Talk:Alice

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[edit] Things that don't belong here

As per Wikipedia:disambiguation disambiguation articles are for disambiguating amongst articles that would otherwise share the same title. To quote:

In most cases, do not list names of which Title is a part, unless the persons are very frequently referred to simply by their first or last name (e.g. Shakespeare, Galileo).

A whole swathe of entries for people that simply include the first name Alice as part of the title have been removed because they do not belong here. The encyclopaedia articles on these subjects would not have the title Alice (but would have the titles that they actually do have). Uncle G 19:01, 2005 Jun 5 (UTC)

This situation is similar to that of a redirect. From Wikipedia:Redirect:
Someone finds them useful. Hint: If someone says they find a redirect useful, they probably do. You might not find it useful — this is not because the other person is a liar, but because you browse Wikipedia in different ways.
You might not find the stuff in this article useful, but you do not know others' browsing habits. Now, Alice could redirect straight to an article, but there are multiple famous people/things named Alice. That is why it has to be a disambiguation page, and that is why this stuff in the article has to be kept. —Lowellian (talk) 01:35, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
Uncle G is correct about Wikipedia policy. If you don't agree with the policy, work to change it, don't just disobey it. Who cares whether it's "similar" to a redirect. This is a disambiguation page, and the WP policy on disambiguation pages is as Uncle G stated above. —Wahoofive (talk) 05:28, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Very well, I have. See Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. —Lowellian (talk) 17:30, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Unknown entry

Moved anon contribution ( 15 October 2005 - 82.30.237.80 ) to talk page for research and discussion. Does this person exist? WBardwin 08:26, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

==People named Alice==
  • Alice Louella Purcell, Twenty First Century Pirate, currently attempting to circumnavigate the globe in a converted tug boat

[edit] Merge with A.L.I.C.E.

I'm merging the dab A.L.I.C.E. with this dab (I'll be finished in about ten minutes). If anyone objects to these changes, please say so here. I'm doing this without first putting up a {{merge}} tag due to A.L.I.C.E. already having been split today, and this seemed to be the next natural course of action (and so I doubt anyone'll object, but I figured I should probably offer a place to do so). Hope there's no troubles, but this is easily revertable if necessary, and I don't imagine any problems. --Blackcap | talk 05:58, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't like the tendency on Wikipedia of merging acronyms with natural names and words. -Acjelen 06:11, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
O.K., I'll stop merging. Why don't you like that? It's much easier to navigate and find what you're looking for if you have just one page for one word. I don't really see a difference between natural words and acronyms in terms of dabs. A dab exists to help a person find what they need, and to split up that information unnecessarily makes it harder to do that. I don't find any information on acronyms/natural words in Wikipedia:Disambiguation or Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages), so there isn't (AFAICS) a precedent to go by either way; but it seems to me that merging would make navigation easier without any significant detriment. (Note: I'm going to put up {{merge}} tags directing to this talk now). Blackcap | talk 06:42, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I am always confused and surprised when looking for an acronym to find myself on a non-acronym (and usually messy) article or some page with lots of "And X is also" sections. It is equally maddening to search for a regular word and end up with an acronym. It seems to me that it would be better to name acronym articles in all capitals and non with the usual capitalization. Sadly, this runs into the tendency in non-American English to capitalize only the first letter of acronyms. -Acjelen 06:58, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

(migrated from Talk:A.L.I.C.E.#Split):

Actually, now that I think about it, it makes much more sense to merge this with Alice. Since the dab has already been done, I'm going to be bold and do it now, and it's easily changeable/revertable if there's disagreement. It seems that, though a split was a good idea, this finishes the job better and we won't then have two dabs with the same or similar information. Blackcap | talk 05:50, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I believe standard procedure with when both all-caps and lower case mean different things, is to have two different disambiguation pages and have them link to each other. I would think having ALICE and Alice would make the most sense here. -- SCZenz 06:20, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

(end migration)

Do you know where that information is? I couldn't find any precedents, or any relevant info in WP:D or Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages). If that's true, then there's no reason to talk about this further (here, anyways), but I didn't see that anywhere I looked. --Blackcap | talk 06:52, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, I think ATLAS and Atlas (disambiguation) are rather nice to have separated, and well-done. But I don't know of any guideline. The point is that all-caps denotes an acronym, which is rather different from different uses of a word—and we do have templates specifically for acronym pages, e.g. Template:5LA. -- SCZenz 08:34, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
support combined page True, I can understand the argument that people like to see ATLAS and Atlas separated, and I would normally take such an anally retentive line on this one myself. However I would expect that 95% of the droves would not distinguish when searching. The Principle of least astonishment should apply here, and I think that most people would be more astonished to find that searching for "Alice" does not match up with "ALICE" than if it did. I think that wikipedia should be organised in the way that makes it easiest for people to find what they are looking for. This is after all why we contribute to wikipedia, to share knowledge. As a result, I agree with Blackcap that there should be one page for the sequence of characters a-l-i-c-e and that this should be case-insensitive, providing a dab to all possible meanings of the 'word.' Guinness 13:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
The two pages should link to each other. So if somebody types in "ALICE" because his caps lock is on, and doesn't see what he's looking for, ther'll be a link at the bottom saying "Alice" also means many things, and they can try there. So the problem you describe doesn't exist—and I think it's silly to crowd more onto one disambiguation page than necessary, which may also confuse people. -- SCZenz 16:11, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Well spotted, you win the prize for spotting the deliberate flaw in my argument. Guinness 16:17, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Are you joking? A.L.I.C.E is hardly the usual thing people mean by "Alice". Maybe amongst certain computer geeks, but not most people... --Chaosfeary 11:30, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
either way, in future if you are having discussions like this could you put a {mergedisputed}} (no spaces) tag on rather than {merge}}, because then i would have known not to merge it without checking. thank you Jdcooper 14:35, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Sure, I didn't know that the {{mergedisputed}} tag existed. Either way, though, I'd recommend checking; it's probably not ever completely safe to merge without looking over the talk pages first. Blackcap | talk 15:33, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Honestly, there's a discuss link on the regular merge tag. If it were a no-brainer, somebody would have just done it already! {merge}} is not a work-request tag, it's a call for discussion. Or am I misreading what it says? -- SCZenz 16:28, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
To me, the fact that it is separate from the {mergedisputed}} tag implies that it is used for merges that aren't disputed, but i guess thats just a different way of looking at it. there are hundreds of articles that are no-brainers that no-one has done, i mistook this for another one. apologies, but its all sorted now i guess. Jdcooper 16:48, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] dab style

The first line currently reads:

Alice is a female given name.

I changed it to take out the wikilinks and they were edited back in. My reading of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) guideline is that they should not be there. Opinions? Tedernst 21:43, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Female definitely shouldn't be, because it's irrelevant. You're right that "given name" shouldn't be linked either, according to the manual of style, but if there's no article on just the name Alice itself than it couldn't hurt to leave it wikilinked. -- SCZenz 21:57, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
    • No, xe's not. The manual of style (which contains some poor recommendations anyway) says nothing at all about hyperlinks in the first line. Nor should there be articles on "just the name itself". Articles about the etymologies of names are why name disambiguations link to Wiktionary. Uncle G 23:36, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge reverted

The consensus of the discussion above, #Merge with A.L.I.C.E, seemed to me to be not to merge. I have therefore reverted the merge done just now without discussion. We can discuss it more, of course; it wasn't a terribly strong consensus. -- SCZenz 01:57, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Can we take down the merge tags now? It seems like there isn't any more discussion on the subject, and that the merge isn't going to happen. Blackcap | talk 00:58, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
I'd concur with that. -- SCZenz 10:04, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
O.K. then, I'll take them down. If anyone disagrees, and still has something to say about the merge, please feel free to put them back up. --Blackcap | talk 11:57, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Name meaning

The name derives from the Greek Alike, i.e. crimson, in the feminine.

I've never heard of this before. Every name keyring/etc I've owned, or seen, and every baby book (cite [1] for plausible example) states the name Alice (through 'Adelaide') is derived from Old German, and meaning 'Nobility'. Either the name has two eytomologies or one is wrong. Lady BlahDeBlah 20:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

That statement was introduced back on 23 March 2006 (see diff) by an anonymous user (62.1.67.52) who has made only one other contribution to Wikipedia. Since I find its authenticity to be highly dubious, I am removing it for the time being. CounterFX 02:49, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Older content

I know that this is an issue that was 'closed' several months ago, but, with reference to the "Things that don't belong here" section above, I was wondering whether it would make sense to re-introduce the older content present in the page before Uncle G's trim-down on 5 June 2005. I was not present when the original debate took place, but my opinion is that the article was much better defined and structured back then. The current version of the Manual of Style for disambiguation pages explicitly allows for such lists to be added below the main disambiguation list. If the consensus is that this will result in the page becoming too cluttered, a new Alice (given name) page could be created as recommended in the Manual of Style.

My rationale for this suggestion is the fact that deciding whether a person is sufficiently popular by first name alone to warrant inclusion in this page is often subjective and POV. For example, I myself would find the list inapplicable to even some of its most notable entries, such as Alice Cooper whom I have never encountered being mentioned by first name alone. Same goes for pretty much the rest of the persons in the list save for royalty, which are apparently being given a disproportionate advantage. CounterFX 02:32, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I am going ahead with the re-inclusion. If anyone disagrees with this move, please discuss it here before reverting. CounterFX 13:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
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