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Distinctions section proposal
The term "Distinctions" seems to be the prevalent most WP:NPOV use for section otherwise titled "Honours" etc., since in fact not all readers necesessarly would consider dinstinction X conferred to subject Y by entity Z as an "honour". This section might for instance include orders of chivalry, orders of merit, academic distinctions (titles, prizes), and other encyclopedically relevant prizes and awards. Chicbyaccident (talk) 14:36, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
- I don't think a native English speaker would say that. I'd say something like "honors and awards". DrKay (talk) 14:53, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
- Agreed. "Distinctions" is very ambiguous, and implies "things that make this person notable". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 17:47, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
- Although not unproblematic a term, other than "distinction", I have a hard time seeing the term "Honours" qualifying as WP:NPOV regarding recipients of distinctions of totalitarian regimes, etc.? Chicbyaccident (talk) 15:03, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
- Which ones qualify for that label is itself a PoV matter, and it's factual whether or not such a government honored someone with a knighthood, medal, etc. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 18:55, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
- Some awards, like the Ig Nobel, may not be considered an honor. Kendall-K1 (talk) 13:43, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
- Which ones qualify for that label is itself a PoV matter, and it's factual whether or not such a government honored someone with a knighthood, medal, etc. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 18:55, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
- Although not unproblematic a term, other than "distinction", I have a hard time seeing the term "Honours" qualifying as WP:NPOV regarding recipients of distinctions of totalitarian regimes, etc.? Chicbyaccident (talk) 15:03, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
- Agreed. "Distinctions" is very ambiguous, and implies "things that make this person notable". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 17:47, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Death dates
Should the death date of the article subject be given more than once in the infobox? Please comment at Template talk:Marriage#Death. DrKay (talk) 18:07, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
MOS:NICKNAME is not currently clear about middle names. In the UK, almost every person only goes by their first and last names, with middle names only really used in legal contexts. Some people, however, decide to use a middle name and their last name as their known name. This is then further complicated if the are known by a hypocorisms of a middle name. For example, the British general John Nicholas Reynolds Houghton is known as Nick Houghton rather than John Houghton. Its not just the UK, with William Bradley Pitt being known as Brad Pitt rather than William/Will/Bill Pitt: the opening sentence did once read William Bradley "Brad" Pitt.
I have noticed in recent weeks that there has been a huge increase in editors removing "nickname" from the article openings while citing MOS:NICKNAME. While Jonathan Reginald Smith being known as John Smith is obvious and traditional, being known as Reggie Smith isn't. Articles don't have a word count limit, so I don't see why (barring the most obvious nicknames) slightly more obscure/non-standard are being removed. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 16:09, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
- I don't see anything in MOS:NICKNAME that says "Nick Houghton" and "Brad Pitt" should not appear in the first sentence of their respective articles. I suppose you could argue over whether it should say "William Bradley 'Brad' Pitt" or "William Bradley Pitt, better known as Brad Pitt." But it seems to me MOS:NICKNAME actually requires the nickname in the first sentence. Kendall-K1 (talk) 16:53, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
- Should definitely be toward the start of the lead. There's nothing wrong with using two sentences if that works better, e.g.: "Alice Beeson Ceesdale (various parenthetical bits here) is n American painter, actress, musician, and local politician. As an actress, she is usually credited as A. B. Ceesdale; in her band, The Snorkel Weasels, she performs as Lady ABC." So, use common sense. In most cases, it can be done one way or the other in the lead sentence without difficulty to the reader. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 21:42, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
- Agreed, but in the case of "Brad Pitt", those exact words do not appear anywhere in the lead. That seems wrong to me. Kendall-K1 (talk) 21:57, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you for your input. The issue is that people have been removing the examples above citing MOS:NICKNAME. The second to last sentence states: "If a person has a well-known common hypocorism used in lieu of a given name, it is not presented between quote marks following the last given name or initial, as for Tom Hopper which has just Thomas Edward Hopper". This sentence is being used to remove any nickname that is vaguely obvious. So Lady ABC would be okay but someone would come along and delete A. B. Ceesdale. I have noticed in recent years there has been an increase in people following the "Law of Wikipedia" to the letter rather than using common sense. Perhaps this MOS needs a writes? Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 15:54, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
- It also says "provide a short explanation if a person uses a non-standard contraction of their name". You might argue that "Bill Pitt" would be a standard contraction but "Brad Pitt" is not. Using MOS:NICKNAME to justify removing "Brad Pitt" from Brad Pitt's lead just seems wrong. Kendall-K1 (talk) 16:08, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
- I completely agree, Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 17:46, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
- Re: "someone would come along and delete 'A. B. Ceesdale'" – except that's an abbreviation not a hypocorism, so there's no basis to delete it. It can actually be quite important to retain things like this, especially for people best known in a particular context by a particular short name but sometimes also known by the long one. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 23:25, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
- It also says "provide a short explanation if a person uses a non-standard contraction of their name". You might argue that "Bill Pitt" would be a standard contraction but "Brad Pitt" is not. Using MOS:NICKNAME to justify removing "Brad Pitt" from Brad Pitt's lead just seems wrong. Kendall-K1 (talk) 16:08, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you for your input. The issue is that people have been removing the examples above citing MOS:NICKNAME. The second to last sentence states: "If a person has a well-known common hypocorism used in lieu of a given name, it is not presented between quote marks following the last given name or initial, as for Tom Hopper which has just Thomas Edward Hopper". This sentence is being used to remove any nickname that is vaguely obvious. So Lady ABC would be okay but someone would come along and delete A. B. Ceesdale. I have noticed in recent years there has been an increase in people following the "Law of Wikipedia" to the letter rather than using common sense. Perhaps this MOS needs a writes? Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 15:54, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
- Agreed, but in the case of "Brad Pitt", those exact words do not appear anywhere in the lead. That seems wrong to me. Kendall-K1 (talk) 21:57, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
- Should definitely be toward the start of the lead. There's nothing wrong with using two sentences if that works better, e.g.: "Alice Beeson Ceesdale (various parenthetical bits here) is n American painter, actress, musician, and local politician. As an actress, she is usually credited as A. B. Ceesdale; in her band, The Snorkel Weasels, she performs as Lady ABC." So, use common sense. In most cases, it can be done one way or the other in the lead sentence without difficulty to the reader. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 21:42, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
- Just as readers can be trusted to understand that "Reggie" is short for "Reginald", they can be trusted to understand that some people go by their middle name. We often overload our opening sentences, which be the most accessible sentence in an article. Stopping to explain that "Brad Pitt" (appearing in large font as the title of the article) and "William Bradley Pitt" (appearing in bold at the beginning of the first sentence) are in fact the same person does more to harm readability than to aid it. Where there are unusual nicknames, those are best explained explicitly by providing context, as in SMcCandlish's examples above.--Trystan (talk) 21:41, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
- There is an actual problem here (beyond middle names in particular). To continue with the Brad Pitt example, the world knows him entirely as Brad Pitt, and that's the article title and his name in the infobox, so it's not at first clear that there's any value to adding Brad Pitt in bold in the lead sentence or immediately after it. The best argument for doing so is probably WP:REUSE: people may re-use the article text by itself, without the title and without the infobox, so the article (and especially its lead) should make sense in a stand-alone manner. Presently the Brad Pitt article fails in this regard. We should probably revisit this section the MOS:BIO rules, since the end result is not desirable, and it is pretty much always ignored, except in the rare instance we get an "enforcer" at an article like Brad Pitt who is more interested in forcing compliance with a particular rule interpretation than with WP:COMMONSENSE and with serving the readership's interests. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 23:25, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
- MOS:NICKNAME says "
If a person is known by a nickname used in lieu of a given name ...
" Isn't a middle name part of a given name? If not, maybe use the less ambiguous first name instead?—Bagumba (talk) 00:57, 31 October 2017 (UTC)- Given name includes first and middle name(s). "First name" is not synonymous with "given name". And none of these are nicknames. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 01:13, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
- So as the MOS is currently written, we should generally not write "William Bradley 'Brad' Pitt", as "Brad" is a common nickname of one of the given names.—Bagumba (talk) 01:27, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
- Yet either that or "William Bradley Pitt, better known as Brad Pitt" is the editorial preference across our bio articles, site-wide and by a large margin. So, the operational consensus and what the guideline says have gotten out of sync. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 01:44, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
- So as the MOS is currently written, we should generally not write "William Bradley 'Brad' Pitt", as "Brad" is a common nickname of one of the given names.—Bagumba (talk) 01:27, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
- Given name includes first and middle name(s). "First name" is not synonymous with "given name". And none of these are nicknames. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 01:13, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
- MOS:NICKNAME says "
- There is an actual problem here (beyond middle names in particular). To continue with the Brad Pitt example, the world knows him entirely as Brad Pitt, and that's the article title and his name in the infobox, so it's not at first clear that there's any value to adding Brad Pitt in bold in the lead sentence or immediately after it. The best argument for doing so is probably WP:REUSE: people may re-use the article text by itself, without the title and without the infobox, so the article (and especially its lead) should make sense in a stand-alone manner. Presently the Brad Pitt article fails in this regard. We should probably revisit this section the MOS:BIO rules, since the end result is not desirable, and it is pretty much always ignored, except in the rare instance we get an "enforcer" at an article like Brad Pitt who is more interested in forcing compliance with a particular rule interpretation than with WP:COMMONSENSE and with serving the readership's interests. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 23:25, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
I think the best way to deal with a nickname is First name Middle name "nickname" Family name, so "William Bradley "Brad" Pitt" - It goes after the middle name regardless of whether the nickname is derived from the given name or the middle name. BTW, Bagumba, I think the nikname should be included, as people from non-western cultures may not understand how Western nicknames work. Chinese people, for example, may not realize "Bobby" would be legally known as "Robert". WhisperToMe (talk)
- This doesn't seem to pertain to the discussion, which is about people removing nicknames, hypocorisms, and initials completely. Anyway, not everyone agrees with your preference here; many of us prefer the short form to come after the name part it is a shortening of, but nicknames per se immediately before the surname, and to use parentheses for things that are not nicknames, and to have aliases completely separate: William Bradley (Brad) Pitt, William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer) or Arthur Simon Flegenheimer, better known as Dutch Schultz. It's fine to separate any such case, e.g. William Jefferson Clinton, better known as Bill Clinton, etc., if that works better in the context. Numerous cases have been forced into William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton format, which is wrongheaded for multiple reasons, and does a disservice to readers, especially non-native English speakers (for whom "Bill" is not obviously a hypocorism of "William"). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 16:51, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
- 'Brad' is not a nickname - it is a shortening of one of his given names, Bradley. It should not appear as 'William Bradley "Brad" Pitt' per WP:ALTNAMES. Instead the wording for these kind of situations should be 'William Bradley Pitt, known as Brad Pitt', is an American actor...' GiantSnowman 09:38, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
- Oh, I strongly agree. I've been arguing for years that we should not be putting hypocorisms in quotation marks, but I keep seeing it in article after article, we have no rule saying not to do it, and when I've tried to fix the guideline to say not to do it, I get reverted on it. If you want to RfC this, be my guest, and I'll support. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 09:08, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
- Brad is a nickname: as per the wiki article on nicknames, "A nickname can be a shortened or modified variation on a person's real name", and there's a whole section on the different types. Including the nickname within parenthesis "William Bradley (Brad) Pitt" is wrong. The parenthesis section of WP:QUOTENAME refers to other names such as maiden names or foreign names that would appear in the parentheses eg "Prince Henry of Wales (Henry Charles Albert David; born 1984), known as Prince Harry". Parenthesis are sometimes used to show names that aren't used, eg "(John) Harold Francis" if he was only known as Harold Francis. So if you tried to introduce nicknames in parentheses that would be confusing. Using "William Bradley "Brad" Pitt" is a lot shorter than "William Bradley Pitt (born 1963), known as Brad Pitt". The latter way makes sense if it needs explaining, eg "William Bradley Pitt, known professionally as Brad Pitt", but could other make the opening sentence needlessly long.
- The MOS states: "If a person is commonly known by a nickname that is not a common hypocorism (diminutive) of their name, used in lieu of a given name, it is presented between quote marks following the last given name or initial" and "Also acceptable are formulations like "Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, known as Sandro Botticelli", when applicable." The latter is best used for complicated case but the MOS doesn't say that hypocorisms can't be included; just not a common hypocorism (this is where my argument stemmed from). Editors have been removing the likes of "William Bradley "Brad" Pitt" and "William Bradley Pitt, known as Brad Pitt" citing MOS:NICKNAME. I'm arguing that a hypocorism from a middle name isn't common and that uncommon hypocorisms should be included in quote marks. For the latter Kit Harringotn is a good example: being nicknames "Chris" is is obvious/common, "Kit" (though derived from Christopher) isn't. The Hypocorism article has a long list of English Hypocorisms. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 21:54, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
- Nah. Hypocorisms from middle names are extremely common. Not being the most common doesn't make them uncommon. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 12:52, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
- Oh, I strongly agree. I've been arguing for years that we should not be putting hypocorisms in quotation marks, but I keep seeing it in article after article, we have no rule saying not to do it, and when I've tried to fix the guideline to say not to do it, I get reverted on it. If you want to RfC this, be my guest, and I'll support. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 09:08, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
- 'Brad' is not a nickname - it is a shortening of one of his given names, Bradley. It should not appear as 'William Bradley "Brad" Pitt' per WP:ALTNAMES. Instead the wording for these kind of situations should be 'William Bradley Pitt, known as Brad Pitt', is an American actor...' GiantSnowman 09:38, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
More nickname ambiguity
I did not specifically see our MoS discourage or prohibit article titles like Jack "Basher" Williams and Frank "Buck" O'Neill though I think it should be decided. I believe it poor form, am I wrong?--John Cline (talk) 09:11, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
- If they are known as Basher Williams and Buck O'Neill, then per WP:COMMONNAME the articles should be located there. See for example William "Dixie" Dean. We should not have both given name and nickname in the title. GiantSnowman 09:36, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
- Generally true, but there are rare exceptions (a handful of people are actually know by names of the form Foo "Bar" Baz, quotation marks and all. I forget the examples, but they're real (I have no idea if Jack "Basher" Williams and "Frank "Buck" O'Neill"; haven't looked over their details and the sources for them). That said, article titles aren't an MoS matter, but a WP:AT one. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 09:08, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you. I will ask at WP:AT in the near term, but I don't think our MoS should take a free-ride on this matter; either.
- Generally true, but there are rare exceptions (a handful of people are actually know by names of the form Foo "Bar" Baz, quotation marks and all. I forget the examples, but they're real (I have no idea if Jack "Basher" Williams and "Frank "Buck" O'Neill"; haven't looked over their details and the sources for them). That said, article titles aren't an MoS matter, but a WP:AT one. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 09:08, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
- Just as the way we use dashes, ampersands, and the suffix of a person's name, (as MoS prescribed), is reflected in how articles are titled, our MoS conventions that become, when appropriate, a name with an included nickname inside quotation marks, are potentially influencing increasing examples of biographical article titles in that form; as well.
- What poor stewards would we be, (if it were so), choosing silence over mitigation by voice; in bureaucratic tribute alone? I prefer doing no such!--John Cline (talk) 18:18, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
- @John Cline: There is Ed "Too Tall" Jones, who was hardly ever called just plain "Ed Jones".—Bagumba (talk) 09:04, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- If people are known as 'John "Nickname" Smith" then the article should be located there - but I don't think that applies to Basher/Buck above. GiantSnowman 09:19, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- If it wasn't already their WP:COMMONNAME (no opinion), I'm going to guess it was used for WP:NATURALDIS of Jack Williams and Frank O'Neill, respectively.—Bagumba (talk) 10:10, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- Ah, yes, Ed "Too Tall" Jones was the case I was thinking of. He wasn't regularly called just "Too Tall" Jones either, except in particular insider contexts. He really was called Ed "Too Tall" Jones. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 16:59, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- If people are known as 'John "Nickname" Smith" then the article should be located there - but I don't think that applies to Basher/Buck above. GiantSnowman 09:19, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- @John Cline: There is Ed "Too Tall" Jones, who was hardly ever called just plain "Ed Jones".—Bagumba (talk) 09:04, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- What poor stewards would we be, (if it were so), choosing silence over mitigation by voice; in bureaucratic tribute alone? I prefer doing no such!--John Cline (talk) 18:18, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Usage of names of minors under 18 (particularly those of crime victims/those who never became famous in adulthood)
In Murder of Megan Kanka the victim, a young girl, is referred to by her family name, "Kanka", instead of her given name, even though newspapers refer to her by her given name (while adults are referred to by their family names). See the discussion: Talk:Murder_of_Megan_Kanka#How_to_refer_to_Megan_Kanka_and_Jesse_Timmendequas
I thought of this when I read the Telegraph style guide, which states:
- "Children under the age of 18 are referred to by their forenames and surnames at first mention and by their forenames later. Minors convicted of a crime are, in cases where the courts permit them to be named, referred to only by their surname"
Obviously many media organizations will have their own style guides, but based on this I do think the question of how to refer to children under 18 (especially those in cultures that use family names) should be addressed by the Manual of Style. WhisperToMe (talk) 16:21, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
- This is not a style matter, this is a WP:BLP policy matter. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 16:52, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
- This doesn't always have to do with BLP as it can also refer to minors who are dead (and have been dead for over three years, and therefore are out of scope of BLP entirely) - For example Megan Kanka died in 1994 at age 7, and the question is how to refer to her in the article. BLP has no bearing on this. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:07, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
Some university guides I found suggest usually using given names, but that is for people under 16 - However there are situations where using family names is more appropriate (for example if the minor in question was tried as an adult for a crime)
- http://web.mnstate.edu/hanson/MC307/mc_307_AP_tips.htm ("AP Style Tips for PR Writers") - "After being introduced by their full names in a story, men and women are generally called by their last names for the remainder of the article. Children (under age 16) are usually referred to by their first names. Note, however, that this is subject to customary usage within organizations and some news media."
- http://convergence.journalism.missouri.edu/?p=548 - "Children 15 or younger are usually referred to by both names (first and family) on first reference and first name only on later references. Children in “adult situations” — common examples are in international sports and serious crimes in which they are charged as adults — are referred to by last name only on later references."
There shouldn't be a hard and fast rule IMO, but instead present options for dealing with certain situations. If therefore this is more appropriate for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography this discussion can be moved there. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:00, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
- Still not an MoS matter, but a content guideline one, when it comes to dead minors. But dead minors have no privacy interest, so I'm skeptical any rule would apply; rather, whether to mention the name would be the same as it would for any other person: a matter of WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE policy (is the inclusion encyclopedic or trivial?). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 02:24, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
- This discussion wasn't intended to explore cases on whether one should mention a child's name, but how to mention a child's name. For example, in Murder of Megan Kanka, after her full name is stated, should the girl be referred to as "Kanka" (her family name) or as "Megan" (her first name)? In the discussion above I had argued around a decade ago that she should be called "Megan" because she was referred to by her first name in media reports. WhisperToMe (talk) 08:20, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
- Already covered:
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies#Subsequent use + WP:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not news ("Wikipedia is ... not written in news style") = WP doesn't follow the cutesy journalistic practice of referring to minors by first name, which is unencyclopedic, "human-interest story" style. As a murder victim, the encyclopedic way to refer to Megan Kanka on subsequent mention is "Kanka". In the case of an intra-family event, use WP:COMMONSENSE; if everyone involved has the surname "McCandlish", it would make sense to refer to them by given name, after first mention of full name, when discussing who did what with regard to whom.
- Very recently already re-re-re-discussed on this same talk page; see [we use forenames or surnames for children?] – among other discussions here, at WT:MOS, WT:BLP, WP:VPPOL, etc. This verges on WP:PERENNIAL. Consensus has not changed, year after year, to refer to children by their given names (except in constructions where this makes syntactic and repetition-avoidance sense, e.g. "Joe Blow married Jane (neé Doe) in 1992, and they have three children, William, Amy, and Susan."). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 18:52, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
- Already covered:
- This discussion wasn't intended to explore cases on whether one should mention a child's name, but how to mention a child's name. For example, in Murder of Megan Kanka, after her full name is stated, should the girl be referred to as "Kanka" (her family name) or as "Megan" (her first name)? In the discussion above I had argued around a decade ago that she should be called "Megan" because she was referred to by her first name in media reports. WhisperToMe (talk) 08:20, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
- In that case this principle should be stated in the MOS. If Wikipedia editors have chosen to generally use surnames for children despite university journalism schools indicating a different naming format for children in AP style, this should be clearly indicated as contradicting journalist practice.
- I believe the journalist style guides regarding childrens' names apply to both schmaltzy "human interest" stories and to more serious, substantial stories (considering AP is known for being a no-nonsense news organization). I'd like to see if AP ever stated exactly why it had that general principle regarding children vs. adults. There was also a flashcard I saw (for a journalism school) stating that 16 and 17 year olds should be called by their family names unless it's a light-hearted human interest story, but I don't know who wrote it/where it came from.
- I am interested in seeing the various discussions so I can link them from the Megan Kanka talk page (BTW the link "[we use forenames or surnames for children?] " is broken - Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Biographies/2017_archive#Should_we_use_forenames_or_surnames_for_children.3F should be it) - These style guides were brought up, and it seems like there were various opinions on what to do but no consensus for any particular action.
- WhisperToMe (talk) 22:51, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
- I repeat that WP:NOT#NEWS is clear: "Wikipedia is ... not written in news style". We thus have no need to state that WP isn't written following the preferences of a journalism school or stylebook; that's already implicit. Virtually nothing in MOS is derived from AP Stylebook (perhaps only some elements of MOS:IDENTITY), and journo style widely diverges on many points from academic style, but we almost never annotate them. It's just unnecessary verbiage. If people really are frequently editwarring over children's names, we maybe should add a note about this, though we need not say anything about journalism. An approximation of such a rule can be cobbled together from what I wrote above: "Children are not an exception. As long as confusion would not result, unnecessary repetition can be avoided; multiple people in the same family with the same surname may be referred to by given names on second and later occurrence in an article, or when the construction already makes the relationships and shared name clear, e.g. Joe Blow married Jane (neé Doe) in 1992, and they have three children, William, Amy, and Susan." Writing it isn't hard. Do we really need it? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 23:15, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
- For a potential guideline it doesn't have to be installed right now but one can consider it if future naming issues arise. One other thing that I thought of is to check older encyclopedias like Britannica and Encarta. Samantha Smith's article on Britannica uses her family name, so at least in her case (and perhaps those of child activists who never grow up) they should definitely go by family name https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samantha-Smith
- In regards to murder victim cases it might be useful to check academic books in the criminal justice field to see how they refer to child victims. I started exploring the issue regarding Megan Kanka here: Talk:Murder_of_Megan_Kanka#How_to_refer_to_Megan_Kanka_and_Jesse_Timmendequas
- As stated in my comments on the Kanka talk page, even though Wikipedia's not to be written in a news style, IMO usage of popular media still is a consideration (just not the only consideration) in style guideline usage. For Japanese names Wikipedia uses given name first for most people (even though in Japanese itself, family name first is used, and in many academic works focusing on Japanese studies or Japanese culture, family name first is used) partly because of the usage in popular media, including news articles.
- After reviewing these books, I decided that I like the idea of the full name ("Megan Kanka") repeatedly. It acknowledges that in society a child isn't at the same level of formality as an adult, while at the same time keeps a more dispassionate voice in the article. Several of the more academic-style book sources seem to use this naming convention with young children.
- WhisperToMe (talk) 03:04, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- People are going to make the same NPoV-based arguments against using "Megan Kanka" over and over again, combined with a redundancy/browbeating objection. "[I]n society[,] a child isn't at the same level of formality as an adult" is subjective, and doesn't have any certain meaning to everyone. It just isn't the case that encyclopedic coverage of and writing about a subject veers between formality levels based on the age of the subject, even if this is commonly the case in news writing and even some book writing (especially "true crime" type writing, which dwells on building an emotional story about victims) As for Japanese and other family-name-first-in-native-language names (some of which are Western, e.g. Hungarian), we actually have a more complicated system, based on usage in English RS on a per-subject basis. E.g., Mao Zedong remains in family-first order, as do various pop-culture topics. For BLPs, WP:ABOUTSELF also has a strong impact; e.g. a move of Japanese-American singer Utada Hikaru to Western Hikaru Utada order was reversed because the subject clearly prefers the Japanese order, including in English and other Western contexts. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 06:54, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- "E.g., Mao Zedong remains in family-first order, as do various pop-culture topics. " - Mao is Chinese, and unlike Japanese names, Chinese and Korean names are often stated family name first in English (see page C4-2). There are exceptions like Utada Hikaru, but the general pattern persists. Even though Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Hungarian natively are surname first, they are generally treated differently in English.
- WhisperToMe (talk) 11:30, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- What part of "Japanese and other family-name-first-in-native-language names (some of which are Western, e.g. Hungarian)" was unclear? [Other than that it had a typo in, since corrected.] My point remains: we examine this on a case-by-case basis. The fact that a case is more likely to remain family-first for a Chinese subject than a Japanese one has no effect on that fact. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 12:18, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- I understood the message; I felt it was important to clarify the different treatments of names from those regions. I am aware that the guideline use the most common name form on a per subject basis is reflected in Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Japan-related_articles#Modern_names and this was the reason for the Utada and Talk:Koda_Kumi moves. WhisperToMe (talk) 14:00, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- There's not a different treatment; or rather, it's just a difference of degree. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)#Order of names. The article-titles material in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles is in the wrong page; it should be in an NC page, not an MoS page. This is a common problem with AT/NC- and MoS-related topical guidelines that originated with wikiprojects (sometimes it's even worse, e.g. WP:Manual of Style/Comics and WP:Naming conventions (comics) both have article titles material in them, and it's not entirely consistent; no one from the wikiproject (or elsewhere) has bothered to clean this up despite calls to do so for over two years. Anyway, the point was that we still look at the particulars of the case at hand. For China, the default is to use family-first order and for Japan it's to use given-first order, but we don't use the default in numerous cases for both countries/cultures, based on treatment in the majority of reliable sources. E.g., numerous Chinese sports figures are at given-first order because most sources that mention them in English use that order; meanwhile most sources that address military, government, and literary figures from China use family-first order. (A further complication is that some of the sport and other topical projects want to impose a specific name order regardless of nationality, though they don't seem to be having any luck with this.) Not everyone is happy with this inconsistent approach, but it's the price we pay for having a simplistic WP:COMMONNAME policy, which in turn effective dictates how the name is treated in running prose, because we don't like to have the article text conflicting with the article title. Not sure what this has to do with surname-or-given-for-children, though. Maybe we're wandering too far off-topic; probably my bad. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 14:26, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- I understood the message; I felt it was important to clarify the different treatments of names from those regions. I am aware that the guideline use the most common name form on a per subject basis is reflected in Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Japan-related_articles#Modern_names and this was the reason for the Utada and Talk:Koda_Kumi moves. WhisperToMe (talk) 14:00, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- What part of "Japanese and other family-name-first-in-native-language names (some of which are Western, e.g. Hungarian)" was unclear? [Other than that it had a typo in, since corrected.] My point remains: we examine this on a case-by-case basis. The fact that a case is more likely to remain family-first for a Chinese subject than a Japanese one has no effect on that fact. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 12:18, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- People are going to make the same NPoV-based arguments against using "Megan Kanka" over and over again, combined with a redundancy/browbeating objection. "[I]n society[,] a child isn't at the same level of formality as an adult" is subjective, and doesn't have any certain meaning to everyone. It just isn't the case that encyclopedic coverage of and writing about a subject veers between formality levels based on the age of the subject, even if this is commonly the case in news writing and even some book writing (especially "true crime" type writing, which dwells on building an emotional story about victims) As for Japanese and other family-name-first-in-native-language names (some of which are Western, e.g. Hungarian), we actually have a more complicated system, based on usage in English RS on a per-subject basis. E.g., Mao Zedong remains in family-first order, as do various pop-culture topics. For BLPs, WP:ABOUTSELF also has a strong impact; e.g. a move of Japanese-American singer Utada Hikaru to Western Hikaru Utada order was reversed because the subject clearly prefers the Japanese order, including in English and other Western contexts. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 06:54, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- Additional considerations. [I'll just copy-paste this (with minor tweaks) from my recent posts at Talk:Murder of Megan Kanka, since having it in the WT:MOSBIO archive will probably be more useful that having it buried in an article talk page: Referring to minors by their given names is unencyclopedic, except to avoid a browbeating level of repetition, e.g. in a sentence naming a bunch of family members who all share the same surname. Depending upon one's personal take on the matter, habitual first-naming can be argued to be an infantilizing, patronizing, even programmatically ageist and disrespectful PoV. Regardless, it has the serious problem that age of majority/consent varies radically by jurisdiction (anywhere in a range at least as wide as 12 to 21, most commonly between 14 and 18), and various jurisdictions have within them different definitions of adulthood in different contexts. "Write about minors differently from adults" is just not a workable system in a global encyclopedia.
What we presently have is WP:NOTNEWS and (probably more importantly in this context) MOS:SURNAME, which doesn't make any magical exceptions for children or post-pubescent minors. Nor does it draw some really heavily PoV-laden "juvenile offenders" dividing line favored by particular house styles of some news publishers. So, whether someone would desperately like to impose news style's "first name for minors" approach in a misguided re-interpretation of "follow the sources" is irrelevant. We have a rule, and consensus has not changed about it, despite repeated proposals to change it (one as recently as a month or two ago here at WT:MOSBIO).
The "I haven't heard anyone using [first name here] to refer to [some juvenile or child in the news lately]" reasoning: That's surely because it's journalism style to refer to minors (often, not always) by first name. WP isn't written in news style per NOT#NEWS; meanwhile most other encyclopedic works, which also would not use news style, will not yet (if ever) have any material about someone like Megan Kanka. When they do have articles on minors, they tend to use the encyclopedic practice of referring to them by surname (see, e.g. [1], pointed out above). See also Confirmation bias, WP:IDONTKNOWIT, and WP:CSF: It's fallacious to assume that "what I'm reading now" provides the only possible or the most preferable style (for anything), or that WP must style material the same way some other subset of publication does, or the way a numeric majority of other publishers do. Majority matters for WP:COMMONNAME purposes, which is solely an article titles policy, about the practicality of finding articles; once the article is found, the concern no longer exists. For style matters, we have our own style manual, geared toward precision, clarity, formality (short of excessive academic style), and neutrality. That last is more of a concern here that many may realize. Patronizing attitudes toward notable minors is mirrored by a similar WP:Systemic bias attitude toward female subjects; we have numerous (though non-GA/FA) articles inappropriately referring to women in various places by their first names.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 07:23, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- At the time I wrote "I haven't heard anyone using" (2007) I was still in high school (not yet exposed to large numbers of highbrow academic publications) and Google Books did not yet have the library of works that it has now. I definitely was influenced by journalism style, and a lot of readers will be too (especially those who are younger or less educated). That may explain why this is a perennial issue.
- I did check to see how Britannica and Encarta referred to Anne Frank. They both used given name ("Anne", with Encarta using "Frank" on one instance to refer to the father), but I would imagine the necessity to mention other family members complicates this issue, so I'm not sure if they matter here. I would prefer using "Frank" anyway.
- I would hope that minors notable for their accomplishments would be called by their family names (if they're from a culture with family names). Also I agree any instances of "articles inappropriately referring to women in various places by their first names" need to be corrected. Know any examples of this?
- WhisperToMe (talk) 14:26, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- Frank: I think the multiple family members with the same name thing would be a factor; it's why I tried to pro-actively address it in the draft material above. Notable minors: I saw this come up within the last few months with regard to high school athletes; there actually were multiple editors in support of referring to them by given names. Women and given names: I don't catalogue the cases I find, just fix them on-sight. Given my editing range, I mostly encounter this in stub bios of female sports figures; I don't know how frequent it might be for actresses, politicians, scientists, etc. I would expect it to be more common the more "pop culture" the topic is, but I can't empirically demonstrate that at present. WP:WOMRED might actually already have a handle on this; I would ask at their talk page. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 14:45, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- Yeah high school athletes should definitely be called by their last names. In the cases of athletes in the United States, many of them are 16 or older and would be called by their last names in newspapers using AP style, and therefore I am not sure why there is advocacy to use their given names. I just checked the Houston Chronicle website and pulled up this article using last names for HS athletes. What reasons were brought up in that discussion? WhisperToMe (talk) 14:55, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- Don't really recall; I think it was just the same general "minors should be treated different" idea. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 15:04, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- Yeah high school athletes should definitely be called by their last names. In the cases of athletes in the United States, many of them are 16 or older and would be called by their last names in newspapers using AP style, and therefore I am not sure why there is advocacy to use their given names. I just checked the Houston Chronicle website and pulled up this article using last names for HS athletes. What reasons were brought up in that discussion? WhisperToMe (talk) 14:55, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
Honorifics sometimes meaningful
It would be useful to add something like this in the section that MOS:HONORIFIC redirects to:
Pre-nominal honorifics should not be used except where, in the body of an article, they concisely add information rather than being provided merely as a courtesy. For example:
- The soldier's wounds were tended to by Dr John Smith (i.e., not a bystander, nurse, or first-aider)
- But: The soldier's wounds were tended to by the eminent physician John Smith
- The headmaster was Fr John Smith (he was a priest too. Br, Rev, may also be appropriate. Dr generally not, unless necessary to specify a medical man)
- But: The headmaster was the parish priest, John Smith
- Military rank titles identify a person as of the military, and rank
(Maybe something like this is in the text, but I missed it.)
Any opinions? Pol098 (talk) 15:44, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- Strongly agree with the sentence before the examples (we've needed something like that in there for a long time). However, it's not clear what distinction is being drawn in the examples and why. If we remove the PoV-problematic "eminent", the "But" examples appear to be more encyclopedic writing, and preferable to both the "Dr" and "Fr" cases. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 17:11, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- My idea in the examples is that we say "Dr", "Rev", etc. as a concise way of indicating a person's occupation. Otherwise we could always use wordier text to avoid the need for honorifics. But I won't push it; maybe others can draft better wording. Maybe just the following, with no examples:
"Pre-nominal honorifics should not normally be used except where, in the body of an article, they concisely add information rather than being provided merely as a courtesy. Pre-nominals such as Dr, Br or Brother, Rev, indicate the occupation of a person, and military pre-nominals such as Maj or Major indicate occupation and rank. It may be preferable to use other wording, rather than pre-nominals, to indicate occupation."
Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 19:59, 2 November 2017 (UTC)- The problem I can see is that everyone who's a big fan of peppering articles with honorifics will WP:GAME this by claims that it always adds information (at least at first occurrence); e.g. using "Mr. Chris Jackson", in this view, "concisely adds information" that Jackson is an adult male. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 23:01, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- Actually, in some cases such as sex-ambiguous names like "Chris", I don't object to Mr, Ms, Mrs if a person's sex is relevant. The alternative to this seems to be using a gendered pronoun later, rather than the clumsy "Chris Jackson, who is a man": "The general manager is Chris Jackson. She assumed office in 2010." What do others think should be said, if anything about the general idea of the guideline permitting meaningful honorifics? This is always going to be a slightly ambiguous area. Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 11:43, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
- The problem I can see is that everyone who's a big fan of peppering articles with honorifics will WP:GAME this by claims that it always adds information (at least at first occurrence); e.g. using "Mr. Chris Jackson", in this view, "concisely adds information" that Jackson is an adult male. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 23:01, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- My idea in the examples is that we say "Dr", "Rev", etc. as a concise way of indicating a person's occupation. Otherwise we could always use wordier text to avoid the need for honorifics. But I won't push it; maybe others can draft better wording. Maybe just the following, with no examples:
Honorifics in non-biographical articles
There's a lot of useful help in this guideline (Manual of Style/Biographies), particularly about honorifics, that applies to all articles, not just biographies. As it is, if one edits a non-biographical article to remove honorifics, citing MOS:HONORIFIC, it can legitimately be said that the guideline does not cover articles in general. Perhaps, at least, the wording here could be modified where relevant to indicate that it applies to all articles? Pol098 (talk) 20:06, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- Definitely: The idea that you can write biographical material in non-MOS:BIO compliant ways just by doing it outside an article that is a biography is obviously WP:WIKILAWYERING / WP:SYSTEMGAMING. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 23:01, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- I've added a note at the beginning of the "Names" section: While this guideline applies to biographies, text in this section, where applicable, applies to all articles that mention people, and a comment in "Occupation titles" Pol098 (talk) 15:05, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
- Moved it to the lead, since it actually pertains to the whole page, other than the title/lead stuff (which is covered by "where applicable"). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 17:24, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
- I've added a note at the beginning of the "Names" section: While this guideline applies to biographies, text in this section, where applicable, applies to all articles that mention people, and a comment in "Occupation titles" Pol098 (talk) 15:05, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
- Comment. It all depends on the context. As stated above, honorifics can be useful when referring to people in articles. We wouldn't put "Dr John Smith" in the lede on his own article, but it may be useful to refer to him as "Dr John Smith" the first time he's mentioned in another article. And "Sir John Smith" should always be mentioned with his title the first time, whether in his own article or another article. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:22, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- No, not always. If the article is referring to an event before the knighthood was bestowed, then it needn't be included, in line with Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies#Changed names. DrKay (talk) 17:11, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- And not when the title isn't relevant in the context and might even seem biased. E.g., in reporting results of a snooker match, a player who is a sir or a count or whatever should not have that title prepended to their name in the tables, or in the general text, though it would be used in the lead in their own article, and might be in other cases, e.g. when discussing funders of a charity (though in discussions I've observed so far, almost everyone except UK editors appears not to want to use in the latter sort of case, either; the general complain is classist PoV). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 17:58, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
PS: A great example is David Attenborough. He is virtually never referred to as Sir David Attenbourough outside the British press (who do not do that consistently), even in British publications. In brand new BBC materials he narrates, he's credited simply as David Attenborough. The real world simply does not use "Sir" and "Dame" the way certain WP editors want to impose it on our material. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 19:13, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Hypocorism of COMMONNAME
Related to MOS:NICKNAME, if a hypocorism is not a person's WP:COMMONNAME, but is nonetheless often used to refer to that person, should it be listed in the lead? The issue has come up at Talk:Stephen_Curry#Steph, where Stephen Curry's full name is "Wardell Stephen Curry II", and he is generally known as "Stephen", but references to him are often shortened to plain "Steph" (just not enough to be COMMONNAME). "Steph" is not currently mentioned in the lead. An existing example is Donald Rumsfeld, who is sometimes referred to as "Don", and the lead has Donald Henry "Don" Rumsfeld—Bagumba (talk) 09:15, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- What has occurred to me is to look through other articles:
- "Honest Abe" Lincoln: explained once in the body with context
- Eugene Victor "Gene" Debs: used just at the start of the article
- "Jed" or "Jerry" Colbath: explained in body
- Sam Brannan: not mentioned, although some of the sources use Sam
- There doesn't seem to be a standard about people's second-most-common name... Perhaps they should just be mentioned in prose? --Hameltion (talk, contribs) 14:18, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- Seems reasonable on a case-by-case basis. Especially here, since Steph is really rare in English as a male short name for Stephen (it's mostly often feminine for Stephanie). Users might be confused if they came looking for Steph they'd heard of and though was female and arrived at that article. Using "Don" in the other article is kind of iffy, since he's not commonly (just quite uncommonly) referred to that way. And the hypocorisms should be in parens not quotation marks; it's not a made-up nickname or alias. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 16:59, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- Would you suggest this?: Wardell Stephen (Steph) Curry II Or is there something else? --Hameltion (talk, contribs) 17:04, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- I think it needs to be, for an article about Jonathan Smith, 'Jonathan James Smith, also known as John Smith' or something. 'Don' and 'Steph' are nicknames and do not merit being in the opening name per WP:ALTNAMES, but are widespread enough to justify mentioning in the lede. GiantSnowman 17:17, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- Not sure I follow you. John isn't short for Jonathan; Jon is. If that's what you meant, then that would work. Some might prefer "'Jonathan (Jon) James Smith" or "'Jonathan James (Jon) Smith", but that works much better when there's just one given name and a surname presented (we don't want to imply he's known sometimes as "Jon James Smith", unless its' really true. What we really don't want to see is "Jon" in quotation marks, because it's not a nickname or alias. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 19:03, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, but with boldface markup and spaces fixed so the bolding is around the names parts, without spaces in them. It's also fine to do an "also known as" thing, though that is less concise. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 19:03, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- I think it needs to be, for an article about Jonathan Smith, 'Jonathan James Smith, also known as John Smith' or something. 'Don' and 'Steph' are nicknames and do not merit being in the opening name per WP:ALTNAMES, but are widespread enough to justify mentioning in the lede. GiantSnowman 17:17, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- Would you suggest this?: Wardell Stephen (Steph) Curry II Or is there something else? --Hameltion (talk, contribs) 17:04, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- Seems reasonable on a case-by-case basis. Especially here, since Steph is really rare in English as a male short name for Stephen (it's mostly often feminine for Stephanie). Users might be confused if they came looking for Steph they'd heard of and though was female and arrived at that article. Using "Don" in the other article is kind of iffy, since he's not commonly (just quite uncommonly) referred to that way. And the hypocorisms should be in parens not quotation marks; it's not a made-up nickname or alias. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 16:59, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- @GiantSnowman: One issue with your edit to change to "
Wardell Stephen Curry II (born March 14, 1988), also known as Steph Curry
" is that it might leave readers with the impression that "Steph Curry" is more common than the page's title of "Stephen Curry". Already from the MOS:NICKNAME thread above, there was suggestions that people whose middle name is their common name should have a format like "Wardell Stephen Curry II (born March 14, 1988), better known as Stephen Curry". Combined with your suggestion, we'd end up with "Wardell Stephen Curry II (born March 14, 1988), better known as Stephen Curry and also known as Steph Curry.—Bagumba (talk) 17:37, 10 November 2017 (UTC)- But that acurate;y reflects the position for that person? GiantSnowman 18:16, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- Per WP:ALTNAME, the length borders on "[needing] to balance the desire to maximize the information available to the reader with the need to maintain readability." So is the point of adding "Steph" because someone that entered "Stephen Curry" must know that "Steph" is sometimes (but not commonly) used, or is it that someone entering "Steph Curry" would be terribly shocked that they ended up at an article named "Stephen Curry"? I'd argue both cases are not that big of a concern.—Bagumba (talk) 18:40, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- One large reason for the inclusion of Steph is that there are quotations later in the article that use it. It also makes the page more useful as a reference (the current wording isn't ideal). Something like this could be done:[a] --Hameltion (talk, contribs) 18:49, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- Sure, but people are generally not going to scratch their heads when they see "Steph" in a quote in an article titled "Stephen". Otherwise, the WP copycats will start cluttering the lead with trivial things like "Timmy" to Tim Lincecum (just because there is a quote with the diminutive form), or the ever-present (and obvious) 1st-initial-with-1st-syllable-of-last-name nickname (e.g. "D-Fish" for Derek Fisher).—Bagumba (talk) 19:10, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- One large reason for the inclusion of Steph is that there are quotations later in the article that use it. It also makes the page more useful as a reference (the current wording isn't ideal). Something like this could be done:[a] --Hameltion (talk, contribs) 18:49, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- Per WP:ALTNAME, the length borders on "[needing] to balance the desire to maximize the information available to the reader with the need to maintain readability." So is the point of adding "Steph" because someone that entered "Stephen Curry" must know that "Steph" is sometimes (but not commonly) used, or is it that someone entering "Steph Curry" would be terribly shocked that they ended up at an article named "Stephen Curry"? I'd argue both cases are not that big of a concern.—Bagumba (talk) 18:40, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- But that acurate;y reflects the position for that person? GiantSnowman 18:16, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- @GiantSnowman: One issue with your edit to change to "
- PS whatever is decided, it should never be brackets...! GiantSnowman 17:20, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- @SMcCandlish: Your concern about "Steph" being a rare male name can alternatively be addressed by showing in the first sentence that "Stephen" is pronounced as STEF-en (and not like "Steven").—Bagumba (talk) 18:01, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- Except no one reads those pronunciation things unless they've encountered something mystifying to them. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 18:22, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- True, but entering "Steph" and seeing "Stephen" isn't incredibly shocking either.—Bagumba (talk) 18:40, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- I'm not sure what the point is of responding to my case outlining why it can be confusing to just assert "no it can't". That's not a rebuttal, it's just contrariness. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 19:05, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- True, but entering "Steph" and seeing "Stephen" isn't incredibly shocking either.—Bagumba (talk) 18:40, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- Except no one reads those pronunciation things unless they've encountered something mystifying to them. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 18:22, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- Note
I don't see the problem with "Wardell Stephen Curry II (born March 14, 1988), commonly known as Stephen Curry and sometimes as Steph Curry". It's clear and unambiguous. We need to get away from inserting hypocorisms and nicknames in the middle of the name; that's certainly not clear. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:44, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
- Agreed. GiantSnowman 14:20, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
- Works for me, too, though I think "certainly not clear" is a stretch. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 17:44, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
Criteria for "common" hypocorisms
Who determines whether a hypocorism is sufficiently "common" to be removed from an opening sentence? For example, at Dolly Collins, born Dorothy Ann Collins, an editor has removed "Dolly" from the initial mention of the name on the basis of MOS:NICKNAME. And yet "Dolly" is not listed as a hypocorism for Dorothy at our article - Dotty is. Are these issues to be determined on a case-by-case basis, or does there need to be a list of "common hypocorisms"? Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:02, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
- Clearly Dolly isn't a common hypocorism, definitely add it back. There really needs to be common sense used with MOS:NICKNAME, its getting pretty ridiculous. Perhaps "common" needs to be changed to "obvious" in the MOS. As someone has mentioned before, the English Wikipedia is not just British/American English, it includes Indian English, Caribbean English etc. Even if Dorothy Ann Collins was known as Dotty, it wouldn't be clear to some readers where that has come from. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 22:51, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
- The problems come when different editors have very different interpretations of what is "common sense", or "obvious". A list of common hypocorisms - or a link to the list at the hypocorism article - might help maintain consistency. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:39, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
- Most of our policy and guideline material is written this way; it's just the nature of the beast. Cf. parallel discussions at WT:Wikipedia is not a dictionary about neologisms and whether something qualifies as one, and many similar discussions. Our WP:P&G aren't a legal code, but generalized rules of thumb we collectively interpret via application of WP:Common sense and consensus building. (Where a policy approaches legal rigidity, it's generally because there is in fact a legal issue at stake, as with WP:COPYRIGHT and WP:BLP and WP:THREAT; most of that policy material was imposed on the community, at least in its core elements, by WP:OFFICE.)
As with any "style" (broadly defined) matter not enumerated in detail (as some things are, usually for technical reasons), it's up to editorial consensus at a particular article whether a hypocorism is common/obvious enough to need or not need mention. This is largely avoided by just including a "better known as" line. If someone named Christopher or Christine is not actually better known as Chris, then we have little reason to ever mention that hypocorism in our article. Edward James Olmos is a great example; if you watch interviews and listen to DVD commentaries, you'll find he's regularly referred to as "Ed" or "Eddie" by people who personally know and work with him, but reliable sources about him do not do this, so WP has no reason to ever mention either hypocorism is relation to him as a subject here, at his own article or elsewhere.
Anyway, Dolly and Dottie (along various spelling variants) as hypocorisms of Dorothy are not "common" or "obvious" enough (especially given the lack of popularity of any of these names since ca. the mid-20th century) to do without something like "Dorothy Ann Collins ... better known as Dolly Collins" or "Dorothy Ann (Dolly) Collins". We need to avoid making regional or generational assumptions about typical reader understanding. As just one example, the female given name Gemma is extremely common in the UK and fairly common in some other parts of the Commonwealth, but only rarely unencountered in the US; the average American probably assumes it's a hypocorism of Jemima (Jemma is probably better attested in US English than Gemma), Gemini, Angelica, or some other name. And not everyone called Dolly is named Dorothy; some people pick up nicknames for other reasons than hypocorism.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 20:05, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
- Most of our policy and guideline material is written this way; it's just the nature of the beast. Cf. parallel discussions at WT:Wikipedia is not a dictionary about neologisms and whether something qualifies as one, and many similar discussions. Our WP:P&G aren't a legal code, but generalized rules of thumb we collectively interpret via application of WP:Common sense and consensus building. (Where a policy approaches legal rigidity, it's generally because there is in fact a legal issue at stake, as with WP:COPYRIGHT and WP:BLP and WP:THREAT; most of that policy material was imposed on the community, at least in its core elements, by WP:OFFICE.)
- The problems come when different editors have very different interpretations of what is "common sense", or "obvious". A list of common hypocorisms - or a link to the list at the hypocorism article - might help maintain consistency. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:39, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
Name in different script
The example for Gadaffi in MOS:BIRTHNAME shows his name spelled out in arabic script in the lead, but @Wehwalt: has removed a similar addition to Abdul Karim (the Munshi) saying "rv, this is the English Wikipedia. Links to those articles in other languages are on the left". It would be helpful if the MOS included a positive statement about this situation, where the subject of a biography has a name which is not originally written in western script, so that we have chapter and verse to refer to in such discussions rather than just having to pick an illustrative example. PamD 16:33, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
- The lede sentence, our chief opportunity to draw the reader in and get him to read on, should be as free of clutter as possible, and script that most users of the English Wikipedia cannot read, qualifies as clutter. I recall multiple discussions on this topic, but my internet is limited right now and I can't dig them up. To most people using the English Wikipedia, links in foreign script aren't helpful and shouldn't be in the first sentence. Interlanguage links are on the left, footnotes can be dropped, and the script can be reproduced in the infobox, if there is one. The objection is not to having it in the article, it's to having right at the top of the article. Examples include Nikita Khrushchev, a FA of almost a decade's standing where the matter is handled by a footnote and by placing the Cyrillic in the infobox for this very reason.
- If you are going to make changes to the MOS here or how we practice under it, it should have very broad discussion, including at WT:FAC.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:50, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
- The article at Muammar Gaddafi does not match the example given at MOS:BIRTHNAME. I won't comment here on the merits of including or excluding the native script in the first sentence, because that wasn't the question. I think it's reasonable to ask that the MOS not include an example of something that we do not recommend. Kendall-K1 (talk) 17:40, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
- FAs are inconsistent: Looking at the first biographical category, Wikipedia:Featured_articles#Art.2C_architecture.2C_and_archaeology_biographies, as a sample and looking for non-western-sounding names shows I. M. Pei with his Chinese script name in infobox only but El Lissitzky and Hu Zhengyan with their Russian and Chinese names respectively in their leads.
- The Gadaffi example was added on 4 October 2015 by @Darx9url: and no-one appears to have objected at the time. ... ah, but I now see that Muammar Gaddafi doesn't include the arabic spelling of his name in the lead, just at the top of the infobox. So our MOS example isn't followed in the real article. Hmm, some tidying up is needed here perhaps. PamD 17:44, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
- The addition of foreign alphabets in the lead (of Indian-related articles in particular) is generally deprecated by WP:INDICSCRIPT (the result of 9 discussions) and WP:LEADCLUTTER. DrKay (talk) 18:52, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
- The MoS bit should just be updated to say it should be in the lead or the infobox, then. We want it somewhere. For one thing, the entire world's online resources are not all in English and Latin script; people need to be able to copy-paste such a name and search for it, so "just exclude it entirely 'cause USEENGLISH" is a bogus argument. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 23:41, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
Dummy?
SMcCandlish inter alia: do we have any links to good biographical articles of short, medium and longer content, examplifying more or less the essential contents of the manual of style and WP:CONSISTENCY? Chicbyaccident (talk) 14:47, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
- Not that I know of. Recent WP:FAs and maybe WP:GAs are more likely than average to be completely compliant. William A. Spinks is likely to be, because I wrote almost all of it and few others edit it, but it could use a once-over; even I haven't done much with it in a long time. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 19:14, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks for an example. However, for one thing, I have the impression that the section "Private life" most often emerges as content within "Early life, and background", presented most often as the first section? Well, I hope this serves to explain what I am looking for in a dummy. What about Jimmy Wales or Tim Berners-Lee?Chicbyaccident (talk) 19:41, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
- Oh, didn't know you were asking about sectional layout stuff. Yes, I think that article could have that material split into "Early life" and "Later life and death" sections, though having all the private-life stuff in one section is hardly unheard of (many stubs begin with it that way), and it was more common when I first wrote the article. Anyway, dunno how compliant the other two articles you mention are, when it comes to MoS basics. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 13:37, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
- Would it be convenient pushing a little bit more encouragement for WP:Consistency in sectional layout stuff where applicable, perhaps by referring to these mentioned articles? Chicbyaccident (talk) 19:24, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
- Oh, didn't know you were asking about sectional layout stuff. Yes, I think that article could have that material split into "Early life" and "Later life and death" sections, though having all the private-life stuff in one section is hardly unheard of (many stubs begin with it that way), and it was more common when I first wrote the article. Anyway, dunno how compliant the other two articles you mention are, when it comes to MoS basics. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 13:37, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks for an example. However, for one thing, I have the impression that the section "Private life" most often emerges as content within "Early life, and background", presented most often as the first section? Well, I hope this serves to explain what I am looking for in a dummy. What about Jimmy Wales or Tim Berners-Lee?Chicbyaccident (talk) 19:41, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
Surname only when there are multiple in the article with the same surname
section "Subsequent use" does not allow this an exceptionWakelamp (talk) 12:27, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
- I don't quite understand your concern. Is this not covered by the subsection MOS:SAMESURNAME? —Kusma (t·c) 12:39, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
- Yeah, that seems to be quite explicitly covered; there might be a confusion potential if these sections were widely separate but the latter is a subsection of the former, so there's nothing to fix here. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 13:34, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
Substantive revision of "Pseudonyms, stage names, nicknames, hypocorisms, and common names"
I've WP:BOLDly made a substantive revision of MOS:BIO#Pseudonyms, stage names, nicknames, hypocorisms, and common names: before and after, based on actual practice at WP:RM and elsewhere, and various discussions we've had here, at WT:MOS, and otherwise. The summary (and examples of recent cleanup):
- Fixes confusing, obtuse, or blathery wording throughout, including moving some stuff to a footnote.
- Merges redundant instructions, including a direct conflict between two sentences that were about the same thing.
- Applies consistent styling and examples.
- Consistency with MOS:CAPS, especially MOS:THECAPS (e.g. this sort of thing: [2], [3])
- Clarity that actual nicknames go in quotation marks, including when the nickname is outside the name and is not also the WP:COMMONNAME (e.g. this sort of thing: [4], [5]), and that hypocorisms and professional aliases do not.
- Nicknames are a not a magical exception to the rule that alternative names that are not redirects to the article do not go in boldface (e.g.: [6])
- Addresses various forms of redundant and otherwise terrible writing, especially in lead sections (e.g.: [7], [8])
- Reorders the material for logical flow.
- Adds cross-references to all the applicable guidelines and policies, for clarification and to avoid any further WP:POLICYFORKing.
- Introduces additional clear examples.
- Adds some more footnote material to forestall future disagreements or questions.
- Addresses the common and serious problem (especially in sportsfigure bios) of inserting bogus "nicknames" that are OR and NPoV issues.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 13:32, 26 November 2017 (UTC); "after" diff updated, to reflect later tweaks: 01:21, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
- Looking good! Much more clear than it was before. I've moved the "Also acceptable, when applicable" examples so that they are below the "If a person is known by a nickname used in lieu of or in addition to a given name" paragraph as that is what they are providing an alternative too. There is just one bit that leaves me confused; your additions about a "professional alias". I don't understand the "A nickname can eventually become a professional alias and lose the quotation marks" bit. I think what you are saying is:
- formerly; Ruth "Dr Ruth" Westheimer
- current; Ruth Westheimer, commonly known as Dr Ruth
- Am I wrong? I think those two examples are more about MOS:CREDENTIAL than MOS:NICKNAME. I'm not sure what it "adds" to MOS:NICKNAME if my reading has been correct. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 16:56, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
- I'm just avoiding repeating examples or similar examples. Those examples were originally included for credentialism purposes but incidentally illustrate when a familiar, casual nickname can transition into a professional alias (I think both of these are actually trademarks now). That said, it takes about as much room to make a cross reference as to give a single example, so we could do the latter, with any case that's distinct from Magic Johnson (i.e.: nickname used later on as a professional alias/pseudonym and thus no longer put in quotation marks, but is not the subject's WP:COMMONNAME). Anyway, it's not so much a "formerly" matter; I don't think we'd want to use "Ruth "Dr Ruth" Westheimer", at all, because a) it scans as redundant, and b) it doesn't indicate that Dr. Ruth was used in a stand-alone manner as an alternative name. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 01:08, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
- I'll leave a note at the WP:Manual of Style, Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons and WP:Biography talk pages about the recent changes for further input. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:50, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
- I'll leave a note at the WP:Common name talk page as well. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:56, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Substantive revision of "Birth date and place"
I've worked on MOS:BIO#Birth date and place (before and after) to centralize the basics on this, because editors expect to find this information here, not scattered around randomly. The gist:
- Describe actual practice.
- Make it agree with, and cross-reference, the brief mentions of some of this stuff at MOS:DATE
- Also make it consistent with MOS:ABBR.
- Provide good examples.
- Discourage willy-nilly inclusion of birth/death details when not needed.
- Indicate that using "b." and "d." in leads is deprecated (this was only found in MOS:DATE until now)
- Distinguish lead-sentence use from other cases (without dwelling on the latter, since this is a subsection of the "Opening paragraph" section).
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 01:04, 27 November 2017 (UTC)