On 18 October 2010 12:23, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
As far as I can see [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style
(biographies)]] doesn't
cover this ground, while dealing with numerous points in the same
general area of naming. My instinct is that multiple possible spellings,
for example surname variants, should go into a footnote or perhaps be
boxed up, as a way of keeping them from distracting the casual reader.
They are certainly of interest to specialists and scholars, and have a
role to play in making search work.
You mean, to avoid an article starting '''Topic''' (paragraph
long
bracketed bit; several sections separated by semicolons; in a variety
of scripts; 200 words of it) is ...
Yeah, if that makes editorial sense. That said, it's arguably
important to keep common spellings (whatever "common" is) right up
there near the top of the article, so people going to the alternate
spelling know it's actually a valid alternate spelling they went to
and not wrong per se. YMMV.
- d.