Ray Saintonge wrote:
Charles Matthews wrote:
"Delirium" wrote
... I'd propose we remove titles from both article names and the beginning of the first sentence of the article, unless they are absolutely integral. This includes both official titles (President, Prime Minister, etc.) and honorific titles (Blessed, Sir, etc.).
I'd agree with the general sentiment. Had a ''Sir'' imposed on an article I wrote, and felt this made too much of a non-hereditry title. Isaac Newton doesn't need the "Sir", for example.
If you don't want titles in the articles that you write that's just fine. Others may prefer to include them in the articles that they write; that's fine too.. Going around and removing these titles just because they don't please you is a disrespectful act.
I don't see consistency as disrespectful. Using some titles and not others is highly POV, and so removing them all is an attempt to NPOV things. Saying that we like the Catholic Church and the British Crown and so will respect Saint, Blessed, Sir, and so on, but dislike the President for Life of Turkmenistan so won't respect his self-proclaimed title "His Excellency Turkmenibashi" is a POV distinction. Maintaining such a distinction between "titles we accept and use" and "titles we don't use" is untenable. I don't really see a problem with simply not using titles at all in the initial entry, and mentioning them later. See [[John F. Kennedy]] on the English Wikipedia for a good example of this: it starts off "John F. Kennedy...", *not*, "President John F. Kennedy", but nonetheless conveys the important information that he was president within the first sentence. IMO all articles should be like this, with the exception of a very few people who are known primarily by their title (like Mother Theresa or Cardinal Richelieu).
-Mark