Template talk:Surname

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[edit] Are surname pages disambig pages or not?

According to this template, they are, and should therefore follow MOS:DP; but according to that MOS, surname pages are specifically excluded. If they don't need to follow MOS:DP, then specific guidance elsewhere on styling surname pages would be useful; if this guidance exists, I don't know where. Propaniac (talk) 17:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I have revised categorization of the template so that it no longer is considered a disambiguation template. Surname pages do not distinguish between articles with potentially identical titles, which is the core of dab page functionality. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy#Regarding the order of names on name pages for one place where matter has been discussed (albeit briefly). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 13:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] auto-categorization

The problem with this template is that it automatically categories the article in the general Surnames category, which is annoying when the surname is from a specific country/culture. This template needs to be altered so it doesn't automatically do this or an alternate template created that doesn't auto-categorizes (or this one shoudl have an option to categorize elsewhere). ∞ΣɛÞ² (τ|c) 08:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Surprisingly, this very function has been included in this template about three weeks ago already but it didn't make much sense:
{{#if:{{{nocat|}}}||[[Category:Surnames]]}}
In this old version, Category:Surnames would only be excluded if the nocat parameter was not-empty, eg. {{surname|nocat=true}}, {{surname|nocat=false}} or {{surname|nocat=..whatever..}}, but not {{surname|nocat}}.
I've updated it to the best of my template programming abilities so that Category:Surnames will be excluded if you use "nocat" as a second(!) parameter that is otherwise empty:
{{#ifeq:{{{2}}}|nocat||[[Category:Surnames]]}}
If someone can update it so that "nocat" is also recognized when it is the first parameter (well, noone will have the surname "nocat", I guess), that would be even better. – sgeureka t•c 12:44, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
I think it will work like you want it to now. --Eliyak T·C 23:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, but the directions are unclear. Will "nocat=German surnames" but the page in the German surnames category? If so, that's kind of odd since the parameter is called "nocat", not "cat"... ∞ΣɛÞ² (τ|c) 04:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
No, if you want to have {{surname}} and Category:German surnames but not Category:Surnames, you would have to write both {{surname|Lee|nocat}} and [[Category:German surnames]]. "Nocat" in this case means that Category:Surnames doesn't get auto-included with {{surname}}.– sgeureka t•c 07:13, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
A better coding would have the "nocat" parameter renamed to "cat" and, if "cat=no", no cat; else, if something like "cat=German surnames", then that's the cat. Pretty obvious, eh? ∞ΣɛÞ² (τ|c) 13:18, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Eliyak. :-) It does indeed work now as both {{surname|Lee|nocat}} and/or {{surname|nocat}}. – sgeureka t•c 09:10, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Icon

I've been bold and added the disambiguation icon from {{disambig}}, since these pages act like disambiguation pages and no internal links should point there. -- Ddxc (talk) 16:02, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that is such a good idea, but I won't revert you. Surname pages have many similarities with disambiguation pages, granted, but they encourage etymology information, similar spellings and other stuff that has no real place on dab pages. I'd rather this template not give the impression that surname pages are in any way related with the dab MOS. – sgeureka t•c 17:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I have replaced the dab icon with the WP Anthroponymy icon. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 13:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
The WP Anthroponymy icon seems to make most sense to me too. It clearly identifies surname (and given name) articles as distinct from disambiguation pages. This distinction is very important as editors often mistakenly impose WP:MOSDAB guidelines on surname and given name articles. Plus, it's a great-looking icon! Neelix (talk) 19:01, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why does the template reiterate the name?

Why isn't a simple 'This page or section lists people with the same surname' sufficient? I might be missing something but it seems unnecessary to mention '...with the surname Xyz'. It also makes it necessary to pass a parameter for 'xyz (disambiguation)' pages, or when there multiple variants of the same name on a page. -- Fullstop (talk) 22:38, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I do not think reiterating the surname (or given name in the case of Template:Given name) is a bad thing as a matter of style.
The reason why there is an optional name parameter at all, though, relates to sorting in Category:Surnames; it allows for one to sort on 'Smith' and not 'Smith (surname)', so that the proper order is maintained versus 'Smithers' or 'Smithson' (for example). It is true that the parameter could be added and the result hidden, but exposing the result is a visual cue of whether or not a parameter is needed for proper sorting (advantage for editors). However, that same visual cue could be argued for in the case of any category; so the need for a visual cue is not there - it is functionally dispensable. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:29, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
ah, right. Makes sense. Thanks. -- Fullstop (talk) 00:44, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "None" option in surname-value field

User:Fullstop recently added a 'none' option available in order to accommodate a surname page addressing several variants of a surname. I will be reverting that change momentarily. I do think that Fullstop has a point that needs to be addressed; however, I do not think that 'none' is the right approach.

I would suggest one of three approaches

  • do not change the code, but change the value: For instance, indicate that best practice for use is to establish the name-value pair as "surname=surname" if the article addresses one and only one spelling of the surname. For cases where there is a main surname and variants, establish the name-value pair as "smith=surname and variants". In practice, the format for Smith (surname) would then be {{surname|Smith and variants}}. There would be the open question of what are divergent variants (Smithers) and what are trivial variants (Smyth) and what are convergent variants (Smit; originating from Dutch - same meaning, different language).
  • change the code: introduce an optional parameter 'VARIANTS', that if present would alter the presenation. For example, implementation at Smith (surname) might be {{surname|VAR|Smith}} ... lots of options.
  • introduce a new template: such as {{surnamevar}} which would display the desired text to address a page containing main and variants.

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:45, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Whatever you choose to do... using parameter=value keys is never wrong :), and unnamed parameters ({{{1}}} etc) always run into a wall eventually (as already seen with the 'nocat' thing). -- Fullstop (talk) 01:32, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Param cat=<catname>

Following this confusion, I've folded nationality=, language=, nocat= into a comprehensive cat=, e.g. cat=<catname> or cat=none. The old nocat still exists but is no longer documented. -- Fullstop (talk) 03:35, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, don't you think it's easier to say language=Italian rather stating the whole category name: "I-ta-lian sur-names"? 16@r (talk) 20:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
No, actually I don't. But that is probably because I'm not lazy. But notwithstanding that
a) the effort taken to write the above comment exceeds the efforts to add the word " surnames" and that
b) the full name is going to be easier for the next editor to figure out what you meant,
c) not all categories are "xyz surnames" (even this template's documentation has an example),
if you really, Really, REALLY have trouble typing 8 letters, then change
[[Category:{{#if:{{{cat|}}}|{{{cat|}}}|Surnames}}<nowiki>]]
to
[[Category:{{#if:{{{cat|}}}|{{#ifexist:Category:{{{cat}}} surnames|{{{cat}}} surnames|{{{cat}}}|}}|Surnames}}]]
Think about it for a week month year before you do. -- Fullstop (talk) 00:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category needed

Hallo, While working on Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting I came across Renyi, which had been given a {{stub}} tag by the AlaiBot. I queried with the bot owner why this was, as it had a {{surname}} tag (I was assuming then that this counted as one of the family of dab tags, as the page has exactly a dab format). Alai pointed out that the page had no categories. I see that the "surname" tag has a "nocat" parameter. Shouldn't the "surname" tag always give the article a category, so that people don't waste time trying to stub-sort it or allocate a category? Otherwise it's just going to get tagged as a stub again every month. PamD (talk) 13:02, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion relating to this template

The discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Surname disambiguation and partial title matches has some discussion related to this template. Carcharoth (talk) 14:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)