Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)/Archive 5

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

What do you think?

This isn't a poll, just a request for opinions. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 15:15, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

  1. If someone is ethnically Russian, but was born in Germany, should he be described in the opening paragraph as "German", "Russian", or something else?
  2. If someone is ethnically Irish, but was born in South Africa under British rule, should he be described in the opening paragraph as "Irish", "British", "South African", or something else?
  3. If someone was born in the U.S., but his father was born in Lithuania and his mother was born in Haiti, should that person be described in the opening paragraph as "American", "Haitian-Lithuanian", or something else?
  4. Should these decisions be dependant on the countries in question (e.g. should we refer to people born in Germany with Russian heritage as different than people born in the U.S. with Russian heritage), and if so, why?

IMHO, nationality is, except where a state comprises more than one nation (e.g. the UK), citizenship. Since different countries have different rules on citizenship (some do it by birthplace, some by blood), the conundrum examples above are red herrings; if someone has American citizenship he is American, etc. The only cases where we need to go into more detail in the lead of an article is where the person has dual nationality or where the person has changed citizenship (e.g. Mstislav Rostropovich.) All other aspects of ethnicity and birthplace belong in the appropriate stage of the biography (normally "Early years"). Mark[[User talk:Markalexander100|1]] 15:57, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

In general I agree with Mark above -- "nationality" should normally mean ciitizenship for this purpose (Indeend "nationality is used in legal writng as a broader term for citizenship, to include those states that do not call their nationals "citizens" but rather "subjects" or some other term.) Obviously where a person has changed citizenship there is a problem -- most often I would favor statign the current situation, but when a person's main notability was gained while a national of one country, then that is what should IMO be mentioned in the lead. Ethnicity, as opposed to nationality (aka citizenship) should not normally be mentioned in the lead, except where it is esential to the person's notability. For example the entry on Martin Luther King Jr should probaly mention his ethnicity (african-american) in the lead, because he is most noted as a leader of and advocate for African-americans. Similarly the writer Sholom Aleichem is said to be "Russian Jewish" and this is probably the best way to handle such a case -- to simply say "Russian" would be misleading in his case. But such cases are IMO rare. DES (talk) 16:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia's article Nationality spells it out quite clearly. Cypriot stud's use of the word is clearly the "Alternative Usage" - a definition which is prefaced with "In several non-English speaking areas of the world...". This debate may very well simply come down to the connotation of "Nationality" that each editor has become accustomed to. Given that this is the English version of Wikipedia, we should use the definition as per English-speaking countries. In English-speaking countries, "ethnicity" has no effect on "Nationality." -- Renesis13 16:34, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

That is manifestly not a true styatement in my English speaking countries. Ask a British Welshman or Scotsman if what their nationality is and they will tell you their ethnic nationality Welsh or Scottish, not British which is their legal nationality. Ask a Quebecois if they a Canadian and many will vehemently deny it, yet legally they are. Ethnicity often far outweighs legal nationality. Another annoying trait of Wikipedia's insistence on including nationality is when edit wars break out over people with mixed origins and one group wants their hero to be wholly one nationality and another is convoinced he comes from their side. As a result a lot more heat than light is generated. I personally prefer to give a fuller picture which includes, where appropriate ethnicity and citizenship, not just one orthe other. Albert Einstein was German Jewish and later well after he came to fame and American citizen. He is described as German- American which is a reasonable compromise. Dabbler 14:46, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, the UK is an odd place in having several nations in one state, but it's a useful example to clarify the relationship between ethnicity, nationality and citizenship. Many people in Glasgow are of Pakistani ethnicity, Scottish nationality and UK citizenship, for example. In most cases, however, "nationality is citizenship" is a reasonable rule of thumb (it would also reasonably cover your Einstein example, German and American being his two citizenships; I note that you don't actually suggest including his Jewish ethnicity). Mark1 15:21, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually the full description in Albert Einstein is a "German-American of Jewish descent" which is what I agreed with, I just cut that out last time. It more fully decribs him, his life and origins that any of the individual components alone. But I am still opposed to the Wikipedia insistence on having citizenship, nationaity or even ethnicity as a defining characteristic of anyone in the first paragraph. It often does not reflect the true complexities of the individual or their life. I would rather that, if it is relevant, that it be explained in an "Early life" or "Events in the life" paragraph. Dabbler 15:50, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
You have a point. But then again, the Wikipedia article on Nation seems to say the opposite.
The nationals (the members of the "nation") are distinguished by a common identity, and almost always by a common origin, in the sense of ancestry, parentage or descent. The national identity refers both to the distinguishing features of the group, and to the individual’s sense of belonging to it.
. . .and. . .
The term nation is often used synonymously with ethnic group
. . .and. . .
In common usage, terms such as nations, country, land, and state often appear as near-synonyms. . . In a more strict sense, however, terms such as nation, ethnos, and peoples denominate a group of human beings, in contrast to country which denominates a territory, whereas state expresses a legitimised administrative and decision-making institution.
. . .and. . .
In most countries citizenship is sharply distinguished from nationality.
So it's ambiguous. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 17:38, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi, all.
Markalexander100, that is precisely what I have been saying. You wrote: IMHO, nationality is, except where a state comprises more than one nation (e.g. the UK), citizenship.. The fact is, nationality is not citizenship. Your edits seem to me to be based on your personal view. Nationality is the status of a person in relation to a particular nation by birth and descent (and in one dictionary (Dictionary.com), naturalisation, too). Why should you favour birth place over descent? My style has been to fully include the whole meaning of nationality by adding both descent and birth, which is sensible anyway.

To answer Quadel's 'opinion poll', my views are as follows:

  1. The nationality of somebody ethnically Russian born in Germany is both Russian and German. To simplify things, he should be called a German-Russian (a common practice outside of Wikipedia, which is correct anyway).
  1. He should be called a South African-Irish for the same reasons as above. Just like when Cyprus was under British rule (sorry for always using Greeks and Cypriots to compare things. It's just that I have a greater knowledge on them than anything else): they were still classed as Cypriots (actually, they were classed ethnically as Greeks!). Queen Elizabeth II is the queen of Canada, but that doesn't make Canadians British, does it?
  1. He should be described as biethnic American-born. I opt for this since I think that American-Lithuanian-Haitan isn't the best way to describe him. By using biethnic American-born, all of the areas of nationality are covered ('biethnic' for descent, 'American-born' for birth), and his actual ethnicities should be described somehwere other than the opening paragraph (although if you prefer 'American-born Lithuanian-Haitan' or 'American-born singer/actor etc. of Lithuanian and Haitan descent' I have no objection to that, as it's equally as good).
  1. No, that would be unfair. Why should different rules apply to certain countries? It's pointless and biased, in a sense. Rules are rules, regardless of which country we are talking about.

I must say that because different countries have different rules and views on nationality and citizenship (and this is the Anglophone version of Wikipedia), it is logical and 'safer' to go by what the English dictionary says nationality is, rather than having confusing, multiple conventions for different articles when it can be more comprehendible with one system. As for those baring a different citizenship to that of their nationality or ethnicity, this should be mentioned in the 'Personal Life' section of the article. This would apply, for example, to actress Angelina Jolie, who holds Cambodian citizenship despite being born in the United States to an English-Czech father and an Iroquois-French Canadian mother.

Finally, I propose the following:

  1. For those whose parents originate from a different country to that of their birth place, they should be labelled with two nationalities, for example, actor, Kirk Douglas was born in the USA to Belarusian parents, thus he should be called a Belarusian-American.
  1. For those whose parents originate from different, separate countries to each other and to that of the subject's birth place, they should be labelled biethnic + birth place-born, as in the case of Nicholas Cage, whose mother is German, and whose father is Italian, thus he should be a biethnic American-born actor.
  1. For those whose parents are of more than two ethnicities, they should be labelled multiethnic + birth place-born, as in the case of golfer Tiger Woods, whose mother is of Thai, Chinese, and Dutch descent, and whose father is of Cherokee, African, and Chinese origin, thus he should be called a multiethnic American-born golfer.
  1. Finally, as for those who have one parent originating from their birth country and one foreign parent, they should be labelled as the first example, for example, Natalie Imbruglia, who was born in Australia to an Australian mother and an Italian father, thus she is an Australian-Italian singer.

The only problem is for those who are of just a quarter foreign descent (like Lisa Scott-Lee). My only thoughts would be for her to either be labelled as a Welsh-Chinese singer, or a Welsh singer of ¼ Chinese descent.

This is not (or should not be) an abstract discussion of the term "nation". This is about what should go in the opening paragraph of biographical articles, and what we need there is the basic fact of where the person is from- that is, their citizenship- rather than where their parents were from (their ethnicity). (It's the equivalent of filling out a form- Name, Nationality- if Jennifer Aniston wrote down "Greek" as her nationality she would be told to try again). Mark1 18:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, you've said that Cyp's changes violated the MoS. The MoS says that "nationality" should be included in opening paragraphs, but it doesn't specify whether this means "citizenship", "country of birth", "ethnicity", or some combination. I'd say it's relevant what "nationality" is meant in the MoS, since that's what the debate is about. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 18:47, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

My own opinion on this matter is to just leave the nationality off. For example, take a look at the page that I created about August Czartoryski. His father was a Polish noble, who had been exiled from his homeland by the Russians. In fact, "Poland" didn't even really exist at that point. August's mother was a Spanish noble. August himself was born in France (well, technically, the Second French Empire). So I didn't label him as "Polish" or "Russian" or "Spanish", or "French", I just stated the facts: Where he was born, who his mother was, who his father was. In terms of categories, I tried to add him to everything appropriate -- in this case, both Category:Polish nobility and Category:Spanish nobility. There's probably a weak case that could be made somewhere that he's a "notable Frenchman", but I simply chose to not bring it up. But if someone *did* want to put his name on a list of "famous French people", it would make sense, since he was, after all, born in Paris. His name could go on lists of the French, Spanish, and Polish, and all would be correct. Elonka 19:16, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposal

I propose to change the MoS page Entry from "3. Nationality" to "3. Nationality (In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen, or was a citizen when the person became notable.)" to celar up this matter once and for all. DES (talk) 18:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Agreed. Mark1 18:37, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Well, I agree that the matter should be cleared up by changing the MoS entry, although I'm undecided what it should say. As they say, developing. . . – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 18:41, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly disagree. You all know why and I still think it needs time before it can be fully discussed. Another point, is that in particular cases in which people have moved to a different country (especially at a young age), nobody knows if the said person holds citizenship of that country or not. Sometimes you can be digging and delving for the answer for a long time and still come up with no result. It's better to opt for the easiest and 'most correct' one in my view. EDIT: perhaps Elonka's idea of omitting nationality altogether is the most sensible after all. After all, details of birth and ethnic background can all be given in 'Personal Life'. Cypriot stud 19:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly Agree. I can't fathom a reason why the opening paragraph of biographies needs to be so technical as Cypriot stud has proposed above. "Multiethnic + birth place-born"? " Kirk Douglas is Belarusian-American now? Nicolas Cage is "biethnic American born"? I'm sorry, but the dictionary does not back you up on this. In English-speaking countries, Nationality means where a person is from in their lifetime, not their parents lifetime. This would mean citizenship, birthplace, or where a person was a citizen when they became notable, as DES has said. The ethnicity can just as well be discussed in "Personal Life" where more in-depth discussion belongs, anyway. Even if you could prove that "nationality" means ethnicity, which it does not, I still strongly believe that is not what the MoS intended to be introduced in the opening paragraph. -- Renesis13 19:21, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Well you obviously haven't searched this properly. The dictionary does back me up and 'nationality' most definitely isn't synonomous with 'citizenship'. Cypriot stud
  • Strongly Agree. And I've weighed in on this already. American means "substantially a citizen of the US". Adding -born implies "but not American". Adding heritage of the parents also only confuses things. I'm an American, but by some people's wishes, I'd be labeled as an English-Scot-Irish-German-American. That's ludicrous, and only confuses the issue. Americans by nature are mutts. --Randal L. Schwartz 19:43, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree. Though if I were to adjust the wording even more, I'd probably add a qualifier somewhere about "In cases where the individual's nationality is not entirely clear, it is acceptable to not mention nationality in the opening paragraph, and simply state the known facts about their heritage." Elonka 19:56, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Mild Disagree. I think there should be more flexibility, especially where heritage is important. For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger is American, sans doute, but his Austrian birth is very important as it relates to his political ambitions and even possible changes to the American constitution. Also I happen to be a dual citizen of two countries, should I ever become notable, I hope that I would not automatically be assumed to have only the nationality of my current residence. Why not change the statement to add "or countries". Dabbler 20:13, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I intended flexability via the "Normally". I would accept "country or countries" to allow for dual-citizenship. I would also accept User:Elonka's "If not clear, ommit from the lead" idea. DES (talk) 20:40, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly disagree. Don't believe it is workable. Too many people change citizenships or hide their original identity at the start of their career and claim another, only to announce later on when their career is a success "actually I'm 'x'". If there is a distinction between where they are born and their later identity, they should be referred to as {country}-born. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 20:30, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Oppose this, but support Fear ÉIREANN above, the {country} born is probably the simplest solution to the problem. The complexities of people's nationalities can then be discussed in the article. Hiding talk 21:25, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree Look at Freddie Mercury. I wouldn't say he was a Tanzanian or Indian singer. He was a British singer. You can explain the birth place/nationalities in the article. I also agree with the sentence Elonka added. Garion96 (talk) 00:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree: With original proposal as well as Elonka's addendum. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Where would this place Oscar Wilde or James Joyce? Both technically British citizens, but widely regarded as Irish. Hiding talk 14:59, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
    • They weren't British citizens, they were UK subjects. ;) As I mentioned above, the UK (and ,especially, Ireland) are odd places as far as citizenship goes. Hence the "normal" in the proposal. Mark1 15:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
      • "the UK (and ,especially, Ireland) are odd places as far as citizenship goes. Hence the "normal" in the proposal." In that case, I only support your proposal if you alter the wording to make it explicit that the UK and Ireland (and one or two other places?) are specifically excluded. As we all know, the words "nation", "national" and "nationality" are all highly ambiguous in the UK, and several other states.--Mais oui! 13:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Here is a revised version to deal with some of the issues expressed above: "3. Nationality (In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a national or citizen, or was a citizen when the person became notable. When this is confused, complex, or unclear, it may be the country where the person was born indicated by 'X-born'. Or in such a case it may be ommited. Fuller details should be given in a later section of the article, when they are relevant. )" What do people think of that? Is it too long/complex/legalistic? Does it address most people's concerns here? DES (talk) 17:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Well, DES, what would you consider complex? Since the whole debate has continued for quite some time (and nobody can really agree one anything), I suggest that nationality be omitted altogether in the introductory paragraph. After all, the introduction already shows basic facts about who the subject is and why they are famous, and birth place and other family background is given directly underneath in the first non-introductory paragraph, so there's no need for it all to be repeated, is there? So (with Jennifer Aniston as an example), we would have (as the introduction): Jennifer Joanne Aniston (born dd mm yy, Sherman Oaks, California, United States) is an actress etc., perhaps best-known for her much-publisized marriage to fellow actor Brad Pitt..., and then as the next paragraph: Aniston was born in Sherman Oaks, California, United States, to John Aniston (originally Ioannis Anastasakis), a Greek actor who hails from the island of Crete, and Nancy Dow, an an American-born actress of Scottish, Italian, and English descent... or something similar to that. This way there can be no argument about nationality since no generic label will be given, and all the relevant information is directly underneath the introduction. At least the disagreement on what nationality is won't arise and complicated citizenship changes and considerations. It's also more user-friendly and less hassle. What do you say? {Please see poll below} Cypriot stud 20:29, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment: Considering the side of the argument I was on earlier you probably don't much care what I think, but for what it's worth DES's above version sits well with me. It allows interesting cases to be clarified or ommitted, and encourages common sense in all cases. -- Renesis13 20:06, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Given that there seems to be considerable support for my origianl proposal, i am impelemting it. DES (talk) 18:26, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
  • And what about my proposal below? Don't you think that, after all, it would probably be better not too include any nationality label at all (and birth, heritage etc. be explained solely in the next paragraph (as it currently is))? There is no need for nationality to be given on two occasions. We'll always argue about it, and I've been willing to compromise. Isn't there any chance you'll consider or even think about my suggestion? I'm not critisizing or causing another row, but I find your proposal quite confusing and unnecessary (unnecessary in a way that different things are given for different people, whereas mine omits nationality altogether from the introductory paragraph, which applies for all subjects). Also, what would you consider complex? Personally, I find Jennifer Aniston's, Angelina Jolie's, 'Tiger' Woods's etc. situations very complex yet I will be slated for reverting them. Please think about my proposal and the effects it will make. Thanks. Cypriot stud 16:19, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
    • No I don't. i think in the vast majority of cases it will lead to the same info beign put in the lead section as there always was, while removing the pretext for edit-wars over what to insert such as happened with Jennifer Aniston. Ther was substantial supprot for the version i inserted in the MOS page. If others feel it can be furhter improved, or prefer your proposal (no one but you has yet supported it) they can say so on the talk page, and further changes can be made after proper discussion. I don't claim to own this page, nor that this must and should be the final version of thsi guideline. I do think that in the vast majority of cases soem indication of nationality in the lead paragraph is a good idea, and that in the majority of thsoe cases a simple indication of the country of residence/citizewnship is simplist and most helpful, with further detail where relevant, provifded in a later section. Different people are different, so no guideline can usefull have an absolutely one-sze-fits-all set of rules, IMO, and few things do on wikipedia. DES (talk) 16:45, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree per Fear ÉIREANN, {county}-born is probably best. - FrancisTyers 16:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree I know I am too late to particpate in the poll, but I would just like to record my opposition to the exact wording. I do like country or place of birth in most cases but aslo would add place where notable work was done if appropriate. The example that recently led me to this conclusion is George Gabriel Stokes,talk -- Op. Deo 20:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposal on Nationality

Upon the event of disagreement and edit wars over the nationalities of subject (or more specifically, what nationality is and how it should be interpreted), which has been continuing for possibly around three months now, I propose a change in the current Wikipedia manual of style about nationality to the below:

After a lot of thorough thinking, I [Cypriot stud] have decided that it would best all around for the current Wiki 'law' on nationality to change. As rows and conflicts have constantly arisen on various articles about nationality, I suggest that nationality be completely omitted from the opening introductory paragraph. It is not the most important thing, and the most basic information (i.e. subject's name, who they are, why they are well-known, other useful facts about their life etc.) is already there, and the deletion of nationality is not a great loss to the introduction. Rather than this, the subject's birth and ethnic background can be given directly below under the titles commonly named Personal Life, Personal Background, and Early Life, where a series of similar data already is. It fits much more comfortably there, and it also cuts any further edit wars about nationality in the opening paragraph. Nor does it label the subject by one single nationality or identity, which would be technically and understandably incorrect, to cause further diagreement. I believe this opetion is better than citizenship in the sense that there doesn't have to be confusion about people whose have become citizens of different countries to that of their birth or fame, which has also sparked off certain discussions. This way, Wikipedia will be more user-friendly and easy for Wikipedians to edit articles without fear of an uproar or argument. Cypriot stud 20:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Strongly agree. Cypriot stud 20:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment -- No need to "strongly agree" with yourself - we can all safely assume that. It is a weasel way of making your proposal look like it already has a following. -- Renesis13 17:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly support. (and I am not a sock puppet!). Dabbler 16:56, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose This nationality issue was really created by the author of this proposal who originally tried to insist that Jennifer Aniston be described as an American born Greek actress, and then went on to do a similar thing for many other articles, changing American to American born + ethnicity on many articles of Americans whose parents were not U.S. born. He continued to disruptively engage in a revert war despite the opposition of numerous users (Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive65#User:Cypriot_stud, User talk:Cypriot stud). I really see no reason for a change in policy on nationality. One should just list people under the nationality under which they are most commonly regarded, using a dual nationality only if absolutely necessary (i.e. in Einstein's case), but not going into the ethnic makeup of that person in the header unless it is fundemental to why they are notable. Arniep 23:18, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment I know I am going to make myself look like an idiot :D but!! After looking at Einstein's article (which had German-Swiss-American as a nationality! I am beginning to think that Cypriot stud may have a point, but only in exceptional cases like this. Arniep 02:36, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per Arniep. Mark1 23:37, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose as per Arniep and discussion in the sections above. DES (talk) 23:41, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose. Why can't we just use common sense? Irish people can be Irish not British, but those who are obviously American, regardless of ancestor's ethnicity, would be American. If it's too hard - leave it off! -- Renesis13 02:40, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Surely nationality in 99 cases out of every hundred is a definite certainty defined by passport. I think nationality in an international encyclopedia is important. Often it is impossible to even have a clue from just looking at a name. I don't see the problem with explaining nationality or ethnic background, it is often an important part of a biography. Giano | talk 13:35, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Giano and Arniep. Mackensen (talk) 16:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Seeing as the consensus opposes my proposal, I have made another (perhaps final) suggestion to close the debate.
  • Although some people wish to believe otherwise, I honestly made the changes I did for, what I considered, the good of Wikipedia. I, for one, am not happy with the recent edits made to the manual of style, and propose the following: nationality be changed to citizenship. In all cases (regardless of a multiethnic heritage), the current citizenship of the subject be included in the introductory paragraph of each article (or the citizenship at the time of death of the subject, in the case of the deceased). In the event of dual (or more) citizenship, all citizenships are to be included, i.e. in the case of a fictious John Smith: John Smith is British-American actor.... Where the citizenship is doubted, uncertain, or simply unknown, then the country of birth is placed, i.e. in the case of a fictious Margaret Ingram, who has lived in several places around the world: Margaret Ingram is an English singer...".
  • What do you think? In my opinion, it's fair and easy to work. The recently-installed 'law' is pretty complex and it is unclear what 'complicated' is (I consider all multiethnic people to have complicated backgrounds, yet some would disagree, and I would be slated for omitting nationality). It's a simpler approach and much more workable. It is clear which category each person wall fall under, yet the current situation holds an abundance of categories and unspecific definitions of complexity. If you like this proposal, then I'll 'make it official' with a poll.
  • Cypriot stud 17:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Comment: I would hope we could give Wikipedians more credit than having to create a "law" that is so precise and technical that it cannot possibly be misunderstood, just so it can be "workable". The problem is, you decided to go to one extreme with ethnicity as an interpretation of nationality and now since the consensus is that "Ethnicity-Ethnicity-Country-born" is not appropriate, you want to go to the other extreme with "Citizenship" - even going so far as to say "current" citizenship, or all citizenships. I apologize for repeating myself so many times, but I don't think that is the intention here. What I and many others arguing this point are trying to say, is that in most cases, there is an easy way to identify a person by the country they live in, grew up in, or became famous in, etc. Sometimes this is a combination of countries. Ther is no need to base it strictly on citizenship, or anything else - just use common sense.
If that means the person is American, British or English, Scottish, German-American, or Italian-Australian then go ahead and put that. Jennifer Aniston is American. Her father is Greek-American. Despite my Puerto Rican and Mexican heritage, I am American. My wife is going to be getting American citizenship, but she is most definitely Australian (and don't try to call her otherwise! :) ). -- Renesis13 01:29, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Reply to Renesis13: OK, yes I can see why you think I jump from one extreme to something totally different; and I won't lie — I do! I won't get back into the ethnicity/nationality debate again, because I know what it means despite others disagreeing when my proof stared at them blatantly in the face. Since the consensus happened not to agree on my 'multiethnic x-born' proposal, I moved on to the next thing I believed was best (omitting any nationality label altogether (which, looking back at it, is probably the best suggestion, in my opinion)). This fell through, and now I'm on what I understand as the last resort for something correct. If I feel something is so 'incorrect' that I have to voice my opinion to change it, then that is my decision, and really isn't necessary enough for you to comment on. I think you're trying to find excuses to slate me. Keeping organised rules is the best way. Why be slack to let pointless arguments arise? If things are kept prim and proper in a tidy order, rows and conflicts won't come up.
Now you say that if someone German American, Australian American etc. then put it, yet directly after you say Jennifer Aniston is American. That totally goes against what you wrote above. Jennifer Aniston is Greek (some would go as far as saying Cretan), Scottish, English, and Italian (or, as I more tidily put this, multiethnic American-born).
And there you go again. I assume you have American citizenship, which (at least in your eyes) makes you American, but you tell me to call your wife nothing but Australian even when she will be getting AMerican citizenship. You really don't have a clue what you are saying, mate.
Cypriot stud 18:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Nationality is sometimes more relevant than citizenship, as for Welsh and Scottish people. That's why we need a general rule with some flexibility, as in the recently revision. Mark1 17:33, 28 January 2006 (UTC) You already commented --TimPope 10:18, 29 January 2006 (UTC) (This is opposition to his second proposal). Mark1 11:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support but insofar as it should not be obligatory to have to put nationality in the opening paragraph where it might be better placed somewhere else in the article --TimPope 10:20, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Comment agree with not be obligatory to have to put nationality in the opening paragraph where it might be better placed somewhere else in the article per TimPope. - FrancisTyers 16:10, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose, I think the info can be useful in the opening para, and many cases are of course not controversial. That said, this proposal might be useful in particular cases as one means of damping down an edit war. A further method of attempting to get a consensus I have recently shown at George Gabriel Stokes. -- Op. Deo 21:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. In the vast majority of cases, there is only one nationality that is relevant, so that should be mentioned. I agree it should not be mandatory where the story is complicated, but there's no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We need to come up with creative solutions to complicated cases, eg. with Leopold Godowsky, my suggestion (which nobody has objected to so far - and that's not an invitation to do so now) is "He became a naturalised American, but was born to Polish parents in Sozły, near Wilno, in what was then Russian territory but is now part of Lithuania. He considered himself of Polish heritage.". JackofOz 22:29, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

How about not putting nationality or citizenship in the lead unless it is clearly relevant or the person in question makes a point of declaring x nationality. e.g. Tony Benn, Nick Griffin, Mark Durkan, James Callaghan, Tony Blair etc. I think there is room for a detailed discussion of nationality and ethnic background outside of the lead of the article.

Actually, looking through Prime Ministers, its pretty funny. The conservatives are described as British politicians and none of the others are. And why oh why do we describe Gordon Brown as Scottish, but not Tony Blair? - FrancisTyers 16:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, and most importantly, Blair is English. Don't try and blame us for him. ;) I don't quite understand why you support Cypriot's proposal above that citizenship must be put in the lead, and then suggest here that citizenship/nationality be omitted from the lead. And omitting nationality seems to me bizarre: most of the people we have articles on are people that most people have never heard of. If I'm told that Joe Bloggs is a politician/writer/artist, one of the first things I want to know about him is where he comes from. Omitting that kind of obviously useful information just to cope with some nationalist headbangers is not, IMHO, the answer. Mark1 17:17, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I've reassessed my position see above. If I'm told that Joe Bloggs is a politician/writer/artist, one of the first things I want to know about him is where he comes from. That is not what we are suggesting, I have no problem with saying where a person is from - e.g. from the UK or from England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. For the record, Tony Blair is more Scottish than English, you can have him! ;) I don't know who you are describing as nationalist headbangers, I hope it isn't me :) Basically it isn't clear. If we want nationality then it would be where a person is born, e.g. England, English. If we want citizenship then it would be British for England,NI,Scotland,Wales. - FrancisTyers 17:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, certainly not you! I wouldn't particularly mind if we said "politician from Canada" rather than "Canadian politician", but I don't think that kind of change would get us anywhere. Whether English people should be described as English or British seems to me a very unexciting question, so I won't say any more on that.Mark1 17:46, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Basically my position is that our usage of British in this context is imprecise. We could fix this by doing x is a y from z, e.g. Tony Blair is a politician from the United Kingdom, or if ethnic background is particularly important then we can add that on the end, e.g. Tony Blair is a politician from the United Kingdom with English, Irish and Scottish ancestry. We could also fix this by resolving to use place of birth or citizenship exclusively. However this would probably have ramifications that people object to, i.e. Rhodri Morgan would be British if Jimmy Carr is British and Jimmy Carr would be English if Rhodri Morgan is Welsh. Calling all people from England British is not a solution. - FrancisTyers 18:05, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that people think of the English as Brits (and would label people from Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland as other than British). Where citizenship is concerned, English, Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish fail to exist (whereas with nationality and ethnicity, they do). If you use British for English people then you must use it for the Scots, Welsh, and Northern Irish, too.
Markalexander100, to call me (and don't deny that it wasn't aimed at me) a nationalist headbanger is seriously sad and low, especially when you are trying to support your point.
I would be happy if each subject is labelled by their country of birth. Then there is no colossal of different nationalities, citizenships, and ethnicites flying around the introduction, and there's no going wrong. Also (something that reminds me of my earlier suggestion of omitting any label), saying a singer (for example) is particularly famous in the USA, or that they won American Idol, let's say, tells the reader that the subject is from, or has a strong connection to, the States. I'd be happy with either three of these (omitting any label, using scurrent citizenship/s, or simply by the country of birth). Could you please say which of those three you prefer the most (if there had to be one, of course)?
Cypriot stud 18:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Reply to Cyrpiot stud: You are shocked and astounded that Markalexander100 would call you a "nationalist headbanger" when you are fine with telling me I have no clue what I'm talking about? Maybe you misunderstood me, but I certainly do have a clue - I was born in America to an American mother and Hispanic (American) father. I am fully "American", but my ethnicity is half Hispanic. My wife was born in Australia with Italian, English, and Australian heritage. She's moved here, but she is Australian. Jennifer Aniston was born in America to one Greek parent, grew up in America and remains in America - how is she in any way Greek? According the logic my wife and I follow in describing ourselves, Jennifer Aniston is most certainly fully American. German-American would be somebody like Albert Einstein. I am not trying to sleight you in any way - you are just being way too technical about this whole process. -- Renesis13 22:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
P.S.: Maybe I should clarify that in cases of combining, I.E. "Australian-American" or "German-American" - I mean when the person themselves (ignore their parents!) has lived a substantial amount of time in two countries to be considered either nationality. This, again, does NOT have to do with their parents' heritage. I apologize if you thought I was implying heritage or ethnicity in German-American or Australian-American. -- Renesis13 22:23, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
No, I am not shocked and astounded at all. I think it was extremely unfair and vicious to call me a nationalist headbanger. I have not shown any nationalistic or fascist mannerisms and I am disgusted at what he called me. Being an administrator that is appalling behaviour. He does not deserve that status.
You've said it again. You are half Hispanic, just as Jennifer Aniston is half Greek. It stares at you blood dry in the face: her father is Greek, thus she is half Greek. How much harder can it get? She has Greek blood running through her vains — birth place cannot change that. Part of her ethnic make-up is Greek — birth place cannot change that either!
Yes, I understood what you meant by 'ethnicity American'.

that its meaning is not literal. On another note can we assume we are gaining come consensus that "Most Noble" is at least, so far, on the way out Giano | talk 15:24, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I got the impression that monarchs' and popes' prefixes were mainly removed because they are "His X" or "Her X", which some people feel imply much more that they had X than "The Y" implies that someone is Y (and I can sort of see where they are coming from — at first glance "His Honour" does seem to imply more respect than "The Honourable"). I don't, however, think we should pick and choose which people to give certain prefixes to — having a policy effectively saying "His/Her X" prefixes are not to be used (which, whilst I happen to disagree with it, is a perfectly rational policy) is very different to saying Privy Counsellors can have "The Right Honourable", but we're denying it to peers, which is not only inconsistent but POV. Yes, some of them are not used very often, but they are formally part of people's names, and the fact that Tony Blair is incredibly rarely called "Anthony Charles Lynton Blair" doesn't stop us putting that at the beginning of his article. It seems wholly appropriate to me to start people's articles with their proper style; it's not like they're used or mentioned anywhere else (we're not putting them in links or something), and, to be quite honest, it's perfectly valid encyclopaedic knowledge which is almost certainly unknown to most people, and if someone reads an article on a Duke and thinks "oh, I didn't know that was their style", then we've provided valid and accurate information and probably taught someone something, which is what we're here to do (well, it's certainly what I'm here to do, but I suppose I can't talk for everyone else).

*In fact, as an exercise in curiosity: ""Anthony Charles Lynton Blair" -Wikipedia" gets 948 Google hits (in contrast, ""Tony Blair" -Wikipedia" gets 13.1 million), whilst ""The Most Noble" Duke -Wikipedia -Garter -Thistle" (trying to exclude the two Orders of Chivalry that have it as part of their full name) gets 32,300 hits. Proteus (Talk) 19:07, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Giano. Biographies should begin with a person's name, and then the article can go on to explain what honors they have earned or been given, and what that means in terms of how they're addressed (Rt. Honorable, Dr., Professor). But to start with a style is POV because it buys into that person's, or a certain country's or institution's, point of view. This is an international project in 2006. "Most Noble" is no way to begin a modern, encyclopedic, neutral bio. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:03, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Removal of Rt Hon for Privy Counsellors 3 SUPPORTBasketdove 21:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Believe me Proteus to see Cherie Blair's page (should it not be Cherie Booth's page) begin Mrs. Anthony Blair would give me immense pleasure; but it isn't going to happen. Wikipedia is too far and lost down the strict etiquette path to start dragging up antiquated forms of address, if they are not going to be standard across the board. To do so we would have to fix a time date, I suspect the one you would like would be circa 1886. For better or for worse it is 2006 and we have to go by accepted standards of our day not those of a bygone age. British Dukes are no longer addressed as Most Noble anywhere but in rarified heraldic documents - Wikipedia isn't one! Right Honorables I admit are a little more common in every sense of the word, but the prefix should be explained within the article. If the "fountain of honour" herself is not HM then no one else can have a prefix either. Simple! Giano | talk 21:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not extend the WP policy on styles of monarchs to peers, ie have a style box within which a style is outlined in an NPOV manner, and no styles at the start of articles? FearÉIREANN\(caint) 18:58, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Do we have a rule about using titles in article titles? For example, someone kept wanting to move Noel Annan to Noel Annan, Baron Annan, and I've seen quite a few like that. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Western nobility). Articles about peers should be named using their titles unless they are "exclusively" known by their personal names. -- Necrothesp 21:07, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm an American and don't claim to understand these things. But we do have honorifics too over here; the formal title of a mayor, for example, is The Honorable John DeStefano, Jr.. Would someone explain to me the difference between that and the formal title of a peer? Thank you. Chick Bowen 21:21, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Chick - I wish I knew the answer to that. I have a hunch the difference is people swoon at European titles and don't at American, which of course is kinda sad if you are a titled American. The logical answer here is no one should have an honorific in the prefix to their name in the lead. Then we have a level playing field, no Holynesses, no Majesties, Highnesses, Most Nobles, Rt. Hons and Rt. Down the Lines - that way no one is slighted, offended or whatever, and all their titles can be explained in the articles about them. That's my view. Incidentally how is the consensus doing on "Most Noble" (which is why we were originally here) can I start to delete them now? Giano | talk 22:17, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
  • People mostly chuckle at the American ones. Everything you say sounds quite logical to me, Giano. I don't think it is or should be Wikipedia policy to be reverent. Chick Bowen 00:12, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Against as the proposal is stated. Of course it is quite right to chuck out 'The Most Noble' which is never used by anybody except in the most formal circumstances. But the same cannot be said of 'The Right Honourable' which is in frequent use, in the House of Commons, on the BBC, in British newspapers, etc., to denominate a member of the Privy Council. If you could just concentrate on 'The Most Noble', chances are we could get a simple majority agreement quite quickly. --Smerus 07:18, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Removal of Rt Hon for Privy Counsellors 3 AGAINSTBasketdove 21:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Consensus? If you trace this argument back to its earliest origins here [1] you will find my initial wish was just to rid us of Most Noble only. A memeber of the "WP Peerage project" felt that Most Noble and Rt. Honourable were bound together. While I dislike Rt. Hon. at the beginning of the page, it is Most Noble that causes me to wince. I think we already have a consensus on Most Noble for it to go. I have the impression that Mackensen who felt that Most Noble and Rt. Hon. were inextricably bound together may now feel Most Noble could go if Rt. Hon. stays, perhaps he would like to confirm that? I am happy to concede defeat on Rt. Honourable if the majority feel it looks appropriate as the opening of a page. Do we agree we have a consensus to remove Most Noble (only)? Giano | talk 08:39, 25 January 2006 (UTC)


  • I support removal of Most Noble (only), as in the posting immediately above--Smerus 08:48, 25 January 2006 (UTC)


  • Yes, I support this too, as well as the removal of any other honorific used just because someone is a peer. I think we can quite clearly distinguish between these and titles given because the holder is a Privy Counsellor or whatever. As Smerus says, these are commonly used in the British media and would certainly be familiar to most British people. Whereas even most peers don't bother using their honorifics. But if the present attempt at consensus is only for getting rid of "Most Noble", then so be it. -- Necrothesp 09:23, 25 January 2006 (UTC)



Of course, the policy doesn't entirely work, since the example they give, Margaret Thatcher, is now almost exclusively known in the British media as Baroness Thatcher. -- Necrothesp 13:54, 25 January 2006 (UTC)


  • Comment. Arniep has pointed out the difficulty with the proposal. We're being asked to make a value judgement–which styles to keep and which to remove. I have no ego at stake here, nor do I wish to die in the last ditch defending ducal honor, but either all the peers' styles go or they all stay. If you go the the former route, but keep styles for Privy Counsellors, you're still on tricky ground. For one thing, it means styling peers who were members of the Privy Council. Are you going to call Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury the Right Honourable. That would have never been the case. A better proposal, I think, is to kill inline styles altogether, and have instead a section of the article devoted to titles from birth to death (already done in many places), with includes all styles. That way, we have a clear presentation of the information, without any hint of endorsement. Mackensen (talk) 02:54, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Removal of Rt Hon for Privy Counsellors 4 SUPPORTBasketdove 21:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

  • I agree with Mackensen. All articles should begin with the person's name, with postnominals if appropriate, and all prenominal honours and titles should be explained in the text or an in infobox. The only exceptions I would make are "Dr", "Sir" and "Dame", since these are in effect part of the person's name. I suppose I would also have to allow "Lord Randolph Churchill" etc for the same reason. We also seem to have a rule about Cardinals, which I suppose we are stuck with. Adam 05:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Removal of Rt Hon for Privy Counsellors 5 SUPPORTBasketdove 21:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but don't see the difference between Dr, Sir, and The Most Noble. I say we should start articles with a person's name, and explain within the text or within an info box how they're addressed. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:58, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I would be happy with a policy of no exceptions at all. So you would favour returning George Cardinal Pell to plain George Pell? Adam 06:14, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
It does look odd, but yes I would. If King Hussein of Jordan can be Hussein bin Talal, then Cardinal Pell can be George. SlimVirgin (talk) 09:48, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I would like to see the end of all prefixes, as they could all be explained in the article itself. I have just been trying to reach a compromise with you Mackensen who seemed initially to be against any change. The moment it was (quite rightly) agreed that the Queen and her mates lost their prefixes, it was a natural progression that the support cast must follow suite. Political appointments can also be explained within the content of the article. With church appointments - cannot their page open something like "Luigi Pazzo , Cardinal Archbishop of Milano was born" However, at this stage let's stick to the Hons and Nobles, allthough just out of interest I looked at the obituary column of the London Times today, Sirs and Dames do not have their titles before their names just the relevant letters afterwards. eg: Freda Smith DBE. A half decent article is always going to say "He was knighted in 1920 for......." or "he became Sir Fred, a Baronet, on the death of his father in 1920" Giano | talk 08:49, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not in fact particularly concerned with royal and noble titles. I don't think King Hussein should be called Hussein bin Talal. His article should start Hussein bin Talal, King of Jordan (if that was his correct title). What I am really concerned about is getting rid of "The Right Honourable" in front of politicians' names, which looks (and is) extremely pompous. Adam 10:54, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Dr is simply an academic honorific. It is not part of a person's name (since in formal style the Dr is omitted and the letters appended). "Sir" and "Dame", on the other hand, are never omitted. It is not the case that The Times omits pretitles - see here; are you sure the ones you saw were not honorary titles awarded to non-British subjects, Giano? Also remember that Knights Bachelor (the most common form of knighthood by far) do not have letters after their names at all. The "Sir" is the only indicator that they hold the title. No, "Sir" and "Dame" should definitely stay. -- Necrothesp 11:06, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I was under the impression kights bachelor could put "Kt" after their names. Adam 11:16, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

My understanding, and I'm not wholly clear on this, is that "Kt" isn't really correct and should only be used when the holder in question is a baronet (and, therefore, there would be no post nominals explaining why the person is a knight). We certainly can't remove "Sir" from the beginning of articles; Necrothesp is quite right about that. Mackensen (talk) 12:06, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

A baronet is not a knight, and baronets put Bart after their names. Thus "Sir Dennis Thatcher, Bart" makes clear that he is not a knight, while "Sir Elton John, Kt" makes it clear that he is. Adam 12:13, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, poor wording on my part (should have "why the person has sir in front of their name"). Anyway, thought I read that somewhere. Mackensen (talk) 12:21, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
It is indeed incorrect to put "Kt" after the name. That is only used in publications such as Who's Who when they use it to list the date of the knightood. It should never be done otherwise, and the knight or dame should never be listed without their pretitle. It has effectively become part of their name. If John Smith is knighted he will never again be addressed as "Mr Smith", but always as "Sir John". Incidentally, "Bart" is also incorrect (although often seen) - it should be "Bt". -- Necrothesp 12:36, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I was referring to the Obituary Column not the "famous peoples write up" but the columns where ordinary low achieving Knights and Dames pay to go. Baronets do indeed write Bart. after their names. All knights belong to one of the various orders of Knighthood, one can't be a Knight otherwise. Such as the Bath, Order of St. John and St. George, Knight of the Royal Victorian Order. etc. sect etc. These are the letters after their names. Kt is just an old fashioned abbreviation for Knight sometimes found on ancient memorials, or as an abreviation for knighted in a reference book. It is impossible to be Knighted and not have the letters of an order to tag after the name. Only Baronets may not have letters which is why they write Bart. Giano | talk 14:01, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
It seems I'm wrong above, according to this Knight Bachelor Knights may belong to no order and write Kt after there name. Learn something new evry day! Giano | talk 14:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Knights Bachelor are by far the most numerous knights. They also hold the oldest form of knighthood and the lowest in precedence. But note the clause "but "Kt"...is sometimes used erroneously". It is incorrect usage. "Bart" is considered incorrect usage today, although it was commonly used historically. See Baronet. Incidentally, how can you be a knight or dame if you're "low achieving"? These are not hereditary titles. All knights and dames are by definition notable people at the top of their profession. -- Necrothesp 14:35, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
  • "Low achieving" was just a flippant turn of phrase I used to denote those who have to pay for their 5 lines in the national press announcing their decease as opposed to those of whom the Times writes half a page complete with a picture. Regarding being at the top of their profession, you obviously don't know how in reality these things are dished out by quota to various branches of the Civil and Diplomatic services. While many are undoubtedly at the top of their profession others are often quite a few rungs behind but it makes a good retirement present. The wives like it too! On other occasions the newly knighted seem to have been recently generous to political parties. So without criticising the whole system. lets not wear rose tinted spectacles either. Anyway it seems we're digressing away from the Nobles and Honourable which we are trying to find a consensus about. I would like to see the whole lot confined to the depths of the article, but can see that is not going to happen. So long as the cringe making "Most Noble" goes I'll agree to anything. Giano | talk 15:22, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually, having studied it for years, I'm very aware of how they're dished out. They are rarely awarded to those below Permanent Secretary rank in the Civil Service (although once they were) or senior ambassadors in the Diplomatic Service. Yes, the political honours are a little questionable, but they are never given to nobodies. The fact remains that knighthoods are not given to low achievers. -- Necrothesp 16:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Can we try and stay on-topic please? Adam 16:06, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is really a difficulty here. The styles for Peers: The Most Noble , The Most Honourable, and Right Honourable are not really used, whereas Sir for Knights is in common usage. Therefore I propose using only Sir as both Britannica and Chambers do (they do not use Right Honourable at all). Arniep 16:10, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Surely we need to make the distinction between Styles and titles? It's things on the Style page (The Right Honourable, His Excellency, Her Majesty, etc.) that could be removed. Titles, e.g. King of X, Baron, Duke of, Dr, Sir... should stay. So taking the example of Cardinals someone mentioned, they should be listed as George Cardinal Pell, but not His Eminence George Cardinal Pell. --JRawle 16:21, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Sir is not a title. It is the style of a Knight or Baronet. But, yes, in general, remove styles, keep titles. Arniep 18:52, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Seconded. Can we just wrap this up and get rid of the hereditary prefixes. Giano | talk 20:49, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
We'll get there. I'm going to write up some language below. If everyone seems okay with that then we're good. Mackensen (talk) 22:09, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposed change to Honorific prefixes

Based on the discussion above, I suggest the following language:

The inclusion of some honorific prefixes and styles has proved controversial on Wikipedia. Wikipedia currently distinguishes between three groups: nobles, government officials, and members of royal families and popes.

  • (1) Styles and honorifics which are derived from noble title, including The Most Noble, The Most Honourable, The Right Honourable, and The Honourable, shall not be included in the text inline but may be legitimately discussed in the article proper.
  • (2) Styles and honorifics which are derived from political activities, including but not limited to The Right Honourable for being a Member of the Privy Council, shall not be included in the text inline but may be legitimately discussed in the article proper.
  • (3) Styles shall not be used to open articles on royalty and popes. Thus the article on Pope Benedict XVI shall not begin "His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI . . . " nor the article on Queen Victoria begin "Her Majesty Queen Victoria . . ." They should, however, be discussed in the article proper.
  • (4) The honorific Sir shall be included in the text inline for baronets, knights bachelor, and members of knightly orders whose rank grants them that dignity, provided that they do not hold a higher dignity, such as a peerage, which trumps that usage.

I think that about covers it. I'm completely open to suggestions, but I think a working text is helpful. Mackensen (talk) 22:29, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd obviously oppose that completely — I object to leaving out styles purely because they aren't commonly used, which I think is an utterly feeble argument and is merely being resorted to by ignorant people who can't actually come up with decent logic to support their prejudices. We've been doing it the way we do it for ages, and even when an absolutely enormous movement was launched to remove the styles of monarchs and popes, with pretty much all the anti-aristocracy activists on Wikipedia voting against them, there was still nowhere near a consensus to remove The Right Honourable etc. All I can see here are a few disgruntled people who think that they can get together and demand something be done. Well, I'm sorry, but that doesn't come anywhere close to a consensus to change current policy. Proteus (Talk) 23:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC) Removal of Rt Hon for Privy Counsellors 4 AGAINSTBasketdove 21:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

  • I don't think anyone has yet passed comment on Mackensen's proposal, so it is hard for you to know if we have a consensus of not. Please do not refer to people as ignorant or prejudiced because they happen to have an alternative point of view to you. If you had not been so adamant that "Most Noble" had to stay (a term barely used at all) this entire debate would not have taken place. I am happy to support the proposal as set out above. Giano | talk 23:56, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, Mackensen's proposal seems eminently reasonable. I support it. I also object to Proteus calling anyone who doesn't agree with him ignorant. Being aware of something and not wishing to use it does not make one ignorant - calling people names because you disagree with them, however, does. I am far from being "anti-aristocracy" or prejudiced against anything associated with the aristocracy. In fact, I am a committed monarchist and pro-aristocracy. I love our honours system and have studied it for many years. I merely fail to see the logic in including titles which are almost never used even by the holders themselves. And although I am more ambivalent about omitting "The Right Honourable" for Privy Counsellors, I can see the logic in not including it. -- Necrothesp 00:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I support Mackensen's proposal. Adam 07:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I support it too. Incidentally, in case anybody gets the impression I haven't taken part in the discussion and am only putting in a votepuppet appearance, that's not so; I said my say at some length on WP:AN where the Most Noble debate started. Bishonen | talk 16:17, 27 January 2006 (UTC).
  • I support the proposal, except for the part about The Right Honourable being used for PCs, they earn the honorific, they don't inherit it and I think that is a different case. Dabbler 16:53, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Removal of Rt Hon for Privy Counsellors 5 AGAINSTBasketdove 21:46, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

  • I don't have an especial problem with the proposal, except that we have to recognize that honorifics are national, and Wikipedia is international. When an honorific is a job title, I believe it's necessary. When it is merely an affectation or endearment from a monarch or an indication of veneration by a particular public, it is neither necessary nor supportable according to NPOV. It is not up to us to say that Francis Atterbury was reverend, although we should indicate that he was a reverend. Anyone who believes that this is about "anti-aristocracy" must be terribly out of touch: there are no aristocrats where I live, so I don't have to oppose them; similarly, for me to use their honorifics suggests a point of view both on the provenance of Wikipedia and the character of the subject. Neither is supportable. Geogre 18:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • How do life peers fit into this? People are talking about titles that are inherited, and that privy counsellors deserve it because they have earnt not inherited it (fair enough) but so have life peers - nothing hereditary about them at all! --JRawle 19:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I've rewritten it slightly to address your objections--they fall in with hereditary nobles. Mackensen (talk) 19:34, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
My support for this proposal is conditional on it definitely including the removal of the inline use of "The Honourable" and "The Right Honourable" from articles about politicians. Adam 07:57, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Fully support this proposal. Re: the Right Honourable for Privy counsellors, I have checked other major reference works and they do not include this style. Arniep 22:44, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I would like to draw peoples attention to the proposal that has been made above to remove nationality from the headers of all articles Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Proposal_on_Nationality. Arniep 22:58, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Following discussions with Mackensen, I'd support the proposal if it'd always be acceptable usage to put "He is styled The Rt Hon. Tony Blair" (etc.) at the end of the opening paragraph. If "legitimately discussed in the article proper" is going to be interpreted to mean a small mention of styles somewhere near the end then I'd continue to oppose it. Proteus (Talk) 10:13, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm quite happy with it being mentioned anywhere, except at the start. Adam 12:24, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Then I support the proposal. Proteus (Talk) 13:16, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Me too. (I've joined in elsewhere too.) The questions is, does anyone oppose? -- ALoan (Talk) 14:38, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

The monarchist mafia won't object openly here, but they will once the changes start being made. Adam 06:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Anybody you've got in mind? This policy leaves the previous monarchist/pope framework in place, so they oughn't get in too much of a fuss. 67.173.68.19 14:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC) (Yes, that's me, Mackensen, forgetting to log in while traveling. I'll confirm that later today).
  • I'd just like to make clear my support for this proposal also (especially with regards to removing The Right Honourable from article beginnings). Though I have not participated in the debate, I have followed this issue and have previously been involved with it on Australian politician articles.--cj | talk 03:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Removal of Rt Hon for Privy Counsellors 6 SUPPORTBasketdove 21:46, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

  • I was shocked to discover that the styles Right Honourable and Honourable had been removed from certain pages that I watch - and so I belatedly come to this discussion. The only rationale I think I see here is a supposed "clunkiness" in the initial sentence caused by such honorifics. There does not seem to be a consensus in other reference works. In Canada, the use of these titles to denote membership in the privy council is quite common - so much so that removing them makes scanning the names in an encyclopaedic context somewhat odd. I also object to those who wish to retain such honorifics as "the monarchist mafia." Not only is this unkind, but it leads me to wonder what the motives for this might be. Fishhead64, 04:55, 06 February 2006 (UTC)

Removal of Rt Hon for Privy Counsellors 6 AGAINSTBasketdove 21:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Implementing the change

The above discussion suggests that people accept this compromise. In the next day or two, unless significant opposition develops, I'll update the policy page. At that point, those so inclined may start removing styles from the beginning of articles. This will probably, as Adam suggests, cause consternation. I would suggest, therefore, that those removing styles do so in a friendly fashion, with specific reference to the policy page and this discussion. Admins should avoid the rollback button. It would also be a good gesture to make specific mention of the removed style elsewhere in the article. This would reinforce that styles aren't being deleted so much as removed to a different part of the article. Mackensen (talk) 00:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, with regard to removal of Rt Hon for Privy Counsellors, at this point the opinion was split at 6 for and 6 against. The exchange below shows how the change was pushed through regardless and that it was motivated by a particular POV.Basketdove 21:52, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

This was the easy part. Now the real fun will start. The faction who want to turn Wikipedia into Debrett's will not like this at all, and monarchist resistance will be fierce. Adam 12:00, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Well, to avoid "fierce resistance", we should advertise the conclusion of this discussion before making wholesale changes. Far better to advertise widely and find out whether there are any dissentients than to start making the changes and have to go over old ground again. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  • 'Ave no fear M'sieur, any of their aristo tricks and vee zend zem to the WP Guillotine toute de suite. Giano | talk 12:27, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Above suggests POV motive for this changeBasketdove 21:40, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Please stop implying that all monarchists are against this. I'm a monarchist through and through and I support the change. -- Necrothesp 00:20, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I've updated the policy page. Mackensen (talk) 02:25, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Does this policy mean that the word "Cardinal" is to be deleted from the title of articles about Cardinals? That is, is George Cardinal Pell to be moved to George Pell? Adam 02:14, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

As stated above "Cardinal" is a title, not a style, so it wuld be "George Cardinal Pell", but not "His Eminence George Cardinal Pell" which is the correct style for a cardinal. DES (talk) 02:30, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

As I have explained above, in Canada, the style The Right Honourable is given sometimes to individuals that have made a great contribution to the country, without the requirement of holding any particular office. To strip them of this style would, in my view, be improper, since it is a mark of respect, a recognition of their achievements. The guide should reflect particular situations such as this.

There was clearly no consensus for adopting this proposal as fas as Rt Hon is concerned. The discussion above seems slightly disingenuous. Change seem to be implemented by a cabal.Basketdove 19:03, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Ambiguous?

The agreed wording now on the policy page is, I'm afraid to say, slightly ambiguous. I understood it to be about removing "The Right Honourable" or "His Excellency" and the like courtesy prenominals. I didn't take it to be about removing titles like Sir, Dr, Cardinal, Lord or Lady etc. At least one user disagrees[2]. Can we clarify this please. -- Ian ≡ talk 12:10, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, the text says 'Wikipedia currently distinguishes between three groups' and then goes on to list four groups. Markyour words 12:51, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

"Shall" vs. "Should"

This section (Honorific Prefixes) of MOS:BIO was recently quoted at the Help Desk, and one thing was very noticeable -- this is the only section of MOS:BIO that uses "shall" (as in, "Styles and honorifics which are derived from political activities [...] shall not be included in the text inline") as opposed to the entire rest of the style guide, which uses "should" (as in, "Academic and professional titles [...] should not be used before the name in the initial sentence").

"Should" seems more appropriate to a document like this; "shall" would be more appropriate for a statute or other legal document, rather than a style guide. Unless there are some very good reasons to make the wording of this section completely unique, I propose to change "shall" to "should".

I should also point out that I fully support the substance of the section as it stands and am only proposing a change in language for better consistency and more appropriate wording. MCB 04:24, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

User replacing British with English

A user has been systematically replacing British as a nationality with English on a huge number of articles with no prior discussion or consensus and has continued to do it despite my messages on their talk page to stop. The user has an account Special:Contributions/Layla12275 but also uses Special:Contributions/82.4.86.73 and Special:Contributions/82.110.217.226. I personally think that most people from England regard their nationality as British even if the Scots and Welsh reject that tag. Certainly doing what this user has done without prior discussion or consensus is not acceptable so possibly some sanction is due but I would appreciate people's thoughts on this. Arniep 03:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

It's kind of a blockable offense at this point. After all, this mess has been going round and round for over a year, and, although I always stay as far away from it as I can, it's fairly settled by now. The problem is that one can do one of two things, presently: say that, at the time of the person's life, there was no United Kingdom, or there was a Great Britain but no United Kingdom, and tag according to what the figure would have seen himself as, or say that, no matter what that person thought at the time, the place the person is from is now part of "Britain" and therefore apply that tag irrespective. To my knowledge, that has not been settled. For my part, I don't think historically aware tags are appropriate unless they are particularly important in the function of the person's life or for a legal reason (e.g. James I of Great Britain is not James I of the United Kingdom; Philip Sidney campaigned to subjugate Ireland and would have been appalled to have been lumped in with Scots and Welsh and any "Celts," whom he regarded as less than human). However, indiscriminate replacement, even with a rationale, is blockable if there is no discussion. Probably a WP:ANI matter. Geogre 15:44, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
  • For one I would like to point I am not Special:Contributions/Layla12275, I am a different person. Arneip's assumption that people from England call themselves British is just his view. I disagree. And, many, if not most, now see themselves as English.If people from Scotland are Scottish, people from Wales are Welsh then people from England are English, I can not see how you can argue with the logic of that.--82.4.86.73 18:22, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
The point is you must not make wholesale changes (which you have been doing) without prior discussion or consensus. To do so is arrogant and disrespectful of the community. Arniep 20:25, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Surely this matter is simply resolved all those people born in the British Isles under the jurisdiction of the British crown are British. Immaterial if they are born in Scotland, Wales Northern Ireland or England If they don't like it tough. They can take it up with their own authorities but not here. Failing that they can emigrate or change their nationality to one that suits. This is totally ridiculous the British are British, and should be glad they are not referred to as European., which is undoubtedly the next step. So put up or shut up. Their ethnic background and/or British Isles location can always be explained within the article. just as happens for all other former nationalities now absorbed into a larger recognised national domain. Giano | talk 21:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I personally think that most people from England regard their nationality as British Nonsense. - FrancisTyers 23:18, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, most people I know (from England) describe themselves as British, and, if you look in most major reference works British is generally the accepted nationality for anyone from England. Arniep 23:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
And from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland too? - FrancisTyers 23:37, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
no, see below. Arniep 23:39, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Legally, English, Welsh and Scots are all British (British Nationality Act 1981), but really I don't care which way it is describe as long as it's consistent: On Ian McKellen there's people reverting English to British, and on Robert Carlyle reverting British to Scottish. It makes my head hurt --TimPope 23:29, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Bah, the hobgoblin of little minds. Scottish and Welsh are useful information for Jocks and Taffs, because those respective identities tend to be stronger than their British identities. The case for English over British is less strong, though it has the merit of giving some extra information. But I really do wonder at the mentality of people who can think of nothing better to do than change English to British (or vice versa) in hundreds of articles: just leave it to the people who actually wrote the article to decide which to use. Mark1 23:36, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Amen. :) - FrancisTyers 23:40, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
It seems to be accepted in other reference works that Welsh and Scottish people are not described as British. Generally it seems to be the case that people from England are described as British. Arniep 23:38, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Reference works published where? I know Americans tend to use English and British interchangeably, meaning they'll call someone Welsh, Scottish or English either English or British. - FrancisTyers 23:41, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Britannica uses Scottish and Welsh, but generally seems to use British for people from England. Arniep 23:57, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
How about the individuals preference is used. E.g. if someone calls themselves English then English, or if British then British. - FrancisTyers 23:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I would support that but how often do people actually mention their own "nationality"? I know that a lot of ethnic minorities certainly don't identify as English. Arniep 23:55, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, I don't know about that. I wouldn't support describing Talvin Singh as English, I would however support the continued naming of Stephen Fry, Steve Coogan and Sean Bean as English. I would say that if people don't mention their nationality it needn't appear in their Wikipedia article (e.g. Nick Griffin). - FrancisTyers 00:25, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Have the three you mentioned identified as English? Just thinking about Steve Coogan, do we talk about British comedy or English comedy...I'd say the former. Arniep 00:38, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
How about the Alfred Molina example? Alfred Molina (born May 24, 1953) is an English actor of Spanish-Italian parentage, born in London. Regarding Steve Coogan, unless he has specifically called himself Irish or British, I think we should use Steve Coogan (born 14 October 1965 in Manchester, England) is an English actor and comedian of Irish parentage. Likewise with Jimmy Carr, although he carries an Irish passport he should be described as English with Irish parentage (although funnily enough his Wikipedia page doesn't mention this). - FrancisTyers 00:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I would definitely use British in that example. We should use British unless we are absolutely certain that person would have identified as English. Arniep 01:22, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Probably British comedy but that is fairly irrelevant, would you use Welsh comedy or Scottish comedy? I don't think so. How would you describe Marion and Geoff, British comedy or Welsh comedy? - FrancisTyers 01:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Re: your edit on Ian McKellen, I put British back. I'm not sure what your problem is with the term as it just means from the British Isles (which actually includes Ireland) so is actually a good broad identifier. Arniep 01:27, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah and Bertie Ahern is British, give me a break. - FrancisTyers 15:28, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Would you try and stay WP:CIVIL please? I did not mean that Irish people should be described as British I meant that for people in England who have close Irish/Welsh/Scottish ancestry British is a fitting term. Arniep 16:02, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
My apologies if I came accross as uncivil. I didn't spend enough time thinking about that comment. I really don't know, how recent is his Scottish ancestry? If not his parents then perhaps English actor with Scottish heritage or actor based in the United Kingdom, or probably the best solution is an actor with British citizenship (this is not the same as a British actor). - FrancisTyers 16:36, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
"British" does not mean "from the British Isles", it means from Great Britain (geographically) or the UK (politically). --Ryano 23:40, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Clarity at last! -- p r e c i s e l y so, Ryano. (And it's exactly what makes the very term "British Isles" so anachronistically misleading and eminently worth avoiding) -- Picapica 12:28, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
The rule is, if it's good it's another triumph for Britain!; if it's bad it's England loses again ;-) Just zis Guy you know? 13:18, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes I'm sure Flanders and Swann would appreciate this. However I can't see any coherance in the suggestion that we use Welsh for the Welsh but British for the English. Using different terms for different parts of the UK seems inherantly POV and will lead to edit wars. For right or wrong its the UK & NI and it British just as its Spanish even if they are Catalonian. Wiki surely has to deal with the political reality and report itAlci12 11:59, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

As to policy/guidelines, am i mistaken in thinking MoS calls for nationality in the lead of bios, and says nat'ty is normally citizenship? It also is sensible, where language or other cultural aspects are part of the notability (especially composers, writers, and vocalists) to reflect that: e.g. Pao Casals, Spanish Catalan painter. Many nationalists would like to see nat'ty (in the sense WP uses it) ignored where there is a nationalistic ethnic minority, claiming e.g. that being Catalan precludes being Spanish; the greatest evil in this is that many such minorities are not well enough known to native English-speakers (a relatively ignorant lot, even when they're not Yanks), so that frankly the interests of the minority nationalists coincide with WP's goal of making relevant info available: "Spanish Catalan", "Italian Sardinian", "French Corsican", "Chinese Uighar" can be read as e.g. "Catalan, and thus submerged within the Spanish polity" -- instead of "Uh, yeah, let's, does that make him French or Spanish?" However, for those with English as first language (and for ex-Commonwealth English speakers)) Irish, Welsh, Scottish, and Northern-Irish are so obviously British that i would never put "British Welsh"; and on the other hand, i see the English as so politically and numerically dominant that (for modern people) "English" rather than "British" feels silly and redundant to me: i read "British" as "probably English".
--Jerzy•t 05:25, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Has anything been resolved on this British versus English/Welsh/Scots debate? There are some very odd-looking things in articles and they continue to be edited one way then another. If the intention is to state someone's nationality, that is British, whether they are from England, Scotland, Wales or NI. However, a lot of articles seem to treat people's place of birth as though it were a nationality. According to Wikipedia, John Martyn is described as Scotland-based, born in Surrey, has a Glaswegian sense of humour and is in the categories of English guitarists and natives of Surrey. All these things may be true but this is not particularly helpful. Bluewave 12:04, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Rumours

Biographies, especially of Hollywood stars, tend to be filled with rumours. I am always reluctant to delete them, unless they are libelous. But I think we should agree to remove them from the biographical narrative and place them at the end of the article under a heading called "rumours" or "apocrypha". The same should be done for isolated facts that don't move the narration forward. These usually appear as single sentences throughout the biography as non sequitors. I believe its best to collect these single line facts under a heading such as "trivia", and place the heading at the end of the article. What do you think? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 17:53, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

  • We don't need rumours here. Any thing scurrilous without a reputable cited reference can jus be delete ASAP. Giano | talk 21:19, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I'd say one of the defining characteristics of encyclopedias is that they don't contain trivia. Mark1 21:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with the above: remove rumors. Wikipedia is not a secondary source of information: it is a tertiary source of information. The most we could have would be, "It was reported at the time in The Hollywood Reporter that Chuck Connors had made pornographic films" or something of the sort, but only if "was reported" immediately links via inline citation or notation to who alledged it. Without a direct pointer to the person alledging, it should be flat out deleted. Unless it is integral to understanding why the character was viewed one way or another or able/unable to work, it should be out. If it's not explanatory and explained, remove it. Tell the rumor mongers to cite their sources and explain why it's important or go away. Geogre 21:55, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Hollywood stars are rumour-magnets and we'll never get away from that. Where the person has made public statements in relation to rumours (eg. Tom Cruise has threatened legal action against anyone suggesting he is gay), I think it's a part of their story and there's no reason why it can't be included. Where the person has never entered the debate, I'd agree with Geogre.
In relation to trivia, we'd need to agree on how it's defined, and I think that would be a tough nut to crack. A bit of knowledge may be trivial to me, but to you it might be of value. JackofOz 22:12, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I have a policy of deleting "trivia" sections from articles on non-trivial topics. Thus I deleted the entire, quite large, "trivia" section from Winston Churchill, on the grounds that if any of the matters in the section were of importance, they should be incorporated in the text, and if they were not of importance they should be deleted. This edit has not been challenged. I would not delete a "trivia" section from an article about (say) The Spice Girls, because the subject is itself trivial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adam Carr (talk • contribs)

Locations

We better make a decision on the proper format for locations in biographies. Someone is changing all the locations from Oakland, California → Oakland, California, USA. What should the styleguide say?
--Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 14:55, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Hm I think a country should be included unless the place is obviously well known (which is up for debate)--imo if you were born in New York, London or Tokyo a country would not be necessary. But if you were born in London, Ontario, you should add Canada to the place name. As for US states, I think just "USA" should suffice at the end, after the state (except for well known cases). I don;t think that US states/Canadian provinces/English counties should be exepmted from country naming, however this could lead to cumbersome lead paragraphs. Greentubing 10:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
That doesn't address the question asked, nor is its meaning clear enuf to directly address.
--Jerzy•t 16:53, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
It was just my two cents, that's all. Greentubing 20:44, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
_ _The style guide should say that the country is a cluttering redundancy where a well known subdivision of the country is included (and is no substitute for the subdivision either). Specifying the municipaltiy as being in California, New York, Texas, Alaska, or Hawaii (to name only the most indisputible cases) absolutely obviate including USA.
I don't know what the style guide should say, but I'll stick my two penn'orth in anyway and say I'm completely comfortable seeing US states and UK countries referred to alone, that is, "Las Vegas, Nevada", not "Las Vegas, Nevada, USA"; "Glasgow, Scotland", not "Glasgow, Scotland, UK". A more interesting question is, how many other countries should this be applied to? Would American browsers of Wikipedia be confused by references to German länder, like Bavaria, without the clarifying ", Germany" on the end (the länder of the Federation are well explained here)? A search seems to imply that most instances on Wikipedia are written "Bavaria, Germany". What about the component countries still in the Russian Federation, or the parts of China? I don't have an answer, but I'm sure someone will get upset about it one day, and go on an editing rampage. — Del C 22:34, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
_ _Delaware and Wyoming, and cities in them, on the other hand may be examples of states obscure enough to justify mention of US (as an adjective) or American, or USA (as a noun following the city or state within it), where the context does not make that clear. Nunavat, being if nothing else too new to be well known, is a definite case of something requiring mention of Canada or Canadian; Prince Edward Island is such a small province (i had to look that up to be sure of its status) that it probably also does.
_ _Other cases like Rhode Island, New Hampshire, South Britain Island (is that obscure, or did i just make it up??), the former New Hebrides, and New South Wales are what, eponyms? of other places, and offer at least some unconscious confusion that may be worth alleviating by something that makes their country clear. Georgia is an ambiguous territorial name; anglicized place names in the country and probably many Amerind-derived place names in the state need attention to be sure that the state and country are at least implicitly disambiguated.
_ _Of course, there are cases where the name of the city alone suffices, but American and British editors probably need to be more cautious in assuming that. E.g., always use St. Petersburg, Florida, unpiped unless the context is sufficient. (But what about Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco? Is it OK that each of them is a rdr to an article lacking a ToP Dab?)
--Jerzy•t 16:53 &17:05, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Please forgive my sowing confusion. I have just become aware of a piddling deficiency in the fabulous suite of Kate's tools: the "previews" of these articles omit the ToP-Dab lines, contrary to my assumption.
--Jerzy•t 17:05, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
How would you set the threshold for the various levels of notability (not withstanding the above)? By discretion, or by the places population/etc? Removed comment, I was thinking about the wrong things...Greentubing 20:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
BTW, while i don't find it that problematic in the clever sig, "(1958- )" has what some of us call a vulture hyphen. Whenever they appear in the main ("article") namespace, they should be converted, in this case to "(born 1958)" (since, i am told, "(b. 1958)" is also disapproved).
--Jerzy•t 16:53, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Clarification of styles

User:Proteus has been simply moving styles from the beginning of headers and moving them just after the name in bold (examples here, here, and here). If that was what some thought that we had agreed upon then I think we need to clarify this issue as I for one do not agree with putting the style in so prominent a place in the article. Arniep 22:43, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, Proteus himself indicated above the he was fine with the proposal so long as styles could be mentioned at the end of the opening paragraph. I saw nothing wrong with that, and no else seems to have either. Mackensen (talk) 22:50, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I strongly object to this. The whole point of the proposal was that styles are quite irrelevant to why a person is notable so should not be in the header of articles. Someone had suggested that it could be shown as part of a template or image caption which is something I would find acceptable. Arniep 22:58, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Oh, come on. Are those insertions "at the end of the first paragraph"[3] Or do they amount to "discussing" the honorific "in the article proper"?[4] I object to this, too. Bishonen | talk 23:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC).
I wasn't rendering judgement on Proteus' action but rather giving my view of what the limits are. It appears from Arniep's comment above that he wouldn't even "allow" styles in the opening paragraph at all. I'm going to add the style to the end of the opening paragraph on Blair. If Arniep objects to this as well then I fear compromise with him is impossible. Mackensen (talk) 23:48, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
It seems you really misunderstood the whole point of the proposal. If we are just going to move styles around within the header they might as well go back to the front. Arniep 23:50, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I doubt very much that I misunderstood the proposal of which I am the author. My goal was to achieve a compromise which retained styles while not using them inline. This was done–and not without some significant arm-twisting, I might add. I would also note that the new policy frowns on simply deleting a style. Mackensen (talk) 23:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, actually the proposal began from a discussion between me and Giano. We both agreed that styles were not something important enough to be placed in the header of articles. Arniep 00:01, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
That's nice, but that's not what was proposed above, discussed by many people, and added to the Manual of Style. I regret if you misunderstood the wording.Mackensen (talk) 00:04, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes we did discuss it and I don't think anyone agreed that the style should just be moved around the header section which is why I have suggested we clarify this. Arniep 00:12, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I think it's plenty clear. They should be included and discussed, but not used. That's all the policy needs to say. Therefore, I've been moving them, as have others. We include appropriate context. Then you remove them utterly because you don't like where they are. This is not constructive. This is not calculated to make a good impression. Moreover, as "The Right Honourable" is gained these days because of membership in the Privy Council, which is itself indicative of high position within the British political world, I'd say it's pretty important. Mackensen (talk) 00:18, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Most people object to styles because they feel that Wikipedia actually calling someone "The Right Honourable X Y Z" (rather than simply stating that they are called that) is endorsing the style and thus POV. You obviously object to styles because you don't like them. It seems that it's you who has "misunderstood the whole point of the proposal". Proteus (Talk) 23:58, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

No I think it is you who have misunderstood the reasoning behind the proposal. I neither like nor dislike these styles, I just feel that they are not something which can be regarded as "vital" information about someone and should therefore not be put in the header. Arniep 00:10, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Are we so short of disk space that we have to use: "The Rt Hon. Tony Blair" instead of "The Right Honorable Tony Blair" --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 00:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I think most people involved in the above discussion thought that they were agreeing to move the styles to a less prominent position. The header is definitely not a less prominent position. Arniep 00:26, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. For most, and this was true last summer as well, the major issue was usage. That's what was changed. Mackensen (talk) 00:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
In your proposal above (to which we agreed) Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Proposed_change_to_Honorific_prefixes, you stated
"Styles and honorifics which are derived from noble title, including The Most Noble, The Most Honourable, The Right Honourable, and The Honourable, shall not be included in the text inline but may be legitimately discussed in the article proper."
The article proper is not the article header. Arniep 00:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
In this context I don't see how 'the article proper' could ever be interpreted as the lead. Mark1 01:03, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I did not intend to imply what Arniep is claiming. The language was meant to endorse discussion somewhere within the article. It was not meant as a categorical disqualification of any particular section, nor do I think everyone interpreted it that way. In any case, I'm washing my hands of this business. It's clear you want styles minimized if not removed. It is equally clear that there are other Wikipedians opposed to this. I sought a compromise. Compromise requires that both sides give something up—not one getting everything it wants. Clearly, this isn't possible, at least not with my involvement. If anyone wants me, I'll be over at Robert Grant (politician). Mackensen (talk) 01:09, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Personally I endorse Mackensen's compromise. It seems perfectly logical to state that someone possesses a particular style in the opening paragraph, particularly when some styles like the Right Honourable, etc are very famous. The opening paragraph is by definition part of the article. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 01:14, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

The style of a person is not vitally important to why a person is famous and thus should not be in the header section. This is what I, Bishonen, Mark Alexander, and, I think, Giano thought we had agreed to and is a convention followed by most other mainstream reference works. Arniep 01:21, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Can I just point out that I do not want to remove styles completely. I just want people to stick to the policy to which we agreed which was not to include it in the header. I am absolutely fine with linking the style in picture captions or explaining the style somewhere in the article where it can also be explained why the person has that style i.e. they are a member of the privy council. Arniep 01:37, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I have moved the explanation of the style in Tony Blair to the appropriate section when he became party leader, and linked the Rt. Hon. in the caption. Arniep 01:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Policy has been decided and we must all abide by it - what has been decided seems to me eminently sensible. So the question is: Is Proteus abiding by the new policy? or more abstractly - is Proteus acting within the spirit of the new policy? The wording is quite clear "shall not be included in the text inline but may be legitimately discussed in the article proper." Is the second sentence of a page where Proteus is placing the style, the article proper? Sadly most of these stubby little pages do not have an "article proper". So answering my own questions it seems in the longer pages Proteus is not acting within the policy - in the shorter he probably is. Is he acting within the spirit of the policy - then No, I don't feel he is. At this stage I would just appeal to him to act in accordance with what he must know to have been decided. My own view is that style should be explained on the pages such as Prime Minister , Right Honourable or Duke as the style pertains to the office rather than the man. If it needs to be on the individual's own page, then the place for it is a standard sentence of explanation near the succession box section. Giano | talk 08:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
  • What Proteus is doing is within the letter but not the spirit in terms of wording, but I think it opens up a brand new problem in terms of formatting. Saying "Margaret Thatcher (1799 - 2007) was [prime minister] of the [United Kingdom] from [1980] - [1990]. She is styled most dignified ladyship" is a no-no, not because of the words, but because of the glowing halo. If the formatting choice (bold) is to highlight that there is a "styled" title as opposed to Wikipedia-bestowed descriptor, then the answer is to have [styled] link to a page that explains that noble and life peer titles in the UK carry the following formulations within the UK and that these persons are called that by persons in the UK, etc. I.e. the formatting is yet another new matter of consensus. Geogre 12:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I'd be quite happy to link "styled" to Forms of Address in the United Kingdom (which seems to fit the criteria of the page you're looking for), if you think that's appropriate. (However, I'll abide by what I feel to be the spirit of the policy, not what others tell me is the spirit of the policy.) Proteus (Talk) 11:36, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
I am not even really sure that he was abiding by the letter of the policy which states that it should only "be discussed in the article proper". I cannot see how anyone could have thought that the article proper would include the header section. Why even use the term "the article proper" if one was not distinguishing it from another part of the article i.e. the lead section (where the styles have been previously )? Certainly that was the meaning that I and I think many others read from it. Arniep 13:54, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
"The article proper" as opposed to "the first mention of a person's full name that all biographies begin with". It's hardly my fault if you get the wrong end of the stick. Proteus (Talk) 11:36, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Please do not make out that it is just me who thought that, just about everyone else who has posted above also understood the meaning in the way in which I described it so it is you who are in the minority. Arniep 14:09, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I think Proteus that it is reasonable to assume that the article proper means contained within the text, rather than in the first brief paragraph. Giano | talk 16:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Honorific titles

While I support not including titles on pages relating to nobility I would like to voice my oppinion that including titles such as The Honourable and The Right Honourable really dont hurt anything, and although im sure people do not in everyday use call someone like Jean Chretien, The Right Honourable Jean Chretien, these titles do become part of that individuals full legal name for life. For example during the Gomery Commission, Judge Gomery would regularly use the title saying things like "There has been a request from the Right Honourable Jean Chretien asking that I recuse myself". Also, although people do not say things like "I was talking to The Honourable Sheila Copps the other day" I do know firsthand that she uses the style "The Honourable" on her buissenss card (I have one sitting on my desk in front of me).

As someone else mentiond previously on this discussion page, honourific titles like The Right Honourable, are occassionally given as a mark of respect by the Governor General on the advise of the Prime Minister, as was the case with Herb Grey the first Jewish cabinet minister, or Ellen Fairclough the first female cabinet minister, and it would be a bit of a disrespect not to use them here.

As a bit of trivia, the father of the former Prime Minsiter Paul Martin was also given The Right Honourable status, and a boat in the Canada Steamship Lines fleet is name (literally) "The Right Honourable Paul James Joseph Martin" - so these things do have a life outside of the house of commons.

Its not as if the styles being used at the start of articles could easily confuse, since they are used wikied to their related pages. To concluse I would like to reopen discussion on this topic as I think it deserves a second look. Dowew 00:43, 8 February 2006 (UTC) Removal of Rt Hon for Privy Counsellors 7 AGAINSTBasketdove 21:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Opposition

I just wanted to voice my opposition to this new policy. Removing honorific prefixes from the beginning of articles just because some people feel that it sounds pompous or could be misconstrued is really going a bit far. It seems really superflous to me to write a new sentence saying "By virtue of his office, Jean Chrétien is entitled to the honorary prefix The Right Honourable" instead of simply opening the article with "The Right Honourable Jean Chrétien". If certain people are somehow confused by the concept of honorary prefixes, well, this in an encyclopedia, so let them be educated. If the concept of honorary prefixes offends them, well, too bad. Personally, alot of facts of reality offend me, but I don't go around insisting that no one mention them. Digging.holes 07:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC) Removal of Rt Hon for Privy Counsellors 8 AGAINSTBasketdove 21:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree with this opposition. This looks more like some kind of class war than an attempt to write an encyclopedia. --Khendon 06:47, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Removal of Rt Hon for Privy Counsellors 9 AGAINSTBasketdove 21:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I disagrre with removing the prefix Rt Hon for members of the privy councilBasketdove 21:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC) Removal of Rt Hon for Privy Counsellors 10 AGAINSTBasketdove 21:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Use of honorifics - proposal

In a lot of articles, such as Mark Vaile, John Howard and Tony Blair, styles like "The Hon" and "The Rt Hon" are placed in photo captions and above infoboxes. I've been told that "we" have this convention to leave them on for Commonwealth ministers. [5]

It seems to me that really, this is illogical, when the MoS states that honorifics shouldn't be used inline and the style be used only in discussion of it (I know it doesn't state that it shouldn't be used in photo captions and above infoboxes).

The reason I've been given for this use of styles is that it's a "convention", but I think that should be changed and that convention is no reason to keep doing something that is not as clear, simple and logical. Even only recently, articles on current peeresses (wives of peers) were named, for example, like Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, which would be the normal style of a divorced peeress, until it was decided that the definite article be added (Camilla, The Duchess of Cornwall).

I'd like to hear opinions on this, as to whether styles gained from being politicians, such as The Hon and The Rt Hon should be removed from photo captions and above infoboxes. Thanks. JSIN 07:56, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Academic titles

Er, where was this discussed before the section was added to the page? Our policy has always been not to include academic titles. -- Necrothesp 14:09, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, albeit briefly in the section above titled "Honorifics and credentials." In that section there seems to be a clear consensus to allow it in the lead in paragraph.Arbusto 07:00, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
That was my question, on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#The use of the title "Dr." from unaccredited universities. As to whether that discussion had any causality for this addition, I don't know, but I find the whole thing weird. --TreyHarris 16:41, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I think JzG saw the section on this talk "Honorifics and credentials" and got fed up with the hostile revert wars over the Dr. title being used by diploma mill graduates and added it. Arbusto 07:10, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
If there were "hostile revert wars" in progress, then the point of dispute should not have been added to a Wikipedia guideline until the dispute was resolved. The editors involved on the other side of the dispute should have been given a chance to weigh in with their objections so that we could reach consensus. Since they did not, I assume that they simply were not watching this page. I surely hope that the text wasn't added in an effort to sidestep the ordinary dispute resolution process; that's not what the MoS is for. --TreyHarris 08:52, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Had you clicked on the link on the other page that I referenced for the case in point you would know the "revert war" involved someone's personal credentials (the username was "PSRuckman" editting an article "Peter Ruckman"- his only edits on wikipedia concerned that one article) from an unaccredited university. Thus, the addition to the page was not a way to "sidestep" the dispute, but a way to make in clear for all wikipedia users. In fact, if you read the section that I referenced on this talk page another user mentions these titles as the root of "revert wars" as well. Such a policy needs to be clearly spelled out. Arbusto 10:21, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
The "Academic titles" section was copied to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) too [6] - I removed it there, while double content and rather MoS topic than NC topic. The section was written primarily by JzG [7]; then a bit smartened up and put under a separate section title by Arbustoo [8] who copied it to the NC guideline. If you think it weird, just remove it here too. I was never really involved in this MoS guideline, so I don't know what the general opinion about JzG's and Arbustoo's additions to this MoS page would be. --Francis Schonken 21:13, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I copied it there because it is a title and that page is called "names and titles." Arbusto 07:05, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused as to why Isaac Asimov begins with "Dr.", but Steven Pinker, Condoleezza Rice and Martin Luther King, Jr. do not. What is the difference as to their academic credentials? --TreyHarris 08:59, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

There is no difference in the academic credentials so it is a preference by the editors or perhaps a title that is so closely recognizible to the name that the editors included out of convention. For the same reason some PhDs put the Dr. on the cover of their books and others do not. Arbusto 10:21, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I had a friend, David Malcolm Trustram Eve, Second Baron Silsoe, QC. David Silsoe was much easier to remember :-) But we are unlikely to have a problem with Professor Stephen Hawking, followed by Hawking throughout the article; we are similarly unlikely to have a problem with Asimov. The issue arises with the likes of "Dr." Ian Paisley and "Dr." Kent Hovind. And I really do think we should have a point of reference for these. Just zis Guy you know? 22:48, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I can't see any consensus at all. I certainly don't think we should use academic pre-titles and I believe the section should be removed from the page. -- Necrothesp 10:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

It's all my fault, and yes, Arbustoo is right, I was fed up with sterile revert wars. Use of academic titles varies ridiculously, but in most places their usage follows closely that of other honorifics, with the title used when the ful name is spelled out, and not subsequently. Asimove seemed to me to be a good example, albeit padded out with groups laying claim to him as one of their own ;-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by JzG (talk • contribs)

OK, any form of consensus over this new section appears to be eluding. I moved from the guideline to below, in order:

  1. to work on it
  2. to establish consensus on such reworked version,

before such section could be introduced into the guideline (Francis Schonken 14:48, 16 March 2006 (UTC)):

Academic titles

Academic and professional titles may be used in the head paragraph:

Subsequent references should omit the academic title. Unearned (honorary) titles and those from unaccredited institutions, especially known degree mills, should be excluded, although they should be listed as such within the article. Sometimes an individual who is not formally entitled to an academic or professional title may be best known by that title:

In some cases a doctoral title is claimed by the subject but not generally accepted as valid; in this case it may be appropriate to include it with commentary in the article to explain it is honorary, such as in the case of Ian Paisley, where the title Dr. Ian Paisley is commonly asserted despite it being an honorary degree from an unaccredited university:

When a doctor has been disqualified from practice it is normal to cease referring to them as "Dr.":

Comments, suggestions, etc:

  • Obviously I agree with the above :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by JzG (talk • contribs)

....

I don't think "Dr" should be used at all in the header, although if somebody is commonly referred to by that title (as with Ian Paisley or Crippen) then I don't see any problem with stating that after the dates. I don't think any information except name and postnoms should be given before the dates. The "known as Fred Shipman to his family" should be after the dates. Linking pre-titles looks ugly in my opinion, and I'm not sure about using Reverend and Right Honourable anyway (see debate above). I do agree with linking postnoms, however. I'm undecided about the use of "professor" in the header. I agree with using military ranks, and this could be considered similar, but the usage of professor is so different in different countries, which creates confusion. In the US, for instance, it seems that many academics are professors, whereas in the UK only the most senior are. Even if used, it shouldn't be bolded - it's not common usage to bold ranks, only titles ("Sir" or "Dame", for instance). All just my opinion, obviously. -- Necrothesp 01:31, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
The above section is fine. The use of "Dr." and "Professor" are valid titles for people with PhDs from accredited schools. Yet, limiting the title to just "professor" is highly presumptious when referring to a PhD because not all people with doctorates are educators at institutions. So it should be based the situation/background of the biography to use the title. Following the title is should be made clear that the "Dr." is an academic or medical title (PhD or MD).
If a person in the military who is notable enough for wikipedia can use a title (such as a Private), why can't a person who attended a school for 8 years+ use their valid title as well? It seems very bias to leave out such a title that is publicly and academically recognized as proper.
Also I concur about not allowing titles to be linked.Arbusto 02:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, in the British Armed Forces at least, it is not usual practice to use a rank outside the forces environment unless one is a senior officer (Major or equivalent or above). It is interesting that when granted knighthoods or damehoods, British people stop using "Dr" before their name, but generally continue to use "Professor" (only used by those holding actual chairs in the UK) or a military rank. In effect, the "Doctor" is only an honorary title, since the real indicator of a doctorate is the postnom, which, granted, we do not use. But even usage of "doctor" varies from country to country - most British medical doctors do not hold MDs, for example. The "Doctor" is customary, but is not reflected in their degree. And, of course, British surgeons use "Mr" instead for historical reasons. Personally, I think it's simpler just to omit the pretitle entirely. -- Necrothesp 19:10, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Why should all other countries with different customs be required use British title conventions? Afterall British titles such as "Sir" are used on wikipedia even though Americans don't recognized the title outside a British context. Arbusto 00:39, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
No reason at all. I was simply pointing out that since conventions vary from one country to another it was somewhat confusing, and since I'm British myself I have a greater knowledge of British examples. That's why there was so much debate over the use of (Right) Honourable, since it is used in so many different ways. I should also point out that you too made a national presumption when you said "doctor" should be confined to holders of PhDs and MDs! A British/Commonwealth medical doctor may not generally hold an MD, but he/she is no less qualified. It's simply a difference in university systems, which is the root of the problem. To add another country to the debate, in Germany many degrees allow pretitles, not just doctorates. Also note that Americans may not use "Sir" and "Dame" for their own citizens, but they certainly acknowledge them. A number of American films bill their stars as "Sir" or "Dame". -- Necrothesp 13:10, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Good point, so perhaps add in a clause to the above section that states that? Arbusto 03:30, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

So it is 2 to 1. Two in favor and one in favor of including after the dates if the person know as the that title. If there are no objections. The above will be added. Arbusto 01:10, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

*question* – How about Dr. Drew? Is the first sentence of that article OK like it is now? And if so: should something be mentioned of such cases in the biographies MoS? --Francis Schonken 17:10, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
The first exludes the title, but the second mention is more of a stage name and also his professional title. Arbusto 21:29, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
I object. I still think that simply not using any titles at all, and instead referring to facts, will prevent future disputes, while this new text will cause disputes as editors squabble over whether to place the title before the name or not. The text above says, "titles may be used in the head paragraph" (emphasis mine); I would like to see a clear explanation, as I asked before, as to when it should be used and when it should not. If you can tighten that up and make it clear as to in exactly which cases the title should precede the name and when it should not, so that there will not be new disputes, I would feel more comfortable with this text. --TreyHarris 17:44, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Okay, so write something pertaining to the exclusion of the title to make it universal and concise to wikipedia users. We'll then put it up for consensus. As it stands now some use the title and some don't. The ones who don't are generally the more academically and publicly respected ones and the others who emphasize the titles sometimes have unaccredited doctorates from diploma mills. Arbusto 21:29, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Okay, see below. --TreyHarris 05:43, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
*question2* Are honorary doctorates usually termed "unearned"? Seems quite funny to me to say someone didn't earn an honoris causa degree? I mean: "Unearned (honorary) titles [...] should be excluded, [...]" as it is now in the proposal. Not being a native English speaker myself, could someone clarify whether it is customary in English to talk about honorary titles in such terms? --Francis Schonken 19:15, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
The article on the Dr. titles refers to a doctoral/dissertation as an "earned" degree. Arbusto 21:29, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Academic Post Nominals

Having read the above and the MoS I'm still not clear what we should be doing with post nominals. I can see a reasonable argument for adding them (especially if we are for reasons of clarity which I reluctantly support not using the pre nominal "Dr") but are we adding everything or just notable things. Take the MoS example Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, Now he has presumably a BA/BSC MS and PHD yet we list none. Others have talked about listing the PHD. I can't see as things stand on what basis we are making this choice? Are we only using PHD where no higher post noms exist - that would be the conclusion from the Hawking article.

I'm having a bun fight elsewhere over the insisted inclusion of a BA. It seems pointless to include such low grade awards as everyone and their dog has one. A PHD obviously is more limited and notable. The MoS doesn't really argue for or against this position even if the reality of usage in wiki appears that we don't add BA or MA except where the odd editor has a whim.

If someone can clarify where we stand I'd appreciate it - but as I say I don't think the MoS at the moment really gives a clear answer and it does need so to do.Alci12 15:02, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I would still maintain that we should not use any academic postnominals, including doctorates. The reality of usage, as you say, has always been that in general they are not used, and I believe that's the way it should stay. -- Necrothesp 21:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Well thats's the thing I can't see where a BA or MA or even a PHD really adds to the article - they are just not unique enough. If people want to make an infobox or add it to the body of the article fine. There seem so many proposals going on here I'm not sure if this can be attached to another and voted on or needs a new vote.Alci12 11:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Alternate proposal excluding initial titles

I propose a section be added under "Honorific prefixes" and a paragraph be added to "Subsequent uses of names":

Academic titles

Academic and professional titles (such as "Doctor" or "Professor") should not be used before the name in the initial sentence or in subsequent uses of the person's name. Verifiable facts about how the person attained such titles should be included in the article text instead. In cases where the person is widely known by a pseudonym or stage name containing such a title (whether earned or not), it may be included as described above.

For example:

[...]

Subsequent uses of names

...until his elevation to the peerage in 1563.

For people with academic or professional titles, subsequent uses of names should omit them. For example, use Asimov, Hawking, and Pinsky; not Dr. Asimov, Professor Hawking (or Prof Hawking or Dr Hawking), or Dr. Pinksy (or Dr. Drew).

To disambiguate between siblings or other well-known relatives with the same surname....

This proposal would eliminate the use of academic titles with names, and I hope put to bed internecine squabbling about whether a person "deserves" a given title or not.

I can imagine that there may be academic or professional titles that are not well known. If someone can give me some examples, I'd like to incorporate that into the guideline in a way that would specify something like the following: In 1932, Smith achieved the degree of Master of Weaving from the Nowhere School, entitling him to be called "Weaver Smith". But having no examples at hand, I've left it out for now. --TreyHarris 05:43, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

...looks good! I support TreyHarris' proposal --Francis Schonken 11:37, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Any other comments? Arbusto, Necrothesp, JzG? Is this compromise acceptable? --TreyHarris 01:50, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, of course support, since this is exactly the policy we had before, is it not? -- Necrothesp 13:38, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
I still think people with doctorates should be called Dr in the introductory sentence. Yet, it looks like this has one more vote of support than the other proposed addition. Arbusto 00:47, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Support: I agree with the above proposal of excluding titles from introductory sentence. Including them seems more like an author's biography and less like an encyclopedia. Also, titles can change and the encyclopedia should introduce a person with the more permanent facts. -- Renesis13 01:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Military ranks?

I would guess most of the guidelines on style would apply to military ranks; if so, this should get mention in the style guide.

I mention this because I have run across an article on Sergeant Major so-and-so which refers to him as Sergeant Major so-and-so throughout the article, as in "after completing basic training, Sergeant Major so-and-so received artillery training at Ft. somewhere" -- clearly the individual was not a Sergeant Major immediately after basic training. I think the article on George S. Patton seems like a good example, using the rank sparingly and always using the current rank. --Rschmertz 01:49, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Arbusto 07:07, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I think the final (or current, if still serving) rank achieved should be used at the beginning of the article. Thereafter, I don't think the individual needs to be referred to by rank at all. The surname is perfectly sufficient, as with anyone else. -- Necrothesp 01:21, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
In British civil life it's rare to use the military title for those below Major (Captain in the navy, Squadron Leader in the RAF), as noted above. Just zis Guy you know? 19:34, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it's Lieutenant-Commander in the Navy. -- Necrothesp 13:14, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Hmmmm. I have met people who use Commander in civilian life, but not Lt-Cdr. You may e right, though. Never come across less than a squabbling bleeder used in civvy street from the air force, anyway. I think there is a guideline in the Usual Sources, come to that. Just zis Guy you know? 13:20, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
I've certainly seen retired officers billing themselves as Lt-Cdr. It is, after all, the equivalent of Maj and Sqn Ldr. Mind you, some people consider it bad form to use any rank after retirement, and some have continued to use more junior ranks, the most famous example being Sir Basil Liddell Hart, who annoyed the whole military establishment by called himself Captain Liddell Hart for the rest of his life. Not only was it a junior rank, but he wasn't even an ex-regular (he'd held the rank in WWI). -- Necrothesp 13:38, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


Image standardization in biographies

Should there be image standardization and image caption standardization? Looking over biographies the opening image ranges from the standard thumbnail to 300 pixels. Some have frames, some don't. Some have image captions, some don't. Image captions vary. Shouldn't the look and feel be standardized? I notice that infoboxes are used in some biographies, but have not been standardized, there are three types used in biographies, and the colors vary from biography to biography. Is there a code to the colors? Suggestions:

  • Frame the image
  • Standard thumb for a vertical image, 250px for horizontal image
  • Standardize caption as: "John Doe (1860-1923)" or "John Doe (1860-1923) circa 1910" or other variations.

What do you think? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 15:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I think this is one place where standardization isn't needed. The "picture is a thousand words" cliché is relevant here; the varieties of variability from image to image is enormous, and I think we'll be in trouble if we try to write specific formatting rules to cover them all. Suppose there's an interesting feature, relevant to the article text, that can only be seen at >300 pixels wide? What if the only image we can use already has a frame inside it? What if the only image we can use has two people—shouldn't we identify the other one? (These are just three examples; if you were to rewrite your suggested guidelines to handle those cases, I'd have a dozen more to add, just off the top of my head. My point is that it's an intractable problem to address them all.) I think that while writing some general aesthetic guidelines, we should leave wide latitude for editors to make aesthetic decisions. --TreyHarris 21:53, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposal on spacing of initials in names

Dozens of famous people of Indian origin have been known by two initials plus their last name, where those first two initials are used in place of the first name. Just a few examples include P.C. Sorcar, V.S. Naipaul, and A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. In each of these cases, the official spelling and punctuation of their names does NOT include a space between the first two initials. That is, P.C. Sorcar is correct, while P. C. Sorcar is not. Becuase of this usage amongst so many notable persons, I would propose that the Manual of Style specifically allows the correct usage in article names and articles. Thanks. Abpatak 16:29, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Honorific Prefixes

I strongly disagree with point 2 in the current policies on honorific prefixes. Not being able to use "The Right Honourable" for privy councillors doesn't make much sense, especially since we do give post-nominals, which include "PC" for peers. Since "The Rt Hon" is precisely equivalent to "PC", except one is used for commoners and the other for peers, it makes absolutely no sense to give one at the beginning of the article and not the other. john k 15:14, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

But "PC" can and should be used as a postnominal for commoners as well. So your argument is flawed, I'm afraid. -- Necrothesp 15:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
No, "PC" is only used for peers (at least in Britain). Proteus (Talk) 16:37, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
No it isn't. It is used for commoners in Who's Who, for example. -- Necrothesp 10:52, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
As an addendum to that, I have in front of me the official order of service for Ernest Bevin's memorial service at Westminster Abbey in 1951. It says "Ernest Bevin, PC" on the front. -- Necrothesp 11:10, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

PC is only used for those peers who would already be entitled to the prefix Right Honourable. Right Honourable is sufficient for commoners.Basketdove 18:57, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

See my above two comments, in which I have provided citations to the effect that this is not the case. -- Necrothesp 17:52, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Younger sons of Marquesses/Dukes etc

MoS at present says:

(4) The honorifics Sir and Dame shall be included in the text inline for baronets, knights bachelor, and members of knightly orders whose rank grants them that dignity, provided that they do not hold a higher dignity, such as a peerage, which trumps that usage.

The sons of marquesses/dukes and daughters of the same and of earls are known as "Lord/Lady John/Jane Smith. So are they treated as Sir/Dame above? Logically they should be (it is 'inherited' in the same way that a baronet's title is 'inherited') but the MoS doesn't give any guidance atm. Looking around for articles I can find them with/without and those that have had them added/removed Alci12 15:55, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Where have you found them without/removed? (The only one I know of is Lord Nicholas Hervey.) Proteus (Talk) 16:36, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Question about lowercase spelling of name

I could use some advice about an MoS issue with a biographical article (Danah boyd). The spelling of the subject's name appears in one way in nearly every major press article about her (Danah Boyd), but she insists that her legal spelling is different (all lower case: danah boyd), and that her Wikipedia bio should match the legal spelling. Her friends and fans have been coming in and editing the article to adapt to her wishes. Has this kind of issue been dealt with in other articles? How was it handled? --Elonka 18:58, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

From reading her latest blog entry (incidentally about her article on Wikipedia) it sounds like she's not going to like this, but her name should be capitalized on Wikipedia. (See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (trademarks) for discussion on lowercase first letters in trademarked names.) She deserves no special treatment even if that is her "legal" name. I didn't know you could "legally" have a name that started with a lowercase letter. Either way, this issue has come up many times with trademarked names before, and first letters of persons' names should be treated just the same. -- Renesis13 20:25, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
While I sympathize, I have to say that seeing e. e. cummings's name in title case would be weird. [checks] my goodness, Wikipedia actually does show cummings's name with caps, and defends the decision too. Okay, well if it's good enough for cummings, then boyd is just out of luck, I think. — Del C 22:02, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Proper style for Knights and Dames

This article so nearly recommends a style for article headers for knights and dames -- but doesn't quite, depsite giving examples for all sorts of other cases. The issue I have is whether the "Sir" or "Dame" should be bold -- my thought is that it shouldn't, because as Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) says: "Sir and Dame should not be included in the article title". This may be getting a bit picky, but I'm trying to get articles on sailors like Ellen MacArthur and Robin Knox-Johnston looking consistent, and I'd like some kind of justification for reverting edits when people make them inconsistent.

So, I propose that we extend the existing guidance in line with what we do in other cases (and BTW, let's mention the rule for honorary knighthoods):

  • (4) The honorifics Sir and Dame shall be included in the text inline for baronets, knights bachelor, and members of knightly orders whose rank grants them that dignity, provided that they do not hold a higher dignity, such as a peerage, which trumps that usage. (Note that honorary knights and dames are not entitled to "Sir" or "Dame", only the post-nominal letters.) Example:
Dame Ellen Patricia MacArthur, DBE (born July 8, 1976) is an English sailor...

Since we give examples for all sorts of other cases, and there are plenty of knights and dames in Wikipedia, I really think some examples here would be very useful. What do people think? — Johan the Ghost seance 10:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

They should be bolded (and are in the vast majority of cases), and you certainly shouldn't be reverting people who fix articles that are wrong. We don't put them in the article title because (a) it complicates linking (since the way it is at the moment I can link to [[Elton John|Sir Elton John]] and know that the article's there without having to worry about whether it's been decided he's well known enough as a knight to include it in his article title) and (b) generally people have long careers before being knighted. It's not because they aren't part of people's names (which they are, and are included in article titles as such for baronets like Sir William Mount, 1st Baronet. Proteus (Talk) 22:11, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Why are you suggesting that I would revert "people who fix articles that are wrong"? That comes across as rather unhelpful. The question here is what is "wrong", which is why I asked it. If I see two articles being edited, one to make the Sir bold, one to un-bold it, I want to make them consistent. Someone needs to be reverted.
As for Sir/Dame being "part of people's names", I don't see it that way; Ellen MacArthur didn't recently change her name, she acquired a title. Also, I don't get the relevance of Sir William Mount, 1st Baronet; the "Sir" here is not a knighthood, and is hereditary, and even then shouldn't be in the article title (according to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles): "For the article title, this format should only be used when disambiguation is necessary; otherwise, the article should be located at John Smith.").
Anyway, I don't much care which way it goes; but it's good to have some logic behind the decision, so it can be consistent with other rules. — Johan the Ghost seance 23:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I think bolded is correct, it is legally in the UK part of their name - not that wiki has to respect that - and as it represents the majority format already the easiest to implement.Alci12 15:13, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
OK, fair enough. In that case, does anyone object to me adding this modified guideline to the guide? — Johan the Ghost seance 17:45, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
  • (4) The honorifics Sir and Dame shall be included in the text inline for baronets, knights bachelor, and members of knightly orders whose rank grants them that dignity, provided that they do not hold a higher dignity, such as a peerage, which trumps that usage. (Note that honorary knights and dames are not entitled to "Sir" or "Dame", only the post-nominal letters.) Example:
Dame Ellen Patricia MacArthur, DBE (born July 8, 1976) is an English sailor...
No, that would be good. Proteus (Talk) 07:12, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
OK, done it! — Johan the Ghost seance 08:37, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Maiden names : née or nee?

The current example uses nee rather than née. While not normally a pedant for diacritics, I really would prefer the latter as a standard; currently both seem equally common in the articles. Any opinions? Joestynes 18:29, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. née should be the standard. Cheers -- Szvest 18:31, 22 April 2006 (UTC) Wiki me up™
"née" definately. - FrancisTyers 18:39, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
"nee" is just wrong, looks daft, and encourages mis-pronouncation; "née" is the only one in the Compact OED (according to Ask Oxford). There seems to be no case for "nee" as an alternative. — Johan the Ghost seance 19:03, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
This is also the form listed in List of French phrases used by English speakers. — Johan the Ghost seance 11:09, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Seems like a concensus, so I made the change. — Johan the Ghost seance 08:39, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
"Nee" is not "just wrong", it's "just a variant", and appears as such in most dictionaries...probably even in the un-"Compact" OED. Not that I object to preferring née, it just shouldn't be preferred for the wrong reason. - Nunh-huh 11:15, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Fair point, though my "Concise" OED (which is really rather chubby...;-) doesn't mention "nee" either. Now, if they'd just release the full OED under GPL... — Johan the Ghost seance 09:58, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
No, the full OED doesn't list "nee" as an alternative either. -- Necrothesp 12:34, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Linking of ranks in first line

Some people are going around linking ranks which appear as the first word of an article. I do not believe this is necessary and think that a blue link as the first word looks extremely ugly. The rank should be linked where it appears later in the text, but not in the first line of the article. Any thoughts? -- Necrothesp 10:56, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I guess you mean like:
Dame Ellen Patricia MacArthur, DBE (born July 8, 1976) is an English sailor...
...? Wikipedia:Manual of Style says "As a general rule, do not put links in the bold reiteration of the title in the article's lead sentence or any section title." To me, it's pretty clear that the link of "Dame" violates the spirit of that rule at least — particularly given the outcome of the discussion above. I'd be in favour of expanding the guidelines to make that specific. — Johan the Ghost seance 12:26, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I suspect he means military ranks ("Major-General John Smith, VC (born..."), but I have to say I don't think it's particularly ugly. (In fact, in British cases, it often provides nice symmetry with the linked post-nominals after the name.) Proteus (Talk) 12:39, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
And that's a slightly different case, of course, because the link in that case isn't redundant (unlike "Dame... DBE"). I've seen people linking "Sir" and "Dame", though. — Johan the Ghost seance 13:32, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I was referring to military ranks, which is why I said "rank" and not "title". I don't see anything wrong with linking the postnoms, as they require further clarification (whereas are there really people out there who don't realise that "General" is a rank?), but to have the first word linked seems to me particularly ugly, especially when it can be (and usually is) perfectly easily linked later in the text when it states that said John Smith was promoted Major-General. We don't usually link things twice in one article, so why here? -- Necrothesp 16:20, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
FYI, "rank" also applies to peerages, knightly ranks, etc. Eg. [9]. — Johan the Ghost seance 17:46, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Not really. "Rank" applies to the level of the peerage, knighthood etc itself, but not to the term of address, which is a "style" or a "title". "Sir" is not a rank in itself, as it can be applied to those holding numerous different ranks of knighthood. -- Necrothesp 18:36, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

The Reverend

See Ian Paisley. Was The Reverend and Right Honorable Ian Kyle Paisley, MP, MLA. I removed rt. hon per MOSBIO, what about The Reverend? Needless to say it (and MP, and MLA) are Wikilinked. Just zis Guy you know? 12:55, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Still an honorific and therefore should go. -- Necrothesp 16:11, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
As for The Right Excellent Marcus Mosiah Garvey, I'm not touching that one... HenryFlower 16:39, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

It would be patiently absurd to remove Reverend. It isn't the same as the Right Honorable. If you can't say Reverend then you can't write President Bush, Pope Benedict, Queen Elizabeth, etc. That would make Wikipedia a laughing stock. We need a little cop-on, folks. Titles can be used. It is styles which can't be used. Right Honorable is s style. Reverend is a title. Please learn the difference!!! FearÉIREANN\(caint) 23:25, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Why is it different from Right Honourable? "Right Honourable" is used in the UK to denote a member of the Privy Council. "Reverend" is used in some religions to denote a member of the clergy. This may be highly subjective and controversial (as in Paisley's case). The OED describes "Reverend" as a "respectful epithet" and/or "form of address", which hardly makes it a rank (as our article on the subject says, describing it as a "style", incidentally). In actual fact, I think there is far more of a case for the use of "Right Honourable", which officially denotes membership in the Privy Council, than for "Reverend", which is merely a customary expression of respect for clergymen of a religion to which many of us no longer adhere (and implies that such clergymen are somehow superior to the rest of us - to be "revered" in fact). To claim that it is equivalent to President, Pope and Queen, all actually titles, is the patent absurdity. -- Necrothesp 12:36, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
  • sigh* Reverend is a title. Right Honourable is a style. The former is used by ordained ministers. The latter is used to refer to privy councillors. The former is a replacement for Mister/Mrs/Ms/Miss and can be used without the first name in a sentence. The latter is a decorative term used to indicate a formal manner of address. Right Honourable, like Holiness, Majesty etc does not replace Mister/Mrs/Ms/Miss. Pope, Saint, Queen, Reverend does (in the latter case except in some religious faiths where, to indicate a separation from, and a dismissal of, any Catholic tendencies, Mr is used, though most such faiths don't use Reverend at all). If one can write Mr Bush was elected president then one can and must be able to use alternatives to Mr also. If you don't know that reverend is identical to pope, queen, etc then I suggest you talk to your English teacher because you clearly need a refresher course. A "reverend" is. A "pope" is. A "queen" is. A "president" is. A "Right honorable" describes. A "Holiness" describes. A "Majesty" describes. That is the difference between a title, which is held (one is a duke, not described as a duke) and an honorific or style which refers to and describes (one is described as "Your Grace". You aren't a "Grace"). It is elementary English. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 19:06, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid not. "The Reverend" is a style prefixed to the names of minor members of the clergy of several religions (and "The Right Reverend" etc. are higher forms of it in the same way that "The Right Honourable" is a higher style denoting honourableness than "The Honourable"). It's exactly the same as "The Right Honourable" and "The Honourable" (to such an extent that they are joined together when held together, as in "The Most Reverend and Right Honourable The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury" and "The Reverend and Right Honourable Ian Paisley"). It doesn't replace "Mr" except in the sense that all styles do — "The Reverend John Smith" can quite correctly be referred to as "The Reverend Mr Smith" if one does not know his first name. (And as to your suggested usage with the surname alone in the sentence, to quote Debrett's Correct Form, "The form 'The Reverend Smith' or 'Reverend Smith' is incorrect and should never be used.") If we don't use "The Right Honourable" and "The Honourable" there is absolutely no way we can use "The Reverend". Proteus (Talk) 20:36, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


That is factually incorrect. Reverend is a title. It is only certain religious faiths that use Reverend with Mr. Most mainstream Christian religions use one or other, never both. The Right Honourable is not remotely like The Reverend. Don't use this discussion to push your wish to have Rt. Hon reinstated as expressed elsewhere. That is rightly gone. It should never have been used on WP. But then you were one of those arguing for their use. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 21:19, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Anglicanism, one of the largest mainstream denominations, uses Reverend Mr and always has done. Roman Catholicism uses Reverend Father. Proteus is completely correct in what he says (and I was not, incidentally, one of those who supported the continued use of Rt Hon etc). Personally, I would trust Debrett's Correct Form to be correct about such matters. -- Necrothesp 21:46, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I should also add that maybe you, FearÉIREANN, should be the one talking to your English teacher, since you apparently believe that Reverend is a noun! One is not "a Reverend", commonly used though that may be, one is "The Reverend". And as Proteus says, "The Reverend Mr Smith" is perfectly correct. I should check these things before you make snide remarks in the future. -- Necrothesp 21:09, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Try learning the difference between styles and titles. Wikipedia uses and will continue to use titles. It does not use styles. Removing Reverend is not an option without a change of policy on titles. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 21:19, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

A snide remark again. Perhaps you should learn to use more courtesy and less arrogance. I am fully aware of the differences between styles and titles. It appears that you are the one who is not, since Reverend is in fact a style and not a title. However, it seems pointless to argue about it, since you will obviously not agree. -- Necrothesp 21:46, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree. 'The Reverend' is a style, like 'Her Majesty'. 'Vicar' is a title, like 'Queen'. Lord Charlton 12:46, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Clearly you are not aware of the difference. I was the one who formulated the WP policy to remove styles, BTW. I have also written extensively on styles and titles on and off Wikipedia. It is an area I know a lot about. You simply are completely wrong and misunderstand WP policy on the topic and the distinction between the two. It depends on usage. The Most Reverend is a style. Reverend can be used either as a style or a title. In the case of the Paisley page, it is not an honorific but a statement of ordination showing that one is the holder of clerical rank. It is the same as with the President of Ireland, who holds both the title President and the style President. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 22:19, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Apparently you believe you know better than Debrett's too. I think we must agree to disagree on this one. -- Necrothesp 09:58, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

"Writers are not expected or required to follow all or any of these rules"

This phrase is ridiculous, a guideline is a guideline, no more, no less. I think it is generally accepted that writers are expected to follow guidelines (i.e. consensus), however unlike policy they are not required to. From our policy on guidelines:

Guidelines are not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception.

This is implicitly contrary to "...not expected or required to follow all or any of these rules...". If you feel this is not contrary, then it is, by definition, redundant. I was therefore tempted to be bold and remove the phrase without discussion, but I thought it would be best to mention it first. Martin 12:07, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I for one completely agree with its removal. It leaves things too open to edit warring. -- Necrothesp 12:51, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
"...not expected or required to follow all or any of these rules..." is printed directly below
{{style-guideline|WP:MOSBIO<br>MOS:BIO}}
which says quite clearly "articles should heed these rules" - so when is a rule not a rule? When one is not expected to follow it? This is ridiculous, remove the phrase please, it just creates problems. we do have rules, if we don't like them we can attempt to change them, but while we have them let's follow them, then we all know where we are. Giano | talk 15:15, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I've removed it now, along with the preceding comment: "New contributors are reminded that clear, informative, and unbiased writing is more important than presentation and formatting" which is equally as stupid, as unbiased etc. writing and formatting are not mutually exclusive in any way. Martin 23:19, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Peace be upon him

The current practice seems to be to remove the term peace be upon him or the abbreviation pbuh in relation to the prophet Muhammad from articles. Pbuh is treated as a honorific prefix. However, the guidelines don't say anything about religious honorifics or epithets. I believe there should be such a guideline, so I'm bringing it up here. The wording I propose is: "Religious styles and honorifics, including but not limited to Peace be upon him for the prophet Muhammad and The Almighty One for God, shall not be included in the text inline but may be legitimately discussed in the article proper." Aecis Appleknocker Flophouse 17:25, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. Titanium Dragon 19:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposal on Chronology

Since we edit for both clarity and for, we hope, posterity, I propose that we consider, at least from now on, since converting older articles is laborious and not necessariy beneficial, a standard for the chronology of a perosn's life.

Current articles

The articles are written in varying styles, some with paragrpahs with dates interspersed, some with dates out of order, and some with timelines. Apart from dates being out of order this neither makes them good nor bad.

For discussion

Creating a synopsis timeline of a person's life and achievements should clarify a complex and busy life.

Example

  • 1807 - Born
  • 1823 - Composed first symphony
  • 1843 - survived TB
  • 1892 - Died

It should not supplant good prose in paragraphs, but should be used to bring order and clarity to the article

Benefits

  • clarity
  • ease of interpretation (this is, surely, what an encyclopaedia is about)
  • ease for subsequent editors of slotting newly discovered facts into the article in chronological order

Against

if an article were solely to be a timeline with no text, unless a stub article, this would run counter to the guidelines on not writing articles as bullet points. Thus the Biog guidelines would need to make mention of this

Fiddle Faddle 22:56, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

discuss below here

I'm definitely against this. It looks ugly and encourages people to write articles in note form and not in proper prose. -- Necrothesp 14:08, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

It only looks awkward when the balance of the article is disproportionately small. I understand your point about prose. As a counter to this I would suggest that it be emphasised that the Chronology be a synopsis and that it does not replace prose. Even so, prose is not to be valued above clarity, surely? Assuming wikipedia to be a worthwhile and authoritative resource, a researcher coming here for a biog and finding a timeline may find it a better tool because of it. They may also add something that might otherwise have been missed. Fiddle Faddle 15:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Knighthoods

Two editors disagree with the statement on the MoS that "Sir" and "Dame" should be bolded. They have consistently changed and reverted one article and have also changed the MoS to reflect what they think it should say. They argue that to bold these titles is monarchist POV. The counter-argument is that in a monarchy these titles are a fact and are effectively part of the recipient's name in all formal documents, as are peerage titles. They therefore have as much right (probably more) to be bolded as do nicknames, and normal practice has in fact been to bold them (contrary to the claims by these editors). This has already been discussed above, but these editors seem to think that because they disagree they have a right to change articles and cite the NPOV rule as a justification. -- Necrothesp 16:00, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not one of these two editors, but I must admit of having been puzzled by reading that the addition of Sir in front of a name was equivalent to a change of name — and even more by seeing the number of people who have indicated that this is a fact, but without providing any source. Now, as you can easily guess, I am not originally from a country that attributes this kind of honours. But to me, a name is something that is printed on your birth certificate and then, later, it gets printed on government documents such as a passport. This name can be changed, for example if one gets married or one asks for a change of name, and then some official registry is updated with such a name. But a name is not changed just because everyone uses a modified version of it. I am quite happy to believe that it is customary to use Sir or Dame before someone's name, as in the London Gazette link you supplied on another page. But from here to say that it is equivalent to a official change of name seems like a huge leap; for example, do these people have Sir written in their passport ? This is what I would consider a significant argument. While this question looks interesting to me, I don't care very much about the bolding itself. I personaly would not bold it, but since people seem passionate about his issue, I'll leave it to them. Schutz 19:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, I don't know about passports, but you can certainly have "Sir" written on credit cards. And since we bold nicknames, it seems to me rather incongruous not to bold titles. So, a nickname by which you are informally known should be bolded, but a title by which you are officially known should not? This seems completely illogical. -- Necrothesp 22:48, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
The nickname is a good point, although it is usually written within quotes when mentioned together with the name, thus leaving no doubt about the fact that it is not part of the name. The credit card arguement is weaker: I have seen plenty of credit cards bearing titles such as "Prof", "Dr", or both, so nothing here justifies to treat these titles differently. Schutz 05:53, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Schutz, in some countries titles are considered part of the name - something Dr/Prof certainly arn't. Frankly I had hoped this had all gone away as we had such a bitter series of arguments that never seemed to end last time. We had seemed to settle on a middle road which all sides seemed to be broadly abiding by and considering all the effort people on both sides went to to reach the present accord re-opening it without a stong consensus seems unhelpful. Certainly I think Guettarda's actions in unilaterally editing the MoS in order to use that self created alteration as justification in an ongoing revert war elsewhere as bordering on vandalism.Alci12 11:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, from my point of view, either it is officially a change of name, and it is case there is no discussion, or it is only a convention where many (or even most) people use the modified name. If it is the former, then there should be an official reference or source (as I showed, credit cards do not count). If it is the latter, well, the argument is much weaker. As another example, I have never ever heard anyone refer to Bill Gates as William Gates; still, his Wikipedia article correctly states his name as William Gates. I don't think a policy should be based on an unsourced fact that says "yeah, everyone calls him (or them) this way". Anyway, it looks to me like the point is moot, since the people who felt most passionate about this do not seem to want to participate in this discussion. But if you see my point, I'd still be interested in knowing (with relevant sources) which of my two alternatives above is the correct one. Best, Schutz 21:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Even if it were not an actual change of name (and I still maintain that it is), we bold names by which people are known, so surely these titles should be bolded anyway. I fail to see why a nickname, stagename or nom de plume is considered more important than a conferred title (which is a fact in the UK, not just a POV as alleged), yet by convention we do bold those and there seems to be no argument about doing so. -- Necrothesp 22:08, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Alci12 has found some interesting, official, information about how these titles can indeed be specified on passports; see my talk page for details. This is more than enough to me, since it is exactly the piece of evidence I was suggesting would convince me. As I suggested on my talk page, it may be good if this information could find its way to one of our articles, for future reference. Thanks to all for an interesting (and educational) discussion. Schutz 13:40, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

(copied from my talk page) Funny coincidence, I just found another piece of convincing evidence, and on Wikipedia no less: see http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7c/Civil_partnership_elton_john.jpg. Schutz Schutz 15:40, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Well for all the above I'm not sure it has moved things on. Guettarda has ignored this thread although looking at his talk has been asked to join it and discuss this. I've posted him your link above showing the title in the name box. All I have back is his assertion that using any title is NPOV end of discussion. He has simply reverted any article he comes across to conform to what he wants the MoS to say. Alci12 13:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Frankly, I don't understand this chap. He's been asked to come here and discuss it, but he just ignores the requests in order to push his own POV. He just doesn't seem to be able to accept that in a monarchy the status of titles is a fact, not a POV. -- Necrothesp 14:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Sir or Dame should not be bolded, otherwise the title of the article should be changed to include the Sir or Dame. Try doing that and see how much opposition you generate! There is already enough confusion with article openings not matching article titles, without implementing this change. Noisy | Talk 10:45, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Married names

Is there a protocol for the use of a woman's married name, especially in opening paragraphs, if it's not the name she is commonly known by? I can think of numerous articles for women who have married and legally taken their husband's name but this is not inclued in the lead paragraph. Someone has edited Sharon Tate changing her name in the opening from "Sharon Marie Tate" (her birth name) to "Sharon Marie Tate-Polanski" her supposed married name. I say supposed because "Tate-Polanski" is not correct as she referred to herself professionally as "Sharon Tate" and personally as "Sharon Polanski". I feel that the article should read "Sharon Marie Tate", as her marriage to Polanski is discussed at some length in the article. Would be interested in another opinion on this as I haven't been able to find anything in any policies or guidelines. Thanks. Rossrs 11:19, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I entirely agree here. She is always known as Sharon Tate, her real birth name, so that's what should be used as the opening. If she also called herself Sharon Polanski then that should be used after her dates. I think the best version would be: "Sharon Marie Tate (24 January 1943 – 9 August 1969), sometimes also known by her married name Sharon Polanski..." -- Necrothesp 15:10, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for replying. I've been thinking that I should just revert the edit. I won't include "sometimes known by her married name...." because I think that it's more common here to not include that info in the opening paragraph, and in this case she wasn't actually "known" as "Polanski" - that was just her legal name. It would be like saying "Madonna" - "once known as Madonna Penn, and now sometimes known as "Madonna Ritchie". The married name simply is not what many prominent female celebrities are known by. Thanks for helping me unscramble my thought processes ;-) Rossrs 12:12, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
However, you say above that she referred to herself as Sharon Polanski. If this is the case, then it should be included somewhere. -- Necrothesp 00:30, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
No, what I meant is that it is her legal name as it is her married name, exactly the same as Madonna's legal name is "Madonna Ritchie", and I suppose there are occasions where Madonna would be legally required to identify herself as "Madonna Ritchie" on contracts, or bank accounts or whatever. Same thing with Tate and many married female celebrities. Privately of course, Tate referred to herself as "Mrs Polanski", and the marriage to Polanski is covered in the article in considerable detail, including the opening paragraph so it's not necessary to add an aka to the lead paragraph IMO. That would open up a can of worms where virtually every female celebrity would subject to the same style resulting in "Britney Spears also known as Britney Whateverhermarriednameis", "Mariah Carey, once known as Mariah Mottola"..... and that's without going near Elizabeth Taylor or Zsa Zsa Gabor ;-) Rossrs 11:19, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough, but your comment suggested that she actually called herself Sharon Polanski in private. I doubt if Madonna ever calls herself Madonna Ritchie or if Elizabeth Taylor ever called herself anything else, even outside their careers. If she never used the name except in a legal sense then no, it shouldn't be included. -- Necrothesp 12:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I meant, in the legal/private sense, but not in the public sense. Sorry, reading back through my original comments I can see I worded it badly. Rossrs 14:13, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Nationality and ethnicity, redux

I am very unhappy with the way this is being applied. User:Threeafterthree is systematically removing mention of Jewish ethnicity from article. For example edits, see his edits to Boris Thomashefsky and Bella Abzug. I am by no means saying that every article should mention ethnicity in the lead, but these are two excellent examples of people where it is highly relevant.

In Thomashefsky's case, he was born in what is now the Ukraine and was then part of Imperial Russia. He was a native Yiddish-speaker, and is known to history almost entirely through his contributions to Yiddish theatre and his role in pioneering the Jewish summer communities in the Catskills, known as the borscht belt. He was never a Ukrainian or Russian citizen, because he moved to America before the emancipation of the Jews. He did eventually become a U.S. citizen, but to describe him as "an American singer and actor" is, in my view, actively misleading. That suggests to almost any reader an involvement in English-language music or theater, which he simply did not have. I would think this is a clearcut case: for a person whose main significance is in secular Jewish culture - in this case, Yiddish-language culture - the lead paragraph should mention that the person was Jewish.

Abzug's case, I will admit, is not as clearcut. She was an American political figure (she served in Congress) and feminist. I met her, though I can't claim to have known her well: we worked together briefly on Al Lowenstein's unsuccessful 1972 congressional campaign, which she left when William Fitts Ryan died and decided to campaign (successfully, as it happens) for his seat. Still, to demote to paragraph five the first mention of this quintessentially Jewish figure being Jewish seems to me almost to amount to an erasure of ethnicity from the picture of New York politics. Abzug's first generally known act as a feminist was in the 1930s, when as a teenager she was one of the young first Jewish women to protest women's less-than-equal status within Jewish religious practice (which our article doesn't mention).

I think that to omit mention of Thomashefsky's Jewishness from the lead amounts either to ethnic erasure. It is as if the biography of George Washington Carver were to omit mention of his being African American: worse, actually, because Thomashefsky was strictly a cultural figure, and Carver was a scientist.

Further, I'd like to point out that Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups remarks, "almost every biography of a person who is not of the majority ethnicity of the country they are from already notes ethnicity." I believe that is true, and I believe that is as it should be. Focusing on the present-day state controlling the place where someone was born seems to me to be often misguided: it would make Abu Nidal an Israeli and the Emperor Trajan Spanish.

I'm not going to start going through and reverting without allowing a chance for discussion (I had reverted Isidor Goldenberg before I noticed that this was a systematic pattern), but I very much feel that this needs to be standardized. However, I think that in the case of primarily cultural figures, ethnic background is usually a crucial fact, and failure to mention it prominently (while mentioning a citizenship-based notion of nationality) amounts to giving politics an inappropriate primacy over culture. It also amounts to the near-erasure of culturally important groups (the Armenians, the Jews, the African Americans, the Roma) who have not through most of history (in the latter two cases, ever) had a nation state of their own. - Jmabel | Talk 20:19, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I would certainly agree with you that for figures who are largely known for their contributions to Jewish culture, it is wholly reasonable to describe them as Jewish in the intro paragraph. I would, however, think it perfectly reasonable to say that Thomashefsky was a Russian-born American. He was, indisputably. Whether he was born a citizen or not is irrelevant - he was born in what was then Imperial Russia, and that is surely an important part of his identity. I do not think it is always (or indeed usually) necessary to mention ethnicity in the lead paragraph however. If people are known in professions which are irrelevant to their ethnicity then it is completely unnecessary to mention it in the lead paragraph (unless they are specifically known as, for instance, the first person in their ethnic group to achieve something specific). -- Necrothesp 22:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Right now (downstream of Threeafterthree's edit) we say "…an American singer and actor; born in Tarasche, a shtetl near Kiev, Ukraine, he emigrated to the United States at the age of 12 in 1881…" I want to say something like "a Jewish American singer and actor…" I have no problem with "…a born in Tarasche, shtetl near Kiev, Ukraine, then part of Imperial Russia…" (bolding in both cases just to indicate insertions). Probably all (Jewish, American, Ukraine, and Russia) are relevant to his life and identity. My main concern, though, is that it is perfectly valid to include "Jewish" as part of this, and Threeafterthree seems to be saying that violates the MOS. If that is the case, I think that is a problem with the MOS.

I didn't think to contact Threeafterthree when I posted before, but will do so now. - Jmabel | Talk 00:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jmabel, thanks for the heads up, I appreciate it. Just as an introduction. The reason I started to edit "Jewish-American" bios is because I noticed that about 6-8 months ago, a number of anonymous IP editors added "Jewish" to like 2,000 bios in here, no joke. If the person in question was born over seas, I understand it gets alot more complicated. Also, if the person is known for some type of Jewish specific notability, it should be mentioned in the header. My guide has been this actual project page so I guess it's high time I showed up :). Also, I have been trying to edit Polish-American, Greek-American, ect so I am trying to be an equal opportunity editor :). Again, if the person was born in the States and is a citizen, they should be mentioned as an American "whatever" and why they are notable. Just my first thoughts...oh also, User:Jack O'Lantern should be asked for imput as well since he edits ALOT of bios and Lists....--Tom 00:42, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
If someone is known for involvement in Yiddish theatre etc., that should be in the lead, and removing the info from there would be an over-correction. But I have also seen ethnicity over-highlighted in too many articles to not recognize that that is more often the problem. For someone like Abzug I would say her ethnicity belongs in the lead section, but probably not in the first, defining sentence.--Pharos 00:53, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

It's all relative, but there's a clear difference. It would make sense to say in, say, Babra Streisand's header that she is "known for portraying many Jewish characters", just like Abzug being a Jewish feminist should be noted in her header. But there's a difference between a header and the very first sentence. Everyone should be identified by their primary nationality, and then if their ethnicity or religion was relevant to why they were famous, that can be added in the next sentence of the header. So, basically, "Barbra Streisnad (born whenever) is an American actress and singer. She came to fame in the 1960s, and is notable for her on-screen persona, which has been described as stereotypically Jewish" or "Bella Abzus is an American feminist... (another setence or two on her primary notablity)... Abzug was also one of the first Jewish women to, etc.". Or, say, "Martin Luther King (born ????) was an American civil-rights activist and etc. etc. An African-Americna, he was ...." The points being in King's case - 1. he didn't have to be African-American to be such a well-known African-American rights activist and 2. He is notable for being African-American, but that can easily be placed two sentences into the header or so. The basic point is that calling someone a "Jewish American" or "Greek American" in the very first sentence is kind of silly. It also makes it seem out of place compared to other bios that just call their subject "American", and then we get to the point where we don't know what's enough i.e. endless debates about when it is or is not relevant that the person is Jewish, Greek, etc. enough for it to go side-by-side with their nationality. That's why it the MoS should basically be absolute - and if the person is really notable for their heritage, as I've already said, it can easily be placed in the header - just not in that format and not in the first sentence. Mad Jack 01:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

So maybe we will not have a hard time hammering out a consensus. I'd be interested in where you would be on which of the following should have "Jewish" mentioned in their leads, sticking for the moment with cultural figures, and laying aside for the moment whether it belongs in the first sentence. They are in descending order of what I see as the strength of the case. If someone has other examples that they think shed light on the matter, I'll gladly weigh in.
  1. Jacob Adler (Ukraine-born, known entirely for Yiddish-language cultural contributions)
    • I say mention in lead, and would expect it to be uncontroversial. - Jmabel | Talk
  2. Boris Thomashefsky (Ukraine-born, known primarily entirely for Yiddish-language cultural contributions, secondarily for his role in the creation of the Borscht Belt).
  3. Stella Adler (daughter of Jacob Adler, US-born, started her career in Yiddish theatre, but crossed over to English-language theatre. One of the main conduits by which Yiddish and Russian theatre traditions influenced U.S. acting)
    • I say mention in lead, but could imagine debate. - Jmabel | Talk
  4. Philip Roth (American writer, native English-speaker, secular Jew; many of his novels engage Jewish themes and he falls in a tradition that owes as much to Yiddish literature as English)
    • I say mention in lead, but could imagine debate. - Jmabel | Talk
  5. Woody Allen (raised Jewish, native English-speaker, his humor is in the tradition of Yiddish humor, and many of his works have specifically Jewish settings, but has certainly crossed over to a mainstream audience)
    • I say mention in lead, but could imagine debate. - Jmabel | Talk
  6. Judy Chicago (secular Jewish background, mostly known as a feminist artist, but her work includes the 1993 Holocaust Project
    • I could go either way on mentioning in lead. - Jmabel | Talk
  7. David Lee Roth (Jewish background, and it may have influenced how he entered the entertainment world, but little or nothing in his work that references that)
- Jmabel | Talk 01:11, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I think I would cut off about where you would, at the Woody Allen level.--Pharos 02:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
But here's the crucial thing. Right now, Jacob Adler's entry says he was a "Jewish actor". What exactly does that mean? How does one become a "Jewish actor" as opposed to just "an actor"? He was of course known exclusively for his contributions to the Yiddish theatre, etc. but what does him actually being Jewish have to do with it? You wouldn't necessarily have to be Jewish to be an actor in the Yiddish theatre, just like one wouldn't necessarily have to be French to be a French cinema actress (i.e. Josephine Baker). Of course, most Yiddish theatre actors were Jewish, if not almost all, but their personal Jewishness and their contributions to Yiddish theatre are two separate things. Same for Philip Roth - he often writes on Jewish subject matter, but what does that have to do with his personally being Jewish? Here's how I would mold your examples:
  1. Jacob Pavlovitch Adler (1855 - 1926) was a Ukrainian-born American stage actor, best known as a star in the Yiddish theater, first in Odessa, and later in London and New York City. (His personally being Jewish would be under "early life")
  2. Boris Thomashefsky - I would basically keep as is in the article. Again - Yiddish theatre actor - and that's mentioned. The fact that he was actually Jewish is (besides being pretty obvious) not that relevant to the header
  3. Stella Adler - seems fine as it is in the article. She was certainly Jewish, and that can go to "early life", but from what I can she was best known for being an acting teacher
  4. Philip Roth - Philip Milton Roth (born March 19, 1933, Newark, New Jersey) is an American novelist. Roth often writes on Jewish themes, and is perhaps best known for his 1959 collection Goodbye, Columbus, his 1969 novel Portnoy's Complaint, and for his late-'90s trilogy comprising the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Pastoral (1997), I Married a Communist (1998), and The Human Stain (2000)." The article currently says "Jewish-American", which is odd, and I assume translates to the fact that he often writes about Jewish subject matter - and that's a fact better outright stated then implied in "Jewish-American"
  5. Judy Chicago
  6. David Lee Roth - both should be just "American"

Mad Jack 04:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I missed Woody Allen in there. Definitely should be mentioned that he often writes/plays stereotypically Jewish characters in the header, but again, what does him being Jewish have to do with that? (though I guess "inspired by his own heritage" would be fine as a line there) Mad Jack 04:11, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Holy smokes, my heads going to explode :) j/k. Seriously, this is why its so important to have a "standard" if you will, and even then not every bio is going to be cut and dry. Are we going to try to qualify EVERY biography out there?? I sure don't know, but I am just trying to edit based on the current MOS(which I actually like). I find the most problematic bios are people born in foreign countries and then emigrate to the States. How should they be handled?? Also, PLEASE edit ANY of my changes and just drop a quick note on the talk page and we can hash it out there if I am still watching. Just to echo MadJ, I had a problem when I saw/see "Joe Smoe was a Jewish Painter". Was he Jewish or did he paint ONLY Jewish material?? ect., ect. Also, just to clear up any misunderstandings, I wasn't trying to "ethnical cleans" articles, rather I felt ethnicity belonged further down into the article UNLESS that REALLY was of primary note. I apologize for deleting things from the header and not adding them back into the article where appropriate. Also, I have found a number of bios where the ethnicity seems really out of place or "forced" especially with pointing out parents ancestory ect..As an aside, the article that first got me into this was Edward Teller when he was featured. To this day, imho, his Jewishness seems silly where it stands in the article. Does it really belong at the start of the 2nd line?? Anywhos, I have a feeling we will be discussing this for MANY years to come as I am sure this has been discussed in past years. Cheers! --Tom 15:31, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I would agree that Edward Teller's being Jewish probably does not belong in the lead.
As for Adler: "Ukrainian-born American stage actor" is downright misleading. His acting career began in Odessa, Ukraine and his aesthetic of theatre always remained essentially Russian; he first became a minor star in Imperial Russia; when Russia banned Yiddish theatre, he moved to England, where he drew on Russian theatrical tradition to pioneer what would now be considered "serious" theatre in Yiddish; only then, well over a decade into his acting career, did he first come to America, and it was several years before he settled there; even then, he toured often back to Europe, in a time when that was no small undertaking. He was at least a quarter of the way into his acting career before he ever saw America, and English remained at best fourth of his many languages (after Yiddish, would come Russian and German: he translated those comfortably himself, but usually hired others to translate works from English). If anyone was ever a "citizen of the world" it was Adler. His theatrical roots were emphatically European (especially Russian, then Yiddish, German, and even Scandinavian more than American). The common thread is that he made an acting career in the Yiddish-speaking diaspora. He is a cultural figure, and the lead sentence should place him culturally. - Jmabel | Talk 16:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Sure, you're probably right about Adler. If he wasn't associated with a distinct nationality, he should be called a "Yiddish theatre actor" - but still not a "Jewish actor" (two distinct things). Mad Jack 17:19, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
This feels to me like it is got a large part of personal taste involved. One the one hand I think Mad Jack's opposition to a Hyphenated American style of writing intros has some aesthetic bbenefits. However, I also agree with Joe that for a lot of people the political aspect of where they were born was such a vanishingly insignificant part of who they are/were that ethnicity should be used. I wonder Jack, why we cant take all of your arguments and say "what does his being American have to do with him being in Yiddish theater?" Is there an assumed superiority of nationality (even when it is largely irrelevant to the individual) over ethnicity (even when it is significant)? I think if there is going to be a MOS rule here then it should not be a hard and fast rule but a common sense one. It may not prevent many edit wars but a bad rule that prevents edit wars is still a bad rule. Dalf | Talk 02:56, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Well said. And apparently still awaiting a response. - Jmabel | Talk 00:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I kind of left this discussion and didn't notice this. Whoever's being American, as far as I can tell, is relevant simply because according to the MOS we identify a person's nationality. Their nationality probably isn't relevant most of the time, but that's what the MOS says. The MOS doesn't include ethnicity in header, though. So, again, we either always point out the ethnicity, which is weird, or we always don't, which makes more sense. As for pointing out nationality in the header, that's a different topic altogether. Mad Jack 19:37, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Reviving this question

I am reviving this question, because I think Max Flesicher is a good case in point. A recent edit made the lead describe him as an "Austrian-American". The article as I found it made no mention of him being Jewish, except via categorization; I'm about to add a mention. This strikes me as actively misleading. I have literally never heard a Jew call him- or herself an "Austrian-American". I have only heard that used to refer to people of ethnically German background from the former Austrian or Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The comment that ends the previous section simply says it's this way because that's what the MoS says. Folks, this is the page where we hammer out what the MoS ought to say, so while that may be a valid argument on another talk page, it is not a valid argument here.

I'm not saying that every article needs to mention someone's ethnicity, but I believe that we are downplaying ethnicity considerably. For someone who emigrated to the U.S. around the age of four, place of birth is little more than trivia compared to ethnic background. Believe me, when the Fleischers arrived in the U.S., they would have been perceived as German-speaking Jews, not as "Austrians".

If we are going to continue to have a geographically-based notion of nationality as a required part of the lead paragraph of biographies, we ought to allow it to be qualified with a mention of ethnicity. I'm probably particularly aware of this in the case of Jews, being one myself, but similarly it is misleading to call a Magyar or ethnic German from Transylvania simply a "Romanian", or to call a Catalan from Barcelona simply "Spanish", especially for cultural figures. - Jmabel | Talk 23:59, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Suggested clarification/rewording/rule change on inline use of styles for royalty

I would like to propose that the Honorific prefixes, section 3, be amended to read "Styles should not be used inline nor to open articles on royalty and popes". This is all related to a longdiscussion between Codex Sinaiticus and me over the inclusion of "H.I.M." as a prefix for Halie Selassie I in a photo for the Rastafari_movement article. I argued that the existing wording strongly implies that things like "H.I.M." should not be used inline, pointing at a number of other articles mentioning monarchs such as Elizabeth_I_of_England that don't include honorifics. He pointed me at another article that did, and I realise that the existing policy is not as clear as it should be. I believe this proposed clarification would fix things up. My reasoning is that while honorifics should be mentioned, using them inline amounts to ritualised shows of respect that Wikipedian as a project should not push. --Improv 14:45, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with this proposal as arbitrarily attempting to define conditions when honorifics are acceptable and permissible to apply to some members of Royalty, and when they are not for others. The Line of Succession series all use honorifics inline (see for example Line of succession to the Throne of Liechtenstein); these honorifics are legitimately used in diplomatic and international circles and do not need to be censored from an encyclopedia; as the current wording notes, this has often proved controversial, but contrary to the (mis) understanding of some, such use of honorifics does not necesarily imply any religious acceptance whatsoever. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
We could revise those other articles to bring them in line with the proposed clarification/change. I am not suggesting the titles be censored (as noted, I want to keep them mentioned in passing), simply that they be not used. Inline use of the title serves no other purpose than pomp. --Improv 15:46, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
That its purpose is for "pomp" sure sounds like a non-neutral pov... Specifically, a Republican or anti-monarchy pov... Yes, there is such a pov, but please do remember that every country in the world, and even every English speaking country in the world, is not a Republic; honorifics ARE acceptable in all mainstream international usage and in Encyclopedias, and wikipedia should not be endorsing such a anti-monarchy pov agenda, just because it is a popular pov of some Republics within the English speaking world. That is exactly why it is controversial, and as someone noted in an above section, it seems yet again wikipedia is trying to break new ground among encyclopedias, by stripping all recognised titles as much as possible. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
This is akin to saying that failing to go to church every sunday is an anti-religious act. There's a difference between not taking part in something and aiming to undermine it. It is more appropriate for an encyclopedia not to take part in glorification of royalty. Failing to glorify them is, again, not the same thing as an attempt to demean them. If I were tossing terms like "tyrant" around, then you might have something, but this is purely an effort to bring this in line with the way NPOV attempts to work. I am not trying to strip titles/styles (things such as inline use of "King" are fine by me, and I'm aiming more at styles), just to make them a mentioned rather than used thing. --Improv 21:54, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
It's isn't NPOV to ignore these things, but rather a clear reflection of Wikipedia's republican bias. Calsicol 04:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Care to explain your reasoning? --Improv 13:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
This has nothing to do with a republican bias; I did a comparison of encyclopedias a while ago and didn't find any that used honorifics such as his holiness, her royal majesty, ect. The fact of thhe matter is, they just don't use it. It has nothing to do with being republican or monarchist; indeed, the current style conventions came about because of the Pope. Essentially honorifics are just that, and they don't have to be applied by those who do not honor them. They aren't NPOV. Morever, even if they were NPOV, there is a very good reason to exclude them - basically, in situations of questionable authority, people will claim X or Y or Z is/is not entitled to honorific X (see Lucian Pulvermacher for instance, along with other antipopes). Basically, a large group of wikipedians a while ago got together and debated over and voted on the use of honorifics, and basically we decided it was a bad idea to include them. This was the de facto policy previously, before some unilateral changes were made and a bunch of edit wars ensued. I'm not British, and I don't really care how -you- address the Queen; I can't say I'm a monarchist or a republican, either (though I can say I'm a Democrat :P). The fact of the matter is that encyclopedias don't use honorifics, so neither should we. This dead horse has been flogged time and again. Titanium Dragon 09:42, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Please give a link to where you say this vote by a "large group of wikipedians" took place. There is nothing whatsoever on the attached policy page prohibiting their use (except in the opening sentence), and they are already used now on scores of pages as I have pointed out, just as they are in international diplomacy, and yes, even encyclopedias.. The bottom line is, their use is fully permitted according to existing guidelines, as they should be, and I have seen no clear consensus to change the status quo - notwithstanding your own pov that you expressed above, which is nonetheless obviously a republican or anti-monarchist pov, no matter how much you claim it is not one. Also, the case in question is not a "situation of questionable authority" by any circumstance, as no nation on Earth disputed Haile Selassie's throne, he was recognised as legitimate Head of State by the United Nations and the League of Nations. In a true "situation of questionable authority" (to borrow your language above) however, it might be a different story wrt use of honorifics. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 13:44, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Codex, what exactly is obviously republican about his position? I, for one, don't dispute the fact that Selassie was a monarch. It's a simple fact that he ruled a nation. My thoughts on monarchy versus a republic are not simple, and it would be a mistake to say I am biased towards one or the other. I simply don't think that ritualised shows of respect like this are appropriate for an encyclopedia. This doesn't mean that I dispute what he was in any way, shape, or form. --Improv 15:00, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
"they are already used now on scores of pages" - They've been added by people who didn't bother to read this article. There was a huge debate about this a while ago, and it was resolved - if people read and followed this page, there wouldn't be a problem. If the policy was wrong, that'd be fine, but a pretty good consensus to not use honorifics came out of it. Their use is not permitted; indeed, it is specifically not allowed. They aren't NPOV - they're a sign of honor, and we are not about that. For all you know, I could be royalty myself. I'm not british, so I don't think your arguments about me are very valid - one could of course argue that all Americans are anti-monarchist given we broke off from Britain, but that is beside the point. Heck, I could turn it around and say -you- are obviously a monarchist because you want to include the honorifics, right? I don't know if you are or not, and I don't really care. No, other encyclopedias do NOT use honorifics; my Brittanica don't, encyclopedia.com doesn't [10], Brittanicca online doesn't [11], Encarta doesn't [12]... and if you still don't like it, look at Archive 4 of this talk, where a lot of words were wasted. The actual vote IIRC is on a seperate page but it is linked to, and you should probably read all that if you want to understand what happened. There was a consensus not to use honorifics. If you see a page not conforming and using the honorifics, it should be changed to follow our format for biographies. Titanium Dragon 22:55, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
If that is the consensus, Why then does the guideline page this talk page is linked to, not state this somewhere? If it did state that, we wouldn't be having this discussion to try to get the status quo changed or re-written. As it stands, the pages that use them now are allowed to do so. The least you could do is show the link to this "consensus" or "vote" you allege occured, because I still have not found it. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 23:16, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Please read archive four. [Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)/Survey on Style-Prefixed Honorary Titles] is what you are looking for; the discussion leading up to it is in Archive 4 (and probably in 3 as well, come to think of it). Anyway, yeah. And I noticed you didn't address the issue that the encyclopedias I linked to do not use inline honorifics, and at least one of those is decidedly British. Titanium Dragon 00:14, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
I notice you didn't even answer my question. Why does the guideline page not state anywhere what you claim to be the "consensus"? The archive page you link to shows anything but a consensus -- it has a raging, heated debate; a vote for ratification is linked, but more people evidently voted AGAINST ratification of the proposal than for it, by a two to one margin; more evidence that any pretended claims of a "consensus" on this are, well, bogus. The status quo is what's written there now, honorifics ARE allowed, and it won't be changed until or unless there is a consensus, which clearly there isn't. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 00:30, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Gah, did you even READ the section labelled "honorific prefixes"? It clearly states you are not to use honorifics derived from noble title, political activites, being royalty, or being a pope (it probably should include all religious titles). If you happen to be a knight with the prefix Sir or Dame, you can get that one. Titanium Dragon 00:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
It says no such thing. I guess the question now is, did YOU read it? It only says they are not to be used in the the beginning article lead sentence. It makes exactly no prohibitions whatsoever about their use elsewhere in articles. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 00:45, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
It says you may discuss it; I inferred from that that you are not to use it before their name every single time (His Holiness Pope blah de blah). Indeed, that is not how articles are written on Wikipedia or in any other encyclopedia I am aware of. Their inclusion takes up space, looks ugly, and can be argued against for all the same reasons the intro doesn't use honorifics. As for your gripe about the poll, people didn't really understand what they were doing. You'll note people saying things like "53% isn't a consensus" but it is utterly irrelevant; a few users misled many. In any event, the thing was changed and it was clear that the majority of wikipedians preferred not to use them. Indeed, it was changed back to what it was before jguk changed this page unilaterally ages ago. If you want to try and run another mess, you can try, but it is extremely frustrating. You're welcome to do it again though, no one can stop you. Titanium Dragon 01:28, 2 July 2006 (UTC)


"You inferred" is the key word here. You inferred your own point of view, unwritten interpretation of something that the guideline doesn't actually say. What it says is what it says, that's why I thought Improv and you were trying to drum up the required consensus to change what it says. I'm comfortable with what it says, so I have no gripe, nor any impetus to try to get it changed. The attempt to get it changed a year ago, that you pointed me to, failed dismally, because 10 people voted to "ratify" the change, while 25 people voted "don't ratify". Because this is a wiki, with history open and transparent to all, any allegations you made about a user unilaterally changing it, and supposedly nobody changing it back again, can be easily verified. Just produce a link demonstrating what you say occured, and when. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 01:43, 2 July 2006 (UTC) Oh, and once again, nobody really wants to use the honorific "every single time" a name is mentioned. Of course, that would obviously be over the top. The real question is, may it be used at all where appropriate, and in the absence of a guideline prohibiting it, apart from the lead sentence, the answer is "yes", as it already is on numerous pages. Again, one example I gave of what I am talking about is at Line of succession to the Throne of Liechtenstein. Note how the honorific is usefully USED (not discussed) to show the distinction in their FULL names. Would you actually support invading articles like this and stripping away all of the HIH's and HRH's claiming an unwritten "guideline" says they can't have their honorifics any more??? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 01:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I guess I spoke too soon, because I just checked and saw you actually were there about two hours ago, and actually enforced your unwritten "inference" of the actual guideline. So I guess that answers my last question. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 01:55, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Correct. Now, mind you, that probably was not a good idea, as I'd be annoyed if someone I was arguing with did that. I apologize. Now, as for the reasoning; what is the point? Legally part of their name? It is called an honorific for a reason; it is due to their nobility they have it, and if, say, the British overthrew the monarchy they wouldn't call them that. Moreover, people may say "Her majesty Queen Elizabeth II", but her legal name, to the best of my knowledge, is not that. Indeed, if you look at the articles about styles and honorifics, they specifically state they are used in formal situations. No encyclopedia I've found uses honorifics before people's names. None. As such, I don't think it is encyclopedic, and it isn't NPOV to include them because it indicates they are deserving of such honor, which is defitely a POV. Can you cite -any- major independent academic encyclopedias which preface people's names with honorifics we disallow the use of? Titanium Dragon 00:06, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
MOREOVER, you're simply incorrect. Read: Styles and honorifics which are derived from noble title, including The Most Noble, The Most Honourable, The Right Honourable, and The Honourable, should not be included in the text inline but may be legitimately discussed in the article proper. Later on in the text, it states that subsequently mentions of them should be via surname, but royalty/nobility can be referred to by their first name and title (the queen, the duke, ect.). So, you shouldn't be using them inline doubly, because you shouldn't start out with them and you shouldn't use them later on to reference them. NOW, all of that being said, the page you referenced is NOT a biography - it is a list. I think that it would be best to have a general policy of not using honorifics inline at all, however, you are correct in stating there is no policy for those pages (which I am aware of). It should be noted though that there are other rules for titles of articles and the like, and HRH, HSH, ect. are -not- used in the article titles for much the same reason they aren't used in biographies. There may be a set of guidelines persuant to the list you referenced, but I think that it is probably a bad idea to ever include honorifics inline in an encyclopedia unless it is part of a quote. Discussion of honorifics and which are used should be mentioned perhaps in their biographies and certainly in the articles about their positions; however, using them inline (prefacing their name with the honorific) is a bad idea. Its ugly, its pointless, and it should be made clear in other ways what their position is. If you're referring to King Henry, he shouldn't be HRH King Henry blah blah, it should simply be King Henry. If you're referring to a line of succession, you should just use their positional titles - Prince Joe Blah, Prince Bob Blah, Princess Bleh Blah. If they don't have a positional title, then they should just have their name given straight up. HRH and various other honorific prefixes of the sort are ugly and not worth including - it makes the list look ugly and monotonous, and it isn't even helpful. When I looked at the list, I was struck by this, and later changed it. In biographies, you aren't to use honorifics before their names, period. I think it is a good general policy (article titles have the same restriction, and with good reason), and it may even be a general policy. I won't start an edit war over this, but if this isn't a general policy I'm probably going to start a proposal to make it a general policy, because it is good, NPOV, much better looking, and is what other good encyclopedias do. Titanium Dragon 00:23, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
See also: Use of courtesy titles and honorifics in professional writing. They don't use HRH, HIM, ect. in the most reknowned newspapers. They refer to Queen Elizabeth as Queen Elizabeth and the like, but they don't call her HRH. I don't think we should either, given the nature of wikipedia. Titanium Dragon 00:35, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
On the issue of what the guideline currently says, it's hard to believe it's still being twisted to say something it does not when anyone here can click "project page" on their interface and read it themself. One more time, yet again: Wikipedia currently distinguishes between three groups: NOBLES, government officials, and MEMBERS OF ROYAL FAMILIES and popes. The circumstances for each of these groups are then given in separate sections. What it says about "NOBILITY" group is largely irrelevant to the question of Royal family members, but note that it uses the term "inline" as a contrast to "in the article proper"; (I'm not sure if you had some different kind of understanding of the meaning of the term "inline".) Then, what it says about ROYALTY doesn't even mention the term "inline" at all: It merely says "Styles should not be used TO OPEN ARTICLES on royalty and popes. Thus the article on Pope Benedict XVI should not begin "His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI . . . " nor the article on Queen Victoria begin "Her Majesty Queen Victoria . . ."" Nobody is suggesting using them at every single turn, but in sparing places where they may be appropriate for various reasons, their use is not forbidden by this guideline nor should it be. Calling them "ugly" is about as POV an argument as you can get; I happen to disagree. An even better example than the Liechtenstein succession where everyone on the list has the same initials, might be: Line of succession to the Dutch Throne. Note that some of them are HRH, some are HE, and some are HH. I would submit that this difference in their names is encyclopedic, and shoul not be suppressed... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 01:08, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Did you read the policy? It states that you are not to open an article with them, and it states that further uses should be of a certain form. If the policy is not to start with them, and further uses should be of a certain form (read further down the page on the policy of further uses of names)... then obviously you aren't going to have any space to use them at all, is that not so? As for suppression, I'm not sure what country you're from or why you believe there is some massive republican conspiracy to deprive royals of "recognition", but you continue to fail to address the fact that no other encyclopedia, and indeed the other respected news sources of the world, do not seem to use HSH, HH, ect. This isn't suppression; it isn't like we don't mention who they are, and in the appropriaate articles mention how they are formally addressed. However, it is quite obvious that in formal writing people don't use these, and there is a good reason for it. It has nothing to do with suppression and everything to do with objectivity; using her majesty and the like is a subjective voice, while calling them Queen X is using a more objective voice. Wikipedia is supposed to be objective and NPOV. I'm not out for suppression, I'm out for removing things which don't belong, and honorifics are one of them. Titanium Dragon 01:40, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I know how to read English, it's my native tongue, and it most certainly does NOT "state that further uses should be of a certain form". Once again, that is your inference. It says that They should, however, be discussed in the article proper. The only place it discourages their use for Royalty is in the opening. If it meant anywhere in the article, it would have stated that. How can you "infer" something between the lines that it takes pains NOT to say? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 01:48, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Alright, I think I see where you're getting confused. Look at the section further down the page on subsequent uses of names. Titanium Dragon 08:06, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Okay, it's true I hadn't seen that section, but that section is so woefully vague, unspecific and over-general as to be of little use. For royalty, it says only that subsequent uses are an exception in that the monarch's "first name" or title can be used in lieu of the general rule to refer to a subject by his or her "last name". It really doesn't say anything else. This is pretty culture-centric when you consider that monarchs and commoners alike in many parts of the world have an entirely different notion about "first names", "last names" and such things. For example, in Ethiopia, a person's regularly used name usually consists first of a given name, followed by the father's given name. Thus HIM Haile Selassie before becoming Emperor was referred to as Tafari Makonnen, Tafari having been his given name, and Makonnen is his father's given name. However, a person's baptismal or Christian name is different from the regularly used name: it is also composed of two elements, that are more inseperable because they are a Ge'ez language construct of [term a] plus the Ge'ez suffix "e" (meaning "of", as in Farsi), then [term b]; and is always of highly religious significance. For example, Tekle Haymanot, a name from the Geez word Tekl (plant) +e (of) + Haymanot (faith) = Plant of Faith. Tafari Makonnen adopted his baptismal name to be his Coronation name in 1930: Hayle Silassie, in Geez this breaks down to Hayl (Power) +e + Silassie (Trinity) = Power of Trinity. It is not separated into a "first name" or "second name", so for such purposes, it is meaningless to speak of using only one of these names, although if just one is used, it is more common to refer to him as "Selassie" than as "Haile". The situation with names is different again in China, Japan, India, and doubly so for royalty. So this generalized rule about using a monarch's first name or title for subsequent uses rather than last name is horribly inadequate and there is no special rules page as of yet for Ethiopian related articles, but one is no doubt going to be developed by the Wikiproject Ethiopia team, of which I am part, in the near future. At any rate, it does not really contradict the clear distinction made in the "honorifics" section that I have already quoted. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 21:18, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


Would you say "Dr." in front of someone's name is a "ritualised show of respect" and should therefore be banned as POV? Of course not, it is recognised as if it were part of his or her full name. "HM", "HIH", "HRH" is no different from that. It is part of the monarch's full name, and is every bit as recognized. The only difference is that there is not an anti-Doctor campaign on the globe to strip doctors of their positions. ፈቃደ (ውይይት)
No, nor would I say that "King" in front of Selassie's name would be inappropriate. King is a title, and obviously appropriate. It's a statement of position. Things like "Highness" are different in being a style, and inherently a show of respect. If you want to use the title of King as a prefix to his name, I have no objections. I am not trying to strip mention that there have been Kings, nor to remove kings, in this discussion. --Improv 17:18, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
How about people who have "Ph.Ds" from degree mills? People will whine about how POV it is that their favorite creationist scientist doesn't have their name prefaced by doctor, despite the fact that it is readily demonstrable that their degree isn't recognized as valid by the professional community they claim to be a part of. And it has nothing to do with your pro-monarchy stance. Nothing. At. All. This is about uniformity of style, what other encylopedias have done, what is neutral, what will reduce edit wars, what is cleanest, ect. Quit whining about how we're all anti-monarchy; that isn't the reason. The reason I got involved was because of the Pope's page; it had nothing to do with monarchy, and indeed for a good while there weren't inline honorifics for the royalty until a few people went and added them. Titanium Dragon 00:14, 2 July 2006 (UTC
Your argument likening this to going to church is completely fallacious, logically speaking. These honorifics are legally part of the royal person's name. They are internationally recognised, used in the UN and all diplomatic circles, and even by embassies of republics. They are legally a recognised part of the royal person's full name, by internationally recognised law and precedent, like it or not, that is the bottom line. It has nothing to do with anyone's religious convictions whatsoever. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 17:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Codex Sinaiticus. I don't think Wikipedia has either a pro-republican or pro-monarchist bias; as with other issues, we conform to commonly-used styles in the wider world, including official documents, other reference materials, the press, and so forth. --MCB 18:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Codex, I am not arguing with these points you make (I don't think it's true, but I don't think it's that relevant), I am simply saying that using them is something we should not do, although mentioning them is fine. If you like, dig up this international law you're talking about and we'll talk about it. Understand also that I am not saying that this is itself tied to religious conviction -- that was an analogy. --Improv 19:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Order

For people with a given name (or names) and a family name, is there any reason the given name should come first? Why Ernő Rubik and not Rubik Ernő? --♥ «Charles A. L.» 17:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Because that's his common name in the English-speaking world, and our normal rule is to use that. -- Necrothesp 17:09, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Or, more precisely, Hungarian names usually get that treatment; Chinese ones don't (no one refers to Zedong Mao) - Jmabel | Talk 22:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I suspect that's because Hungary was part of an empire that was predominantly German-speaking and therefore put the surname last (indeed, many Hungarians were themselves predominantly German-speaking at the time - Franz Liszt for example, who was never comfortable speaking Hungarian). The normal European convention was therefore established in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and is still followed outside Hungary for Hungarian names. But it's not at all discriminatory - it really is the common version in the English-speaking world. Also remember that while most English-speakers would recognise Erno as being a given name (since it's close enough to an Anglophone given name) and would therefore instinctively put it first, most would not know whether Mao or Zedong was his given name, since Chinese names are alien to European culture. -- Necrothesp 23:23, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

age

There was a discussion started at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion for Template:Age if a biography should ever include someone's age or only his or her birthday. I believe that in general an encyclopedic article, which in theory should last a long time, should never state a person age explicitly. As Wikipedia may someday be printed it would not make sense to state a person's age. Does anyone agree with this proposal? Jon513 17:20, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

yes, I do. Rossrs 22:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I concur that living persons should never have their age listed; dead persons it might be reasonable to state their age at the time of death should their age be remarkable in some way. And beyond being printed, it is also included with some software thinger in CD form in Germany, IIRC, so listing names of living persons would be silly - by its very nature they'd be outdated 100% in a year. Titanium Dragon 08:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Though I think we should hold off on adding a paragraph until there has been a bit more discussion, Can anyone with better writing skills than I suggest some wording? Jon513 21:01, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

With CSS, like class="noprint", we can avoid the age to be printed, see Template:bha (backlinks, edit). A CD can either have the same content as the printed version, or another class can be used to distinguish the paper and CD versions. Either way we can avoid that the age is on the CD.--Patrick 07:59, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Note that in conversation it is more common to talk about someone's age than about someone's year of birth. This is because the former is more interesting in most contexts. When a reader computes an age from a birthdate on paper this is a workaround for the technical limitation of paper that it does not update automatically. This is not needed with templates like Template:age (backlinks, edit).--Patrick 08:15, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Albeit it may be the convention in conversation it is NOT the convention in an encyclopedia! Jon513 17:04, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
The convention of not mentioning an age in an encyclopedia was due to a limitation, you think too much in terms of a paper encyclopedia.--Patrick 23:09, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Do you expect these people to live forever! Jon513 02:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
When a person dies the article should be updated anyway.--Patrick 14:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

To me, I think would be much simpler to say "...blah blah at the age of 17" and "...yadda yadda at the age of 47" etc. in a couple of choice places in the text.--Pharos 03:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The convention of not using a specific age refers to present ages, not things that happened in the past, which will not change. So it's just fine to say "he attended college at age 17" or "she married XYZ at the age of 47" since those will always be true.
Yeah, that's my point– that if we just include one of these for a recent event, then our problem is solved. In other words, that's it's not real important to have someone's exact age, but it is helpful to know, without extensive computation, about how old a living person is. For example: Lech Kaczyński was elected President in 2005 at the age of 56. Or: As Madonna entered her 40s in the 2000s, blah blah older listening demographic etc.--Pharos 06:08, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree totally with Pharos. My example over at the Village Pump was: "On June 14, 2006 it was confirmed that the 60-year-old Spielberg had already begun working on an space travel movie titled Interstellar.". I wil repeat here what I said there, that not giving ages in a biographical article is just laziness. Usually, the reason it is omitted is because without knowing the exact birth date, and the exact date of an event, you may be out by a year on the age. But if you can accurately calculate the age, by all means go ahead and do so. This talk of forbidding "ages" from article is the silliest thing I've heard in a long time, and seems to stem from people not understanding how to write in historical context. The "as of 2006", instead of "this year" style, avoids a lot of these problems. It also helps editors who come along wanting to update things. There is even a template to deal with that. Carcharoth 02:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I have to say, though, I think your example is poor from a stylistic point of view. Surely it's best to give the subject's age for a date significant or relevant to their biography; i.e. an important date in their life (like Kaczyński's election) or a subject upon which their actual age is an issue (like Madonna and her demographic). Something like the date on which the title of a director's latest movie is "confirmed" is such an obvious device; let's use something more contextual. And if the only suitable recent event is two years ago, well that's pretty trivial arithmetic and is not going to bother anyone.--Pharos 08:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I've rewritten the relevant section to state these points more clearly. Carcharoth 02:22, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that a person's current age should not be listed in an article (unless their age is especially notable, e.g. they are currently 120 years old). Kaldari 17:56, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I see no reason to delete the age. That's what I wrote the {{age}} template for. So readers can tell at a glance how old the person is. Why force the curious reader to do a calculation in their head?
It should be optional, not forbidden, to use the age template. --Uncle Ed 14:05, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
For every other piece of information, we avoid saying 'currently': rather we say 'in May 2006' or whatever. To make an exception for age, and then not even to have the age template say 'on (current date)', strikes me as perverse. 86.139.237.132 11:57, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Please close off fullnames when using common names as the article title

While the article title should generally be the name by which the subject is most commonly known, the subject's full name should be given in the lead paragraph, if known. Many cultures have a tradition of not using the full name of a person in everyday reference, but the article should start with the complete version. For example: In some cases, subjects have changed their names at some point after birth. In these cases the birth name should be given as well:

I would like to add the following: Once the most common name has been determined, remember to add the full names and alternate names as redirects. Add "William Jefferson Clinton" as a redirect to "Bill Clinton". This will prevent others from moving the article later to what they believe is the proper name for the article. This lets future editors know that the chosen name was not an oversight, but was deliberate.

The wording can be changed, but I think its good policy, and will prevent future conflict and re-debate over closed issues. What do you think? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 14:25, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. Support this all the way. The bit about creating the redirects is a good point. Not only does it help people find the article, but as you say it prevents moving to that location in the future. On the other hand, some article have lots of redirects. For an example of where I went overboard, see Talk:Thomas-François Dalibard! :-) Carcharoth 02:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I dont think you can overdue redirects. Especially when they have 4 names. You have all the permutations and with an without spaces between letters. Such as J.R.R Tolkien and J. R. R. Tolkien. I am always suprised at how many links I pick up when I create the redirects. The same goes with companies: Acme, Inc.; Acme Inc.; Acme Incorporated. I was suprised how many I picked up for common mispellings (which I corrected) for Wal-Mart. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 14:34, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Mention of Jewish religion/ethnicity in biographical articles

I notice that in the article Joel Hyatt, mention of his Jewishness was removed with the comment that is was "irrelevant." I think this merits discussion. I don't know about other countries, but in the United States, a politician's professed religion is generally considered part of his or her basic biographical information. Almost all members of Congress, for example, include their religion in the annually published congressional directory. Furthermore, it seems to me that because of the nature of Jewishness in American culture as not only a religion but as a cultural subgroup merits notice of some kind. I don't think that it's necessary to mention religion of a politician in the lead paragraph, but it seems to me reasonable to mention it somewhere, including when the person is Jewish by professed religion or by ethnicity. Acsenray 17:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

are you sure that is the right link to the article. I can't find anything in the history as you discribed. Jon513 17:37, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
The edit of 5 June 2005 by 68.232.227.187 comment "not relevant." The only change made was removal of the statement that Hyatt is Jewish.
I don't know about the USA, but in the UK it is not normal to emphasise Jewishness unless the person themself does so. A fair number of British politicians are Jewish, but it is usually considered utterly irrelevant to their political careers and is often not widely known. Most British Jews are fully "assimilated" into British culture and do not form a separate cultural group.
I understand that religion is not necessarily important to British politics. But the question to me is, is religion important in a biographical essay? Of course, if you're writing a straight news story about a current event, it doesn't make sense to repeatedly emphasize the religion of the people involved, unless religion happens to be directly implicated in the event. However, it seems to me that when writing a biographical article that includes basic information like date of birth and often includes information about parentage and descendants, then identifying an individual's religion is as part of that basic background information as, say, identifying the place a person was born.

I had assumed the same was the case with American Jews. I appreciate, however, that religion is more an issue in the USA than in the UK (one of the most secular countries in the world).

As I said, in the United States, a candidate or politician's religion is almost always public knowledge. The official Congressional Directory gives a very smal (about 1.5 inch) section for each member of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Under "bio," the information listed is: date of birth, place of birth, and religion -- it's third. So obviously it's considered basic information about a politician. The last time I looked at every single entry, there were very few, if any at all, that left out this information.
Jewishness may be worth mentioning as an item of interest, but certainly not as a major issue unless it is central to that person's public identity. -- Necrothesp 18:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not calling it a "major issue." It's my position that, at least for American politicians, religion is noteworthy enough to be mentioned somewhere in the article. And, furthermore, Jewishness is particularly notable for an American elected official, because of several factors, including the historical discrimination against Jews and the existence, as of now, of Jews as a discernible (largely endogamous, for example) subculture in the United States. Similarly, Catholicness and Mormonness is notable among American politicians. One might not know the specific sect of a mainstream Protestant politician, but most people who pay attention to politics know immediately which ones are Jews, Catholics, and Mormons (all three groups are fairly heavily represented among federal elected officials). Acsenray 19:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
And, I might add, Jews, Catholics, and Mormons are routinely examined as separate voting blocs for the purposes of polling and historical analyses. It's very common to speak of traditionally Democratic Jews and Catholics and recent voting bloc alliances among socially conservative Jews, Catholics, and Protestants. Religion is a pretty fundamental aspect of American politics. Acsenray 19:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
No pun intended, I assume? ;) -- Necrothesp 12:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The established solution to this is very clear; it belongs in the 'family' section', i.e. Joe Schmoe was born in year of XXXX to an X-NationStatian family in Podunk, NationState.--Pharos 11:55, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is definitely where I'd put it, if anywhere. -- Necrothesp 12:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Sounds fine to me. Is there an official ruling on the matter anywhere? Acsenray 14:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
It's not official anywhere, but it's I think this is the general consensus of the very long discussions above. Exceptions would be in cases where someone's ethnicity was exceptionally tied to their significance; e.g. some minority rights activists and ethnically-focused artists. Since the issue comes up so often, perhaps we should establish a simple guideline on ethnicity for the fromt side of this page.--Pharos 14:44, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

So, we've ended up with "Ethnicity should generally not be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability." That's pretty unclear. Just to test the waters here, which of the following figures do participants think would merit mention of ethnicity in the lead? I've put them roughly in descending order of what I would consider the strength of argument for mentioning ethnicity, hoping that most people could answer in terms of where they'd draw the line, but others may view the matter differently, so that would call for a different way of answering. Sorry if there are an excess of Americans on the list; it's where I'm from. If people want to bring up other examples, I welcome that.

I myself would be comfortable drawing the line anywhere after Reinhardt and before Washington. - Jmabel | Talk 04:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Sorry I didn't respond earlier, Jmabel; I've been on an extended break from Wikipedia for the last few months. Here, as in the previous set of examples you gave, I would approximately agree with your chosen cut-off. But I'm not sure how such a discussion can advance a really "objective" standard. I realize there's an inherent subjectivity with "relevant to the subject's notability", but I don't see how that's avoidable. Should we have a "Jewish as Woddy Allen" test? I'm not sure if that would be more objective, though it might make for some fun arguments. Perhaps we could have a rule of thumb about not simply stating the ethnicity in the intro, but putting it in brief context (i.e. "Woody Allen explores his Jewish-American and New York City background in his films.").--Pharos 21:58, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Truncated names

Truncated names or nicknames are handled three ways. Which do you prefer?

  • John Reid "Johnny" Edwards (born June 10, 1953)
  • John Reid (Johnny) Edwards (born June 10, 1953)
  • John Reid Edwards (born June 10, 1953) also known as Johnny Reid Edwards [this one helps when doing text searching, especially when there is no redirect]

How do we handle the Theodore=Ted; Patrick=Pat etc.

--Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 17:53, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

My preference is to go with:
Theodore Fulton "Ted" Stevens -- the nickname goes in quotes after all the given names and before the family name, but I wouldn't object strongly to Theodore Fulton Stevens (commonly known as Ted Stevens)
I'd like to note, however, that you've got it backwards in Edwards's case. Unlike most cases of John/Jonny, the actual given name on his birth certificate is "Johnny Reid Edwards." "John" is what he uses in public. So it's Johnny Reid "John" Edwards or Johnny Reid Edwards (commonly known as John Edwards). Acsenray 22:53, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I think I've changed my mind. I'll go in for the parenthetical (commonly known as ...) style. Acsenray 22:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
The drawback of the quotation nickname is that when you search for text you may not find what you are looking for. John "Maddog" Henderson may does not show up using an exact search of ascii text when looking for "Maddog Henderson". If you use: John Henderson also known as Maddog Henderson works. Of course always creates a redirect. Let me do an experiment right now. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 13:38, 23 July 2006 (UTC) Yup, when I search for the quoted string "Maddog Henderson" using quotation marks to make it an exact search, the quotation marks and parenthesis block the search as an exact string of text. This "aka" format also acts as a usage guide: Was he called Maddog or Maddog Henderson or The Maddog or John Maddog.

My preference is definitely for the "commonly known as..." or "also known as..." style, following the person's dates (and that's what I've used in all my articles). In my opinion it's much clearer and looks tidier. You can also add multiple variants, whereas the style in quotes or parentheses only allows one. -- Necrothesp 16:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Elvis and Cher

After the initial mention of any name, the person may be referred to by surname only.

Does this guideline apply to performers who are primarily known by their given name? i.e Elvis and Cher. Geedubber 22:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Not quite the same case. "Cher" is a stage name and the title of the article about her, so logically that name should be used, since she's never known by her surname. In Elvis's case, I would say that it's perfectly normal to refer to him by his surname. I don't actually think he is primarily known by his given name. Everyone knows who you're talking about if you say "Elvis", but he's still commonly known as "Elvis Presley" and that's the title of the article, so I don't think any exception is needed. -- Necrothesp 22:54, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

clarification of "His Holiness"

The guidelines are not exactly clear on this. Is it ok, when talking about Pope Benedict XVI, in another article to put "His Holiness" before it? To me that seems very POV and doesn't seem to agree with these guidelines. The way I read the guidelines is that title of articles should not included these honorific prefixes, but a discussion of their use is fine (and probably necessary). However, it doesn't excplicitly state the situation I am talking about. This question comes from the Roman Catholic Church article, where they refer to the current pope as "His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI". I see no encyclopedic value at all of adding the honorific title, and it seems like POV pushing to me. The content necessary for understanding is the pope's name and the wikilink to his main article. Removing "His Holiness" does not change the meaning behind the sentence. I have proposed a change where there is a sentence describing the office of "pope" and the honorofic titles associated with it. I felt that was a more NPOV in handling this. However, I was curious if I was reading too much into these guidelines, or if people have opinions or precedent in refering to the current pope as "His Holiness" on wikipedia. --Andrew c 18:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

You are not reading too much into the guidelines, that use is way out of line for Wikipedia. I say go ahead with the change. -- Renesis13 18:26, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Screen names, altered names, etc.

There's no actual policy in the MoS biographies for actors with screen names (eg Nicholas Cage), or Chinese people with Anglicized names (John Woo, Russell Wong) and so it looks very inconsistent right now. Both the John Woo and Nicholas Cage born on brackets seem clunky right now (Cage with his "often called Nic Cage" and John Woo with the double brackets). I think the policy should be updated to resolve these kinds of things. --ColourBurst 05:33, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Academic Titles

Why can't the title Dr. or Lawyer be prefixed for those who are well known physicians and lawyersDoctor Bruno 18:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Prefixed where? Certainly not in the title of the article: we don't even prefix "King". - Jmabel | Talk 04:41, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Of course, I am asking why ??? What is the logic behind that. Many people are known by their profession. For example if you ask for Vijayan, you may have confused looks. On the other hand, most people know "Lawyer Vijayan" in Tamil NaduDoctor Bruno 15:32, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
The short answer is that while such usage may be common in India, it is not the usual practice in the primarily English-speaking countries, except for physicians. In the US and UK it would be unusual to ask for "Lawyer Smith" or "Solicitor Smith" or "Engineer Williams"; that would result in the same confused looks. --MCB 06:46, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
So what are you going to follow for an Indian lawyer. Indian convention or British Convention. People should be noted down by the name with which they are well known "Bill Gates" and "Bill Clinton" for exampleDoctor Bruno 12:32, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
English language convention, obviously. And since I get 9 Google hits for "Lawyer Vijayan" it seems obvious what this is. Proteus (Talk) 12:35, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
English language convention people for British or English Language convention for Indian people - that was the question
Please don't use Google to judge India related topics. 1. Most of the Indian Print Media do not have online extension. Even when they have they are not in Unicode and not searchable. If some one uses Google (or any search engine) to come to conclusion about India, then he is far from reality. He is reported as Lawyer Vijayan in local media and "K.M.Vijayan" in English Media Any how this is only one case and there are a lot of others Doctor Bruno 16:10, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Publications for academic biographies

Having worked on and read lots of academic biographies, most science academics with a reasonably productive career will produce over 50 papers, in addition to book chapters, and books. In the articles that I have written I never inlcude a full list of journal articles - as are often available on external sites and would be prohibitively long. I also expect the reader to realise that if someone has been invited to write chapters, or has written textbooks, then they are probably respected in their field. Do we need some sort of guidlines about what sort of publications to include in a biography?--Peta 01:57, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

In the vast majority of cases, this issue never comes up. So by the 80-20 rule, we don't need to address it at all. Wjhonson 04:42, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
With over 100,000 biographies, even 20% is a large number. The issue does come up with academics [13] and also with journalists [14]. It'd be helpful to have some guideline to point to. -Will Beback 05:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Antoni Gaudí and nationality

There has been a running dispute at Antoni Gaudí about nationality in the lead paragraph. My own proposal is that it should say [[Catalan people|Catalan]] [[Spain|Spanish]], since he was a Catalan nationalist and a Spanish citizen. However, almost every other imaginable variant has been put forward at various times; right now we are dealing with anonymous editors who will apparently not tolerate any mention of Spain in the lede. This seems to go dead opposite to what I understand to be the general Wikipedia consensus. Could some of the people active in this page please comment in the current discussion at Talk:Antoni Gaudí#Gaudi's Nationality (the topic also comes up elsewhere on that talk page). - Jmabel | Talk 19:42, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

And I see that the article on Salvador Dalí has gone to the other extreme: "Catalan" has simply been removed, and he is now described simply as "Spanish". - Jmabel | Talk 21:56, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

It's typical I guess. Ironically both seem to have been defined according to their personal preferences, but it could be otherwise.
It's a touchy issue because there's too much history of confrontation between both identities: one wanting to include and absorb and the other trying to break apart or at least mark the difference. Notice that for many Catalans and Basques (and for some Galicians and Canarians and even Andalusians) Spanish means Castilian and they are not that. For others instead it's a wider term but it's never a plural concept like Belgian or Swiss, because Castile and Castilian culture have always had a centralizing and a rather (culturally) genocidal role (simmilar to that of France or England in their political domains).
Personally, as Basque, I would not like to be listed as Spanish by any means. Yet I have to put up with that in my identity papers and stuff like that. Other people have totally different approaches.
Maybe a NPOV approach could be to say that they are Catalans (ethnicity) and citizens of Spain (citizenship). But surely Dalí would like to be listed as Spanish (he admired Franco a lot) and Gaudí would not like to see the term Spain at all (my supposition).
How would you define the Dalai Lama? "Tibetan" or "Chinese"? Would you define Turgut Özal (leader of the PKK) as "Turkish"? Would you call Arthur Griffith (founder of the Sinn Fein) "British"? Maybe these cases are clearer because these people have a self-defining nationalist political stand.
Probably a developement of an WP guideline would end "enforcing" the status quo, what would not favor that members of minorities would cooperate in Wikipedia, what would be a failure in itself, something much more worrying than to lack of a systematic classification of people by nationality/ethnicity/citizenship.
My two cents. --Sugaar 15:32, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Off-topic: I would suggest that Dalí mainly found it convenient to say nice things about Franco because he decided to continue to live in Spain. He was never particularly serious about politics (he once called himself an "anarcho-monarchist" and on another occasion congratulated Ceauşescu for taking up a sceptre).
On-topic: The MoS says that one of the things that always belongs in the first paragraph is "Nationality (In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable…)" so there doesn't seem to be a lot of choice about [[Spain|Spanish]]. Hence, my suggestion of [[Catalan people|Catalan]] [[Spain|Spanish]] above.
The Dalai Lama is not a Chinese citizen; I believe he travels on papers from either some government in exile or from an international agency, so in his case "Tibetan" should not raise a problem. I believe you have misidentified Turgut Özal (I don't think he has anything to do with the PKK), our article calls him a "Turkish political leader (of partial Kurdish descent)" which seems about right. Perhaps you meant Abdullah Öcalan? Left to my own devices, I'd just say "Kurdish" (I looked after writing this; the article is a bit tricky about it, simply calling him leader of "the Kurdish militant group Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).")
I would imagine that almost everyone would agree that Arthur Griffith was not in any meaningful sense "British". I'd have said "Irish" without thinking twice. It's trickier though, for a present-day Roman Catholic from Northern Ireland, for whom I'd probably say "Northern Irish Catholic" (not an area I've really worked on in Wikipedia, though. I just looked at the Gerry Adams article and, as with Abdullah Öcalan, they slide around this a little). - Jmabel | Talk 05:54, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Use of surname

I am aware of the guideline that the subject must be referred to by their last name in an article, but in the James Bulger article imho I think this sounds really odd - especially as James was a toddler, and it makes him sound more like the criminal than the victim. Any comments on this would be appreciated. Thanks. --Alex talk here 22:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Have you considered that you might be placing your own POV onto the subject? I don't think referring to him as "Bulger" in any way makes him sound more like the criminal. We identify him in our minds as a cute, helpless, trusting little boy who was cruelly treated and murdered. It's heartwrenching of course and "James or "Jamie" better fits the image that we have of him, especially as "Bulger" is not a "cute" sort of name. It would be inhuman of anyone to not feel moved by the tragedy of his story. Magazines routinely call him "Jamie" but their aim is to stir emotions and sell magazines, and emphasising his cuteness and vulnerability is part of the ploy they adopt in their writing. As an encyclopedia we need to rise above those emotions and remain objective. All biographical subjects are referred to by their surname. It's our convention and is fairly established as the norm in other works as well. Rossrs 09:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Personally I think there is something strange about referring to children by their surnames. Newspapers don't only refer to James Bulger by his first name in order to stir emotions. It's a well-established convention in all sorts of writing that children are referred to by their first names. In scholarly biographies, for example, the subject is usually referred to by his/her first name in the early chapters. The manual of style states that referring to someone by their first name might give the false impression that the writer knows the subject personally. I can agree with that for adults, but I think children are a special case and should be referred to by their first names. I'm not going to go around editing that, though. --Richardrj talk email 13:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Richardrj on this topic. Even formal broadsheet newspapers and journals refer to children, especially those who are victims of crimes, by their first names. It's nothing to do with 'cute' or the like, it's merely distinguishing that it is a child we're dealing with here. If it's good enough for upmarketnewspapers and published journals then surely it is good enough for wikipedia.-- Cosmic Quest 00:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Absolute Objection!!!

Click here to see reasons why I object this manual of style.

In a television show, you must call the host and/or hostess (in the instance of The Apprentice) "Mr. (last name)", "Ms. (last name)", or the proper salutation, because I really disappreciate the link that I have to post here. There are certain "things" that at times people MUST be called by a proper salutation, and calling people by just the last name is NOT proper. Imagine that you are a teacher for a high school class. You would give the offending person a detention if he/she calls you by just your last name would you? That is why in this case, you must address the host as being "Mr. (last name)" or the proper salutation! Same if you are in a sports team, people MUST address the coach by "Coach (last name)". Something is absolutely wrong with this policy that I'm opposing right now.

I vehemently oppose some clauses of this style policy! — Vesther (U * T/R * CTD) 03:22, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

In an encyclopedia there needs to be consistency and there is nothing impolite, improper or disrespectful in referring to someone by their surname only. There is no disrespect if we refer to certain people as "Lincoln", "Kennedy", "Edison", "Curie" or "Mandela" in their articles, and quite frankly these people are more deserving of respect than your average football coach. This is not a football game, a class room, or a reality television show. There is no logic in suggesting that the rules that apply there, apply equally here. "Trump" can and should be referred to as such - why on earth would we call him "Mr. Trump" here? If he ever happens to give me a job, you bet I'll call him "Mr. Trump", but I'm not about to adopt an outmoded and inappropriate form of address for him in an encyclopedic context. Conventions exists to give uniformity to a complete work or project - we can not operate with two sets of rules. We can not refer to the majority of people by their surname and then suggest that "Trump" deserves more respectful handling. Rossrs 09:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm with Rossrs. It seems comical to imagine that "Napoleon" or "Bonaparte" would be less respectful than "Mr. Bonaparte". This encyclopedia is not The Economist - which is famous for always using a salutation for living people. Patiwat 19:39, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

I propose to change "Dates of birth and death" in "Dates and place of birth and death". My reason is, in a biography these are among the data I look for first. Many historical people have moved a lot in their life and many of them changed nationality. They sometimes grew up in a country which ceased to exist or came under the jurisdiction of another state. Therefore I like to see it in the opening paragraph. The Manual of Style Dates and numbers refered to this Manual when adopting the current text (see archive). Otto 12:21, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Articles formatted like resumes

I have seen some biographical articles that are clearly resumes, i.e., they are bullet lists of schools and universities, current positions, previous jobs, and awards, with maybe a 1-2 sentence introduction. When the subjects of these articles clearly merit Wikipedia articles, does this resume-style format belong in Wikipedia? Patiwat 19:13, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

When the subjects of these articles clearly merit Wikipedia articles, these are better than nothing, but should be reworked. Probably less of a problem on an actor (the roles they've played are a pretty defining aspect) than on, say, a scientist. - Jmabel | Talk 18:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
More of an issue with government officials, who have personal profiles (actually resumes) posted on government websites. Resumes often seem to be copied directly onto Wikipedia. Patiwat 21:40, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


Styles

The ad-hoc abolition of styles has resulted in ambiguities and inconsistencies. Stripping the rightful stylistic prefixes and suffixes from those entitled to them seems to represent an unfortunate triumph of personal ideology over general accuracy and helpfulness.

A paper encyclopaedia has limited space and a constraint to alphabetise its entries. One of Wikipedia's great strengths is that neither of these conventional restrictions apply. We are uniquely able to include in articles about individuals a full and accurate depiction of names and rightful styles, titles, and honours.

A Wikipedia-wide disclaimer that some people, for various personal and ideological reasons, may not recognise some or any of these dignities would be preferable to having such dignities stripped as default. Some readers may quickly consult an article merely to determine the full honours that some person possesses, or how to cite them appropriately - only to be sorely disappointed by discovering a quite minimalist heading - and having to read the entire article and try and piece it all together (presuming they are informed enough to know how, which is statistically doubtful). And these are web pages, not index cards, so surely space is not the issue.

We are sliding from 'Queen Elizabeth II' to 'Elizabeth II' to someday, perhaps (I pray not), merely 'Lilibet Mountbatten'. Which is to say, we are going less in the direction of standard reference works such as Debrett and toward the likes of the tabloid press. My concern is not for those who already know the correct syles and titles, but for those who don't, and seek Wikipedia for answers.

Regards,

Lord Charlton 13:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anything's been abolished. It's for you to make corrections where you find inaccuracies.qp10qp 13:25, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Postnomial initials

The suggestion is that a new para 2.5 under the heading Postnomial initials be added to Manual of Style (biographies).

Postnomial initials
Writers should remember that the meaning of the most obvious (to them) postnomial initials will not be obvious to some readers. When postnomial initials are used the meaning should be readily available to the reader. This is most easily done with a piped link to an article with the appropriate title thus:
[[Victoria Cross|VC]] which will give Joe Bloggs VC
This procedure will ensure that readers who hover over the initials see the expanded abbreviation as a hint and in the status bar at the bottom of the window.
Many readers will click immediately on the link, missing hints. Writers should remember that readers may not want to search through a lengthy article to find the definition. If a short article is not possible, the definition should be clear and near the start. Often one line article will suffice, with appropriate links to further information, thus:
Jack Brabham OBE.

Writers should be left free to limit postnomials to those which they feel are necessary – but when used the meaning should be clear. — Saltmarsh 14:08, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I support this; it is particularly useful for titles under the British honours system, where people may be confused by the distinction between say MBE, OBE, CBE, KBE, DBE and GBE.--Runcorn 17:57, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Is the correct term not "post-nominal"?Michael DoroshTalk 15:02, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes. And we generally don't have them in bold and separate them from the name (and each other) with commas. Proteus (Talk) 17:53, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Of course - a Freudian slip (since I dislike the things) to give them a non-existant name! Saltmarsh 06:30, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Proteus's sentence above might be ambiguous, it should be (?): And we generally don't have them in bold and do separate them from the name (and each other) with commas. – Saltmarsh 06:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
We definitely shouldn't have them bolded. Personally, I don't particularly like them separated by commas either. That's a purely personal stylistic thing though - some sources do it, some don't. -- Necrothesp 13:51, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
You are quite right about the commas. They are distracting and putting a space is enough. David | Talk 17:47, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Jewish ethnicity, yet again

User:Jack O'Lantern seems to be systematically removing mention of people being Jewish. A perfect example of this is this edit on Harold Clurman, but I am sure I could easily find a dozen similar examples: I've crossed three of them on my watchlist today.

Clurman's interest in theater began with Yiddish theater. He married Stella Adler (daughter of Jacob Adler, one of the half dozen most famous actors in the history of Yiddish theater) and with her was involved in the almost entirely Jewish Group Theater, one of the main vehicles by which Russian acting technique passed from Yiddish theater to English-language theater. This would seem to me to reach the bar for Jewish ethnicity being mentioned in the lead paragraph of the article on Clurman. Apparently, to Jack it does not reach the bar for Jewish ethnicity being mentioned at all in the article.

It concerns me greatly that this seems to have the character of a systematic campaign. I do not want to find myself dragged into edit wars ranging over dozens of articles, so I am not unilaterally reverting him, I am bringing the matter here instead.

Yiddish-language culture has never had a nation-state attached. This should not be a grounds for effectively removing the fact that it is attached to an ethnicity. When edits like this occur in dozens of articles, that is the effect. - Jmabel | Talk 06:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Believe me, I have no personal stake at this and am just enforcing the manual of style, which I am currently doing for Italian-American articles (not a single X-American group out there where this doesn't occur). Harold Clurman was known for being a theater director and drama critic... not for being Jewish. Calling him a "Jewish theater director and drama critic" doesn't make sense, because what does it mean? Are we saying that he was Jewish? Or are we saying that he reviewed Jewish-themed plays and criticed Jewish-related drama productions? By all means, mention the ethnicity anywhere you want in the article, I certainly do in articles I edit, but putting it in the first sentence like that is just confusing. I don't think we should disagree on this issue at all. Mad Jack 06:38, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

This is really a rather different issue from, say, Category talk:Jewish mathematicians. I shall not dip my toes into it. However - isn't it really a little redundant to attach the tag "Jewish" to somebody who has engaged in all of these activities? What additional information does it convey?

(If it is halakhic status, say, then it would (a) be theoretically capable of conveying some additional information, (b) be supremely silly. Actually, wasn't there an actress known as Di yiddishe shiksa? I now wonder... Bellbird 11:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC))

See the discussion now going on at the Village Pump (policy section) under the headings "Tagging living people as Jews" and "How is this classification different from all other classifications?". Bellbird 12:03, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

As I've pointed out elsewhere, at least one major star of Yiddish theatre, Jenny Valliere, was a Gentile. So it is not a given that someone in this milieu was Jewish. - Jmabel | Talk 06:16, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Sexuality in Lead Section Discussion?

I've noticed the contention that's come up in a few articles about including the sexuality in the lead paragraph of an article. As far as I can tell the guideline was added on September 14th without any discussion on this page. Is that the case? It's obvious that there's some contention about the inclusion is appropriate, and I'm interested in seeing how the consensus was reached. --- The Bethling(Talk) 21:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

(after edit conflict since it appears that another user has the same concern) I am concerned about some of the recent changes to the guideline that seem to be made with a lack of consenus (at least what can be guaged on the talk page). A large element of my concerns is the unilateral application of these changes to WP:BLP, of which we must handle with the upmost care. In the last few days the following items have been edited in the Opening Paragraph (and reverted and included and reverted and so on) to now read

  • Nationality (In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable. Ethnicity should generally not be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability (for example, it is appropriate for the inclusion of race in the opennings on articles on Cesar Chavez, and Martin Luther King).
  • The same rationale applies to sexual orientation. This is deemed appropriate when homosexual person and is noted for being one (for example, it is appropriate for the inclusion of a person's sexual orientation in the opennings on articles on Rosie O'Donnell, or Ellen DeGeneres).

I think the above conversation regarding a disagreement about the inclusion of Jewish ethnicity and the reverts from several different editors shows that there is far from consenus in these type of changes. Agne 21:45, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

The changes are far from unilateral. There have been around ten seperate posters that have contributed to the change. If you have a suggestion, please make it.Cliesthenes 22:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Can you please link to the part of the page where this discussion takes place? Danny Lilithborne 22:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
I second that request. Agne 22:09, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Please refer to the edit history. It was not a unilateral decision--numerous posters took part. There is a basis for the change in the above section. Agne even refered the the basis explicitly below. Instead of making an assumption of bad faith, please assume good faith.Is that so much to ask?Cliesthenes 22:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't think there's any bad faith assumptions here. This is a major change to the guideline, potentially affecting thousands of articles. We're (or at the very least I am) just asking for a pointer to where the discussion about and consensus for this change took place so I can get a good idea about the reasoning. --- The Bethling(Talk) 22:51, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


As for suggestions, I do believe in the integrity of the WP:LEAD section as being relevant to the notability of the subject being discuss. If it's relevant to what makes the person notable (and by extension encyclopedic) then it should be included. I am also against the inclusion of original research. If you want to contend that a person is known for being something or doing something, then there should be a reliable source to back that claim up. It's rather simple and, IMO, curbs the excess of POV or any agenda. Agne 22:15, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I second those suggestions. -- Dcflyer 22:19, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Opening Paragraph section before recent changes

As of September 1st the Opening Paragraph section was...
The opening paragraph should give:

  1. Name(s) and title(s), if any (see, for instance, also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles))
  2. Dates of birth and death, if known (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates of birth and death)
  3. Nationality (In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable. Ethnicity should generally not be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability.)
  4. What they did
  5. Why they are significant.

Personally, I think it should be changed backed to this. It's clear, concise, and relates well to other guidelines within WP:MOS and Wikipedia. More importantly, as far as I can tell from the history page and talk page archive here, it looks to have been the long running consensus till of late. Agne 22:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Sexuality, just like ethnicity is relevant, if the person themselves has made it, or commentators on them have made it, relevant. So the sexuality of the ex-Governor of New Jersey is relevant. The sexuality of Ellen Digeneres is relevant. In the same vein, the Jewish ethnicity of the former head of the American Jewish Committee is relevant. These are the things that made them important. However the incidental Jewishness of a person not particularly known for being Jewish wouldn't be relevant in the LEAD although it should be mentioned in the body. Wjhonson 22:37, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
If it's relevant then it should certainly be included because there will be reliable sources attesting to the relevance that particular aspect had to the individual. If it is not relevant and there is no reliable sources to back up this claim, inclusion is not proper because it will either be non-notable or original research Agne 22:43, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree, however, the changes do exactly what you stated. In fact, I would argue the newest changes endanger the intent due to carelessness by the editor (namely massive grammatical problems, along with the obvious subjective problem of the term "tact." It is clear that the fact a person is homosexual can be a major point of notoriety, and thus needed in the opening. Both of you admit this. If the current system--based on existing wikipedia policy, and the discussion on religion--is not enough, propose something new.Cliesthenes 22:49, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree that in some cases being homosexual can be a major point of their notoriety. Ellen Degeneres's coming out was groundbreaking and historical (and you can find several reliable sources to attest to this--Lance Bass' was not. There is a difference and there is a context. The automatic assumption that since a person is gay it must be part of their notability is OR and POV.Agne 22:55, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
A valid point. I agree that not all gay people deserve the tag. Even the rule change reflected this. However, I disagree witht he assertion about Lance Bass. The massive publicity he has recieved in the last month due to "coming out." Means he is noted for being gay. He has been awarded several awards by LGBT groups. All of this is discussed in the article. This is why I believed any additional sources were unneccessary. 205.188.116.197 23:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Actually he received all that publicity because of who he was before he came out. When a singer of lesser fame, like Me'shell Ndegeocello comes out, you don't have such media attention. Why? The act of coming out is the same. It's the same declaration of being gay. Rather, you have more media attention given to Lance Bass because of his already established notability. Similarly, let's say that Marc Blucas gets pulled over by police for speeding and being intoxicated. If he goes on an anti-Jewish rant will he get the same attention that Mel Gibson got? Again, it depends on context. If an person's notability is intrinsically tied into being gay, then it should certainly be included in the Lead Section. If the person's notability is not dependent on their sexuality then that subject matter should be dealt in the appropriate context later in the article. Agne 23:43, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


Personally, I find it offensive that the term "homosexual" when used in the opening of a biography on a person that is openly homosexual andnoted for being gay can be deemed POV, or an "agenda." One of the major over arching policies on wikipedia is an assumption of good faith--something the last three posters in this thread are seemingly ignoring (I apologize if I am incorrect).

Furthermore, before he came out, realistically, when was the last time you heard of him? Looking at it from a homosexual perspective, Lanceis one of the first US pop stars to comeout. It is a big deal. Pick up the ltest issue of the Advocate for information on it. Cliesthenes 23:01, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, the changes are far from unilateral. Several posters, including DCflyer have edited the article and made substantial changes from the original version (which I did not create).

The fact is, the current wiki policy on openings is an inclusion of anything relevant to the notoriety of a person. For some people, the opening would include religion (for example, a pope, or a catholic saint). For some it would include race (Cesar Chavez, and Martin Luther King). For others, it would include sexuality (Ellen Degeneres). The descriptors are so key to the definition of the person that there is absolutely no reason not to include them in the opening.

The new policy does not state anything new. If there is an issue of the placement on the term “homosexual,” please propose a change, instead of assuming a massive corrupt agenda. From my perspective, the term has been placed where it makes the most grammatical sense. For me, the issue isn’t the placement, it is the use of vague terms that would allow people to cover up important facts due to a homophobic, or racist mindset.

I think we can all agree—at the least—that stopping potential racist/homophobic edits is a valid goal.Cliesthenes 22:49, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Cliesthenes, I will be upfront for all here (to alleviate any concerns about homophobia), I am a very proud Wiki-Dyke. I am proud of notable figures in Gay History and the shared sense of culture and community. However, in my role as a Wikipedian I am going to edit in what I perceive as the best interest of creating a quality encyclopedia. To that extent, if it is notable and relevant that a person is Gay then I will fight for it's inclusion. However, if it's inclusion goes against established guidelines like WP:OR and is irrelevant towards understanding and supporting the encyclopedic merit of the subject--then I'm not going to let my gay pride overshadow the fact that such inclusion simply does not belong. Agne 23:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

No one is asking you too. Honestly, I don't understand where this argument comes from? Who is asking you to not delete invalid edits? Even so, people can still have the right to place back a deletion they see valid. Then come to a compromise. However, the fact there is a differenceis not a valid reason to report a person.

Again, from my understanding, the edit simply restates current wiki policy. Cliesthenes 23:06, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

The new edit seems to be fair. The term homosexual should not be on every gey person's bio but the standard does not require that. It seems like it applys the standard for nationaility to gays. I have no problem with that.
  • Cliesthenes, you are dodging the question. Please link to the part of the talk page that contains the consensus you claim for your edits. Danny Lilithborne 23:39, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Are new users not allowed to make changes? I didn't understand why my edit was reversed. To my understanding of the rules, I am allowed to suggest changes. Polmalo 00:09, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Changing back to Sept 1st. version

I am going to take back the "opening paragraph" guideline to how it was on Sept 1st. My reason is that there was no talk page consenus to warrant these major changes and the top of the guideline page clearly says consensus is the basis of these guidelines and that any major change should proposed and discussed on the talk page. Despite repeated requests by several users, a link to where this "consensus" was formed has not been provided. The contention that these changes merely clarify policy is not valid since they radically alter the meaning of that section. To go from (Sept 1st version)
3. Nationality (In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable. Ethnicity should generally not be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability.)
4. What they did
5. Why they are significant.
To (today's current version)
3. Nationality (In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable. Ethnicity should generally not be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability (for example, it isappropriate for the inclusion of race in the opennings on articles on Cesar Chavez, and Martin Luther King).
4. The same rationale applies to sexual orientation, and religion. When relevant, sexual orientation, and religious affiliations should be tactfully incorporated into the opening paragraph. This is deemed appropriate when a person is gay and is noted for being gay (for example, Rosie O'Donnell, or Ellen DeGeneres). Remember, Wikipedia stands in the interest of reporting sourced information, and not for outing people.
5. What they did.
6. Why they are significant (reason for being known)

...is signifigant and major change. A major change, which again consensus has not been reached on. This is not to say that consensus can not be reached and that these changes are, by default "bad", but rather these changes were essentially putting the cart before the horse and circumventing discussion. I encourage my fellow wikipedians to start a discourse on this page and acheive consensus for your desired changed before instituting this major change into the guideline. Guidelines are not written in stone but neither are they written in sand that can be washed away on a whim. Agne 00:38, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't see support for the addition of #4 including in the history. Since the addition was disputed from the beginning, it should be removed until some sort of consensus can be had. --Kevin_b_er 04:40, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Should 'Sir'/'Dame' be bolded?

There isn't a firm policy on this, but an example suggests that subjects with Knighthoods or Damehoods should have 'Sir' or 'Dame' in bold in the lead section. I would like to argue against this. Firstly, we do not habitually link Sir or Dame so that readers unfamiliar with the term (there are some) may be mislead that it is a part of the name. Secondly, there are some naughty people who have adopted their first name as 'Sir' or 'Lord' in order to mislead about a title they have, for example the byelection campaigner David Sutch who put his name down as 'Lord David Sutch'. Thirdly, it helps readers to understand that before the subject got the Knighthood or inherited the Baronetcy etc., they were referred to without the title. David | Talk 17:53, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

This was discussed a while ago, I think. It's probably either somewhere up this page or in the archives. (From memory, the main point is that "Sir" and "Dame" do form part of Knights and Dames' names, and policy is to have names in bold. It'd be inconsistent, for instance, to have peerages in bold (they, with reference to your point about earlier usage, probably also weren't held in early life, but are still there) and not "Sir" and "Dame". And people who legally put fake titles in front of their names can always be clarified with a footnote.) Proteus (Talk) 17:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Further discussion about ethnicity, race, religion, and/or sexual orientation being included in the lead sentence

See the discussion under Talk:César_Chávez#Request_for_comment. -- Dcflyer 03:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Baronets again

Right now we have "No baronet should be shown with the postfix but without the prefix, e.g. John Smith, 17th Baronet." Nothing near that gives an example of how to do it right. Giving only a wrong example isn't much use to someone looking here for guidance. - Jmabel | Talk 04:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

He should be Sir John Smith, 17th Baronet. - Kittybrewster 08:49, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Kittybrewster is Correct. You either observe Correct Form, or you enter upon an anarchic course. David Lauder 10:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Flags

I don't know if this has been raised anywhere before, but national flags have started appearing on biography articles next to a person's place of birth. This seems to be leading to edit wars over what flag to include, with articles swapping the English flag for the Union flag and vice versa. There are also now state flags being used, eg I just saw the flag of Ohio on the Steven Spielberg article. In the circumstances, think it might be an idea to ban the use of these altogether as they are not very helpful. JW 10:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

  • It sounds like some editors are trying to be "cute", but the point of it is lost if you don't know whose flag it is. I've seen it in articles about sports teams' rosters, but that's arguably different, as it has to do with the overall topic of diversity in the industry. Putting it on an individual bio page is the equivalent of pasting a lapel pin on someone else. Wahkeenah 11:16, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Seems like a terrible idea to me. - Jmabel | Talk 06:05, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree, it sounds like a bad idea. They are not too helpful in the information that they provide and could be a source for new edit-warring. -- Dcflyer 19:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
  • The proliferation of flags is becoming an epidemic. I was looking at the article on the band Keane yesterday, and it has six flags (yes six) in the infobox. I removed all but one, but they've all been put back again. Is it possible to include this in the MOS, as people seem to be against it. JW 14:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Not just for biographies?

Are these guidelines meant to be applied to articles that aren't biographies? I'm specifically interested in "subsequent uses of names" in articles that discuss people but aren't biographies of the people discussed. The guideline page itself doesn't say "these guidelines are meant for biographies", but it seems to be implied. Schi 18:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Selig Percy Amoils

Would anyone be willing to offer a second (or third) opinion in Talk:Selig Percy Amoils where the date of birth should go in Selig Percy Amoils? Thanks! -AED 21:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Privy Counsellors

Having reviewed the debate on the changes to policy regarding the inclusion of The Right Honourable or Rt Hon for members of the privy council who are not peers; And having counted the votes for and against it seems that this change in the guidelines was pushed through without having established consensus (I imagine this was because once ideas are made "policy" they are less likely to be challenged). The guideline has been in place since January 2006.

The vote has stood against this change since 6th February but the policy has remained in place. The vote now stands at 10-6 against.

As the policy has been placed in error for 9 months I propose it be removed directly and replaced with:-

Articles on Privy Counsellors of the United Kingdom Privy Council who are not peers should begin: Rt Hon Name or The Right Honourable Name

The style should be bolded with the name. The style should be pipe linked as The Right Honourable

Where the privy counsellor is a peer the style "The Right Honourable" or "Rt Hon" should not be included, Instead, the postnominal letters "PC should be included, bolded and pipe linked as PC

Where the privy counsellor is a citizen of a Commonwealth Realm other than the United Kingdom, the style Rt Hon or Right Honourable should not be included automatically but should depend on the convention in their country. Basketdove 22:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is not the case. The people who actually expressed an opinion after Mackensen formally proposed the change clearly expressed support for it, and at least two people changed their opinion, which you have mysteriously not counted (I know, since I was one of them - you have counted me as being against the proposal, whereas in fact I said I agreed with it after it was formally proposed). -- Necrothesp 17:47, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Born at a city, or born in a city?

I see many articles whose source is the 1911 Britannica, and "He was born at Paris", or "He died at Madrid". A 21st-century American would never say "at Paris", but would say "in Paris". In the last 95 years have speakers of Commonwealth English retained or dropped the use of "at Paris"? I feel tempted to change these when I see them. Chris the speller 05:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I would surrender to the temptation, if I was you. It seems like an archaic form of expression. Rossrs 09:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
"In" would certainly be the American style. I can't speak for the U.K. Wahkeenah 13:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
I think most British English speakers would say "in" for a large town or city, although they may say "at" for a small village. Personally, I would use "in" for both. -- Necrothesp 16:03, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Yet we Americans also say that so-and-so was born (or died) at such-and-such hospital. Go figure. Wahkeenah 00:59, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Usual British usage is to use "in" for hospitals as well. -- Necrothesp 00:59, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to all, this is helpful. As I suspected, "born at Paris" is archaic at best (I didn't say that it was pretentious back in 1911, but I wonder). Seems that speakers of Commonwealth English won't be rattled by "born in Paris". On the hospital subject, Americans might say "Fred's at Metropolitan Hospital with a broken leg", but for an unnamed or unknown facility, "Fred's in the hospital", whereas British speakers are more likely to say "Fred's in hospital". On analysis, it seems wrong to use the definite article for an indefinite building, but it sounds right to the American ear. Chris the speller 04:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

And we'd use "in" for a named hospital as well. "Fred's in Bart's", for instance. If we said "Fred's at Bart's" it would imply he was just visiting someone there, worked there or had business there, not that he was a patient. -- Necrothesp 16:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
My God, I am glad, that I speak German. We use generally "in" :-) Greetings ~~ Phoe talk 17:27, 21 November 2006 (UTC) ~~
When I hear "in hospital" it makes "hospital" sound like an adjective form, such as "he's in traction". As you may know, English is the semi-illegitimate offspring of French and German, thus accounting for much of this confusion. And American English, of course, is English that ran away from home at a young age. Wahkeenah 23:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Curiously, I've noticed that in 19th century and early 20th century British peerage sources, a person's place of birth or death is often given as "in" a particular street. For example: "she died in Harley Street." To an American ear, this sounds like she literally collapsed on the pavement in the middle of the road. Americans always say that someone lives "on" a particular street, not "in" it (again, the latter suggests physically being out in the middle of a traffic lane), and when giving a place of birth or death say "at her house on Harley Street" or "at 321 Harley Street." Is "she died in Harley Street" also archaic? Laura1822 04:07, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see much in this discussion. Does it really matter, I should think that grammatically 'at' has the edge if you are speaking about a particular town or city. David Lauder 10:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposed change regarding the use of "born" in connection with a person's original name

I intend to alter the guidelines to recommend the use of the term "original name" rather than "born", when stating a person's original name (e.g., "William Jefferson Clinton (original name William Jefferson Blythe III)"). My reason for doing so is discussed at Talk:Buddhism#Alteration_.28GMT_2006-11-22_23:47.29. I would like to make the change on or shortly after GMT 2006-12-02. I will check here for comments before doing so. — Kipholbeck 20:54, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I have no substantive opinion (yet) regarding the issue, but would request that it be discussed here in full, rather than by reference to a previous discussion on an article's Talk page that is unlikely to have been seen by editors who have previously participated in shaping this style guideline. Thanks, --MCB 02:28, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
No, I completely disagree with this. Whether "born" is entirely accurate or not is irrelevant. It is the commonly accepted way of putting it. Please don't start making major changes like this without getting consensus, or they'll just be reverted. -- Necrothesp 10:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Oppose the change. After reading the discussion in Talk:Buddhism and considering the matter, I think it's a bad idea for three reasons:

  1. It's a very deeply-embedded figure of speech in English, has been widely used for centuries, and is understood as an idiom by essentially all English speakers regardless of geographic origin.
  2. Wikipedia should never stress technical or pedantic correctness at the expense of general common usage. To quote from WP:NAME regarding article titles, analogous to this issue, names "should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity".
  3. Depending on how you define naming, it's not even necessarily inaccurate. In the most common Western tradition of naming, the parents have chosen a name for the child (or perhaps a name for each sex if the sex of the unborn child is not known), and the name "attaches" to the child upon birth, and is used to address or refer to the child, even before it is registered with government authorities, etc., or before a religious naming ceremony.
--MCB 21:21, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. I agree with MCB. No need to be overly technical (per my same arguments above or in the archives regarding nationality). -- Renesis (talk) 02:01, 26 November 2006 (UTC) Oppose - I think it's best to keep it simple and keep it clear by abiding by common usage. If there are a few specific cases where "born" does not clearly convey the correct information, then it should be explained or clarified, but "born" would work best for the majority of articles, and any policy should attempt to address the majority of situations. Rossrs 05:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

  1. Oppose unnecessary pedantry. "born Lawrence B. Samudian", or whatever is a standard stock phrase, and obviously everyone knows that people don't have names until after their birth. This is silly and unnecessary. john k 16:07, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  2. Oppose, as per Renesis13 and John Kenney. Titanium Dragon 11:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Introductions

Now that I have been on Wikipedia for a while, I have noticed one striking "problem" or feature. Many articles have almost unreadable introductory paragraphs. Some of this is because of the Wikipedia Manual of Style itself. In short order, following the Manual of Style and carrying the policies to extremes, the introductory paragraphs become clogged up with details such as:

  • multiple names (sometimes 3 or 4 or 5 or more), all in bold face
  • alternative spellings, all in bold face
  • very detailed date information, and sometimes alternate date information when the dates are disputed
  • names in multiple languages and scripts (sometimes just one other script like Arabic or Chinese, but other times in 2 or 3 or more other scripts)
  • translitterations of foreign words
  • parenthetic information
  • semicolons and dashes
  • sentence fragments with no verbs
  • long lists of material separated by commas
  • multiple topics and caveats all strung together into one long sentence
  • pronunciation guides, sometimes with links to audio versions

If just one or two of these is present, things are not too bad. However, in some cases, it makes the articles completely inaccessible. A reader cannot read the first 3 or 4 sentences of the article and have any idea what the article is about. Many editors try to shove as much information as possible towards the front of the article and into the introduction, and this compounds the problem. I am afraid that the Wikipedia style policies exacerbate this problem. Comments?--Filll 14:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I completely disagree, I'm afraid. I don't think most intro paragraphs, as long as they're written with a certain amount of literacy, are at all unreadable. Sometimes the English needs to be improved, but you could say that about many articles or parts of articles. I don't think the intro paragraphs are any more of a problem than other parts of articles and I don't think we need to change the style. -- Necrothesp 01:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
It's true that in a few biographies, there are multiple names and names in multiple languages, but that's going to happen for, say, an emperor of Austria, and most readers get to such an article while looking for an emperor of Austria, and they should expect the opening to be rather dense, and to contain lots of names and titles and some of them in Hungarian, but it's not necessary to devour every letter and word to get the drift, which is that the article is about an emperor of Austria. But most articles have openings that are not very hard to get through, unless a lot of stuff is thrown in that WP:MOSBIO does not specify (place of birth and death, parents' occupations, etc.) I think the style guideline is fine, it's getting people to follow it that's a problem. Chris the speller 02:20, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Certainly discussion of disputes over dates can be moved to a later section (see Che Guevara) or footnote (see Francisco Franco). - Jmabel | Talk 02:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the idea of getting excessive data out of the first sentence. Footnotes or discussion in full sentences later on can make for a far more readable first paragraph. As an aside, insisting that the title of the article be presented immediately as the first element in a full sentence is not always helpful. Palmiro | Talk 19:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Some examples

I do not have any great examples to offer, but a couple that I have tried to make a little cleaner, with mixed success are the articles about the Nurhaci, Hung Taiji, Merlin and Yasser Arafat. I am showing their state before I put some work into trying to simplify the introductions. Not all of my changes were accepted, however. I have seen some worse examples, but these give the general idea of what I was referring to. It is my opinion that they are starting to get to be a bit dense for someone who just wants to find out what the subject is about, before digging into a lot of details.--Filll 22:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Nurhaci, before editing

Nurhaci, also known as the Taizu Emperor, Nurhachi, or Nuerhachi (Chinese: 努爾哈齊; pinyin: Nǔ'ěrhāchì]; Manchu: ) (1558-September 30, 1626; r. 1616-September 30, 1626) was the last chieftain of the Jianzhou Jurchens and first Khan of Later Jin. He is considered to be the founding father of the Manchu state and is also credited with ordering the creation of a written script for the Manchu language. Nurhaci's organization of the Manchu people, his attacks on the Ming Dynasty and Joseon Dynasty Korea, and his conquest of China's northeastern Liaodong province, laid the groundwork for the conquest of China by the Qing Dynasty.

Hung Taiji, before editing

Hung Taiji (Manchu: ; Chinese: 皇太極 Huáng Tàijí; also known as 洪太極 Hóng Tàijí or 黃台吉 Huáng Táijí; sometimes referred erroneously to as Abahai in Western literature), (November 28, 1592-September 21, 1643), was first Khan of the Later Jin and then Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, after he changed its name, reigning from 1626 to 1643. He was responsible for consolidating the empire that his father, Nurhaci, had founded and for laying the groundwork for its eventual success in conquering Ming dynasty China, although he died before accomplishing that great achievement himself. He was responsible for changing the name of his people from Jurchen to Manchu in 1635 as well as that of the dynasty to Qing in 1636. The Qing dynasty would last until 1912.

Hung Taiji was the eighth son of Nurhaci and succeeded him as the second ruler of the Later Jin dynasty in 1626. Although it was always thought as a gossip, he was said to be involved in the suicide of Prince Dorgon's mother, Lady Abahai in order to block the succession of his younger brother.

Merlin, before editing

Merlin Ambrosius (Welsh: Myrddin Emrys) - also known in Welsh as Myrddin Wyllt (Merlin the Wild), and besides as Merlin Caledonensis (Merlin of Scotland), Merlinus, and Merlyn - is best known as the mighty wizard featured in Arthurian legends, starting with Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae.

Other accounts distinguish two different figures named Merlin. For example, the Welsh Triads state there were three baptisimal bards: Taliesin, Chief of Bards, Myrddin Wyllt, and Myrddin Emrys. It is believed that these two bards called Myrddin were originally variants of the same figure; their stories have become different in the earliest texts that they are treated as separate characters, even though similar incidents are ascribed to both.

Yasser Arafat, before editing

Yassir Arafat (Arabic: ياسر عرفات‎) August 24 or August 4, 1929 – November 11, 2004), born in Cairo[1] to Palestinian parents Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini (محمد عبد الرؤوف القدوة الحسيني) and also known by the kunya Abu `Ammar (أبو عمّار), was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (1969–2004); President[2] of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) (1993–2004); and a co-recipient of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize alongside Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, for the successful negotiations of the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Arafat, however, was a controversial and polarizing figure throughout his lengthy career. While his supporters viewed him as a heroic freedom fighter who symbolized the national aspirations of the Palestinian people, his opponents often described him as an unrepentant terrorist with a long legacy of promoting violence. Still others accused him of being a deeply corrupt politician or a weak and devious leader. Arab nationalists believe that he made too many concessions to the Israeli government during the 1993 Oslo Accords. However, Arafat has been widely recognized for leading the Fatah movement, which he founded in 1957.

Post-Nominals use with Americans?

I've been noticing that there are several articles covering Americans that use honorary post nominal initials (like KBE). While membership in an order of chivalry is probably with mentioning in the article, it's not clear that an honorary award from another country is really worth placing right after the name of the subject of the article.

I'm not sure if there is a policy that says which post-nominals are appropriate for use in the lead paragraph. If someone could direct me to it, I'd appreciate it. PyTom 05:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we should discriminate against a person based on their place of birth or their nationality. Honorary post-nominal letters belong after their name in the opening, according to WP:MOSBIO "Honorific prefixes", point #4. It could be argued that a British person living in Great Britain would be more likely to receive a KBE than an American person living in America, so the American with a KBE might be more noteworthy, although the American might be less likely to bandy the letters about, at least while in America. Chris the speller 16:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hm... Isn't Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) controlling here? It says that "Post-nominals should not be used for non-Commonwealth or former British Empire citizens, as their use outside a Commonwealth context are rare." That advice seems to conflict with this page, which is why I brought it up. It seems to me that someone with a KBE is probably noteworthy for reasons other then having a KBE, so the reason for including it in the lead is because it is part of the name, which is true in the Commonwealth, but probably not true outside of it. PyTom 16:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

How an article begins isn't a "naming convention", so Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) is irrelevant. Proteus (Talk) 17:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
That might be true but it's bad form for two wiki polices to so obviously contradict - one or other needs changing. My personal feeling is that hon awards for foreign residents should not be used as indeed they generally aren't - see any of the US politicians articles. But I think it would be reasonable to include them for foreign citizens who are UK or commonwealth residents (but not a citizens). Alci12 22:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
To point out how it's wrong to discriminate against a person based on their place of birth or their nationality, let's take your argument to the next step. If a foreign citizen who is a UK resident (but not a citizen) receives an honor, then moves to America, we should edit the opening sentence and remove the postnominal letters, then put them back if another move to Merrie Olde Englande takes place, right? It seems ridiculous to me. Chris the speller 00:05, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Right, Bill Gates shouldn't put KBE on his business card, and the name of his article should be "Bill Gates", but there is nothing intrinsically wrong with "William Henry Gates III, KBE" in the opening sentence; I wouldn't remove the letters just because he is an American, but the article's author (or authors) has not seen fit to put them in the opening sentence, and that's OK with me. Does he deserve them less than a British guitarist? Chris the speller 18:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Most Americans avoid these titles (which of course are not "real" only honorific. Certainly politicians are careful not to use them (and indeed they emphasize informality and usually use their nicknames rather than formal names). Putting them in lede will only confuse readers into thinking that KBE is part of the name (like Jr. or III). Rjensen 18:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
For this reason postnominals shall be linked to the respective article KBE. In addition, it seems to me very strangely to regard KBE, AM, GCMG and so on for a part of the name. ~~ Phoe talk 22:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC) ~~
Ah, but the letters are not part of the name, "post-nominal" means that they follow the name. Chris the speller 00:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
We have millions of teenagers who use Wiki and can get confused by this. It is not standard practice to include with Americans. Rjensen 00:12, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Potential confusion has nothing to do with being a teenager, it has to do with differences in cultural literacy. In any case, potential confusion is not very persuasive to me. There are lots of things that are standard practice on Wikipedia (IPA notation, for example, or the use of other titles/credentials that may vary from locality to locality) that are potentially confusing to various subsets of people, but that doesn't mean we avoid it.
That said, I don't think we should use the British post-nominals for citizens of non-Commonwealth countries, per WP:MOS#National varieties of English. schi talk 00:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
The page on naming conventions seems to be relevant, as MOSBIO includes it by reference. MOSBIO also lists post-nominals as part of the section on names, confusingly enough. PyTom 07:12, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Truncated name vs fullname

How can you objectively come up with a way to determine the "most common name" for a biography, so that five people will all come up with the same answer? Its easy for people in the news today, you do a Google search and see which version of the name is more common. Should the one used by other encyclopedias be the article name? I am looking for an objective answer or formula. see Talk:Frederick_T._Frelinghuysen --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 07:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's an easy answer to this. I tend to use full name unless there's evidence that the person was overwhelmingly referred to by a specific truncated name (e.g. for British people, if it's specifically stated in the Dictionary of National Biography or Who's Who). -- Necrothesp 18:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Transwomen and pronouns

Is there any agreement on what the general rule is for the pronouns to use to refer to transwomen during the period before their surgery?? Georgia guy 23:32, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

There is not even universal agreement among the people in question. Before adopting female identity and self-presentation is clear: use a male pronoun. But where someone is physically male but living as a woman, there is no hard and fast rule. I tend to think that it is more polite to use a female pronoun for someone with female self-presentation unless the person requests otherwise, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is more correct.
By the way, adoption of identity/presentation and sex-reassignment surgery aren't the only possible dividing lines: there is also the matter of legal status. Here in Washington State, where I live, having one's gender legally reassigned is a different matter than having surgery. I personally know at least one FTM (other way around, but same issue) who I'm quite certain never had genital surgery, but who has lived as a male and had male ID for over two decades, and I'm sure that anyone who met him now would simply accept him as male without even considering any other possibility. - Jmabel | Talk 22:39, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

People normally known by their middle name

The manual of style specifies that articles should include the subject's full name. It also requests articles to identify the usual name by which people are known. In many British biographical directories, this is done by putting the unused first name in brackets, e.g. "(James) Gordon Brown". The Manual of Style is silent on this subject - is it encouraged, discouraged, or merely allowed? Should it be mentioned? Sam Blacketer 23:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The method I always use (because it's the one I prefer) is to put the full name, then the dates, then the common name, with both names bolded. For example, "James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951), known as Gordon Brown, is the Chancellor of the Exchequer..." This is the most unambiguous method to my mind. -- Necrothesp 23:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
In my experience, the way it's normally done (including in Gordon Brown itself) is to say nothing, on the basis that it's obvious to the reader that if the person's full name is "John Henry Smith" and the title of the article is "Henry Smith" then they use their middle name rather than their first name. We generally only use "known as" if they're known by a nickname rather than merely part of their name (and even then, in obvious cases like Tony Blair, where the nickname is a normal shortening of a first name, we sometimes just leave it unsaid). Proteus (Talk) 18:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I prefer to be a little more explicit. Like most things, however, this appears to be a matter of personal preference. -- Necrothesp 22:33, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposition: Change in Style of Introductory Paragraphs

With recent edit wars over certain preferred methods of writing introductory paragraphs, I feel it sensible to propose some new changes for, what I believe, is a more appropriate and more easily-understood style. It mainly concerns nationality/citizenship tags which could possibly be ambiguous and confusing.

  • Firstly, in accordance with the Wikilaw which states that citizenship is used in the sense of nationality, the terms 'English, 'Welsh', and 'Scottish' must not be used as nationality tags, but be replaced by 'British' at all times. The separate nations, however, should be used in descriptions of birth places (see fourth bullet point), i.e. "William Connolly, CBE (born November 24, 1942, in Glasgow, Scotland) is a British comedian, actor..." There is no such citizenship as 'English', 'Welsh', or 'Scottish', so I propose a new regulation that makes sure such biographies use 'British' as the nationality tag.

With regards to 'Northern Irish', however, I am unsure what to say, so hopefully a discussion will produce some sort of consensus. [15] has 'British' as the adjective of 'United Kingdom', which would naturally qualify 'Northern Irish' as 'British', though I think this is slightly awkward since 'British' is notably "of Great Britain", which Northern Ireland is not. I would therefore lean towards such biographies being left as 'Northern Irish' or simply 'Irish', but the opinions of other Wikipedians are needed methinks.

  • Secondly, when it comes to people of dual (or more) citizenship, or those who have become naturalised citizens of a country other than that of their birth place and/or country of upbringing, many debates and arguments have erupted, and it is time that a fixed rule be made. I suggest that, in order to avoid as many double nationality tags as possible, those of dual citizenship should bear the nationality of the country where they became famous, or have had the most notable success. This would mean that the dual national (Swedish and Greek) singer Elena Paparizou, for example, would have only 'Greek' in her nationality tag (an argument in which I am involved and support), rather than 'Swedish' or 'Swedish-Greek'. I feel that birthplace is irrelevant to the nationality tag, but rather her notibility and career/fame in Greece is more important, particularly since she herself considers Greece, her country of permanant residence, her homeland.

If the said dual national has became (more or less) equally notable in both of the countries where s/he holds citizenship, then a double nationality tag should be permitted, given the uncommon situation. So, for example, if Joe Bloggs were born and raised in Canada, where he became a #1 chart-smashing singer, but moved to Australia where his famous career continued (and he became a naturalised citizen of Australia, whilst retaining his Canadian citizenship), 'Canadian-Australian' would be justified and acceptable.

Where the subject (assuming s/he is alive) holds three (or more) citizenships, and became notable in all three (or more) countries, then the latest country of which he became a citizen shall be the nationality tag (a triple nationality tag would look pretty messy, although in essence not incorrect). A very complicated example of this is Albert Einstein, a Jewish physicist and mathmetician who was born (and held citizenship for some time) in Germany, before also becoming a Swiss and American national (he was a dual citizen several times before renouncing on of his citizenships, to make it more confusing). In such cases, I believe that the nationality tag should be that of the country/ies of which he held citizenship at the time of his death (Switzerland and the USA).

  • Thirdly, I find it ridiculous that the place of birth (and place of death, if necessary) of each biographical subject has been removed from the parantheses indicating date of birth. I think this is undoubtedly very important in one's biography and can also be connected to the proposals I have made above, in the sense that more information is given without going into too much detail, which is unnecessary for introductory paragraphs. Let's take my fictitious Jane Doe, who was born, raised and was a citizen of Romania, which she renounced upon moving to and becoming a naturalised citizen of Hungary at 14, and then immigrated to England (still retaining her Hungarian citizenship); her introductory paragraph would be as follows: "Jane Fictitious Doe (born May 5, 1973, in Bucharest, Romania) is a Hungarian-British..." I propose that birth (and death) place be included in the opening parantheses which already describe details of birth and death.
  • Fourthly and finally, I propose that singers' info boxes replace 'origin' with a different word, or remove it completely. This is 100% inaccurate and, as I understand, is actually referring to the place where the subject became famous. This would mean that the singer Engelbert Humperdinck (Arnold Dorsey) would (should) have 'Leicester, England', in that section of his info box, although in reality, based on what 'origin' means, it should be 'Madras, India'. On the other hand, I don't see why 'origin' (in the sense of where one became notable) is even relevant to the singer('s info box) so it would be justified to delete it altogether.

______

I would like some feedback please, who agrees, who doesn't, reasons, and suggestions for the 'Northern Irish' dilemma. Hopefully my proposals will be implemented to make the stricter rules which Wikipedia strongly needs for biographies.

Cypriot stud 21:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with all of them above on many levels. Having the places of birth/death in the brackets is messy and untidy, and totally unnecessary. The places should be in the infobox and in the main text. Having them in the brackets as well is serious overkill. And with regards to the English/Scottish/Welsh thing; the proposal is absolutley unbelievable. Many people to not identify as British and insisting on this would never work, for instance having Sean Connery or Tom Jones as British would just not work! People would be constantly changing it for one and it would be very, very inaccurate. The only point I would agree with is the fourth point, origin does seems unnecessary. --Berks105 21:12, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi, and thanks for sharing your opinions.
I think that birth and death place in the parantheses are most certainly necessary and also prove helpful when it comes to the subjects who hold more than one citizenship.
On to your second point, I do not think that replacing 'English, 'Scottish', and 'Welsh' with 'British' is 'unbelievable'. Actually using any of those three are against Wikipedia's regulations, because they are ethnicities, not citizenships, which should be included in the introductory paragraph. 'British' is detailed enough — England, Scotland, or Wales are more appropriate further down. Also, what people identify with is totally irrelevant; I am English and do not consider myself one ounce British and hate being called it, but I am sensible enough to understand that 'British' is a citizenship, which is what is used in nationality tags on Wikipedia. Using any of the other three are not in accordance with Wikilaw, I'm sorry.
Cypriot stud 21:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I do not agree with putting the place of birth and death in the first line. To my mind this is messy and the information is most sensibly placed within the body of the article, as it usually is now. As to the question of British nationality, it is something that has been discussed more than once and will likely get nowhere. There is no way that most Scottish and Welsh editors will agree to list the nationality of Scottish and Welsh article subjects as "British", and if they are not listed as British then many English editors (such as myself) will not accept English people being listed as British either (since that implies that we are less a nation than they are). Simple as that. As to Northern Irish people being classified as "Irish", that doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being accepted with the political climate as it is. -- Necrothesp 22:44, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I would support Cypriot stud's proposal as being an improvement on the current free-for-all. One problem is that there is a widespread belief that there are separate Scottish, Welsh and English nationalities. Many of us would like to see this happen, but editing Wikipedia doesn't change the British constitution. A second widespread belief is that being born in a particular country automatically confers the nationality of that country. Taking these two beliefs together, we get regular attempts to describe Tony Blair as Scottish, for example. I have struggled to defend the term "British" in several articles where any other description seemed nonsensical. For example, John Martyn was born in Surrey, brought up in Scotland and lives in Ireland. The article describes his "Glaswegian humour" but, at one time called him "English", then "Scotland based". Another is Osborne Reynolds who, from time to time, gets edited to "Irish" because he was born in Belfast. His father, part of a family of ordained CofE vicars from Suffolk, was the principal of a Belfast school at the time of his birth. Bluewave 08:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

RE Necrothesp: I am English too and I do not consider myself at all British, but this and the feelings of Scottish and Welsh (and English pro-British) Wikipedians are totally irrelevant; the rule says that citizenship, not ethnicity, is placed in the opening paragraph. This means that 'British' (citizenship), not 'English, 'Welsh', or 'Scottish' (ethnicities) must be put there, regardless of people's feelings. It is a rule. Simple as. End of story. It cannot be argued against unless a new regulation is implemented to say so, which, up to the present time, has not been. I often change articles which say 'Greek Cypriot', 'Turkish Cypriot', and 'French Canadian', to 'Cypriot' and 'Canadian' respectively.
The logic that "if 'Scottish' and 'Welsh' do not have to be 'British', then nor does 'English'" is per se stating that 'English', 'Welsh', and 'Scottish' are higher nations than all others with multiple ethnic groups (i.e. India, Switzerland, Belgium, Cyprus, the Philippines etc.). So supporting 'English, 'Scottish', and 'Welsh' being used as opposed to the Wikilaw-advocated 'British' means we must change certain biographies to 'Indian Parsi', 'Greek Cypriot', 'German Swiss, 'French Swiss', 'Flemish', 'Wallonian' etc. It does not hold any support, so no exceptions should be made for the English, Scots, and Welsh. Additionally, this does not comply with the rule stating that citizenship is used.
Regarding the 'yes/no' on whether DOBs/DODs/ should be included in the opening parantheses, fair arguments have been made, although I support that DOBs/DODs do require reference in the introduction. If not in the parantheses, then why not in the infoboxes? Of course, this would then mean that infoboxes be made for all biographies (which I do not think is a bad thing at all).
And finally, I would just like to re-iterate that Wikipedia's liberal stance on nationlity tags and introductory paragraph styles is actually too liberal, to the point that debates like this will always crop up if we don't enforce a regulation that 'tidies up' the current one and creates set and needed boundaries to cut these rows. To be perfectly honest, I cannot understand why people are against them — they are not unfair and provide a more 'secure' approach to introductions, which currently fail to exist. Come on, Wikipedians!
Cypriot stud 17:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I actually agree with you regarding the ethnicity issue. My point is that Scottish and Welsh editors will never agree to it, and if they do not then many English editors will not (and rightly so). It's simply not worth having edit wars over. And trust me, if you start changing all the references to "Scottish" and "Welsh" to "British" then you will most certainly get edit wars! -- Necrothesp 22:49, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but why should the Wikilaw-abiding editors back down at the hands of vandals (which, at the end of the day, they are)? Rules are rules are rules. Simple as. Rules say that citizenship is used as the nationality tag, not ethnicity, which means that 'British' should be used, not 'English, 'Scottish', or 'Welsh'. No two ways about it. Block the users if they continue to go against Wikipedia's regulations and create edit wars. This is not fair on nationalities other than English, Welsh, and Scottish.

If you agree with me on the citizenship issue, then vote 'agree'. I hate it when Wikipedia allows people to create edit wars by being laughably liberal. You might aswell scrap the whole guideline if people can revert to 'English', 'Scottish, and 'Welsh'.

With regards to the other nationality tag issues I mentioned (multiple citizenship etc.) a fixed rule, in my honest opinion, is well in need of implementation. Edit wars will be considerably on the decrease if something is set, and my suggestion is fair and logical, I would say. I won't let the whole thing go just yet, because I hope people will come to their senses and follow my proposal.

Regards.

Cypriot stud 19:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

By the way, it is not just the English, Welsh and Scottish. I have also noticed Wikipedia examples of people being described as "Cornish". eg D. M. Thomas and Luke Vibert. Bluewave 07:49, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Cypriot Stud is living in dream world if he thinks you could block everyone who would revert to English, Scottish or Welsh, you would be talking about blocking thousands of people, both Users and IP addresses. The fact is that millions of people in the UK identify not as British, but by on the four countries. And we must remember that England, Scotland and Wales are not mere regions but countries within a country. They have long histories as indepedant countries and to insist they be called "British" because of legality is totally ludicrous (although calling someone Cornish is perhaps going a bit far!). --Berks105 11:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

You obviously cannot have properly read what I wrote: I fully accept that many people do not identify as British, but rather of the three constituent countries within Greeat Britain. I myself am included. I have never referred to myself as British, and nor do I feel British (after all, the blood in my veins is English, not English, Welsh, and Scottish). However, I will stress yet again, Wikipedia's rules say that citizenship, NOT ethnicity, is used as a subject's nationality tag. Therefore, using either 'English, 'Scottish', or 'Welsh' as a subject's nationality tag in the opening paragraph is against the regulations of Wikipedia. This has nothing to do with what people personally identify as. It's a rule. Simple as that.

Why should somebody else dictate that Dawn French wants to be known as Welsh? Or that Michael Parkinson feels English? It is unknown and totally irrelevant anyway. Biographical articles must be compatible with the Wikilaws we users have set. Edit wars will continue forever if no permanant guide is implemented. If I went and changed every biography of the UK citizens to 'British', I would be doing nothing wrong, because by going over the manual of style, my actions are in agreement with what the manual says. On the other hand, people who are vandalising articles and replacing citizenships with ethnicities are being defended. It's not on. And, as a matter of fact, what I said was that if these pro-ethnicity vandals continue to delete citizenships from biographies and refuse to comply with Wikipedia, then they should be banned.

I'm sorry but advocating vandalism to spare edit wars as weak.

Cypriot stud 18:23, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Well then change those regulations. I really don't see why you are so attached to sticking to these regulations. Common censuses appears to be to have English, Welsh etc, so why not change the rules accordingly. And edit wars will continue whatever. Just because something is a rule doesn't mean people won't continue to change it and with this subject I would guess that many would not be satisfied with a response saying changing to Scottish, for example, breaks Wikipedia's rules. Quite frankly your idea of banning people merely for putting what is more accurate, if not legally correct, is not really in the spirit of Wikipedia and calling such people, myself included I suppose, "vandals" is insulting and very, very unhelpful. --Berks105 14:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
One problem is that, because English, Scottish, Welsh (and, indeed, Cornish) are not legal nationalities, they are largely based on "what people think think of themselves as". This can be rather difficult for Wikipedia authors to guess! It is certainly not sufficient to deduce this from people's birth location. For example, I would hesitate to describe Tony Blair as Scottish (although he was born in Scotland); conversely, someone like Ewan McColl, who was born to Scottish parents, in England, would probably have hated to be called English. Bluewave 15:03, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Berks105, I do not think I was insulting in the slightest; merely accurately describing those who continue to mercilessly vandalise biographies on Wikipedia. I am not going to just change the rules because I want backing, which is why I created this thread in the first place.

Also, 'Scottish, 'English, 'Welsh, and 'Cornish' are not the correct legal terms to label somebody originating from the respective areas.

Bluewave, this again proves my point.

And finally, please do not forget that it isn't just the 'British vs. ethnicities' row I am trying to bring forward, but the multiple citizenship debate, too. Could I please have some feedback on making those a rule?

Cypriot stud 17:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, lets leave out Cornish, I do think that is going a step too far. Again, CypriotStud you insult; "accurately describing those who continue to mercilessly vandalise biographies on Wikipedia" - In other words those who change to English/Scottish from British are vandalising. That is insulting. I recognise that not all people can easily be described as English/Scottish/Welsh, so for some British is the best, but for most people it is fairly easy to know which one to put. The fact people are not responding about the multiple citizenship thing you suggest is perhaps because most people think the current system works fine and see no reason to disrupt everything to change it (Personally I can't see why their nationality at death is more important than that of birth, I think mentioning all is best). --Berks105 18:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I refuse to agree with you that I was insulting; I have accurately described somebody who repeatedly edits Wikipedia articles to their own, anti-rules preference. Is calling somebody who sits around his house all day watching TV lazy insulting?

It is most definitely more important. Albert Einstein, for example, was a German citizen when he was born, conversely when he died he held Swiss and American citizenships. Why should his nationality tag read German? He was not a German national when he died, just as I am not a French citizen. In the eyes of the law, he was as German as somebody who had left Jamaica in their entire life. He should be described as a Swiss-American because it is the most up-to-date nationality he held. Plus, his former German citizenship is explained in his info box.

Cypriot stud 16:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

How can either nationality be more up to date when Einstein has been dead for 50 years or so? There is no logical reason why the death nationality is more important than the birth. Furthermore, I still think you are being insulting. I believe you are taking the rules far too literally, they say "Nationality", it does not say the persons precise legal citizenship. And as I have said before the UK is differant from most other countries, no rule should be applied to every single case, there are always exceptions. --Berks105 19:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

What I meant to say was that 'Swiss-American' is the most recent, despite the most recent one being over fifty years old. So it's obvious why his death nationality would be more important than the birth one, since it is a fact, whereas being German is no longer a fact.

I am not taking it too literally, at all, but rather trying to establish a much-needed firm rule. I am actually wanting to cut edit wars, you know.

Cypriot stud 17:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but neither is a fact when he is dead, and its certainly not "obvious" as you suggest. The opening nationality in my opinion should be all those that he held or none. You can't select which to chose. --Berks105 18:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Please note that "English", "Scottish" nor "Welsh" are not ethnicities! They are civic nations, composed of many different ethnic strands. England is a nation, and the adjective for something or someone from a nation is a nationality: "English" is a nationality, per WP:MOSBIO. --Mais oui! 05:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I just wished to add an 'agree' w.r.t. the nationality/ethnicity thing. There is no reason to suppose the UK is unique in this respect; its legal structure at founding was quite similar to that of the USA (in fact, the USA is more federal), it's just that the differences in the US have eroded far more, and there was no ethnic distinction to begin with. Wikipedia never describes Jesse Owens as a "black athlete", "Alabaman athlete", etc., but as an "American athlete". The UK inconsistency is merely due to the muddling between legal and everyday terms, "English/Scottish/Welsh", and due to high nationalism in those respective home nations. laddiebuck 19:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd also add that nationalism comes and goes, so it's not a good thing to base a policy on. Near the 50s, the SNP received perhaps 0.5% of the Scottish vote; today that's 15-25, and there's no clear trend, and certainly no trend any reasonable person would bet on. laddiebuck 19:15, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

poor use of brackets

Lucy Washington (née Payne) (1772?–1846) was ...

This is an ugly example of the use of brackets. The née aside should either be set off using commas, or inserted into the brackets. Either of the following examples would be a big improvement:

Lucy Washington, née Payne (1772?–1846), was ...
Lucy Washington (née Payne, 1772?–1846) was ...

 —Michael Z. 2007-02-10 01:24 Z

My preference is to add it after the dates, e.g.
Lucy Washington (1772?–1846), née Payne, was ...
Necrothesp 11:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd prefer keeping the name parts together.
Lucy Washington, née Payne (1772?–1846), was ... - 131.211.210.20 13:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Referring to the early life of a woman who later took her husband's name

This is from the Florence Melton article: Born in Philadelphia, Melton grew up so poor that her parents could not even afford to buy her a doll. Melton was the name of the man she married much later, so this sounds absurd, but calling her by her first name is also wrong. I suppose she should be referred to by her maiden name, but I don't know it and it isn't given in the article. What should be done? --Grace 08:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

You could replace it with 'she'. You could leave it as 'Melton' and change it once (if) her maiden name is provided. You could indeed call her 'Florence'. I would leave it as Melton. Proto ► 11:23, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Surely she should be called by whatever she was best known, and, more importantly, whatever she called herself. David Lauder 10:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Most of the article refers to her as Melton, but I'm just not sure that is right when referring to her childhood, fifty years or so before she met Mr. Melton. --Grace 07:22, 28 February 2007 (UTC)