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Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequently rejected or ignored proposals.
Notability of political candidates
In general, people who are only notable for losing an election to the United States Senate or UK House of Commons do not meet WP:NPOL and are deleted at AfD. As a result, people who are only notable as a candidate for the Senate or Commons are not notable, either. This leads to many contentious debates during election seasons.
Defining which specific lower-level political offices are notable is almost always controversial and should be avoided. To minimize controversy, I feel Wikipedia should generally wait until after the election for deletion discussions. As "important" elections often generate a lot of media coverage, the candidates will meet WP:GNG.
However, having a specific rule for elected offices poses an additional problem. In races where (for example) a mayor is running against a scientist, there is an implicit bias for electing candidates with prior electoral experience. To avoid this bias, either all of the candidates meeting GNG through coverage of the race should be included, or none of them should be included. Power~enwiki (talk) 19:53, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
- Just in the United States alone, there are elections every two, four or six years for 435 seats in the US House of Representatives, 100 seats in the US Senate, 50 state governorships, thousands upon thousands of seats in state legislatures, a few hundred mayors of cities that are large enough to get their mayors over NPOL, and a couple of hundred city council seats in the couple of dozen cities that are large and important enough to get their city councillors over NPOL too. And there are almost always somewhere between two and a dozen (or more) candidates for each of those seats, adding up to thousands upon thousands of articles about candidates. Then you have to do the same for Canada — 338 seats in the federal House of Commons, 750 seats in provincial and territorial legislatures, lots of mayors and half a dozen metropolitan cities large enough to NPOL the city councillors, again times three-to-twelve candidates per race. And then you have to do the same for the UK and Australia and Germany and France and Italy and the Netherlands and South Africa and Brazil and every other country on earth which has democratic elections, in many of which it can get even worse because the number of parties running candidates makes Canada and the United States look like amateurs in the political diversity sweepstakes.
- And if your response is going to be "I only mean the candidates who clear GNG", I've got news for you: at the depth of coverage that's normally brought as evidence of passing GNG for most articles about political candidates, every candidate would always clear GNG — covering local elections in their coverage area is local media's job, so every election and every candidate in it always gets some coverage in the campaign context.
- And furthermore, Wikipedia has a rule that notability is not temporary — we cannot deem somebody "temporarily notable pending a future condition they may or may not meet, but then losing that notability if they fail to meet it". Notable today, notable forever (except in the rare instance that notability criteria evolve to the point that the person's base notability claim no longer even meets the standards anymore, which is possible but not actually very common at all.)
- Again, the core reason that Wikipedia established the notability criteria that we have for politicians, namely requiring that they hold office and only in certain very rare situations get to claim notability just for the fact of being a candidate in and of itself, is precisely because such articles have an extremely high tendency to get misused as promotional campaign brochures. And we simply don't have the editor base needed to properly monitor or maintain tens of thousands of articles about election candidates for neutrality and sourcing issues, any more than we have the ability to properly monitor or maintain every article that some aspiring wannabe in some other field of endeavour (musicians, writers, artists, high school football players, etc.) wants to create about themselves either.
- So no, what you propose simply isn't sustainable at all. Bearcat (talk) 02:59, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
- +1 to excellent Bearcat post. Nailed it. Alsee (talk) 14:20, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
- Me, too. Well written, Bearcat. FWIW, in south India it is not uncommon to have > 10 candidates per seat, and the record was something like 40 for one seat. - Sitush (talk) 07:10, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
- Bearcat is on point here; I will just add that even with NPOL where it is, we have been flooded with low-grade bios, typically for state/province-level legislators. I shudder to think what the outcome may be if we lowered this threshold. Vanamonde (talk) 06:25, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
- @Bearcat: What if the candidate is (or was) a major-party nominee for the Senate? — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs) 03:46, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
- Senate races are one of those offices where a person has a significantly higher prospect of either (a) getting enough coverage to clear the "more than routine coverage of the campaign" bar because genuinely substantive coverage is a lot likelier to nationalize, or (b) already having preexisting notability for other reasons anyway (e.g. having already served in the state legislature or as a member of the House of Representatives, or already having established notability as a lawyer or a judge or whatever), because it's significantly harder (trending toward completely impossible in the largest states) to win a Senate primary if you weren't already a well-known figure with already established notability than it is for the lower-level offices. But it's still not an office where every candidate gets an automatic inclusion freebie in the absence of meeting the same conditions as candidates for any other office — they still have to satisfy the same conditions, and just have a somewhat better chance of actually pulling that off than House or state legislature candidates do. Bearcat (talk) 15:19, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
- Even then there are still Senate races where the non-holding major party basically gives it a miss rather than make any effort against an entrenched incumbent and a total unknown can slip through a primary - Alvin Greene springs to mind. He got a lot of attention because others cried out but there must surely be many cases of effective paper candidates for the Senate? Timrollpickering 22:20, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
- Well, sure. I didn't say it was impossible for a person to win a Senate primary without already having preexisting notability — it's effectively impossible in California or New York, where a candidate needs to have an especially massive bank account to handle the expense of campaigning in several ridiculously expensive metropolitan media markets simultaneously, but it's not at all impossible in many smaller states. But as a rule it is harder for a total nobody to just show up and win a Senate primary than it is for one to win a House or state legislature primary. Bearcat (talk) 15:21, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
- Even then there are still Senate races where the non-holding major party basically gives it a miss rather than make any effort against an entrenched incumbent and a total unknown can slip through a primary - Alvin Greene springs to mind. He got a lot of attention because others cried out but there must surely be many cases of effective paper candidates for the Senate? Timrollpickering 22:20, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
- Senate races are one of those offices where a person has a significantly higher prospect of either (a) getting enough coverage to clear the "more than routine coverage of the campaign" bar because genuinely substantive coverage is a lot likelier to nationalize, or (b) already having preexisting notability for other reasons anyway (e.g. having already served in the state legislature or as a member of the House of Representatives, or already having established notability as a lawyer or a judge or whatever), because it's significantly harder (trending toward completely impossible in the largest states) to win a Senate primary if you weren't already a well-known figure with already established notability than it is for the lower-level offices. But it's still not an office where every candidate gets an automatic inclusion freebie in the absence of meeting the same conditions as candidates for any other office — they still have to satisfy the same conditions, and just have a somewhat better chance of actually pulling that off than House or state legislature candidates do. Bearcat (talk) 15:19, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
- @Bearcat: What if the candidate is (or was) a major-party nominee for the Senate? — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs) 03:46, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
- If "every candidate would always pass" were reality, we would simply keep all such articles and there would not be a problem. Voters must often go to the polls without any information from local newspapers about candidates. California solves this problem with Voter Pamphlets. Unscintillating (talk) 22:23, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
- If voters are going to the polls without any information about the candidates, that's their own fault and not the media's — the coverage was and is there, with the question being whether any individual voter paid attention to it or not. It's kind of like the old wingnut bleat about "how come no moderate Muslims ever condemned 9/11?" — to which the only possible answer, because it's the stone truth, is "they did, but you just didn't pay attention when the media reported the fact". Bearcat (talk) 14:12, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
- Huh? Your hypothesis is "all candidates pass WP:GNG". Perhaps you live where there is a local newspaper who makes it their civic duty to perform the role of the California voter's pamphlet. That hardly makes it a norm. Unscintillating (talk) 00:40, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
- That's really, really obviously not Bearcat's position; read this editor's longer post above. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:16, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- Huh? Your hypothesis is "all candidates pass WP:GNG". Perhaps you live where there is a local newspaper who makes it their civic duty to perform the role of the California voter's pamphlet. That hardly makes it a norm. Unscintillating (talk) 00:40, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
- If voters are going to the polls without any information about the candidates, that's their own fault and not the media's — the coverage was and is there, with the question being whether any individual voter paid attention to it or not. It's kind of like the old wingnut bleat about "how come no moderate Muslims ever condemned 9/11?" — to which the only possible answer, because it's the stone truth, is "they did, but you just didn't pay attention when the media reported the fact". Bearcat (talk) 14:12, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
- I concur with Bearcat completely; that's a very good analysis of the issue. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:16, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- I'm with Bearcat too, there's nothing more really to be said.Smerus (talk) 11:27, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- If you concur, then you agree with, "at the depth of coverage that's normally brought as evidence of passing GNG for most articles about political candidates, every candidate would always clear GNG". There is a wide range of political candidates, right down to school boards with people running whom the local papers contacted but who ignored the request for information. In primary elections with multiple candidates, the local newspaper may have a brief bio, but information essential to making an informed decision is lacking. Why am I having to state the obvious? Unscintillating (talk) 20:40, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
Plea for a slightly less blunt WP:G5
Earlier this month, I went to make sure that the disambiguation page, "Nies" contained Judge Helen Nies, late of the Federal Circuit. I was surprised to find that not only was this entry lacking, but that there used to be a Nies (surname)—a completely innocuous (and useful) list of people sharing that surname—which was deleted with no discussion as WP:G5, a page created by a banned or blocked user. I have seen a number of other instances where perfectly useful and benign pages and redirects have been deleted on this basis, apparently with absolutely no thought going into the process. It is distressing to me to think that our policy is so blunt as to allow (much less require) that we punish our readers for the transgressions of editors through the deletion of good articles on this basis. Is there any way we can refine this policy to avoid outcomes that do more harm than good to the encyclopedia? bd2412 T 23:57, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
- I agree with this wholeheartedly. Perhaps a gentle reminder for administrators to use good common sense when thinking of deleting the article at WP:G5? Or change the rationale to "Disruptive creations by banned or blocked users"? I also wonder whether there was a historical reason for this criterion that we are now forgetting... Malinaccier (talk) 00:01, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
- Agreed. Judging by content and not by the author makes sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjjjjjdddddd (talk • contribs) 10:59, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
- Deleting a disambiguation page is a bit blunt, but I do want to point out that when G5 is applied to BLPs it is often for the case of the protection of the subject: G5 is most commonly applied to sock farms with likely PAID issues. Unfortunately PAID cuts several ways: you have payment for promotion, payment for blackmail (Orangemoody-esque), and also payment to disparage competition. G5 is a blunt instrument, but it is very effective in helping us protect actual people from harm. For these reasons I'd oppose any change to the current wording, but agree that commonsense should prevail in cases like dab pages. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:10, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
- Perhaps we have the beginnings of a refinement there - definitely use G5 for BLPs, probably for any article on an extant business, organization, or product. Avoid using it on useful redirects, disambiguation pages, and the like. The problem, as I see it, is that there is nothing presently in the wording of G5 that even calls for the use of common sense. It does say "Pages created by a topic-banned user may be deleted if they come under that particular topic, but not if they are legitimately about some other topic"; I don't see how that limitation could have been applied in the case of the page deleted in this instance. bd2412 T 02:55, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
- Having seen lists created as supporting material for spam articles, and having seen A7 fall from being a useful deletion criterion to becoming a battleground, I favour leaving the matter at the admin's discretion. While I appreciate BD2412's intent, blocked should mean blocked, and blocked users shouldn't be offered loopholes in their blocks. Cabayi (talk) 06:40, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
- For non-banned editors, we keep their good edits and pages and revert their bad edits and delete their bad pages. If an editor is banned, we also reject their good edits and pages. If we do not delete good pages per G5 or revert good edits on sight, the only difference between banned and non-banned editors is that the banned editors have to change username once per day. —Kusma (t·c) 06:49, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
- The principle of a ban is very simple: As long as the edit is just the edit of a banned user, it can be removed - revert an edit to an existing page, delete a new page. If an established editor (not necessarily an admin, but clearly not a sock of a banned user) declares that (s)he is willing to take responsibility for that edit, it ceases to be "just the edit of a banned user". This can be done after the edit was removed as well as before - if you restore a correctly G5-ed page, that is generally taking responsibility for it. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:04, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
- An important principle here is that the meaning of words like may and can is NOT a synonym for the word must. G5's language is fine, but the problem is enforcement. The problem becomes where damnatio memoriae becomes cutting off the nose to spite the face. We shouldn't have to jump through extra hoops to delete contributions of banned users. However, saying that, we shouldn't feel the requirement to delete them where it creates a greater hassle than just leaving it alone. --Jayron32 11:39, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
- To quote the first line of the prose of WP:CSD:
The criteria for speedy deletion (CSD) specify the only cases in which administrators have broad consensus to bypass deletion discussion, at their discretion, and immediately delete Wikipedia pages or media. They cover only the cases specified in the rules here.
The key words here are "at their discretion". עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:22, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
- I quite agree with the sentiment set out above by BD2412, in that we are not doing our readers any favours at all, and the phrase used by Jayron32 above about cutting off ones nose seems apt here. While I agree some banned users' contributions are always problematic, others are not necessarily, and admins should be reminded on these occasions to use appropriate judgement, rather than blindly follow the rules as set out. On reading the actual policy, it says
This applies to pages created by banned or blocked users in violation of their ban or block, and that have no substantial edits by others. G5 should not be applied to transcluded templates or to categories that may be useful or suitable for merging...
Perhaps this could be tightened up somehow, along the lines of "Administrators should use their discretion when applying G5, so that it does not unintentionally inconvenience readers". Aiken D 19:01, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
- To quote the first line of the prose of WP:CSD:
- I can't think of anything better to say than TonyBallioni's comment above. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:56, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
- Support A number of editors, including some admins, have been interpreting G5, and the banning policy generally, to say that all pages created by banned editors, and all edits made by banned editors, must be deleted on sight. This removes the element of discretion alluded to in several comments above. And deletion is a non-symmetrical operation. It is comparatively easy to find things one wants to delete, for whatever reason -- all our search facilities and navigation aids are in place. But once something has been deleted, an editor must basically already know the exact page or article name to even request undeletion. And only admins can see anything beyond the page title and the reason given in the deletion log. (The log is not really usefully searchable anyway. It is too big, with too many items added every day, and is not in any way indexed.) As a result of this non-symmetry, argumets that deletion is ok because one can ask for undeletion fail. This change would help avoid that imbalance in cases where it should not exist. i would favor going further, and repealing G5 completely. But I don't expect to get consensus for that. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 15:07, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
- Repealing G5 completely.....Probably followed by repealing WP:PAID.....And laying a welome-mat for the paid-editors-guild.....Sigh......Winged Blades of GodricOn leave 15:57, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose any change. That some admins speedy delete articles created by UPE sockfarms and the like instead of expecting volunteers to verify/fix them is one of few rays of hope that Wikipedia won't end up as a spam-ridden garbage dump. I don't blame editors for deleting seemingly innocuous pages rather than spending hours checking for misrepresented references and all the other tricks UPEs use. Some collateral damage is unavoidable. Rentier (talk) 16:50, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose - Unfortunately, some socks are skilled at creating pages which look useful and are full of subtle problems. G5 and BAN allow us to act first and ask questions later. Any established user who is willing to take responsibility for a specific banned user's edit can save it from being removed; however, to require users to check before they revert or delete is unreasonable. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:40, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose any changes since we're making this formal now. I oppose any change that would take the discretion to protect living persons from admins. Actual people are infinitely more important than articles and with sock farms we simply don't know if there is Orangemoody-esque blackmail going or worse, if the article has been created as a coatrack to defame the other person. Both of these happen a lot more frequently than people who don't work in new pages realize. I'd also like to repeat my above call for commonsense and discretion: minimizing the collateral damage here is also important. Having a informal hierarchy of when we should and shouldn't use G5 would also be helpful, and I think that was what this original post was about. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:19, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
- Use a footnote: Nies (surname) is a good example to use in an explanatory footnote that WP:Common sense has to be applied. Using a footnote for this would obviate any need to change the extant wording of G5. Actually, the same footnote could also be used for G4: Do not delete a page that simply has the same name as a page previously deleted. The rationale for the original deletion has to still apply to content of the new page, which may be something completely different, or someone else's much better article on the same topic as the original page. If people don't like footnotes, it could be done as a short section of regular text. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 21:51, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose any changes to G5 per WP:BMB. -- Tavix (talk) 12:26, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose any change to G5. Firstly the article is deleted only if the sock or the banned editor is the sole contributor if other editors have made major contributions it is not deleted.Those indef blocked or banned should not edit in the project while blocked or banned Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 19:16, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
G11 AfC modification
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Recently, a lot of Articles for Creation drafts have been speedily deleted under CSD criterion G11. I can think of at least five examples in the last week but unfortunately I cannot provide diffs as they have been deleted.
Many of these could have plausibly conveyed notability with enough content to satisfy notability guidelines. The whole point of the draftspace and the Articles for Creation project is to allow the development of drafts and is a place where fundamental rewrites can occur to create articles satisfying both notability and neutrality guidelines and policies.
The discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Chloe + Isabel is the biggest discussion to date about this issue but that was based on one example of current policy application. The spirit of the draftspace is to stop new editors who don’t yet understand our rules from being chided and driven away. Not only has this conduct doubtlessly bitten new editors, it has driven away reviewers such as myself and Chrissymad, as noted by Primefac and Legacypac here.
Therefore, I propose that speedy deletion criterion G11 be modified with the explicit provision that it does not apply to Articles for Creation drafts which have had fewer than three declined submissions and make a credible claim of significance.
I am pinging all the users who participated in the Chloe + Isabel MfD from both sides of the debate and the closing administrator. I would also like to note that some of the delete !votes were on the grounds that the draft was unambiguously promotional and could never be notable. @SwisterTwister, Waggie, Primefac, 78.26, KMF, There'sNoTime, Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus, Zppix, DGG, Fortunavelut luna, Legacypac, Jimfbleak, Onel5969, DES, Robert McClenon, K.e.coffman, Winged Blades of Godric, TimTempleton, and CambridgeBayWeather:
DrStrauss talk 11:14, 20 August 2017 (UTC) Pinging @DESiegel, Piotrus, Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi, and Timtempleton:--the users who were subject to the failed pings.Winged Blades of GodricOn leave 13:38, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
- Wouldn't we want to change "is not notable" to "is not notable and can not be made notable" for everyone? --Gryllida (talk) 11:18, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
- I voted delete on the example based on ST's analysis, not my most studied vote ever. In general I'm not thrilled with how high a bar AfC has become. I'm inclined to send topics with proven notability (and no really serious CSD level issues) on to mainspace for the wide world to edit. It's not reasonable to expect brand new editors to create perfect articles. Anyway, evidently I'm viewed as too inclusionist because I was banned from page moves or creations even though no one provided any evidence my moves or creations get deleted except occasionally - which is ironic because I seek deletion on so many pages. Legacypac (talk) 11:27, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
- I believe that G11's current wording is good enough:
This applies to pages that are exclusively promotional and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to conform with Wikipedia:NOTFORPROMOTION. If a subject is notable and the content could plausibly be replaced with text that complies with neutral point of view, this is preferable to deletion.
Note the words in italics (these are from the original) and the second sentence. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:06, 20 August 2017 (UTC) - Strong oppose any blanket ban---Admins are good enough to differentiate that the content that is G11-able in main space, might not be (and generally are not) in draft-space.And, the statement--
The spirit of the draftspace is to stop new editors who don’t yet understand our rules from being chided and driven away.
is horribly wrong.WP:DRAFT states--They help facilitate new articles to develop and receive feedback before being moved to Wikipedia's mainspace.
Draftspace is for the development of potential article(s), not potential garbage.Otherwise, we may as well blanket-exclude any draft from any deletion except in copy-vios/attack pages.But, at any event, it's highly regretful that you have chosen to walk out from AFC. Winged Blades of GodricOn leave 12:42, 20 August 2017 (UTC) - Oppose. I understand DrStrauss' intent (at least I think I do). But as someone who has done quite a bit of work on AfC, I also understand the constraints of the editors who do such mind-numbing work slogging through all the submissions. Personally, I think we need to have some sort of codified standards as to who can, and who can't do AfC reviews. Right now, if I'm not mistaken, any editor can participate. This leads to very uneven standards being applied, which can lead to confusion among new editors. I also (now, and this hasn't always been the case, believe me) always try to leave a comment in addition to any decline, however sometimes the decline is just so blatantly obvious, that commenting is just a waste of time. I used to do quite a bit in G11, and my goal there was not to delete (and again, that was an evolution over several months), but to try and find articles to clean up and move into the mainspace. I think I found somewhere over 100 that I did that with. I also don't know how many "postpones" I did as well. All that being said, I would oppose the constraint that a draft had to be declined 3 times. Often drafts are done, and declined once, and the creator never comes back. I also think that promotional articles must stand the WP:TNT test. I think perhaps that more discernment needs to go into clicking that CSD-G11 button. But sensible editors can disagree. I see no need to change the current verbiage. On a side note DrStrauss, I don't think some of your pings up above (e.g. DeSiegel) went through. Onel5969 TT me 12:43, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose as someone who is actually very friendly to drafts being held to a lower standard than articles, I actually oppose this. It is instruction creep. People can figure out on their own whether a non-published draft should be G11ed or cleaned up. More bureaucracy is not the solution here. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:42, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
- Also Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Chloe + Isabel would have gone through as deletion even if you limited G11: NOTSPAM is a core content policy and reason for deletion on its own (WP:DEL4 and WP:DEL14). Any XfD can decide to delete a page because of it regardless of the G11 criteria. I have very low standards in terms of the draft space, but I would absolutely oppose limiting what MfD could delete, which this proposal is hinting at as well. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:50, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
- Opposse - Per above; this is instruction creep. There are going to be occasional situations when a G11 would be the right tag to apply. For example, we might want to delete something that is trying to advertise a shock site that editors may get pulled into just by following the link to the homepage. RileyBugz会話投稿記録 15:01, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
- Strong oppose If I had a pound for every draft beginning We at Blogg's Widgets, the world's leading widget makers, welcome you to our company page I'd be a rich man. And don't forget that such a post is usually also undeclared paid editing, in breach of our T&Cs, and often posted by User:Bloggs' Widgets — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimfbleak (talk • contribs)
Comment on BITE
I notice that the immediately above thread was closed, with the comment that one of the considerations was the need to avoid Biting. Yes. I will take this occasion to offer the perverse thought that, in my opinion, although Do not bite the newcomers, which is officially a behavioral guideline, is, as written, a useful behavioral guideline, as applied, it now does more harm than good. As applied, it seems to have become not merely a policy but a dogma, something that overrides policies and is not subject to reason. It does more harm than good as implemented for three reasons. First, combative new editors use it as a weapon to blow off advice that they should take advice or that they should edit collaboratively, because they have found the Bite dogma, and say that they are being bitten if they are being cautioned. It empowers combative new editors to avoid being oriented to the culture of Wikipedia. Second, as we have seen here, it causes experienced editors to go to bizarre lengths to avoid being "bitey". Third, it causes experienced editors to worry too long in cases where new editors need to be bitten. (Undisclosed paid editors need to be bitten. Trolls need to be bitten. Flamers need to be reasoned with but then bitten, but the Bite rule enables them to bite back too long.)
WP:BITE, as applied, does more harm than good, because it has become a dogma that supersedes reason. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:20, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
- I usually agree with your conclusions, but... :(
- So is it your theory that there exists a significant number of combative new editors who currently blow off advice and fail to edit collaboratively but will no longer exhibit these behaviors if we change our of our behavioral guideline? Or is it your theory that there exists a significant number of combative new editors who currently blow off advice and fail to edit collaboratively but will no longer exhibit these behaviors if we allow other editors to bite them?
- In my opinion your final sentence ("Undisclosed paid editors need to be bitten. Trolls need to be bitten. Flamers need to be reasoned with but then bitten...") shows that your thinking has gone astray on this one. Undisclosed paid editors do not need to be bitten. Undisclosed paid editors need to be warned, then blocked. Trolls do not need to be bitten. Trolls need to be warned, then blocked. Flamers do not need to be bitten. Flamers need to be warned, then blocked. Collectively, we have millions of examples showing that what we call "biting the newbies" and what others call "feeding the trolls" only results in more trolling. Biting the flamers only results in more flaming. And as a rule the undisclosed paid editors don't even bother reading your response.
Responding just encourages them! \ >') ( \ ^^`
- --Guy Macon (talk) 03:31, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
- User:Guy Macon - By biting them, I mean warning them, then blocking them. Many experienced editors are hesitant to warn difficult new editors because it will seem "bitey". I agree that the undisclosed paid editors won't read the response. I also am not sure that they should be warned, but that is another question. As to the combative new editors, they will stop exhibiting that behavior when we block them. I am not saying that more experienced editors can cause them to change their behavior. (Some of them do listen to warnings. Some don't.) I am only saying that their use of the bite dogma as a weapon in their own defense is a problem that is worsened by our worship of that policy. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:18, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
- I sometimes find it very difficult to tell at the start who is a good faith editor and who an undeclared paid editor./ There are cases of promotionalism from true amateurs, and cases of promotionalism from people who pretend very convincingly to be true amateurs. I have been fooled often by those who are pretending, but I have also sometimes assumed to the worst when it was actually good faith editing. Perhaps there are those who are better at this, but I think we need to be friendly and welcoming if there is any possibility of good faith at the start. Later, if the editor starts insisting on retaining promotional content, or fights an AfD with the arguments common to paid editors, then it can be another matter. DGG ( talk ) 04:54, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
We must distinguish between a user who makes common newcomer mistakes (including a slight slant in POV, test edits) on one hand and spam and vandalism on the other. In the first case, BITE must apply; in the second case, it doesn't. Warning level 1 is certainly appropriate when in doubt. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:13, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
- Another frequent source of new-editor trouble is the arrival of "style warriors" at MoS talk pages and RM discussions. WP:BITE serves us pretty well here. It is tempting to be bitey, especially when the party in question is pursuing a my-way-is-the-only-True-and-Correct-way-to-write-English WP:SOAPBOX or WP:GREATWRONGS campaign. It's been my experience that a good combination is a firm but polite reminder that flame-baiter behavior will result in administrative action, and patient explanation that WP style (in prose and in titles) is the result of years of carefully balanced compromise between literally thousands of conflicting viewpoints, plus being clear that the new arrival is not pointing out an oversight or raising a new issue. The "conversion rate" of such people to productive editing is quite high. I can only think of two individuals who've had to be topic-banned from the area (both later blocked for not abiding by it). The conversion rate on higher-profile and more controversial things, especially in mainspace (e.g. GMOs, Donald Trump, and other controversial topics) is probably lower, but still worth the effort. We already have the tools to deal with editors who refuse to stop being combative. No editor actually acting in bad faith by continuing to engage in proscribed activities while trying to hide behind BITE in claiming that every criticism and directive to stop is somehow biting them is going to actually get away with that; it's probably the most obvious form of WP:GAMING the system. In the end, WP:ANI (or whatever noticeboard, or individual admin) is going to look at whether the editor's input is a net positive or not, without much regard to their "tenure" here. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 21:44, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
Upgrading WP:INFOCOL
I think time has come to upgrade the status of Wikipedia:Infobox consolidation from a mere essay, so that it standardisation and consolidation process may speed up a little. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 02:23, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
- That's not written in guildeline style, and many points in it are just someone's opinion. A few points in it should probably be integrated into WP:INFOBOX and/or MOS:INFOBOX, as appropriate. What it is, is someone's attempt at an FAQ [or "a FAQ", depending on how you say "FAQ"], which makes it an essay, especially since these mostly do not appear to be questions that are actually frequently asked. Some of the points in it do not really pertain to infoboxes in particular, but are just standard WP:TFD operating procedure for templates in general: we merge redundant ones when possible, to reduce the confusing profusion of low-use templates. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 21:31, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
- Can you please guide on how to improve it to standards? -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 15:34, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- No, because as I said, "a few points in it should probably be integrated into WP:INFOBOX and/or MOS:INFOBOX, as appropriate", while some of it's subjective, and other parts aren't specific to the issues but are general "what we do with redundant templates" stuff. WP is not in the habit of promoting essays to guidelines, nor creating new guidelines. I can't even remember the last time we did that. We don't need new guideline pages, only refinements to the existing ones, when there's an identifiable problem that can be addressed by doing so. What ongoing, recurrent problem is addressed by anything in that page? In what way(s) is it not already addressed by extant policies, guidelines, and TfD procedures? "I want to promote my essay to guideline status" isn't a valid rationale. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 16:51, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- In that case, can you please help me in integrating "a few points in it into WP:INFOBOX and/or MOS:INFOBOX, as appropriate"? -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 05:11, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
- In theory, though this is a busy time. The first steps are identifying specific problems to solve, demonstrating they're real problems, and demonstrating that existing guideline/policy language doesn't already cover it (i.e., it could be a behavioral problem on the part of a certain editor or group of editors rather than a guideline wording problem). We don't have guidelines about problems that are only theoretical. When you've identified a clear hole in the guidelines and that it needs to be plugged, I'm pretty good at wordsmithing the plug for the hole. I want to reiterate that much of that page is just describing what WP:TFD already does, so that's all "rehash" material. What is unique to the infobox issue(s)? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:11, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- In that case, can you please help me in integrating "a few points in it into WP:INFOBOX and/or MOS:INFOBOX, as appropriate"? -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 05:11, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
- No, because as I said, "a few points in it should probably be integrated into WP:INFOBOX and/or MOS:INFOBOX, as appropriate", while some of it's subjective, and other parts aren't specific to the issues but are general "what we do with redundant templates" stuff. WP is not in the habit of promoting essays to guidelines, nor creating new guidelines. I can't even remember the last time we did that. We don't need new guideline pages, only refinements to the existing ones, when there's an identifiable problem that can be addressed by doing so. What ongoing, recurrent problem is addressed by anything in that page? In what way(s) is it not already addressed by extant policies, guidelines, and TfD procedures? "I want to promote my essay to guideline status" isn't a valid rationale. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 16:51, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Can you please guide on how to improve it to standards? -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 15:34, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
RfC: Should "Sir" and "Dame" be treated as part of someone's name, and be given such recognition in infoboxes, etc?
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Should "Sir" and "Dame" be treated as pre-nominals or as an integral part of a name? Despite repeated debates, no consensus has yet been reached. The most recent MoS talk page discussion may be found here: WT:MOS#Using "Sir" as a pre-nominal. The OP there pointed out that with no clear policy on this matter, some editors remove the Sir, with others re-adding it later. This can lead to unintentional edit-warring. A pre-nominal is something which is added to the start of someone's name, rather like MBE/OBE may be tacked onto the end. An example is 'Sir Winston Churchill'. NB, this was initially raised due to concerns about Sir/Dame being removed from infoboxes. –Sb2001 talk page 18:47, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
Support Sir/Dame being treated as part of someone's name, not as a pre-nominal
- Support: Sir/Dame should be treated the same as other titles such Baroness, Duke etc. These titles effectively become part of someone's name when they are granted them. These are not the same as honorific/pre-nominals such as The Honourable or Reverend: these are not part of someone's name but are used because of tradition/courtesy. Therefore, Sir/Dame should be included in the bolded full name at the start of the article and in the name parameter in the infobox. People should continued to be referred to by their surname in the main body of the text eg John, rather than Sir Elton. To drop Sir/Dame could only be described as politically-charged original research. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 22:54, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
- Its also worth pointing out that this will apply to other articels, not just their biographical one. For example, the list of Chaplains General does not mention religious titles (Revd etc) but the list of Chief of the General Staff uses sir and lordships. It is standard practice on Wikipedia that Sir/Dame has a similar status as lordly tiles when including them with names. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 00:52, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Question. Of course the more common case is to refer to him by his surname, John. But not always. Suppose we're talking about an interaction he had with his brother (I haven't checked whether he has a brother; this is just an example). Then it would be natural to distinguish them using first names. In that situation, would you use Sir Elton, assuming the event postdates the knighthood? --Trovatore (talk) 23:00, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
- In such a situation, it would dimply be Elton and Bob because that is enough information to distinguish them. Or use Sir Elton, I suppose in such rare occurrences it can be left up to the editors of the article to come up with the appropriate form. We don't need centrally dictated rules for everything. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 00:52, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- That's not WP style either; see Christopher Guest. WP never refers to him as Lord Guest, Lord Haden-Guest, Baron Haden-Guest, etc., in WP's own voice. It's sufficient for our purposes to include in a sentence that the proper form of address when using "Lord" with him is "Lord Haden-Guest", and elsewhere that a more formal style is "The Hon. Christopher Haden-Guest", without using these styles in WP's own voice. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 23:37, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
- I replied to your (confusing and) long comment but you've cut it down now. The examples you have given would fall under WP:common name. If someone were to say "Hello Duke Fred" they are using that wrong, as would someonce saying "Prince Mountbatten-Windsor". Regardless, in those cases they have titles that "trump" a knighthood and so sir or dame would only ever be seen in a section listing the progression of their titles. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 00:52, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Support. Of course Sir/Dame (and Lord/Lady when used by the children of peers) are part of someone's name. Always have been. Arguing anything else is showing a fundamental misunderstanding of titles and (given comments elsewhere) often expressing a political POV. We should not use them in running text within articles, however. And generally never have done. But in the infobox and first line, definitely. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:37, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- I should point out that while these are a part of someone's name, existing procedure is covered perfectly well at WP:HONORIFICS and WP:NCNT and I see no need to change any guideline. The status quo is fine. In essence, this is a fairly pointless RfC. What is it supposed to achieve? -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:37, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
- Goal: clear consensus one way or the other, and not one that someone can try to claim is just a "local consensus". The problem being addressed is that this debate has been perpetual, for years, recurring at article after article and repeatedly brought up at MoS's and other talk pages, without a clear resolution. I think we'll get one this time, and it should forestall a lot of future rehash that would waste editorial time. VPPOL has served us well on similar "will not die" debates over detailia at the intersection of biography and presentation, like using commas with "Jr.", whether to have ethnicity and religion labels in bio infoboxes, and what MOS:IDENTITY should say about the transgendered. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 20:34, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, but most of the "opposers" are saying we shouldn't change the existing guidelines anyway. So what are we discussing? Don't change the existing guidelines. Fine. That's what I said. That's what most people clearly support. At the end of the day it's irrelevant to the guidelines whether you think the title is part of someone's name or not. Is anybody saying we should add it whenever someone's name is mentioned in their biography? No (surnames are fine when referring to titled people, just like anyone else). Are most of us saying it should be used in the article title? No. Are we saying it should be used in the first line and infobox? Yes. Are we saying it should be used in the first instance of referring to someone in an article that's not their own biography? Yes (unless they weren't knighted at the time they're being referred to). And that's all exactly what the guidelines say. As I said, pointless discussion. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:40, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
- Goal: clear consensus one way or the other, and not one that someone can try to claim is just a "local consensus". The problem being addressed is that this debate has been perpetual, for years, recurring at article after article and repeatedly brought up at MoS's and other talk pages, without a clear resolution. I think we'll get one this time, and it should forestall a lot of future rehash that would waste editorial time. VPPOL has served us well on similar "will not die" debates over detailia at the intersection of biography and presentation, like using commas with "Jr.", whether to have ethnicity and religion labels in bio infoboxes, and what MOS:IDENTITY should say about the transgendered. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 20:34, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
- I should point out that while these are a part of someone's name, existing procedure is covered perfectly well at WP:HONORIFICS and WP:NCNT and I see no need to change any guideline. The status quo is fine. In essence, this is a fairly pointless RfC. What is it supposed to achieve? -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:37, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
- Support. 'Sir' and 'Dame' are treated as part of a person's name. It even changes how the person is referred to (John Smith, upon receiving a knighthood, won't be referred to as Mr Smith anymore, but as Sir John). ZBukov (talk) 09:12, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
- That's a spoken style, and has nothing to do with how we write. Even a British newspaper would not print something like "Three MPs in the in city were not re-elected: Janet Brewster, Sir John, and Gareth Rhys-Llewellyn." The familiar form lacks sufficient context and isn't appropriate in an encyclopedic register. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 20:34, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
- Good grief, you really don't understand how these things work do you? No, but they would print: "Three MPs in the city were not re-elected: Janet Brewster, Sir John Smith, and Gareth Rhys-Llewellyn." or "Three MPs in the city were not re-elected: Ms Brewster, Sir John Smith, and Mr Rhys-Llewellyn." They would not print, if John Smith had been knighted, "Three MPs in the city were not re-elected: Janet Brewster, John Smith, and Gareth Rhys-Llewellyn." or "Three MPs in the city were not re-elected: Ms Brewster, Mr Smith, and Mr Rhys-Llewellyn." Understand? He is no longer, unless he specifically requests to be known that way (which is very rare), simple John Smith; nor is he ever Mr Smith (or Dr Smith). Professor Smith or General Smith are still acceptable (although Sir John would still be more common), because they are still added to the front of the name even following a knighthood, but Mr Smith or Dr Smith are not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:51, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, I understand that. You're again making a "WP must be written in British newspaper style, or else" argument, and it just doesn't fly here. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:07, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- Good grief, you really don't understand how these things work do you? No, but they would print: "Three MPs in the city were not re-elected: Janet Brewster, Sir John Smith, and Gareth Rhys-Llewellyn." or "Three MPs in the city were not re-elected: Ms Brewster, Sir John Smith, and Mr Rhys-Llewellyn." They would not print, if John Smith had been knighted, "Three MPs in the city were not re-elected: Janet Brewster, John Smith, and Gareth Rhys-Llewellyn." or "Three MPs in the city were not re-elected: Ms Brewster, Mr Smith, and Mr Rhys-Llewellyn." Understand? He is no longer, unless he specifically requests to be known that way (which is very rare), simple John Smith; nor is he ever Mr Smith (or Dr Smith). Professor Smith or General Smith are still acceptable (although Sir John would still be more common), because they are still added to the front of the name even following a knighthood, but Mr Smith or Dr Smith are not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:51, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
- That's a spoken style, and has nothing to do with how we write. Even a British newspaper would not print something like "Three MPs in the in city were not re-elected: Janet Brewster, Sir John, and Gareth Rhys-Llewellyn." The familiar form lacks sufficient context and isn't appropriate in an encyclopedic register. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 20:34, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
- Support. Sir/Dame really are different to Dr, Professor, etc. They do become part of someone's name and they always have. Frankly we should really be including them in article titles as well (subject to the obvious exceptions). A rather alarming number of the opposers do not seem to fully understand how these titles work; to suggest equivalency with "Dr", for example, is absurd. Frickeg (talk) 11:38, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
Oppose Sir/Dame being treated as part of someone's name, only as a pre-nominal
- Oppose: They are prenominal titles, like "Lady", "Duke", "Professor", "General", etc. – just one particular sort of prenominal (actually several sorts; there are different kinds of knighthoods in different jurisdictions and even within the same one). It should remain permissible to use Sir/Dame in the introductory sentence of the lead of a bio article; e.g., at Judi Dench: 'Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress and author.' It should not be used elsewhere in the article, in other articles, in infoboxes or navboxes, in category names, or in article titles. We're consistent about this with all prenominal titles; sir and dame are not "magical" exceptions. No rationale has ever been presented for such an exception other than British (and classist) assertions that they're different, that they "become" part of the name in some indefinable sense. WP doesn't deal with indefinable, subjective, PoV-based mumbo-jumbo. WP really doesn't care what the style of personal address is in spoken wording, nor what written style is preferred in British journalism. WP is not a conversation and is not British journalism. Dropping the "Sir" and "Dame" in most contexts will be consistent with the majority of independent reliable source usage, on both historical figures like Walter Raleigh and Winston Churchill, and on current public figures like Judi Dench and Anthony Hopkins. Permit the usage in contexts where it matters, e.g. in an article on British class struggle, where it helps signify the class distinctions at issue. This also would not affect the usage of hereditary titles attached to given names for those who only use them and do not use surnames, e.g. Prince Charles (no one calls him "Charles Mountbatten-Windsor", and he doesn't use the surname, though one of his sisters did). As noted in discussion elsewhere, Christopher Guest is technically "Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden Guest", and may be referred to as Lord Haden-Guest or The Hon. Christopher Haden-Guest, but WP does not use this style in its own voice; this would not be magically different if he were Sir Christopher Haden-Guest rather than Baron/Lord Christopher Haden-Guest. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 21:12, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
PS: There's also a practical rationale against the "it's part of the name" stance. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 17:02, 24 August 2017 (UTC)- Yes he is technically Lord Haden-Guest but he dosn't use it. Therefore, as per WP:Common Name, we effectively ignore he has it. Like we ignore the middle names that most people do not use. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 00:58, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- He did use the Baron title when he was actually participating in the House of Lords for a while. He just didn't use it in his film career. Nor does Judi Dench use hers in that context. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 16:38, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- "Prince Charles (no one calls him "Charles Mountbatten-Windsor", and he doesn't use the surname, though one of his sisters did)"? Come again? He only has one sister, and she certainly doesn't call herself Anne Mountbatten-Windsor! She calls herself the Princess Royal or Princess Anne! -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:54, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
- Sorry, I mis-remembered; it's one of his nieces. Covered at Mountbatten-Windsor, though lately she's just using Windsor. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:05, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- Yes he is technically Lord Haden-Guest but he dosn't use it. Therefore, as per WP:Common Name, we effectively ignore he has it. Like we ignore the middle names that most people do not use. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 00:58, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose: MOS:HONORIFICS for more details. Can be used in infoboxes or the first instances, in some cases can be generalized by consensus, on a case-by-case basis. What I would prefer would be if it was unambiguous and could not be used elsewhere, also reducing the possibility of edit warring, but that would be another thread. It seems that the warring mitigation currently is to require consensus to remove them in an article already using them consistently, but to not add them to articles which don't (emphasizing that in general they should not be used everywhere). —PaleoNeonate – 00:15, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose per User:SMcCandlish — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjjjjjdddddd (talk • contribs) 00:20, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose per User:SMcCandlish. Where would we draw the line on meaningless titles? Better to avoid all of them.Charles (talk) 08:33, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- "Meaningless titles"? Now that really is a POV comment. Who says they're meaningless? -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:11, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose per User:SMcCandlish older ≠ wiser 16:46, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose for page titles with the exceptions given in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility) -- PBS (talk) 17:30, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose - simply follow MOS:HONORIFICS. W\|/haledad (Talk to me) 01:22, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose – I think the current guidelines at MOS:HONORIFICS cover this well, and see no coherent argument to change. Dicklyon (talk) 03:28, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose, present rules are sufficient. —Kusma (t·c) 09:18, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose per SMcCandlish. The title "Sir" is no different, and should not be treated differently, than other titles such as Mr., Dr., military ranks, etc. --Jayron32 10:47, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose per SMcC. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:17, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose I see a few editors with an agenda here. Even for titles of nobility like Prince Charles, Prince is only part of a WP:COMMONNAME, not a formal name. Power~enwiki (talk) 23:55, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
- What the agenda? Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 00:00, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose I feel this will conflict with WP:COMMONNAME policy. WP:TITLE I think is perfect as it is. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 17:57, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose per SMC. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 22:12, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose. These titles are probably not generally used with these people. For example, a google search for "Henry Calley" gives 2270 results, while a search for "Sir Henry Calley" gives 1080 results (which presumably are all included in the 2270 results). "Agatha Christie" yields almost 10 million results, "Dame Agatha Christie" yields 232 thousand results. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:24, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose changes to existing guidelines, which seem to work fine to me. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:07, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose - Current naming system is adequate. Carrite (talk) 11:30, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose, per internationality, and per Common name, will expand below. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:17, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose - follow the current honorific naming system. Of course, today we have online companies that sell elite titles for whoever wants a leg-up socially...one can be whatever one identifies themselves as being. The latter is why notability and verifiable content are what defines the subject of WP biographies/BLPs, and is far more important than titles in a name. Atsme📞📧 13:37, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose per SMcCandlish. As Jaycon52 says above, the titles "Sir" or "Lady" are in practice no different from "Mr" or "Mrs". They are optional marks of respect, and we are not obligated to use them. All this is already dealt with in MOS:HONORIFICS; this seems to me to be a perfect example of the Wikipedia:Specialized-style fallacy in action. -- The Anome (talk) 13:56, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
- Oppose per Gerda Arendt, who's views I respect quite a lot on these types of issues. I wasn't planning on weighing in on this RfC, but her objections below I think are relevant, especially the internationality bit. I really don't care about the MOS, but as an active editor, I see how this change could be negative. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:24, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
- And there you have the problem with this whole RfC. It's badly phrased and doesn't seem to be trying to change anything. Keep the current guidelines and be done with it. That's what most people on both "sides" actually seem to be arguing. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:59, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
Comments about "Sir" and "Dame"
- The RFC doesn't give much context. I think most casual observers, including me, are not all that sure what exactly a "pre-nominal" is, and by extension exactly what a "support" or "oppose" !vote implies. At the linked discussion, there was some sort of reference to an idea held by (or imputed to) some editors, that when you become a sir or a dame, that word becomes part of your actual name, as opposed to an honorific or title or courtesy title, whatever the distinction might be between those three.
So I take it that a "support" !vote means you don't agree with the "actual name" idea, whereas "oppose" means that you do? But I'm not quite sure. I think this needs to be clarified before much more happens. --Trovatore (talk) 19:00, 23 August 2017 (UTC)- Yes. Thank you, Trovatore. My fault; I did this in too little time. I have tried to clarify this—any better now? –Sb2001 talk page 20:29, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
- And "No consensus can be reached" should use "has been"; if no consensus could be reached, then an RfC would never help. The first two sentences are redundant, anyway. Compress to something like: 'Should "Sir" and "Dame" be treated as pre-nominals or as an integral part of a name? Despite repeated debates, no consensus has yet been reached.' — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 20:52, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
- I am losing my ability to communicate! That is what having only five minutes to do this causes ... I have implemented your suggestion SMcCandlish. –Sb2001 talk page 21:21, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
- And "No consensus can be reached" should use "has been"; if no consensus could be reached, then an RfC would never help. The first two sentences are redundant, anyway. Compress to something like: 'Should "Sir" and "Dame" be treated as pre-nominals or as an integral part of a name? Despite repeated debates, no consensus has yet been reached.' — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 20:52, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
- Yes. Thank you, Trovatore. My fault; I did this in too little time. I have tried to clarify this—any better now? –Sb2001 talk page 20:29, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
- OK, so let me rephrase — what are the implications of "Sir" or "Dame" being/not being a pre-nominal, as far as how articles are written? The immediate dispute seems to be about infoboxes. Is the entire question just about infoboxes, in which case I commence not to care that much? Or are we talking about moving Winston Churchill to Sir Winston Churchill? Or are we saying that any time we call him by his first name in the article, at least referring to a time after he was knighted, we should call him "Sir Winston" rather than just "Winston"? --Trovatore (talk) 21:47, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
- It would be safest to interpret this broadly. Any decision that results in "use Sir/Dame in infoboxes" would certainly be used to press for the same result in running prose and in article titles, whether it gets hashed out in the present discussion or not. The last time I saw this come up, just a few months ago, it was not about infoboxes, but about mid-sentence use, in a featured article candidate about a scandal involving a UK House of Lords member, where one editor insisted on inserting "Lord" in front of every mention of this party. The arguments, to the extent one is ever really articulated, seems to be that the British press do it this way, and the British press are the most reliable about British subjects, ergo WP has to do the same thing. This is, of course, the WP:Specialized-style fallacy, the failure to distinguish between a source reliable for facts about a topic and one reliable for how to best write English for an international, general audience when writing about that subject. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 00:48, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- We don't generally use pre-titles in running prose or article titles anyway (and shouldn't do). We only use them in the first line. I certainly would oppose any removal of the bolding from that. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:51, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- It would be safest to interpret this broadly. Any decision that results in "use Sir/Dame in infoboxes" would certainly be used to press for the same result in running prose and in article titles, whether it gets hashed out in the present discussion or not. The last time I saw this come up, just a few months ago, it was not about infoboxes, but about mid-sentence use, in a featured article candidate about a scandal involving a UK House of Lords member, where one editor insisted on inserting "Lord" in front of every mention of this party. The arguments, to the extent one is ever really articulated, seems to be that the British press do it this way, and the British press are the most reliable about British subjects, ergo WP has to do the same thing. This is, of course, the WP:Specialized-style fallacy, the failure to distinguish between a source reliable for facts about a topic and one reliable for how to best write English for an international, general audience when writing about that subject. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 00:48, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Unfortunately this RFC reveals the proposer's POV rather than analysing the facts. Where has this term "pre-nominal" come from? We need to distinguish between a style and a title. Consider "His Grace, the Duke of Norfolk" as an example. "His Grace" is a style, just as "Mr" or "the Honourable" is. Omitting a style may be discourteous and probably reveals the writer's opinions, but a style is technically not part of a name. "The Duke of Norfolk" is a title and is the gentlemen's name. Just as Jane Doe may change her name to Jane Brown if she marries Mr Brown, so Edward Fitzalan-Howard changed his name to the Earl of Arundel and subsequently The Duke of Norfolk. Now let's consider Churchill. As was mentioned in the original thread (here) the full, formal, description was "The Right Honourable Sir Winston Churchill". "The Right Honourable" is a style adopted by all members of the Privy Council. "Sir Winston Churchill" was his title, as recognised by the US Congress amongst others, and is his name just as "The Duke of Norfolk" or "Jane Brown". The alternative to accepting these name changes is to insist that everybody in WP is known only by their birth name and that all subsequent changes are "old-fashioned" and to be ignored. Perhaps we should start with changing "Ringo Starr" to "Richard Starkey"? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:05, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
- Grr, peeve alert: ...insist that everybody in WP be known... OK, so you can distinguish titles from styles, if you like, but even titles are not actually part of the name. No one's name is ever "The Duke of Norfolk". But that's an abstract discussion that I don't really care to settle; you can think "The Duke of Norfolk" is a name if you want and I don't feel any strong need to convince you otherwise; as I said above, what I want to know is how this discussion affects how articles are to be written. Can you clarify what you propose on that point? --Trovatore (talk) 22:26, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Martin, you're badly confusing the concept of "name" and "title". Edward Fitzalan-Howard did not change his name to Earl of Arundel or Duke of Norfolk; these are hereditary titles inherited upon the death of a predecessor (and presumably examination of any potential other claimants to the titles) – in addition to his name. He might choose to only go by such a title, and others in particular contexts might also choose to only use them for him, but that doesn't erase "Edward Fitzalan-Howard" or prevent WP from using it. See again the Christopher Guest article as a good modern example. He is Baron Haden-Guest, a title, and may be referred to with deference as Lord Haden-Guest or in longer form as The Hon. Christopher Haden-Guest; but his real/birth name remains Christopher Haden-Guest, and his professional, common name remains Christopher Guest. If your argument that the title "becomes" the name had any merit, the form "The Hon. Christopher Haden-Guest" would not be possible; the long form could only be "The Hon. Baron Haden-Guest". Our lead's first sentence also lays it all out, and should continue to do so: "Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest (born February 5, 1948), better known as Christopher Guest, is ...." But we don't go around calling him Baron Haden-Guest in WP's own voice.
Also, Duke, Baroness, etc. are prefixed to given names (in personal address) and to the names of the peerage land holdings or royal houses to which they pertain, in more formal address. The latter do not always coincide with actual or professionally used surnames (they predate the existence of surnames, and in some cases became surnames and in other cases did not, e.g. Marquess of Carisbrooke and Milford Haven (no one is likely to ever be actually named something like "Janet Carisbrooke-and-Milford-Haven"). Royals tend not to use surnames at all, but this is not universal, even in the UK; see Mountbatten family#Mountbatten-Windsor and the larger article Mountbatten-Windsor – even some of that house who do have royal styles and titles prefer to go with a surname. To sum up, we refer to Prince Andrew, Duke of York as "Prince Andrew" because that's what he's called universally and we have no alternative. If he starts insisting on "Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor", we'd switch to that, to avoid using the title, and we would definitely not use "Prince Mountbatten-Windsor" or (except in the lead sentence) "Prince Andrew [middle names optionally] Mountbatten-Windsor", even if we could find some sources that did so.
I'm in agreement with Trovatore that this hair-splitting between styles and titles is a waste of time. They're just two among many subcategories of prenominals. The Wikipedia question is whether to attach them to names, in material written in Wikipedia's own voice, and the answer is consistently "no", with the sole exception of royal titles for those who use only a given name (Queen Elizabeth, etc.), and even then we do not use it at every occurrence in the same block of text, while our use of it for historical figures is downright infrequent after the first occurrence, usually only in a case of ambiguity. All of this points to "drop the prenominals" as the default practice here. We need a good contextual reason to include one in a particular sentence.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 00:04, 24 August 2017 (UTC)- Note sure what all this wittering on about Christopher Guest is about. You have elected to choose (funny that) to "illustrate" your "point" a person who does not generally use his title. Most people, on the other hand, do. Neither would he, as a peer, ever be referred to as The Hon. Christopher Haden-Guest (that would be the son of a peer). Once again, you demonstrate a lack of knowledge on the subject you're commenting about. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:51, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Then go correct our article on him, with sources. If editors working on a major bio, with sources, can't (according to you) get this right, you cannot possibly expect thousands of WP editors to get this right for tens of thousands of bios, involving dozens or hundreds of different styles and titles from different countries and eras. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 16:34, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Why would I need to correct our article on him? There's nothing wrong with it as far as I can see! Are you maybe misreading it? -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:20, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Given that I copy-pasted directly from it, no. I mis-read your own comment though (the "as a peer" part). All of this side discussion is wasted breath. Even supporters of including these titles in infoboxes concede what we don't use them in regular prose, nor in article titles, so what we have is a consistency debate: why are we using them (sometimes) in infoboxes? A side question is why do a few editors editwar to insert them into running text anyway, in imitation of British press style? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 18:15, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Depends what you mean by running text. In their own articles? No. Surnames are fine after the first line. In other articles? Yes, at the first mention of them (e.g. "Sir James Brown was appointed ambassador", not just "James Brown was appointed ambassador", as the latter would be completely inaccurate; omitting the title would not be done by any good, knowledgeable writer elsewhere, even a non-Briton, so to do it would simply leave WP looking ridiculous and inaccurate). Thereafter, surnames only as with anyone else. In infoboxes? Yes, as the guidelines say. And most people, including those who have "opposed" above, seem to support retaining the guidelines as they stand. Which is what I meant when I said that the purpose of this RfC seems in question. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:41, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
- Given that I copy-pasted directly from it, no. I mis-read your own comment though (the "as a peer" part). All of this side discussion is wasted breath. Even supporters of including these titles in infoboxes concede what we don't use them in regular prose, nor in article titles, so what we have is a consistency debate: why are we using them (sometimes) in infoboxes? A side question is why do a few editors editwar to insert them into running text anyway, in imitation of British press style? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 18:15, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Why would I need to correct our article on him? There's nothing wrong with it as far as I can see! Are you maybe misreading it? -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:20, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Then go correct our article on him, with sources. If editors working on a major bio, with sources, can't (according to you) get this right, you cannot possibly expect thousands of WP editors to get this right for tens of thousands of bios, involving dozens or hundreds of different styles and titles from different countries and eras. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 16:34, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Note sure what all this wittering on about Christopher Guest is about. You have elected to choose (funny that) to "illustrate" your "point" a person who does not generally use his title. Most people, on the other hand, do. Neither would he, as a peer, ever be referred to as The Hon. Christopher Haden-Guest (that would be the son of a peer). Once again, you demonstrate a lack of knowledge on the subject you're commenting about. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:51, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Comment. There seems to be massive confusion as to what this RfC is about. Is it about whether we should use pre-titles (which is what they're actually known as) in the first line and infobox (which we always have done) or in the running text (which we never have done anyway)? None of the three opposers so far seem to be opposing the former (although two do seem to be opposing use in infoboxes); neither of the supporters are supporting the latter. So what on earth are we actually discussing here? -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:55, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- That's a really good question. That's kind of what I was trying to figure out with my questions. The issue is phrased as though it's a question of linguistics (are these titles/honorifics/what-have-you part of the grammatical category of "name"?) but, while we can have our views on that even if (most of us) are not experts, it's not really a question for the Village Pump. I would ask the parties to reformulate the question in such a way that it can actually be decided here. Probably this RfC should be closed as ill-posed, and a new one started with a clearer question to decide. --Trovatore (talk) 09:22, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Feel free to change the question. I wrote it quickly, and as an interpretation of what is on the MoS talk page. Do not start a new RfC: that would be a waste of time, and editors who have contributed to this discussion may be unwilling to re-weite their opinions. Change the question to be whatever you want it to be. As long as it is not too different, people will generally have no problem with you doing so. I think the question is pretty clear (ie, should we require the inclusion of sir/dame, or are they pre-nominals (serve the same purpose as honorifics)?). But, if editors are having trouble understanding it, you may wish to change it to whatever you think is clearer. I would leave it as it is, however. –Sb2001 talk page 16:24, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- No, it isn't clear at all. As far as I can see, nobody is arguing that we shouldn't include the titles in the first line. That would be simply ridiculous. It would also be ridiculous not to include them when referring to people in articles other than their own. No writers ignore legitimate titles in this way; no reason why Wikipedia should. To do this would be to introduce a political agenda (i.e. I personally don't approve of titles so I don't think WP should use them). -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:10, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- The issue was originally raised regarding infoboxes, and Sir/Dame being removed from them. I shall clarify this in the introduction. –Sb2001 talk page 17:37, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Better? –Sb2001 talk page 17:39, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, I don't want to be difficult, but I don't think it's good procedure to change the question after there's been lots of comments. In any case I still don't see a clear question that can be resolved here. I think it would be best to close this RfC and start over, with a clear issue to be resolved. It could be multi-part, maybe; something like (1) Should Sir/Dame appear in infoboxes on the same line as the name? (2) Should Sir/Dame appear bolded in the first sentence of bios? (3) Should Sir/Dame be used together with first names in running text? (4) Should Sir/Dame appear as part of the article title?. Those would be appropriate questions for an RfC. --Trovatore (talk) 21:52, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Better? –Sb2001 talk page 17:39, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- The issue was originally raised regarding infoboxes, and Sir/Dame being removed from them. I shall clarify this in the introduction. –Sb2001 talk page 17:37, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- No, it isn't clear at all. As far as I can see, nobody is arguing that we shouldn't include the titles in the first line. That would be simply ridiculous. It would also be ridiculous not to include them when referring to people in articles other than their own. No writers ignore legitimate titles in this way; no reason why Wikipedia should. To do this would be to introduce a political agenda (i.e. I personally don't approve of titles so I don't think WP should use them). -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:10, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
No objection here – despite the !votes strongly favoring not using the titles;I predict that the outcome of a more clearly written RfC will go the same way.For one thing, it's devolving into one set of people talking about this as a generalized language matter as applied in Wikipedia writing style, while others want to split hairs about exactitudes of the content of each particular title in a particular context.If this is re-RfCed, all the commenters in this one should be pinged to re-comment. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 16:34, 24 August 2017 (UTC) Note added 23:06, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
Striking some of that; the devolution of the discussion has stopped, and a clear consensus is emerging on the central question, even if it's not asking all the questions Trovatore suggests. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 20:37, 28 August 2017 (UTC)- Oh, I gave up on a new RFC days ago. It's clearly too late, and as you say, editors do seem to have converged somewhat on both an interpretation and an answer.
- But it's a pity, because the emerging consensus will not be as useful as it could have been. Application is not entirely clear, and those who dislike the result will be able to assert, not entirely without justice, that the question as posed was not one that this forum is competent to decide.
- If there's one thing people take away from this, I'd like it to be that writing a good RfC question takes careful thought. Don't just write down the first thing that comes to mind. Take care to write it clearly. Think about how it could be misunderstood. Write normatively rather than descriptively, "should" rather than "is", "questions of law" rather than "questions of fact" — the Village Pump is almost never the place to decide questions of fact. Maybe we should (do?) have a help page about this. --Trovatore (talk) 21:07, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
- Feel free to change the question. I wrote it quickly, and as an interpretation of what is on the MoS talk page. Do not start a new RfC: that would be a waste of time, and editors who have contributed to this discussion may be unwilling to re-weite their opinions. Change the question to be whatever you want it to be. As long as it is not too different, people will generally have no problem with you doing so. I think the question is pretty clear (ie, should we require the inclusion of sir/dame, or are they pre-nominals (serve the same purpose as honorifics)?). But, if editors are having trouble understanding it, you may wish to change it to whatever you think is clearer. I would leave it as it is, however. –Sb2001 talk page 16:24, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- That's a really good question. That's kind of what I was trying to figure out with my questions. The issue is phrased as though it's a question of linguistics (are these titles/honorifics/what-have-you part of the grammatical category of "name"?) but, while we can have our views on that even if (most of us) are not experts, it's not really a question for the Village Pump. I would ask the parties to reformulate the question in such a way that it can actually be decided here. Probably this RfC should be closed as ill-posed, and a new one started with a clearer question to decide. --Trovatore (talk) 09:22, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
Usage in general also depends when titles or knighthoods are given. Often the more senior titles are given later in life. For example Churchill did not become a knight until the twilight of his career so for most usage it would be wrong to call him Sir Winston in the majority of the text where he is mentioned. Likewise with Margaret Thatcher who was out of office before she became Lady Thatcher. In the case of someone like Wellington, it is rather more complicated, because he had many titles over this active military career. Usually he is referred to as Wellesley until after he received the title of Viscount Wellington in 1809, and then as Wellington. In most case with a first mention of the title viscount, earl, or duke, and then just the single word. But this is really a question for consensus on the talk page of articles and not something to be imposed as a universal rule, as always Wikipedia should follow the lead in reliable secondary sources. -- PBS (talk) 17:52, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- That actually sounds like a good argument to not use the titles in our prose, except in special contexts like the lead sentence and/or a section on all the styles and titles someone has. Much less room for error and fighting. The principal purpose of a style guide is to "impose ... universal rule[s]" within the purview of the guide (WP articles, in MoS's case). "Follow the lead in reliable secondary sources" is what we're already doing in creating our style guide, which is based on other, major, mainstream style guides. Real-world usage in RS isn't consistent. It's not WP's job to try to stylistically imitate a particular subset of RS, e.g. British journalism (WP isn't written in news style as a matter of WP:NOT#NEWS policy anyway). It's important to not confuse the concept of "reliable source for objective facts about a subject" and "reliable source for how to best write encyclopedic, neutral, accessible English about that subject for a general, global audience". They're completely unrelated. "This source is presumptive reliable for facts X, Y, and Z" never equates to "This source dictates WP's prose style". Only internal WP consensus does the latter. On any matter of continual debate this is generally done on a site-wide basis to prevent recurrent disputes wasting editorial productivity. It's simply proven to be a bad idea to fight about such things on an article-by-article basis indefinitely. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 20:48, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
- Comment. I'm interested as to whether those who seem to oppose the use of pre-titles in infoboxes also oppose the use of postnominals in infoboxes? Not to do so would be utterly illogical, as you'd support the appearance of an OBE in an infobox, but oppose the use of a higher honour! If you do support the removal of postnominals then we'll need another RfC, since we can't possibly remove one without the other. Also note that we often use honorifics (e.g. The Honorable, The Right Honourable) and academic titles (e.g. Professor, Dr) in infoboxes. Do you support the removal of those too? Or is it only British titles that are being campaigned against here? This whole thing hasn't really been thought out, has it? It smacks of some editors disliking titles and therefore demanding their removal (the terms "classist" and "class struggle" have even been used here, along with assertions that titles are subjective, meaningless, "mumbo jumbo" and POV), which is not really in the spirit of Wikipedia's neutral presentation of facts. Yes, we all know that titles are disliked by some. That does not make them or their use any less of a fact. If Wikipedia wants to begin to present a particular political point of view then so be it, but that's not the project I've contributed to for so long. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:03, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
- Do we actually use academic titles in infoboxes? I pulled up a few fairly well known examples and didn't find those in their infoboxes. I don't see why these honorifics, academic degrees, post-nominals etc can't and shouldn't be listed in separate fields of the infobox away from the person's actual name. This "but they become part of the person's name" idea just makes no sense to me.--Khajidha (talk) 15:56, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
- Not so much academic titles (although they have been used), but certainly honorifics and postnoms. Just because it makes no sense to you is hardly a reason to remove them! -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:56, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
- I definitely oppose use of post-nominals in the name field in infoboxes, for the same reason we don't use them in running prose, either. They belong in either the lead sentence of the person's bio article, or in a section on titles, or degrees, or whatever (as context dictates) in that article. Elsewhere in the same article they should not be used, nor should they be used with that person's name in other articles, except under peculiar circumstances. To the extent this is devolving into another infobox debate (it was not opened as one), the solution would probably be to have parameters for these things, and have them displayed particular ways depending on which parameter variant is used, but keep this data out of the name field to stop corrupting the base name data with extraneous title and suffix stuff. British people insistent on seeing "Sir" attached to the name get what they want while those of use who want cleaner data also get what we want. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:03, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- Comment: I oppose using Sir and Dame as part of the name in an infobox. I support having them as honorific prefix, see Gwyneth Jones.
- I accept that the become part of the name - in England. In Germany, "Dr." becomes part of the name. In Italy, I don't know, perhaps again a local specialty. I go for treating them all the same.
- Even when added, these prefixes don't automatically become "common" knowledge. The name parameter should hold the common name. On a recording, we'd read only Gwyneth Jones, not Dame Gwyneth Jones. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:17, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
- ps: Per the same logic, I'd oppose having Sir and Dame as part of the article name, but I usually don't change a link such as Dame Gwyneth Jones in article text. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:20, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
WP:ACTRIAL date
Hi all, just posting here that Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed article creation trial is currently scheduled to go live on 7 September 2017. This is pending final security review of the code by the WMF. The trial is currently scheduled to last 6 months, with data being reported as the trial is conducted. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:07, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks for posting. L3X1 (distænt write) 13:06, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
- Good to know! —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:16, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
Articles about churches; titles of the format St. X ('s Church), Somewhere
Not sure if this the right place for what I have to ask: if not, please redirect me. A colleague recently created an article St. James, Levoča; this was then moved by a third party, without discussion, to St. James Church, Levoča. (It's since been moved, and appropriately imo, to Basilica of St. James, Levoča, but that's another story).
On the talk page of the article I noted:
--- This is a tricky one. It seems that all varieties of punctuation are used for this purpose on Wikipedia. For examples:
- St. James' Church, Antwerp
- Church of St. James (Brno)
- St. James Church, Sydney
- St. James's Church, Koper
- Saint James's Church, Stockholm
and sometimes without the '.' after St, e.g.:
And there are doubtless other versions as well. ---
There doesn't seem to be a WP standard. If it were up to me, I would propose the format St. X's Church, Somewhere. (And, by the way with >'s< even if the saint's name ends with an >s<). Should there be an attempt to create a standard, and if so, what's the best way to go about it? Thanks, Smerus (talk) 10:50, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
- I suspect this is likely to fall foul of WP:ENGVAR. As different countries can puncuate differently. Have you identified if there is a national cause? (eg the US use St. James' Church, UK St. James's etc) Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:09, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
- Well I'm not going to lose too much sleep over >'s< or >'< after a name ending in s. But the more important issues for standardisation are a full stop after St, the inclusion of the word Church, a comma before the placename, and the placename itself not in brackets. These ideas are surely not too controversial - or are they?--Smerus (talk) 16:45, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
- I have no strong opinion about this myself. However, when looking for examples I noticed similar issues with schools (St. Paul's School (New Hampshire) versus St. Paul's College, Hong Kong) and streetnames and the like. So if we decide on a consistent application we may should consider to cover those as well. Arnoutf (talk) 17:14, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
- As to the full stop. please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Full stops and spaces:
- Standard North American usage is to end all abbreviations with a period (Dr. Smith of 42 Drummond St.), but in standard British and Australian usage, no stop is used if the abbreviation ends in the last letter of the unabbreviated form, except when confusion could result (Dr Smith of 42 Drummond St).
- This would appear to be an ENGVAR issue, so we follow those rules - see, for example, Labor Party (United States, 1996) vs. Labour Party (UK), which illustrates different spellings for the word "Labo(u)r". עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:41, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
- As to the full stop. please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Full stops and spaces:
- I have no strong opinion about this myself. However, when looking for examples I noticed similar issues with schools (St. Paul's School (New Hampshire) versus St. Paul's College, Hong Kong) and streetnames and the like. So if we decide on a consistent application we may should consider to cover those as well. Arnoutf (talk) 17:14, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
- Well I'm not going to lose too much sleep over >'s< or >'< after a name ending in s. But the more important issues for standardisation are a full stop after St, the inclusion of the word Church, a comma before the placename, and the placename itself not in brackets. These ideas are surely not too controversial - or are they?--Smerus (talk) 16:45, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
- This is one where we simply can not set a standardized style... because there is too much variation in reality. The best we can do is deal with it at the article level... on a church by church basis... deferring to the common usages of reliable sources that discuss each specific church. Blueboar (talk) 22:05, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
- I would love to have a standard (specifically the one advocated by Smerus, as ambiguity- and confusion-proof), but we've been over this many times before. The fact of the matter is that some of these places have had set-in-stone names since before English punctuation was standardized, and consequently have "hardened" into strange constructions like St Johns Church without the apostrophe. People who think in an "official name" way argue to keep them that way, and those who think in a "common name" way also make the same argument, because most of the RS use the "official" spelling. This view isn't crazy, it's just prioritizing the expectations of readers already intimately familiar with the subject over those of everyone else, and over consistency.
As for the "James'" versus "James's" matter, it is simply not true that this is a WP:ENGVAR matter; style guides on both sides of the Atlantic recommend both. It's primarily a split between academic-style clarity ("James's") and news-style expediency and compression ("James'"). Same goes for dot-dropping; even in British academic style, the only dots dropped are those in acronyms like AIDS and those in abbreviations formed by contraction so that they start and end with the same letters as the full word (Dr for Doctor, but Prof. for Professor). It's only the British journalism publishers that are dropping almost all dots.
In both cases, because WP is an encyclopedia not a news source or any other journalism publication, we should follow the academic, clearer, hard-to-misinterpret style, as we do in virtually all other style matters. We do this with numeric material (e.g. "9 pm" or "9 pm", "23 cm", "3 ft", etc., not "9pm", "23cm", "3'". We also do it with various non-numeric cases where academic and news style conflict; e.g. is using spaced and unspaced en dashes (for different purposes) and unspaced em dashes, in prescribed ways found in academic style guides, while news style has no en dash at all, and only uses unspaced hyphens (for unspaced en dashes) and unspaced em dashes (for unspaced em dashes and spaced en dashes). I could list out dozens of other examples.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 06:56, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- I would love to have a standard (specifically the one advocated by Smerus, as ambiguity- and confusion-proof), but we've been over this many times before. The fact of the matter is that some of these places have had set-in-stone names since before English punctuation was standardized, and consequently have "hardened" into strange constructions like St Johns Church without the apostrophe. People who think in an "official name" way argue to keep them that way, and those who think in a "common name" way also make the same argument, because most of the RS use the "official" spelling. This view isn't crazy, it's just prioritizing the expectations of readers already intimately familiar with the subject over those of everyone else, and over consistency.
- Why do we need a standard? It would seem the disadvantages, increased bureaucracy, would outweigh any advantages. RileyBugz会話投稿記録 21:43, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- That won't do. On the same argument (i.e. that some people would object to it), the setting of any standards in WP would be a non-starter. The reason we have standards in WP is (in part) to attempt to convey reliable and hard-to-misinterpret information. The chaos over church names, if we leave it as it is, is an abdication of responsibility. So I am with SMcCandlish. Smerus (talk) 10:40, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
Creation of articles on criminal events particularly claimed links to terrorism and similar incidents
There is currently a spate of as soon as a news story appears of an event which has the word terrorism in it, or has a person shouting religious slogans, or a religious person is involved. There is a mass problem of Wikipedia devolving in to a news site. There needs to be a full and in depth discussion to nip this in the bud or the purpose of Wikipedia will devolve in to a news site and be lost. Sport and politics (talk) 12:07, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
- Using Wikipedia to "report" news is nothing new... it is a problem that has plagued the project for years... unfortunately WP:NOTNEWS is perhaps our least enforced (and enforceable) policy statement.
- I have found that the best thing to do is ignore the article for a few months (i.e. Wait until the topic is no longer a hot news item, coverage of the event dies off, and the interest of editors fades so that no one is bothering to edit the article much anymore)... and then completely re-write the article to give it a more historical and encyclopedic tone and perspective. Blueboar (talk) 20:43, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
- Based on my observations, AfDs started on such an article quickly after the event that led to the creation of the article usually do not get a consensus for deletion. An AfD much later more commonly comes to the conclusion "well, this didn't have long-term consequences after all". Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:53, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
- We should really encourage users to take hot new topics to Wikinews but there is a real lack of manpower there to handle an influx of Wikipedians writing news. :/ ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:08, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
- Why don't we just go with the flow and inform people, and then later, as suggested, evaluate if the event really had any long term significance. RileyBugz会話投稿記録 22:32, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- One important thing: Should we create some tempolate, similar to {{current}} and its related templates, for such attacks? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 03:31, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
- I agree I also think there should be a speedy delete criteria, and a migrate to Wikinews tag. That way the users determined to include this will have a place to go and put it, and the information can be speedily removed from Wikipedia, when it is clearly unwarranted. Sport and politics (talk) 11:59, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
- One important thing: Should we create some tempolate, similar to {{current}} and its related templates, for such attacks? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 03:31, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
- I found three discussions at WT:Notability (events)/Archive 3 that shows that 7 to 14 days is considered the length of time before which an AfD is not useful. One of the more specific suggestions was to move the article during that time to the incubator, during which time readers would find a link to Wikinews and an invitation with a link to help draft the article.
- The basic implementation could be like CSD and a guideline called WP:Criteria for Speedy Incubation, with a CSI template for "breaking news". Unscintillating (talk) 23:44, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
Article deletion for TOU violations?
Do we have a definitive policy statement about deleting articles due to TOU violations? Specifically, undisclosed paid editing. I'm looking at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gene Freidman, attempting to close the discussion. One of the assertions there is, The creator violated our TOU so we should delete the article. This is a common claim at AfDs, but I can't find a definitive policy statement one way or another. The TOU certainly gives us the legal right to Refuse, disable, or restrict access to the contribution of any user who violates these Terms of Use, but that's not the same as it being our policy to do so. I'm not looking for advice on how to close the AfD, just a better understanding of our policies. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:24, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- We don't have such a policy yet. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:52, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- I've taken a look and I've read through that AfD again. Wikipedia's general inclusionist philiosophy is sometimes too wildly applied, especially by participants at AfD who may be less faniliar with our guidelines or who may have an axe to grind with other editors in the discussion or the nominator. IMO, in the absence of a local ruling, we should interpret the WMF ToU as being sufficiently broadly construed to delete such content, particularly in the case of a BLP that might technically pass our notability guidelines. It's loss is no grave concern because if it hadn't been paid for contrary to policy, it would not have existed anyway (at that time). That said, I'm in favour of deleting all works by paid undisclosed paid editors but for a very different reason than most people and one that never gets mentioned - but that would be another debate. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:14, 2 September 2017 (UTC)