Talk:V. P. Ramakrishna Pillai

A fact from V. P. Ramakrishna Pillai appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 22 June 2014 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Revolutionary Socialist Party leader V. P. Ramakrishna Pillai served as Minister of Labour in Kerala between 1998 and 2001?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2014/June.

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Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 06:35, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

V.P. Ramakrishna Pillai → V. P. Ramakrishna Pillai – Space per Manual of Style. This isn't a common name issue, as half the sources used in the article: [1][2][3][4] (see page 6) use a space and half do not. This is solely a matter of style not a matter of English variant. --Relisted. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 08:30, 29 June 2014 (UTC) DrKiernan (talk) 09:50, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support per nom. Purely a stylistic thing (in sources as well as Wikipedia) and we should be consistent. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:44, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME. This is not purely a matter of style, but one of adapting to a regional practice. Even if it is not 100% consistent, this is the prevailing practice. And in one of the cases above, the name is given as "V P Ramakrishna Pillai" (i.e. with spaces instead of punctuations). --Soman (talk) 14:45, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- It isn't the prevailing practice, however. It is merely stylistic. Some publications will give his name as V.P., some as VP, some as V. P., some as V P. This isn't restricted to India; this is common everywhere. In the UK, where I come from, it is just as common to see all these different forms, and every publication and individual has their own house or personal preferred style. We are much better off adopting a consistent style on Wikipedia, which is by and large what we have done. No, it will not be everyone's preferred style (I, for instance, tend to go with spaces and no full stops when not writing for Wikipedia, which is probably the commonest form in the UK, used by the BBC amongst others), but it is a perfectly acceptable and correct style and I think it's a good idea using it for all articles in which initials are used. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:35, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - But this isn't just about this person. It is about a practice that differs from UK English. South Indian initials don't function in same way as Western initials, they form a sort of compound. It looks very strange to see usage like 'E. M. S.' instead of 'EMS' or 'E.M.S.'. --Soman (talk) 15:40, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    - You claim this, but the Kerala Regional Assembly and Electoral Commission of India both use the Wikipedia recommended style and the Times of India uses spaces and no full stops! In fact, of the cited sources, only The Hindu uses the style you claim is prevailing. Are you really saying that the two official bodies and India's most famous newspaper are using a style that looks very strange to Indians? Are they not reliable sources for Indian usage? It does rather seem that your opinion is not backed up by the sources. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:42, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In contrast to the claim that "the English-language press in India uses 'E.M.S. Namboodiripad', never 'E. M. S. Namboodiripad'", English-language Indian press clearly does use a space (e.g. [5][6]). DrKiernan (talk) 16:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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