Talk:Johnson

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I've split this page off from Johnson, for two reasons. (1) This list is very long, and will grow longer. There are certain important parts of a disambiguation page that need to go at the end, and I think it's confusing to have a huge list like this sitting on top of those elements. (2) Not many people are likely to search for or link to "Johnson" if they're looking for a specific person. --Smack (talk) 04:14, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better to just link to List of people by name: Joh#Johnson? Saves people from editing in two places Sam Vimes 12:04, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I've reverted the split. The very point of name disambiguation articles such as Johnson is that people do look for people by their family name. Indeed, people are usually listed first in name disambiguation articles. A separate list is not the way to handle name disambiguation articles. Uncle G 12:09, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Samuel Johnson

I do not know enough about the prominence of the various Samuel Johnsons. However, I changed the Samuel Johnson link descriptor to multiple people. This is less drastic than moving the Samuel Johnson article to make way for a dab page, which I am considering posting on Requested moves as well. TonyTheTiger 22:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merger

[edit] Survey

Add * Support or * Oppose followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

Comment--can someone put a concise description of just what this survey is about? It is not at all clear from the discussion above what people are voting on here. older ≠ wiser 22:48, 2 December 2006 (UTC)


  • Support I believe that as an article the Surname article is incomplete and as a dab page the dab page is incomplete. I believe as with most names regardless of the length of the list of articles a surname dab page should include the related (by title) articles. Having a separate dab is unnecessary, confusing and contrary to standard procedure. TonyTheTiger 21:39, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. In virtually all cases, two disambiguation pages (although, strictly speaking, this article is more than just a disambiguation page) are not a good idea, because they can just confuse the reader. This is the exception, I think. While two pages can make the reader follow a extra wikilink to the page he/she wants (bad), combining the two pages would put the non-names at the very bottom of the article (worse) or at the top (worse) or mixed (terrible), and the non-disambiguation info on the surname would be problematical. (In other words, I think this is the exception that proves the rule.) John Broughton | Talk 20:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The dab page should list pages naturally called Johnson, such as places called Johnson, and organisations called Johnson. A list of people who share only the same surname does not belong on a disambiguation page; see the first paragraph of Wikipedia:Disambiguation. This has been discussed at length at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages). Also, accidental links to Johnson usually belong at one of the places called Johnson. If you wanted a person, you would type both names. If you know you're looking for a place, you shouldn't have to wade through a long list of people. A merge would result in an unmanageably long page, causing problems when using pop-ups to fix the incoming links. CarolGray 19:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • !voting. I thought the consensus at WP:MOSDAB was to only mention the names on the disambig page that people might frequently refer to by only their their last name. Furthermore, merging them would force the "family name" page to be formatted per the guidelines at WP:MOSDAB, which would mean a removal of the current introductory prose, and would prevent future expansion of the explanatory text. I think it's obvious it's better to keep them separate. --Interiot 20:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with the previous two posters. Two pages are appropriate here. In fact, I'd be tempted to say Johnson should be (or redirect to) the dab page and there be a Johnson (surname) page. (John User:Jwy talk) 22:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose per MoS:DAB. The guideline currently recommends shifting long lists of surnames to separate disambiguation pages. For the reasons stated above, it would be a bad idea to go against established convention in this case. --Muchness 22:19, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Since I'm not entirely sure what people are voting on here, I'm going to refrain from voting just yet. But I'll comment that I am in complete support of having a separate page for listing people named Johnson and another disambiguation page for all the other things (and perhaps possibly including some people who are commonly referred to solely as "Johnson"). older ≠ wiser 22:53, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conclusion

I'm removing the proposed merger tags from the two articles, based on the comments above. John Broughton | Talk 15:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Surname vs. disambiguation pages

While I have no problem with the split as voted, I have an issue with the naming. The current set up makes the disambigation page pretty useless. If I were to enter "Johnson" in the search box looking for a 60s politician, a reasonably likely thing, I would get this page. I would then have a sea of bluelinks to navigate first to find LBJ. I would suggest we structure it so the disambiguation page is first. This would probably mean moving this page to Johnson (surname). Does this make sense? (John User:Jwy talk) 17:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

  • That's a good idea. I support moving this page to Johnson (surname), then moving Johnson (disambiguation) here. CarolGray 20:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Coat of Arms

As a Johnson myself, I've never seen the coat of arms on this page before. The coat of arms I most commonly see is as shown here http://www.celticobsessions.com/Johnson.jpg but with a black background.

Although I am well aware that there are MANY Johnsons and therefore many branches of the name with their own arms, the one I've linked came top of the google image search, and seems to be more common. Spugmeister 23:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] OR

This article tries to make the mundane Anglo-Scandinavian surname Johnson into an aristocrat-ish name that came with the Normans to England.--Berig 07:59, 7 June 2007 (UTC) Bold text