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RfC: Subject preference

There does not appear to be any consensus for change. Number 57 11:39, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

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.

In discussions related to the titling or stylizing of names of people, especially for BLPs, the subject's preference often comes up. See, for example, the current discussion at Talk:Giovanni Di Stefano (fraudster)#Requested move 2. The principle has been applied previously to articles such as danah boyd and k.d. lang, and in the case of lowercase names, this is already MOS-supported; see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Items that require initial lower case. However, there doesn't seem to be general language recommending weight be given to a subject's preference in such determinations. I believe limited language to this effect could be beneficial in future discussions, and would follow the spirit of WP:BLP (this would apply to all biographies, though it might be of more interest for BLPs). Offhand, I know libraries give a great deal of weight to subject preference in authority work. I'm not sure what other fields deal with such cases. Journalism, perhaps?

The major caveat worth noting in any language inserted into NCP is that the subject's preference needs to be supported by other usage as well. So any assertions that a particular person prefers a particular form of name need to be supported, rather than accepted at face value. The language I have in mind would resemble that at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes)#Self-identification, though whether it would be better to say subject preference should be "considered" or "preferred" is something that I'm willing to leave to discussion. --BDD (talk) 16:46, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Survey

  • Support the subject's preference "being considered" certainly. Support more than mere consideration if the subject's preference is sourced from a reliable independent source, and more so if other independent sources respect the subject's preference. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:26, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support The preferences of a BLP subject carry significant weight (the same issue has arisen in the past over nationality), providing as noted that the proposed usage is widespread and acknowledged by the subject. ► Philg88 ◄ ♦talk 16:03, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. Something along these lines, or "...giving due weight to..." etc. seems pretty sensible. Andrew Gray (talk) 00:29, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Green tickY Support and not just for BLPs. 94.193.139.22 (talk) 14:09, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support a loose rendition explicitly showing that we prefer the subject's chosen name and way of spelling it, but that this is only one of many criteria including our normal criteria (recognizable, concise, etc.). Red Slash 02:30, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. This seems reasonable. Maybe we can finally rename Cat Stevens. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 08:08, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. We should follow the RS. It's their responsibility to get the name right, not ours to second guess them. Many people give their names differently in different contexts. Figuring out which version to use can be a tricky question. Some things are best left to the professionals. This is one of them. Let's look at what the style people think. This is from the CMOS site:
Q: ...."Shouldn’t we go with his own stated preference?"
A: ..."since editors cannot know the personal preferences of every person, we prefer to follow a guideline and apply it consistently."[1] The Clever Boy (talk) 00:08, 14 April 2014 (UTC) !vote by sock of a site banned user struck per WP:BMB. Favonian (talk) 16:01, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Amusingly, they also devalue consistency on the same page. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 20:44, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose this is a naming convention as such it must not contradict the parent policy which is Wikipedia:Article titles so "this is already MOS-supported;" is looking at the wrong type of guidance as it does not matter what the MOS says on this issue if it contradicts the AT policy. The names of people like the name of other entities is decided by surveying reliable sources and using the name that those sources use. For example "Offhand, I know libraries give a great deal of weight to subject preference in authority work." then as is usual a survey of reliable English language sources will tend to reflect the preferred name of the individual. As to name changes there is a sentence in WP:AT to cover this: "If the name of a person, group, object, or other article topic changes, then more weight should be given to the name used in reliable sources published after the name change than in those before the change". The reason that the "naming convention" policy was renamed "article titles" is to help editors to understand that the article title is not the official name of the entity. It is instead a title which meets the requirements of the article title policy, this proposed change contradicts the policy and confuses the article title with the subject of the articles preferred/official name. -- PBS (talk) 23:06, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
    • How would this contradict WP:AT? I see it as supplementing it. For example, with the recent examples of Chelsea Manning and Hillary Rodham Clinton, we had two choices that were both satisfied by the five criteria of a good title set forth in WP:AT. By adding the subject's preference, there's no violation of WP:AT, just another thing to take into consideration. -- Irn (talk) 02:14, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per PBS (talk · contribs) and WP:NOR. For better or for worse, we trust RS to take the subject's preference into account as much as is appropriate and reflect that in their usage — we just mirror what they do. We should not be making that judgment ourselves. --B2C 18:38, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per PBS and B2C. A subject's preference shouldn't trump common name. Calidum 19:05, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
Please note that Jimbo Wales says the opposite: "there is absolutely no question whatsoever that BLP trumps Commonname by a very very wide margin." See Discussion below. --MelanieN (talk) 17:23, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
Please note I don't care. We're supposed to be a community, not Wales' personal fiefdom. Calidum 01:25, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo's opinions deserve careful consideration. But I just don't get it. Looking at personal preference is the opposite of how we do things on WP. If we ask the primary source ourselves, that violates WP:NOR and WP:PRIMARY. We follow usage in RS to remain objective, and to avoid having to rely on our judgements, not to mention endless squabbles about what the "right" judgement is. --B2C 17:42, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

B2C, I think WP:SELFPUB is relevant here. If we have a genuine source from the person, reporting on it isn't original research. And if it isn't making "an exceptional claim" (e.g., R. Kelly says he prefers to be known as Space Emperor Supreme), such a practice wouldn't seriously run afoul of any relevant policies. --BDD (talk) 19:22, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
BDD, okay, maybe not OR, but I still see no need for it. There are many subjective judgements that go into deciding how to refer to any topic. In the case of a person, their personal preference might be part of it. But how much? How do we decide how much weight to give personal preference vs. all the other considerations? The whole point of WP:COMMONNAME and in particular following usage in reliable sources is so that we don't have to do that. They already do it. It's the job of book publishers and news sources to refer to people in a manner that takes all these considerations into account and proper balance. Why reinvent the wheel here? Let's just follow usage in reliable sources, period.

Further, since personal preference is already taken into account when RS decide how to refer to someone, we're giving it undue weight if we give it separate consideration on top of that. They know Cat Stevens prefers Yusuf Islam, but they go with Cat Stevens never-the-less, presumably because that's what he went by when he was famous. If we take personal preference into account too, it's giving undue weight to that particular consideration. It's effectively double-counting that particular factor (one for which there is no policy basis to consider anyway) — once when RS take it into account, and again when we take it into account to trump their usage decision. --B2C 20:32, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

  • I have general or moral support for the idea of considering the subject's own preference when naming them (assuming their preference is also supported by Reliable Source usage). But since the proposal wording is not explicitly spelled out here I can't say for sure where I would stand on actual proposal. --MelanieN (talk) 17:21, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. I think Jimbo's comments have been wise in this regard. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:47, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. I agree that BLP concerns among the others above are a good reason to give this weight. There still however are issues with people using multiple names for various reasons. For example consider a draq queen that might be famous both as there persona and separately, or authors that go by different names for different genres of books. PaleAqua (talk) 02:01, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per PBS. Certainly it should be considered, but that's accounted for by considering RS's after a name change. If s.o. has their name legally changed, it should be preferred, but again that would be reflected in RS's. But there are all sorts of oddities that can come up. What would we have decided when Prince went by that unpronounceable and untypable symbol? I knew someone who had his name legally changed to "Santa Claus". He wasn't notable, but what if had been? What if some wacko who thinks he's Napoleon Bonaparte or Jesus Christ is in the news, and he insists on being referred to by that name? Just follow RS's. — kwami (talk) 02:25, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
  • oppose Jimbo's assertions that BLP is more important than commonname is not supported by any consensus and has never been demonstrated to stand up in discussion after discussion. If BLP was more important, then we would simply use the subject's preference regardless of RS usage. But we don't, and we never will. Therefore I think we can ignore that precept. I think the only way this could work is as a tie-breaker, eg if it can be demonstrated that subject's preferred name X is roughly as common, and fulfills the other criteria equally well.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 11:16, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
and the supremacy of commonname over "BLP" can be seen in the manning case, one of the largest participations at a move ever, or the cat Stevens case, or the... The point is, supremacy is bullshit, it all depends on context - if the most commonname is obviously offensive, we won't use it and frankly we don't need BLP to avoid it, commonname provides an out or we could just invoke IAR - we would do the same for someone who is dead so not using a name that is offensive or pejorative applies not just to people but to groups, to ethnicities, and so on. Calling it BLP is missing the point.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:25, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  • There was no BLP issue with titling the article with Chelsea, not that I remember. Some argued that it was BLP-offensive to stick with Bradley. So the Manning RM decision went with the BLP concern. My point is that avoiding BLP-offensive things has long been a strong consideration, and that BLP concerns have long been weighted more strongly than titling policy or naming conventions (as written). That it is easy to support the assertion that WP:BLP is more important than WP:UCN. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:49, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
You seem to forget the first Manning move found no consensus, in spite of all of the BLP-whining, and when it WAS moved, it was moved on the basis of commonname by consensus, NOT blp.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:50, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
No. I did not say it was moved due to the BLP concern, but that the move was in harmony with the BLP concern. I agree that the BLP concern was not particularly strong, but the decision aligned with the BLP concern, contrary to what you wrote above. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:57, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
the first discussion repudiated the BLP concern and went the opposite way, and the second daicussion had no consensus whatsoever that BLP was relevant with several supporters explicitly rejecting BLP as a reason. The mythology around that move is incredible.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:28, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
I can't support this until we get agreement on how much usage in reliable sources is needed before preference becomes a tipping point. Also, why don't we apply this to countries and tribes/ethnicities?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:28, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  • oppose we follow the sources. we are not here to acquiesce to individual vanities. unless the overwhelming majority of reliable third parties have fallen for the ruse, we shouldn't be part of stroking someone's vanity. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:08, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
We are not talking about "falling for a ruse" or "stroking someone's vanity". We are here to follow the sources - and IF there are several potential names all well supported by Reliable Sources, THEN we consider the person's preference as one of the factors in deciding which to use. (This is the problem with trying to call "support" or "oppose" when the actual wording of the proposal has not been spelled out.) --MelanieN (talk) 21:19, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
MelanieN, you're proposing that personal preference be used as a tie-breaker when multiple names are all well supported in RS. Well, we already have WP:CONCISE to settle those cases.

Allow me to digress. In sports like tennis, football, table tennis, etc., when the ball hits the line it may be in or out. That is, it's reasonable to have a rule that says "liners are out", but it's also reasonable to have a rule that says "liners are in". What's not reasonable is to have neither rule. What's not reasonable is to say it depends on context. If it's on the base lane and it could have been easily returned, then it's in, but if it's on a side line and could not be reached, then it's out. Etc. No. These issues are settled by deciding clearly, once and for all, liners are in or out. Period. In WP title decision-making, concision is already a bonafide consideration, in policy as well as in practice. Every day WP:RM is riddled with proposals that are essentially based on concision, most of which succeed. It's a rule we already follow. Saying we we should sometimes ignore concision in place of personal preference, is like saying liners should sometimes be in and sometimes be out. Such ambiguity in the rules only creates chaos, and nothing beneficial to anyone. --B2C 20:45, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

B2C, please skip the sarcasm. It doesn't become you. As for a "tie-breaker" when there are several possible titles, each of which satisfy RS and other criteria about equally well: we are all familiar with your obsession for concision. It is your opinion that concision should be the tiebreaker. You have made that clear by writing an opinion essay, WP:Concision razor (which you rather arrogantly titled as a Wikipedia essay instead of a user essay; that might be challenged at some future time). In any case, "Concision is the tiebreaker" remains your opinion. It's not a rule, not a guideline, and not necessarily the way things have to be at Wikipedia. Many of us, including Jimbo Wales, believe there are other tiebreakers which could and should be used when appropriate. Expressed personal preference of the subject is one of them. --MelanieN (talk) 21:03, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
What sarcasm? It was intended as a complement. But since you asked nicely, I'll stop complementing you.

I didn't invent WP:CONCISION, nor its use as a tie-breaker when all other criteria don't indicate a preference. I did write WP:Concision razor, but that just reflects existing policy and practice - it's nothing new. Yes, you can make up other tie-breaker methods that are not in policy, like looking at expressed personal preference, but, again, that's just asking for chaos. For another example, consider the traditional coin flip as a tie-breaker. Now also consider pick-a-card (red card is A, black card is B). So now we need a tie-breaker; one person flips the coin - heads means A! Another picks a card... black means B! Uh oh, the two tie-breakers don't agree. Now what? Such ambiguity in our title-decision policies and guidelines is the source of the vast majority of the conflict. I have no particular predilection for concision per se - it's just that it has always been used as a tie-breaker. And I'm opposed to having more than one tie-breaker for the simple reason that it creates conflict - totally unnecessarily. After all, we're talking about situation in which both candidates already meet all the other criteria. Why make the decision-making even more complicated by introducing more subjective considerations into the stew? --B2C 22:36, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Here's a case where a second tie-breaker could be used: Bradley Manning vs Chelsea Manning - both are widely used in RS, and at a given moment the usage was split, so commonname determination may have been difficult. They are equally concise and precise. Another example would be Hillary Rodham vs Hillary Clinton (if in an imaginary world she was known by those two names) - both are equally concise. Myanmar and Burma is another example, both equally concise and precise, so subject prefs could be added. HRC is unique because one name is literally a superset of the other, and eliminating the Rodham diminishes nothing in terms of recognizeability, so on balance HC is more concise that HRC, even if subject preference leans us towards HRC. But I assume there are other naming cases where subject preference could be used as a tiebreaker since even concision sometimes ties.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:00, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes, of course, there's really nothing special about concision relative to the other criteria. It's just that in cases where both titles in consideration are commonly used in RS, concision is often the only distinguishing criteria. But if one is more natural or recognizable, then concision usually is irrelevant. But of course if none of the criteria including concision distinguish, then in theory we can look at other considerations, but there is really no need, as we have a tie breaker for those cases too: WP:TITLECHANGES. --B2C 00:32, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment: What MelanieN just said, all of it. Modulo the fact that occasionally a ruse may be going on, but that this will usually become apparent pretty quickly.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:22, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support- I'm actually surprised this is not already part of policy. I was reading about Naming policy regarding middle names and initials, and saw the "under discussion" next to one of the examples. The next example down states:

    In most Wikipedia articles where the subject uses two consecutive initials, a space is used between the initials (see Literary initials). There are, however, exceptions, such as k.d. lang and CC Sabathia. These cases generally arise when the subject of the article had or has a preferred style for his or her own name.

(Emphasis mine)So it seems as if we already take the article subjects preference into consideration. as for the question the OP asks about whether we should have the preference "considered" or "preferred", I think it should be staged. For example, preferred if reliable sources have used the preference in many instances, considered if the preference is covered by reliable sources rarely, and rejected if reliable sources almost never refer to the subject in the subjects preferred manner(for example Prince, Cat Stevens or Chad Johnson). — Preceding unsigned comment added by DD2K (talk • contribs) 18:30, 27 April 2014
    • That's misleading. The preferences of k.d. lang and CC Sabathia are also reflected in usage in reliable sources - there is no need for us to explicitly take personal preference (or any other factor) into account - we do that implicitly by following usage in reliable sources. --B2C 20:45, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Conditional support. Strength of preference must be a consideration here. Suppose you have two guys named Robert Smith. One, if you call him Bob, gets red-faced and furious over being called something other than "Robert"; the other if he were filling out a form or asked how he would like to be addressed would shrug and say "I prefer Robert", but would take no offense whatsoever at being called "Bob", and indeed might on occasion introduce himself that way. Obviously, the former is more likely, to the extent that he is able, to try to get sources discussing him to use his preferred name, while the second won't take those steps, which will be reflected to some extent in coverage. A clearly expressed strong preference - to the extent that a deviation from that preference would cause offense or even harm to the subject - should be given some consideration. However, a subject's own use of a form that clashes with their declared "preference" should eliminate any need to consider preference. bd2412 T 16:45, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Oppose - changing from conditional support to oppose because this entire exercise is becoming too convoluted. A subject's preference is meaningless without a gauge of how strong that preference is, but we are ignoring the fact that the subject typically (not always, but typically) has the most control over how they are known. Jimmy Carter is known as "Jimmy" rather than "James" because he chooses to be. Cat Stevens is known as "Cat Stevens" over other options because that is what he chose to be known as throughout the height of his notability. This is common sense, and should be recognized. bd2412 T 16:08, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - the objections are largely without merit and based on misunderstandings of other guidelines. With 2 provisos: (1) WP:Naming conventions (people) should establish a principle and then give more detailed guidance of how to apply the principle in (a) title, (b) lead, (c) body. And proviso (2) some weighting should be given towards serious personal preferences: hispanic Americans wanting to keep Spanish accents - including a revisit to César Chávez, religious/conscience/gender name changes - such as Yusuf Islam, and to areas where stylisms are normally respected in sources, such as rappers. But not to trivial/attention-seeking/noisy/inconsistent stylisms, such as the stock car racer who wanted his name stylized as if he was a WWF wrestler, and danah boyd probably comes in the attention-seeking category, but that aside the bigger principle is illustrated by BDD's proposal statement. For which he deserves a dozen barn stars. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:46, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support Showing respect to people generally means referring to them in the way they ask. Reliable sources should be used to determine their preference. There may be times when that is not a good idea, but I am comfortable saying that Wikipedia should give weight to the subject's preference in close decisions. SchreiberBike talk 05:24, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Way too many devils in the details. Hispanics and diacritics isn't even a related issue; they should be kept if they're sourced, even if they don't dominated the sources, because we know that most English sources are lazy and drop them even when the subjects themselves do not.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:17, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per SmcCandlish. The devils are definitely in the details. -DJSasso (talk) 11:36, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support per BDD, Red Slash, Irn, MelanieN, etc. More specifically, I support language saying that it's appropriate to give consideration to the BLP subject's preference, and that this preference should be determined in a reliable way. Jimbo puts it well: "One important factor (not necessarily 100% dispositive) to keep in mind is the wishes of the subjects of BLP. No, we won't do anything ridiculous for them, but it's completely absurd to say we shouldn't ask." At least considering the preference is common sense and would be good to include in the formal policy. ╠╣uw [talk] 10:18, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - while I do think that we should give a subject's preference a fair amount of weight, this should not "trump" WP:COMMONNAME. If a significant majority of reliable sources use some other name for the subject, we should follow the sources. I could see subject preference being a determining factor when no other name stands out as being clearly favored by sources (just as we might give more weight to an Official name when no other name stands out as being clearly more common). Blueboar (talk) 09:52, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose in this form, as verifiability and neutrality require us to follow the lead of reliable sources rather than a person's preference. But it may be used as a tie-breaker in cases where no one name is clearly the most common.  Sandstein  21:27, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose There are already sufficient rules and policies that allow us to determine the most appropriate name. To allow the subject to override reliable sources or COMMONNAME really is very bad idea, that would be to the detriment of Wikipedia, leading to all sorts of negatives outcomes such as making it hard to actually find the information one is looking for. This idea is only of any merit in a very rare tie-break situations.--Shakehandsman (talk) 23:25, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. From WP:Five pillars: "We avoid advocacy". Our role is to reflect and summarise the major points of view in an impartial tone. Because of Wikipedia's high visibility, we need to be wary of influencing the way someone is viewed, particularly if it is the subject themselves who are advocating we do that. At the point when reliable sources are altering the way a subject is described, that is when Wikipedia also does it, but we don't initiate the change. We need to be aware of our vulnerability to being persuaded to make changes too soon. Of course, if a subject is being inappropriately named, then we should respond quickly. But if the name is appropriate, follows reliable sources, and complies with our guidelines, then we shouldn't change it, regardless of who is asking. SilkTork ✔Tea time 22:31, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support as a clarification of BLP policy. Kaldari (talk) 02:39, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I'm with SilkTork. This change allows permissive and whimsical nomenclature of our articles, and will open us to marketeers' manipulation. We were wrong to rename the Chelsea Manning article when we did, both because not all of the legal steps had been complied with and because the subject is infinitely better known as "Bradley". We will see increasing numbers of vanity capitalisations as a result of allowing this. -- Ohc ¡digame! 03:21, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support taking the subject's preference into account. No one supports handing this decision over to the subject, as some above read this. But we should certainly consider their preference among all other relevant factors and, if we can respect their preference without unduly diminishing the the usefulness to the reader, we should respect their preference. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 10:04, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support showing respect to the subjects of the articles. They didn't choose to be on Wikipedia; the least we can do is let them have a say in what to call them. It's called being nice. -- Ypnypn (talk) 01:22, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
  • oppose as rulecruft. We already have many guidelines/policies covering this stuff, and just had a major debate on MOS:TM and WP:TITLE which this is just rehashing. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:03, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Close without prejudice (no consensus). The fact is, we do consider subject's preference in deciding how to name the article, and, considering also other factors, sometimes we accept it (Chelsea Manning, Hillary Rodham Clinton) and sometimes not (Yusuf Islam, Kyiv). That apparent practice could/should be documented in some way, as BDD tried to propose. However, the proposal was barely formulated, and therefore not ripe for a RfC. I first came to oppose per SilkTork, SMcCandlish and others, then I saw that wording of the proposal does not mandate using subject's preference, as many opposers thought. If anything, the RfC shows that the community could maybe support a weak statement to that effect, but it needs to be ironed out first for the RfC to have a clear outcome. No such user (talk) 14:17, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
    I'd have no problem with someone reactivating Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure#Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#RfC: Subject preference
    Reason: no new input for improving the guideline lately (suppose main arguments have been made), and people still rather seem to respond to the original proposal than to the wording presented below (survey not representative for that proposal). Thanks to all who shared their thoughts. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:30, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Pending the proposal of specific language. While I definitely agree with User:BDD's sentiment that personal preference plays some role in the whole naming thing, whatever "limited language" we implemented to try to enunciate the importance of personal preference would have to make it very clear that personal preference is a secondary consideration to existing policies like WP:COMMONNAME. If the language were done incorrectly, we might end up with a policy that basically says "people get to decide their own article title", which would be very wrong. Could we see some proposed language? NickCT (talk) 12:30, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - neutrality means sticking to what the sources say. As noted above, sources will generally go with what the subject prefers anyway, so if the majority of RS are using a different name, there is probably a very good reason for that. (E.g. "Cat Stevens" is used because that was his choosen name when he was famous.) --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:32, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

The language should state that the subject's most recently expressed preference be given greatest consideration. Otherwise there will be problems in cases in which a person's preferences were different at different points in life. Dezastru (talk) 13:27, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Leaning towards support but wondering how would this work with pen names etc. Especially in case where the author uses multiple ones, and has expressed desire to be know by them in relation to their work? PaleAqua (talk) 18:25, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

@BDD: you wrote above " I believe limited language to this effect could be beneficial in future discussions". I will assume for the moment that you are only suggesting this for living people. As always the devil is in the detail and you will have to put up a persuasive argument for a naming convention (guideline) to deliberately contradict the article titles policy.

So here are a couple for you to suggest what article tile should be used using your proposed wording:

  • how would you title the article Elizabeth II (see List of titles and honours of Queen Elizabeth II) as she has many preferred titles?
  • what would you do about people who are pretenders to a title? They may well style themselves King of Scotland but should that be reflected in their artilce title unless it is widely included as part of their name by secondary sources?
  • What should be done if the subject of an article use a name that is not commonly used in reliable English sources. For example a Eastern European woman with the name Yelena which is translated into Elena in reliable English sources who mention her, but on her own foreign language website is written Yelena?

-- PBS (talk) 11:34, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

  • Giving weight to someone's preference is not the same thing as automatically naming an article to follow that person's preference. -- Irn (talk) 02:19, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Good point. The person's preference should come into play only if there are several possible names, each of which is well supported by Reliable Sources. --MelanieN (talk) 14:53, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
PBS, sorry I didn't notice this earlier, but yes, the point is that a subject's preference should be considered, not automatically adopted. I purposely took a conservative approach here that I thought was more likely to garner consensus. I don't think there would be consensus for automatically adopting subjects' preferred forms—indeed, I wouldn't support that. --BDD (talk) 21:06, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  • It should be noted that in a recent discussion on Jimbo Wales's talk page, Jimbo himself came out very strongly for taking the subject's preference into account - not to allow the subject to dictate the name, but to consider their preference in cases where there are several possible names supported by criteria. The discussion is at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 160#Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton. Diffs [2], [3], [4], and especially [5], where he says "While it is true that BLP and Commonname work together, if push comes to shove there is absolutely no question whatsoever that BLP trumps Commonname by a very very wide margin. Commonname is a minor editorial policy about our in-house style. BLP is central and fundamental to our work. The opposite position is totally unsupported by our mission, our traditions, our values." (bolding mine), and [6] where he says "It has very long been practice to weigh the wishes of article subjects as one factor. This is not just community policy, it is Foundation policy. The BLP resolution, point 4, is explictly about this. Let me put this all another way: there is nothing in policy which hints at or even suggests that we are disallowed from making Wikipedia better by listening to article subjects. The people pushing the alternative point of view have absolutely nothing in policy to stand on." --MelanieN (talk) 17:21, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
Prior proposals, discussion thereof, examples, etc.
I'd start thinking about how to put this into words. I suggest something along these lines, to be inserted after the section about disambiguation:
==Factoring in subject preference==
When the subject of a Wikipedia article changes his of her own name, this choice isn't always reflected in the Wikipedia page name:
However, Wikipedia: Biographies of living people is paramount. At least in cases of uncertainty the subjects preference should be factored in, so:

I like the "working by examples" approach that has always been the way this guideline was conceived. Francis Schonken (talk) 07:30, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm uncomfortable using the Hillary Clinton example. I think it smacks of Jimbo fiat, and I think we want stronger evidence. At this point, with a bot having removed the RfC tag, I think we can say that there's consensus for considering a subject's preference, but no real consensus on how much consideration to give. So my preferred wording would be something like: Especially for living people, a subject's preferred form of name should be taken into account. Other naming conventions still apply, however. For example, usage in reliable sources must be considered. Whether language that narrow would actually solve anything, I don't know. But I think it's important to recognize this principle, and Jimbo clearly does too. --BDD (talk) 21:11, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Actually I would turn the sentence around - so that "usage in reliable sources" is the primary consideration, and "a subject's preferred form of name" is taken into account only to choose among several possible names, all of which are well supported by reliable sources. --MelanieN (talk) 21:26, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
I agree with MelanieN: RSs first, and then preference.
If we want to use examples, I would suggest Chelsea Manning or Chaz Bono (really, any trans person who transitioned publicly after already having an article) instead of HRC. -- Irn (talk) 14:00, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing to the gender-change examples. However, such change can be applied to a Wikipedia page name long before the majority of reliable sources have followed: to me that seems a sort of inevitable corrolary of WP:IDENTITY, second bullet - where gender self-identification is treated as an "exception" to the RS-requirement. I don't think there is a discussion that a same gender-change exception is in place in NCP.

From that follows that such gender self-identification examples are not good examples of alternate names with comparable support in RSes where the balance is tipped by the self-identifictation.

Despite being still the subject of a Wikipedia-variety of never-ending discussion I know no other example where the tipping of the balance can be shown thus distinctly as in the H(R)C example. Can anybody help out for another example? Much appreciated! In the mean while, here's my ammended proposition of a wording for the NCP guideline page:

==Factoring in subject preference==
When the subject of a Wikipedia article changes his of her own name, this choice isn't always reflected in the Wikipedia page name:
Following a gender-change the preference of a subject is always almost immediately implemented for the Wikipedia page name, supported by WP:IDENTITY:
Unless there is a compelling WP:BLP reason (currently no known examples), other cases are only (co-)decided by the subjects preference if such preference has a comparable support in reliable sources:

So please think of some more examples that might help us to write good guidance here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:40, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Francis, thanks for trying so hard to come up with actual wording; that's what we should be doing here. These are good but I would suggest a more simply worded version of your final rule:
If several names are supported by reliable sources, the subject's preference may be used as a "tie-breaker" to choose between then (unless there is a compelling BLP reason to chose one over the other, of which there are currently no known examples except for gender-identity cases):
The parenthetical part may not even be needed since the only known example, gender change, is already covered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MelanieN (talk • contribs) 14:59, 28 April 2014
I really wish we had a better example than an argumentum ab jimbo. Is there another one we can use? If that's the only example we can come up with, it's probably a good indicator that it makes for bad precedent (cf.). --BDD (talk) 19:27, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

@Melanie (& others stating that comparable strength RS support is needed) this July 2004 page move had, at the time, at best a very limited RS support, and was almost exclusively leaning on self-published sources.

This page move was apparently never contested (note that every letter and comma of the content of that page has been contested multiple times), so there's precedent even outside a "confirmed by RSs" / "tie breaker" approach. Most evidently in the case of this example there was an underlying disambiguation issue that was solved elegantly in this way.

So instead of refering to RSs I'd refer to the "general rules regarding page naming, including disambiguation". In sum:

==Factoring in subject preference==
When the subject of a Wikipedia article changes his or her own name, this choice isn't always reflected in the Wikipedia page name:
Following a gender-change the preference of a subject is always almost immediately implemented for the Wikipedia page name, supported by WP:IDENTITY:
Unless there is a compelling WP:BLP reason (currently no known examples), other cases are only (co-)decided by the subjects preference if such preference is in line with the principles governing page naming:

I still prefer the H(R)C example, I don't want to steer fellow wikipedians to a page where you can get banned just for participating in the talk page discussions!

Sorry for not being able to think of a more suitable example - however I don't agree with the approach of those who are not inclined to look for better examples out of fear they might demonstrate precedent. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:05, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

The Chelsea Manning example is an especially bad one. Consensus was NOT to move based on subject preference. Consensus only changed once it was clearly demonstrated that RS usage had changed. Manning was moved based on COMMONNAME, nothing else.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:22, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Removed the Chelsea Manning example in my 3rd proposal, per Obiwankenobi. The discussion alluded to shows this actually might be useful on the guideline page. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:37, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

If the second bullet of the second paragraph of the middle names / abbreviations section is changed to

I'd write the new section thus:

==Factoring in subject preference==
When the subject of a Wikipedia article changes his or her own name, this choice isn't always reflected in the Wikipedia page name:
Following a gender-change the preference of a subject is always almost immediately implemented for the Wikipedia page name, supported by WP:IDENTITY:
Unless there is a compelling WP:BLP reason (currently no known examples), other cases are only (co-)decided by the subjects preference if such preference is in line with the principles governing page naming:
  • Hillary Rodham Clinton, not Hillary Clinton [11]
  • k.d. lang — difficult to determine which capitalisation, interpunction, spacing is used most often in reliable sources as search engines are quite insensitive to such differences. The subjects preference (at least not contradicted by reliable sources) comes natural then.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 11:49, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Forgive me, but I'm a professional editor/ghostwriter, and I can't help but want to alter that last sentence - so that it says the same thing but in a simpler and more straightforward way. It's generally better to make a positive statement, instead of "unless this..." and "only that" and neologisms like "(co)-decided". Also, since we don't know of any examples of compelling BLP issues - except for gender change which has already been dealt with - could we leave that out? Or else put it in parenthesis at the end? Applying those style principles, how about something like this? --MelanieN (talk) 20:52, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

In cases where several possible names are each in line with the principles governing page naming, the subject's preference can be taken into account:
  • Hillary Rodham Clinton, not Hillary Clinton [12]
  • k.d. lang — difficult to determine which capitalisation, interpunction, spacing is used most often in reliable sources as search engines are quite insensitive to such differences. The subjects preference (at least not contradicted by reliable sources) comes natural then.
Yeah, like it. Less contorted. Better to tacle a conflicting BLP issue if and when it would come to the surface, and not before. My phrasing was in fact working against the "working by examples" approach I prefer. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:30, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

You can't use a few cherry-picked WP:OTHERSTUFF WP:OSE examples and extrapolate some kind of principle from it. --B2C 22:46, 30 April 2014 (UTC) struck out OTHERSTUFF; replaced with OSE. --B2C 17:24, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Instead of citing individual gender-change examples we could refer to Category:Transgender and transsexual men and Category:Transgender and transsexual women. Browsing those categories Gregory Hemingway appears to be a counter-example of what is proposed now for the NCP guideline, but that's the only one I see thus far (note it isn't a clear-cut example of gender change as explained at Gregory Hemingway#Gender).
As for other examples of subjects who may have had or didn't have an influence on the way their Wikipedia article is titled I suppose we used about every example cited in the discussions on this page. I'm all for finding more examples, without prejudice about what they might demonstrate. Thus far there are some clear examples of those who didn't influence (Cat Stevens, Prince) and those who did (H(R)C, kdl). In that last category we didn't find any example (yet!) of overruling NC for BLP reasons. The examples clarify that, without cherry-picking. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:03, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
WP:OTHERSTUFF doesn't apply, this isn't an inclusion/deletion issue (see intro of that essay) — for the record: this is an article naming issue: for such issues the rules are generally derived from precedent, at least the successful rules are derived from precedent. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:29, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
My mistake. I should have referenced WP:OSE, rather than WP:OTHERSTUFF. Sorry about that.

I agree that successful rules are derived from precedent. But a few oddball examples don't establish precedent. --B2C 17:24, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

WP:OSE appears as useless in this context. It's nutshell says precedent is useful in some cases, useless in others. then those differences are only clarified by examples (sic) none of which apply to the current discussion (the explanations of concepts are vaguish and weak in that essay, that evidently doesn't have the broad acceptance of a guideline).
Surprisingly your main argument appears to be a WP:OSE argument. Yes WP:OSE (and WP:OTHERSTUFF) exist. They appear not to have any bearing here. Feel free to clarify how our discussion here would be linked to those essays.
The examples are not cherry-picked (nor oddball), see above.
Maybe something in general: the NCP guideline is not about the tenthousands and tenthousands of biographical articles that never had an issue with how the page was titled, not about the William Shakespeares, not about the Herman Van Rompuys and whatnot that never had a problem, but about those pages that are more difficult to find the best name for, that are somehow exceptional, or from a page naming perspective odd. Yes, so the best examples for this guideline page are odd, what is not the same as oddball. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:55, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
All I'm saying is that within a category of articles (say BLPs with controversial possible titles in which the subject has a preference), what's relevant to determining whether a given principle is supported by precedent is how many of the titles in that category align with that principle. Just because you can find a few examples consistent with that principle within that category does not establish a precedent, especially if there are many more counter-examples. Thus my initial statement. You can't use a few cherry-picked examples and extrapolate some kind of principle from it. Certainly not from that alone. You have to establish it is a principle that applies to most cases in the relevant category, not just some of them. --B2C 21:48, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Please direct us to examples we may have left out.
As for the production process of these guidelines: thus far we will continue to do the same I suppose: find as many examples as possible, analyse them, and condense that into useful guidance.
If you don't like that process, maybe you could try to find consensus for improvements to Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance and the like. If succesful we might revisit the process of how to compose guidance.
If you don't like the outcome of what is on the table now, please find examples that might help to improve. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:44, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

5th proposal

Combining recent suggestions for improvement:

(second bullet of the second paragraph of the middle names / abbreviations section:)

(new section to be inserted after the section on disambiguation:)

==Factoring in subject preference==
When the subject of a Wikipedia article changes his or her own name, this choice isn't always reflected in the Wikipedia page name:
Following a gender-change the preference of a subject is almost always immediately implemented for the Wikipedia page name, supported by WP:IDENTITY:
In cases where several possible names are each in line with the principles governing page naming, the subject's preference can be taken into account:
  • Hillary Rodham Clinton, not Hillary Clinton [13]
  • k.d. lang — difficult to determine which capitalisation, interpunction, spacing is used most often in reliable sources as search engines are quite insensitive to such differences. The subjects preference (at least not contradicted by reliable sources) comes natural then.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 06:44, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

  • I support these suggestions. Thanks for them - and for staying focused on coming up with the appropriate wording. --MelanieN (talk) 14:13, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Perhaps I'm being too nit-picky here, but the phrase "can be taken into account" strikes me as too weak because something that can be taken into account can also be ignored, no? I would lean towards replacing the word "can" with "should". -- Irn (talk) 14:53, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
I understand it to be deliberately vague - as a permission, not a mandate. I don't think we are trying to say that in cases of doubt, we HAVE to follow the subject's preference - only that we MAY. There could be other tie-breakers in cases of multiple names. As I understand it, this is an allowance for editorial discretion, not an ironclad rule. --MelanieN (talk) 16:36, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
"When application of naming conventions leads to several viable solutions, the one preferred by the subject usually gets precedence:"
...would work for me too. maybe a bit more steering, but through the "usually" keeps it an editorial discretion. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:06, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
  • The Prince example should be dropped as the article is currently at the subject's preference and always has been (Prince prefers Prince and has for the entire time he could have had an article, having switched preference from other names before Wikipedia existed.) The example is confusingly asserting what we might have theoretically done in the nineties, before there were even Wikipedia articles. It's not an example of anything we have chosen to do.__ E L A Q U E A T E 15:38, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
A better example might be: Stokely Carmichael, not Kwame Ture. --MelanieN (talk) 16:42, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
I know that's offered in good faith, but it makes me have to ask: Why do so many examples of "Name changes we wouldn't respect on Wikipedia" involve a very small group of famous African-American people? If not respecting a person's preference for their name is widespread, we should have more (and more obviously neutral) examples to choose from then the same five or six African-American public figures (and Cat Stevens). Is there another kind of article where we're not giving weight to the person's preference?__ E L A Q U E A T E 18:01, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure your premise is correct. We currently have offered only three examples: two African Americans (Stokely Carmichael and Prince) and one Greek-Englishman (Steven Demetre Georgiou, best known and titled under his stage name Cat Stevens). I have tried to look for other examples but so far I have come up short; it's actually pretty uncommon for a person to change their name AFTER becoming well known under their original name (or their stage name, in which case we use it rather than their birth name). The situation you reference may come about because some people change their names upon converting to Islam. If they do it early in their career, so that they become most notable under the changed name, the changed name becomes the article title (for example, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, not Lew Alcindor; Muhammad Ali, not Cassius Clay). If they change names late in their career, after becoming well known under their original name, the original name usually predominates (hence Cat Stevens, Stokely Carmichael). --MelanieN (talk) 18:16, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
We shouldn't have two examples in a row based on an Islamic conversion name change unless we really want that to be noticeable. We shouldn't have examples based on pre-Wikipedia stage name changes (multiple historical stage names are already covered by WP:NICKNAME). __ E L A Q U E A T E 21:15, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
I agree with you that Prince should not be included, for the reasons you have explained very well. That leaves us with Cat Stevens and Stokely Carmichael, both of whom as you point out are examples in which the name change was inspired by conversion to Islam (although only one is African American). I would love to find other examples, and have looked - but a religious conversion really may be the only motivation for someone to change their name, after they have established notability under a particular name and carried out most of their notable career under that name. I think in these two cases we are justified in using the name under which they established their reputation, and under which they still get honored (i.e., the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame admitting Cat Stevens under the name Cat Stevens, 35 years after he changed his name). This is a case of following the sources rather than any kind of discrimination; other Muslim converts like Abdul-Jabar and Ali are titled under their converted names, because they established most of their career and notability under those names. --MelanieN (talk) 21:46, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
Here's another suggestion:
I'd combine that with Cat Stevens for the "no influence" examples
Combining 1st & 3rd paragraph (as explained below) would work for me too. --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:37, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm not making any suggestions about where any of the example article titles should be. This is about what examples best illustrate what is being asserted in the first sentence. I think as it is worded now, most people are going to read that first section as being about people who change their name after there is already an existing Wikipedia article, not for name changes that took place many decades before. I would suggest that it might work better with the last section moved to the top, and the first section omitted. (3, 2) instead of (1, 2, 3). To reinforce that there are exceptions, the current first sentence could read something like: Article titles are not always where the subject prefers, but where several possible names are each in line with the principles governing page naming, the subject's preference can be taken into account: or, if adding it to the sentence makes it too unwieldy, a sentence similar to Francis Schonken's suggestion in this thread would work too. __ E L A Q U E A T E 22:53, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
I would actually be OK with something like that replacing both sentence #1 and #3. Your proposed sentence sums up the main points here admirably. I do think we should retain sentence #2 as a special case involving gender identity. (I was about to add something to sentence #1, explaining when we don't use the subject's preferred name, but that is probably getting too prescriptive; it may be best to keep this guideline general and allow for judgment on individual cases.) Oh, and I would retain the footnote to Jimbo's comments; I think he made the case for subject preference very well. --MelanieN (talk) 23:15, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
I was just thinking about another serial case where a change is almost immediately followed by Wikipedia irrespective of how quick majority of sources follows (same inevitability as most gender-change cases): after divorce the former spouse's name is removed from the Wikipedia article title, example:
BTW, that's clear BLP overruling NC, so moving on to 6th proposal (see below) --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:05, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support, though a very minor adjustment I'd make would be to replace several with multiple: "In cases where each of multiple possible names..." On the point of can versus should, I favor can per MelanieN's rationale. ╠╣uw [talk] 17:43, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose, only because of the Hillary Clinton example. Way too controversial to be used as a precedent setting example. --B2C 21:38, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support, and agree with the comments made by Melanie and Huw. Omnedon (talk) 01:01, 3 May 2014 (UTC)


--6th proposal--

(new content for second bullet of the second paragraph of the middle names / abbreviations section:)

(new section to be inserted after the section on disambiguation:)

==Factoring in subject preference==
When the subject of a Wikipedia article changes his or her own name, this choice isn't always reflected in the Wikipedia page name. However, when application of naming conventions leads to several viable solutions, the one preferred by the subject usually gets precedence:
Following a gender-change the preference of a subject is almost always immediately implemented for the Wikipedia page name, supported by WP:IDENTITY:
As a WP:BLP courtesy a former spouse's name is usually removed from the article title upon divorce, per subject preference:

--Francis Schonken (talk) 05:05, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Or this variant (for the last guideline recommendation):

Around the time of a divorce, a Wikipedia article title may lose the name of the (former) spouse per subject preference. WP:BLP is the guiding principle here:

followed by the same examples.

Variant for the "However,..." sentence of the first paragraph:

... When several options are offered in application of page naming guidelines, the one preferred by the subject usually gets precedence:

The several / multiple distinction suggested above eludes me. Maybe more experienced copywriters can jump in?

If H(R)C is an impediment to go live with this I'd lose the example. Otherwise A. Mahler >< H R C make a nice pair showing the difference between living and dead people. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:28, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Regarding "several / multiple": Several is usually seen as more than two. (See how this sentence doesn't work: I'm going to give you several options: Stay or leave.) Multiple sometimes means two. Most precise would be switch to "leads to more than one viable solution"__ E L A Q U E A T E 10:59, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
I suggest using your sentence "When several options are offered in application of page naming guidelines, the one preferred by the subject usually gets precedence.<Jimbo footnote>" as a kind of topic sentence for this section, followed by three examples: #1: "When the subject of a Wikipedia article changes his or her own name..." is excellent. I would drop Hillary; she is not an example of a name change. #2: "Following a gender-change..." is fine. #3: I prefer the variant last sentence, since we don't "usually" drop the spouse's name; rather, we drop it if the subject herself does. And I would expand the #3 sentence to say "marriage or divorce"; we would usually change to a person's married name almost immediately if the person herself does. Something like this: "If a subject changes her name at the time of a marriage or divorce, a Wikipedia article title will generally reflect the name change almost immediately. WP:BLP is the guiding principle here."--MelanieN (talk) 14:46, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
Jimbo footnote? Is there some sort of template for that or one of the usual boilerplate templates? Feel free to insert in the new coordinated proposal below. Don't know whether this wouldn't make the new section a bit heavy-handed, but I can live with it. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:20, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
I had thought we could do the Jimbo footnote as an external link as we have been doing here, but I don't see other examples of that in the article so let's skip it. We can always cite him in discussion if it become necessary. With your permission I am going to add the "general" sentence as an introduction to the three examples and slightly reword your similar sentence in Example 1; feel free to revert if this does not meet what you were trying to say. If you are OK with these changes I think we should be good to go. Thanks for all your hard work on this! --MelanieN (talk) 17:24, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Can we go live with this?

(new content for second bullet of the second paragraph of the middle names / abbreviations section:)

(new section to be inserted after the section on disambiguation:)

==Factoring in subject preference==
When several options are offered in application of page naming guidelines, the one preferred by the subject usually gets precedence.
When the subject of a Wikipedia article changes his or her own name, this choice isn't always reflected in the Wikipedia page name. However, when both names meet applicable page naming guidelines, the one preferred by the subject usually gets precedence:
  • Cat Stevens, not Yusuf Islam
  • Alma Mahler, not Alma Mahler-Werfel
  • k.d. lang — difficult to determine which capitalisation, interpunction, spacing is used most often in reliable sources as search engines are quite insensitive to such differences. The subject's preference (at least not contradicted by reliable sources) comes natural then.
Following a gender-change the preference of a subject is almost always immediately implemented for the Wikipedia page name, supported by WP:IDENTITY:
When a subject changes her or his public name at the time of marriage or divorce, a Wikipedia article title will generally reflect the name change almost immediately. WP:BLP is the guiding principle here:

--Francis Schonken (talk) 15:06, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

"public name" (#3) - officially after marriage in Belgium Henin's name became Justine Hardenne-Henin, the public name she chose was Justine Henin-Hardenne. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:32, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
  • not good examples, not ready for primetime id especially remove the section on gender change. While there seemed to be rough consensus that the pronouns should change upon announcement of a gender change there was huge dispute and no agreement whatsoever that article title should change, indeed on the most engaged the community had been on this they didn't come to a consensus to follow subjects preference, so we should not try to do an end run around that but choosing other examples that had less participation. Re: name change after marriage, there are several counter examples I'm on mobile so can't pull them up, but again when these things are put to the test WP:AT will dominate.what is suggest is that we say something more like 'when there isn't an obvious name that is clearly more common, subject preference can be used as a tie breaker if there aren't other significant differences in adherence to WP:criteria of the two choices. Plus before we get into such language at all we need to verify how will we capture subject preference?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:07, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
Hmmm, wish you had brought up your objections to the gender section earlier; we've been discussing this wording for several weeks and we thought we were nearing consensus. --MelanieN (talk) 17:20, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Leaning toward support, but it still has a problematic case, and some wording issues: I like most of the reasoning and examples, but some of the wording ("comes natural then", "offered in application of page naming guidelines") awkward, verging on questionably grammatical. I actually strongly question the "k.d. lang" bit, because it directly violates WP:TRADEMARK and is an WP:OFFICIALNAME issue; if we permit this exception, then everyone – individual, corporation – you name it, with a tedious style quirk in their officially-projected public name is going to demand that it be accepted in article text and titles here (or aficionados of the subject will, rather).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:21, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Re k.d. lang: if this, apart from being a stage name, can also be considered a trademark (in the MOS sense), people at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trademarks#Trademarks that begin with a lowercase letter should have picked this up a long time ago. The article is stable at k.d. lang for a long time now, I think from the moment it was technically possible to start an article title with a lower case letter some years ago.
  • I prefer the wording at #Approach now. "...comes natural" is still included there, but the example is better embedded in the context where such exception is possible. The known examples of this exception amount to three (thus far), so we're far from "everyone ... is going to demand". WP:OFFICIALNAME is a long shot, precisely because WP:COMMONNAME is difficult to establish in this particular case, as explained in more detail below. We got rid of the "offered in application..." there too. That being said, I'm still no native English speaker, so improvements suggested by more experienced copywriters are always welcome. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:13, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
  • "Comes naturally" is less of an informalism. As for k.d. lang, WP:CCC and WP:FAITACCOMPLI are both relevant. Cf. the recent move to (finally) de-capitalize common names of bird species after 9 years of argument over the matter. "The article is stable ... for a long time now" is not a good argument in cases like this, really; otherwise WP:RM would have a time limit. MOS and AT and the various NC pages change frequently enough that even the longest-standing article titles can be up for change at some point.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:38, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Side comment about initials: What about Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi/Sri Lankan practice? I've been informed (how reliably I'm not sure) that names like "GK Sethi" are not initials in the English-language sense, but something else (I forget what, I think it might have been something familial or even geographical), and that they are conventionally run together and done without periods/stops/dots.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:21, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
  • I'd treat that in the same way as other culture-specific types of naming, i.e. refer to the appropriate NC guideline, in this case I suppose Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Indic), much in the same way as "last name first" isn't specifically treated in the NCP guideline: it is referred to the appropriate Chinese (and other) culture specific NC guidelines. As for the content of your question: I have no clue. Maybe bring it up at WT:Naming conventions (Indic), the people there might be better suited to help you. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:35, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Approach

I still see room for improvement. My last proposal was still much of a patchwork, not pointing towards where the guidance might be helpful.

I'd start from a clear example where the subject's preference didn't matter, something along these lines:

In the overwhelming majority of cases we need not be aware of a subject's preference to give a workable article title:
  • Alma Mahler - makes no difference whether or not she herself preferred to add the name of her third husband by the time she finished her autobiography, the world remembers her by the last name of her first husband. All in line with naming conventions the article title follows that usage.
The remainder of this section concerns those exceptional cases when in excess of that body of rules and guidelines the subject's preference can play a role.
The first of these exceptions regards those cases where application of naming conventions does not lead to a unique result, for example two name variants are used nearly as often in reliable sources, technical limitations of search engines to determine "most common", standard disambiguation leads to quirky results...
In these cases the subject's preference can play as a tie-breaker:
  • k.d. lang — difficult to determine which capitalisation, interpunction, spacing is used most often in reliable sources as search engines are quite insensitive to such differences. The subject's preference (at least not contradicted by reliable sources) comes natural then.
Sometimes subjects want to be known by a different name as the one by which the public at large knows them. Standard application of naming conventions demands to wait until the new name catches on in reliable sources and only move the article to the new name if and when the name preferred by the subject has a higher occurence than any former name, or to keep to whatever other standard naming convention (e.g. royals) and/or disambiguation technique:
The second exception regards cases where it may be possible to run ahead of naming conventions and change to the name preferred by the subject. Such name change overriding traditional naming conventions guidelines appears only to be possible if all of the following conditions are met:
  1. The subject falls under WP:BLP, or at least under WP:IDENTITY (e.g. Emperor Shōwa falls short of this condition)
  2. The subject's preference is known without ambiguity (e.g. Gregory Hemingway and Ke$ha fall short of this condition). This has to be seen as a WP:NOTCRYSTALBALL and WP:V policy requirement.
  3. No significant loss in recognisability, as a WP:AT requirement. So adding a spouse's name after marriage could do, where replacement of the maiden name by the spouse's last name usually wouldn't unless after an ample amount of press coverage.
  4. The change of condition that inspired the preference for the alternate name is usually thought of as irreversible. Some clarification regarding reversible / irreversible (the definition is conventional for use in this guideline):
    • Gender change: usually thought of as irreversible, thus Wendy Carlos
    • Marriage and divorce: usually thought of as irreversible, thus Justine Henin → later Justine Henin-Hardenne → later again Justine Henin. In this case it is especially important to be certain of the subject's preference with regard to his or her public persona, otherwise it is not advised to run ahead of naming convention standards (e.g. Tina Turner).
    • Attaining a very high profile office that comes with a life-long name change, irreversible. For example, a newly elected Roman Catholic pope can be moved to the page reflecting his preference within minutes after first announcement. In this particular case, press coverage outdoes all printed reliable sources up till that moment.
    • New stage name, change in religious confession: usually thought of as reversible, so at least a change in the majority of reliable sources (or whatever other applicable naming convention) has to be proven first, thus Cat Stevens and not Yusuf Islam
    • Name given at birth... irreversible. It shouldn't be too difficult for a subject to see all later nicknames (e.g. Jimmy Wales, not Jimbo Wales) or stagenames (e.g. [15]) removed from the article title when thus preferred.
    • Changes for reasons of political profiling, publicity stunts,... reversible, no preliminary impact on the page name.
    • Having the bulk of one's career in an environment that favours a particular version of the subject's name → irreversible; Moving to another region and/or changing nationality is, at least for living people, reversible, even in the case of involuntary exile.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 16:37, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

  • need a broad RFC while I recognize there is a small group here working to develop a consensus the consensus to reject subject preference is a much stronger consensus replicated through many high participation move request over long periods of time. Thus while I think the current efforts here may bear fruit we should see them as leading towards a local consensus around wording that should be brought to wider community through a neutrally worded RFC that will run for 30 days and be closed by a neutral admin. We should not attempt such a dramatic policy change just based on local consensus of a few editors here, and it's possible WP:AT will have to be changed as well if 'preference' becomes part of titling policy.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:15, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Tx for the procedural remarks, I see no problem to oblige.
@Francis Schonken:, sorry I wasn't more clear, I believe this should be put to an RFC, but we aren't ready for an RFC just yet. An RFC needs to be a simply worded, clear, neutral plan, and ideally it should have rough consensus of those who participated in drafting it - I don't see that yet - this is still the "storming" phase of collaboration. Thus, while we should publicize this discussion widely at some point in the future and ask for a specific straw poll and !vote, I don't think we're ready yet, too much is still up in the air.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:52, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
@Obiwankenobi: Ah, I see. I wasn't trying to jump the gun by popping up an RfC tag; it just seemed to be missing. Let's do, yes, put up a proper RfC, and soon. Much attention has been directed here, and we clearly do need to have something in the guidelines if not AT itself about this. Normally, I would suggest again that WT:MOS is the proper venue for the discussion, since it will affected article text foremost and art titles only secondarily. But the focus is already here, so let's act quickly while we still have it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:03, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the rush is. I think we should come to consensus, at least rough local consensus, on the proposed wording here first. That may take a few days or weeks more - then once we have an agreement of those who are active and interested here, then we re-invite the broader community to opine on the addition to policy. My overall point is that a local consensus of 6 editors here should not and cannot override community discussions which have numbered in the hundreds and which have explicitly rejected the "preference" argument, but it's possible if worded fairly it could pass - we just need more work on it first.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:06, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Care for your personal opinion on the proposed text?
  • Re "dramatic policy change": strictly speaking there's no policy change, subsidiary guidelines are brought in line with actual policy. At most it is a proposal for a way out when two policies (WP:BLP and WP:AT) wouldn't lead to the same result. No need for dramatics.
  • I'm wholly opposed to both subject preference arguments and the proposed exceptions. The policies, guidelines, and essays we currently have seem sufficient. Perhaps I've not done enough reading, but I don't see a problem that the proposed change actually solves. Chris Troutman (talk) 11:02, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
There IS a problem that the proposed change solves. It came up most recently in the extended debate over whether to move "Hillary Rodham Clinton" to "Hillary Clinton." There were many who argued that her preference ought to be considered, while others said we couldn't consider her preference because there was no guideline saying that we could. The discussion spilled over to Jimbo's talk page, where Jimbo weighed in strongly in favor of considering subject preference, and went so far as to contact Clinton's people to ask what her preference would be. Jimbo further commented, "I do not agree that policy doesn't expressly permit us to weigh subjects' preference. This is a myth. It has very long been practice to weigh the wishes of article subjects as one factor. This is not just community policy, it is Foundation policy. The BLP resolution, point 4, is explictly about this. Let me put this all another way: there is nothing in policy which hints at or even suggests that we are disallowed from making Wikipedia better by listening to article subjects. The people pushing the alternative point of view have absolutely nothing in policy to stand on." The three-admin panel which closed that discussion noted that there is no policy saying we should consider a subject's preference in naming, and also no policy saying that we shouldn't. This proposal is an attempt to deal with that lack of guidelines on the subject. --MelanieN (talk) 15:51, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
I think HC is a really bad example to use here - as BD2412, the extent of Clinton's "preference" is debatable, considering her own use of HC on her website, twitter, and when she ran for President. I agree with Jimbo, there is nothing stating that we can't listen to subject's preference if we think it will make the encyclopedia better - indeed, this is the very essence of IAR - which in the case of a "naming" preference would be to say "Well, X is commonly called Z, but prefers to be called X, so let's ignore WP:AT and follow subject's preference instead." I'm not sure we need to enshrine this in policy however, since IAR is always there. The other problem with Hillary Clinton is that HC arguably is MORE policy-compliant than HRC, and at least by a vast majority of editors who participated last time, HC is much MORE common. Therefore, I'm not sure if this preference-as-tiebreaker would work there in any case.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:16, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
I agree that HRC/HC should not be used as an example in anything we put in the article. I brought that case up here to show Chris Troutman what the problem is that we are trying to solve, namely, the confusion and disagreement caused by the lack of any guideline on this topic, and the opinion by some that we can't consider subject preference at all since it isn't mentioned in any guideline. This is not an attempt to influence the HRC debate one way or the other, since we are not saying that subject preference overrides other considerations - merely that it can be taken into account. (Note that we have abandoned the preference-as-tiebreaker language.) And in response to your argument and BD2412's: doubts about the subject's actual preference would still be perfectly appropriate in any discussion, and might well prevail. --MelanieN (talk) 17:02, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
Tx for pointing out that lack of guidance was at least perceived as a problem in the H(R)C RM discussion. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:47, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
My reading of the HRC/HC debate is that people said "Title policy and guidance points us to this title", while the other side said "Subject preference points us to this title" - the counter was that "subject preference" has no place in article titling policy, which is correct. You CAN take subject preference into account, by simply invoking IAR, which I think is a better solution than trying to enshrine subject preference somehow into this RFC (and it begs a larger question - do we use subject preference to determine the contents of the biography? The order of the biography? What is the full list of things for which subject preference should be considered, and how does it weigh against reliable sources? The Clinton example is especially problematic, since, as noted above, she ran for PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES under the name Hillary Clinton, so determining subject preference there is extremely problematic. with Bradley Manning we had a very clear and probably indisputable account of subject preference, but the community broadly REJECTED even changing the title based only on that.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:11, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
...that "subject preference" has no place in article titling policy, which is correct. That is your opinion, and it is exactly what we are discussing here: the proposal is that subject preference can have a place in article titling policy, provided their preference is supported by existing titling guidelines, and that titling policy should say so. Francis Schonken has provided numerous examples where subject preference in titling was taken into account by consensus, so this is not some strange new idea; it's already being applied at move discussions. A case like this would not call for IAR, since there is no "rule" against using subject preference. The effort here is to clarify what the rules are - since the lack of a guideline was interpreted by some as a "rule". The lack of a guideline has been specifically invoked as a reason why we could NOT consider subject preference. Those discussants were invoking a reason that does not exist - there is no rule saying we can't consider subject preference - but they interpreted the lack of a guideline to be a rule against it. Also please note, no one here is suggesting that we "use subject preference to determine the contents of the biography", that's a straw man; the proposal is that subject preference may be considered if and only if it is consistent with other guidelines. And please quit re-arguing the HRC issue; we've already agreed that HC/HRC will not be mentioned as part of this guideline, so it's irrelevant here. And as I pointed out already (in my note just above, in case you missed it), "the subject's preference is in doubt" would be a perfectly valid point of debate whenever subject preference is invoked. --MelanieN (talk) 22:00, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
P.S. One of the necessary conditions listed above for invoking subject preference is "2. The subject's preference is known without ambiguity." So can we please drop that argument? It's already been dealt with. --MelanieN (talk) 22:09, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Browsing ongoing WP:RMs I see at least one that might be impacted by the proposed guidance:
Note that the initiator has provided only one argument for the move (subject preference expressed 3 months ago), that the vote is currently at 100% pro-move, and that the guidance proposed above would actually stop this move proposal driven exclusively by subject preference (2 out of 4 specified conditions not met).
I rest my case. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:06, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
Here, against prediction, the page move was granted, so updating the guideline addition proposal to bring it again in line with all known cases. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:49, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
Here's another recent one that uses subject preference as part of the reasoning for a WP:RM:
This one is interesting too regarding one of the remarks made in the original BDD RfC survey: would this affect any diacritics related article titles? I didn't know whether there would have been examples available. I'd be interested to see which way this one goes. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:08, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
There would probably not be much use in considering this example without adding a prediction in the sense I mentioned above:
I suppose this could be framed as a tie resulting from the current language of the WP:DIACRITICS guideline: "use of modified letters (...) in article titles is neither encouraged nor discouraged...". In that case subject preference may decide on the tie.
When considering current practice (which favours diacritics), there is no tie. Note that in this case subject preference doesn't compete with WP:Search engines but with WP:DIACRITICS: the last one assumes precedence (4th paragraph of the guideline section: "Search engines are problematic... (etc)"):
  1. Subject falls under WP:BLP
  2. Subject preference is known [16]
  3. No recognisability deficit (general stance on diacritics)
  4. Having the bulk of one's career in a country that doesn't use diacritics in the stage name can be perceived as pretty irreversible
Either way, the prediction leans towards application of the proposed page move. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:55, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Lech Wałęsa might be another example to consider on diacritics-related subject preference. The most recent talk page discussion (2012) using a subject preference argument (referring to his autobiography) can be found here Talk:Lech Wałęsa/Archives/2012/December#Widely-used and widely-recognized plain English spelling in reliable sources --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:58, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Francis Schonken............there is some need for caution here. Although Wikipedia uses full diacritics for all later-than-Renaissance-era figures, and discussion about Poles-in-Poland such as Lech Wałęsa ended with the last few anti-diacritics editors being banned and or blocked, and consequently such issues relate now only emigrants to English speaking lands, not all emigrants become as thoroughly Anglo as George Handel: for example there is the phenomena of those - known in France as "Les Frenchies" - who try and be more American than Americans while simply on a Green Card, anglicising names, removing accents; sometimes legitimate, but perhaps sometimes there merest whiff of a suspicion of hiding their Frenchness for commercial reasons. I'm not clear how far we should play along with this. Do we Britishize an Ibiza DJ because he's coy on his web page about being Croatian? I don't know. But I don't think we automatically treat Twitter names and ASCII websites with the same certainty as G Book sources or a bona fide Martina Navratilova permanent change of nationality. We would also see someone who was forced into exile in America as not being in the same category of willing accent-droppers. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:16, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for your insights. Above I described having the bulk of one's career in a country as irreversible in the context of the 4th criterion. Assumed nationality doesn't enter the equasion. On the contrary, I'd expressly list change of nationality as a reversible quality (even for exile), so that subject preference can't be invoked (apart from some rare tie breaker cases). In other words WP:DIACRITICS and its current implementation practice would apply.
Does that answer your question? Otherwise more examples might shed more light on the issue at hand. I got intrigued by the Ibiza DJ. Have any concrete examples in that vein (or other examples that might shed more light on this)? --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:16, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
That mainly answers my question, thanks. In those terms I don't have any objection. Editors in practice do appear to observe a a difference between e.g. Green Card Category:Major League Baseball players from the Dominican Republic and naturalized Category:Dominican Republic emigrants to the United States. Too long ago to locate the "Croatian DJ", which is a loose description: could have been a Bosnian rapper. Category:Club DJs has a couple of accent-stripped London-based or US-based Euro DJs - there is a complicating element of WP:STAGENAME for such performers. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:24, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
I'd be happy to relay all baseball players to the more specific Wikipedia:Naming conventions (baseball players). Only if they can't get it worked out there could they return to the more general WP:NCP (tie breaker, outspoken subject preference different from what baseball rules would lead to...)
As for stage names, my experience is that in the majority of cases this quite simplifies things, e.g. Conchita Wurst - wouldn't know what way to tackle that one if stage names weren't established practice. Of course sometimes it does complicate, if several stagenames are available, or if it can't be established that the person is best known by his/her stage name. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:29, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
Added the career/nationality distinction to the proposal above;
Up till now I see no friction between the current proposal and the diacritics guideline, nor any friction between the current proposal and the diacritics practice. As said, the current proposal neither requires nor assumes any change to other guidelines nor to practice. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:13, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
I would reiterate my concern that any policy on this point should take into consideration the strength of the preference. This has come up in MOS:TM, where I have pointed out that, for example, P!nk is consistent in using a non-standard character as part of her stage name, while Ke$ha has not. A stated "preference" can safely be ignored where the subjects make inconsistent use of their own names, sometimes using the "preferred" form and other times using a "common" form to refer to themselves. bd2412 T 15:50, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
As you can see your concern has been handled, see above, second exception, condition#2: "The subject's preference is known without ambiguity" - italics added.
Regarding your assumption this is about policy, I start a FAQ section below (I had already answered that question above but I see it comes up again) --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:47, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Ambiguity doesn't enter into my concern. A person can make a clear and unambiguous statement of a weak preference. A person named William who says, "I prefer Bill" has made an unambiguous statement, but one person may unambiguously prefer "Bill" and become outraged if "William" is used anyway, while another may unambiguously prefer "Bill" and still not be ruffled in the least if "William" is used anyway. If sources prefer "William" then the latter declarant's unambiguous statement of preference can be ignored. bd2412 T 12:29, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Nonetheless the proposed wording is coherent: it doesn't depend on an unambiguous statement by the subject, it demands that the subject's preference can be verified as being unambiguous. Verification involves consideration of all relevant sources. The ambiguity aimed at here is a result from contradiction or unclarity in the sources, which I suppose was what happend in the Ke$ha case.
For greater clarity I added the Ke$ha example above. Let that not refrain you from proposing a less ambiguous phrasing for the exception 2, 2° condition. Looking forward to such improvement. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:55, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
  • This isn't a valid principle, but is just pure WP:RECENTISM and an elevation of non-investigative journalistic sources to a level of "super-reliability" they do not possess: "Press coverage outdoes all printed reliable sources up till that moment." Press coverage is often wrong, incomplete or strongly biased. The reason(s) why someone is notable can change, and such changes may sometimes include a name change or an additional name. We deduce notability and the reliability of claims from published sources, but "press coverage" is not among the more reliable types, just a common and convenient and timely one, especially when it comes to reportage on celebrities. Much of it uncritically rushes to report whatever its writers hear before someone else does, without much fact-checking. Obviously not much of a problem when it comes to what name a pope is using, but that's not the point.
    Point taken, changed the sentence to "In this particular case, press coverage outdoes all printed reliable sources up till that moment". Which is correct for the given example, Jorge Bergoglio was moved to Pope Francis before any printed source confirmed the fact. Yes, we should make the guidance fool-proof for quoting out of context. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:55, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Case study: what effect would the proposed guideline addition have regarding Hillary (Rodham) Clinton?

My general idea is that the ultimate outcome of the debate regarding Hillary Clinton / Hillary Rodham Clinton wouldn't be influenced by the proposed guideline addition as it is based on current practice, but that there are a lot of procedural advantages:

  • Removing red tape
  • Keep discussions focussed, and thus shorter
  • Avoid suspension of decision for lack of guidance
  • Shorter path to broad acceptance of an eventual choice

Currently a lot of energy is diverted to an emergency break solution (moratorium). Moratoria are usually not considered as the best solution (least bad solution at best). As such they aren't even a solution, they just put a temporary lid on reasonable and unreasonable discussion. A lot of energy to get it installed, and even if installed successfully: no result. The guideline addition proposes reasonable operation tools, so no need for an emergency break, thus removing red tape.

According to the proposed guideline addition subject preference could only be invoked if there is a tie regarding the alternative names (second exception couldn't be applied while not passing 4th criterion). This means that reopening discussions would only be sensible if one of the following applies:

  • subject changes preference.
  • it can be demonstrated that there is no longer a tie, for example subsequent campaigning as Hillary Rodham Clinton could lead to more prominence of that version of the name in all sources.
  • it can be demonstrated there never was a tie, for example accepting that due to the broad international aspects of her career more weight could be given to sources outside the US, possibly less partial to the maiden name.

All other discussion would be moot, thus keeping discussions focussed and shorter.

Lack of guidance was one of the arguments the closing admins proposed in the elaborate 7th RM (archived at Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton/Archive 19). I can only hope that argument will never have to be used again, thus facilitating clear discussion (and more avoiding of red tape, see energy diverted to recently proposed move review).

The current decision is met with a lot of tension. Maybe not everyone is as susceptible to reason as I am (no offence intended), but I gather that if a reasonable argument can be made that there is not much to discuss outside the options mentioned above, many more editors would readily accept whatever choice is eventually made. Without addition to current guidance Hillary (Rodham) Clinton would be considered as a contentious example for many more months (if not years). Otherwise it might become an example of how Wikipedia handled issues succinctly. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:39, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

I think it's a bad idea to use an unconventional case as a case study. The subject in this case is very different from most subjects for whom this sort of issue will arise. bd2412 T 16:31, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm satisfied the proposed guideline addition wouldn't have an averse effect on the high strung H(R)C case.
I don't regret checking that before going forth with the proposal. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:57, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

FAQ

  1. Is this about policy?
    In the strict sense (when distinction is made between policies, guidelines and essays): no, Wikipedia's policies remain untouched by this. The proposal is at guideline level, and needs nor assumes any change of policy. See argumentation above.
    In a broader sense: yes, this is part of policies and guidelines. This doesn't contradict any other policies or guidelines (nor common practice for that matter), so this can work without any rewrite of any other guideline or policy page. Argumentation: see above.
  2. Is this useful?
    It is thought of as useful at least for the following:
    • High-profile RM's: lack of guidance on "subject preference" has come up, this proposal tries to fill the gap. See example above.
    • Under the radar RM's use a subject preference argumentation as if that suffises for a page move: also there guidance would be useful. (see example above)
  3. Would any contenious examples be used on the guideline page?
    No, but giving clear and stable examples might help those who try to figure out ongoing discussions.
    1. Would Hillary (Rodham) Clinton be used as an example on the guideline page?
      No, see above.
    2. Would k.d. lang be removed from the guideline page as an example connected to subject preference?
      No, there is no (new) consensus to remove that stable example from the guideline, nor it's subject preference implication.
  4. Would this permit a new wave of subject preference based page moves?
    In itself, no. It limits the use of the "subject preference" argument when choosing an article title.
  5. Would this have any effect outside the naming of biographical articles?
    In itself, no. Long term effects (if this turns out to be effective) can't be excluded, so MOS or other NC guidelines might adopt something in the same vein, but not as a consequence of any decision here: any other changes have to be discussed on other pages first.
  6. Can we go easy on this?
    Of course, ample time to discuss the proposal should be given. No stalling though: a few days ago this RfC was added to WP:AN/RFC. Note that a request to postpone any closure has been posted there too.
  7. Is any Argumentum ad Jimbonem involved?
    The current proposal doesn't need any of that. On the contrary, this proposal draws some limits regarding use of WP:BLP arguments, often favoured by Wikipedia's MTP
  8. Does this proposal mean that subject preference would override titling guidelines?
    No, subject preference could only be invoked for a title that conforms to titling guidelines.
  9. Should the proposed NCP guideline addition (attempt to) intervene in currently unresolved issues regarding WP:DIACRITICS and WP:UE?
    No, the resolution of such issues is best left to those trying to improve these policies/guidelines, e.g. Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Non-English titles and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)#Icelandic (proper) names. The current NCP proposal aims at robustness, meaning that it remains valid, whether or not other policies or guidelines are rewritten.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 09:47, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

  1. This is not correct: "Is this about policy? "No, ..." Why? Because WP:POLICY covers policies, guidelines and other forms of consensus procedure at WP. "WP policy" means the entire body of these consensuses and their interoperation. "WP policies" (plural form) means "pages (or, rarely, sections of pages) with {{Policy}} banners". This discussion would very strongly affects WP policy. Proposals of this sort are frequently listed at WP:Village pump/Policy and covered by {{RfC|policy}} discussions. The changes contemplated here would necessarily be worked into WP:MOS (and an argument can be made that the discussion should really be happening at WT:MOS for that reason, though I'm less of a venue stickler than some). MOS and its subpages are our style manual; WP:AT in turn derives its style advice from MOS, so any such change would actually affect policies, at least WP:AT, not just policy in the vague sense.
  2. Of course the proponent thinks it's useful. That's not a very good question. "What are the main rationales for and against this change?" would be better.
  3. I'd consider by Hilary [Rodham] Clinton and k.d. lang both contentious, since people on this page are already raising contentions about them, and citing policy bases for doing so.
  4. This seems debatable; I think some are making the argument here that there is no basis to do this at all right now, and that this change would create one, with boundaries.
  5. This one is not plausible; the case will be immediately, naturally made that all of this reasoning applies to all "legal persons", not just born humans, so it will apply to every corporate entity; this would undo the WP:OFFICIALNAMES reasoning we've relied upon for years. It would then naturally be extended to anything similar, such as rock bands or whatever that are "just like" corporations but not incorporated. And it would then be extended to brands and products and other officially-named things produced by corporate entities, and so on. We know this would happen, because the exact opposite happened, in a step-wise, predictable fashion – MOS and AT consensus to not "obey" stylistic whims of corporations led inexorably to refusal to do this for products and brand names, for bands, and (with rare, highly questionable exceptions like "k.d lang", people). [Diacritics are a different issue, and the shift away from suppressing them is a good thing for WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:BIAS and other reasons; it's a completely different discussion.]
  6. That's self-contradictory. The discussion is still quite active, with the proposal mutating quite a lot over time to address the concerns that have been raised so far. It's obviously not ripe for administrative closure yet, which would truncate such consensus development.
  7. No comment.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:38, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Re. 6: I'm not sure what is the procedure for de-listing from WP:AN/RFC. Maybe suggest to the user who listed it there to retract? I'd have no problem with that. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:08, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Re. 1: updated the answer. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:37, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Re. 2: there are no wrong questions, and this was about the way the question was presented by Chris T above ("...I don't see a problem that the proposed change actually solves"). The other question, presented by SMcC ("What are the main rationales for and against this change?") is a very wise question too. Anyone care to formulate an answer to it? --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:37, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Re. 3: added two sub-questions for minute specification. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:58, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Comment You might want to add something like this, since we are seeing a lot of slippery-slope arguments that this would let the subject dictate their own coverage: "Does this proposal mean that subject preference would override titling guidelines? No, subject preference could only be invoked for a title that meets all titling guidelines."
About the "Jimbo" question, does that mean we can't even cite what he said? It's true he's not a dictator, but he is a Wikipedian, and he should have as much right as any other Wikipedian to make his opinion known. --MelanieN (talk) 16:37, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

  • Added the question you proposed, with a slight modification to the answer. "meets all titling guidelines" is illusive, either "conforms to titling guidelines" (which I chose) or "meets all relevant titling guidelines". To give an example: the swift move of a newly elected pope to his chosen name conforms to the recognisability required by the AT policy, it doesn't conform to the guideline that explains how to measure recognisability by probing google books, while not relevant to that case.
  • Re. citing Jimbo: of course we can. Some of the Jimbo quotes on this talk page are highly relevant to the ongoing discussions. Q7 is about not needing any direct Jimbo quotes on the actual guideline page, which I think is the more elegant solution. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:46, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Added #9, which directly addresses the diacritics-related objection made in the survey of the original RfC initiated by BDD. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:55, 12 May 2014 (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.
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