Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography/2024 archive

Deadnames of the deceased – yet again

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Moved to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Names of deceased trans people

This initial discussion having led to an ongoing RfC means it should not also continue separately here, per WP:TALKFORK.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:13, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

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Well, we've had rather big discussions about former names of deceased transgender and non-binary subjects, and we kinda-sorta settled on wording along these lines:

For deceased transgender or non-binary persons, their birth name or former name (professional name, stage name, or pseudonym) should be included in their main biographical article only if the name is documented in multiple secondary and reliable sources containing non-trivial coverage of the person.

but addition of this text has now been reverted by three different editors, so it seems like another discussion is in order, tedious as this may be. What are the issues with it?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:34, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

I have a technical problem: A transgender or non-binary person who already had a gender-neutral name may choose to keep it, yet the rule taken literally says we can't use any name at all in those cases. So I propose to add ", if different from their current name," following the parenthetical part. I believe that just clarifies the intention and isn't a substantive change. Zero^talk 06:34, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Is that needed? If someone only ever had one name and met WP:GNG then there would have to be multiple references to their name in secondary and reliable sources? But if that is a concern, how about removing birth name or so it only refers to former names? Or any former names?

I’m afraid I do not know the concerns that are leading to the whole paragraph being removed. Mgp28 (talk) 08:53, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

I have to agree with @Mgp28 — it's not a former name if the person kept it and it will, in that case, always be true that there will be the name is documented in multiple secondary and reliable sources containing non-trivial coverage of the person, surely? —  OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 10:10, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Not necessarily if they're notable by a SNG like WP:NACADEMIC. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 18:37, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the issue here. If the trans or non-binary person didn't change their name, regardless of whether they're alive or dead, surely the name provisions of GENDERID wouldn't need to apply? We would simply use whatever name they used. Of course the pronoun and gendered words provisions might apply, if contextually relevant (eg, their birth name was Sam, and want to use they/them pronouns and gender-neutral terminology), but that's already covered in the first paragraph of GENDERID. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:14, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Currently, going by the text of this provision only, if there were an academic called, say, Sammy, who passed WP:N on WP:NACADEMIC and not WP:GNG, that would mean there would not be multiple secondary and reliable sources containing non-trivial coverage of the person. Therefore, we could not mention Sammy's birth name, Sammy, at all. Now, if you see the first name-related paragraph as introducing the rest, it's of course different. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 19:24, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that this is a problem. When an academic achieves academic notability but not general notability under their deadname, this wording would make it impossible to write about them in a way that makes sense. This doesn't match the cases of academically notable trans people that come to my mind but it seems likely enough to happen occasionally. We don't want our clumsy rule-crafting to restrict our coverage of notable trans people by making it difficult or impossible to write articles about them. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:56, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure it would be a serious problem. Suppose a deceased trans person had achieved academic notability per WP:PROF#C1, based on citations to papers published under their deadname. We could write about their work without using that deadname in the text proper; it would appear at most in the author lists within the bibliography, quite possibly only as a last name and first initial. That seems within the spirit of the provision. If they achieved academic notability per any other prong of WP:PROF, their deadname would be documented in the secondary sources that establish notability (e.g., their listing in the IEEE Fellows database). So, the criterion would likely be met anyway, and we could include their deadname (although we probably wouldn't need to). I agree that We don't want our clumsy rule-crafting to restrict our coverage of notable trans people by making it difficult or impossible to write articles about them; I currently think that this particular edge case isn't truly troublesome in that regard. XOR'easter (talk) 00:59, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Does the IEEE Fellows database contain "non-trivial coverage" about its fellows, as the proposed wording would require? It has the fellow citations, not just names and years, but that's not true of some other major society fellowship listings, and I think GNG-purists would discount the depth of its coverage. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:46, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Hmmmm, while paragraphs 2 and 3 of GENDERID apply in different contexts (ie, notable under former name or not) and as such are mutually exclusive with each other, I'd have thought that they're generally read in context with the other paragraphs of the guideline. I can't see why that would be any different in this case, unless you're reading each paragraph in isolation from the others?

In the case of our hypothetical academic Sammy, I would first apply the relevant parts of paragraph 1, then depending on their circumstances (notable under former name, or not, or deceased) apply whichever of paragraph 2-4 fits, before finally looking at applying any relevant parts of paragraphs 5-8. Our article would therefore refer to them as Sammy, as that name reflected their most recently expressed self-identification.

Alternatively, I guess you could add something like who was not notable under a former name (mirroring the language in paragraph 2) or who changed their name. Gets a bit clunky though. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:02, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Thinking on this further, while I still don't understand what the objection is, would tweaking the order of this to

For deceased transgender or non-binary persons, their former name (birth name, professional name, stage name, or pseudonym) ...

resolve the issue? It would mean that the clause only applies to those trans or non-binary people who have changed their name. Those who kept their original name would not be covered, because they would only ever have a current name, not a former name. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:07, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Why don't we just remove "birth name" from the paragraph entirely? If the birth name is a former name, then the paragraph applies; if it isn't, then the paragraph doesn't.

I copied it from In the case of a living transgender or non-binary person, their birth name or former name (professional name, stage name, or pseudonym) should be included in the lead sentence of their main biographical article only if they were notable under that name, but thinking about it I don't see any benefit of it being included either there or here. BilledMammal (talk) 03:10, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

So for the living counterpart to this, the "birth or former name" is, I think, to create parity of guidance between someone like Ellen Page (someone whose former name was not their birth name), and Chelsea Manning (someone whose former name was their birth name).

That's still an important distinction to keep in the guidance I think, there are plenty who would be confused as to what to do if we don't mention it at all. And in the same way we occasionally get drive-by edits that intentionally insert deadnames, I could easily imagine drive-by comments along the lines of "but it's not a former name, it's their birth name". That said, we could somewhat simplify both of those paragraphs by moving "birth name" in with all of the other types of former names. You could also footnote the list of former name types, and reuse it in both paragraphs. There's enough potential for tendentious Wikilawyering that I wouldn't want to remove it entirely though. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:25, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

That's reasonable; no objection from me. BilledMammal (talk) 03:40, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Agreed — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 09:55, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I would suggest their former names (including birth name, professional name, stage name, or pseudonym) should be.... Although I don’t see this as a problem. Guidelines aren't meant to be drafted to cover every possible eventuality, but to be interpreted using common sense and good faith. I think it would be clear the wording at the top of this section is not intended to prohibit mention of an unchanged name.--Trystan (talk) 00:21, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm still not sold on the should be included part of this, preferring may be included instead, but after skimming the last in-depth discussion about this I might have been the only editor who wasn't. As I said previously, I'd prefer for the guideline to allow for inclusion if the circumstances are met, and not mandate inclusion when the circumstances are met. But I wouldn't oppose this guideline addition simply because of that. Other than that, I don't really have an issue with this.

As for it being reverted three times. I guess the only way to truly resolve that would be to have a straight up yes/no RfC on whether we include this paragraph. Is that necessary? I guess we could directly ask the editors who removed it for their opinions, whether they're opposing because it wasn't RfCd, or if there's some other issue they have with it. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:01, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

I definitely agree that inclusion of deadnames should not be mandated.

I would go further on that second point, though. There appears to be consensus on this Talk: page to include that paragraph and there is not consensus to remove it. I think we should treat such removal as vandalism. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 23:13, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

I dunno. The reasons in the first revert's edit summary do make some sense, even if I don't agree with them. There are good faith reasons to oppose this being added in this manner (ie, without an RfC), as this can (to some) represent a substantial shift in how the guideline operates, so I would hesitate to call it vandalism. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:21, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Was this paragraph settled on by an RFC? If so could I see a link? I think as is this paragraph could be read as mandating deadnames of trans people, even though WP:BLPPRIVACY applies to recently deceased people and is a main basis for the current deadname policy for living people. Rab V (talk) 03:07, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I can see that it's unclear here — while the intention is to avoid mandating deadnames, it's easy to read as the opposite.

Would it be better if we change

For deceased transgender or non-binary persons, their birth name or former name ... should be included in the lead ... only if ...

to

For deceased transgender or non-binary persons, their birth name or former name ... may be included in the lead ... but only if ...

perhaps? — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 13:28, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I like “may”. Blueboar (talk) 13:55, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't, specifically because activists will use it to editwar against inclusion of them anywhere on the basis that it "is not required". We'll simply never hear the end of it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:38, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm fine with "may". Loki (talk) 18:59, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't feel all that strongly about it, but various editors do, and have made this very clear. I don't think anyone in this discussion is unaware, from numerous previous discussions here and at VPPOL and elsewhere, going back 5+ years, of the fact that there is a large body of editors who consider former names of long-deceased notable subjects to be encyclopedic information, period. So, if the intent here is to change "should be" to "may be", to enable what's going to amount to socio-politicized editwarring to remove all deadnames, even of long-deceased persons, simply because they are former names of TG/NB people and because the guideline has been changed on the basis of nearly no discussion to seem to permit their exclusion, then I think that is a recipe for long-term drama-and-disruption disaster, without an RfC establishing that the community actually wants wording so vague and gameable.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:05, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

@Rab V: It's a bit off-topic, but I don't think WP:BLPPRIVACY is the main basis for the current deadname policy for living people, as BLPPRIVACY only applies to names that have not been been widely published by reliable sources, and our deadname policy goes far beyond that. BilledMammal (talk) 03:07, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

of the fact that there is a large body of editors who consider former names of long-deceased notable subjects to be encyclopedic information, period There was a very well attended recent RfC on this guideline, and in the close it said With around a hundred editors responding across these RFCs taking place at VPP, it is obvious that there is a consensus against using the former names of transgender or non-binary people, living or dead, except when of encyclopedic interest or when necessary to avoid confusion. Also, there is clear consensus that a former name is not automatically of encyclopedic interest. Emphasis from the closer.

Accordingly, mandating inclusion by saying should be included in the lead ... only if <conditions are met>... would run counter to the first of our two recent RfCs on the guideline. For myself, changing "should be" to "may be" is nothing more or less than respecting the closure of the first of two recent RfCs on this guideline. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:54, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I disagree; encyclopedic interest is established by the use in multiple secondary and reliable sources containing non-trivial coverage of the person - exceptions may exist, but they can be handled by WP:IAR.

Further, it will reintroduce issues that would be resolved by the current wording; the current wording will stop most disputes over the inclusion of a deceased trans persons former name, but your wording will only stop disputes over the inclusion when the name doesn't meet the criteria. BilledMammal (talk) 03:04, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

On "encyclopedic interest", I'm not sure that's the case. Encyclopedic interest is one of those terms that we don't really define in a single, clear manner. The closest we get is the paragraph at WP:NOTEVERYTHING.

Additionally, the following paragraph of the same RfC said Where, exactly, the lines of encyclopedic interest and avoiding confusion are is not simple or clear and will likely need discussion on individual articles, although there is definitely space for more guidance in the MOS. By setting a floor for inclusion, multiple secondary and reliable sources containing non-trivial coverage, we're providing more guidance. And by stopping short of mandating inclusion, we're recognising that what encyclopaedic interest is something that is contextually specific to each individual article. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:38, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

In other words, the RFC did not mandate the verbiage that was just added. This seems like a harsher policy towards deceased transgender people than what was intended in the closing statement of the RFC. Names that are not of encyclopedic interest but had been mentioned in secondary sources would be included. An example would be this edit on Brandon Teena's page. Though current secondary sources do not include the deadname, at the time of Brandon's murder the press treated trans people with curiosity or more open contempt and would often refer to them by their deadname. I think we should remove or soften the added paragraph to GENDERID while it is being discussed per WP:BRD as it is not mandated by the RFC closure. Rab V (talk) 07:19, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I found the original edit that added the paragraph to the MOS here. The editor admits it is a BOLD addition in the edit summary even linking to WP:BOLD, so per BRD, it should be removed while being discussed. Rab V (talk) 07:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Floating an idea: Moratorium on GENDERID changes

How many megabytes of discussion are we at yet over this, without much real change? Many of the participants in these discussions don't actually write much about transgender topics. For those of us who do, MOS:GENDERID doesn't offer much practical guidance, so we figure things out according to common sense, and that actually works fine.

I spoke about some of this^20:23 on WIKIMOVE a few months ago. And now every time it looks like we're approaching some kind of consensus, more discussion is needed. People show much more interest in arguing about this guideline than actually enforcing it: The Gloria Hemingway article went through a high-profile RM and subsequent news coverage while in blatant noncompliance with the guidance for quotes; articles about Caitlyn Jenner's athletic career, perhaps the most obvious application of the changed-name other-article rule, violate that rule more often than not. Arguing about GENDERID has become more of a moot court than a productive exercise.

What if we just imposed a moratorium and let people focus on writing good content and enforcing the guideline as it exists? Say that for one year, no new discussions may be started to amend MOS:GENDERID, nor may substantive changes be made to the section. Clarifying questions on talk would still be allowed, as would copy-edits to the section.

If people don't like that idea, then all right, I've long realized that these discussions go nowhere, so I'm not the one who has to keep arguing in the absence of a moratorium. But I thought I'd suggest it. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 16:02, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

On the Caitlyn Jenner point, about a year ago I went through every article that mentioned Elliot Page to make sure that they were compliant with the guideline. In doing so, I discovered a lot of articles that used his old name, and when I looked into the article history, in almost all cases it was due to vandalism. After I finished the tidy up, I added the articles to my watchlist, and in the time since I've had to revert more than a few drive-by edits restoring Page's deadname to the article.

Skimming over the search results of Jenner's deadname, I do see a similar issue as with Page, where a lot of articles are using Jenner's deadname in prose. Spot checking a few, some seem not to have been updated in a while, some seem to be vandalised, and there's at least one odd case where a local consensus seems to exist to ignore GENDERID entirely.

It seems a sad truth that pretty much any high profile trans or non-binary person whose deadname is known will have this issue occur on a semi-regular basis. And it would be great if more editors could be aware of this and help enforce the guideline. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:10, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

• Jenner is a somewhat unique situation. She was heavily discussed back when we were first adopting GENDERID - and even then was considered a notable exception due to having Olympic medals won and records set under the name “Bruce”. The sports editors were insistent that the “name used when competing” should be maintained. Caitlin herself has commented publicly that she does not mind when her “deadname” is used in historical contexts (or even if people use “he” in such contexts) so there is no privacy/compassion issue. However, back when we agreed to make an exception in Jenner’s case, it was agreed that this should BE an exception and not a precedent. Blueboar (talk) 00:28, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I think a moratorium is a good idea. I find it hard to escape the conclusion that there simply isn't a consensus on any specific changes at the moment. (There is consensus on some broad points, but it always breaks down when trying to nail down the specifics.) Taking a break from trying to find what isn't there and focussing instead on productive editing would be of much more direct benefit, and may help a clearer consensus form in the future.--Trystan (talk) 00:57, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I have two specific concerns with a moratorium, but only in relation to the proposal above. The first is, if we do take a 12 month pause on this discussion, will the impasse actually resolve itself in any meaningful way? It seems that in the in the 3 months since the last discussion ended, little has changed. Will 12 really bring a resolution here? Secondly, I have a concern that if we did put a pause on discussions until December 2024, when we come back to the lack of guidance on how to handle the former names of deceased trans and non-binary people, there will be the question of "well why didn't you deal with this twelve months ago when the two RfC consensi were relatively fresh?" We've had two RfCs, one in August/September 2021, and one in May/June 2023, both of which demonstrate a need for guidance relating to the deadnames of the deceased. So how do we square that circle?

As for a moratorium on the rest of the guideline, I don't have an issue with that. Could it be better? Sure, but so could a lot of our policies and guidelines. But it's also not completely broken either. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:20, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good idea for largely the same reasons Sideswipe listed above. A moratorium won't do anything to resolve the issues being discussed, one of which is a relatively recent RFC. Delaying the consensus of that RFC would cause more problems than it solves. Loki (talk) 03:22, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

How would such a moratorium be imposed and enforced? Per WP:EDITING policy, people are free to post whatever proposal they like, absent some kind of community decision implementing a restriction. The only ways I can recall that such a moratorium has been imposed and obeyed are three: ArbCom imposes one, a consensus at ANI or another noticeboard imposes one, or an RfC comes to a consensus to impose one about the topic of the RfC and the closer of the RfC imposes it as part of the close; in all three cases there is either a community consensus behind it or ArbCom acting as a delegate of community consensus. But just some random editor like you or me unilaterally wanting to see it happen doesn't make it happen. Just, say, five people on a talk page "declaring" a moratorium isn't going to work, or factions of PoV pushers all over the place would have a field day, implementating year-long false-consensus blockades against anyone doing anything about their PoV pushing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:53, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

MOS:DEADNAME has an RfC

MOS:DEADNAME has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. BilledMammal (talk) 18:39, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Because of it's length, this has moved out of VPPOL and into its own page: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Names of deceased trans people.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:04, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

RfC on JOBTITLES

Should the "Positions, offices, and occupational titles" section be changed to reflect actual practice, namely capitalising titles adjacent to names? ~~~~ A.D.Hope (talk) 19:14, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Survey

• CLOSE for longer RFCBEFORE or OPPOSE ... but might support some rephrasing of the guideline. For context, this discussion started above, with #Conflict between JOBTITLE and SURNAME. The proposer noted that, though JOBTITLES says to only capitalize titles before names, we do, in practice, capitalize some post-name titles, like "William, Prince of Wales". Above, I noted, "Per WP:NCROY, royalty often use titles in lieu of surnames. As such, the title is part of the name. Though subtle, I think there's a distinction between saying, for example, "William, Prince of Wales" vs. "Charles was the prince of Wales". Notably, capitalization seems to be standard practice around the various articles: In this ongoing RFC discussing how a list of funeral attendees should be presented, no one is suggesting lowercasing titles." I'd amend that to note, as NCROY does, that a similar title-in-lieu-of-surname practice is often used for non-royal nobility or consorts (Albert, Prince Consort). That said, there are a few exceptions, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell has both a surname and a title.
  Regardless of the inconsistency, I think the above proposal is too broad. I'd oppose an approach of capitalizing all adjacent titles (I'd prefer "George W. Bush, president of the United States at the time, ..." to "George W. Bush, President of the United States at the time, ...". I might support some explicit clarification to account for the type of British nobility titles OP has mentioned, but I think such an amendment should be tailored to those titles (and probably discussed at the relevant Wikiproject—Wikipedia:WikiProject Royalty and Nobility?—prior to an RFC).--Jerome Frank Disciple 12:11, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

• Over the past few weeks I've had a number of discussions about exactly when to capitalise titles; despite JOBTITLES the general consensus on English Wikipedia seems to be to capitalise them when they're directly adjacent to a person's name, except when they're commercial or informal. Rather than contradicting this, as JOBTITLES currently does, would it be worth updating the section? Although my preference would be for the current wording, I don't see any realistic prospect of either changing how titles are capitalised in practice or updating the thousands of articles which must technically be in violation of the MoS. Thoughts? A.D.Hope (talk) 19:22, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  MOS:JOBTITLE already reads:

  When followed by a person's name to form a title, i.e., when they can be considered to have become part of the name: President Nixon, not president Nixon; Pope John XXIII, not pope John XXIII.

  What change is being proposed? —Bagumba (talk) 19:33, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  Captalising when a title follows a person's name. JOBTITLES would currently have 'Richard Nixon, president of the United States', but I propose changing this to allow 'Richard Nixon, President of the United States' to better reflect how Wikipedia editors seem to capitalise in practice. A.D.Hope (talk) 19:36, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  I disagree with this proposal. To my eye, the example above is improper for English and promoting it would gradually lead to such words always being capitalized, more as in German. To try to "reflect how Wikipedia editors seem to" do something is not, in my opinion, a rational or sustainable way to organize the MOS.Dayirmiter (talk) 07:26, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  The above example isn't improper English, to my knowledge, although admittedly it wouldn't be endorsed by the Chicago MoS. I do see your point, but then organising our MoS to work with editors rather than against them is both rational and sustainable, surely? A.D.Hope (talk) 10:52, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  Frankly, I think most editors would use an article there, "Richard Nixon, the president of the United States, ...." Would your proposal also require capitalization there?--Jerome Frank Disciple 12:02, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  No, it wouldn't. A.D.Hope (talk) 12:19, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  Okay, so just so I'm clear: "Richard Nixon, President of the United States at the time" but "Richard Nixon, the president of the United States at the time"?--Jerome Frank Disciple 12:25, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  Yes. I know it's anecdotal, but that's the style a lot of editors seem to naturally adopt. A.D.Hope (talk) 12:37, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  And it would be "Richard Nixon, president of the United States at the time", because the title is not directly connected to the name "as if part of it", but is part of another clause separated from the name by a comma.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:08, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  There's a well established principle in a number of style guides where the title preceding the name is capitalized, but not when it follows the name. So "President Nixon" and "Richard Nixon, president of the United States," but not "Richard Nixon, President of the United States." I'd argue that where you see the later happening, it's both against the MOS and generally incorrect. More often, I've seen people misread MOS:JOBTITLE to say that "president Richard Nixon" is correct, probably confusing something like "the president, Richard Nixon," where it would be lowercased. That said, royal titles like "William, Prince of Wales," are a different case in part because you would never say "the President" in running text without the president's name, but you would say "the Prince of Wales" because of how the title acts as name. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 13:08, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  I mostly agree with your comment ... although I do want to caveat you would never say "the President" in running text without the president's name seems ... which I suppose might be true if you mean "on Wikipedia", but certainly outside of Wikipedia, "the president announced" is quite common.--Jerome Frank Disciple 14:08, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  My understanding is that you should write "the President" in running text [w]hen a title is used to refer to a specific person as a substitute for their name during their time in office (the second bullet point of MOS:JOBTITLES). Rosbif73 (talk) 15:07, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks for this! I was wondering where I had seen that—I wrongly assumed I had seen it in a third-party style guide, but I actually found that most style guides disagree! (In a 1999 article, William Safire announced that the NYT would be joining the AP in not capitalizing president even when referring to a specific person; he said his preference was to capitalize in such a case, though he said the approach was "no longer stylish".[1]) CMoS, AP, and NYT all seem to now agree to lowercase it. I must have seen that passage in MOS:JOBTITLES and just forgot it was there!--Jerome Frank Disciple 15:46, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, at the moment our MoS is very clear on 'the President' rather than 'the president' when referring to a specific person. Again, although that usage seems to have fallen out of favour among style guides it does still seem to be popular on Wikipedia, so changing it is a question of balancing stylistic trends with how editors actually write. As I understand it neither usage is really wrong, after all.

  I do wonder if the best thing would be to make the MoS itself less absolute on this issue and title capitalisation, and aim for consistency within a page rather than across the whole enyclopedia? I think @Mgp28 will back me up when I say that there are pages where the main editors would resist the MoS as currently written being strictly imposed, and not unreasonably. A.D.Hope (talk) 18:12, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  Hurm, the examples there are "Queen" and "Pope", which seem a bit different to me than president, mostly because royal (and to a degree ecclesiastical) titles seem to be referring to the person, while president and governor would refer more to the office (i.e., one is more about WHO it is, the other is about the person's position). But that also sounds like I'm stretching for a rationale ... :) —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 17:37, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  I agree that it would feel totally wrong to write "the king" or "the pope" (referring to a specific person at a given point in time) but somehow more acceptable to write "the prime minister" or "the bishop" in the same context. If we are to change the guidance, we need clear rationale for the distinction. Rosbif73 (talk) 08:50, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think there's a clear one to make, and people who are more apt to write "the King" are more apt to write "the Prime Minister" when used in that same way, while those more apt to write "the prime minister" would likely be more apt to write "the king" when used as a stand-in.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:33, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  I have followed this discussion around a few different conversations since Talk:List_of_guests_at_the_coronation_of_Charles_III_and_Camilla#RfC_on_capitalisation_and_peerage_format. At that point it applied to princes, earls, lords and so on. MOS:SURNAME advised to capitalize these names. I was unconvinced that MOS:JOBTITLE should apply to all of these people but there was a possible contradiction so I suggested above that it might make sense to rephrase the example for when the title has become part of the name:

  • When they can be considered to have become part of the name, i.e. when combined with a person's name to form a title: President Nixon, not president Nixon; Pope John XXIII, not pope John XXIII; William, Prince of Wales, not William, prince of Wales

  I still think this could be reasonable, but only in the context of the title being part of the name in that position, not generically whenever a title follows a name. I would not think we should expand it to "Richard Nixon, President". Also, as presently phrased it might suggest capitalizing job titles that are never used as part of a name, "Adam Smith, Butcher", which I don't think it the intent. --Mgp28 (talk) 17:18, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  Well "being part of the name" sort of wording has proven to be confusing and a major sticking point in previous discussions anywhere hear the subject of names and titles; we need to write around that completely, which I've been doing in the drafting so far.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:33, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

• Now that's its become clear this is about writing ""Richard Nixon, President of the United States" instead of "Richard Nixon, president of the United States", I have to oppose, because the comma separates them into separate clauses, and the title is no longer directly connected to the name.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:02, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose, reluctantly, for the same reason given by User:SMCandlish. Personally, I strongly dislike the trend towards writing titles in lower case (e.g., president in lieu of President). But it is true that several style guides have adopted the distinction between capitalizing a title only when it immediately precedes the name of the title holder and otherwise not capitalizing. --Coolcaesar (talk) 17:37, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is English, not German, and moreover it's not Benjamin Franklin's English, either. Moreover, I don't support capitalizing a title like "president" when referring to a specific person, because that's a distinction without a difference, and one that is entirely missed by any user who has impaired sight or otherwise isn't using their eyes to take in this information. I only note that last because it was raised by other editors, not to suggest a change at this time.~TPW 18:39, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

I assumed that foreign language like Führer for Adolf Hitler. In full, Hitler officially styled himself der Führer und Reichskanzler (the Leader and Chancellor of the Reich) does not assume per MOS:JOBTITLE. --2001:4451:8272:C000:284C:2E39:ABD0:3DEA (talk) 11:56, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Neither of those are complete sentences, and it's entirely unclear what you are trying to convey. Probably not relevant anyway, since Führer is a German noun, and German nouns are always capitalized.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:27, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Capitalization of job titles in infoboxes

I changed the office in the Infobox officeholder template for John Merrill (American politician) from "53rd Secretary of State of Alabama" to "53rd secretary of state of Alabama", lowercasing the modified job title. Another editor insists that MOS:JOBTITLE does not apply to infoboxes. I don't see that exception in the MOS. He also claims that all other infoboxes use upper case for job titles, so I should leave them all consistently wrong (upper case). I admit there are many (but not all), though this is only because I have not gotten to all of them yet. Does this part of the MOS not apply to infoboxes? Chris the speller ^yack 05:23, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

In that particular case, maybe per MOS:OFFICE it should be capitalised? But in general, definitely not. But it's something that is very common, people writing Their Very Important Job in Capital Letters. soetermans. ^{↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK} 08:05, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

But MOS:OFFICE says it should be lower case because it is modified by "53rd". Note "37th president of the United States". Chris the speller ^yack 14:38, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Nixon's infobox uses "37th President of the United States" & "36th Vice President of the United States". GoodDay (talk) 18:29, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

We keep the offices capitalised in the infoboxes. GoodDay (talk) 18:28, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Concur with User:GoodDay. In general, we use the postgraduate academic convention of lowercasing titles in prose, when they do not immediately precede the officeholder's name. But for infoboxes (a layout device more commonly seen in magazines and K-12 textbooks), we use official and/or formal titles, which are still capitalized in title case. --Coolcaesar (talk) 19:45, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Agree. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:20, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

There is no "magical exception" to this or any other guidleine or policy when it comes to text strings in infoboxes. I have no idea where anyone got that idea. Infobox entries are treated as list items (since that's what they are: lists of key points put in right-floated tables). They are written in sentence case, and follow all the other MoS rules. So, because MOS:OFFICE has us do "37th president of the United States", then it remains "37th president of the United States" in an infobox. There is no special pleading to be had about this, and not one single word in MOS:INFOBOXES suggests otherwise.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:58, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

BLP/V/OR dispute about pronunciation keys in lead sentences

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: WT:Manual of Style/Lead section#Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Pronunciation – What began as seemingly a style question about a particular handful of articles has turned into a broad sourcing and OR debate, most especially as it pertains to pronunciations of individuals' surnames, with some particular BLP argumentation. This could really use input from MOS:BIO regulars not just MOS:LEAD regulars (to the extent they may differ).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:55, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Honorifics in infobox headings

While the "Knighthoods, lordships, and similar honorific titles" subsection says, "The honorific titles Sir, Dame, Lord and Lady are included in the [...] infobox heading", the "Honorific prefixes and suffixes" subsection says, "In general, honorific prefixes and suffixes should not be included, but may be discussed in the article", with no provision for including them in the infobox heading. Yet, some prefixes (e.g. "The Honourable") are typically included in the infobox heading. Could the guideline please be clarified re honorific prefixes such as "The Honourable", "The Reverend" etc. in infoboxes. Nurg (talk) 22:33, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Frankly, I've been interested in knowing why, out of all the titles of nobility and honorary titles in the world, there's an exception for two pairs (male/female) of specific titles from one specific country (UK). Largoplazo (talk) 23:28, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

My assumption is that it stems from WikiProject Succession Box Standardization/Guidelines § Peers and nobility (and maybe older versions of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility) § British nobility?) that privilege their titles when talking about British nobles — because that is the way that nobles have historically been described in academic works and encyclopædias here.

Given that we are a global publication, not a British one, we have already chosen not to privilege those titles thus, it seems reasonable to remove this weird exception from infoboxes. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 10:29, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

We include them because, as endlessly stated, they are effectively part of the person's name and almost invariably used by reliable sources. If John Smith is knighted, he is no longer simple John Smith but Sir John Smith. He is no longer referred to as Mr Smith, but as Sir John. It would therefore be doing a disservice to Wikipedia users not to use the standard style. It is tiresome to continually have to explain this. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:00, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

We do that in text. We don't put "Mr" in the infobox. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 13:12, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Mr, Mrs, Ms, Mx, are essentially meaningless strings/utterances that children use toward adults, a handful of especially old-fashioned newspapers still use before surnames for some reason, and people use in business and other interaction when trying to be particularly polite, so they really don't serve any encyclopedic purpose to mention, much less to highlight in an infobox. In policy terms, they would be a form of WP:INDISCRIMINATEly trivial verbiage to use here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:09, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

(This is about "Sir" and "Dame" again, if anyone hadn't already figured that out.) Wikipedia doesn't refer to him as "Mr Smith", either, so the distinction Necrothesp is trying to draw is immaterial. It's really tiresome to have a handful of editors refuse to drop the stick about this. To go over it yet again: It is common but not universal (even within the same publication) for many British and some other Commonwealth writers to use Sir/Dame for most but not all of the persons with such titles (depending on the exact wording of the material, among other factors), but it's virtually unknown everywhere else (or used in a tongue-in-cheek manner), nor is it commonly used (albeit not unheard of) in various contexts even within Britain, e.g. in film credits, journal citations, etc. Plus, various people who have these titles do not publicly use them, or only use them in particular contexts (same goes for Lord/Lady, etc.).

But frequency of use in particular source types really is immaterial in the end. WP does not go around calling people Sir This and Dame That at every possible mention, and there is a very long and stable consensus to this effect. Such a title is sometimes used once or even a few times when particularly pertinent, when the full name is given ("Sir John" and "Sir John Smith" are proper British style for this title, but "Sir Smith" is not). As WP doesn't refer to subjects by first name except under unusual circumstances, and usually refers to them by surname after first mention except under unusual circumstances, there is little call for "Sir" or "Dame" even when someone felt like applying it. In someone's own bio article, the Sir/Dame that applies to them will always be in the lead sentence (except in the rare case of someone who openly insists on not using it at all).

But in mentioning, outside their own bio, that so-and-so won a snooker tournament or narrated a documentary or starred in a TV show or died in car crash, there is very little appetite for Sir/Dame among either editors or readers. And it should be this way, since it has major WP:POV implications about endorsement of the British class-and-honours system, which is generally unrecognized anywhere else except particular Commonwealth jurisdictions, has has no more meaning to most readers than any other honorifics generated by any other authorities in other places, and has considerable opposition even among Britons and the broader Commonwealth public, as a product of royalism. This is not SupportTheBritishMonarchyAndClassHierarchyPedia. It's not our job to not-so-subtly choose a side in that ongoing and (post-EII) intensifying off-site socio-political debate.

It is entirely enough that WP sometimes uses these titles in running text when they are especially contextually pertinent, and almost always in the lead of a knight/dame's own bio. This is WP:DUE. We are not hiding the fact of the honour and title where it's relevant, but we are not bandying it about all over the place to drive an impression that the person is the "social better" of everyone without the title and somehow deserves greated reader attention and interest – notability – as an article subject, higher authority as source of virtue, or most importantly more trust as a source. As a simple example of the first sort, it is unquestionable that Sir John Burdon, a rather minor provicial politician (and as a writer, downright unimportant), is at least an order of magnitude less notable than David Bowie (who turned down a KBE) and various other world-famous Britons never offered one, e.g. George Harrison, Florence Nightingale (OM), William Blake, Charles Dickens, Alan Turing (OBE), J. R. R. Tolkien (CBE), Charles Darwin, etc. (Consider further that three of Darwin's children were knighted as adults, but are barely notable.) As an example of the second sort of concern, see Albert Henry (politician) and Jean Else, who had Knight/Dame Commander revoked after criminal activity, within recent memory. As an example of the third sort, Sir Thomas Innes of Learney might be referred to as such in his role as Lord Lyon (a role firmly embedded in the British class and nobility system), but in a source citation to one of his books (and in prose about his role as a writer) should not use "Sir", because his material outside his professional scope isn't, through some power of noblesse, more reliable than everyone else's even within subjects he liked to think of himself as something of an expert on (his material on tartan and Highland dress, for example, has various outright errors as well some very bold and documentarily unsupportable claims that are dismissed with good evidence by later leading researchers on the topic; and even his material on Scottish heraldry, his actual expertise, is laced with novel ideas that he claimed were rooted in Scottish tradition but were not).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:09, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Well put. Thank you. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 15:14, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Incidentally, a useful comparator might be Malaysian honorifics. How often does anyone refer to her as Yang Berbahagia Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh?

(As it happens, we do put that in the infobox, which is why I deleted my previously-typed rant and replaced it with what I actually wrote 5 hours ago. I'm not sure we should do, though; I think I'd be happy with them only being down in an "Honours and accolades" section or whatever, but it should certainly remain consistent with what we do for British honorifics.) — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 15:26, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

How often does anyone refer to her as Yang Berbahagia Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh. Exactly. They don't. Probably not even in Malaysia. How is that in any way comparable to someone knighted under the British honours system who is commonly referred to using their title? Have a look at the BBC website, for example. It is standard practice there to use titles when people have them. No, they don't always appear (journalists can be as ignorant about these things as anyone else), but they usually do. All the guff about titles not necessarily being used in other countries is irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is whether they are commonly used in the country of origin. And they very, very clearly are. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:19, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

The provincial titles not so much, but a Google search for "Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh" shows that the national honorifics are quite widely used there.

But also, people here widely talk about "Paul McCartney" or "Alan Sugar", without the "Sir" prefix, and likewise baronets.

I don't think they're as essential here as you claim. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 20:23, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

They definitely aren't. They're a deferential courtesy thing favoured by some-but-not-all British writers, and even those only some-but-not-all of the time. Here's a simple test: Google News search on "Sean Connery" [2]. The occurrences of "Sir Sean Connery" are downright rare, when it happens it's almost always a British source, and it is not universal in British sources (e.g. this Daily Express article [3] of a few months ago does not contain "Sir" anywhere in it. It took less than 30 seconds to find that, and there are more. What this tells us, inescapable, is that this is entirely optional and is a PoV-laden honorific. It hass not "become part of the name", it not "inseparable from the name", it is not "always used", so it is not anything Wikipedia should be doing, either in running prose when the title is not relevant (e.g. in reference to a film role), nor by violating the purpose of infobox parameters to leave |honorific_prefix= empty and make the blantantly false claim |name=Sir Sean Connery. And what's been done at the Margaret Thatcher infobox is even worse, filling |name= with an honorific phrase that disagrees with the article title and lead, is virtually never used in RS, and is just something one might use (if she were still alive) in polite personal address, like when writing a letter or introducing her to someone. Utterly unencyclopedic approach. Similar PoV-pushing screwup at the article on actor Christopher Guest, with |name=The Lord Haden-Guest. This is absolutely not what |name= is for, and any title that adheres to him as 5th Baron Haden-Guest since the death of his father belongs in other parameters or not in the infobox at all.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:32, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

What an absolute surprise that editors who oppose the use of titles are completely misrepresenting the points I made. My point is that "Sir, "Dame", "Lord" and "Lady" are almost always applied before the names of people with those titles. You can argue they're not until you're blue in the face. That doesn't make it any more true. The fact is that in British RSs they almost invariably are. How is it helping our readers if, for dogmatic WP:IDONTLIKEIT reasons, they are omitted from the beginning of the articles? it has major WP:POV implications about endorsement of the British class-and-honours system... And that sums it up in a nutshell. It's a POV argument. The NPOV, on the other hand, is clearly to use titles that are used and not to omit them. It is not Wikipedia's job to omit facts because editors do not like them or to take some sort of stand against the British honours system. They should clearly appear in the lead and the infobox of the individual's own article. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:08, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Probably every reliable source refers to the UK's current monarch as "King Charles" and his elder son as "Prince William", yet for some reason "Sir" and "Lady" get this treatment on Wikipedia based on the rationale you're giving but those same people's higher-ups don't. I realize that they're distinguished in the guidelines by designating them, respectively, as "honorary titles" and "job titles", but being someone's son isn't a job, and it's an artificial division for what most people probably just think of as "titles". The distinction has no meaningful relevance to the considerations here. Largoplazo (talk) 17:44, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

It does indeed have a great deal to do with source usage, and with a difference of type between the titles; "Sir/Dame" are honours, while "King/Queen" is a functional role of major societal significance. The fact that the latter is also a form of nobility and not a fully republicanist role like president is immaterial. It's instructive to look at RS treatment of Christopher Guest, then look at the trainwreck infobox in our article on his. He is virtually never referred to (except in old coverage of his brief stint in the House of Lords) as Baron Haden-Guest, Lord Haden-Guest, or Haden-Guest at all. He is known to the world almost entirely as Christoper Guest, and should be referred to by that name by us everywhere but in his own lead where we need to give more detail, and maybe in any coverage in another article of his short political career, but only in wording that makes it very clear we're talking about the notable Christopher Guest not some random non-notable guy named Lord Christopher Haden-Guest that no one's ever heard of. But abusine the |name= parameter to jam in a nearly unrecognizable title is ridiculous and "reader-hateful".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:32, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

The material is clumsily written, and consequently does not match actual practice. It should probably read something like: In general, honorific prefixes and suffixes should not be used when refering to persons, but may be discussed in an article about that person, and included in the |honorific_prefix= or |honorific_prefix= parameter of their biographical infobox. In particular, "honorific prefixes and suffixes" include: ...

The other option would be to actually remove the parameters from the infoboxes, or sharply limit their use with some kind of re-documentation, backed up by clearer guideline wording about infoboxes and titles, but I think that would require a really big contesus discussion (like an RfC at WP:VPPOL, as we did with getting rid of the |ethnicity= and |religion= parameters years ago after they were abused for WP:OR all the time).

See also Template talk:Infobox person#Placement of "Sir", yet another perennial discussion of treating Sir/Dame as "magically special", with a propososal to stick them into the |name= parameter instead of |honorific_prefix=.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:09, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Given a choice, I'd delete all such titles from bio infoboxes-in-question. Seeing (for example) "Right Honorable" in Canadian prime ministers' bio infoboxes, appears fluffery in nature. GoodDay (talk) 20:34, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree when it comes to this "The Right Honourable" stuff. These are not titles, they are "styles" used as forms of address or honorific reference, and should not be used in infoboxes much less in running prose. It is noteworthy and very important that articles like Charles III and Elizabeth II do not have |honorific_prefix=His Majesty or |honorific_prefix=Her Majesty (and several more such styles could probably be added to it by obsessives, judging from what's in articles like List of titles and honours of Elizabeth II). There is a clear consensus at royalty articles to not do this. What's happened in that fanbois of the British class system who have not got their way on this have jumped over to less-watchlisted articles on lesser figures and tried to get their way at those instead. Maybe it's a WP:FAITACCOMPLI thing, where if enough articles on knights and premiers and baronets and duchesses and lords mayor and etc. are festooned with this craptrap, they'll be able to re-force it back into top-level royalty articles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:32, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

|honorific_prefix= should be used for these titles, that is what it is there for. GiantSnowman 18:07, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

That something exists isn't proof that it should.

OK, so,in real life, people aren't like "I'm going to the Sir Elton John concert". They just aren't, is all. Since that is sky-is-blue true (source: if you don't know this you should get out more), our job is is to look for refs that will support us speaking like normal people rather than finding excuses to not speak like normal people. Serve the reader, not the editors at the Times.

(FWIW, I don't know about British newspapers, but book authors basically never use Sir Elton John either), it appears.

But, you know, on the other hand...this is a hill the Brits will die on, clinging to the remnants of a glorious past (which, fully understandable). It'd be heavy lifting to make a change, maybe just leave it lie. We won the Revolution, let them have this one.

On the hand, Brits should realize that this "Sir" stuff is actively offensive to some Americans (and maybe Indians, I don't know). We're republicans, citizens not subjects (yeah I know about the recent change, but still) and some of us take it seriously. Fourth of July and all. Article 1 of the American founding constitution says "...no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall...accept of any... Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State." That only applies to federal offices, but still. So, Americans aren't really on board with any of this stuff, mostly. True, few Americans are very offended, but why even annoy readers with snobbish Medieval claptrap? Herostratus (talk) 02:53, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

IF anybody wants to open an RFC (or whatever else is required) to see about deleting 'honorific_prefix' from bio infoboxes? I'll go along with it. GoodDay (talk) 03:14, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Ah, so what some Americans believe should rule Wikipedia, should it? Ignore actual facts because some Americans (God knows why) might be offended by them. At least we British are open about our class system and don't try to claim that we don't have one as many Americans laughably do (you might not have titles, but your class system is actually more entrenched than ours). And also note that anyone in Britain can receive a title. Many people who do started out as working class. We won the Revolution, let them have this one. You mean the First American Civil War? The one some Americans (the ones who didn't fight for the King) won almost entirely because of the support of the Kingdom of France? The one that was predominantly about money? Not much to boast about there. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:51, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

For the record, not everyone with concerns about this stuff is making that sort of nationalistic argument at all (though given the nationalism behind the viewpoint on the other extreme, I'm not surprised to see this come up). The real issues are several, including multiple forms at once of inconsistency (in treatment of one title type versus another, between one category of bio articles and another, between the "name" in the infobox and in the article title and sometimes even the entire lead, etc.); the WP:CONLEVEL problem of one wikiproject going around changing thousands of articles to defy the guideline's intent, the purpose of an infobox, and that specific infoboxes intent and documentation; the NPOV problem of treating people with such titles as if they are magically different from and better than everyone else; the nationalistic issue of a sense that British editors (and not all of them, just those who favour this labelling system, and beyond that want to use it in a markedly undue manner) have more say than anyone else over how articles on British subjects should read, despite this being a global encyclopedia not UKPedia; and so on.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:05, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

@Necrothesp: I'm not an American, fwiw. GoodDay (talk) 00:10, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

@GoodDay: I was answering Herostratus, who was talking about titles offending American sensitivities. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:28, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Herostratus, I'll have to agree and disagree by turns. That a template used on hundreds of housands of pages, and intensely watchlisted, and subject to a great deal of active community input over many, many years (including multiple WP:VPPOL RfCs about what it says and does), has specific parameters for titles and for names, and clearly documents their distinct usage, absolutely is strong evidence that these parameters should exist and should be used as documented. But RfC away if you think you can change consensus on their existence. I know where I'm placing my bets, and I wouldn't want them deleted, since at least they provide a rationale to stop injecting honorifics into |name=, which is a frequent problem anyway but would be magnified tenfold. It is correct that people almost never say "I'm going to the Sir Elton John concert". But WP isn't based on colloquial speech patterns, it's based on high-quality writing. So it is much, much more important that the vast majority of independent RS do not refer to him as "Sir Elton John", either; it's almost entirely a Briticism, and confined to publications that, frankly, are classist and just like to do this, while everyone else in the world refers to him as simply "Elton John", including plenty of British writers. But that really has nothing to do with whether the parameters should exist. It does mean that the parameter purposes should be followed, with "Sir" in the pre-nominal title parameter where it belongs and just "Elton John" in the name parameter, because his name is "Elton John" not "Sir Elton John", both in a strictly-speaking manner (that longer string is a concatenation of a pre-nominal title and a name) and in a source-usage, WP:COMMONNAME manner. What is way more troubling than a few instances of crap like |name=Sir Elton John is the WP:FAITACCOMPLI behavior of WP:ROYALTY in going around totally screwing up the infobox on almost every member of the British peerage (probably others) with nonsense like |name=Baroness Thatcher at Margaret Thatcher. That's just un-fucking-believable and it needs to be undone, by an RfC if necessary.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:18, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I haven’t been following this discussion, but I don’t think there’s a clear consensus(?) and Omnipaedista, it seems you should be aware of this before continuing to change infoboxes. — HTGS (talk) 04:34, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

The documentation of the relevant template (Infobox person) has been indicating that |honorific_prefix= is to be used for these titles since at least November 2017‎. For the past 6 years, no one seems to have changed this bit of the documentation. This is the deafening silence of consensus (WP:SILENCE). --Omnipaedista (talk) 04:49, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

1) I don’t think infobox guidance should generally be taken as infallible, and certainly should defer to MOS. 2) I don’t have skin in this discussion, but while conversation is ongoing it seems sensible that nobody should be making changes. I also didn’t mean to call you out or condemn your actions at all, because I’m assuming you didn’t know about this thread. — HTGS (talk) 23:12, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Given that we have related discussions happening on at least two pages (here and Template talk:Infobox person), without a crystal clear consensus forming, this is probably something that should be RFCed, presumably here and "advertised" at sensible places like WP:VPPOL, WT:BIO, WT:BLP, WT:ROYALTY, the main WT:MOS talk page, etc., since this would ultimately affect a large number of articles. There are basically two questions:

1. Should the |honorific_prefix= and |honorific_suffix= parameters be kept or deleted, at templates like {{Infobox person}} and its derivatives?
2. If kept, should the long-standing documentation be followed, or be changed to permit use of honorific titles in the |name= parameter?

Other questions that could be asked, like "Should MoS address this directly?" and "What would be the point of the |honorific_*fix= parameters if titles could just be put in |name=?" and "Should it be okay to not use the subject's name at all and instead use something like |name=Baroness Thatcher?", really depend quite obviously on the answers to the two basic questions.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:29, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

I do not think that the editors proposing a change have demonstrated a change in consensus. If these editors think they can change consensus, they are invited to open an RfC at WP:VPPOL as suggested above. Local consensus (WP:LOCALCONSENSUS) cannot override community consensus. —Omnipaedista (talk) 03:48, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Previous discussions have already been concluded: see here and here. These recent discussions had a straightforward result: no changes are to be made to the relevant template descriptions; the consensus has not changed and the template descriptions still say what they say. --Omnipaedista (talk) 18:44, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Template documentation does not reflect consensus. This is basic policy. Atchom (talk) 00:31, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

That's made-up nonsense. See WP:CONSENSUS policy. Consensus is determined by editorial discussion and actual practice, and can form anywhere. When template documentation is consistently followed by everyone on the site except a handful of editors from a single wikiproject going around and doing things that violate multiple guidelines as well as the template documentation (which is long-standing and well-discussed), then we know exactly what the consensus is and who is defying it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:07, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

When template documentation is consistently followed by everyone on the site... It isn't. It's been completely inconsistent until Omnipaedista decided to go around "enforcing" it and shouting down anyone who objected. The discussion above shows just how little consensus there is. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:27, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd add that there was a consensus (before Omnipaedista's thousands of mass edits) for Sir/Dame to go into the name field if the person had a prefix such as Honourable/Right Honourable. Atchom (talk) 17:43, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

You are mistaken. Of course there was widespread use before my edits. The earliest such edit I can remember is by MarnetteD back in April 2015 (the article was "Alec Guinness", an intensely watchlisted article). Within the next couple of years after that edit, most of the articles about knighted celebrities and famous politicians had been changed accordingly and the new common practice was eventually documented in Infobox person's documentation (I only started editing that parameter in late 2020). Two years ago some further clarification became necessary so an actual RFC started. The consensus of that discussion was that 'Sir' and 'Dame' are high-grade (as opposed to routine) honorifics, not actual names, and have no place in the "Names" part of the infobox. The only editor who seems to believe that the RfC had no consensus seems to be Atchom. --Omnipaedista (talk) 13:35, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

I would note that the RfC was never closed. I'm not sure it ever was a formal RfC in any case. Claims that there is any sort of formal consensus are therefore extremely flimsy. Changes to infoboxes that have existed for years have essentially been made by a handful of editors who clearly don't approve of titles (quite vociferously and insultingly anti, in some cases, as can be seen above), who have then cited a consensus that doesn't really exist to support their actions. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:50, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Please see WP:RFCEND (section "Duration"). Please also note that consensus on Wikipedia does not mean unanimity as per WP:CONS. --Omnipaedista (talk) 15:06, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

That works both ways, and you have no leg to stand on. Enough. Atchom (talk) 18:49, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

It was your side that lost the argument in the relevant RfC. In any case, MOS is effectively about the body of the text of an article not about infoboxes. The discussion here is rather pointless and just keeps echoing the main discussion which is to be found here: Template_talk:Infobox_person#Placement_of_"Sir". --Omnipaedista (talk) 20:13, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, the RfC which ended inconclusively and which has never been properly closed? Please stop misrepresenting consensus or lack thereof. You clearly have a fixation of some sort, as shown by the immense efforts you put in reverting articles until other editors give up. Atchom (talk) 22:12, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

I simply edited a number of articles that did not comply with what the documentation says. Then you started hounding my edits (WP:HOUND) by following my contrib history and reverting my edits because you disagree with what the documentation says. If you do not like the documentation, you can try to change if before reverting my edits. --Omnipaedista (talk) 18:54, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Plus, have you actually read WP:RFCEND? "If the matter under discussion is not contentious and the consensus is obvious to the participants, then formal closure is neither necessary nor advisable." --Omnipaedista (talk) 19:16, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Bibliography

Does MOS:DOC, specifically the general guidance to not include academic/professional titles, apply only to article subjects, or does it also extend to the authors of works included in an article's bibliography? See recent edits here for context. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 10:31, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

It applies generally. If we put "Dr.", "Prof.", "PhD", "MD", etc., etc., into citations, then virtually every citation of a journal would be nearly unreadably peppered with these abbreviations, because most journal-published academics and research scientists and other field professionals have one or more advanced degrees. We have millions of citations to such authors, and they do not include all this claptrap; it is a strong consensus against doing so.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:49, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I certainly thought as much, and I hope the other editor will accept this independent confirmation. I just wasn't in the mood to keep wrestling with them over it. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 21:14, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

RFC on CONTEXTBIO

Editing disputes still raging across Wikipedia biographies regarding ethnic identifications in the lede for historical figures, namely the definition of what constitutes relevancy to the subject's notability. Multiple discussions were held on this talk page on how to address this policy gap, and we have a similar precedent in an RFC on Spanish regions.

Should MOS:CONTEXTBIO define the relevancy to the subject's notability in this way?

“ Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless relevant to the subject's notability. Similarly, neither previous nationalities nor the country of birth should be mentioned in the lead unless relevant to the subject's notability. The relevancy to the subject's notability is determined by examining how the majority of reliable sources identify the subject. the most commonly used primary identification in reliable sources. ”

Makeandtoss (talk) 21:10, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (CONTEXTBIO)

• As previously discussed editors are struggling with how to identify historical figures and this has resulted in endless debates on what constitutes relevancy to the subject's notability because this policy has been applied selectively and inconsistently without regard to citizenship, nationality or residency, examples include how Jesus is described as a Jew instead of a Roman; Niccolò Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo Galilei as Italians instead of Florentines; Aristotle as Greek instead of Chalcidian/Macedonian; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz as German instead of "Holy Roman Empirer"; Maimonides as Sephardic Jewish instead of Almoravid; Saladin as Kurdish instead of Abbasid; Muhammad as Arab instead of Hejazi. Making the majority of reliable sources the determining criteria on how a subject should be identified would settle these raging discussions, and restore consistency to Wikipedia's biographies. Makeandtoss (talk) 21:21, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• Overall I would lean toward supporting this a different approach to improving this guideline section (for reasons I detail at some length at the WP:R&E essay), and it would be consistent with community decisions in back-to-back VPPOL RfCs removing the ethnicity parameter from infoboxes and the religion one as well except from infoboxes pertaining to religious leaders. However, someone (privately, not on the essay talk page) raised a concern about erasure, and I think it's valid. If a subject strongly identifies a particular way (within the sorts of categorization we're talking about here) and makes it clear that this has major socio-cultural, political, or similar importance to them and their life and activity (whether secondary sources dwell on it or not), then it should not be suppressed from the lead, absent a considered editorial consensus to do so, even if this is based on WP:ABOUTSELF material not secondary coverage. An example of due editorial consideration toward exclusion would be Meghan Markle, who has clearly identified herself repeatedly in the public record as bi-racial, but who has not made a big deal of it as a socio-political matter, so her ethnic background is not in the lead. Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson is a similar case. Taika Waititi is apt to be a counter-case, because of the material at Taika Waititi#Support for indigenous artists; Māori ancestry is something he puts forward in his life as action and activism. Same goes for Tina Turner and Buddhism. I would need a lot more coffee and snacks to figure out how to work that into some kind of proposed guideline language, but maybe others can beat me to it.

  As for historical figures, it's a different matter, almost always about historical accuracy of particular terms (usually over-broad modern labels). I've seen several recent discussions of this sort, and the principle always comes down to "this is not RewritingHistoryPedia". Christopher Columbus should not be identifed as "Italian" (at least not without careful clarification of meaning); there was no nation-state named Italy in his era; he was a Genoan (Italy/Italia existed as a general regional term, but that does not equate to a nationality or an ethnicity, and Italy has never had just one ethnic group and language). Similarly, Bridei I was Pictish and lived in Pictland; he should not be described as Scottish or from Scotland. Atahualpa was Incan, not Peruvian.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:20, 6 January 2024 (UTC); revised 09:11, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  Update: I cannot support the change to the "most commonly used primary identification in reliable sources" wording, for reasons I covered in detail in the discussion section. It's a major step backwards. Worse, the more I read of nominator Makeandtoss's intent and extended rationales, the more extremist and counter to actual consensus they prove to be. I no longer think the proposal open here has any chance of success, or should be given any further consideration. See below for details why. This guideline does need improvement, but this proposal – and some counter ideas by Andrew Lancaster from the opposite extreme, also covered in detail below – are not going to get us there.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:11, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

• I agree with this, and with SMc’s points. Trying to import modern political geography back into the past doesn’t make sense, and we should as in all things be following the majority of RS and not trying to argue the ethnicity or nationality through OR. “German” is perhaps an exception to the examples given above, since the ties of ethnicity and language go back into pre-history and Germanic peoples existed long before any Germanic political entity; hence you will find that term in historical RS. The “Holy Roman” counter-example offered above would be absurd, as the HRE didn’t function and was never seen as a country or nationality nor really an identifier; I doubt you would find the suggested descriptor in any RS. But “Italian” rarely makes sense pre-unification, and as a term prior it is hard to pin down or geo-locate. The proposal would also help with what is a long-running issue in many articles, which has been the determined effort by a small number of editors to reclassify all British people as either English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish, often based on the flimsiest of grounds and rarely with any reference to how they are described in RS. Much of this has been linked with what was seen as the runup to (possible) Scottish independence, and the frequency of such edits has dropped now that the Indy movement is in the decline, but it is still a recurring issue. MapReader (talk) 05:37, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• ...by examining how the majority of reliable sources identify the subject: "Majority" needs tuning. It's possibly unlikely that a majority of sources will mention this background, yet it still might be lead worthy. For example, most sources on Caitlyn Jenner might assume the reader knows her background, and won't be constantly repeating it. Can the threshold be objectively quantifiable?—Bagumba (talk) 05:54, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  i understand your point but what I meant was the majority identification in the sources. So if Saladin is described as Kurdish in five out of fifteen sources and as an Arab in two, Kurdish would be considered the identification of him in the majority of sources and thus can be used in lede. Makeandtoss (talk) 08:05, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  I see a few issues. 5/15 is not a majority, so perhaps there wouldn't be a clear identifier for Saladin. Still that is a matter of how we describe him. But "the relevancy to the subject's notability" seemed to be more about how to determine whether it is mentioned in the lead at all, which is a separate issue from the content of what is mentioned. —Bagumba (talk) 09:42, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  5/15 saying Kurdish > 3/15 saying Arab, as an example of course not a real number; thus 5/15 would be the majority identification*. When RS identify the subject in a certain way, then the identification would be both due for the lede, and due for the lede in the ethnic group reported. Makeandtoss (talk) 21:19, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  I think we're interpretting majority differently. I took it to mean > 50%, while you're referring to it as the greatest number.—Bagumba (talk) 11:25, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  That actually gives me serious misgivings, Makeandtoss. Five out of 15 sources is far too insufficient to label Salidin a Kurd in the lead. Rather, our article body should say that various sources cited describe him as Kurdish, while a few argue he was an Arab. It is not our "job" as encyclopedists to hide the fact of source discrepancies; rather, we point them out and give WP:DUE weight to the arguments (which would be none at all for WP:FRINGE ones like "Saladin was really from Japan, and a conspiracy has hidden this from the world" :-). If only 7 total out of 15 sources address the question at all, it's still not a strong indicator that our lead section should make any ethnic claim at all, rather than just stating the known facts about where he lived and when.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:54, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  I gave this as an example, these are not real numbers. In the body, we can say that a few sources described him as Kurdish and a few argue he was Arab. But in the lede, we have to assign him to an ethnicity, as we do already do with Aristotle and Machiavelli. Makeandtoss (talk) 08:33, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  "in the lede, we have to assign him to an ethnicity" - We absolutely do not, and at various articles we don't because the sourcing is weak or contradictory, or because it is not encyclopedically pertinent to that person.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think it is a good biography if the person is not tied to any group. In many articles where the sourcing is weak or contradictory, the most commonly used identification in RS should be used; and again, in cases where the person cannot be tied to a polity. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:43, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  Not plastering a questionable or questionably relevant ethnicity label into the lead has nothing to do with whether the article subject is "not tied [in our material]" to some group or polity. You're misconceptualizing this.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  Of course sources need to be weighed - both for number and authoritativeness - with disagreements worked through on article talk pages in the normal way. And of course many RS won't use any national or ethnic descriptor for a person at all, which is both unsurprising and irrelevant. But it doesn't make sense to be challenging the proposal on the basis of "how would this work?", when WP runs on that basis already. Yes, editing by consensus isn't always easy. The purpose of the proposal, AIUI, is to reinforce the point for a field (of biography) where some editors like to argue from details (where someone was born, their parentage, where they became famous, etc.) which all should be seen secondary matters. Arguing that someone should be described as, lets say, "Mongolian", on the back of a citation that says they were born in Mongolia but doesn't explicitly use the term "Mongolian" is clearly a form of SYNTH, as the conclusion being edited into the article isn't explicitly used by the source. Editors do this, I think, partly because such assumptions normally 'work' (i.e. most people born in Mongolia can safely be described as 'Mongolian' - but not all) and partly because of the natural desire to cling to an unambiguous rule that makes editing easier and resolves disputes. But someone born in Mongolia who left as a child, resettled in China and became a famous Chinese film star is a "Chinese film star", if so described by the RS, and the article can go on later to note his or her birthplace in the body.

  We had similar discussions in the WP projects for film and TV, since there were editors fond of arguing the nationality of a creative product on the back of their own chosen criteria (such as who paid for it or where the production companies are based) rather than relying direclty on the RS, as they clearly should. Both projects now have words similar to those proposed above within their respective MoS. MapReader (talk) 11:04, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  I endorse Mapreader's take, entirely.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:11, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  Because it might reduce misunderstandings, I want to note that I also agree with this. I also like the non-extremism of this: most people born in Mongolia can safely be described as 'Mongolian' - but not all. I think that is many cases we can use terms such as Mongolian for historical people. That does not necessarily mean it is often going to be the best choice in the opening line, but I think the term does not need to be banned from opening lines when it comes to historical people. I suppose/hope that my opinion is reasonably uncontroversial.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:57, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  This is basically false dichotomy. Blueboar has already explained and demonstrated how to work such a term into a lead when it might be questionable as a personal label, by using it as modifier of something else, with that combination resolving to something we have an article on (e.g. Italian Renaissance, Mongol Empire, etc.) instead of as an "Italian person", "Mongolian person" ethno-cultural label of the individual. Sidestepping this as if "the Blueboar approach" is somehow wrong instead of eminently sensible has much to do with why you and I have been at loggerheads. It simply is not the same thing to say that so-and-so was a 14th-century Mongol scribe from Khanbaliq (when we're not really sure whether the person was actually ethnically Mongol), versus to say that they were a 14th century scribe from Khanbaliq in the Mongol Empire. Note carefully how Alexander the Great says he was "a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon" not "a Greek king of ancient Macedon". This stuff matters. (And failure to understand this is why the Christopher Columbus lead is presently such a trainwreck. Niccolò Machiavelli is not making this kind of error, but it would actually probably be better to work in "Italian Renaissance" instead of just "Reniassance" to make it clearer to readers unfamiliar with what "Florentine" means, especially since the lead rather boneheadedly doesn't even link to Republic of Florence until a later paragraph.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:19, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I have updated my proposed text based on the feedback received above; "the most commonly used primary identification in reliable sources" would be the best way to counter the stated concerns. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:11, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

The hypothetical problem I see is if 3/5 sources describe a person's ethnicity as X, but another 15 make no mention of their ethnicity at all. Does X have enough WP:WEIGHT to be mentioned in the lead? What are the objective criteria for determining its inclusion? —Bagumba (talk) 11:30, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

This is where primary identification comes in. For the case of Saladin, after a quick google search, it seems he is most commonly referred to as Ayyubid leader (dynasty), followed by Kurdish leader (ethnicity), then Muslim leader (religion), and then if ever as Arab leader (culturally). Assuming hypothetically that the first identification was non-existent, i.e. he was never referred to as Ayyubid, then we should be able to use Kurdish leader, which would be the most commonly referred to primary identification, which would establish relevance to the subject's notability, regardless of proportion of mention in RS. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:58, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Then my question is regarding secondary identification. Assuming they are not the primary identifier, when would ethnicity, religion, sexuality, etc. be suitable for the lead? —Bagumba (talk) 12:32, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

If there exists a primary identification, for example American, then no it shouldn't be, unless relevant to his notability, ex: Barack Obama. If a primary identification is lacking/ambiguous, due to pre-modern era, then an ethnic (secondary) identification should be used as the primary identification if this is relevant to his notability as seen in RS. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:44, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Then I would say having Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead... precede The relevancy to the subject's notability... in the same paragraph is confusing. They seem unrelated if the point is really about the primary identifier, and not a person with, say, a clear nationality, but still deciding whether mention of their ethnicity is also worth mention in the lead. —Bagumba (talk) 13:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree it is confusing, in the beginning I wanted to add this to the first paragraph of the guideline, something along the lines of: "In pre-modern cases, where identifying to a specific polity is ambiguous or impossible, then use the most common identification in RS." But this would have conflicted with the second paragraph which states that ethnicity should not be used. So I ended up deciding on just adding the definition of notability relevancy since there is a limitation on ethnicity mention. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:32, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Kurdish leader is misleading at best since Saladin's ethnic background played no part in his notability. This is true for the overwhelming majority of the Muslim historical figures given that they all belonged to the Umma (the Muslim nation), a concept that is unique to Islam. Unfortunately, attempts at replacing their ethnic background with the word "Muslim" (essentially, their nationality) in their biographies have been met with criticism by those who tend to compare Islam to other religions. M.Bitton (talk) 12:52, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Again, for the fourth time, we are talking hypothetically; my answer above said in case that Ayyubid was not used; Kurdish should be used because that's how RS describe him. But in the current case, Ayyubid should be used, since he is clearly tied to a polity, as evidenced by how RS refer to him. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:30, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

What is important according to the current WP:ETHNICITY text is what kind of designation reliable sources use to give "context" to a person and the causes of their notability. Although this is not exactly the same as saying that we should just follow sources for pre-modern people, I think it comes close. So in other words the chosen word does not have to actually "play a role" in the notability of a person, only that it has to describe the context of it. The example currently given is that it might be the country where a person did activities that made them notable, although that clearly is not meant to cover all cases. (Descartes is not Dutch for example.) So I think my understanding of the text is closer to that of M.Bitton. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:09, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I share the same concern as Bagumba's "The hypothetical problem I see", and addressed this a bit in a post in a different part of this discussion. The issues I have with Makeandtoss's "algorithmic" approach described above (if there is no dynastic term, then use an ethnic one, and lacking that in the sources, use a religious one, and lacking that then use a broader cultural one) are a) it presupposes that we must include such a label in the lead, which simply is not true, and b) it confuses these things as being some kind of hierarchy, but no such relationship exists between them (each is a different axis, if you will, that is orthogonal to the rest). Someone might be overwhelmingly notable as a religious leader (e.g. a pope), or an influential figure across a broad multi-ethnic culture (e.g. mainland China) without their "ethnicity" being lead-relevant in any way. Dwayne Johnson is a good example; his multi-ethnic background is in the article body and not mentioned in the lead. It probably should be in the lead of Taika Waititi because he is notable (in a comparatively small but not encyclopedically insignificant way) for involvement in Māori-related causes.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:22, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

It is not a hierarchy, what I described was numerical frequency. Johnson is irrelevant since he is straightforwardly identified as American, thus there is no need for his ethnic background in lede, since it does not play any role in his notability; and since there are no RS saying other than American, primarily.

Yes, we must include any label, at least one, in identifying people in their biographies. This is what every RS does. I have never read about any person who is not identified to any group.

Keep in mind that the policy issue we have here is that editors are warring in articles of historical figures because the national/citizen/resident identification is so ambiguous/even sometimes unknown, and they are unable to use one identification, or use a specific identification out of many. The definition above would solve this problem by simply avoiding OR and bickering, and using what RS have use most commonly. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:28, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

"Yes, we must include any label, at least one, in identifying people in their biographies" is provable (and already proven) completely wrong. You can argue that we should, and people will argue in support of and against this idea, but there is no principle anywhere that requires this, and if you tried to establish one I guarantee you it would fail because we already have a long string of per-article consensus decisions in particular cases to not do it. While I supported, above, the general idea of clarifying this guideline in some ways, your proposal and the out-of-nowhere ideas behind it are clearly not going to be the way we get to any such clarification or better dispute resolution. But let's move on ....

For Johnson, "since [ethnicity] does not play any role in his notability" is correct (or seems to be, based on RS treatment). But "since he is straightforwardly identified as American, thus there is no need for his ethnic background in [the] lede" is not correct; whether someone has a citizenship identifier in the lead has no bearing of any kind on whether or not (usually not) they should also have an ethnic one; that is determined by connection of their ethnicity to their notability in reliable sources (and, I have argued, to their promotion of it in ABOUTSELF material as central to their life and motivation). "since there are no RS saying other than American" is also wrong, since you are pitting "American" (his nationality) against his biracial ethnicity as if they are either/or alternatives in the same category when they obviously are not. There clearly are sources that go into his ethnicity in detail; whether there are sources that don't mention him being American (there are, albeit short ones) is immaterial, since that has nothing to do with his ethnicity; whether their could be sources that deny he is an American is just irrelevant absurdity we don't need to contemplate. Again, you are badly misconceptualizing the entire nature of what these terms mean and how to approach them encyclopedically. It is clear that this proposal is just going to fail and that someone with a better handle on this subject will have to propose something more sensible later.

This really demonstrates the severe issues with how you have misconceptualized all of this: "the policy issue we have here is that editors are warring in articles of historical figures because the national/citizen/resident identification is so ambiguous/even sometimes unknown, and they are unable to use one identification, or use a specific identification out of many. The definition above would solve this problem by simply avoiding OR and bickering, and using what RS have use most commonly." Literally every single element of that is wrong, as is the entire proposition as a whole:

• The issue we actually have is that there is frequent editorial conflict about such identifiers because various editors are often inapproriately using various kinds of labels (often for the same awful reason you want to do it, a false belief that such labeling is required, though sometimes also out of an equally wrong notion that every possible label that can be sourced must be used, including in the lead).
• Inability of editors to accurately assign a historical figure to a polity is extremely rare. Rather, the disputation is almost always (with regard to "nationality" or something that can be mistaken for it) about misuse of a modern-day geopoltical term in a way that is guaranteed to confuse a large number of readers – instead of just writing clearly, as in: "Xerxes Youill of Zounds was a philosopher of the 3rd century BCE in Elbonia (in present-day southern Ruritania)".
• There is no evidence anywhere that an inability of editors to settle on one single indentifier in particular is a serious or recurrent issue. There is no principle at all, in any policy, guideline, or even well-supported essay requiring or even encouraging us to do this. An attempt by one editor to reduce a bio subject to a single such term (especially an oversimplifying, ambigous, or anachronistic one) when RS indicate one or more other identifiers – a conflicting/alternative (often more specific) one, or an additional one of a different sort – should be included, leads to principled opposition from other editors.
• On the opposite side of the spectrum, usually (not always) well-meaning but misguided attempts to either include a poorly-sourced label in the article at all (especially when it does not match the subject's own self-identification), or to include a properly sourced identifier in the lead (or the infobox or, often, as a category) that does not pertain to the subject's notability or to their own strong ABOUTSELF presentation, also generates principled dispute.
• In various cases, a firm consensus emerges to not use such identifying labels at all about a particular subject, but to write differently and better, to put the subject within a particular geo-historico-cultural context in the lead and the body, instead of relying upon simplistic adjectival or noun labeling.
• Your proposition would solve abosolutely nothing and simply increase disputation. You mean to require the inclusion of a label no matter what, mandate only a single label no matter what, and make that only be the label that is most common without any regard to the fact that various sorts of indentifiers are of completely different sorts, with no connection to each other, not "in competition" with each other, and each of entirely severable importance (and verifiability) levels with regard to the subject and our coverage of them.

In short, this is very close to the daftest proposition I have ever seen in my 18+ years on Wikipedia.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:11, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

• A few problems I see with trying to create general rules for these cases, rather than seeing it as a normal case by case decision.

• (1) I think in many of the cases this relates to, some kind of "ethnic" or "national" identity is widely seen as part of a person's own way of seeing themselves, and so this proposal is not really proposing a solution to the problem as it normally manifests itself.
• (2) SMcCandlish starts from the assumption that terms like "Italian" refer to modern states only. In fact they are old geographical and national terms and they were used by people to identify themselves and others long before that state existed. So I think this approach, which accuses those who disagree of anachronism, is ironically itself a good example of a type of 21st-century anachronism which is leading to polarized talk page discussions, and misunderstandings. This type of polarising talk seems to be a growing problem on Wikipedia. We need to be able to discuss things a bit more subtly or else we'll end up dumbing the encyclopedia down and just deleting everything that's awkward to talk about.
• (3) With those two previous points in mind, from a practical stand-point this is a nuclear option which is basically sweeping a difficult but encyclopedic topic off the table and "banning" it from Wikipedia. (No doubt people will try to defend the proposal by saying this not the intention, but let's be honest. That is how this will be used.)
• (4) FWIW I personally think that another major anachronism which is dumbing us down is the idea which many editors seem to have that national or ethnic identities are "all or nothing". Why can't people have two important identities? Although this is being pushed for by certain types of people in our time, it is nonsensical now, and it would not even be comprehensible to the historical people we write about. Machiavelli identified as Italian and Tuscan and Florentine, and these were all very important to him. The decision about whether any of these are notable enough for the lead is one which should be made case by case depending upon the people involved. We should not be "correcting" Machiavelli and scolding him for thinking he belonged to a nation which had no modern-style political status.
• (5) Just on a practical note, there is also no need to stress about whether to name all three of those identities in Machiavelli's specific case because being Florentine automatically implies the other two. In the case of Ibn-Khaldun though, I see nothing wrong with saying that he identified with different nations that did not perfectly overlap. (For example: Arab, Maghrebi, North African, Andalusian, depending upon whatever the sources confirm to be notable for his case.)
• (6) Notability is NOT the only reason to include certain information. It might just be helpful or necessary in order to make something comprehensible. For example, there also seems to be a tacit assumption that we shouldn't identify people based on the geographical area they lived in, using modern geographical terms. (For example: She lived in what is now Bavaria.) I think this is often a very useful thing to do because ancient regional names are often complex topics themselves and not easy to understand or use. (If this is not a problem, then just adding "what is now" is apparently all we need to do in many cases.)
• (7) To be clear, I see no reason at all that we ALWAYS need to give ethnic or national or any type of group-based identity. I fear that creating general rules could also go in the direction of all articles trying to look like other articles. I think kind of drive towards uniformity is also a problematic tendency on Wikipedia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think anyone here had self-identification in mind. It doesn't matter if Machiavelli referred to himself as Italian [which I don't think he did since Italian identity emerged in 19th century], since per the current guidelines he should be referred to as Florentine (his place of citizenship and residence), but RS have [supposedly] described him as Italian, and therefore WP should reflect what RS says, without including the fact that he had overlapping identities of being Christian, European and Mediterranean. Just following what the RS have referred to him most commonly as: Italian philosopher [again supposedly].

The amendment above is simply a definition of what is meant by "relevant to the subject's notability", since as we can clearly see that disputes over what is relevant or irrelevant is raging across WP biographies. This is a clear policy gap that needs to be addressed. As for your concern about general rules, I don't understand it since the definition of guideline is creating general rules; my suggestion above is simply an elaboration, and not the addition of any new rules. Consistency will result in less disputes, and inconsistency will perpetuate the current raging disputes. In any case, this will be solved, naturally, on a case by case basis, with editors depending on the guideline to achieve consensus. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:52, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

The key to resolving Machiavelli (and others) is to break from “standard language”… instead of writing “Machiavelli was an Italian/Florentine political philosopher” write: “He was a political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance”. This places him in his time and era (and even geographically) … while avoiding all the angst about his “nationality/ethnicity”. Ie… think outside the box, and look for alternative ways to phrase the information. Blueboar (talk) 14:33, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

That is often a helpful approach.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Blueboar:, but why is that a better solution? What is wrong with calling him Florentine? The renaissance is a fuzzy modern term explaining how some (but not all) academics describe this person. Why is it so terrible to say where someone is from if that is a notable fact?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:37, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Because he had an impact beyond just Florence. His writings are evocative of a historical era, not a particular city state. Blueboar (talk) 19:52, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how that makes a difference. Does this mean we can't call George Orwell English? I can see how your proposed argument might lead to a editor consensus though and I have no actual problem with it. I just want to say that it does not look like anything we should be using to right a rule for all articles. It looks like a personal preference. (A reasonable one perhaps.) FWIW I prefer calling Machiavelli Florentine and this is partly because his position in various movements is very debatable. He is a one off, and a turning point, according to many sources.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:55, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, there's no reason for this to be some kind of either-or. I.e., use "was a Florentine political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance" or more clearly (since that could be misread by someone as referring to something called "Florentine philosophy"), "was a political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance, from Florence", or something to this effect.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:13, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Good. To be clear; that's fine by me in that specific case. To be clear; my concern is about creating strict rules that might stop us calling a pre modern person an Italian. I would like make sure that the option remains open to editors. So just to confirm, I believe that if a historical person had an international influence, this does NOT mean they can't be described by their country, such as Italy. That option should remain open to editors.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:57, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

@Makeandtoss: If "the amendment above" refers to the change to "most commonly used primary identification in reliable sources", I think this is a problematic step backward, because it very strongly implies that only one (not just one of the same kind but one at all) can be included. If "how the majority of reliable sources identify the subject" wasn't perfect, it was certainly better, since it accounts for the RS having a consensus on multiple identifiers. (And we should call them identifiers. The word identifications is ambiguous: the identification of William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon as the actual author of works attributed to him has periodically be subject to some dispute, but this has nothing to do with ethnic, regional, national, religious, other indentifiers that are used to describe him. And definitely not identities, which is pomo identity politics jargon that has nothing to do with historical figures, nor many who are not very modern, nor even many who are very modern.) Anyway, if the currently poorer wording or something close it is kept in the proposal, it at least needs the syntax corrected. With the struck material removed, it presently reads "The relevancy to the subject's notability is determined by examining the most commonly used primary identification in reliable sources" but "examining" no longer serves a function, and actually renders the result senseless (in what way will wil be "examing the ... identification"? for it's length? its sonorous qualities? its agreeableness to modern sensibilities? LOL). But seriously, this should just go back to "The relevancy to the subject's notability is determined by examining how the majority of reliable sources identify the subject", and re-work from there. For one thing, it has to account for strong WP:ABOUTSELF identifications; there is no rationale for suppressing them if they are integral to the subject's self-conception, self-presentation, motivations/inspiration/intent, etc., even if the can presently for a particular subjectly only be determined from primary-source materials such as interviews.

@Andrew Lancaster: I generally agree that coming up with a broad rule about this is challenging at best. We tend not to give up very easily, though, especially when there is clearly an appetite for something more concrete than "it must be dealt with on a per-article basis" (which has not been working all that well, though personally I think it's been better than some might have expected). I have some quibbles with or observations on your numbered points: In order:

1. If this is true in a particular case, it will be reflected in the source coverage. Really, it has to be or it's not something we're in a position to write in the first place.
2. I don't start from any such assumption at all; I'm just aware that the counter-assumption that they can be used with impunity is most often wrong. All claim are treated here as false unless verifiable (rather aggressively in BLPs), and for terms like this, that verification will be case-by-case both as to the term's use in such a way historically and as to its use by the subject (or across the preponderance of the RS in reference to the subject, and we have to distinguish those cases very clearly). Show me RS proof that Columbus called himself an Italian. The fact that the name Italia goes back many centuries does not mean people used it as an ethno-national identifier or that a particular person did, and the notion belies a poor understanding of the history of what is now Italy. Nor do a bunch of modern sources using "Italian" as a shorthand (or socio-politically motivated label) make it accurate and usable by us in this way; we have a responsiblity to not perpetuate demonstrably incorrect claims even if found in some otherwise reliable sources. It is vaguely possible that such "Italian" (italiano) self-identification was somehow the provable case for him, but in many rounds of discussion about his case in particular, I've seen zero evidence of any kind in this direction. It's pure WP:OR, to satisfy modern desires to glom onto him as a figure of historico-cultural importance to Italians and most especially to Italian-Americans. More generally, the whole principle is completely unsound. The fact that some broad geographical area has, going back a long ways, a loosely defined name for it (or even a really specifically defined one) has no automatic implications for historical usage as any form of identifier. It doesn't even have such a necessary implication in modern usage. As a simple example, the British Isles is a quite specific geographical name, with very little in the way of definitional wiggle room, but it is used as an identifier by literally no one. ("British" means 'from [Great] Britain' or an an extended and disputed use 'from the UK', not 'from the British Isles'.) There are other serious problems with this, most pointedly that such terms often cover different geographical extents (and sometimes different peoples within them) over time.
3. That's slippery slope (the fallacious kind, for lack of any evidence) with elements of Reductio ad absurdum and false dichotomy. The "unless relevant to the subject's notability" criterion is quite clear, and very familiar to us all from its repeated use in WP:BLP, so there is no basis on which to predict the doom-and-gloom scenario of all such information being washed away. There'll simply be a lot less of it in lead sections, and many of us think that would be an improvement. As noted above, though, I would also permit WP:ABOUTSELF as a factor; someone who strongly identifies in a "cause" kind of way with an ethnicity, nation, religion, etc., should have that in their lead. E.g. Tina Turner's Buddhism belongs in her lead, because her later interviews and other self-statements are not only dominated by the topic but by its relation to her songrwriting (i.e. what she's primarily notable for).
4. "Machiavelli identified as ..." sounds like more anchronistic OR to me. Trying to couch this in terms of "identities" is a late-20th-century-to-present, postmodernist, socio-politicized reconceptulalization. Elsewhere in this material you've criticized anchronistic approaches that would be incomprehensible to the subject they're being applied to, but this is a major case of doing just that. But, yes, some "all-or-nothing" or "there can be only one" approach to such matters is wrongheaded, and I think the "most commonly used primary identification in reliable sources" change made to the proposed wording was a severe step backward.
5. That "he identified with different nations" sounds like more OR. I would want to see rigorous sourcing for such a claim about someone like Ibn-Khaldun, and I'm about 99% certain that it would not come out in such pomo wording. Agreed on Machiavelli and redundancy.
6. There is nothing incomprehensible about leaving out an ethnicity claim, and the obsession with jamming them into the lead is an extremely Western and mostly American one. They definitely should be included if strongly tied to notability and for some cases of ABOUTSELF reasons. On the second point, I see no one arguing for suppressing things like "in what is now Bavaria" or "in modern-day Bavaria" or the like, though we should be first giving the historical name of the pertinent place[s]. What we should not do is misuse modern geographical (usually geo-political, really) terminology that is anachronistic and has the effect of rewriting history. There is nothing at all wrong with "Bridei I was king of the Picts, and ruled from a base of power in Fortriu (in what today is north-central Scotland)" or whatever. [Made-up example; I have no idea where Bridei I's throneroom was, and our article on him doesn't either.] What we don't do is say he was a Pictish king in Scotland (which did not exist then; the Scots, then confined to what is now south-west Scotland, were his enemies), much less than he was a Scottish king.
7. Yes, a requirement to include an ethno-national identifier would be ridiculous and just lead to very misleading trash in many cases. The desire to do it is rooted ultimately in pseudo-scientific essentialist and racialist (not the same as racist!) nonsense, though few people would consciously realize it. Anyway, the "all articles trying to look like other articles" thing is a real issue, and is pretty much why we're here having this discussion. An editor sees an ethnicity in one article and assume's it a "standard" and then they get mad when reverted because the claim is anachronistic or otherwise wrongheaded, it's not really encyclopedically pertinent and just comes across as "Jew tagging", "Black tagging", etc., is not properly supported by the sources (at all or because of conflict between them), or some combination of these.

I think the general aim of establishing a guideline on this is a good one (and I'm happy that the direction it's aiming is consistent with the WP:R&E essay I wrote; I hoped that it would lead to such a WP:P&G change). But I do have concerns about the specific wording.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I think you are missing a lot of the points and changing the subject a lot?

1. This is clearly not about one particular case. My concern is that what is happening here is that people are trying to in effect ban a whole type of information which is sometimes (not always) notable and worth giving. We are going to cancel a type of information which academics, who we are supposed to follow, would use. (Consider the examples in the opening post, which seem bizarre and historically ignorant to me. Why can't we say Aristotle was Greek???) It fits with the general trend of switching from editor discussion to legalistic debates. As can be seen here, it does not stop debates or dissatisfication. This type of law-making instead of consensus approach is in effect a way for insiders with a lot of time to just overwhelm other potential types of editors. It does not make the encyclopedia better, and I don't see anywhere above where anyone proposing these rules is talking in terms of encyclopedia quality. This law-making is an exertion of power by people trying to get their personal preferences, so it is just a disguised conflict.

2. I haven't looked at the case of Columbus, but again this is not about one case? Also I am not focussing on BLPs, because that has not been what any of the examples are about. You seem to seriously be suggesting (still) that people like Machiavelli or anyone else born before the 19th century should almost never be called Italian? What's really wrong with calling him Italian if academics do?

3, 7. To be clear, I am certainly in the camp which accepts that Wikipedia has an ongoing problem with obsessive overspecification of ethnicities, religions, ancestors etc. Delete when trivial. I am not a fan of infoboxes with "ethnicity" etc at all, and I think they are a bigger problem. But I come here having seen adjectives, sometimes being used geographically, being deleted from running text, because of this push. What's more some people like Macchiavelli or Ibn Khaldun were clearly people whose nationality (or nationalities) are uncontroversial and frequently noted, and indeed part of what interested them. (I am using the term nationality in the broad and oldest sense, and not in terms of 21st century ID cards.)

4. "Identity" is a modern usage yes, but we are writing in modern English. It just means that Macchiavelli saw himself as Florentine, Tuscan and Italian, and described himself and the people he knew that way. Let's not get into a sourcing debate here but academics also describe him that way. He was certainly Italian even if he had not seen it as important. The term identity is simply used by modern academics in order to try to write precisely about how people see themselves. Scholars with expertise are supposed to be the sources who guide us on WP? We don't get to cancel some academics for being "postmodernist", or did I miss more law making? The use of the term "postmodernism" as an insult against academics when trying to force opponents not to use them is another aspect of the way in which American polarizing "culture war" language is taking over here. Please let's not do that?

5. That was a hypothetical and not meant to be debated here. However I come here from the ibn Khaldun discussion, and what we have there is no big disagreement among editors about the facts, but ONLY an argument coming from this debate, that we should remove all references because that is what is now normal. So I am seeing the cause and effect are working in almost the opposite way to how you describe it? Again, no one is arguing against deleting trivial or overly certain-looking designations, for example in infoboxes. I am concerned about WP giving itself a policy of removing adjectives from running text despite being used by reliable sources. This would be a legislative decision on Wikipedia which is against the spirit of many reliable sources.

6. I see no one arguing for suppressing things like "in what is now Bavaria" or "in modern-day Bavaria" or the like, though we should be first giving the historical name of the pertinent place[s]. What we should not do is misuse modern geographical (usually geo-political, really) terminology that is anachronistic and has the effect of rewriting history. There is nothing at all wrong with "Bridei I was king of the Picts, and ruled from a base of power in Fortriu (in what today is north-central Scotland)" or whatever. The first sentence is fine, if true, but AGH!! I see no reason at all to agree with the need with the two new rules you've then added after that. I see no reason to prefer Fortriu or avoid northwestern Scotland. That seems like a purely personal and highly eccentric preference. Academics certainly don't write that way. Coming back to the first sentence what I see above certainly implies that modern geographical terminology is itself a problem that has to stop: Christopher Columbus should not be identifed as "Italian"; there was no nation-state named Italy in his era. When I read that I am assuming the lead did not say "had Italian nationality", but just that it said "Italian" and we're being told to stop. So the adjective always implies there was a modern nation state? Really? Well I disagree. Italian does not now and never has been a simple concept but why would we say that Gallileo was not Italian, or Aristotle was not Greek. These are not fuzzy or controversial cases. Reliable sources describe them that way. This is a bizarre accusation, and I think going around deleting such bare adjectives (without any extra technical words like ethnicity or nationality) for people like that is not going to improve this wikipedia.

7. See 3.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:40, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

In the same order again:

1. It is not possible for a guideline change proposal that governs when information should be in the lead based on relevance (to notability and hopefully also to ABOUTSELF, as I've argued) to be a ban on including information in the article at all. Just repeating this "the sky is falling" claim (and injecting "cancel culture" dogwhistles) after it's already been addressed is not constructive. Blueboar's advice about rewriting Machiavelli (as an example) with precision and clarity, above, is exactly how to address the Aristotle case. Guidelines providing rules of thumb, to which exceptions sometimes apply, is not "legalistic", "lawmaking", or "exertion of power". This kind of straw man and argument to emotion is not constructive either.
2. Your argument depends upon hand-wringing about a handful of isolated cases, so yes, specifics like Columbus, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and ibn Khaldun are certainly pertinent to examine and deal with reasonably. "Hard cases make bad law", since you keep wanting to make legal analogies. "What's really wrong with calling [Machiavelli or Columbus] Italian if academics do?" What's wrong with it is that it's misleading and confusing anachronism motivated by a modern nationalist PoV, academics often avoid it (cherrypicking a few who don't isn't demonstrative of anything), those who do sometimes use it are almost always using it in a short-hand fashion after being more precise, and writers who use it with impunity are generally not academics or other subject-matter experts.
3. I'm skeptical you've really come at this from a studied and considered viewpoint at all, instead of having just blindly wandered into a subject (evidently at Talk:Ibn Khaldun) which fired you up in some manner and has inspired a bunch of exaggeratory and alarmist polemics. Strong evidence of this is that {{Infobox person}} and its progeny have not had |ethnicity= since 2016; thus, "I am not a fan of infoboxes with 'ethnicity' etc at all, and I think they are a bigger problem" is nonsensical and demonstrates unfamiliarity with how WP actually addresses ethnicity and related matters. Inappropriate or dubious identifier adjectives being removed "because of this push" to remove them is tautologous. If you think one was removed that was actually appropriate in the lead after all, then that is a matter for the talk page of that particular article; nothing about this proposal (though it presently has other severe issues and will not succeed) or a more sensible proposal would change that.
4. Repeating dubious assertions about Machiavelli's alleged terminology use without any evidence impresses no one. I addressed the "academics" hand-waving already, and I repeat that we have to disinguish very clearly between what terms modern writers use (and exactly how) versus known self-identification by historical subjects, but you keep treating these as if they're the same. "The term identity is simply used by modern academics in order to try to write precisely about how people see themselves": that's actually true for some uses of "identity" in some scholarship, but it's not what you are doing here; you are clouding the distinction between "how people s[aw] themselves" and "what terms modern writers use" (and why and in what contexts, the latter questions often being quite significant).
5. When you present arguments and rationales for them, you don't get to decide whether others can debate them. "we should remove all references": I'm assuming that meant ethno-cultural identifiers, not citations. I examined the ibn Khaldun discussion from top to bottom, and you are completely mischaracterizing it, to try to make a grandstanding "doomsday scenario" pseudo-point here. It's a debate about whether to say that he was "an Arab", which is ambiguous and pointless label-sticking; whether instead to say he was "one of the most prominent Arab and Muslim scholars and historians", which is encyclopedic rewriting with precision and clarity per Blueboar above, and uses "Arab" in a way that clearly indicates a cultural meaning not an ethnic one; and whether also to say he was a Maghreb, which is a reliably sourceable and more specific and meaningful ethnic term than than waving "an Arab" around. There is no suggestion anywhere in that discussion to remove all such terminology, in the lead much less in the entire article. Hint: never trust that claims you make about what other editors are doing and saying will not be investigated. "So I am seeing ...?" is not a question. "no one is arguing against deleting ... overly certain-looking designations" is not true; you are, in spades. You want to pin ambiguous and confusing labels on historical figures simply because you find them convenient and you can cherry pick a few academics doing it – and I would bet good money that you've latched onto it out-of-context, and what the academic in question actually did is precisely define the subject's historico-cultural context from the start and then use "Italian" or "Arab" or whatever other ambiguous and/or anachronistic term as a shorthand for what they'd defined (which has nothing to do with what WP is saying to our own readers in our own leads). Cough up some sources you're relying on and we'll examine them, and I'll show you.
6. "I see no reason to prefer Fortriu or avoid northwestern Scotland." Then, "AGH!!", you clearly should not be editing material on WP about historical subjects because you fundamentally misunderstand how to do encyclopedic writing in that topic area. Nor are you paying attention in this discussion: I did not say "avoid northwestern Scotland" (or use "northwestern" at all – why would you change that?); I explicitly included "in what today is north-central Scotland" as where Fortriu was [scholars mostly think], immediately after "Fortriu". Next, "Academics certainly don't write that way" is just unbelievably wrong and strongly indicates again that this is not a subject area of competence for you, but that you have wandered in and started pontificating. "So the adjective always implies there was a modern nation state?" More precisely, it strongly and wrongly implies to a large subset of our readers (probably the vast majority of them) that the Italian nation-state existed in era of that biographical subject, because the overwhelmingly dominant meaning of "Italian" is 'pertaining to the country [i.e. modern nation-state, 1861 onward] of Italy'. What specialized uses of it as a shorthand for something else actually mean will vary quite widely by context (which will already have been explained by the writer): e.g. Kingdom of Italy (Holy Roman Empire), any of innumerable combinations of any of the List of historic states of Italy, the Italian peninsula only, Italy (geographical region), Italic culture, Roman Italy, Italian Republic (Napoleonic) and its immediate successor Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic), etc. Such an intended meaning on WP must be explained clearly to our readers. Just calling Machiavelli or Columbus "an Italian" is ambiguous and history-distorting, as if intended to confuse readers. The fact that we have some articles making this mistake does not make them models or invalidate the principle; it just means we have more articles to improve. There should be no difficulty in understanding this (must less any reason to stubbornly stick to misapprehension after being given voluminous explanation and rationale). "Italian does not now and never has been a simple concept": You don't say! That is entirely the problem with bandying it about as if it were a clear and simple label. How is this not sinking in? And of course you immediately contradict yourself anyway, with "not fuzzy or controversial". Use of such terms is proven controversial by the very fact that there's controversy about their use, and the meaning of "fuzzy" (in that sense) is "not a simple concept" in the first place. Please think through the meaning of what you are writing from one sentence to the next and how one statement relates to another. Randomly firehosing a stream of mutually exclusive "reasons" in a Gish gallop manner to try wear out the opposition is not going to work.

Your input on this simply is not cogent and has actually been getting worse the longer this goes on. You've come here with preconceived notions that are demonstrably faulty, yet will not budge.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:05, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

You seem to be deliberately throwing up smoke screens and trying to escalate this with personal attacks. As far as I can read between the lines, you've actually started to realize that you probably agree with me on most points, and so now you want to make sure everyone sees me as stupid? Looks like it. Problem is that you need to slow down, stop the attacks and misrepresentations, and read what I actually write.

1. Context. I said the policy aims to make deletions easier within the running text itself as opposed to the infoboxes. I said this because you (or someone) implied that this is all about infoboxes, when it clearly isn't. Yes: I do understand we are talking about the lead text specifically. Nothing I have written says otherwise. (But of course policies like these will always have spillover effects.)

2. You are making an extraordinary bad faith accusation here about all the editors who would dare to call Machiavelli Italian. Personally I have explained that I prefer Florentine, but I really can't get worked up about him being called Italian. He was Italian, according to him and modern scholars anyway. (Read the last chapter of the Prince.) This is less than 2000 years ago after all! LOL. There does not have to be a state of Italy for there to be Italians. Neither normal people nor academics associate "Italian" with a specific political regime IMHO.

3. More irrelevant aspersions and once again taking my remarks out of context. Stop this. "infoboxes etc" was clearly a point about general trends on WP, and not about one specific template. And me not knowing the parameters of that template does not prove I am ignorant? I keep away from them. Anyway, the context is that I was clarifying that I probably do not disagree with the general tenor of your preferences in most practical cases. You seem to have totally ignored that, because you are on such a roll arguing with imaginary me. In any case, the point was that neither of us should be writing general rules in order to enforce our preferences. Remember, I was replying to There'll simply be a lot less of it in lead sections, and many of us think that would be an improvement.

4. you are clouding the distinction between "how people s[aw] themselves" and "what terms modern writers use" (and why and in what contexts, the latter questions often being quite significant). No, I am most definitely do not. BOTH academic usage and how people saw themselves are potentially relevant in local discussions about what words to use. On this point (4) I originally posted a remark about Macchiavelli's own use of terms (and CONCEPTS), and you replied by trying to make a big thing out of the word "identity" which you associated me with comical/evil postmodernists with French accents. So, in this childish way, you introduced the side discussion about academics. Concerning Macchiavelli see 2.

5. You are just writing fiction here. Where did I say all these things? I can't even follow what you are accusing me of. I rarely edit on ibn Khaldun, but I commented on the discussion. If you want to see a better discussion I was involved in see Averroes, which is how I think the editors at ibn Khaldun should have been working. What does this even refer to: "no one is arguing against deleting ... overly certain-looking designations" is not true; you are, in spades. Where? You want to pin ambiguous and confusing labels on historical figures Which labels on which figures? simply because you find them convenient and you can cherry pick a few academics doing it – and I would bet good money that you've latched onto it out-of-context, and what the academic in question actually did is precisely define the subject's historico-cultural context from the start and then use "Italian" or "Arab" or whatever other ambiguous and/or anachronistic term as a shorthand for what they'd defined (which has nothing to do with what WP is saying to our own readers in our own leads). Cough up some sources you're relying on and we'll examine them, and I'll show you. Cough up sources for which edit proposal? I did not make one either here or on ibn Khaldun. This is utterly misleading. Please consider posting an apology or deleting this deliberating misleading personal attack along with the others.

6. you clearly should not be editing material on WP about historical subjects because Quit the personal attacks and aspersions for goodness sake! I might have misread you a bit here but once again you are completely missing the bigger point. You proclaimed two rules which do not exist: we should be first giving the historical name of the pertinent place[s]. and secondly What we don't do is say he was a Pictish king in Scotland Concerning the second [edited] one, I suspect now that we are on the same wavelength in practice. Concerning the first one I am just frustrated that you throw this new demand for a general rule in when we really really don't need it. This is not about how historians write, but about how I think this community goes wrong when people make hamfisted general rules. Places like Fortriu are not only poorly known to our readers but their locations are often the subject of a lot of uncertainty and debate. Why should these get automatic "precedence" over, for example, geographical descriptions. These things should be handled case by case. In fact, what do you even mean by precedence here? It just seems like another chaotic change of subject.

6* I am separating out this little bit because it actually gives a glimpse of what you would really argue about the actual topic if you could stop yourself changing subject the whole time. You write that "Italian" strongly and wrongly implies to a large subset of our readers (probably the vast majority of them) that the Italian nation-state existed in era of that biographical subject. I don't think so, at least not in the case of Italy in the 1500s. People might (rightly) think he was a citizen of AN older Italian state, but I see no reason to think they'd assume that that today's Italian state goes back that far. Anyway, I can at least see that this is a reasonable type of concern which could be relevant in many cases. the overwhelmingly dominant meaning of "Italian" is 'pertaining to the country [i.e. modern nation-state, 1861 onward] of Italy'. I don't think people naturally assume anything specific about which exact constitution we are talking about when we are talking about pre modern people at all. The normal meaning is just someone born in Italy. But I can accept that such concerns do exist in some cases on Wikipedia and of course I agree that reducing or removing ambiguity is a good thing to do when possible. (This does not mean we should go around writing rules we do not need.) Just calling Machiavelli or Columbus "an Italian" is ambiguous and history-distorting, as if intended to confuse readers. You've got to stop asserting that everyone who makes these edits is doing it for bad faith reasons. But please understand I agree with the basic idea, and it is also how I work. I tend to use Florentine for Macchiavelli. I don't claim to know why people keep switching it to Italian. The point is that I think these things need to be handled case by case. Columbus and Macchiavelli are quite different cases in this regard for example. (Machiavelli was arguably even an Italian nationalist. He was at least an early promoter of such Italian nationalism.) Every case is going to be different. I don't see any sign that a reasonable general rule can be written which will not actually make articles worse. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:18, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Too tired to address this right now, and a break from this back and forth is probably a good idea anyway. But you really need to get past the idea that stern disagreement with what you are saying (much of which I quote directly) and concerns raised about what level of understanding you show, by what you are saying, of key facts and concepts in the subject area (whether you think the criticism is accurate or the concerns valid) is you being "attacked".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:46, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think making things up about people who disagree with you is an acceptable or even necessary way to make your point. I suspect that we agree on a lot of things, but you've chosen to seek conflict and confusion by attacking me personally and by changing the subject constantly and distorting what I write. You've made it clear in your own replies now that you are deliberately writing in a way intended to make other readers ignore me. I think we disagree on ethics.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:44, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I would like to simply go back to your real relevant opinions which I originally disagreed with. Then everyone can judge for themselves. These are your stated positions about the example of Macchiavelli being Italian, which I do indeed believe to be fundamentally mistaken and inconsistent with academia and indeed Wikipedia practice in many different history articles (except perhaps for what is now happening in the opening lines of ledes):

• Calling an historical person like Macchiavelli "Italian" is a misleading and confusing anachronism motivated by a modern nationalist PoV.
• People who would write that Macchiavelli is "Italian" are generally not academics or other subject-matter experts.
• More precisely, it strongly and wrongly implies to a large subset of our readers (probably the vast majority of them) that the Italian nation-state existed in era of that biographical subject, because the overwhelmingly dominant meaning of "Italian" is 'pertaining to the country [i.e. modern nation-state, 1861 onward] of Italy'.

As far as I can see, despite all the indignation about needing sources and so on, these personal opinions are not based on any sources or special study. Now here is my opinion based on my personal experiences:

• Although terms with multiple meanings or shades of meaning in different contexts can be ambiguous, this is not unusual or avoidable, and basically this is for the most part an essential part of human language which we are naturally skilled at from a young age. Words like Italy (or in fact Florence) normally have both clear, simple, generic meanings at the same as they have more specific context-related meanings. This is not unusual, and the drama being imagined here in these discussions looks like a self-enclosed fantasy reality. For example, "during the middle ages, Italians/Florentines/Scots/Poles..." is clearly normal both on WP, and in academia. Less common and only when really necessary, do we say things like "people living in what is now..." or "people living in the medieval regime of...". In fact, such attempts to be exact would in fact be MORE confusing in MANY cases. Editors of history topics are constantly handling this type of problem, looking at each case, because avoiding Italy won't always be good. Note also that for example that our History of country-X articles almost never start with the year when the latest constitution was installed. No one gets confused by that. And think about countries closer to the biases of most Wikipedians and let's do a thought experiment: According to your vision of reality, why aren't you worried about calling Shakespeare English? Won't people then assume that the [United Kingdom] nation-state existed in era of that biographical subject? Really?

Note that I am not here making any editing proposal about any specific case, only arguing that such cases can be entirely unproblematic and should not automatically trigger bot-like deletions. Such styles of editing disrupt and worsen good editing discussion. (Furthermore I am not here addressing the existing "rules" because they give different rationales to you which I think are problematic in different ways. For example it is made clear that WP editors have accepted that reliable sources call Copernicus Polish. WP editors apparently decided to disagree with reliable sources because he spoke German. I think that eventually needs review one day. Also it clearly not only allows us to call Shakespeare English, but also to call Macchiavelli Italian. The problem, as noted under the new proposal, is that reliable sources about HISTORICAL people often use more types of "context" than the ones we seem to be restricted to for BLPs, e.g. for Goths or Arabs.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:13, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion#2

To avoid confusion in the first suggestion, we can leave the guideline as is, and add another "clause" at the end that would solve the policy gap from which the current editing disputes are emanating:

“ In pre-modern cases, where it is difficult or impossible to tie a person to a specific polity through citizenship, nationality, or permanent residency, the person can be identified with his ethnicity or religion if this is how the person is referred to most commonly and primarily in reliable sources. ”

Makeandtoss (talk) 13:41, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

 Question: do you think a mention in passing of someone's ethnicity (in multiple RS) establishes the relevance of their ethnicity to their notability (for it to warrant being mentioned in the lead)? M.Bitton (talk) 13:46, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, otherwise we will have no identification for the person at all in the lede, a sign of a pretty bad biography in my opinion; or we will have multiple conflicting identifications in RS and we do not know what to choose from them and continue the discussions about them perpetually. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:53, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I had a feeling this was heading in essentialist and worse directions. This is unfortunate, since it probably dooms a consensus forming on any substantive revision to this section until this "the article is broken if the lead doesn't have ethnicity labeling in it" position is dropped.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:24, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

WP doesn't write in "generic he" language, for starters. This doesn't appear to be wording that addresses a real and common problem that we need to solve. It's rare for a figure to not be ascribable to a polity at all; what is much, much more common is for an ethnic term to be not ascribable. So this is rather backward. And it has nothing to do with the general concern which this larger discussion opened with, which was overuse of ethnic (especially) and some other labels in lead sections when they don't pertain to encyclopedic importance of the person (mostly framed as "tied to their notability", though as I've pointed out, it can also be a matter of strong self-identification with a group, religion, nation, etc., in WP:ABOUTSELF materials.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:24, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

What local editors often also need to consider is clarity and possible misunderstandings. I think we should give local editors some flexibility to play with options, and not define too much at too high a level. "German" might be quite useful in one case, and quite misleading in another. Many of the adjectives we are talking about can be a fuzzy mix of ethnic, geographical and political. Terms like German can have a common sense meaning but this might mean that readers miss how historians of different periods might use them in more exact but differing ways. We need to write in a way which reflects that reality.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:12, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

For once I'm mostly in agreement with your wording, but you are using the wording to come to a conclusion (above and below) that the wording does not support. What you say here (at least if interpreted at face value) is a very sharp contrast to what you said in the original thread above in your points 1–7 material, which vociferously argues for applying labels like "Italian" and "Greek" and "Arab" that (as you put it here) "might be quite useful in one case, and quite misleading in another" and "can have a common sense meaning but this might mean that readers miss how historians of different periods might use them in more exact but differing ways". You're weirdly applying a double-standard to "German". I have no idea why you veer from recognizing that these terms are "a fuzzy mix" here, to denying that in the material above ("These are not fuzzy or controversial"). And below you split the difference in an incomprehensible way, propounding that they are indeed fuzzy and with confusably mixed meanings, then insisting that we must use them regardless. You deny your own "We need to write in a way which reflects that reality" principle in the vast majority of your input in this discussion. Much further below, you say "one of the issues we often consider for words like German and Frankish for pre-modern people is how we think readers might misunderstand the terms in certain periods", yet the vast bulk of your argumentation here has been stubbornly against employing any such consideration at all and using such labels with impunity any time we can get away with it because some "academics" allegedly did it (never mind that most of them do not and the few who do are using it as a shorthand after they have already made the precise historical context more clear, which is something we can't do in a lead sentence). You seem not to be conceptualizing the material clearly enough to understand the WP:Policy writing is hard implications of what you are saying from one post to the next, and to not care as long as you ultimately get the result you want (which is use of labels like "Italian" and "Greek" and "Arab" despite paying lip-service to the concern that they're too ambiguous for many historical subjects). And again you claim below that infoboxes have an ethnicity parameter, which hasn't been true for over 8 years. You do not appear to have a firm grasp on the subject and seem to be just opininating for the sake of opinionating, based on incorrect assumptions. (That said, the opener of this proposal has also done exactly the same thing, just from the opposite extreme.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:37, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I think you are trying to completely rewrite what I said. I'd like you to consider deleting this highly misleading post. All of my posts have been about whether the wide range of situations implied should be handled by general rules like this, or at local level. I am certainly NOT someone who would normally be falling on the side of accepting controversial extra adjectives.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:37, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Everyone who gets disagreed with and rebutted wishes the criticism would disappear. I never said you'd be on the side of accepting controversial extra adjectives, but you have argued forcefully and repetitively for including one adjective as long as it's common, without any regard for whether it is misleading to our audience if used in the context of the lead. If you feel you are being misunderstood, then maybe re-read what you've written (which will take a while) and see what's unclear about it. I'm quite good at parsing material like this, and if I'm coming away with an impression you think doesn't match your intended implication, then others likely are as well. At least we can agree that much of this is going to come down to "local" determination at a particular article, though that doesn't mean we can't address any of it generally, and your no. 3 below has some merits if it can be made more concretely meaningful.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:36, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

No I very clearly did not forcefully and repetitively for including one adjective as long as it's common and your own posts show that you realize that. There is indeed a communication problem but this is mainly because you are exerting enormous effort to try to bulldoze me out of the way by constantly giving utterly misleading explanations to everyone about what I supposedly think. If you have truly been parsing carefully (which I doubt) then that means you have been deliberately misleading. Just don't do it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:35, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. The text makes no sense IMHO. It clearly presumes that words like "Italian", whenever they are used to describe a pre-modern person, will be designating "citizenship, nationality, or permanent residency", or perhaps "ethnicity or religion". That is anachronistic, and it sounds like we are going to be giving these pre-modern people a passport check. Wikipedia does not need the types of crazy debates and edit wars this list of allowable reasons will create. People were called things like "Italian" for lots of overlapping reasons including geography and it is not up to us on Wikipedia to say that they should have been more bureaucratically neat and tidy. If we are talking about infoboxes that specifically use exact terms like ethnicity and nationality then this proposal isn't making that clear. I think the main result of this approach, which is already starting, is editors running around deleting adjectives like Italian from people who are uncontroversially Italian, and described that way by reliable sources. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:59, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

But that makes no sense? The wording proposed would deliver the same outcome as your closing sentence, since they both - correctly - follow the sources. MapReader (talk) 22:57, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

If this proposal is simply about following normal policies then we do not need it. If it is about infoboxes or BLPs then it should be re-written. But the way I understand it, this proposal is about how making it easier to delete adjectives from running text without agreement from local editors, by citing this legislation. It is not just about whether things are verifiable, but also about making sure terms are used "consistently", "because this policy has been applied selectively and inconsistently without regard to citizenship, nationality or residency". For this reason, I object to this demand for uniformity. Note the wordings in the opening posts, and this proposal. Apparently some normal ways of using the term "Italian", whether sourceable or not, are not going to be as acceptable as others on Wikipedia. As it happens, the normal use of the adjective Italian for "pre modern" people is a particularly good example of the problem. For thousands of years it has defined a region where people are born and grow up. The way academics use the word in such contexts is basically just normal English, but being geographical, it does not fall within the realm of what is acceptable according to this proposal. According to normal policy we don't have to cite anyone for using normal English on Wikipedia, and so Machiavelli is Italian whether we have a source or not, but this proposal will mean "Italian" can be deleted if unsourced, because supposedly it would be SYNTH to use this word without a source. Of course it is easy to find sources which call Macchiavelli all kinds of things, but we all know how this works. Once a rule is created mass deletions start, and normal local editors will not have time to handle them all. We'll have people saying that one citation is not enough to prove notability and so on. I come to this discussion because this push towards uniformity is already causing silly debates. Debates at local level on these types of issues often get most difficult when roving non-local editors push for WP-uniformity. It is a way to feel important. General rules create a feeling that you don't have to listen to local editors because you are speaking for the community. I say all this as someone who is quite critical and sceptical of ethnicity adjectives in leads of historical biographies. However, I feel this needs to be handled case by case, and according to our NORMAL policies. As a normal English adjective we can use the adjective Italian to describe Macchiavelli if local editors agree that this makes sense. This decision should NOT be NECESSARILY based on determining whether someone had "citizenship" etc, because such general rules will only make discussions more difficult. "Italian" is a relatively easy case, but words like "German" or "Frankish" regularly require much more discussion, and this approach here is ham-fisted and will only make things more complex. OTOH, if anyone wants to propose deleting more infoboxes then that might be interesting. I am not against all rule-making or uniformity pushes, but it should be clearly solving a problem that pre-existing rules don't cover.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:39, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

P.S. In reality one of the issues we often consider for words like German and Frankish for pre-modern people is how we think readers might misunderstand the terms in certain periods, even if correctly used. Such editing decisions are IMHO important and necessary. They are also hard to write rules for. The above proposal is trying to do that, by taking a position which is biased against certain types of usage which editors will now have to "fight" for. The proposal is quite clear on being against calling Aristotle a Greek or Goethe a German for example, but I don't think such usages are particularly deserving of attack. I think this is a personal preference of the proposer, and not something anyone seriously doubts can be sourced. But this should be up to local editors. Asking for a source is fine, as always, but when such demands are made en masse in uncontroversial cases as part of a push for someone to get the style they personally prefer, this is not good for the encyclopedia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:54, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

P.P.S. As further explanation I think I should mention that I came here from the ibn Khaldun talk page. There, the proposer Makeandtoss demanded sources for one adjective but then immediately accused the replying editor of cherry picking and choosing a minority position over a majority position. If notability discussions go in this way they become circular. On Wikipedia, accusations of non-notability sometimes happen when editors simply have a different general impression of the literature. This leads to circular discussions but the way to break those circles is NOT for editors to cite ONUS at each other, whereby editors try to "win" by wikilawyering for deletions. This will lead to no adjectives. It is better for editors to positively seek more sources such as publications specifically addressing the adjectives involved.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:25, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Not going to go through all of this; most of it's already been covered in previous discussion in the main thread. But just to isolate something important to much of what's been covered above and which is central to your entire line of reasoning about this sort of subject: "For thousands of years it ['Italian'] has defined a region where people are born and grow up" is flat-out misinformation. This English word appeared in the late 14th century in reference to the language. It was later applied (early 15th) to the geo-cultural region in which the language was spoken. The origin, italiano, of course has a much longer history, going back to the Latin name Italia. But its historical usage in Latin and later Italian language does not correspond to the modern English term, not anciently (when it referrred only to the tip of the "boot") and not during the Medieval or Renaissance periods. More to the main point here, the fact that "Italian" (or italiano or "Italy" or Italia for that matter) have long had meanings that were geographical, regional, or cultural is immaterial, because they were not the same geography, region, or culture as meant by modern English use of "Italian" or "Italy". In short, you are making arguments (over and over again at great length) that are invalid because you know little about the subject matter and you make provably wrong blind assumptions about the meaning of terms (both to our audience and in historical source material).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:54, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

This is a very strange line of argumentation. You using the history of an English word, which you presumably got from a dictionary or something. Clearly we are talking here about "concepts" which can be written in different languages. Hardly anyone wrote about such topics in English before the 14th century, but people in England did know Latin and French. Most importantly, whether or not you are right or wrong is remarkably irrelevant to this discussion as a whole and the ONLY purpose of your posts seems to be to cast aspersion on me personally. How does this post help the discussion? Does the word Italian have a clear meaning when we use it as an adjective to describe a pre modern person, whether it be in everyday English or in scholarly works? Yes. The rest is trivia as far as this discussion is concerned. I think you should consider deleting your post.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:45, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

FYI our map about this subject indicates the core concept is a little more than 2000 years old (although as you say, there are older version of the concept which had different boundaries). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RomanItaly.png --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:49, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Utterly missing the point (all of them). Fortunately, I think others will understand without any difficulty that the concept of "Italian" in the modern English speaking mind is not the concept of "Italian" in mind of the English when the word in English first appeared, which in turn was not the same as the italiano and Italia concept in medieval [what-we-call-today] Italy, which in turn was not even anywhere close to the same concept as Italia in the Roman era. The ONLY purpose of my posts (with regard to you) is to show that they are logically and factually faulty and should not unduly influence the outcome of consensus on this topic; it has nothing to do with you personally, only with the content of what you are posting. If you refuse to even understand how central things like this are to the discussion, I can't help you. I'm confident that others understand fully that if an editor cannot even conceptualize of these difference and wants to just hand-wave them away as meaningless trivia, when they are the sort of thing that is at the very root of intense disputes about labeling, then whatever they are proposing as the solution to that problem is bound to be faulty.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:21, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I think you are obsessed with trying to "win" something here but I am not sure what. I did not argue for it to be used in any specific case but all I said was that Italy should be a term available for our editors to use for historical people. I am against this extreme position that such terms need to be avoided all the time. As a fact outside of Wikipedia, Macchiavelli is objectively Italian and not just commonly called that. I'm all for avoiding confusion but maybe Wikipedia has created too many of its own internal myths which create confusion and make these things more difficult. Outside of Wikipedia historical Italy is a rather straightforward concept and does not demand anything about specific regimes. You might be right that it is entirely irrelevant but you have brought in these rather technical-looking claims to try to argue that I am stupid and need to be ignored. Unfortunately they were not actually correct in any relevant way. I propose that you just stop writing ad hominim.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:35, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Gave this a long rest, and pored back over all of it. Here's what it comes down to for me:

• As Andrew Lancaster put it, various labels "might be quite useful in one case, and quite misleading in another" and "can have a common sense meaning but this might mean that readers miss how historians of different periods might use them in more exact but differing ways".
• This obviously applies to a whole lot of terms, like German, Italian, Greek, Arab, British, Turkish, etc., that have had different meanings and politico-cultural and geographic scopes in different historical contexts.
• This seems to be understood and accepted throughout all this discussion.
• Yet various parties (including, somehow, Andrew Lancaster) argue to apply "Italian" to both Machiavelli and Columbus as if not understanding and accepting this, or perhaps wanting to make a special exception for that term for some reason. This is a make-or-break issue for me (the source of most of our disputation of previous weeks), and I'm not going to be alone in this.
• A complication weaving throughout the entire thread and many separate earlier ones is that "reliable sources use this term" is often applied as a WP:OR hand-wave, taking no account of the fact that a historian might apply "Italian" (or whatever) to a historical subject as a shorthand term after having established a more precise historical context for the biography subject and a particular circumscription of what they mean by that label in that context, but Wikipedia has no space to do that in a lead sentence, and especially cannot engage in blantant equivocation by conflating unrelated meanings of a term in disparate sources to arrive at an implication to the reader that the typical modern sense of the term ('of or pertaining to the nation-state of Italy' in the case of "Italian") is what is applicable; that's novel synthesis of the worst sort.
• Such terms as "Italian" can often be used appropriately by connecting them to something else that makes sense in the historical context of the bio subject e.g. "was a Venetian painter of the Italian Renaissance" instead of "was an Italian painter of the Renaissance, from Venice".

I do not believe any solution to [mis-]labelling problems, proposed above or below, now or later, is going to be successful unless it addresses these kinds of concerns.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:42, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion#3

• Currently MOS:ETHNICITY only has a clear guideline for modern people, and the way I see it our practical problems come from mission creep, because the part of the text which was clearly written with modern people in mind is clearly influencing debate on historical articles. For the sake of clarity I would like to propose we make it clear that historical figures should have more flexibility. Otherwise we supposedly can't call for example call any historical people an Arab. In other words WP is becoming illogically biased against the ways historical people are commonly identified when discussing certain regions and periods as opposed to others.
• Looking at the obvious intensions of the text, while recently living people may be affected by what WP says concerning their sexuality, dual citizenship, religion, or some types of ancestral ethnicity, it is entirely artificial to force ourselves to see such things as problems when it comes to historical people. Why make things harder for editors?
• Concerning the logic of the existing text it is also worth noting that when carefully parsed it currently does NOT say that we need to use a term which describes what made them notable. It says that we need to use a term which "provide context" for whatever made them notable, such as "where the person was a citizen, national, or permanent resident when the person became notable". So everyone who thinks we can only call someone an Arab if being an Arab is what made them notable seems to be misreading the text?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:47, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

“ Long dead historical figures should be identified in ledes in ways which are consistent with the ways in which reliable sources describe them and their notable activities, and which aim to avoid creating misunderstandings for modern readers. ”

On the face of it, this wording is vastly more reasonable than the stuff above (even if I don't agree with much of your rationale for arriving at it). But it's not sufficiently concretely meaningful to be guideline-worthy. Everything WP ever writes has to be "consistent with the ways in which reliable sources decribe" the topic, so this isn't advising anything new, different, more specific, more general, or anythign else. "Aim to avoid creating misunderstandings for modern readers" is a very good goal, but needs practical elaboration. (And we wouldn't use the spelling "lede".)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:25, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for taking time to address what I actually wrote this time. However I am not sure that your concern is really one that other editors will necessarily find important. I think that part of what you object to is what also triggered your personal attacks and that is that I have a different underlying philosophy about how these "rules" should work. You apparently work a lot on such rules and you have strong ideas about what is normal, and you apparently think people who would like a different approach are just ignorant, and need to be bullied into submission. So it seems worthwhile to describe how that difference looks to me. Maybe it will expose common ground or at lesat help us define the differences. I think that if a guideline (as I personally prefer to see them) mainly just points Wikipedians towards standard good practices which are also described in other guidelines then this is generally going to be a good thing. In such cases our guidelines just guide. I see no problem with that. It can help make sure editors work together in the right way. It does not then become a debate in itself; I think that it is only because of "emergencies" such as BLP problems that some guidelines need to define everything right down to which adjectives belong in an opening. For the rest, things should be left open to local editors if there is no actual need for legislation. Sometimes; as in this case, a simple guideline just help editors to see that another guideline does NOT need to be applied in all cases. When we try to write rules for everything then we get the kinds of discussions which brought me here; And please understand that by this I mean discussions where editors are NOT really reading the sources together anymore (as opposed to just googling and counting), but are instead constantly talking about what has been said elsewhere on Wikipedia. When the editing is secondary to the wikilawering then the project suffers. You might not see yourself as part of it, but there is an organic tendency on Wikipedia for these types of discussions to become a drive to uniformity and silly infoboxes and the like. This then leads to real problems such as the way in which Wikipedia has become an actual producer of certain urban myths which get spread over social media, such as the obsession with trying to define people and peoples by the language they speak at home. (Which has apparently happened in the case of the nationality of Copernicus, who reliable sources call Polish, but Wikipedia doesn't apparently because he spoke German and this blows our minds.) We sometimes need to take a step back and look at the big picture. I think my proposal is unusual in the sense that it is guided by the aim of simply trying to support good editing, and not the aim of trying to explain everything.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:11, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry. Here is a more to-the-point response. My interpretation of the situation is that we have a rule written for modern people and it is not clear about whether to apply it for historical people. So if you place the above text into that context I think its purpose is quite clear. It is partly telling people when DO NOT NEED TO apply the rules designed for modern people.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:03, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but how many people can you name whose fame comes from their being Arab? One? Three? Is there a single human being whose Arabness "made them notable"? The guideline you are suggesting makes absolutely no sense for the vast majority of pages and articles. شاه عباس (talk) 08:47, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I think you might misunderstood. I agree with the doubts you raise with your sarcastic question. My understanding is that some people coming to the discussion either already believe, or have encountered other editors who already believe, that MOS:CONTEXTBIO means that we have to only use ethnic etc designations in the lead if they are essential to their notability. That is not what our current text says, but people believe it does and this is affecting editing. So what I am proposing (and maybe the wording needs improvement) is that our text should clarify that for HISTORICAL people, Wikipedians can stick to their normal priority of using the best sources to guide them. The questions when editing will therefore become "which designations do the best sources use when they are most carefully giving their reader context and describing what "type" of person is being discussed. Does this make sense? Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:02, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

believe, that MOS:CONTEXTBIO means we have to only use ethnic etc designations in the lead if they are essential to their notability isn't that what is meant by "ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless relevant to the subject's notability"? M.Bitton (talk) 13:10, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

• No, "essential to" and "relevant to" have different meanings. Reading the whole current text makes it clear that "relevant to" basically just requires that expert sources use a designation when discussing whatever makes that person notable. Furthermore the text with all its examples and explanations shows pretty clearly that the main concern is about "modern-day cases", where mistakes could have an importance to living people such as politicians. In most modern-day cases, this will be ... or ... ... then in contrast the part which you cite is given ...should generally not be ... nor ... which seems to just give the other side of the story concerning "modern-day cases". My understanding of this text is that the main concerns for HISTORICAL PEOPLE are (or should be) only triviality and lack of clarity, and not specific legal and sexual issues. Problems with dual nationality etc (which is one example used) are not a problem for someone who died 100 years ago. Anyway, whatever the history of this text, for example the vague word "general", the aim here is to make it clear. I believe that we DO want Wikipedians be guided by reliable source usage, and avoiding triviality or anything which might confuse readers in ways which can be avoided. I believe that if we have editors working in that way then we automatically cover most/all concerns when it comes to HISTORICAL people.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:22, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

  it clear that "relevant to" basically just requires that expert sources use a designation when discussing whatever makes that person notable. let's put that to a test: If a subject X is a famous science-fiction author who also happens to be gay. Do you think that his sexuality (regardless of how many times it's mentioned in various sources) belongs in the lead if no sources discusses its relevance to his notability? M.Bitton (talk) 19:58, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

  It does not matter how many times it is mentioned, but it DOES matter HOW it is mentioned. First, we should not use an example of someone who was recently alive, like most science fictions writers. So let's say we are talking about one of Napolean's generals for example. Of course if he is basically only well-known because he was gay, then I think we have no doubts. Let's make it more difficult, and say that it is not the only thing he is well-known for. But the problem is that you don't tell me what reliable sources DO say about this person. That's what we'd need to look at. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:00, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

  It's less about how it's mentioned and more about whether it played a part in in the person's notability. M.Bitton (talk) 22:34, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

  These might really resolve to the same thing; I think Andrew Lancaster is getting at the idea of "how the source mentions it" in the sense of "in a way that pertains to their notability". If your hypothetical subject was closeted, then maybe it wouldn't come up, but if they frequently wrote about LGBT themes throughout their notable work, then it probably would. I have to agree though that "essential to" and "relevant to" are nowhere near synonymous.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:47, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

  If they frequently wrote about LGBT themes throughout their notable work, there would be no issue, but the trouble arises when RS mention the sexuality or ethnicity when discussing the subject's personal life and then editors insist on having it in the lead simply because it's sourced (even if it played no part in the subject's notability). M.Bitton (talk) 19:21, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

  Right, so basically the same general thing as trying to put Dwayne Johnson's complex ethnicity stuff into his lead. Well, the pertinent guideline material as of current version is Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless relevant to the subject's notability. Similarly, neither previous nationalities nor the country of birth should be mentioned in the lead unless relevant to the subject's notability. This seems quite reasonable, at least with regard to modern subjects. I think what you're describing above about the gay writer is simply defiance of the guideline (a behavioral problem), not lack of clarity in the guideline. Where it's missing guidance is on historical/premodern subjects, for whom modern terms of this sort can be particularly problematic even if when connected to notability, and even for subjects that are from only a few generations ago. LGBT activists, and those from particular ethnic, religious, and other cultural groups, are apt to make "erasure" versus "visibility/representation" arguments about such terms, including even with reference to historical subjects, and this can be problematic. Their concerns are not immaterial, but often their advocacy is going too far, and tends strongly toward anachronistic terminology, and this why the community has not been swayed to integrate erasure/representation concerns in the guidelines (yet?). E.g., one egregious example I chose to ignore and leave to others to deal with was a claim (I forget which article it's in) that the Nazis oppressed "the trans community" in Germany, Poland, and other places under their thumb. There was no such thing as the trans community then, even if the broadest sense of "community", and the term and concept "trans/transgender" was not yet in use. People who would today identify as trans where conceived of and termed differently in that era, including by themselves not just by outsiders. That sort of mistake is not (in the lead, at least) being made at James Barry (surgeon), which is quite careful to avoid such anachronisms, and yet it is no way engaging in "erasure" as it covers the person's history in the lead as what we'd today call trans[gender] just without using that term as a label. I think we have the opposite issue at Taika Waititi, where his mixed Euro-Māori ethnic background has been removed from the lead, despite his deep involvement in various Māori causes making it notability-connected, even if somewhat marginally. This sort of ethnic-causes involvement does not seem to be the case with Dwayne Johnson, so it not being in his lead makes sense there. These issues sometimes to get improved; e.g. John Taylor, Baron Taylor of Warwick, originally said "he became one of the youngest people in the upper house and the only black peer" (in that context meaning the only living one), but was later improved to "the third person of Afro-Caribbean origin to enter the House of Lords" (with age in the upper house stuff moved to another sentence). Labeling him "Black" (especially in a British context) was weirdly racialist, and smacked of "Black-tagging" (though I think "origin" might be an awkward and even misleading word to use there; "ancestry" would probably be better, and I'll try that edit right now). And it's nowhere near the lead sentence.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:36, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

While I support this suggestion in principle, "long dead historical figures" is ambiguous, and could be applied to someone who died in 1990s. Also, if this sentence allows figures to be identified in ledes in ways that reflect RS, then it says nothing on the avoiding mentioning ethnicities sentence in the same policy. I would recommend: "Historical figures before the establishment of the League of Nations" or something along this line. Not sure about the second part however. Makeandtoss (talk) 17:12, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

• The 1990s were yesterday! :) I can see we have a generation issue. LOL. I think this specific part of the wording can be discussed further but to be honest I can't imagine most people writing history articles would find this very unclear. But FWIW many countries use 100 years as a guideline for when they make private records public.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:52, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

  Well exactly, leaving it undefined would leave it prone to different interpretations. Thus maybe something more concrete can be included in the definition. Makeandtoss (talk) 19:33, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

  By avoiding detailed rules, clarity becomes better. As explained, I don't think we can write a positive general rule about what we have to write. Such rules are intrinsically difficult write. That's what we learned on Wikipedia in the past many times. For MODERN people special rules were created because of specific concerns. What we should make clear is that for historical people we can revert to simpler rules which are used more generally around WP: using RS and avoiding ambiguities. These ARE clear. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:15, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Why the qualifier at all? Every biographical article should describe someone by the labels commonly used in the most reliable sources. What different approach are editors expected to take for the living or recently deceased? MapReader (talk) 22:03, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

If you look in the examples and click around the main concerns are about the effects that remarks about past citizenships, dual citizenships, sexuality, etc could have on living people. Secondly, I think even then no special rule would have been necessary except that what has happened in WP is that there have been enormous waves of people inserting and deleting adjectives like "Jewish", "Moslem", or "Homosexual" etc, in the first lines articles. This type of categorization is apparently an obsession of a lot of people who come to WP. This also affects historical articles, but I don't think the text that was created was designed for historical articles. I think just helping people to realize how our core content policies should be used would have been easier for people to understand and enforce in historical articles. So for modern articles they have written specific rules based on the modern world, but our experience is showing that they can't easily be applied to all time periods. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:24, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Above it is said that "we have a rule written for modern people and it is not clear about whether to apply it for historical people", but there certainly is not a carve-out for them. So really this actually comes down to "We have a rule. It was written in language that primarily addresses modern people. How do we rewrite it to better account for considerations that apply more to pre-modern historical people?" If we focus on that (and on particular points such as I identified here, in part on Andrew Lancaster's own observations/wording, and advice from Blueboar), then this might go in a direction of a wording-change proposal the community could support.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:53, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

No, we should not define this based on what the "majority of reliable sources" say. One of the problems with doing so, is for many doing so will favour sub-national and regional identifiers. Where someone is only a national figure there will be few articles covering them from a international perspective as we are required to do. There will however be many articles within one country talking about them from a perspective that focuses on sub-national and regional perspectives (because focusing on national alone is insignificant or unimportant when it is common between all actors in national media). If we do this, articles will become increasingly confusing to non-local readers as we move further and further away from anything near Westphalian citizenship, and it basically becomes wholly self-identification. In the first sentences of acticles, a more general (generally broad Westphalian) citizenship should be used. Ethnic, lingistic, and cultural "nationalities" should not take precedence but where important and covered significantly in reliable sources should be included in the body of the article, or where appropriate later in the lede. We need to remember to put our readers first, it should not be about claiming certain people and/or ingnoring Westphalian citizenship or denying its significance in place of righting wrongs. For non-modern persons, my preference would be to mention the states/nations that existed at the time they were alive (not to map modern understandings of citizenship on to them).--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 21:10, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with "mention the states/nations that existed at the time they were alive (not to map modern understandings of citizenship on to them)" strongly; if we want to help readers understand where a pre-modern location was we can do that with "in modern-day southern China" or "in present-day Chile" or whatever. However, a common problem we have is that material often does not "favour sub-national and regional identifiers" even when it should, and instead turns nationalistic, e.g. claiming Columbus and Machiavelli as "Italians" and completely blurring the distinctions between various "Italian" nations that were at war with each other and spoke different (albeit related) languages. It's rather like treating all the countries of the former Yugoslavia and their peoples as "Yugoslavia" and "Yugoslavians", except that it's predicated on present-day nationalism (and diasporic "cultural patriotism", especially from Italian-American quarters and the like). That is, there are two distinct problems here: the one I'm talking about of national-and-broader scope writers often glossing over very encyclopedically meaningful historical distinctions, and the one you're talking about of more local and regional publishing interests choosing to dwell on sub-national interests and ignore larger national and international impact and relevance. Rarely is someon really "only a national figure"; there will be both a "subnational pride" angle with regard to them and a national one (which for historical subjects may be inappropriate/misleading/rewriting-history to begin with), both of which may interfere with proper international encyclopedic coverage.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:16, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I'll opine just because I've seen the nationalistic edit war spats over ledes on my watchlist from time to time. The solution noted before that seems to work often is to just remove an adjective like "Italian" that is identical to the modern nation/ethnicity and replace any mention with just "of the Kingdom of X" or whatever. Such identification in the lede makes little sense imo, unless RS generally agree on it themselves (those that actually discuss the matter of ethnic/national/linguistic identity directly -- not merely say once in prose "the precocious Italian explorer would soon become ...").

What seems necessary in any biography is to localize quickly the reader to your subject in place, time, and general cultural context. This is where I think the editors arguing for the need to have some ethnic/linguistic/national identifier in the lede, when possible, are coming from. But then the simple counter is that you can localize and contextualize without saying something like "Columbus was an Italian navigator etc." as part of our already exhaustingly long lede sentences, perhaps just separately in the next sentence or as an independent phrase: "...; he was raised and worked in Renaissance X (modern-day Y), and did his most well-known work at Z." SamuelRiv (talk) 03:56, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree that using Italian is anachronistic. But what if the majority of RS have described him as Italian? That's the main point of the edit, so that WP would reflect RS and thus end the nationalistic edit war spats. Makeandtoss (talk) 08:24, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't believe that "the majority of RS" is a well-defined concept. It is certainly something that the nationalists would argue about, for instance by discounting other-nation sources as being non-reliable for this because they are too nationalistic. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:32, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Well naturally not every RS is independent or necessarily reliable in certain topics as mentioned here. We either define RS more properly, or we just leave it ambiguous for editors to solve out between themselves. Either way it would be an improvement from the current situation, where instead of relying on RS, editors are relying on their opinions and personal research. Makeandtoss (talk) 08:43, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Of course, but it’s the standard that WP uses. Editing isn’t always easy, but citing from sources is a lot better than some of the OR/Synth arguments you sometimes see editors try to construct. MapReader (talk) 08:45, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Additionally, "the majority of RS" is not accurately assessable on a question of this sort without doing a tremendous amount of research (since it's a quantitative claim about sources that exist in a very large number), has to take account of the actual meaning intended by each writer (did they define "Italian" at all? Did they define it as having a scope and meaning in that context that differs from the everyday nation-state meaning it has today? In most cases, probably yes). And at the end of the day WP has a requirement to paraphrase and rewrite source claims in our own words so as to not plagiarize them, nor produce results confusing to our readers; most especially, WP has a responsibliity to not impart false information even if some of the sources are unclear or – much more often – are being OR-spun with novel interpretation to reach an unclear and misleading implication.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:13, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Well we don't have to research what every single RS says about them. If an editor presents a bunch of RS claiming this is the primary identification, then any other editor can challenge them on that, and eventually it should be clear which is used more often and more primarily. I think this is better than engaging in a tremendous and endless amount of discussions based on the personal OR of editors. Makeandtoss (talk) 08:43, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

My point is that arriving at such a claim about the RS usage, with it comes to a label like "Italian" for a historical figure, is almost certainly going to be OR, namely novel interpretation and synthesis of sources (probably cherry-picked ones that make some use of the term somewhere, but with very different implications than the one presentently being made at, e.g., Christopher Columbus).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:22, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:OR and WP:SYNTH apply to article prose, not to the evaluation of sources. It is not OR to estimate whether there is a suitable consensus of sources to write a statement in wikivoice vs by attribution, for example. Otherwise we couldn't have an encyclopedia. SamuelRiv (talk) 18:18, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

But by that logic, we could also disregard any "reliable sources" that use anachronisms. We could disregard sources that would otherwise be reliable where they call Christopher Columbus or Niccolò Machiavelli Italian. There is something of an inconsistency with saying that we must follow "reliable sources" that are spreading falsehoods in the form of anachronisms. A falsehood reprinted a million times is still a falsehood. We accept what reliable sources say because it is assumed what they print is true. Not simply because they print it.-- Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 03:03, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

The assumption that what RS prints is true is the basis of WP. Otherwise, it is left to editor's personal preferences, which is already causing numerous edit wars in this specific instance. Makeandtoss (talk) 08:57, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but in accepting what reliable sources say about nationality (when anachronistic), we are ignoring other reliable sources (ie those that identify the birth and death of a person and when certain nations existed). We must be able to consider this more general information when evaluating sources. Editors arguing for anachronistic claims of nationality don't believe the sources are true (eg that the person has nationality in a nation that was formed only after their death). These editors just wish to rely on sources despite the fact that the claims contained in them are false. I don't think we are obliged to create or amend a policy to encourage or reinforce that. Weighing reliable sources should not be reduced to a counting exercise. If some traditionally reliable sources are printing the truth and others obvious falsehoods, we aren't required to accept falsehoods. It just seems clear to me that we should be attributing those nationalities to persons which they had during their lifetime, not modern nationalities foisted on them after their death (even if otherwise reliable sources are complicit in the foisting).-- Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 12:12, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I completely agree with you that modern nationalities shouldn't be imposed on previous civilizations. If in five centuries there comes a new state called Eurasian Empire where I live, I would be pissed if they write in my biography that I was a Eurasian WP editor. It doesn't make sense at all. But this is just one case; there are other cases where for example the subject and most RS have identified them with a racial group, yet we are not allowed to use this, despite not having another option to put in to provide cultural context. That aside, I understand your concern, maybe I can suggest a middle ground of a both qualitative and quantitative criteria to reach consensus, but I am not sure how that would be phrased: "most high quality RS available"? Makeandtoss (talk) 12:57, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

That's cavilling. Using OR to arrive at a conclusion not supported by the source material (namely, that Columbus was "Italian" in the sense that word generally means today, rather than only in a specialized sense used by the sources but unexplained in our lead, of being from Genoa, one of the independent city-states that was only nominally part of the Holy Roman Empire Kingdom of Italy, which did not include all of modern Italy), and putting such an implication or outright claim into our article, is OR regardless whether you announce your intentions and "rationale" for them on the talk page or just do it all in your head before making the bad edit. Also "The assumption that what RS prints is true is the basis of WP" is false; WP relies on what the preponderance of source actually say and mean by what they say, and gives due weight to differing views in the sources by how well they agree with what the rest of the reliable sources are indicating. Makeandtoss is confusing the idea of sources indicating Columbus was Italian (when they use that term at all) in a particular sense of that word, with sources using the word at all, without any regard to what is meant by them when doing so. Never mind that most soruces that are actually reliable are more specific. It is not proper to arrive at a reader-misleading use of a term in our lead on the excuse that the term with a different and contextually clearer meaning is used by sources. Source usage of a term somewhere somehow does not require WP to use it, most especially not in a way that is guaranteed to mislead a large number of readers. It's not even so much a matter of, as Darryl Kerrigan put it, that "[some] editors just wish to rely on sources despite the fact that the claims contained in them are false"; most of them are not making false claims. Rather, some editors just wish to rely on bare occurrence of a word with multiple meanings, without any account of the meaning in that context, and robotically re-use the word on WP in way that has for most readers a false and ananchronistic meaning. Whether that happens because the editor favors that PoV, is unaware of the problem, or simply doesn't care about the problem, is mostly immaterial. It's still a problem, and definitely OR, just of a subtle sort.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:44, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are trying to say. I just opened the Columbus article and the Italian adjective is linked to Britannica, which doesn't give any context on what is meant by that. Furthermore, the label is given an OR and unsourced note, which states that this term is supposedly used because "the Latin equivalent of the term Italian had been in use for natives of the region since antiquity". Look, my proposal here doesn't aim to give anachronistic labels to people. Is Genoan predominantly used to describe him in the best sources possible? Then he should be described as so. Is Italian predominantly used to describe him in the best sources possible? If so, then it would be just our job to reflect that on WP, especially considering there is no context given in the example of Britannica. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:51, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Or, as has also been accurately mentioned, simply saying Columbus was "-ian" of any state may be anachronistic enough to be a disservice of the reader. That's again why I question the practice of piling on adjectives in a lede sentence, when adding even a single preposition -- "from Genoa" -- would make it more flexible. SamuelRiv (talk) 18:26, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

He was born in the Republic of Genoa, so it should be reasonable to call him Genoan if RS support it? I am also against piling adjectives and think only one or two maximum should be used in the opening paragraph. Makeandtoss (talk) 19:19, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:DEADNAME - Expand

"If a living transgender or non-binary person was not notable under a former name (a deadname), it should not be included in any page (including lists, redirects, disambiguation pages, category names, templates, etc.), even in quotations, even if reliable sourcing exists. Treat the pre-notability name as a privacy interest separate from (and often greater than) the person's current name. For example:"

Why does this only apply to transgender people? IMO, it should apply to any name that existed before someone's notability, not just transgender/non-binary people, for exactly the same reasons above (no legitimate reason greater than the privacy consideration). My tightness (talk) 02:02, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

WP:SAMESURNAME

WP:SAMESURNAME says "In an article that is not about either unrelated person with the same surname, continue to refer to them both by their full names." Should this be amended to "...continue to refer to them both by their full names, unless only one person is mentioned within the same section (or sub-section)."?

For example, this comes up in the 2024 Welsh Open snooker tournament page. There are two players with the same last name, Kyren Wilson and Gary Wilson. In the "Summary" section of the prose, Kyren is only mentioned once as he was eliminated early in the tournament. But as Gary went on to win the event, his name was used multiple times, especially in the "Semi-finals" and "Final" sections. The editors decided for those sub-sections to only use the full "Gary Wilson" name at first mention, then switch to "Wilson", which I think is better than continuing to use his full name. AmethystZhou (talk) 01:38, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. When we summarised the semi-final match between Gary Wilson and John Higgins, for instance, it seemed adequate to use "Gary Wilson" on the first use and "Wilson" thereafter, as it's clear which of the Wilsons played in that match. An issue also arises with seven-time world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan, as another snooker player is named Sean O'Sullivan. It would be incredible clunky to have to refer to Ronnie O'Sullivan by his full name on every single use, across countless articles, just because there exists another player with the same last name who has never been ranked higher than 73rd in the world. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 14:49, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Any general consensus on list of publications by the article subject?

I have a lot of rules of thumb that I've seen used, but is there any general consensus on what to include (maybe from RfCs or noticeboard discussions)? --Hipal (talk) 19:47, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

It depends a lot on the type of subject and the type of list. For book authors I would include all published books. For scientists who have published hundreds of journal papers, in a "selected publications" list within a biography, I would include a small enough number to make it obvious that it is really selected: maybe six for a typical case, more only if each addition beyond that can be justified by significant independent coverage of that publication. For journalists who have published hundreds of newspaper or magazine articles, I think it is rare to see a listing of any of them, and would require special justification. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:33, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks.

One of the most common rules of thumb I've seen used is to consider the publisher; looking for self-publication, vanity publishers, very small publishers, etc.

While I've seen mention of trimming a research publication list by impact factor, I don't recall seeing it done. --Hipal (talk) 21:00, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

"Impact factor" is an aggregate measure, supposedly correlated to the strength of a journal, calculated by averaging the number of citations per paper over some time window. Selecting papers by the impact factors of the journals they were publishing in is like a form of WP:INHERITED: very inaccurate for determining significance. Better to just look at the citation counts of the papers themselves. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:10, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. The significance of a research paper usually correlates with the IF of the journal it's published in, but not always. It's better to look at the number of citations of the paper, as well as what papers are citing it (are those high-impact papers too?). Although be aware that recent (only several years old) papers will naturally have fewer citations than older papers. AmethystZhou (talk) 02:00, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Organization and stylistic changes

After answering a question at the help desk, I was left pondering about this guideline and engaged in a quest of organization and stylistic changes to improve the page. It was to improve the form, visuals, style, navigation, organization. I did not intend any meaning changes and if there is any it was likely unintended. I hope the changes are of the liking of my fellow editors. If not, feel free to discuss or change. Sincerely, Thinker78 (talk) 06:58, 3 March 2024 (UTC)