Talk:Thomas F. Bayard

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Contents 1 More Information 2 Requested move 2.1 Voting 2.2 Discussion

[edit] More Information

I have been doing some research into Bayard's impeachment, and will no doubt be able to add significantly to this article in the future when I have collated my results. In the meantime there seems to be little more information than already presented here on the Web regarding the rest of his life. It would be very useful (for me at least) if anyone could add anything more general to this article; for example, I believe he was a presidential candidate on at least one occasion. His views on protectionism and on international relations in general were the main subject of controversy, it seems; this is part of my research, but summaries of his views seem to be hard to come by and newspaper reports too numerous to be easily summarised. --SMeeds 23:19, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Thomas F. Bayard (1828-1898) → Thomas F. Bayard, Sr. – According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people), use of a junior/senior suffix is preferred to a parenthetical disambiguator, and such parenthetical disambiguators are supposed to “avoid … anything … containing numbers”. — DLJessup (talk) 23:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Voting

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

• Support per naming conventions guideline, as indicated by DLJ --Francis Schonken 15:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support Dates should be the last choice for disambiguation. Septentrionalis 06:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments

Oppose It is my intention in the very near future to flesh out this article considerably, I look forward to perhaps working together on it. There were many Bayard's, even in Delaware, and it's very hard for many people to keep them straight. I have just finished correcting several articles confused between father and son. Sr. & Jr. would seem to work in this case, because right now I know of only the two Thomas'- but there are more than two with other names, and I would prefer a consistent way of dealing with this problem. The only clean, consistent way is clearly to use dates. That's what the published encyclopedias do. The convention was written by people thinking of a smaller encyclopedia and not focused on the issue of many (say) James Smith's that were lawyers in California (for example). So why not bite the bullet and understand we need to just use dates. This concept is not original to me, see William Bradford, but would ask that everyone seriously consider it. stilltim 03:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Some questions:

• How would you handle a person for whom the dates of birth and death are not known?
• For people who are still alive, the name of the article would have to change when they died. For example, if Michael Jackson (TV) were to obey this rule, the article would have to be titled “Michael Jackson (1958—)” and, if he were to die tomorrow, the article would then have to be renamed “Michael Jackson (1958–2006)”. Would a more consistent practice be to note the date of birth only (e.g., “Thomas F. Bayard (born 1828)” or “Michael Jackson (born 1958)”)?
• Since MediaWiki 1.5+ can handle Unicode titles, should the date range be “1828<hyphen>1898” or “1828<en-dash>1898”?

— DLJessup (talk) 23:11, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

good questions-nothing's perfect is it?

• 1) I would use the existing approach if no dates are available.
• 2) I would do as you imagine with living people. Their dates won't be the only changes required when they die.
• 3) I have no idea. I don't understand the implications of these approaches. I have been using the hyphen, but only in ignorance. What would you suggest?

- stilltim 23:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

• 2) While the dates won't be the only changes required when a person dies, it behooves us to try to minimize the necessity to change article titles due to its implications for wikilinking.
• 3) In general, en dashes are supposed to be used for ranges. However, until the MediaWiki 1.5 release, en-dashes couldn't be used in article titles, and it is somewhat easier to type a hyphen (strictly speaking, a hyphen-minus) than it is to use the insert link on Wikipedia's edit pages to enter the en-dash, so hyphens tend to be used instead.

— DLJessup (talk) 02:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

A few comments:

• I have proposed a change to the parenthetical disambiguation rules at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#Parenthetical disambiguators that, when a parenthetical disambiguator is necessary, the dates of birth and death should be used.
• I haven't withdrawn the rename request. Until now, I have been torn, because you do have some strong arguments, particularly in your example of William Bradford, and those arguments have convinced me to make the proposal I just mentioned. However, after deliberation, I still have to support the renaming. Wikipedia's general guideline is that, with names, if a middle initial or name or suffix can be used to disambiguate, then it should be used in preference to a parenthetical disambiguator, and "Thomas F. Bayard, Sr." is not ambiguous. (In the William Bradford case, "William Bradford, Sr." and "William Bradford, Jr." are ambiguous, so we must fall back on parenthetical disambiguators, and, in that case, the date range is probably the most consistent and most professional way to disambiguate.)

— DLJessup (talk) 05:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

That seems like a reasonable position to me- dates are "the most consistent and most professional way to disambiguate" when middle names or suffixes such as "Sr." & "Jr." are not appropriate or meaningful. I appreciate you entering that point in the wider discussion. I have not yet taken the time to learn how to do that. I will move the two Thomas Bayard's, correct their links, and remove the message. I hope that is the right action to take at this point. stilltim 11:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Can't do it- I see you already moved Junior, so must ask you to do the same on Senior. I presume you are an admin. I will correct the links on both. Thanks for your help. stilltim 12:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Nope, I'm not an admin. — DLJessup (talk) 14:11, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't comment on the talk page of the "people" NC yet, but it seems highly unlikely that the "people" NC would change in this sense anywhere soon. So, I propose not to take account of such speculations in this vote. The "people" NC did not change because of Roger Taylor (drummer), neither do Roger Taylor (1949) or Roger Taylor (1960) even exist as a redirect. --Francis Schonken 07:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• Support This is the only TF Bayard in ANB, and it does not seem to run in the family; for example, it was not his father's name. If further disambiguation ever becomes necessary, Thomas Francis Bayard, Sr. will probably suffice. Septentrionalis 00:33, 8 January 2006 (UTC)