I think we need to have some more focussed policy guides about surname lists.
Firstly, I feel it is clear that we should get smarter about surnames. Biographical articles are created at a rate of hundreds every day. These include some of the most problematical articles of all, when it comes to: stubbiness (yet another bass guitarist in a virtually unknown band); poor writing style; lack of good sources; copyvio; potential defamation and intrusion; vanity, hoaxes and other detrimental things. A notional worst 10% of articles on the English Wikipedia would probably contain a high proportion of such pages.
So, main point, searching out and listing articles by surname has the prime virtue of making navigation to our 'dark matter' or near-orphans much more easy and likely.
But if you go into it, as I have been doing in 2006, you see issues that are not helpful. For example whether a surname, say out of the 1000 most common, has indeed a dedicated page seems to be pretty much a random thing. And if there is such a page, it may be several years maintenance short of being complete. I have no solution to the maintenance issue, other than to note that raising the profile of surnames will help, and that where lists do exist there are editors who will find them and add to them incrementally. It's the usual situation, that there is inertia to overcome, and if [[Jamison]] doesn't exist, it may continue not to exist. (It does now, but [[Jamieson]] doesn't.)
This may not be the most fascinating discussion for all, but for me it does go to the heart of one big issue: what can be done to make the English Wikipedia have more the look-and-feel of a finished product? I think good lists by surname do give that impression, that reference material is here and has been worked over.
What would be great would be to have a standard format for a surname page. As usual, standardisation can lead to some future automation. But it would solve a bunch of niggling issues I'm going to outline
- It seems that the historic accident, that 40000 pages on U.S. places were created early on, has rather skewed perceptions (as if the Johnson City dab issue was more important than the Johnson surname dab issue). That is not right, but many, many pages still start off disambiguating places named after people called X, when the more obvious thing is the people called X.
- Generally speaking, subordinating surname dab pages to [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)]] seems the wrong way to go. I have issues with what the MoS says about piping (don't - but how can that be right for readability of long lists?), about subdisambiguation (I want all the John Smiths on the Smith page, rather than elsewhere, though in two places seems right to me, not merging). And probably a few more things, that get taken too prescriptively.
The fact is that dab pages in general are never going to be neat and tidy: it's a catch-all idea. Surname dab pages on the other hand should be important reference pages, for example for someone wondering which Watson was a sixteenth century commentator on Senecan drama (Thomas, as I found a couple of days ago).
Some fresh thinking, taking into account the current balance and trend of articles on the site, seems urgently needed.
Charles
On 5/5/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I think we need to have some more focussed policy guides about surname lists.
<snip>
This may not be the most fascinating discussion for all, but for me it does go to the heart of one big issue: what can be done to make the English Wikipedia have more the look-and-feel of a finished product? I think good lists by surname do give that impression, that reference material is here and has been worked over.
What would be great would be to have a standard format for a surname page. As usual, standardisation can lead to some future automation. But it would solve a bunch of niggling issues I'm going to outline
Do you know any examples of a good surname page? Something people could use as a model to improve others?
Ian
On 5/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Do you know any examples of a good surname page? Something people could use as a model to improve others?
From memory a couple made it to FP didn't they? Some Chinese ones? But
that may not be the same model exactly.
Steve
At 07:28 AM 5/5/2006, charles matthews wrote:
- It seems that the historic accident, that 40000 pages on U.S. places were
created early on, has rather skewed perceptions (as if the Johnson City dab issue was more important than the Johnson surname dab issue). That is not right, but many, many pages still start off disambiguating places named after people called X, when the more obvious thing is the people called X.
A difference is that that there are maybe ten places, but hundreds of notable people named Johnson. It might be best to have a separate disambiguation page for common surnames, e.g. Johnson (person) or so. This would make it easier to use a different style guideline for them, too.
The fact is that dab pages in general are never going to be neat and tidy: it's a catch-all idea. Surname dab pages on the other hand should be important reference pages, for example for someone wondering which Watson was a sixteenth century commentator on Senecan drama (Thomas, as I found a couple of days ago).
Agreed, but this requires to be lenient about spelling. Historical names often exist in lots of spelling variants, so one would have to have Jamison and Jamieson on the same page.
Chl
Chris Lüer wrote:
At 07:28 AM 5/5/2006, charles matthews wrote:
The fact is that dab pages in general are never going to be neat and tidy: it's a catch-all idea. Surname dab pages on the other hand should be important reference pages, for example for someone wondering which Watson was a sixteenth century commentator on Senecan drama (Thomas, as I found a couple of days ago).
Agreed, but this requires to be lenient about spelling. Historical names often exist in lots of spelling variants, so one would have to have Jamison and Jamieson on the same page.
Absolutely. My known family tree stretches back 27 generations, and the surname is spelt in very nearly that many ways. Originally "de Bossuille", it has been "Bosvil" and "Boswil" at various times. Only in recent generations has the spelling settled down, and even so the variant "Boswall" is still around: there's a famous TV producer of that name who's a distant cousin.
There is a discussion on Meta as to whether a genealogy project should be adopted under the Wikimedia Foundation umbrella: this kind of data would be invaluable for the kind of page Charles is describing. Imagine not simply having to say "This John Smith is the one born in 1710" but also being able to say "This John Smith is in our genealogy wiki [[here]]" with a proper link!
HTH HAND
"Phil Boswell" wrote
My known family tree stretches back 27 generations, and the surname is spelt in very nearly that many ways. Originally "de Bossuille", it has been "Bosvil" and "Boswil" at various times. Only in recent generations has the spelling settled down, and even so the variant "Boswall" is still around: there's a famous TV producer of that name who's a distant cousin.
In a sense though that discussion , valid for anyone pre-1600, is as much about redirects. Any medieval-type person is quite likely to have six or more synonymous names (Latin versions and vernacular, nicknames ...) and it is our duty to the reader to create redirects. Variant surname orthography is just part of that. On the whole I prefer one page per name ([[Millar]] separate from [[Miller]]) unless tiny.
There is a discussion on Meta as to whether a genealogy project should be adopted under the Wikimedia Foundation umbrella: this kind of data would be invaluable for the kind of page Charles is describing. Imagine not simply having to say "This John Smith is the one born in 1710" but also being able to say "This John Smith is in our genealogy wiki [[here]]" with a proper link!
This might be a way in to thinking what it is we do want out of surname pages (etymology of the name ... origins if geographically or otherwise precise ... dynastic sweep for example as at [[Uys family]] ... ). I mainly want to have the names listed in an easy-reference format. I'm not sure about always adding dates, as per the MoS. It would definitely help in deciding which John Smith out of many was the relevant one; otherwise it duplicates article content and is just time-consuming to add.
There is a notability point here: dab pages don't need to assert notability, because that is implicitly assumed from the existence of an article. The MoS gets that right, in effect, in saying you don't write a short essay, just the essentials. A genealogical project is interested in people who procreate, which is not WP's criterion at all outside a few royal or aristocratic or plutocratic contexts.
Charles
charles matthews wrote:
There is a notability point here: dab pages don't need to assert notability, because that is implicitly assumed from the existence of an article. The MoS gets that right, in effect, in saying you don't write a short essay, just the essentials.
There is also scope, as in a generic list, of including names which do not currently correspond to an article and which Will therefore display as red-links. This is useful when there are several people of the same name, only one of who is deemed notable enough at present to deserve an article; the others might deserve such in future, and in the meantime provide a simple way of showing "not this one, or even this one, but this one here".
A genealogical project is interested in people who
procreate, which is not WP's criterion at all outside a few royal or aristocratic or plutocratic contexts.
That depends on your criteria for interest. Those families spread more widely than is sometimes supposed. I have just spent some while trying to find somewhere on Wikipedia a list of famous...and maybe not so famous...people related to Queen Elizabeth II, which I am reasonably certain would contain several surprising names; the fact that I have not been able to locate any such list inspires me to wonder whether we need something which could generate it automatically.
Given the huge number of article we do have on various royal families and dynasties, some way of organising even this information would be very helpful; using it for other people would provide some interesting links which might otherwise be overlooked.
HTH HAND
On 5/5/06, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
That depends on your criteria for interest. Those families spread more widely than is sometimes supposed. I have just spent some while trying to find somewhere on Wikipedia a list of famous...and maybe not so famous...people related to Queen Elizabeth II, which I am reasonably certain would contain several surprising names; the fact that I have not been able to locate any such list inspires me to wonder whether we need something which could generate it automatically.
The closest would be [[Line of succession to the British Throne]]
-- geni
On 5/5/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I think we need to have some more focussed policy guides about surname lists.
<snip> Some fresh thinking, taking into account the current balance and trend of articles on the site, seems urgently needed.
Charles
Do you think that a WikiProject Surnames might be in order?
"Guettarda" wrote
Do you think that a WikiProject Surnames might be in order?
There is certainly enough to do - an essentially unlimited field, you could say.
There are projects and projects. What is most urgently needed is to get under control the most common names on the wiki. There are inevitably 'Anglo': Smith, Jones, Brown, Robinson, lots of Irish and Scots names as found all over Canada and Australia, that kind of thing. Almost the first discussion would have to be what to do about these. For example Smiths are listed under [[List of people by name: Smi]]. We don't really want to start off with a schism between people who think that the [[List of people by name]] pages should be maintained, and those (like me) who think that that is the wrong approach, that writing it "Smith, Adam" is to be deprecated because it confuses search engines, and anyway with biographies into six figures we have to do something other than 1000 pages averaging more than 100 names on.
That's one issue. Another is that WikiProjects can appear much better at prescribing rules to do the work, than at actually doing it.
On the other hand, if there's a chance of getting together people who know their onomastics, with those with theories on how to integrate and present some genealogical information here (for example the boxes turning up on [[Arnold J. Toynbee]] to show the relation to [[Polly Toynbee]]), and others who want to 'add value' to raw lists of names, it could be interesting. I'm pretty much a 'raw list' man myself; but a template for a surname page ought indeed to take into account a bit more.
Charles
On 5/5/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
That's one issue. Another is that WikiProjects can appear much better at prescribing rules to do the work, than at actually doing it.
That's ok - we're not in a hurry. Personally I'm happier if I'm working in an area that has a WikiProject. I don't sign up, but it's handy to double check the conventions before I start rampantly renaming articles, for instance.
Steve
On 05/05/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
There are projects and projects. What is most urgently needed is to get under control the most common names on the wiki. There are inevitably 'Anglo': Smith, Jones, Brown, Robinson, lots of Irish and Scots names as found all over Canada and Australia, that kind of thing. Almost the first discussion would have to be what to do about these. For example Smiths are listed under [[List of people by name: Smi]]. We don't really want to start off with a schism between people who think that the [[List of people by name]] pages should be maintained, and those (like me) who think that that is the wrong approach, that writing it "Smith, Adam" is to be deprecated because it confuses search engines, and anyway with biographies into six figures we have to do something other than 1000 pages averaging more than 100 names on.
Crazy idea, but could we possibly autogenerate these lists? If, say, we have a template "person", used like {{person|Smith|John Smith|An ordinary man who works in an office}} (that is, {{person|<<surname>>|<<name>>|<<short desc>>}}) on page [[John Smith (person)]], it automatically adds the line:
*[[John Smith (person)|John Smith]] - An ordinary man who works in an office]]
to [[Smith (disambiguation)]] in the appropriate place.
Slightly more formally, it'll add *[[<<page name>>|<<name>>]] - <<short desc>>
to [[<<surname>> (disambiguation)]] at the alphabetic, proper place.
Like I said, crazy idea out of left field, but it would help solve the syncing problem. Possibly even a, say, {{brother}} or {{mother}} template to specify relations between people on these disambig lists.
--Sam
Sam Pointon wrote:
[...] If, say, we have a template "person", used like {{person|Smith|John Smith|An ordinary man who works in an office}} (that is, {{person|<<surname>>|<<name>>|<<short desc>>}}) on page [[John Smith (person)]], it automatically adds the line:
[...]
Just dropping a link to the somewhat-related [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] here.
grm_wnr
On 5/5/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
"Guettarda" wrote
Do you think that a WikiProject Surnames might be in order?
There is certainly enough to do - an essentially unlimited field, you could say.
<snip>
That's one issue. Another is that WikiProjects can appear much better at prescribing rules to do the work, than at actually doing it.
That was actually what made me think that a WikiProject might be useful - the issues you outlined about potentially changing the rules for {{dab}} pages for surnames.
On the other hand, if there's a chance of getting together people who know
their onomastics, with those with theories on how to integrate and present some genealogical information here (for example the boxes turning up on [[Arnold J. Toynbee]] to show the relation to [[Polly Toynbee]]), and others who want to 'add value' to raw lists of names, it could be interesting. I'm pretty much a 'raw list' man myself; but a template for a surname page ought indeed to take into account a bit more.
Now the challenge is to find these people and get them together.