Talk:Jonathan Edwards

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Jonathan Edwards (theologian) → Jonathan Edwards — This should be the primary page rather than one among several on the disambig page since nearly all the links to the disambig page should go to this one. Cf. WP:DISAMBIG#Primary_topic. —Flex (talk/contribs) 17:36, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support per my reasoning above. --Flex (talk/contribs) 17:39, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
• Support per above. --Brian0324 18:17, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
• Support It would be just as ridiculous to have "Thomas Jefferson (president)."--John Foxe 19:57, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
• Support (although Jonathan Edwards (President) has its points ;> Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
• Support; seems reasonable (the others seem to be of significantly lower notability). I can make the switch after a few days if there isn't any objection. --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 23:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - when I originaly moved the page it was because in different areas of the English speaking world different Johnathon Edwards' are more and less well known. In the U.S. the Jonathan Edwards might well be the most notable. However in the U.K. there is a very good chance that most people will be searching for the Jonathan Edwards the Gold medal Winning Olympian, former World Champion, Current World Record Holder and Televison presenter. When I type "Jonathan Edwards" into Google the first two results I get are [1] and [2]. Also bare in mind that athletics is a much bigger sport (in terms of media coverage, public support) in the U.K. and other parts of the commonwealth than it is in America.[[Guest9999 01:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)]]
  • You have a fair point that the more contemporary Edwards may have greater recognition among the general populace in England, but when I google for Jonathan Edwards, all the links and "related searches" on the first page are to the theologian, save one, which goes to the musician. Add to that that there are far more biographies, scholarly articles and books, encyclopedia entries, mentions in reliable sources (cf. [3], [4], [5], but not [6]), etc., not to mention a college and chair at one of America's and the world's top-tier Universities (Yale) named for the theologian -- all of which seem to be one reliable indicator of priority. Besides, the vast majority of the links to any of the WP's Jonathan Edwards (and particularly those going to Jonathan Edwards) intend to point to the theologian, which is the criterion explicitly mentioned in WP:DISAMBIG#Primary_topic. In short, the athlete is of interest mainly in Britain and has relatively few Wikipedia links, whereas the theologian is of world-wide scholarly and Christian interest and has many, many internal links. Until the athlete gains more internal links, I think the primary page should be the theologian with a link to the disambig page, of course. We could make it say something like "For the British athlete, see Jonathan Edwards (athlete), and for other uses see Jonathan Edwards (disambiguation)." --Flex (talk/contribs) 03:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Response It is also worthwhile using Google UK, and that has, on the first page, a number of news articles[7][8] on the athlete. I think the appeal to the "world-wide" significance of the theologian is a bit weak, since we haven't seen any evidence of him being well-known in non-English-speaking countries. StAnselm 02:55, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
• Support It is clear that the only real candidates for primary meaning are the Theologian and the Athlete. I checked the Google Books results - none of the top 100 were about the Athlete. I checked Google Scholar - again nothing on the Athlete. Google news is split between the Theologian, the Athlete, two other athletes, and Jonathan Edwards the new director general of MI5. Checking google web, the top 100 is clearly dominated by the Theologian; the athlete shows up about 6 times, with the highest two at 12 and 15 - having been beaten out by the musician (2 sites) and a winery (one site). Encyclopedia Brittanica clearly considers the theologian to be the primary topic; their Jonathan Edwards article is on him and other encyclopedia articles refer to him, while the athlete only gets mentions in year book coverage of the competitions, not in the encyclopedia proper. Only 2 of their 39 references to Jonathan Edwards refer to the athlete. [9][10][11]. I think we have adequate evidence that Theologian is the primary topic. GRBerry 04:52, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
• Support since that's where consensus seems to be Neutral As the athlete is more well known in the U.K., the theologian in the U.S. I'm pretty sure that most U.K. users would be looking for the athlete so if the move is put through then an additional link to the athlete as well as the disambiguation page should be put in, as suggested by Flex. [[Guest9999 10:16, 8 November 2007 (UTC)]][[Guest9999 10:55, 8 November 2007 (UTC)]]
• Oppose I do not think that the theologian will neccessarily be the person most people are searching for - for ease of use of all users from all nationalities using Wikipedia the name should link to the disambiguation page. Discussion at Talk:Jonathan Edwards (disambiguation) showed that many people were looking for the athlete when they typed in Jonathan Edwards - not the Theologian. Again the athlete is one of the best known athletes in Britian having won several medals - including an Olympic Gols and being one of the few - possibly only - British athletes to hold a current world record. He was also the BBC Sports Personality of the Year and appeared as a presenter on Songs of Praise a television show which has been running for over 45 years with millions of viewers each week. I do not doubt that in a hitorical context the theologian is the more improtant but I do feel that there is every possibility that the majority of people who type in Jonathan Edwards will be looking for the page on the athlete, Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopaedia it has a different readership and can hold itself to a different standard. [[Guest9999 21:08, 8 November 2007 (UTC)]]
• Support: I agree with Flex, but I don't much mind either way :). -- TimNelson 11:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: The argument against moving this seems to advocate in favor of recentism rather than about the overall quality of the encyclopedia over time. This athelete's records may be broken, but the historical primary subject of the (theologian) is likely to endure beyond our lifetime.Brian0324 21:53, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
• Reply My arguement isn't recentism, it is - and you may well consider this worse - nowism. Wikipedia should be based on the ease of use of the people who are using it right now, not a year, 10 years or 100 years in the future. Wikipedia makes it possible to taylor the encyclopaedia to the needs of the current user - if in the future the athlete has faded from sight but the theologian remains prominent then things can be changed. However now that is not the case (or at least it is my arguement that it is not). Wikipedia is not a crystal ball (policy) we should not try to predict serach trends of the future just respond to current ones. [[Guest9999]]
• Comment: There is too strong of a precedent with someone who has been famous for over 200 years to be bypassed by a recent athelete's fleeting fame. I'm just saying that Wikipedia should be about the long term in this instance. It's kind of diminution to say that he was just a theologian anyway!Brian0324 23:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• Reply You cannot know that his fame will be fleeting - there are athletes who have remained famous for decades - more to the point in the new "infoormation age" is it possible to predict who will be famous in years to come. Could anyone have predicted lonelygirl15 or Tila Tequila 10 years ago? As I said before the desicion should be based upon what users are currently searching for not for a future standard - we have the ability to make the encyclopaedia as user friendly as possible for any given period of time - why not take advantage of this. If John Edwards was known as Jonathan Edwards (Jonathan isn't actually his full name - it's juts an example) I would say the name should redirect to his page as he would be the one that most people will be searching for, if he dropped out of the political lime apectrum and interest dried up the page could go back to disambigous, if he was elected president the page would probably be linked to him for some time (again I know it's not his name, only a - slightly protracted - example). [[Guest9999 23:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)]]

• Oppose The theologian is probably the most famous holder of the name in the US, but Wikipedia does not have (or should not have) a US-centric bias. Globally, a recent multiple gold medal winner and former world record holder has the greater name recognition. I also agree with those who argue that Wikipedia's structure should reflect what people are looking for now, rather than what has previously been considered important. After all, it's not as if this decision is permanent - in twenty years time, it's quite possible that Jonathan Edwards the athlete will be prety much forgotten, and Wikipedia can be changed to reflect this. MarkSG 21:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply and proposal: I think it's more accurate to say that the theologian is likely the most famous everywhere except in the UK. But even in the UK there has been and continues to be considerable scholarly and popular interest in the theologian. It was the UK's Banner of Truth Trust that published the theologian's works in two volumes for popular consumption (not the exhaustive, critical edition that Yale is and has been in the process of publishing over the years) and its founder Englishman Iain Murray who wrote a biography of Edwards, and the famous Welsh preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones has written about and encouraged Christians to read Edwards,[12] as has British theologian J. I. Packer (see "Puritan Evangelism" from his Quest for Godliness, etc.). I could go on, but the point is that the theologian is not only important in the US, whereas interest in the athlete seems to be nearly limited to the UK, and indeed the theologian is important to Christianity everywhere and in American even more so. Of course, all this doesn't necessarily mean your argument about the WP's structure is nullified. The thing still lingering in my mind is that the disambiguation page will list this towering figure among others in similar disciplines who share his name, but this seems to be in violation of the spirit of WP:DISAMBIG#Primary_topic. Thus, I propose again that we make the theologian the primary page with the disambig notice at the top reading something like: "For the British athlete, see Jonathan Edwards (athlete), and for other uses see Jonathan Edwards (disambiguation)." That seems to me to give adequate attention to the UK-specific interest while keeping the theologian of world-wide interest at the forefront. Lastly, I propose that if this suggestion is not accepted, we should consider other names for this page than Jonathan Edwards (theologian) since he is equally or perhaps better known as a preacher and revivalist, though his theological/philosophical contributions (esp. the Freedom of the Will) are certainly nothing to sneeze at. --Flex (talk/contribs) 15:08, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Reply: I think it's untrue to say that interest in the athlete is nearly limited to the UK. A more accurate distinction, I think, is that interest in the athlete is greater among people worldwide with interest in Olympic discipline sports. The US is unusual in this respect in not having a significant body of sports fans who are followers of the Olympics and related events; in most of the world an Olympic champion commands much greater name recognition. The theologian, on the other hand, despite being of some degree of interest in the UK as well as the US, has virtually no interest in most of the rest of the world. It's certainly not true at all to say that the theologian is "important to Christianity everywhere", as his work was carried out in a fairly small subset of global Christianity - albeit one that is a dominant form in the US. He had a significant input into US Christianity, yes, and a smaller but also significant input into UK Protestant Christianity, but outside these two countries he remains virtually unknown. That, too, is a reason why making the theologian the primary page would be, IMO, unjustifiably US-centric. MarkSG 20:17, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Reply: I think it is quite fair to say that Christianity in general and Reformed Christianity in particular, which is a world-wide and sizable body of Christians, have been considerably influenced by Edwards and know about him. I don't think his influence is limited to the US and UK at all. Our back-n-fourth is pretty much he-said/she-said at this point: you say the world-at-large cares more about the athlete, and I say it cares more about the theologian. I admit my claims about the athlete are entirely based on the statements I have read here, personal opinion (I had never heard of him), and cursory googling. Are there any objective metrics we can use to judge if there should be any priority? Perhaps number of citations in reliable sources? --Flex (talk/contribs) 21:13, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Comment: Agree with the above comment by Flex. Also, one major impetus behind this move is that we need to have something better because he was more than a theologian. I really think that he is better known as a preacher or as the president of Princeton.Brian0324 21:22, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
      • (ec)I think you (MarkSG) are navel-gazing too much. I tested the external evidence (above and again here) and have found that the long-jumper is already clearly far behind the theologian as a primary subject of interest to the English speaking world. In fact, the triple-jumper isn't even the athlete of greatest current interest by this name any more; that privilege goes to Jonathan Edwards (rugby player) who plays for the Llanelli Scarlets. As far as I can tell, the theologian is clearly the primary topic. I'm not even convinced anymore that the athlete is clearly second; it appears to be the musician right now. If there truly is great interest in the triple-jumper, where is the evidence of it? He only shows up in google news at all for comments he made in the past about various current athletes, not for anyone saying anything about him. Google web, which is meant to rank by likeliness that a page is something being searched for, ranks today (changed a bit from last week) sites related to various things with this name as follows: musician 1 & 8; theologian 2-7, 9-10, 20-22; triple-jumper 11 & 17; winery 12; illustrator 13 & 15; a programmer 14 & 18; a yankee group researcher 16; the college 19. This is prettly clear evidence that the theologian is in fact already the primary topic for current use; the triple-jumper is at best third in current usage. GRBerry 21:25, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
        • Reply: But I think Google in the UK may return different results. --Flex (talk/contribs) 21:47, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
          • If it does, I'd certainly like to know, so I know how to evaluate google evidence in the future. If it did, we'd eliminate google web & news evidence from consideration - but I'd still say the theologian is primary based on the Encyclopedia Brittanica evidence. GRBerry 21:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
            • When I type in "Jonathon Edwards" into google.com from the UK the first to results are about the athlete. If this is not the case when someone in the USA types in the same name, it is likely that Google results differ depending on where the user is. If this is the case it's not really surprising that people searching in the U.S.A. are getting results topped by the Jonathan Edwards from the U.S.A. and people searching in the U.K. are getting results topped by his U.K. namesake - as would appear to be the case from this discussion. [[Guest9999 00:13, 13 November 2007 (UTC)]]
              • And it might be informative if someone in South Africa, Australia, or any other country told us what they get. Perhaps even different parts of the UK get different results. What about Scotland, for instance? --Flex (talk/contribs) 00:47, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

• The UK result that I mentioned was actually taken in Scotland (St. Andrews), I don't imagine there would be regional variation around the UK, however if anything the athlete might be more prominent in England (as he is English - although represented the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland whilst competing). [[Guest9999 14:31, 14 November 2007 (UTC)]]

• Strongly oppose As Flex suspected, I'm familiar with both. I've often seen the athlete on TV - Olympic (and Commonwealth Games!) atheletics is very important here in Australia. We need to be careful, not only of a US bias, but also of a Christian bias - though the triple jumper is, of course, a committed Christian. But there will be a lot of people in the UK who have heard of the athlete, but not the theologian. This is a clear example of where the disambiguation page has to be the main one. StAnselm 02:37, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually, I see now that he has backed away from his previous Christian commitments. StAnselm 02:57, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
• Comment There's been a fair bit said how JE the theologian is more important, but of course we need to decide based on NOTABILITY, which isn't the same thing. StAnselm 05:00, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Personally I think that they are both (athlete and theologian) clearly notable (per WP:NN), trying to say who is more notable is a bit tricky as it is not covered by the guideline and should probably be avoided. I think that from a historical perspective the theologian is more important whereas the contemporary athlete is probably more famous in large parts of the modern world. I do not think that the page location should be based on relative notability, fame or importance - notability has been well established in each case and fame and importance are quite subjective and subject to regional variation. What can be more practically looked at is the question of what most users intending to find when the type in "Jonathan Edwards". [[Guest9999 09:18, 13 November 2007 (UTC)]]
    • I understand what you mean about notability vs. importance, but WP:DISAMBIG#Primary_topic brings this up. It would be ridiculous to have, say, Michaelangelo (artist) because there is also a notable cartoon/toy by the same name, so I don't think the guideline is way off base here. That being said, StAnselm's comments above have convinced me that we should go to a disambig page. --Flex (talk/contribs) 13:25, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose (revised vote): per StAnselm above. We can make it like Michelangelo (disambiguation) in that it highlights the two most important figures bearing this name, and we can also rename this page to Jonathan Edwards (revivalist) or Jonathan Edwards (preacher) or whatever -- but that's a separate discussion. --Flex (talk/contribs) 13:25, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: I have revised the disambiguation page accordingly. --Flex (talk/contribs) 14:08, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
• Semi-support I continue to believe that this Jonathan Edwards is indeed the primary meaning, based primarily on the evidence from other encyclopedias, and secondarily on the google scholar/book results. However, the new evidence that google web results vary by country makes the case insufficiently clear that it is also acceptable to leave a disambiguation page as the primary redirect for the time being. I think the "athlete" should eventually be redisambiguated to "triple-jumper" as there are other athletes named Jonathan Edwards who are currently getting equivalent attention. I'm not sure if and how this page should be redisambiguated should it not be determined to be the primary meaning. GRBerry 14:49, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
  • See this prominent reliable source as an example: [13]. By contrast as I mentioned above, the NYTimes has virtually no references to the athlete but plenty to the theologian, so it seems reasonable to me to do a disambig. --Flex (talk/contribs) 15:43, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
• Strongly support - same reasons as before. methodist church and pentecostal churches represent almost a third of the Christian population today, and the theologian is one of those contributers. the athlete seems to be only known in england, where as the theologian has contributed to the world wide church and will never be forgotten. the USA wasn't founded until after Edwards died. I agree that its time to fix this article. it should never have been moved. I also remember a tv personality with this name on American tv for several years, and no one remembers him. The athlete is still unknown and may never been world-wide; more likely, as soon as he is replaced he will be forgotten like the tv personality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.155.48.217 (talk • contribs)
• Support - clearly the most prominent person on that list, without even a question. He's the most famous preacher in US history (even more so than John Wesley). To put a recent sportsman on par with this person in terms of disambiguation would be a serious disservice to the quality of the encyclopedia (and, to be quite frank, a worrisome show of anti-Americanism). This would be the equivalent of having an American long jumper on par with William Pitt (a page which, incidentally, is diambiguated, but only because there was the elder and younger). The Evil Spartan (talk) 09:01, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment if Brad Pitt used his birth name of "William Pitt" then I would suggest that "William Pitt" should direct to his page as he is by far the most famous, in the U.K., the U.S.A. and everwhere else and would be the subject of by far the most searches. This would be despite the politicians being far more important (in my opinion) in a historical sense. The simple fact is that in U.K. (and from this discussion likely Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the common wealth) the athlete will be the person that people are looking for. I really think that people are overestimating how well known the theologian is outside of religeous Christians in the U.S.A. So far only one person I've asked has even heard of the man and they didn't know who he was. Ask yourselves this - how many important Hindu (600 million worldwide) or Muslim (1 bilion worldwide) theologians can you name? I fully accept that the theologian will be more importnat in historical terms but currently the majority of users may well be searching for the athlete - or another Jonathan Edwards entirely. Please note that even the user who requested this move has changed his opinion based on the discussion. [[Guest9999 (talk) 22:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)]]

• Oppose - the current situation works just fine. If there was to be a primary occupier of the Jonathan Edwards page, I'd go for the triple jumper. - fchd (talk) 21:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - I agree with Guest9999 and fchd. In my experience most people talking about Jonathan Edwards would be talking about the athlete. He is very much a "household name", at least in the UK. I'm sorry to say that the theologian is not a household name in the UK, and I expect the same is true in many countries. Wikipedia can't be allowed to assert that theology is more important than sport. Let's keep it balanced, and keep it all with the disambiguation page. Sam Staton (talk) 13:40, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Any additional comments:

• A quick comment/query. What about the links (from main/portal/template spaces only) to each article as well as those directly to the disambiguation page? I think the total population will probably give us a better picture of the overall primary topic. I don't have time right now to check myself, and don't want to opine based on which one(s) I knew about before looking at the disambiguation page. GRBerry 18:39, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I checked, and it looks to me like the links to the theologian are significantly more in number than all to the others put together. --Flex (talk/contribs) 19:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
    • The link count is, upon review, significantly distorted by links from navigation templates. For example, Jonathan Edwards (academic) is only directly linked by 3 articles, but is also in a template that is on 30 pages. The theologian is linked from 13 articles and 1 minor portal page. The athlete is in four different navigation templates, which are on lots of articles, making it hard to figure out what the true links to his article are. I think there are more Wikipedia links to the athlete's article, even after discounting for the template links, than to the theologian's article. But I also think that Wikipedia links isn't even a important measure - the important measure is the general reader's likely interest, and the google test is better for that. GRBerry 04:34, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Technical question: How do you come up with your link counts that exclude templates? Do you count pages that have a template and a link in the text? --Flex (talk/contribs) 05:18, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
        • I did manual subtraction, so I may be undercounting the folks with nav template. I considered temporarily removing them from the templates an getting a clean article text list - but decided that wasn't worth doing. Since there are no nav templates that include the Theologian, the possible undercounting doesn't change my belief that the Athlete has more text links. But, as I said above, counting wikipedia links is the wrong approach. As described at WP:CSB, we have systemic biases, making Wikipedia link counting incorrect. Relevant biases include those for pop culture topics, recentism, and for religious topics, and the overall effect of the bias is impossible to determine. So we need to go look at the real world, not at current wikipedia links. GRBerry 14:08, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
          • I agree with you about systematic bias and recentism, but I think link count (minus templates) can still be a useful measure. Anyway, Template:Calvinism includes the theologian, though it doesn't seem to add that much. [Update: I believe I have may have overstated the number of links to the theologian vs. the others, but I am not convinced that the athlete actually has more after excluding templates. In any case, the disparity is not as great as I originally suggested.] --Flex (talk/contribs) 18:36, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
• There is some older relevant discussion at Talk:Jonathan Edwards (disambiguation). GRBerry 04:04, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Is there any way to tell which article (that for the athlete or that for the theologian) most people are looking for when they type in Jonathan Edwards. Page views or something? When I type "Jonathon Edwards" into Google (from in the UK - I don't know if that makes a difference) the Wikipedia page for the athlete is the first result and the page for the theologian is the third result. [14] Aren't google rankings somewhat based on how many people view a page? I agree in a Historical context the theologian is more important and he is probably more well known the America but in terms of ease of use of Wikipedia I think that linking to the disambiguation page is the better option. If in the future interest in the athlete has waned but interest in the theologian has remained then the link could be changed. About half of the people who took place in the discussion at Talk:Jonathan Edwards (disambiguation) were searching for the athlete or belived that currently the theologian would not be the most searched for person with the name. [[Guest9999 20:52, 8 November 2007 (UTC)]]
    • Not that I'm aware of, though the number of edits (including vandalism!) in their respective page histories may give some indication -- the athlete has over 600, the theologian has almost 1000, though it appears the latter history may be truncated since the article is quite tlong when it was "moved" from Jonathan Edwards in the earliest revision listed. --Flex (talk/contribs) 21:21, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• To my mind those figures are not significantly different. Considering that theology is a more controversial topic than athletics you would expect the article to be more heavily edited. I don't know if it's relevant but isn't the fact that the page is a vandal target another reason why it should not be used as a page a large proportion of people will visit just to be redirected. The more stable disambiguation page would seem like a better option. [[Guest9999 22:59, 8 November 2007 (UTC)]]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.