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Should surname/last name ]s (examples, {{noredirect|Einstein}}, {{noredirect|Byron}}, {{noredirect|Freud}}) be deprecated? -- | |||
In the evidence below, I will demonstrate how GorillaWarfare, who created the article initially, has: | |||
# Used the article to push a particular POV about the subject in ways not supported by the sources available at the time she used them; | |||
# Edit warred almost continuously with multiple editors to preserve that POV; | |||
# Exhibited ] behavior over the article; | |||
# Has used AN/I to further ideological ]. | |||
;Editorial principles | |||
;POV pushing "far-right" in initial creation | |||
# The first mention of a person should be wikilinked to the article about them. Later mentions often don't need to be linked (]) | |||
GorillaWarfare and worked on it for a couple of hours until . It included the phrase in the lead line {{tq|"a loose American far-right extremist movement"}} and supported that line with citations to , , and . GorillaWarfare herself has evaluated many of the sources in the article and saved it at ]. In that she acknowledges that NPR do not describe the broad movement as "far-right". | |||
# The first mention of a person should make use of their full name (ie <First name> <Last name>, or commonly-used name). Later mentions then use only the last name, for brevity (]) | |||
* NPR only discusses the "boogaloo" slang/meme (not the movement), but the main part of the article says {{tq|Today, boogaloo has seeped out of the gaming community and found fertile ground in militant fringe movements. That includes anarchists and others on the far left. But it's especially popular among right-wing militias and self-described patriot groups"}}. | |||
# Most biographical articles have titles in the form <First name> <Last name>, or are some other commonly-used name (], disambiguation aside). | |||
* The Times uses the phrase {{tq|"a growing movement of armed anti-government extremists"}}, explicitly leaving out any terms of the ideological spectrum like "left" or "right". | |||
* GorillaWarfare claims The Economist calls the movement "far-right", but the actual quote is {{tq|"Some among the far-right style themselves as 'Boogaloo Boys'..."}} - "Some" - and in the same article {{tq|"a strange marriage of Marxism and neo-Nazism"}} (clearly far-left and far-right ideologies). | |||
* According to her own evaluation found (]), there are NO other sources as of May 30 which describe the movement as "far-right". | |||
It would appear that in writing that lead sentence, GorillaWarfare ]'d together The Economist (vague references to "far-right") and The Times (using the term "extremist"). The lead sentence lacks the nuance of the articles which either don't mention "far-right" (The Times) or mention both extremes (NPR/Economist). This omission is at the core of GorillaWarfare's later edit warring and other actions. | |||
I believe these principles have generally strong support. Taken together, we reach this conclusion: | |||
;Edit warring on day 1 (May 30/31) | |||
:The first mention of a person should use their full name (<First name> <Last name>, or commonly-used name), based on the title of the article about them and wikilinked to it. Subsequent mentions should use their surname only and not be wikilinked. | |||
The first edit to the article by another editor was at May 30 22:28 to change the "far-right" definition, it was immediately reverted by GorillaWarfare, and over the next ~6 hours she clearly reverted the new article a total 5 times. | |||
* clear revert ("far-right" reinserted) | |||
* clear revert | |||
* (at , GW reverts the lead along with making other edits with summary "name cites", but then she self-reverts at noting "3RR") I include only for the incomplete or misleading edit summary for 22:37 and to show she is thinking about 3RR. | |||
* clear revert ("far-right" reinserted) | |||
* and sequential clear reverts | |||
* clear revert | |||
In other words, there should be almost no editorial use case for surname ]s if editors are following good practices. | |||
;Edit warring June 4/5 | |||
* revert of content added | |||
* partial revert of content removed | |||
* clear revert ("far-right" reinserted) | |||
* clear revert ("far-right" reinserted) | |||
* clear revert ("far-right" reinserted) | |||
;Searching | |||
;Edit warring June 17 | |||
One argument is that surname ]s aid with searching. This is only true for people that use the internal search box and does not apply to the vast majority of readers who visit by using external search engines, which deliver them directly to the right article, ignoring any redirects. The absence of surname redirects will perhaps inconvenience some (slightly, by adding an additional click of a link that will likely be at the top of the ] or ] anyway), but removal will actually aid everyone else who is searching for other content using that term because they will be taken directly to a DABPAGE or NAMELIST . This is the exact same scenario as keeping these redirects (searchers of other topics now have to click a hatnote link to a DABPAGE or NAMELIST) - no matter which direction we go, some internal searchers will be inconvenienced by an extra click, and so this issue is a stalemate and should be minimized from consideration. | |||
* clear revert | |||
* clear revert ("far-right" reinserted, "left-wing" removed) | |||
;Move requests | |||
* clear revert | |||
On a regular basis, we have ]s trading off surname PRIMARYREDIRECTs with primary disambiguation pages. These RMs have no hard data or other objective standards to determine which biographies should or shouldn't have a primary redirect. Most participants rely on raw pageviews of the biography in question, claims about how often the biography is referred to by surname only, or often offer little more than ]-style arguments ("X is a primary redirect, so this one should be too"). Among other benefits, deprecating these will have the result of perceptibly reducing the number of RMs going through the system. | |||
* clear revert (same content as 01:17) | |||
* clear revert ("far-right" reinserted, "left anarchist" removed) | |||
;Case study | |||
* clear revert | |||
In preparing this, I took the quintessential ] example of {{noredirect|Einstein}} and reviewed how it was being used. I found 334 ] and ran through them. I replaced first mentions with <First name> <Last name> (linked using simply ]]]) and removed any repetitious links. On first pass, ~272 full name/wikilink replacements were made per the Principles above, and ~19 inappropriate links were fixed (], ], etc.) for a total of 291 (~87% of total) which misused "{{noredirect|Einstein}}". The 43 remaining uses of "{{noredirect|Einstein}}" links were first mentions of Einstein and were found inside quotes or titles. These 43 could (should) be replaced by <code><nowiki>]</nowiki></code> so that when users hover over the link they see the full name and true destination of the link. | |||
* clear revert | |||
;Conclusion | |||
Surname ]s should be deprecated because they promote bad editorial practice related to mentions of people. This would not affect other non-biographical uses of ]s, because this issue is specific to how we handle mentions of personal names in articles. -- |
Revision as of 04:51, 29 June 2020
Should surname/last name WP:PRIMARYREDIRECTs (examples, Einstein, Byron, Freud) be deprecated? --
- Editorial principles
- The first mention of a person should be wikilinked to the article about them. Later mentions often don't need to be linked (MOS:REPEATLINK)
- The first mention of a person should make use of their full name (ie <First name> <Last name>, or commonly-used name). Later mentions then use only the last name, for brevity (MOS:SURNAME)
- Most biographical articles have titles in the form <First name> <Last name>, or are some other commonly-used name (WP:NCPEOPLE, disambiguation aside).
I believe these principles have generally strong support. Taken together, we reach this conclusion:
- The first mention of a person should use their full name (<First name> <Last name>, or commonly-used name), based on the title of the article about them and wikilinked to it. Subsequent mentions should use their surname only and not be wikilinked.
In other words, there should be almost no editorial use case for surname WP:PRIMARYREDIRECTs if editors are following good practices.
- Searching
One argument is that surname WP:PRIMARYREDIRECTs aid with searching. This is only true for people that use the internal search box and does not apply to the vast majority of readers who visit by using external search engines, which deliver them directly to the right article, ignoring any redirects. The absence of surname redirects will perhaps inconvenience some (slightly, by adding an additional click of a link that will likely be at the top of the WP:DABPAGE or WP:NAMELIST anyway), but removal will actually aid everyone else who is searching for other content using that term because they will be taken directly to a DABPAGE or NAMELIST . This is the exact same scenario as keeping these redirects (searchers of other topics now have to click a hatnote link to a DABPAGE or NAMELIST) - no matter which direction we go, some internal searchers will be inconvenienced by an extra click, and so this issue is a stalemate and should be minimized from consideration.
- Move requests
On a regular basis, we have WP:Requested moves trading off surname PRIMARYREDIRECTs with primary disambiguation pages. These RMs have no hard data or other objective standards to determine which biographies should or shouldn't have a primary redirect. Most participants rely on raw pageviews of the biography in question, claims about how often the biography is referred to by surname only, or often offer little more than WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS-style arguments ("X is a primary redirect, so this one should be too"). Among other benefits, deprecating these will have the result of perceptibly reducing the number of RMs going through the system.
- Case study
In preparing this, I took the quintessential WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT example of Einstein and reviewed how it was being used. I found 334 links to Einstein and ran through them. I replaced first mentions with <First name> <Last name> (linked using simply ]) and removed any repetitious links. On first pass, ~272 full name/wikilink replacements were made per the Principles above, and ~19 inappropriate links were fixed (Einstein family, Einstein (horse), etc.) for a total of 291 (~87% of total) which misused "Einstein". The 43 remaining uses of "Einstein" links were first mentions of Einstein and were found inside quotes or titles. These 43 could (should) be replaced by ]
so that when users hover over the link they see the full name and true destination of the link.
- Conclusion
Surname WP:PRIMARYREDIRECTs should be deprecated because they promote bad editorial practice related to mentions of people. This would not affect other non-biographical uses of WP:PRIMARYREDIRECTs, because this issue is specific to how we handle mentions of personal names in articles. --