Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography/2019 archive

Should "nèe" be italicized?

Please see this discussion about an apparent conflict between MOS:MULTINAMES and MOS:FOREIGN. A consensus decision here would be appreciated. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:37, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

surname pages

I would like to invite comment to my quested posted in VP about surname pages Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Treat_surname_pages_like_disambiguation_pages?Coastside (talk) 15:50, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Manifest (TV series)#Initials

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Manifest (TV series)#Initials. Joeyconnick (talk) 01:15, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Capitalization of titles

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 211#Can we PLEASE settle the capitalization situation, once & for all?

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Closure: "strong consensus that nothing needs to be settled and the concerned guidelines are already perfect. Exceptions may be evaluated on a case-by-case basis".

Please note the discussion regarding the rule on capitalizing titles of people on the general MoS talk page, which relates to a discussion whether "president" should be capitalized as often as it currently is. Thanks, UpdateNerd (talk) 18:09, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

• I wonder if there's an official consensus on whether to capitalize a title in sentence such as: "Richard Nixon served as the 37th President of the United States." Since it uses the phrasing "served as", emphasizing the title rather than the office, it leads me to think that it should be capitalized. Either way, it would be helpful it it were added to the MOS as an example. See the George W. Bush article for a use-case scenario. UpdateNerd (talk) 09:49, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

  @UpdateNerd: One question: Are you aware of any other editors who make that interpretation? If not, let's not seek a resolution to a non-existent dispute. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:27, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

  @Mandruss: I don't know of anyone else, and I could be way wrong. But according to the MOS, it depends on whether a title is being denoted. Not whether a number appears before the job title. UpdateNerd (talk) 10:43, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

  [1]. And I could be way wrong suggests that you think there is some objective "right" in this stuff, but it is not so black-and-white. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:50, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

  Not objectivity, but consistency. I suggest that "Richard Nixon served as the 37th president" be added to the MoS examples for when not to capitalize the title, as it comes up naturally enough. UpdateNerd (talk) 12:13, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

  Again, I suggest we wait and see if that's needed. It could very well turn out that the community will generally accept uncaps for this form without your proposed example, considering that you're the only editor we know of to whom this has even occurred. MoS should fix demonstrated problems, not anticipated problems, particularly problems anticipated by only one editor. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:24, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

  The phrasing is used on the George W. Bush and Dick Cheney articles, so if anyone reverts those changes, they might at least have a point (as I did for the sake of argument). In my mind, it would save time to figure it out at the high level, rather than possibly have it disputed on the individual articles. But as you say, maybe no one will do so. UpdateNerd (talk) 09:12, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

User:UpdateNerd - the MOS directives seem (still) struggling with how to word that. The phrase “President of the United States” is always a title (capital P) as is “Prime Minister of the United Kingdom”. Any use of a generic like president can be a title if a proper name specific “of” is given, such as “14th President of Ghana” (more formally “President of the Republic of Ghana”), “Leader of the Conservative Party”, “Governor General of Canada”, “President of Xerox”, etcetera. The word president would also be capitalised when used as a prefix title “President Obama”, and for the United States official form of address “Mr. President”. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 09:03, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

GoodDay apparently went through last night and changed the first sentences in most if not all of the POTUS/VPOTUS articles. However, the infoboxes are stylistically different in their use of the phrases, and likely the rest of the articles something else. Personally I think the phrase should be capitalized, but I'm not going to war over it. I would suggest more discussion and less haste.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:11, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

I suggest making it lowercase in the infoboxes and other places as well, as I initially attempted to implement here and here. UpdateNerd (talk) 09:15, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

@UpdateNerd: What's your rationale for lower-casing the infobox |office= parameter, which has no modifier? This is structurally the same as the JOBTITLES example: "Richard Nixon was President of the United States." ―Mandruss ☎ 11:31, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

@Mandruss:, the formatting has since changed, and the parameter should now read: "1st president of the United States". The number coming before the title is the reason I believe it should be lower case. UpdateNerd (talk) 11:44, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

@UpdateNerd: I was about to say that I figured that out. Sorry for the diversion. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:47, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

I would oppose 'lower-casing' in the infobox. GoodDay (talk) 16:37, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

We're having a slight problem on the infoboxes concerning another matter, btw (i.e. how to show vice presidential vacancies & multiple presidents/vice presidents years served). GoodDay (talk) 17:27, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

User:Wehwalt - I am trying to restrain the mad impulsiveness, additional voices are desirable. There seems many times more usages of the prior long-standing consensus to capitalise when followed by a proper name (“President of Ghana”, or “President Bush”), and noting examples had both examples “was President of the United States” and “was the president of the United States”. I have reverted “queen of the United Kingdom”, but it seems skipping BRD into BRRR, and remarks sound like this isn’t the first time of capitalisation edit wars. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:30, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

The trend is toward 'lower-case' & therefore in the coming weeks, I'll be changing intros of presidents, vice presidents, prime ministers, deputy prime ministers, cabinet officials, governors-general; etc etc. GoodDay (talk) 02:40, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

(Just a note for record... being debated at various spots with some cases leaning one way, some the other.). Markbassett (talk) 12:08, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Request for comment: Should the Infobox photo caption identify a place or event if the information is tangential?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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McCloud at the RISD in March 2007

McCloud in 2007

Scott McCloud biography as an example

Should the biography infobox image caption contain information about the place or event where the photo was taken, if the place or event is not very relevant to the larger topic? Binksternet (talk) 19:33, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

• No. The caption in the infobox should be pruned down as much as possible, so that the topic is not immediately deflected into tangentials. The only guideline addressing the caption issue is found at Help:Infobox picture which says "It may be helpful to include the date or place of the photo." It's my opinion that the year of a biographical photo is almost always important, but the place may be irrelevant. And the infobox is the least appropriate place for a less-relevant place to be identified.
  Background information: After seeing a few hundred biography infobox images taken by Gage Skidmore at San Diego Comic-Con, all with captions naming San Diego Comic-Con, I felt that the event was, in the aggregate, being given too much weight across multiple articles. I started removing the place from biographies where it did not seem so relevant. Nightscream discovered my removals and reverted a great number of them, for example Ben Kingsley and Kirk Hammett. Kingsley's main fame is from acting in films, including many top awards. An appearance at Comic Con is not an important part of the topic. Similarly, Hammett is famous as the guitarist of Metallica, not for any comic-related stuff. So for guidance on the issue I started this RfC. Binksternet (talk) 19:33, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

• No the year it was taken is relevant but nothing else, if the reader needs to know more they can click on the image to get the information. MilborneOne (talk) 19:41, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

• Keep reasonable time and place indications

  A caption does not have be relevant to the article topic. It is reasonable to add an indication of time and place for descriptive purposes. Readers like to have an idea of where and when a photo of a subject was taken. This may be for historical purposes, for context, to compliment their aesthetic appreciation of the photo, to reference what a subject may have looked like at different points in their life, or for any number of reasons. Captions are widely used across various media for such purposes. I am not aware of any principle or precedent for captions that says that such information has to be directly relevant to an article on the subject, or that the year a photo was taken is the only acceptable information that can be placed in a caption. Nightscream (talk) 19:45, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

• Keep. I agree wih Nightscream about that it is useful to provide some basic information regarding the photographs. David A (talk) 20:29, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
• Keep the place (and more importantly the date as it relates to how youthful the person appears in the photo and what they might look like at other dates) but drop the subject's name, per WP:SURPRISEME (see the entry there on Harry Elkins Widener) and to keep the caption more concise. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:32, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
  • On second thought, the leave it to individual discretion comments below have convinced me, per WP:CREEP. I still think the place is often useful information (to explain background or other context) the date is usually useful (to explain the person's appearance) and the name is generally not useful (because it will be repeated immediately above the image in the infobox) but we don't actually need rules for all that. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:02, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
• Keep The media and other encyclopedias use captains to describe the photo. Place & time are important for historical contexts.--v/r - TP 20:44, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
  • The purpose of infobox photos is to identify people, not document historical events. If a photo needs this kind of context explained, it's a poor infobox photo. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 17:02, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
• No. Excessive captions, and they frequently contain wikilinks, are distracting. That this particular example was a photograph of the person taken at Rhode Island School of Design adds nothing whatsoever to the picture and, since an abbreviation is used, only leads me to click on it, pulling me away from the article. It may well be that some information is indeed relevant in a caption, but that's likely to be information about the setting, the scene, the activity, whatever, but in an infobox we need concise information, and we're dealing with a portrait. There's a huge difference between File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1972-045-08, Westfeldzug, Rommel bei Besprechung mit Offizieren.jpg and File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1977-018-13A, Erwin Rommel(brighter).jpg . Drmies (talk) 21:13, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
• Leave it to editorial discretion—there's no "right" length of caption or amount of detail. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:24, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
• Use common sense. There is no one rule here that is going to apply in every circumstance. GMG^talk 21:28, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
• Leave it to editorial discretion. Either of these are ok, though personally I'd use the short one. Some people use ridiculously long captions - if it's over 3 lines it's probably too long. But if people start removing locations etc, as with San Diego Comic-Con above, they may well have a point. Johnbod (talk) 21:38, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
• Usually no; when yes, a consensus for a whole category should be seeked. I'll give a couple of exceptions to my "usually no" !vote, but I don't think there are many others. Captions are useful for explaining the clothes or makeup that the subject is wearing in the photo, but that's rarely needed. If the subject is doing their job, giving an interview, or doing a talk, then very likely no. If the subject is doing something weird, it will often be probably yes. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) wumbolo ^^^ 22:03, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
• No: year is adequate. In a picture such as this where the surroundings are entirely undistinctive, there is no reason to mention them; the lack of distracting surroundings makes it a suitable picture. Where the reader is likely to have questions prompted by the image (Where on Earth is that? WTF is happening there?), it would make sense to answer them briefly, BUT, if the image has so much other than the subject that attention is greatly distracted from the person allegedly presented, it is probably not a suitable photo, or it needs cropping. Kevin McE (talk) 23:31, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
• Not ideally. The purpose of a photo caption is to tell the reader what they are looking at. As already stated, if it's a person, the year is useful to provide age context. If the setting is a significant part of the picture, or if it's necessary to understand why the subject is (atypically) dressed like a ballerina, it should be identified, to satisfy the reader's curiosity. However, if the setting is not visible – such as in a closely cropped photos like the McCloud example – it should be left out. NOTE: A photo that requires a description of the setting is a poor choice for the infobox, which per WP:LEADIMAGE is supposed to be a portrait-style image of what the subject typically looks/looked like, without extraneous content.) -Jason A. Quest (talk) 23:48, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
• Keep for context. Doczilla _{@SUPERHEROLOGIST} 00:15, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
• Date generally preferred and place per editorial discretion - The date shows how old the person was in the photo, and that is almost always wanted by the viewer. The place, well, if the subject is in scuba gear with a boiling geyser in the background, visitors will probably want to know the place, and, per editorial discretion, maybe even a bit more. If the subject is in ordinary clothes with a white wall behind, probably nobody cares. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:13, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
• Leaning keep Basic information about the circumstances of a photo may be useful or interesting for the reader, but I am not inclined to mandate a specific level of detail for captions other than discouraging very long captions in most circumstances. --Pine^✉ 03:34, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
• Only very briefly. Some context is important to interpret the picture--such things as the expression, the clothing, the degree of formality. But it should never amount to details about the event. Usually, , "John Smith in 2020 " maybe "John Smith accepting the X prize in 2020". not "John Smith accepting the X from from Governor Y in the ceremony at famous place Z along with A , B and C. " -- where A , B,. and C are even more distinguished. DGG ( talk ) 05:17, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
• No guideline. The suggestion is thoughtful and addresses a nuisance, but WP has too many rules already. Editors should be wise and tolerant, even with subtle questions. If they aren't, this kind of guideline will avail little. If we must say something, it can be along the lines of "Captions should not be lengthened with irrelevant details", which is about as precise as Orwell's "No animal shall drink alcohol to excess". Jim.henderson (talk) 06:11, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
• Jesus H. Christ, do we need a rule for everything??? Use your judgment in each case. EEng 06:49, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

• What may be happening is intelligent editors have created, argued, and reminisced about so many rules, guidelines, and related flora and fauna that Wikipedia is running out of them. Intelligence flows like water into extant depressions, and when the ground is mostly level all we get are slight smeared-out puddles which then freeze over and cause all kinds of slipping and grumbling. I've even come up with a "Guernica exception" to pass the time. We must live with this. Oh, and No guideline per EEng and Jim.Henderson. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:10, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

• • The RfC is not asking for an official guideline, just some general guidance. Your comment did not address the RfC question. Binksternet (talk) 17:42, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
• I generally feel that identifying a time and place in single, brief sentence in a photo is a good idea for the purpose of context, but I don't feel that we need to make it a requirement. If there's a good, policy-based reason for not including the time or location, then use that, otherwise leave it up to editorial discretion and I would favor including the information. BOZ (talk) 15:20, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
• While I agree with Nightscream and BOZ on their points, my comment is that they should at least list the location if it's one of the important ones like a convention who has it's own Wikipedia page. Any objections? --Rtkat3 (talk) 15:48, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes, I object to this argument strongly. It makes no sense to say a certain location is so "important" as to impose itself on a photograph in which it is not even visible or identifiable. Why would a reader looking at a photo of someone's face care that it was taken at SDCC or Cannes or wherever, especially if there is nothing about the photo that relates to that event? (By that reasoning, why not identify the type of camera too, if it's an "important" camera? Or the brand of clothes they're wearing?) It's an absurd practice, and frankly it smacks of a desire to glorify an event by spamming its name all over WP, on articles it may have nothing to do with. Cons and festivals happen to be the location of a fair number of celebrity photos uploaded to WP simply because they are a place where celebrities are often accessible. That doesn't make those locations "important" to the photo (if anything it makes them common). -Jason A. Quest (talk) 16:58, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes, that the location or event is itself notable is entirely beside the point. Johnbod (talk) 18:02, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
• Leave to editorial discretion. My instinct is to trim captions as much as possible, but that's not to say I can't envision a scenario where both time and place in the caption is useful. In general, I trust editors to use context-specific discretion on this, particularly in the interest of not becoming too rules-ridden. The pragmatic guidance here is adequate, I think. Tyrol5 [Talk] 16:04, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Thanks for that link, Tyrol5. How did I miss that earlier? The guide says a longer caption should be used only when the context is important, and that irrelevant tangential material should be avoided because it can distract the reader. Binksternet (talk) 14:48, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
• One situation where we need a rule is when a promotional editor puts in a long caption that includes name-drpoing, as in the example i gave above. It can be quite helpful having a rule we can refer to in such cases. And this would apply to photos used elsewhere also. DGG ( talk ) 17:16, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment @EEng:, @Curly Turkey:, @GreenMeansGo: I'd clarify a point raised by some editors here that we should use "editorial discretion". For my part, I have been employing editorial discretion, which is why I include a brief time and place description in captions. This conflict arose when Binksternet began removing this information en masse from dozens of articles. That is what necessitated this discussion.

Tyrol5, thank you for pointing out the MOS on caption length, which indicates that including time and place info is called for when it provides context for the article subject, as in the example, "Angelou recites her poem, 'On the Pulse of Morning', at President Bill Clinton's inauguration, January 1993". This would seem to indicate that mentioning, for example, the comics convention and year where a subject was photographed is reasonable, especially, I would imagine (though not necessarily limited to) articles on comics creators. Thanks again. Nightscream (talk) 17:33, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Editor discretion is good for captions in the article body. The infobox caption, though, should be scrutinized more closely, per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions#Infoboxes and leading images, with shorter captions ("Cosby in 2010") indicated to prevent the reader from being distracted. If Academy Award-winning actor Ben Kingsley is shown in the infobox image in a close-up photo taken at the San Diego Comic-Con event, then it's distracting to identify the place. Kingsley is not famous for anything related to comics, and the particular event is not important to his story. Binksternet (talk) 17:56, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Identifying a location in a caption is not "distracting". You're saying a reader's attention would somehow be diverted or disturbed by seeing a location mentioned in a caption? This is overstatement, to put it mildly.

As for him not being famous for comics, well, no one said he was. But obviously he was at Comic-con, in order to promote the type of thing for which he is notable, much as Maya Angelou, in the example given at WP:CAPLENGTH, is not notable for presidential inaugurations, but was at one to display the talent for which she is indeed notable Nightscream (talk) 22:15, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

(ec) Not really! You have been using editorial discretion, but your choice is not above challenge or improvement. I support editorial discretion, but don't think the place is needed here, and so support the removal of it. Johnbod (talk) 17:59, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Umm... Well there's a big red asterisk next to WP:BEBOLD* when it comes to making mass changes, and that asterisk usually means "boldly seek consensus before making mass changes", because what you're actually doing is unilaterally overriding usually long-standing local consensus across a large number of pages. If there isn't a strong consensus one way or the other, and there doesn't seem to be, then the right answer is probably for both of you to just go do something else, and add infobox images however you see fit when you're working on an article, rather than either of you going through massive amounts of articles and editing like the infobox is somehow special, because it ain't, and it ain't gonna hurt a hair on anyone's little head if we're not 100% consistent either way. The reader isn't going to suffer terribly if we have a few bytes of extra or lesser context. No, the reader probably is not a hyperactive hound dog that's going to go chasing squirrels through wikilinks and get hopelessly lost. No, we really don't need a rule for everything, and while having fast and hard rules helps to settle down the OCD of a few veteran editors, it just adds to the whole parliamentary mess that new editors have to try to sort through in less than the time it takes to give up and go back to instagram.

Besides that, I don't know exactly how many things we would end up with if we decided to populate Category:Things that are more productive than arguing about infoboxes, but it's liable to contain most everything else on Wikipedia. GMG^talk 18:46, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Nightscream: If you were expanding captions in which Binksternet had made an editorial decision to keep them short, then you should accept his editorial decision to revert them; if they're following your edits and undoing them where they had not made such a decision first, then they should back off, or find consensus to keep them short. Mass reverting over something that isn't (and shouldn't be) covered by the MoS is unacceptable. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:50, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Actually, I was first altered to Binksternet's activities when he conducted a mass removal of time and place info on captions in articles that were on my watchlist, including ones in which I am either the primary editor, or in which I added the photo and caption in question. Nightscream (talk) 22:15, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

In those cases, if Binksternet removed them, you'd be in the right to restore them. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:57, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 01:27, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with your stance, Curly Turkey. If one person goes around and removes things for a good reason, then it's not correct to say that someone else would be "in the right to restore them." Instead, it would be proper to start a discussion, which is what this RfC is. My reason for removal is based on our Manual of Style: Tangential text in the infobox caption can distract the reader. Additionally, there was far too much emphasis on the San Diego Comic-Con event in the aggregate, with hundreds of distracting captions adding up to give the event undue weight in the encyclopedia. Binksternet (talk) 05:11, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Agree with that. Johnbod (talk) 05:53, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Binksternet: You'd have to provide a better reason than WP:IDONTLIKEIT—one based on the policies and guidelines, not on what you wished the policies and guidelines would say. "Tangential text in the infobox" is a ridiculously loaded statement. Anyone would be fully within there rights under the guidelines to revert you if you pulled horseshit like this for such thin reasons to satisfy your own personal aesthetics, and they'd be right to bring you to ANI if you didn't stop this sort of disruption. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:13, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

I can see you have a strong personal opinion about the issue. You will note, though, that my stance not merely personal but is based on our guidelines about not distracting the reader. And every good writing guide will reinforce the notion that an encyclopedia article about x should concentrate its focus on x and not send the reader away to y or z, especially in the caption of the topmost image (see MOS:OVERLINK and WP:CAPLENGTH). Binksternet (talk) 07:23, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Binksternet: You have a "strong personal opinion" that it is "distracting the reader" regardless of context. The guidelines and policies do not support that interpretation. Blindly and aggressively going around truncating these captions inthe face of a lack of consensus (and there is no consensus for it) would definitely require ANI intervention. Stop it. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 13:04, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

"Regardless of context"? No, I am fully aware of context. In fact it's the whole point: that an image caption can be relevant to the topic, or not relevant, in context. If it's not relevant, it should be trimmed. Binksternet (talk) 15:34, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

• No. All captions must have a reference to verify any claims that are beyond "The sun sets in the west...". A date can be sourced to the meta data if the image is from a digital camera but without a reference you can't even say what year the image was taken in a caption. Some meta data does give full coordinates. A declaration from the original photographer or others that recognize the location, can add coordinates to the image and that can serve as the reference for the caption but the same is true of the description. I can support additional language to the guideline to clarify when it is appropriate to caption a living person's infobox image but we can't simply say an image should have the information when older images may never be dated or a location known for sure. Not always but mostly. It's also a lot harder and almost impossible for non living subjects. I found a great image of Jack London on the Beach in Carmel By The Sea but, it could have been any beach in the world. However, I happen to fall onto an image taken by the photographer's assistant of the his bass taking the photo which is very clearly the same people in the same clothing, in the same poses on the same beach at almost the exact moment the image I found was taken. That was amazingly lucky and the location, photographer and the subject all had great EV together. That is not always the case living persons. The location of a book signing or convention does not really need to be mentioned as it could be undue weight over a large portion of pages and become promotional. We should really only make it more clear what is needed and appropriate for an infobox image. Is the location relevant to the encyclopedic value in association to the subject? A candid image of a notable person doing what they are known for or even a set up portrait might need a caption but unless the location has importance or notability to the supbect and their notability, it becomes filler and might lead to unreferenced claims on a living persons infobox.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:20, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

The question at hand has nothing to do with verifiability, just what's worth including. EEng 07:01, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

• Sometimes, I guess? After reviewing some captions I've written, I don't typically note the location unless it's a significant element of the image (for example, "McCloud in his home in 2007"). At the same time, I typically wouldn't object to it being added. The example given above is a poor choice for discussion because the location is an uncommon acronym and the background rather nondescript. File:Kelly Sue DeConnick, comic writer.jpg or File:10.13.12GeorgePérezByLuigiNovi1.jpg would be better, since the background is more active. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:29, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
• Keep The captions are usually relevant, and if we say No, then we'll be caught in a subsequent endless array of arguments about whether or not individual captions are relevant. The captions do provide a context for the pictures, including helping us determine whether or not the dating of the picture (as in the McCloud photo) is accurate. Grandpallama (talk) 15:05, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
• Some useful and insightful comments have been provided. I'm hesitant to answer with a blanket "no" because one person's tangential maybe another person's relevant. Let's avoid over specificity. I agree with the comment that the date (at least year) is often relevant to indicate age but but I think a biography image might not necessarily be a photo (c.f. Socrates) which is a good argument for not requiring date. The location is often relevant, but, per DGG, let's avoid name dropping. a number of my photos involve basketball players involved in the game, and I think it's relevant to identify the game, but we don't have to go so far as to include the corporate sponsor of the arena.S Philbrick(Talk) 19:54, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Good point. I like your stance on avoiding the corporate sponsorship of the arena, and I would argue that hundreds of biography infobox captions saying "San Diego Comic-Con" has already gone past your personal rule. Binksternet (talk) 05:22, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
• Regarding distracting the reader, we already have style guidelines saying that too many links in an article can distract. At MOS:OVERLINK, we are enjoined from putting in too many links as they will significantly distract the reader from understanding the topic at hand. And two-thirds of all links are never clicked on, so in a biography where the infobox caption is already supposed to be short and the point (see WP:CAPLENGTH), it further hurts comprehension to add more links, such as links to the place or event where the photo was taken, unless the context really is important. I'm a big fan of keeping extraneous stuff to a minimum, so that the important points are not buried. Binksternet (talk) 05:31, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
• No firm rule. This is the type of detail that I think can easily be left to WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, being best determined on a case-by-case basis. I'm not one who often talks about style or policy guidelines in terms of "rulecruft", but I'm of a similar opinion to those above who question the practicality or wisdom of a default rule here: even if this were something where the arguments are likely to fluctuate wildly from case to case, the utility of the rule would still be dubiously valuable when presented against just a little more bloat to MoS. In short, consider me yet another allow editorial discretion on this particular issue. Snow ^{let's rap} 06:58, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
• 'Yes, where possible add brief details – because a snapshot is a moment in time and place. --Aboudaqn (talk) 19:38, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
• Editorial judgement. Sometimes these location details in captions are informative, hinting at something important, other times they're trivia. Some can serve a function a little bit like a pull quote, in acting as a "reader hook" to read on and find out what the subject's connection is to some event or place (though the article had better provide that information). In others, it may just let the reader know something (e.g. that someone from a TV show is actually on the sci-fi convention circuit) that the article might not mention more explicitly. But, sure, we never need a caption like: "Tim Seely autographing a copy of Hack/Slash #1 (cover C) in the main artists-and-vendors room at the Second Annual Albuquerque Comic Con at what was then the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on January 14, 2012. His Cheerleaders vs. Zombies T-shirt is a promotion for a cross-over issue, showing the artwork of cover E of that issue (at only 100 copies, it is the rarest Hack/Slash release)." Trim that crap on sight.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:32, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
• The editors at each article should decide what is appropriate within the context of the article. Mkdw ^talk 18:19, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
• Leave to editor discretion, but I would want to ensure that whatever the caption is, is presented in a clear and concise way. e.g. Michael in 2017 at Sainsbury's, but Michael Alex May in 2017 at Sainsbury's buying his groceries. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 07:58, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
• Generally not but I don't think it's something that needs to be made a hard and fast rule. Mostly it won't make sense, but if it's in a section that is relevant, then why not? Editors can work it out.Happy monsoon day 02:27, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
• Generally yes but leave it up to editorial judgement. I think it's relevant information that can be conveyed in a few words, so why not keep it. Calidum 02:00, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
• Leave to editor discretion observing WP:Captions. — Stanning (talk) 17:43, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
• Should this RfC be in WT:Captions? — Stanning (talk) 17:43, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
• Generally not - infobox is meant to provide short summary, so superfluous details should be left out.--Staberinde (talk) 16:03, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
• Keep in most cases, but editorial discretion should always apply. The context and venue for a photograph is often vital information for interpreting it; even if a photograph is intended just for basic identification, we still need that information, because there's no such thing as a perfect immaculate universal representation of a human subject - we can only show them in one particular context, so we have the responsibility to mention that context if there's any chance it might be relevant. I'm particularly opposed to the if the place or event is not very relevant to the larger topic formulation because it misses the important point - the question isn't just whether it's relevant to the topic for that part of the article, but whether it's important for interpreting that particular picture. Relevance to the topic is one facet of that, but not the only one. --Aquillion (talk) 05:35, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
• Editorial discretion, though I personally would tend to err on the side of “less is more”, because any extended info should only be a click away. I would have a different opinion if the caption were the only location and we would otherwise be losing it. That being said, there are enough times I would include it that I would not want any strict guidance to prevent it. CThomas³ (talk) 04:11, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
• Generally not unless absolutely relevant, e.g. to clarify. Even then I recommended using another image with less distractions that necessitate clarification. Images further down an article can be descriptive, but I prefer a succinct infobox caption—sometimes no caption at all. Jay D. Easy (talk) 12:13, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
• No - I'd have no problem leaving it to editorial discretion if editorial discretion didn't so often get it wrong. Try to correct that and you often get reverted, outnumbered by editors who know a lot more about the article subject than Wikipedia editing, having little "relevance sense" and believing it's encyclopedic to report everything we know. For the large majority of BLP infobox photos, the only relevant information is the date the photo was taken (said date becoming less precise as it ages). ―Mandruss ☎ 13:31, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Mark Linn-Baker
Linn-Baker with Melanie Wilson at the 39th Primetime Emmy Awards buffet in 1987

• As an amusing follow-on, I hope we can safely agree that the caption at right gives more detail than we need [2] (as does, for that matter, the image itself – diabetics beware). EEng 05:00, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

RFC - What are the criteria for including an award in a biographical article

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived: RFC withdrawn by nominator. I think I cast too wide a net with the scope of this RfC. I'll re-think and resubmit when/if I think it's appropriate. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 03:15, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

---

What are the criteria for including an award in a biographical article, like in an Accolades section or a List of awards won article?

• A) - Any award may be included if sourced.
• B) - Any award from an organization with established notability is sufficient for inclusion.
• C) - Notability of the specific award must be previously established, i.e. an article on the award must first exist.
• D) - Some other criteria TBD

Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:26, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Survey

• D Other. Assuming it's verifiable, it's subject to consensus if WP:NPOV, namely WP:DUE, is met. Is there independent coverage of the award being received to quell PR concerns? Is this important enough to mention for this person? This can be dependent on how many accolades they have already received. The same award might be negligible for one person but worth mention for another.—Bagumba (talk) 18:29, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
• Option C This would mirror the criteria at MOS:FILM for accolades ("Awards included in lists should have a Wikipedia article to demonstrate notability)". An example I've used before is that I could set up my own film festival/award ceremony in my back garden. I could then award, say Tim Roth, with the Best Actor Award at my own little gathering. With the right angle, my local press could give some coverage (slow news day, page filling material, etc). This would be online and could be used to source it. But if I tried to create a stand-alone article on the festival/ceremony, it would be deleted double-quick on notability grounds. Hence why all awards in biographies should follow this rule too. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 19:51, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
• D other, and more specifically local consensus that it's significant to the article. That is, this is not the sort of thing we can make a one-size-fits-all rule for; the usual rules for any content apply. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:41, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
• D It depends on the attention it receives in reliable sources about the subject. Jimmy Carter for example has received 20 honorary doctorates and 50 other awards. (See List of honors and awards received by Jimmy Carter.) Obviously we would not mention all of the these or even most of these in his biography. But for someone who received only one of those awards, it would probably be significant for their entry. TFD (talk) 01:20, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
• C as RFC opener. The context of this query is really more geared toward entertainment biographies, and I probably should have thought to mention that, but it doesn't hurt to get some wider-world opinions. I was inspired to open the RFC after years of dealing with Indian entertainment articles, be it TV articles, film or biographical. WikiProject Film has in its MOS "Awards included in lists should have a Wikipedia article to demonstrate notability." This, in my estimation, was a fantastic, clear stand against award cruft. Facts:

• Indian entertainment articles are so heavily influenced by promotional editing that I think Wikipedia is considered an essential arm of Indian entertainment marketing.
• There is such a tremendous push to inflate article subjects with accolades and nominations from every source under the sun, including fly-by-night award mills and "First Annual ___ Award" sites.
• Even stuff like the "notable" Star Parivaar Awards got by until it was challenged. Star Parivaar is an award that India's STAR TV network gives to people and shows on its own network! (That's the intellectual equivalent of me bragging about winning the Most Handsome Award from my mom.)
• Then there are awards like the GARV Award, which they've cheaply hosted on Weebly.com, raising questions about legitimacy.
• Or Tellychakkar's New Talent Award (Tellychakkar is not considered a reliable source at Wikipedia, so it's unclear why we'd care about their awards.)
• Or the five-year-old Asian Viewers Television Awards, which is in partnership with Biz Asia, a press release outlet.

There are tons of problems here and respectfully, I don't think that David Eppstein's "local consensus" argument can be applied, for the sheer scope of the problem. That approach would shift the burden of everybody watching these articles to have to open discussions at thousands of articles to seek exclusion, and unfortunately, most of these articles are edited by casual editors (and marketing crews and sockpuppets, etc), so I don't feel that arguing from the "prove this award is insufficient" perspective is the best approach; silence from the submitter would speak louder than the opposer. The biography community should be challenged to decide what the bare minimum of award inclusion should be, so that anybody deviating from that minimum would have to seek a local consensus for inclusion.

As a default, I think that WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE and WP:V prevail. Noting also that consensus is not only derived from discussion, but from editing behavior, and I think there's sufficient behavioral precedent for requiring articles be created first. Ex: In geographical articles, "Notable people" lists typically are expected to have bluelinks, otherwise everybody would be inclined to list themselves. Similarly, in List of Australian child actors we expect that the child actors being submitted are notable, i.e. bluelinked. I don't see how there's any difference for an award that a biographical subject has won. Thanks and sorry for the ramble. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 05:25, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

• Focusing the creation of new rules around spam content is a really bad idea. Because then the content that we actually want (the non-spam stuff) gets shaped to fit spam-focused rules rather than shaped to be encyclopedic content about encyclopedic topics. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:36, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Without clear guidelines, how do you determine what is spam, and what is not spam? The community needs to take a swing at establishing basic expectations for content, or you are 100% supporting option A, that any content sourced may be included, which is in contravention of WP:V. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 07:12, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

• D per the above arguments for option D. I just don't think a one-size-fits-all rule is viable for this. What makes sense for film biographies doesn't necessarily work for scientist biographies, and vice versa. XOR'easter (talk) 16:38, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Awards list discussion

• Absolutely not A per WP:ONUS. Verifiability is required but does not guarantee inclusion. Content is subject to consensus.—Bagumba (talk) 18:08, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
• Not C At a miniumum, it runs contrary to guideline WP:REDYES on suitability of red links. In rare cases, an award that might never be worthy of an article could also still be mentioned in prose with a brief description of the award's significance. There is no one size fits all (and why WP:IAR exists). Establish consensus.—Bagumba (talk) 18:29, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

  Be cognizant of WP:CSC, which allows for arbitrary criteria for listings, most often related directly to the notability of the listed item. --Izno (talk) 18:44, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Request for comment: Size of post-nominals

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Since it's been over four years since the original RfC, I think it's time to look at this again. So, the question is, should we keep the template default for the size of post-nominal letters at 85% or increase it to 100%? -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:27, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

• 100%. It is far more normal outside Wikipedia to have post-nominal letters displayed in the same font size as the individual's name (e.g. [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27]). It is pretty obvious that real world usage is to write these letters at the same size as the name (I have yet to find a single source that uses small postnoms). I therefore believe the default should be 100% to bring us in line with the real world, with which our current template appears to be clearly at odds. The template is now pretty much universally used and this has led to a large number of articles with odd small postnom sizes. Some editors are also taking the default size to be some sort of rule and altering usage in articles to the default even where the size has been manually set to 100%, claiming that the default should be universally used (which is not mandated anywhere). While I can see the value of small postnoms in tables, I do not believe they should be displayed at a smaller size in the body of the article. We do not do this for anything else in normal article main body text, so I cannot see why we are making an exception for these initials, especially when it is not normal practice outside Wikipedia. It is my belief that it is extremely jarring for an article to include this weird small text. Post-nominals are part of the running text and there is no reason for the 85% usage whatsoever. It is normal for Wikipedia to follow real-world usage and not invent usage of its own. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:28, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
• 85%. Out of practicality, not out of any desire to fall into lockstep with everybody else's house style: using a smaller font makes them smaller and less distracting from the actual meat of the first sentence, the part that says what the person is actually known for. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:45, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
  • You see, I think the smaller font makes them far more distracting; since they're the only part of the article in that font, my eyes are automatically drawn to them. And following your logic, surely the person's dates should therefore be in small font too? -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:47, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
    • One step at a time. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:49, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
• Comment. To clarify, what we're talking about is:

John Cottingham Alderson CBE QPM (28 May 1922 – 7 October 2011) was a senior British police officer and expert on police and penal affairs. [size=85%]

or

John Cottingham Alderson CBE QPM (28 May 1922 – 7 October 2011) was a senior British police officer and expert on police and penal affairs. [size=100%]

-- Necrothesp (talk) 17:25, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

• Either is fine with me, but the template should be made to reflect the MOS by default, and not have people wasting gobs of time, pulling of hair, and wringing of hands over it . I'm reminded by the long debates about trademark and other capitalization that I've been involved in, that the consensus seems to be that WP style does not necessarily conform with outside styles, even if the WP style ends up looking "wrong" to most people. I don't necessarily like it, but that seems to be how the community feels. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 19:27, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
• 85 100%- the default should be 100% but it should be clarified that this is simply the default option and not the only valid option. Both 85% and 100% are shown as examples on the template page and at WP:POSTNOMS but there are those who have been "enforcing" the default 85%. The template was created years ago to be used when an individual had so many post-noms that they were taking up too much space in the introduction: making them small was a good compromise to deleting them. Personally, I would advocate using up to three/four full size post-noms before switching to the smaller ones. It doesn't state anywhere in the MOS that post-noms shouldn't be 100%: only that the template has to be set at 100% when used in infoboxes (due to those parameters already having small formatting): this has wrongly been taken to mean that 100% can't be used elsewhere. As per MOS:FONTSIZE, "Reduced font sizes should be used sparingly"; small postnoms aren't the default in the real world and should only be used on Wikipedia when they take up too much space. It should also be noted that when commas are used so should 100%. Therefore lords (eg Peter Inge, Baron Inge) should have 100% sized post-noms (as per WP:POSTNOMS, "If a baronetcy or peerage is held, then commas should always be used for consistency's sake, as the former are separated from the name by a comma") or none in the introduction if there are too many ("When an individual holds a large number of post-nominal letters [...] they should be omitted from the lead").

All that is needed is a slight rewording of WP:POSTNOMS to clarify that 100% is valid in the lead. Perhaps "Post-nominal letters should either be separated from the name by a comma and each set divided by a comma, or no commas should be used at all." becomes "Post-nominal letters should either be 1) font size 100%, separated from the name by a comma and each set divided by a comma, or 2) font size 85% and no commas should be used at all." This would reflect the examples given, Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 19:35, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

It seems like you are making the case for the default being 100%, not 85%, since 100% is required for the infobox and most people do not have enough post-noms to require a reduction in font size (I assume), right? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 19:45, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

It seems like they are making the case that commas should be mandatory for 100%-size postnominals. I disagree and I don't think we should confuse this discussion by bringing in requirements for commas. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:22, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with mandatory commas too (since both commas and no commas are used fairly interchangeably in real life), except in the cases of peers or baronets for simple consistency reasons. But using 100% for them (due to the commas) does seem to suggest that 100% should be the default. I do agree that if we do decide to keep the default at 85% then it should be made clear in the MOS that 100% remains perfectly acceptable and no editor should try to enforce the default as though it was mandatory. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:17, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Maybe I misread the comment? If it's arguing only that commas+85% are incompatible together, I have no objection. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:51, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion (reminder to self: don't try to make comments with a migraine). Yes 100% should be the defaul, smaller for when there is lots, commas shouldn't be used when they are 85% (optional when 100%). Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 19:54, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

• Lean strong towards 100%, per WP:ACCESSIBILITY. MoS already addresses this: use of smaller-than-normal font sizes should be used incredibly sparingly and only with some fairly substantial cause--and I don't think the vague assertion "makes it less distracting" really applies; if it's generally accepted that a given piece of content is appropriate in a given place, it's not distracting to make it exactly as legible as the surrounding text. Granted, at 85%, this is not exactly the single biggest accessibility issue ever, but for those readers with vision impairment or those who can only access the site via a mobile device, it may occasionally make a difference. In my view, even a handful of such cases clearly override any purely style/aesthetic concerns. Snow ^{let's rap} 20:30, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

@Snow Rise: MOS:ACCESSIBILITY says simply that "Reduced or enlarged font sizes should be used sparingly". In this case we are mostly commonly talking about 2–4 characters; it is exceptionally rare for the total to exceed 20 characters. That fits well within the scope of MOS:ACCESSIBILITY's guidance to "use sparingly". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:13, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I agree; given the lengths that the guideline goes to in order to stress that it's primary function is to assure useability for those with disabilities, I'm inclined to parse "use sparingly" as, "don't use at all unless completely unavoidable in a given context". There might be something to be said for your argument that post-nominals may have limited value in the lead sentence, but they are so typical of encyclopedic format, that I don't see the community dropping them any time soon. Regardless, trying to cut the baby in half by keeping an element that may or may not belong, but downsizing it, seems like a worst-of-both worlds approach to me, and unfair to those readers whose experience it disrupts, small in number though they may be. Our readers should all be presented with the same content experience, even where it comes to elements we feel may be unnecessary. Snow ^{let's rap} 08:58, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

@Snow Rise: if your interpretation of "use sparingly" as "don't use at all unless completely unavoidable in a given context" was actually the intended meaning, then we wouldn't have small text as the default in both infoboxes and navboxes. The quantity of small text in those parts of the page is usually two orders of magnitude beyond that in the post-nominals. So your interpretation looks unsupported.

Your assertion that post-nominals are so typical of encyclopedic format also does not seem to stand up to scrutiny. Post-nominals are not used by:

1. Encyclopedia Britannica (e.g. Herbert Austin, who had a KBE)
2. Australian Dictionary of Biography (e.g. Herbert Austin)
3. Dictionary of Canadian biography (e.g. CASHIN, Sir MICHAEL PATRICK, who had a KBE)
4. Dictionary of Irish Biography (e.g. Basil Brooke, who was KG, CBE, MC, TD, PC (Ire))

Wikipedia's use of post-nominals reflects an outmoded style no longer used by the major scholarly encyclopedias and biographical dictionaries. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:42, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Well I for one am not sure that we should be using small text in any of those contexts, and I think you may be conflating the prescribed approach of the policy with common practice. I think as a general rule WP:ACCESSIBILITY has very lofty ambitions that just, as a matter of realism, get completely ignored by editors as by ad large; most people, our editors included, only think about practical daily challenges (including our user experience) through their own idiosyncratic lens (pun unintended but poignant), as defined by their own sensorium. That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive towards a more considerate and accessible approach though, especially since WP:ACCESSIBILITY grew out of the WMF making it clear that they view such matters as within the purview of their nondiscrimination policies. I don't want to go overboard of course; it's possible a substantial number of readers with vision impairment (or at least those with vision impairment who are int he first world with decent aid devices) prefer deferential text size because they already utilize scaling software. It's a complex issue, but for my money, I think it's worth erring on the side of caution when it comes to something like this, where the only pragmatic advantage is de-emphasizing content (which we do with smaller text size literally nowhere else in the main body of our text, no matter the relative value of information, let's remember).

As to post-nominals being antiquated and ripe for removal from the lead sentence, I don't know--you may be right. I think they are still common in many publications, but I don't make use of enough biographical materials these days to feel comfortable speculating as to what the trend is. As to the more intrinsic value of the competing approaches (using the post-nominals or not), I don't have particularly strong feelings; I honestly feel it amounts to a trivial difference for most of our biographical articles. But I do think there are plenty in this community who will be strongly of the opinion that they should be preserved, and that was intended point of my comment; not that I can't be won over to the argument that they should go (I think I probably could be), but just that you'll have your work cut out for you if you want to push the standard towards removing them. They are integrated into surely tens of thousands of biographical articles at a minimum, and people get awfully attached to the titles and honorifics of figures the chose to edit concerning. I wouldn't envy anyone who undertook that task. Snow ^{let's rap} 03:45, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

@Snow Rise: I disagree with your interpretation of WP:ACCESSIBILITY, and I think that the issue as a whole is of much reduced significance since the major browsers belatedly followed the lead of the Opera browser and allowed users to easily rescale the whole page to whatever size suits their needs. As a result, it seems to me think that WP:ACCESSIBILITY is outdated and should be relaxed rather than applied with new vigour.

However, if you do persist with the view that WP:ACCESSIBILITY should be applied much more strictly than it has been, then the place to start reform is not with an issue which rarely amounts to as much as 1% of the small text on a page (heck, the citations links alone usually amount to more small characters than are used in the postnoms). Start with the major uses of small text: infoboxes, navboxes, and tables.

As to removal of post-nominals, I don't expect that it would be done overnight. Instead, this sort of thing is best done by deprecation in the MOS, possibly followed by tagging of articles that this is a cleanup issue, and then gradual removal over time. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:48, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

• Standardise. Like @AlanM1, I see good arguments both ways. I'm not much fussed. I lean slightly in favour of the smaller size (to visually separate postnoms from the name), but to me that is massively less important than consistency.

However, it is absolutely pointless to have a situation where editors are invited to manually set options without clear guidance as to which is appropriate. That just invites any individual editor to go around hardcoding their personal preference into hundreds of articles.

{{post-nominals}} should thereby be amended to remove display the options for |size=, |sep= and |commas=. It should just have one option to define use cases. Based on the discussion above, that seems to amount to:

1. A default mode, which sets the options for use in body text.
   • If that means for example "small size if there are more than n post-nominals", then let the template do that and disable user overrides. (Alternatively, the size could also be set by counting the total number of letters used; either formula would be trivial to program.)
   • Similarly, if the use of commas depends on size (as supported e.g. by @Gaia Octavia Agrippa), then remove the commas option and let the template apply commas when appropriate
2. An "infobox mode set by a parameter such as |infobox=yes or |mode=infobox which
   • Sets size at 100%
   • Enables or disables commas automatically, depending on whatever consensus is reached

I think it would be a great pity if this RFC fails to standardise. However, if it is left to personal preference, then that should be the personal preference of the editor who first added post-nominals to the article. It should not be appropriate for any other editor to impose their personal preference. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:17, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I am not great with the technical side of things, but if the template can be changed to something like this as BrownHairedGirl suggests then it would remove all of this confusion. A limit of on the number of letters before making small would be best, as some post-noms can be very long: perhaps >12, which would allow for 3 four-letter postnoms or 4 three-letter ones before it got small. The only issue I can see with this is with people with titles who require commas (and therefore 100%) as per the MOS. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 19:54, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

• Some data. This RFC was triggered at least in part by my use of WP:AWB to remove the |size= parameter from uses of {{post-nominals}} in body text, and by the subsequent discussion at User talk:BrownHairedGirl#Size_of_postnominals. (permalink)

I have suspended that AWB run pending the outcome of this RFC, but some of the data gleaned from it may be helpful. Possibly not directly relevant to the discussion, so I have collapsed these notes.

BHG's technical notes and data

I worked on pages which transclude Template:Post-nominals/GBR. As of now there are [15455 transclusions. 15091 are in article space I used a regex to identify usages outside of infoboxes: (?<!=[^\|{}]*)(?<postnom>({{(Post-nominals/GBR|Post-nominals/UK|(([Hh]onorific\-suffix|[Hh]onorific[ _]+suffix|[Pp]ost\-nominals|[Pp]ost\-nominal[ _]+letters|[Pp]ost\-nominal[ _]+styles|[Pp]ost\-nominal|[Pp]ostnominals|[Pp]ostnominal|[Pp]ostnom|[Pp]ost[ _]+nominals)\s*\|\s*country\s*=\s*GBR))))\s*\|\s*size\s*=[^\|}]* That code is not perfect, but it had a false positive rate of only about 0.4%. So it would be usable in any subsequent standardisation/cleanup exercise, if there is consensus to do so. My AWB run stripped the |size= parameter from non-infobox uses in 994 articles Using AWB in pre-parse (list-making) mode, I find that 3905 pages currently use Template:Post-nominals/GBR with a |size= parameter outside of an infobox. That total of 3905 (which probably includes ~15 false positives) is 25.8% of the 15091 total, down from 32.5% before my AWB run.

The most significant point to me is #4: that |size= is currently used outside infoboxes in only 25.8% of pages which transclude Template:Post-nominals/GBR, down from 32.5% before my AWB run. So the status quo ante bellum was 2:1 against using the size parameter. (Editors may disagree on whether this reflects inertia or conscious choice). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:21, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment. It seems to me very likely that most editors simply apply the template without considering the size, which leads to a skewing of statistics towards an apparent preference for the default size. The template's there so they use it without modification (and let's face it, most people don't make a study of post-nominal letters or the honours they denote, so probably aren't aware of the real-world conventions, especially if they come from countries in which they're not commonly used). This has led to many articles which were created with 100% post-nominals without using the template (often before it was even created) being changed to 85% post-nominals when the template was applied by another editor in a good-faith attempt to be helpful (and I don't dispute that the template can be helpful). This should certainly not be interpreted as meaning that the 85% size is normal, standard or preferred. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:12, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
  • That's one way of looking at it. But another view is that we do have over ten thousand articles using the UK set of post-noms with the 85% default size, where nobody has been sufficiently concerned to change it. Necrothesp is clearly passionate about his preference for 100%, but it seems that the passion is not widely shared. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:27, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
    • Doubtless it's a minority interest, but since honours are a major interest of mine and I have written widely on Wikipedia about them I'm naturally passionate about them looking right (and as they appear in most places off Wikipedia). I'm sure most editors couldn't care less, but that's the nature of Wikipedia - we all work on things that interest us and about which we are knowledgeable. That huge, diverse knowledge of our editors is what makes Wikipedia successful (and also frustrating). Note that it would appear that the template is like this simply because the creator of the template themselves had a preference for 85% font for postnoms, not due to any pre-creation discussion or consensus. Or at least, if there was any, I haven't been able to find it in any obvious place. 85% seems to be a completely arbitrary size based on personal preference as to what looks good. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:36, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
      • I've just done a quick survey over the last couple of centuries! I looked at: The Mechanics Journal of 1849, Practical Engineering of 1899, Practical Electrical Engineering of c. 1950 and The Eternal Darkness of 2000. All four use 100% for post nominals. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:06, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
    • Necrothesp, as you know, en.wp has the WP:BOLD policy, so pre-creation discussions are rare. Creators make their own judgement and things may get changed in discussion afterwards. Or not. The 100% proposal which you made in a 2014 RFC didn't find a consensus to change the template.

If small text is to be used, then 85% is not arbitrary: it is the minimum size permitted by WP:FONTSIZE.

As to your specialisation in the honours system, that is not the only issue at stake here. Post noms are also used for membership of learned societies etc, so they are not exclusively a British-honours-system thing ... and in any case there are varying views about the significance which should be attached to the honours system. Those closest to it may not be the best people to turn to for a broader perspective on how it is viewed outside of the honours culture. Wikipedia is written for a global audience, not for a particular section of the British establishment, which is why for example we don't usually title articles "Sir Bufton Tufton", preferring plain "Bufton Tufton". I note that in 2017, you were one of those supporting treating "Sir" as part of someone's name, but that proposal was rejected so overwhelmingly that there was a WP:SNOW close. So it's clear that your approach to the whole honours thing is very much a small-minority perspective. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:43, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I have never supported pretitles as part of the article name on Wikipedia. Ever. If that's what you were suggesting. In fact, I have argued against it on a number of occasions and moved articles which use it. I have argued that the title should always be used and bolded in the lede, certainly, but that's not the same thing at all and is a generally accepted principle in any case. Would you care to provide a link to the discussion you mention with its snow close? -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:59, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Ah, I'm guessing you mean this? Read my second and third comments when I said I supported the status quo and that it was a fairly pointless RfC. So I'm honestly not quite sure what your point is here. I entirely supported the snow close and did not argue against changing anything. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:09, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment. A not-so-quick survey on JSTOR, not to be taken as statistically significant, just as evidence of varying styles over time and by source:

Extended content

Journal Date Style Link The British Medical Journal October 16, 1920 DC p. 598 (2) The British Medical Journal May 19, 1951 DC p. 1155 (1) The British Medical Journal March 29, 1980 C p. 955 (3) Journal of Medical Ethics December 1980 S p. nil (2) Journal of the Royal Statistical Society January 1920 DC p. iii (3) Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 1967 DC p. 276 (1) Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 1984 C p. 139 (10) Journal of the Institute of Actuaries December 1991 DC p. 445 (17) Journal of the Royal Society of Arts March 23, 1928 DC p. nil (2) Journal of the Royal Society of Arts November 21, 1947 SDC p. 20 (3) Journal of the Royal Society of Arts February 1984 SC p. 218 (3) The Geographical Journal July 1926 SDC p. iii (3) The Geographical Journal March 1970 SC p. iii (3) The Geographical Journal July 1999 (none) p. 250 (2) Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law June 1920 DC p. iii (3) The International and Comparative Law Quarterly January 1954 SDC p. vii (7) Style: S for smallcaps (otherwise full-size caps), D for dots after each letter (otherwise no dots), C for commas between postnoms (otherwise spaces only) Link: "p. n (u)": n is the published page number; u is the page number within the JSTOR scan. Feel free to mark up the above to indent, sort, ref properly – I'm beat.

—[AlanM1(talk)]— 12:49, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

• 100%. This discussion shouldn't be about the default for the size parameter in {{post-nominals}} – the proper process is to propose re-wording the "Formatting post-nominals" section of MOS:POSTNOM. The template should reflect what's in the MOS, which currently does not say that post-nominal letters should be in a reduced size, therefore the default should be 100%, with option for smaller at editor's discretion, such as for long strings of post-nominals. The default size in the template seems to have been the personal prefernce of the template's author (Miesianiacal, who unfortunately may have dropped off – no contributions this year). — Stanning (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: There are thousands of articles which don't use {{post-nominals}} at all, having been written before the template existed, or by authors who don't know about it; they give post-nominals either linked to redirects (e.g. over 2000 articles link to FRSE), or piped to the names of the orders, or even unlinked. I've never seen such an article in which the post-nominals are not rendered full-size. — Stanning (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Exactly. Unfortunately, over the years many articles written like this have had the template added by other editors, often as part of a large batch, without the original 100% size being preserved, giving the misguided impression that the 85% size is preferred and standard. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:56, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

  Stanning, The first ten bios listed in "What links here" to FRSE use the template (I skipped one non-bio article without bothering to dig through that to see what the link was for), one of which had the size at 100%, and the rest at 85%. So it's unlikely that there are many bare uses that also link to the FRSE page; I don't know if your claim of "thousands of articles that don't use the template" is valid. You need to back that up with some sort of appropriate search – counting links to the relevant pages isn't meaningful here. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 16:57, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Deacon Vorbis, look again. Counting links to the redirect FRSE is meaningful. The template always links to the expansion of the post-nominal letters, thus for FRSE it generates [[Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh|FRSE]] so that the link goes straight to Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It doesn't use the redirect. Therefore the over two thousand links to the redirect FRSE cannot come from the template. Check the links to the redirect, not the article. Also, don't assume that the only post-nominals in an article are in the infobox or lede. For example, in William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin the template is used for himself but the section "Electrical standards" mentions Magnus Maclean FRSE using simply [[FRSE]] — Stanning (talk) 19:56, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

• 0% 85%, and use {{Abbr}}. Seeing strings of apparently random letters after someone's name is bad enough at 85%, but at least the reduced font size is a visual cue that these are intentional and somehow a bit different than normal text. Is there any hope of removing these from lead sentences? –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 16:11, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

  To add a little, BrownHairedGirl's suggestion of having a "default" mode and an "infobox" mode would be greatly beneficial for standardization, regardless of whatever's decided or not decided here. This is the kind of thing that really shouldn't be left up to the whim of whoever happens to write the page first or is passing by one day. And when Yet Another Postnominals RFC decides to change the default size, it gets changed in one place with no further fuss (yes, articles which don't use the template will cause some fuss, but those can be converted whenever). –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 16:44, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Deacon Vorbis, these aren't random stings of letters: whether they are military honours, academic recognition or civil appointments, the letters have purpose and meaning, and (as per MOS) the only time they are removed is if there are too many of them. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 19:54, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

• Undue prominence. As above, my overriding priority is to standardise on something. However, I do think that full-sized postnoms give WP:UNDUE prominence to these letters. They should either use the small size, or be omitted entirely (per the Oxford DNB).

It's important to focus on the fact that we are discussing post-nominals used near the start of the opening line of the lede. This is a crucial part of the page: it is where a speed-reader expects to answer the crucial 4 questions about a biography: who, what, when, where.

Usability research shows that most readers do speed read the initial content of a page, and decide within seconds whether to continue or move on. We should respect and facilitate that usage. MOS:LEAD acknwedges that most readers do move fast, so that principle is already accepted.

So I like a lead which opens something like "Ebenezer Thingammyjig^<who> (1123–1974)^<when> was a Ruritanian^<where> wotsitologist^<what> whose innovations in Xanadu^<where> on the industralisation of wotsit production^<what> led to a thousand-fold increase in the global output of wotsits". Or "Humbert Somebody^<who> (1754–1996)^<when> was a Narnian^<where> diplomat^<what> who played a crucial role in three major international diplomatic conferences^<what>".

In either of those cases, the focus on the 4 Ws allows the reader to make a quick decision on whether to evaluate the rest of the lead before deciding how much (if any) of the rest of the page to read.

However, a bunch of post-nominals answers a subsidiary question: what recognition did this person have from peers or authorities? That is a valuable question, but it is something which belongs further down in the lede, or possibly not even in the lede at all. The conventional way we structure this is to list it in an awards/honours section at the bottom of the article, and posibly summarise it later in the lede.

A good example of this is Judi Dench, where § Awards and nominations is the sixth section, and the first of the appendices. Her awards are also mentioned in the third para of the lede.

But the opening sentence is "Dame Judith Olivia Dench^<who> CH DBE FRSA^{<What's that doing here>} (born 9 December 1934)^<when><when> is an English^<where> actress^<what>".

Those post-nominals are an intrusion, a promotion of factoids beyond their significance. In the hierarchy of info, they belong several sentences further down; in Dench's case, they clearly belong in para 3.

I know that some will argue that these letters are signifiers of the esteem in which Dench is held, but as para3 of the lede shows that esteem is best measured by the awards she has received for her work. However, none of those awards are included in the post-nominals.

If we used post-nominals to depict the most significant things about Dench's recognition, then we would do them very differently.

We used to have

• "Dame Judith Olivia Dench^<who> CH DBE FRSA^{<Significance???>} (born 9 December 1934)^<when> is an English^<where> actress^<what>"
• After my edit, we currently have:
• "Dame Judith Olivia Dench^<who> CH DBE FRSA^{<Significance???>} (born 9 December 1934)^<when> is an English^<where> actress^<what>"

But if we used post-noms to display indicator's of Dench's significance, we'd have something like:

• "Dame Judith Olivia Dench^<who> Ocar-nom*7, BAFTA-Film*6, BAFTA-TV*4, Golden-Globe*2^{<Significance???>} (born 9 December 1934)^<when><when> is an English^<where> actress^<what>"

No, I am not arguing that we should actually do that. Nobody presents dramatic awards in that way, and en.wp should not invent a new styling. But it does illustrate the folly of our current usage.

So we are left with the question of whether or how to include the conventional set. Given their relative insignificance to the lede on Dench, they should not be given the same prominence as other text in the opening sentence. There is an existing convention on how to do that, which is to use a smaller size. I know that convention is not universally applied, and may even be a minority style ... but it is an existing convention which we are entitled to adopt. And I believe that en.wp should adopt it, because it best serves the way our readers use wikipedia.

My second preference would be to omit post-nominals from the lede, and leave to the infobox and to an awards/honours section of the article. That is a much better fit to the hierarchy of info in most cases.

I know there are some biogs where post-noms may be more relevant. PC for privy council on British political biogs; CMG/KCMG/GCMG as indicator of seniority on biogs of diplomats and civil servants; DSO/VC/DFC etc on biogs of people who did active military service. However, even in those cases, it would be much helpful to readers to briefly mention in prose any such points which are genuinely significant to the lede. e.g. "John Smith (19xx–19XX) was an RAF pilot who served in the Battle of Britain, for which he was awarded the DFC", or "Sir Percy Percy (1970–1971) was an English Foo Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for West Somewhere from XX to YY. He held three successive junior ministerial roles in the 19XOs, and was later awarded an OBE for his work the Boy Scouts"

The clincher for me is that most important contemporary work of British biography is the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, which omits post-nominals entirely. I think there is a very good case for en.wp to follow that example. It seems to me to be a vastly more significant precedent than the mags such as Practical Electrical Engineering cited by @Martin of Sheffield, and in Dench's case it would leave us with the much more focused opening

• "Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress".

--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:02, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

For information: (1) I picked four volumes based on date from the nearest bookcase (which holds volumes around 621). (2) Practical Electrical Engineering is a 5 volume publication from Newnes, printed and bound as books, not a magazine collection. The C19 titles are professional journals, and Out of the Darkness is a single volume book written by Robert Ballard. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 08:30, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

BrownHairedGirl, I'm sure you've read WP:UNDUE and seen that it refers to viewpoints, not factual statements? I think you may have meant WP:PROPORTION.
Having said that, I agree with what you're proposing. It's potentially a more extended change to the MOS than MOS:POSTNOM only, but none the worse for that. (If I may repeat what I said above, this discussion should be about the content of MOS:POSTNOM, not about the default size in the post-nominals template. The template should reflect what's in the MOS rather than apply non-MOS pseudo-standards.)
I'd propose that MOS:POSTNOM could say that post-nominals should (may?) be omitted from the lede but should be given in the infobox, if any. That goes for all post-nominals; as you say, if a person has a important award, such as VC or GC in the British system, then the lede can and should mention the award anyway. But honours should be mentioned in the text, especially if they're for a specific action or service.
Caveat: if this change is accepted, post-noms should not be removed automatically from all bio articles by a bot or an AWB blast! It will be necessary to actually read each article, not the lede only, to see if the text needs amnedment. — Stanning (talk) 17:49, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

It should come as no surprise that I completely oppose omitting postnoms from the lede. I'm aware that the DNB omits them, but they are important features of names in Commonwealth usage and should be retained. To readers of Commonwealth biographies, it is important to see at a glance what the correct post-nominal letters are for an individual. They are neither "factoids" nor "intrusions", but vital information that goes with the name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:09, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

As with Necrothesp, I fully oppose removing post-noms because people don't like them. As someone who's main interest on Wikipedia covers the biographies of civil, military, and academic individuals, post-nominal letters serve a very important purpose. If one is reading about an academic, the post-noms show which learned societies that have been recognised by; for a military figure it shows there decorations, and civil figures can show honours and/or appointments. Fro those bothered by lede clutter, having FRS is much shorter than "he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society", and having "OBE, DSO, MC" immediately shows that a military figure is highly decorated. If it is proposed that only "important awards" are included then that had the issue of how we rate them and also excludes none-honours. There is also the problem of introducing errors such as "Dame Judith Olivia Dench": Dame is intricately linked to the post-nom DBE. If she were a man it would end up being a complete different honour: eg "Sir John Archibald Smith, KBE (born 1950)" is a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, but "Sir John Archibald Smith (born 1950)" is a Knight Bachelor. There are not a pointless bunch of letters: assuming ignorance of our readers is not a good reason to delete them. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 16:57, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

@Gaia Octavia Agrippa: please have the courtesy not to claim that I propose removing the post-nominals because I "don't like them". I propose removal because a) they give undue prominence to matters which don't belong in the start of the lede; b) they are not used in major biographical dictionaries.

@Necrothesp claims that postnoms are important features of names in Commonwealth usage. However, the evidence shows this to be untrue. As I note above, post-noms are not used in:

1. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
2. Encyclopedia Britannica (e.g. Herbert Austin, who had a KBE)
3. Australian Dictionary of Biography (e.g. Herbert Austin)
4. Dictionary of Canadian biography (e.g. CASHIN, Sir MICHAEL PATRICK, who had a KBE)
5. Dictionary of Irish Biography (e.g. Basil Brooke, who was KG, CBE, MC, TD, PC (Ire))

These are the major biographical reference works for Commonwealth countries (the last, Ireland, is of course a former Commonwealth country, but the work is published by Cambridge UP). The fact that none of them uses post-nominals demonstrates clearly that Necrothesp's assessment of their importance to Commonwealth biogs is unsupported by the major sources. AFAICS, Necrothesp is yearning for an older time when decorations were paraded like flags, and ignoring contemporary scholarly practice. Wikipedia is neither in the business of obliterating such things by editorial fiat nor of preserving them when they have been discarded by scholars; we follow the sources, and the major sources say "no".

As to the fact that Judi Dench has a DBE rather than a KBE ... yes, of course. Anyone who knows the honours system knows the distinction, and anyone who doesn't know it can learn about it in the infobox and/or in the "honours and awards" section. That technicality doesn't need to be shouting for attention near the start of the first sentence of the lede.

The fact is that Wikipedia's use of post-nominals reflects an outmoded style no longer used by the major scholarly encyclopedias and biographical dictionaries. The personal preferences of a few traditionalist editors should not take precedence over usage in the major scholarly sources. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:26, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

• Comment (Summoned by bot) Either is fine by me, though I lean toward 100% as that seems more common elsewhere. Coretheapple (talk) 18:34, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
• 85%, and use {{Abbr}} {{Post-nominals}}, and limit the number, if we keep them in the lead sentence at all. "Per MOS:ACCESS" is a red herring (at best, more like a misrepresentation); the guideline says 85% is fine. If you think WP's minimum font size should be raised to 91% or whatever, make a well-researched case for doing so at WT:MOSACCESS. Expect that to not actually work, since we all know by now that in any modern browser you can hit Ctrl + (or Cmd + on a Mac, or a multi-touch action on a mobile device screen) and make entire page's content bigger if you have vision issues (I do, with "Coke-bottle-bottom" glasses) as well as set a default and minimum font size that's comfortable for you in the first place. And you can do it with user CSS, too. As for the WP:UNDUE arguments, I tend to agree, but we really need to address these matters separately.

  About a year ago I proposed a hard limit on the number of post-nominal abbreviations in the lead sentence, and this didn't get consensus, so we need some other way to approach it, if not a numerical cut-off. But really, no one should have half a dozen or more of these after their name in the lead. More importantly, the observation that someone being an Academy Award and BAFTA Award winner (for an actor) is a more important indicator of notability (and a more informative one) is quite correct, yet we do not inject these things into the first half of the lead sentence. There is clearly a balance and focus problem. "Other works include postnoms" is basically a non-argument. WP isn't other works and isn't written in mimicry of them. How many biographical works for a general audience published in the last few years and/or currently maintained include post-nominal letters in their equivalents of the lead sentence? The fact that the British DNB doesn't do so is remarkably telling.

  Next, we're already providing this information in the infobox and (except in an improperly written stub) the main article text, so shoe-horning it into the lead sentence is redundant (even in an article with no i-box – it's in the body, too). It's redundant in another way: Anyone who cares already intuits that Dame Judith Anderson almost certainly has a British non-military knighthood, since the lead sentence says she's an actress and is British; it's really unlikely that she was knighted by Malta for serving as a naval commando in Operation Atalanta. Exactly which honor(s) she has isn't needed in the first few words of the first sentence, though it may well be appropriate in the lead section (and could be presented in less obtuse form as plain English instead of an abbreviation).

  PS: We shouldn't be using Dame/Sir for any subject who doesn't regularly use it themselves; not everyone entitled to do so actually does (I think Anderson does, but it's worth checking). It's the same principle as not rewriting Stana Katic's surname as Katič to make it more "proper", even if you can prove the diacritic appears on her birth certificate; WP:ABOUTSELF policy exists for a reason, and people determine their own names (in the sense that WP cares about and defines them).
  PPS: "they are important features of names in Commonwealth usage and should be retained" is difficult to distinguish from subjective WP:ILIKEIT / WP:IKNOWIT, since Oxford's DNB doesn't agree. If the most-respected biographical work in the country most prone to using this alphabet soup doesn't consider them important features "of names" (which is a factual misstatement anyway – they're after the name, not in it), then it's hard to think of a more objective measure of the due weight question.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:57, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Some non-responsive commentary, and back-and-forth about it.

The ODND is great as a source but its formatting is not exactly regular. Unless you also support including parents and places of birth in the opening sentence, and names to written as "Akehurst, Sir John Bryan". Also, infoboxes are not there to introduce new information: their role is to repeat stuff that's already in the main text so having it in the lede too is not redundant. (I've heard this same argument about "its in the infobox" when people are trying to get rid of birth/death dates, I wonder where it will end). Looking at Judith Anderson, how is the inclusion of two post-noms after her name causing such offence/disruption? Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 22:33, 1 December 2018 (UTC) @Gaia Octavia Agrippa: The role of infoboxes is indeed, as you say, to repeat stuff that's already in the main text. But as you well know, the inclusion of something in the infobox does not mean that it therefore has to be in the lede. As you know, nobody is suggesting removing the honours from the main text. The proposal is simply to remove them from a automatic placement at the start of the lede, and continue to cover them elsewhere in the article. And SMcCandlish's point about the ODNB is reinforced by the omission of postnoms in the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Dictionary of Canadian biography and the Dictionary of Irish Biography. Gaia Octavia Agrippa is simply pursuing a WP:ILIKEIT position in the face of a unanimous rejection by the all major scholarly works on Commonwealth biography. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:42, 2 December 2018 (UTC) Also to Gaia: I didn't suggesting we ape any particular other publication's exact formatting; I don't see anyone else here doing so, either. Rather, the important bit from my perspective is that the [O]DNB doesn't consider the postnom letters important enough to include in the opening line, while several people here are asserting that it's utterly vital and that only people who don't understand the British and the importance they place on this stuff could disagree with them. Well, Britain's premier educational institution and most reliable publisher disagrees with them. Next, no one suggested details should only appear in the infobox; the honors should definitely be covered in detail in the article body. They might also be in the lead section somewhere in summary form. That does not mandate acronyms tacked onto the name in the first words of the opening sentence; they're just completely severable questions. And, I have yet to see anyone make any particular claim that Judith Anderson, as an article, is "offensive" or "disruptive" in any way. Rather, people have raised objections in various threads before this one (maybe also in this one – I may have missed something) to people having 5 or 7 or whatever. So, that seems to be three straw man arguments in a row that you've presented. I'm not sure what you might expect or want me to address beyond this, since nothing you've posted is actually responsive to what I said at all, nor to the thread as a whole. It just seems subtly missing the point in every respect.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:04, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, I don't see the value of using {{Abbr}}, where you have to put in the meaning of the abbreviation. Why not use {{Post-nominals}} which (in almost all cases) provides the correct expansion of each post-nom automatically, with a link whose tooltip is just like the tooltip produced by {{Abbr}}. — Stanning (talk) 16:22, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Right! I'd forgotten about that better wrapper template. Revised.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:28, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Does the question need to altered to clarify that its asking about that exact template? Your comment about limiting numbers is already covered by WP:POSTNOMS: "When an individual holds a large number of post-nominal letters or seldom uses them (common among heads of state and members of royal families), they should be omitted from the lead, and the titles only described in the main body of the article." Granted, "a large number" isn't an exact value. The difficulty in choosing a number vs that phrase is how its defined: if we restrict it to 3 post-noms that could be "VC, OBE, DL" (7 letters, 2 commas) or "OFM Cap, FSA Scot, FRHistS" (20 letters, 2 commas). The latter example will also hopefully show how commas can be useful: the first two post noms have spaces within themselves and without commas it wouldn't be clear "OFM Cap FSA Scot FRHistS" (it looks like 5 post noms). Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 19:07, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, the commas need to be made essentially mandatory. Tools like that template cannot predict when a postnom will have a space in it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:17, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• 85%, and let's not turn this into a discussion about anything else. This is not about whether postnoms should be included or not, but about the size they should be. I have always found the 85% to be aesthetically pleasing, and it also allows us to include postnoms without them overwhelming the text itself (especially in long first sentences). I see no reason to change this. Frickeg (talk) 23:40, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
• Comment. It seems to me that some salient facts need to be emphasised:
  • For years editors added post-nominals to biographical articles manually, linking each set as per any other link; these were almost always at 100% text size, the same size as the surrounding text (ironically, had they not been they would almost certainly have been changed by other editors as being a non-standard text size).
  • The template was later created and the default text size set at 85% due only to the personal preference of the creator (although this has since been accepted in a previous RfC).
  • Thousands of articles written as above have since had their postnoms converted to the template, usually by editors other than the creator and often in large batches; in most instances this template has used the default text size, altering the original text size used in the article.
  • Some editors now seem to think that the template's default text size should be enforced throughout.

It's clear from the comments thus far in this RfC that some editors like the 85% text size. That's fine. I obviously disagree, but that's their prerogative. However, is it really acceptable to convert postnoms written in one size to another size "because that's the default" and then insist that this should be enforced throughout Wikipedia? I do not believe so. This seems to be a similar case to WP:ENGVAR: the original author's preference should be retained (note that there have been attempts to "standardise" Wikipedia on this issue too, but they have always rightly been defeated). Use of the template and its default size is not and should not be enforced by the MOS. I should also add that it seems to be generally accepted that small font postnoms should not be separated by commas (at least, no one has yet disputed this). This means that peers and baronets should always have their postnoms at 100% for reasons that should be obvious. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:56, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

@Necrothesp:

• I am v wary of guidance which is "retain style used by first substantive editor". In cases where there is no house style, that is the best way of pointless avoiding edit wars; but it is much better to have a house style and thereby ensure consistency for readers.
• the notion that small font postnoms should not be separated by commas has been asserted by you and another editor. I didn't challenge it, because it was tangential to the main issue, but I have yet to see any justification for this assertion. So let me say here: I don't see why such a rule is advocated. Please explain why insist on it.
• I note a contrast between your dogmatism about the use of commas, and your let-editors-choose approach to size. This inconsistency is odd: why do you support a house style for one issue, but not the other? The only reason I can see is that you seem to be trying to salvage some latitude in the face of an emerging consensus for 85%.
• You say This means that peers and baronets should always have their postnoms at 100% for reasons that should be obvious. No, it's not at all obvious why "Sir John Johns, 99th Baronet OBE DSO CMG" is to be deprecated.
• Overall, the more I look at the details of this, the more I think that Necrothesp and Agrippa are pursuing some very odd attempt to preserve their own preference for a set of antiquated styles which is reality are more diverse than they will acknowledge, and which should be no impediment to en.wp adopting a simple and consistent style if itcvhooses to retain post-nominals.
• However, the extent of the finnicking by the advocates of post-nominals indicates to me that so long as we retain them, there will continue to be some fan of "Debrett's Correct Form" (or some other similarly-ignored guide to outmoded forms of address) complaining that en.wp is committing some huge sacrilege by not following rule 97(b)(iii) of the codified modes of the Edwardian era in England. It would be much better for Wikipedia to follow what the major Commonwealth biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias have done in the 21st century, and dispense with this relic of the long 19th century along with the pointless nuance-rules demanded by its advocates. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:57, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

• "the notion that small font postnoms should not be separated by commas has been asserted by you and another editor." I don't recall ever asserting this. I would point out that I have never seen it in other sources, however. Another style invented by Wikipedia? "I note a contrast between your dogmatism about the use of commas, and your let-editors-choose approach to size." See my previous comment. Not sure where you get any hint of dogmatism, unless you're looking for it. "No, it's not at all obvious why "Sir John Johns, 99th Baronet OBE DSO CMG" is to be deprecated." Is it not? It's not obvious why if we separate the title with a comma then it looks absolutely ridiculous to follow this with a string of postnoms not separated by commas? Okay. It's very obvious to me why this looks stylistically ludicrous, but obviously not to you. "a set of antiquated styles". Apparently the style used by pretty much every source outside Wikipedia is antiquated, and the style invented by Wikipedia is the way forward? Okay then... Sounds a little arrogant, if I may say so. Your last comment, I'm afraid, just shows your agenda here. You think postnoms are antiquated and should be disposed of. That's your view. It is not a universal view, as many sources show (yes, yes, we all know the DNB etc doesn't use them, before you point it out yet again, but countless other reliable sources do; incidentally, I'm not sure the DNB ever used postnoms, even in the actual 19th century, so claiming it's "modernised" in the 21st century is probably inaccurate!). -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:30, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

• Hmmm.

On the no-small-with-commas, see your own comments above.

On the if we separate the title with a comma then it looks absolutely ridiculous to follow this with a string of postnoms not separated by commas. Depends how you read it. To my eye, the post-nominals are not titles, so there is no clash; and the smaller size emphasises that these abbreviations are a different type of entity. Neither you nor anyone else had cited any source to justify what you believe to be obvious, nor any source to justify the insistence on no-small-with-commas. Both are just handed down ex-cathedra.

just shows your agenda here. You think postnoms are antiquated and should be disposed of. Indeed, my agenda is simple: that we should follow the major sources. To be precise, en.wp should follow what the major Commonwealth biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias have done in the 21st century, and dispense with this relic. You have made it exquisitely clear that your agenda is to follow the antiquated form used in your cherry-picked set of more minor publications. As the lead of WP:MOS says: "Plain English works best. Avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording." A string of obscure initials whose proponents espouse complex formatting rules is WP:JARGON, and not plain English. So yes, go on ... denounce me for my bad bad follow-the-major-sources agenda. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:14, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

"On the no-small-with-commas, see your own comments above.". I was summing up what another editor had said. I made no such assertion myself. As to your last point, it is you who is claiming postnoms are antiquated. Where is your evidence? A few publications that have never used them (even in a more class-conscious age). The evidence that they are still commonly used is far wider, including such "minor publications" as the BBC, Who's Who and the British Government website. Who is "cherry-picking" here? Claiming things are jargon on Wikipedia seems to me to commonly be the last resort of an editor who wants to get things deleted. Anything can be claimed to be jargon if someone else doesn't understand it. I have no agenda here, unless presenting information that is useful to readers as it is presented in the real world is an agenda. Personally, I always believed that was the purpose of Wikipedia. It is you who clearly wants to delete information because you have decided it is "antiquated". -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:35, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

So I note the usage by a) the major national biographical dictionaries of Commonwealth countries, plus the major English-language encyclopedia. Scholarly sources, all of them, as preferred by WP:RS.

And you cite the BBC website. Not scholarly.

But best of all, you cite Who's Who ... where the entries are written by the subjected. It's just a printed version of LinkedIn, and no more a WP:RS than that.

And drop the straw man tactics, please. You accusation that it is you who clearly wants to delete information because you have decided it is "antiquated" is utterly false, as you well know it to be. I have not argued for any information to be deleted; merely to omit post-nominals from the lede, and leave to the infobox and to an awards/honours section of the article.

This whole RFC was sparked off a discussion on my talk page where you blatantly lied to me about the history of the post-nom template (see [28]). Now you are at it again in the RFC itself. That's shameful conduct from any editor, and from an admin it's disgraceful. If you can't make your case without repeated bare-faced lies, please stay out of consensus-forming discussions. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:16, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Who's Who (UK) is not Linkedin, it is the cousin to the ODNB for living people. It is not a vanity press publication nor do the subjects pay for their inclusion, it is curated by the editors based on notability. Once again, the MOS of the national dictionaries is very different to Wikipedia: "Adam, Sir Ronald Forbes, second baronet (1885–1982), army officer, was born on 30 October 1885 in Bombay, the eldest son of Sir Frank Forbes Adam, first baronet (1846–1926), a Scot who was a well-known industrialist in Lancashire and Bombay, and his wife, Rose Frances Kemball (1863–1944), daughter of C. G. Kemball, former judge, high court, Bombay." [29] would not at all be classed as an expectable opening sentence of an article here. Reliable sources do not have to be "scholarly", they have to be "published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" (one thing the BBC, for example, has a strong reputation for). If you have access to the ODNB, you will see that it links to Who's Who at the bottom of each relevant article (ie thoses who has a Who's Who when alive), and the Who Was Who (the last Who's Who entry for deceased)links to the ODNB.

A couple of recent obituaries from The Times (another highly reputable, but non-scholarly RS): "Major-General Edwin Beckett, CB, MBE, soldier, was born on May 16, 1937." [30] and "Lieutenant-Colonel Tony Streather, OBE, soldier and mountaineer, was born on March 24, 1926." [31]. You'll notice that even thought that paper is British, it uses the MM/DD/YYYY date formatting as that is its house style. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 18:42, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

You're mixing two different things. If the month is spelt out then there is no ambiguity and it is a common way of speaking. MM/DD/YYYY is a numbers only method which is ambiguous and to be avoided. What date is 05/09/1956? September 5th or May 9th? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 19:12, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

And perhaps more to the point, why should we care what Who's Who (UK) is doing? The very fact that their way of starting an entry "would not at all be classed as an expectable opening sentence of an article here" is a self-proving point that their own internal house style has nothing to do with ours.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:54, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: isn't this a request for comment about the size of post-noms? It already states in the MOS "Post-nominal letters should be included in the lead section when they are national or international honours or appointments issued by a state, or a widely recognized organization, with which the subject has been closely associated.", so those arguing for their total removal are answering a different question than the one asked here. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 18:50, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes it is, and I'm sorry to have contributed to the digression. Let's please discuss the subject of the RFC only. Except that it should not be about the template default for the size of post-nominal letters, but what MOS:POSTNOM says about the size of post-nominal letter, which the template should implement. As it stands, MOS:POSTNOM has no guideline about size, therefore there's no justification for any template default other than 100%. — Stanning (talk) 15:50, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

• 85% less distracting. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:34, 9 December 2018 (UTC).
• Comment (Summoned by bot) I added "style and naming" to the RfC template so Legobot will recruit people interested in this sort of issue.  I dream of horses  If you reply here, please ping me by adding {{U|I dream of horses}} to your message  (talk to me) (My edits) @ 05:00, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
• (Summoned by bot) Prefer 85%, but no matter what size is chosen definitely standardise. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 10:33, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
• Prefer 85% also, as I always thought it looked quite nice that way, but agree with above that no matter what size is ultimately chosen, we should stick to a specific size and style. Definitely agree with using {{Postnominal}} for them, as being able to hover over each to know what they mean is a good thing. And perhaps it already works this way, but if the template doesn't support a particular post-nominal, it shouldn't get used as a post-nominal until consensus agrees that it should be added to the template. CThomas³ (talk) 20:09, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
• 100% for accessibility, clarity and sense. 100% is the default for almost everything in the standard article, so it seems nonsensical to solely decrease the size of postnominals. The significance behind the letters is why a number of articles exist, after all. Abraham, B.S. (talk) 06:08, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
• 85% in first sentence of lead, 100% elsewhere. Postnoms are already an exception to MOS:ACRO, might as well also have a smaller text size (in the first sentence) to imply they are non-crucial information for the reader who can't decipher the alphabet soup and doesn't want to chase links. Elsewhere in the lead and body, there's room to write them out in full and no reason not to have them at 100% like any other acronym. I'd rather see them moved down from the first sentence but that's beyond the scope of this RfC. – Reidgreg (talk) 16:36, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
• Eliminate use of post-nominals in the opening sentence. Most of the discussion above focuses on what size is less distracting--that would be 0%.Glendoremus (talk) 05:34, 27 December 2018 (UTC)
• 85% should stay, as I don't see a compelling reason to change it, and it looks good. The MOS section already implies that this is the intended style, where it says This template needs the |size=100% parameter when it is used in an infobox, or its output will be too small. I wouldn't hurt to make the 85% more explicit there. Dicklyon (talk) 02:25, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Side matter: commas between post-nominal abbreviations

This is a basic English usage matter, but has especial import here because a construction like "OFM Cap FSA Scot FRHistS" looks like five post-noms, but is actually only three, and should obviously be rendered "OFM Cap, FSA Scot, FRHistS". There is no comparable circumstance in which WP would omit commas from a list of anything, and at bare minimum the template for this should be using the commas by default, since it cannot predict the input, and editors cannot predict what the input should be except in the cases of the most exhaustively researched, non-living subjects for whom every single post-nom has been identified with absolute certainty and zero of them contain spaces. I fixed this at Template:Post-nominals but this fix was reverted with a demand for discusson, so here's the discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:28, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

And now commas. You are truly evil, SM. EEng 13:39, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

My new avatar: .  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:48, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• Yet again, please let's keep to the topic. This RfC is about the size of post-nominals; commas are not just a side matter, they're a separate topic. — Stanning (talk) 14:19, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Which is obviously why I put it under its own topic heading. [sigh]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:20, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
• Yet again, please let's keep the horse before the cart. The template should implement the MOS. MOS:POSTNOM says that spaces or commas are both acceptable, so there's no justification for either to be default. SMcCandlish changed the default to commas; I would be perfectly justified in changing it back again. If commas should always be used, as SMcCandlish wishes, then the MOS should say so. — Stanning (talk) 14:19, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Blatant straw man fallacy. An argument that the commas being the default is more practical is not an argument to include them mandatorily, by definition, or an option to override to a no-commas form of output would not be retained. Moreover, the MOS:POSTNOM section favors commas (both listing that option first and requiring it for certain constructions, plus it also has to be interpreted in light of MOS:COMMAS, which doesn't encompass any sort of exception for this, either for post-nominals in particular or anything like an inline list of this sort regardless of topic). And the only reason MOS:POSTNOM says the commas are optional is because the template is doing it that way (i.e., it's a WP:FAITACCOMPLI). A weak argument can probably be made to sometimes omit the commas, when no confusion is likely to result, but the case for having no-commas be the default is farcically, transparently flawed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:57, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
• There's no need for blanket default commas simply because some post-noms contain spaces. Actually, the template can predict the input: only the codes shown in its country lists are acceptable. With a bit of coding, the template could insert commas even if they're not specified, where any codes in the input will result in spaces in the output. — Stanning (talk) 14:19, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Your technical observation is meaningless even if it were correct (which it is not), since the template does not auto-include commas when the output contains spaces; here's proof: DSO & Two Bars Hon RA QC (Can). Your argument is easily reversed, with better results: There's no need for blanket default "no commas" simply because some post-noms do not contain spaces. Defaulting to commas is in agreement with normal English usage of the comma, and with MOS:COMMA, while removing them is not. There are many cases in which omitting the commas will produce interpretation problems, but literally zero cases in which including them can do so. You're also wrong about the template's functionality: it supports arbitrary input (and if it defaults to no-comma output, then the input the average editor is going to give it will also be no-commas to match). Please actually read a templates documentation before making assertions about its operation. We're also engaging in other poor practices just to avoid commas, like stripping spaces to run constructions together: FRHSC(hon), but doing so inconsistently: QC (Can). Your implication that the template's current behavior is a carefully considered and well-honed machine is hogwash; the template is a palimpsestuous mess that contradicts our house style, general English usage, and itself, but for no good reason.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:45, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
• Default usages to commas while no commas is permitted by MOS:POSTNOM, defaulting to commas is not forcing editors to choose that style. It's perfectly valid to default it either way. My personal thought is that there is far less chance of a situation that McCandlish illustrated above happening with the default to commas; we aren't restricting anyone from explicitly choosing spaces for aesthetic value, but we would be erring on the safer side of introducing ambiguity. Yes, the code could probably be changed to try to detect spaces, but I would discourage that for two reasons: one, it's going to be a relatively finicky change and probably will require quite a bit of work and debugging, and two, it will potentially result in unexpected output by users who may not understand why they are seeing commas when they are expecting not to, or vice versa. CThomas³ (talk) 01:01, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RFC regarding implementation of WP:ETHNICITY

There are ongoing RFC in biography article about this issue and how the person nationality should be described in the lead --Shrike (talk) 07:55, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

MOS:JOBTITLES where the subject is the position/office

The "Titles of people" section currently says: "Overview: Titles should be capitalized ... where the position/office is the subject itself, and the term is the actual title or conventional translation thereof (not a description or rewording)." (bold italics added for highlighting). This seems to say that the words of the title should be capitalized when the article is entitled "Assistant superintendent", "Chief operating officer", "Assistant director", "Assistant referee", "Deputy head teacher", "Head janitor", "Deputy dogcatcher", etc. Do we mean to say that? Am I misreading it? I checked the last six months of edits and did not find a substantial recent change to this aspect (except for a change from "Avoid capitalization of titles except when ..." to "Titles should be capitalized when ..."). —BarrelProof (talk) 16:16, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

• My guess is that this is referring to unique office titles that are held by one person at a time (examples: Vice President of the United States, Lord Mayor of London, etc) not to generic job titles. Blueboar (talk) 16:25, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Absolutely. That's exactly what it's saying. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:47, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
    • I modified that summary accordingly. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:05, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Second mention of forenames

Going by MOS:SURNAME, once a full name has been introduced in the prose of an article the forename should not be repeated ever in the prose. I always thought that it it only applied to sections. Can I get some clarification on whether it's the entire prose or just each section? Also, how strict is this guideline and when is "should generally" ignored? BaldBoris 23:40, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

My impression is that the surname alone is typically sufficient and most appropriate, but it seems hard to make a completely strict rule about this. One case when this can't be applied is when a section of the article is discussing various different people who have the same surname (esp. various family members), since the given name is sometimes needed to avoid ambiguity. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:22, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Exactly... the point is to limit needless repetition of a forename, but common sense is needed. If at any point the reader could lose track of who is being discussed, then it is appropriate to clarify the situation by giving (ie repeating) the relevant forename. Blueboar (talk) 16:40, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

@BarrelProof and Blueboar: Thanks for the responses. I should of mentioned what I was referring to. With 2012 Tour de France (and many other Tours) I've repeated forenames in the first instance for each section, but whilst working on 2018 Tour de France I checked the MOS, and following it, removed the second instance of forenames regardless (in the prose). BaldBoris 20:11, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

I thought you were talking about articles in which the topic is the person. If the topic is something like a Tour de France, there are many names to keep track of, and I would say to repeat given names somewhat more – especially if there is a lot of distance between the repeated mentions of the same person. As Blueboar said, you should ask yourself whether the reader might lose track of who is being discussed. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:04, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

The article George Hodel is a good example of how to handle 2+ people with same surname, since the subject's son Steve Hodel is mentioned frequently, and they have to be disambiguated sometimes by given name. This is only done when contextually necessary (at least that was the case as of this version; Steve Hodel has been editing the page himself, as have various anons, so I'll need to give it a once-over to look at recent changes).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:48, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Is it necessary to distinguish "Bob" from legal name "Robert" in first sentence?

Currently being discussed at Talk:Bob Dylan#Bob Dylan, Robert Dylan, Ilovetopaint (talk) 14:57, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Doesn't even need discussion. The guidelines are quite clear that it isn't necessary. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:09, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

MOS:JOBTITLES for infobox

I'm not sure where the conversations are all at or if they've been archived, but I know there was at least some ambiguity about whether to implement the MOS on the infoboxes for presidents, etc. What makes the infobox listing exempt from the style guide when the phrasing is the exact same as the article's body (e.g. 16th [P/p]resident of the United States)? UpdateNerd (talk) 03:52, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm the fellow who implemented president of the United States & vice president of the United States into the intros of those bios. This much I know, it's near impossible to get consistency across the US governors & lieutenant governors bios & other US officials, not to mentions officials in other countries. Like any MOS, it's impossible to get consistency across all bio articles, concerning JOBTITLES. GoodDay (talk) 04:08, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes, but the reasoning for not implementing the style in the infobox... ? UpdateNerd (talk) 06:26, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

My reasoning, it's better capitalized in the infobox. GoodDay (talk) 15:07, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

User:UpdateNerd I think info boxes generally are individual discretion, but also that usage might well be viewed as a proper noun and so capitalised. In addition, some (such as myself) go further and hold that the MOS anti-capitalised stance put in JOBTITLES last year was simply incorrect. I’d suggest refer to the more modest guide circa April 2018 as solid, and expect anything saying to avoid capitals as just something where practice varies. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:53, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't see anything different regarding capitalization as of the April 2018 style guide; could you link that "stable" version? UpdateNerd (talk) 03:14, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

And what Markbassett is really saying is "consensus didn't go the way I want so I will defy it and agitate that others do so." WP doesn't work that way.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:44, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Commons category for single pictures?

Should the {{commons category}} box be added to biography articles in which the only picture in commons is the same one as the infobox? AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 21:02, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

As a matter of practice (and I've added probably a dozen thousand of these templates) usually no. I usually don't even create a commons category if only one picture exists. If a cat already exists, I ensure that it's connected via Wikidata, but I don't add the template to the external links section of the article. GMG^talk 21:24, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Personally I might do it, in case other pics arrive later. Johnbod (talk) 21:27, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

This isn't a case where there are plans to upload a pile of photos of the person. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 21:34, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Note re discussion on Naming conventions in articles/citation

A discussion about using naming initials in article text vice naming initials in citations is posted at HERE. Interested editors are invited to comment. – S. Rich (talk) 04:39, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

post-nominal letters re: "closely associated"

I'm looking to understand applications of the definition of "closely associated" in MOS:POSTNOMs. Using Bill Gates as example: Microsoft has in excess of 10,000 employees in the UK. Gates is personally involved in many UK projects ie: [32]. I would define that as being "closely associated". Further, a substantial working life, or earning a degree, in Britain, or even having British parents, might well be described as being "closely associated". Thoughts? (Gates aside, I do not see this specific MOS:POSTNOM discussion anywhere; please redirect me should it be better stated or resolved elsewhere.) Thank you, AHampton (talk) 18:59, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

@AHampton: A close association isn't remote/minor/in passing, its long term, strong, and self-evident: eg, there is a clear difference between "being related" and "being closely related" to someone (great-aunt/second cousin vs parent/child/sibling). Looking at your example: Microsoft having employees in the UK means Microsoft is associated with the UK, not Gates; being involved in UK projects means Gates is associated but not closely associated. Earning a degree or having British parents/ancestry also would be (barely) associated. On the other hand, "a substantial working life" would: Kevin Spacey is a good example of that, having spent a decade+ being based in the UK, and so his honorary KBE is shown in the lede. Long term residence, a decoration awarded while serving alongside or for a foreign nation, etc, would be fine. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 19:47, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Interesting notes, thank you. I suppose we differ in that I would consider myself to be closely associated with the city and state of my own, distant alma mater, though I only studied there for six years. As for Gates, to say that Microsoft has 10,000 employees is saying that Gates has 10,000 de facto employees — though he may own just 4% now, he has been a majority shareholder and founder, so that seems to be splitting hairs. Separately, just how many UK-based projects would such as he need to be personally involved in for him to be considered "closely associated", then? I'd also be very curious, Gaia Octavia Agrippa, to know your opinion on this individual, in the same context, as having led me to this issue, shared with the Gates' page: Ratan Tata. Is someone, briefly, born in (then) British India who owns British-founded companies, and now personally meets with the PM of England, also not to be considered as "closely associated"? AHampton (talk) 00:31, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Simple answer to Ratan Tata: I can't see anything that indicates a "close association" with the UK, so no, his GBE should be treated like any other foreign honour. The company Microsoft is not the same as the person Bill Gates. If we look at the full guideline its states: "a state, or a widely recognized organization, with which the subject has been closely associated": the person in question, not their companies. India having been a British colony at the time of Tata's birth does not mean he is "closely associated" with the UK; his companies having absorbed some famous British brands does not mean Tata himself is "closely associated" with the UK. Lots of foreign business people meet with the British PM: it soesn't make them "closely associated" with the UK, its just part of doing global business.

Perhaps there is a cultural difference between you and I, and you consider your Great Aunt a close-related family member? Perhaps a better analogy if this is the case would be: someone related to you (the individual's home country/current citizenship), your best friend ("close association"), and other people people you are friends with (not at a level to include in the lede). The UK is not the best friend of Bill Gates or Ratan Tata.

As for how many projects would Bill Gates have to be involved in? As one of the richest men on the world in give money to projects all over the globe. Nice if him, but for the purpose of satisfy a "close association": maybe if he set up a Gates UK foundation that he was personally involved with? I'm not sure.

As a side note, I've googled synonyms for "closely associated" [33]. Examples include: intimately connected, intrinsically linked to, deeply involved. Basically, this is a very high bar of personal association that Wikipedia is setting. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 01:37, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to respond in detail, and for reminding me to call my Great-Aunt, with whom, yes, I am closely associated. Does being British-born and knighted automatically qualify a subject's profile to display post-noms? While I am well aware of the difference between an individual and a corporate entity, I account for the fact that the corporation is founded and led by individuals. Each of tho individuals used as examples here could be described is "deeply involved" with the United Kingdom, and moreso than many born there. (And this comes from someone who would vote to abolish the peerage, on principle, given the chance.) At bottom, I'd venture to say that it would better serve WP to have the term replaced with a more definitive explanation, thus avoiding what now occurs without it. AHampton (talk) 16:14, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

It's a stretch to say he's British-born. He was born in India. He is Indian. He resides in India. We might say 'British-born' when someone is born in Britain but does not hold British citizenship or reside in Britain, but not when someone clearly wasn't born in Britain. DrKay (talk) 16:20, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

DrKay: the question was general, and not in reference to Tata. AHampton (talk) 18:48, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

So was the answer. Switch 'British' and 'Indian' for any two nationalities. Same goes. DrKay (talk) 21:00, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think if someone is British-born then their article should display any British postnominals they've received; that's certainly a close enough relationship (as is having spent a long time in Britain, such as Kevin Spacey or Gillian Anderson). Although in reality most people who are British-born still hold British citizenship in any case (very few people renounce British citizenship on acquiring another citizenship, as it is not a legal requirement to do so), so their postnominals are substantive and not honorary. Of course, most British men who are knighted do not have any postnominals. Tata is not a straightforward case, as he was born in a country that received substantive, and not honorary, British honours until he was 12; in fact, his grandfather held a substantive knighthood. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:43, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, DrKay, but that was not the question, which was: Does being British-born and knighted automatically qualify a subject's profile to display post-noms? AHampton (talk) 21:01, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

No, I do not expect British post-nominals to be listed after the names of Princess Margriet of the Netherlands or Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia. I think it needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis, with consensus determined at each talk page based on the practice adopted by most reliable sources. DrKay (talk) 21:32, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Foreign royals and heads of state and government (whether "British-born" or not) are always special cases, as their honours are often awarded as a matter of course for diplomatic reasons and not for any specific achievement and they frequently have long lists of them. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:02, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Necrothesp, I agree that the case of Tata is more complex than is typical, and we would do well to reach a consensus on that, which we do not have here. I do see him as having a"long term, strong, and self-evident" association with the UK, for instance. It seems apparent that "closely associated" is insufficient to the imposed parameters, and should be made more specific. AHampton (talk) 21:01, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I strongly concur with Gaia Octavia Agrippa's take on this, and that the "Microsoft has 10K employees in the UK ergo Gates personally has a close association with the UK" is wishful thinking and a twisting of the intent of the guideline to try to make it mean nearly opposite of what it means.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:41, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Two-editor circular stuff that is mostly a personality conflict ...

SMcCandlish, insulting remarks only discourage questions and discourse. Seeking clarity and requesting a more specific guideline is not, as you've stated, "wishful thinking" or any attempt at manipulation, such as "a twisting of the intent of the guideline to try to make it mean nearly opposite of what it means" — my own intent is rather academic, though you would twist it into something else, and your rephrasing oversimplifies my statements to do so. Should you more fully consider the matters at hand, your response overlooks the aspects of his personal involvement in high-profile UK projects, and the actual suggestion, which is generally ignored here, for a more concise wording than "closely associated".AHampton (talk) 16:25, 20 February 2019 (UTC) I don't disagree with your first sentence, but there are no insulting remarks in what I said. Disagreeing with your proposal and its rationales is not an insult, it's disagreement. Disapproval of an idea you advance is not disapproval of you as a person. Your unhappiness that something you've said/done has been criticized doesn't mean you've been subjected to a personal attack. This is probably a one-off occurrence, but a habitual failure to understand the difference would be a WP:CIR problem in a collaborative editing environment. My response does not "overlook" what Gates is doing, it just isn't rehashing the entire discussion. Gates personally is a little involved in the UK but doesn't have strong ties to it. The main argument presented for considering him to have such strong ties is the broader level of activity of Microsoft in the UK. But a) Microsoft itself isn't strongly associated with the UK anyway (or any of the various other countries where it maintains sizable operations outside its home country) only with the US; and b) Microsoft's encyclopedic connection to something – even if there were enough of one to care about – cannot "rub off" on Gates (4%!) or vice versa. It's the same principle as WP:Notability not being transferrable by such connections, and that includes notability (more precisely encyclopedic relevance) within in a particular context. By way of very direct analogy, Team USA in the Mosconi Cup not only had a European member, he was the coach for several years and their "winningest". There is no question whatsoever that Team USA has a strong connection to the US. Yet that player-coach does not; he is no in Category:American pool players and is not described in the article as "American" or "European-American" or whatever). The connection isn't "magically absorbed" from the organizational entity into the individual, especially since (as with Gates) the activities that person has engaged in in relation to the country in question are incidental in the total scope of that human subject's life. But everyone else here already seems to intuit this without having to spell it out, so I didn't. This sort of "rub off the connection" argument isn't often advanced by anyone at all. The important point, however, was clear: much of the purpose of this line-item in the guideline is to prevent just this sort of "declaration of 'close association' simply by osmosis", and you're trying to turn it on its ear (or, the effect of the argument you are making would be to do so, and there's no particular way to distinguish these; there's no implication of mind-reading on my part).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:59, 21 February 2019 (UTC) SMcCandlish, I can accept that your intention was not to insult, but your wording choices do not reflect that at all, as specifically quoted (which you did not deign to answer to), and continue insulting in the presumption of an actual agenda, beyond knowing. FYI: without dissecting all of your copious notes — I was not making any "osmosis" or "'rub off the connection' argument", but asking questions and offering viewpoints, and my only (still ignored) "proposal" was for a clearer guideline than "closely associated" (more fool me, apparently). I have no intention on the outcome, only on acquiring a consistent, defining guideline, as the existing one seems too vague or open to interpretation for my taste, though you colorfully assume otherwise, by your notes. It's actually Tata (where I first began with the post-noms topic) that I would think possibly entitled to display post-noms, but I am loathe to wade through a haze of presumption and misunderstanding offered in return for trying to discuss it. (I had taken this to the Tea House prior, as noted on my TALK page, receiving no answer; here– whether intended or not –the effect is to discourage participation, and it has zero to do with agreeing or disagreeing on the actual topic, but a lack of goodwill shown in presumptuousness. Perhaps many are so jaded by this topic from the past that it's too difficult to not assume intentions in the present, and perhaps that's also why my previous three notes to other pages asking after the topic were all simply ignored.) You might also note that Gaia Octavia Agrippa's response disagreed with me, yet was considered and academic, offered no presumptuous insult or sarcasm, so was appreciated. All else seems counter-productive.AHampton (talk) 17:44, 21 February 2019 (UTC) We already have a consistent, defining guideline. I can sympathize that you as a particular individual may find it a bit loose for your tastes, but this going to be true of every line-item in every guideline for some individual somewhere. We do not write guidelines like immutable laws, and we leave a large number of things open to editorial leeway, and consensus-formation on a per-article level (WP:LOCALCONSENSUS). This is not an error, it is by design. For everyone who arrives here or any other guideline talk page and wishes that something were a bright-line rule they could apply like a razor, there are dozens (at least) who would object to making a guideline more emphatic and policy-like. We also don't add new or more WP:CREEPingly nit-picky line-items to guidelines absent a compelling reason to do so, like repetitive, heated squabbling about the matter that seems like it can't be resolved any other way, or serious problems in the content of numerous articles. MoS in particular is already overly long and detailed. No one accused you of saying you're presenting an osmosis/rubbing-off argument, it simply amounts to one, and it isn't one we accept. It requires absolutely zero implication or assumptions of motive (and I'm not making any) to arrive at this conclusion, only an examination of the basis for the argument, the effects it would have if actually implemented, and how similar it is to other cases of treating weak associations as if strong. It's not like we haven't been over this many times before in many places – about notability, about WP:ENGVAR, about categorization and navboxes, about ethnic and religious labeling, about relevance of trivia in infoboxes, and many other things; it's a general class of over-inclusive or exaggeratory association-related demands that the community categorically rejects. Association of A with B needs to be direct, strong, and of defining significance within the context of the topic (on at least one side) in order for it to be encyclopedic. The other stuff is veering too far into off-topic personality stuff to address any further here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:36, 22 February 2019 (UTC) Personality conflict? Personal attack? I did not make any such leap from 'it's insulting to assume my motive' to personal attack — that came from you. Though, I suppose you have made it personal, especially remarking that "a habitual failure to understand the difference would be a WP:CIR problem in a collaborative editing environment", which reads like a thinly-veiled threat. As you say, you've "been over this many times before in many places" — I wasn't there, and it appears that goodwill regarding has it's own hidden, 'collapsed bottom'. I would think it is in everybody's interest to tighten up the definition, and so avoid such as this when someone, again, questions it — and they will, on page after page, after page, month after year. AHampton (talk) 15:43, 22 February 2019 (UTC) When someone mentions that we have a principle and we take it seriously, that's not a "threat" that someone's going to do something to you, it's an observation. No, people are not going to be disputing about this particular matter page after page; no one is doing so but you, because you're not getting what you want. See WP:DROPTHESTICK and WP:1AM.  — SMcCandlish ☏¢ 😼  19:47, 12 March 2019 (UTC) SMcCandlish: Seriously? First, you somehow box in this part of the discussion, and then you return to your self-made aside three weeks later ...merely to add insult to injury? Just to WP:HARASS? Well-paired to that thinly veiled threat last month. Despite your assertions, and just as predicted by me: the topic has already risen again. Your statement, that I am the only one who cares, and that being due to "not getting what you want" is WP:NPA) and absolute rubbish. You might find WP:CIVIL more productive to a collaborative atmosphere. I know I would. AHampton (talk) 20:10, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

More on postnominals

There is a discussion above (perm) about the meaning of the phrase "closely associated". I have seen this come up in two other places, first involving Paul Erdős (discussion part 1 and part 2) and then more recently involving Claude Shannon (discussion, active ANI thread (perm)). All these discussions involve people wanting to add British postnominals to very important or prominent non-British people with many similar accolades and no strong relation to the UK. I propose that the wording of the first sentence/paragraph be modified to emphasize the requirement of a strong relationship, an perhaps to include an illustrative example or two. Here is one possible phrasing along those lines:

When the subject of an article has received national or international honours or appointments issued by a state or a widely recognized organization with which the subject has been closely associated (e.g., as detailed in the article body), post-nominal letters may be included in the lead section.

Thoughts? Better suggestions? As far as illustrative examples, I feel like Bill Gates (from above) in an excellent example of someone who shouldn't have British post-nominals, ditto Erdos or Shannon (but maybe they are less widely known); I'm sure a positive example could be included as well (from the recent absurd episode maybe Victor Goldschmidt is a good choice). --JBL (talk) 12:52, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree that Gates, Erdős, and Shannon should not use these. On the other hand, I imagine that an FRS in a different country of the British commonwealth where other postnominals are still common might well also use the FRS. So I'm not sure that close association is exactly the right test. —David Eppstein (talk) 12:57, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I would also not object to including in this section some explicit indication that post-nominals are relatively more common in the Commonwealth than elsewhere; but I only have personal anecdotes to support that. --JBL (talk) 13:03, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't find that clearer, and would suggest something like received honours or appointments issued either by the subject's state of citizenship or residence, or by a widely recognized organization that reliable sources regularly associate with the subject. DrKay (talk) 18:28, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

That rules out people like Kevin Spacey and Gillian Anderson, who have received honours from a country in which they have lived and worked for a substantial time but of which they do not actually have citizenship. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:30, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Amended. DrKay (talk) 17:13, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

The problem with "has been associated" is that it's weaker than the current "closely associated" -- indeed, under the standard you've proposed, Albert Einstein should get ForMFRS or whatever because he was associated with the RS (namely, they offered him membership and he accepted). This kind of weak association is what I would like to more explicitly rule out. --JBL (talk) 19:17, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Amended. DrKay (talk) 19:23, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

So, if I understand, the current proposal is to write the following?

When the subject of an article has received honours or appointments issued either by the subject's state of citizenship or residence, or by a widely recognized organization that reliable sources regularly associate with the subject, post-nominal letters may be included in the lead section.

(It was not clear to me if you wanted to eliminate the parenthetical I introduced; I have left it out here.) I would be happy with this -- "sources regularly associate" is a clearer/harder standard of the sort I am hoping for. --JBL (talk) 12:07, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's the proposal as amended. DrKay (talk) 16:59, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Great. Not having seen any objections, I am going to WP:BOLDly implement the latest version. --JBL (talk) 19:52, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Could it be changed to "subject's state of citizenship or long-term residence" or "subject's state of citizenship or permanent residence", either of which is clearer than "subject's state of citizenship or residence". Wording it simply as "residence" might end up widening the scope from original WP:POSTNOM. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 22:06, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Fine by me. DrKay (talk) 16:19, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Me, too. I think "long-term" is fine (e.g., if I lived in the UK for 30 years and was knighted but then retired in Spain, that shouldn't necessarily be disqualifying). -JBL (talk) 16:29, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

No discussion of the MOS to be found here.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I started that discussion above, and was rebuked for the effort. As predicted, the issue remained. (I will not weigh in on the topic now, as already quite discounted right here.) Nonetheless, am glad to see a useful discussion finally emerged, though in a sort of clubhouse, as it were. Better late than never, I suppose. AHampton (talk) 19:39, 1 April 2019 (UTC) Is this an attempt at making a constructive comment related to the discussion in this section? If so, perhaps you could be more explicit. --JBL (talk) 19:52, 1 April 2019 (UTC) This section begins: "There is a discussion above (perm) about the meaning of the phrase "closely associated..." referring to a previous discussion which was rendered non-constructive, the details of which are already explicit on this page. As I noted, it's good to see the topic being discussed, after all, even though my own attempt was stymied. AHampton (talk) 21:47, 1 April 2019 (UTC) A case in point would be Kylie Minogue. Her (featured) article gives her the post-nominals AO and OBE. She's a dual citizen, so she's entitled to use both post-nominals, but not at the same time. Except on Wikipedia apparently. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:49, 2 April 2019 (UTC) Of course she's entitled to use both at the same time and the fact she's a dual citizen is irrelevant. Australia is a Commonwealth Realm. Citizens of Commonwealth Realms all receive honours from the Crown. British honours awarded to Commonwealth Realm citizens are substantive, not honorary (e.g. those knighted or made dames can actually use the title, even if they come from a country like Canada that does not generally use titles). And there are still Australians around who have OBEs and suchlike from the time when Australia didn't have its own honours system. Are you suggesting they couldn't use them if they later received an Australian honour too? -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:38, 2 April 2019 (UTC) No, that is not the case. All Imperial awards made to Australian citizens after 5 October 1992 are classed as foreign awards, and hence such Australian citizens are not entitled to use the associated post-nominal letters. Only those presented with these awards before that date are still permitted to use the post-nominal letters. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:48, 2 April 2019 (UTC) Is this discussion related to the MOS in any way? If so, perhaps the connection could be made explicit? --JBL (talk) 20:04, 2 April 2019 (UTC) Yes, it is the case. There is no control in a free country over what letters anyone uses after their name as long as they are authorised by the awarding country. The Australian government has no right to tell Australians they can't use British postnominals if the British government has authorised their use. The Australian government is not a totalitarian regime. It's the awarding country that makes the decision as to use, not the country of citizenship. This is exactly the same situation as the Canadian government disapproving of titles being awarded to its citizens; they may not like it, but if the British Crown decides to bestow a knighthood on a Canadian citizen then as a citizen of a Commonwealth Realm he has every right to use the title of "Sir". In the eyes of the British government, British awards to Commonwealth Realm citizens remain substantive, not honorary. And in any case, even if they weren't substantive, even recipients of honorary postnominals can use them. Hence the whole discussion we're having here. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:26, 3 April 2019 (UTC) The right of countries to decide what foreign awards their citizens can accept, and what styles and honorifics they can adopt, is not in dispute. (And in the case of Australia, the British government doesn't get to decide under the Statute of Westminster 1931 – one of its own laws.) The right of Wikipedia to confer undeserved honorifics and postnominals is in dispute, as it is a clear violation of our Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:22, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

MOS:HYPOCORISM

Does this policy apply even for fictional characters? At Jackie Burkhart, I removed the quoted nickname from Jacqueline "Jackie" Beulah Burkhart since Jackie sounds like an obvious dimunitive of Jacqueline, but AussieLegend reverted it, saying, "This is about a fictional character and the name used in the series should be used." --Kailash29792 (talk) 07:51, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

No reason it shouldn't also apply. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:56, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Necrothesp, the question is: was AussieLegend right or wrong to do so? Based on whether it is or not, I'll re-edit the article. Similarly, at Bran Stark, I removed Brandon Stark, typically called Bran to retain just Brandon Stark in accordance with MOS:HYPOCORISM, but TedEdwards reverted it, saying, "WP:HYPOCORISM refers to genuine biographies. This article is not a biography". --Kailash29792 (talk) 06:01, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

For Burkhart, the hypocorism should definitely be removed, as Jackie is a clear and well-known hypocorism of Jacqueline. It shouldn't matter whether she's fictional or real. Bran Stark is less clear-cut, as he's a fantasy character and real-world naming conventions do not apply, although it should of course be blatantly obvious to anyone that Bran is a hypocorism of Brandon, so using the rules of common sense it shouldn't be necessary to include it given it's in the article title. But given it's not been plonked in the middle of his name like it was with Jackie Burkhart I probably would retain it. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:37, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes. There's no reason it would not apply. It's not about whether it's a real person with preferences, or anything like that, it's about whether we're going to brow-beat readers with redundant blather as if they have severe brain damage.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:31, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

I'd have to question why Bart Simpson still has the "Bart" when (Bartholomew -> Bart) is one of the listed Hypocorisms. Although Marge Simpson would be different since many would assume her full name to be Margaret (as in Matt Groening's mother's name), so it is more interesting to note it is short for Marjorie. I also have to question Ray Stantz lead sentence since Ray is a hypocorism of Raymond. But names like Michael "Mike" or Elizabeth "Liz" should definitely be removed. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 15:18, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

I’d suggest a different approach that would avoid the issue altogether. MOS:BIO is about people, not fictional entities. As WP:WAF makes clear, there should be no presumption that fictional characters are treated by the standards developed for real people. The only mention of fictional characters in MOS:BIO is an example of this, as it states that subsequent mentions of fictional entities should use common names, not surnames.

I think a similar standard should be used for the lead sentence: refer to the character by their common name (“Jackie Burkhart is...”, “Bart Simpson is...”). For a real person, the full name has a significance that does not translate to the fictional context. For fictional characters, full names are often obscure and rarely mentioned trivia, more appropriate for the body of the article. Middle names in particular are often written as one-off jokes. Leading with an obscure full name sets an inappropriate in-universe tone for an article.--Trystan (talk) 17:45, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

I fall into Trystan's camp here. --Izno (talk) 20:49, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Saving the full name for later is a good option too; that can be for cases where the character is never referred to by full name except in an obscure episode naming as with Vash the Stampede. I could use that scheme for many of the character names in List of My Name Is Earl characters and List of New Girl characters#Schmidt (This edit) AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 22:57, 3 April 2019 (UTC) updated 23:41, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

The difference between fictional characters and real people is that the fictional characters are almost always referred to by their credited name and not by their full name, which is normally a minor factoid if it is revealed at all, For example, "Fez" real name and even his origin were never revealed. Similarly, in The Big Bang Theory, Penny's full name is not known and the producers have said it never will be so she is only ever referred to as Penny. "Jacqueline Beulah Burkhart" is not how Jackie Burkhart is ever known in the program. She is always referred to as Jackie so it's quite silly to give the formal name prominence. It has nothing to do with "preference", it's just how characters are credited. Jackie is a clear and well-known hypocorism of Jacqueline - That may be true but that doesn't mean that someone referred to as "Jackie" will always be formally named "Jacqueline". Some people name their children using the shortened form. I have known several females named "Penny". Some have "Penelope" on their birth certificates while some have "Penny". The full formal name is used in fictional character articles so that they comply with MOS:BIO as much as is possible for fictional characters but the viewing audience only know them by the name credited on-screen. Putting just "Jacqueline Beulah Burkhart" is going to confuse readers who may not be "into" the character's backstory as much as some Wikipedia editors obviously are. And what about "Raj" on The Big Bang Theory? His full name is "Rajesh Ramayan Koothrappali". Is "Raj" a normal hypocrism of "Rajesh" or is that something that non-Indians might just assume? We need to remember that fiction does not always follow the laws of the real world and sometimes we have to suspend normal rules and beliefs because of that. The program in which Jackie Burkhart appeared is a classic example of that. Over an 8-year broadcast period it only covered 3.5 years of "real" time. For this reason I agree with Trystan and think that "Jackie Burkhart is" is better for fictional characters than trying to comply with MOS:BIO in the lede. --AussieLegend (✉) 01:01, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Frankly, I think that pretty much everything you've just said could apply to real people too! So I don't quite get why fictional characters should be so much of a different case. If Penny's real name is not known then we don't make one up for her, any more than we would for a real person whose full name we didn't know; but presumably Jackie Burkhart's full name has appeared somewhere given it's listed in the article. In that case, the same rules should apply to her as to real people. And Raj isn't really relevant here, as he is frequently called Rajesh as well as Raj in the series and his surname, if not his middle name, is also commonly known. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:24, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that pretty much everything you've just said could apply to real people too! - except that real people usually start with a real name first and add the fictional name later while fictional characters start with (usually) a single, onscreen name first and add the real name later. For example, Reginald Kenneth Dwight became Elton John many years after he was born. If he was a fictional character he'd have first been known as Elton John and then much later it would have been revealed that he was originally Reginald Kenneth Dwight. That's actually a big difference. --AussieLegend (✉) 11:41, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

I believe the common justification given for giving the full name in the lead sentence of a biography is that it is a core biographical detail. For non-biographical articles, MOS:FIRST says to use the title as the subject of the first sentence. The question is then whether we approach an article about a fictional character as a fictional biography, and WP:WAF is clear that we should not (though it may contain one as a subsection).--Trystan (talk) 12:46, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Fictional characters are not real people, we don't treat them as such, as stated in WP:WAF. The name of the article and the name in the lead should be based on common usage and credit. Oliver Queen (Arrowverse) is "Oliver Queen", not "Oliver 'Ollie' Jonas Queen", his "fictional legal name" because Stephen Amell isn't credited that way, and it's not the common usage for the character. Although there are pages that are doing this, I would argue they shouldn't be, because these aren't real people. They don't have "legal names" like an actual person does. Oliver Queen is Oliver Queen. For story purposes, at some pointe, a character notes that his middle name is "Jonas". That's irrelevant for fictional characters. There seems to be a push to put in more information that reflects a treatment of WP:BIO with fictional characters, and it's a little unsettling to see how far it's getting.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:20, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Bignole, never did I say the lead of Oliver Queen should be Oliver "Ollie" Jonas Queen. Because Ollie is an obvious hypocorism and not part of the article's title. But it would be annoying if someone wrote Walter Hartwell "Walt" White rather than simply Walter Hartwell White or James Morgan "Jimmy" McGill instead of James Morgan McGill, right? That is why I believe MOS:HYPOCORISM is meant to combat such redundancy, regardless of whether the subject is fiction or reality. Kailash29792 (talk) 13:59, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

My Oliver Queen example is merely an example, not meant to be a specific indication of something done. It's the first name that came to mind. The section being discussed says "For people who are best known by a pseudonym, the legal name should usually appear first in the article, followed closely by the pseudonym.", the problem is that fictional characters are not real and thus do not have "legal names", nor do they have pseudonyms. They have "aliases"...well, superheroes and the like do, but not pseudonyms...because they aren't real. In the case of Jackie, her lead name should match her article title, because her name is Jackie. She's credited as Jackie. She isn't credited as Jacqueline (sp). She isn't real, and she doesn't have a legal name. So, the answer to the question of whether she should be "Jacqueline 'Jackie' Burkhart" is superseded by the fact that "Jacqueline" shouldn't even be there in the first place.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:46, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

That depends if the show uses Jacqueline in any noticeable and recurring manner besides the one-off wedding / reveal your middle name episodes. In a list of characters, she would just be Jackie Burkhart, or just Jackie if her last name is also trivial and only mentioned in those kinds of episodes. I have a bunch of cases at Talking Tom and Friends (TV series) where they just go by common name, even though there are episodes where given names (CEO -> Carl) and full names (Tom -> Thomas, Ben -> Benjamin, MC -> Maurice Claremont) are revealed later. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 15:41, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

That I couldn't tell you. I'm not super knowledgable about that show, and I only ever recall "Jackie" used. But, your point is the point I think that I was trying to make. For fictional characters, they don't really fall under how BIO treats names, because they don't have legal names. They have their credited name, which is more often than not (excusing some exceptions that may exist) the common usage on the show.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 18:28, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Some characters' full names should be mentioned without hypocorisms, eg: Frank Francis Joseph Underwood. Because even though he is commonly called Frank, his wife always called him Francis onscreen, and this has some relevance to the plot. But I get what Bignole says: if the character's full name isn't common, it shouldn't be included in the lead, and automatically that means no hypocorism either so I'll respect that. On an unrelated note, the character's full name should be mentioned somewhere in the article right? Eg: "Donald Fauntleroy Duck" appears only twice in the article, but certainly not the lead section (whether the full name is still canon or not isn't relevant here). So what about Oliver Jonas Queen whose full name is canon? On a more related note, should Kim Wexler, Chuck McGill and Gus Fring retain the characters' legal names in the lead or not? I think the names Kimberly, Charles and Gustavo are quite commonly used in Better Call Saul. Anyone who has seen the series may argue. Kailash29792 (talk) 04:04, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I support a consistent approach where the lead always uses the common name. The recognizability of common hypocorisms works both ways, so a user looking for an article on "Francis Underwood" is not likely to be confused when reading an intro that starts "Frank Underwood is...". The full name is suitable for the infobox and a fictional biography section, if there is one. If there is significance to Clair Underwood calling her husband 'Francis', then that can be discussed in the body of the article.--Trystan (talk) 15:19, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I concur with Trystan. Whether Oliver Queen's middle name is Jonas or not isn't a real-world fact to verify or care about, but a minor plot point. Frank Underwood being called Francis by his wife is similarly a plot point (maybe a meaningful one), and has no impact on the purpose of the lead sentence making it clear that the reader has arrived at the right page (anyone watching that show will already know that Francis and Frank are the same person).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:37, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Names in articles

Hi, I'm hoping you could clarify something for me. I've been doing a GA review of 2007 Welsh Open (snooker), which is a knockout snooker competition. To me, it's rather confusing to only refer to players (at one point, there are a total of 48 different players), by surname only, in different sections. I understand this is important in Biographical articles, however, is this the correct way to distinguish the players throughout the article?

If I was starting a new subsection on the article; I'd want to clarify who each player was. I couldn't find much in terms of details on how this was handled (I probably missed a massive article on it, however), if someone could let me know. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:54, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure why using surname would be confusing, if two or more people have the same surname then fine use the first name to distinguish them but I dont believe it is needed if the Surname is unique in the context of the article, and they linked out to an individual article somewhere on the page. MilborneOne (talk) 14:06, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Since you are on this talk page, I assume you are already aware of MOS:SURNAME at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography? It does say to "generally" refer to them by their surname. Consensus at a given article could be that a person was mentioned long enough ago that their full name bears repeating.—Bagumba (talk) 18:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Clarification: "if two or more people have the same surname then fine use the first name to distinguish them" should read "add the first name to distinguish them". Its not okay to write "Steve won the April 2007 qualifying tournament, 5–2, against Mark." What the OP might be angling for is just that – to write sports articles here in a sports-journalism style, which is against policy ("Wikipedia is not written in news style.") But I think the point is probably actually that the OP wants to use first and and surname together, which is perfectly fine, just not when done over and over again in the same section. In article like those under discussion, sections may be linked to from somewhere else, so just a surname may make no sense to the reader in their current reading context. (By contrast, "Trump" makes perfect sense to the reader if they arrived by section link at Donald Trump#Campaign rhetoric.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:45, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's pretty much it. I just wanted to confirm if there was a limit in terms of prose length that it would be wise to use a full name again. Such that say in Section 1, introduces Ryan Day, and then in section 4, you were to refer to him as Day. To me, I'd want to remind people of his full name especially when there are tonnes of other names being thrown around. If this is completely in policy, I'll pass the GA.

for reference, I wasn't suggesting to just use a first name, but to reiterate the full name.Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:01, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

MOS:ETHNICITY

MOS:ETHNICITY states "Ethnicity... should generally not be in the lead unless it is relevant to the subject's notability." What kinds of things would make ethnicity "relevant" enough to belong in the lede? Jayjg ^(talk) 17:51, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

If it's a core part of why they are notable e.g. Barack Obama being African American or Jeremy Lin being Asian American.—Bagumba (talk) 18:35, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

How would one differentiate between something that is "a core part" versus something that seems "relevant" versus something that is just "also notable"? Is it all just a matter of personal opinion? Jayjg ^(talk) 17:18, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

What do sources say? If a source comments on the ethnicity linked to notability then that's a good indicator. GiantSnowman 18:06, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

A good test is often how easy it is to concisely articulate the relevance. “First African American POTUS” is quite clearly relevant. Or “Much of Sedaris's humor is ostensibly autobiographical and self-deprecating and often concerns his family life, his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, his Greek heritage...” On the other hand, if what is proposed is just a bald statement of the ethnicity because it feels vaguely relevant, it shouldn’t be included.--Trystan (talk) 18:08, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Also the very start of the lede should always be "NAME is a NATIONALITY PROFESSION" and not 'NAME is a ETHNICITY PROFESSION'. GiantSnowman 18:32, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Agreed; when I see ethnicity in the first sentence, I pretty much always remove it, unless it's someone like Elie Wiesel or Anne Frank. Even the biographies of people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks don't use "ETHNICITY PROFESSION" in the first sentence. The reason I've come here looking for answers is exactly that problem; I've been involved in a discussion for the past couple of days at Talk:Jackie Walker (activist), but don't seem to be making any headway. Is this one of the rare exceptions? Am I missing some nuance? I'm trying to figure it out. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:52, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

JOBTITLES exceptions?

Is the capitalization at List of Governors of New York correct or not? There is a move request at Talk:List_of_Governors_of_New_York#Requested_move_11_April_2019 concerning articles about US governors. Surtsicna (talk) 21:45, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Formality contradicton?

At Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography § Positions, offices, and occupational titles, the last 'graph, The formality (officialness), specificity, or unusualness of a title is not a reason to capitalize it, seems to contradict the earlier statements about formal(ity), including the 'graph immediately preceding it. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 02:34, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Music show wins in Awards sections

Discussion and survey at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Korea/Popular_culture#Are_music_show_wins_notable? AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 23:53, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Nationality: Adi Granov

Hi. Can anyone here tell me how Wikipedia determines nationality for the opening sentence? Comics artist/illustrator Adi Granov was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1994, he fled Bosnia at age 16 with his family, and emigrated to the U.S., where he lived in the next ten years in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, where Granov studied art and concept design at a university. During his last three years in the U.S. he obtained his first work illustrating books and comics. He eventually moved to England, where he lives to this day. So what is he? Bosnian-British? Bosnian-American? Just British? His article previously stated it as Bosnian-American (which makes sense to me), but an anonymous IP editor to his article changed it to "British", claiming that Granov identifies his nationality as such, and disliked the previous designation in the article. I could not find anything pertaining to this on this project page. Any help? Nightscream (talk) 22:07, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

This is an easy one, Nightscream, and nothing to do with the MOS: for everything, but most particularly for BLP articles, we write what is reported in independent reliable sources – that and only that. We don't care what makes sense, what an IP thinks, where he lives or where he was born – nationality does not necessarily depend on any of those things. By the way, if he was born in Sarajevo in 1978, his country of birth is Yugoslavia. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:02, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Oh, we write what's in reliable sources? Gee, thanks! Having accumulated 137,345 edits here since 2005, I never heard that! :-)

Thanks for not answering my question.

Now can you please tell me how the sentence should read, based on the birth and residence info I gave above, and whatever applicable policies/guidelines cover the writing of that sentence as a practice (and not what the IP said)? Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 13:43, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

• The way the article currently reads seems best to me. Nothing says an article has to reference the subject’s nationality or ethnicity in the opening sentence. This is especially true when the subject’s nationality/ethnicity is complex, and really requires more than one sentence to explain. Blueboar (talk) 14:42, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

So you feel that I was right to remove "British" from the Infobox and the opening sentence? Nightscream (talk) 21:24, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I'll concur with Blueboar. Trying to "label" someone with an over-simplified nationality is a mistake. Explain in the article text (maybe in the lead section, but not lead sentence).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:43, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

• If you don't know from RS what passport(s) he holds, you just have to explain the history, & probably leave the infobox blank (the horror!!!) with a hidden note to stop unrefed additions. Johnbod (talk) 17:56, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
  • I don't think it's (solely) about passport/citizenship. If someone is described as a "Ghanaian-Kenyan actor", it means they have some combination of (Ghanaian ancestry and/or citizenship) and (Kenyan ancestry and/or citizenship) – nine possibilities, assuming dual citizenship is allowed between the two countries. I'd skip the adjective entirely in complicated situations like this and leave it to later description (outside the lead, unless it's critical information). The infobox has separate parms for citizenship, current residence, birthplace, etc. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 22:00, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Excessive occupations for Asian idols in infobox and lead sentence

Should Korean idols and Japanese idols be presented in the lead sentence with an extensive list of occupations? Singer, songwriter, producer, rapper, dancer, visual, vocalist, model, tarento, spokesperson, actor, actress, fashion designer, philanthropist, author, maknae, television personality? Can't it be simplified? Having issue with the recently created Lisa (Thai rapper) for example getting WP:COATRACK. Reliable sources for the most part use K-pop singer and K-pop idol, although some sources get really into the idol terminology (main dancer, main visual, lead rapper). AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 04:54, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

It is good writing to summarize. :) --Izno (talk) 12:32, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Parse "notable" & "noteworthy" in lines 12 and 41

WP Guidance recognizes that WP:NOTABLE (as a term of art) refers to "Notability"; e.g., whether "this-and-that" is a topic notable enough for an article. In the same Guidance we see that WP:NOTEWORTHY says information need not be "Notable" to be included in an article. With this in mind, I'm trying to correct 4 sentences in the guidance using the word "notable". In Line 12 they read: "What is most recent is not necessarily what is most notable: new information should ...." and "#The notable position(s) the person held, activities they took part in, or roles they played; ..." In Line 47 they read: "The notable position(s) or role(s) the person held should usually be stated in the opening paragraph." and "Incidental and non-notable roles (i.e. activities that are not integral to the person's notability) should usually not be mentioned in the lead paragraph." [Emphasis added.]

• Line 12 is a problem because a '"notable" position' implies there is (or should be) a WP article about the position(s) held: Queen of England v. scullery maid. (One is a notable position in-and-of itself), and the other might be a noteworthy position once held.)
• Line 47 repeats the mistaken descriptive.

Please see the edit history for my attempts to change and clarify the non-linked "notable" to a guidance-linked "noteworthy" – S. Rich (talk) 03:53, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

• No responses to proposal. Implementing. – S. Rich (talk) 20:01, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Relatives of article subjects

Is there MOS advice on whether or not to include names of relatives within BLP articles? My understanding is that spouses and relatives who are notable themselves are described/named, but other relations (e.g. children) are not. For example, if a BLP subject has two children, this should be stated within the article, but the names of the children are not given, unless they are themselves notable for some reason. Is this the case? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:46, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

WP:BLP#Presumption in favor of privacy. --Izno (talk) 13:54, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

MOS:ETHNICITY and context question

I have a question about MOS:ETHNICITY as relates to articles where it may seem obvious that a person has a certain nationality but they did not actually have such citizenship. The example article I am going to use is January Suchodolski, who I think most would agree is Polish. However, "from 1795 until 1918, no truly independent Polish state existed" and he lived entirely in that period. If we go by the MOS as currently worded I think we would have to omit "Polish", but that would, to my mind, greatly diminish the context conveyed. How should that be handled, and should the MOS be updated to reflect this scenario, or update the article? —DIYeditor (talk) 22:55, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

In cases like this, I think it should be removed from the first sentence, but I think there's still a better way of conveying the information in the lede. For example, adding a sentence like "A member of the Warsaw Cadets Corps, he took part in the 1830 November Uprising of young Polish officers against the Russian Empire." Jayjg ^(talk) 15:14, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

In such cases it's important to link the "nationality" correctly. In the January Suchodolski article, "Polish" currently links to Poland which is surely incorrect, since during his lifetime there was no Poland. Jayjg's sentence links "Polish" to Poles (aka Polish people) which is better. — Stanning (talk) 14:44, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Poles is an ethnicity not a nationality, and (according to the linked MOS) "should generally not be in the lead". I think this case may be an exception, as his Polish ethnicity is highly relevant to his participation in the uprising, but it would be a mistake to generalize from it and start linking to Poles in the leads of all pre-independent-Poland people of Polish ethnicity. I certainly agree that we should not claim that people are citizens of countries that did not exist during their lifetime. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:07, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

This is the old nonsense about Germany and Italy not existing until the relevant 19th-century dates, which ips regularly drag up. All these countries existed both as nations and as geographical countries before the states were formed. There must be a link for Russian Poland. Johnbod (talk) 02:49, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Russian Partition or Congress Poland, maybe? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:15, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Hadley Kay

The article at Hadley Kay contains the custom hatnote:

This article holds a Kay clan name. According to Kay custom, this person is properly addressed by his name, Hadley.

This seemed kind of inappropriate, and my first instinct was to remove it, but I've seen similar sorts of standard ones when there's some sort of clarification for family/given name order. So I thought I'd just double check here first. Thanks, –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 00:52, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

@Deacon Vorbis: Similar standardized hatnotes, as those for Icelandic names (patronymic) and Japanese names (reversed order compared to European names), concern well-known and well-documented name practices that somehow differs from what most modern-day Westerners may expect. (Which is not to say that they are unusual or non-standard. Patronymics have been common in large parts of Europe in the not-so-distant past and are still the normal type of name in e.g. Ethiopia and Somalia). In contrast, I don't see how this one, for a contemporary Canadian person, would make any sense, and it is not supported by any source in that article or in the Kay (surname) to which it links. Cena Arz (talk · contribs) who added this hatnote on 24 Dec. 2016 added similar ones to other articles, but as far as I can tell, they have been removed. --Hegvald (talk) 09:11, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Positions, offices, and occupational titles needs clarification

There are not enough examples provided for this section, especially for the "Unmodified, denoting a title" part. This has lead to a lot of confusion, since it is hard to interpret if it is correct to capitalize something when there are only three examples of capitalized nouns. Can anyone who is very experienced and knowledgeable in this area add more examples to the article, and provide me with some as well? BobRoberts14 (talk) 05:52, 13 June 2019 (UTC)BobRoberts14

New Trans Rule Suggestion

If a trans person changes their surname, their previous surname should be listed in brackets as a "né" or "née".

For example

Nikita Dragun (née Nguyen; born January 31, 1996) 

We are not calling her Nicholas Nguyen as that would be disrespectful and dead-naming.

Munroe Bergdorf (née Beaumont; born on 11 September 1987)

We are not calling her Ian Beaumont as that would be disrespectful and dead-naming.

This should be a rule as a birth name is important information and it bridges the gap between this and dead-naming.

You can't dead name a surname as surnames have no gender. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SupremeGiraffee (talk • contribs) 14:10, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Pope Benedict XVI

Might be having a little trouble over at the infobox of Pope Benedict XVI, concerning the usage of Bishop of Rome. More input would be appreciated. GoodDay (talk) 17:12, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Changed/Removed Middle Name

I want to know the consensus on a changed middle name.

For example John Jacob Smith changes his name to John Smith, what would his lede be?

A) John Smith (born 25 July 1999)

b) John Smith (born John Jacob Smith; 25 July 1999)

can we please make a RULE for this please.

Do you mean if they'd legally changed it? b). But in this instance it would need to be made clear in the text that this was an actual legally changed name, not just an instance of someone not using their middle name (as most people don't), as some editors incorrectly insist on using this form for that. If they just don't use the middle name then it would simply be "John Jacob Smith (born 25 July 1999)", as the name actually used is reflected in the article title. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:23, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I mean legally. Doesn't this look a bit reptetive though?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by JavaPythonLutz (talk • contribs) 11:45, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

It does, but it's not a common thing in any case. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:03, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Post-nom style

Given that we haven't been able to decide on a particular style for post-nominal letters, I suggest that we treat post-noms in the same way as dates, spellings, citations etc: ie, as valid, differing styles. How this is presented at MOS:NUM:

Where this manual provides options, consistency should be maintained within an article unless there is a good reason to do otherwise. The Arbitration Committee has ruled that editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style, and that revert-warring over optional styles is unacceptable. If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor.

And the request for arbitration referred to:

Wikipedia does not mandate styles in many different areas; these include (but are not limited to) American vs. British spelling, date formats, and citation style. Where Wikipedia does not mandate a specific style, editors should not attempt to convert Wikipedia to their own preferred style, nor should they edit articles for the sole purpose of converting them to their preferred style, or removing examples of, or references to, styles which they dislike.

An addition similar to the MOS:NUM one would prevent edit wars and "helpful" mass changes. Specific takeaways from the above:

• Where Wikipedia does not mandate a specific style, editors should not attempt to convert Wikipedia to their own preferred style - We havn't decided on s specific style and so there are multiple, valid styles for post-noms; we shouldn't be edit warring over them.
• editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another - WP:POSTNOMS shows three different styles (normal sized text without commas, normal with commas, small without commas). The template is set up for all three, though defaults to small/without.
• [...] without a substantial reason - WP:POSTNOMS specifies that "If a baronetcy or peerage is held, then commas should always be used" and "|size=100% parameter when it is used in an infobox", therefore changes would be made to uphold this.
• And to prevent edit wars: defer to the style used by the first major contributor - and not just the first use of the template, but to the first proper style used.

I think this would solve WP:POSTNOM style issues, especially given the historic precedence. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 19:43, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. It should be the first style used in the article. Definitely not the first use of the template, given the template is a relatively recent innovation and has been mass-added recently, with existing postnoms converted to the template. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:32, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Non-notable birth names

I would suggest that if the individual has not been notable under their birth name, but couldn't change it due to legal requirements, the birth name should not be given in the lead. I believe the crite

For example

(from Miley Cyrus) Miley Ray Hemsworth (born Destiny Hope Cyrus; November 23, 1992) ... She was notably known as Destiny Cyrus, but nicknamed Miley, before she changed it legally. This would mean that before she legally changed her name, her musical work would be credited under Destiny Cyrus

(from Frank Ocean) Frank Ocean (born October 28, 1987) ... Ocean never notably known as Christopher Edwin Breaux, therefore it is not listed in the lead. He didn't produce any work until after he changed his name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.0.251.199 (talk) 18:39, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Birth name, assuming we can verify it, seems like basic information that should be in the lead in my opinion. What is the objection to including it? There are many, many counterexamples like Elton John, Marilyn Monroe, Tom Cruise, Harry Houdini, Mark Twain, Shania Twain, Meghan Markle, Olivia Wilde, Reese Witherspoon, Bruno Mars, Gigi Hadid, Katy Perry, Natalie Portman, Demi Moore, Joaquin Phoenix, Julianne Moore...in fact I can't seem to come up with another example other than Frank Ocean that doesn't have a birth name in the lead. Perhaps we should just add it to his article? CThomas³ (talk) 05:25, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, include the birth name in the lede. GiantSnowman 07:40, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. Essential and basic information. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:44, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Agree with above, birth names are encyclopedic material. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:13, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree that non-notable birth names are better suited for the body of the article, or at least later in the lead. I can’t think of a good reason why the reader would need to know that info before even getting to why the person is notable.--Trystan (talk) 12:45, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Keep in mind that there is a difference between “Notable” and “Noteworthy”... the decision on whether to include alternative names in the lead (or not) has more to do with noteworthiness than notability. There is no “right answer” to the question. Blueboar (talk) 12:58, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

By “non-notable birth names”, I mean birth names under which the subject was not notable. I agree that most birth names are noteworthy, and thus worthy of including somewhere in the article, with position determined by its relative importance.--Trystan (talk) 13:50, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Indeed. "I can’t think of a good reason why the reader would need to know that info before even getting to why the person is notable" - well, here's one. In many cases (ok, not Miley Cyrus) the reader may have come via a redirect from an alternative name, & they need to know straight away they are at the right place. It varies case by case imo, & a firm rule is not a good idea. Johnbod (talk) 13:41, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

That’s only likely where the person was notable under the birth name, in which case I agree that it should be mentioned in the first sentence. But, eg, there are no incoming links for Thomas Cruise Mapother.--Trystan (talk) 13:50, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

What you are really discussing is the question of how much weight to give the alternative name. Is it worth noting in the lead, or should it be noted later in the article? Again, there is no right answer to that. It is a judgement call. I would oppose a firm “rule” either way. There is no need for uniformity on this question. Blueboar (talk) 14:05, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

So would I. But we already have a firm rule, MOS:CHANGEDNAME. The only listed exceptions to including the full birth name in the lead sentence are (1) for people with many different names, in which case they are distributed throughout the lead section, and (2) for trans people who were not notable under that name.--Trystan (talk) 14:43, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

That is a guideline, not a strict rule. For example, on Martin Luther King Jr.'s page, it was decided that since his name was changed in early childhood and there would not really be any people who knew him in a personal way only by his birth name, to not include it. This is different than for example someone who spent their school years going by their birth name and changed it later, in which their classmates might not know about the changed name. However, it does mention that his first name given at birth was Michael later in the article and in the personal details section (which most of us would not argue against doing except in cases where there are BLP privacy issues at stake). Okieditor (talk) 19:01, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Guideline though it may be, in my experience the inclusion of birth names in the lead sentence is nearly universal and rather zealously defended. Though I am pleased to learn of an exception in the MLK Jr article.--Trystan (talk) 23:16, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Another reason IMO for not automatically putting non-noteworthy birth names in the lead that I thought of: Wikipedia doesn't do the equivalent for non-human entities (e.g. companies, cities, etc.) that have changed their name. (In some cases the old name is mentioned in the lead if it's likely someone would be searching via that name, and it would typically be mentioned later in the article in the appropriate section(s) if a sourced fact, but not automatically in the lead as is the current standard practice for people.) Okieditor (talk) 19:24, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Except sometimes we DO mention the previous names for non-human topics in the lead... for example, see our article on the MetLife Building in NYC... which notes that it was formerly known as the “PanAm building” in the second sentence. There are no firm rules here. Nor should there be. Blueboar (talk) 21:05, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion — Preceding unsigned comment added by JavaPythonLutz (talk • contribs) 14:50, 19 June 2019 (UTC) I think the rule should be this: If the person was famous before changing their name, it should be listed in the lead, for example Miley Cyrus. However, if they were not, for example Frank Ocean, it should not. It still should mentioned, later on in the article, like the 'Early Life' section. However, I must add, it should be judgemental and 'case by case'. For example, nobody will ever assocaite the name 'Christopher Edwin Breaux' with Frank Ocean. But people may link Destiny Hope Cyrus with Miley.

It is traditional for biographies to include all names by which a person was known, whether notable or not. Listing them in the lede is what we have always done and that's what we should continue to do. For a start, knowing someone's birth name can be useful in tracking down information on them before they started using another name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:28, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

(ec) I don't entirely agree. For example Robert Allen Zimmerman, Norma Jeane Mortenson, Marion Morrison and Archibald Alec Leach were never notable or noteworthy under these birthnames, but the names are fairly well-known (pub quiz favourites) and have various things even using them. They should certainly be in the lead, probably the first sentence. Hence a firm rule is inappropriate. Johnbod (talk) 16:06, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

I would phrase the question as “Why is this information so important that it needs to interrupt the lead sentence?”. Neither “Because that’s what we have always done,” nor “Because it’s common pub trivia,” are very satisfactory answers.--Trystan (talk) 23:23, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

@JavaPythonLutz, NamingforWikipedi, and 86.0.251.199: why are you using multiple accounts to edit? GiantSnowman 16:00, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Unless it's a transgender, of course. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.131.66.228 (talk) 11:47, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Distinguishing honorific from religious post-nominals

The current policy on post-nominal letters is to remove all post-nominal letters except in the lede sentence. The problem is that this policy only contemplates honorific post-noms like CBE. The usage of post-nominal letters that indicate membership in a religious order is very different, where the letters are very commonly appended to a name and serve a useful purpose of communicating information about the person. E.g. John W. Beschter, S.J. (with S.J. standing for Society of Jesus). Therefore, I propose adding to the policy a statement on religious post-nominals that they may be included in infoboxes (because this communicates continuity of a particular religious order holding an office) as well as anywhere within an article upon the first introduction of a new name that bears post-nominal religious letters. They would be used only in the first instance and never thereafter (except for in succession boxes). Ergo Sum 01:16, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Sounds sensible, although saying "the Jesuit John W. Beschter" in running text is more clear for those not familiar with the abbreviations. Only a few are very widely understood - S.J. and O.P. Johnbod (talk) 02:52, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Without your Wikilink I would have understood only SJ. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:44, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Postnominals are commonly used in infoboxes! -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:25, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

The MOS states Post-nominals should not be added except to a biography subject's own lead sentence, in an infobox parameter for post-nominals, when the post-nominals themselves are under discussion in the material, and in other special circumstances such as a list of recipients of an award or other honor. Can you (Ergo Sum give an example of where religious post-noms would be needed outside of the one given in the MOS? Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 18:38, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

This has come up with regard to edits at Loyola Marymount University, removing S.J., C.M., R.S.H.M., and C.S.J. from various faculty and administration members. These are in a different class than honors/awards, giving relevant and useful information about the person's religious order affiliation, as justified (I believe) by the second paragraph at MOS:CREDENTIAL: ... may occasionally be used within an article where the person with the degree is not the subject, to clarify that person's qualifications with regard to some part of the article .... Should these remain in the article? How about Ph.D., which can also be justified as a qualification? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:18, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

(Pinging Ergo Sum and Gaia Octavia Agrippa) —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:25, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

I'd say on pages of a religious institution that religious post-noms would be acceptable. If its a Jesuit university, for example, an SJ post-nom alongside the names of the teaching staff would serve a purpose rather than being "decoration" (and writing out in full that they were Jesuits would take up more wording). Likewise, they can be used in church or monasteries articles, etc. On other articles, eg a secular university or a home town, they are likely not appropriate. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 14:10, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Changed names

In the section Changed names it states "In some cases, subjects have had their full names changed at some point after birth"

In Britain babies are born with no names ("Have you decided upon a name yet?"). They obtain a name when the birth is registered (and certified copy of the register is issued). In previous centuries the baptismal date and the birth date were rarely the same day and usually only the baptismal date was recorded along with the name. So the statement is not correct and is misleading. -- PBS (talk) 17:10, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps

"In some cases, subjects have had their legal names changed at some point after their birth is registered".

would be more accurate. -- PBS (talk) 17:14, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

But if Mr & Mrs Smith have a baby it is immediately "Baby Smith", so it does have a partial name at least. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:25, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Not in Britain, the surname in the registry is by tradition usually the mothers surname, or the fathers surname, but it does not have to be. The point is that although after a live birth the child legally exists as a person (for example it would be murder to kill her or him), until the registration takes place the child does not have a legal name. -- PBS (talk) 11:02, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for that assertion? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:41, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Not sure which assertion so here is a shotgun reply. As it happens this has just become topical see Man who refused to register son's birth loses high court case The Gurdian (23 June 2019) legal judgment High court of Justice Family Division Case No: ZE/40/19 12/06/2019 (PDT) in the legal judgment it refers to an earlier case and states "i) the choosing of a name (forename and surname) for a child by a parent with parental responsibility; and..." nothing there about any restrictions on choice of surname. See also deed poll office-name change-children "the initial registration of the child’s name is seen to be a profound matter... it’s thought to be becoming gradually more acceptable for children to bear a different surname from other members of a family, and so a desire to fit in with the rest of a family isn’t given a lot of weight." -- PBS (talk) 22:31, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, a most interesting read. The key components seem to be the Judgement Re C [2016] 3 WLR 1557 in which King LJ referred to "i) the choosing of a name (forename and surname) for a child by a parent with parental responsibility;". Changing a child’s name by deed poll emphasises that it is much harder to change a child's surname than its forenames but otherwise makes no comment upon the selection of names at birth. Clearly I'll accept that surnames are not automatic following King's judgement. There always was some wiggle room where parental surnames differed, but I had always understood that a child born in wedlock to two identically surnamed parents would automatically take the same sire-name or family-name. Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 08:31, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

I think this change unnecessarily complicates the guideline. “Birth name” can naturally be read as including “name registered shortly after birth”. The change also makes the guideline significantly less universal. By making it about registration, to account for a quirk of British law, it now excludes the 1/4 of children globally who do not have their births registered.--Trystan (talk) 13:59, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

in the context of the sentence I do not see how you can argue that "Birth name" can be interpreted as including a name registered shortly after birth. This is a question of legal name. It can also be a political issue because if a child is still born then they do not have a birth name even though they were born. Some pople are pressing for this to be changed.

Is there a First World Country which does not require registration of a child? I would explect most developing countries to require it as well, do you know of any that do not? -- PBS (talk) 15:17, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

The UK government uses “birth name” to refer to the name recorded on a birth certificate,[34][35] so I don’t agree that the term doesn’t apply to the UK legal context.

For a general guideline that applies globally, it’s preferable to stick with broad terms. It’s not necessary or practical to word it in a way that requires making assumptions about specifics, like how registration works in every country.--Trystan (talk) 19:58, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Use of née

FYI

There's a discussion of the use of née for Hilary Clinton that you are invired to join at Talk:Hillary_Clinton#Use_of_née. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 08:21, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Gender identity section

I reverted MJL's recent addition of the Gender identity section pending further discussion. Given the MOS:GENDERID debates at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style and elsewhere on Wikipedia, and that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Gender identity, which is not yet a guideline (and may not be one in the future), is still being worked on via discussions at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Gender identity, this addition should have input from more editors. I'll alert Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style to this matter. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:17, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

I support centralized discussion. I am ready to support anyone linking to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Gender identity or wherever the centralized discussion is. MJL I encourage you to develop this issue and say whatever you want, but the history is that we have had this conversation in 100 places. If you like, block off space in this manual to describe the general problem without saying what to do about it, because all the solutions are controversial. Then go to a centralized discussion elsewhere and describe everything in detail with examples or anything else.

Here in this documentation we have space for a few sentences. We should use that to link to another discussion, not try to summarize everything here. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:26, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry and Flyer22 Reborn: I'm sorry to both of you, but I am confused about what the exact objection is to the addition nor how it is being suggested I move forward? Add this to MOS:IDINFO? Start an RFC? I'm open to suggestion, but I seem to be missing something here. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:46, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

I was only suggesting that it have more input from others first. I'm usually like this with all of the guidelines and policies I watch. When I see a substantial change, I'm usually like, "This should be discussed first." Like a part of the tag at the top of the guideline states, "Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus." It helps to make sure that we are all on the same page and see if anyone objects to any piece or has an idea for improving a piece. I think you should wait and see what other watchers of this page have to state and what editors from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style may state. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:55, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

MJL I support the idea of putting this in its own section as done at special:diff/905215985#Gender_identity. I criticism I have is that I think that about half the content should be cut, any half. The overall discussion is huge. If we have only minimal content and link to the full discussion, then there, everyone can see all the issues covered and discuss more. Whenever we try to make the discussion here longer, we get into debates about what to include and exclude and no one is satisfied. There is not much space here, so best to not go into much detail here. Make a minimal presentation, link out, and encourage discussion centrally elsewhere. Do whatever you can to prevent small side discussions from growing, and instead put everyone in the same place. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:58, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: [Thank you for the ping] how about this:

Extended content

==== Gender identity ==== {{See also|Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Gender identity|Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Gender identity}} {{shortcut|MOS:GENDERBIO|WP:GENDERBLP}} Special care should be taken in the area of [[gender identity]]. Articles should always use the subject's [[WP:V|verified]] preferred personal pronoun. In cases where this may be confusing, such as describing events in the subject's life before they [[Coming out|came out]], it is recommended practice to provide a concise footnote explaining the irregularity. The lead should only include a person's (1) birth name if they were considered notable by it and (2) gender identity when its [[WP:UNDUE|especially notable]].

Fix ping: Bluerasberry –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:42, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Y Yes! Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:56, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

The footnote and gender identity suggestion of "should only" doesn't work in all cases. For example, if the person is non-binary and the article uses singular they per the subject's preference, it is best to note this in the lead (if also covered lower in the article, as it should be if it's going to be in the lead) so that readers will understand why the article is using singular they instead of a gender pronoun for the person. This is done, for example, with the Emma Sulkowicz article. And what is "especially notable" compared to "notable"? Also, since "due" is what is meant instead of "notable," as is clear by you pipelinking to it, "due" should be used in place of "notable." Our notability guideline is only about creating articles or adding content to articles per WP:No page. If you reply to me on this, I prefer not to be pinged. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:02, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

• I can agree with the addition of limited to bio articles... but it is problematic when dealing with non-bio articles. For example, in the article about the 1976 Olympics, settled consensus (after lengthy debate) was that we should use the name “Bruce Jenner” when discussing the decathlon. In this specific context, if we needed to use a pronoun (which thankfully we don’t), we would use “he”... even though we use “Caitlyn” and “she” at the bio article. My point is that while we do want to respect a subject’s desires, historical context also matters. Blueboar (talk) 20:50, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

I am on the middle on this. Some hardliners argue that Wikipedia should never, under any circumstances, publish a trans person's deadname. I cannot agree to this. Per WP:NOTCENSORED, if someone was famous under a former name we need to record it.

On the other hand, the harm of deadnaming needs to be recognized: a trans person's former name can have many of the characteristics of a slur. I imagine some people will find that statement hard to swallow: how can a name be a slur? Well, it's something that's affixed to a member of a minority group against their will. It's often considered harmful and emotionally charged. It can, and often is, used to demean and insult a person. In one Chelsea Manning move discussion, there's a section with sources talking about how misnaming trans people is harmful. I've copy-pasted it below:

Sources discussing how naming decisions affect trans people

This section can also be used to gather reliable sources that discuss the use of names to refer to trans people. Note that this move request covers only the naming portion, and not the pronoun question. What’s in a Name?: “I AM A SITUATION LIKE THIS” A. Finn Enke, editor of Transfeminist Perspectives in and beyond Transgender and Gender Studies, considers names, pronouns, and learning from Chelsea Manning. "it is extremely disrespectful to be called by a pronoun or name one does not chose for oneself. It invalidates ones identity and self-concept. This lack of validation and recognition can and often does lead to depression and suicide." (Transgender Law Center) Subsection of Trans media watch submission to the Leveson Inquiry (press controls in the UK, [36]). On page 11 they discuss methods by which the press aggress against trans people; the first bulletpoint in that section: "Routine use of previous names - even when the use of these names is intensely painful or places them in actual danger. Typically a transitioning transsexual person will wish to move on from their previous identity, having perhaps lived in deep distress within that ’identity’ in the past. They may be working with colleagues who know nothing of their past, or they may not have revealed their life story to neighbours. Gratuitous revelation can lead to abuse. Further, for transgender people who have a Gender Recognition Certificate, it is illegal for an individual working in an "official capacity" to disclose a person’s previous name. They are, for all legal purposes, recognised in the gender in which they live. This seldom makes any difference to the press." "The use of ‘before’ names as well as photographs of the individuals in question not only causes obvious distress but can place them at risk" (Leveson Inquiry, section 3.20 on p65, summary) Juliet Jacques article discussing choosing a new name. She states that someone using her old name can be "a mistake [or] a malicious attempt to undermine my identity". Some editors have expressed a concern that the following source is not reliable, while other editors consider it to be reliable: Wikipedia’s Deadnaming Violence ("our old name are frequently weaponised against us, often as a precursor to physical violence. And the violence of weaponized old names springs from the same disrespect, mockery, and hatred that informs fatal physical violence. These are all connected.") (Urban Achives) (written by digital media ethics scholar)

When deciding how to handle a trans person's former name we must be cautious and WP:Neutral. We must avoid WP:Harm and must respect the basic human dignity of each WP:living person.

Ultimately what we should do is what we mostly do already: make use of the use-mention distinction. We should never use a trans person's former name (unless they've stated a preference otherwise) but at times we should sparingly mention a former name, if it is historically relevant. This is what, for example, the Switched-On Bach article does. It says the album was created by American composer Wendy Carlos, even though that wasn't her name at the time, but then the article mentions the former name that she originally released the album under. This is what mainstream sources do as well: Here's a New Yorker piece that uses Chelsea Manning's chosen name but mentions her birth name.

Although this use-mention distinction is mostly already adhered to, it would be helpful if it was officially codified in the guidelines.

As for Caitlyn Jenner, that may be a special case, as apparently she has said she is comfortable with publications using her former name when talking about her Olympic career: With Jenner’s approval, in this story, the historical figure who won the gold medal in 1976 is referred to as Bruce and with male pronouns. The woman who lives now as Caitlyn is referenced with female pronouns. As I said above, an exception can be made if it's in line with the subject's stated preferences. WanderingWanda (talk) 22:02, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

I would agree with my colleague Wander on this (because of course I do). However, I would go a bit farther in one way; I think we should never wikilink a deadname. What do I mean? Well, if we need to use Bruce Jenner in article; This creates a redirect: Bruce Jenner, but not this: Bruce Jenner. I see no reason why this needs to include a single link in the mainspace. It's only exists as a redirect for ease of search, but not for articles if it can be avoided imo. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 01:50, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Well said, Wanda. Support Flyer's desire to air this to gain consensus, as for any P&G change. Also, I would mitigate the always in the proposal with a suggestion to recast a sentence to avoid awkward constructions, e.g., "she fathered a child in 19xx".

One quibble (with 'Extended content' above): [[came out]], not [[Coming out|came out]]. Mathglot (talk) 09:57, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

When someone is notable under a specific name, we HAVE to at least mention that name in the bio article. If that name subsequently changed, our job is to explain to the reader that the name has changed and why. Outside of bio articles - I would agree that, in situations where we do decide to use a pre-transition name, any links should redirect to the current (preferred) name. This is done with other name changes, and name changes due to gender transition are no different. And as for pronouns... using language that avoids the issue is definitely the best solution. When that is impossible, let Context dictate. Blueboar (talk) 11:21, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree with all of what Blueboar stated. MOS:GENDERID says, "MOS:MULTIPLENAMES calls for mentioning the former name of a transgender person if they were notable under that name. In other respects, the MoS does not specify when and how to mention former names, or whether to give the former or current name first." And its "Referring to the person in other articles" section states, "Use context to determine which name or names to provide on a case-by-case basis. Generally, do not go into detail over changes in name or gender presentation unless they are relevant to the passage in which the person is mentioned." What is on this guideline page shouldn't conflict with what's in MOS:GENDERID. This page shouldn't be used to try to trump MOS:GENDERID or get around the MOS:GENDERID debates. It's important that in a case like Jenner's, that historic full name with regard to Olympics is used in Olympic articles. I also stand by what I stated with my "20:02, 7 July 2019 (UTC)" post. I'm not on board with "it is recommended practice to provide a concise footnote explaining the irregularity" as written. A non-binary person's preference for singular they will confuse readers if it's not made very clear to readers in plain text, rather than in a footnote, that this is why the article is not using feminine or masculine pronouns. Mentioning gender identity and pronoun (and name) preference is also important in the case of Janae Kroc, whose Wikipedia article currently mismatches when it comes to gender pronouns. The discussion on that can be seen at Talk:Janae Kroc#Self identification for female pronoun. A permalink for it is here. I've personally known transgender men and women like Jenner and Kroc, who are clear that their previous name does not bother them. They do not consider it a deadname. Or they might do something like what Kroc does. While what Kroc does bothers some transgender people, it's Kroc's choice. We shouldn't force a personal style on Kroc because we think her pronoun preference for her life might have changed. In that discussion about Kroc, I noted, "I don't oppose using feminine pronouns throughout, while still noting the other gender stuff in the Personal life section." But it's her life. Not mine. It shouldn't be about me. Or any of us. It's important to remember that not all transgender people think alike. Because I'm not only around people who think the same, I know this personally. It's why I understand a person scoffing when someone takes it upon themselves to speak for all transgender people. (I'm not saying that anyone in this discussion is speaking for all transgender people. Speaking for most transgender people can also be an issue, however.) Yes, there may be general consensus on how to treat some transgender issues, but I recognize that some people in the transgender community (and those who share their thoughts) simply have more prominent or mainstream views than other transgender people (and those who share their thoughts). And I reiterate that since "due" is what is meant instead of "notable," "due" should be used in place of "notable." I'll alert WP:Village pump (policy) to this discussion to see if we can get more opinions on the above proposal. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:45, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

It's important to remember that not all transgender people think alike. I agree. MOS:GENDERID has language that address this: unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise and any new guidelines should as well. WanderingWanda (talk) 05:52, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

MJL: You've sparked some discussion and thought with your changes and it's appreciated. Thank you for being WP:BOLD.

If I were to evaluate your additions on their own, I wouldn't have major problems with them. However, I'm not sure that I like how it restates things that are already in MOS:GENDERID. For example, this sentence: articles should always use the subject's verified preferred personal pronoun mirrors this sentence in MOS:GENDERID: Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns...that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. Why reinvent the wheel? If you think the Biography subpage should mirror the guidance in the main MOS page, why not copy-paste that guidance? Or transclude it? (No pun intended!)

I do think MOS:GENDERID has a few problems that need to be solved, but this proposal does not address the problems that I see. For example, the MOS should provide more guidance on how to refer to transgender people outside of biographical articles.

Just my two cents. WanderingWanda (talk) 06:09, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

I've followed much of this discussion from afar. In looking at a few of the articles mentioned in the discussion I'm not sure what this addition is really fixing. I think the spirit of the recommendations could be added to the MOS section with little fuss rather than making a largely redundant subpage. I would suggest adding the following, largely as written from the Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Gender_identity#Recommendations to the MOS section Manual_of_Style#Vocabulary. Add the "mention" vs "use" distinction. I think this is somewhat already covered by Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biography#Gender_identity. I don't agree with the "footnote" instead. Either the former name(s) are relevant (it goes in the text) or they aren't (it doesn't need to be in the article). That's actually redundant with the current Biography#Gender_identity guideline but it doesn't hurt to mention it here as well. I think the photo sentence could be condensed and included as well. It's basically saying the same thing as we say about pronouns. Finally, I think the part about awkward sentences should be emphasized. It's very awkward to use a person's current gender identity when describing events that clearly happened prior to transitioning. For example in the Chelsea_Manning#Background, Born Bradley Edward Manning in 1987 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,[31] she was the second child of... In that case and many other examples in the same article, "she" is used to describe actions of Manning during a time that Manning was identifying as male. "She" is used extensively in the section on Manning's military enrollment next to a clearly male looking, pre-transition picture of Manning. It's really odd to say a drill sergeant was yelling at "her" given the drill sergeant was yelling at a person who had a male identity at the time. Perhaps this is just an issue with this article but I would argue that such phrasing should be actively avoided. It might even be helpful to have writing examples to help in such cases. Springee (talk) 02:26, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Without wading into detailed arguments, I will agree with the early observation by Flyer that every proposal about this sort of thing is controversial. Gender matters are probably the most controversial ones in MoS's history. Given that, and given the failure (many times) to come to a consensus to change (including add to our remove from) the limited material at MOS:GENDERID, and given ongoing but iffy work to draft a separate MoS page for this, and given that such matters have previously been subjected to intense, months-long debates at WP:VPPOL, I can't see just adding new stuff about this to MOS:BIO, off-the-cuff. Even a lengthy discussion here is probably insufficient consensus, because few watch this page, but everyone has an opinion on the matter.

I don't think any such idea will be viable without another proposal at VPPOL, or possibly at WT:MOS if also advertised via WP:CENT. No such proposal will go anywhere without all the devils in the details being figured out first. So, it's good to have discussions to ID those problems (many are under discussion already), without treating such spotty threads as community mandates for more or different guidelines on gender identity, yet. They're just baby steps in that direction.
— AReaderOutThataway ^t/_c (SMcCandlish via untrusted/public WiFi), 20:34, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

avoid sentences like "Clinton met Clinton while they were students at Yale."

This is wonky. The example is used at MOS:SURNAME. Its point is to say use "Rodham met Clinton while they were students at Yale", referring to Hillary using her then-current surname.

Don't get me wrong, the advice to avoid "Clinton met Clinton" is entirely sound, but that's MOS:SAMESURNAME. (And revisiting the Clintons there would only be confusing, so I'm not suggesting any change to that section)

Boldly editing this now.

CapnZapp (talk) 09:37, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Edit-warring over MOS:ETHNICITY at Brunel and Bugatti

Half a policy is a dangerous thing.

Icewhiz (talk · contribs) is busy with a campaign across bios to remove MOS:ETHNICITY claims from the leads. However in some cases (and these are two) then their international origin and early emmigration is a crucial aspect of their bio, and is appropriate for the lead. ETHNICITY recognises this. Brunel and Bugatti both meet this.

However these are just repeat edit-warring, rather than any discussion. Their discussion since at Brunel is so patchwork (it's not literally wrong, but it mis-emphasises the trivial over the significant) that it merely highlights them not knowing anything about the subject, in favour of simply following the prominent half of the policy. The texts left, "was an English engineer." and "was a French automobile designer" are horribly misleading.

Anyone with some spare eyeballs to comment? Andy Dingley (talk) 11:23, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

In neither case is the birth place relevant to their notability. Bugatti's entire career was in France (to be precise - prior to WWI - Molsheim was in Germany - but not Italy). Brunel's engineering career took place in the United Stated (for less than a decade, not in the lead) and England (notably Thames Tunnel as well as other engineering projects). In both articles the birth place is properly described in the body, however MOS:ETHNICITY is very clear in that we don't highlight prior nationalities / places of birth in the lead when they are not relevant to the subject's notability. There is absolutely nothing misleading in calling a immigrants to France or England (who spent most of their lives there) - French and English respectively. Icewhiz (talk) 11:33, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

So why did an Italian have a career in Alsace? Why, in Bugatti's case, did an Italian who was the heir to a successful and highly notable Milanese furniture designing firm (see Carlo Bugatti) instead relocate to another country? This is precisely the sort of issue which MOS:ETHNICITY recognises.

Why was Marc Brunel an "English engineer"? You claim yourself that his engineering career was American! He was born in France and retained such strong links to France, in particular a faith in the French education system over the English obsession with classics, that he sent his son Isambard to be educated there. To remove this from the lead is to make that lead seriously misleading. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:27, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Most of Brunel's career was in England - and that's certainly the most notable portion of his career. Arguably - being chief engineer in NYC contributed to notability. Brunel's activities in France - do not contribute to his notability. Sending his son to be educated in France - is a NOTINHERITED situation (and one should note the son is notable for his works in England). If the reasons for Bugatti's move (note that his father, Carlo Bugatti, lived on the Milan-Paris line - so this is not quite such a large move) are relevant - perhaps that should be mentioned in the lead (it isn't quite mentioned in the body either) - in any event - what made Bugatti notable were the fine cars produced in the Alsace factory - not his childhood elsewhere. Icewhiz (talk) 12:38, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't know anything about Brunel and Bugatti, but I've almost never seen an instance where ethnicity and/or country of birth (if someone emigrated fairly young) is relevant in the first paragraph, and certainly not in the first sentence of the lede. Nobel prize winning author Imre Kertész, for example, was sent to Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps because he was a Jew, yet the lede of his article nowhere mentions that he was Jewish. François Englert, Walter Kohn, Otto Stern ledes similarly mention nothing of them being Jews, despite having to hide/escape from the Nazis. On the other hand (and I'm not saying that's the case here), I have seen dozens of cases of editors arguing that a specific person is an exception to MOS:ETHNICITY because the fact is important to the editor, though not particularly important regarding the person being described. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:07, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I support Icewhiz's edits, though wouldn't it be better to describe Brunel as 'British' rather than 'English'? GiantSnowman 15:09, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Regarding British vs. English (and Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish, and possibly Irish (proper) in past periods) - that's a good question, and I wonder if there is some MOS (or Wikipedia:WikiProject United Kingdom?) guidance. Currently - articles are completely inconsistent in this regard - possibly since Countries of the United Kingdom muddles things (as these components of the kingdom count as "countries", complete with national sports representation in some instances (e.g. England national football team, England national rugby union team, England cricket team (which still includes Wales, however)). Icewhiz (talk) 15:16, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

It's a small detail in the grand scheme of things, both are correct... GiantSnowman 15:20, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes - but it is inconsistent, and I think I have observed un-Englishing of people (to being described as British) possible not considered "English enough". At present - e.g. [%2221st-century%20English%20people%22}} "is an English" deepcat:"21st-century English people"] vs. [%2221st-century%20English%20people%22}} "is a British" deepcat:"21st-century English people"] - both are being used (in a seemingly random fashion - ignoring sports where I can see the point of "English"). Icewhiz (talk) 15:24, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

We're going slightly off-topic here (though this is probably a discussion worth having at a different time) but as a general rule if they are in 'Category:English XXX' they should be described as 'English', and if they are in 'Category:British XXX' they should be described as 'British'. It's worthwhile sub-catting for athletes, unsure about other professions. GiantSnowman 15:30, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman: I'm pretty sure you mean if they are in 'Category:British XXX' they should be described as 'British'. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:51, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, thank you! GiantSnowman 07:35, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• The point about France is that he was born there. Thus "an English engineer" is problematic from the outset, even though his two main and notable works were in England. If we state "a French-born engineer who settled in England." (as had been stable for ages) then everything is accurately clear from the outset. The article at present is a policy-based [sic] attempt to make it very misleading.

If you are convinced that policy requires you to write a bad article, then you need to take a damned good look at that policy (and ETHNICITY recognises this). Nor is it even policy, it's a styleguide. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:55, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

If ethnicity and nationality are different, why not omit both? —Kusma (t·c) 16:05, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Because that has us treating immigrants in a different fashion than non-immigrants (as well as possibly treating ethnic minorities differently - e.g. are Black English people (generally referred to as English (or British) in the lead - to be described as stateless? Roma? Jews?). Burnel was a seaman as a teenager, escaped France at the age of 24 and after a few year in the US he arrived in England at the age of 30. He married, constructed great engineering projects, became a fellow of Royal Society, was knighted (age 72), probably ate his share of Sunday roast and Yorkshire pudding, died in England at the age of 80, and was buried in London. Brunel was an Englishman. Icewhiz (talk) 16:15, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I think that's the point; indicating someone's birthplace (or ethnicity) in the lede (particularly the first sentence/paragraph) differentiates "native"/"real" English people from "immigrants"/"minorities". I'm not saying that was the intent here, but it is certainly the effect. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:48, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Jayjg, speaking as an immigrant, I am different from the native English people (and identify as different), so I don't see a huge problem with differentiation there. It might be useful to check what people identify as, and what reliable sources say. —Kusma (t·c) 20:07, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, everyone is different from everyone else. We're all unique. Wikipedia says the lede is a summary of things about an individual that are particularly notable, and ethnicity typically isn't one of those things. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:13, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

No-one is saying that it is. But as ETHNICITY notes, there are a few cases when it is. These are two of them. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:06, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

The best test for MOS:ETHNICITY - for whether ethnicity is relevant to the subject's notability - is whether that relevance can be concisely stated. And if it can be, then just include that statement of relevance in the lead, rather than the bare statement of ethnicity. For Brunel, I don't see how his country of birth is related to his notability such that it would warrant mention in the first sentence. However, I have rewritten the lead to better summarize the article, so it does now get a mention in the second paragraph.--Trystan (talk) 02:32, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: Which of the following should be described in the first sentence of the article "a French-born English xxx" rather than "an English xxx", and why: Theodore Roussel, Augustus Jules Bouvier, Dominic Serres, Theodore Janssen? Jayjg ^(talk) 13:08, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm unfamiliar with any of those, so I have no opinion on them. Even if I did have an opinion, there would be nothing to base it on, so no credence should be given to it. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:10, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: Would you object if someone removed "French-born" from the first sentence of each article? Jayjg ^(talk) 15:22, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

I literally would not care, because I know nothing about any of the subjects, thus I have no substantial opinion about them. Janssen would seem unusual, as even today, British MPs are not often born overseas. Perhaps they might have some justification for it, but again, if I know nothing of the subject I cannot express an opinion on them. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:53, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

My 2 cents (based on reading the body of each article - the lead should summarize the body) - Roussel - marginal (very early career in France), Bouvier - no birthplace, Serres - no birthplace, Janssen - no birthplace. Janssen is the most clearcut of the bunch - there's absolutely nothing in his bio on France (other than being born there in 1658, departing in 1680 - everything else is on stuff he did in England - including being a MP). Icewhiz (talk) 13:40, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

@Icewhiz: It's a pretty good list, though, isn't it? :) Jayjg ^(talk) 15:22, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

A fine list for future improvement, yes. Icewhiz (talk) 15:25, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

JOBTITLES

Can we talk about this mess before it gets worse?

Capitalized in first sentence deCapitalized in first sentence President of Algeria Chief Executive (Afghanistan) Prime Minister of Algeria President of Afghanistan Co-Princes of Andorra Prime Minister of Albania President of Angola Prime Minister of Albania President of Argentina Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo President of Armenia Prime Minister of India Prime Minister of Armenia Chief Justice of the United States Prime Minister of Australia Chief Justice of Hungary President of Austria Chancellor of Austria Prime Minister of Azerbaijan President of Azerbaijan Prime Minister of the Bahamas King of Bahrain Prime Minister of Bahrain President of Bangladesh Prime Minister of Bangladesh Prime Minister of Barbados President of Belarus Prime Minister of Belarus Monarchy of Belgium Prime Minister of Belgium Prime Minister of Malaysia Prime Minister of Moldova Prime Minister of Nepal Prime Minister of the Netherlands Prime Minister of New Zealand Chief Justice of India Chief Justice of Ghana Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines Chief Justice of Canada Chief Justice of Pakistan Chief Justice of Sri Lanka Chief Justice of Australia Chief Justice of South Africa Chief Justice of Malaysia President of Pakistan Prime Minister of Pakistan President of India (prime minister deCapitalized) President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (prime minister deCapitalized)

What is going on here? Are we really going to de-capitalize all these articles? There are hundreds more. Isn't it time we gave up on this failed experiment? --- Coffeeandcrumbs 11:23, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

The current trend is towards decapitalizing. No doubt, all those article will have their 'bold' intros decapitalized. GoodDay (talk) 11:40, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Shouldn't it start at Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It is only fair those with the most to say about the matter lead by example. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 11:48, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

You can decapitalize them all, if you wish. WP:JOBTITLES appears to have gone that way. GoodDay (talk) 12:02, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

There are a number of editors who dislike caps, and remove them, but there is also considerable resistance. I wouldn't agree "The current trend is towards decapitalizing" qat all. Johnbod (talk) 14:42, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

MOS:HONORIFIC & "honorific_prefix" in bio infoboxes

A disagreement has arisen as to whether it's appropriate to use the field "honorific_prefix=" to list military and paramilitary ranks. For example:

• |honorific_prefix=<small>''[[Obergruppenführer|SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS]]''</small> |name=Gottlob Berger
• | honorific_prefix = ''[[Grand Admiral|Großadmiral]]'' | name = Karl Dönitz

I would appreciate input on this matter. --K.e.coffman (talk) 03:18, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Military ranks (generally including officers of the rank of major or equivalent and above) are honorifics, which is why the documentation for Template:infobox military person includes "honorific_prefix – titles such as "Sir", "General"" as an example. One look at Debrett's makes it clear that military ranks are honorifics. If retired military officers are invited to anything swanky, they are always referred to as Major or General Fooian, not just Mr Fooian. I have never had anyone question the placing of honorifics in the first sentence or infobox at FA, see the infoboxes of Pavle Đurišić and Raymond Leane for examples going back seven years or more, but the use of rank as an honorific in the lead of articles is applied by other editors, see Harry Chauvel, Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig and John Monash. I have never had anyone question it before, whether it related to Nazis, Yugoslavs, Australians or anyone else, and it makes me question whether this is yet another example of something that K.e.coffman just doesn't like, typically because there are Nazis involved. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:04, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Capitalization of job titles

Hello, all. I'm looking for clarification on two constructions of job titles where I'm not sure if the job title is "addressed as a title or position in and of itself" (and should be capitalized) or if we are really just treating the job title a common noun and omitting "the" and/or "as the" as matter of style.

Ideally, I'd gain a consensus here and then add the correct examples to the table in MOS:JOBTITLES.

* As President of the United States, Nikon went to China.
* As president of the United States, Nikon went to China.
* As [the] president of the United States, Nikon went to China.

* In 1972, Nixon was re-elected President of the United States.
* In 1972, Nixon was re-elected president of the United States.
* In 1972, Nixon was re-elected [as the] president of the United States.

What are the thoughts of the editors assembled here? —Eyer (If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message to let me know.) 19:41, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

How many photos did Nikon take? I'm afraid that's my first thought! Johnbod (talk) 12:44, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

The first example in each case is the correct capitalization. Public offices should be capitalized.Theoallen1 (talk) 02:03, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't see how JOBTITLES is unclear as to those examples. The first example in each of your groups is equivalent to table column 1 example 1: Richard Nixon was President of the United States. If there is a modifier such as "the", "president" is uncapitalized. "As" and "re-elected" are not modifiers of "president". Where's the problem? ―Mandruss ☎ 04:22, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

@Eyer: This is going to be a herculean task to get all cabinet position articles to conform to this standard in both the US and abroad (i.e. Secretary of XYZ, Minster of XYZ, Deputy Under Secretary of XYZ). And uncapitalizing them is going to invite edit wars galore. Ultimately, we'll probably end up with a hodgepodge of capitalized and uncapitalized styles being used with no rhyme or reason. Then there's the issue of historical government titles still in use like Chancellor of the Exchequer. Are we really going to insist that it be the chancellor of the exchequer and second lord of the treasury is...? What about titles derived directly from their department with unusual names? Is the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development headed by the secretary of housing and urban development? I feel like there needs to be a serious discussion and consensus reached on government ministers. - 21:38, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Cross-posting objection originally raised at Talk:President of the United States

I just posted the following text to Talk:President of the United States in response to User:Mandruss pointing to a community consensus in this portion of the MoS:

I just got around into looking up the history of this so-called "community consensus" you speak of. Nonsense. It was a series of unilateral edits to the MoS by User:SMcCandlish in June 2018 after premature closure of a RFC on one of the most important issues of English writing style. At a bare minimum, the RFC should have been circulated on the village pump to solicit additional comments several times over a number of weeks, and I see no sign of that. The largely anecdotal evidence presented by User:SMcCandlish of a purported trend towards lowercase was equally consistent with bad training or overwork on the part of the writers cited and was therefore unconvincing. Wikipedia core policies (WP:NOR, WP:V, WP:NOT) reflect a philosophy that Wikipedia follows, it never leads. It is inappropriate for an editor to attempt to unilaterally impose their novel views on the community and beg the question by referring to a nonexistent consensus. The logical result of adopting a bizarre capitalization style in the Manual of Style—one that does not reflect the style actually used in American English by most educated intellectuals—will be to alienate and drive away even more editors and lead to further deterioration of the English Wikipedia project. For example, Law of New York was vandalized last November, but the number of active lawyer editors on English Wikipedia is now so tiny that no one caught the vandalism for over nine months (until I noticed it a couple of days ago).

I note that User:SMcCandlish has elsewhere voiced disdain for certain traditions of American English. Too bad. There are other places for advocating change to American English, but Wikipedia is not one of them. Alienating Wikipedia users by trying to impose a nontraditional writing style is not a constructive contribution to the Wikipedia project. There's been a lot of news coverage over the past few years over how the English Wikipedia's active editor community is hemorrhaging editors like crazy, and this is definitely not helping.

Unfortunately, I'm far too busy this year working on class actions for the first time to initiate the necessary ArbCom proceeding to obtain appropriate remedies. But I will gladly support any editor who does so. I'm also going to cross-post this to the talk page for the relevant MoS section. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:06, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

I'll just note that editors have widely varying views on why the English Wikipedia's active editor community is hemorrhaging editors like crazy, none with much evidence of causal links. Want to add strength to your argument against something? Just claim that it's a significant part of the reasons why enwiki is hemorrhaging editors like crazy. I have to believe that how we capitalize or don't capitalize titles is not a significant part of the reasons why enwiki is hemorrhaging editors like crazy – my take is that 95% of editors couldn't care much less about that, and few of the other 5% are jumping ship because of it – but that's just my view.

Otherwise I will watch this thread with interest; if there is in fact inadequate community consensus for the current state of MOS:JOBTITLES, I wholeheartedly agree that it needs to be changed. More attention needs to be paid to producing clear, unambiguous, linkable consensus(es) to support the guideline. That requires structure and probably uninvolved close(s). ―Mandruss ☎ 12:18, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

By hemorrhaging, I mean turnover in the sense not only of existing editors but the busy and bright people who never get involved in the first place because they look at Wikipedia and are discouraged from contributing because the writing style is nuts. Because from their perspective, life is far too short to waste time debating long-established points of grammar with people who either weren't trained properly or refuse to recognize that effective communication requires a certain degree of conformance to existing conventions. If I recall correctly, that has also been covered in the news coverage on this issue. --Coolcaesar (talk) 00:16, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

I just wish that the entire community would get involved with this topic & help bring closure on it, one way or the other. Along with article titles, even article intros are inconsistent, concerning capitalization. A prime example are the intros in the bios of US governors & lieutenant governors. GoodDay (talk) 13:07, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

To get the entire community involved this should be bumped up to an even more frequented forum... perhaps Village Pump (policy). Blueboar (talk) 13:17, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Just identified a few more data points on how bad the situation is. There was a study a few years ago that found that something like 60% of all U.S. contracts have a choice-of-law clause pointing to New York. And the ABA reported last year that the United States has around 1.338 million lawyers. So when none of those lawyers is paying attention to Wikipedia to notice that the article on Law of New York had been vandalized, something really terrible is going on.

Another example I just caught: the lead paragraph of the article on the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution was vandalized in February of this year. No one noticed until I just caught it, six months later.

The point is that for Wikipedia to work, smart people have to care. And if they don't care enough or they perceive that the encyclopedia is overrun by editors who don't really understand what it means to care, then they are not going to invest time in the project. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:56, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

A check on a change I made...

List of women in the video game industry has a few notable women whom are known (as they've outted themselves well enough) as transgendered. Given the topic of the list (which is based on the fact that in general there is a lack of female representation in the industry), I removed the addition of identify those individuals that are known as transgendered, letter their article pages speak to that fact. I'm basis this on the idea of DEADNAME; in all cases, these are only notable post-transition so there's no real point to call out their gender identity on this page. (We don't have a page about, say, LGBT in the video game industry, as this has not had the same problem to a degree.)

Is this a reasonable step? --Masem (t) 21:36, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

It appears to be reasonable for this page as it doesnt appear to be relevant to them being noteworthy in the game industry. MilborneOne (talk) 11:07, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Proposal for ambiguous JOBTITLES

Going through all of Wikipedia to uncapitalize all the job titles will inevitably be laborious and ineffectual, even with the help of bots. That's why I'm proposing this style rule that could hopefully make things easier for everyone.

Lower case job titles should be used when the position's organization is clear and unambiguous. For example:

• David Cameron was the the prime minister of the United Kingdom.
• Jim Bridenstine is the current administrator of NASA.
• David Stern was the fourth commissioner of the NBA.

In all three sentences, the organization the person was/is in charge of (bold) is fully stated. However, not all job titles do this...

• Rob Manfred is the commissioner of baseball.

Obviously, Manfred is not in charge of the entire sport of baseball. He is in charge of a specific organization, Major League Baseball, but the job title does not explicitly states this. Similarly...

• Tom Ridge was the first secretary of homeland security.

Again, Tom Ridge was not in charge of the concept of homeland security. He was in charge of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

I propose that when a job title calls out the specific organization it relates to, lower case should be used. However, when the job title does not call out the specific organization, capitalization is appropriate. In the latter case, it can actually depend on the phrasing that is used. For instance:

• Rob Manfred is the Commissioner of Baseball.

OR

• Rob Manfred is the commissioner of Major League Baseball.

...are both acceptable.

Likewise, you can appropriately write:

• Tom Ridge was the first Secretary of Homeland Security.

OR

• Tom Ridge was the first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Anyway, please let me know what you all think about this. --Woko Sapien (talk) 17:04, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. I am partial to the existing guidelines. They closely follow standard style guides like CMOS. —Eyer (If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message to let me know.) 23:25, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

@Eyer: That's fair. But this is a serious proposal, so please formally oppose it. I think this is an issue that deserves an actual consensus. - Woko Sapien (talk) 23:52, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Oppose: Going thru Wikipedia trying to find what would be correct grammar is not the way to do it. There are already established rules for grammar, such as the Chicago Manual of Style, Strunk & White's Elements of Style, the APA and several more, some in print over a hundred years. They should suffice. GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 00:04, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Comment I guess my issue with the existing guidelines is that they are haphazardly applied to current office holders, let alone past office holders. Is there really an appetite to go through every civil servant's article and change their titles from "Secretary/Minister of X" to "secretary/minister of x"? If there actually is, then that's fine...I guess.

I'll point out that even the Chicago MOS encourages flexibility and common sense here. The olive branch I'm trying to offer is a way to maintain the MOS without undoing years of precedent of Wikipedia. --Woko Sapien (talk) 13:34, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I'll also add that if we're going to adhere the current rules this strictly, articles like First Lord of the Treasury (which has been spelt that way since the early 1700s) would have to be rendered first lord of the treasury. That's probably going to cause an edit war or two. --Woko Sapien (talk) 17:03, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

@Eyer: @GenQuest: Clearly, what I thought was a workable solution is a loser. The inevitable results will be inconsistent and capricious style applications across Wikipedia, but who am I to judge? --Woko Sapien (talk) 19:42, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Woko, this is a perennial proposal that has repeatedly been badgered back and forth for at least ten or twelve years. The existing guidelines have been around forever, but many younger, current editors feel the wheel must be re-invented, hence the capitalization jumble of which you speak. I fear you are tilting at windmills here. I gave up changing titles to proper English years ago, as fighting the battle, article-by-article, was mentally draining. Best of luck if you can continue the fight. GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 02:36, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

I just realized there was an ArbCom proceeding on article titles a while back. The problem at the moment is that everyone who has sufficient training in how to write properly is too busy writing for a living to initiate a new ArbCom proceeding and get a clear ruling on this specific issue (so that admins can start penalizing badly educated users who refuse to conform). --Coolcaesar (talk) 11:25, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

@GenQuest: Didn't realize it was a perennial proposal. Oh well, got to know when to hold them and know when to fold them. --Woko Sapien (talk) 18:13, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Ethiopian aristocratic titles, eg Ras (title)

and Ras (title)#LeulRas - I'm not sure when they should be used - example articles are Kassa Haile Darge Ras (title) itself where it uses Ras at the beginning of names with one article title including it, Kassa Haile Darge and Haile Selassie. Note that Kassa is the name we should use if we adhere to the usual surname after lead, but that article only uses it on its own once, elsewhere using Leul Ras in front of his name in the lead, and Ras Kassa thereafter. Haile Selassie has similar issues. --Doug Weller talk 15:32, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Honorifics

The guidelines about honorifics are context-dependent, aren't they? An editor recently removed all "Hon." from the Viscount Hereford article. In such articles, it seems to me honorifics are relevant.

HandsomeFella (talk) 03:29, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

• @HandsomeFella: The honorific "The Honorable" is specifically mentioned in WP:HON as something that should not be included when speaking in Wikipedia's voice, which is the case with the edit that you reverted, but may be discussed within an article. For instance, if there is a section (as some articles have) on someone's titles from birth to death, then the honorifics are certainly relevant and may be included. Otherwise, they are a violation of neutral POV, just as it would be if I was to go to every mention of a US president and add "The Honorable" or "His Excellency". There are several exceptions listed, none of which apply to the page in question, and obviously those within quotations should be retained. Honorifics may also be included in the infobox of the subject's article, but in this case the subject of the article is the peerage itself, not the specific individuals to whom you reattached the honorifics. PohranicniStraze (talk) 15:27, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

• I realize what WP:HON is saying, but that part of the guideline may need more "development". I think honorifics are clearly relevant in articles that are specifically about nobility.

Let's wait for more input, and if editors in general disagree with me (or if none show up in a reasonable timeframe), I will self-revert.

HandsomeFella (talk) 16:24, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

I was going to jump in and say WP:HON but actually reading the edits I didn't find what I expected. I certainly would object to every mention of a person in a article with Hon. attached. On first mention only it isn't doing much harm but it doesn't matter either way. However, where there is a list/table as in many articles of the children of a peers for example it is appropriate eg.Lord Clinton In lists of title holders its appropriate (the lists are formal) but and its a big but I've never been in favour of the recent trend of some authors for interleaving into the succession lists of peers heirs who never succeeded. Its a list of title holders *not* a family tree. So I'd rather they were not included at all but if they are then I have no issue with 'hon' in such lists Garlicplanting (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

On a related note, I'm curious why MOS:HON carves out an exception for The honorific titles Sir, Dame, Lord and Lady. WanderingWanda (talk) 18:37, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

I've wondered that myself. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:49, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

With regards to Lord/Lady, despite my generally anti-honorific stance, I can see those being useful in certain circumstances, like where it is a substitute for someone's actual title. If you're writing about John Posh, Baron Posh of Over-Poshington, in a situation where the fact that he's a peer is important (i.e., the House of Lords or some such), it can be easier to refer to him as "Lord Posh" than the alternatives. Likewise if you're dealing with someone who held multiple titles over the course of their life, the "Lord/Lady" title can be easier than tracking whether they were a Baron or Earl or whatnot at that specific time. On the other hand, there do seem to be a fair number of people who are referred to as Lord/Lady so-and-so without actually being a peer. The Sir and Dame exception doesn't make sense to me either; perhaps it's a sop to Big Knighthood. PohranicniStraze (talk) 00:46, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

From my memory of many of these arguments long ago was some of the above. It can be a useful short form of disambiguation especially among families (especially where both for- and surnames can be the same) Sir/Dame can serve a similar purpose in families and both that and Lord can have some function where articles jump about chronologically and its helpful to realise that Bloggs was Lord bloggs at this point not Sir John Bloggs or his father/brother/son etc. In terms of Lord. The only non peers referred to this way are the children of Dukes/Marquesses (eldest son/daughters of earls) and the heirs apparent of and their HA (+HA) of Dukes/marquesses depending on their spare titles. (There are some other minor cases but these are rare) Younger children are indicated by the use of a forename 'Lord Thomas Fitzalan-Howard'. Whereas he elder brother and (the) heir can use Lord ArundelGarlicplanting (talk) 11:02, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Because Sir, Dame, Lord and Lady aren't honorifics, they're titles! -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:49, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Ok, just a reminder of the this discussion is about: the inclusion of "(the) Hon." in articles about British titles and nobility. I'm fine with skipping them in other articles, but it seems pretty relevant in articles like Viscount Hereford, Baron Carrington, etc. HandsomeFella (talk) 21:39, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

No, completely unnecessary. They're usually included in the infobox, but not in the lede. No need for honorifics. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:49, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Def not in lead Garlicplanting (talk) 11:44, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

It doesn't make any sense to me that we refuse to call Martin Luther King, Jr. a Dr., but then in the Judi Dench article we load up the lead with pre and post-nominals: Dame Judith Olivia Dench CH DBE FRSA. Feeling very WP:BOLD, I have just made some large changes to make the policy more consistent. WanderingWanda (talk) 22:48, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

I suggest you stop that right now! Luckily your ridiculous changes have been reverted. This is an encyclopaedia, and encyclopaedias record facts. Not including someone's title would be ludicrous. And academic titles are very different from titles granted by the state that effectively become part of the name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:47, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

• I always assumed Sir, Lady, and all of those bootlicking "titles" were not used because Americans, quite rightly, find them odious, or even ridiculous, as vestiges of the old English class system. The argumement that we need them for disambiguation is very weak, in my view. Tony (talk) 00:26, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

  Nonsense (that must be Australians you're thinking of). They can be very useful for distinguishing between, for example, John Donne and Sir John Donne (and don't go frigging with those please). Johnbod (talk) 04:08, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

  Probably less distaste and more that the federal government is banned from assigning titles to persons of interest, as they were a sign that someone was loyal to a non-American government, or something to that effect. My Federalist memory is a bit lacking lately. --Izno (talk) 04:02, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

  Please desist from describing titles as "bootlicking", "ridiculous", "odious", or other such disparaging terms that amount to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. So (some) Americans don't like them? Big deal! This isn't American Wikipedia. And it seems to me that Americans do just as much "bootlicking" to their wealthy businessmen and politicians in any case (I would urge you to watch The Butler!), whether they give them titles or not, and actually have a very well-defined class system, even without titles. These claims that there's no class system in America are frankly so much nonsense. We're not using titles for disambiguation (hence we don't use them in article titles). We're using them because they're used and they're genuine. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:47, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

  You might consider re-reading closely. Tony did not claim that America does not have a class system. --Izno (talk) 12:43, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

  He made offensive comments about the "English class system" and its titles, with the assumption that Americans didn't like it because it was "bootlicking", which suggests that Americans don't hold with "bootlicking", which is clearly complete drivel given the "bootlicking" that appears to surround many people in America from the President on down! Presumably he actually meant "British class system" in any case, since titles are used in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland too. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:57, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

  I'm not sure what "genuine" means in this context. Jayjg ^(talk) 13:12, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

  In that they are awarded by the state and not made-up by their holders or by some tinpot unofficial organisation and they are genuinely used. Usually, in fact. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:57, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

  I agree that we should dial down the "bootlicking" rhetoric. But I am puzzled by the notion that an academic title is less genuine than a knighthood or the like. I am not particularly pro- or anti-honorific, I just think we should be consistent about them. WanderingWanda (talk) 01:51, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

  It's not less genuine. But unlike a title like Sir or Dame it does not effectively become part of the name. It is a replacement for Mr, Ms, etc, which we also don't use on Wikipedia. Incidentally, if someone who has the title of Dr is knighted, he no longer uses that title. The "Sir" supersedes it. Also, we don't use degree postnominals. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:37, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

  So if we don't use "Mrs." or "Dr.", why do we use "Sir"? Jayjg ^(talk) 14:03, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

  Because it's a title that's always used! I think there seems to be some confusion as to the difference between titles and honorifics here. John Smith may be referred to or addressed as Mr John Smith or Mr Smith, but he may not be; "Mr" is an honorific that may or may not be used. If he has a doctorate then the same applies. However, if he is knighted he should always be referred to as Sir John Smith and addressed as Sir John. Not to do so is incorrect as it has essentially become part of his name. It is not an honorific; it is a title. All reputable encyclopaedias and biographical dictionaries use titles; most do not use honorifics. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:53, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

  And always is - or was - the right word. To speak of Martin Luther King, Dr. King, the Rev. Dr. King, is question of register. For a Foreign Office employee to speak of Edward Grey instead of Sir Edward (he was a baronet, while in office) was deep disrespect, and could well be a firing offense. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:46, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

  Titles such as "Sir" have a legal basis for their existence and go into all your official documents. "Mr" does not. Atchom (talk) 02:21, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

So in the Paul McCartney article, McCartney should always be referred to as "Sir James", and not as "McCartney"? Jayjg ^(talk) 16:30, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

"McCartney" is perfectly acceptable. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:35, 19 July 2019 (UTC).

Which is why I said "addressed as"! The surname alone is perfectly acceptable in encyclopaedic articles, as it is with anyone else. Only when the full name is used should the title be added. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:37, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

The titles (and postnominals?) are part of the legal name of the people in the UK, right? Seems to me somewhat like listing ", Inc.", "Corporation", or "GmbH" after the common name of a company in the lead, to give its technical legal name. When the common name does not match the full or legal name of something or someone, shouldn't this be noted at the top of the article? (disclaimer: not an expert on wikipedia policy) —DIYeditor (talk) 21:44, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes on your first and no/kinda on your second. For most companies they are called "Blah" almost exclusively in general use and inc/Gmbh is rare except in paper filings/legals and the most formal contexts. Sir/Dame is general use (on first introduction writing or speech). However the above issue is honorifics which are different, the most common peerage use 'The Hon' discussed above is a matter of courtesy not law, cannot be spoken and is used only in formal written use.Garlicplanting (talk) 10:12, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Postnominals are not part of a person's legal name in the UK. See https://deedpolloffice.com/change-name/changing-your-title. DrKay (talk) 14:59, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Yeah I was referring to the title forgot about the 2nd question in brackets. PN's appear in some official/legal documents and generally in formal contexts but they are not legally joined.Garlicplanting (talk) 08:59, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Part of the legal name? No. Part of the name in that they are always used? Yes. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:21, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Section Honorific prefixes can be interpreted to mean that honorifics such as "Dr" and "Rev." should not be used in articles. I suggest addition of a sentence such as Honorific prefixes such as "Dr" and "Rev" should generally only be used with the person's full name at its first mention, or where its omission would result in nonsense, eg. "Foo, later Dr Foo . . ." Doug butler (talk) 15:00, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

That's a correct interpretation. The advice is not to use them. DrKay (talk) 15:09, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Initials - "markup, not the template"

I struggled a bit with the paragraph

In article text, a space after an initial (or an initial and a full point) and before another initial should be a non-breaking space: J. R. R. Tolkien (or use the {{nbsp}} template). This also works inside links: [[J. R. R. Tolkien]], though only with   markup, not the template.

The intended meaning is as follows, I think.

In article text, including links, use non-breaking spaces between initials (that is, after an initial, or an initial and a full point, and before another initial): J. R. R. Tolkien. Alternatively, but not within links, use the {{nbsp}} template.

Am I right?? If so I’ll amend (unless someone else does first).

- SquisherDa (talk) 09:48, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

I had actually never noticed seeing initials written anywhere with spaces before it became the MOS standard on Wikipedia. Even the Tolkien Society refers to him without. But that's a separate matter. Yes,  s are grossly overused. ―cobaltcigs 01:04, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Request for Comment

Hello, more input is appreciated at this RfC regarding the lead intro on a BLP article. Thank you. Lapadite (talk) 03:07, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguating post-nominals

I was reading Jim Peebles and the presentation of his post-nominal letters (see MOS:POSTNOM) is potentially a bit misleading. It says that he is "OM FRS". Where 'OM' is not the Order of Merit, but the Order of Manitoba. The mouse-over tooltip helps resolve that confusion, but I am not sure how things are generally handled in a case like this. Is this something where we just have to accept that some people might be confused here by the abbreviation, but we have to rely on them checking the link to see which post-nominal is being referred to? How common is it for post-nominals to have the same abbreviation? Carcharoth (talk) 11:22, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Very rare, I would have said. In fact, I'm not sure I know of any others that do when used within the same country. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:09, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I was also trying to work out why he is FRS and not a Foreign Member (ForMemRS). It is because FRS is for those from the UK and the Commonwealth. There may be other orders in other Commonwealth countries that have similar abbreviations, though like you I can't recall anything. Carcharoth (talk) 13:36, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

WP:DEADNAME extension

The Manual designates where the former name should be used in the event that they were Notable under the former name (The Caitlyn Jenner situation), but it does not give guidance as to whether the former name should be used at all in the case where the former name is known (and referencable) but they were not notable under it.Naraht (talk) 14:45, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

MOS:DEADNAME says: It is not necessary to list all previous names of subjects when they are not notably known by them.—Bagumba (talk) 15:57, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Pronoun-indicating template à la "use dmy dates"

I just created a biography where it was pointed out to me that the person has a pronoun preference on their twitter page. No problem, that's been all fixed, but I wanted to put that information in the wikitext in a "quiet" manner that an editor will see that, but we're not calling out to that in the actual visible prose on the page. (While the Twitter page is a self-identification, there has been zero discussion of their gender identity in RSes so I figured there is zero reason to bring it up) I used a standard HTML comment for now so that I can link to the twitter profile. But I was wondering if anyone has made the equivalent of {{use dmy dates}}, a silent template that produces no direct output, but editors and scripts can see it to make appropriate changes and be aware of what the source is for the proper pronoun set. If not, should we have one? Maybe there's a talk page notice box that is a better version so that all editors participating there can tell (eg "This is a Biography of a Living Person that has expressed the use of pronoun set "they/them" when describing them, as stated here (ref). Please respect this decision when making edits to this article and within discussions on this talk page.") --Masem (t) 21:17, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

There is an editnotice template at {{Pronoun notice}} that could be used for this purpose. It looks like it's being used on a dozen or so pages. CThomas³ (talk) 18:40, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Editnotices are obnoxious and best reserved for discretionary sanctions warnings and the like. A silent template like {{use dmy dates}} would be much better.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:15, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Addition to MOS:POSTNOM

I am reopening a discussion that I started back in June to add a provision to MOS:POSTNOM to account for religious post-nominal letters. For example, entering {{post-nominals|SJ}} after the name of a person who is a member of the Society of Jesus. (While the template is not currently configured for religious post-noms, I would configure it to allow that; I have begun a sandbox template for that. In this case, it would render as SJ).

The specific MOS addition would be:

Post-nominal letters may be added in the lede sentence of a biography, appropriate infobox field for post-nominal letters, succession boxes, or a list within an article or a standalone list article that is closely related to a religious order or similar religious entity, to signify an individual's membership in a religious order, if members of that order customarily place an established sequence of such letters after their names.

I appreciate any comments on this. Pinging previous discussion participants: @Johnbod, David Eppstein, Necrothesp, Gaia Octavia Agrippa, and AlanM1:. Examples of where this is already partially in place (i.e. without using {{Post-nominals}}) are List of presidents of Georgetown University (list article example) and Thomas F. Mulledy (succession box example). Ergo Sum 16:17, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm not comfortable with spreading this cruft to lists or other contexts, but "SJ" certainly should be allowed to be included in the subjects' names in the lead sentences of biographical articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:31, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: Do you think, then, the use in the two examples above is improper? Ergo Sum 17:46, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

According to our current standards, definitely. And I'd prefer not to change the standards in that respect. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:54, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: And in the case of infoboxes, such as {{Infobox Christian leader}} or {{Infobox officeholder}}, that have a dedicated parameter for post-nominals? (E.g. Seán Patrick O'Malley) Ergo Sum 03:01, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

I view infoboxes as mostly a waste of space way of writing the lead sentence bigger for people too lazy to read even the actual lead sentence. So from that point of view, if they're ok for the lead sentence, they're ok for the lead. Which is to say, I don't mind it in an article about the person whose name is being decorated in this way. Other people whose names appear in infoboxes should just be named by the titles of their articles, without the glam makeup. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:35, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Agreed with David Eppstein. It's fine in a bio subject's lead sentence and infobox (if the infobox has a parameter for postnoms, which most of the bio ones do, I think), but not in other contexts like lists, or in mid-sentence in an article (other that the subject's own lead). This isn't FormalAddressForMaximumKowtowingPedia. We should only include honorifics of any kind when helpful to far more readers than it's an annoyance to.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:26, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

articles on multiple persons

Can I ask where this is governed (policies, guidelines)? Everything on this page assumes a single person, yet having an article cover multiple persons is not prohibited (or even discussed as a possibility)? Regards CapnZapp (talk) 20:39, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

It would be unusual, but do you have something particular in mind? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:59, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Some certainly exist - Mirabal sisters is one example, and I've seen others. PamD 08:25, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

And by trailing up the category tree from there, I've found Category:Articles about multiple people. PamD 08:26, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Per WP:PROPOSAL: Most commonly, a new policy or guideline documents existing practices, rather than proposing a change to what experienced editors already choose to do. Are there common, existing practices?—Bagumba (talk) 09:11, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

In many cases there will be redirects from some or all of the individuals covered by the article. It would seem to be good practice for these redirects (one per person, at their "common name" - because of course there may be several redirects from one person to allow for alternative names or versions of a name) to have categories such as Category:Living people, Category:1920 births, Category:British women writers (eg if part of an m/f writing duo) and perhaps other categories which aren't covered by the categories for the multi-person article. PamD 10:27, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Is the question about categorization, or something else? Please clarify what we are to discuss. Blueboar (talk) 13:02, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

A good starting point would be to ask where the current practice regarding WP:BLP as it relates to articles on multiple people is documented. The category PamD pointed out includes the rather snazzily titled: Category:Quantified groups of defendants. In there, we find the example of Buffalo Six which is not in Category:Living people, but on the talk page the WikiProject Biography template correctly includes the parameter 'living=yes', which puts the talk page in the category 'Biography articles of living people'. It would be desirable for practice relating to BLPs to be consistent. The template {{BLP}} or {{BLP other}} may be needed as well. This is what I was talking about at this discussion. Carcharoth (talk) 09:30, 11 October 2019 (UTC) PS. There should be somewhere in the archives of discussion relating to either WikiProject Biography or the template used by that WikiProject, discussions about multiple people articles and how to handle them, but I am not sure the discussions were very extensive or conclusive. Carcharoth (talk) 09:33, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I would say that the intent is that any policy/guideline/provision that relates to living people applies, regardless of whether an article is about one living individual or multiple living individuals. Just mentally add a plural to any provision you are reading. Blueboar (talk) 11:59, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes. I did find some old discussions that might help in finding earlier discussions. The terms used appear to have been "group articles" or "articles about a group". And there was at one point a "non-bio" parameter in the template. Not sure if that ever got deprecated or not. See the non-bio parameter and group vs individual bio (no discussion, but it shows how this issue does keep coming up). I think the 'non-bio' parameter was removed in 2009. It was removed with this edit, which referred to this discussion. @MSGJ: who may or may not remember anything about this. :-) There should be a distinction between biographical articles about a single person and biographical articles about groups of people, but I don't think the template was ever set up that way and proposals along that line never got anywhere really. Similar to how proposals to track gender never got anywhere either, but I think Wikidata now tracks gender. Not sure if Wikidata would want to distinguish between articles about a single person and articles about groups of people? Carcharoth (talk) 12:46, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikidata does, and in fact it inspires the classic Bonnie and Clyde problem that causes much moaning elsewhere. --Izno (talk) 18:20, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

BTW, the reason this is tied up with the royalty and aristocracy project(s) is articles such as Duke of Somerset, which function both as a history of a title in the peerage, and also as lists of the title-holders where there are not articles on them. Lists of people are a good example of articles about multiple people, but are different again from the 'brothers' and 'sisters' and 'family' articles. Examples are Darwin–Wedgwood family, but then where do you put Faye family? Other 'groups' also include saints and pop groups. Carcharoth (talk) 12:54, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

The central question seems to be about "the current practice regarding WP:BLP as it relates to articles on multiple people", and that's best asked at WT:BLP, since it's not a style matter. It's been my experience that BLP applies to content not to pages. So, if an article on the Foo Brothers comedy troupe or whatever includes at least one living subject, BLP is going to apply to much of the content in that page, especially material about that individual or about the group as a whole (since that includes said individual). The WP:POLICY- and WP:WIKILAWYER- and WP:GAMING-cognizant approach is to remember that if a policy doesn't enumerate an exception, then there's not an exception. It's not necessary for WP's policies and guidelines to lay out every possibility (WP:CREEP), just establish principles that apply broadly. It's one of the reasons the regulars are so strongly resistant to adding new line-items to guidelines and policies of any kind: they virtually always already cover (directly or by long-established interpretation) the issue at hand, which is what we'd expect for a P&G system developed since January 2001. I agree with Blueboar's "Just mentally add a plural ['persons'] to any provision you are reading." On the categorization matter, it may be that the article needs to be added to a BLP category, or it may be that so categorizing the living individual's redirect to that article (or a redirect like "List of counts of Foo" to "Count of Foo#List of counts of Foo") is sufficient. There's probably some technical nuances (how various bots behave, etc.) to the answer. The BLP regulars would probably have a clearer sense what is the best approach.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:32, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Anonymous pseudonyms

How do we refer to people who are only known by screen-names, online pseudonyms? For example, if we have need to refer to "Boopt3", an anonymous individual who illegally cracked a DRM scheme. Do we just use the pseudonym as the name? Do we qualify it? Is there precedent? —151.132.206.250 (talk) 00:01, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Of course there is - see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biography#Pseudonyms,_stage_names,_nicknames,_hypocorisms,_and_common_names here. Johnbod (talk) 02:34, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

@Johnbod: If there’s mention in there of what to do when the real name (or identity) is unknown, I’m afraid I missed it. Could you answer more directly? Thanks. —96.8.24.95 (same user as above) (talk) 08:03, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Use the screen-name or online pseudonym. You don't have any choice anyway, do you? Johnbod (talk) 12:26, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Sure we do: an anonymous individual known as … But if we can just use the alias as if it were the person's name, that simplifies things, assuming the alias itself doesn't cause confusion. —151.132.206.250 (talk) 14:13, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

This is just a matter of common-sense writing. Boopt3 is weird enough and unfamiliar to almost all readers, so should probably be introduced as the alias of an unidentified individual on first use, in most contexts. Maybe not in something like a list of DRM systems and who cracked them, but an article on Boopt3 should probably make it clear we're talking about someone's alias in the first sentence.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:30, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

See also the article Junius, and the links to it. This is not a new problem, and it has been solved. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:53, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Yep, good example.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:37, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Ethnicity/nationality in infobox

So lately I've been seeing many infoboxes where the nationality parameter links to an ethnic group article, like this:

| nationality = [[Albanians|Albanian]]
| nationality = [[Irish people|Irish]]

My best theory is that users only do this because links to nations/countries, like this:

| nationality = [[Albania]]n
| nationality = [[Ireland|Irish]]

Tend to be rapidly removed in a bot-like fashion (citing WP:OVERLINK, which I suppose daren't link to)—and that this can't possibly be the result of any users' subtle campaign to conflate two concepts. Please discuss. ―cobaltcigs 01:04, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

The first one should certainly not be used, and both are overlinking. Readers are unlikely to click on any of those links. Should someone really want to find about more about Albania or Ireland, they can of course use the search box. Edwardx (talk) 12:53, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Agree, no need for links to country or nationality. GiantSnowman 13:01, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

See also: Template talk:Infobox person#Residence parameter.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:39, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

IMHO, British should be used for all British bio articles. GoodDay (talk) 21:20, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

fun with MOS:JOBTITLES again

Hello,

Over at Talk:Kennedy Stewart (Canadian politician)#RfC: Capitalization - 40th mayor of Vancouver or 40th Mayor of Vancouver?, there was recently a discussion about whether ordinal-modified listings of titles (in this case "40th [m/M]ayor of Vancouver") in infoboxes are for some reason exempt from MOS:JOBTITLES. The closer suggested discussion here, so here I am.

To me there are 3 issues:

1. Is "mayor" being modified (in this case by the ordinal "40th")?
2. Does for some reason MOS:JOBTITLES not apply to infoboxes?
3. Does the fact that several (although I'm pretty sure not the hyperbolic "all") other pages capitalize titles/offices even when they are preceded by an ordinal in an infobox mean that the practice of listing "40th Mayor of ZZZ" or "37th President of the United States" is a legit exception to JOBTITLES? (which can possibly be attributed to the fact that's the way the infobox template is set up; more below)

It seems pretty clear to me that "40th" modifies "mayor of Vancouver".

I vehemently disagree with the the notion that JOBTITLES needs to explicitly state it applies to infoboxes. Surely unless a guideline clearly outlines limits, it applies to all article content, body and infoboxes and navboxes, etc.

Given one of the examples at JOBTITLES is Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, I don't see why we would say that, in his infobox, we should be using "37th President of the United States" (although that is how it currently reads).

Also raised is the issue that Template:Infobox officeholder/example has examples with capitalized titles preceded by ordinals. I personally don't assume template examples that have been relatively unchanged since 2016 are necessarily congruent with our guidelines in the present... and it looks like the infobox itself is set to capitalize offices even in the presence of an ordinal, so I'm not sure that the many pages using capitalized titles after ordinals indicates anything other than the template being coded wrong.

Which ties into the notion that "all" other pages about politicians/officeholders do something different from what JOBTITLES says to do. My contention here is that those pages capitalizing titles modified by ordinals are not following guidelines, so we should change that infobox practice. Maybe especially because ultimately it will mean more JOBTITLES-based edit wars and fights, because it's more than conceivable someone could point to an infobox and say, "Hey, Nixon is listed there at the 37th President of the United States, so why are you telling me I have to write "37th president" everywhere else?

(To be as transparent as possible, I'll ping Bearcat and leave notice at the originating article's talk page.)

—Joeyconnick (talk) 04:07, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Just to say that I closed the discussion at Talk:Kennedy Stewart (Canadian politician)#RfC: Capitalization - 40th mayor of Vancouver or 40th Mayor of Vancouver? per a request at WP:ANRFC. I therefore make the present comment in a neutral spirit and for the sake of information.

In my closing rationale, I suggested that it might be sensible to discuss amending MOS:JOBTITLES so as to exclude ambiguity on this point in future—either to explicitly account for infoboxes under this particular circumstance, or to explicitly render infoboxes an exception, as seems to be suggested by Template:Infobox officeholder/example. Hence the present discussion.

It might be a good idea, Joeyconnick, to place a notification of this at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes, and perhaps to actually set up an RfC, given the widespread relevance of the present discussion to the design of infoboxes across the encyclopedia and the importance of not reaching a conclusion based on insufficient participation on a Wikipedia-wide issue. Dionysodorus (talk) 14:24, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

That is to say, if I understand correctly, the question specifically concerning the present page is whether:

1. MOS:JOBTITLES should be amended to specifically say that, in infobox phrases such as "40th Mayor of Vancouver", the word Mayor counts as a "title" (rather than an "office"), and should therefore be capitalised (as per Template:Infobox officeholder/example).

2. MOS:JOBTITLES should be amended to specifically say that, in infobox phrases such as "40th mayor of Vancouver", the word mayor counts as an "office" (rather than an "title"), and should therefore be uncapitalised (as is the view of Joeyconnick). Dionysodorus (talk) 14:30, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

• The problem is that words such as “Mayor”, “President”, Prime Minister, etc. are BOTH an office AND a title. Blueboar (talk) 14:40, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• The problem I see is that the community really isn't accepting that "37th President of the United States" should be "37th president of the United States" in the infobox and I'm dubious that more examples added to JOBTITLES or a RfC would change that.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:57, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Actually this is what I didn't understand about your closing, Dionysodorus... no one argued whether it was being used as an office or a title. JOBTITLES covers both and only allows for capitalization when the label is used to refer to a position in and of itself when it is unmodified, when it it's acting as a title (which requires it to be followed by a person's name) ("Mayor Stewart"), or when it's referring to a specific and obvious person as a substitute for their name—in all other cases, we lowercase. So again, if we were listing "Mayor of Vancouver", yes, we'd capitalize. But we're listing a modified form of it, so no, we don't capitalize. We would capitalize "Mayor [of Vancouver] Stewart said..." but not "Stewart, 40th mayor of Vancouver, said..." "40th mayor of Vancouver" is not a title—the title is "Mayor of Vancouver". The issue is not some dichotomy between title and office... whatever the case, it's lowercased because it's modified.

The issues raised refuting that were a) JOBTITLES doesn't count in infoboxes, b) "mayor" in "40th mayor" is not being modified, and c) even if JOBTITLES does count in infoboxes, we can ignore it because a bunch of other pages capitalize titles modified by ordinals (which as I've pointed out is the default of the template, so it's not like people actively chose that).

No one argued, as far as I'm aware, that it's capitalized or uncapitalized because it's a title vs. an office. That seems like an unrelated tangent. —Joeyconnick (talk) 04:28, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

I really wonder about the need for the ordinals. Are they really needed in the infobox?--Wehwalt (talk) 06:13, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

• Lower-case. If it's modified in this way, it's no longer the title being attached to the person's name, but is a common-noun phrase, just as is the plural "mayors of Vancouver". The ordinal modifier is making it an implicit plural; it's no longer about the title as such, it's about a bunch of people (whom someone wants to number for some reason) who had that job. And we already had a previous RfC (or other lengthy discussion) about a year ago that concluded not to add things like "40th [whatever title]" to leads or infoboxes, except in the rare cases such counting is routinely done by reliable sources (e.g., as it is for US presidents). "JOBTITLES doesn't count in infoboxes" is nonsense someone made up. Nothing in infoboxes is magically exempt from site-wide guidelines, though their semi-tabular nature makes some of their content better formatted as such rather than as regular prose.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:33, 27 October 2019 (UTC); rev'd. 04:43, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Modifiers

I really cannot understand this. Right now the following is true with an item on the Main Page:

Agree with JOBTITLES

• Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
• Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Conflict with JOBTITLES

• Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
• Prime minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

How does this make sense to any one? --- Coffeeandcrumbs 00:51, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

"Ethiopian prime minister" isn't a title, it's a description. "Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed" is a title attached to a name as if a part of it. "Ethiopian prime minister" is terrible writing anyway, since it's ambiguous and looks like an ethnicity label. The first of these headlinese quasi-sentences is best thought of as shorthand for "The Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, was awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize." The descriptive text isn't adherent to the name. By contrast "Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed" is a unitary construction; breaking it up would be really weird ("The prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, of Ethiopia was awarded ...."). About the only reason to do something like that would be in a comparison of what the PM was awarded versus what someone else in some other official capacity was awarded, and even then it would be poor writing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:47, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Similar question currently at Wikipedia:Main_Page/Errors#Next-but-one_DYK. Could we have "UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson" or would it have to be "UK prime minister Boris Johnson" or "Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the UK"? While I can probably figure out from the discussion above, we should consider adding a corresponding "Controversial US President Richard Nixon" example (that does not start with a or the, with any need corrections) at MOS:JOBTITLES.—Bagumba (talk) 06:14, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

It would still be "controversial US president Richard Nixon", since "US president" isn't a real title but a descriptive phrase, with a further modifier attached to it. For the DYK thing, I would go for "UK prime minister Boris Johnson" or "Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the UK". It would be so much simpler if we just lower-cased titles, no matter what. But actual real-world English usage isn't quite there yet. I've noticed that more and more news and other publishers lower-case them whenever they think they can (though there are overly formalistic publishers who resist, such as The New Yorker who also love to give everyone a title, including "Mr." or "Ms." if they can't tack on a more formal one). Anyway, constructions like "UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson" are still pretty common; usage is in flux. This is one of those cases where we just have and need an arbitrary rule, knowing full well not everyone will agree with it. There are so many attested ways to approach this stuff (off-site), it is not possible for everyone to agree on it. So it's better to have an arbitrary rule (as consistent with MOS:CAPS, etc., as possible – basically, avoid capital letters any time they can be avoided), than to have no rule and let people fight over it again and again and again at article after article, or have a capitalize-like-mad rule that conflicts with our broader norms and inspires more "I wanna capitalize this, too" exception demands (i.e., even more continual editorial conflict over typographic trivia).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:20, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

I tweaked the MOS examples so that it's clearer that "US president" is not capitalized, even if it's not preceded by a modifier.—Bagumba (talk) 09:04, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

First names or surnames

A discussion is open here on whether to use first names or surnames in this and related articles. - SchroCat (talk) 16:32, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Judicial postnoms

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC on abbreviation of judicial offices

Closing superseded discussion per WP:MULTI, WP:TALKFORK.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:43, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

---

I propose to add at the end of #Post-nominal letters:

In the main body of an article judicial titles, such as "Justice" or "Chief Justice", should be used similarly to political titles, such as "President". However, in discussion of a particular judgment it may be convenient to use instead the conventional post-nominal legal abbreviation, such as "J" or "CJ".

@Jack Upland and Find bruce: Errantius (talk) 20:02, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose: those legal abbreviations are only used in legal texts. This is an encyclopedia, not a legal text, though some articles on Australian legal and constitutional topics do look like bad law student's essays. I think this is covered by MOS:JARGON. There is no advantage in saying "Gaudron J" rather than "Justice Gaudron". In fact, "Gaudron J" is confusing because "J" could mean "Justice" or "Judge". There is no reason to use this abbreviation style. Looking at some leading cases:

1. Australian Communist Party v Commonwealth only uses it in the infobox.
2. Donoghue v Stevenson doesn't use it.
3. Roe v. Wade only uses it briefly.

We don't need it.--Jack Upland (talk) 20:34, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Or Gaudron last initial J (or in some styles, Gaudron first initial J). Just, no. --Izno (talk) 00:32, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: Does this need to be in the MOS? Whilst I am familiar with Australian usage, I do not have sufficient knowledge to comment on whether this is the same in other jurisdictions. In Australian usage it is almost universal for reliable sources commenting on a particular case to use this form of shorthand. It is used in WP articles discussing decisions of the High Court, such as Dietrich v The Queen & Al-Kateb v Godwin that have been rated good article or better. Yes other articles refer to them as Justice, Chief Justice etc and there is nothing wrong with that. In aricles where there are different judgments and a range of issues, such as Commonwealth v Verwayen, repeatedly refering to Justice becomes clunky. A person who whether Gaudron J has the title judge or justice is unlikely to care about the difference.
• See also: The MOS guideline: Do not use unwarranted abbreviations.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:39, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Izno, I don't know a jurisdiction where "J" for "Justice" could be before the name, so that isn't proposed. Jack Upland, I think that this usage is common throughout the legal anglosphere and I don't think I've ever seen "J" used for "Judge". Errantius (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:37, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I did not say "jurisdiction". Please re-read what I wrote. --Izno (talk) 13:31, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

You said "in some styles". What else did that mean but the styles of some jurisdictions? Who would write "Justice Gaudron" as "J Gaudron"? Errantius (talk) 18:24, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Style as in Stronk and White, Chicago, and others, and why this document is Manual of Style / Biography. --Izno (talk) 19:50, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. Firstly, this isn't in any way a postnominal, so the discussion is misplaced: it's an (extremely common) convention for how to refer to a judge in writing. We write about topics based on what the sources use, not on the opinions of some random guy on the internet. The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:59, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

  Nope. We write in plain English. We absolutely do not write WP articles about the law the way a law journal article would. That's the WP:Specialized style fallacy and is the root cause of about 90% of the style-related strife on Wikipedia.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:18, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: It's a legal convention which is used by legal sources. I've never seen it used by news media. Wikipedia is not a legal source. We do not have to change styles based on topic. I don't think it's "clunky" to refer to "Justice Gaudron" rather than "Gaudron J". In fact, since we are not in a legal context, I think we can drop the "Justice" altogether in repeated mentions. In response to Errantius, I have seen "J" used for Judge in legal contexts in Australia. In the English legal context, the legal abbreviations include "B" meaning Baron of the Exchequer and "MR" meaning Master of the Rolls. These are baffling to the casual reader and totally pointless.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:42, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

  PS. Wikipedia's List of legal abbreviations states that J can mean Judge or Justice.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:07, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

• Proposal withdrawn. Thank you all for your comments. I take the point by The Drover's Wife that these are not actually postnominals. Errantius (talk) 21:18, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
• Yeah, this is already covered, in general though not in Australian legal specifics, by the MOS:ABBR guideline.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:17, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

  SMcCandlish, I continued this discussion here. It is now covered in the MOS here.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:34, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

  Noted, thanks. I'll close this as a duplicate/superseded thread.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:43, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.