without holding a big debate about it; if they don't get reverted or argued about, they stay. The passage (even flawed as it originally was) was remarkably stable, and generally followed by most editors aware of it, other than those here who are upset about it (why, I can't figure out, since it now accounts for the issue they are concerned about in a way that removes all conflict between them and the guideline!). Its deletion, on the other hand is being objected to; you do not have silence and you do not have assent. And now that a some people here are objecting to its (wording-improved) restoration, we are at an impasse. This means we need to quit bickering about history, and instead figure out what the guideline should say about whether there is a default preference for how to disambiguate human names, and what that preference should be. I think there is already consensus that whatever it is, exceptions are fine when they make sense, so at least mentioning that part in whatever the final text is (if any) won't be controversial. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:46, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
The reasons I didn't object to it are (1) I wasn't an active user in February, and (2) when I did look at the page, it mentioned the sports exceptions, and thus I looked at WP:NC-BASE to see what we were doing. Until you raised the issue over in our area, I had seen no objections to our (admittedly exceptional) guidelines, the part of which we are currently discussing has been in existence since May 2007[4]. As you say, silence equals assent. -Dewelar (talk) 20:01, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
And I would have to say basically the similar thing and I am pretty sure our naming standards at the hockey project have been around just as long if not longer. I am thinking 2006 seems right. I would have to go look. Silence does equal assent, and sports projects have been doing this for atleast 2 years. -Djsasso (talk) 20:03, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Upon looking it appears we have been doing it since August 8th, 2006. -Djsasso (talk) 20:09, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Okay, so, if the current wording (that which was most recently reverted out) actually sanctions your way of doing it, then what is the problem with it? Or is there one any longer? That's what I'm trying to get at in "Guideline text" below. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:46, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Guideline text

So, proceeding from the above (i.e. we need to talk about what the guideline should say on this topic, instead of bitching at each other), my take is basically just what the material said the last time it was reverted from WP:NCP. The relevant questions seem to be a) what are the objections to having any advice on this topic appear at all, and what are their rationales?; and, b) what are the objections to its wording, and what are their rationales? I think I've provided enough material already in the opposite direction, above, but I can reiterate the rationales for including the passage, in one form or another, if necessary. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:46, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

FYI, I have notified Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies), Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages), and Wikipedia talk:Requested moves of this discussion, as they are the most-related or will be the most effected one way or the other. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

NB: Some random passerby just accused me of WP:CANVAS, on my talk page, but notifying other pages of discussions relevant to them is standard practice, and I was careful to include both sides of the debate, and even suggested I may be totally wrong and no guideline language of any kind relating to this topic may be the eventual consensus. While I made it clear that I personally have an opinion on the issue (disclaimer of involvement is polite), I have certainly not asked anyone to come here and "vote" my way. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Only thing I think it needs is an example. Like say adding someone who is disambiguated Joe Schmoe (baseball) as an example of an alternative that is ok. I never really had a problem with you way of wording it, but that you were adding it before the discussion was done. All changes should wait till discussion is over with. -Djsasso (talk) 20:01, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
In that case, the deletion of the passage from WP:DAB should obviously be reverted. I don't care what guideline it's in really (though WP:NCP obviously makes a bit more sense), nor even what the wording is (though I think explicitly saying there are exceptions and why is a good thing), as long as it doesn't just vanish (much less vanish for the sole reason of ending the debate above about whether its original wording applied to sports!). Hope that's clearer. But, Wikipedia won't explode if the passage is just absent for a little while. It's more important to get consensus on what if anything should be there than to fight over process. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
As for examples, it would be easy to use the ones I've been using already: "Jane Doe (chemist)" not "Jane Doe (chemistry)" but "John Doe (baseball)" not "John Doe (baseball player)" (assuming consensus ultimately supports the latter exception as sensible because "baseball player" is longwinded, and I think consensus would agree). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
The biggest problem I have here is the way this discussion is and has been going. SMcCandlish has not provided any good reasoning behind his requests instead trying to justify his position simply by trying to real out numerous Wikipedia policys and guidlines, often incorrectly. It is difficult to come up with an opinion either for or against without any substantial reasoning other than it's always been like that especially when it hasn't. Also continually misquoting WP policies and guidlines doesn't help. Neither does pushing the bounds of WP:3RR or violating WP:CANVAS.
Having said that here is my position. DAB pages are here to solve information architechture and technical issues. Whether we use football or footballer is not really relevant to either of those issues. Adding player can be confusing in some instances, for example people such as Kevin Keegan (if he needed a DAB page) so to deal with that potential confusion several sports related projects use the sport rather than the job as a disambiguater. This seems sensible and logical to me. If someone can explain why this is a bad thing I am open to listening. But can we please have a discussion about the issue and not one about some so called consensus that appears never to have exsisted. Silence does not equal consensus, consensus equals consensus.Paul  Bradbury 21:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Having said I want to get to substantive issues instead of more bitching at each other, I'm going to ignore those barbs and just deal with the substance. No one present in the debate (that I am aware of) is saying that "(football)" or "(footballer)" is a "bad thing" when needed. The issues are whether the just-reverted language adequately expresses that, and if not how to fix it; or, alternately, is there a compelling reason to simply say nothing at all about what form to prefer by default? As I think should be clear by now, my opinion is that the latest version of that language is adequate, and that it is necessary, or we will have a great deal more really badly DAB'd pages. Since the inception of the earlier, less clear, version of that language over 6 months ago, based on de facto standard practice, bio article disambiguation has become notably more consistent (probably because WP:RM relies heavily on WP:DAB and WP:NCP for bio article rename debates, but also because conscientious editors bother to follow it the first time around too, and don't go around creating things like "John Smith (drums)" any more). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
OK fair enough, what I am still unclear on then is what is the problem that we are trying to solve? What is unclear in the guidlines as they are currently written that requires further clarification? To me they seem to cover things fine. Adding in the wording suggested just seems to confuse the issue more than clarify it. Paul  Bradbury 23:12, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Then it may need a further rewrite, perhaps "It is generally preferred to use a noun that describes the person, rather than an activity, genre, or affiliation (chemist, not chemistry). However, this can sometimes lead to awkward or overly-long disambiguations, in which case a shorter but still clear term should be used (baseball, not baseball player and coach)." Or something like that; above, someone desired an example, so this seems like a good place and reason to add one.
The issue to be addressed is that there used to be guidance that the default is to use the -ist/-er form, because this greatly reduces ambiguity and confusion overall; but this was deleted (not because it was a bad default, but to make a dispute, above, go away, when simply modifying its text to be less rigid would have resolved the dispute without deleting guidance that is otherwise valuable.) It's important because it helps prevent bio article titling like "Jane Smith (piano)" which sounds like a brand name article, and so forth. "Jane Smith (pianist)" (if "Jane Smith (musician)" isn't sufficient disambiguation) is clearly the way to go, yet editors who don't know this do create awful article names like "Jane Smith (piano)", requiring a lot of wasted time at WP:RM and leading to editwarring over article titles, and so on. The number of editors who don't know to use the -ist/-er form (by default - not when it would cause blathery DABs like "ice hockey administrator" - exceptions more clearly recognized as valid in this version of the wording) will rise sharply and continuously if the short 1- or 2-sentence guidance on this simply disappears, as it has for now. The sports dispute is over, in favor of not demanding a rigid requirement for -ist/-er formatting, but this doesn't mean that the more overall preference for it should be deleted. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:16, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

It's been over 3 days since the last post here. Does anyone have any concerns at present about the latest version of the language proposed? I'll put it back in and see, I guess. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:35, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

No objection here. -Dewelar (talk) 01:41, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Comment - it's been a holiday weekend in the US. A number of editors might not have been available.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:41, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
No one seems to be upset with it. I hope. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:55, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Notification: requested move

A move has been requested discussing how to disambiguate two basketball players known as Mark Davis. See Talk:Mark Davis (basketball, born 1973). -- Jao (talk) 14:07, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Vote on dual-code rugby players

There is currently a vote at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Rugby_league#Looking_to_bring_a_vote_on_disambiguated_players_who_have_played_both_codes with regards to the disambiguation of dual-code rugby union and rugby league players.Londo06 13:38, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

What policy/guideline says how to decide who gets the name without qualifiers?

Sometimes in a disambiguation situation, one of the persons to be disambiguated has their article under the plain name, and other persons with the same name have their name followed by a qualifier. For example, the Michael Jackson who sings "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" can be found at Michael Jackson, with no qualifier, but the Michael Jackson who was the beer expert is Michael Jackson (writer), and the Michael Jackson who is a Los Angeles radio personality is Michael Jackson (radio commentator). (See also Michael Jackson (disambiguation) for more examples.)

Or to take another example, Paul Simon is the former musical partner of Art Garfunkel, while the late senator from Illinois is Paul Simon (politician). However, if the latter had succeeded in his 1988 bid for President of the United States, I think it would have been likely that he would have wound up with the unqualified name, and the singer would have been assigned Paul Simon (musician) instead.

So the question is, on what basis (what policy or guideline) should we decide who, if anyone, gets the unqualified article name if there is a dispute as to whether one of them should have the unqualified article name? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 23:49, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

In short, consensus. Whether at WP:RM or elsewhere. —Wknight94 (talk) 23:56, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Is_there_a_primary_topic.3F.--Jeff79 (talk) 01:07, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Using "Sir" as a disambiguator and middle names and "natural" disambiguation

Could people here say what they think about the discussion at Talk:Norman Frederick Moore? The dab page is at Norman Moore, and I disagree with the move from Sir Norman Moore to Norman Moore (doctor) on the basis that he was a medical historian as well as a doctor. Most references to him in the literature are either as "Norman Moore" or "Sir Norman Moore", with quite a lot of the latter. I was going by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) which says ""Sir" may be used in article titles as a disambiguator." See also Talk:Norman Moore. I also, earlier, created Sir Robert Muir for the same reasons (no dab page, but a Canadian politician at Robert Muir). There are quite a lot of examples I can produce of "Sir" being used as a disambiguator in page titles, once I've got my monobook to put redirects in a different colour. See all page with prefix "Sir". Some examples for now are: Sir Charles Blount (and Charles Blount) and Sir Henry Phillips (and Henry Phillips). There is also some disagreement over which form of disambiguation is more "natural". The bit at this guideline about qualifying parentheticals says: "As for all other articles: try to avoid this type of disambiguation where possible (use disambiguation techniques listed above if these apply more "naturally") – but if no other disambiguation technique comes naturally, this type of disambiguation is the most preferred one." I happen to think that middle name and initial disambiguation is very natural, as this is, after all, the current disambiguation used by people when giving their children names.

So my questions are:

  • (1) Is it OK to use "Sir" as a disambiguator and when?
  • (2) Should middle names and initials and "Sir" be preferred over parenthetical disambiguators?
  • (3) Are there cases where a name prefixed with "Sir" is the most commonly known form of a name?
  • (4) If there is a clear single profession, should parenthetical disambiguation be used to preserve the "common name"?
  • (5) What should be done in cases where there is no clear single profession?
  • (6) Should some of the "Sir" examples above be renamed to conform to the "baronets" guideline?

Any help and advice would be appreciated. Carcharoth (talk) 06:11, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

My opinion would be:
(1) Generally, no.
(2) Generally, no. Middle names should only be used if the person actually used them himself.
(3) Frequently (in fact, probably usually), but that doesn't change the above.
(4) Definitely yes.
(5) Use the most obvious and helpful one. A disambiguator is only that - it's not meant to provide a complete list of the subject's professions. It's just to help the user distinguish the correct person.
(6) Not sure what you mean. "Sir xx, 1st Baronet" should only be used as an article title in disambiguation cases - it shouldn't be used for all baronets.
-- Necrothesp (talk) 13:32, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I concur with Necro; on item 6, I'd say most (possibly all) of the "Sir" articles should be renamed. Honorifics change, and are deprecated in general; they're inappropriate in almost all cases. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:51, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Was waiting for more opinion, but no-one else seems to be around.
(1) What are the exceptions? Is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) a special case, or is it just misleading? How long has that guideline said that 'Sir' can be used as a disambiguator, and is this based on common practice or a logical argument?
(2) What happens if someone publishes scientific papers under one form of their name (sometimes just initials), and were known under another form of their name? This is more common than you might think.
(3) I thought the point of disambiguation was to use the name that most readers will recognise?
(4) I agree here.
(5) "most obvious and helpful one" - isn't that a bit subjective and open to argument? Some readers will go "doctor? Oh, they mean Sir Norman Moore the medical historian". Others will go "historian? Oh, they mean Sir Norman Moore the doctor". Why expect readers and editors to spend time trying to work out the "most obvious" profession if other disambiguation means are available?
(6) I think you might need to take another look at our baronet articles and see how they are being named. Guidelines should, to some extent, reflect actual practice, not try and change practice.
In general, regarding middle name and initial disambiguation, from what I've seen working with obscure stubs on historical people, and in general with disambiguation, people in practice are using middle names and initials to disambiguate in titles for articles. Which as I said before is hardly surprising. In the absence of reading any guideline, people will do this sort of disambiguating instinctively. Especially when all you have are a few old obituaries and no clue as to what the person was "commonly known as", apart from maybe a list of published literature which will invariably be mostly in the form of initials plus surname.
My wider point is that the "common name" argument tends to only apply for living or recently-dead people. Those working from old obituaries are instinctively following the forms of the name they find in the sources (obituaries tend to give full names), and they will have worked on the articles and read about the person in question. To then have someone else come along and insist that the letter of some guideline is followed is depressing. The implication of most naming discussions is that a long discussion about getting the title right is more important than working on the content of the article (I wouldn't mind so much if those who discuss naming conventions actually helped out and improved the articles in question as well). My view is that as long as the redirects are in place, the final location of the actual title should be determined by those who have written the article and worked on it (and thus understand best the reasons for a name and the most common name used in the sources), not disambiguation "specialists". Though I realise this view may be unpopular here, can those who object to this at least understand why I've said this? The aim is to redirect efforts towards writing the articles, not arguing over the names of the articles. Carcharoth (talk) 05:38, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
(1) Yes, it does say you can disambiguate with "sir" in the guidelines. Personally I think this should be changed. Very few people do it and most editors with any experience will change such an article title.
(2) I agree this is a common problem. An equally common problem is that in earlier times (until quite recently in Britain, at least), people were very often commonly referred to in the press using only their initials ("Mr J. R. Smith was today appointed Headmaster of Rigdoodle School"), whereas they wouldn't usually be known by that form to anyone who knew them personally. In fact, knights were one of the few exceptions - it was always usual to refer to knights using their name ("Sir John Smith was today appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Rigdoodleshire"). Which do we use? It's a perennial problem to editors like me who write lots of biographical articles. It eventually ends up being a bit of a judgement call. I try to read around the subject to find out what the individual was actually known as, but it's not always easy.
(3) Indeed, but is someone really likely to recognise Sir Laurence Olivier but not simple Laurence Olivier? People aren't quite that stupid.
(5) Yes, it's subjective. But does it really matter if you call Sir Norman Moore a doctor or a medical historian? Either establishes his field as medicine and therefore either helps the reader to distinguish him from any other Norman Moore (unless there are two famous Norman Moores in the medical field, in which case you have to be a little more specific), which is the sole function of a disambiguator. If it had a greater function, we would give everybody a parenthetical disambiguator. Also remember that on Wikipedia it's very easy to go back and click on another Norman Moore if you skim the article and realise it's not the one you're looking for.
(6) In actual fact, most baronet articles were named using the guidelines. A couple of editors some time ago went around changing a lot of article titles to always include the "Sir" and the "xth Baronet", even where disambiguation was not required, but I believe they have stopped this now after being remonstrated with. If not, they should have, and the titles should really be changed back. The practice of a couple of editors who disagree with the clear guideline should not dictate practice to all other editors.
There is a clear guideline to not using middle names and initials to disambiguate, incidentally. "Adding middle names, or their abbreviations, merely for disambiguation purposes (that is: if this format of the name is not the commonly used one to refer to this person) is not advised." I frequently move articles because I like consistency - and consistency says use common name. If I don't know the common name then I'll leave it where it is (hence some of the articles I have created myself are at full name, simply because I don't know which name the person used). We (or at least most of us) don't move for the hell of it or for some dogma! I completely agree with you that it is wrong to move an article if you don't know the common name (and I have had to move some of my created articles back because somebody automatically assumed that the first name was the common name and moved it to a name by which the individual wasn't actually known). -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:36, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
(3) We are talking about cases where there is no primary topic, so "Laurence Olivier" is not a good example.
(2) "I try to read around the subject to find out what the individual was actually known as, but it's not always easy" - again, I fail to understand the need to read around a topic to find out what someone was "commonly known as", when 99% of the people alive today will not know what the person was commonly known as either. If someone is dead, what they were commonly known as becomes far less relevant to a naming conventions debate. I would be tempted to go instead with what people are more likely to come across them called in sources - ie. in obituaries (full names) or published literatures or announcements (initials). That is a more logical, and crucially more practical method for determining an article title than a difficult and not always certain method of "reading around the suject" to find out the common name whilst alive.
(5) I must admit I had only considered Norman Moore (historian). I will now suggest Norman Moore (medical historian) at Talk:Norman Moore, and propose moving Norman Moore (doctor) there.
(6) I give up on baronets! :-) By which I mean that you are perfectly welcome to get baronets renamed and I couldn't care less, but I would ask that you consider the primary topic concerns first before diving in, and in particular try and find out the history of why the "names and titles" guideline says what it says (there is almost certainly some reason we've missed in this discussion).
Would you have time to respond to my concerns about "drive-by" moves? The bit here:

"My view is that as long as the redirects are in place, the final location of the actual title should be determined by those who have written the article and worked on it (and thus understand best the reasons for a name and the most common name used in the sources), not disambiguation "specialists". Though I realise this view may be unpopular here, can those who object to this at least understand why I've said this? The aim is to redirect efforts towards writing the articles, not arguing over the names of the articles."

I'm thinking in particular of Sir Robert Muir. I spent a long time working on that article, and I would be annoyed if someone turned up and moved the article without discussion, and used a parenthetical disambiguator that was not sensitive to the achievements of the person in question. In particular, I'm not sure which should be the primary topic at Robert Muir. There are almost certainly other notable Robert Muir's, but I'm not sure whether the politician currently at Robert Muir is one of them. I guess what I'm saying is that as someone who has looked into the issues, I think a "primary topic" debate is needed, and I would be annoyed if someone on a "rename all articles with 'Sir' in the title" crusade came along and missed this in their efforts to get "Sir" removed from all titles. Does that make sense? A potential drive-by move missing the forest for the trees? Carcharoth (talk) 09:34, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
(2) Simply because Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia and provides information. If I can find the common name I'll use it for that reason.
(3) It's as good example as any other really. My point was that people aren't going to see "Norman Moore" and think "oh, that can't be the one I was looking for, because he was Sir Norman Moore". You've got to credit readers with some intelligence.
(6) As I said, I didn't get baronets renamed. They were renamed against guidelines by someone else.
Sorry, I thought I did respond to your concerns about "drive-by" moves. I don't agree with them unless the editor who does them has some knowledge of what he's talking about. For the record, I think Sir Robert Muir should be renamed Robert Muir (pathologist) and Robert Muir to Robert Muir (politician). Neither appears to be a clear primary topic and the Robert Muir page should become a disambiguation page. Let's face it, disambiguating as Sir Robert Muir is not that clear - how does a reader know that the other Robert Muir wasn't knighted? Many Canadians have been (given his date of birth it's unlikely, but people won't necessarily know that). -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:28, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I've done all that and updated the links pointing to the dab pages at Norman Moore and Robert Muir. Could you have a look at Thomas William Taylor and say what should be done with that Robert Muir? Carcharoth (talk) 22:52, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
I can't really say, since I don't know anything about him. He's only mentioned as a candidate. If that's all he ever was, then he probably shouldn't be linked at all (as failed candidates for legislatures aren't generally notable enough for their own articles). If he was eventually elected or was notable in some other way then it's best to leave it for someone who does know something about him. -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:17, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Maybe the pathologist (the years fit) popped over to Canada in an attempt to change careers? :-) I'll pop a note on the relevant Canadian wikiproject page. Carcharoth (talk) 23:25, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Redirect target on portrayals of real life persons without their own article

Wow, this talk page could do with some archiving. No matter, I can't find an answer to this above, but hopefully it'll be a simple one to figure out. I'm looking for guidance as to where Christine Collins should redirect to. At present, it points to Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, the case with which the real Christine Collins was tangentially related. On the other hand, the film Changeling, which is based upon those same events, features her as the main character. So, should Christine Collins redirect to 1) the murders article, 2) the film article, or 3) a disambiguation page that points to both of these? Many thanks, Steve T • C 21:51, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Suggest redirect to Wineville Chicken Coop Murders (as she was the mother of one of the victim, right? That's not tangentially related, and there is a lot on that page about her) and then rely on readers to be able to get from there to Changeling (the film) if they want to go there. Most people searching on that name will want the murder article. Only if someone with the same name gets an article, would you create a disambiguation page, IMO. You could add both Collins people to Collins (surname) if you wanted to, but that might not be much help. Carcharoth (talk) 01:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply; I wasn't sure what standard practise was in cases like this. The reason I said "tangentially related" is because the Collins case was more wide-ranging than the Wineville one, and that article doesn't really go into it in depth. Ultimately, Collins, or her "story", needs its own article separate from the film or the Wineville Chicken Murders. Thanks again, Steve T • C 08:27, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Football dabs revisited

At the top of this talk page, there was a discussion on the use of (football player) vs (American football). Initially there was consensus that (football player) was superior to (American football) as the dab ought to describe the person rather than the sport and, unless there were two players with the same name in different codes of football, it is unnecessary to further disambiguate. Later discussion suggested that it could be a problem for a person who moves on from a football player to a coach. (I would and did argue that is not a problem and received no rebuttal).

Later discussion (at #Sports "revolt") brought up discussion concerning exemptions, in the interest of common sense, for articles on baseball and hockey people. It seems to have been decided that (baseball) and (ice hockey) as well as (hockey) would be acceptable for these biographical articles since they could be used for all people associated with the sport. Football, however, was not resolved any differently than what had been initially discussed.

Clearly, (American football) is no better than (football player) in terms of the shortest clear dab. I suppose one could argue for (football) under the same exceptions made for baseball and hockey but I do not. What bothers me is unnecessarily defining the code of football in the dab when there is no other football player with the same name. Many football players move between American and Canadian football (and even Arena football) and to force a code of football into the dab when no disambiguation for it is needed makes the dabs unnecessarily complicated figuring out which code of football a person is most associated with and unnecessarily inaccurate when dabbing a person as (Canadian football) when that person is an American who also played American football.

I am in the middle of a dispute with User:Tavix who has recently moved a few articles a week such as Khalid Abdullah (football player) to Khalid Abdullah (Canadian football). I have reverted the moves and explained the best I can in the edit summaries and at User talk:Tavix why (football player) is the more sensible dab for these articles. I was hoping I could settle the issue over time with some explanations but Tavix has gone on a mission and moved about 350 articles today alone. I would like the community here to weigh in here and obviously I hope you agree with me that a dab of (football player) is preferred when no other biography article is about a football player. I would even accept (football) if there is consensus for that, though my position is against it. DoubleBlue (Talk) 01:09, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I also direct contributors to Talk:Ben Graham (American football), where discussion of a dab for a player who played both Australian football and American football and the editors agreed on (football) but have been reverted. DoubleBlue (Talk) 04:05, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • In truth, I think a more simple dab of "football" is better, but that's just me. Football should be an exception for the reasons you list above. There are several different codes of football, and any American born player who has competed in either the CFL or the Arena league will undoubtably have played in at least two of them, given their college would likely have been American football. "Football" would be my preferred default disambiguator, with "football player" second as that would help maintain a more consistent disambig style across the sport(s). Resolute 01:22, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • The simple "Football" or even "Football player" makes no sense because it is impossible to tell if it is for Association football (soccer), American football, Canadian football, Arena football, or even Australian football. Before I started to move those articles, I noticed that the majority of articles supported the (___ football) dab rather than (football player). So I just went ahead and finished it for consistency.
PS: Hope my mission pays off, that took me 4 hours to do. Tavix (talk) 02:37, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • It makes no difference whether you can tell from the dab what kind of football it is if there is no other football player with that name. Do we put dabs on every article as a précis of what it's about? Of course not! The sole purpose of the dab is to have two articles with the same name and select it from a disambiguation page. One might have just chosen to dab articles 1, 2, 3, and so on but then there'd be the appearance of ranking so we choose to put what the person does in the dab. I've tried my best to explain to you that the simpler, more general dab is preferable whenever possible but you just can't understand me. I'm sorry it took you 4 hours to do and will take more to undo but you well knew that these kind of moves were opposed and why. Even if I believe you that more articles were under the Xian football dab, it does not mean it's correct; it means some misguided person has named them so. DoubleBlue (Talk) 03:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Actually, the best DAB for all NFL, CFL, AFL, etc. players would be (gridiron football) but that's another point.
As for the debate between "American football" and "football player", the former is better because it gives more info before you even get to the page. It also does not take up much more space in characters and is in no way detrimental to the encyclopedia. If you can give me one reason why a DAB of American football is BAD, I'll cave. But there isn't a reason.►Chris NelsonHolla! 04:10, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Please read above. The more general dab is always preferred since it makes it simpler and more correct for players who are notable for more than one code of football. Dabs are not intended to educate, the précis of the article should be placed in the lead not the page name. DoubleBlue (Talk) 04:15, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • All that said, why don't we just do WP:IGNOREALLRULES and destroy Wikipedia because that is a rule as well. The only difference to all this is how you interpret rules. Honestly, there is nothing bad about either one of the dabs as long as we be consistent. It's not like someone isn't going to find what they are looking for because it says (American football) and not (football player). Tavix (talk) 04:28, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

initials redux

The archives attests to the lack of consensus regarding the spacing of initials. I guess that's why there's no mention of initials on this page. I propose that we add that any form is accepted - spaced or unspaced - but the initial form should not be changed. Kind of like the policy behind English/American spelling rule. Thoughts? --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 02:45, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I think we should spell it however it's typically spelled. I find it funny that I'm friends with people that have initials for a first name (ex. P. K. Sam) and he doesn't put a space in P.K. but we do here. If the guy himself doesn't do it, it seems silly to do it another way.►Chris NelsonHolla! 03:06, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I couldn't agree with you more. Where were you at this thread? --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 03:13, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Typically spelt by whom? Given the difference in fonts and house styles used by various publications, I think it would be extremely difficult to find the "actual" spelling. Better to retain the status quo and spell them how we've spelt them certainly for as long as I've been on Wikipedia. -- Necrothesp (talk) 21:15, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
This is going off-topic. I didn't intend to rehash the initial-space issue. But now that you mention it, if were to copy the standard used by RS's there clearly would not be spaces. Wikipedia is actually the first place I have ever seen spaces in between initials. It's not that difficult to figure out if publications are spacing the initials or not. Just look carefully. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 21:25, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Personally, I think spacing between initials is odd and spacing is only needed to separate from whole words/names. DoubleBlue (talk) 21:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
My point is that some publications do space initials and some don't. Which is correct? Who knows? What is wrong with spaced initials anyway? They look far better to my eyes than unspaced initials. Personally, being British, I usually (when not writing for Wikipedia) write initials spaced without full stops and abbreviations unspaced without full stops - this is the way it's usually done in the UK. That's not how Wikipedia does it, but I still think the WP way is better than the jumbled-together-with-full-stops-but-without-spaces method. Consistency is the best policy. -- Necrothesp (talk) 21:38, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I like my (women and my) sentences tight and "unnecessary stuff" gets my nervous. That aside, the current standard has inconsistency within actual articles. Although most article names do have spaces, within the mainspace, they are usually not spaced. I would agree that "consistency" is ideal, but no editor should have any method forced on him or her if there has never been any sort of consensus regarding spaces. My initial point was this should be analogous to the policy at English variations at WP:ENGVAR, in which any method is acceptable and the initial method used should not be reverted. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 21:55, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I suppose if there are those who feel so strongly in favour of spacing, this is the best approach for now. Ultimately, it would be better to have a consistent Wikipedia style. (and thanks for the laugh) DoubleBlue (talk) 18:44, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Brewcrewer's approach to WP:ENGVAR above is flawed, and this edit to the guideline is a resulting travesty of the ENGVAR philosophy:
  • If this is covered by WP:ENGVAR, why should we give a handicapped version of that type of guidance here?
  • Note that the current NCP guidance does not contain any formatting recommendation regarding spaces and periods in page names for articles about people (apart from the redirect stuff, which is only ancillary to this guideline). There is no reason to make that lack of guidance explicit as far as I know, while part of it *is* covered by WP:ENGVAR, but differently from what has been added to this guideline recently by Brewcrewer.
--Francis Schonken (talk) 20:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Francis, I think you're misinterpreting the point above (due to my weak writing skills :-). The idea of not being tied down to either format is not based on WP:ENGVAR. There's no indication that this is even a variety be country issue. ENGVAR was just used an analogy of a scheme in which there is no preference over the other. Same here. There's no consensus either here or in the real world about the correct format for initials so it would be best that WP not be the one deciding the format. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 20:41, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Above you wrote:

...being British, I usually (when not writing for Wikipedia) write initials spaced without full stops and abbreviations unspaced without full stops - this is the way it's usually done in the UK...

clearly defining (part of this issue) this as an WP:ENGVAR thing - then don't go around saying "...the initial method used should not be reverted..." is how such issues are treated in the ENGVAR guidance. Really, it is probably best that the NCP guidance doesn't say anything worth mentioning about this subject now, as to not come in conflict with the ENGVAR guidance that covers part of it. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:02, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Francis: I don't where you're quoting from, but you're not quoting anything I said. I (unfortunately) never stepped foot into the UK. I also had a hard time understanding the rest of your comment. Are you saying that the recent addition contradicts WP:ENGVAR. If it does, how so?--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 21:20, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Oops, sorry it was quoted from Necrothesp, should've looked more carefully.
Re. "Are you saying that the recent addition contradicts WP:ENGVAR" - yes.
Re. "If it does, how so?" please read WP:ENGVAR. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
No problem, Francis. Can you be so kind and point me to the exact section section at WP:ENGVAR that supposedly contradicts the addition to this article. From my perusal of the page, it looks like the addition to this article is in sync with the general policy there. Thanks,--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 21:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR is a guideline section, so yes I pointed you to the *exact* section. I don't understand what else you might mean with your question.

Since you didn't recognise Necrothesp's comment higher on this page, maybe have a closer look at that contribution too: it is quite clear that according to the experience of some, things are done in a specific way in the UK, which makes this an ENGVAR issue, in the sense that ENGVAR does *not* say "...the initial method used should not be reverted..." in general about things that are done a specific way in the UK.

Maybe you and Necrothesp were just talking next to each other higher on this page, which in general is not a good start for guideline finetuning. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:47, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

You're right about the section; I'm sorry, I must have gotten confused with something else. But in any case, I fail to see how the addition to this page is inconsistent with WP:ENGVAR. Please take a look a few subsections below WP:ENGVAR, the "Retaining the existing variety" section, where you'll see that WP policy is not to change from one version to another. The addition to this article was in-line with that policy.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 22:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

My reasoning behind no spaces: The initials sort of become the "first name" and therefore should be considered one name. Essentially, P.K. is P. K. Sam's common first name.►Chris NelsonHolla! 22:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Good point. We would call him PK or Mr. Sam but never P. DoubleBlue (talk) 18:45, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • We used to endorse spacing, largely as a matter of predictability; neither linkers nor readers should have to guess between H. G. Wells, H.G.Wells and H.G. Wells. To my eyes and reflexes, the first is correct; it's both Wells' own usage and how the name is usually spelt. If Indian names differ in being consistently spelt without spaces, we should probably say so. (For what it's worth, the short form was HG here too.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Russian multiple names example confused

The current Russain multiple names example is;

  • Russian: Natalia Krandievskaya Tolstaya – born Natalia Krandievskaya (the latter a patronymic, "Krandiev's-daughter"), she added the female form of Tolstoi, the last name of her husband.

I don't know who this Natalia is, but Krandievskaya is not a patronymic. It should read something like:

  • Russian: Natalia Borisovna Tolstaya - born Natalia Borisovna Romanova (Romanova is her maiden name, from her father's family name, Romanov. Borisovna is a patronymic, from her father's Christian name, Boris)

I'll get a real example, and replace it in a day or so, unless I hear otherwise. Smallbones (talk) 18:06, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

A real example:

  • Russian: Tatyana Lvovna Sukhotina-Tolstaya - born Tatyana Lvovna Tolstaya. Lvovna is her patronymic taken from her father's first name, Lev. Tolstaya is her maiden name, taken from her father's surname, Tolstoy. Upon marriage she combined the surname of her husband (Sukhotin) and her father to get Sukhotina-Tolstaya. More commonly, a married woman only uses the feminized surname of her husband (Sukhotina in this case). Patronymics are widely used in Russia where English speakers would use a surname, thus should generally be included in the article name.

The last sentence might be somewhat controversial.

Make that " thus should generally be included in the first line of the article." unless we want to change every article name for every Russian in English Wikipedia. Smallbones (talk) 18:38, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Back in a day or two.

Smallbones (talk) 18:28, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

New "Naming conventions (sportspeople)" drafted

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (sportspeople) (WP:NCSP) has been drafted. Hopefully it will provide a more cohesive and less divisive place to resolve the remaining disputes, and more importantly will cover the sometimes thorny issues of sportsperson article disambiguation more clearly. This should reduce the load on WT:NCP and the sports-related verbiage in WP:NCP. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:00, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

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