Talk:Christopher White (art historian)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:25, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

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Sir Christopher White → Christopher White (art historian) – On 29 March, I moved this page to Christopher White (art historian). Two hours later it was moved back and now needs admin intervention. It needs to be moved again to my original target name, as titles such as Sir, Dame, President, General, Professor etc do not belong in Wikipedia article titles. Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:26, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

• Support per nom. No titles. Possibly redirect current ennobled title to the disambiguation page. -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 04:26, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

  Please see the policy quoted below that allows for titles in titles in circumstances like this one. And why would the current title redirect to the dab page? There are no other articles on a "Sir Christopher White". Dohn joe (talk) 14:33, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

• This clearly isn't necessary and is based on a clear misunderstanding. The "sir" isn't a title like "doctor" or "professor", it is part of his name. Barney the barney barney (talk) 10:55, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Please learn our policies before you next act. Take a look at Winston Churchill, Alec Guinness, Joan Sutherland, Judi Dench and zillions of others, and then please explain why none of them have Sir/Dame in the titles of their articles but Sir Christopher White should be a special exception. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:09, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Changing your arguments when you realise they're wrong is, well, rather pathetic, as is claiming that policy supports you when it doesn't. Moving the others you suggest would clearly also make sense and be in line with policy. Barney the barney barney (talk) 12:19, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Please keep things WP:CIVIL. And as you can see below, while policy does support the current title here, moving the others would not be in line with policy. Jack at least has the general rule correct. Dohn joe (talk) 14:52, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

@Dohn joe (talk · contribs) - I'm not being incivil. What is being incivil is claiming that someone else is being incivil while completely failing to present valid arguments. Barney the barney barney (talk) 13:34, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

It's also incivil to take a page move that was accompanied by a reasonably explanatory edit summary, and revert it without any explanation at all. I also have not the faintest idea what you mean by "changing your arguments when you realise they're wrong". I have not changed my rationale for desiring this move, not one iota. My original edit summary said "no titles in article titles", and my post above gave 4 examples of knighted/damed persons whose article titles contain no titles. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:09, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose. From Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(royalty_and_nobility)#British_nobility: "Titles of knighthood such as Sir and Dame are not normally included in the article title: e.g. Arthur Conan Doyle, not "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" (which is a redirect). However, Sir may be used in article titles as a disambiguator when a name is ambiguous and one of those who used it was knighted, e.g. Sir Arthur Dean."

  So, unless one of the other Christopher Whites is a knight (my look through the dab page seemed to indicate not), then "Sir" is an acceptable disambiguator here (although not in general). That said, I don't see great harm in the proposed title, either, as long as there is a decent rationale for overriding the advice in the naming convention. (E.g., "art historian" would be more familiar or recognizable than "Sir" as a disambiguator.) Dohn joe (talk) 14:52, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I see about 4 names on the dab page Christopher White who could quite conceivably be knighted down the track. If and when that happens, "Sir Christopher White" would become ambiguous and would need to be further disambiguated, e.g. "Sir Christopher White (art historian)", or just plain "Christopher White (art historian)". Why not just cut to the chase and do it now and eliminate the possibility of such a problem ever occurring? It's called being proactive.

I note that the exemplar Sir Arthur Dean has since been moved to Arthur Dean (judge), so that shows there's usually a better way.

In the interests of transparency, let me acknowledge that I myself created Dame Mary Cook, but only because I felt "Mary Cook (Australian prime ministerial spouse)" or similar was just too much of a mouthful. She really is notable solely because of whom she married and what he later became (they say notability isn't inherited, but one can certainly marry it if one picks the right partner). If anyone can suggest a better tag, I would quickly move it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:17, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, that's a WP:CRYSTAL argument. If none of those Christopher Whites gets knighted, then we're still okay. Proactiveness is not actually a good thing for us most of the time. WP reflects, not predicts. And interesting about the Arthur Dean situation. Looks like an undiscussed move, probably by someone who knew the policy and not the exception. I may go over there and get it to reflect the previous status quo and policy.

By the way, I would have no problem with changing the policy to say that "Sir" or "Dame" should only be used if there is a no better dab, but until then, that's not what it says.... Dohn joe (talk) 22:40, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I think you may have meant "if there is no better dab". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:28, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Yup. Thanks - corrected. Dohn joe (talk) 14:31, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

• Support - 3rd party descriptions of this BLP in Google Books don't make much of the knighthood, wheras they do make much of "art historian", this isn't really a case of WP:NATURALDISAMBIGUATION but of being less WP:RECOGNIZABLE than a clean dab. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:41, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

  Would you mind showing your work, so others can see? And are you saying that you believe the evidence you've found is sufficient to override Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(royalty_and_nobility)#British_nobility? Or are you ignoring that policy? Dohn joe (talk) 14:31, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Better title. Coreyemotela (talk) 12:44, 3 May 2014 (UTC).

  Why? We need a reason. Dohn joe (talk) 14:31, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

• Support. We do not usually use knighthoods in article titles when there is a good parenthetical disambiguator. No need to start now. Let's not start renaming hundreds of articles when we don't need to! -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:06, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

  Well, what about Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(royalty_and_nobility)#British_nobility: "Titles of knighthood such as Sir and Dame are not normally included in the article title: e.g. Arthur Conan Doyle, not "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" (which is a redirect). However, Sir may be used in article titles as a disambiguator when a name is ambiguous and one of those who used it was knighted, e.g. Sir Arthur Dean." Dohn joe (talk) 14:52, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

  It can be used, but is almost always not used (the exception tends to be historical figures without a good disambiguator, as it can be difficult to determine what they actually did). Many of us write biographical articles about British people with titles. Almost all of us stick to this convention. A bit of scanning of categories (e.g. Category:Knights Bachelor) will determine this to be the case. It is not at all helpful if a couple of editors decide they're going to be different. Consistency and all that. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:40, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.