Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)/Archive 4

John Beck (American football) vs. John Beck (football player)

This is not John Beck.

The predominant form of parenthetical disambiguation for American-football players seems to be John Beck (American football) rather than John Beck (football player). I think we ought to change this style for two reasons:

1. Disambiguation in parentheses is usually in the form "X (Y)" where X is an example of Y. (e.g., Mercury (planet). But John Beck isn't an American football; he's a football player.
2. Association-football players are known either as "footballers" or "soccer players" depending on the dialect. So "football player" is generally unambiguous.

-- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the guideline should be very specific about this. I can't tell you how many "Firstname Lastname (snooker)" (or worse yet "Firstname Lastname (Snooker)") articles I've had to move to "Firstname Lastname (snooker player)". Excessive disambiguation like "John Beck (American football player)" is unnecessary. (See also Category:American football players; only categories like Category:American players of American football or Category:Canadian players of American football go to excessive DAB lengths - we don't have Category:Players of American football because Category:American football players is clear enough. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Excessive It is only excessive to the extent that there isn't a soccer player with the same name. If there is an American footballer John Beck and a soccer footballer John Beck, what would you suggest? Personally, it makes sense to me to incorporate the wording of the main article on the subject. Since the article about planets is at planet, you use the form of Mercury (planet); since the main article on the kind of football this guy plays is at American football, it makes sense to me to call it John Beck (American football player). -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 03:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

One last thing I should caution that what I proposed is not a standard or convention, merely what seems most consistent and reasonable to me. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 03:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

In your example, I think they'd be "John Beck (football player)", and "John Beck (footballer)". Just extend the disambiguation as needed. A really extreme case would be "John Beck (Canadian player of American football)" and "John Beck (American player of American football)", to distinguish between two different nationalities and two different kinds of gridiron football. "John Beck (Canadian football player)" would be too ambiguous. That is, I wouldn't go the "American football" distance in the DAB style for the same reason that Category:American football players isn't Category:Players of American football. It's one "layer" of DAB abstraction that arguably isn't required. However there are probably some who would argue for the extra DABing just for consistency's sake (and being a consistency nut, I have toyed with the idea of CfD'ing Category:American football players for rename to Category:Players of American football (and same with a couple of subcategories); all of the by nationality subcats of it are in "Category:NATIONALITY players of American football" form.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:14, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

In British English, "footballer" and "football player" both mean the same thing, so having seperate articles named "John Beck (footballer)" and "John Beck (football player)" (for example) would be completly ambiguous to British English speakers. If you had an association football player and an American football player with the same name then they should ceratinly be suffixed with (soccer player) and (American football player). Or don't Americans ever use "footballer" for an American football player? If not, then the association footballer can have (footballer) instead, unless it's an American soccer player, in which case it should be (soccer player). - MTC (talk) 07:35, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

No Americans do not use "footballer." -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 02:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I see that I missed this discussion but I'd like to add my support for using (football player) rather than (American football). I have protested several moves from perfectly well-dabbed articles as (football player) to (Canadian football) and the rationale is always "Well it's not clear what form of football". Well, dabs are not intended to be a précis of the article; the lead is for that. Unless there are several identically named football players no further disambiguation is needed or desirable. And, of course, the people are players, not footballs. DoubleBlue (Talk) 22:27, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem with player is that it is too specific for role within football. Many players move on to become coaches, managers, scouts etc etc. By using the location you avoid this problem. -Djsasso (talk) 23:40, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

What does it matter? No person can be summarised by a dab, sportsperson or otherwise they have many qualities, careers, aspects, and eras to their life. Choose a dab that best suits the person, thus what's best known for. If that changes in the future, move to a new dab. DoubleBlue (Talk) 04:56, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Dabs should be as short as possible to get the point across. The information in the brackets basically means "related to"/"associated with". So to name him as (American football) it means he is the John Beck related to/associated with American football. But thats about all I am going to say as this topic was fought over a week or so by a couple other people and I don't want to repeat myself. -Djsasso (talk) 14:28, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, the thought that someone would legitimately believe that a dab of "John Beck (American Football)" means that John beck is a football is ridiculous to the extreme. Presuming that the reader is an idiot is not a good procedure, imo. Resolute 04:47, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe that but to dab someone as football is nonsense. DoubleBlue (Talk) 04:56, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

A dab that suggests a football player has an association with football is nonsense? Really? Resolute 14:30, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The point is that almost everybody else is disambiguated with a term describing what they do, not what field they're associated with. Why should sportspeople be different? And it's not all sportspeople by any means. We generally use "footballer" to disambiguate soccer players (outside North America), "cricketer", "athlete", "swimmer", "golfer" etc. In fact, the only people that differ from this scheme seem to be players of sports that largely originate in North America, which is weird. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:54, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't say its a north american thing rather that its a thing where sports that require two words to describe instead of the preferred one word descriptors. Baseball, Basketball, Hockey etc. don't have one word descriptors like golfer or footballer. All of them need to tack on the word player at the end which is less preferred than just using their sport. -Djsasso (talk) 15:59, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Less preferred by some. The dab for sportspeople could easily just be player, athlete, sportsperson, etc. but a more precise dab is often just as brief and better. In those cases where a single word has not developed for a particular sport, one could use a dab like sportsperson (player seems inaccurate without an adjective, no?) or simply follow the same form of descriptor used for golfer, swimmer, and wrestler: football player. DoubleBlue (Talk) 23:12, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Quite. I don't think a single word disambiguator is "less preferred". Many disambiguators use more than one word if that's appropriate. For instance, the preferred and established disambiguator for British Army officers is "British Army officer", the correct term, not "officer", "soldier", "army" or "British Army", all of which would be shorter but less descriptive. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:52, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

We just beat the hell out of this issue at #Sports "revolt". How about adding to that discussion rather than repeating it here? Consensus was clear enough there to change the guideline so that (baseball) isn't frowned on. —Wknight94 (talk) 11:27, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Your idea of clear consensus must be very different from mine! -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Initials

This RfC follows up from a prior discussion of requested articles moves at WP:RM.

This issue has also been debated previously in several places, most signficantly at "Vote: spaces after periods between initials? (26/32)", and also at "Proposal on spacing of initials in names", "Compulsory dotting and spacing of name initials", "Periods and acronyms dispute", and "Black or black?", among others.

My take: uniformity and "X. Y. Lastname"

Already in use To the first question of whether or not there should be a standard, I think there should for simple editorial professionalism, and to keep instances like C.N. Liew and C. N. Liew (which may be merged by the time you read this, but were started as separate articles) from ever occurring. Furthermore, if there is no standard applied, it makes it harder on editors to anticipate the proper name of an article and where it might be found. Lastly, should there be a print version of Wikipedia (or any alphabetization of articles, really), conformity would be necessary. I can imagine this being a hassle if someone is trying to look at any alphabetized list of names - such as browsing a category.

As to the second question, I am basically indifferent to the standard that is chosen, but since "X. Y. Lastname" is already in practice for literally 99% of these kinds of articles, it seems like it should stay. By and large, the arguments against my position are of the sort "it looks bad to me" - which is clearly not germane to anything - or "that is an old standard that has fallen out of disuse" with no actual substance to back up that allegation (what percentage of MoSes? Since when? Who changed this standard?) Since there are manuals of style that can be found to support both "X.Y Lastname" and "X. Y. Lastname," I see no compelling case for either, really.

As for exceptions to the rule, I can really only think of stage names (e.g. C.C. Chapman, who personally e-mailed me, asking me to move back his article's name), and names that are not names at all, but some kind of title (e.g. "MC Hammer.") For that matter, middle names should have the same standard applied, and already do in the naming conventions (e.g. Annie M. G. Schmidt.) -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 05:25, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Addendum I would like to point out that I have also listed several dozen of these types of articles on WP:RM under non-controversial proposals and had them moved without any trouble in the past. While there have been editors who have disagreed with me on whether or not these pages should be moved, I cannot recall any admin looking at my non-controversial proposals and declaring them controversial or refusing to move them. The only exception that immediately comes to mind was J.E.B. Stuart. I was encouraged to post on talk for a vote, which I lost, so the article stayed where it was. I happened to check it several months later by happenstance, and it was moved to J. E. B. Stuart, where it is presently. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 05:29, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

That admins don't challenge the moves is irrelevant; as admins, their "job" in that role is to do what WP:NC says. The dispute that has been raised is not an admin one, but an editorial one challenging both the alleged consensus for the spacing of initials and the rationale behind it, as well as the conflict it puts WP:NC in with WP:MOS on abbreviations and acronyms. Don't compare apples and oranges. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Fruity I didn't compare anything to anything, I simply offered evidence that could be persuasive. Anyone else is free to make whatever he wants of that evidence. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 03:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

That's called a handwave, a variety of fallacious argument technique, in which one attempts to distract from the actual point rather than addressing. Adding a denigrating label to the opponent's argument (another fallacy) doesn't detract from its validity. If the "evidence" applied isn't applicable, because admins do what admins do for reasons that aren't germane to the dispute here, then it isn't persuasive. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Handwave? My point is that this is not actually controversial in any substance. It is controversial to the extent that anyone can object to anything, but the spacing of initialisms on Wikipedia articles isn't exactly AIDS reappraisal or Holocaust denial. So, what I'm trying to say, without having to be quite so blunt, is that this is really a non-issue and it's silly to dispute it in the first place. This is especially so with a dearth of compelling reasons to change and a standard that has already existed for years without being broken. I honestly have no idea what you're talking about with the denigrating label. Calling my argument a handwave denigrates it and is a label, right? Anyway... -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 04:09, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Aside from observing that you've just triggered Godwin's Law, that's appeal to emotion again; just because an argument is not about an issue as important as AIDS or the Nazis does not mean that the argument is faulty. If you felt it was a non-issue, why is it that you, by your own testimony, have gone to great lengths to ensure that articles conform to the X. Y. Zed format? Why would Tony and I be here questioning this formatting choice? Why would the issue keep coming up again and again here and at WT:MOS and some of its subpages? Why would editors be willfully ignoring it when they disagree with it? Why would there be evidence that some English speakers are simply unaware that such a format exists much less that it is allegedly preferred? Being dismissive about a proposal doesn't make it go away and doesn't end the debate (cf. WP:IDONTKNOWIT and WP:IDONTLIKEIT for why; while WP:AADD, in which those two sections live, is particularly about XfD debates, the principles are applicable more generally). It's already clear that you don't like this debate or the fact that it exists, and don't know why some would feel strongly against spacing of initials, so you needn't belabor those points, instead focusing on why we should put spaces between initials. Maybe there's a really good reason for doing it that I haven't thought of and I'll shut up and go away. :-) Not very likely, but ya never know. I don't have any problem with criticizing a faulty argument and labeling it as such (yours, mine or anyones); if you think that is some kind of WP:CIVIL or WP:NPA issue, I beg to differ, since it has nothing to do with the motivations or character of the person making the argument, only the argument on its own merits (or lack thereof). I'm also highly skeptical that the spacing recommendation has existed for years; I will dig around in edit history and try to find out. This guideline has only even existed since late 2005 (the 2002-2004 archive was actually for another page that got merged in here, and did not address the issue raised here; I already checked). It also shows a remarkably small amount of talk archive for a WP-wide guideline, suggesting a questionable level of consensus (not necessarily as a whole - I think we all agree that we need naming conventions! - but for its minor details.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:35, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Asides again Your aside is both unnecessary and simply untrue - I didn't invoke Nazis. Your claim is based on the fallacy that only Nazis reappraise the Holocaust (or AIDS, I guess.) For instance, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reappraises the Holocaust and is not a Nazi. If you're going to call me on logical fallacies, please don't use them in your argument. How about this: we side-step all personal sniping and meta-argument and just discuss the substance of one another's claims? I think it's a non-issue to the extent that everyone could follow the rule and everything would be fine, whereas if they disobey the law, it would cause problems. Furthermore, the law could be changed, and that would be fine with me, as long as we were consistent. It's somewhat like, say, driving on the left or the right. In and of itself, I have no preference for "X.Y." versus "X. Y." or driving on the right versus the left. All that really concerns me is that we're consistent in doing it. Rationale: I am choosing a potentially emotional example (getting into car wrecks) not for its emotional force, but because it proves my point by using an extreme example, something like a redutio ad absurdum. My argument is not now nor has it ever been that we "should put spaces between initials." Either you're missing my point or I'm not making it or both: I don't care which one we use; I only care that we stick with one standard. All things being equal, we should continue with the rule we've got. If someone offered truly compelling evidence that "X.Y." was better, I'd be happy to go along with it, but it would have to be really compelling since so many articles are at "X. Y." I know that this has existed for years in as much as I did this in 2005 as well. This is my faulty memory, so it could be hyperbole on my part to say that the standard has existed for years. This edit from more than two years ago supports my assertion (and I did not write it.) "For abbreviated names (if these are the most used) every abbreviation is followed by a point, and every point is followed by a single space." (emphasis in original) I do not know how this was arrived at, or if it changed in the ensuing 30 months or so, but there you have it. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 04:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Godwin's Law: bringing up the Holocaust qualifies. I didn't say you were engaging in reductio ad Hitlerum, so the stuff about Ahmadinejad doesn't seem on-point. ANYWAY... Yes, let's get to the point; it was probably impolitic to bring up GL in the first place.

I'm actually stunned. You don't care either way what the standard is, as long as there is one. Great. I do care (though I also care more that there is a standard). So, that's wonderful. Why are we even arguing? All things don't seem to be equal, with issues already raised in detail below. I also concede that the spacing has been here a long time, since you dug up the diff before I got around to it, and surprised (and suspect that it was reverted more than once in the intervening months; we'll see.) I'm now curious if anyone actually does have a substantive reason other than not rocking the boat (which would be okay if there weren't any reasons to change it, I admit) against changing what the guideline says, and also wonder whether Tony1 (our only other RfC respondent so far) feels strongly that it is an ENGVAR issue. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Stunned? Well, this just shows that I have not made myself clear - I am not advocating "X. Y." per se. If I had to choose, I would go with that option for aesthetics, but, as I've pointed out, that is irrelevant. I'm still not convinced that there is sufficient evidence in favor of changing the rule (again, especially considering the amount of articles that would have to be moved), but if a persuasive case was made and/or a genuine consensus made, I would be fine with moving them to "X.Y."s. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 08:18, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Right. I meant that I was stunned that we had mutually argued so much over this when your position (unless I'm misinterpreting it) is that you don't care what standard is applied, as long as we apply a standard. I've been arguing the same position, plus also arguing for a specific standard on grounds that I spent hours documenting. Nothing more. I further acknowledge that you aren't yet convinced that my evidence supports the argument for the specific standard I advocate (while disagreeing with the position that this evidence is insufficient). I'm not sure what else I can do to actually make that case, and leave it up to the RfC to help on that. My position (well-documented, I think) is that the issue has been controversial since the start (I think the first unresolved fight about this, linked to at the top, dates from 2003 or so), and that this page, which at least both I and Tony1 think is atrociously written and which shows signs of highly inadequate discussion for a WP-wide guideline over two years old, did not represent consensus. We have an outright vote, of all things, showing no consensus, and a majority against it in that vote, for requiring spacing of initials. Further, spacing them conflicts sharply with MOS's handling of all other abbreviations. Meanwhile the spacing is clearly leading to confusion (as evidenced by article duplication that you reported yourself), is disputed (as evidenced by the prior debates linked to, especially the one about names from India), and does not reflect actual practice (as evidenced by what people do in article prose, in the [unspaced] majority). That's my whole song and dance on this number, in a nutshell. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:37, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Godwin's Law: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 08:18, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Read the whole Godwin's law article: Bringing up the Holocaust as an example qualifies, since it is simply a sideways comparison to Hitler or the Nazis. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:37, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Affected articles For my own edification, these are the only articles that are affected by this right now, as far as I'm aware: H.S. Dillon, K.N. Singh, M.J. Hyland, and S.L.A. Marshall. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 05:35, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The spaced version looks vile to me. The dots are not used in many publications nowadays, particularly by non-Americans. I see this as a variety of English issue, and hold that editors should choose (by consensus, where necessary) which version to use consistently in each article: XY Smith, X.Y. Smith, and X. Y. Smith. Tony (talk) 05:46, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Right This post just proves my point - it's an argument from personal aesthetics, which is not exactly persuasive. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 03:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Another handwave. Only one of the three points that Tony raised (and obviously not his main one) is personally aesthetic. The second one is his observation of actual popular usage, a valid relevance point (though anecdotal). The third is his analysis of the applicability of WP:ENGVAR. Please stop using bogus debate tactics and make a real point. Wikipedia is not a political debate podium, so arguments of the sort that work in politics are not going to convince anyone here. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Waving again You are correct that only one of the points he made was of the superfluous sort that I mentioned above. It's not a handwave based on your definition, because I'm responding directly to that point, though, so now I'm really confused. His second point is written in such a way as to strengthen my argument again - it is of the sort "nobody does that anymore" with no evidence. You're right that I didn't point that out before, but I am now. It is also the case that he is making a point about ENGVAR and furthermore it's applicability, but that's something I've never called into question in the first place. (I've also seen no evidence that it is an ENGVAR question, and if I understand your post below, you don't think it is.) I am not an expert on British English, so I really have nothing to say about it other than the point that I already made: having no standard at all would be problematic for a variety of reasons. He ignored that point of mine and made the localization argument which is really a lateral move from all of the problems (alphabetization, consistency, etc.) that I mentioned in the first place. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 04:09, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I am skeptical about the ENGVAR argument, as noted throughout below, but believe it is only fair to mention it (and to explain it neutrally on its own merits, which I believe I have done). He didn't say "no one does it any more" which would be an extreme claim, but that it is "not used in many publications nowadays". Whether this claim is true or not is presently indeterminate. I think it is clear that it is not used much any longer in journalism, as the two three journalistic style guides cited, one from the US and one from the UK, both denigrate the practice, and that it is equally clear that it is still done in scientific journals, since the CMoS and several sci journal style guides either directly call for it or appear to illustrate it even if they do not directly call for it. Beyond that, it would take more research to answer the question. But it's not research worth doing, because the point of the sourcing exercise was to see if there was any global English-language consensus on the issue, and it was proven conclusively that there is not, leaving us with nothing but Wikipedia-based reasoning to rely on: Does one style or the other (or no preference either way) help our readers and editors? That is the question I've been trying to get at. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:35, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Evidence for and against spacing

At the previous WP:RM discussion noted above, I was challenged to provide sources for the contention that style guides generally do not recommend such spacing (I did not intend to imply that they uniformly recommend against it, although some do; however my original "conflict with" wording was vague enough to infer that), so below is 3.5 hours worth of digging around to confirm what I already knew from previously looking into this issue several years ago when I was first becoming a PR professional. Also, I stand by my statement that the spaced version is falling into disuse; the only holdouts seem to be peer-reviewed journals and other academic/scientific publications, which prefer the spaced variant. Newspapers no longer do this for the most part, and when it comes to American popular writing, CMoS and the APS are directly contradictory of each other, with the AP guidelines being newer (i.e. evidence of a shift away from this usage that, along with many other things, the highly conservative CMoS simply has not caught up with yet.) NB: The AP is responsible in part or in whole for the vast majority of the non-local-interest news that Americans read, so their usage is the furthest thing from insignificant.

• AP against spacing: "Quick Associated Press Style" (PDF). College of Communication Writing Center. Boston University (from original by The Associated Press). 1997. The following Quick Reference is taken from The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual, Sixth Trade Edition. – "Do not put a space between initials: C.S. Lewis; G.K. Chesterton." I don't have the full AP Stylebook on hand, and the full online version is too expensive to access just to prove a point, but another summary of the AP guide repeats this advice, so we can be pretty sure that it actually does say that. I haven't bought the actual book yet, as I'm literally running out of room for books, what with over 3,000 of them. (And yes, moving day is very much a pain in the neck. And back, and arms... :-) Another editor, in the previous version of this debate linked to above, confirms that the AP guide calls for no spaces.
• Guardian against spacing: "Abbreviations and Acronyms" (PDF). Guardian Style. Manchester: Guardian Media Group. 2007. – "Do not use full points^{[sic &ndash as opposed to... 5/8 points?]} in abbreviations, or spaces between initials: US, mph, eg, 4am, lbw, No 10, PJ O’Rourke, WH Smith, etc." The period-less spelling is mostly a Briticism (I can find only one US example, noted below), and one not even agreed with by other British style guides, so I concur with Tony that that is a WP:ENGVAR issue, and consensus on whether WP:MOS should recommend against the dot-less usage had not been reached last I looked (some arguing for it being ENGVAR and nothing more, others saying it raises serious readability and ambiguity issues).
• Economist against spacing: In the first of the previous version of this debate linked to above, another editor provides information that The Economist Style Guide (a guide published by The Economist, not a guide for economists in particular :-) agrees with AP and Guardian on this.
• MLA apparently neutral, possibly against spacing: Both of the MLA style guides are expensive and I don't have either on hand. Summaries of them [1] [2] [3] [4] do not address the issue. The search results on "italics" at MLA.org provide only a single example, and it is not only unspaced but also has no periods (a style that very few other style guides agree with) but is not an example from either of the MLA guides themselves. After 15 minutes of digging around on this, the only MLA summary I can find that provides an initials example favors no spaces ("Darling, C.W., R.E. Pepin, and L.B. Gates. A History of ..."), but there is no guarantee that this came from MLA itself, since neither MLA guide was quoted.
• Strunk & White neutral: The Elements of Style (4th Ed. (paperback) ed.). New York: Longman. 1979/2000. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) – Does not address the matter directly, but illustrates such abbreviations as unspaced, including in names (see "The Reverend Harry Lang, S.J." not "The Reverend Harry Lang, S. J." on p. 3), and on its very cover says "E.B. White", not "E. B. White" (it's frontispiece is kerned a little differently and may or may not reflect spaced usage).
• ISO neutral as far as can be determined: "Outline of bibliographic references". Excerpts from International Standard ISO 690-2: Information and documentation – Bibliographic references – Part 2: Electronic documents or parts thereof. National Library of Canada, Ottawa: International Organisation for Standardisation. 2004. {{cite web}}: |section= ignored (help) – Doesn't mention it or illustrate it. The full ISO 690 has to be purchased, regardless of medium, and there is a note in the summary that reads: [Note: Some text omitted here] in which this question could have been addressed one way or the other, or explicitly neutrally. The ISO 690 summary has precisely the same wording, including the omission note.
• Fowler's neutral but seems to prefer spacing: Fowler, H.W. (1996/2004). Fowler's Modern English Usage (Revd. 3rd Ed. (hardback) ed.). Oxford: Oxford U. Pr. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) – does not address the matter; "initials" entry redirects to "acronyn", at which no spaces are advised generally and no exception is made for names. Cover and frontispiece usage are ambiguous, again because of kerning. The "name" and related entries do not mention it either. In citing sources, Burchfield (who is neither Fowler nor the editor of the modern American revised edition of Fowler's, which I don't have yet for comparison) appears to consistently use the spaced version, but as the text of guide does not recommend it anywhere, it is just as likely that the publisher did this out of their own preference, or that Burchfield was following CMoS just for the heck of it.
• ACS neutral but seems to prefer spacing: "Book". ACS Style Guidelines. University of Wisconsin, Madison: American Chemical Society. 1997. does not advise the spacing, though it does illustrate it in examples. It should be noted that the ACS style guide, at least according to this online version (I don't have the paper one) radically departs from other style guides in many ways (doesn't even italicize book titles!), so its authoritativeness is questionable.
• MHRA neutral but seems to prefer spacing: "Books" (PDF). MHRA Style Guide. London: Modern Humanities Research Association. 2002. {{cite web}}: |section= ignored (help) – Does not address the issue, but examples show spaces.
• NYT unknown: I don't have The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage yet. I'll bet good money that it agrees with the AP guide.
• Hart's unknown: I don't have any modern version of this, either (I don't trust my copy from the 1960s on matters of modern style, and it's in a box in the garage with other old books anyway). The question is complicated on this one, because it has been revised and republished seemingly with different editorial staffs as both The Oxford Guide to Style (2002) and as New Hart's Rules: The Handbook of Style for Writers and Editors (2005), which is explicitly promoted as "Hart's Rules for the 21st Century"—there is no guarantee they will even agree on this point if they do address it. According to a third-party summary, the older Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers (39th ed.) did recommend spacing, but that is neither here nor there as the volume is obsolete.
• APA unknown: Haven't forked over the cash for this one either, especially since it is really only relevant for science journal articles, and some of the styles it generally recommends (especially redundant sentence structures) are highly inappropriate outside that context. This and other online summaries do not go into the issues. Some non-authoritative examples show spacing, others do not, and the source of the spacing (or not) is not clear (i.e. were the initials in the examples spaced because the American Psychological Association says so, or because CMoS says so, for example, and APA is silent on the matter?).
• CMoS recommends spacing, inconsistently: "Section 8.6". Chicago Manual of Style (15th Ed ed.). University of Chicago Press. 2003. pp. pp. 312. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |pages= has extra text (help) – "The space between initials should be the same as the space between the last initial and the name^[sic], except when the initials are used alone, with or without periods." This treatment is far too self-inconsistent to be acceptable to the WP:MOS: It not only establishes different usages for personal initials without providing any rational basis for doing so, it conflicts with CMoS's own advice in other sections on how to handle abbreviations and acronyms, and conflicts with WP:MOS's advice and handling of abbreviations and acronyms.

The most obvious conclusions about spacing of initials, with regard to Wikipedia, seem to be:

1. It is not a matter of "proper English usage", like the differences between "cats", "cat's" and "cats' " – there is substantial disagreement on the matter among "authoritive" sources. Sources, therefore, provide no reason to prefer one over the other.
2. Unlike periods (full stops, dots) in initials, it is not a US vs. UK English dispute. Thus WP:ENGVAR provides no reason to prefer one over the other.
3. It is a simple stylistic preference, with highly formal publications (refereed journals) preferring the spaces, and less formals ones (newspapers and the like) preferring to omit them, by and large, and with the formality middle ground (in which an encyclopedia falls) subject to no particular authoritative rules on the matter that are broadly accepted. Again, no reason to prefer one over the other.
4. While CMoS has a broad influence, it is well-accepted only in North America (and perhaps only in the US, as much of its advice conflicts with Canadian English general usage). This is a reason per WP:ENGVAR to not prefer what CMoS says on that basis alone. That CMoS is self-inconsistent on the matter provides a strong rationale for WP:MOS to ignore CMoS on this point. And the fact that there is long-standing WP:MOS precedent for ignoring CMoS on various points when following it would result in problems for Wikipedia readers or editors (sometimes WP:MOS recommends the opposite of what CMoS does, and in other cases treats CMoS as one option along with others recommended by other style guides.
5. WP:NC needs, on this as on everything else, to follow the lead of WP:MOS, so this debate really belongs at WT:MOS. The Wikipedia Manual of Style is our style guide, and if other guidelines conflict with it (especially on matters of style!), this will produce editor confusion and conflict, and reduce the acceptable level of WP guidelines generally. The initials-spacing issue has been raised at WT:MOS more than once, so the natural inclination appears to be to debate the issue there, since that is the talk page for our style guide.
6. The consequences of reversing WP:NC on this issue are effectively nil, since most such articles already have redirects that either go from "X. Y. Zed" to "X.Y. Zed" or vice versa (and all of them should, along with "XY Zed", to account for readers used to one style or the other or the other), and the usage will normalize over time as editors move articles to the "X.Y. Zed" format when they are not found that way. This also takes are of the consistency/uniformity issue (accidental competing articles like C.N. Liew and C. N. Liew), since the redirecting has nothing to do with which style is recommending in Wikipedia.
7. Regardless of the rationales behind spacing or not spacing the initials, the claim that there is consensus to space them is clearly questionable, not only per the "editor revolt" at J.E.B. Stuart already mentioned, and many similar incidents, but simply by the large numbers of "X.Y. Zed"-form articles created in good faith. After over 25,000 edits (very, very few of them things like AWB runs; I think the longest automated session I've done has been category fixes on approx. 300 articles), it's become very clear to me that the average Wikipedia editor in prose will use the "X.Y. Zed" form, and that the vast majority of "X. Y. Zed" occurrences are later "corrections" by people who have seen this spacing recommendation in WP:NC. This also accounts for the relatively small number of articles with unspaced initials at present - people with nothing better to do look around for them and move them. The infrequency with which people use AWB to "fix" the "problem" in prose (which takes a lot of time and effort) strongly suggests that no statistically significant number of editors strongly prefers the spaced variant enough to do much about it, or we should be seeing these changes about as often as we see people use AWB to go on 1000-article tpyo fxing runs.

Good faith I agree that many editors act in good faith when creating "X.Y. Zed" articles. The difference is that when I first started doing "X.Y. Zed" moves, I noticed that overwhelmingly the articles that were edited twice and misspelled were of the form "X.Y. Zed" (e.g. several dozen Indian politician articles) and the ones that had several hundred edits and actual sources were of the form "X. Y. Zed" (e.g. C. S. Lewis.) -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 03:24, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. All I can think of that this would be evidence for is that non-native English speakers, and native English speakers from other than Britain and the US (e.g. major portions of India) are not familiar with the spaced notation, which is another major argument against using it. But it is just as likely that it's just a coincidence. I've been editing near-daily for over two years and do not notice the pattern you allude to. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

8. The fact that most people who use initials in their names professionally (C.C. Chapman, e.e. cummings, C.C.H. Pounder, etc., etc., etc.) do/did not space the initials apart themselves strongly suggests that Wikipedia should not be attempting to force the separation. Regardless what comes out to be the general to-space-or-not-to-space consensus on what to do about such names, the actual articles should live at the preferred spelling of the person in question, when a clear preference is reliably sourceable or personally expressed. Otherwise we are violating WP:NOR, WP:NPOV and WP:NOT#SOAPBOX in pushing an editorial preference.

WP:OR? Three is hardly a majority. I could just as easily use your examples and say that since they had to deliberately delete the spaces from their names, it is obvious that it is standard to insert them, and it would be a violation of WP:NOR, WP:NPOV and WP:NOT#SOAPBOX in pushing an editorial preference. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 03:24, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, saying that someone's professionally-used name "really is" C. C. H. Pounder when they actually spell it C.C.H. Pounder is original research, no different from saying that volcanoes are "really" caused by underground giants, when we have solid evidence of what actually does cause volcanoes. It's a more subtle form of OR than the silly hypothetical example, but it's just a difference of degree, not kind. I do not understand your point about "had to deliberately delete"; perhaps you can rephrase? Lastly (and again, please stop using fallacious arguments, you are not going to fool anyone here into believing such arguments are logically valid at all - in this case the fallacy is that of the straw man), I did not suggest that only three people put no spaces in their initials, nor suggest that such a group of three would make a majority. They were simply examples. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

True I am in complete agreement about your "C. C. H. Pounder" example, precisely because it is a deliberate choice of hers. For those who don't make a conscious decision about their own personal spacing preferences, it is not original research, it's just a naming standard. For someone who is indifferent (and my guess is that would be 99% of those who go by initials), it is not a matter of forcing them to have some name they don't want, it is simply a matter of using our internal guidelines. If someone only wanted his name in the Arial font or written in blue, that would be just as silly, but it wouldn't be original research if the name was printed in black Helvetica. My point about "deliberately deleting" is to say: in the case of C.C. Chapman, he had to make it clear that he intentionally desired "C.C." and not "C. C." Since he had to go about proving that he strictly wanted "C.C." that is evidence to me that it is conventional to use "C. C." I never made a straw man, as I never claimed that you claimed that three is a majority. My point is that if you are trying to convince me (or anyone) that "X.Y." is more common based on three idiosyncratic examples, your argument is not persuasive. Furthermore, it is persuasive to my point of view, as I tried to explain above (but apparently was not clear): if three persons have to choose "X.Y." then "X. Y." is probably the silent majority. I hope that is more intelligible than my last post. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 04:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, then I think we are in agreement on "don't force it against sources". However, "Since he had to go about proving that he strictly wanted "C.C." that is evidence" of nothing to me but that the spaced variation is unusual, to such an extent that it bugged the crap out of one of our article subjects so much that he went to the trouble to have it changed! — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Disclaimer, to be fair and complete: There is a position advanced at either WT:MOS or WT:MOSNUM (I misremember whether one, the other or both, but I suspect both), on a completely different matter (namely, what alterations are and are not permissible to content inside direct quotations) which holds that such spacing and punctuation twiddles are a meta-matter, and do not actually raise the WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR issues that I allege they do. That position did not gain consensus, but I am not certain that there is a consensus against it, either. Ergo, a small portion of my overall argument throughout could be weak on MOS consensus grounds. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

9. The idea that we should stick with it just because it's "already in use" is a non-point (just by the general way Wikipedia works and because it is certainly not being done consistently; it is trivial to find numerous counter-examples, especially in prose rather than article names). If a guideline advises something that a large number of editors ignore, it is time to reconsider whether the point in question should remain in the guideline (especially when it conflicts with another, arguably more fundamental, guideline).

If it ain't broke... I readily concede that there are many editors who have not followed the standard as it has been for at least two years. That is hardly an argument in favor of changing or abolishing it. Again, the same could be said of WP:OR or WP:NPOV or any other article. I can recall a proposal to delete all unsourced articles from Wikipedia, which would have deleted some 85% of mainspace articles. That proposal didn't make it very far. Most of these articles have been brought into conformity with the rule (by me), just like many have had sources added, or spurious original research deleted. The same can be true of this style measure: keep on enforcing the rule as it has been written and make the occasional move as necessary. The alternatives are: 1.) move all of the articles to "X.Y. Zed" which is a Herculean effort compared to my proposal or 2.) have no standard, and end up with the problems that I mentioned before (two articles on the same person, impossible to alphabetize, etc.) -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 03:24, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm really not sure what say to someone who seems to think he is almost singlehandedly responsible for WP:NCP's enforcement! Trying to ignore that claim, I'll proceed. Your reference to the "...don't fix it" maxim seems out of place here, since it is in fact alleged that the spaced use is "broke"; by your own admission it seems to be confusing to editors from India as just one example, and my own contention is that it is inconsistent with all other treatment of abbreviations on Wikipedia, and there is a broad and long-standing consensus at WT:MOS and elsewhere - including in the naming conventions themselves more generally than just at WP:NCP - that consistency is very important. It is readily observable that spaced usage in article names and unspaced usage in article prose (which is more common than spaced) are grossly inconsistent. I could go on, but the point is already made: There are several ways that the spacing convention could be considered defective, thus this debate's very existence. No mass-move of of the articles to "X.Y. Zed" form is really needed, as people will do it piecemeal over time until there are few enough left that they can be mass-moved in a practical manner. Since all three possible spellings should end up at the same place, there is no big deal for the end reader.

Fallacies Your line about singlehanded responsibility sounds a little like an ad hominem attack, which is a kind of logical fallacy. If you wanted to ignore that claim, you could just ignore it. I suppose I wasn't clear: you're correct that the standard is confusing (or rather, ignored - I don't know of anyone who can't comprehend the standard) to the extent that are articles that violate the rule. The same could be said of WP:NPOV (a far more confusing standard.) The point I'm making is that, 1.) regardless of how frequently it's violated, the rule itself is fine and 2.) for those articles where the name is incorrect, they are eventually fixed (in the example of some obscure Indian judge, I was the one who fixed it; in the case of more high-profile articles, someone else did it without my intervention.) I agree that the space usage in the articles' content is grossly inconsistent - it is much more difficult to look through every use of "X.Y." versus "X. Y." in the content of the articles themselves than it is to look at Special:Allpages and see all of the articles entitled "X.Y." Since inconsistency is undesirable (especially within the content of the article itself, as ENGVAR states), it is desirable to either 1.) enforce the standard as it is, or 2.) change from a preference of "X. Y." to "X.Y." Furthermore, you are correct that the average reader will not notice much of an issue with the moves and that "X.Y." "XY" and "X. Y." should end up in the same place. I am not convinced that many of the obscure articles would have been moved without someone making a concerted effort, as they are frequently orphans that haven't been edited for months. The only person who would move them is someone looking to move improperly-titled articles. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 04:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not attacking you, I'm repeating you to yourself – "Most of these articles have been brought into conformity with the rule (by me)" – and hinting that this seems like chutzpah. If it came across as an attack, I apologize. I kind of get your point about WP:NPOV, but it is a policy, not a guideline; people don't have the luxury of ignoring it, or their articles may be deleted, and WP:NPOV has a humongous pile of consensus buy-in, as well as it having come down from on-high via WP:OFFICE. There is no option for consensus to change on NPOV. That is not the case with minor points in a naming convention guideline. Agreed that there are really only two choices, and I'm obviously advocating #2. Agreed again, as above, on the "three names, one target" redir situation. "The only person who would move [orphans] is someone looking to move improperly-titled articles." Acknowledged. I don't think it matters, since a) they are orphans anyway, and b) the redirs will take care of it for the reader, and c) that in some cases lack of redirs will result in duplicate articles is unfortunate, but true no matter what standard is chosen. I also did not mean to denigrate the work you and others have done to make things comply with WP:NCP, it was just the near-singlehandedness of the claim that raised an eyebrow. I know that such cleanup work is thankless; I do piles of it myself in other areas (especially poor categorization, stub sorting, DEFAULTSORTing, etc.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Passion Thing got a bit heated on my end, too. Sorry. Upwards and onwards. Your point about NPOV is well-taken, but, again, I'm using an extreme to prove my point. And, as I've made clear elsewhere in this same post, I'm basically fine indifferent with change (and certainly, changing or repealing NPOV would dramatically alter what Wikipedia is, whereas this will not) - my issue is conformity. Again, these orphans do matter in cases of alphabetization, categorization, print copies, etc. and simple professionalism, which is the most persuasive to me. You wouldn't expect Encyclopedia Britannica to have "X.Y. Lastname" and "X. Y. Lastname" so I don't see why it's appropriate for Wikipedia. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 08:18, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Right. I do agree on much of that as general principles. The issue to me here is that when our general guideline principle of "consistency is very, very important" (and it certainly is) conflicts with policy principles (of "do not advocate personal points of view" per WP:NPOV, "don't make stuff up" per WP:NOR, and "don't use Wikipedia to push a linguistic advocacy position", per WP:NOT#SOAPBOX), then consistency must take a back seat, because policy trumps guidelines, period. That said, I argue for this guideline taking a consistent default position (of no spacing of initials, based on sources and rationales already detailed). I.e., the only exceptions would be cases where there are reliable sources (WP:V policy and WP:RS guideline) that show that the default is not properly applicable to the cases in question, as is clearly the case with names from India, and maybe the case with British names, the latter being an issue that remains highly open to question. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:51, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Advocacy Consistency must take a backseat, sure. For what it's worth, I am not advocating a personal points of view, making stuff up, or using Wikipedia to push a linguistic advocacy position. I don't think you are either. It appears that in the main, we've agreed with one another. The only real difference, I suppose at this point is whether or not the evidence you've offered is convincing enough to a consensus of a significant amount of Wikipedians to actually change what is rule and, for the most part, practice (due, in no small part, to my moves.) -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 02:21, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

10. In closing, WP:MOS should explicitly (in its section on acronyms and abbreviations) recommend against spacing of initials (except where it is provable that the spacing is preferred by the subject), on the evidence so far that it is a science-journal usage that hasn't found currency outside that context other than in the US CMoS which even disagrees with some other US style guides as well as some non-US ones that also are not scientific-journal oriented. There is no solid basis on which to recommend spacing of initials in Wikipedia, as even the journal-oriented guides are not clearly unanimous on the matter. The two-article-for-the-same-person problem, as I already pointed out, has nothing to do at all with what the standard is. And, I do not understand the point of your "delete all unsourced articles" example; it does not seem to related or compare (apples and oranges again). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Discussion of evidence

• Wow! Tony (talk) 02:54, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Wow, indeed This is impressive and much appreciated. That having been said, my position doesn't change at all since, as you point out yourself, these guides generally do not recommend such spacing, rather than explicitly recommend against it. Since such is the case, there is no compelling reason to change the standard as it is. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 03:10, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Since you seem to want to treat it as a "vote of sources", please note that of the sources dug up so far, only one requires spacing, and two forbid it. We should not approach the matter that way, though. I think you have missed the point, so will try to compress it into one (long) sentence: The sources demonstrate that there is no offline consensus on the issue, therefore they are pretty much moot for purposes of this discussion; instead, we have to look to Wikipedia-internal reasons to prefer one over the other, or neither, and the rationales so far presented are that there is no reason to prefer the spaced variant, several to prefer the the unspaced (especially consistency within MoS and its related guidelines), and a plausible but perhaps weak argument that it should be considered a WP:ENGVAR matter and left to editor discretion on a case-by-case basis. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Sources I'm not making it a vote of sources (if I understand your point correctly): what I'm saying is that 1.) there is no consensus among Manuals of Style, 2.) few actually take a stance based on your research, and 3.) we already have a standard. Consequently, there is no reason to change it. I honestly don't understand what kind of "Wikipedia-internal reasons" you have, especially when Wikipedia's guideline is what I'm saying in the first place. The Wikipedia-internal rule is the rule. I have no idea what your examples are for Wikipedia preferring unspaced naming, and I really don't see how this is ENGVAR, when there is some pretty paltry evidence that it is in the first place, especially from within Wikipedia, where there is none. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 04:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Right, and what I'm saying in response is that our standard needs to have a rational basis. Presently there is no evidence that it does, the idea was already shot down in a vote at WT:NC (see first link to prior debate, now at top of the RfC thread), and there are rational reasons to reverse it. I've already explained the WP-internal rationales, but to repeat the two most important ones: There is clear evidence that the spaced variation is so unusual that it is confusing to editors, and it is inconsistent will all other Wikipedia treatment of abbreviations of any kind. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:04, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Reason I'm all for rational bases. I would personally prefer if there was one incontrovertible source, but since English has no language regulating body, all we can do is take a look at guidelines like popular usage, newspapers, MoSes, etc. And those all have their place. Considering: 1.) there is a standard in our MoS and 2.) many, many articles already conform to it, there would have to be a pretty solid consensus among outside sources to change what is already in rule and practice here. Since we both agree that the matter is disputed among outside sources, it seems like it's impossible for such to be the case. A simple majority of voters or outside sources - as compelling as that is - would not be rationale for changing what is already the case for such a large amount of articles (in my understanding of Wikipedia's notion of consensus.) If some clear super-majority of a substantial number of editors were in favor of "X.Y," I'd be fine with that, but I find it doubtful that this will occur, either, considering how arcane the topic is. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 08:18, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Also As far as the NYTimes goes, I've e-mailed there editor. If/when I get a response, I'll post here. I have asked about a similar phenomenon - it is their practice to use space-less periods for acronyms almost across the board (e.g. "F.B.I.") -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 03:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a red herring. We are not going to wait around for an answer from an irrelevant third party who will almost certainly not write back before consensus is arrived at one way or the other. If there is some reason to think that what the NYT style guide says on the matter is actually important, one of us can go buy it or look at it in a library or bookstore and find out, but as already pointed out we don't need to do this: the point of the sourcing was to demonstrate that there is no world-wide consensus in the English language on what to do with initials, and this has been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt. I'm not entirely sure what your point about the FBI is, or how it is supposed to relate. Looking at http://www.nytimes.com right now (as of this timestamp: 04:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)), I see inconsistent usage (both "NATO" and "N.S.A." appear, along with "N.F.L." - Wikipedia would not permit the latter two, as in both cases the entities in question can be directly sourced as using the forms with no periods[5][6]). No such acronyms, with or without periods, in the NYT news on their homepage use spaces, so it is probably a safe bet that the NYT style guide doesn't space initials, though this is not a 100% certainty, since the CMoS is also inconsistent on the matter. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Waiting I wouldn't suggest anyone wait; I was simply doing that for my own upbuilding. I brought up the F.B.I. example because it was in some way similar to the information that I thought was apparently desirable to have. Now it is apparent that you are indifferent or hostile to knowing about the NYT MoS. (Aside: NATO is "NATO" because it is pronounced as a word. For the same reason UNESCO rather than United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and United Nations rather than UN. This standard is used on Wikipedia, as best I understand from someone how tried to move UNESCO to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.) -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 04:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Mostly off-topic, on the acronym side discussion: I'm genuinely curious what the NYT guide says, but it isn't crucial to this debate in any way, and a busy actual editor at one of the biggest newspapers in the world won't do our research for us. The "pronunciation trick" for determining whether to use periods or not isn't used in Wikipedia (cf. first line at FBI - Wikipedia uses "FBI" not "F.B.I." There are some articles like UNESCO and NASA that are at their acronym article names instead of the expansions, but it is because of the "use the most common name" argument, especially the variant that if the average reader would not be sure about the expansion (which is not the case with UN or FBI) then use the acronym as the article title - hardly anyone knows what UNESCO stands for and not all that many get NASA right, because of the unusual neologism "aeronautics" in it. Doesn't (or shouldn't) have anything to do with their pronunciation; cf. RAM → Random access memory, etc. The fact of the matter is that the usage is wildly inconsistent, and something should probably be done about that by clarifying the naming conventions on the issue. The RAM entry should probably redirect the other direction, on the basis of common use/knowledge, not "pronounceability as a word". All that said, I agree with you that the fact that NATO is not capitalized in NYT is probably due to its pronounceability as a word, because there are a few style guides that draw that rather arbitrary distinction. I.e., I don't think it was a typo on their part. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Busy, but courteous NYT actually e-mailed me back about the F.B.I. example. I can forward the contents to you if you are actually interested in that. The "pronunciation trick" is definitely used, and the examples you give prove it - "Nah-suh," "Nay-toe," "Yoo-nes-kow," and "FBI." The most common name argument is not applied to many of the same examples - "FBI" and "UN." Now, I'm not arguing that such should be the case, nor that this is even what the rule is, but in practice, as someone who tried to move UNESCO *and* NATO, these were the rationales offered (in addition to "most common name," which clearly fails the test on UN, FBI, NFL, etc.) For what it's worth, I would be in favor of expanding all of these all the time, but that's just me. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 08:18, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer that too, but as Francis notes below, this is off-topic here, and should be brought up at WT:MOSABBR. I am genuinely curious how that will play out - are there a lot of editors who would rather have the real article name be "NATO" instead of "North Atlantic Treaty Organization" even though "FBI" redirs to "Federal Bureau of Investigation"? I guess we'll eventually find out over there. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

With respect to Strunk & White being "neutral" ... "E. B. White" is spaced when it occurs on the acknowledgment page and at the conclusion of the introduction to the third edition. See also pp. 31 for an example of spaced initials in a name. "S.J." following a name stands for "Society of Jesus" and, like degree abbreviations, is never spaced. Abbreviations for given names and for after name designations are two separate issues. — Snocrates 01:49, 20 December 2007 (UTC))

That makes sense with regard to "S.J."; however my main point was that S&W as a volume (its authors are long dead) has to be viewed with skepticism if its own modern editors and publisher ignore what it says on this point, on the very cover of the book. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Just a note: I agree with Francis Schonken's removal of the redundant large dispute tag from the guideline section, since inline ones identify the disputed passages more clearly. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Periods

I think that we have to abandon the requirement to use periods, as a WP:ENGVAR matter. See previous debates on this topic (links at top of the RfC thread). It turns out that Indians (from India, I mean, not Native Americans) frequently use initials in their names and virtually never use periods. While I'm skeptical that the Commonwealth usage of things like "JK Rowling" are as common as some say they are, they are common enough that we maybe should not force them. Yes, I am reversing myself on this (see previous debates again). The WP:NOR and WP:NPOV issue raised by forcing one style are seeming to me to outweigh the benefits of consistency for consistency's sake, and we are already at consensus to not force one style when the style is not the most common used for or by that article subject, so the consistency is already shot anyway. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

PS: To self-clarify, I suggest that the default should be dotted, since as far as my sourcing spree, above, can determine, the only source for generally not periodizing abbreviations, including human name initials, is The Guardian, with some potential corroboration from one US source, which may not be authoritative, since it is from a summary of the style guide in question, not from the actual style guide. Per previous discussion (WT:MOS and its archives, if I recall), there are good disambiguation reasons to not abandon dots in an across-the-board way. But requiring them is a POV-pushing exercise when it comes to Indian names, British people who are reliably sourceable as preferring the version without periods, and probably other cases. I would really love to see J[.][ ]K[.] Rowling's actual signature...— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Original research? I think it is neither original research nor is it it POV to assume that Indians are "X. Y. Zed" until proven otherwise - it's a simple style matter. Original research has to advance some kind of claim or agenda, and these naming conventions are not a thesis of any kind; they are simply an arbitrary standard (and I agree that they are completely arbitrary - they should just be something, don't really care what.) That having been said, this brings up a point that is implicit in what we've said before: there should be four articles, three of which are redirects, to initialisms: "XY Zed" "X Y Zed" "X.Y. Zed" and "X. Y. Zed." I've made my position clear on which should be the main and which the redirects, so I won't belabor it here again/as well/still. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 02:21, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

But actually see the previous debates, esp. on the India matter. There is no credible claim that Indians use "K.N. Chatterjee" or "K. N. Chatterjee"; they use "KN Chatterjee". The very nature of the names is actually different from "P.G. Wodehouse"-type names; the similarity is only superficial. That the Indian usage doesn't use periods has not actually been challenged (it could be, but that would be a new topic). Forcing Indian names to use periods is advancing a personal thesis, namely that it is "proper" always in the English language to put periods/dots after initials, without exception, no matter the reason for the initials in the first place. That is OR and soapboxing. Same with J.K. Rowling. If it turns out that she always spells it "JK Rowling", then we don't have a solid basis on which to tell her she is wrong about her own nomme de plume (I honestly have no idea if that is her real name or not, and don't care). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Indian initialisms Clearly it is not the case that "XY Lastname" is standard or overwhelmingly used, as I moved several dozen "X.Y. Lastname" articles of Indians. My guess is that, considering how obscure they are, only Indians (or Pakistanis, Sri Lankas, Bangladeshis) would have made them in the first place. And I agree that if "J. K. Rowling" deliberately writes her name "JK Rowling," then that is how her article should be entitled. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 10:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Some differentiation needs to be done here. In the case of South Indian names (i.e. Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, etc.), it is not 'X.Y. Lastname', it is 'X(fathers name).Y(village name). Firstname'. The entire naming scheme is different from European namings. There should not be periods between the X and the Y, since those initials form a composite unit. To write A. K. Gopalan is just plainly strange. Regarding North Indian names, those are more similar to European ones in the sense that it is "X.Y. Lastname", but the overwhelming usage is to avoid having periods between such X-Y-combinations. Wikipedia should reflect actual usage of names, as they are used in actual English language media in India. --Soman (talk) 10:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Huh Well, in that case, I guess there needs to be Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Indian persons) or somesuch. I have no reason to doubt you, but it would be nice if you could substantiate your claim or point to some resource that explains this phenomenon further. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 00:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

(revert indenting) There are many Indians who informally write their names in the form Givenname XY. No notable ones that I can remember however. A basic resource for Indian names is at [7] . (In respect of the above post by Soman, I won't disagree, but it should be noted that many south Indians have the name form 'X (village name) Y (father's or mother's given name), GivenName'. For instance, M. S. Subbulakshmi (Tamil, and with a matronymic), H. D. Deve Gowda (Kannadiga). Sometimes the village name is replaced by a true family name.) Imc (talk) 11:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Right, the point of all this being "Use the form that they use, or the most sources about them use if their own use cannot be established", and regardless of nationality. That's my proposal, with the caveat that the form "X.Y. Zed" would be the default, because there is no evidence of widespread spacing, in the form "X. Y. Zed", it being mostly an academic practice in journal citations. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:01, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

RfC comments

• To summarize the gist of all of the above from me, I have to note all of the following:

1. There is concrete proof that spacing between initials is not a universally-accepted practice in the English language, though it is favored by some, especially scientists.
2. There is solid evidence that it is not a US vs. UK dialect issue, as style guides on both sides of The Pond both do and do not recommend it; however it may be more common in the US than the UK (and Australia, etc.) due to the influence of the slow-to-change Chicago Manual of Style.
3. The spacing requirement has been subject to dispute on this talk page twice, as linked to above already, without clear consensus either way in my opinion, and this talk page shows little evidence of widespread use, having rather minuscule archives for a more than two-year-old WP-wide guideline.
4. It has been debated before elsewhere, including in an outright vote in which spacing lost by a considerable margin, and at which a consensus was certainly not arrived, followed by a Village pump discussion that also did not come to consensus (see first link to prior debates, at top of the entire RfC thread). When this sub-guideline split off from the main WP:NC, the inclusion of this spacing requirement did not represent consensus.
5. There are good reasons enumerated above to reverse the spacing; while they are not reasons of incredible importance, they are at least reasons, and there are no reasons to keep the spacing other than that reversing it will take time to propagate.

Other major points may follow, pending more research into the history of the issue and this page.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

• Some other points:

1. Please keep the general discussion of abbreviation/acronym formatting to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations) (aka Wikipedia:Naming conventions (acronyms)), and its talk page. I know, it's not very well possible to discuss the abbreviations in people names without discussing general abbreviation topics. But this naming convention is *only* about people names, and after all if Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations) is rewritten properly, maybe in the end it might suffise to write in WP:NCP something like: for formatting of abbreviations see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations), instead of the implied "exception" now mentioned in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations)#Abbreviation types not included in this guideline.
2. I go from the assumption that the current guideline on spacing in fact originated in a time when the MediaWiki software didn't have redirect technology yet, at which time uniformity of style for page names was more important than it is today. What I learn from this discussion is that we should, without hesitation, write in WP:NCP that *redirects* have to be provided from the other formats, always. That's more important than the space-or-no-space style issue imho.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 08:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Strongly agree with the idea that 3-format redirs are de rigeur, esp. to prevent the accidentally-forked articles reported above. However, I intentionally did not (so far as I recall) cite Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations) (WP:MOSABBR), because the entire rationale and nature of that document has been questioned of late; if you check back 1–2 weeks or so, you'll see me and a few others making major changes to it in hopes of bringing it in line with the rest of MoS, and then kind of giving up and going to its talk page saying "um, this needs a total rewrite". I've been thinking that it needs to be re-tagged with {{Proposal}} and re-done from the ground up. The point being, there does not presently seem to be a WP:MOS (i.e. big) consensus that WP:MOSABBR is authoritative, i.e. represents consensus (it presently may just be a micro-consensus of editors even aware that the page exists). It'll sort out over time, like everything else.

And of course I "violently agree" with the idea that being useful to our readers is way more important than any space-or-no-space debate on editorial grounds.

My main point – aside from the fact that an outright vote (WTF?) on spacing between initials was negatory – is that we have evidence (curiously provided by a quasi-proponent of the spacing) that the spacing is an impediment to at least ease-of-editing if not ease-of-use, esp. for English language users outside of the US and the UK (where perhaps the disagreement is so passé it is tiresome). To distill my point like whisk[e]y: This is an "old" issue in one sense, never resolved, but proceeded upon as if it had been, with unexpected negative results.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:01, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Was tired from discussing about change, so I attempted: Middle names - abbreviations of names - rewrite. Afaik the dispute tag can go now, but will leave it here still for some time to see whether anything else results from talk page discussions --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:24, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Will take a look, but tomorrow (or "later today", technically, in my time zone). Done. Concur with Tony1, below. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:01, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I object to making the default emphatically the dotted and spaced format. I don't like the wording, either. Tony (talk) 13:04, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I do as well. Default should be dotted and no space, per all of the above material. Perhaps Francis was just clarifying the wording without attempting to change the underlying meaning, which is fine since the RfC has only been open for a day. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of the dotted and spaced format, either. -- RG² 05:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree as well. older ≠ wiser 15:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Whereas I think it is silly to change now. If we need to have a special provision for South Indian names, so be it; but for European names, where it is purely typographical, please leave well enough alone. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 07:15, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Bot proposal

If there's any consensus here, it is on the point that redirects should be created for all alternative formats. This will prevent things like mentioned in the original question, where C.N. Liew and C. N. Liew were both created as separate articles. In a database dump, I've found around 30,000 missing redirects (not all personal names, there are a lot of F.C.'s in there) that should probably be created. If there are no objections, I will be asking User:Eubot (my bot) to add these.

Just to be absolutely clear: the bot will not move articles from one title format to another. Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 18:07, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

tx, seems like a good initiative to me. What would you instruct the bot to do in "double creation" instances (like your C.N. Liew/C. N. Liew example)? I'd suggest it makes a list here (or somewhere else linked from here), so that we can discuss the direction of the obviously indicated mergers. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The bot will do nothing in those cases; it only creates redirects when there is not yet an article at that name. But I will make a list of problem cases, and post it here. Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 00:27, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

tx, and sorry for the "extra assignment" (as a manner of speech), but I think it would be most helpful to sort this out. tx again. --Francis Schonken (talk) 00:35, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

No problem. The bot proposal is at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Eubot 4. -- Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 02:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Per the above discussions, there should be one article and THREE redirs: "X.Y. Zed", "X. Y. Zed", "XY Zed" and "X Y Zed".

PS: Could this bot of yours also fix the...

• , Jr.
•  Jr.
• , Junior
•  Junior
• , Jr
•  Jr
• , Jnr.
•  Jnr.
• , Jnr
•  Jnr

...problem (and the Senior variant)?

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:07, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I will create 3 redirects, in the formats you suggest. I haven't looked at the Jr. and Sr. problem yet, but I think that would be easy to do, and I've added that to the proposal. -- Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 15:42, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that there are certainly inconsistencies with "Jr.", ", Jr.", etc. that should be fixed, I can't seem to find consensus/discussion/etc. as to how to fix them (this is probably due to my inability to navigate Wikipedia). Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Senior and junior has the remark "In the case of senior/junior adding ', Sr.' or alternatively ', Jr.' after the name, is preferred". However, the most explanation I find as to why that rule is in place is at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (common names)/Archive 01#Jr/Sr, where "John Doe, Sr. [sic] is the one that people seem to prefer" is noted, without any detailed explanation. Can someone point me to why these should all be ", Jr." (instead of "Jr.")? (Please also see User talk:Alan smithee#Sr. and Jr.) Alan smithee (talk) 21:49, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that will be another proposal matter. One of the style guides I went thru in detail last week while sourcing the initials-spacing matter, made a very good point in my estimation that because the Jr. or Sr. is part of the name - it is "integral", I believe was the word used, that it would not use a comma, just as "II" in "James II of England" doesn't either, and that this is in sharp contrast to academic and honorary titles, e.g. "Jane Doe, PhD" or "Steve Stevenson, OBE". Actual practice is all over the map - it is quite common to see both "Jane Doe PhD" and "Steve Stevenson OBE", but the only logical rationale offered for either practice that I can find to date is that if it is part of the name, no comma, and if not part of the name, per se, but a later addition, use a comma. On that basis I would propose that "John Johnson Jr." is the usage that should be preferred here (and is actually the one that I consistently used, before reading that, and before noting that MOS as you cited above calls for a comma there.) Furthermore, it would also be consistent with other usages similar to "Jr.", e.g. "Pliny the Elder", not "Pliny, the Elder", and "Bigus Dickus Minor", not "Bigus Dickus, Minor" (to borrow a silly name from Monty Python). But that should perhaps be a separate debate. As with the originally proposed bot work, it might be best to have the bot add redirs for the versions that are not already the article title, rather than have it move anything around. Anyway, it seems to me that that usage is highly variant, and as with spacing of initials is not a US vs. UK issue at all. I do, here in America, see it done with the comma frequently, but have also seen it in UK publications, meanwhile, my stepfather from Mississippi used "Jr." without the comma, so even American usage is not consistent, leaving us yet again in a position for Wikipedia to settle on a recommendation for consistency that is based on our own logical analysis, not what style guides say, since the style guides conflict with each other (some do, in fact, recommend the comma; I think that CMoS is among them, but would have to go back to the bookshelf to be sure; will be happy to do so, but let's make it a separate new topic; also req. cross-references to previous archives of that debate, and I am certain there are at least two of them, since I've run across them incidentally a couple of time; at least one is in these archives, and I think one is in either the MOS archives or those of one of its subpages). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:19, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

", Jr" seems more idiomatic to me (outside of telephone directories, which begrudge the comma, as a waste of space.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 07:17, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

CMS 14th ed. 8.55 recommends not using the comma. Septentrionalis: could you expand what exactly you mean by "idiomatic"? (I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I don't understand what you mean.) Alan smithee (talk) 12:27, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

"John Smith Jr." seems unnatural to me, and it would be an effort to use it. If everyone else did for John Smith, I would make the effort, but I am surprised CMS sees things differently. Junior is an attributive, like John Smith, the explorer. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:01, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

If I recall correctly (again, I'd have to go back to the bookshelf, and will if requested to provide direct quotations) both CMoS and either Fowler or Strunk & White (I forget which) are clear that "Junior/Senior" is not attributive at all, but defining; it is literally a part of the name, while "Sgt.", "OBE", "PhD", "the explorer", etc., are not. This is why the comma is falling out of common usage (increasingly but, in the US, not yet overwhelmingly; give it a generation and it will probably be overwhelmingly), esp. if America's own favorite, indeed all but worshiped, CMoS, is now advising against it. I'd bet good money that, say, the 2nd edition did not. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:46, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Alan, there are inconsistencies with the use of "Jr.", but 'the bot won't fix them, as there is no consensus on how to fix them (or if they should be fixed at all). The only thing I will do, is to create redirects for all possible variants; I will not move articles around. Even if "John Doe Jr." is the correct format for a ceretain article, some people will try to link to "John Doe, Jr" instead, and I will create that as a redirect. If it is later decided that the article should be at "John Doe, Jr", that would be no problem, as you can move articles over an existing redirect. Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 15:50, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Eugène: that makes sense. Septentrionalis: personally, I'm surprised you consider "John Smith Jr." unnatural ― I guess now anyone reading this knows the personal opinions (on this matter) of at least two people who use Wikipedia. Presumably some more formal discussion will come of this? Alan smithee (talk) 22:18, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Copyediting

I have to concur with Tony1. See fairly recent history of ... well I don't want to say editwarring, but at least editorial conflict and some reversions, about tagging this page with {{Copyedit}}. The only reason I've not restored the template is that Francis Schonken is correct that it is an articlespace template, and the categorization it would introduce would therefore be incorrect. Technicality. The wording of this guideline really is atrocious, as is the punctuation. I'll try to take a stab at it tomorrow, and before anyone starts cracking their revert knuckles, I will follow the same pattern I did earlier today/yesterday (depending on your time zone), and make no substantive (meaning-changing) edits at the same time, but do them in separate edits, if at all. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I've done about 50% of the copyediting that needs to be done.

I found the approach I outlined virtually impossible, so some substantive edits have been made, because there was a lot in there that no longer reflected wikireality. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:53, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Created a /Temp page (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)/Temp) with SMcC's recent edits until diff=179960942 (which is the last edit I currently see) [8]

Will revert the guideline to the last version I edited [9], pending a stable version at the /Temp page.

Reason: I see a lot of improvement, but some questionable parts too. I propose to sort that out on the /Temp page, and not on the live guideline. There's a level of complexity in the desired changes that makes me think this is the best way forward. Sorry for the inconvenience, but still: more convenient than rehashing after rehashing on a live guideline until we have sorted this out. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:54, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

BTW, SMcC, I don't know whether you'd like us to start commenting on some of your changes yet, or wouldn't it be worth it until you've proceeded 100% with your proposed changes? --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:04, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Works for me, more or less; we overhauled WP:WSS/NG the same way, on a temp page. I'd prefer to hash it out in real-time (i.e., fire away with the questions/concerns; I propose that we should use Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)/Temp for that).

That said, I feel that basic copyediting changes should be made immediately – some of the grammar (and apologies to whoever wrote those parts; I'm not trying to pick on anyone) is simply wrong, in all varieties of English, and there are various typos and a few places where the wording is tantamount to nonsense, plus numerous cases of just ignoring the WP:MOS. I attempted and failed to divorce pure copyediting from substantive edits, so I suppose I can't complain too loudly about the blanket revert; I don't like it, but oh well. Let's see about proceeding with those changes separated again. I was able to do it with the disputed initials material (quite successfully I think), so with increased effort I can probably do it with the other parts. Just not looking forward to another 4 hours of re-editing to pull that off. I guess it comes down to how important I think it is vs. how much time I'm willing to invest in it. Maybe Tony1 can do some of it, since he initially raised the copyediting issue. I should also note that this isn't particular a WP:NCP issue; there are various other WP:NC* pages suffering from similar problems, and several of the lesser-used WP:MOS* pages as well.

Regardless, the outright disregard for WP:N shown in one section cannot be allowed to stand at all, while other changes are discussed; if WP guidelines ignore each other, then editors ignore the guidelines, and that is the worst possible outcome. If I'm ever "on the warpath" about anything in the "Wikipedia:" namespace, it is inconsistencies between various different guidelines, because they directly harm the encyclopedia and its workings.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:16, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I detect no particular disputes of the changes I've proposed, which are now at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)/Temp per F.S.'s moving of them there. Given that, I propose an immediate merge of the versions (i.e. prefer the language at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)/Temp, and factor in any post-Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)/Temp changes to the "live" document, unless they sharply conflict, in which case discuss them here. Going once... — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:52, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I had stopped commenting, as even the most obvious objections noted on this talk page (see e.g. below #Subject-preferred format) were not updated on the /Temp page.

Then earlier today Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)/Temp was deleted [10] - I have no idea what was on that talk page just before deleting. The last thing I knew about that talk page is that it was a redirect to this talk page.

So, no I don't think Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)/Temp still serves any purpose today. As far as I'm concerned it's an obsolete page (a {{historical}} page at best), reflecting an abandoned project. The /Temp page should better be deleted altogether imho. Merging the /Temp page in its present form to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) is out of the question, the /Temp page is far too defective for that.

If anyone is interested in reviving the /Temp project page as a proposal, better start updating it with recommendations found on this talk page. Unless I see that happening I really don't see why I should be investing any time in that proposal that currently is, according to my assessment, up in a dead end alley. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) <sigh> Alrighty, then. I have to note that it is in a dead-end alley because you put it there instead of objecting to specific edits and reverting and discussion the specific ones that you found to be problematic, instead of all of them, en masse. So, please don't do that again. If/when I get around to another copy-editing run, I am going to staunchly resist any reversion of it that tries to shunt it into another /something page, given that this obviously dooms the cleanup effort. If anyone wants to resist further cleanup, they're going to have to explain why here, point by point, as per normal Wikipedia editing dispute resolution. I was willing to tolerate the /Temp experiment as a good faith one that could have worked, but it did not. NB: You may as well go put {{db-author}} on the /Temp page. I do concur with you on a closer read that the real page has changed far too much, and too many other issues have been raised on the talk page here, to make an actual merger with the /Temp version practical any longer, so /Temp serves no purpose. No need to preserve it for {{Historical}} purposes; it's just wasted bits and time at this point. On the up side, I note that many of the basic cleanup changes I made, was reverted on, and was supposed to defend in /Temp at your insistence, have been made by others and have stuck, so I'm not as grumpy about this as I might otherwise be; progress has been made despite the /Temp experiment not working out. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:10, 26 January 2008 (UTC) PS: /Temp's talk page was speedied by me, because it was a redir to this talk page, instead of being a new page as you suggested (or simply not existing); it served no purpose as a redir. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: Using the full name rather than common name to avoid disamb parenthesis

What is the thinking behind not "Adding middle names, or their abbreviations, merely for disambiguation purposes." ? Kingturtle (talk) 23:58, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Speculation I can't say for certain, but if someone goes by the name "Barry Bonds" and he's a politician from Ohio, you shouldn't name his article Barry Edward Bonds, since he doesn't actually use that name (see also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names).) He does use the name "Barry Bonds" though, so call the article "Barry Bonds (politician)" or if there multiple Barry Bonds-es in politics, Barry Bonds (Ohio politician), etc. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 02:21, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. Except in cases like Mary Stuart Masterson where her middle name is commonly known (and the name so "standard" in that fully-specified form that people would not even know who you meant if you said "Mary Masterson"), adding a middle name or initial does not help the reader disambiguate between this person's article or that one. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Here's an example that doesn't need to rely on hypothesis:

Frank Vandenbroucke is disambiguated as follows:

• Frank Vandenbroucke (politician)
• Frank Vandenbroucke (cyclist)

Not:

• Frank Ignace Georgette Vandenbroucke (which would be correct for the politician)
• Frank (??) Vandenbroucke for the cyclist

Key word: recognisability: middle names (or their abbreviations) are fairly unhelpful when you're trying to locate the appropriate WP page, unless of course a person is widely known by that format of the name. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:47, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

As a related point: there are 3 baseball players called Kevin Brown. One has been given "(baseball)" and the other two have been dabbed by giving them middle initials, though there's no evidence that they use them (eg http://www.baseball-reference.com/b/br-by.shtml ). We're told not to use dates of birth to dab - so how would anyone suggest this trio should be treated? PamD (talk) 08:22, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• I would suggest dab'ing by position, e.g., (baseball pitcher), (baseball shortstop), (baseball outfielder), etc. If two of them played the same position, then maybe by MLB team? Snocrates 08:46, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

  One was a catcher, one a right-handed pitcher and one a left-handed pitcher, however Kevin Brown (right-handed pitcher) leaves out BASEBALL. There can be a right-handed pitcher in baseball and in softball. Also, a 20-letter descriptor seems excessive. Kingturtle (talk) 12:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I can only remember one other like this: Roger Taylor (drummer), which is two persons:

• For one of them a less usual part of his name was added: Roger Meddows-Taylor
• The other one uses a somewhat more constructed parenthical disambiguator: Roger Taylor (Duran Duran drummer)

I don't think these all in all rather exceptional cases can be legislated in a guideline. Use good taste. I think the Roger Tayler case was handled excellently. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

On Bobby Jones, if you ask me...the Bobby Jones is the golfer. He should be Bobby Jones and the disamb page should be Bobby Jones (disambiguation). On Bobby Jones also, again, there are two baseball players discerned by middle initial. What is the policy here? Kingturtle (talk) 13:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

On baseball players and the like, they should be DAB'd by team if two fill the same position, I would say, the same way we use (and in the above cases should use) bands to DAB drummers. If Kevin Brown the right-handed pitcher has played for two MLB teams, then create his page at the current/last one, "Kevin Brown (Red Sox pitcher)" or whatever, and redir from the other. If by weirder and weirder coincidence, the other pitcher Kevin Brown played for one of the same teams, and no other team, then switch to a geographical disambiguator the way we do for other "very DAB'd" biographies ("John Smith (American writer)", etc.), thus "Kevin Brown (Alabama pitcher)" (or wherever he is from). I'm not concerned about the softball overlap at all, because few players of that game are notable enough for articles, and if there's a notable Kevin Brown softball pitcher we can use "Kevin Brown (softball player)", and use a DAB hatnote on tops of the MLB Kevin Brownses. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

It's tough to DAB retired post-free-agency baseball players by team because most change teams several times in their careers, and only a few are associated with just a single team. Assigning them to the last team they played with feels very arbitrary and makes them no easier to distinguish. Distinguishing by position / pitcher handedness is more in line with how players are referred to in sports media.

Oh, and FWIW, both Bobby Joneses pitched as starters for the Mets, and were even on the team at the same time in 2000. They're often referred to by fans as the "good Bobby Jones" and the "bad Bobby Jones". ;-) I'd vote for DABing them by handedness and adding hatnotes. -- Avocado (talk) 15:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this needs revising. I think it is much better to use the persons name for disambiguation rather than some (arbitrary disambiguation). If the person is not usually know by their middle name that is not a problem because a redirect from common name (arbitrary disambiguation) will take care of that. It would also solve the problem of the 3 baseball players called Kevin Brown (baseball). With some people an (arbitrary disambiguation) is tricky because they have more than one career in their lifetimes or should one use "John smith (renaissance man)"?

If a persons middle names are used merely for disambiguation purposes then place the common name on the fist line of the article and use a footnote to explain why the full name is not used.

-Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 20:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. Wikipedia convention is to use common name. Therefore an article on a person is titled using their common name, omitting the middle names they don't commonly use. What you are suggesting is apparently: use common name unless you need to disambiguate, in which case don't use common name. Effectively that makes a nonsense of the whole "use common name" convention. If we make an exception for disambiguation we may as well, for consistency's sake, change the convention to "use full name" for everyone, which would entail renaming thousands of articles. It also, incidentally, creates problems if we don't know what a particular Kevin Brown's middle name is or indeed if he even has a middle name, or maybe even that "Kevin" isn't just a nickname and his real name is something completely different! We need some sort of consistency and the current guideline is as good as any.

For the record, until a couple of years ago I always used middle names to disambiguate and only realised that this guideline existed when someone moved an article I'd written and referred me to it; at first I objected, but when I thought about it I realised how much sense it made. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:15, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Of course it does not mean use the full name for everyone, but better to use their full name than an (arbitrary disambiguation). If we don't know what a person's middle name is that is not a problem there can always be another (arbitrary disambiguation) until such time as it is found and if the person name is a common alias, or they have no middle names, I do not see why such names can not remain at an (arbitrary disambiguation). --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 17:42, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Two reasons. First, consistency. Second, it has become normal practice to put the person's used name as the article title and not to put in the article that they used a particular name. Adopting your suggestion would cause massive confusion. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

No more than it does for descriptive names. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:02, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

See below #D. D. Lewis (Seattle Seahawks) and D. D. Lewis (Dallas Cowboys) --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:43, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposed clarification

I added this but was reverted on it:

An exception to using the most common or subject-preferred name is when this would lead to confusion, misrepresentation or dispute, especially in the case of a nickname lifted from a historical figure or fictional character. In such a case, a disambiguation page should distinguish between the original and later usage, and the later person's article should be titled with his or her real name. If the original user of the name has an article, do not move it to a disambiguated title and create a disambiguation page at the name, but use a disambiguation "hatnote" template on that article to point to the later user of the name at their real-name article (an example is Yellowman) or to a "<Name> (disambiguation)" page if the name in question should not go directly to the original name-user's article for some reason. If the original does not have an article but is instead a section in a larger article (for instance, about a fictional work in which the original character appears), the name should itself be a disambiguation page linking to both uses. An example is Minnesota Fats.

Francis, please don't revert 2.5 hours of someone's work, from additions to grammar fixes to typographical corrections to clarifications, with a flippant comment about length. I restored my edits, stepwise, other than this addition, which was all you needed to remove to get your point across.

To get on to the main issue: The points are all important, and are illustrated with real-world cases. It could be restructured and written like this, to make it easier to read and to further clarify a few bits:

An exception to using the most common or subject-preferred name is when it is a cognomen lifted from a historical figure or fictional character, that could lead to confusion, misrepresentation or dispute. The later person's article should be titled with his or her real name, some other well-known cognomen of that person, or a "<Name> (something)" disambiguator that will not be confusing to readers or likely to be disputed.

• If the original user of the name has an article, use a disambiguation hatnote on the article to distinguish between the users of the name. An example is Yellowman. Do not move the original's article to a "<Name> (something)" title and turn "<Name>" into a disambiguation page (no such page is needed).
• If the original user does not have an article (e.g. just has a section in a larger article, such as about a fictional work in which the original character appears) the "<Name>" article should itself be a disambiguation page linking to both uses (including a red link if the original has no article or section yet). An example is Minnesota Fats.

This version removes reiteration, fixes an "original" for "later" typo that made part of it nonsensical, adds two cases for handling it differently, removes some over-instruction, mentions redlink handling, and adds clarifying links. It is visually a tiny bit longer because of the bullet-list format.

I think this version is very clear, and the issue comes up often enough that I've had to deal with it twice (and I don't do much DAB'ing), once with a lot of tooth-gnashing involved. As Tony1 has pointed out many times, overall length is not particularly an issue in guidelines and policies, as they are reference works editors dig around in for particular points of advice, and in which a degree of centralization is a virtue, not articles that millions of people all over the world read for education and entertainment. Longwindedness is a valid point, but I think I've addressed that, so if anyone still has any particular objections, I'd be very curious what they are.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 12:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, after spending almost 4 hours on copyediting and other cleanup on this MOS page, I have to say that the material above I added (esp. in its now cleaner form) is one of the least obtuse and least blathery bits of the entire document, so I'm reinserting it. If it comes out again, it needs to be for substantive reasons. "Length" sure isn't one of them, since this document goes on and on and on about virtually every point it is trying to make, with extreme example-itis. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with "In such a case, a disambiguation page should distinguish between the original and later usage, and the later person's article should be titled with his or her real name." I see no reason to treat this differently than the two values of Engelbert Humperdinck; we call the later one Engelbert Humperdinck (singer), not Arnold George Dorsey. If some short, round singer becomes notable as Bilbo Baggins, we should call him Bilbo Baggins (singer), not his real name. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 07:07, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Subject-preferred format

I'd not rely on the "subject-preferred format" of a name, that's not current wiki-practice. Examples:

• At Wikipedia the content is at Maria von Trapp, not Maria Trapp, nor Maria Augusta Trapp (see her application form to change to this name - the name change was eventually granted)
• Hilda Toledano, not Maria Pia de Saxe-Coburgo-Bragança (the second name refers to a claim of fatherhood) - this one caused quite a stir some time ago here at Wikipedia, if I remember well some people were even blocked. Anyway, the page ended up with a name which was definitely not the subject-preferred format.

Can anyone give an example of where Wikipedia would have used the subject-preferred format OVERRIDING the name a person is best known by? I mean, in those cases where the subject-preferred format equals the one that is used most commonly, we don't need a dual rule: in such case most common suffises as a rule. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:49, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

A good point; the closest I can think of is the peerage articles, which almost always use full title whether this is common usage or not, but the justification is predictability and disambiguation, not subject preference. There was some hesitation whether to use Christine Jorgensen or George William Jorgensen when she was first news. Usage there is now Christine, of course; but it may be sensible to keep some weight for subject preference where usage is genuinely undecided.

On second thought, this would also cover cases like Waldemar Matuška. He (and Radio Prague) spell his name without the hacek in English; but we have regularized to the Czech spelling anyway. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:28, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Re. Peerage articles

I'd keep out of the waters of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Western nobility) per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Scope of this guideline. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:16, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. But they are the closest I can think of. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:26, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Re. Christine Jorgensen

I'd use Wendy Carlos as a better example. I've still some records with Walter Carlos printed on them. I mean: imagine this happening in real time during the writing of Wikipedia. It might be tempting to add language to the naming convention that it is allowed, under certain circumstances, to pre-emptively rename an article to a less used name, while soon the new name will have overtaken the old one. But I'm afraid that would be creating a WP:NOT#CRYSTALBALL issue. Maybe, just maybe, we could make a WP:BLP issue out of it, but then I'd have it first inscribed in that policy, and then link to it from here.

Agree; Carlos is a better example. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:27, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

In other words, do we have a BLP-like "ethical and legal responsibility" when choosing page names? Suppose k.d. lang (or an agent on her behalf) walks in and says that the way we name her article (capitalised: K.D. Lang) is insulting or something in that vein. How should we react? --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:28, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

E. E. Cummings is close to being the override you ask for; there is a widespread illusion that e. e. cummings is always correct, and one reason we do not is that he did not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:26, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

No, but this points to another problem: apparently it is all but sure that E. E. Cummings left any instructions on how to write his name (see: E. E. Cummings#Name and capitalization). Appears there is no way of knowing for sure what is the "subject-preferred format" in this case, only speculation (some of it "educated guesswork", but nonetheless speculation). I contend that is quite often the case, e.g. also for Maria von Trapp (despite her quoted naturalisation request, which is only a snapshot). And while such uncertainty often occurs, this is one reason more not to use an elusive "subject-preferred format" for page naming. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:07, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Crossposting, see Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Page names --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:34, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Other examples of name changes (transgender-free), bolding the actual Wikipedia page:

• Cassius Clay → Muhammad Ali
• Steven Demetre Georgiou → Cat Stevens → Yusuf Islam

Really not sure whether there is an actual BLP issue in any of the given examples. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:03, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

If there were a BLP issue, there would be on Hilda Toledano too, but I don't think there is; I oppose the "emanation of a penumbra" school of BLP interpretation, and all these are reliably sourced names of the person in question. Cat Stevens is, of course, another example of why we use the name most familiar to the readers. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:26, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Re. "If there were a BLP issue, there would be on Hilda Toledano too" - as a living corpse then? I'm entirely convinced that if indeed she would have risen from the dead, that is entirely due to some Wikipedians' relentless efforts in that sense. Sorry, shouldn't be poking fun at this. Couldn't resist.

Re. Cat Stevens - at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Page names someone seems to think there is a BLP issue when we keep that page at that name. I'd look on whether or not his "Cat Stevens" era records are still sold under that name. One can assume he doesn't object to that name still being used, if he doesn't see this as an impediment to still make money out of it. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:07, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Re. Waldemar Matuška

Stay out of the waters of WP:UE#Disputed issues. It would necessarily be a handicapped treatment at the people naming convention if the core issue is thus far unresolved. I've always contributed to the issue with an open attitude, leading to such - rejected - gems as Wikipedia:Naming conventions (thorn) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics). If those were not to the taste of the Wikipedian public, I'd not sneak anything in via the back door here.

Note that the actual Waldemar Matuška example you gave is STILL the subject-preferred format being overridden, not the other way around. Only when the subject-preferred format overrides "common" for a real Wikipedia page name we might have a case for putting something about "subject-preferred" in the people naming convention. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:16, 25 December 2007 (UTC)