Wikipedia talk:Surname pages

Thanks for starting this effort! I will review and follow up shortlyCoastside (talk) 00:54, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Excellent. I look forward to it. bd2412 T 02:17, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Awesome job, @Bd2412: thanks for taking the initiative to write this article! Coastside (talk) 03:17, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

When to use "List of"

Regarding the comment: Due to the large number of people sharing the surname, the list of people with the surname can be found at List of people with surname Johnson.

I think the reason to use List of people with surname Johnson isn't the length of the list. It's because the main page name is already taken, which would either be 'Johnson' or 'Johnson (surname)'. For example, see the guidance at WP:SIANOTDAB. In this case, the main page is a surname article page instead of a disambiguation page, but the point is that it isn't just because it's a long list. There are examples of long surname list indexes that are not title that way, for example: Lowe (surname) or Guerrero (surname). Coastside (talk) 02:21, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

I just realized that I have somehow unwatched this page, so I missed all of these discussions. In theory, List of people with surname Johnson could reasonably be merged into Johnson; I suppose a better case for such a split would be List of people with surname Smith and Smith (surname). bd2412 T 15:00, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Surname page or Surname Index?

The first paragraph describes surname indices.

I changed the first paragraph to match the article title: Surname index articleCoastside (talk) 16:33, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

The page title says surname index articles. The second paragraph says surname page. We may want to clarify. I think the proper term is surname index article (a kind of set index article where the set is a surname). A list of people included within in an article that also contains other information about the surname could be called a surname index. This would be akin to set indexes which are described as lists within disambiguation pages at WP:SETNOTDAB. For me a surname page is a descriptive term that could refer to an article about a surname or a surname index article. Either one could reasonably be called a surname page and both could be tagged with {{surname}}. It could also refer to a combination page of a surname article page that includes a surname index as part of the article. There are examples of all of these. A surname page does not refer to a disambiguation page for the surname as a term needing disambiguating, though.Coastside (talk) 02:46, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

It's worth noting that surname indexes in dab pages are called surname-holder lists in the category Category:Disambiguation pages with surname-holder lists. I don't like the term holder list, but that's how the category is named.Coastside (talk) 03:09, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

I am also not a fan of the designation. I think there should be some cutoff point where the list of surnames on a dab page gives way to a separate surname page. bd2412 T 15:01, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Surname template and disambiguation|surname template

I think it would be helpful to reference the {{surname}} template and the {{disambiguation|surname}} template, the latter pertaining to disambiguation pages that include surname indexes within them, as per the comment in the last paragraph.Coastside (talk) 03:04, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Last paragraph perhaps off topic

The last paragraph includes a lot of detail on the rare case of unique surnames, which I don't think is really germane here. You can just say In rare cases, a person may have a unique surname and leave it at that. Why enumerate the reasons? Coastside (talk) 03:20, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Wait a minute... disambiguation params may be wrong

You know, now that I think about it, it seems that we should not be including surname indexes (surname-holder lists) in disambiguation page. There are two templates that cover these: {{disambiguation|surname}} and {{disambiguation|given name}} or rather there are two parameters to cover these cases in the {{disambiguation}} template. As you point out in the first paragraph, this may not be a good thing and perhaps should even be fixed. It seems to me it is more correct to move these out of disambiguation pages and put them in surname pages, whether in surname article pages or in standalone surname set index articles. The dab pages could link to surname pages via an entry in the See also section of the dab page. Should we include such guidance here?Coastside (talk) 03:46, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Not detailed articles on the surname itself

You make the comment that "a surname can be an encyclopedic topic in its own right, as surnames are the subject of study in the field of anthroponymy, and may have independent cultural and historical significance addressed in reliable sources."

I think this may be misleading. Because surname index lists are set index lists (which are a kind of stand-alone list), the format guideline is to have a lede that describes the list. If an article about a surname has lots of content about the name itself, then it isn't a stand-alone list, it's an article about the surname. If there is a list of people in the article that have that name, then there is an embedded list in the article, but it's not really a surname index list. Sigh.Coastside (talk) 21:43, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Aw dang. Seems i'm wrong here. According to guidance at WP:SALLEAD there can indeed be encyclopedic content in a stand-alone list. There is a lede for sure, but there can be a lead section which has additional summary information about the list, including "encyclopedic content". Ao it reasonable to say that articles about the surname and which contain the set index of people sharing the surname are properly surname index articles. Learning every day...Coastside (talk) 21:52, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Requirement for references

Generally speaking if an article doesn't have references it gets a {{unreferenced}} tag. That seems silly to cover them all with no reference banners. Something might be said about references or lack of them being acceptable, just as in a dab page. -- GreenC 19:33, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

As set index articles are not disambiguation pages, they are subject to guidance for standalone list articles at WP:LISTVERIFY. If the surname SIA is only a list of persons with the name, I think merely meeting the inclusion criteria for the list would satisfy verifiability that the person has the surname. Redlinks might need to meet some additional criteria. I'm not sure a surname-equivalent of WP:DABMENTION would be enough -- I think redlinks would need to meet some sort of notability criteria -- else surname lists could turn into a phone book listing. And of course, any non-list content (such as origin, meaning, distribution, etc.) needs to be verifiable and supported by reliable sources. older ≠ wiser 19:49, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Please see new how-to on Surname pages

@BD2412: Please see the how-to I wrote on Surname pages. It covers what is discussed here in a more generalized way, especially as not all surname pages are surname index articles. This can be seen by reviewing pages in Category:surname which are pages using the template {{surname}}. In this how-toI address most of the issues I raised on this talk page. Coastside (talk) 11:15, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Guideline?

Is this guideline a part of the English Wikipedia? Can we use this as an example? Siddiqsazzad001 <Talk/> 04:37, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

@Coastside: Please tag the page "under construction" or something, to avoid such questions. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:57, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

The how-to guide notice on the page says it's not a policy page, because it needs vetting. The guide points to establish policy and shows how the policy has been applied with examples. I think over time it will make sense to elevate the status, but for now it's what it says it is: a how-to guide for surnames pages. Regarding using it as an example, I'm not sure I understand. As an example of what?Coastside (talk) 20:06, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject

You may want to mention that surname talk pages must be marked with {{WPAnthroponymy}}. If the page is purely a list, possibly with a brief intro phrase, then the parameters should be "class=list|importance=NA" . (I see some of them are "class=Dab" is it good?) Staszek Lem (talk) 18:57, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Great suggestion. This will be helpful for people. I'll draft something and ask for review before updating the guide.Coastside (talk) 20:08, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

@Staszek Lem: How is this? User:Coastside/sandbox/anthroponymy-tag? I added a Talk page sub heading. Regarding "class=Dab" that would not be appropriate for surname pages. I didn't add that here under Disambiguation pages, because I'm not providing comprehensive guidance on Dab pages here.Coastside (talk) 21:39, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

I would advise use syntax with parameter: {{Surname|Nicholson}}. This is important when surname has diacritics or the page title is disambiguated. Even if the page title is non-disambiguated and without diacritics, it is a good idea to have the param explicitly, because the page may be renamed. Eg. Kapus ->Kapuš (oh, good catch: a redlinked surname page! :-) Staszek Lem (talk) 02:05, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

I have to admit, I'm confused about the optional surname parameter. The page Call (surname) is tagged with {{surname|Call}}, and yet it appears in the surname category as "Call (surname)." So this parameter doesn't seem to do anything.Coastside (talk) 06:28, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

My bad, I didn't double-check the most recent state of affairs. Of course, in category the page is under its page name. In the past the subsitituted text at the bottom of the page was not good. In your case, without parameter, it looked like, "This page lists people with the surname Call (surname)", but now somebody improved the template code: lists people with the [[surname]] '''{{{1|{{PAGENAMEBASE}}}}}''', so its is a non-issue now.

I have read the template doc and it is a bit out of date. Also it does not affect default sorting, one has to use DEFAULTSORT. So it appears this parameter is useful only to list several surnames described in the article (e.g. different spelling variants): {surname|Petrov, Petroff, Petrova}

Also, I would suggest to check the action of DEFAULTSORT, and if it works as described in Template:Surname/doc (now I am suspicious), then add the requirement for DEFAULTSORT into the guideline when the surname has (or may have, after page move) diacritics, atypical capitalisation, etc. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:16, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for investigating and clarifying - very helpful! I did check DEFAULTSORT and it does work with the categories, at least it applies to the categories the follow, such as Category:Lists of people sharing a surname. For surname index articles it makes sense to use DEFAULTSORT regardless since a descriptive title will likely require a sort key. I'm not sure it has any effect on {{surname}}. I'd have to experiment a bit. Is there a way to test such categories in a sandbox? I tried, and the template complains that it must be used in the main namespace. How are we supposed to test it other than muck with live articles? Coastside (talk) 19:53, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

I'd create a test article (<-- oops, a yet another inadequate wp article) test page, with an explanation on top so that nobody speedies it, and after done, ask deletion via {{db-author}}. As for {{surname}}, the only problem may be is that the line with DEFAULTSORT must be before the template; however WP:DEAFULTSORT says " the last DEFAULTSORT on the final rendering of a page applies for all categories, regardless of the position of the category tags". The template code has a cryptic comment to this end:

| [[Category:Surnames]]<!-- DEFAULTSORT, not parameter -->

Staszek Lem (talk) 20:51, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

merged content into more generalized WP:Name pages

I created a more generalized guide for WP:Name pages, which covers surname pages and given name pages. I merged the content of this article into that one.Coastside (talk) 00:41, 21 January 2019 (UTC)