Talk:Daniel Webster Jones

From zappa's talk page

Hey, I'm in the middle of beginning this article, and I noticed that you changed the title from Daniel Webster Jones (1830-1915) to Daniel Webster Jones (Mormon) while I was actually creating it. I haven't done a lot of editing yet, and this is still intended to be a stub, so maybe I'm missing some protocol, but I created it with the dates to distinguish him from the Arkansas governor (1839-1918) (which, I just looked at and see you've switched to governor as well. I did change the "what links here" sites and was in process of adding links to other articles such as Mesa, Arizona and Fay Wray. Why is governor/Mormon more appropriate to distinguish individuals than their birth/death dates? Additionally, DWJ (1830-1915/Mormon) is of interest to Western American history generally, not just Mormon history, and there is another figure, Dan Jones (Welsh missionary), in Mormon history who would probably eventually need to be disambiguated from the others.

I understand the simplicity of a one-word title; and I guess if I consider it, I can't really think of a better single word to distinguish DWJ (1830-1915) (though I do have a bit of a problem with the implied exclusivity of interest which might result from the title). Also, whose responsibility is it to change the "What links here" pages for the governor and the Mormon?

Thanks Ryan Reeder 21:49, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Edit: Apparently, you're working on it too at the moment, because it's changed again. Let me know what you're up to. Thanks.

Ryan Reeder 21:52, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I haven't done anything since changing the titles - I haven't edited anything else. Gererally, I don't edit under IPs unless I forget to log it and my cookies are broken, which doesn't happen often. Since your first message, I have been looking around the WP: namespace trying to find a style page about naming convention for people with similar names, but I haven't found anything official. I guess 95% of the time when I see two similarly named people around on Wikipedia, they are either distinguished with middle names or nicknames, or, if not, with (their occupation) after their name. For an example, see John Lee. Also, about changing the links with the governor, you really don't have to do that - they will redirect. When you move a page, it automatically redirects links to the old page to the new page. You have to check for double redirects, in the situation of A->B->C, where I want to get to A from a starting point, but the page is actually located at C, then the redirecting system will only take me to B. That is sort of confusing I realize, but I guess I don't know how to put it more clearly. But anyways, I checked for double redirects, and there were none, so the links don't need to be changed. I hope I didn't cause an edit conflict. Later, zappa 22:04, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

No, no edit conflict, just as a beginner here, I wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking any protocol. The example I looked at for a guide on similar names was John Taylor, which seems to be rather non-uniform. Some have birth/death dates, some have an occupation or something else. Perhaps there ought to be a standardized rule.

I think I'll leave what you have just to keep existing links OK, but I'll put back birth/death dates, to further clarify, without being a part of the link. Other names seem to have this convention.

I also figured that it was better to change things so that links go directly to a page, so that we get rid of any (redirected from XYZ) notes. Besides, a single redirect is halfway to a double, and it would be good to get rid of those just to erase the likelihood of getting a double. When a move is created, it then becomes the responsibility and courtesy of the mover to fix redirects so that they link directly to a page. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but this was how I interpreted the line "A code of honor for creating disambiguation pages is to fix all resulting mis-directed links." on the disambiguation page.

Again, thanks.

Ryan Reeder 22:41, 15 April 2006 (UTC)