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