Talk:Scott Green (American football official)

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Page Not Moved  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 00:43, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

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Scott Green (American football official) → Scott H. Green — Green has two public careers and NFL referee work is part-time; proposed new article name is also simpler 72.244.200.127 (talk) 05:11, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Oppose A reason that it is "simpler" is not solely a criterion listed on our naming conventions guidelines. Despite it being a "part-time", Green is more widely known for being an American football referee than his other occupation. And as per our conventions on middle names and abbreviated names, we generally only use it if it is the most common format of a name – which is not the case when referring to various media and sports articles about Green. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose move The fact that the article goes into great detail about his football career and barely mentions his lobbying career indicates that he is much more widely known as a football official. I agree with others' comments that it seems unlikely, based on the current article, that he would be in Wikipedia at all based purely on his lobbying activities, and if someone did look him up for info on that career, they wouldn't find much info here anyway. Propaniac (talk) 17:48, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Green has two public roles: one as an NFL referee, a part-time job, where he goes by Scott Green, and another as a Washington DC lobbyist for criminal justice and and public safety issues, where he goes by Scott H. Green. Since there are already multiple notable people named Scott Green, the question becomes how to disambiguate among them. I suggest that Scott H. Green is the better choice, because it uniquely identifies him in a simple way that is associated with part of his work in the public spotlight. 72.244.200.127 (talk) 05:19, 8 February 2010 (UTC).

The only article currently listed on the Scott Green disambiguation page that, IMO, should keep the middle name in the title is the writer Scott E. Green, because he uses it professionally on all his books and website – and thus is the most common format of a name. But again, this is not the case on almost every NFL and sports-related article regarding the American football referee. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:22, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

If you do a search on Scott H. Green as lobbyist, or go to the website of his lobbying firm, you'll see that he uses his middle initial. If you were coming to wikipedia for details on his career as a lobbyist (or his government work working for Joe Biden), where would you expect to find an article on him? 72.244.200.127 (talk) 05:27, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

For example, we have an article currently named Mike Myers (actor). First we keep "Mike Myers" because that is his most widely known common name instead of his full name. And despite him also being a comedian, screenwriter and film producer, he is currently more well known for his occupation as an actor, so that is why the page is named that way. I can find other examples like that. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:41, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, based on the information currently on this article, I doubt this page would survive the notability criteria if Green was solely a lobbyist. Just because he worked for Biden, does not make him automatically notable is his own right. Nor have you provided yet why a lobbyist group like the one he works for is also notable under our guidelines on companies and organizations. Therefore, the question of "If you were coming to wikipedia for details on his career as a lobbyist ... where would you expect to find an article on him?" is currently irrelevant. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:41, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I am hoping other editors will eventually contribute to this discussion. Before that happens, I contend you are making this more complicated than it has to be. Is Scott Green notable enough to take over the Scott Green article title? If so, I'll revise my proposal, and propose we move his article to Scott Green. If not, we have two obvious alternatives: (1) use a version of his name that he himself uses in his also public role as a lobbyist, or (2) use Scott Green (American football official), an artificial construct that is often necessary on Wikipedia in similar situations. In this case, we have a workable alternative that the subject himself prefers and one that corresponds with his lower-profile-but-still-public role as a lobbyist. 72.244.200.127 (talk) 06:01, 8 February 2010 (UTC).

There are two subsections in the WP:AFK ) guideline about this proposal: WP:Naming conventions (people)#Middle names and abbreviated names and WP:Naming conventions (people)#Qualifier between bracketing parentheses. Those sections include the following relevant statements:

1. Adding middle names, or their abbreviations, merely for disambiguation purposes (that is: if this format of the name is not the commonly used one to refer to this person) is not advised.
2. As for all other articles: try to avoid this type of disambiguation [i.e. Qualifier between bracketing parentheses] where possible (use disambiguation techniques listed above if these apply more "naturally") – but if no other disambiguation technique comes naturally, this type of disambiguation is the most preferred one. (use of italics is not in the original)

As I read the guidelines and try to be consistent with both of the subsections mentioned above, I would conclude that the first choice for name of this article is Scott Green, the name by which Green is known by in almost all references I see about him with respect to the NFL; if that one is not available, the fact that Green refers to himself as Scott H. Green on his own lobbying website and in various public records about his lobbying activities makes the use of his middle initial the second choice. That leaves the current, parenthetically qualified, version the third choice.

The other thing to note is that the October 2009 discussions at Talk:Gordon H. Smith#Requested move and Talk:Gordon H. Smith#Gordon H. Smith parallel this situation, and ended with the discussion to name that article Gordon H. Smith. 72.244.203.4 (talk) 01:54, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I do not see any similarity between the article on the politician Gordon H. Smith, and that of Green. Smith is a well known former United States Senator. And as Rrius pointed out on Talk:Gordon H. Smith#Gordon H. Smith, "the New York Times's page about him is called 'Gordon H. Smith'. In addition, the last time Smith was elected to the Senate, his credentials were in the name 'Gordon H. Smith'. Smith's election page on facebook was in the name 'Gordon H. Smith' (emphasis added). So there is evidence that he is known by his middle initial in his capacity of a politician.

But again, as I said above, Green is currently a non-notable lobbyist, so adding his middle initial would not be appropriate, unless he also used it during his job as an NFL referee. Zzyzx11 (talk) 02:58, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

Follow-on from requested move closure

From User talk:Ronhjones#Scott Green (American football official)

According to WP:Requested moves/Closing instructions, you are supposed to evaluate the discussion at Talk:Scott Green (American football official)#Requested move "just like any other discussion on Wikipedia", keeping in mind that "the quality of an argument is more important than whether it comes from a minority or a majority." Since all you wrote when you closed the request was "Page Not Moved" it is unclear whether you performed the evaluation mentioned in the instructions. I could re-open the request in order to get more details on your rationale but I wanted to check with you first to better understand the reason for your decision. Thanks. 68.165.77.188 (talk) 12:47, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

There was clearly no concensus to move this page. Although it's not a vote, we have clearly two good agruments against and one for. The name is based on his well known role as a referee, as such it will be more easy to find for users (as the list of possible name matches shows in the search box on entry). There's nothing of any substance in the article for his other role - indeed if one lost the refereeing data then it would be speedily deleted as not notable. I would suggest that when you have added enough data to make the lobbyist role notable, then that might be the time to move the page. If you feel that users will be looking for Scott H. Green then there is no reason why that could not be a redirect page to the Article.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 17:17, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Green is best known as an NFL referee, yet...

I completely agree that Green is best known as an NFL referee. I think I am the only one to have done enough web searches to be able to cite the online evidence that Scott Green the ref is Scott H. Green the lobbyist. The article was created because of his NFL work, and it has been edited by multiple wikipedians for his NFL work.

With that said, I'll take a stab at a summary for the case that this article should be moved to Scott H. Green.

Since the referee goes by "Scott Green" in his role as a referee, if his article didn't already exist, I would want to create it as Scott Green. But because there are two other notable men with that name, we have a disambiguation situation to resolve:

1. If consensus could be achieved that the NFL's Green is notable enough to relegate the others to a hatnote or a Scott Green (disambiguation) page, we're done. But I don't think anyone is making that argument.
2. At this point we know his article name won't be the one that he is best known by. How do we decide what the next best choice is? There are two naming conventions related to this decision — WP:Naming conventions (people)#Middle names and abbreviated names and WP:Naming conventions (people)#Qualifier between bracketing parentheses. Those sections include the following directly relevant statements:
   • Adding middle names, or their abbreviations, merely for disambiguation purposes (that is: if this format of the name is not the commonly used one to refer to this person) is not advised.
   • As for all other articles: try to avoid this type of disambiguation [i.e. Qualifier between bracketing parentheses] where possible (use disambiguation techniques listed above if these apply more "naturally") – but if no other disambiguation technique comes naturally, this type of disambiguation is the most preferred one. (note: only "comes naturally" is italicized in the original)
3. Since the first statement seems to discourage choosing Scott H. Green and the second discourages Scott Green (American football official) except as a last resort, it looks as if we have conflicting conventions.
4. But there is a "natural" disambiguation technique available, one that comes from the website of the company he created: Scott H. Green. And the existence of a natural alternative is, according to WP:Naming conventions (people), better than the use of a qualifier between bracketing parentheses, which is the option of last resort, preferred only if no other, more natural choice exists.

Remember, we are not deciding whether "Scott Green (American football official)" or "Scott H. Green" is more descriptive; we are trying to choose the most "natural" way to disambiguate among several Scott Greens. Since it is clear that we have to disambiguate, reviewing the guidelines for choosing Green's article name requires us to use any existing natural alternative before resorting to a qualifier between bracketing parentheses.

Thanks. 67.101.7.72 (talk) 23:58, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate your logic and your research, but I don't agree: "Scott H. Green" may be the most "natural" way to title the article, but it is not the most natural way to disambiguate. Here's what disambiguation means: "Wikipedia, tell me about Scott Green." "I, Wikipedia, have information on more than one Scott Green. Do you want Scott H. Green, Scott E. Green, or the Scott Green who's a footballer?" "Uh, I'm not sure..." "Do you want the Scott Green who's an American football official?" "Yes! That is no longer ambiguous, because you have clearly and succinctly identified that this is the Scott Green I'm looking for."

In short, if the majority of people would not be able to identify whether this is the Scott Green they're looking for by the title "Scott H. Green," then it's not serving the purpose of disambiguation and it doesn't matter how "natural" it is.

(Also, I think I'm going to suggest changing that second part of the MOS you quoted, because it's rather strange. I can understand why you use it to support your argument, but I don't think the intent of the community is to make a vague notion of "naturalness" a higher priority than clarity and effectiveness.) Propaniac (talk) 00:33, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

It may be noted that the only editors who are for a page rename are 4 dynamic IP users all with identical Whois results (United States Seattle Covad Communications Co, San Jose, CA.), thus they may be one person (which is not a problem, as they are stated to be dynamic). Call me cynical, but I feel there may be underlying reasons for the page rename (Self Promotion of the lobbyist?) - methinks the IP editor doth protest too much...  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 01:22, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Although it is always tempting and usually effective to cite relevant WP:PG, WP:NCP has details that are contradictory and/or "strange" (to use Propaniac's term). For example, WP:NCP could also be read to support Propaniac's argument, since his/her argument is basically a version of the beginning of WP:NCP which says it "boils down to the two central ideas in Wikipedia article naming: 1. The name that is most generally recognisable, [and] 2. The name that is unambiguous with the name of other articles." W.r.t. Ronhjones's cynical "noting" of whois results and speculation that "Self Promotion of the lobbyist" is a motive...since the lobbyist is the referee in this case, sounds like Ronhjones is making a WP:AB issue out of the article's subject wanting to have a say in what the name of the article about him is. 72.244.204.253 (talk) 03:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

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