Talk:Geraldine Brooks

Geraldine Brooks

Thank you for looking at the disambiguation issue here. It had appeared to me (from a very quick review suggesting that there might be 10 times more Google links to the author, although I didn't really go into it carefully so that finding could be misleading) that Geraldine Brooks (writer) is considerably more prominent, at this point in this history, than the actress, and appears to have more links leading to her. As such, I might have thought the cleaner solution would be to keep Geraldine Brooks as referring to the writer with a hatnote on her article leading to Geraldine Brooks (actress). But I will leave that to you. If we do keep the change as you've done it, however, there are several dozen internal wikilinks to the writer that need to be fixed, most notably including the hatnote at the top of Geraldine Brooks (actress), to avoid double redirects. Best,--Arxiloxos (talk) 15:33, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate your contacting me and expressing very valid concerns regarding the creation of the disambiguation page and the move of Geraldine Brooks to Geraldine Brooks (writer). You are, of course, correct about the need to attend to the hatnotes as well as the incoming links in what links here for both individuals and I will take care of those matters today. In point of fact, an examination of the 92 links (63 of which are article links) leading to Geraldine Brooks, indicates that 18 of these belong to the actress. As to comparable prominence/notability, the actress belongs to an earlier generation and died when the writer was 22 years and had not yet attained fame, thus they were never in name competition as, for example, contemporaries Elizabeth Taylor (born 1932) and Elizabeth Taylor (novelist) (1912–1975)/Elizabeth Taylor (athlete) (1916–1977). The actress was, however, a lower-lovel celebrity between 1947 and her death in 1977, co-starring (as female lead) in studio films, appearing on magazine covers, TV talk shows and receiving nominations for major acting awards (Emmy, 1962; Tony, 1970). In my extensive library of film and television reference books, she receives numerous entries in virtually every volume and, in the online index to The New York Times, of the 567 "Geraldine Brooks" entries, 1 to 6 (1901–31) are for earlier individuals (including the same-named author of the 1904 book, Dames and Daughters of the French Court), 7 to 344 (1946–79) are to the actress, including posthumous showings of her film and TV appearances, and 345 to 567 (1979–2006) are a mix of revivals for the late actress, 82 entries for the writer (starting with 363, 10 February 1983) and four minor references to others bearing the name. A separate index covering the years 2007–09 shows the writer predominating with interviews and book reviews, but with the actress' name continuing to appear regularly in TV listings. Unlike the case of Elizabeth Taylor (born 1932) being the indisputable primary target, there is no clear notability comparison here. The actress was a minor star and celebrity in her day, while the writer is a Pulitzer Prize winner currently known in literary circles and to segments of the reading public. I will leave that judgment to others. In the meantime, there are incoming links to be adjusted.—Roman Spinner (talk) 23:31, 13 June 2009 (UTC)