Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography/2021 archive

MOS:SIR

MOS:SIR says "The infobox heading includes pre-nominals, name and post-nominals as separate elements." However, in practice, it is well known that this is not observed in articles about political persons: Talk:Winston Churchill/Archive 15#Positioning of honorific 'Sir' in infobox (see, e.g., Winston Churchill or John Major). I was even reverted when I tried to apply the MOS here. Why is not there a global consensus on this? --Omnipaedista (talk) 15:19, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@Omnipaedista: Because some editors don't read guidelines, are stubborn, and exhibit issues suggestive of WP:OWN / WP:VESTED, generally. This is more often the case at WP:FAs or FA candidates, especially when one or two editors have worked a whole lot on it, and think (incorrectly) that this gives them more authority over future development of the page. I would try asking them to attempt to justify why they are not following the guidelines and the template instructions. If you get indefinite stonewalling, an RfC at the talk page – on whether there is some compelling WP:IAR reasons to misuse the template parameters, or whether instead the article should follow the guidelines and instructions – should work, though as a last resort (since settling lame style silliness that already has a clear answer isn't a good use of other editors' time).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:25, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Very helpful. Thank you very much! --Omnipaedista (talk) 13:49, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I prefer the titles "Sir" and "Dame" to be universally put in the name field. Its fairly standard to refer to "Dame Helen Mirren", "Sir John Major" or indeed "Sir Humphrey Appleby". Parliamentary committees [[1]] to knighthoods as "name-changing honours". This is distinct from honorific styles (The Honourable, The Right Honourable etc) which are not normally employed in the same way when referring to the person - and certainly not when addressing them. Roughly analogous are princely titles where "Prince" and "Princess" are normally treated as integral to the name and not as part of the style of Royal Highness. If nothing else it looks nicer to have the "Sir" or "Dame" put in bold on the name line rather than awkwardly floating above. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 01:36, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

This discrepancy is not unique in Wikipedia. In Augustine of Hippo, the lead section has Saint Augustine but 'Infobox saint' has "Saint" as a non-boldfaced pre-nominal (as per Template:Infobox saint/testcases). --Omnipaedista (talk) 20:00, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Nationality: American

I noticed that there are a lot of instances of nationality being listed as 'American'. For examples search for "| nationality = American". At time of writing there are over 63,000 results.

I understand that it is the common vernacular to shorten the name of the United States of America to just 'America'. It is however technically incorrect. Writing USA or U.S.A. is shorter and also more accurate. Listing 'American' as someone's nationality seems wrong to me in the same way that putting 'Asian' or 'European' would. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:16B8:5C56:7C00:58A:EDB7:E804:8932 (talk) 10:26, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Nah. Our text also read "So-and-so is an American politican who ...". It's the understood meaning in English in such a context (and in almost all contexts). We don't say "is a United States politican" or "is a US politician" (the latter of which is rather too informal for first occurrence; see MOS:US, MOS:ABBR). WP doesn't use "USA" at all, outside of specific conventionalized uses, like proper names that contain that string (see MOS:USA). There would very, very rarely be any kind of potential for confusion with the uncommon 'of, from, or having to do with the Americas as a whole' meaning of American. Maybe for a pan-Americanist trans-nationalism activist? In short, this is not PedanticNitPickPedia.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:05, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

For the little it's worth, USA or U.S.A. wouldn't be correct, since most nationalities end in -ian, -ean -an, -ese, -ish, -i, -esque, and so forth, indicating that the person is from the place: Israeli, Monégasque, Japanese, Singaporean, etc. So United States of American would be closer, but still... "American". Cyphoidbomb (talk) 20:31, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• "American" is completely normal and correct. "British" for citizens of the United Kingdom, not to mention Russian for older Soviet-era figures are comparable cases. Johnbod (talk) 21:32, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• I would recommend "United Statesian", except that neologism still wouldn't distinguish USA-ians from Mexicans, so it wouldn't resolve the issue entirely.
• I suppose "Amurican" would disambiguate appropriately. Newimpartial (talk) 21:42, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• As Johnbod says, 'American' is absolutely fine and correct. GiantSnowman 22:15, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Use of "the late" in describing a dead person

Does the community have an opinion about the use of "the late" to describe a dead person? Fair game? I think some cultures use it almost as an honorific, or as something you'd madatorily put before the name of the departed, but I understand the argument that it plainly describes a dead person. Good? Bad? Neutral? Thoughts? Cyphoidbomb (talk) 20:36, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I think generally it shouldn't be used. It's only appropriate if the person being dead is important to the context of the sentence, the paragraph, etc. —El Millo (talk) 20:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I would say it borders on WP:EUPHEMISTIC and has a sort of respectful tone that is maybe a bit non-neutral too. Any reason why "deceased" wouldn't work better? Popcornfud (talk) 20:49, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Grammar, English idiom? Johnbod (talk) 21:29, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

What difference does it make to grammar? "Her late father"/"her deceased father". And we generally avoid idioms in encyclopedia - better to keep it plain and literal. Popcornfud (talk) 23:16, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

To my eye, that's a MOS:EUPHEMISM. "The deceased" has the same meaning and should be preferred in all instances (though it's not often that it's necessary to begin with). TompaDompa (talk) 20:51, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

No problem in the right context. We should not deprecate it. Johnbod (talk) 21:29, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

It might be acceptable sometimes, but there are usually better alternatives. It's less informative than putting vital dates in brackets, or explicitly stating "who died in ...", when the year of death is known. William Avery (talk) 21:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Remove it when not necessary as stated by El Millo. You wouldn't say "the late Thomas Jefferson signed the Declaration of Independence"; it's usually used honorific-like. MB 01:03, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

It's a euphemism that should be avoided. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:29, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I don’t see the issue with it. It’s literally one of the definitions of the word late. Trillfendi (talk) 01:57, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

This is the particular case for which I sought Cyphoidbomb's help. The IPs are fairly insistent on adding the word "late" before the name of the subject's uncle. I believe it to be euphemistic and in the previous revert I directed them to an FA article (Kareena Kapoor) which doesn't use the word. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 08:36, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree that it isn't appropriate in that context, but I don't think the problem is whether it is a euphemism; "She is the niece of the deceased Cho Ramaswamy" would not be an improvement. The information simply isn't necessary there (nor in most contexts when someone is mentioned). To my ear, "the late" is fairly standard and not excessively euphemistic, but at the same time I can't think of a situation in which it would be the best option for an article. --Trystan (talk) 14:14, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Actually I don't remember seeing "late" in any of the good quality articles. Can we frame the sentence as "She is the niece of the Tamil film actor, comedian and former Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha Cho Ramaswamy (1934 – 2016)", that is replacing "late" with the birth-death dates? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 14:49, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

'Late' often implies that the death was (relatively) recent, so it could be considered to be covered by MOS:RELTIME (i.e. don't use it). EddieHugh (talk) 18:57, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm removing it since majority seems to be in favour of not keeping it in the article. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 08:16, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Bios of British prime ministers

Is there a reason why we keep meeting resistance at the bios of British prime ministers? When it comes to implementing de-capitalisation, per MOS:JOBTITLES? GoodDay (talk) 17:06, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Probably the guideline is being wrongly applied, as so often. There is a much stronger preference for capitalizing in British English, which all these are naturally written in, so there may also be WP:ENGVAR issues. Possibly the Caps Police should apply their talents elsewhere? Johnbod (talk) 17:19, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@Surtsicna: you may wish to chime in, here. GoodDay (talk) 17:22, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I have not noticed a stronger preference for capitalizing in British English. The Guardian and the BBC use lower case even in instances where MOS:JOBTITLES would allow for upper case. MOS:JOBTITLES also provides for far more capitalization than, say, the University of Oxford Style Guide. This matter has been rehashed many times. Surtsicna (talk) 17:26, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

How to account for GoodDay's experiences then? Johnbod (talk) 17:35, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I've tried (at least 3 times) to decapitalise in those bios & was reverted each time. Quite frustrating. BTW - I noticed there's still capitalisation in many of the prime ministers bios among the Commonwealth realms. The Canadian prime ministers bios, seem to be the only ones that are complying with MOS:JOBTITLES. GoodDay (talk) 17:48, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Stubbornness, perhaps? I recall checking all the biographies of Lord Salisbury cited in our article about him a year or so ago and finding that there was less capitalization in each of them than the supposedly pro-lower case MOS:JOBTITLES would have. In reality, MOS:JOBTITLES is already a very lenient compromise between common academic practice and what I can only describe as an upper case fixation. Surtsicna (talk) 18:07, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I'd suggest taking an FA (or less preferabbly GA), notifying the MOS crowd, and see what consensus forms. Apply consistently afterward to other FAs, then work your way down. Create a consistent model that people can more easily follow.—Bagumba (talk) 05:39, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Note: The MOS isn't being applied in the bios of Australian/New Zealand governors-general & Australian/New Zealand prime ministers, to name a few set of articles. I did implement it at bios of Canadian governors general, but was reverted. GoodDay (talk) 19:01, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I think the main issue is that JOBTITLES does not actually have the level of consensus we think it does. The problem is that support for decapitalization is concentrated, while opposition to it is defuse. In any dispute, you will get some 20 editors solidly supporting it, against only 1 or 2 who oppose. However, it’s often the same 20 supporters at every dispute, and different 1 or 2 who oppose. This means that the concentrated group of supporters are constantly having to butt heads against a defuse multitude of opposition ... one article (or small group of articles) at a time. It adds up. Blueboar (talk) 22:17, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

But how do you get people to support orthography? And why should you? Decapitalization of job titles was not invented by (or on) Wikipedia. Surtsicna (talk) 22:50, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps we can’t. Another factor in this is the fact that the trend towards decapitalization is relatively new. So there is natural resistance from people who prefer it the OLD way (what they learned in school). Not saying either view is right... Just explaining why you keep having to fight the same fight, over and over and over again. A lot of people disagree with what style guides (ours and the professional) say. Blueboar (talk) 23:14, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

If that is the reason, the average age of Wikipedia editors must be much higher than I imagine it to be. In an earlier post here I wrote that I had once checked the biographies of Lord Salisbury cited in our article about him and found less capitalization of job titles than on on Wikipedia. What is interesting is that some of them are older than my parents. This one, for example, was published by the University of London in 1964. I think it is more likely that opposition mainly comes from editors who do not encounter job titles in academic texts. Surtsicna (talk) 00:35, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Being one of those opposed to de-capitalization, it's two-fold 1)The manual of style examples do not quite make the rule clear especially when dealing with starting an article with "The" (article title). The second is a belief that as there is only one "President of..." or "Prime Minister of..."at a time that the title is a proper noun and misclassified as a "job title" and should instead be covered by earlier paragraph on "globally unique", which travels down the line to other titles rightly or wrongly. Also, MOS being a niche field, the policy is written by a small minority as other editors are either unaware, indifferent, or feel they lack the skills to properly debate the issue. Slywriter (talk) 01:24, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Slywriter, I sincerely wish that you and other fellow editors opposed to using lower case would cite something more substantial than beliefs and feelings. It would make discussions of WP:JOBTITLES much more constructive. WP:JOBTITLES is indeed confusing at times, but that is because it attempts to appease those who oppose lower case by allowing more capitalization than one can normally find in academic texts. Surtsicna (talk) 02:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I'd point out that there are multiple current MOS RfCs that deal with beliefs and feelings, rather than academic sourcing, so Wikipedia is not immune to MOS being swayed by belief and feeling.

Pointing to substance and scholarly research at that, no major style guide says to capitalize "President of the United States" or "PM of UK" because during the Nixon administration, two scholars wanted to roll back the Imperial presidency and lower-casing was part of it. While they won the style guide wars, traditionalist have rejected this up to and including the Bush administration(no paper exists after 2008 that I can find).

I don't have the Chicago MOS in front of me but at least in 2008, lower case was recommended not required, despite being introduced in the 1969 version. US Government style manual still retains capitalization. NYT moved in 1999. Now, all of those are points ultimately in favor of lower case.

However, as the article referenced below states in its conclusion "The question of whether is it 'President' or 'president' of the United States continues to be of diverse and contradictory usage from grammarians, journalists, publishers and political scientist." Further to paraphrase, the lower-casing symbolically diminishes the office. The paper ends with an argument that the practice started by a few scholars was never given significant scrutiny and slipped into style guides.

To close, one could argue that lower casing of the highest executive in a given country is imposing a non neutral POV on articles as the issue remains controversial despite widespread acceptance.

P.S. I don't support willy-nilly capitalization. I really only think stylistically it looks silly when lower-cased at the beginning of articles and writing is art, not science ultimately Slywriter (talk) 03:42, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

References

Change policy to stop reinforcement of a negative stigma

In the case of a living transgender or non-binary person, the birth name should be included in the lead sentence only if the person was notable under that name.

With this policy, Wikipedia is reinforcing the stigma that being transgender is something to be ashamed of; that there is a legitimate reason to hide the fact that a transgender person had a different birth name. This policy should be reversed. 2601:281:CC80:5AE0:D9AC:B03:6B93:DBF (talk) 17:38, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

That has not been the consensus view of the many, many discussions on this topic. Newimpartial (talk) 17:41, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

No one on here, to my recollection, ever said anything with the inclination that being transgender is something to be ashamed of. Trillfendi (talk) 18:14, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure how that conclusion was reached. If a trans person wishes to reveal their deadname, they can do so in an interview or similar and have secondary sources pick that up. If they weren't notable under that name, why bring it up then? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 22:40, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

We've even been over that many times before; the fact that some source somewhere can be found providing the name isn't a reason to include it if it pre-dates their notability. This isn't even entirely limited to gender matters; some stuff at MOS:NICKNAMES aligns with this as well (on a WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE policy basis): not every name or alias of someone that can be proven is encyclopedically relevant. And with trans/nonbinary people who have changed away from a gendered name that doesn't align with their identity, we have the additional factor that we cannot predict whether that subject would be offended by (even claim harm from) the revelation on WP of a name they had abandoned and which was not generally publicly known, so we err on the side of privacy (WP:BLPPRIV is the actual policy basis behind MOS:DEADNAME).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:44, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Subject's children's full names and birth years: include, or not?

Let's say a subject has children. And that nothing about the children themselves is notable. Yet reliable sources are available for both the children's full names and their birth years. Should their full names and birth years then be included in the article, or not? One example, in § Personal life about Conor McGregor, it says:

Their first child, Conor Jack McGregor, was born on 5 May 2017. Their second child, Croia McGregor, was born 4 January 2019.

Another example, in § Personal life (oldid) about Rico Verhoeven, it said:

[...] have two daughters and a son together: Mikayla Verhoeven (born 2011), Jazlynn Verhoeven (born 2015) and Vince Verhoeven (born 2017).

Would including this information be WP:EXCESSDETAIL, or not? In case it depends, then why/on what? --143.176.30.65 (talk) 11:00, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

WP:BLPNAME says the "presumption in favor of privacy is strong" but on the other that "may be part of an article, if reliably sourced [and] relevant to a reader's complete understanding of the subject". The final sentence only says 'remove if not properly sourced' ("However, names of family members who are not also notable public figures must be removed from an article if they are not properly sourced."). Are the names of significant family (e.g. Croia McGregor) ever relevant to a reader's complete understanding of the subject? --143.176.30.65 (talk) 11:25, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Another relevant policy is WP:BLPPRIVACY: Wikipedia includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object to the details being made public. If a subject complains about our inclusion of their date of birth, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year, provided that there is a reliable source for it. However, I've seen various interpretations of this w.r.t. to children of notable people.—Bagumba (talk) 11:31, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with it if the parent has released this information (most do). Even The Telegraph still has a births section devoted to this subject. Trillfendi (talk) 13:15, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

The presumption of privacy is one aspect, but when the infant is presented by a parent on Twitter (which has replaced The Telegraph for these purposes in some circles) we are just left with the argument that it is excess detail, in the form of gossip/fancruft. I think that should also be a presumption, unless there is a good argument to the contrary about relevance. However, the argument that "they called their child X, which tells you all you need to know about them" can be quite seductive, in some cases. William Avery (talk) 14:11, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I think we have to be extra careful with non-notable children given the privacy concerns, even when the parent/guardian releases information such as the birth date. I also don't think that details such as the exact day of birth are generally going to be relevant to a parent's biography, and I agree with the guidance at WP:BLPPRIVACY that for non-notable individuals, we should simply list the year. Given the strong presumption towards privacy for living individuals, if there are objections to including names or birth years about a person's non-notable children, I think there should be a consensus for inclusion before restoring it based on how widely published the information is, how relevant the information is to understanding the parent's biography, and where possible, whether the child may object to that type of information being published. Birth announcements and similar types of news sources seem less relevant than something like recurring discussions in sources about the parent's relationship with their child. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 23:59, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Some of the above is missing the point, both ways. The privacy question is whether to mention non-notable children by name at all. If there is an encyclopedic reason to name them, they have no privacy interest in suppression of their surname which 99% of the time is going to be the same as that of the subject (or of the father, if it the article is about the mother and she does not share his surname, or whatever; the point being, the surname will already be present). Whether to bother writing out "Mikayla Verhoeven (born 2011), Jazlynn Verhoeven (born 2015) and Vince Verhoeven (born 2017)" is simply a copyediting question. I think most editors would shorten this, though we would not under various conditions, such as one or more of them having a different surname, or one or more of them being notable. In cases in which identification of the children doesn't trigger WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE there is no BLPPRIV issue in providing a birth year, which is not the same as a birth date.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:50, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Re 20:21, 29 January 2021‎ edit summary

Whoops. I hit enter when I went to type '. It should have been "Remove the word "living" from the deadname section. There's no reason to deadname the dead unless they were notable under that name." Sorry about that! --Keiyakins (talk) 20:28, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I've undone it. There's an active discussion (above). Unilaterally changing it in such circumstances is not a good way to proceed. EddieHugh (talk) 20:54, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I've re-done it. There's always an active "discussion" about whether trans people deserve dignity and respect. Refusing to allow any change in that direction is, frankly, just playing into the hands of those who think we don't. --Keiyakins (talk) 04:15, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

It's true that there's always active discussion and with something this large there will always be people who disagree, but the discussion is still very much ongoing, and we need to wait for consensus before changing the manual. I support the change, but the MOS is supposed to represent community consensus. The way to make a change to the manual is by winning over the community, not just by changing the manual. The latter will merely result in an edit war, which isn't helpful for anyone. Srey Sros^talk 04:58, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

"whether trans people deserve dignity and respect"... there's something about this matter that makes some people misrepresent what others are saying; it's the third time that it's happened to me in a few days. I (and SreySros) made a point about procedure, without mentioning any aspect of the subject of the discussion. The standard, correct procedure is the standard, correct procedure, irrespective of what the subject matter is. EddieHugh (talk) 12:50, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Keiyakins's proposition is simply incorrect. Dead people don't have privacy interests, and the policy basis of this guideline is WP:BLPPRIV (and to some extent also WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE) as detailed in another thread below. There is no "WP:BIORESPECT" policy. SreySros is correct that this has nothing to do with "respect". It is not WP's job to respect subjects, but to treat them with dispassionate neutrality and with the readers' interests ahead of subject's preferences. If someone wants the opposite kind of bio, they can pay for one in one of those "Who's Who" books, or write a glowing obituary for a newspaper. The angle that Keiyakins is coming from has been debated a hundred times here already and the answer is always the same. The suggestion that the community consensus is a wrong because it doesn't align with this editor's preferences/views isn't how WP works. It's now any project works, really. PS: "There's always an active 'discussion' about whether trans people deserve dignity and respect" claim (if it means "on Wikipedia") is outright false. There is no debate about that anywhere on this site. Disingenuous straw man attempts to try to caricaturize viewpoints Keiyakins doesn't agree with as being somehow in favor of indignity and disrespect doesn't magically change that fact.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:07, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Black and African-American

There is a slow motion edit war going on at Lloyd Austin, where phrases such as the first Black secretary of defense are being replaced with the first African-American secretary of defense. Is there a preferred formulation in WP policy? I haven't come across one. Pinging Possibly and Eddie891 as users I've discussed this with recently.

Personally, I have noticed a remarkable shift in preference among the mainstream American media toward Black (capitalized), as evidenced in the Austin context in [2], [3], [4]. I also think "Black" makes sense from a logical and WP:BLP perspective, as—unlike, say, Chinese-Canadian, Portuguese-American, Nigerian-American, or other hyphenated forms—"African-American" does not generally refer to people who have immigrated from somewhere in Africa to the United States. (If it did, terms such as Nigerian-American would obviously be preferable).

I suppose this could be handled by a local consensus at Lloyd Austin but I am curious about the community's thoughts. I assume this has been discussed before, so if there is a pertinent discussion in the archives I'd be grateful if someone could point me to it. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 15:06, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I'll speak from the black perspective and say that "African-American" is politically correct and most of us don't refer to ourselves with this blanket term. A person can be African-American and not black or vice versa. Trillfendi (talk) 16:16, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

There is article about this in the New York Times: A Debate Over Identity and Race Asks, Are African-Americans ‘Black’ or ‘black’? (John Eligon, June 26, 2020) AP has adopted "Black," while the NYT and Washington Post are undecided. I think the criterion should be what term reliable sources use, rather than what makes more sense or is more accurate. At present, that appears to be African American. TFD (talk) 16:38, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

No problem with going by RS only. I guess my point above is that I tend to disagree that (American) RS default to African American, at least recently. See also [5], which provides some more context (but does not settle on one or the other as the "right" term). AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 17:13, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

fyi: Why We’re Capitalizing Black (NYT, July 5, 2020), The Washington Post announces writing style changes for racial and ethnic identifiers (Washington Post, July 29, 2020, "Beginning immediately, The Washington Post will uppercase the B in Black to identify the many groups that make up the African diaspora in America and elsewhere.") Beccaynr (talk) 15:09, 13 February 2021 (UTC) Also: Why we capitalize ‘Black’ (and not ‘white’) (Columbia Journalism Review, June 16, 2020), Black with a capital 'B': Why it took news outlets so long to make a change that matters to so many (Kashmala Fida, CBC News, July 20, 2020, "a number of news organizations across Canada and the United States announced in June the same change in their language guidelines: to capitalize the word "Black" when referring to Black people and culture. The Globe and Mail made its announcement on June 3, followed by the CBC on June 8 and The Canadian Press the next day. In the U.S., a number of news organizations, including the Los Angeles Times, NBC, The Associated Press and the New York Times, also announced the same change to their style guides.") Beccaynr (talk) 15:29, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

We are generally talking about the Cultural identity. That would be Black people, which can be shortened to "Black". African American is similar to Chinese Canadian. But identity does not always correspond to intersectionality. Bus stop (talk) 17:23, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Africa is a continent of 54 countries. China is one country. Chinese-Canadian is a more specific ethnicity in that case. Trillfendi (talk) 17:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

There is no reason to say that they identify as Black people rather than African Americans. I do not see why you mention that African American is similar to Chinese Canadian. African Americans are Americans whose ancestors originated in Africa, while Chinese Canadians are people whose ancestors originated in China. We don't refer to Chinese Canadians by their skin color any more. TFD (talk) 17:49, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I think it would be preferable to go with the reliable sources, although it seems that the majority preference is not clear, even if it seems to be moving towards "Black" rather than "African American" (especially for Black-oriented publications). Do we know if the article subject has expressed a preference for how to describe his identity? I could not find him using either term in any statements in a quick Google search (although Biden's recent op-ed about him calls him "African American" [6]). – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 00:08, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

A highly-related question was RFCd in the past year, see WT:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Proposed update to MOSCAPS regarding racial terms. --Izno (talk) 00:52, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• One factor in the recent shift in preference from “African-American” to “Black” is the growth of immigration of black people to the US from Non-African parts of the world. These people are proud of their heritage, and often reject the pre-fix “African” in favor of their more specific national origin: “Haitian”, “Jamaican”, “Nigerian”, “Ethiopian”, etc.

(Personal anecdote... a few years ago, I referred to a friend as being “African-American”... he corrected me saying: “No, I am Caribbean-American... my mother was Jamaican and my father was from St. Barts”). Blueboar (talk) 01:52, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

See the very first rule of WP:MOS: If a dispute seems to turn intractable, try writing around it. E.g., just be more specific, as Blueboar and even the OP hinted at, when possible. If there's consensus in this particular case that it's actually important to say "the first Black secretary of defense" (capitalized or not), then that is the correct term in this context, because the systemic American racism that makes the statement true and meaningful does not distinguish in any way between Black people of centuries of American heritage, someone who recently immigrated from Africa, or a second-generation Caribbean American, etc. That racism just sees Black. (It's actually even worse that that; cf. the one drop rule.) However, this "Black" vs. "black" argumentation suggests that some participants here did not notice the recent RfC at WT:MOSCAPS about this: There is a clear consensus against using "Black" but "white" on Wikipedia (though either "black and white" or "Black and White" within the same article would do fine; there was also clearly a consensus against making a rule to require one or the other). That may or may not be an issue at that particular article (i.e., because "[w|W]hite" might not appear in it), but the very fact that this thread is couched in terms of "I have noticed a remarkable shift in preference among the mainstream American media toward Black (capitalized)" does not inspire confidence. (And it's also an over-generalization, but WP is not written to news-style standards as a matter of policy, anyway.) WP:NOT#ADVOCACY is important here; WP is not a place to engage in attempts at "language reform" much less "social change by language manipulation", even if such an attempt is popular in various publications of a specific sort in a particular country. Next, "Chinese" is not an ethnicity, but a nationality (of citizenship or of family origin); China has dozens of ethnicities. Finally, this kind of racialized focus should be avoided when possible; see WP:R&E. In this particular case, it might actually be of encyclopedic worth to include an ethno-racial label in the lead (because RS are dwelling on it, as they often do with high-office positions), but for many bios, such a label is not lead-worthy. Such terms should only be included when the ethnic/racial identity or background of the subject is tightly bound up with their notability (i.e. the RS make a big deal of it).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:34, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Changing MOS:DEADNAME on how to credit individuals on previously released works

Note: This is now two sets of RfC questions; see #RfC: Use of deadname in quotes subsection below for the second set.

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Some of the arguments made in this lengthy discussion were successfully rebutted. Many preferences were overlapping and required finding a compromise that I think a supermajority of editors will find reasonable. In some cases there were simply two legitimate competing considerations, and for those I relied more heavily on the number of editors endorsing a particular balance. I am happy to answer questions and provide summaries of the arguments and counterarguments considered, but due to length I will start with a relatively terse summary of the outcome:

• Using option B only is rejected.
  • Rough tally about 2:1 against
  • Confuses readers due to perceived gender mismatches, will not match cited works, and fails to document the name in historic use (typically considered the correct name by opponents of this option and may be the name readers know the subject by)
  • Clicking through to the biography is a suboptimal solution, especially for print readers.
• Using option D only is rejected.
  • Rough tally about 4:1 against
  • Fails to document the name currently in use, confuses readers if they don't know the two names are the same person. Opponents of this option typically consider using the deadname in this way to be incorrect, disrespectful, and potentially needlessly harmful to the subject. Distracts readers if they find this usage offensive to the subject.
  • Clicking through to the biography is a suboptimal solution, especially for print readers.
• The name chosen by a transgender or non-binary person which matches their declared gender identity as currently known, should be used as the primary name (e.g. in the main text, table, list, infobox) in preference to the credited or legal name.
  • Rough tally about 2:1 in favor of A/B/E over C/D/F in general, with a small minority advocating C/D/F for gender-segregated contexts like competitions and A/B/E otherwise
  • If the subject is documented to happily accept or prefer use of the deadname for past events and works, the deadname can be used as the primary name.
  • Avoids the dispute over which name is "correct" by noting both (even though we are forced to choose one or the other as primary)
  • Maximum information for readers so they can understand cited works, get accurate historical context, understand that two different names refer to the same person; answers questions raised by an apparent gender mismatch
  • Considered less disrespectful to the subject, less distracting to readers with a diversity of perspectives, and acknowledges the assertion that the subject's gender identity is a permanent, immutable aspect of their personality which they have always had (we assume that by default unless otherwise documented)
• Every instance does not need to have the deadname noted.
  • Noted in many comments; no comments demanding 100% cross-referencing.
  • Use a parenthetical (E) or footnote (A) on first reference in prose and in main infobox
  • Subsequent references can use the chosen name only (B); use editorial judgment to maintain clarity and add more parentheticals or footnotes if needed
  • Not every applicable row in a table needs a cross-reference, e.g. if they are consecutive
• Editorial judgment should be used to decide whether to use a parenthetical vs. footnote and how to phrase it.
  • Parentheticals read smoothly in prose, and more readers are likely to read them, especially mobile and print. Drawing attention to the deadname may be desirable to explain a perceived gender mismatch.
  • Footnotes are less intrusive if the deadname is not particularly relevant, and some editors favor de-emphasizing deadnames as much as possible to avoid disrespect and potential harm.
  • Footnotes are better when space in the main text is limited (such as in an infobox), and they avoid duplication if there are multiple annotations needed.
  • The phrasing "X (credited as Y)" got explicit support from several editors, and should be used as an example in the MOS. Terse wording has the advantage of reading smoothly and providing key information to the reader without putting undue weight on the transgender or non-binary status of the subject.
• The word "preferred" in "preferred name" and "preferred pronouns" was found to be objectionable by editors who identify as trans because it "tends to make it sound like our names and pronouns are optional" and this should be respected when formulating the MOS guideline. It should never be implied that a chosen name is not a "real" name, though obviously it can be distinguished from legal name, birth name, stage name, etc.
• As per existing policy, where there is no name mismatch with cited works, when the deadname not notable enough to override the privacy interest of the subject, or when describing works and events after a name has been chosen to match a gender identity, only the chosen name should be used (B).
• As per existing policy, outing a person as transgender or non-binary is never OK; we wait for that to be reported in widely public sources. (My comment: Even if we think being transgender is something to be happy and proud about, this would be a major privacy violation, probably has little or no reader benefit if other media outlets aren't reporting on it, and could cause harm like humiliation, unemployment, family breakup, suicide, or murder.)

Editors identified some articles using anachronistic names, like Eris (dwarf planet) and bohrium and HIV and AIDS and SARS-CoV-2 (which were not named such e.g. when discovered or during early research) and Marilyn Monroe and Toussaint Louverture and Family Ties (for Meredith Baxter vs. Meredith Baxter-Birney) and references to Alexander Siddig when working as Siddig el Fadil. Lady A is a strongly anachronistic case, where the band "Lady Antebellum" decided its own name was offensive. (Likewise I'll add The Chicks.)

For people with cis binary gender (and I guess groups of people), use of anachronistic names appear to violate MOS:CHANGEDNAME. Editors may wish to edit articles like these to align them with the MOS, or may wish to discuss modifying this guideline. MOS:TVCAST and MOS:FILMCAST appear to allow anachronistic names; if that is a contradiction with MOS:CHANGEDNAME, that should be resolved with clarity. If anachronistic names are not intended for inclusion, perhaps MOS:CHANGEDNAME should be cross-referenced. I'm not aware of an MOS policy for inanimate entities with names that have changed over time.

Yours in civil discourse, Beland (talk) 07:44, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

---

Should MOS:DEADNAME be updated to address dead-naming of transgender or non-binary individuals in articles about their previous works before their transition was made public, including in the infobox, lead, and credit sections? – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 23:41, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option A: Previously published works should refer to individual using their preferred name after their transition (with a footnote explaining the name change).
• Option B: Previously published works should refer to individual using their preferred name after their transition (without a footnote explaining the name change).
• Option C: Previously published works should refer to individual using their name as credited in the work (with a footnote explaining the name change).
• Option D: Previously published works should refer to individual using their name as credited in the work (without a footnote explaining the name change).
• Option E: Previously published works should refer to individual using their preferred name after their transition first followed by a parenthetical containing the name as credited in the work.
• Option F: Previously published works should refer to individual using their name as credited in the work first followed by a parenthetical containing their preferred name after their transition.

While we ordinarily sometimes keep a person's name the same as the credit in the previous work such as a film when they have subsequently changed their name from something like marriage, there appear to be many considerations that are different for a transgender or non-binary person who has decided to use a different name. A discussion about how to handle Elliot Page's previous works is taking place on his talk page, and there was an RfC last year regarding The Wachowskis, which resulted in replacing references to "the Wachowski brothers" from prior works with "the Wachowskis" and including the previously credited name in a note. There were also discussions about Caitlyn Jenner and how to handle her previous athletic records several years ago when the dead-naming policy was being developed, and her record pages for her previous events still generally list her name as "Bruce Jenner".

• I am not sure what is the best approach, but I thought it may be useful to try to determine a consensus on the issue before working out specific language. Please feel free to remove/reword this RfC if it could done better or more specifically. Please also feel free to edit or correct any of my information above regarding previous discussions on this topic. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 23:41, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
  • EDIT #1: I apologize for not including parentheticals as an option (such as "Elliot Page (credited as Ellen Page)" or "Ellen Page (now Elliot Page)" or some similar formulation), and I have added those options based Onetwothreeip's request. It may be helpful to the closing admin if those who have already voted would explain if including the information in a parenthetical (or some other type of note) rather than a footnote would affect their view in the RfC. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 02:36, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • EDIT #2: I struck the word "ordinarily" from my initial description of the RfC based on the following discussion in the extended comments. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 06:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Comments

• It's entirely situational and we should simply rely on how reliable sources refer to these people, whether they are transgender or not. There are no particular reasons to treat transgender people any differently here. Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:00, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option B. The "Main biographical article" section at MOS:GENDERID should be changed to apply to all other articles too: "Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what is most common in reliable sources". Referring to an individual's deadname is harmful, and appreciating their request to use their preferred name is both simple and accurate. I'm not totally opposed to Option A if it's deemed necessary—specifically in cast lists, or for clarification if used in direct quotes (i.e. Juno (film) § Music)—though I personally believe readers can just click through to the individual's article if they're confused. – Rhain ☔ 00:07, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • "Referring to an individual's deadname is harmful" - that is quite a claim, and even if true, should not override the need for an encyclopedia to describe subjects of articles as they are documented, not as they might wish they were documented. There is an important principle at stake here: articles of any kind are written in the interests of the furthering the reader's understanding, not to accommodate the subject's personal feelings on how reliable sources have or have not documented them, however valid those feelings may be and however sympathetic we may be to them! Beorhtwulf (talk) 00:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
    • In my view, the related RfC that was closed here with the immortal words, don't be a dick, offers us more helpful and policy-compliant guidance than the observation that even if deadnaming is harmful, that fact should not override the need for an encyclopedia to describe subjects of articles as they are documented. We often go out of our way to avoid using the bigoted or dated labels applied in sources from a previous time, anyway, so I don't know why editors insist on hiding behind this particular fig leaf when confronted with an inconvenient identity. Newimpartial (talk) 00:41, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
    • I wouldn't call it too extreme a claim; it's in the lead at Deadnaming, for starters. As for "articles of any kind are written in the interests of the furthering the reader's understanding": wouldn't updating articles to use the correct self-identification be the best way to further the reader's understanding of the topic? – Rhain ☔ 01:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
      • "wouldn't updating articles to use the correct self-identification be the best way to further the reader's understanding of the topic?" I agree that current self-identification should be preferred in general use, but when someone has previously been well-known by a particular name, ignoring the existence of that name can be harmful to readers' understanding. That's why I support option E. Sauronjim (talk) 00:49, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
      • Honestly, we should look to IMDB on this as they have done it quite well. Former name not mentioned until/unless it's relevant (in the most recent situation, addressing the incongruity in acting credits). There is absolutely no reason for the deadname to be front and center as the first line of the article other than "well policy says...." We are not paper, we can be edited, even our policies. Insisting on forcing deadnames to the forefront is disrespectful at best, and extremely harmful at worst. Any time a trans person is outed as transgender, it is an opportunity for that individual to come to harm. We clearly can't ignore the deadname altogether due to the encyclopedic nature of what we are, but we can at least avoid triggering every transphobe who even casually glances at the article for half a second. 50.84.54.202 (talk) 01:25, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
        • We are generally talking here about public figures who were universally known by one name and understood to be one gender at some stage of their career, then themselves made an announcement that they wanted to be named and differently and have different pronouns applied, so the issue of outing does not apply. It might apply in the case where a person transitioned before they were a known public figure. Beorhtwulf (talk) 09:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
      • The reader is certainly served by prominent mention that the subject of an article announced a gender identity at some stage of their life that doesn't correspond to what everyone understood about them during their earlier career or period of notability. I don't think anyone is disputing that. The issue at stake is whether we go back and change everything retrospectively, for example by asserting that the film Juno was starred in by a man named Elliot, and scrubbing all mention of "Ellen Page" on the grounds that it's deadnaming and might in some way hurt the subject of the article. I don't think the reader is served by introducing these kind of anachronisms, or by erasing names used by contemporaneous reliable sources. Beorhtwulf (talk) 09:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A as first choice, EDIT: Option E as second choice and Option B as third choice or Option B as second choice. Rhain suggests that readers who are confused can click through, but I think that articles should always make sense when read standalone (good for people with bad internet, reading on mirrors or printouts etc.) and I believe policy mostly supports this too. We shouldn't refer in Wikipedia's voice to a person by a name that they do not use—that is a BLP violation. But if a person was credited as something then it's important to record that information. ("The Wachowskis" is an edge case because it's not like they wouldn't be called that before their transitions.) The change in consensus from the Caitlyn Jenner case to the Wachowski case reflects, in part, the change in style guides in use by the Associated Press, newspapers, encyclopediae etc. which Wikipedia generally bases its style on. We should never be referring to Jenner as a man when she is not. This will cause understandable confusion when talking about male categories for sporting events, or when someone is familiar with only the deadname, so footnotes or text should be used to clarify. — Bilorv (talk) 00:18, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I don't disagree with you at all regarding "articles should always make sense when read standalone", it's just a personal preference that deadnames should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. I'm still in full support of Option A if consensus heads that way. – Rhain ☔ 01:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Edited to include option E as second preference. — Bilorv (talk) 09:27, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option D. Refer to as credited and sourced at the time for that particular topic. This conforms to WP:TVCAST and WP:FILMCAST. The names are linked, redirects work, and further expansion about a basic name change in some other article is giving undue weight to something that really has nothing to do with that article. This has the added benefit that we don't have to go over every single mention in every other article and change anything. As to purported harm that the person is already notable and well-known under the old name so no harm can be done by Wikipedia mentioning an old name. This may not the be the case for non-notable people which is why they get extra consideration. Another issue for some films is if the person is in the starring cast, their name as credited will remain in the poster art in the infobox and that cannot be changed anyway. Geraldo Perez (talk) 00:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Geraldo Perez, while it's understandable that matching up with the work's given cast list is important, I think it makes more sense to only note the discrepancy as an aside. As stated below, wording like "John Doe (casted as Jane Doe)" makes the distinction on actual name vs. listed name quite well. Perryprog (talk) 00:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A or B unless the person has publicly, in a verifiable, reliable source stated that they have a specific preference. This is something that will likely evolve over time, as different members of the trans/non-binary community individually decide how they want to be credited, so the policy should be flexible to accomodate this. In either case, I think the default should be to use their preferred name, with a footnote explaining the name change where it makes sense to do so (for people with a long history under a particular name -- Elliot Page was the impetus for this RfC and this is a good example). MrAureliusR_Talk! 00:26, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C else Option A, I think for articles/templates that are specifically citing sources & awarding for their pre-transition gender (Best female lead actor etc), it makes sense to name as cited. While avoiding sensitivities around dead-naming is an important step, I feel making articles less confusing to the uninitiated reader does take precedence in certain situations. As such, that footnotes are to be included when it's specifically an award category in the subjects former gender. — IVORK _Talk 00:32, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option D, though open to sparing use of footnotes if there is a need to mitigate risk of astonishment. The term "deadnaming" is emotive and POV here. It brings to mind some kind of bullying situation in which a trans person is deliberately taunted with the use of their former name, when all we are actually doing is describing the world as it is documented by reliable sources. It is an inevitability when dealing with biographical articles that not all reliable sources will describe people as they wish to be described. It is one thing to use a trans person's newly announced name and pronouns from the point of their announcement onward, but to go back and use them retrospectively to describe times when no one was using them will create preposterous situations, like Wikipedia denying that the film Juno was starred in by a clearly female lead known to everyone in the world as Ellen Page, and documented as such in all contemporary reliable sources, playing a clearly female character in a story about pregnancy. While no one should go out of their way to offend or belittle, our priority should always be to maintain credible and authoritative encyclopedic coverage of the topics we discuss, not to rewrite our articles to accommodate the feelings and preferences of their subjects. Beorhtwulf (talk) 00:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

One would think that we had not had large, highly engaged RfCs in which the community expressed its consensus that DEADNAMING is a real concern for the WP editorial community and that some sort of balance of considerations, harm-minimization principle must apply. We have already agreed in MOS:GENDERID and MOS:DEADNAME to use present pronouns (universally) and present names (generally) in retrospective discussions, and your personal priorities simply will never override clearly-expressed community consensus. You should take solace, Beorhtwulf, in the fact that Elliot page also uses they/their pronouns as well as he/his, which can be used to minimize the risk of ASTONISHMENT in related articles. Newimpartial (talk) 00:48, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm agreed with the need to balance considerations, but it is not obvious that the preferences of the subject of an article about their name and pronouns should be an overriding consideration in some of the cases we are discussing. Beorhtwulf (talk) 10:13, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Dead-naming is an emotive act, which is why we have guidelines and policies around it. There are many other policies that take into consideration the emotional impact of what is included in Wikipedia, especially for living people, and I think it's important that we do consider the real world impacts of our work here. I also think it's important to remember that not everyone may share the same views about what is "preposterous" or "clear". – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 00:58, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, and that's why we are having the discussion. We should remember the average reader though, and avoid confusing them with the minority of editors who take a strong interest in the constantly shifting nuances and taboos that surround the topic of gender identity in 2020. Imagine for a moment a reader who sees the film Juno, and knows nothing whatsoever about its star or that person's recent name and gender announcement, made many years after the film came out. I maintain that they would be entirely justified in considering this to be a movie starring a woman playing a woman, and would be backed up in this by contemporaneous reliable sources, which talk about an actress called Ellen who performed her role with great skill or whatever. Wikipedia is here to enlighten, so should certainly say that in fact this person now asks that people use the pronouns 'he' or 'they' and goes by the name Elliot, but it should not pretend they have never been called Ellen, or that they were not universally understood to be a woman at the time Juno came out. It's this suggestion of retrospective revision of documented history that I'm saying is preposterous. Beorhtwulf (talk) 10:13, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Stories about pregnancy are not inherently female stories and the character of Juno was not "clearly female". If Juno 2 came out next year revealing that the character later came out as nonbinary, it would mean that the first movie was also about a nonbinary person, not a "female character". 2601:14D:4180:F5A0:CD56:C843:5B95:949B (talk) 06:30, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I can only suggest we were watching two different movies, or we have somehow arrived at a very different understanding of what pregnancy is and who is capable of becoming pregnant. Beorhtwulf (talk) 10:13, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

If you have the impression that no Assigned Female At Birth nonbinary people can or do become pregnant, then I suggest that you spend your time becoming better-informed rather than opining from a standpoint of ignorance. Newimpartial (talk) 15:31, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option A/E followed by Option B, context depending. One suggestion for the footnote, by Jiiimbooh, is worth mentioning: On the articles for older work, why not write "Elliot Page (credited as Ellen)" at the first mention and in the cast list, and otherwise just "Elliot Page" (from this talk page discussion). This has the advantage of being more clear than phraseology like "formally known as", and correctly distinguishes the time frame of when an actor participated in a movie. It's also currently what's used in The Matrix's infobox for the directors. This seems to be the smallest adjustment from what's currently in the MOS, which only covers references within the person's own article—Options A and B would simply extend the current policy to include articles that reference the person as well. Perryprog (talk) 00:51, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  The parentheticals seem to be used commonly in prose and that may also be easier than using a footnote in places like the credits. For something like the infobox, I think a footnote would be the only option, although it could always have no note at all there and just include the name change in the credits or in the prose. I definitely think that there will still need to be discussions and local consensus after this RfC to determine some of these particulars. "Credited as" seems to make a lot more sense for transgender or non-binary people than "formally known as". – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 01:18, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  I've decided to update my preference (which was B followed by A/E). I think a lot of the points that have brought up are very important, especially with respect to certain encyclopedic aspects (e.g., an article being able to stand on its own (in most cases)). I don't think there's much more I can say without being redundant of what other people have said. Perryprog (talk) 19:04, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

• Why not Elliot Page (then Ellen Page)? We can do this for anybody who has since changed their name, regardless of the reason. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:03, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • This is why: "When a subject changes names as part of coming out as transgender, it is often impossible to continue to use that person's former name without misgendering them and thus causing harm". Changing names as part of coming out is different than, say, as part of marriage or divorce, and thus requires a different approach. – Rhain ☔ 01:16, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
    • @Rhain: It does not harm anybody to state either that "Ellen Page (now Elliot Page)" or "Elliot Page (then Ellen Page)" was an actor in a certain pre-2020 film. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:23, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

      Agreed. While it’s important to avoid offending trans/nonbinary people — intentionally or otherwise — it’s also important to avoid confusing our readers, and adding a clarification on this person’s previous name is part of that. I would lean towards "Elliot Page (then Ellen Page)". I should also note that the linked/quoted content above is an essay, not a policy or guideline. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 03:36, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

      What's been happening here (even aside from the fact that there is considerable debate about the harm argument, among editors and among off-site writers) is a frequent failure to distinguish between people not notable at all or until after their transition, from people notable before, during, and after theirs. For the latter category, it's a bare and inescapable fact of their existences as public figures that their old names are well known and regularly are recorded in sources that pre- and post-date their transition. That is simply not ever going to change. Not for subjects we're writing about now, and not for subjects not born yet who we'll be writing about in 2100. There is nothing WP or anyone else can do about this. Every proposal (and there have been many) on WP to just eliminate all mention of former names that date to within the notability period have simply gone nowhere. This clearly isn't going to change, even if we have come to more or less a consensus to treat pre-notability deadnames differently (depending on how well-covered they are in RS – we do sometimes include birth names, but do not use them otherwise), and to treat deadnames of non-notable people with even more circumspection.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:55, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  • Onetwothreeip, I don't think that would work for infoboxes but I really should have phrased the RfC as with or without a "note" rather than a "footnote" as that would also encompass parentheticals. I think that could be addressed in the wording for MOS:DEADNAME if the policy is changed. Would you agree with Option A if it included parentheticals rather than a footnote? – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 01:19, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
    • @Wallyfromdilbert: Unfortunately a footnote means something very specific. I would agree with either "Ellen Page (now Elliot Page)" or "Elliot Page (then Ellen Page)", with my preference being the former. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:23, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A mainly, of course not for every occurrence of the name. In the case of actors, we could include the footnote next to the name on the infobox, in the lead section, and in their first mention in the Cast list, then go on without the footnote for following mentions. El Millo (talk) 01:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C followed by option D per Geraldo Perez and comments reiterated at Talk:Elliot Page. Vaselineeeeeeee^★★★ 01:12, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Option C else Option D. As per reasoning of Beorhtwulf and Geraldo Perez, though I see no harm in a footnote. If something here is "harmful", it's accusing people of bigotry for the innocuous act of having a film's cast refer to an actor as they were actually credited on that film. Damien Linnane (talk) 01:22, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Not sure where these accusations of bigotry came from. – Rhain ☔ 01:31, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
    • I think it's been clearly implied. I don't want this conversation to go off tangent, so I can agree to disagree. Damien Linnane (talk) 02:14, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
      • As the creator of the RfC, it certainly has not been implied there, and I think it is probably best to not make accusations based on perceived implications. If we cannot bring a diff to support a specific accusation, then it is probably best to not make it in the first place. If anything is clear, it is that this is a contentious enough issue already. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 02:49, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
      • (edit conflict) I haven't seen a single person even hint at implying it. I assume that your contributions are in good faith, so why not extend the same attitude to others? Bringing it up in the first place is a detriment to this discussion, and implies that anybody who disagrees with you is accusing you of bigotry. But sure, agree to disagree. – Rhain ☔ 02:52, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
        • In retrospect bigotry was too harsh a word, though I was also referring to a general tone I first picked up on at the Elliot page talk page. I'm striking the comment. I agree with another editor who opined "Referring to an individual's deadname is harmful" is quite a claim. I think it's an extreme claim. Personally while I'm completely supportive of using his preferred name in the future, I see pretending it's been his name all along similar to something the Ministry of Truth would have done. What's next? Photo-shopping all the original film posters to remove his former name, and saying everyone who opposes rewriting history and copyright violation is harming people? Maybe I should try and AGF more, but when I read that my first impression is you're insinuating anyone who disagrees with you is a malicious person. It seemed like a cheap way to scare away other opinions, and yes, it's since occurred to me I did the same thing in return. I'm now thinking maybe that wasn't your intention after all. Apologies for upsetting anyone. I don't have anything more to say about this. Damien Linnane (talk) 07:57, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
          • Maybe I should try and AGF more: this. Always this. And "Ministry of Truth" references (and slippery-slope arguments in general) tend not to communicate GF, as a rule. Newimpartial (talk) 08:02, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
          • Damien Linnane, I really appreciate your explanation and apology. No hard feelings. We all should be careful with our words. Take care. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 08:04, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
          • My use of the word "harmful" was definitely from a place of explanation and clarification rather than accusation or insinuation, though I understand how you got that impression. I appreciate the explanation. – Rhain ☔ 14:20, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C followed by option A. With "deadnaming", it really depends on the individual. It seems a bit odd to lump up all trans/nonbinary people as being completely against their former name. However, I'm not disagreeing that it can be harmful but I also believe anyone can deem anything harmful so it should be irrelevant in the context of an encyclopaedic wiki. —Jonny Nixon (talk) 01:48, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E. Unless the credited name is changed subsequently, the credited name should be used. Gender expression may be retroactive, but name changes are moving forward from the date the change was announced. Preferred pronouns should obviously be updated, and certainly prose can be rewritten so as to reference the present name... but the credits should be listed in the filmography as they were presented in the work. As with pseudonyms, pen names, etc., it is generally listed as "{Preferred (Actual) Name} (credited as {Name as it appeared in work}). - Floydian ^τ _¢ 01:57, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A (but with parentheses) seems the best way to me. "Chosenname Smith" is how a trans person will be known to readers going forward, and that name refers to that person at any stage of their life. However, "Birthname Smith" is how they were identified in connection with a given past work, and is likely how they would be known to someone who only knows them through that work, so that article should clearly and explicitly make this connection for the reader the first time the person is named. For example, the article about Juno (film) might say that "Elliot Page (credited as Ellen Page) stars as the title character" and then refer to just "Page" or "Elliot Page" as appropriate in context. (Frankly, I'm not overly concerned about how an actor might feel about seeing their former name in a Wikipedia article about one of their old films like that, because I am hopeful they have better things to do with their time, and believe in treating adults like adults.) -Jason A. Quest (talk) 02:04, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• @Wallyfromdilbert: Please add Option E: "Credited Name (now Preferred Name)" and Option F: "Preferred Name (then Credited Name)" to the list of options. I would prefer Option E as standard, particularly for infoboxes and credits, but Option F can otherwise be used interchangeably and is more appropriate in certain instances. Biographical articles should generally use only the preferred name, except when identifying their previous name. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

 Done Thank you for the suggestion! – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 02:43, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Wallyfromdilbert and Onetwothreeip:, while I'm a bit late, I was thinking it would be better to present the options with no indication on how it should be formatted. That is, two options for preferred name with/without an aside and two options for name as credited with/without an aside. Whether or not the "aside" should be a footnote, a parenthetical, or something else entirely can be decided later. Perryprog (talk) 03:07, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Perryprog, I agree that would have been a better format, and I initially intended to put just "note" and not "footnote" in the RfC, but I think that Onetwothreeip's additional two options is better now that so many people have already voted. I think that the specific wording of the change to the MOS:DEADNAME and whether it advises or mandates a particular style will have to probably have further discussion as well. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 03:17, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Wallyfromdilbert:, if I'm reading correctly, the Option E as suggested above by Onetwothreeip is actually the Option F in the top list, and vice versa.

• Option A or Option B, without a particular strong leaning for either. I largely believe that when it is relevant to make the note within prose, using the parenthetical "Name (then DeadName)" or "(credited as XYZ)", then further avoiding the formerly known name afterwards, is clear and concise language, and being as respectful as possible while still acknowledging the need to perhaps clarify a discrepancy between the credits of the film and the lived reality of the actor. Whether a footnote or a parenthetical is more appropriate is really a which specific location is this, prose vs infobox and etc, and what the exact language is, I don't think is the point of this RfC, so I'm not gonna hash that out. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 02:34, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Well, I'm not opposed to Option E either. It feels no different to me than Option A, personally. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 02:40, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A or Option E (equally good) - past RfCs and Wikipedia editor consensus is clearly against egregious use of deadnames, including when talking in the past tense about people who later came out. We must balance that with not surprising or confusing readers and ideally maintaining full comprehension in a single article. Gbear605 (talk) 02:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Notices: I've notified various talk pages relating to biography in general and published works, as well as Village Pump, and also listed this at WP:CENT. It's proven to be the case that thinly-attended RfCs that have anything to do with MOS:DEADNAME or MOS:GENDERID tend to result in renewed rather than reduced editorial strife. Also added Option F, so comments before this note may not reflect that option being listed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:45, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• A, C, E, and F are all acceptable, depending on the context. Which will be preferable in a particular article (or running content within one, e.g. a list of award winner, etc.) will vary by the specific circumstances, and should be left to editorial discretion. (See Hoary's comment below providing examples of each.) Options B and D (and anything like them added later) are not acceptable, because WP's job is neither to rewrite history and falsify what sources record, nor to suppress information that a subject's name has changed. E and A would in most cases be preferable (prefer the current name, and E will usually be better than A by not making people have to dig for it). Two side points:
  1. Persons who were already public figures before their transition are not "harmed" by their former names being known; it is a given, fixed, precondition of their public-life existence, not something being "done to" them by our (or anyone else's) content.
  2. Non-notable people found in source citations and the like (e.g. Prof. Jim O'Foobar wrote a paper in 2001 and we cited it; they later changed name to Jane O'Foobar) are simply irrelevant: the purpose of names in citations is to identify works as-published so cited claims can be verified; the name on the work is not associable on its own with any particular person and their personal identity today; and trying to ascertain that a Prof. Jane O'Foobar at University X is in fact certain to be the same person credited as Jim O'Foobar on various old journal papers, would in fact be WP:OR (and quite likely run afoul of WP:OUTING and WP:BLPPRIV; see discussion below for details).
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC); revised: 04:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • For followup comments from Perryprog, see the Extended comments subsection below.
• Option B as default with acknowledgment that a given individual may express a different preference about use of their former name (see Talk:Daniel M. Lavery), and then and only then should Wikipedia proceed differently, in accordance with their expressed preference. Avoiding harm to a living individual far outstrips any question of inconvenience of clicking through or printouts, etc. Innisfree987 (talk) 02:52, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C or D – we should not be retroactively changing content to present ahistorical or anachronistic content. It also will be hugely confusing because contemporaneous sourcing will use the former name. P.S. We did already hold WP:RfCs on this topic around the time of the Caitlin Jenner transition, and C or D was basically the consensus at that time as well. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:57, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • IJBall, would you be able to link to those RfCs? I think it would be helpful if we could actually read those, especially since the consensus for the Wachowskis appears to have been the opposite result. Thank you in advance. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 03:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
    • Sorry, I don't remember. I think the general topic of those RfC's was MOS:IDENTITY. It was soon after the Caitlin Jenner transition, when it was decided that it would be inappropriate to change, say, the Olympics-related articles from "Bruce Jenner" to "Caitlin Jenner". But I don't even remember if the RfC forum was the MOS or one of the VP's... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 03:26, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• For straightforward cases (which will be most of them), option E, but if there's a good reason for it ("faith", "social conservatism", "common sense" etc not being good reasons), then option F; if there's some complexity (more than two names?) that would make a parenthesis more distracting than a footnote, then option A, but if there's a good reason for it, then option C. -- Hoary (talk) 03:05, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option F or C in most cases, but for example Jan Morris (formerly James, who just died, several decades after her change) was able to use the new name in later editions of her books, so A or E would be fine/better. But that won't be possible eg for film credits in most cases. Johnbod (talk) 03:08, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• I would say that option E is preferable. C, D and F are unacceptable, as they treat a deadname as primary. My issue with A and especially B is that they inhibit reader understanding. If you only know of "Ellen" Page, having to dig through a footnote or having no explanation of who Elliott is will mislead the reader. This already happens in the case of actors who are credited differently in some productions - there is a note as to the name they were credited under. VanIsaac_WS^cont 03:26, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C or F but also leaning towards Option D: A piece of work will feature a person's credited name at that time, and we should reflect that in the article's infobox, lead, and cast section as to what the credits state. We can then aid readers with the use of footnotes or parenthesis to explain to them the name the person is now known by. However, I am leaning towards option D in the sense that redirects can handle this change and (while vastly different in a person's intent), is not that dissimilar from a person using a maiden name and then a married name. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 03:29, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A, B or E (preferring B) EDIT: Option B by default, but A or E in the specific case of cast credits. - If we imagine what kind of encyclopedia articles would be written 50 or 100 years after the fact, when the person in question was dead and there would be no further changes to their biographical information, those articles would consistently use a post-transition name, even when discussing events from prior to transition. That's how we treat historical figures with any other kinds of name changes-- their final name is usually just "their name." (Not just for married people -- consider Toussaint Louverture, who adopted that last name in 1793 at age 50.) It's only because Wikipedia is to up-to-the-minute on top of things that we end up with so much encyclopedic content about "current events," and sources contemporaneous with the events being described. I'd never write an article on an 18thC personage by scrupulously matching how they were described in the 18thC press. I think we should strive to write the articles that a historian would write long after the fact -- and that means using a new name, consistently, throughout. If someone was notable under a prior name, some record of that name should exist on their biography page, but there's no need to plaster that name everywhere. After all, people looking up an encyclopedia about a movie are there to *learn new things* about that movie-- why shouldn't they learn about an actor's name? From the rationale of "write the encyclopedia as if we had the benefit of historic hindsight," I prefer Option B, since anyone confused by the new name can always click to the person's biography article to get clarification, but would also accept A or E. ~ oulfis 🌸(talk) 03:35, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • The IP user below at 2601:14D:4180:F5A0:CD56:C843:5B95:949B persuaded me that cast credits are a distinct kind of case, and I imagine that even in far-future encyclopedias cast lists would take the form of Nicolas Cage as Brad's Bud (credited as Nicolas Coppola). So, I support including the former name in this way, for *all* cases where the article name does not match the credited name. But, any other use should be Option B-- just the preferred name, wikilinked so people can get clarity through their article if needed-- in the prose for movie and TV articles, and in list like Caitlyn Jenner's olympic medals. People may indeed be surprised in some cases to see, eg, Jenner winning a "men's" medal-- luckily, they are already reading an encyclopedia, where they can continue to read additional information to find out more. ~ oulfis 🌸(talk) 06:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  We are not writing for 24th century readers, but for 21st century ones. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:30, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  I like your reasoning here very much. Look at the big picture and how the article would be presented from a completely neutral, omnipotent perspective. We have Genghis Khan, not Temüjin. But by that very same logic, is option B not a bad choice? Option B would be to say that the new name should be mentioned, and only ever the new name. But the great Khan's article does indeed mention his birth name. Any woman who took her husband's name on being married mentions her name at birth. The Toussaint Louverture article you linked mentions his birth name as well. The name used most continuously should indeed be their final known-as name, but at the top of an article should always be any names by which they have been known in brackets, and in a cast credits on the article for something they starred in, the credited name should be included in brackets. Hence, option E -- Sauronjim (talk) 06:22, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

• Any except B - Any policy that forbids a notable name from being mentioned on wikipedia is bad policy. Full stop. It would have disasterous results long term for readers. Imagine reading about Caitlyn Jenner 100 years from now without any mention of Bruce. A reader would be very confused about how Caitlyn won medals in Male Olympic events and worse would not know to search for information about Bruce Jenner to see how contemporary sources covered their Olympic accomplishments. We are here for the readers, not the editors Slywriter (talk) 03:37, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree, but this rules out option D as well, no? Awoma (talk) 09:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

D, while less than ideal, would still allow a Bruce Jenner mention in an article to wiki link to Caitlyn Jenner preserving the connection. DB takes a sledgehammer to history for the sake of editor's feelings, something we pointedly ignore in nearly every other realm of wikipedia Slywriter (talk)

Did you mean to say here that B takes a sledgehammer to history? Beorhtwulf (talk) 13:25, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Yep, Thanks Slywriter (talk)

• Option A, B or E: Use current name unless the person has indicated another preference. Regarding parentheticals or footnotes, use either in situations where the added context adds to understanding for reader (which of the two should be based on what makes sense for where they are placed (don't add long parentheticals mid-prose that break flow, avoid them in general in infoboxes, etc)). While we should give context for outdated understandings where that helps reader understanding (a reader might wonder why a man is playing a female role in a film or why he won a "best actress" award), we cannot write as if that outdated understanding still holds true just because we are writing about past events.--Alexandra^IDV 03:41, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A as first choice, per Bilorv's argument. We should always prioritize accessibility for the reader. feminist (talk) | free Hong Kong 03:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A, B, or E, depending on notability. We should use people's preferred names when possible, but we should also make sure that it's clear what person the name is referring to. Rarely it may be best to include a former name in parentheses (for instance, if a name change is very recent or not well-publicized) to avoid confusion. However, including it in parentheses is unnecessary and potentially harmful if the actor is well-enough-known under their changed name, and in such a case it would be best to include the deadname only in a footnote or not at all. SreySros (talk) 04:16, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A or E While I would love to not have the deadname referenced at all, the fact is that when it comes to older work, some people will need that information to understand why a male actor was playing a woman, as cross-gender casting is nearly nonexistant except for intentional attempts at comedy. Also I personally hate that all these options have the phrase "preferred name," only because a trans person's new name isn't "preferred," it's their actual ... name. -- spazure (contribs) 04:39, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  A transgender person's name after they come out publicly is still also generally their "preferred" name. While I understand your point that it is also their actual name, I was trying to use the most neutral terminology possible. I also wanted to avoid ambiguity and be inclusive of an individual who may come out as trangender or non-binary with a particular public or stage name but has a different privately-used name they consider their "actual" name but may never be credited as, as well as any ambiguity from other interpretations of what the term "actual" means (as opposed to "legal" or "public" or "most widely used in reliable sources"). – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 04:48, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Eh it's only a tangentially related nitpick anyway. As to the main topic at hand, as long as the correct and current name is in the forefront and the older name(s) are used only when necessary (i.e. acting credits), I think we'll reach a good middle ground between staying accurate and being respectful. -- spazure (contribs) 06:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  This seems like an area where being nitpicky is not necessarily a bad idea, given the strong emotions all around regarding word choices. Please don't ever hesitate to let me know if I can improve the words I use especially regarding how to talk about people. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 08:11, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Yeah, my issue is that I'm coming from a place of strong emotions and trying to be as level headed and logical in related talk spaces as I can be -- though the jury is still out as to how good a job I am doing in that regard. In general, trans folk tend to bristle at hearing the phrases "preferred pronouns" and "preferred name" because the word "preferred" tends to make it sound like our names and pronouns are optional.

  At the end of the day, though, intent matters and I can clearly see the goal here is to be respectful in the main article and in anything linking to it. This Rfc is absolutely giving us a chance to discuss and come up with the best way in which to do that. Thank you for setting it up. I knew something had to be done -- I just didn't know where to start. I'm sure I wasn't alone in this. -- spazure (contribs) 19:01, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  I think your comment was very level-headed and logical, and so thank for your that additional information. I will try to be more careful with the term "preferred name". – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 20:34, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option A or B preferred, option E acceptable: These options are the most consistent with MOS:GENDERID and WP:BLP in my opinion. Kaldari (talk) 04:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A or Option E, but more so: I would suggest a site-wide policy - not just a MOS:DEADNAME policy - that within the "Cast" section or within an infobox, any film credit which doesn't match the name on the actor's Wikipedia article should be treated this way, with either a footnote or a parenthetical. For example, the director of The Birds II is credited as Rick Rosenthal (as Alan Smithee), and one of the actors in Fast Times at Ridgemont High is listed as Nicolas Cage as Brad's Bud (credited as Nicolas Coppola) - though it's worth noting, as someone said down in the Extended Discussion, that this isn't universally applied and many screen credits are in fact reproduced incorrectly here. I think everyone would agree that a reader who saw Nicolas Coppola as Brad's Bud and clicked through to find that they were redirected to Nicolas Cage would be surprised by that. (However, the text of the article outside of the "Cast" section or infobox should use only the name matching the Wikipedia article; the Fast Times article says - correctly - ...the film marks early appearances by several actors who later became stars, including Nicolas Cage....) I recognize the special weight that deadnames have in the trans/NB community (of which I am a member, not that that gives me any special right to speak on anyone else's behalf), and I would not support expanding this policy beyond the domain of film and television, but screen credits are an odd bird. SAG, the DGA, the WGA, and other stakeholders have spent a century hashing out crediting policies, down to the difference between "[Writer] and [Writer]" versus "[Writer] & [Writer]", and the precise name used in the credits carries particular weight. The frustrating truth is that the very public nature of an actor's post-fame transition means that some of the usual courtesies just don't really work very well, and I think this is one of those cases. 2601:14D:4180:F5A0:CD56:C843:5B95:949B (talk) 05:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I think this is very well-said, and does a good job of addressing the peculiarities of cast credits as opposed to other kinds of references to names. You've persuaded me to change my own preference. ~ oulfis 🌸(talk) 06:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A, B, or E, depending on context, clarity, ease of use, etc. Claims that using someone's new name in an article about old work constitutes "retroactively changing content" are a red herring. Wikipedia is here to provide information to its readers; the information the readers are seeking is more likely to be "which actor played Juno in Juno?", not "what text appeared on the screen in the credits of Juno?" That first question has an answer, and the answer to that question is a person who has a name, and his name is Elliot. AJD (talk) 07:16, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• ACEF are all fine, depending on context. As per SMcCandlish, the B and D options are unsuitable as they are attempts at changing what is already established in print and public awareness. Wikipedia is here to provide facts, not hide them. Binksternet (talk) 05:49, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C, because that is what matches the credits, is what matches the character they were playing or what they accomplished, and is what appears in essentially all of the article's sources, being in the context of that particular work or event. This also matches WP:TVCAST and WP:FILMCAST, which are also guidelines. The footnote then explains that their name changed, thus showing both names and who they are now, and forestalls drive-by attempts to "fix" it. ("The Wachowskis" is a special case since "Wachowskis" is gender-neutral; it is not a helpful guide to other cases.) Strongly oppose Option B as leading to confusing results, like why someone named Caitlyn Jenner won medals in men's sports, or why someone named Elliot Page starred in a movie as a pregnant girl. Option A is almost as bad for the same reasons. We are not supposed to WP:ASTONISH readers. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:18, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I see absolutely no reason why a nonbinary actor cannot play the part of a "pregnant girl" - I think you are taking ciscasting requirements a little bit too far, if you find that ASTONISHing. :p
  • Also, TVCAST and FILMCAST support the use of the COMMONNAME, which in this case is the current one. So those guidelines offer less support to Option C than you here imply. Newimpartial (talk) 06:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I see that you still view the very new name of a transgender person as the common name as opposed to the name that they have been known by for significantly longer. Per a different discussion, we've been over why you feel that way. But the general public does not know Page by their new name. The Internet is not what is typically called "the general public." Many, likely most, people still do not yet know that Page has come out as transgender, which is why editors at Page's talk page have suggested using singular they throughout the article instead of masculine pronouns. Well that, and because Page has stated that using singular they for them is fine. So I disagree that newer sources using Page's new name automatically means that the new name is now the common name. WP:NAMECHANGES does not state that newer sources using the new name means that the new name is now the common name. The reason we are going with the new name is because it's what newer sources are using out of respect for Page. We follow their lead. And those newer sources have to use Page's former name in addition to the new name just so people know who they are talking about. Why is that? It's because the former name is currently the most common/recognizable.

All that stated, I accept that editors disagree when it comes to the WP:Common name policy in cases such as these. It's clear by this 2013 Chelsea Manning move request that editors were divided then, too, on interpretations of the WP:Common name policy. And although the closer of that move request stated that "[t]he core of the debate comes down to differing interpretations of WP:COMMONNAME, part of our policy on article titles", that "[b]oth sides cite COMMONNAME as supporting their positions: those supporting the move see the intent of the policy as 'what do the reliable sources use (now)?' and those opposing the move view it as 'what name does the average person recognize?'" and that "[b]oth of these interpretations are reasonable", he the closer came down on the side that viewed "Chelsea Manning" as the common name. And yet, because the former name was so recognizable (and still is), he the closer suggested a compromise. Similarly, WP:Common name does recognize that there can be more than one common name. It states, "When there are multiple names for a subject, all of which are fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others." In this case, the previous name is a problem for obvious reasons. But in another high-profile case, when the Bruce Jenner article was moved to Caitlyn Jenner, the supporters used MOS:IDENTITY as an argument to move the article, while the opposers used the WP:Common name policy as an argument for not moving the article. So, yeah, I suspect that different interpretations of the WP:Common name policy will persist on this matter unless it's reworded one way or the other. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 01:37, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

The following claim seems odd to me: But the general public does not know Page by their new name. The Internet is not what is typically called "the general public." The Elliot Page trans coming out story is scarcely confined to The Internet - it has been covered extensively on broadcast and print media as well. I'm not saying we shouldn't anticipate the ASTONISHMENT of those who know Page from Netflix and don't follow the news, but in this particular case the magnitude of coverage and recognition of the new name has itself been astonishing.

Also, it has been a long time since Chelsea Manning's coming out, and there is the evidence of repeated RfCs and article-level editing practices showing that the community does now treat the new name as the COMMONNAME as soon as it is reliably sourced. But I suspect some kind of underlying metaphysical difference means we will never agree on this as a matter of principle. Newimpartial (talk) 15:47, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Saying that the general public knows Page by this very new name and that this very new name is Page's common name is what is odd to me. But I've already been over why above. I've been at Wikipedia for a long time and have seen common name discussions regarding people, businesses and the like, and people usually argue that the very new name is not the common name. The only times I have seen people argue that the very new name is the common name is in cases concerning transgender people. Manning's coming out wasn't that long ago, but it is the case that a lot has changed with respect to transgender visibility and how the world treats transgender topics since then. I brought up Manning to show that, even back then, people disagreed about whether or not the very new name could be the common name. This isn't about a metaphysical difference since this isn't about what is real and what isn't. But it is correct that you and I will never agree that the very new name can be the common name over the significantly more recognizable name. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 00:00, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

MOS:GENDERID says "Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what is most common in reliable sources", while WP:NAMECHANGES says "we give extra weight to reliable sources written after the name change. If the reliable sources written after the change is announced routinely use the new name, Wikipedia should follow suit and change relevant titles to match" and WP:SPNC says "The determination of how much extra weight should be given to more recent sources is guided by the likelihood the new name is going to stick – while Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, it needs to be unavoidable that the new name will soon be the most common name". Do you genuinely think that reliable sources are going to continue to call Elliot Page "Ellen"? – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 01:56, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

MOS:GENDERID is not about article titles. And I don't need to be told what any of these pages state. I was clear about my argument regarding the WP:Common name policy. I never argued anything like "reliable sources are going to continue to call Elliot Page 'Ellen'." What I stated was "[the] newer sources have to use Page's former name in addition to the new name just so people know who they are talking about. Why is that? It's because the former name is currently the most common/recognizable." Once the new name is more recognizable, they won't have to state "formerly known as Ellen Page" or similar. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 04:59, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

And yet you think we should use two options that would ignore those reliable sources as well as provide no information about the name change? Weird. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 05:07, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Considering that I never argued that, it is weird indeed. If you are referring to me choosing options C and F in this RfC, my vote does not conflict with anything I stated above. It does not conflict with MOS:GENDERID or the WP:Common name policy. If it did, the options I chose would not be options. An RfC like this can't override MOS:GENDERID or the WP:Common name policy. We have MOS:GENDERID and we still do what we do for articles regarding Caitlyn Jenner's Olympic career, as you very well know. You can dislike my vote all you want to, but you will not be hassling me about it. I kept it brief for two reasons: Others have already made the points for me, and I did not want to be hassled. I'm not interested in your need to argue just to argue. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 05:21, 5 December 2020 (UTC) Tweaked post. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 05:33, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Furthermore, Option C comes with "a footnote explaining the name change" and Option F comes with "a parenthetical containing their preferred name after their transition." So I don't know what the hell you are talking about by stating "provide no information about the name change." Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 05:26, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option C or F, ie as credited in the work which I believe should remain entire and intact as a whole, with an explanation of their later status and name. Captainllama (talk) 06:34, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option B or E depending on context. In most situations, in prose, there should generally not be a reference to a previous name ("Elliot Page stars as the title character" or "The ensemble cast includes Elliot Page"). If a subject won an award, held elected office, or did something similarly official under a previous name, there should be one parenthetical recognizing the name used at the time of the event ("1976 Decathlon gold medalist Catilyn Jenner (competing as Bruce Jenner"). In a list of award winners, or officeholders ("serving as...") I also would prefer a parenthetical. Also parentheticals are easier for readability than footnotes. --Enos733 (talk) 06:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E or A, on the first use for that film/show/competition/etc. This keeps it clear to the reader their status in that work while still respecting their name at present. For example, as another comment provided, "Elliot Page (credited as Ellen Page)" is a possible use. Of course, writing the article in a way to minimize the need for this would be best. However, in cases where that is not possible, I suggest this method. AAces17 (talk) 06:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A or Option E. There are two crucial pieces of information here. One is the individual's preferred name, and one is how they are credited or named in reliable sources. Any option which loses one or other piece of information must be avoided, so the question is over priority. I think the individual's preferred name should take priority, and note this lines up with the wordings in WP:DEADNAME. Something like "Elliot Page (credited as Ellen Page)" or "Elliot Page" with a footnote saying "credited as Ellen Page" would be ideal. Awoma (talk) 08:41, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A is the cleanest way to do this in a way that supports WP:FILMCAST, although I think we do need to be mindful about accessibility of footnotes. My gut instinct is they're not too friendly with screenreaders. Best, Darren-M talk 08:52, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Darren-M, footnotes seem to work fine with VoiceOver—I checked just now, and I didn't have any trouble navigating them. Perryprog (talk) 17:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E, as first choice, option A, as second - we need to follow sources, reduce confusion, and minimise harm. In my view, these are the two options that best do that. They probably don't do the last flawlessly, but any other options fail the first two needs to a far greater level. In that sense, they're the best compromise we have available. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:16, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E but only in a cast/credits section. I'm not a fan of unnecessary footnotes and a notes section shouldn't be needed for a single comment that can be parenthetical. Reywas92^Talk 09:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C. Works are a historical object that was true at that specific point in time. Sidestepping the non-binary individuals question for a second, if someone else gets married or changes their name, we still wouldn't use the updated name in previous works and if needed we note that in the articles. The same should be true here. Elliot Page did not appear in X-men, but rather a female Ellen Page. That distinction is pretty significant to the movie, as the movie did not have transgender representation, did not use a male actor to portray a female character, and did not change a female characters in the comics into a male character in the movie. We shouldn't expect readers to have to read a complete biography of every person who appeared in a film, to make sure that how they are represented in a specific film article is factual correct to how they were back then. In Elliot Page own article, use their preferred style of course. --Gonnym (talk) 09:58, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Isn't it better to be consistent, or am I misunderstanding the proposal? i.e. refer to the person by whatever name the article title is, regardless of what name the work (movie, academic paper, whatever) was credited under. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:07, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  I think the issue is the difference in what people believe is "consistent". For example, some people have argued that it is better to be "consistent" between the Wikipedia article and the film's credits at the time of release. It seems like you may be saying that Option B is the most consistent in your view? – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 10:16, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

This would not be a policy affecting an individual's own page, but other pages referencing them. For example, Juno's cast section currently lists Elliot Page as playing Juno, though he is credited in the film under his former name (and all contemporaneous sources on the film use this former name). This issue has come to prominence following Page coming out as transgender yesterday. Awoma (talk) 10:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option B using Option E where needed to avoid confusion. The point of a credit is to identify the person who performed the action/role. That person is identified by their current name. I can see that there may exist circumstances where using the current name would not convey information as simply as required, so rather than using a footnote this should be solved as a parenthetical much like IMDB does when someone is credited using a different version of their name. e.g. Samuel L. Jackson (As Sam Jackson). SPACKlick (talk) 10:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Some combination of Option A and Option B, as an interim solution, until the publishing industry catches up with this issue and develops relevant standards. I should say that in cases of doubt we should probably try to see how the author in question cites their earlier work, and take our cues from there. Nsk92 (talk) 11:20, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option D followed by Option C. Wikipedia is not in the business of revisionism. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:49, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C is the correct answer. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 13:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option B, but Option E may be appropriate in some circumstances, such as credits, as defaults. We should not have a hard-and-fast rule on this but rather be flexible and able to adapt to different circumstances, but when we cannot agree or there is no consensus, these are the most respectful options. SportingFlyer T·C 13:30, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Also, I'm not firmly opposed to Option A, but I think it's more awkward. SportingFlyer T·C 13:34, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option B It's my understanding that the trans, and more widely queer, community considers deadnames part of personal medical history. Like any medical detail made public by a notable person, it is relevant in their life and therefore will receive coverage in their bio, but it is rarely relevant to their body of work. Mentioning an actor's name in the capacity of a performance is talking about a person, not a screen credit, and should refer to the person. And, let's look at it this way: in the UK, Hilary and Leslie are male names, while in the U.S. they are female names. I can't say I've seen any confused questions at the Hilary Benn / Hillary Clinton, Les Dennis / Leslie Caron talkpages, so that argument holds no water. Kingsif (talk) 13:38, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I definitely agree that there is no issue with male/female names. Sufficiently many people have names atypical of their gender that this wouldn't cause confusion. However, leaving out key information present in the sources surely would? When every article about a film's production, every review of the film, and indeed the credits of the film itself, make reference to a certain name, which wikipedia completely omits, we demand too much of the reader to do the detective work in figuring out what has happened - we should just tell them. Awoma (talk) 14:31, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Awoma: Presumably those articles and reviews also use incorrect pronouns. We're not going to unnecessarily repeat either. When listing credits, list credits, but when talking about a person, just use their name. It's really simple. Kingsif (talk) 15:19, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes they would be using incorrect pronouns in this instance, thus making it even less clear that they are referring to the same person that wikipedia is. If we're (rightly) using different name and pronouns to the sources, clarity needs to be given to the reader to understand that the apparently two separate people are in fact one and the same. It doesn't need to be much - "credited as" would do it. Awoma (talk) 15:30, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, I was of the thinking that the "Cast" section would still use the name as-credited, but with this comment you've convinced me we should use the actual name for both (and consequently the dead name for neither). Seeing a name different to that of the source in the cast list section of an article would clue readers in to being aware that while a review may say X is played by Y, the cast list says X is played by Z, so when Z is mentioned in the rest of the article it is the same person as Y, but a different name.

And before it gets mentioned, we also have no requirement to match IMDb - their "(credited as)" comes from two reasons: 1. no actor can have more than one profile, all profiles have only one name (no space for explanation on a profile re. different names - bios have that space), and 2. legal responsibilities across credits for all roles where there can be important reasons pseudonyms were used, something that Wikipedia doesn't have. Nothing about not being able to know a credit with a different name is referring to the same person; with acting in particular, for those without vision loss it's quite obvious. We should also think about how we do treat psuedonyms: if Joe Smith directed a film under a pseudonym but there were no sources discussing the significance of the credit being not his real name, we would not include it for lack of significance. If Elliot Page starred in a film under an incorrect name and there is no source discussing why, the name that doesn't get mentioned is the one that is not the actor's real name. Kingsif (talk) 15:44, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

That I would disagree with. I think a lot of editors overestimate how the average reader engages with WP. They aren't looking at sources. Clarity for the reader is of utmost importance. In a cast list it should the person's linked actual name followed by (credited as [whatever name is used in credits]). That way the name used in the credits matches contemporaneous sources but the person's actual name is respected and the reader can click over to the person's article under their actual name to understand any apparent discrepancy. Capeo (talk) 23:32, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Actually, Hilary can be either a male or female name in both the UK and USA. Leslie is a male name in both countries, but a female name only in the USA (the female version in the UK is Lesley). It would be blatantly ludicrous, in my opinion, to credit someone with a clearly male name (and most names are clearly one gender or the other) playing a clearly female character (or vice versa). -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Actually it would be blatantly ludicrous to try and argue that all names have irrevocable gender. Or have you never watched Scrubs. Kingsif (talk) 15:16, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I doubt we're blowing too many minds with references to Alice Cooper or Michael Learned. If someone sees a name they read as one gender playing a character they read as another, they'll probably just think "oh... ok" and go about their business. Awoma (talk) 15:26, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Exactly. Nobody is confused with a Glenn Close or a Jamie Lee Curtis (three "male" names!) appearance next to that credit, and if your argument is that some people might think they were "being fooled" by deliberate use of a name then that response is often known as bigotry. Any argument that "most Wikipedia readers will be so confused the article won't make sense when they see a more traditionally one-gender name next to an other-gender role in a cast list" is completely ridiculous. Either they don't know who the actor is and just go "well I guess they have a weird name", or they click through to the bio and find out, or, most likely, they do know about the actor and it's a non-issue. Kingsif (talk) 15:34, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Oh come on, Jamie and Lee are both commonly used as women's names as well as men's (in fact, I would suggest that these days Jamie is more commonly used as a woman's name than a man's). Glenn and Michael are highly unusual for a woman. And it may surprise you to learn it, but Alice isn't his real name (and he's not an actor)! And no, I have never watched Scrubs. My point stands. A person should be credited should be credited using the name they used when they played the role. And I really would advise you not to imply that another editor is a bigot because they have a different opinion from you. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:46, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I've never met a woman called Jamie, strange. The Glenn and Michael (I have actually met a woman called Michael, which shows how flimsy such opinions on popularity and gender of names are) examples were exactly the point: unusual, but nobody questions it. A person is credited as they were in the film, but guess what, a Wikipedia article's prose isn't a list of credits, it's a longstanding encyclopedia entry. I didn't imply any editor was a bigot; I didn't intend to and I read back over my comment to clarify - I was clearly saying that basing an argument on a "some people" audience being angry doesn't stand because they would more likely be bigoted if someone else's name angers them; I didn't even say that you or any editor was making such an argument. Give it a break, you can't try to deflect valid points by crying wolf on not being called a bigot. Kingsif (talk) 18:00, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option F seems like the best option at the moment. Some Dude From North Carolina^{wanna talk?} 14:22, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C or D' - I'm not sure you need a footnote given that if you click their name you'll be taken to their page where it will explain it to you. I don't believe in changing names from what was credited. To be clear, I'm only referring to the pages for those works, not the page for the person themselves, which should be changed to reflect their current name (even when discussing previous works). Given the recent situation with Elliot Page, he was credited as Ellen Page for decades and numerous works. Even if Elliot always went by Elliot off camera, they had their credit listed as "Ellen". This would be the same if someone chose to list their name as "Tim" or "Timmy" for a few films, instead of "Timothy". Those film pages would still say "Tim" or "Timmy", but the link would go to a Timothy Smith. If the studios that produced these works went back and changed the credits of all their products to reflect the new name, then I would say yes, change it on the pages.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:26, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C or D. Where an individual is notable before their transition, we should use their name as it appeared at the time. It's a simple fact that Bruce Jenner won a Gold Medal at the 1976 Olympics and then transitioned later in life and that Ellen Page appeared in Inception and later transitioned. I'm not opposed to the use of a footnote, but it seems unnecessary given that we can link to the article. -- Calidum 15:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  It's a simple fact that Bruce Jenner won a Gold Medal at the 1976 Olympics and then transitioned later in life and that Ellen Page appeared in Inception – this is wrong. I know this isn't intentional (@Calidum:), but it's wrong, and a little offensive. Caitlyn Jenner is a former Olympian who competed under an incorrect name. Elliot Page appeared in Inception with a credit under an incorrect name. As soon as someone tells you their name, any other name you knew them by is not just an "alternative name", it is categorically incorrect. Nobody knows their own name better than themself. Not their parents, an Olympic title, a film credit, or a bunch of people on Wikipedia for that matter. Kingsif (talk) 15:52, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  "Incorrect" or not (IMO "undiscovered" is a better term), in 1976 a male named Bruce Jenner won the Gold, and in 2010 a female named Ellen Page starred in Inception. We can do our best to explain that both people no longer identify as those genders or under those names, but we are not here to right great wrongs. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 16:34, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Oh, but I strongly suspect that you are. Newimpartial (talk) 16:43, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  @Floydian: No, in 1976 a woman won the gold; in 2010 a person who uses he/they pronouns starred in Inception. Maybe realizing that should be your first hurdle. It is not righting great wrongs to write someone's name and gender correctly, we can do it for everyone else. Kingsif (talk) 16:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Your mileage may vary. As was mentioned in another comment, this whole deadnaming thing is entirely confined to a subculture of society, whereas our encyclopedia is written the entirety of society. Sure, write their CURRENT name correctly. Then note that they A) went by another name previously, or B) were credited under another name. This is not being a dick, this is not being insulting, this is stating the facts. It is not my hurdle to become a revisionist and apply announcements retroactively. I won't further address this as you are entitled to your opinion and I mine. What I would like addressed is a comment one of you made below: "deliberately referring to someone by a name they have told you not to use". We'd need a source for each instance of this. A simple announcement of "I am {insert name}" is not being told not to use their previous name in historical references. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 19:06, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Just to address this whole deadnaming thing is entirely confined to a subculture of society, I live in a jurisdiction (Canada, and don't you as well?) where deadnaming someone would be contrary to rights guaranteed in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and can subject the person or organization doing so to a human rights complaint or other legal sanction. I don't believe, however, that Canadians in general constitute a subculture. Newimpartial (talk) 19:17, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  As audacious as it is, I hold the Jordan Peterson viewpoint that my speech cannot be compelled. Bill C-16 and the charter regard discrimination, which isn't applicable to this. The passing of Bill C-16 by the government isn't a statement made by Canadians. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 19:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  I am not saying that deadnaming on this Talk page would be in violation of Canadian law (since it isn't under Canadian jurisdiction); it would be a WP:CIVIL violation. But in Ontario at least discrimination is a fairly broad concept, and misgendering is a form of discrimination. Similar laws apply to the vast majority of Canadians; the federal law was a laggard in this respect. But by all means, take your legal advice from a Jungian psychologist. Feelz over reals, amirite? 19:45, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Some of these comments are getting quite unrelated to this discussion, but since we're here, let's continue with the outreach and trans-sensitive education. I promise you, it is about a decade too late to still genuinely believe that this whole deadnaming thing is entirely confined to a subculture of society, unless you define "not assholes" as that subculture of society. The only average Wikipedia reader I can imagine objecting to handling the topic in a person-sensitive manner are those who think they have some right to decide someone else's name and be offended when that individual disagrees with them. And frankly, I only care what those people think when they're willing to learn the errors of those thoughts. Oh god, we should have a Jordan Peterson klaxon. Really? Sure, you have a right to call someone whatever you want, but that person has the right to sue your ass, and the Canadian government (whether you think their laws are representative of your opninion or not) has the right to fine you. Nobody can make you say anything you don't want to, but 1. if what you say is offensive there will be consequences, and 2. using that basis of free will as an argument specifically to say you're not necessarily in the wrong for going out of your way to say something harmful is perverse. "Don't be a dick" isn't just a Wikipedia mantra, it's how most well-adjusted adults avoid being punched in the face. Kingsif (talk) 20:37, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  I am concerned about the direction this discussion is going, especially in relation to WP:NLT. Can we cool it down a bit? —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 03:43, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  I hope it's clear there are NLT, but the example of, here, Canada (not the only country, obviously) is being used to say that just because someone can say whatever they want doesn't make it right, and some countries have codified that in law to indicate that it is morally wrong. Kingsif (talk) 12:25, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  I'm still thinking about all the times I've needed a Jordan Peterson klaxon but haven't had one available. :) Newimpartial (talk) 18:03, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option E or A, then F or C. I think it is right to use the name currently preferred by the person, but I am weary of doing so without context. Seeing a clearly female name on a male character or vice versa is certainly grounds for confusion, and without a footnote or a paranthetical (the most concise option) requires clicking through to the article and perhaps skimming several paragraphs to clear up. We should strive for clarity, and such confusion must be avoided. I do not regard the statement of a trans person being trans (and therefore having had a different name in the past) to be at all problematic; it is simply a statement of historical fact. Using name as credited with a note is a worse option as it gives prominence to the dead name, but it still contains all relevant information. Using only the name as credited is not acceptable. Karlinator (talk) 15:29, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C/D/F with the caveat that the work is still published under the former name. Option B is not acceptable. This isn't really about identification, it is about authorship. When you cite a work you cite the name it is published under. If the work is re-published under a new name then the credit should be updated accordingly. This isn't unique to gender identity, name changes often occur within marriage. As far as I am aware we don't adopt a revisionist approach for authorship/work credits when someone gets married so I don't know why name changes due to gender identity issues are being singled out. Wikipedia shouldn't intentionally cause offence but we shouldn't be putting cultural sensitivities before encyclopedic accuracy. We need a balanced approach. Betty Logan (talk) 15:40, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • "As far as I am aware we don't adopt a revisionist approach for authorship/work credits when someone gets married so I don't know why name changes due to gender identity issues are being singled out. Wikipedia shouldn't intentionally cause offence but we shouldn't be putting cultural sensitivities before encyclopedic accuracy." You put it very well. There is special pleading going on here, with name changes that relate to trans issues held to be exempt from the straightforward way we treat unmarried/married names, legal names vs stage names, names changed during the course of a career (e.g. Cat Stevens) and so on. The basis of this seems to be a taboo that has developed, in a particular subculture and very recently, against so-called 'deadnaming'. It is reminiscent of the Aboriginal Australian taboo against using the personal names of people who have died. No one should go out of their way to offend, but Wikipedia should not be bound by these taboos. Beorhtwulf (talk) 15:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
    • Note that MOS:CHANGEDNAME currently treats gender-related name changes differently from other name changes, which was reaffirmed in the recent RfC that was closed memorably as don't be a dick. The present RfC doesn't offer a path to reverse this difference in treatment, which cannot be considered "special pleading" once it is already policy. The current matter is to decide on aspects of the scope and implementation of said different treatment. And when NOTCENSORED comes up against don't be a dick, the community has said that the latter principle should prevail. Newimpartial (talk) 16:02, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
    • Just comparing deadnaming - deliberately referring to someone by a name they have told you not to use and that is associated with a period where they could not openly express themselves - to using someone's maiden name shows you have no idea about the subject. The same is also clear from the way you put so-called 'deadnaming'; @Beorhtwulf:, downplaying struggles of trans people is offensive and completely unnecessary in the context you wrote that so I strongly suggest you remove it. It's not about a taboo, it's just common decency. Imagine if you encountered a trans actor in real life and wanted to talk about one of their films, and then said "but because you were credited as X in the film, I'm going to use that name for this whole discussion". Would you do that? Nothing's being revised as you so claim; the actor is the same, we're not saying someone else played the role. Kingsif (talk) 16:11, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
      • I note your suggestion that I remove my comment but I chose my words carefully and cannot agree. I don't set out to offend and I hope you can acknowledge that. We disagree I think about the extent to which certain people's reception of comments as offensive should govern decisions about when to retract them. I think you can take the view that the cultural prohibition against deadnaming that has emerged very recently in certain circles is a form of naming taboo, in the sense anthropologists would use it, without also suggesting that it is illegitimate. The people I've come across who oppose deadnaming appear sincere and well-meaning and I don't doubt that you're one of them. To answer your question about meeting a trans actor, the analogy doesn't quite work. If I met Yusuf Islam I would refer to him as "Mr Islam" or "Yusuf" even when asking him about his upbringing or career in the 1970s, because I'm having a realtime conversation with him in the year 2020. The same would apply if I met a trans actor. This is not the same as narrating a person's life and career history in an encyclopedia article that seeks to avoid writing from a perspective of recentism. I have no objection to our article using the name Elliot Page to refer to any acting credits or anything else notable that postdates the December 2020 name change. I am not going around insisting trans people always and forever use their birth names, only arguing against retrospective rewrites of history. Beorhtwulf (talk) 16:19, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
        • And you are going to lose, both in this specific instance and in the general principle. The community has already moved on (and, as has been pointed out, we don't apply this "name people used at the time" principle when we write encyclopaedic articles about historical figures, anyway. If we did, these articles would be very difficult to follow). Newimpartial (talk) 16:26, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
        • (edit conflict) I don't doubt you don't mean to offend; anyone genuinely taking part in this discussion I believe is doing so with the best of intentions. Now, I wrote something above about it not being our place to decide, that if Page or any other actor tells the public their name, we should use that name, no questions asked; it's not taboo to just not be a dick. To respond to the retraction question, my point was that it was unnecessary; the way you chose your words was ill-informed, I'm afraid, and while you likely didn't mean to downplay trans struggles the fact is you could have just said "deadnaming", no "so-called", no quotation marks as if it's a made-up concept. I still think you should retract it, for your benefit because I never thought it would offend anyone in this forum, rather make you look bad. If you want to keep it, do consider that. I also take issue with how you've phrased [people] who oppose deadnaming appear sincere and well-meaning as if we are people to be pitied for being well-intentioned but misguided. I will assume you don't intend that, either. This is a long-winded introduction to really say that you have answered a rhetorical question by deconstructing an analogy instead of addressing the point; a person is a person, and that person has a name, and it is not RECENT to use a person's correct name at any given point in time. That's thankfully a benefit of Wikipedia. When we are made aware of a mistake, and using a dead name is a mistake, we can fix it post-haste.
        • If I could politely educate you some more, it would be remiss for me to not address your final comment, where you suggest that any notability pre-transition should retain the name used at the time. That's wrong - in your own Yusuf Islam example, you wrote that you would call him Yusuf and not, say, a childhood nickname, even when talking about said childhood. If you were writing a biography, you would not use the childhood nickname; if you were writing a current review about him or anyone else in a school play as a child, you would not refer to them by the childhood nickname, even if they were exclusively known by the nickname as a child. And you would especially not do any of that if they didn't like the nickname. Kingsif (talk) 16:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
        • In countries where free speech is cherished biographies of public figures may be unauthorized and therefore contain information which is not necessarily cherished by the subject (as as long as it factual). So your argument doesn't make sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Knoterification (talk • contribs) 01:00, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option B situationally A or E. Option B if the person was not notable under their deadname, Option A for wide notaybility, Option E for specific credits. Care must be taken, many reliable sources will now go and remove deadnames on request (Times magazine for example recently seen) what may once have been one option may become another as sources adapt. B should be the default in ambiguous cases unless notable use of their name can be demonstrated within the encyclopedic content with reliable sourcing. Antisymmetricnoise (talk) 16:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option B, alternatively A or E may be appropriate. It does depend on context. My views are fairly similar to Antisymmetricnoise just above. The Land (talk) 18:23, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option D or C: I am persuaded by WP:FILMCAST: "All names should be referred to as credited, or by common name supported by a reliable source." As such, in cases of notability pre-transition, I believe it is our best policy to continue using names as credited (in line with FILMCAST as it stands right now), with such names redirecting to the current page, with, of course, a note about transition on the person's page (as is the case with Elliot Page and Caitlyn Jenner). Still, there's a good deal of context needed, and I can agree with The Land and Antisymmetricnoise above me regarding "Option B if the person was not notable under their deadname". — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 18:52, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Except that we already have the NAMECHANGES section of WP:COMMONNAME, which specifies that when a name a change occurs, we give extra weight to reliable sources written after the name change. If the reliable sources written after the change is announced routinely use the new name, Wikipedia should follow suit - in other words, the changed nama is the "common name supported by a reliable source" as noted in FILMCAST. (Yes, I know COMMONNAME technically applies to article titles not to mentions, but it does define the concept of "common name" on a site-wode basis.) Newimpartial (talk) 19:07, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option E or as a distant second A. Simply because I find footnotes as less than obvious for most readers, particularly on mobile. This formulation should always be used in cast lists or similar non-prose situations. When it comes to the actual prose of an article, this formulation should only be used once at the first mention of the person's name. Thereafter the deadname shouldn't be used. I can't envision a situation where their deadname would need to be used again. Maybe if it's part of direct quote, but then one would really need to question if said quote even needs to be in the article. Obviously, this all assumes the person was notable under their deadname. Capeo (talk) 19:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E, as first choice, option A, as second, per Nosebagbear. Armadillopteryx 19:35, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option F or Option E. I think we need to mention both names to avoid the potential for confusion. Not mentioning the old name means that the credits in the article will not match up with the credits in the work, implies that the work features cross-gender casting (which is very unusual), and may also confuse readers who don't know the person under the new name. Not mentioning the new name may also confuse people who aren't familiar with the old one. Since this is very brief I don't think it necessarily needs to be moved to a footnote but I'm not particularly opposed to doing so. Hut 8.5 19:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• m:Gender gap is really incredibly relevant here. If ever there were a time to defer to the wishes and practices of the affected community, this is it. (To avoid any doubt, the affected community here is trans/nb folks, not wikipedians.) I'm not asking any wikipedians to out themselves here, but maybe the normal WP consensus process is poorly suited to this task? - Revolving Bugbear 20:00, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E first choice, A second, B third I definitely think that preference should be given to the new name (for the same "do no harm" principle that motivates MOS:DEADNAME). I am sympathetic to the concerns about confusion for a reader, though, so mentioning the old name in a subordinate context is reasonable, and I think a parenthetical phrase probably does that best. If consensus is that the old name isn't necessary, I will be surprised, but I certainly don't object. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A (better to always some pedagogy) followed by Option B, we need to do the minimum harm. Kvardek du (talk) 20:41, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option D or C for the same reasons as others have said, and under absolutely no circumstances B. No matter which way you want to twist it, Elliot Page was known as Ellen Page, publicly used that name, publicly claimed to be a woman and consciously chose to be credited under that name. People have no trouble with Sean Combs being referred to as "Puff Daddy", "P. Diddy" or "Diddy" on different album pages depending on which name he was using at the time, there shouldn't be any trouble with Elliot being referred to as "Ellen Page" on the Inception infobox (the article itself can have a mention of "Elliot Page (then known as Ellen Page)" or something. Happy Evil Dude (talk) 21:35, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E followed by Option A We should absolutely include people's preferred (I don't like that word) names. As a trans person with a deadname, I am sensitive to the concerns that we should not include deadnames. However, there is also the reality that for people who have been previously notable under a deadname, regular folks may find it difficult to navigate based on their new name. I think we can weigh our need to respect those we cover with a need to be a usable encyclopedia by using people's preferred names, but having some kind of note about deadname for readers who may not be familiar with their transition. I prefer a parenthetical option, as footnotes are not widely read. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 22:20, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A or B, followed distantly by Option E To avoid doing harm to the subject or to other transgender individuals who empathise with the subject, I would support not Deadnaming as far as possible, without clouding the meaning of the text. In an ideal world I'd prefer Option B but we do need to keep the article intelligible? I guess I'm just repeating myself and others at this point though. CHABGO (talk) 22:35, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E as it respects the primacy of the current name while also being clear that the publication was under an older name. It is clear and easily understood. It is better than using footnotes because those require the reader to jump around the page and not everybody reads them anyway. --DanielRigal (talk) 22:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option B generally, unless there would be clear confusion for readers of highly notable articles in which Option E should be an acceptable alternative, but used sparingly. Avoid deadnaming wherever possible but sometimes mentioning the old name as an aside may be the only way to minimize reader confusion. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 23:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A or Option B. If we're going to refer to trans people by their preferred name within their article (as is the current practice, as it should be) then we should refer to them as such in other articles as well. If there is a need to clarify that they may have been credited differently, a footnote should suffice. Hominid77777 (talk) 23:31, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Dec 3 arbitrary break

• Option C and then, followed by D because name as credited in the work will not changed before their preferred name change. — YoungForever^(talk) 01:55, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C, D or F as appropriate (doing F all the time would make the page much "heavier" for no reason), because it's most consistent with the existing MOS:CHANGEDNAME section, and the path of least astonishment for readers who may well be coming from a particular work by the person, where they were cited with their name from that time. Being respectful is fine, but artificially changing history is not actually being respectful of the encyclopedia. LjL (talk) 02:15, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
  • "Artificially changing history" is a red herring. It is not "changing history" to state that Elliot Page starred in Juno any more than it is changing history to state that, say, the dwarf planet Eris was photographed as early as 1954, or that bohrium was discovered in 1976. The names "Eris" and "bohrium" would not be used for those entities until 2006 and 1997 respectively, but they are now the correct names for them and discussion of them at earlier dates properly uses those names. It's not necessary to use the term "unnilseptium" to refer to bohrium in the context of research about it conducted prior to 1997, even though "unnilseptium" was considered the correct name for bohrium at that time. Elliot Page's name is now Elliot Page; even if, like bohrium and Eris, he was known by other names at other times in his life, we're writing about him and informing people about him now and should refer to him by what his name is now. (All the more so given that it is considered rude and offensive to refer to trans people by their deadnames, which is not the case for elements and planets. Why should bohrium, an unstable atom, get more consideration than Elliot Page, a human person?) AJD (talk) 03:00, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option D, and if necessary Option C if there is information on the past work page that is dated after the transition that names the person after the transition. There are limited exceptions like the Matrix films where a clean option to "mask" the deadname is possible but in a case of Page, there's simply no way to hide their old name from how it was reported from at the time, and trying to go out of our way to hide a notable deadname is against common sense. --Masem (t) 02:30, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  Seriously? How do E or A hide a deadname? They quite clearly include the person's deadname. They are clearly the best way to not confuse readers while respecting notable people. The idea that you think "masking" a deadname is a "clean option" is simply gross disappointing. Capeo (talk) 02:51, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  Taking a film like Inception, the bulk of the sources are going to use the name "Ellen Page" in referring to the actor and at this point, none of them using "Elliot Page". We are going to be confusing readers who will be trying to research more information on Inception and Page's involvement by bringing the name that has no source association with the film to the forefront and hiding the deadname. Unless the rest of the world retroactively changes names in old articles that would alleviate this issue, we should not be doing that ourselves as well. And while I respect avoiding the deadnames for individuals where the deadname was simply not well known, Page's case is one that we simply cannot hide; it was used far too much to ignore. That's why we make a clear difference already in MOS:DEADNAME for the use of deadnames if they were used while the person was notable (as in Page's case as well as Jenner's). --Masem (t) 15:15, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  Just so that we are clear, the difference between C and D is that C includes a footnote with the current name and D does not. I am unaware of a universe in which providing a footnote reporting the name an actor currently uses would be be confusing readers. Unless what is meant is that we would be confusing readers by notifying them that an actor of whose career they may have been at least vaguely aware has come out as trans - which is probably a kind of "confusion" that would be good for them to have. The difference between these two options has nothing to do with avoiding the deadname - it is about giving valuable information to readers. The proposed restriction - only to include a footnote if there are critical sources cited in the article that use the current name - does not do anything valuable for our readers but merely seems to cover an extreme deficiency of D, which should instead give rise to a rethink. Newimpartial (talk) 15:52, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option E seems to be the best way to balance using the correct name/not being transphobic (unintentionally or otherwise) with preventing out-of-the-loop readers from getting confused when they see a transgender person’s preferred name. Second choice would be Option A but I always prefer parentheses to footnotes as they are less disruptive to the reader (no need to roll over/click on stuff). —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 03:47, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E or F. A credited / current name distinction is too relevant to relegate to a footnote, so should be mentioned directly in the text. Option A for a third choice. While I suspect the goal of this may be consistency, I would be fine with forsaking consistency and allowing some discretion between E, F, and A - F being used for cases where the original gender is extremely relevant / surprising (e.g. Jenner competing in Men's Olympics events), E being used in most cases, and A being used when the deadname is more of a curiosity (e.g. the first edition of a book that sold far more in later editions published under an updated name). SnowFire (talk) 06:28, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A, B, E – I can see why a footnote might be helpful in case people are not up to date with the developments in an individual's life and would like some more context. I think there's no point using someone's previous name in the body of the article. If we have a dry list of names, it could say for example "Adam Smith (credited as Amanda Smith)". Otherwise since the article is talking about a specific person, it makes no sense to refer to that person using anything else other than their current name. BeŻet (talk) 12:19, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option D, per arguments by User Geraldo Perez, like: "as Ellen Page". After the name change, all credits and references should be Elliot Page, unless if it's someone else's quoted speech (written or spoken). -Mardus /talk 13:34, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  Could you clarify? You said "option D" in big bold letters, but it sounds like the plan you're recommending is more like option E. AJD (talk) 15:06, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option A/E, generally describe people using the name by which they are currently known. Wikipedia articles are written in the present. Add "credited as" or similar note where necessary in context. BegbertBiggs (talk) 14:49, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A/E, for the reasons cited above. I see consensus emerging here. Jmill1806 (talk) 15:46, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A or E, in that order, as cited above. I'm also more than fine with Option B (preferred name without qualification), tbh. The idea that someone is going to be so confused but incapable of clicking feels like a strawman to me. I'm with AJD on the more general point: Wikipedia is here to provide information to its readers; the information the readers are seeking is more likely to be "which actor played Juno in Juno?", not "what text appeared on the screen in the credits of Juno?" That first question has an answer, and the answer to that question is a person who has a name, and his name is Elliot. The idea that we need to push someone's trans status into readers' consciousness at every mention feels unnecessary and like giving undue weight to their deadname, to me. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk; please {{ping}} me in replies) 17:15, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C Credits are credits no need to retroactively change them. Gotitbro (talk) 18:27, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  Whether or not to retroactively change credits is a decision that's up to movie studios; many trans people would recommend that they should if possible. Wikipedia, however, is meant to be a source of information to its readers. If Wikipedia readers want to know the answer to the question "Who played Juno in Juno?", they should know that the answer to that question is Elliot Page. AJD (talk) 18:39, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  @Ajd: You are right. Changing my vote to Option E as both terms might be equally important. Gotitbro (talk) 19:31, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• A/E first choice; either way should be allowed; parenthetical, footnote, in-text, or whatever method, should be left up to editor discretion to be decided case by case. C and F are second choices. They'd be OK, but when we identify cast members (or work authors or whatever), we are identifying people, not text. Our readers generally want to know, "Who starred in that movie?", not "What name did they credit the starring role"? As an example, the person who starred in Juno is named Elliot. Sure, he was credited under a different name, but the person is named Elliot. We should identify the person who played the role, not what it said in the end credits; what name they were credited under is secondary to who was in the role. So A/E better than C/F. D... well, D would be a second choice if, instead of a footnote, a wikilink was used, or some other method of identifying the person (e.g., a parenthetical as in F). So D as written is a little overly restrictive, but I don't agree with "name as credited without any indication of actual name". If that's what D means, then I oppose D. On similar grounds, not B is important; for clarity, whenever there is a discrepancy between how a person is credited and the person's name, we should explain, somewhere, that discrepancy. Levivich ^harass/_hound 18:48, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A and Option E are the least bad potentially OK, and the decision between a parenthetical and a footnote is probably so dependent upon the specific circumstances that there's no point in trying to make a blanket rule. There are also cases where Option B would be acceptable, when all the individual's achievements for which they are noteworthy came after their transition and the biographical information about their earlier life is both sparse and uninteresting (e.g., a scientist who passes WP:PROF and whose pre-transition biography is just where they went to college). However, preferred name is not good terminology; as spazure noted above, it's their actual ... name. Preferred is a weaker adjective than, for example, chosen. XOR'easter (talk) 19:17, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  Reading this again the next day, it seems less enthusiastic about Option B than I intended. Revised accordingly. I should say that I have actually had occasion to cite a trans colleague's work in a scholarly publication, and I asked for advice about how to describe a book published under their deadname. The format "[actual name], writing as [deadname]" was, in their words, a "good workaround". XOR'easter (talk) 18:52, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option B or Option A. An actor doesn’t become a new person when they announce their new name – it only makes sense to use their correct name whenever referring to them. --Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 21:10, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option G (not included so far)... take it on a case by case basis. Too much depends on how notable the person was under the previous name. If all we have under the previous name are credits for minor rolls, it makes sense to “update” them to the new one. However, if the person is extremely notable under the old name, then “updating” becomes ridiculous. Blueboar (talk) 21:35, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Who the hell is Norma Jeane Mortenson?

• Interpret on a case-by-case basis, but since nobody wants to go for that, Option A or Option C or Option E or Option F (basically, any damn thing but B or D). With some pretty heavy caveats on a single guideline: Norma Jeane Mortenson, for example, preferred the name Marilyn Monroe for most of her life, she was nearly always credited under that name, and we refer to her by that name long before she came up with it ("Monroe's early childhood was stable and happy"). The same is true of Saul Hudson ("During his early years, Slash was raised by his father and paternal grandparents"). and O'Shea Jackson ("Ice Cube was born on June 15, 1969"). So there is clearly some precedent for crediting people under their preferred names -- but then again, Ramón Antonio Gerard Estévez (you know, the guy who played the President in The West Wing, whose son is Charlie Sheen) -- is credited as Martin Sheen in every movie he's been in, and we call him this on Wikipedia, despite him disliking the name ("I started using Sheen, I thought I'd give it a try, and before I knew it, I started making a living with it and then it was too late. In fact, one of my great regrets is that I didn't keep my name as it was given to me. I knew it bothered my dad"). Similarly, Chris McCandless began exclusively referring to himself as Alexander Supertramp, and was quite clear on this being his new name, but then he died and everyone started calling him "Chris", which our article title represents for whatever reason. I would assume that all of these articles got to be the way they are by virtue of long, arduous debates that reached a different consensus based on specific details of the situation at hand. It's not abundantly clear to me that applying a uniform principle to name changes across the board would result in less controversy, or in the overall encyclopedia becoming more correct. jp×g 22:20, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• A/E as having a note, footnote or otherwise would be useful to readers unaware of a celebrities gender transition who might possibly get confused. I prefer parenthetical over footnotes, but either one works for me. I think something similar to "Elliot Page (credit as Ellen Page)" would suffice. QueerFilmNerd^talk 23:41, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C. And if not that, then Option F. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 01:37, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Name as published/credited because if you're searching for a reference, that's what is the relevant information. Footnotes/Parentheticals as needed. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:03, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  This seems to presume that searching for a reference is the determining factor in how to write text, and that the name as credited is the only relevant information for that goal, both of which seem debatable to me. XOR'easter (talk) 17:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option E, but Option F acceptable in some cases. Because of the issues of identity and dignity involved with deadnaming, I recognize that it is right to treat these name changes differently from those associated with marriage or the use of a nickname, middle name, etc. In these latter cases, we often write the name as credited but wikilink to the individual's article as presently titled, with no further explanation on the work's page. But for a transgender individual, it behooves us to choose an approach that more prominently uses the person's chosen name. But, at the same time, the name as credited in the work should be accurately represented as a matter of verifiable information. Because of the complex issues around deadnaming, I think our preference should be to present the new chosen name as the main piece of information; this leaves the question of how to present the former name. I was originally inclined towards Option A, thinking that a footnote is a suitably unobtrusive way to include the deadname. However, after reading comments here that footnotes are, in fact, too obscure to provide the desired clarity, I was persuaded to support Option E instead. However, in the relatively small number of cases where the perceived gender of the person at the time is directly relevant to the immediate passage (such as an "Accolades" listing that includes a nomination for a gendered award, or in the specific case of Juno where there is discussion of the innately female biology of a cisgender female character who was played by a transmale actor), it should be acceptable to reverse the priority and use Option F if it enhances readability or clarity. Also, as SnowFire mentioned, there could also be instances where Option A (and by extension to my preferences, Option C) is more appropriate because the name change is less germane. --DavidK93 (talk) 08:04, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - We most certainly should not be retro-erasing anyone's previous name, no matter what level of lack of notability it has. GoodDay (talk) 12:59, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  That would be an argument against the MOS:DEADNAME policy itself, which this discussion is not about. We already recognize that dead-names are generally not appropriate to use at all if that the person was not notable under that name. Since we already have a policy against using dead-names if the person was not notable under that name, this RfC is specifically about when the person was notable under their dead-name. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 01:44, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Does that mean re-directs of former names will also be deleted? GoodDay (talk) 02:26, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option E, which should apply more broadly in cases of changed names. Mentions of individuals should convey to the reader both the current name, so that they can identify the person being referenced, and the name in use at the time, as a matter of historical accuracy. Both functions are critical, so neither should be relegated to a footnote. Wording along the lines of "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor)" or "Elliot Page (credited as Ellen Page)" do this very succinctly and clearly.--Trystan (talk) 14:05, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C Unequivocally. 10 toes down. As credited in the work with a footnote explaining that they have since transitioned. No "or" about it. People may find dead-naming rude but it’s impossible for an actor, especially, to avoid. This is an encyclopedia: there is an obligiation to inform the reader of facts and history, not to rewrite it. Leaving out a footnote is disingenuous. Parenthesis can become a bit sloppy and clunky. But claiming an identity that didn’t previously exist did something in the past when evidence shows otherwise is insanity. Trillfendi (talk) 17:10, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  Your rationale doesn't connect to your preference. There is an obligation to inform the reader of facts and history, yes. If the fact that the reader wants to learn about is "Who played Juno in the film Juno?", the fact is that the answer to that question is Elliot Page. Elliot Page is the person who, in 2007, starred in the film Juno. Similarly, Mahershala Ali appeared in the series Crossing Jordan, and Alexander Siddig played Julian Bashir in the first three seasons of Deep Space Nine. "An identity that didn't... exist" is nonsense. AJD (talk) 18:04, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  But the reality is, Elliot Page didn’t play Juno, defying special relativity and context. Ellen Page did, let the record show. When the character was played, Page was still Ellen both in legal identity and acting credit, and still cisgender, to public knowledge and presentation. Chosen by Jason Reitman for the role because they were in fact a young woman. That matters to the damn movie (which is about the stigma of teenage pregnancy from the female perspective) and to when it was made (a different decade where this subject was not even an idea or a factor, let alone controversial to the movie). Some editors here want the reader to think otherwise. Just last year, Diablo Cody's only regret was how it holds up in a contemporary world where abortion access is now criminalized—she wouldn’t have made the movie because of that aspect or would have rewritten it to make her politics clearer. Another thing that infers the female perspective as it is women who bear the brunt of abortion restriction. This isn’t about a simple, facile, “Victoria Adams was the Spice Girl 👠” routine name change (or that Mahershalalhashbaz Ali was too difficult to pronounce so he shortened it) as you’re trying to make it out to be. If one is going to say Ellen Page, as the actress, didn’t play Juno, just go ahead and wipe the whole career filmography from existence. At Thanksgiving is was Ellen Grace Philpotts-Page (born February 21, 1987) is a Canadian actress. Just 4 days ago this wouldn’t be a Request for Comment. So the only realistic option is to leave the previous, female stage name that the entire career centered on with a note. Trillfendi (talk) 20:13, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  The reality is that Elliot Page and Ellen Page are the same person, not two different people. One person played the character Juno. At the time he had one name; now he has a different name; still the same person. The reality is that Elliot Page played Juno and Ellen Page played Juno because both names refer to the same person. The reality is that this is a picture of Marilyn Monroe and Norma Jean Mortenson because both names refer to the same person. It's not not a picture of Marilyn Monroe because the person in the picture didn't go by that name at that time. That's just not how names work: name changes apply retroactively in common parlance; that's why we refer to artists by their stage names even when we're discussing their youth. (And the reality is that a deadname is not like a stage name.) Levivich ^harass/_hound 20:24, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  I didn’t say two different people, but name of the former identity which is credited on the top bill; yet the activists don’t even want us to use for the actor when the film was made because it’s gauuuuche. To say Elliot Page, now a man in 2020, played Juno in 2007 is unscrupulous. The stage name is the fact that at birth the surname was Philpotts-Page. It's bizarre that calling an actor who played a character by the name they were credited as on film, presenting as a female gender, is considered a referendum on deadnaming. In an encyclopedia. Or that there are people this person has never met taking it as a personal affront. Trillfendi (talk) 22:13, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  It's not unscrupulous to say Elliot Page played Juno in 2007. Elliot Page did play Juno in 2007; it's an undeniable fact. It wasn't some other person. Just like Caitlyn Jenner, a woman, won gold in the men's decathlon in 1976. Even though she had a different name then, even though she presented as a different gender then, it doesn't change the fact – undeniable fact – that the person who is today named Caitlyn Jenner won the men's decathlon gold medal in 1976. It wasn't a different person. Chelsea Manning was arrested in 2010, even though she also had a different name then. We don't refer to either of these people by their previous names or previous (public) gender identities when discussing their past in articles. That's not rewriting history. That's not unscrupulous. It's normal. In an encyclopedia. Levivich ^harass/_hound 22:26, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  An "undeniable fact"? With the evidence of your idea of a fact being photographically, historically, and cinematically the opposite?

  The person who won the men’s decathlon in 1976 was indeed Bruce Jenner. Bruce Jenner won the metal! Just because they are now known as Caitlyn since 2015 doesn’t change what happened in 1976. This is bordering on gaslighting. How does it make any sense that Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner call Caitlyn "dad" at Caitlyn’s request because that what (then-)he was their whole life until transition, as Jenner was a cisgender male and father when they were conceived biologically... but Bruce Jenner wasn’t the decathlete who won the Olympics. Now it’s Bruce Jenner was their father’s name but Bruce Jenner wasn’t the athlete? Abeg, as the Nigerians would say. Trillfendi (talk) 23:01, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  Trillfendi, do you really think that Reitman wouldn't have cast Page in that role if he had been out as genderqueer at the time (and so young)? For that matter, do you really think it matters to the film if the pregnancy occurs in a female or genderqueer character's body? I saw the film for the first time about a year ago, and it is a great film, but I didn't find that it depended on my believing in a cis het protagonist to make it work.

  Also, your argument that the name change for Page is somehow less simple and therefore more salient than Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, I think if anything you are illustrating the importance of providing readers with the new name. The idea that Page's "actressness" was somehow essential to their pre-2020 public image - as though women as well as nonbinary people working in the field don't generally prefer "actor" to "actress" on general principle - show just how badly both gender and acting are understood. Newimpartial (talk) 20:33, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  And this is why context is above all. When you watched the film last year you watched it with a modern viewpoint. Maybe the article needs a Legacy section to address that. When I watched the film as a middle schooler, I remember how the media pushback in real time, including teen magazines trying to broach the subject of the "Juno Effect" on teen pregnancy and the grown ups on the news claiming the film sugar-coated it with it aw-shucks "Oh Junebug" patois. And the never ending pro-life/choice debate. The idea that this film was anti-abortion was the outrage, but if Juno had the abortion the film would be 30 minutes long. Genderqueerness was not in this film reception’s universe in 2007 and 2008, or for now over a decade to come. And because film captures a moment in society, the article must reflect what was. Had Page publiy been LGBTQIA+ at the time, sure Reitman likely wouldn’t care but reception would’ve been severely homophobic and sexist. The mainstream media’s de rigeur homophobia and biphobia would have overshadowed the film’s themes completely. But we cannot sit here and act like the general public, the general public who reads Wikipedia, would understand the terrain of someone of a now male-identifying transperson playing a pregnant teenage girl back then without the name Ellen Page. Especially not in the 2000s. Trillfendi (talk) 22:13, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  And any female actor (or actress, in English) will say how hard it is being a woman in Hollywood anyway. Didn’t Page, who was not "out", get sexually extorted by Brett Ratner who wanted to test whether or not Page was heterosexual? Now the neutrality of actor is preferred because of sexism and flippancy they deal with as actresses. Page already expressed the right to play LGBT characters as well straight characters. Luckily Page’s public image pre-2020 was that of an Oscar-nominated actor whose career accomplishments preceded public image. Trillfendi (talk) 22:13, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  Well, the (female) professional actors I knew in the 1990s preferred "actor" over "actress", though granted I wasn't in middle school at the time. And how many of the people who were directly impacted, as you were, by the moral panic around teen pregnancy and the "Juno effect" turned out to be queer, nonbinary or trans after all? I'm sure it is a nontrivial number.

  The fact is, we are not writing Wikipedia based on what we knew in 2007 for a 2007 audience. We are writing Wikipedia for posterity based on everything we know to date. And from that standpoint, the reception of a film at the time is something we describe based on reliable sources, not a time capsule we maintain by denying the living participants in the work the right to have their lives examined from a broader perspective. You may not feel like it, but you are an exact equivalent to the WP:GG-style edit warriors who were insisting to the last gasp that what had to be understood about 1997's The Matrix was that it was made by the Wachowski brothers, and not its - and their - place in a much larger context. To the last gasp of the RfC that ended their crusade, I mean. Newimpartial (talk) 22:29, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  The Matrix was in fact created by The Wachowski Brothers who are now referred in that article’s infobox as The Wachowskis, which is still apt. Not the Wachowski Sisters, nor Lana and Lilly Wachowski. Which would be a lie. Trillfendi (talk) 22:54, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  @Trillfendi: It would be a lie to say "Lana and Lilly Wachowsi made The Matrix."..? You don't seriously believe that? Come on; that really is just absurd. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 07:29, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

  Comparing another editor to Gamergaters (clearly what you meant by WP:GG, based on the DS codes, not the Gaelic Games WikiProject) is a personal attack. Also, your alternate history in your 20:33 comment is highly implausible. Filmmakers, with extremely little exception, cast a woman to play a woman. That's also what audiences expect. This was all the more true in 2007, though it is still true today. Pregnancy, or the potentiality thereof, is widely viewed (one could say socially constructed) as something that specifically women and girls have to consider and deal with. Why that all is I will leave as an exercise for the reader. And if the character of Juno had been non-binary or otherwise not cisgender, of course that would impact the social interactions of the movie, and the reception of the movie in real life. Genders and sexes aren't just meaningless labels for people to play around with to subvert social norms. They have real meaning and significance. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:04, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  Crossroads, you don't get to decide for other people what comparisons should offend them. And unless ciscasting catches on in a way it hasn't so far, we can expect genderqueer and nonbinary actors to take on an increasing number of roles of varying genders: I think my CRYSTAL ball is good on that one, since it's based on simple supply and demand. Newimpartial (talk) 23:22, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  GamerGate is sadly relevant here. Perhaps a year ago, in a situation where this was relevant, I learned that Wikipedia's only rule against being openly transphobic on talk pages was the GamerGate sanctions. Until such a time as Wikipedia has a code of conduct, maybe you can forgive a description of transphobia in the terms that the Wikipedia community at large seems to understand. rspεεr (talk) 06:47, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• Option F (first choice) or Option E. We exist to serve the reader, so we should try to avoid confusion as much as possible. Presenting the reader with both names, without one buried in a footnote, is the clearest, least confusing way to credit previous works. For the same reason, I prefer F over E: consistency with the work itself and with media\sources from that time avoids confusion. I'm not swayed by arguments revolving around the potential harm caused by using former names for people who are notable under both names. There may be exceptions for time to time, but presumably people affected by this are public figures, who routinely encounter both names in the media. In most cases, we can only speculate about how they feel about it, but if they are indeed harmed by it, unfortunately whatever we do on Wikipedia probably won't help them much given the prevalence of their previous name in other sources. Yilloslime (talk) 18:09, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E preferably or Option A as space permits. It's already how we (and other publications, notably IMDb) do this for anyone credited under a different name, whether they are former names, alternate names, misspellings, aliases, or whatever. For example Stark Raving Dad ("Michael Jackson (credited as John Jay Smith)"), The Matrix ("The Wachowskis (credited as The Wachowski Brothers" - this one is a footnote), Woman Wanted ("Kiefer Sutherland (as Alan Smithee)"), and yes, the IMDb entry for Juno gives "Elliot Page (as Ellen Page)" along with "Darla Fay (as Darla Vandenbossche)" and "Kaaren de Zilva (as Kaaren De Zilva)". We don't need to reinvent the wheel here. None of these explain why the credited name is different, the reader can go to the person's biography for more info. Also, it's "chosen name" or just "name", not "preferred name". Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:17, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option B-2. I see absolutely zero reason to credit someone under their deadname. Using the name a person currently goes by makes it easier for readers and editors to find additional (more current) works by that person, while using a deadname only offers that only for older works (which can already be found by clicking the subject's name for most websites). However, I do believe we should make an invisible comment <!-- Like this --> to explain to editors not to change the credit per MOS:DEADNAME.
  My ranked choices would have to be Options B, A, E, then F. I am completely against Option D and think adopting it would be one of the worst mistakes this project could make. It addresses zero concerns that have been raised over the course of this RFC and leaves us open to utterly massive BLP violations. (edit conflict) –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:26, 4 December 2020 (UTC) CE 18:33, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E The same style we use for pseudonyms in several film credits. Person x (under the name "xx"). There is no room for confusion this way. Dimadick (talk) 18:42, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• E or A (B is also acceptable especially where the name wikilinks to the article anyway) as first choices; in line with the spirit of MOS:IDENTITY and as AJD says because we're here to provide information about who played Juno (etc), which is the person Elliot Page (who can be wikilinked or footnoted for anyone who wants to know more), not to be a "wikIMDB"-esque collection of screenshots of movie credits. (See also: we change names like The Beatles sometimes, droping The from "a The Beatles album" etc, as discussed elsewhere on this page. We don't follow how specialist birder guides capitalize White-Tailed Eagles. Etc, etc.) If Dimadick's comment is right, this is already done in many cisgender cases(?). Less desirable than E, A or B, but better than the other options, is F. Good luck to whoever closes this and has to make sense of an RFC with so many options. -sche (talk) 20:29, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E at the first mention, and in cast lists: "Elliot Page (credited as Ellen Page)". After that option B, only the preffered name. If we have already explained that the person was credited under an older name, there's no need to repeat the information every time that person is mentioned. Using the preferred name is respectful. Footnotes could be accepted when there is little room, such as in info boxes, but in genereal I think a parenthesis is better for readability. I don't like using only the preferred name throughout without mentioning the old name, as that is skipping important information and close to rewriting history. /Jiiimbooh » TALK – CONTRIBS 22:07, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C makes the most amount of sense to go with the credited name and then explain the name change which occured after the fact. Anon0098 (talk) 22:43, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C per Trillfendi and Anon0098. Mgasparin (talk) 01:06, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A, B, or E depending on the article and where the name is mentioned as determined by local consesuses. For example, Option E would seem to make sense for the cast sections of major roles for individuals who were notable under that name, and Option A for the infobox or first use in the lead or body where relevant. For subsquent uses or articles where the role was not very significant (or works released with the new name now credited), Option B would I think work fine. It is an important part of Wikipedia and especially the WP:BLP policies that we take into consideration how our articles affect the real lives of people in the world and their preferences on certain issues. I'm actually convinced by several of the arguments that it would be a good idea to extend the principle of using common names rather than formerly credited names as a general practice regardless of gender identity, but since this RfC is specifically about revising MOS:DEADNAME, I think we have to recognize the consideration that we extend to transgender and non-binary people who have changed their name as detailed in the policy. While some of the arguments seem to be based on an underlying opposition to the dead-naming policy itself, it doesn't seem like there can be a serious argument that dead-naming does not cause harm. We have that policy, and this RfC is not about getting rid of it. I also do not understand the argument that this somehow rewrites history. To claim that "Elliot Page" did not star in Juno is obviously not true, and none of the options would provide "fake" information. I don't think anyone would even attempt to make that kind of argument if this name change did not involve gender. We don't simply reproduce all the credits from a film in our cast sections, and most of the information in our articles is not based on contemporaneous knowledge anyway since in general we prefer more recent sources over contemporaneous ones. The use of the common name is already included in some MOS project guidelines such as for films, and there seem to be many instances where we do not use the name credited in a work (or even include individuals who are uncredited in a work). We seem to be fine using pseudonyms and stage names throughout other articles, as well as changed names in some instances when there are not other underlying contentious issues. I do not think that anyone is going to be confused or astonished if we have some kind of note/parenthetical for the name change right there in the article when it's relevant. WP:ASTONISH is about our content being unnecessarily surprising or confusing to readers, but how would it apply at all if we use a footnote or parenthetical? Page no longer using the name "Ellen" and going by different gender pronouns is an not something that Wikipedia can control, and if there is some kind of confusion for a particular reader over that, then it is going to exist regardless of what we do. As time goes by, it is also going to be more and more astonishing for the average person to see a transgender or non-binary person's dead-name. Are any reliable sources going to continue to call him "Ellen", even when referencing his prior work (other than parenthetically or in a note)? I think as an encyclopedia we should be taking a more longer term view and also be respectful. We give more weight to sources after a name change for that reason. We also give more consideration to name changes by transgender and non-binary people because of the effects of dead-naming. It seems logical to extend those considerations to discussing transgender and non-binary people in their earlier works. We are providing information about that work and the artists involved, not about the credits billing. Any confusion would seem to be solved by a footnote or other explanation, and so I'm not seeing any real reason to not respect the dead-naming concerns. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 01:39, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
• For infoboxes, Option A or B, depending on what's most appropriate. For cast lists in article text, preferably Option E or Option A, but above all, use common sense. For example, Meowth was voiced, in the English dub of the Pokémon anime, by Maddie Blaustein, but was credited under her deadname, then a different female name, for the first couple of seasons; we just use "Maddie" because that's how she was credited for most episodes. Sceptre (talk) 09:45, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E - My reasoning is, if we ask who played that role, it's, for example, Elliot Page. Then we can add (credited as Ellen Page) to avoid confusion for people who might not know Elliot is trans/non-binary. For mentions after that, we should just use the preferred name with no parenthetical. GoodCrossing (talk) 13:46, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E Best balance of the 2 competing priorities probably detailed extensively above. Zoozaz1 talk 17:48, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
• A support, but only if any reliable source has connected the work and the current preferred name.

B. Oppose, footnotes are already discouraged, and if a footnote is needed then a footnote should be used.

C. Other side of A, if the work has never been connected to the preferred name, and has been connected to the credited name, in reliably published second sources.

E. Same as A, but the parenthetical substituting for the footnote, this is just styling.

F. Same as C, but the parenthetical substituting for the footnote, this is just styling.

Combine A & E, with "footnote or parenthetical". Combine C & F, with "footnote or parenthetical".

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:45, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

• In order, Option C, F, E, and A. An absolute affirmative NO to Options B and D: it's not Wikipedia's job to rewrite history, confuse readers, or not reflect reality.. --Calton | Talk 08:26, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

  Option B is commonly used for cisgender actors, as I have noted elsewhere on this talk page. Does it rewrite history, confuse readers, or not reflect reality to say that Mahershala Ali appeared in Crossing Jordan or that Alexander Siddig appeared in Melora?

• A or E depending on context, and where/how prominent the name is. The goal should be to be clear, respectful and concise, in that order. Listing only one name is potentially confusing, whichever name it is- either option B, it doesn't match the credits with no explanation, or option D, it links to a totally different name and is unnecessarily disrespectful as well. After the first mention use the last name and correct pronouns only. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.243.48.219 (talk • contribs)
• Since I don't see anyone else having brought it up, I would like to mention that there was an RfC about almost this exact same issue five years ago (although obviously that's no reason not to have it again, of course). The consensus of that particular discussion was to default to a person's historic name and gender for articles outside of the biography itself, which, for the purposes of this RfC, would favour Option C/D/F. Personally, I believe that this is still the best course of action. It would be in keeping with the precedents already set in other articles (we haven't, for example, retroactively changed the cast list of any film that credits Jada Pinkett following her marriage, nor have we changed the cast list of TV series credited to Cheryl Cole following her divorce). It would also align with other guidelines about naming conventions on Wikipedia – WP:Naming conventions (geographic names), for instance, states that "former names [are] used when referring to appropriate historical periods", and gives the example of the names Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul all referring the same city, but using whichever one is appropriate for the context. I also agree with Betty Logan's above point about revisionism – it would be misrepresentative to say, for example, that Elliot Page was cast in Juno in 2007, when he didn't even discover that particular name and identity until over a decade later. Thanks, A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 22:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Personally, I think this discussion is am excellent example of how consensus can change - even before this RfC, I was seeing a general view among editors that name changes associated with gender identity should not default to a person's historic name and gender - indeed, in the case of gendered pronouns, the guidance has been the opposite of this for some time already. The community does not feel that gender-related name changes should be treated like all other name changes while, at the same time, the treatment of those other names in actual articles does not at all follow the {{default ... to ... historic}} that people retcon as a "principle" when they come up against GENDERID changes that they find ASTONISHing Newimpartial (talk) 23:35, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option B - Unless said individual has expressed preferences otherwise. In which case we're still using their "preferred name" for that context anyway. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 14:32, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
• option F followed by option C in articles about the works they are credited in. This is to avoid anachronistic statements, but makes it clear as to the preferred name in use now. This would apply to anyone that changes name from their work appearance till now. For non-notable people, eg in journal citations, just stick to what the bibliographic databases and libraries say, and don't make any special effort to track down name changes. We should oppose use of those options that give misleadingly incomplete information. eg just using the current preferred name, when it requires synthesis to derive that from the sources. Also just using the original name, may happen until people here know the name changes, and can then add the information about the new name. Notable people do not have a right for information about them to disappear, but we should give credit where it is due, and be kind about it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:23, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

• B is a no go per much of the above. A and C are heavy, likely-to-be missed, but I'm willing to entertain it may be desirable at some article to prefer a (foot)note. Meh about D. General preference to F over E. In order: F > E > D >> A/C, where both deadname and new name are in the reliable source corpora (per the above RFC). There's no reason to be using either deadname or new name in these contexts if one of those does not appear in the corpora.

  For citations, per Graeme just above: Use what is obvious and available in public resources and/or on the published work itself.

  That said we already have guideline/policy on the books which indicates that we should prefer the person's last name anyway, and where it is reasonable that should be the approach taken.

  I worry that this discussion is focused so-far unduly on individuals in TV and film (for obvious reasons), when there are other kinds of works to which the question ostensibly applies. I might plop this paragraph down in #Extended discussion, might not. --Izno (talk) 05:50, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option A, E the preffered name is the real name of the person. We should put them first and then explain why the credited name differs from that. --Asmodea Oaktree (talk) 17:22, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
• B, A, or E in order of preference depending on context, with the caveat (for A or E) that their deadname should appear at most once in the article overall. Simply being credited under a name does not automatically make that credit or use of the name notable; in cases where it is lower-profile and their later work is what they're largely notable for (ie. there is little chance anyone will come across the article searching for their previous name), we should always go for B. Additionally, it is pointless to repeat the deadname multiple times - its only purpose is to reduce confusion by making it clear to editors who don't know their name was changed that this is the same person. Therefore, if the name has appeared previously in the article, we should also go with B (eg. if there is a list of attributions only the first would get a footnote.) A or E are appropriate to reduce confusion in situations where the name is notable (ie. people may come to the article by searching on it) and it has not appeared previously. --Aquillion (talk) 18:01, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - The name as credited should be present. Whether a footnote or parenthetical is needed and how the name should be treated throughout is situational. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 20:38, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
• Any except B or D. We owe it to readers to provide relevant information that is backed up by reliable sources. Anyone wondering how a woman named Caitlyn Jenner won a sporting event specifically for men, or why a male was cast to play a pregnant teenage girl in a movie deserve at least a cursory explanation rather than a collective shrug. Whatever means is used I don't have a strong opinion on. We should keep WP:CENSOR in mind. -R. fiend (talk) 02:21, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

  Your argument doesn't actually argue against Option B, though—that is, you don't argue that it's necessary to state anyone's deadname. Option B is compatible with providing a note saying, for example, "(Caitlyn Jenner is a transgender woman, and competed in this event while still presenting as male)", which would address the issue you raise without mentioning the not-necessarily-relevant fact of what her name was at the time. If it's necessary to provide "at least a cursory explanation", that's what a cursory explanation looks like. Stating someone's deadname is neither necessary nor sufficient for the explanation you suggest; and so the fact that such an explanation might be necessary isn't actually directly relevant to the question at hand. AJD (talk) 02:51, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

  I also think it's important to remember that wikipedia articles don't exist in a vacuum. Curious readers can also get an explanation for these kinds of discrepancies just by clicking on the surprising name and looking at their bio article. ~ oulfis 🌸(talk) 07:38, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option E per Floydian, Dimadick, and GoodCrossing. Tony Tan · talk 03:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option B then A, or E in order of preference depending on context, with the caveat (for A or E) that their deadname should appear at most once in the article overall, as per Rhain, oulfis, Aquillion and wallyfromdilbert and many others. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 07:09, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
• B > A/E > everything else: Running through this in my head with the Wachowski example, nothing but B sounds right to me at all. That implies to me that the more time passes in other cases, the more B is going to seem correct. I'd be okay with A/E especially as temporary measures shortly after the name is changed, but I suspect that eventually even footnotes or parentheticals are going to seem odd and obtrusive for an actor who's spent most of their career with their new name and only a relatively short slice with their old name. Loki (talk) 09:16, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
• not B. I think we need to use people's current name where we can do so without causing confusion. But where it would cause confusion to not have an older name, it needs to at least be in the article. I think the best solution in each case will vary a bit. If someone changes gender (and name) on their deathbed, or even after their death (via a will or a note), I expect we might want to handle that differently than we would someone who did it early in their career. And if they changed their name as a PR stunt, we might handle that differently too. Or if they choose a symbol rather than a name, etc. All that said, I'm very sensitive to deadname issues (the issue comes up in my life a lot more than I ever would have guessed) and I work very hard indeed to not use deadnames in the real world unless needed for clarity's sake. Hobit (talk) 23:23, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
• A/B/E. But among these, I oppose mandating the specific typography. That should be context-dependent; not only is it unrealistic to set a blanket rule that would apply best to every article, but remembering that kind of MoS-mandated minutia really adds up, and more than enough of my brainspace is already devoted to random MoS details. In the interest of building consensus and explaining why I favour A/B/E, I will elabourate only the facet that I think is most under-emphasized so far in this discussion: namely, the strong and consistent precedent across BLP policy and past BLP-related RfCs to prevent harm to article subjects where reasonable, and the consistent recognition that deadnames have the potential to cause harm. This is a situation where someone has asked (or could reasonably ask) for information about them to be suppressed, to the extent possible, on the basis of their personal security and comfort. That is entirely consistent with the motivation for rules like WP:BLPPRIVACY, and is also much like the many cases where BLPs have been deleted because the subject had a credible fear that the article could cause them harm (here's just one random example that I happen to remember, but there are plenty). For what it's worth, I don't think this is entirely trans-specific and believe that all of this should apply also to Muhammad Ali, but that's a matter for another RfC. - Astrophobe (talk) 06:38, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A, E we should not deadname people.A "Credited as jane doe" in a footnote or in parentesis is enough to avoid to confusing the reader. --Asmodea Oaktree (talk) 10:09, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E: "Elliot Page (credited as Ellen Page)". That is the only option that gives the reader the information they need in the simplest way. Sources will use both names depending on when they were written, so we need to provide both. Vpab15 (talk) 15:37, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C/F/E/A: C is preferred as I think parentheticals are too long, and people should be referred to as credited. Strongly against B/D as they will be confusing. — Twassman [Talk·Contribs] 03:45, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
• Anything but B or D Option B is simply going to be confusing to readers especially if there's something gender-specific in their history, like winning a male only award if the article refers to the person as female. Option D is also probably a bad idea for the same reason. We need to do what is the most clear for the readers, and what reliable sources say. Also, obviously, if a person isn't covered in any reliable sources as their previous name, we shouldn't use it. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 20:55, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Is it "confusing to readers" that the article Crossing Jordan uses Option B to list Mahershala Ali as a member of the cast, rather than the name he was credited under? If not, why would it be confusing to do the same for a trans actor who has changed their name? (The situation you mention, "winning a male only award if the article refers to the person as female", is not directly relevant to the question under discussion; mentioning the actress's former name in that situation is neither necessary nor sufficient to resolve that confusion.) AJD (talk) 01:22, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
    • Changing your name is quite different than changing your entire public gender identity, especially considering that most languages (such as English) make a distinction between writing about a male versus a female. Also, it's hard to explain what a person used to be known as without saying what they were known as. Honestly, I don't really care what option is chosen as long as it's not B or D. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 23:04, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
      • The question at issue here is only about the name, though. Also, of course "it's hard to explain what a person used to be known as without saying what they were known as"; the question is whether it's necessary to "explain what a person used to be known as" at all. AJD (talk) 16:36, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
        • Please don't badger people that disagree with you. You seem to be responding to many different comments (including the one right below mine). Let's just agree to disagree on this. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 01:02, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option D I am opposed to this doublethink attempt, trying to write history backwards out of mistaken political tribalism. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:19, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Is it an attempt to "write history backwards" to refer to Mahershala Ali as "Mahershala Ali" in the article Crossing Jordan? If not, why not? AJD (talk) 16:36, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
• Open to Option A, C, E, or F; I note here that WP:COMMONNAME can change over time. For example consider Lady Antebellum & Lady A. I am strongly opposed to options B & D. It is censorship to ignore a WP:COMMONNAME after it has become a WP:DEADNAME, or to ignore a newer WP:COMMONNAME in favor of a WP:DEADNAME. We owe it to our readers to provide both the WP:DEADNAME & new WP:COMMONAME routes to a work.

  In that regard, I think that A Clockwork Orange: Wendy Carlos's Complete Original Score, to which Walter Carlos' Clockwork Orange is a redirect, handles this reasonably well. Peaceray (talk) 22:16, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option B For most cases, Option A for cases like Caitlyn Jenner winning men's medals. Kevinishere12 (talk) 05:33, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
• There's not really any perfect answer here, but I will say coming to this RfC from Juno (film) option C or D seems like the best option to me. Our aim insofar as being an encyclopedia is to relate facts of a topic as clearly as possible and without requiring additional information. Stopping people in their tracks with a footnote explaining a years-later name change that doesn't directly relate to the content of the article itself is not serving the topic or the reader well (the examples given in this RfC of using names the actors were not credited as at the time is also a bit weird to me), and also opens up issues that go beyond COMMONNAME considerations when you consider adjusting content not in cited sources based on external factors. Option E isn't great either, but the advantage over C is that prose line clarification is arguably less disruptive to read and doesn't require clicks or jumps away from the content. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 14:06, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E (chosen name followed by parenthetical) or option A (chosen name with a footnote) for the first mention and option B (chosen name, no further explanation) for subsequent mentions. Parenthetical vs. footnote at first mention can be determined on a case-by-case basis (in e.g. infoboxes footnotes might be preferable, whereas in prose parentheticals might be better). Of course, this all assumes that the person in question was even notable under the credited name (which is likely to be the case more often than not, but not necessarily always). If that's not the case, option B is the only proper course of action. LokiTheLiar makes a good point about it being likely that mentioning the deadname will become increasingly conspicuous as time passes. At some point, mentioning the deadname will become more WP:ASTONISHING than helpful, and we're better off just substituting the chosen name at all instances (i.e. option B). My guess is that this point will usually be sometime within the first ten years, but we'll have to make that call it on a case-by-case basis, methinks.
  MOS:GENDERID says Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what is most common in reliable sources. When a person's gender self-designation may come as a surprise to readers, explain it without overemphasis on first occurrence in an article. [...] This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise. about gender in the article on the person; I think this is also a good approach when it comes to name in other articles.
  I don't view this as an old vs. new name situation as with Istanbul/Constantinople/Byzantium or Petrograd/Leningrad/Saint Petersburg, but rather as an incorrect vs. correct—or outdated vs. up-to-date—name situation. Examples of the latter abound in the natural sciences; we might very well say that somebody contracted HIV in 1985 or died of AIDS in 1981, even though those terms were not in use at the time and other terms were. Pneumocystis jirovecii was known as Penumocystis carinii when it was believed that the human pathogen (P. jirovecii) was the same species as the one found in rats (P. carinii); we properly refer to cases in humans prior to the name change by the correct name, not the outdated one. For a more recent example, we might—and indeed, do—say that Human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was confirmed on 20 January 2020 (see Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2#Infection and transmission), even though the virus was known as 2019-nCoV at the time.
  Some editors seem to take an absolutist stance about not altering the names used in the credits, but I can't say I understand why. MOS:FILMCAST explicitly says All names should be referred to as credited, or by common name supported by a reliable source. The latter part is obviously what's relevant here, as it rejects the absolutist stance.
  It has already been noted that for Fast Times at Ridgemont High, we write "Nicolas Cage as Brad's Bud (credited as Nicolas Coppola)", and there are other examples of us not using the name-as-credited in our articles, especially when the name-as-credited is incorrect. Malin Åkerman is credited as "Malin Akerman" in Watchmen (well, if we want to get technical about it she's credited as "MALIN AKERMAN" in all caps, but the point is the lack of diacritics) and Robert De Niro is credited as "Robert DeNiro" (again, the actual credits use uppercase letters) in Taxi Driver and The Godfather Part II; in our articles about the films, we simply use the correct names (as indeed we should) instead of faithfully reproducing the errors in the credits. In Annie Hall, Christopher Walken is credited as "Christopher Wlaken"; in our article about the film, we correct the typo and add a footnote which points out that there was a typo in the credits. For Spice World, we write "Victoria Beckham ("Posh Spice") as herself (credited as Victoria Adams)".
  Betty Logan suggested that we cannot change the name-as-credited because it is a question of authorship rather than identification, but I find that dubious. We write "Thinner is a horror novel by American author Stephen King, published in 1984 by NAL under King's pseudonym Richard Bachman." (Thinner (novel)) and "The Burden is a novel written by Agatha Christie [...] under the nom-de-plume Mary Westmacott." (The Burden). We recognize that these names refer to the same person and that it is the person rather than the name that matters in this context. To be fair, Betty Logan goes on to talk about citing works and may have been mostly considering what we put inside reference markup rather than the text of the article, but that would then seem to be missing the point of the discussion; I haven't seen anybody arguing in favour of altering our citations (though I haven't read every single comment, so somebody might have made that argument).
  None of these examples of changing the name-as-credited seem to be all that controversial, and I don't think they should be. All in all, this goes against the absolutist stance of preserving the name-as-credited no matter what.
  Finally, I agree with Nsk92 and XOR'easter that we should ideally defer to the people to whom this applies. If they express a preference—collectively or individually—as to how to go about this, that's the approach we should be taking. For now, the above is my best guess. TompaDompa (talk) 00:08, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option F or maybe C – We should not be re-writing history. If a work was produced by John Smith, and it says "Produced by John Smith" on the package or in the credits, then that's what we should say. GA-RT-22 (talk) 04:54, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
• Support E then A. I would be happy with either one of these, or both available as options. Strongly oppose D. In any situation, clarify the deadname ONCE then only use HARM: The criteria I care most about is the harm that use of deadnames (and therefore implicit misgendering) causes - and this extends beyond just us misgendering TG/NB people because the whole point of an encyclopaedia is that people are to use it to learn and to take that knowledge away into the world. Any harm we cause is perpetuated out into the world. If our practices allow frequent usage of deadnames, then people will assume that its a reasonable thing to do. And I have to emphasise that deadnaming/misgendering when there's any way to not do that is NOT OKAY. So, given that, my stance is to deadname as little as possible, thus option D is removed. Next, to not imply that the deadname is the preferred name - to my mind, the name placed first and without brackets OR the one in the body/not in the footnote is the implied correct option - options C & F removed (also D again technically). NOT BEING CONFUSING: We do need to actually explain why things might not line up, and this goes in both directions - atm people will be confused if they look for Elliott's deadname and get Elliott with no explanation, but given that Caitlyn Jenner has gone by Caitlyn for a while, I would genuinely take a few moments to figure out who tf her deadname was referring to. For that reason, remove B (and D again... Is it becoming clear yet why I strongly oppose it?). COMPARING WHAT REMAINS: That leaves A and E. Each have small problems. A is less clear but will cause less distress, as readers would have to check footnotes which I have never seen anyone do irl, which don't show up on link previews, and which may not be detected by some accessibility software. E is more clear, but the deadname will have more prominence so it increases the harm. I prefer E as accessibility is very important to me (lack of access introduces a new form of harm, yay!). Xurizuri (talk) 11:00, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option B is completely acceptable. There's no real reason that a deadname should be necessary. Any confusion that would arise from the name being different would quickly be quashed with a simple click onto the page of the person in question. I see people drawing parallels between this and the former classification of Pluto as a planet, among other more benign things. I don't think it requires compromising the standards of the encyclopedia to acknowledge that this issue is more emotive and carries more weight than other issues of labeling. In the United States, the scientific community considered people of color to be less than human for centuries, but does that mean that we should put a footnote in Frederick Douglass' page specifying that his oppressors used to call him "it" instead of "he"? Being unobjective is bad, but accepting and capitulating to disrespectful assertions about someones identity is not objective. /Tpdwkouaa (talk) 22:01, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E for first mentions in the lede and cast sections, option A where stylistically preferable on a case by case basis (e.g. infobox, direct quotations important enough to be quoted verbatim, ledes where the actor was not starring), and option B for all other mentions. Functionally, Options C and F are equivalent to A and E, but unnecessarily prefer a deadname. The discussion shows that strictly adhering to names as credited is not required by MOS:FILMCAST, which allows the use of common names, nor applied to cisgendered actors who change their names. There may be an (IMO weak) argument for C and F on pages where the listed individuals are widely recognized included on the basis of their gender (e.g. Men's athletic competitions, Best Actress award), but the works in question in this RFC are not such pages. Additionally, D is unacceptable for the same reason that many object to B being the general rule: it could confuse future readers if they do not see the presumptive common name for the person in question. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 23:21, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
• The valid options are B, A and E depending on context. A and E can be used for the first mention, in articles where the reader is likely to expect the credited DEADNAME, while B is the best option for following mentions and cases where the reader is unlikely to expect the initial credited name (e.g., works where new installments have been produced under the chosen name). In any case, placing deadnames prominently in these articles, such as in pipelines, is always to be avoided for reasons of ASTONISHMENT and simple respect for BLP subjects. Newimpartial (talk) 00:46, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option B, with Option A or E only when needed, per LokiTheLiar. Edit: After reading TheMusicExperimental's comment below, I don't think there are actually any situations where we would need to include the deadname, so I think Option B on its own would be better (my original comment is still my second choice); after all, WP:IAR always exists for any exceptional unforseen edge cases. GreenComputer (talk) 02:39, 1 January 2021 (UTC) (edited 21:49, 30 January 2021 (UTC))
• Option B as a default, with Option E if absolutely required and/or if the author specified that they do not mind having their deadname used. KevTYD (wake up) 01:26, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option C or D per David Fuchs. Readers come to an encylopedia for the plain, simply facts as to what the actor was known as within the context of the film's release as opposed to say 5 or 10 years later. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 16:58, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option B > Option A > Option E > Options C, D, F. Using deadnames prominently in articles should be avoided as much as is possible - not doing so is not only disrespectful to the person in the article, but sets a potentially harmful precedent wherein some readers may infer from it that deadnaming is acceptable. For these reasons (and others given by others already), options C, D, and F are not appropriate. DJW (talk) 20:45, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option D, Option C, then Option A. Works with no sources using the new name should not be changed to reflect the new name. (Option D) If one of a singer's old songs becomes more popular years after, then consider using the new name with a footnote about how they were originally credited. (Option A) Coin (talk) 09:11, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option C is preferable, but I think things are inevitably going to need to be done case by case. There's not going to be a consensus here. Stifle (talk) 09:23, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option B, absolutely Option B. We don't include the IRL name of internet personalities who wish to keep that information private (Dril is probably the most noteworthly example for Wikipedia specifically) so it should stand to reason that a person's deadname, which 99% of the time trans people are not comfortable being referred to under any circumstances, should also not be present. For actors/writers/etc. previously credited under their deadname, add a redirect and nothing more. A person's deadname is something that should be considered private unless they explicitely say otherwise. Harmonia per misericordia. OmegaFallon (talk) 17:07, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option C or E, as it's pretty standard to highlight who someone is credited as, but also detail what their WP:COMMONNAME is. Best of both worlds. — Czello 19:14, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option B> Option A> Option E. per DJW96 Doglol99 (talk) 23:12, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option B, we give a pretty wide latitude to biography of living persons generally and I think in this instance it makes sense to go with the name the person prefers. Generally, if they were famous for something prior to the name change I'm most comfortable minimizing drawing attention to the individual's deadname--especially when the works in question have been released under the new name. Functionally I see this as not especially far off from women who change their name after becoming married--we rarely belabor the point that they had a different name prior to marriage or turn it into a giant cudgel in the talk section pages etc. It seems quite simple to extend that same courtesy to trans individuals on their bio pages. Thanks for putting this up, I hope it resolves and ends any number of logjams in editing pages related to the creative works and biographies of trans creative people, who certainly have a right to be referred to as they choose and our readers are just fine with that. TheMusicExperimental (talk) 05:11, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option C, or F, or E. Actually, anything but B. That's simply hiding information and it clearly violates WP:NOTCENSORED (whoever argues for B should go and re-read that policy again, especially Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive‍). SFBB (talk) 05:10, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option A or E, unless the name change has already been described in the article, at which point B makes sense. We should tell the reader important information but not beat them over the head with it. Binksternet (talk) 21:11, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Extended discussion

• Minor objection to prejudicial wording. This RfC is not worded or titled neutrally; "update/updating" implies that the current guideline is obsolete, and this prejudices the question. If the heading is changed (e.g. to "RfC: changing MOS:DEADNAME on how to ..."), the original title should be put into an {{Anchor}} so that incoming links to the section do not break.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:48, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • SMcCandlish, this is my first RfC and so I apologize if I could have worded it or advertised it better, but I am not exactly sure what your concern is. I tried to word the RfC to be exactly about whether or not to update the guideline, with particular options on how to update it if that was the consensus. There was already a clear consensus on the Elliot Page talk page that bringing this RfC to MOS:DEADNAME would be more beneficial than a local consensus, and I assumed that it was evident that editors could express no change or none as opposed to one of the options. Do you have a concern or recommendation for how the actual RfC is worded? – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 03:12, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

    @Wallyfromdilbert: I agree that this should be settled with a broadly-advertised and broadly-applicable RfC (otherwise "local" disputes will continue until the end of time); that's why I've tried to spread news of it (without any editorializing, just noting that it's intended to have broad applicability). And thank you for opening the RfC at all; the back-and-forth about this, on this page and at article pages, has not been productive.

    Anyway, the concern (and I think it's a reasonable one given the amount of socio-political activism that TG/NB/GQ issues bring to Wikipedia, especially about language-reform matters) is that using "update"/"updating" implies that the current advice in MOS:DEADNAME and MOS:GENDERID is "outdated" and in need of reform to bring it into line with changed real-world norms, which is not the case. The guideline material does appear to need clarification to better answer the kinds of questions that come up, but that has nothing to do with any implied "datedness".

    My procedural objection (which I'm moving down here to "Extended discussion") was more along the lines of "please phrase more carefully next time" than "stop and fix this now", and is also intended as a note to the closer while assessing consensus. I'm not inclined personally to either go change it to "RfC: changing MOS:DEADNAME on how to ...", since I don't feel all that strongly about it; nor to add an "Option G: No change", since I do think the guideline should be clarified on the these matters, to forestall further editorial squabbling. But I wouldn't object if someone else did either or both.
     — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:29, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

    SMcCandlish, I appreciate your explanation, and I understand your concern much better now. Please know that when I used the word "update", I meant it no different than whether to "revise" or "clarify" or "change" the guideline to include one of the 4 (now 6) options. I think given the responses that it is clear that the guideline is outdated in terms of the needs of Wikipedia editors who encounter these issues and would prefer some sort of sitewide guidance, and that is certainly the most important issue here. In my own personal editing, I would rather just have a guideline that I can generally rely on than engage in all these separate discussions about the same issue. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 04:05, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

    "in terms of the needs of Wikipedia editors who encounter these issues and would prefer some sort of sitewide guidance" – Yes, indeedy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Much as I don't want to, I feel compelled to object to this objection. To suggest that "update/updating" ... prejudices the question strikes me as complete bollocks: editors are routinely expected to put up with much more biased wording than is represented by the difference between updated and changed, and in any case this is a topic where the MOS does not offer any guidance and is in need, as the ArbCom candidate says, of clarification.

  While I recognize their strongly-held personal concern about any suggestion that the current advice in MOS:DEADNAME and MOS:GENDERID is "outdated" and in need of reform to bring it into line with changed real-world norms, which is not the case, this is in fact only their personal view, with (by now) a certain amount of real-world evidence against it and no clear WP consensus for it. An RfC whose wording reflected said personal view would thus be likely to be less neutral than the current one, rather than more. Newimpartial (talk) 03:49, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  That's an interesting take on it. I'm not finding much to disagree with or leap to vociferous agreement about. "only [my] personal view": Well, of course. I'm not able to channel the views of others by magical powers. :-) That is, I don't see the utility of making an "that's just your opinion" observation about something that is by its very nature clearly just an opinion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:46, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Edits like this one or this one don't do a great job of communicating clearly just an opinion to most readers, IMO, which is why I've tried to FTFY in my own seldom-imitated way. Newimpartial (talk) 05:08, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  What I mean is that someone raising an objection is, by the nature of it being an objection, expressing a strong opinion; that's all. Just nit-pick stuff. I don't have a big argument against your gist, even if it's not inspiring me to jump on any bandwagon. I'm just taking it rather neutrally at face value. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:02, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• [This is a reply to SMcCandlish's original !vote in the comments section.]
  SMcCandlish, this is in response specifically to your two side points—there's a few other things on my mind regarding the points you brought up, but I'm tired enough as it is, and apologizes if I say something dumb or poorly thought out because of that:
  1. I'm not sure I can agree with this. Deadnaming is seen as hostile, and can alienate not only the subject, but readers as well into feeling left out as a member of society.
  2. I may be missing the point, but a citation about an individual and a reference to an individual in prose are different, and this RfC is mostly asking about the latter. If a cited paper or article deadnames an individual, then it should be quoted as such in the citation (likely with a [sic], too). When referencing an individual in prose, there's no need to refer to them by their deadname. For example, assuming the journal cited published the paper before Jane came out: Jane O'Foobar's PhD thingamajig solved the Riemann hypothesis.<ref>O'Foobar, Grace [optional sic, context depending] (2020). "A really cool thingamajig".</ref>. I can't imagine any other reason why deadnaming would be necessary.

  Perryprog (talk) 03:52, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  • @Perryprog: On point 1: That's certainly true when it comes to things like social media posts, and maybe even a lot of current-events news writing, but it's not applicable to archival of historical facts, which is basically what an encyclopedia is. No one already famous as Janet Doodah has a privacy interest in complete suppression of that name from, and a rewriting of history in, the effective public record, if they later go by Joseph Doodah. Otherwise, WP would simply ban all use of all prior names of TG/NB/GQ people, including birth names of the most famous among them, etc. But all proposals anywhere vaguely in that direction have been clearly rejected, and surely always will be, because of what WP is, what it does, and why it exists.

    On point 2, you seem to be forgetting that we often have to attribute sources inline in the prose (e.g. when directly quoting them, when closely paraphrasing them, when presenting primary-research or other primary-source claims they make, etc.). If the person is not notable – they're just a name attached as the author on a paper – WP neither has a reason nor, effectively, an ability to change it. Again, the only purpose of the name being mentioned is for source identification, and the name is not directly tied to any person's life and identity in an applicable way. This won't even come up much, because we usually just cite by surname in such cases: "According to a study by a Princeton University research team (MacDoofus 2020, p. 27) ...". There absolutely is a reason to refer to the deadname here: it is the name on the source we're citing (nor can we be sure of any claimed identification between that author and some other person; WP:BLPPRIV and WP:NOR and WP:OUTING should be interpreted as ruling out any attempt to "research one out" for a non-notable author we've cited. If they are notable, then they're already covered by the more usual approach we have to old names.

    This is also different from mention of non-notable, BLPPRIV, persons as minor subjects in articles (e.g. as victims of crimes, as non-notable siblings of a notable person, etc.: we never have any reason to use their deadnames at all. Except probably in the cases at issue in this RfC, e.g. non-notable actors credited in a TV show cast.

    What I'm trying to convey here is that BLPPRIV, etc., work bidirectionally: We want to protect the privacy of non-notable individuals mentioned on WP under their current names, by not mentioning their old names (or not mentioning pre-notability ones of notable people in most cases). However, if their deadname is necessarily going to be mentioned, because it's the name on a paper we're citing, and the person is not notable, they have an equal-but-opposite BLPPRIV interest in not having that old name associated on WP with their current one, by us going around and saying their new-name identity is the author of the old-name work – something we can't be certain of without OR in the first place. If this still isn't clear: When we cite sources, we do not do background research on the identities and private lives of the authors. It is always and necessarily going to be the case that our citations are going to contain deadnames of non-notable people. Some sources we cite have 30+ authors on them, and some of our articles cite 100+ sources.
     — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:41, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• The RfC text says "While we ordinarily keep a person's name the same as the credit in the previous work such as a film when they have subsequently changed their name". That does not seem to be true in general, even for people who have changed their names for reasons other than being transgender! For example: the article Crossing Jordan lists Mahershala Ali among the cast, with literally no mention of the name he was credited by, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali; List of One Life to Live cast members does the same for Phylicia Rashad, not mentioning Phylicia Ayers-Allen; A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia lists "Alexander Siddig (as Siddig El-Fadil)", following the pattern of Option E in this RfC. It's far from the case that even cisgender actors are always listed in Wikipedia cast lists under the name by which they were credited, rather than the name by which they were later known. AJD (talk) 05:14, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Yeah; I find it fascinating how certain editors (Extended discussion company excluded) pull the "butt muh creditz" argument out of ___________ when it comes to gender-related name changes, but would never bother to verify that names in cast lists are preserved holy and pure from non-gender-related name changes. Hmmmm. Newimpartial (talk) 05:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  The credits argument is based on WP:FILMCAST and WP:TVCAST guidelines. The fact that some articles don't conform to the existing guidelines doesn't set a precedent to ignore them. Most likely something slipped though that shouldn't have and just got missed. What normally seems to happen is when anyone changes their name, some editor goes through the credits and changes names to the new one. They should be left as credited and the redirect at the old name is sufficient to point to the correct person article. Geraldo Perez (talk) 05:35, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Well, actually, WP:FILMCAST says All names should be referred to as credited, or by common name supported by a reliable source. By definition, the names we are talking about for Trans people are the common name supported by a reliable source. Newimpartial (talk) 05:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  The common name for film cast is what the majority of contemporaneous reliable sources support. Generally that is used when someone appears who is not in the credits. For the starring section of the infobox we look to the billing block of the official poster for the names per what is stated in the infobox template instructions. Geraldo Perez (talk) 05:53, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  What is your policy-compliant basis for what the majority of contemporaneous reliable sources support - that isn't the usual meaning of "common name". And infobox template instructions are not a reliable source. Newimpartial (talk) 05:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Infobox instructions are the same as any other content guideline, that is why we have them, to explain what to put in infoboxes and they are generally followed the same as any other content guideline. The usual meaning of common name is what the majority of reliable sources say the name is. WP:COMMONNAME - "the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources)" in the context of a film would apply to the time of the film release. Geraldo Perez (talk) 06:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  I don't understand why the "time of the film release" is relevant. Is that part of a guideline or consensus somewhere because a link to that would be helpful? In the case of the Wachowskis, some of their earlier works credited to "the Wachowski brothers" were later rereleased under the name "the Wachowskis". It would seem a little nonsensical to say that we should ignore that more recent information entirely. I also don't know why we would ignore sources such as books and journal articles that are normally not available at the time of the release but are usually far higher quality sources than those that are available at the time of release. If they happen to consistently use a different common name for an individual, then it seems using the credited name would actually be far more confusing than using the common name that most people would recognize. AJD seems to have provided some good examples of where that type of rule may not the best for us to follow. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 06:38, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  An infobox's /doc page isn't "a... content guideline". WP:GUIDELINE has a particular meaning on WP. They certainly do have a consensus level if more than a handful of people have been participating in their formation, to be sure (and sometimes I-box details even get VPPOL RfCs on particular points). But if there's a conflict between a guideline or policy and a /doc, the former takes precedence per WP:CONLEVEL. If there is such a conflict it should be ironed out pretty quickly, though that doesn't necessarily mean just rewriting the /doc; there may be a consensus discussion that's arrived at a conclusion not anticipated in the guideline discussions, so it may be something to bring up on the guideline page for clarification there.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Yeah, Geraldo; it's this the time of the film release business of yours that seems to be OR. And if you can show me that film infobox guidelines carry the same level of editor participation and policy-informed discussion as MOS:GENDERID and MOS:DEADNAME, I'll eat a (soft leather) boot. Newimpartial (talk) 06:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Agreed, but see above. If there's an actual conflict between them, it should get resolved, not allowed to fester, and the resolution isn't necessarily one-way only, though biased strongly by CONLEVEL in one direction.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:26, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  MOS:GENDERID says to "give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what is most common in reliable sources," and WP:COMMONNAME says "When [a change of name] occurs, we give extra weight to reliable sources written after the name change." Given that, I read the guidance in FILMCAST as saying that we should use either the credited name or the WP:COMMONNAME-compliant title, which in this case would be the post-transition name. Thus FILMCAST doesn't rule out any of the given options, which makes it not particularly helpful or relevant. 2601:14D:4180:F5A0:CD56:C843:5B95:949B (talk) 06:11, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Ajd, thanks for that additional information. I was trying to be as neutral as possible, but that obviously is going to be biased by my limited experience. I will replace my initial adjective with "sometimes" and link to this discussion, as it seems beneficial. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 06:19, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Hmm. This (Ajd's main post we're replying to) strikes me as broad over-generalization from isolated incidents to general classes. Our article text, of course, is not fixed and finished, but a highly randomized work-in-progress by whoever drops by today. There will always be cases where cast lists and such have errors in them, either by people who don't care, or don't know better, or who are defiant and want things done their way (often its a case of mistaking WP:COMMONNAME for a content/style policy rather than a titles policy – a frequent but mistaken belief that how we refer to someone at their own article is how they must be named in every case at every article, in every context in every page – that has obvious applicability to this larger discussion).

  It doesn't indicate in any way that the general class of people working on this kind of material in earnest (WikiProject Films, WikiProject Television, etc.) don't care, or aren't competent, or are applying a double standard (much less that they're conspiring against trans people). I find that really not credible, given that very little of the media content we collectively write about is right-leaning and thus mostly written by rightist editors who have a jingoistic bias against trans people (I guess an exception might be pro wrestling?). We're seeing a lot of pointed overgeneralizations like this in our daily political sphere as it is, and they're not very helpful. Its a semi-subtle ad hominem that distracts from focus on the question/issue, to instead dwell on who's (often nebulized as a "them") saying what about it and whether their actions are in perfect compliance with an ideal.
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:18, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Using the common name of someone is directly cited in the MOS such as WP:FILMCAST. The content about what a common name means contained in WP:COMMONNAME also seems relevant to understanding that term means when it is used elsewhere in our policies and guidelines. I don't think there is any sort of ill-willed conspiracy, but I do think there is an issue with people being overly concerned with gender-related changes to a person's name compared to other name changes. For example, one comment above is explicitly opposed to changing the name of credits when they are involve gender (such as "Ellen" to "Elliot") but not when the change is "gender-neutral" (from "the Wachowski brothers" to "the Wachowskis"). If you have examples of articles that provide a different approach than Ajd, then that may be helpful to include. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 10:39, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Sure, I don't think it's a conspiracy either; there are just people with a my-way-or-the-highway attitude who don't even properly read the guidelines and policies (if read them at all; see later thread on this page for example). I think until we've had a lot more discussions like this (and more of them are high-level, well-advertised ones) that we're going to keep getting inconsistent results. E.g., it's not film/TV wikiproject people who wanted "the Wachowskis" used across-the-board. Most of them would have preferred something like "the Wachowski Brothers (now the Wachowskis)", or "the Wachowskis (credited as the Wachowski Brothers)", or whatever, when it comes to old media like The Matrix. But we had a "local consensus" situation there calling for one special result for one specific instance, and many people feel "invested" in that result, so they'll interfere a bit with site-wide solutions (and people who were opposed to that particular decision are apt to also oppose other ones in a similar but different vein, maybe out of reflex more than principle). The more local "special pleading" we have on a case-by-case basis, the harder it is to arrive at site-wide answers. Not just on this but on a lot of things. E.g., I wandered into a 16-year dispute about capitalization and hyphenation of a particular technical eponym (still an ongoing dispute), despite MoS having general principles that already cover this stuff consistently; and now some proponents of that variation, which is not even backed up in general-audience or academic literature as anything but a minority usage, are up in arms about MoS not codifying their alleged exception. This kind of "fight to the death, article by article" stuff is corrosive. It was also behind the "infobox wars" that had to go to ArbCom multiple times, and many similar mass disputes on Wikipedia.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:19, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  I see how giving a list of three examples could be construed as me just cherry-picking potentially isolated examples of pages that happen not to conform to a stylistic standard. In fact, they are literally just three of the first four examples I could think of of cisgender actors who were notable under a prior name. The fourth, full disclosure, is Meredith Baxter, who is listed by her credited name Meredith Baxter-Birney in the cast list of the article Family Ties, but by her current name elsewhere in the article. So, it's a small sample, but fact that three out of the first four cisgender actors who I could think of who've changed their names are credited under their new names in articles about work done under their old names, and the fourth is at least referred to by her new name, is evidence that Wikipedians by and large don't seem to have any problem referring to actors by names they adopted later in articles about work done earlier. AJD (talk) 07:01, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• Purely on stylistic grounds we should avoid putting information which can be given concisely in a footnote. It makes it harder for the reader to gain the information we are trying to convey and reduces readability. This would rule out A and C. I have expressed a preference above for B and E where explicitly needed to avoid confusion as I believe B gives the reader the relevant information most simply. SPACKlick (talk) 10:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Interesting that nowhere in the discussion do I see the privacy issues raised by WP:BLP. Some people may be quite open with their name change as a result of transitioning, and some people may want to protect the privacy of their lives. If I were to offer an opinion I would agree that the issue is situational and one should default to protecting the privacy of the individual. - kosboot (talk) 12:16, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  My !vote and several of my extended-discussion comments get into BLPPRIV matters (including that they mostly do not apply to notable people who were notable under both names, and that they apply in two directions at once (one of which most people never think of) when it comes to names of non-notable people (or pre-notability and not-widely-published old name of the notable). Given that RfCs usually run 30 days, and this issue is a cause célèbre that is going to bring a tsunami of input, assumptions that a point has not be raised are unlikely to be true (or remain true for long). :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  I really don't feel like privacy is the main issue here? The main issue is that referring to trans people by a deadname is considered by most trans people to be offensive and insulting, regardless of whether it's a violation of their privacy. AJD (talk) 07:01, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  I'm not sure why you're putting a question mark at the end of a statement. Anyway, the fact that a lot of people in these debates are not clearly thinking through every implication of their off-the-cuff initial arguments (grounded, frankly, in rather dogmatic, polarized, and overgeneralizing "stance-taking") is precisely why I'm getting into what they're missing, including the fact that zeal with regard to deadnames is easily going to turn into the very kind of BLP violation we're trying to avoid, when applied to certain situations. This is actually complicated, more so that most participants have been realizing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:14, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  I don't many are arguing this isn't complicated or that there cannot be exceptions in the very minimal number of circumstances that could result in some kind of BLP violation by not dead-naming someone. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 07:18, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  And ...? Whether you personally agree with me or not, that many people in these debates are not considering these points, has no bearing on whether I may raise them to make sure that they do get considered.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:46, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

• As another point of reference, I will note that when we have companies behind works that later undergo name changes (with the biggest recent one being 20th Century Fox to 20th Century Studios), we do not retrospectively change the name of the company in those previously released works at all, and only mention the new name if there is newer information that involves the renamed company. Now I realize we are talking BLPs here which we do have a higher regard for privacy, rights, and the like, but what's being proposed is very much inconsistent with how we do this in any other case (as as pointed out above, same with pre-marriage names). Again, nearly all cases that would come into play here involve people notable by their original name before they transitioned and opted for a new name, so the core concern of DEADNAME is already not valid. --Masem (t) 06:41, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  How do you feel about the Eris and bohrium examples I brought up above? AJD (talk) 07:01, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  At least in reviewing a quick scan of the articles in question it is a different situation: they are not entities that gave themselves names, and it was a brief period before the body that granted official names gave the final version over the unofficial one, as opposed to a name that has been widely used for several years. So the situations are rather different. A comparable situation would be if we were talking about the number planets in the Solar System, if the historical context was at a time before Pluto was de-planeted, we would still use 9 or speak to Pluto as a planet (a point we had for decades), while if we're talking in general terms or any present context, only consider 8 plaents. --Masem (t) 14:21, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  As far as I can tell, the name unnilseptium was used for about 18 years before the name bohrium was agreed upon (and, had Wikipedia existed, it would have been considered notable for all of that time). Elliot Page seems to have been notable under his former name for about 23 years. That is not a huge difference in terms of being "widely used for several years". The fact that bohrium isn't an entity that gave itself a name and Elliot Page is is reason to give more deference to Page's new name, not less as you seem to be arguing. (I thought about using Pluto's status as an example but I want to stick strictly to names, to have comparable examples. There's probably something about Brontosaurus we could use, though.) AJD (talk) 15:38, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  The point is that in all other cases when the article is from an historical perspective or where it is in historical context, we don't "update" names or changed facts from how they were presented in that historical context; in articles where there is present or present-looking-past perspective, we do. Clyde Tombaugh should remain noted as discovering the "planet" of Pluto (the de-planeting happening far after his lifetime), while Solar System should describe that Pluto was once but no longer a planet given that is a present article. In the case of Page here, the bio page is a "present" article, but film pages like Inception are "past" ones and should reflect how everything was reported at the past. --Masem (t) 13:46, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  But that isn't actually what we do. The second sentence of Clyde Tombaugh, for example, is At the time of discovery, Pluto was considered a planet, but was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. The contribution of Elliot Page, as a BLP subject, to Juno (film) deserves at least the degree of consideration and specificity (if not detail) awarded to a minor astronomical body. Newimpartial (talk) 13:59, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  Anyway, all our articles have a present or "present-looking-past" perspective; we strive to give our readers accurate information about past events and artifacts based on what is known about them now. AJD (talk) 15:35, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  It's a false equivalence: companies never ask that you stop using their old name in any instance, whereas that is the default in this situation, even with, as noted above, people who change their name for other reasons. SportingFlyer T·C 10:50, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  And while there are some BLP that ask us to do certain things for their articles (like in some cases, not have articles on them), we don't make exceptions as long as the information follows the BLP standards. We do take non-notable deadnames seriously, but it is impossible to ask us to bury readily notable ones as Page's, since that's asking us to wipe information that is also readily available in all the sources that we have used up to that point. --Masem (t) 14:21, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  Arguments about wiping ... information that is also readily available ... in the sources might offer sound reasons to object to option B, but have absolutely nothing to contribute to the choice between A, D, E and F, nor do they provide any support for offering less information to our readers (C).

  Also, to take up the example of Pluto again, we are not burying information by not providing (widely considered a planet from 1930 to 2006) every time Pluto is mentioned in an historical context. The fact is relevant at the Planets#Additions by other composers and is mentioned there, but the former planetary status of Pluto is not buried each time an article does not mention it. So placing the actor's former name in a footnote or parenthesis certainly does not bury anything. (The reader may detect some contained frustration on my part at the poor alignment between facts and arguments in certain quarters of this discussion. I apologize for the bleed-through.) Newimpartial (talk) 16:13, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  I think it's pretty obvious that "bury" in this sense is related to that in "don't bury the lede", and doesn't mean "effectively eliminate from the world". That is, the concern about "burying" in footnotes (rather than keeping in inline parentheticals) is that most readers do not look at footnotes, and may not even realize that one might contain such information rather than citation data. We have MOS:BOLDSYN for a very clear reason: make sure – immediately, up-front, and unmistakably – that the reader understands they've arrived at the correct article. So, footnotes may make sense for things like entries in lists, but they make much less sense for article leads, when the subject's old name either dates to within their notability period, or is so frequently mentioned in sources that we can expect various readers to arrive at the article by searching for that name not the current one.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:20, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

  Option B only. Trans people just want to exist. They want to be able to say who they are without a bunch of dudes saying "well, actually". Also, I am saddened but not surprised that there are Wikipedians arguing for option D, which is what transphobic hate sites do. I would prefer Wikipedia to not become a transphobic hate site. rspεεr (talk) 06:47, 4 February 2021 (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.

RfC: Use of deadname in quotes

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.

• Altering quotes without use of brackets or ellipses (option D) is firmly rejected as incompatible with existing policy (MOS:PMC) and scholarly practice.

• Non-notable deadnames of living people notable under a chosen name must not be included as this would create a BLP privacy violation. In these cases, paraphrasing (G), elision (C or H), or substitution (E) would be mandatory.
• Paraphrasing is preferred:
  • In cases with deadnames and misgendered pronouns and actually in encyclopedia writing in general, per MOS:QUOTE and many comments.
  • Especially with quotes that require changing multiple discontinuous words to avoid deadnaming and misgendering with pronouns, if only for intelligibility.
  • Especially with quotes where a man is pregnant, or there is a mismatch between a gendered name and a gendered context (like a man winning Best Actress). There are extremely strong but clashing opinions on whether to leave these as-is or alter them; paraphrasing resolves that conflict seemingly without making anyone unhappy, so that is probably best for article stability.
  • Numerically, option E was the most popular, leading A in about a 3:2 ratio. G was close behind E, but G was added a bit late. Resolving conflicting preferences in the style of an instant-runoff voting, I infer that the many editors who supported the third-place option A for the reason "don't put words in the author's mouth" would greatly prefer the second-place-ish G over the first-place-ish E, so G (paraphrasing) would satisfy a supermajority of editors. It would be weird (as a strict interpretation of option A would do) to prohibit paraphrasing of quotes with deadnames in them, when quotes in general are paraphrased as a style improvement.
  • One editor suggested a good example: Critic X said "Juno needs a fine [actor] to play its pregnant teenage star, and [Elliot] Page has shown [himself] to be the perfect [man] for the job." can be paraphrased: Critic X argued that portraying the pregnant teenage lead in the film Juno required a fine acting talent, and said that Page had proved perfect for the job.
• A quoted deadname might be needed in limited circumstances. If the chosen name has not been publicly connected to the deadname, redacting the deadname may create a BLP privacy violation in the reverse of the typical direction, and might be original research. In rare cases, having a quote might be important and retaining exact wording cannot be avoided, for example where there is a pun on the deadname, intentional deadnaming, etc.
  • A previous RFC concluded that where the deadname is primary, the chosen name should be indicated in some way to avoid reader confusion. That RFC left choice between footnote or parenthetical to editorial discretion based on factors like space available and readability. Prose clarification was not given as an option in this RFC, but some editors did mention it. Most editors who expressed support for A (deadname unaltered) were equally happy with B (deadname with footnote). Opposition to A was twice as high as opposition to B. Option F was relatively unpopular compared to option B (about 3:1 in favor of B) so annotations outside the quote itself seem to be preferred. Putting all this together, I'm inferring that deadnames in a quote should typically get a footnote (B) or prose clarification (not an option in this RFC) based on editorial discretion, and should only be be left unaltered (option A) if this is necessary to avoid a BLP privacy violation.
  • A special case of deadnames in quotations are when a deadname appears in the title or author of a work like a book. That obviously can't be changed without making it impossible to find the book or whatever. This is relatively straightforward to handle in prose, but the reference might appear in a footnote, so editors will have to figure out a way to note the chosen name. The previous RFC suggests a solution like "X (writing as Y)" when this happens in an author's name, but there were no obvious suggestions for title.
• Absolute prohibition against altering quotes (strict interpretation of A/B) does not make sense. Editors pointed out quotes are commonly and rightfully edited to avoid reader confusion, and that the names of transgender and non-binary people should not be excluded from this general practice.
  • MOS:PMC which proclaims the "principle of minimal change" still has an example of replacing a pronoun with a phrase clarifying the referent.
  • Substitution is also needed for nicknames and pet names. For example, using "[Richard Feynman]" or "[Feynman]" in a quote that only refers to the physicist as "Dick".
  • A birth surname is sometimes replaced with a married surname in order to match the surrounding prose and avoid reader confusion. (Possibly leaving the birth surname only on the subject's biography article if it's not relevant to other articles.)
  • In searching for an example to gauge the de facto impact of "historical significance" on exact wording retention (which RFC comments cited) I found that the article Neil Armstrong currently quotes him with an alteration: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."
• When quotations are unavoidable, brackets are preferred when altering quotes to eliminate deadnames and match the surrounding prose.
  • Option E (brackets) was preferred over Option C (ellipsis) by a 3:1 ratio.
  • Option E (changing the first name in brackets) was strongly preferred to the much more verbose option F ("now known as X" in brackets), in about a 6:1 ratio.
  • Option H (putting surname only in brackets, justified by MOS:SURNAME) was a late addition, so support for that vs. option E (chosen first name in brackets) is unclear. It may depend on first/subsequent reference context to some degree.
  • Previous RFCs have established non-quote text will generally avoid deadnames. This leaves only a small number of articles where a name mismatch results in prose reading something like "Elliot Page (credited as Ellen Page)" where a deadname left in a quote would actually match enough surrounding prose to be intelligible to readers unfamiliar with the subject. Because "matching surrounding prose" is not necessarily available here as an absolute justification, for the sake of article stability, paraphrasing (option G) in these articles is probably even more strongly indicated. In the unlikely event that can't be done, I find the argument "hey, if this can be changed for clarity, why can't it be changed to avoid harm to a real living person?" persuasive. Also, most of the references in the article will use the chosen name because the deadname is typically only given on first reference and infobox and might only be in a footnote, so there is still a good argument that dropping deadnames from quotes will reduce reader confusion (which was a major concern in the last RFC). To be sensitive to the "don't put bracketed words in the author's mouth" objectors, the latecomer option H (skip the first name but keep the last name in brackets) might be a good compromise instead of the most-popular E because it only removes words and the brackets clearly indicate Wikipedia has altered the quote in some way. (And we'd expect the full name to have been given in prose.) The "don't erase/rewrite history" objection should be satisfied because if a person was cited in a movie or award or something at the time under a notable deadname, the previous RFC concluded that should be mentioned somewhere in the article (possibly as a footnote off the chosen name).
• Replacement of misgendering pronouns was not discussed much, but there was some suggestion of treating them the same way as deadnames.
• There was one objection to "deadname" as POV, but I'm not sure the suggested replacement "former name" would be accepted by the community. Editors who are finalizing wording may wish to ask around for more ideas and see if there are terms that really are universally accepted?

-- Beland (talk) 11:29, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

---

How should deadnames be treated in quoted material? --06:20, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

While this is under discussion, I believe it's also important to establish a standard on the use of deadnames within quotes; for example, in Hard Candy (film), several quotes in the Critical Reception section have had the dead name replaced with the updated name; this is obviously incorrect form, as it is no longer a proper quote at this point. A minor edit war has raged over this due to a lack of clear standard or consensus. I believe there are four options here for how this can be handled, though welcome the introduction of any others;

• Option A: Leave the quotes as they are, including the deadname.
• Option B: Leave the quotes as they are, including the deadname, but add a footnote explaining that the person now goes by a different name.
• Option C: Remove the deadname from the quote through use of an ellipsis {...} where applicable.
• Option D: Remove the deadname from the quote altogether, without the use of an ellipsis; for example, "spectacular performance by teenage thesp Ellen Page" would become "spectacular performance by teenage thesp Page"
• Option E [edited in]: Substitute the deadname for the current name using brackets, e.g. "spectacular performance by teenage thesp [Elliot] Page"
• Option F [edited in]: Add an editorial clarification in square brackets, e.g.: "John [now Jane] Q. Public", or "John Q. Public [now Jane Q. Public-Gutierrez]"
• Option G [edited in]: Adjust sentence or summarize quoted material to avoid use of dead-name.
• Option H [edited in IamNotU (talk) 12:42, 15 January 2021 (UTC)]: Substitute the deadname for the name used consistently in the rest of the article in accordance with MOS:SURNAME, using brackets, e.g. "spectacular performance by teenage thesp [Page]".

While these are my proposals, I welcome any others, and believe it's important to establish a standard on this to prevent edit warring as is going on now. Builder018 (talk) 17:39, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option COption E Maybe this is my adherence to quoting (or, not misquoting), but I also recently came across a situation where the pronouns of a (AFAIK) cisgender actor were incorrect in a source, in a part that was useful to quote, so I changed it with [brackets]. The same can be done for names, and it does not suggest any prejudice, or anything at all. The deadname could be replaced by the actual name, or ellipsis could be used, or brackets around the last name; I would turn the quotation in D into: "spectacular performance by teenage thesp [Page]", for example. Kingsif (talk) 16:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Edit per the IP below; I had assumed the ellipsis was a suggestion for other corrective punctuation, but brackets are preferred, which I take as E. Kingsif (talk) 17:27, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • A note to my own !vote: as DavidK93 has pointed out, my intention aligns with their view, and that is still what I think is best. Brackets to correct to last name is easy and preferred, the first name can be added if needed (another Page in the quotation for example), etc. Kingsif (talk) 16:42, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E: A bracket edit. So "spectacular performance by teenage thesp Ellen Page" becomes "spectacular performance by teenage thesp [Elliot] Page". In this way the quote is "corrected" but not originally altered. 2601:89:4401:6090:295E:87B1:891:BA1D (talk) 17:07, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A, or B if we really need a footnote to make things clear. We should not be tinkering with sources to purport or imply that they say something we in hindsight wish they had said, e.g. using names and pronouns that were unknown at the time they were written. Quotation of a source does not imply an endorsement of the author's position on changes of gender, deadnaming etc. It will be particularly important in these cases that the footnote includes the date of the quote. C is a kind of confusing and unwarranted obscuring of whatever we are trying to quote, D would be deliberate intellectual dishonesty, and E is less objectionable than those two but it is also misleading in that it puts words in the quoted author's mouth. It is one thing for articles to depart from what is asserted by their sources over time as new sources become available, but quite another to go back and change the actual source, or leave readers with the impression that it said something different. Beorhtwulf (talk) 18:25, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  You say [E] puts words in the quoted author's mouth [and is going] back and [changing] the actual source - tell me how the academic standard for minor corrections that in no way affects the original source is somehow now a propaganda tactic? That idea is unbelievable fictitious bias invented to oppose just doing a tiny decent thing, come on. Kingsif (talk) 20:23, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  The crucial point is "minor corrections that in no way affects the original source". Option E could be used to make it look like a movie critic endorsed the claim that the film Juno was starred in by a man named Elliot, playing a pregnant teenage girl. You may well hold this view, and you could even be correct that it is the only view a sane person could possibly hold without being a bigot. But without evidence that the critic you are quoting believes this to be the case (and did so at the time they wrote the source, and intended that meaning when writing the source), you are putting words in their mouth. Beorhtwulf (talk) 20:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  I'm just going to let that stand because it really does sound ridiculous enough it needs no counter-argument. Kingsif (talk) 20:43, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  You're better than me, Kingsif, because I guess I can't really let that stand. So you're saying, @Beorhtwulf:, that a film critic praising an actor's performance isn't based on their performance in that film, at that time? That if the critic somehow knew that the actor would come out as trans in the future they wouldn't have praised that actor's performance as they did? You see, we don't care about what a critic would or wouldn't "endorse." They said what they said about the film and the actor's performance. A change in name or pronouns doesn't change the critic's opinion of that film or performance, at that time. Capeo (talk) 00:51, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

1) you chuck the square brackets in so readers know that it was edited in some way. 2) if someone actually altered the meaning of a quote by use of square brackets, then it would no longer be a quote by any definition, and would not be supported by the reference. If I took the quote "cake tastes good" and reprinted it as "cake tastes [bad]" then I am no longer quoting. 3) therefore, the square brackets cannot be used to convince the reader that something untrue is true, anymore than putting the same information into prose can. 4) this now is my collected other thoughts. Capeo is right that changing the name used in the quote doesnt affect the meaning (e.g. Page is a good actor vs Elliott is a good actor has the same meaning), only the way that information is presented. The other reason that square brackets in quotes is used is to make the quote make sense within the context of the article - if I referred to cake as cake throughout an article, but then used a quote that referred to cake as kuchen (german word for cake) because the speaker was bilingual, it would be reasonable to change that word in square brackets. Similarly, if the vast majority of an article refers to Page as Elliott, it would be reasonable to adjust a quote to reflect this. Xurizuri (talk) 12:13, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option A or option E If a quote is necessary, the quotation should not be altered. That said, the bracket is seen as an appropriate way to modify a quote to correct issues, including spelling or grammatical errors. --Enos733 (talk) 18:36, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Option G (first), Option E (second), Option A (if absolutely necessary) First we should avoid quotes, especially lengthy quotations. If a quote is necessary, the first thought should be for brackets. In the rare occasion that brackets are unwieldy, then the quote should remain as is. --Enos733 (talk) 19:05, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option A, or option E: I can't say I'm a fan of tinkering with quotations at all, so option A is my first choice, as the others stink of memory holes to me; but Option E would be the least-intrusive way of changing such quotations, if the community chooses to do so. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 18:40, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Javert2113 I respect your ability to engage in a discussion even when its premise isn't agreeable to you. Xurizuri (talk) 12:19, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option C or E, obviously (option D BLP-acceptable but not typographically so). I've routinely used ellipses, partial sentence quotations and brackets when summarizing critical reception on many of the hundreds of TV, film and literature articles I've created, improved or brought to GA/FA/FL standard and not once can I ever recall anyone bringing about a protracted dispute because of it. This is used to conform to encyclopedic naming conventions, introduce brevity or otherwise make prose flow better. Example use cases:
  1. Lee said: "Jane is at her best when delivering one-liners" changed to Lee said: "[Doe] is at her best..." or Lee said that Doe was "at her best ...".
  2. Lee said "there was one standout performance—that of Jane Doe—whose rendition of "Baby Shark" was the highlight of the piece changed to Lee said that Doe's "Baby Shark" song was a "standout performance" and "the highlight of the piece".
  3. Lee said "Jane Dooe's writing has improved in style since her previous novel" (incorrect spelling) changed to Lee said that Doe's writing "has improved since her previous novel"

These use cases all relate to changing the names we use to refer to people in order to match encyclopedic style. It's actively malicious to violate this standard practice in order to deadname people. — Bilorv (talk) 18:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Coming back to add: the new option G is another obvious solution. Nothing that isn't already common practice. Really surprised by all the people below whose arguments suggest that they disagree with the writing style I've been using for years on all topics and all quotes (which is not everyone who supports different option(s)), but none of them have approached me about the situation before... — Bilorv (talk) 01:02, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option C or E IF you can't work around using the deadname in the quote in the first place. Bilorv gives a few great examples of how you can work around having to use ellipses or brackets at all in many cases. Capeo (talk) 19:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E seems the most consistent for me. When paraphrasing we use things like [He] to add a word that would've been there had the writer written, specifically, for the article (and paraphrased it themselves). For this case, we can replace the deadname with the preferred name as we can assume that the writer would've used it had the person come out when the article was written. Now, it's important to keep in mind that the reason we're doing this is because it's hurtful to use use someone's deadname after they come out, so while there is a compelling argument to keep the original quote intact, I think it's outweighed by the fact that we want to avoid writing our articles in a hurtful manner. GoodCrossing (talk) 20:13, 2 December 2020 (UTC) EDIT: Option G is also good, and I'd say E and G can be used interchangeably depending on the context (if a quote is needed verbatim or if it can be paraphrased, etc.) GoodCrossing (talk) 14:04, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  This is putting words in the mouth of the source though. You cannot safely assume that the writer would have used the new pronoun, or that they would sign on to the taboo against mentioning the original names of trans people that prevails within a recent subculture, and is mistaken by some on the internet for a broad social consensus. Who gets to decide - in cases well beyond this trans scenario - what the author of any quote would have written, if only they saw the world as you did? It is one thing to use square brackets to correct for incompatibilities in sentence flow, such as importing the referent of the word "it" in a quote that doesn't contain the preceding sentence, but quite another to jump to conclusions about the author's perspective on gender issues.

  "while there is a compelling argument to keep the original quote intact, I think it's outweighed by the fact that we want to avoid writing our articles in a hurtful manner." Can you see that this opens the door to all kinds of misrepresentation of sources to align them with the sensibilities of editors? And when did avoiding writing articles in a hurtful manner replace accuracy as our goal here? Do you want to a read an encyclopedia that describes the world as it is, or as you wish it to be? Won't the former be more useful, while the latter will set up an inevitable collision with reality at some point? Beorhtwulf (talk) 20:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  It seems you do not understand what parentheses in quotes signify. They do not mean that the writer would have written something different. They are used to make it clear what object the quote refers to, given that it has been taken out of the context it was written in and placed in a new one. As such, when I write Doe said that "the [1926] film adaptation of The Great Gatsby is a disgrace to the original novel", I do not mean "the writer would use the phrase '1926 film' had they known that later films would be created". I mean "the writer refers to an object which is referred to in Wikipedia's voice as 'the 1926 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby'". Your very limited knowledge of queer history is something else, not really relevant here. — Bilorv (talk) 21:29, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  I know what they signify. User:GoodCrossing, whom I was replying to, said "we can replace the deadname with the preferred name as we can assume that the writer would've used it had the person come out when the article was written". That is a very different and much less justifiable use of parentheses than your example, particularly when it is used to make it seem like the writer being quoted holds a particular position on the question of gender that they may not in fact hold. If a movie critic writing in 2007 said:

  "This is unquestionably the film of the year."

  in clear reference to Juno, we could reasonably quote that as:

  "[Juno] is unquestionably the film of the year."

  If however the critic wrote:

  "Juno needs a fine actress to play its pregnant teenage star, and Ellen Page has shown herself to be the perfect woman for the job."

  we cannot legitimately change this to:

  "Juno needs a fine [actor] to play its pregnant teenage star, and [Elliot] Page has shown [himself] to be the perfect [man] for the job."

  without severely misrepresenting the source. Surely you can see that this applies to sources regardless of the position you may hold about the best way to describe Page's gender. Beorhtwulf (talk) 22:01, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Hard cases make bad law. For any option we could pick such contrived examples that make no sense, which is why policy and guidelines allow for exceptions. Why would I support deadnaming as a guideline because a tiny fraction of quotes may hypothetically hold gender as integral to the object in discussion? — Bilorv (talk) 23:02, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  I can't imagine a critic actually saying that sentence but, if they did, I can't imagine needing to use said critic's quote in an article. BTW, Page hasn't said, unless I missed it, that he's a man, so you're changes to the quote aren't correct anyway. Capeo (talk) 00:11, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  We wouldn't need to use that critic's quote, and if we wanted to include their opinion, we could easily write [Critic X] argued that portraying the pregnant teenage lead in the film Juno required a fine acting talent, and said that Page had proved perfect for the job. We're able to summarize and paraphrase what people say without quoting them verbatim. Over-reliance on lengthy verbatim quotes is a sign of poor writing ability, and as such looks decidedly amateurish. We should avoid quoting people excessively when summarizing and paraphrasing would do the job, see WP:QUOTEFARM. TompaDompa (talk) 01:31, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  Exactly. Lengthy verbatim quotes shouldn't be used unless they have some serious historical significance, which is rare to begin with. In the hypothetical cases being discussed I can't imagine this being an impediment to writing. Capeo (talk) 01:54, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  Here's the thing: Most trans/non-binary people really wouldn't want to be deadnamed. I argue that, for us and the readers, there really is no difference between using a deadname or a preferred name, as long as we advise at the beginning as per WP:DEADNAME. So, when we write an article, we should use the person's preferred name. I'd see the point in not using a similar rationale for, say, facts about the person: obviously if say, a politician, prefers not to have a certain scandal mentioned in his article, we shouldn't say, 'oh we're not going to mention that, to avoid harm!'. But in this case, there isn't a reason not to use a person's preferred name. So, having established that, there is a clear reason to avoid deadnaming someone. For sources that have already been created, we would need to find a solution to avoid having the deadname in the quote. By bracketing, we make it clear that the name isn't from the quote but has been added by the editors, while still clarifying that there is no change in the meaning. That's sort of what my original comment said. Still, when you say that we shouldn't assume the writer would've used the preferred pronoun, I'd say assuming the opposite would be worse: again, it's considered very rude to deadname a person, so assuming the writer would do that is, in my opinion, saying that the writer is bigoted. So, in summary, Option E avoids deadnaming people and makes clear that the quote has been modified. GoodCrossing (talk) 23:51, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  The problem is that if a person was well known under their deadname (as Page was, no question), that name is hard to bury, and DEADNAME does account for this. If the context of the quote and the quote itself is all on a topic all prior to the transition in such a case, we should not be changing to the new name on that page, and there is no reason to be mucking about with the quote. It would be different if we were using that same quote on Page's article (say to talk about their acting skill) in which case yes, changing the name and pronoun would be a fair step. --Masem (t) 00:59, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  Have you looked at the options put forward? Or the RFC going on above this section? There are quite easy ways to retain context while, in most cases, not deadnaming someone. The use of parentheticals and brackets in quotes are standard in the highest quality RS. Only one of the options would "bury" a name and it has almost no support regarding notable people. Capeo (talk) 01:39, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  "There is no reason to be mucking about with the quote". I think this is the point where our views split. The basis of my argument is that avoiding deadnaming a trans/non-binary person is very important, and a big reason to 'muck about with the quote'. We change quotes when it's needed, for example, for readability, so I'd say if we have a good reason, like avoiding the use of a deadname, I think it's fine to change a quote. Also, I couldn't understand the last part of your post. Are you saying changing a quote is good only for the person's BLP, but not for articles related to them? I think this RfC is about whether or not to do it in any article related to a trans/non-binary person, correct me if I'm wrong though. GoodCrossing (talk) 13:08, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option A or B per Beorhtwulf. Vaselineeeeeeee^★★★ 20:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E first choice, A distant second Quotes are a whole different ball game vs. the Wikipedia-voice prose. I think using brackets to correct names and pronouns would be best--I think brackets sufficiently convey that the inserted language is not original to the quote such that nobody is misrepresented, and if we can use brackets for sentence flow reasons, we can use them for this--but if the consensus is that that's not acceptable, the quote needs to be left intact. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 21:04, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A seems best if the person being referenced in the quote was notable as their deadname. Direct, confirmed quotes should not be changed. Accuracy should be maintained. If the person referenced in the quote was not notable as their deadname, Option E becomes acceptable as the redaction of the deadname from the quote is considered a possible privacy interest. Slug DC (talk) 20:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC) — Slug DC (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Option A or B for reasons previously given by other editors Happy Evil Dude (talk) 21:35, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A. We should not modify quotes unless absolutely needed. A footnote shouldn't be necessary, as the article will presumably talk about their transition elsewhere. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C is best in most cases. We need to be cautious of modifying the actual content of a quotation but removing unneeded content from the middle of a quotation is fine so long as it not done in a misleading way. Using ellipsis to denote where content has been removed is standard and widely understood so doing this is not hiding the fact that something has been removed. Option E could be used in cases where Option C just doesn't work, i.e. where there is no way to remove the name without rending the quotation incoherent unless something is added to replace it. --DanielRigal (talk) 22:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
• MOS:GENDERID already addresses this issue to some extent and offers a solution that's similar to Option C, but not the same; it suggests "adjusting the portion used" of the quote. In the example given above, the result would be that "Todd McCarthy at Variety praised the 'spectacular performance by teenage thesp Ellen Page'" would be replaced by something like "Todd McCarthy at Variety praised the 'spectacular performance' by the teenaged Page." AJD (talk) 23:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • To clarify, I think Options C, E, and G are all acceptable.
• Option A. If an article includes a quote about a person which uses that person's previous name, then presumably that person was notable under the former name (e.g. Page, Jenner, etc.) Thus, leaving the name as-is comports with our current MOS:DEADNAME guideline, flawed as it may be IMHO. There's no privacy concern, the name is already out there, and if the subject is truly harmed by seeing it, then unfortunately updating all mentions on Wikipedia most likely won't help them much. OTOH, if the subject was truly non-notable under their deadname, then in general I would not support including a third-party quote which uses it (though their may exceptions.) Yilloslime (talk) 23:32, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Well said. Jmill1806 (talk) 15:50, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option E to show the quote has been edited from the original. There will likely be some limited instances where Option A is okay which are best handled on a case-by-case basis, but that doesn't mean this shouldn't be the default. SportingFlyer T·C 00:33, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A' This is not 1984pedia.org. We have no business editing a direct quote to conform to editor's preferences. The world will catch up but history is history. Messing with it for feelings is a slippery slope that has far broader implications long term Slywriter (talk)
• Option A A quote is a quote. Plain and simple. Pavlor (talk) 07:10, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option F (not currently present in the list): either remove the quote altogether, or truncate the quote to a portion of it that doesn't mention the deadname. The use of quotes is optional. They can be summarized, paraphrased or truncated. There is no particularly reason to poke the person in the eye. Nsk92 (talk) 07:39, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A — A quote should not be modified, because it would be putting words in people's mouths. -Mardus /talk 13:50, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  This is an argument against Option D, not in favor of Option A. None of the options apart from D put words in people's mouths. AJD (talk) 15:43, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option A. Quotes should not be edited, period. -- Calidum 15:14, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  You have several million articles you'll be wanting to change if that's your view. Brackets to edit quotes for minor corrections and context are widespread. I would even say, should the outcome of this discussion be to not edit the quotes as appropriate, using "sic" should be encouraged/required, as technically, the name is wrong and the source has got it wrong. After people get married, and they are notable under a different last name, it is common practice to amend quotes with brackets to prevent confusion, I don't see why there would be an issue with the same practice here. Kingsif (talk) 15:41, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option A/E. "Quotes should not be edited, period," but it's okay to use square brackets to add context, as is widespread throughout the English language. Jmill1806 (talk) 15:48, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A/B Quote fudging is a no go. Sorry. Gotitbro (talk) 18:39, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• C/E or similar as first choice, B second choice (B doesn't minimize harm as much as E). Never D because the quote should not be edited without indicating the edits e.g. through ellipses or brackets. Not A because it might confuse the reader, who might think the quote refers to someone other than the subject. I don't think these particular choices are the best framing of this question. There are many ways, as demonstrated above, to "work around" the issue: ellipses, using only part of the quote, a footnote, a bracket... many ways. But the two principles are: (1) identify the subject of the quote if the quote uses a different name for the subject than our article does; and, (2) never change quotes without indicating the changes (e.g. ellipses and brackets). BTW, everyone saying "quotes should not be changed" and things like that needs to step off it... we use ellipses and brackets to modify quotes all the time, on Wikipedia, and in English (and other languages). The suggestion that ellipses or brackets are some kind of impermissible modification of quote is nonsensical. Only D lays out an actually-policy-violating option. Levivich ^harass/_hound 19:02, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E (name replacement in brackets) as first choice, with Option C (ellipses) as an alternative depending on the sentence structure in question. Quotes are edited for clarity all the damn time. Brackets indicate that a modification has been made. The ubiquitous practice of scholarly writing is not a "memory hole" or "putting words in people's mouths". Nsk92's Option F (rewrite to avoid using that part of the quote) is also a good choice to present. Sometimes, leaning on quotations is just being lazy, and they should be paraphrased or summarized anyway. The idea that keeping the original wording "preserves accuracy" gets it exactly backward: circumstances change, making the original wording inaccurate versus the facts of the world. XOR'easter (talk) 19:28, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  Levivich above is correct in pointing out that leaving quotations unaltered could easily be confusing. XOR'easter (talk) 19:41, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  I referred to Nsk92's "option F", but it was added to the list after my comment as Option G. MOS:GENDERID already advises this (adjusting the portion used). XOR'easter (talk) 17:08, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  All this brouhaha was clearly prompted by a movie star, and I'd bet that that's the sort of example people have in mind. I'll admit that I have a hard time thinking of movie reviews whose prose was so extraordinary it needs to be preserved verbatim. For example, Pauline Kael was famous for being opinionated and eloquent, but none of the quotes in her article would be affected by this. Ditto the page on Roger Ebert. XOR'easter (talk) 18:34, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

• Note to closer: Option F did not exist before this timestamp: 02:04, 4 December 2020 (UTC). !Votes above may thus not have taken it into consideration, though it is essentially a variant/combination of B and E and should be assessed in that light. Option E was added immediately after the start, and isn't a consensus-gauging issue.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 
• Usually F, B, or E, depending on context; sometimes A or, rarely, C. This should generally be left to editorial discretion at an article. Option A would actually be called for in cases where the person is non-notable and isn't otherwise covered in Wikipedia (e.g., we are quoting a source who says something like "According to John Q. McPublic's paper in 2003, ..."; it would be WP:OR to try to positively identify this with a today Jane Q. Public that some editor thinks corresponds to that John Q. Public in 2003. See all my detailed commentary in the main RfC about names in sources and the WP:BLPPRIV policy working bidirectionally). Option C could sometimes be applicable, when we have no reason to no need to have the first name in that spot (e.g. because the reader already contextually knows who the referent is) but the surname is retained. Option D is not actually permissible at all per MOS:QUOTE and WP:V and WP:OR: It is absolutely not WP's role to blatantly lie about quoted content, especially since others will quote Wikipedia quoting it. Honestly, please think through RfC questions better before posing them. PS: Option G is entirely reasonable in some cases ("write around the problem"), but it doesn't address what to do when the material needs to be quoted, and the quote span needs to contain the string that has the deadname in it [whether we keep it intact or not]. Option H is just a specific subset of F, and should not be mandated as the only form of F to use.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:04, 4 December 2020 (UTC); revised: 18:33, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Note to closer: Option G was not added until 02:17, 4 December 2020 (UTC).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:34, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• A or B are the only options acceptable here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:06, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E when feasible, otherwise Option G. I prefer a variation on Option E that would use bracketing to replace the deadname with only the last name (if unchanged); so "Ellen Page" would be replaced with "[Page]". I'm not sure if I should add this as a new Option H. Kingsif, this is exactly the approach you originally suggested (and I had settled on it even before reading the discussion), but I'm not clear where you stand on it now. Ultimately, I do think a change to "[Elliot Page]" is acceptable even if not preferred; Wikipedia would not be saying that the person being quoted somehow meant to refer to "Elliot Page," but would just be telling the reader that the quote refers to the person now known as Elliot Page. In cases where the quote has more than a passing mention of the person's name, and would require adjustment of pronouns or other gendered words, the passage containing the quote should be rewritten to instead paraphrase and more selectively quote the original, rather than insert multiple bracketed changes. In the rare case that a quote uses gendered language in such a way that its meaning or context cannot be preserved without it, it may be acceptable to leave a quote as it is, including a deadname. Such a quote should not be left without an acknowledgment of the person's chosen name, but I think rather than a footnote it should be worked into the text for overall readability. Something like "So-and-so said that 'Ellen Page...'" could be changed to "So-and-so, writing prior to actor Elliot Page's transition to male identity, said that 'Ellen Page...'". --DavidK93 (talk) 08:36, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A - We shouldn't be erasing a previous identity, as though it never existed. GoodDay (talk) 13:05, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A or B - the original name should stay in, as that is the accurate quotation, but if necessary add a footnote to explain the new name/identity. GiantSnowman 13:08, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Any option except A or D - D is ruled out because it doesn't mark the change to the quotation. A is ruled out (for BLP subjects) because, per MOS:GENDERID, we respect the declared gender identity of BLP subjects, and it is impossible to do so while gratuitously deadnaming them. (I can imagine hypothetical cases where the deadname was integral to the quotation, such as a pun about a name, but I cannot imagine an instance when it would be DUE, or meet basic BLP standards, to include such a quote in a WP article. The most obvious similar instance would be to document an attempt by a public figure to use the deadname for public shaming or as an insult - like on Twitter - but even if the incident were DUE to mention the inclusion of the deadname in a quote would be extremely UNDUE. So no actual exceptions.)
• Pretty much any of the editors offering policy-compliant support for A could have their needs met equally through G, which of course wasn't an option the first many !voting editors were encouraged to consider. No quotations are inherently DUE for inclusion in the encyclopaedia in a particular given form - paraphrase or selection is always possible. And the non-policy-compliant and POINTy votes for A, in the genre of We shouldn't be erasing a previous identity or quotes should not be edited, period (as if there were a NOTCENSORED reason to include a particular quotation at a particular length), really ought to be ignored completely.
• I will also point out that in cases where the person was not notable at the time the deadname was in use (which should be a rare case for these reliably sourced quotations), options should be restricted to C, E and G. In these cases a BLPPRIVACY concern exists for the former name, as has been discussed in a recently closed RfC, and I can't imagine any considerations that would make inclusion of the quotation - and the deadname within the quotation - DUE. Such quotations would either be people deadnaming the BLP subject after they declared the name - and we should never be allowing those people to use Wikipedia to spread their hate and/or ignorance - or people commenting on a part of the BLP subject's life when they were not notable, the details of which are a particular BLPPRIVACY concern that we need to uphold. Ellipses, editorial brackets, selective quotation and paraphrase can and should deal with any related content that would be DUE to include - NOTCENSORED is never a reason to publish non-encyclopaedic information about a BLP subject, and the case I am discussing would always be exactly that. (Probably my longest !vote yet. Sorry!) Newimpartial (talk) 14:42, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  I feel like it's worth noting yet again that MOS:GENDERID already makes a recommendation on this, and it's Option G. AJD (talk) 15:15, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  The rationale apparently invoked in the the non-policy-compliant and POINTy votes for A would also rule out, for example, replacing a birth name with a married name in brackets. Or, if Murray Gell-Mann used "Dick" in a sentence, we couldn't replace it with "[Feynman]". ("Dick is always calling up to see whether Murray is working," Dr. Gell-Mann's wife, Margaret, once said. "If I say he's in the garden Dick is happy for the rest of the day. But if I tell him Murray is doing physics, then Dick gets nervous and immediately wants to come over." [7]) XOR'easter (talk) 17:28, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  Newimpartial, I agree with you in the event such a quote appears in that subject's article. However, you could have a scenario where a quote mentions a person who was not notable at the time in question (and was not necessarily ever notable); the quote is about something else that is notable for whatever reason, and this person is mentioned. If that person is transgender and changed their name at some later time, then changing the name in the quote would actually be the BLPPRIVACY violation. The original quote could still be available in some source, and now Wikipedia would be informing the public that the person is trans and that their name in the original quote is their deadname. It's not very likely that this would come up, but also not inconceivable; if it did then I think the best way to handle it would be to leave the deadname unchanged, to avoid creating any association between the individual and their deadname. --DavidK93 (talk) 04:27, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

  I don't see how that example is relevant as it would require inappropriate WP:OR to ever occur. We only rely on public statements by a person about being transgender or changing their name. I do not believe anyone has argued against any exceptions in some kind of extreme circumstance. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 04:42, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

  I don't expect this to happen often, but I agree with both Wallyfromdilbert and DavidK93 on this. As editors we actually have to be fairly careful not to create connections between obscure deadnames and now-notable trans people, and this includes not drawing attention to such connections by either linking them or blatantly redacting them in quotes. Any such association should be considered essentially OR (especially if documented in primary sources), and even if published somewhere would be a serious BLPPRIV concern, as SMcCandlish has pointed out.

  Also, I can forsee "motivated" editors who face clear restrictions on what can be included in a subject's BLP page engaging in deliberate deadname disclosure through the inclusion of the non-notable name on linked pages, and UNDUE quotations would be one way they might do that. I am not seeing a policy solution to this at the moment, much less one that would actually achieve consensus, but we should he vigilant to maintain the spirit as well as the letter of whatever the close of this RfC determines. Newimpartial (talk) 15:43, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

  Regarding public figures, in case a source uses a deadname the person was never publicly known as, leaving it unaltered without explanation would not only be a BLP issue, but would also be confusing for the reader. It's an obvious case where a direct quote probably should be avoided. Summarize it instead, or use another source if possible. If a quote is deemed important for some reason (which should be rare) option E works. The only reason I can think of for leaving the quote unaltered (option A) is if there was some debate about the deadnaming, and that debate is the reason we want to use the quote.

  If the person never became a public figure, we probably wouldn't know about them being trans in the first place, and the quote would naturally be left unaltered. If an editor nonetheless digs up this information about a non-public person, it would be a privacy issue, and any information implying that the person is trans should be left out. There could be borderline cases here, when someone might be relatively well-known among a select group of people. I suppose we then have to look at how outspoken that person is about being trans. /Jiiimbooh » TALK – CONTRIBS 21:49, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option E. No meaning is lost, and it is currently standard practice in any case where the meaning would be unclear (ie. if someone said He is the best writer I have ever known. we would naturally switch it to [Stephen King] is the best writer I have ever known.). We would also likely do the same if someone said a term of endearment instead of a proper name (ie. I think Bubba is amazing at bowling could become ...[thinks Smith] is amazing at bowling). I don't see how this would be any different. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:59, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• E (and C and G are also acceptable), which is already normal practice in my experience and applied without controversy in most cases as MJL points out. -sche (talk) 20:10, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Options A or B because Wikipedia is not censored (i.e. use of ellipses to remove the name from someone else’s quote). Reviews can’t avoid using the name and it's a bit galling to believe someone's former name can never be uttered again. Trillfendi (talk) 22:19, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E or G I think this can probably be avoided in most instances by simply rewording the article text to omit that portion of the quote. Otherwise, just replace the name in brackets since it seems to reasonable to respect the concerns underlying MOS:DEADNAME. I'm not sure why Option D was included as an option at all. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 02:08, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option G is the best option in most cases. Direct quotations are rarely necessary, although I like to use them in non-problematic circumstances. A well written paraphrase can convey most of the information in the quotation, and that easily allows for avoiding mention of the deadname. Option A is acceptable only when the person in question was widely famous under the previous name, and if and only if there is something so unique about the quotation that there is clear consensus among the article editors that it should be included. That should be a rare circumstance. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:11, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E is my preferred option; clearly-marked elision of quotes, as long as they don't change the meaning or the context, is already standard practice and allowed per WP:QUOTATIONS anyway. In any case, there are very few cases where deadnames in quotations can't be dealt with with clever writing, and I'd like to think Wikipedia editors aren't stupid. Sceptre (talk) 09:30, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
• Options A, E, F, G, and perhaps C in some instances are all acceptable. Quotes should generally speaking not be changed, but clarifications in brackets are fine. As other's have mentioned, changes in order not to misgender Elliot, could misrepresent the quote in some situations, for example: "Ellen Page was the perfect woman for the job". In other quotes it works great: "[Elliot] Page has great acting skills". For this reason I do not think we should force the same solution on every quote. The main point is that quotes must not be changed without clarifying this, and using brackets is the standard way. /Jiiimbooh » TALK – CONTRIBS 18:06, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option G, then Option E if necessary would be my first thought. Based on what people have written previously, it's clear that we should not be changing the meaning of quotes. That being said, there is no need to use a quote if it misgenders the subject. We should avoid causing harm and confusing the reader, and I think the simplest way to do that is by paraphrasing or summarizing quotes as needed. If, for whatever reason, a quote with a person's deadname is absolutely necessary (I don't know when that actually would happen...), their deadname should be replaced with their current name in square brackets. I also think recommending that editors avoid using quotes that misgender the subject or use their deadname is the right move because it works in essentially any context. There isn't really a need for qualifiers or exceptions to Option G and Option E. They satisfy sensitivity/privacy requirements while giving editors the freedom to write without wondering what to do with quotes. TJScalzo (talk) 03:43, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A, with Option B a distant second. And an absolute NO to Option E. --Calton | Talk 08:31, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
• option B or option F as the purpose of an encyclopedia is to inform our readers. Yet if a quote is used it should faithfully reproduce the quote. But if this quote mentions a non notable person, then just leave their name as quoted and do not try to identify them post any name change. However I do think we have excessive quotes in use, so option G should also be considered case by case. However our policies should not use the term "deadname", as that is a POV inflammatory term designed to upset people. Our aim is not to emotionally stir up, so something like "former name" should be used instead. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:17, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option G both as a matter of good writing and as respecting the sensitivity. Whichever of the 'sides' above you fall on, changing Author said, "Ellen Page as character made the film beautiful" to Author praised Page should be preferred. Where a rewrite is difficult, option F should be employed, or some modification, such as "[Public]", which could be used to remove both former and previous names. --Izno (talk) 06:29, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
• G or E. G is preferable as an option that resolves the situation entirely with no chance of confusion; per the MOS, quotes should be avoided when possible in any case. E is an acceptable option if it is absolutely necessary to use a quote; it makes it clear who is being referenced while also avoiding any risk of misrepresentation, and square brackets are a universally-accepted way of handling situations like these when it might be unclear who is being referred to due to a name change. Oppose A in strongest possible terms; in addition to allowing deadnaming via quotes, it creates a high risk of confusion, as Levivich said above, because it may not be clear who the quote actually refers to when the rest of the article uses their current name. B and F aren't as good of an option as E, which avoids unnecessary use of the deadname entirely. C is acceptable but not always viable depending on the layout of the quote, while D risks obvious confusion by modifying the quote. --Aquillion (talk) 18:12, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
• Simply follow the guidance at MOS:PMC; no need to alter that, as faithful quotation is not something to move away from. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 20:27, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

MOS:PMC says Where there is good reason to change the wording, bracket the changed text; for example, "Ocyrhoe told him his fate" might be quoted as "Ocyrhoe told [her father] his fate". The question essentially being debated here is what qualified as being "good reason," and that is a policy that (I think, at least) we want to have global consensus on. Gbear605 (talk) 00:59, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

@Gbear605: My qualms are with the options that would conflict with MOS:PMC, e.g. especially D and potentially G. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 11:10, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option E per Kingsif and MJL. Tony Tan · talk 03:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E or G. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an interview, and really shouldn't rely on other people's words in the first place. It should already be the norm to paraphrase quotes, or only quote key phrases or clauses as part of the encyclopedia's own statement. It already is the norm in the English language to use brackets to modify quotes so that they fit with the new context in which they are quoted.Bil Options E and G describe normal use of quotations, which shouldn't change just so we can draw extra attention to someone's deadname, which is almost certainly not relevant. Bilorv expressed it extremely well above. ~ oulfis 🌸(talk) 07:30, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option A Keep the deadname as it is. Rondolinda (Rondolinda) 11:12, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option E or G per oulfis. --Asmodea Oaktree (talk) 01:33, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option G (followed rarely by E) per oulfis, Aqillion, Wallyfromdilbert, Cullen, Bilorv and others. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 07:27, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option G. Anything else either seems likely to be used as an excuse for the deadname-enthusiasts to find a way to shoehorn deadnames into articles, or a strawman to make the shoehorn-excuse look more reasonable. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:48, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option G if possible, options E or maybe C if not: G is just a general rule for all quotes and we obviously should prefer it if possible. If not, it's perfectly acceptable in English writing to replace incorrect text in a quote with correct text in brackets. It's also acceptable in English writing to quoted text with an ellipsis, but IMO in this situation that will usually look more awkward. Loki (talk) 09:24, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option F, second choice A/B, I'd be concerned if it was being used as reasoning to remove quotes, given that there is usually a reason for direct quotes to be utilised as opposed to paraphrasing. When someone gains a title, paraphrasing referring to past discussions adds it in, but quotes remain the same. The same should apply here. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:50, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option G, much better to paraphrase than to alter a direct quote. If we really need to quote, we can always leave the name part out. Vpab15 (talk) 15:57, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option B/F: Quotes should be preserved, but there should still be some note of the name change. Strongly against D as words in quotes should not be removed without an ellipsis. — Twassman [Talk·Contribs] 03:52, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
• None. No new policy WP:CREEP is needed here. Simply follow MOS:QUOTE. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 08:51, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

  Finnusertop, MOS:QUOTE says Where there is good reason to change the wording, bracket the changed text; for example, "Ocyrhoe told him his fate" might be quoted as "Ocyrhoe told [her father] his fate". The question essentially being debated here is what qualified as being "good reason," and that is a policy that (I think, at least) we want to have global consensus on since the cause of this RfC was edit wars across multiple articles. Gbear605 (talk) 15:34, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, Gbear605, MOS:QUOTE tells you whether and how to quote. It's one of the very basics of writing and we've been just fine without such a list of "good reasons" to use or not to use brackets. Those are commonsense editorial decisions that, if disputed, can be handled on a case by case basis. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:23, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

• Option G (paraphrase/summarize) should always be the first option considered, per MOS:QUOTE (It is generally recommended that content be written in Wikipedia editors' own words. Consider paraphrasing quotations into plain and concise text when appropriate). In the rare cases where a quote is warranted, option E (bracket substitution) is the best way to avoid gratuitous deadnaming while retaining clarity and abiding by MOS:PMC. Option C (ellipsis) is also acceptable, but option E is almost always a better way of doing it. As has been noted by several other editors (including Bilorv, Capeo, DanielRigal, Kingsif, XOR'easter, and MJL), all of this is already established standard practice. TompaDompa (talk) 00:12, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
• Support C,E G is literally always an option so I haven't included that one in my support statement, but its a very useful one. (more specifically, I support any of these 3 combinations: C+E+G first, then C+G or E+G) I do not support G as the only option; it'd be really weird to say that you just can't direct quote anything that was said about a TG/NB person before they changed their name, given all the quote-editing options which exist. E.g. direct quotes from critics is standard, and it would make an article seem unrelated to the real world. It also really tightly restricts the options available to editors, which would make them hesitant to work on TG/NB articles (I am NOT saying we shouldn't have some specific restrictions around it, just that its good to have some wiggle room) thus introducing systematic bias. So, I ruled out other options this way: we should stay within quote editing conventions, so remove D. Then, the issue of harm: use of a deadname when not absolutely necessary is harmful to the person, and it perpetuates the mistaken assumption that its okay to TG/NB people via deadnames. Given that direct quotes will be in contexts where an edited quote isn't the only time in the article where the preferred name is used/where the fact that the deadname is outdated is mentioned, it is not absolutely necessary to the understanding of the reader for the deadname to be used at all. Therefore, options A, B, F are removed. For the reason of harm, option A is especially bad. Option A is heavily opposed. Leaving us with C and E (as well as the ever-present G). Good luck to whoever has to summarise this discussion btw. Xurizuri (talk) 12:13, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
• Options C and E as equally good, with Option G always available, per essentially Xurizuri's clear process of elimination. I'd support having flexibility between the two/three options in the guidelines. Also: sorry if I'm repeating someone else here, but I don't buy the argument that inserting square brackets into a quote is putting words into the speaker's mouth, since the point of the brackets is to make it clear that the speaker didn't say whatever is within them: to most readers it will imply nothing whatsoever about the speaker's views on trans people, especially if it's clear the quote in question is from before the person in question publicly transitioned. YorkshireLad  ✿  ^(talk) 20:02, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
• Option C, E, or G are all good, per Xurizuri's summary of the problems with the other options. GreenComputer (talk) 02:51, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option A (or B if necessary). Altering or tampering with quotes in order to arrive at a conclusion not arrived at by the critic who said it is disingenuous. The critic praised the actor by the name they were known at the time of film's release. To alter it to change to a name they are later known by removes and alters the context which will ultimately confuse the reader. I.e. if the critic praised a actress who was female at the time for their performance and they later become male and we were to alter the quotes to potray the quote as if they male at the time of the film's release it will discombublate the reader as the character they will have originally played is almost certainly going to be female. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 17:09, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option A in articles where the individual's deadname already appears, option B or F in those where it does not.Boynamedsue (talk) 15:13, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
• Options G/C/E depending on context. If the sentence can be paraphrased or rearranged so the deadname isn't used, that should be done (G). If using a pronoun, or the actor's name is important to the quotation, standard techniques to modify quotations while remaining faithful to the meaning of the original should be used (C/E). We should not modify quotations without indication to the reader (D), use incorrect quotation modification techniques (F), or unnecessarily use a deadname with no context (A). If for some reason, in what would be an extremely rare case, where the quotation is very famous and the use of the deadname is inextricable it might be best to note the preferred name via footnote (B). In response to those talking about putting words in writer's mouths, I would opine that they might consider it a favour to be less prominently associated with deadnaming. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:54, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option A works best because such a quote establishes that the person was notable under their previous name. Option B would be okay if no other text in the article explains the disparity, but a transgender biography should already have something about the transition. Wikipedia exists to explain things to readers, and a transgender transition should be made explicit. We are not here to hide facts from readers. Binksternet (talk) 07:18, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• Note to closer: Option H (a subset of F) did not exist before this timestamp: 12:42, 15 January 2021 (UTC).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:29, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option G, otherwise H - I have added "option H", which seems obvious to me in the case that a quotation is really necessary: substitute the deadname for the name used consistently in the rest of the article, in accordance with MOS:SURNAME (usually the current surname, but possibly a pseudonym etc.), using brackets, e.g. "spectacular performance by teenage thesp [Page]". Quotations can and should be editorially modified in order to clarify them for the reader in the context of the surrounding text; this is standard practice. It can also be used in place of pronouns, e.g. "in the film, [Page] played a pregnant woman" rather than "[he] played a pregnant woman". However, in most cases such a quote is better avoided or rewritten, i.e., "option G". Good examples of this were provided above by Bilorv, 18:55 2 December 2020. --IamNotU (talk) 13:25, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option A. What's next, rewriting titles of books, newspaper articles, ... because they contain the deadname? If editors are using these gratuitously, to shock or annoy, then deal with those editors. But a quote is a quote, a title is a title: if books like this pr this or an article like this (page 18 ff) are used, it should be with the full, original title, and any policy or guideline trying to curb this is seriously misguided. While occasionally a quote may be altered by using square brackets, this should be the exception. Fram (talk) 13:54, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Fram: So your point is that this is a slippery slope? –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:40, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• Option A per the reasons given above; quotes should be as close to verbatim as possible. Let's not start rewriting history. — Czello 19:06, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option E sounds the most versatile, so I'm in favor of that. Harmonia per misericordia. OmegaFallon (talk) 23:15, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option E, G, or H, up to editorial discretion depending on context and flow. Certainly not D: we can't edit quotes without noting it in the article. Not A or B: We make minor bracketed edits such as these all the time for clarity, context and flow. There is no reason to suspend this practice with regard to misgendering trans people. Srey Sros^talk 03:00, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Option E matches trans-accepting journalistic practice, and Option G also helps. C would also be acceptable to me, but is unusual. Under no circumstances can we go with A or B, of course, and with all the diplomacy I can muster, I'll suggest that the editors supporting A and B lack the life experience to make recommendations on trans issues. Regarding option G, I think it would work best in combination with option E, as a specific recommendation for how to write these articles better without having to resort to brackets. The recommendation could also include Nsk92's suggestion (in the extended discussion below) of finding alternative quotes when possible. rspεεr (talk) 21:31, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Extended discussion (quotes)

• comment - I wanted to point out that a few people now have !voted concerning the treatment in quotations of trans people who were not notable during the period they used their DEADNAME. A recent RfC on this page found that such deadnames should not be used in WP articles, which means that none of the options proposed here is compatible with that (very recent) RfC in that specific instance; the conclusion was that such deadnames should not be mentioned. At the very least, the closer of this RfC should weigh very carefully any considerations offered in this discussion about such deadnames against the overall mood of the community expressed in other related RfCs. Newimpartial (talk) 21:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  Closer should also read the huge thread that followed it. That RfC and its close were pretty much immediately the subject of confusion and conflict; it was a total trainwreck, which is part of the reason these new RfCs are being opened on very specific questions, and we'll likely have several more of them. It appears pretty clear to me that Newimpartial's interpretation of that RfC (specifically "treatment in quotations of trans people who were not notable during the period their used their DEADNAME .... such deadnames should not be used in WP articles") is not in agreement with the already-emerging consensus directions of the currently open RfCs, which have been vastly better "advertised" and will be a site-wide consensus, not a local one. See also my detailed comments on the two-way nature of WP:BLPPRIV as it applies to non-notable people: we are absolutely not in a position to revise quoted material that mentions, say, a Jane Q. Public and then, based on our own OR, identify that name with someone today (still non-notable) going by John Q. Public, and then "out" them on here as being the same person. A name of a non-notable person that WP is not tying to any specifically identifiable person in the present-day world is simply a name in a vacuum, a string of letters.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:49, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  I will reply to this here (and at some length) because, after all, I started the discussion in this section, and maybe it will help me with my eventual !vote. I would encourage the closer to ignore my comment here unless they are in doubt about the intention behind my previous comment. :)

  As far as my interpretation of the prior RfC (specifically "treatment in quotations of trans people who were not notable during the period they used their DEADNAME .... such deadnames should not be used in WP articles") I don't really see many !votes in this RfC addressing that specific question, whereas it was rather front of mind in the prior RfC, which is why I am encouraging the closer to consider both (along with your Extended Commwents, of course). I appreciate your wide posting of this RfC, and between that and Elliot Page coming out as trans (surely one of Canada's major contributions to speeding up the development of WP guidelines) I am impressed with the wide participation here, and voices I haven't seen on this page previously have been among the most enlightening for me. I am not suggesting that a widely-participated RfC be weighted equally with a sparsely-participated one, but I have seen cases where an issue only tangentially addressed in a large RfC has been torqued by the closer (I assume unconsciously), and the community then has to live with a poorly thought-through result on whichever tangent until that specific aspect is reopened. I hope (perhaps fondly) not to see that here.

  As far as the two-way nature of WP:BLPPRIV is concerned, SMcCandlish, I essentially concur with your view. My own particular concern continues to be with the set of cases that, in the closed RfC, I infelicitously called marginally-notable deadnames. What I was talking about there was a set of cases where the BLP subjects concerned are now clearly notable, where there was plausible Notability (or at least contemporary verifiability using reliable sources) from a period where the subject used the deadname, and where there could be a partial BLPPRIV interest in minimizing the prominence of the deadname without there being grounds for excluding it from the encyclopaedia. These are cases where the "born as" treatment or lead placement of the deadname in the BLP might not be appropriate, but where inclusion of the deadname contextually, in another section of the BLP or in a different article about a collaborative project (e.g. as a contributor to a publication) would merit inclusion of the deadname. I still think these represent real cases presenting as-yet unresolved issues, so please don't think I am putting my own torque on the previous RfC close to pretend things have been resolved the way I would want; on the contrary, my goal is to raise and conribute to addressing issues so as to minimize the extent of unintended consequences from each close that prompt a proliferation of RfCs beyond the required quantity. Newimpartial (talk) 09:16, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  @Newimpartial: Whatever wording comes out of these concurrent RfCs, it will probably eventually need to include (perhaps in a footnote) a statement that: for someone notable, a deadname that is verifiable in a few sources but which neither dates clearly to the notability period, nor is found in more than a small minority of sources, should be treated by default as a deadname WP won't include. I.e., the fact that a handful of sources might have ferreted out someone's birth or other deadname, which is not general public knowledge, isn't sufficient for using it on WP. (On the other hand, if most in-depth sources do mention it (or the subject's own ABOUTSELF publications do), then it is general public knowledge, and should not be suppressed here, or it may actually confuse readers.) But, that's almost certainly an RfC in its own right, since it would affect some extant articles and their reporting (at least in infoboxes or "Early life" sections if not in the lead sentence) the birth names of various trans people who seem to not have been notable under those birth names. That is, some people would be opposed to such a rule, or to fine points in it, so it would need to be hashed out in separate and widely-advertised discussion, or consensus on it would be perpetually challenged.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:42, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

• There seems to be some aspect lacking about about the time factor of the quote, and I think people are applying the deadname approach wrong.≈ In the cage of Elliot Page, we should not be changing the past films he was credited to as "Ellen Page", as he was notable under that name at that time - yet I'm seeing that has been done in films like Inception (2010 film). In quote related to these films, if they mention "Ellen Page" by name, we shouldn't be changing that. either. Remember that the "deadname" factor is more an issue for people who were not readily notable under the prior name, that's the name we should not be digging up and advertising. Famous people that have transitions, on the other hand, we should be using the original name when the context calls for it. --Masem (t) 00:45, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
  • And an issue is that MOS:DEADNAME is written from the standpoint of editing the BLP page about said person, not where the name is used elsewhere in WP, which is where this appears to be coming. I think we need to have additional advice here, but with my understanding of practice that we don't update where the person was notable prior to their transition. e.g. Athletics at the 1976 Summer Olympics – Men's decathlon has not been modified to rename "Bruce Jenner" as "Caitlyn Jenner". This would apply to quotes also made prior to that period, on topics that were also prior to that period. --Masem (t) 00:50, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
    • Precisely. I think you've nailed it, Masem. MOS:DEADNAME applies to the biography; and if I may extrapolate outward, usage of such a name elsewhere should be covered by our notability guidelines elsewhere, dependent on the period during which an event, work, etc., occurred, was released, etc., I think, right? Well, that's the question at hand here, at least. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 01:02, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
    • You're kind of begging the question here when you say "In the cage of Elliot Page, we should not be changing the past films he was credited to as 'Ellen Page'." There is a whole discussion taking place on this very page about whether or not we should be making such changes, and a lot of people are correctly arguing that we should make such changes. There may or may not be a "practice that we don't update where the person was notable prior to their transition"; but to the extent that such a practice exists—which I am not super convinced of—there are plenty of people arguing that that is a bad practice. Why is "the 'deadname' factor" more an issue for people who were not readily notable under the prior name? The "'deadname' factor" is that most trans people consider it to be highly objectionable and offensive to be referred to by their deadname, and that's no less true for famous trans people than it is for others. AJD (talk) 01:09, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

      "Correctly" is super-mega-subjective on this. The very reason we are having this massively "advertised" pair of RfCs is that randomly occurring "local consensus" debates among a handful of editors have been coming to completely inconsistent conclusions, and this is clearly not viable.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:10, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

    • Masem, please look at the RfC that precedes the "quotes" RfC. Editors are !voting about whether the restrictions on (notable) deadnames should be made more consistent outside the main BLP articles (in a subset of cases), and what the governing principles. And it isn't really possible to appeal to "what WP is doing now" because there isn't consensus on what present practice is. So the place to argue that people are applying the deadname approach wrong is in a !vote in the RfC three sections (two being subsections) above this one, not in this discussion subsection. Newimpartial (talk) 01:16, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
    • I certainly agree that DEADNAME needs to be clarified to address more than just the subject's own bio; that seems to be the purpose of this RfC, whatever conclusions it reaches, and lack of clarity on this is why the RfC only a while back basically imploded immediately after it closed. It's clear from the options presented in this new pair of RfCs that a lot of editors would think that Athletics at the 1976 Summer Olympics – Men's decathlon can and maybe should be changed to say something like "Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner" or "Caitlyn (then Bruce) Jenner" (or essentially the same but in footnote form). It's been proposed over and over again (and shot down over and over again) to do just "Caitlyn Jenner". But that doesn't mean there's no middle ground. This RfC wouldn't be open if a middle ground were not possible and were not actively desired by many editors. I would argue that something like "Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner" would be better encyclopedia writing, because it's more immediately informative, especially for people not as old as I am – various millennials may be familiar with Jenner only from transition-era and post-transition material like the Kardashians TV show.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:08, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
  • In response to Masem's OP: Let's be careful not to engage in false dichotomy, though. As several of the options above make clear, there are ways to approach this without falsifying past history. That said, I agree (and have stated earlier, in the top RfC, and on other pages) that someone already notable as Foo Baz and who is now Bar Baz does not have a WP:BLPPRIVACY interest in total suppression of the name "Foo Baz" on Wikipedia. That's just not how being a public figure works, and it's not how an encyclopedia works. (This is very different from someone who was not notable until after they name-changed to Bar Baz, or who is not notable at all but is included as WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE in another article, which is in turn [and basically exactly oppose] someone who is not notable and is only mentioned as the author of a source we're citing.) But we can probably strike a balance between not faking the facts, on the one hand, and not overly dwelling on the old name, on the other hand, when it comes to trans people who have been notable under both names.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
• Please tell me there are no attempts being made to delete name re-directs to these bio articles. GoodDay (talk) 14:23, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  I don't know of any, but by previously discussed policy, redirects from deadnames where the person was not Notable at the time they used that name would be eligible to be deleted, as a BLPPRIV concern. Newimpartial (talk) 15:26, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

• Comment If it has relevance for anyone, Netflix has now changed all the actual credits on Elliot Page's previous works to this name. I wasn't sure which section to put this comment in, so just went for the bottom.. Kingsif (talk) 21:15, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

  Always a safe bet. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:54, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

• Do not impose a policy. I don't believe we can establish a one-size-fits-all policy for quotes that will make sense for all situations. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 08:44, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
• What about situations such as Wendy Carlos, who, fourty-five years after transtioning, is basically completely and totally known by that name now, to the point that we'd basically be outing her? ...Policy is too easily led by the latest example of the situation. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.7% of all FPs} 10:04, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

  I understand what you're saying, but Switched-on Bach sold millions of copies - and was extensively reviewed - before Wendy's transition, and it remains one of the best-selling "classical" albums of all time. So I'm not sure "outing" is the right word, even after all these years. Newimpartial (talk) 04:57, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

  Yep. Clearly dates to the notability period, and isn't what "outing" means.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:24, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

  Yes. There are a lot of people, like me, who own Switched-on Bach and A Clockwork Orange (though I'm a lot younger than most in that category!) and would be extremely confused to read a contemporaneous quote referencing composer Wendy Carlos, especially since both works still prominently feature the name Walter Carlos. I don't get how it would be a service to our readers (or, incidentally, the person in question) to actively make it more difficult to tell what person is being referenced in a quote. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:55, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

• Let me repeat a point that has been expressed by several users (directly or indirectly), including myself, but is somewhat lost in the survey above. To the extent possible, quotes mentioning DEADNAME directly should simply be avoided, and MOS should explicitly say that. Where such quotes were previously present in some WP articles, they should be truncated/shortened or omitted altogether. Only if a quote mentioning DEADNAME is so important to the article, that its omission would create substantial content problems, should the options discussed in the survey be entertained. I would imagine that such circumstances would be fairly rare and only apply to particularly notable quotes of some kind. In most other cases using a quote (of any kind) in a WP article is an optional and easily disposable device. Including a quote can be interesting, entertaing and can provide additional context for the reader. But untimately such inclusion is almost never indispensible and it is fairly easy to achieve the same effect in terms of conveying the relevant information to the readers without the use of quotes. For example, Juno (film)#Music contains such a quote by Jason Reitman. The quote is kind of interesting, but ultimately omitting this quote completely from the article would detract essentially nothing from understanding the article's content. For most transgender individuals seeing any mention of their deadname constitutes a jarring and traumatic experience. As I mentioned above, there is no reason for us to poke people in the eye when we can easily avoid doing so. I also believe that the print and journalistic standards for newspapers, books etc are quickly evolving precisely in this direction: omitting/truncating these types of quotes once the person has identified as transgender. It's almost certain that if we don't adopt a similar position in MOS now, we will be forced to play catch-up pretty soon anyway. Nsk92 (talk) 23:19, 26 December 2020 (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.

Criteria for including actor awards?

What are the criteria for including awards in actor bios? Where I edit, I constantly see people bloating up actor award sections with every accolade the person has received: SBD Stardom Awards, Iwmbuzz style Awards (Iwmbuzz is a press-release outlet), Gold Glam and Style Awards, Techofes Awards, etc. (Techofes is a cultural festival held by a tech school that for some reason gives out awards to actors and films and stuff.) Then there are the mom-and-pop award mills, which are everywhere. Sometimes these mills will try to piggyback on the recognition of another award. For instance, there are numerous copycat awards named after the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, a lifetime achievement award issued annually by the Indian government for a person's work in film. Anyway, these are almost always used for promotional purposes, whether it's by the actors themselves, paid editors or gushing fans.

WP:FILMCRITICLIST exists, and it reads: "Awards included in lists should have a Wikipedia article to demonstrate notability." However, this guideline is under the scope of MOS:FILM and not MOS:BIO, so I can't say with 100% confidence that this represents consensus about biographical entries. But for years, in common practise, I've seen people bat away these actor awards citing this guideline, so it seems there could be a practical consensus.

If FILMCRITICLIST does represent the prevailing attitude about awards, then it would be nice to have it included in this MOS. If that displeases some folks, then an alternative would be to have the discussion here and append the guideline text to MOS:TV as well. Buuut, I'm also thinking a bit bigger, as models, for instance, often have the same award bloat problems. And I'm sure the same exists for porn performers and other entertainers. Anyway, I don't want to over-reach here, so if people just want to have a discussion about actors, I'm cool with that. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 20:42, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

It would make sense for it to match the MOS for films, and only include notable awards - IE those that have their own articles. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 20:57, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a means of promotion per WP:PROMO, so it makes sense to avoid referencing awards organizations that are not notable per Wikipedia's standards. There are numerous notable awards organizations already, so we should avoid promotive and indiscriminate referencing. I would support this kind of notability criteria as a variant of WP:CSC, with "every entry" being from an awards organization that "meets the notability criteria". Any reason not to apply it more broadly to all creative professionals? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 21:13, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I personally have no objection, I just didn't want to be overly broad in my query, since we might be reaching across multiple WikiProjects and I didn't invite anyone from the music WikiProjects. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 21:33, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree that extending WP:FILMCRITICLIST to other MOS's would be a benefit. I am mindful of WP:INDISCRIMINATE and awards are particularly susceptible to thius. MarnetteD|Talk 21:56, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't think things can be as simple as "does it have an article?" for a couple of reasons. One is that notability is not the same as "currently has an article". Another is that in some cases, an award may redirect to the magazine/company/organisation etc. that gives the award; such an award is significant in some cases but not others. I think the criterion should really be that the awarding organisation or the award lists each year receive meaningful coverage in reliable sources (whether or not this makes the award notable). — Bilorv (talk) 03:19, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Your argument that notability is not the same as "currently has an article" is a valid one. "Currently has an article", however, tends to suggest that the subject has endured community scrutiny, which is a plus. Maybe a reasonable middle-ground would be that whomever submitting the award would have to demonstrate that the award would meet our GNG, even if there is no current article about them? To your point about a magazine/company/organisation issuing an award that is significant some of the time, how do we determine when those times are? Cosmopolitan is a notable magazine, but not every award they issue is going to be significant. Empire magazine might be notable, but does that mean their "Hottest Bae" award is? (I made that up...) I'm flummoxed by all of this, because there are millions of awards out there. India has hundreds of satellite TV channels. Many of these channels have Wikipedia articles. Many of these channels have awards of some kind. Many of these awards are televised. Many of these televised awards are covered to some degree by the press, in the form of red carpet photo pieces and occasionally someone will publish a list of nominees and/or winners. Would being televised be enough for inclusion? Would red carpet coverage or publication of win/nom lists by the press be enough? To me, all are far too liberal. Award shows are ratings-grabs. The press loves red carpet and award lists, because they're clickbait. Awards and press go hand-in-hand. One thing I notice about many of the really bad award orgs, is that they either have no apparent web presence or if they do, they don't maintain historical archives of their winners. That, to me, seems like a reason to shun an award. Like, if you don't even care enough about your award to publish everybody who's been nominated and who's won, your award organisation is garbage. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 23:54, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Awards and honors sections

Are there any guidelines anywhere about what to do with awards and honors sections in general (not just in film bios, as above)? I note they are not referenced in MOS:ORDER and WP:NOTRESUME would seem to counsel against them.

The reason I'm asking is that I'm trying to do some work on Beverley McLachlin and Beverley_McLachlin#Honorary_degrees_and_other_awards is overwhelming the whole article at the moment. Is it worth retaining, trimming, removing entirely, … ? Any guidance would be helpful. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 18:30, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

I can't think of a specific policy to do with awards sections, but two points come to mind. On a basic level I think these sections have a crucial role to play in a thorough encyclopedic description of a person. I spend a lot of time writing biographies of academics, and the giving and receiving of annual awards from large professional organizations or schools is one of the core ways that academics demonstrate confidence in someone's work, and what types of awards they get puts their work into context. In that case, the awards they've received are a crucial sign of how they fit into the discipline and what topics their peers believe their work has contributed to, which when you're writing about someone who's notable because of their intellectual accomplishments is exactly the sort of encyclopedic content that WP:NOTEVERYTHING says we should be including. I haven't looked closely, but I assume that at least some of the awards for that jurist are meant as a similar signal about how their work fits into the broader world of judicial ideas, and cutting it entirely would lose important context. The reason to keep this information in a separate section is just logistical in my opinion; it is extremely hard and often unavoidably awkward to list a lot of awards in prose form in the middle of a bunch of paragraphs about someone's life, so a bulleted list or table is often a much better way of organizing the information. That's the first, basic point. The second point is less sympathetic: because WP:ANYBIO emphasizes that awards are a good signal that a topic is likely to pass WP:GNG, editors have an incentive to emphasize and call attention to awards when writing about a borderline notable person. So a good trimming is indeed often in order. - Astrophobe (talk) 20:16, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

[edit conflict] I don't see any justification in WP:NOTRESUME for omitting significant awards. As they are things other people have done to recognize the subject rather than things the subject has done themselves, it makes sense to keep them in a separate section from the sections on the life and accomplishments of the subject. The key to maintaining WP:BALANCE and not overwhelming the article is to keep only the significant awards, and not feel compelled to list minor ones exhaustively (as a cv would do). In the case of McLachlin, the honorary degrees (and the fact that she has so many of them) probably are significant, but they could be made much more unobtrusive by listing the institutions in a paragraph of text rather than a big table; see MOS:USEPROSE. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:18, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Honorific suffixes

We have a section on #Honorific prefixes (and shortcut MOS:HONORIFICS), but there isn't one for #Honorific suffixes. Can we have a discussion and find some consensus on what we want to do, here?

I took a look at the WP:LEADSENTENCE of articles listed in Category:Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons, and found these variations: commas & linked (Emmanuel Ciprian Amoroso, Barbara Mary Ansell), bold, nolink, no comma (Alan Graham Apley); small caps (Donald Acheson); no comma & linked (John Abernethy (surgeon)); small caps, linked, with commas (Aileen Adams); small caps, linked, no commas (Hedley Atkins); no mention of honorific (Charles Aldis). Most of these have vital dates in parens following, without a leadiing comma (e.g., John Abernethy (surgeon), and most of the other examples). Each time I click a few names in Category:Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons, I find some new variation.

I'm not bothered by the inconsistency in existing articles, and I'm not in favor of a bot to fix anything. I just think we ought to have a statement about honorific suffixes, so that editors coming here in good faith looking for guidance, can find something on the topic. Mathglot (talk) 01:01, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

For the examples you list, those are post-nominal letters and should already be covered by the section, MOS:POSTNOM, immediately preceding the section on Honorific prefixes. --FyzixFighter (talk) 01:47, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Which seems kind of ironic; maybe we should switch the order of these sections.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:22, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Good point; never saw that section; the shortcut brought me straight to MOS:HONORIFICS; so this is essentially a nav problem for me, then. Maybe the #Honorifics section could benefit from a hatnote, or a brief section at the bottom on honorific suffixes. Mathglot (talk) 07:56, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

It would be nice if MOS:POSTNOM addressed what to do with post-nominals for fraternal/professional organisations: Ex: Joe Bloggs ACE, Cinders Forshaw BSC, Steven Spielberg DGA. I don't see why these are included in articles sometimes, since they represent little more than that someone joined a club, yet they have the same appearance as someone who has been knighted. If someone's a member of the Royal Automobile Club can they append RAC to their name? I'm sure someone will disagree with me. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:48, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

As to those film industry postnominals, they should not be appended to a person's name here. For comparison, the Internet Movie Database, which caters to the promotion of people in the film industry, has a policy which states: "Suffixes indicating professional affiliation, like ASC, CSA, MPSE, etc., are never included; such guild memberships can be noted in biographical trivia". (By "included", I take it they mean "included as a part of a person's name".) --Metropolitan90 (talk) 20:03, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

"Be careful not to give someone a title too soon"

There may be some exceptions -- I think that there are a lot of books which refer to the Duke of Wellington in connection with the Peninsular Campaign, even though technically he wasn't yet a duke under that title... AnonMoos (talk) 22:52, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

References to Wellington can be complicated ... you are correct that he was not made "Duke of Wellington" until 1812... however, prior to that he had been made "Marquess of Wellington" (in 1809) ... so, in the context of the peninsular campaign, calling him "Wellington" is accurate, but "Duke" isn't. Blueboar (talk) 23:59, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure that such title accuracy was always maintained in the previous pre-Internet paper literature, and I strongly suspect that it wasn't, though I don't have concrete references to hand... AnonMoos (talk) 15:23, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

historical accuracy concern for transgender names

I don't fully understand all the ramifications of the transgender names policy, but I guess that's OK, because I'm unlikely to do much editing where it's relevant. However, I have been a little concerned/confused by the Deena Kaye Rose article. When I came across it earlier this year, it said that "Rose"/"she"/"her" did various stuff in the 1960s and 1970s, even though at that time the person was a male named "Dick Feller". When this person appeared on the Johnny Cash show ca. 1970, it was definitely under the name "Dick Feller" with a masculine persona (I've seen the episode), so it would seem a little odd (possibly fasifying history) to claim that Deena Kaye Rose appeared on the show. More recently, someone else has edited the article to use the masculine when referring to the 1960s and 1970s, which avoids the potential history dissonances, but I don't know whether it's compliant with the latest Wikipedia policies... AnonMoos (talk) 23:12, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

The key policy here is MOS:GENDERID, rather than the names policy in particular (which is still under discussion, immediately above). Newimpartial (talk) 23:21, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style is kind of a snakepit, so I doubt I'll be asking there... AnonMoos (talk) 23:34, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

@AnonMoos: You're apt to get a better answer to most any MoS-related question at that page than any other because it's vastly more watchlisted, and essentially is the MoS noticeboard. The Mos sub-pages' talk pages are primarily about the guideline pages' maintenance. --SMcCandlish tel ¢ ¼ 18:20, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Inter-personal venting that (especially in light of later dramas) is best collapsed.

This is exactly, tooth and nail, what I'm talking about. Trillfendi (talk) 23:59, 20 December 2020 (UTC) I delved in briefly at the discussion at Ellen Page & was told I wasn't allowed to use the term "her" or "she" anymore, due to some Arbcom ruling. It left me with the impression that thought policing is encouraged on those bio articles. GoodDay (talk) 00:09, 21 December 2020 (UTC) MOS:GENDERID didn't come from ArbCom; it came from repeated and quite decisive RfCs. It is the GamerGate discretionary sanctions, which were extended to cover gender and sexuality issues, that originated with ArbCom, and those impose procedural rules - they aren't part of the record of substantive consensus. But the question "Can editors use pre-transition pronouns in articles on living Trans subjects?" has been repeatedly, decisively, answered by the community with "No, they can't". Newimpartial (talk) 01:15, 21 December 2020 (UTC) Indeed, 'thought policing'. GoodDay (talk) 01:37, 21 December 2020 (UTC) This isn't a forum in which one is free to say anything one thinks about a BLP; there are quite a few restrictions. I don't think that is thought policing, we just require that contributors have a filter between thoughts and contributions.--Trystan (talk) 02:05, 21 December 2020 (UTC) We each describe the decision, as we see it. GoodDay (talk) 02:10, 21 December 2020 (UTC) Wikipedia's guidelines for writing about gender identity describe how Wikipedians should edit, not how they should think. Respecting transgender identities is not a matter of "thought policing". It is not a matter of censorship. It is a matter of neutrality and privacy. As much as I personally believe that transgender identities are valid and deserving of respect, you are allowed to think whatever you like. But on Wikipedia, you are not allowed to say or publish whatever you like. RoxySaunders (talk) 02:46, 21 December 2020 (UTC) Censorship, just as bad. GoodDay (talk) 02:58, 21 December 2020 (UTC) Wikipedia articles are not forum for uncensored speech, and BLP articles are not a soapbox for opinions about gender identity. As editors of an encyclopedia, you and I have a duty to write and discuss living people in a neutral manner which does not harm them. Choosing to refer to a person by names/pronouns they do not like is very much NOT neutral. as well as disrespectful and harmful to them. Even if you believe you are merely preserving Wikipedia:The Truth, don't do it. RoxySaunders (talk) 04:26, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Newimpartial -- the pronoun usage on Deena Kaye Rose before you changed it again was not "random", so I really don't know why you claimed that it was "random". But you didn't change "Feller" to "Rose" when referring to the 1960s and 1970s, which is what I was actually more concerned about.... AnonMoos (talk) 02:02, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

It looked random to me - "he" and "she" used within the same paragraph, with no pattern that I could see. As far as the extent to which "Rose" should be used throughout the article, that is related to the issue being discussed above, and I don't have a hardline view about deadname removal particularly when it comes to last names of notable people that then changed with transition. As I said before, pronouns are a settled issue, first names less so, last names perhaps least of all. So I was only trying to fix the pronouns. Newimpartial (talk) 02:46, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

A film is bigger than any one individual who is a part of it. For the reader's clarity and integrity of the page it should state how the actor is credited. Samurai Kung fu Cowboy (talk) 04:26, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

For reference I'm specifically talking about Inception. But this can be extended to other pages. I believe it's neutral to include the actor as credited, as the page is about the film and not them. I think this should extend to any name change even if it's within the same gender, like Bob to Mike. It could also include the actor's current name as well but this way the reader will have clarity when seeing the credits. Samurai Kung fu Cowboy (talk) 04:34, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

User:Samurai Kung fu Cowboy, if a person is mentioned then the article is partially about them. And therefore, we still should be respectful. We should also be respectful to all the trans readers, who don't really feel great when they see other people being deadnamed. While you may see it as neutral, it has an inbuilt harm and prioritises technical purity over people. I agree that we should clarify initially (see discussions above), but most references to the person should use their name. Your comparison to name changes within the same gender is flawed; this discussion is predicated on the idea that name changes between gender are significant in at least some way, which you can see above that most people agree on. For changes between gender, there are often legal, social and emotional barriers which a person must overcome to change their name to reflect their identity, in addition to the harm of not using their name. This is not the case with most within gender name changes. Xurizuri (talk) 23:33, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

@Xurizuri: Thank you for taking the time to respond. I've had a long conversation about this on the Inception page now and have a better understanding of Wikipedia policy towards dead names and professional names and the usage of them. Although I believe it's best for Wikipedia to make people feel included and comfortable when reading an article, I certainly don't agree that it should be the main objective so I don't entirely buy in to that argument but I also think the name change in question makes logical sense as well, so that's not the case here. I don't agree that all name changes within same gender identity auromatically take a back seat in importance to name changes linked to gender identity, both in social impact, or the individual's feelings and perception of one self. A couple of examples that were brought up were changes due to changes in religious identity, such as Muhammad Ali, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Both of whom are listed as such on Wikipedia. However, Nkechi Amare Diallo's changes in name is not equally respected due to her racial identity shift. And I have no idea why Malik Shabazz's isn't due to shift in religious and political views. I don't think it's for Wikipedia to judge how important name changes are emotionally for every individual. Not everyone places the same importance on gender, trans or not. But it's good overall that Wikipedia respects subject's gender identities. But I definitely am not one to tell people which aspects of their identity are more important than others and so this may be a conversation worth exploring further but I don't necessarily think there is any end to it. I hope this makes sense. As far as a collective work, such as a film, I personally believe it is always bigger than an individual and more about the collective. But that's my personal belief and not Wikipedia policy and certainly not in line with American capitalist ideology. Samurai Kung fu Cowboy (talk) 23:48, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

In response to this entire thread: If we have different guidelines about names and about pronouns, and one of them even has different application with regard to names pre- and post-notability, and an editor would already know of these complexities if they simply read the guidelines, the obvious conclusion: Please read the guidelines before asking question about them. And almost avoid confusingly commingling questions and commentary about DEADNAME with those that pertain to GENDERID as if they were interchangeable. And don't get into personal squabbles and socio-political soapboxing with other editors because you disagree with what the guidelines say. Just follow the guidelines. We have them for a reason and they have a lot of consensus behind them (a whole lot in these cases, because they have already been argued to Hell and back many times for about a decade now). PS: It also helps to read some of the previous discussions of this stuff, starting with newer threads obviously. You can search the entire MoS archives from the search box near the top of WT:MOS. --SMcCandlish tel ¢ ¼ 18:20, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Translation -- don't even bother to try to edit any article involving this issue unless you've read long walls of policy text and extensive previous discussions, because unless you've devoted many, many hours getting up to speed on the all the very latest ramifications of the very latest policies (which may change again at any moment, of course), your editing may set off policy-landmines which a large number of people would not have anticipated in advance. Why do I find this more discouraging than encouraging? AnonMoos (talk) 15:25, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

The small suggestion I can give is edit as you always would and leave MOS compliance to the gnomes. It's only a landmine if you maliciously edit against the MOS or end up in an edit-war/Talk page fight. After all, everyone SHOULD be assuming good-faith and not draw any conclusions from an edit that is otherwise correct. Slywriter (talk) 21:12, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

RfC regarding post-nominals

The following discussion 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.

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Should post-nominals be used for people who have returned their medals? (Examples include John Lennon, who returned his MBE medal, and Michael Sheen, who returned his OBE medal) 14:01, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes. Returning a medal has no effect on whether one legally holds that honour, as only the monarch has the power to annul that honour. Sdrqaz (talk) 14:03, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
• @Sdrqaz: Why do you believe an RFC is necessary? Is there evidence of previous conflict? Are there sufficient numbers of conflict that this needs to be resolved here and not at the particular article you are worried about? --Izno (talk) 17:06, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Izno: There's been a discussion at Talk:Michael Sheen without any consensus being reached and back-and-forth reversions on the page itself. I was hoping that an RfC would lead to a change to MOS:POSTNOM to settle this issue, so there is no ambiguity. Given that this change would affect all the people listed at List of people who have declined a British honour#Renouncing an honour, I thought it would be best to have a centralised discussion. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:13, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

• No. Returning or denouncing an honor or medal should negate it in the eyes of an encyclopedia. Whether it can be legally returned is moot. This seems similar to names, in which the name a person goes by supersedes their legal name. So I think the post-nomial they go by supersedes their legal post-nomial. Jmill1806 (talk) 20:45, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
• No. The award and its return should certainly be mentioned in the text of the article, but using it in this way in the lead (or in an infobox) is too un-nuanced and non-neutral a way of describing a situation that requires nuance in its description. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:13, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  @David Eppstein: But won't omission of the post-nominals create the same problem? Sdrqaz (talk) 12:59, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - Actually, NEITHER the legality of the postnomial, nor the desires of the recipient are what matter here. What matters is what sources that refer to the subject do... whether the person is routinely referred to using the postnomial or not. If sources continue to use the postnomial than so should we. If they stop (or never start) then so should we. Blueboar (talk) 22:06, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Blueboar: But it's difficult to find sources that refer to people with their postnominals, unless it's 'MP'. Sources that refer to people with 'MBE' and 'OBE' are usually press releases or hagiographies and are usually not considered reliable. The default in reliable sources is to refer to people without their postnominals. Dr Hawking (the most prominent recently-living person with British honours I can think of at the moment) was never really mentioned as "Stephen Hawking CH CBE" in reliable sources or news media. That didn't mean that the use of postnominals on his Wikipedia page was invalid. Sdrqaz (talk) 13:25, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes per Sdrqaz, unless there is a specific consensus on the recipient's talk page to omit the post-nominals. In this situation, the recipient does not determine the content of Wikipedia. If there is no reliable source stating that the post-nominals have been removed (i.e., the monarch removed them), there is no basis for removing them here. In other situations not involving British post-nominals that may not be the case. For example, if a person renounces their citizenship and the policy of the country is that such renouncement automatically removes citizenship, we don't need any more than a reliable source confirming the renouncement. Sundayclose (talk) 16:23, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• No per Jmill1806 and David Eppstein. Returning a medal means that they don't have the medal any more and don't want to be addressed as if they do. MOS:POSTNOM says, When an individual holds a large number of post-nominal letters or seldom uses them (common among heads of state and members of royal families), they should be omitted from the lead, and the titles only described in the main body of the article. If someone renounces an hono[u]r, it's a sure bet that they "seldom" use the post-nominal letters that go with it. Wikipedia does not operate by royal edict. We are here to inform, and including letters that have been renounced misleads the reader. XOR'easter (talk) 17:18, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• No For both pre and post nominals, I would use those that one would normally use if one were to write to that person or include them in a formal list such as invitees to the Queen's garden party or benefactors of a hospital. Bear in mind that someone might use Wikipedia as a source for that information. If they have returned a medal, even if it does not cancel its award, it is an indication that one should not use the honor to address them. TFD (talk) 17:21, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes. Award medals are not negated by their return, they are still "legally" owned by the recipient. Consequences of the award, such as nominals, are not varied by personal actions. WWGB (talk) 01:04, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

  Counterpoint: yes, they are. Consequences include how others refer to them, which is affected by their personal actions. We document history, not just legal niceties and technicalities. XOR'easter (talk) 00:12, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes. There is no mechanism for renouncing an honour once it has been accepted. Whether the recipient likes it or not, they still hold the honour and still have the postnominals. It has nothing to do with personal preference. This is a fact and this is an encyclopaedia which records facts. If a person officially holds postnominals then we should record them. If we only record those that the subject likes then we are entering the realms of hagiography rather than encyclopaedia. It is not up to the subject what we write about them and we do not need their approval. This is a longstanding principle of Wikipedia. If it is a sourced and relevant fact then it is recorded. This is no different from the fact that we use full names in the lede rather than the subject's preferred name only (which is, by extension, what the "no" voters above seem to be supporting, since we wouldn't address them by their full names either; if not, then why are postnominals an exception?). This would be a major change to our practices. . -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:20, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• Not in the infobox This is a real grey area. There is nothing wrong with including it in the body, but I would oppose giving it a prominent place. ~ HAL333 20:10, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
• No. I will furnish an example to illustrate my thinking: Jean-Paul Sartre famously turned down the Nobel Prize, and while they technically "awarded" it to him regardless, most sources that talk about him will take his refusal at face value (as it was a fairly significant, and to some extent career-defining, political gesture). Simply referring to him as a "Nobel laurate" without further qualification would give a fairly misleading impression of the shape of his career and relation to society, despite being technically correct in the eyes of the Nobel committee and (coincidentally?) reflecting favorably on them. Similarly, somebody who renounces a knighthood considers themselves to no longer have the honor. Per XOR'easter, they're not applying it to themselves, and per TFD, they aren't being formally addressed that way; their having the honor isn't a relevant part of understanding how they interact with the world. jp×g 19:49, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, but Sheen did not turn down the OBE. He accepted it. That's the point. Once accepted, it cannot be renounced. He legally still has it. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:13, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• No. An honour being renounced is as significant as its being awarded, whether or not there is a legal mechanism for doing so. Both facts should be described together in the body of the article. It isn't consistent with a neutral point of view for us to side with the state that awarded the honour by foisting the postnominal on the recipient without appropriate context.--Trystan (talk) 22:44, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Again, you need to distinguish between refusing and renouncing. It wasn't foisted on Sheen; he was offered it and accepted it. You don't have to accept an honour and if you refuse it isn't "foisted" on you. But once accepted you then legally have it. By arguing this is not NPOV you are also presumably arguing that the only facts an encyclopaedia like Wikipedia should include on an individual are the facts they want us to include. That is not how we work. We record facts, not personal preferences. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:13, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Neither the subject of the article nor the Government of the United Kingdom have a monopoly on how we present facts. Both the granting and the return of the honour are worthy of equally prominent mention. There is no obligation for us to present either fact in the lead sentence or infobox of an article.--Trystan (talk) 14:47, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
      • We present facts. Just as a person's full name is included in the lede because it is a fact, even if the person does not use it. Likewise having an OBE is a fact, whether he chooses to use it or not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:10, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
        • The question isn't whether it is a fact, but where and how to present the information. The guideline already says post-nominals seldom used by the individual don't belong in the lead (along with much other factual content, including academic post-nominals). I haven't seen any explanation of why that advice might be wrong, or why it wouldn't apply to a renounced honour.--Trystan (talk) 14:37, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
          • How many times does it need to be explained that it hasn't been renounced since it cannot be renounced? And as far as I know, Sheen is not a head of state or member of a royal family! The reason for that clause is that honours received by such people are usually only honorary, awarded to them (often by foreign countries) only because of who they are not because of what they've done. So they're not really especially important. An OBE awarded to an actor because of his achievements in acting does not fall into that category. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:13, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
• Yes Returning the physical medal does not remove or renounce the honour. We should show things as they are not as people wish them to be. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

According to the British government, an honour can be voluntarily renounced ("An individual may decide to renounce their honour voluntarily..."), and they provide the mechanism for doing so ("... and take the practical steps required of those that have forfeited"). What it can’t be, in the eyes of the British government, is voluntarily forfeited, because it can only be legally annulled by the Queen. But it's worth noting that the wording used by the British government gives more recognition of the act of renouncing an honour than several statements in the above discussion.--Trystan (talk) 14:37, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

• No, for the same reason would not not apply "British" as a nationality to an Irish nationalist like James Joyce who was technically born a British citizen. It is not WP's job, most especially not in context-free infoboxes and leads, to impose labels on subjects who rejected those labels. The article body is where to get into it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:56, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
  • See my comment on full names above. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:10, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
• No in the typical case, in which the individual who returns the award/medal also then "seldom uses" the postnominals, at which point — as XOR'easter observes — the existing guideline already says to omit them. (If an individual returns a medal but continues using postnominals, handle it as an exceptional case.) As a number of editors have said, it's not Wikipedia's job to enforce some monarch's idiosyncratic POV about whether someone renouncing something "really counts", especially since even proponents of postnominals admit above that RS rarely use them even for people who do use them, let alone people who renounced them (which means using them wouldn't just be misleading and non-NPOV, in any particular article it would likely also run afoul of WP:WEIGHT). -sche (talk) 08:58, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
• No. The website provided by Sdrqaz says that people who renounce honors "take the practical steps required of those that have forfeited", which are listed as "return their insignia [and] no longer make any reference to their having an honour in the future. This would include use of the honour post-nominals on websites". It also says that even when honors are removed by the Queen the "decision would not be publicised by the Cabinet Office". Consequently, there is no way of verifying whether or not an honor has been forfeited, other than information that is available publicly. If the only public information is that a person has returned or revoked their honor, then in keeping with Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research they should be treated as no longer having it. Our policies, such as the Manual of Style and the living persons policy, also tend to favor a person's own preferred style or name. If someone has explicitly announced that they do not want or use a title, honor, name or style then we should take their wishes into account. DrKay (talk) 09:43, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

References

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.

MF Doom and WP:NATIONALITY

Watchers are invited to participate in the discussion at Talk:MF Doom#Nationality (1 January 2021) regarding how to describe MF Doom, a hip-hop artist born in London who spent much of his career in the US, in the first sentence of the lede. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 23:32, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Infoboxes and MOS:HONORIFIC

Today the title "His Excellency" was added to the infoboxes of several former presidents of Turkey, though not to the current one. After consulting this guideline, I was unable to determine if there is a consistent practice regarding this, or whether consistency is a goal. Searching the talk page archives, there are numerous discussions about honorifics, but so far I could not find a convincing answer.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography § Political says:

In general, honorific prefixes—styles and honorifics in front of a name—in Wikipedia's own voice should not be included, but may be discussed in the article. In particular, this applies to:

• styles and honorifics derived from a title, position or activity, including The Most Noble, The Most Honourable, The Right Honourable, and The Honourable;

One exception noted is: Sir, Dame, Lord and Lady are included in the initial reference and infobox heading.

Taken literally, this would seem to indicate that honorifics such as "His Excellency" should not be used in Wikipedia's voice, and there is no exception given for infoboxes apart from Sir, Dame, Lord, and Lady.

Actual practice is not consistent. According to the UN ([8], not necessarily authoritative) the following are "His/Her Excellency", but it is not found in the infobox: Alexander van der Bellen, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron (Son Excellence), etc.; while many others do have it, such as Abdul Hamid, Jair Bolsonaro, etc. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan formerly had it, but it was removed in 2019: [9].

If the accepted practice is that usage in the infobox should be determined on an individual basis by consensus, and the current guidance in MOS:HONORIFIC does not apply to infoboxes, or if there is another accepted practice or method of determining its use, could that perhaps be clarified in the guideline? --IamNotU (talk) 15:50, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

The guideline is entirely clear. WP doesn't use such honorifics in its own voice. The fact that some articles haven't been updated to comply, or some editors aren't aware of it, is not a problem with the guideline, it just means some edits needs to be made in mainspace and user_talk.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:54, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Still, the guideline is not sufficiently clear - to me - to know what should be done in this case. Should the addition of the honorifics be reverted, as per the guideline? The MOS is meant to reflect consensus, and I suspect that it may not adequately do so here. For example, all prime ministers of the UK, Canada, or Australia have "The (Right) Honourable" in the "honorific_prefix" field of {{infobox officeholder}}. It seems somewhat implausible that this is simply because some editors are not aware of the guideline, or that nobody has gotten around to updating the infoboxes. I imagine that if someone went around removing them, quoting the MOS guideline, it wouldn't be acceptable. Having a rule that nobody follows erodes the respect for other, valid rules. Having a general rule that's selectively enforced - British prime ministers get infobox honorifics but Indian ones don't - can also be problematic... --IamNotU (talk) 14:50, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

RFC on "committed suicide"

Resolved

There is a RFC on the use of "Committed suicide" language open at VPP, with the intention to add language to MOS:BIO on a consensus-based conclusion. The RFC is here: WP:VPP#RFC: "Committed suicide" language. --Masem (t) 17:09, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

RfC closed with consensus that "committed suicide" is permissible, an admonition to not editwar for or against it, a suggestion to follow the majority of sources on an article-by-article basis, and a 1-year moratorium on RfCing it again.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:51, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Add a link to WP:BLPPRIMARY in the MOS:BIRTHDATE

On the standard setting of "shoot first, ask questions afterwards", I reverted the addition of detailed date of birth info that an IP editor had added to the infobox for a living person, citing as source the register of company directors at Companies House (in the UK). I just knew we don't do that but thought I had better be able to prove it. Obviously it will be under MOS:BIRTH or MOS:BIRTHDATE, I thought. Only it isn't. But it is in MOS:BLP (under WP:BLPPRIMARY).

Having had my knuckles rapped before for bold edits to the MOS, this time I'm asking the question first: should MOS:BIRTH advise readers that a special rule applies to living persons, and is there a nice way to do that? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:53, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I would support adding a line saying something like Consider whether adding the date of birth of a living person is really necessary or Do not add the date of birth for a living person who is not notable with a link to WP:BLPPRIVACY to the existing section on DOBs for living people. Loki (talk) 17:46, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I'd lean closer to the former proposed wording, as people who aren't notable wouldn't be eligible for a Wikipedia article. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 17:51, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

They wouldn't be eligible for a whole article, but they're often mentioned in other articles. Loki (talk) 00:19, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

In any case, personal notability is not a valid criterion per BLPPRIMARY. Notable people do not give up their right to a private life: the public interest is not the same as what the public are interested in. I recall a specific case, that of Jack Monroe, whose bank was defrauded by a fraudster who impersonated her using the date of birth on her Wikipedia article. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:34, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

The text I would like to add is this:

When writing biographic material on living people, please see WP:BLPPRIMARY, which gives specific constraints that apply to inclusion of this kind of personal data.

Comments? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:34, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Current text is "For living persons, privacy should be considered (see WP:BLPPRIVACY, which takes precedence)." That seems fine, though I don't object to more specific wording like "which gives specific constraints that apply to inclusion of this kind of personal data".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:48, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

References

Yet another consideration related to transgender aspects - images prior to transition

Given that we're still discussing other aspects related transgender, this came up on a page that I watch in retaining images of people who were notable prior to transitioning but who now have a different look that reflect their transition. While the specific page of interest was on Maddy Thorson, the reason to remove the image was pointing to this 2018 RFC on a specific page Talk:Daniel_M._Lavery#RfC_on_article_image, which to me makes logical sense, as long as the person prior to transition was not a public figure. So, eg taking Caitlyn Jenner, with their former name and personality Bruce Jenner clearly a public figure, we have no reason to remove those pictures - we can't eliminate that old public identity, but we should be respective and only use such images when they help enhance the prose and keep it reasonable. (Whereas with public figures that do not have any transition, we tend to be very "free" with images, we should hold back just a bit here and consider the "deadimaging" facet and thus be very tastefully selective). Same with someone like Elliot Page, we can't eliminate the fact that "Ellen Page" was a Hollywood star and images of that identity, either. But taking the case of The Wachowskis, who being producers and not public figures - before or after transitioning - that even if we had free images of their pre-transition identity there is probably no need to include them. (This would apply to also Daniel Lavery and Maddy Thorson above, neither being public figures though their pre-transition identity being notable).

As a related aspect, and this came up when I was checking Elliot Page, if we consider this limitation on pictures, we should also try to make sure that infobox images do reflect post-transition only, and if this means that despite having free images pre-transitions of an individual we have to leave the infobox empty until we can get a post-transition free image, so be it.

Now whether this advice about images goes in MOS:BIO or MOS:IMAGES, I'm not sure but I think it's tied to the same considerations in the same MOS issues related to how we nam transitioned individuals in separate articles and in quotes, so should probably go here in MOS:BIO. --Masem (t) 00:39, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I think one thing to consider is "what would a mainstream source do?" If The New York Times was doing a big profile on an indie transgender game developer, and they couldn't get a new photo, but happened to have a pre-transition photo on file where the developer looks significantly different, would they use it? I don't think so. And then the other thing to consider, as always, is our policy on Living People, which says human dignity and personal privacy be taken into account, especially in articles of ephemeral or marginal interest.

Anyway, I actually helped cook up some guidance about this a couple years ago. Here's a paragraph from MOS:IDINFO, which was a work-in-progress draft that was never finished:

Avoid using an out-of-date, pre-coming-out photo of a transgender subject as a lead image. If no other photos are available, it is generally better to have no lead image at all. In general, avoid using pre-coming-out photos unless the subject's pre-transition appearance is especially well-known and notable. The article about The Wachowskis, for example, is better without any pre-coming-out photos since the way they looked is not well known as they shied away from public appearances. Conversely, the Caitlyn Jenner article does contain photos from before her transition because she was a well known Olympic athlete, so her appearance at the time is relevant to the article, though none are in the lead section.

WanderingWanda (talk) 03:27, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

That's pretty close to what I would suggest, the only thing would be adding the "public figure" language which is something we already define in a BLP sense. --Masem (t) 03:29, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

The issue isn't the time span ("pre-coming-out"), it's whether the content of the image is apt to seem to conflict with the gender identity. There's a underlying subjectivity problem here (including in the proposed language, though it otherwise looks good, other than "out-of-date" being redundant, even aside from the false-temporality concern I'm raising).

The issue doesn't even run entirely both ways: simply having shorter hair, not wearing makeup, and not being in a dress isn't necessarily "more masculine", just less stereotypically feminine, since lots of women have short hair, don't wear makeup, and do wear pants/trousers. But vice versa will be perceived much differently. And not all transwomen go for a particularly feminine look or vice versa. Plus some people come out and do not change their appearance at all (some don't change name, either), while some change appearance only gradually over a long time (as we all do). And a lot of trans people begin shifting their appearance, or have always maintained an ambiguous one, long before any public statement. So, we need to avoid making assumptions here, especially stereotyping/pigeonholing ones that just run in the other direction. "J. Q. Public announced today that they are trans" is not by itself a reason to delete any images. Actual evidence (primarily but not necessarily visual) from reliable sources, that pertains to their appearance, may be needed, especially if an image we have is not overwhelmingly indicative of a particular gender. If there is not an objectively obvious "gender expectations" difference (which may also vary culturally, don't forget) between a pre-transition picture we have and can use, and current non-free images we can't use, then we should use the one we have.

I'm agreed otherwise with Masem's gist, especially "even if we had free images of their pre-transition identity there is probably no need to include them ... [with] neither being public figures though their pre-transition identity being notable" in the Thorson and Lavery examples. Also agree with both above editors' observations about the lead/infobox image, modulo what I've pointed out in the rest of this post.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:42, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I do agree we need confirmation that there is a significant change in appearance to necessitate this concern. If the person has just had their hair cut short and asks for the opposite gender pronouns, probably not immediately. After reassignment surgery, most likely. --Masem (t) 18:13, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Nooo one, I mean No One Expects the Wikipedia Genital Inquisition. Jokey aside I do not think an insistence on proof reassignment surgery is a fair. Such surgeries are expensive, so many can not afford, they may not be available in the subject's country and as it is a major invasive operation not everybody's bodies are capable of undergoing the surgery. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 01:55, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

I suppose 'now', certain images are not allowed in these bio articles. GoodDay (talk) 17:48, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

If you mean images of someone with an obsolete gender presentation, not notable by that appearance, yes. -- Beland (talk) 02:25, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Academic qualifications as post-nominal letters. Request for clarification and consensus.

Greetings. In my view it needs to be made clear in the MOS:POSTNOM section that academic qualifications (PhD etc) are not to included as a post-nominal in info boxes or opening sentences. At present this principle appears to be implied in the MOS but I believe it should be a clear principle (unless there are any obvious exceptions which seems unlikely to me). I would appreciate the views of others about this and would also encourage having a consensus on whether or not this ought to be stated as an explicit principle in this part of the MOS. With thanks, Afterwriting (talk) 01:22, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

This is already covered pretty unambiguously in the MOS:PHD section, just prior to MOS:POSTNOM. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:19, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks David Eppstein. I was already aware of this, but there are still many editors who assert that this principle doesn't also apply to info boxes. I think that it does, or at least should, and that this needs to be made clear. So I suggest that this is added to the section. Afterwriting (talk) 02:31, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

There is no exception for infoboxes in MOS:PHD. There is no exception for articles about soviet astronauts in MOS:PHD. Should we assume from the lack of an exception that MOS:PHD does not apply to soviet astronauts? —David Eppstein (talk) 04:51, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

In Soviet Russia, post-nominals follow YOU! Elizium23 (talk) 04:56, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Concur with David Eppstein, but it might help to add something like "including in an infobox" to this section and several others where recurrent squabbling about this keeps arising.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:46, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

User:SMcCandlish : Agreed. Can we go ahead and do this or does this need a consensus process? Afterwriting (talk) 13:30, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, no huge hurry. Maybe leave it open for a week or so in case someone somehow has a compelling argument to make in the other direction, or in the same one but for a different solution.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:41, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Just curious (not raising an objection), what is the policy reason behind the consensus for not including professional titles in infoboxes (I'm more interested in pre-nominals rather than post-, like Professor and Dr)- assuming they are genuine and can be independently sourced, what's the issue? Deus et lex (talk) 10:43, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: in case he didn't see my question. Deus et lex (talk) 12:09, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is a "policy basis" for it. Remember that WP is governed largely by WP:Consensus discussions, not rule-book thumping (especially when it comes to writing our rules in the first place rather than just applying them). You'll have to avail yourself of the MoS archives (see search at top of main MoS talk page) to track down all the discussions (or all the ones at MoS talk pages, anyway – infobox disputation in particular has sprawled across many template and article talk pages as well).L

There have been many rationales, some of which include: people will inject as much "title cruft" as possible if permitted to use any at all; the same title (most notoriously "Dr.") has very different meanings, connotations, stature, even validity in different circumstances; titles change too frequently and thus are a maintenance hassle; non-English ones do not always translate accurately; use of them (especially honorific ones like emeritus and honorary doctorates, as well as endowment ones and those assigned by an entity over which the person exercises considerable control) are often WP:NPOV problems); there's an inherent NPoV problem in implying that a statement by a "titled" academic in a field carries more weight, by the gravitas of that title, than material from a professional research scientist in the same field who may actually have more experience and be more widely published and cited, but who doesn't have "Prof." in front of their name; when it comes to academic occupational titles, they are not typically used in academic writing by academics (if your journal paper cites prior work by Prof. A. B. Ceesdale of the University of Foo, it just cites the author as A. B. Ceesdale); such titles are more for CVs, as respect indicators in business correspondence, for implication of expert stature when quoted in the press, etc.; and many other arguments (some of which are particular to certain kinds of titles, like noble styles, military ranks being used in reference to retired or even short-term military people, especially those notable for something other than military service, etc.).

The general view is that job and honorary titles are something better covered in the article body, as needed, than jammed into an infobox which needs to be kept to the most important details. "Discovered element 112" or "originated the Kurgan hypothesis" is way more encyclopedically salient than what kind of employee they are or what degree abbreviation they're entitled to. Such titles and degrees don't confer expertise or notability, they just indicate employment in the one case and likely eligibility for such employment in the latter. It's another case of "competency != notability". Infoboxes are best constrained to what someone's notable for, and the various vital statistics stuff people seem to think helps identify the subject and put them in a historico-cultural context. See Stephen Hawking for a well-developed example of both academic article and academic infobox. The I-box has all sorts of info that indicates why Hawking is notable, what his educational and professional background was, what he specialized in, etc., etc. Adding "Professor" to it would be rather superfluous.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:56, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

thanks, SMcCandlish - that's really helpful to understand, thank you for taking the time to write a long reply. Deus et lex (talk) 21:55, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Deadnaming

There is a dispute going down on Talk:Billy Tipton regarding whether it is okay or important to deadname the subject, and this guideline is being used by both sides to claim different things. I think it is important to handle how the deadnaming of deceased people whose deadname was not notable here, because the ambiguity is creating problems. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 21:29, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Please note that the 2020 RfC clearly determined that deadnames of BLP subjects who were not notable while using their deadname should not be included in articles (not only in the lede, but elsewhere as well). Unfortunately, edit-warring about the implementation of this in the MOS, as well as disagreement about other aspects of the status quo ante, have resulted in unsatisfactory and somewhat confusing MOS language at present. But in any case, even the clearest of guidelines would not help much with the Billy Tipton article because it isn't a BLP. Newimpartial (talk) 21:59, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Is there a good MoS that you can point me to that can handle a case like Tipton's? - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 23:33, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

The short answer is, no. There isn't a strong guideline about deadnaming dead people, except that we do respect people's final expressed preference in terms of names and pronouns. But there aren't clear rules about deadname inclusion, since the "harming living people" rationales don't apply. Newimpartial (talk) 23:37, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, I see. Honestly, it seems as though trans topics in general could stand to be under a single guideline umbrella for better ease of access to information. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 00:52, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I think there is (was?) an attempt at a unifying guideline page in the form of MOS:IDINFO. I’m not sure if that’s still being developed, but either way I agree that it would be nice to have everything in one place. Srey Sros^talk 01:17, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I would venture to say that the purpose of WP:DEADNAME is to create a safe space for the living subjects of articles. In essence, this is like an extension of the Wikimedia Foundation's meta:Friendly space policies to this project. I am wholly onboard & supportive of this as a WP:BLP policy. I am acquainted with some who are part of meta:Wikimedia_LGBT+. One prominent member shared with me that closeted editors from other countries had contacted that editor to appreciate the work that this editor does, as their lives would be in mortal danger should their LGBT status become known. Pre-pandemic, I had trans people in my circles. It has not been easy for them.

But to what purpose does it server to exclude the birth name of a historical transgendered person when they are beyond being recently deceased? We include the birth name of any other historical individual. There is no capability to create a safe space for a dead person. The best we can do is to tell their tale as reasonably complete as possible, in a neutral & verifiable manner.

To do otherwise would be to hide truth by omission. This would be censorship. For Wikipedia to censor itself would be no better than kowtowing to the Right to be forgotten when the subject is notable. The WMF has indicated that it will fight the latter type of censorship, & if you drill down from meta:Category:Wikimedia Foundation Transparency Report, you will arrive at individual Right To Be Forgotten Requests, such as meta:Wikimedia Foundation Transparency Report/June 2016/Right To Be Forgotten Requests.

WP:DEADNAME is WP:BLP; otherwise Wikipedia is not censored. Peaceray (talk) 05:00, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

This argument holds no water. The people who run the risk of being deadnamed on Wikipedia are not made unsafe by being deadnamed, they are disrespected, dehumanized by being deadnamed. The promotion of such transphobic behavior, especially in a case where you have failed to actually argue for the merits of including the name besides it being a fun bit of trivia or something, should not be done on Wikipedia. Generally, the reason why Wikipedia suffers so much with certain demographics is because the way things are handled tend to alienate people in those demos. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 06:56, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@Abryn: transphobic is a slur & an ad hominem attack. I will kindly ask you to please stick to the merits of the argument.

I am guided by Seattle Relationship Anarchy info for new members. This means calling people by their preferred names & pronouns, & I edit Wikipedia on that basis. It does not mean that I remove birth names from the articles for historical transgender people, & I do not believe that the discreet inclusion of this data is disrespectful. I am aware that I may be acting from a perspective of privilege, but I also believe in a hard, perhaps radical, stance on not censoring Wikipedia.

I need to take a break, perhaps for a day or so, from this discussion. I need to attend to other things, but I do not intend to abandon this discussion. Peaceray (talk) 08:14, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

'Transphobic' is not a slur, it is a neutral description of the act of deadnaming. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 08:52, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Is this ever going to be about an encyclopedia and not about emotions? Trillfendi (talk) 12:24, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Do you intend to get Dril's name added to his article? Do you intend to tackle how we handle accusations of wrondoing made against people with Wikipedia articles? Treating the act of not deadnaming people who were not notable under the deadname is pretty silly, Trillfendi. We keep information out of articles for good reason. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 18:42, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@Abryn: From wiktionary:transphobia: Fear or hatred of transsexuality or transgenderism, or of trans individuals. Please explain why having a disagreement about the application of DEADNAME to a non-BLP article constitutes fear or hatred of trans people. Peaceray (talk) 21:59, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

This is a misunderstanding of what transphobia and homophobia mean. Other definitions refer to dislike or prejudice, for example and the Wikipedia article refers to transphobia as also including actions, such as deadnaming. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 23:45, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

References

Straw dog proposal

So as not to contribute to unstructured and fruitless discussion, I would like to make the following "straw dog" proposal:

• that the scope of MOS:DEADNAME be extended to cover not only BLP subjects, but also deceased people who clearly expressed a trans gender identity and a corresponsingly preferred name, according to the consensus of reliable sources.

What degree of support would the MOS community have for there? Is it worth proceeding to RfC, or would it be dead in the water? Newimpartial (talk) 22:18, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I'd certainly oppose a blanket ban. It would clash in particular with our WP:NOTCENSORED policy: "Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive‍—‌even exceedingly so. Attempting to ensure that articles and images will be acceptable to all readers, or will adhere to general social or religious norms, is incompatible with the purposes of an encyclopedia", and "'being objectionable' is generally not sufficient grounds for the removal of content" (WP:BLP is specifically excluded from that already). Having a guideline contradicting a policy isn't sensible. EddieHugh (talk) 22:58, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Just for the record, this straw dog proposal would not result in a blanket ban. The treatment of BLPs in MOS:DEADNAME only mandates the exclusion of deadnames from prior to the person's period of Notability. This proposal would extend the same treatment to dead trans people. Newimpartial (talk) 23:03, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

That was my interpretation of what you wrote, so my intended meaning took that into account: a total prohibition on use unless the person was notable under that name. EddieHugh (talk) 23:09, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

• I would oppose. There are a lot of things we restrict when writing about a living person... things that we don’t restrict when writing about dead people. The rational being that these things may cause harm to the living, but no longer cause harm once they die. I would put mentioning a Trans person’s Deadname in that category. Blueboar (talk) 23:28, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

  I think there is a reasonable question the community would need to decide, namely whether deadnaming deceased trans people does harm to living trans people. I suspect there are editors who would take each side of that question. Newimpartial (talk) 23:40, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

• or : I fully support the whole proposed extension, I see no reason to treat the deceased with any less respect than the living. Wikipedia rules and guidelines ought to apply equally to all articles and sections that include references to the deceased as to they do to the living, so MOS:Deadname should apply equally to the deceased as to the living, I see no good reason for the difference. Especially since trans folks are often the victims of hate crimes and might become notable in such circumstances (e.g Murder of Gwen Araujo, Murder of Amanda Milan or Murder of Nireah Johnson all of which already comply with this suggested improvement and treat the murdered person with respect, to drag their birth names up might be factual but it would be titillation at best). If the is an community agreed guideline exception to the general notcensored guideline, then it should be applied uniformly and equally to the living and the dead. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 23:38, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. WP:BLP explains why we should and do treat the living with more care than the dead. We would never write that unfounded rumors accused a living person of having sex with a horse, but we write exactly in our article about Catherine the Great. And we can't base what we write about dead person A because of its effect on an unrelated living group B, just because B identifies with A, and feels strongly about it, as that was exactly our issue with displaying a picture of Mohammed in that article, where dozens of religious Muslims showed up and said that displaying that picture harmed them each, individually, deeply, and personally. I guarantee if we let this proposal become a precedent, then we'll be inundated with complaints from Scientologists saying we are harming them by what we write about L. Ron Hubbard, from Thais saying that they are personally harmed by the disrespect we show towards the Thai royal family, from Communists saying they are personally hurt by what we write about Stalin, and from Mongolian patriots saying they are deeply hurt by what we write about Genghis Khan.--GRuban (talk) 01:34, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I think you are misstating (and perhaps inadvertently straw-manning) the relevant argument. It is not that living trans people are personally hurt or deeply hurt - as in hurt feelings - by the deadnaming of dead people. The relevant argument is that the activity of deadnaming harms trans people as a group, and that by distributing non-notable deadnames Wikipedia would be abetting or encouraging this practice. I am not sure where I stand concerning this argument in this instance, but I don't think caricaturing and misstating it as being about "hurt feelings" is an aid to this discussion. Newimpartial (talk) 01:43, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Where did I write "hurt feelings"? I guarantee that whatever way a trans person says they are hurt by a dead person being deadnamed, including but not limited to suffering of physical violence and death, a religious or other dedicated person (Muslim, Scientologist, Communist...) will say they are hurt by insults to their representative. People have been killed and even wars have been fought over such. I know what you're getting at, that trans people suffer, with social ostracism, losing jobs, or even being murdered, for being trans. You think Muslims and Scientologists and Communists don't? Nearly all the articles in our encyclopedia that touch on people are harmful to someone. Not just emotional harm, "hurt feelings", but reputational, financial, spiritual, and even risk of physical. The place we have chosen to draw the line is at living people, we give biographies of living people "particular care" as WP:BLP says, "conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy". There's a reason for that. --GRuban (talk) 02:33, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Let me take a wild guess: you don't understand phenomena like systemic racism, either? Please don't reduce things you don't understand to insults. Thx.

Also, I am raising the question of real harm to living people, not reputational harm to dead people. This question is not out of scope for WP policy. Newimpartial (talk) 03:38, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

As a longtime reader I have not generally observed a particularly high threshold for notability in regard to facts about a subject which is itself deemed notable enough for an article. To apply any special criteria to this situation seems to violate NPOV. While advocacy is a valid and important activity in any society, it is generally not within the scope of an encyclopedia, which has the equally important role of objectively informing. This type of objection was called a "fig leaf" by another user, which I believe shows a certain tunnel vision. There are plenty of folks without any particular agenda who just happen to feel strongly about being able to access objective information. It may be hard to imagine, but that is the actual motive and if this encyclopedia ignores the remaining constituency of those who favor traditional academic neutrality, it does so at the peril of its own ongoing relevance. Jmaranvi (talk) 23:58, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I would point out that WP policy already does not follow what you consider to be academic neutrality concerning certain categories of Trans people, so you appear to be supporting a "Lost Cause", as it were. Newimpartial (talk) 23:51, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I think it would be helpful to do a full RFC on this. I have many questions like, should editors take into account potential impact on family members? How would that logistically be done - like how would we know the neighbors might consider a dead trans person's children unholy or something? Some editors have argued that Wikipedia should avoid deadnaming whenever possible in order to avoid tolerating it as a habit or giving the impression that it is harmless to do that in everyday conversation to a living person. Does the community endorse that? Some readers who are not harmed by it do find it disrespectful and thus distracting. Does that also hold true for dead people? Any other non-WP:BLP rationales? Maybe it would be helpful for supporters and opponents to list all the arguments they can think of for their side; RFCs where someone realizes there's another relevant policy halfway through tend to be difficult to interpret, because none of the previous participants ever go back and reconsider their opinions. Hopefully we can also avoid derailing the discussion with comments directed at the attitudes of other editors, which usually prompt a negative, personal response and a closing of minds. -- Beland (talk) 11:18, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. Dead people do not have privacy interests (not under US law, anyway, which is what governs WMF and its projects). The policy basis of MOS:DEADNAME is WP:BLPPRIV. There is no "WP:Biographies of dead people#Privacy" policy, and never will be. See also WP:GREATWRONGS, WP:NOT#ADVOCACY, and perhaps especially WP:ENC: the purpose of this site is providing encyclopedic material for readers, not making survivors of deceased people as happy as possible, or furthering a social-change-through-language-control activism agenda. That said, WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE is also a policy, and may preclude inclusion of dead person's former name if it's not something the public is every likely to know otherwise (e.g. was not found in reliable secondary sources, but dug up through primary-source-research WP:OR by a editor obtaining birth certificates or whatever). MOS:NICKNAME already has general provisions to not include names of no relevance to encyclopedia readers, and that somehow exclusive of virtually-unknown former names of deceased trans people. But if the name repeatedly appearing in RS, then it is something that some readers will be looking for, so it should be in the article, and should even exist as a redirect, same as with any other alternative name for any kind of subject.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:16, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support. The idea behind the proposed policy is not to kneecap the encyclopedia by removing essential content, nor to enforce any sort of social-change-through-language-control activism agenda. The idea is to exclude non-notable deadnames from articles. The standard approach to names (represented in MOS:NICKNAME) seems to use a far lower standard for notability and due weight for individuals' names that we do other pieces of information (basically we treat names as exempt from WP:PLOT). This is general encyclopedic convention, and makes sense in most cases. What the proposed policy would do is treat deadnames the same way we do any other piece of information, and only include it if the person receives significant, independent, reliable coverage under that name.

Now, why should we do such a thing? Why would we suspend our special treatment of names when it comes to trans people? As editors on Wikipedia, we have some central tenets when it comes to writing articles: verifiability, NPOV, due weight, etc. This is how we approach most pieces of information and decide whether, how much, and in what way to include them in the article. On top of those we have style guidelines which help keep our encyclopedia presentable, accessible, and (importantly) respectful, among other things. That last bit, respectful, is why we have things like MOS:GENDERID and MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES. Our special treatment of names falls into this top layer of MOS guidelines. There is no reason we have to give names special treatment, we just choose to because it's awkward to use 2 Chainz as a name in a biography. So, extending DEADNAME to the dead is something that would not sacrifice any of our core policies. It would not force us to go against due weight or notability. It would merely modify our treatment of non-notable deadnames.

It's important to note, too, exactly what I mean by non-notable. The proposal would not purge Elliot Page's deadname from WP. What it would do is prevent editors from, upon learning that a trans person has died, digging up deadnames mentioned offhand in one or two RS's and putting them in bold in the lede of articles. I've seen that sort of thing happen to living subjects (see the Nicole Maines RfC), where luckily BLP rules apply, but our respect shouldn't be limited to the living.

When deadnames are notable, we ought to include them. When they are not, we shouldn't. For living people deadnames are a privacy matter, but this is also a matter of basic respect. When someone dies, we don't suspend MOS:GENDERID, even though the possibility of harm to the subject is no longer present. We should do the same for DEADNAME. Srey Sros^talk 05:46, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

• Weak oppose - while SreySros' (amongst others') reasoning that some arguments clearly continue to apply post-death, I would point out that it's more a trade-off in value/hurt that makes choices, both these, but also on things like individuals being charged with crimes being excluded before sentencing and so on. In the latter cases, the rules are different for BLPs and deceased. I don't think it's unreasonable for it to be included after BLP ceases to apply - not because I don't think there isn't weight to the supports' arguments, but because I feel the balance of priorities weighs against it. I am distinctly unhappy with the accusations of transphobia by a single editor who should know better in the immediate discussion that triggered this one. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:58, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. There is no reason to remove relevant information from an article, if there are no privacy concerns. Dead people do not have privacy interests. LK (talk) 15:48, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. The encyclopedia is here to provide answers for the curious public. Birth names of long-dead famous people are perfectly encyclopedic, meriting inclusion in every known encyclopedia. If we start hiding relevant information from our readers we will lose their trust. If we don't supply answers to their questions we have failed. Binksternet (talk) 23:10, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Deadnaming at Sophie (musician)

There is another poll taking place concerning the insertion of the "birth name" of a very recently-deceased trans person here. Newimpartial (talk) 15:51, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Proposal: Rewriting section about "Opening paragraph" to include description of Lead sentence

The section "Opening paragraph" as it stands doesn't really address what the Lead sentence in a BLP should look like. Most of the section is actually describing the Lead sentence, but as it stands, it's purportedly about the Lead paragraph. I propose that we rewrite the section MOS:OPENPARABIO as follows:

MoS guidelines for the lead sentence and for opening paragraphs should generally be followed. The opening paragraph of a biographical article should establish notability, neutrally describe the person, and provide context.

The first sentence should usually state:

1. Name(s) and title(s), if any (see also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)). Handling of the subject's name is covered below in § First mention.
2. Dates of birth and death, if found in secondary sources (do not use primary sources for birth dates of living persons or other private details about them).
3. Context for the activities that made the person notable (location or nationality).
4. The noteworthy position(s), activities, or roles that the person held.

However, try to not overload the first sentence by describing everything notable about the subject, instead, spread relevant information over the lead. The opening paragraph should explain why the person is notable.

LK (talk) 08:57, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

I would strongly urge that the lede sentence should avoid any subjective characterizations of a person even if that is the primarily reason that person is notable, as subjective characterizations (such as those that fall in WP:W2W) affect the tone of the article from the first sentence onward. This is a long-standing problem we have particularly on figures in the alt-/far-right that because the sourcing for them tends to always treat them negatively (which we can't change), but we still have to write their articles in a dispassionate manner. Putting the subjective facets that make up their notability in the lede paragraph is reasonable, but they should stay out of the lede sentence to minimize the impact on tone and impartialness our articles are supposed to start with. There's no requirement that notability has to be nailed down in the lede sentence. --Masem (t) 14:18, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Can you rewrite my proposal to reflect your concerns? LK (talk) 14:23, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

The only thing I think this would add to yours is to point 4, that these are objective/factual elements, and should avoid characterization or subjective elements including peacock terms and labels. So maybe "and should not include subjective descriptions about the person" to the end of #4. --Masem (t) 14:27, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

How about this: "4. The noteworthy position(s), activities, or roles that the person held, but should not include subjective or contentious terms. LK (talk) 14:35, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

The sentence "The lead sentence should describe the person as they are commonly described in reliable sources."

The sentence "The lead sentence should describe the person as they are commonly described in reliable sources" has been in the section Positions and roles for some years. I believe it was first introduced in that section, and has never been moved nor objected to. It's main use, I believe, is to discourage people who want to describe their favourite singer as "singer, songwriter, musician, artist, poet, painter, model, actor, political activist, and philanthropist", arguing something like, "according to this magazine article, he donated $1000 to this school, therefore he's a philanthropist".

A bit more than a week ago, MapReader moved it to the top of the Opening paragraph section. I've moved it back, as I think it only applies to which roles to include in the lead sentence. I don't think it makes sense to apply the requirement "commonly described in reliable sources" to the other parts of the lead sentence (i.e. the person's full name - including birth name and spelling in birth language [as necessary], date of birth, and nationality. When first mentioning a person, newspapers and other RS often include the person's role, if the person is not well known, e.g. they state "the playwright John Smith stated that ..." They don't write, "the American playwright, John Roberts Smith Jr. (born July 15, 1965), stated that ....". Hence, I feel the sentence should stay in the section Positions and roles. LK (talk) 08:06, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

This didn't appear to be a controversial edit. The wording of the relevant sentence was not changed; as written it clearly applies to the lead sentence as a whole (otherwise it would have been written "position and role titles should...", noting that position and role titles should be referenced throughout an article - not just in the lead sentence - and therefore the words "lead sentence" can only logically be to underline the particular importance of making sure that lead sentences reflect the sources, and the sentence is simply in the wrong place), and its provision accords with the WP-wide requirement that our encyclopedia always follows the sources. The edit aligned this part of the MoS with the MoS provisions for the lead section, where it is clear that presentation should follow the sources - for example in the use of non-English titles. And it is self evident that details such as date of birth should be properly sourced. MapReader (talk) 09:14, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I can see that when the sentence is repositioned it might be though to conflict with MOS:FULLNAME, as well. (There's quite often an editor who wants to add "and convicted felon", BTW.) William Avery (talk) 10:07, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

How about we create a new paragraph, at the beginning of the Opening paragraph section, that describes what should be in the lead sentence. Starting with "In general, MoS guidelines for the Lead Sentence should be followed". And then we split the list in that section into two lists. One for what should be in the lead sentence, and another for what should be in the rest of the lead paragraph. LK (talk) 16:16, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

• Are we really quibbling about something being in the first sentence vs second or third sentence? Blueboar (talk) 18:57, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I think the quibble is about whether the requirement that the lead sentence "should describe the person as they are commonly described in reliable sources" applies to only 'positions and roles', or to all parts of the lead sentence. LK (talk) 06:08, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

• It should only apply to what it currently applies to and there should be consensus before changing the MoS. Eccekevin (talk) 01:56, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• The OP is correct. It was added to the section it was added to specifically to curtail tacking on descriptions for which subjects are not actually notable. The overall "how to write the lead" material is elsewhere (and see thread immediately below for revision discussions). But this particular line item should remain in this section is has been in all this time.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:09, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

What is the meaning of this phrase, and should it be removed?

This phrasing doesn't make sense to me.

Treat the pre-notability name as a privacy interest separate from (and often greater than) the person's current name.

Comments invited on whether it should remain.

LK (talk) 03:14, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

It is obvious that non-notable deadnames produce a privacy interest greater than that of notable post-transition names, isn't it? Newimpartial (talk) 04:28, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

So, let me see if I understand you correctly. What you're saying is that, if we compared two different situations: a) A non-public figure who doesn't want their name publicized, or to be "outed", because they fear harassment or other threats. b) A person who has changed their name because of changing gender identity, and doesn't want their previous name known. We should consider b), more of a concern than a). Is that correct? LK (talk) 13:18, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Those are not valid comparisons. First, the "current name" refers to someone who falls under this policy (ie. a living transgender or non-binary person); second, you introduced the possibility of harassment or other threats only to a, and made a a non-public figure, all of which add their own additional privacy interests which would apply equally to both their names. The point of the (and often greater than) clause is that all else being equal we are more cautious with pre-notability names of living transgender or non-binary people than we are with their current name, since there's more inherent possibility of harm from publishing pre-notability names, and little benefit to doing so. A valid comparison that accurately summarizes what this policy means would therefore be: a) A living transgender or non-binary person subject who doesn't want their current name (under which they are notable) publicized, or b) A living transgender or non-binary person who doesn't want their previous name (under which they were not notable) publicized. In that situation B is obviously generally going to be the greater privacy interest. --Aquillion (talk) 20:02, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

No... they are both of equal concern. In cases where a person was not notable under a previous name (deadname), we should respect their privacy... period. It does not matter what the motivation for keeping the previous name private might be, they have an expectation of privacy that needs to be respected. (This expectation of privacy is moot when they are already notable under the previous name). Blueboar (talk) 14:07, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Since Newimpartial refuses to answer, unless there are other objections to removing the phrase, I will take it as consensus that the phrase should be removed. Per WP:SILENCE, silence implies consent. LK (talk) 12:50, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Since when are three editors objecting to your proposal an example of WP:SILENCE implies consent? I assume you don't get out much, with that attitude. :p. Newimpartial (talk) 13:00, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Just to inform you WP:POLITE is policy, and it is non-negotiable. Your interactions have significantly crossed the line of acceptable behavior. LK (talk) 07:32, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

It's the word "often" in that phrase that confuses me. As Newimpartial says above, it is obvious that a person's non-notable deadname has a greater privacy interest than their notable current name. I can't imagine a case where this wouldn't be true, so to say it is "often" the case is perplexing.--Trystan (talk) 13:17, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

There is no privacy interest in a public person's current name, if that name is already widely known. In the normal case, the person's current name is the title of the BLP. Thus, in the normal case, that sentence doesn't make sense, as there is no privacy interest about a publicly transgender person's current name. In the normal case, the current name should not be mentioned in the sentence.

However, consider the case where we have an article about a notable topic that significantly involves a non-public figure, who happens to be transgender. Or, consider an article about an anonymous transgender person, say Banksy (who could be transgender for all we know), who wishes their name to remain unknown. Or, an article about a person in law enforcement, who's current name, if exposed, would put them in danger. The desire for privacy – to keep their current name unknown – especially to prevent outing or violence, seems to me to be as important, or even more important than keeping their previous name unknown. Especially in the case of non-public transgender people, making their current name known – outing them against their will – is a very serious issue. To imply that keeping a pervious name unknown is even more important makes little sense to me. LK (talk) 07:32, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

1. Given the numerous RfCs on the matter, you can boldly edit but it will likely be reverted and need an RfC to resolve, though I think you would be editing against consensus already established in an RfC.

2. Non-notable birth/previous names have little reason to be mentioned in ALL cases, gender identity concerns or not.

3. Outing of a person by publishing non-public gender/sexuality/habits/etc was covered in a previous RfC and is a no-no. I am not sure of wikipedia policy about law enforcement but I would assume harm prevention covers them as well (or should if we never said it explicitly, we aren't Wikileaks after all)

4. I see no issue with the sentence. It reflects the consensus of the community. Slywriter (talk) 18:08, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

• The text says often, not always; you seem to be misreading it as saying that their current name is never a privacy interest. In fact, in all the (extremely specific and unlikely) examples you listed, both their names would be covered by privacy interests, and I would argue their older name would often still be a higher one (it has all the concerns you mentioned and it is also their deadname), though it wouldn't matter so much at that point since both names would pass the threshold to be omitted. If anything, the fact that you had to hypothesize such extreme examples shows that the current text is good, since you required fairly dramatic justifications to omit their current name, while plainly no such justifications are needed for their pre-notability name - hence, the privacy interest of the deadname is often greater. --Aquillion (talk) 20:08, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

• While I agree with Aquillion... I do think we could improve the sentence. I would suggest:

... a privacy interest separate from (and often greater than) other considerations.

This would include any privacy interest in the current name, but also things such as “the public has a right to know”... or “but this person has already been outed... WP is just reporting on it” (etc. etc.). Blueboar (talk) 20:34, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

• At least remove "(and often greater than)". It's unnecessary editorializing, and obviously producing conflict and confusion, for no actual benefit anyone has demonstrated. Actually, it might even be more productive to just use "Treat the pre-notability name as a separate privacy interest.", since BLPPRIV outlines various kinds of privacy interest, and we need not recapitulate all of them here, nor dwell on one in particular.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:14, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Surname change

Sophie used to have the surname "Long", but changed it to "Xeon". This is useful biographical information, and to include it wouldn't be deadnaming because all surnames in English are gender-neutral (nearly all trans people don't change their surnames upon transition). I don't think this should violate WP:DEADNAME, and I reckon we should follow the standard set by Jack White and Courtney Love here and specify Sophie's old surname, which was well-known before Sophie transitioned. Thoughts? FreeEncyclopediaMusic (talk) 04:42, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

If a person changed their surname as part of changing their name during transitioning, DEADNAME doesn't restrict itself to first names, and I think that's reasonable: If the person wasn't notable under the former name, the surname is no more "useful biographical information" than the first name, whereas—as the guideline says—"the pre-notability name [is] a privacy interest separate from (and often greater than) the person's current name". If the person wasn't notable under the name, there typically won't be usable sources to find with it, so it seems like the main reason someone would want to know it is when trying to dox the person's full former name(?). (Or what?) (Conversely, if by "was well-known before Sophie transitioned" you mean she was notable under the surname, DEADNAME allows a person's notable deadname to be mentioned.) FWIW, looking at other cases where a person changed surnames as part of transitioning, de facto we currently don't list non-notable former surnames, at least in the cases I could think of to check (e.g. Fallon Fox). It's a rare situation to have, anyway; as you say, most people don't change surnames when transitioning. -sche (talk) 07:06, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

In cases of "gendered" surnames like Icelandic patronyms (which have suffixes based on the gender of the name's bearer) or families that as a compromise use the baby's sex to decide whose last name the child gets, and the transitioning individual changes to the surname they would've been given had they been assigned the opposite sex at birth, then I that should be considered part of the DEADNAME package. However I agree that changed surnames with no inherent gendering should be treated the same way whether the individual is cis or trans. Okieditor (talk) 17:39, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Those aren't surnames, they're patronymics; don't mix apples and oranges.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:16, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Also, think about a "converse" case where a trans person who changes their surname also changes the surname of their child(ren) to match the protocol of the trans person's identified gender. If said child(ren) has/have a Wikipedia presence then shouldn't they be given the DEADNAME treatment as well with respect to their birth surnames, since the underlying reason for the name change was a gender transition (in this case their parent's)? (Just like above IMO this should apply when a trans person changes to the last name they would've had if the opposite AGAB if different but not in other cases.) Okieditor (talk) 18:24, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Another argument for my position: In many cases where an institution allows an individual to specify a preferred name (as a courtesy to both trans people and those who go by a name different than their legal first one for other reasons) use of one's legal last name is still often required. There are also cases, like a particular U.S. federal form that one must complete when starting a job, that was revised to ask only for previous last names rather than all previous names because of the disparate impact the latter had on trans employees. Both of these points reinforce the concept that given (first and middle) name changes vs. last name changes can be given different protocols based on the nature of each (and IMO that principle is even better than for example the controversial carve-out for trans-related name changes we have here on Wikipedia). Okieditor (talk) 19:17, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

What controversial carve-out? I'm afraid I am no longer following you. Newimpartial (talk) 19:20, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I am talking about Wikipedia's current deadname policy, which is the source of many edit debates on here. While I agree that we should not post information that alludes to one's transgender status (such as a former given name that is indicative of such based on the customary usage of said name) unless necessary for practical identification, I feel that extending that to non-gendered surnames puts this into the realm of personal preference (which is unfair for example to cis people who may similarly change their surname to distance themselves from their past). Okieditor (talk) 19:34, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

The current policy reflected in MOS:GENDERID and MOS:DEADNAME has received extremely broadly-based support; it seems quite misleading to characterize the policy as the source of many edit debates - it would be the lack of awareness or lack of acceptance of the policy, on the part of a small minority of editors, that is responsible for the >{tq|debates}} IMO.

Futhermore, we have site-wide consensus to treat the DEADNAMES of trans people differently from other former names, and this principle currently applies to the entire name, including the surname. If some editors are motivated to change that policy, it would have to go to RfC and receive a similarly strong consensus. Newimpartial (talk) 19:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I think I sounded a bit harsh there, and I apologize (I got that notion since on the talk pages of many transgender subjects this frequently comes up). I should note that the current policy is actually ambiguous about whether surnames are included in DEADNAME or not. On one hand the transgender policy does not mention "first" or "given" names specifically, but there is another section that says if the surname has been changed for whatever reason that should be included (if sourced of course). Since the spirit of this policy is to avoid articles that give undue weight to one's transgender status and/or sex assigned at birth, and was created because a transgender person's former given name typically conveys such, that it should NOT apply to non-gendered surnames. Furthermore, like I said, applying DEADNAME to all trans surnames opens the door for a cis person who similarly changed their last name for personal reasons to challenge it (since the justification for transgender given names does not apply to non-gendered surnames). Okieditor (talk) 19:59, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

The main rationale given for MOS:DEADNAME is actually the BLPPRIVACY interest living trans person has in their deadnames, and that interest most definitely includes all names, not only their gendered given names. The idea that the rationale for MOS:DEADNAME is limited to the potential for misgendering inherent in the deadname is, ahem, unsupported so far: if that were the case, for example, people whose deadnames were not clearly gendered (the Pats and Sams of the world, in English) would not be covered by DEADNAME at all, which is evident nonsense.

Also, while I haven't seen this discussed explicitly, presumably part of this BLPPRIV interest consists in not pointing readers directly to the non-notable deadname by means of the article text, at least. When the subject has changed their last name as part of a GENDERID name change, the spirit of this policy would be directly contradicted by including part of the non-notable deadname in the article. Newimpartial (talk) 20:10, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

To argue a point, if there is a cis person that had a name change, and their former name is not something they were notable for (such as the maiden name of a non-public figure for example, or the Eastern European name of WWII-era American immigrant getting an Americanized name on arrival), nor is it something well documented, then for the same reasons, we should not be going out to document that name as well, in line with BLP's privacy policy and in concert with DEADNAME even though that is not a "dead name". On the other hand, if we have a woman who had a significant career under their maiden name, gets married and takes their husband's name, we're not going to hide her maiden name even if she requests it of WP, just as we can't hide a DEADNAME of a transgender individual notable well before transitioning. It's a logical step here, just that I think the transition step requires more care and respect towards the individual in question (based on the RFCs) than compared to other ways individuals are renamed. --Masem (t) 20:08, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree with that; however the protocol of not including a trans person's deadname - even if properly sourced, in contrast to most other name changes - IMO should apply only to what if included would be indicative of their gender status (in other words not inclusive of a non-gendered surname, in which the general rules on changed names should apply). Okieditor (talk) 20:14, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

And that is a proposed change that, given the widely expressed consensus for the status quo, would require a comparable RfC. Newimpartial (talk) 21:08, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't see any policy-relevant reason to see different elements of a name (given name, middle names, surname etc.) as separate entities with differing privacy considerations. Names should be treated as a whole in all cases, IMO, which in the case of a deadname means that the policy addresses the entire name, rather than only the components that some editors consider to be gendered. Newimpartial (talk) 17:45, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

This. It doesn't matter which part was changed when they transitioned, since we're talking about reviewing the name as a whole. And in this case, there seems to be clear notability of "Sophie Long" prior to transition so it is not appropriate to remove that name. --Masem (t) 19:53, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

JOBTITLES interpretation

A recent no-consensus close at Talk:Roman Catholic Bishop of Arundel and Brighton#Requested move 27 January 2021 has me wondering: how can six humans read MOS:JOBTITLES and come up with such polar-opposite interpretations? What should have been the outcome of this WP:RM? How can we rewrite MOS:JOBTITLES so that (1) it makes sense and (2) such disputes can be settled? Elizium23 (talk) 09:54, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

It should be that article titles & section headings are in capitalised form, IMHO. GoodDay (talk) 13:09, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

GoodDay, that would require additional consensus since it goes against every other usage of MOS:AT and MOS:HEAD. This is a narrow proposal. Elizium23 (talk) 13:29, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Seeing section headings like "Vice president" or "Vice presidency", "Prime minister" etc? what a mess. On the article title part, we've already got the terrible looking Deputy prime minister of Canada named article, which should be Deputy Prime Minister of Canada. GoodDay (talk) 13:47, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

GoodDay, my question is not why the guideline is the way it is, my question is what is the guideline's interpretation? Elizium23 (talk) 13:50, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Just pointing out that the guideline is a mess & doesn't have the consensus, it's often claimed to have. GoodDay (talk) 13:52, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

GoodDay: do you mean every article title and section heading? —El Millo (talk) 15:09, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Examples: Prime Minister of Canada is correct, where as Prime minister of Canada would be wrong. Likewise, with section headings. GoodDay (talk) 15:36, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Ok, you are just referring to titles and sections when it comes to job titles. I got scared there for a second. —El Millo (talk) 15:38, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

You're being led down a rat-hole. GoodDay is one of those who wants to capitalize these things at every occurrence no matter what the context is, and consensus is against this viewpoint whether GoodDay likes that or not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:45, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Should have resulted in lower-case bishop. This is the same case as in various other RMs ("List of lord mayors of Fooville") and other discussions.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:47, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

No, don't cap these items. Unless you want to talk about the town's Garbage Collectors. All or nothing, please, and the style guides say to minimise unnecessary capitalisation. Tony (talk) 00:26, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Completely different situation. Garbage collector is a generic term. Roman Catholic Bishop of Arundel and Brighton is a post held by only one person at a time. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:46, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Completely faulty argument. Any given small town might have a single garbage collector, but that wouldn't magically make Chortleville Garbage Collector a proper-noun phrase when divorced from the individual's name. And if there's an office under the Roman Catholic Bishop of Arundel and Brighton that can exist in multiples, you can be that fans of capitalizing Roman Catholic Bishop of Arundel and Brighton will want to capitalize that one, too, despite not being unique; they'll argue strenuously to do it for "consistency" and because they're both "official" and yadda yadda yadda. Just, no.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:26, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

See also Talk:Deaths in 2021#Job titles, where @WWGB: is enforcing their own interpretation of JOBTITLES, so that we have 'prime minister' and 'president' of countries, which is ridiculous. Those kinds of political (and religious) roles should be capitalised. GiantSnowman 16:59, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman:, if 'prime minister' and 'president' of countries ... is ridiculous, then why does MOS:JOBTITLES provide for "prime minister of the United Kingdom" and "president of the United States"? WWGB (talk) 02:35, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, you are 100% correct, nothing on Wikipedia is wrong or silly and having piping that shows [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|prime minister]] is absolutely fine and normal. GiantSnowman 10:31, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

• If I read the discussion right, the disagreement makes sense and isn't unexpected - it's just people disagreeing over whether the articles are eg. (Roman Catholic Bishop of Lindisfarne) - that is, a single atomic title with no modifiers, which falls under point 3 - or (Roman Catholic) (bishop) of (Lindisfarne), ie. the title "bishop" modified by the fact that they're a Roman Catholic biship and location they're a bishop of, which doesn't fall under point 3. Possibly another reading would be (Roman Catholic) (bishop of Lindisfarne). Any of these readings is at least notionally reasonable; the discussion, if it went into more depth, ought to have turned to people pulling up sources to show what the actual formal titles are. I have no idea, myself, if Roman Catholic Bishop of Lindisfarne is a complete, formal title or not, but that seems to be what the discussion hinges on under the current guidelines. --Aquillion (talk) 16:22, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Aquillion, you are conflating two separate issues here: a) should “Roman Catholic” be capitalized? (This seems to be standard practice, so I would say yes)... b) should “Bishop of X” be capitalized? (My opinion is yes, as “Bishop of X” is a formal title). Placing them together is what gets you the very capitalized string “Roman Catholic Bishop of X”. Blueboar (talk) 16:44, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

I am talking about this discussion and why it broke down the way it did; it is solely about whether to capitalize "Bishop" in that context. At least by a strict reading of the guidelines, it is reasonable to say that while "Bishop of Arundel" is a formal title and falls under point 3 when used alone, "Roman Catholic bishop of Arundel" is a title preceded with a modifier ("Roman Catholic") and therefore doesn't fall under point 3, which specifically disallows applicability to modified titles. I don't know whether that's the correct reading, but Elizium expressed bafflement that discussions were split, so I was explaining what they split over; at a glance, it doesn't seem, to me, to be an unreasonable point of confusion. --Aquillion (talk) 05:31, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

And I am trying to point out that they are arguing about the wrong thing. The problem is that it isn’t solely about whether to capitalize “bishop”... it’s about whether to capitalize “Bishop of Arundel”. Once you add the “of X” (Duke of Wellington, Queen of England, Commandant of the Marine Corps, Bishop of Rome, Marquis of Salisbury, Mayor of the City of New York, etc) we are dealing with a formal title. I don’t see how adding a modifier (short, tall, blue-eyed, Anglican, Roman Catholic, etc) would change the fact that it is a formal title that should be capitalized.

If the debate were about capitalization in the sentence: “Smith was installed as a bishop in 1997” I would agree that the discussion should focus solely on the word “bishop” (and I would say use lower case)... adding a modifier (Roman Catholic) should have no impact on that determination.

However, in the sentence: “Smith was installed as Bishop of Placename in 1997” the discussion shifts. It is now a debate about whether we should capitalize the formal title “Bishop of Placename” (and I would say we should capitalize)... I don’t see how adding a modifier (tall, short, female, male, Anglican, Roman Catholic) changes that determination. The question remains: do we capitalize this formal title? Blueboar (talk) 13:01, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

To give a clearer example of what I am talking about, consider two almost identical sentences:

1. William was the first king to hold his coronation in Westminster Abby”
2. William was the first King of England to hold his coronation in Westminster Abby.

The modifier “first” does not impact the capitalization of “king” (not a formal title) in the first sentence, nor the capitalization of “King of England” (a formal title) in the second sentence. Blueboar (talk) 13:58, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Except WP (and many others) will write "William was the first king of England to hold his coronation in Westminster Abbey", and there is no objective reason not to do so, only a subjective preference of some for "King of England". Virtually all style guides would have "King of England William I" or "King William I of England" or, perhaps with some defectors, "William I, King of England", because the title and the name are conjoined closely, with the title effectively being part of the name string (though the comma case is iffy). I'm not sure why it's so difficult for some editors to accept the fact that "the first king of England" vs. "the first King of England" is simply a stylistic choice, with both variants readily observable in RS, and WP has simply chosen "the first king of England". It's that way because it's consistent with our broad rule to not capitalize that which isn't effectively necessary to capitalize, itself just a derivation of a broader rule to not apply optional stylization unless doing so is near-universal in sources, for that particular subject. I mean, come on. At some point this just has to sink in. Please, after all this years, just absorb it and stop recycling this endlessly. We all know already that you don't like it. While it's tiresome to be re-re-re-reminded of it over and over again, the bare fact of it is okay. Everyone dislikes something about any given guideline, and there are no guidelines everyone likes everything about. But browbeating everyone for years about your dislike really isn't okay. PS: You keep saying that "Bishop of X" is "a formal title" and must therefore be capitalized, but a) it's not (there can be many Bishops of X – Roman Catholic, Anglican, whatever – and "Bishop of X" may not be the actual title of any of them, but a fragment of that title. But more importantly, even if it were the full formal title, that has nothing to do with whether WP should capitalize it when it's just floating by itself as a common-noun phrase. This really is simple: If it's fused directly to the person's name, capitalize it; if it's not, don't. The end. (Well, do watch out for incidental juxtapositions that are not fused, e.g. "Before he ran for president Donald Trump said ...", though a comma really belongs in there.) PS: Aquillion's breakdown above is correct, as linguistic analysis. What's missing is that the "don't capitalize unless doing so is near-universal for this particular case" maxim predetermines which interpretation to employ; if something can be reasonably lower-cased, then it will be.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:50, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

né, née, and gender binaries

Writing "Name (née Other Name)" has been criticized in the past as being unnecessarily pretentious when we have the perfectly-good and less-technical word "born" to use in place of the French loanwords. But there's another reason for criticizing "né" and "née": they are exclusively masculine and feminine (respectively), causing problems both for people who elect not to be addressed by gender-specific terms, and for people who wish to keep the past history of their gender private (in the face of a minority of editors who seem insistent on using whatever excuses they can find in MOS for forcing that information into Wikipedia articles). It's also not entirely clear to me whether, in current usage, most readers would interpret "née" as meaning "they now have this name, but they were born with that one" or whether they would assume more specifically that the name change came from a marriage, leaving us forced to use "born" anyway for other cases (such as childhood adoption name changes) to avoid confusion. Wouldn't it be simpler just to always use "born", for all Wikipedia biographies where the issue arises, and avoid all these issues? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:32, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

• I'd be happy going with "born" on plain-versus-pretentious grounds even apart from gender issues. The problem of "née" potentially implying a name change due to marriage rather than any other cause is also worrisome (that's the only meaning given in the Cambridge online dictionary, for example). XOR'easter (talk) 18:34, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• This is nice and flexible as it stands: "Editors may denote this with 'born' followed by the subject's full name; they may also use née (feminine) and né (masculine) followed by the surname". If we forced everyone to use "born", we'd need to change (using the example given), "Courtney Michelle Love (née Harrison..." to "Courtney Michelle Love (born Courtney Michelle Harrison...", etc., which is repetitious. If the gender-specific nature of the words is a problem, then there's already the flexibility to use "born". If there isn't such a problem, then there's the flexibility to use "née" and "né". I see no good reasons to remove flexibility. EddieHugh (talk) 19:04, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Is there a reason why we can't use "born" with exactly the same syntax as "née", followed by only the previous surname in cases where the rest did not change? It's not as if the literal meaning of the two words "born" and "né(e)" is any different from each other. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:18, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• Agree that “né” and “née” should be reserved for name changes due to marriage. Otherwise “born” works. Blueboar (talk) 19:09, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• Concur with the above folks. While I have occasionally encountered né[e] outside the marriage context, it's always jarring and seems like an error. While it can be found "in the wild", I don't believe it's normal English to use it more broadly.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:39, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
• I agree with SMcCandlish that while né[e] is sometimes used for non-marital name changes, it doesn't seem to be the "normal" use / expected meaning (and seems, as David says, like a pretentious use of the word). I don't see a problem with it for marital changes, but also I don't object to dropping it and always using born if that's what people want. I agree with David there's nothing wrong with born + just a surname if there's a situation where only a surname is needed. We could revise the guideline like: "Editors may denote this with "born" followed by the subject's surname or full name; for name changes due to marriage, they may also use née (feminine) and né (masculine) followed by the surname, provided the term is linked at first occurrence." (Or drop né[e].) Obviously OP is correct that we can't use né[e] to misgender someone, but this is covered by existing guidelines about using gendered terms that match someone's gender identity, and the existence of non-binary people for whom we'd use born instead of né[e] does not, in itself, seem like a reason not to use né[e] for other people. -sche (talk) 00:08, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
• I support dropping "né"/"née" in favor of "born" in all situations. I don't think né is pretentious, it's just not widely understood, and our article leads are already difficult enough to read as it is. Kaldari (talk) 21:10, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
• I’m a big fan of né or née when it comes to names (even though I’m not a fan of changing one’s name upon marriage, but hey that’s just me and most people do it) because it specifies exactly why the name was changed. You’re likely not gonna say Nikki Sixx né Frank Ferranna Jr. But Bill Clinton né Blythe, it makes perfect sense because he joined another family. To say its French origin is pretentious is childish. Are we going to stop saying fiancé / fiancée, because it’s French too? Trillfendi (talk) 21:24, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
  • "Finacée" is a strawman - nobody here is proposing to remove that, much more widely understood, word that doesn't have a single simple English equivalent ("intended", "betrothed" "husband/wife-to-be", "future spouse", etc all have issues). Thryduulf (talk) 04:35, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Both are French loan words and obviously French uses gendered nouns... so how is it that one is pretentious yet the other is commonly accepted? Trillfendi (talk) 05:07, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Why are you going on and on about being pretentious when the original point of this discussion was that genderedness was a better reason than pretentiousness for making this wording choice? If you know of a short non-gendered replacement for fiancé(e), I'd like to hear it. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:13, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Genderedness and pretentiousness are entirely unrelated. As for why "né[e]" is pretentious but "fiance[é]" isn't, I don't know, but that there is a difference is not surprising given that there many thousands (at least) of words English has taken from French, each with their own shades of meaning, register, degree of acceptance, etc. Thryduulf (talk) 13:08, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

• I fully support using "born" in all circumstances. I don't oppose using "né[e]" for marriage (only), but I do support it being discouraged in favour of "born" as the latter is the more widely understood word. I would strongly oppose edits just changing "né[e]" (when used for marriage-related changes) to "born" on the basis of this discussion though, make the change only when engaging with the specific article. "Né[e]" for changes unrelated to marriage though should (imo) be disallowed and actively removed when encountered. Thryduulf (talk) 04:35, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
• "Née" is most certainly not pretentious and is the standard English word used when women change their name on marriage. We should continue to use it for that. "Born" should be used for every other name change. "Né" should not be used, as it is not a common word in English. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

OK, based on this discussion, I intend to update the following sentence in the MOS soon to add the words I've underlined: "Editors may denote this with "born" followed by the subject's surname or full name; for name changes due to marriage, they may also use née (feminine) and né (masculine) followed by the surname, provided the term is linked at first occurrence." Objections/support/other feedback? -sche (talk) 23:58, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

@-sche: I'd prefer to see something about "born" being preferred over "né"/"née" and it being inappropriate to use on the article of anyone who is non-binary but other than that it looks good. Thryduulf (talk) 12:34, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

I mean, yes, you and I would prefer born over née, but as far as finding a wording that reflects the consensus here, it seems like the discussion above is evenly split between people who want born in all cases and people who support née in cases of marriage, no? I also don't know that this guideline needs to re-mention it being inappropriate to misgender people, does it? I mean, I'm not opposed to it, but isn't that covered by the general MOS:GENDERID? Are people actually trying to use née on nonbinary people or trans men on the basis of this guideline, and not being adequately rebutted by MOS:GENDERID? -sche (talk) 03:03, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

@-sche: if you'd like it no longer evenly split, I really don't like ne[e] (sorry can't do the accent on my computer). It unnecessarily mentions the person's gender, which - in addition to being potentially problematic in the case of trans people - isn't great in articles on women. Women's articles love to talk about how they're women for no apparent reason, and in my view this is just another way to do that. I don't think I've ever seen ne on WP but have frequently seen nee, implying that the rule is being applied unequally to men and women and contributes to WP's content bias. To answer your second point, I haven't seen this (to be fair, most of my edits are related to typos or {lang} tagging and not to checking articles for GENDERID violations), but I can see someone making the argument that because the gendering relates to the birth name, that the birth gender is the most appropriate, where the subject is notable under the previous gender (if they're not notable under that gender, such an editor would clearly have no leg to stand on). That'd be a shitty argument, but people love to deadname. Born also fits in better with MOS:GNL (which I'm guessing was developed off the back of the gender bias thing I mentioned, and is therefore technically not a new point but here I go anyway) than ne[e]. --Xurizuri (talk) 11:28, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

In many countries for hundreds of years women have changed their surname on marriage whereas men have not, so the use of a word in relation to women that is not commonly used for men is fairly obvious, is it not? This should be an example of common usage, both historically and mostly even still today, not being trumped by some PC agenda imposed by Wikipedia. It is not our job to change common usage. As an encyclopaedia, it is our job to reflect it. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:46, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Request for comment on categorisation of recipients of honours and awards

Are too many categories for recipients of state honours and awards being deleted? Please see Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization#RfC on WP:OCAWARD. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:23, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

explicit nationality

Some clarity with regards to MOS:CONTEXTBIO: do we need explicitly-sourced evidence of nationality to call a person a demonym? Is it sufficient that their notable works were in that locale? For example, Yehuda Grunfeld has no cited place-of-birth or nationality, but was notable for his work in the US; as the article stands now, can we therefore call him an "American econometrician in the late 1950s"? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 15:13, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Bumping my own topic in hopes of getting clarification. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 15:17, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

@Fourthords: Yes. A subject should be identified using the nationality or place of residence they held at the time they became notable. Skyerise (talk) 15:27, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Categorisation of honours again

After many other categories for honours have been deleted successfully, attempts have apparently now begun to delete categories for British honours, which carry postnominals and are very widely used and known. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 April 25#Category:Knights of St Patrick. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:12, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

And now they want to start deleting categories for recipients of gallantry awards. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 April 30#Category:Recipients of the Silver Star. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:27, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Merge from MOS:CAPS#Personal_names to MOS:NAMES

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Irrelevant text in Personal names and Place names sections.

Gist: Most of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Personal names should merge to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography (mostly to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography#Names), because little of it pertains to capital letters in particular. It is leftover material from the merge-away of what was WP:Manual of Style/Proper names. Whiel most of the biography-specific material from MOS:PN did already end up in MOS:BIO, this part seems to have been missed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:10, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Name spacing discussion

Please come participate in the discussion at Talk:R. R. Virdi#Spacing in name. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 15:32, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Some questions regarding the relevance of birth names of People who became notable after a name change.

Greetings.

I've noticed that the name change guidelines have become respectful of trans people and establishing guidelines that respects their being. However, some points that are brought up I think are interesting beyond the scope of just transgender people. After lightly reading through the archives I found discussions (sorry I'm new here so I don't know how to, or even if I can, link to said discussions) about how a birth name of a trans person isn't relevant if there was a name change before said person became notable and as such does not need to have their birth name established in the Lead or the Info-box. I think this is a good and rational idea and my question is why this isn't more accepted site-wide. For example, Jack White, the article which prompted my curiosity, has his birth surname listed both in the Lead and Info-box. This is peculiar to me seeing as Jack White became notable after his name change and I have a hard time finding any references that use the name "gillis" in any other context than referencing the fact that he was born as 'Gillis'. Perhaps that would indicate that said info is only relevant for the Early Life section and not necessarily the Lead and Info-box.

I also wondered if the respect of not deadnaming transgendered people so to not cause harm could be extended seeing as some people change their names due to 'bad' pasts. An imperfect example that comes from the top of my head would be Elton John who has expressed relief of changing his name due to bad memories associated with his birth name. Now, Elton John has reconciled and doesn't seem to mind the discussion of his birth name currently, but is there a precedent if such wasn't the case? I also realise that Elton John changed his name some 4-5 years after his first commercial release (although he still released under Elton John). I mostly bring it up because he has been outspoken about his name change being more than simple 'preference' that is mentioned in the guidelines.

Is there also a standard for how to refer to people that have changed names? I notice that the entire Elton John article mentions him as 'John' and never as 'Dwight' whilst Jack White is referred to as 'Gillis' throughout the entire Early Age section, but not fully until the name change.

Thank you for reading and I hope my questions aren't too unbearable to answer.

NatKingCrosby (talk) 00:40, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

I think there is no specific policy associated with this, but MOS:IDENTITY kind of deals with this. Since no sources minus birth records mentions the deadlastname, it should be removed and replaced with his current last name: use the term that is most commonly used by recent[f] reliable sources. If it is unclear which is most used, use the term that the person or group uses. Additionally, if no WP:RS exist for the deadlastname, it should be excluded entirely. That's just my two cents on this. Casspedia (talk) 00:57, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

References

A question about changed (married) name usage inside an article

I'll begin by confessing I don't have enough experience writing about 20th century women. I've been drawn to create Ruby Jane Douglas (birth name), based on redlinks on the Pritzer Museum GLAM project and Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red. An intriguing subject. As Douglass (variously as Douglas), she graduated college, taught school, volunteered and was inducted into the Women's Army Corps as an officer during WWII, was promoted to captain, had newspaper articles written about her, wrote and copyrighted several pieces of music, commanded troops, then composed the tune which became the official song of the WAC. I found she met WP:GNG, based on her more than adequate sourcing as Douglass. Yesterday through the ASCAP biographical dictionary, I discovered her married (professional) name, Jane Douglass White and the large volume of sources which refer to her by that moniker (after 1946 or so). I moved the page, but I have a question about changed name usage. My inclination is to refer to the subject as "Douglass" during the article's narrative of her life in which she went by that name (ex.: Capt. Douglass) and then begin using her changed name during the (largely unwritten) part of the article which will cover her later writings and accomplishments. Is this best practice? I don't see any clear guidance in the MOS, and I've seen some confusion/discussion on pages in which published trans subjects became notable under their birth name, but later changed name to match their identity. Ideas? Objections? I'm going to put this page forward for DYK so I'd like to have as many ducks in a row as possible. BusterD (talk) 19:42, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

It is also possible though unlikely this is a BLP subject, since I haven't verified her death as of this datestamp. BusterD (talk) 19:51, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

See MOS:CHANGEDNAME. I think it is common to use their name at the time you are writing about as you suggested. Trans subjects are a noted exception. MB 20:06, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. After a fuller reading of the linked section, I can see this DOES provide the guidance for which I was looking. Thanks! BusterD (talk) 22:17, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

She/they pronouns

I've come across this issue on two articles today:

• Halsey (singer) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Kehlani (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Both individuals have expressed a preference for "she/they" pronouns. The articles currently use "she" consistently throughout in each case.

Since "she" is accepted, if not preferred, for both individuals, it seems that there's no reason to change the status quo. If the articles are to change, shouldn't we get consensus for a switch from "she" to singular "they" throughout the article, rather than mix-and-match? —C.Fred (talk) 00:25, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

If the subjects are comfortable with either of the two pronouns, it stands to reason to use the one which is more widely accepted and will cause less confusion among readers who may not be familiar with the singular 'they'. —El Millo (talk) 00:39, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Absent good reason to butcher the English language, which does a good enough job itself, there is little reason to mix and match equally acceptable pronouns just for the sake of it. Slywriter (talk) 01:18, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that singular "they" is inherently confusing, so long as it is explained on first use. I do think that mix-and-match would be unnecessarily confusing and that we should avoid that unless there were a very strong argument for it in a specific case. I'd say that the time to switch an article over to consistently using singular "they" is when either the subject makes it clear that they prefer it over the alternative pronoun or when the majority of our sources switch to using it in new writing. I agree with C.Fred in that I don't think there is any need to jump the gun in these cases although we should be willing to act promptly if either of them do express a clear preference for "they" in the future. --DanielRigal (talk) 01:38, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Agreed on this point. When the subject of an article prefers "they" (Sam Smith (singer) is an example where we changed their article when they said they prefer "they"), then I'm all for that change. This is specifically for cases where the subject indicates two pronouns are acceptable. —C.Fred (talk) 11:09, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with DanielRigal, they is fine (it's been part of standard English for longer than singular you has) and per longstanding consensus-based guidelines we use it when it's the right pronoun to use, but iff she is also acceptable then it's fine to retain she. And in every case I'm aware of where someone accepts multiple pronouns, we only use one (e.g. Leslie Feinberg, Rebecca Sugar). Of course, this being a wiki, there may temporarily be counterexamples which mix-and-match: I know some IPs and new users have edited only small parts of Angel Haze or Janelle Monáe before, resulting in inconsistency, but my understanding is that that's undesirable. On articles like Mauree Turner and Rebecca Sugar, IPs and new users sometimes change all the pronouns to they, perhaps assuming all non-binary people use they, but overall and in discussions there seems to be a strong tendency to use she (or he) rather than they whenever both are acceptable. After getting consensus on her talk page I even changed Emma Sulkowicz's article from they to she when she said she accepted either, rather than WP:STABLE-WP:RETAIN-ing the they pronouns the article had long used, due to that tendency. (Certainly, we can mention that someone accepts either, though.) -sche (talk) 21:02, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Agree with C.Fred (talk · contribs), since the commonly used pronoun "she" is not objected to, there is no reason not to follow the commonly used term. LK (talk) 03:23, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Also agree. GiantSnowman 11:11, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Yup, if there is no preference between she and they, the more common and less ambiguous pronoun of she should be used. Same would obviously apply for individuals neutral between he and they. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:48, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

This means time to go rewrite Jude Ellison Sady Doyle with "he" then, right? AJD (talk) 04:49, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Twitter account says he/they, [10] so that's what I would do, but the personal life section needs updating. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:34, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

I'd tend to suggest to go with what the article generally has been using. In the same way that in country-neutral articles, we use any version of English as long as it's consistent. --Xurizuri (talk) 04:44, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

It's a good thing it's mostly just these hoity-toity pseudo-liberal "artist" types that are having a gas with pronouns and not actually interesting/important subjects. isento (talk) 05:37, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

MOS:NICKNAMETHE sometimes goes against normal style

"A leading "the" is not capitalized in a nickname, pseudonym, or other alias (except when the alias begins a sentence)." This works sometimes (e.g. "I saw the Beatles in London") but other times it looks silly and goes against normal usage, e.g. The Game (rapper): "better known by his stage name the Game". Here it should be "his stage name The Game", and that is how you would find it anywhere outside Wikipedia. This is correct because we are mentioning the actual name as a name, and not talking about its referent. Compare "a band called The Beatles" (mentioning their name) with "a band called the Beatles" (meaning that a band contacted the Beatles by telephone). Equinox ◑ 19:44, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the distinction here, and I doubt readers will either; in fact, it's not a distinction I've ever seen used in any publication. I don't think the cap disambiguates your two use cases (called vs called) in a way that anyone will decode. Popcornfud (talk) 19:57, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

I think it's an important difference. Firstly, it does read weirdly, even if some readers wouldn't be able to articulate why. Secondly, it'd especially be difficult for people with low literacy or who aren't native English speakers to decipher. For example, when I read German, I have to deconstruct the sentence by each word, and I'm screwed if any of it isn't grammatically correct. It's obviously impossible to stop any grammatical errors, but we don't need to be requiring them in MOS. --Xurizuri (talk) 04:56, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Implementing deadname RFCs

First proposal

The RFCs above on deadnaming did not propose any specific text, and since no one has proposed any in response to the closing, I've drafted a rewrite for MOS:GENDERID below. Merging the results with the existing guideline was quite complicated, and it was difficult to find terminology that is both clear and unoffensive. In some places I interpolated to fill in some gaps. I am not certain I am using the right examples or enough examples, and overall I think this is probably a bit too long. Suggestions very welcome.

I have started a separate discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film#Clarification on anachronistic and transgender names regarding potential updates for MOS:FILMCAST and MOS:TVCAST.

I also boldly added a "use new name if old name was determined to be offensive" paragraph to MOS:CHANGEDNAME since that seems to be the de facto practice now.

-- Beland (talk) 15:30, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

---

(EDITED BASED ON SUGGESTIONS BELOW)

With transgender and non-binary gender people and similar cases, people should primarily be referred to with the gender (e.g. "man", "woman", "person"), pronouns (e.g. "him", "she", singular "they"), possessives (e.g. "his", "her", "theirs"), and gendered nouns (e.g. "chairman", "chairwoman", "chairperson"; but these are often disfavored - see MOS:GNL) they have most recently declared for themselves. People who have chosen names to match their gender identities should primarily be referred to by those names (most recent if changed more than once). Give precedence to recent reliable sources, even if a different name is more common in older sources.

Wikipedia sometimes mentions a name which the referent has asked not be used, known (sometimes pejoratively) as a deadname. These are minimized and mentioned but not used to avoid distracting readers who consider deadnaming offensive, and to avoid unnecessary harm to that person. Harm may range from mild distress to unemployment to death, potentially more serious if a name or pronoun reveals a previously private gender history. Wikipedia mentions these names when necessary to correctly inform readers about facts of public interest.

General guidelines:

• By default, use a person's chosen name and pronouns as the primary name (in main body text, infobox, tables, etc.) for events in the present, future, and past. Do not mention the name the subject used in the past, except as noted below and possibly in their biography as noted at MOS:DEADNAME.
• If a person prefers the name and pronouns used at the time when discussing the past, make that name primary and use those pronouns. If they happily accept either, use as primary whichever form minimizes reader confusion, based on which name is better known or better matches context.
• If a living person was not notable under a former name, the former name must not be included in any Wikipedia article (including direct quotations), even if it can be documented with reliable primary sources or a small number of obscure secondary sources. Treat that name with a strong privacy interest separate from the primary name. (See WP:BLPPRIVACY.) Self-disclosure can obviate the privacy interest e.g. if the name is mentioned in a recent autobiography, but WP:INDISCRIMINATE also applies.
• If a living person's transgender status is not public, they must not be outed by Wikipedia; an even stronger privacy interest applies, as does WP:OR.
• If a living person must be mentioned under a former name, e.g. as the author of a cited work, connecting that name to the current name (either with an annotation or by substituting a chosen name) would also be a violation of privacy unless the connection is already public and documented.
• If a gendered name or pronouns are confusing or surprising to readers because of a perceived contradiction with other context, explain in a brief note in prose or footnote (depending on length of explanation, relevance, space available, readability, etc.) Examples:
  • Noting an actor with a different gender identity than the identity or gender presentation of the character, such as Elliot Page playing pregnant teenage girl in Juno. This includes cisgender actors, such as with the principal boy in English plays and cross-gender casting in general.
  • Noting a transgender pregnancy, as many readers are unfamiliar with this possibility.
  • When a person's gender identity does not match the gender category they previously competed in, such as at the Olympics or Academy Awards.
• Avoid unnecessarily creating perceived contradictions. For example, instead of (Jane Doe fathered a child) simply write (e.g., Jane Doe became a parent). If it is important enough to mention, Jane Doe's biography would already explain her transgender status, and this phrasing would be jarring to some readers without adding information. In other articles where that is not relevant, it would simply create the need for an off-topic explanation.
• When describing names, never imply any name is not a "real" name. Use specific terms like birth name, legal name, credited name, chosen name but not preferred name which some people perceive as offensively implying that gender identity is simply a preference.
• Avoid stating or implying that someone has changed gender or e.g. was previously a man when they report or it is presumed that they have always had the same gender identity. When discussing such changes, refer to gender presentation (as is done in the article gender transitioning). For example, say Jane was then known as John instead of Jane was then John because "known as" uncontroversially refers to a specific aspect of presentation rather than the essence of a personality.

A notable non-primary name (typically a "deadname") is sometimes mentioned when relevant to past circumstances:

• When the non-primary name is part of a mentioned work, note the non-primary name in a brief parenthetical (or footnote if space is limited or the non-primary name is not well known). This may be necessary to find the work, verify the citation, or find mentions of a person in primary or secondary sources. Mentioning e.g. transgender status is not necessary to explain a simple name mismatch (it would be undue weight) unless it is relevant to the context. Examples:
  • Z Brewer (writing as Heather Brewer) is the author of Eighth Grade Bites.
  • In movie credits, e.g. "Credited as The Wachowski Brothers as a footnote on The Matrix.
  • When awards cite the previous name, for example "Caitlyn Jenner (awarded as Bruce Jenner)" in 1976 Summer Olympics. In List of Olympic medalists in athletics (men), this is part of a longer footnote that explains the presence of a feminine-gendered name in a listing of men's medals.
• Noting the non-primary name is only necessary at first prose reference, for prominent references (like an infobox or the first in a series of consecutive table rows), to prevent confusion, and to explain a perceived contradiction. For example, the actor starring in Juno (film) can be referred to as Elliot Page (credited as Ellen Page) on first reference and Page (following MOS:SURNAME) or Elliot Page later in the prose.

In direct quotations, when dealing with notable non-primary names (typically a "deadname") or mismatched gendered words:

• It is strongly preferred to replace the quotation with a paraphrase or reduce the quoted material to avoid non-primary names or mismatched pronouns. This is very strongly preferred to avoid altering the quote in multiple places or avoid creating the type of perceived contradiction explained above (which would need explaining). Paraphrasing is generally preferred in encyclopedic writing in general (see MOS:QUOTE).

  Instead of: Critic X said "Juno needs a fine [actor] to play its pregnant teenage star, and [Elliot] Page has shown [himself] to be the perfect [man] for the job."

  write: Critic X argued that portraying the pregnant teenage lead in the film Juno required fine acting talent, and that Page had proved perfect for the job.

• Paraphrasing or reduction is required if the alteration of a direct quote would result in outing; for example said "[he] was the clear winner" draws attention to the possibility that the original quote may have been "she was the clear winner" but said he was the "clear winner" does not.

• In the rare cases where paraphrasing is not possible, quotes should be edited to use words compatible with the primary name and matching gender identity.
  • This must be done in a way that indicates to readers how the quoted text differs from the original, and must follow the principle of minimal change at MOS:PMC.
  • MOS:PMC does not consider using a different way to refer to the same person to be an impermissible change in meaning, and encourages this if it clarifies the referent. (For example, the same person might be referred to as "Richard Feynman", "Dick", "him", "her father", "the other guy", or "my honeybuns" with varying levels of clarity.)
  • Compatibility with the primary name and matching gender identity is important in quotes so that readers unambiguously know that the person referred to in the quote is the same person referred to in the rest of the article.
  • The non-primary name and misgendered words should be substituted out even if the non-primary name is documented in the article, because the primary name is expected to be the most visible name in and across article text and titles, because that is how the person will be referred to in present-day conversation, and for the other reasons mentioned in the intro to this section.
  • If possible, remove words without adding any new words to minimize changes and to avoid the perceived contradiction of using a name before the referent was known by that name. This often works when the last name has not changed. For example, "[Page] was outstanding" instead of "[Elliot] Page was outstanding". To avoid ambiguity over what is missing, it is preferred to use brackets around the last name instead of using an ellipsis to indicate a missing first name.
  • Substitute pronouns and derived possessives using brackets.
  • Consider using an ungendered alternative if that would avoid a perceived contradiction. For example, instead of "[his] depiction of a pregnant teenage girl was excellent" write "[Page's] depiction of a pregnant teenage girl was excellent".

• In extremely rare cases where a quotation cannot be paraphrased and the name or pronouns cannot be altered (for example where there is a pun on the name or an intentional deadnaming is being exhibited) note the chosen name in nearby prose or footnote. It may be necessary to explain if the use of the name was intended to be offensive, or to represent a particular point of view, or that it was not considered offensive because that was the name the subject was known by at the time, or whatever the reason was for leaving it unaltered.

Discussion of first proposal

Discuss! -- Beland (talk) 15:30, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, I have a big picture question. MOS:DEADNAME has belonged to MOS:NAME. As the section heading for NAME states, Most of the examples throughout this section illustrate usage in the title sentence, and this has been used by editors as a reason to dismiss the relevance of DEADNAME outside the lead.

Now that the consensus on DEADNAME has more to say about mainspace content outside the title sentence or lead section, should it still be confined to MOS:NAME, or be distributed in some way? Should the framing text in NAME be amended to draw more attention to its implications beyond the title sentence (since it is not only DEADNAME that has such implications)? Should DEADNAME be moved up a level in the hierarchy? At the very least, I think some cross-references could be added elsewhere in the MOS where the guidance that is being added to DEADNAME is most likely to be relevant.

In any case, I would not recommend moving all of this to GENDERID; at the very least, very substantial cross-references are currently required in NAME (where DEADNAME currently resides), but I am not sure that the main home for the name-related text shouldn't remain at DEADNAME while the pronoun text stays at GENDERID. Newimpartial (talk) 15:51, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Is this for GENDERID or DEADNAME? Shouldn't it stay here?

Regarding Noting the non-primary name is only necessary at first prose reference and prominent references (like an infobox or the first in a series of consecutive table rows)., I prefer less restrictive wording like that used in your closure: use editorial judgment to maintain clarity and add more parentheticals or footnotes if needed. Otherwise we'll get people pushing to have the footnote one time and that's it, regardless of the later text. It also doesn't contradict the other part where it says to mention the name if there is a perceived contradiction (like having been cast based on the old presentation or receiving an award under it).

Lastly, the new text is not at all clear about the direction for what to do in the subject's own article (possibly because this is meant for GENDERID, but I think DEADNAME makes more sense as a location and that is where we are now). Typically we mention a notable deadname in the lead sentence, in bold and in parenthesis (footnote has never been done there). That was not part of the RfC. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:18, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

To underline an instance where I agree with Crossroads (!), it should be clear in the new guidelines that the typical approach in the subject's own article would never to present a notable deadname in a footnote. If there is a redirect from the deadname, for example, that would normally call for the bold and parenthetical treatment Crossroads describes. Newimpartial (talk) 21:24, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Actually, maybe GENDERID should be moved here and both that and DEADNAME be made into a new top-level section here called "Gender identity". CHANGEDNAME and MOS could then have hatnotes pointing to it. I think having all the transgender-related direction in one place makes much more sense and it's all biography-related. And it's grown so large that it's odd to stuff it under those smaller sections. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:27, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, this text doesn't cover the intro sentences in biographies because it's an update to MOS:GENDERID; the intro sentences are covered under MOS:CHANGEDNAME, and that text I'm proposing to remain unchanged. I agree that if the two halves of gender-related MOS content are merged together, they don't really fit in the "Names" section anymore. The part that talks about deadnames and the intro sentence would have to be cross-referenced from MOS:CHANGEDNAME since it's an exception to that guideline. In the megamerge scenario, we'd probably want to create a parallel section like there is for Sexuality. But I see that the Sexuality section is actually just a pointer to MOS:IDENTITY, which (after this expansion) would be almost entirely filled with MOS:GENDERID. So that leads me to think my original proposal is probably still the best way to handle this, but I don't have strong feelings and I'm open to suggestions.

As for guidance on how many notes to add, enough RFC participants seemed to be endorsing the idea that deadnaming should be minimized to the greatest degree possible because it is inherently harmful or offensive or disrespectful. Some wanted to ban it entirely, but there was not consensus to go that far. But neither was there consensus to go as far in the opposite direction, where we would simply label every single mention of a chosen name with the deadname footnote or something. I'm a bit concerned that "editorial judgement" or "if needed" might allow "I think it's always needed" to be used as a good reason. And part of the point of these RFCs was to reduce edit wars, so I'm thinking maybe there should be a list of concrete reasons to add more than one annotation, and if it turns out we missed one, that can always get added to the MOS later if there's consensus it is in fact a good reason. I hope that in most cases people will simply accept each others' editorial judgement and not fight about it so we don't have to have lots of very narrow rules, but hey. Anyway, I changed the wording there to at first prose reference, for prominent references (like an infobox or the first in a series of consecutive table rows), to prevent confusion, and to explain a perceived contradiction. Does that cover the cases you were thinking about? -- Beland (talk) 03:09, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

It does, and I appreciate that, but let's see what others say. I'm leery of over-restricting this sort of thing because there are always edge cases and so on. Thanks for taking on this effort by the way. As for where to put it, I've switched totally to the idea that a gender identity section here is best. That it's longer than the sexuality one is fine I think. And it would be pointed to liberally as needed from elsewhere. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:55, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I have no objection merging the entirety of MOS:IDENTITY into Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography, but it'll be a bit complicated to deal with overlapping paragraphs and make sure all the pointers are properly updated. Since there seems to be no remaining objections to the proposed text and since we need it to go live ASAP to prevent disputes, I've posted it to MOS:GENDERID. Folks who have stronger feelings and more time than I are invited to rearrange across MOS pages as they see fit. -- Beland (talk) 17:57, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style #‎Gender identity.--Moxy 🍁 18:41, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

I restored the text to this talk page that was being commented on. I see no reason to remove it from here and it makes the ensuing conversation confusing. What's more, there's probably going to be more discussion now and it should all be in one place - here. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:24, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Comment - can I just say that, since this appears to be a NIMBY scenario, it seems to me that it will not be possible to add any necessary text to the main MOS page without also having a discussion there? If there is a scenario where text at the other location is seamlessly changed based on a discussion here I would love for that to happen, but that doesn't seem likely. Newimpartial (talk) 20:13, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Since more editors appear to favor the text to be on the Biography subpage, I have posted it to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography#Gender identity and am updating pointers and the main MOS page. (I had moved the text rather than copying it so there weren't multiple versions kicking around and drifting apart, but since that seemed to confuse folks this time I copied it. Feel free to improve the live version.) -- Beland (talk) 03:25, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

That's done, I think the only open question left is whether to merge the "Gender identity and naming in the lead" subsection out of "Names" and into the main "Gender identity" section. That would be fine with me as long as a pointer is left behind to indicate that an exception is being made. It's also fine with me to leave things split as they are, because they are pointed correctly at each other and there's also an argument to be made for keeping all the "how to write names in the lead" content together. And though I would have expected a slew of flaming comments by now if anything were radically askew, more thoughts on tweaking the text itself are certainly welcome; the MOS is a living document and is never really finished. (Yay!?) -- Beland (talk) 03:49, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose and then some. This is at least 10x too long to even consider putting into guideline language. See MOS:BLOAT. MoS is already much, much too long. Worse, on a topic like this, every single word of every clause is going to cause room for dispute, so any material that pertains to this should say no more than it absolutely must, and cannot say any more than we have absolute concrete consensus for. I don't see anything like consensus for a large amount of what you're trying to shoehorn into this. It looks to me like you're trying to use some vague but quite narrow consensus leanings as an excuse to try to rework MoS into an extensions of GLAAD language-reform advocacy materials. (I.e., you are mistaking closers' every extended personal ruminations for the consensus; the consensus is actually what emerges from the discussion between all the participating editors. A closer's "job" is to summarize it, but if the summary does this poorly or goes far beyond it, that doesn't magically change the actual consensus.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:01, 14 February 2021 (UTC); clarified: 06:40, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

  I'm a bit confused by your comment, SMcCandlish. Are you objecting to the closures above, or only to the proposed implementation language? Because it looks to me like the proposed language follows quite closely from the closures. Newimpartial (talk) 05:04, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

  Then you're not reading them very closely. There's no point in line-by-lining this stuff until it's much, much, much shorter. Some of us have lives. Just because the closer wants to ramble and ramble and opine and opine does not mean a) we are obligated to try to work every element of the closer's viewpoint into the a guideline, or b) that every element of that text-wall even accurately reflects or even closely relates to actual community consensus as determined by the discussion. I get the feeling that some people here don't really understand what a guideline is and what purpose it serves, nor how consensus and its assessment by closers work. Discussion closers do not dictate WP:P&G wording. Otherwise everyone would be in a mad rush to close discussions and WP:SUPERVOTE in them to force language into P&G pages. That's just not how it works.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:20, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

  I don't think either I or the closer in question is confused about the role of discussion closers or what the MOS is for. But if there were actual questions about the relevance or accuracy of the close, there are processes to raise those questions - which to date nobody has engaged. Newimpartial (talk) 05:30, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

  Well, personally, I didn't want to draft the text that implemented these RFCs, but there were only crickets after the closures happened, and it would be quite a waste of lots of editors' time to drop these RFCs on the floor. Both you and the folks at GLAAD should definitely be able to read a Wikipedia article that follows the MOS and find nothing objectionable. I'm happy to try to help modify the draft to do that if it's not currently, but it's difficult to do so without a more specific complaint or complaints. -- Beland (talk) 06:33, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

• For starters, it's far too long and needs a good copyedit. Tony (talk) 05:09, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

  I agree length is an issue; I feel a bit stuck in that RFC participants were concerned that too much left undecided would result in edit wars. Tony1 and SMcCandlish, if you have any general guidance on what to trim, that would help, and specific suggestions even moreso. -- Beland (talk) 06:33, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

• I have to oppose as written. Something I kept thinking and wondered if anyone else would notice is that this proposal and the closure covers far more material than was widely commented on at the RfC. One or two participants suggesting something which is otherwise ignored is not a consensus. Crossroads ^-talk- 16:55, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• While I like a lot of the ideas, I must Oppose per SMcCandlish - this is far too long. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 03:33, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Order

I suggest imposing some order on this discussion because at present it's confusing—so much so that it's worth a quick look at Webster's: confuse transitive verb ... 2 b : to make unclear in mind or purpose : mislead, bewilder, perplex : throw off ...." I suspect that experienced editors who have heretofore not been involved in these discussions would have some valuable insights—if we don't scare them off.

MOS/Biography#Gender identity directs readers to the present talk page with hyperlinked text: "This section is the subject of a current discussion." But then readers land on a section titled, "Implementing deadname RFCs". I almost left because I had no idea what all that meant, but this topic (gender identity) seemed important so I persevered, going back and forth, reading various discussions and MOS pages, until I began to understand the gist (I think).

I suggest:

• Consolidate onto one talk page all discussions about the proposed gender identity text that Beland posted (above)—the green shaded block of text that begins: "With transgender and non-binary gender people and similar cases ...."

• Create separate sections for discussing (a) the gender identity text, and (b) placement, i.e., on which Manual of Style section and page the gender identity text should appear.

• Explain, preferably in pithy prose (or via hyperlinked text, or an endnote) terminology unfamiliar to most people, e.g., "deadname", "subpage", "closures", "implementation", etc.

FWIW, I approached Beland's text with skepticism because it seemed overly detailed and dense. However, I read it slowly and came away with a richer, more nuanced understanding of challenges facing trans, intersex, and non-binary folks, and with an enhanced appreciation for the difference language makes not only to them, but ultimately for all of us. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 07:33, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

References

Alternative proposal

The entire pair of closes can be compressed, for guideline purposes, into something like the following – keeping in mind how it interrelates with other guidelines and policies and previous consensus discussion, and dependencies between the two interrelated RfCs (e.g. findings in the second which actually pertain to the first):

The name most recently chosen by a transgender or non-binary person should be used as their primary name on Wikipedia (in the main text, a table, a list, an infobox, etc.), in preference to a previous credited or legal name no longer used by the subject (a "deadname"), unless the latter remains their the most common name. When both are used on Wikipedia, include at first occurrence the current name when the old name is used contextually, e.g. Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner; likewise, include the old one when contextually important in material otherwise using the new name, e.g. Caitlyn (then Bruce) Jenner. How to phrase such a correspondence and how to format it (parenthetical, footnote, etc.), is left to editorial discretion at an article.

Not every biography, much less mention, of such a subject should note their former name(s). Wikipedia respects living persons' privacy; only such a subject's chosen name should be used when the prior name pre-dates their notability and is not routinely reported in reliable sources, when the person is not notable (e.g., just mentioned in an article on another subject), or when describing events that post-date the name change. Outing a person as transgender or non-binary is not permitted, even if an isolated or weak sourcing makes such a claim; Wikipedia waits for it to be reported widely in independent, reliable sources, or in a self-declaration by the subject which can be verified as genuine.

Do not change directly quoted material to alter or remove a person's former name or pronouns, without using square brackets, e.g. [Caitlyn] Jenner, or ellipsis, e.g. ... Jenner. Paraphrasing is preferred if the quotation would require multiple such changes, though there may be other options (explanatory introduction phrase, footnote, etc.), depending on the context. In source citations, do not replace or remove names of authors, or references to old names in titles of published works.

Every other point in the text-wall RfC closes is either editorializing by the closer (e.g. explaining their reasoning, comparing support levels, relating the RfC discussion to other situations, expressing personal opinion, etc.), or is already covered by other WP:P&G material, or is repetitive, or is better served by injecting examples if we feel more of them are necessary. E.g., the paraphrasing-about-Juno example might be worth keeping.

I'm proposing the way, way, way shorter version here as the general shape of the material to use, in contrast to the multiple screenfuls proposed above. Specific copyediting may follow (though I've already done a lot, e.g. to replace colloquial language like "OK", to replace policy-incorrect usage of the word "notable", etc.). Maybe someone thinks I missed a crucial point. It could be reformatted to use bullets, but this is less helpful that people seems to think it is, except when presenting examples. And, really, if this just turns into another interminable argument, we can just RfC it again. It's common for a "philosophical" RfC to result in a followup RfC on concrete language to implement.

The "and is not routinely reported in reliable sources" material (marked in grey for purposes of this discussion) is worth noting. It has long been the operational consensus, and I do not see any clear indication that the RfC changed this consensus, nor did the closers address the question, so the default is that this status quo stands: If RS material about a subject routinely includes their birth name, then WP will also do so. Aside from royalty and maybe someone like Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, there is no one notable at birth, so without this clause it would be misunderstood as blanket license to delete the old names of virtually all living, notable TG/NB people other those those who have only recently changed names, and that is clearly not what the consensus is. Another important thing is not changing names in citations (both for BLPPRIV/OUTING reasons with regard to non-notable scholars, and because the purpose of citations is identifying and finding works as-published, which would be thwarted by falsifying their details). I devoted considerable attention to this in the RfCs, and the point was not refuted, but the closers skipped it. (I've also marked that in grey.)

Follow-up matter: The closer also noted: "MOS:TVCAST and MOS:FILMCAST appear to allow anachronistic names; if that is a contradiction with MOS:CHANGEDNAME, that should be resolved with clarity. If anachronistic names are not intended for inclusion, perhaps MOS:CHANGEDNAME should be cross-referenced." Cleaning up any potential conflict between these guidelines will necessarily have to come after settling on what to do with this main material.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:40, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support, although I'd tweak to specify what "when contextually important" would generally mean because some people will claim it's never contextually important and a man playing a pregnant teenage girl is not confusing at all. I agree with you that the longer proposal above was too long and that not everything in it clearly had consensus; some of the material in it and in the closure was just commented on by one or two people, not being clearly the consensus of a group. People might have disagreed with those comments but didn't want to create interminable side-chains of discussion. Crossroads ^-talk- 16:52, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I feel like I have to point out the equivocation in the above comment: the fact that a man playing a pregnant teenage girl may be confusing doesn't imply that the actor's former name is "contextually important"; the confusion can be cleared up with a note that the actor is transgender and was presenting as female at the time, without mentioning the name he used at the time. AJD (talk) 18:45, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
    • And I would point out that while the actor in question, Elliot Page, has announced a trans identity and declared he/they pronouns, they have not to date announced an identity as a man as far as I know. If people are going to find things confusing - as they undoubtedly will - it seems encumbent on editors to be as accurate as possible when they allude to actual cases (and in this case to BLPs). Newimpartial (talk) 18:59, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• My call... we are going to have to have at least some of those “side-chains” of discussion anyway... so I say stick it in, and then hold further discussions to walk back anything that doesn’t have consensus. Blueboar (talk) 17:17, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• Regarding the text in gray: what about when the authors themselves have changed the metadata after adopting a new name? For example, all of the publications on Autumn Kent's Google Scholar profile use "A. Kent" rather than her deadname. I'd find it hard to argue that bracketing would be falsification in that case (and the remainder of the metadata, including the DOI, would resolve any confusion). Similarly, all of the science writer Riley Black's posts on the Smithsonian website use her chosen name, even those originally posted under her deadname. In that case, the URL is the pointer, and changing the author fields in a {{cite web}} would make it less confusing for the reader. As this wasn't explicitly addressed in the close, I'm hesitant to say there's a consensus about what to do. Surely we ought to at least allow ourselves the option of "[chosen name] (writing as [deadname])" or the like (which a trans writer suggested to me when that circumstance came up). XOR'easter (talk) 19:11, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose as written. One thing that leaps out at me is the very weak wording which I suspect, if not changed, will be interpreted to kneecap MOS:DEADNAME. Specifically, the direction to use people's preferred names only when the prior name pre-dates their notability and is not routinely reported in reliable sources, and not to do so if [the deadname] remains their the most common name [sic]. Perhaps there's something I'm missing here, given that nobody else has brought this up, but these two excerpts seem to directly violate DEADNAME: If such a subject was not notable under their former name, it usually should not be included in that or any other article, even if some reliable sourcing exists for it. Treat the pre-notability name as a privacy interest separate from (and often greater than) the person's current name. The proposed wording would tell us to deadname subjects unless three conditions are met:

1. Their deadname predates their notability

2. Their deadname is not "routinely reported" in RS's

3. Their chosen name is now their WP:COMMONNAME

The difference here is significant. First of all, I don't know where this WP:COMMONNAME thing came from. Is there an RfC that I missed that decided this? Because that seems to go against DEADNAME, and if added to MOS I bet it wouldn't be long until someone proposes changing the article title for Elliot Page back to his deadname (a "majority of RS's" argument). Second: whether someone is WP:NOTABLE under a name is very clearly defined. Whether a name is routinely reported in RS's is very much open to interpretation. I've discussed this very issue before (see the Nicole Maines RfC), but it's an important distinction. As written, this would create an inconsistency in direction to editors which would only make worse the disrespect, conflict, and civil POV pushing which is all-too-present in this content area. Srey Sros^talk 20:52, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose - this alternative proposal contains at least three errors or omissions in its present form. For example, the first point offers the exception, unless the latter remains their the most common name, but this is ambiguous. Both the status quo (pre-RfC) version of MOS:DEADNAME and the relevant provisions of MOS:COMMONNAME specify that only sources published since the chosen name was announced are to be considered in determining what their most common name is considered to be. This principle was not altered by the RfC and should therefore not be obscured by any new guideline text.
  • Second, the proposed text is also (bizarrely) unclear that the principle that WP prefers the current, chosen name applies not only to the primary about a BLP subject but to all articles where that BLP subject is mentioned. This is not communicated effectively by in the main text, a table, a list, an infobox, etc., which could all easily be misconstrued as applying only to the main biographical article on a subject. I say that this is "bizarre", because the first of the two recently closed RfCs was concerned exclusively with mentions in articles other than a trans peeson's primary BLP.
  • Finally, the added text in grey concerning birth names, and is not routinely reported in reliable sources, is an innovation that was not discussed in the recent RfCs and which therefore should not be added here without endorsement from the community, such as having its own RfC. For quite some time, the prevailing consensus in various discussions has been that the BLPPRIV interest in names under which a person was not notable extends also to cases where the deadname has been widely published (though not used as the primary name for the BLP subject) since the name change. Laverne Cox may have been one of the earlier cases where this principle was discerned, and Nicole Maines is a more recent instance. The "alternative proposal" could even be used to justify the insertion of non-notable birth names in instances where the current BLPs include former professional names, like Elliot Page, but recognise a BLPPRIV interest in excluding the birth name. Altogether, I do not think the proposal here reflects even the pre-RfC consensus on these issues, much less the spirit of the recent RfCs and their closes, so this doesn't seem like a promising direction for the development of these guidelines. When the best argument in favor of a proposal is the reputation of the editor proposing it, it probably isn't a good proposal, and that seems to be the case here. Newimpartial (talk) 22:32, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose without changes - this is a helpful starting point for discussion with regard to length and content. In several places it runs counter to recent consensus and inappropriately modifies or deletes parts of the existing policy, but those could be fixed. It omits several points I think we need to at least try to affirm compromise language for in order to avoid wasting all the input we just collected.
  • I'm assuming this is meant to replace what is currently at MOS:GENDERID? If so, it's actually deleting a bunch of assertions that the two recent RFCs were not intended to undo, based on the questions posed and RFC participants explicitly saying so. This includes guidance on pronouns and gendered terms, and avoidance of apparent contradictions like women becoming fathers.
  • This changes the existing preference for a chosen name even if that's not the common name when looking across all sources; if anything, there was consensus for that in the recent RFCs, not against it.
  • Based on current practice in articles and the general principles being affirmed here, it seems uncontroversial to use the latest version of the chosen name if it has been amended. We can save ourselves article disputes and another RFC after the one that affirms this language if we clarify that point in this proposal.
  • It could be made shorter by dropping the sentence "Do not change directly quoted material to alter or remove a person's former name or pronouns, without using square brackets, e.g. [Caitlyn] Jenner, or ellipsis, e.g. ... Jenner." The option of changing without brackets or ellipses is already clearly prohibited by MOS:PMC, and the only reason it's mentioned in the closing is that the RFC proposer gave it as an option. If it hadn't been listed, I doubt anyone would have brought it up as a viable alternative.
  • It doesn't address the case where someone's preference is to use a past name when referring to the past, for which there was support and no objections, and I see no reason why anyone would object to that.
  • Using the deadname when "contextually important" is not a bad starting point, but the whole point of one of the RFCs was to clarify if this should be applied to a person's previously published works. Nearly everyone seems to be OK with noting both names in this case (disagreeing 2:1 which should go first), and nearly everyone is not OK with completely dropping one of the names (disagreeing 2:1 on which one). The most concise way to fix this would be to add the two cases as a non-exhaustive list of examples, like "contextually important (e.g. when readers would be confused or surprised or when the former name is credited)". "Confused or surprised" already has demonstrated consensus by being in the existing MOS:GENDERID and there was no consensus to remove that in these RFCs (that question was not even being asked). Using both names "when the former name is credited" and doing so respectfully seems like the only compromise everyone is going to be happy with. If we don't give folks from both factions the opportunity to affirm that or something like it as a reasonable compromise given the opposing preferences, we'll have wasted an RFC. It will also mean that disputes on article pages will simply continue as different editors interpret "important" very differently.
  • There was 2:1 preference for the chosen name to be the primary even in the context of previously published works. That threshold is generally considered to indicate consensus, and the supermajority position is supported by a rational policy justification. This proposed guideline actually says the opposite; the supermajority apparently considers "Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner" unacceptable.
  • Some (but definitely not all) folks would consider phrasing like "X (then Y)" to be inaccurate, imprecise, or disrespectful. Like, we all know what is meant but it's just not a careful way to say it, and read a certain way it implies a non-neutral philosophical stance on the essence of gender. I don't think anyone would object to terse replacements like "X (competing as Y)", so I don't see an upside in affirming objectionable examples.
  • When all three options are equally comprehensible, I think the reality is that some editors strongly object to leaving deadnames unaltered, some editors strongly object to inserting chosen names anachronistically, and some editors explicitly prefer paraphrasing which pretty much no one from the other two factions objects to. Paraphrasing seems like the only reasonable compromise in most cases, not merely the cases where it is very strongly preferred (like multiple alterations) which are mentioned. I think we should attempt to affirm language to that effect, or else we'll have pretty much wasted the deadnames-in-quotes RFC.
  • I don't think there is consensus for examples like "[Caitlyn] Jenner" in direct quotes, though many editors who are against deadnaming would be perfectly happy with this. Such an example stretches MOS:PMC and does not accommodate the objection many RFC participants had against anachronistic naming and "putting words" in the mouths of people. This objection is rational to the degree that it's jarring to some and may give readers a historically inaccurate impression as something the quoted person might have said but didn't, even though readers can in fact tell this is not what the quoted person actually said. My suggested compromise is "[Jenner]" which seemed popular and unlikely to generate substantial rational opposition. If we want to leave more editorial discretion, we don't have to affirm that exact solution in the policy update language, but I do think we should affirm the general principle of "removing not adding" when possible, or else editors are going to have arguments on article talk pages and the MOS policy is going to be challenged again.

  -- Beland (talk) 01:42, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

  A lot of that's good points. I or someone else can try integrating them into a third draft, but I have other stuff on my plate today. I actually have to take my presently unvaccinated life into my own hands and leave the house. [shudder]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:35, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

• FTR I broadly agree with Beland (i.e. I must oppose this proposal as written, for not reflecting the RFCs well enough). I may try to draft a proposal myself later. (It is too bad we are all so busy!) -sche (talk) 00:04, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Third proposal

OK, here's another version trimming everything that can't be discussed separately and all but the most vital policy justifications. I revived [sic] because that's in the existing policy and maybe I shouldn't have dropped it. -- Beland (talk) 08:10, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

(EDITED PER BELOW SUGGESTIONS)

Further information: Deadnaming

Transgender, non-binary, and other people in similar circumstances should be referred to (in prose, lists, tables, etc.) with the most recent names chosen for themselves, and chosen pronouns and other matching gendered words. Give precedence to recent reliable sources, even if a different name is more common in older sources.

This also applies to past events, unless in that context the subject prefers the name they were known by at the time. If it does not match, note the name as credited in a published work or award in a very brief parenthetical or footnote. This does not need to be repeated on every mention, but should be noted on first and prominent mentions (like an infobox or first table row) or to avoid confusion.

Write: Z Brewer (writing as Heather Brewer) is the author of Eighth Grade Bites.

and not: Bruce Jenner (now known as Caitlyn Jenner)

Briefly explain perceived contradictions, like a masculine-gendered name in a Best Actress category, a transgender pregnancy, or cross-gender casting, in prose or footnote. Avoid unnecessarily creating perceived contradictions. For example, instead of Jane Doe fathered a child simply write Jane Doe became a parent.

If a living person was not notable under a former name, for privacy reasons and to avoid harm, that name usually should not be included in any Wikipedia article (including direct quotations), even if it can be reliably documented. This also applies in reverse when citing a published work, if connecting the credited name to a current name would be a privacy violation.

Living people must not be outed as transgender or non-binary by Wikipedia, whether directly or implicitly by annotating alterations to direct quotations.

When a direct quotation does not match a more recently declared gender identity or chosen name:

• Use paraphrasing to reduce or eliminate the quoted portion to avoid the mismatched words, especially if there are multiple sections or alteration would create a perceived contradiction.

  Instead of: Critic X said "Juno needs a fine [actor] to play its pregnant teenage star, and [Elliot] Page has shown [himself] to be the perfect [man] for the job."

  write: Critic X argued that portraying the pregnant teenage lead in the film Juno required fine acting talent, and that Page had proved perfect for the job.

• If paraphrasing cannot be used, edit the quote to avoid mismatching the appropriate name and gender identity following the principle of minimal change. Avoid anachronistic names. For example "phone voters agreed [Skaalum] crushed it" is preferred to "phone voters agreed [Noah] Skaalum crushed it".
• Use an ungendered reference if that would avoid a perceived contradiction. For example, instead of "[his] depiction of a pregnant teenage girl was excellent" write "[Page's] depiction of a pregnant teenage girl was excellent".
• Add a note clarifying who is being referred to if a quote does not match the context and cannot be repaired with the above techniques.
• If a quote cannot be paraphrased or edited (for example where there is a pun on the name or an intentional deadnaming is being documented) use [sic] and make sure the chosen name is noted in nearby prose or a footnote.

I agree with this general direction but have a number of wordsmithing-type suggestions. Would it be acceptable to amend the proposed directly, or are detailed suggestions to be posted in the form of replies? Newimpartial (talk) 14:05, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Please don't edit it directly, that will confuse everybody as to who proposed what. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:35, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

As noted below by SMcCandlish, the Jenner example goes beyond the RfC. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:44, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Couple brief suggestions: (1) The Brewer/Jenner example set needs words to clarify one is good and one is bad, both for verbal clarity and because of color-blindness. (2) Change "Consider using" in Consider using an ungendered reference if that would avoid a perceived contradiction to the more direct "Use". This is to match the more direct instruction above and actual practice. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:44, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Understanding there will be some fine-tuning, such as Crossroads' spot-on suggestions, I like it. Thank you for all your hard work Beland. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 22:10, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Updated; thanks for spotting those improvements, Crossroads! -- Beland (talk) 18:19, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I like most of this, and it does a good job of making existing guidance more concise, but I see two substantive issues. Also, I have one copyediting suggestion: "Transgender, non-binary, and other people...", since "non-binary" (instead of "non-binary gender) is the usual adjective to parallel "transgender" and "other" in modifying "people".

• Now, substantive question 1: is the addition of "If a living person was not notable under and does not publicly discuss a former name" (emphasis mine) supported by either RFC? I don't see "publicly discuss" in the text or !votes of either. It will be used to argue that if a trans person has ever acknowledged a former name, then the exclusion no longer applies and it must be in the article; this has already been argued re articles like Jazz Jennings and Nicole Maines. I am inclined to think it's wiser to retain the existing guideline, which is just "if [...] a subject was not notable under their former name", so I oppose introduction of the underlined clause.
• Substantive question 2: is it wise to add "Wikipedia does not rely on isolated or weak sourcing for such information, but waits for wide reporting by reliable sources or a verified self-declaration" to the Manual of Style instead of letting existing polices on reliable sourcing and verification continue to handle this? I am concerned that in the case of people who meet WP:GNG through having been notable decades ago but are no longer popular / reported on, the sentence will be used to argue that one or two RS reporting that someone came out as trans are only "isolated" reports, and there'll be arguing over whether a non-SELFPUB source saying someone said "I'm a trans man" is a "verified self-declaration". I think we already handle situations where it's not clear a RS understood something correctly, or at least, I don't think that the proposed sentence will solve more problems than it will create, since the one case that comes to mind where RS seem(ed) to have possibly misunderstood something was a case where there was "wide reporting" on a "verified self-declaration" by Eddie Izzard about pronouns.

-sche (talk) 22:41, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughtful response; short answer is, your suggestions make sense to me. Long answer:

I've changed "non-binary" above as suggested.

I have also removed "and does not publicly discuss" from the above, after considering your objection. There were some comments and no objections that if people preferred to be called by the name they were known by at the time when discussing the past, Wikipedia should do that. The general suppression of non-notable birth names was generally justified in the discussion by WP:BLPPRIVACY. If someone puts their birth name in their autobiography, or mentions it in TV interviews, then I think it's obvious that person no longer has a privacy interest in suppressing that name, so there would no longer be a WP:BLPPRIVACY justification. Those are the sorts of cases I was trying to cover with that exception, to avoid Wikipedia forcing itself to disregard the expressed preferences of a living person. But there's actually other language clarifying that exception, so this is probably unnecessary. Other discussion did mention WP:INDISCRIMINATE as another possible justification for not including names a person was known by when they were not notable, and one opinion was that there should be a separate RFC on this question. It seems obvious to me that Jazz Jennings and family still prefer that their family name be kept private, and that WP:BLPRIVACY applies there. There was an RFC specifically on Talk:Nicole Maines (thanks for the pointer to that!) in which an authorized biography and TV interviews were cited as a reason why there was no longer a privacy interest in that person's birth name. That RFC actually decided the book and TV interviews didn't make the name worthy of inclusion, partly relying on the interpretation of the existing MOS:DEADNAME. Even though it seems lots of readers are curious to know about trans people's birth names, I take that RFC as evidence that mere reader interest isn't seen as outweighing the need to avoid unnecessary deadnaming and that non-notable names are seen as trivial. Removing the phrase you objected to does a better job of keeping the previous consensus intact, and there's definitely not a strong consensus to change it since it was not a core issue of either recent RFC.

I also removed "Wikipedia does not rely on isolated or weak sourcing for such information, but waits for wide reporting by reliable sources or a verified self-declaration". Editors will argue about when specific cases have crossed the threshold between "outing" and "reporting well-known facts" whether this is in there or not. If you think there might be unintended consequences to the interpretation of existing policy, better to not put this in at all. These RFCs did not address this issue head-on, and I think the important RFC comments that were made about the danger of outing by annotating mentions of people are already well covered by the remaining language.

If we don't have a very specific rules for how to interpret pretty broad language, I think it would be helpful to give editors some examples in the style of common-law court decisions. Nicole Maines is probably a good borderline example with a solid RFC that would be good to include near the Laverne Cox example. Is Eddie Izzard a good example for how to verify self-declared pronouns? -- Beland (talk) 01:25, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

If it's of interest/use to anyone else, I took the current text of MOS:GENDERID and MOS:DEADNAME, separated each piece of guidance into a different cell in a table a table (updated), did likewise for the proposal above, and paired cells that cover the same things, to make it easier to see differences. -sche (talk) 23:14, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I did make use of that; thanks! This is indeed a rather complicated change. -- Beland (talk) 01:25, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support: looks to me like a good summary of current community opinion. Reasonable length. We need something in there soon even if it's something that can be improved and made more precise over time. — Bilorv (talk) 20:00, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
• Still needs work, and took some steps backward.
  • The closer's deep involvement in the drafting of this material (including to re-insert ideas from the closes' own ruminations that are not actual consensus-discussion results) demonstrates that the closes are (or have become) WP:SUPERVOTING. That's not a "fatal" problem, it just means we basically have to re-analyze the discussion on our own, and draft material that meets that actual consensus (and as it relates to and did not change much longer-standing, more general consensus). But to address some specifics:
  • This draft is still rambling; it could use both compression and some rewording into guideline-style instead of essay-style language.
  • The opening "Transgender, non-binary, and other people in similar circumstances should be ..." isn't actually grammatical.
  • Remove "and to avoid harm"; that is WP:GREATWRONGS / WP:ADVOCACY stuff that will be used as a wedge to fight long- and solidly-established consensus to sometimes use old names from within the period of notability. If we were to accept that any use of a deadname "causes harm" then we'd be forbidden to ever do it for any reason. Consensus obviously does not agree with that proposition, so we cannot sneak it in through the back door.
  • "and not: Bruce Jenner (now known as Caitlyn Jenner)" does not reflect consensus. The RfC was very clear that there is no fixed prescription for how to write such material; which order and exactly what wording to use will vary by context. If we want to advise against the exact wording "now known as" for some reason, that should be done separately, not in a way that implies old-name-then-new-name order is forbidden.
  • "If a living person was not notable under a former name, for privacy reasons ... that name must not be included in any Wikipedia article" doesn't reflect consensus or actual practice, and basically it cannot. We do in fact include an old name (usually the birth name) when it is regularly reported in reliable sources. I.e., when the subject has no actual privacy interest in it. For the average case of a TG/NB person who became notable after transition we would not disclose the birth name, but there will be exceptions. RuPaul is a potential example (expresses no pronoun preference, and has presented as feminine for the most part, aside from some late-career masculine film roles); another would be nonbinary (in later life, previously male-identifying) Genesis P-Orridge; though recently deceased, there was nothing wrong with P-Orridge's article giving the birth name, which has been publicly known for decades. This generally happens when someone is famous in a sector where birth names are routinely included in the RS, and especially when their gender identity has been unclear and did not involve a change to their professional name. It's also apt to happen when the birth-to-professional-name change has nothing to do with gender. Frankly, the material drafted above is oversimplifying in detail yet at excessive length in wording, a double-whammy. The way I wrote this part in the version before this one was better, though could probably be tweaked a little.
  • I'm also concerned that some of the motivation here is expressed in the subsection above this as 'I don't think there is consensus for examples like "[Caitlyn] Jenner" in direct quotes, though many editors who are against deadnaming would be perfectly happy with this.' This is missing the important fact that 20 years of consensus on WP (and centuries of general English-writing practice) is that it's permissible to do this. The RfC did not magically undo this, it simply did not come to a consensus that doing a lot of this (especially multiple times in the same quoted sentence) is preferable. The Juno example makes that aspect of it clear, but it should not be interpreted as effectively forbidding an occasional "[Caitlyn] Jenner". Remember that MoS does not exist for force most editors to write a new particular way, but to encapsulate consensus about how WP is best written.
  • There may be some other issues in this draft that boil down to mistaking the most recent RfC pair and the closer's lengthy opinion about them as being "the WP consensus" about every matter that this material may raise.

I think it would be more productive to re-start with my more concise and policy-based draft and tweak it to address concerns, rather than try to work this third version back toward consensus and guideline-appropriate wording.

PS: As -sche's table indicates, if we treat this draft material as a replacement for the entirety of the original guideline section, then we are losing points which need to be reintegrated.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:39, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• I'm not sure why you consider the opening ungrammatical. Perhaps the part of speech in the first list? I read it as "adjective, adjective, and adjective people".
• The fact that something reported in Wikipedia causes direct harm to the subject of that information is not a reason for Wikipedia never to do it. We report true facts about scandals and crimes, with names attached.
• The revelation of an otherwise non-public name can be harmful to anyone (used for anything from identity theft to doxxing) as can any violation of privacy. For trans people, it could cause anything from nothing at all to particularly hurtful online harassment to psychological trauma to a derailed career to an honor killing. Editors do need to be very careful with this sort of information if it is in fact relatively obscure. The "to avoid harm" phrase is used above in that context only, not to refer to deadnaming in general.
• "Bruce Jenner (now known as Caitlyn Jenner)" is option F, and "Caitlyn Jenner (then known as Bruce Jenner)" is option E. By my count, A/B/E was favored 2:1 over C/D/F, and I read that as supermajority support for not using C, D, or F. Do you dispute the use of that threshold or that the RFC met that threshold or something else?
• The issue of including or not including birth names in biographies is not being changed by these RFCs; that is already part of MOS:DEADNAME as it reads today: "If such a subject was not notable under their former name, it usually should not be included in that or any other article,[g] even if some reliable sourcing exists for it." Comparing more carefully, I see the existing text says "usually should not" instead of "must not"; I tweaked the above to match. The intention is the same, given there always might be an encyclopedic circumstantial exception, but you know, being careful. I don't read what you wrote in the "Alternative proposal" as being substantially different, so actually I don't object to it, though it adds some detail. (-sche could perhaps comment on whether that additional detail would have changed the outcome in any recent discussions; I had to cut back on some of my additional verbiage to avoid that.)
• Yes, either "[Caitlyn] Jenner" or "[Jenner]" are not like, legally misquoting someone, but the former raises "putting words in people's mouths" objections that the latter does not, for two reasons. One is sheer anachronism, which is good to avoid for reasons of encyclopedic integrity and historical accuracy. People would object in the same way to a quote from a new mom like "my baby boy [Pope Francis] has given me great joy". (Following MOS:CHANGEDNAME we say "Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born on 17 December 1936" in Pope Francis.) It's not possible for the speaker to have known what the future name would be, therefore the alteration is arguably stretching the bounds of the "principle of minimal change". The second problem is the superheated debate about whether the speaker would have used the future name had they known about it and what the alteration implies about their beliefs on the subject. Even the omission of the first name would be enough to get some speakers complaining to Wikipedia that their words were being censored, much less putting in a name they never could have or would have used. All of these issues can be completely avoided simply by paraphrasing, which I think is what will actually happen in most or all cases. So it's not like the somewhat objectionable option is needed for variety when there's a fairly uncontroversial alternative. If we don't agree the deadnames-in-quotes RFC establishes that this should be the rule, I think it would be worthwhile to try to get explicit community affirmation one way or the other. I expect that folks toward the "avoid deadnaming" end of the opinion spectrum will be happy as long as the dead first name is omitted, and folks at the "avoid anachromisms" end will be happy as long as the future first name is omitted, and most folks would prefer a compromise like this to continued arguing over which first name should appear. But if I've misread editor opinion and there's a groundswell of support that "[Caitlyn] Jenner" must be allowed despite the objections raised, I would like to know that and have it recorded.
• "There may be some other issues" is not really actionable, so I'm not sure how to respond to that concern.
• I'm not seeing what points in the existing policy I dropped...I did drop the examples like "man/woman" just due to length, on the assumption people know what we mean when we talk about gendered words. "Chairman/chairwoman" are a bit problematic with respect to MOS:GNL anyway but it seems that for length reasons it's easier just not to get into that. And to some degree it's already taken care of by the advice to use an ungendered alternative in these contexts. BTW, I recently learned that "chairman" comes from a time in English history when literally there was only one chair to sit on and the man who was in charge of the group got to use it. -- Beland (talk) 08:32, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

This is probably all moot by now, given the proposal no. 4 below, but anyway: The grammar problem is structural, and probably fixable by just removing "other". Your second and third bullets support my own argument; the fact that you have to explain what you meant by it in detail simply shows why it would be misinterpreted/wikilawyered, in the way I suggested it would. (And those points are also supportive of the one I've been insistent about including, that we do not use editorial OR to "inverse out" non-notable authors of works we cite as sources, by changing their names in the citations away from what name the source is credited to). Yes, I dispute your assessment, because WP:NOTAVOTE and because many participants, while personally favoring one approach or another, were clear that exact phrasing/order should be left to editorial judgement. "I tweaked the above to match"; yes, I think that resolved that issue. Your anachronisms point I accept in its entirety, and I incidentally made a similar argument regardling the drafted example sentence (about Page) in version no. 4 below. "There may be some other issues": One of them has already been raised about no. 4 (and it was present in versions before no. 3). "not seeing what points in the existing policy I dropped": it won't be productive to get into a WP:Policy writing is hard analysis of that material at this point, since action has moved on to no. 4; it would probably take a couple of a paragraphs.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:29, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

• Suggestion: I think one thing which is making this harder than it needs to be is that the various proposed wordings are all trying to combine two different guideline pages and change their texts to consolidate them at the same time as also changing the text to also make it more concise in general at the same time as also changing the actual substance of the text in significant ways to reflect two different RFCs. I think we would have an easier time if we took a step back and, ignoring the existing guidelines for a moment, rough-draft what guidelines the RFCs found consensus for. Then, identify which existing guidelines conflict with and need to be changed based on the RFCs, without looking at (or changing, consolidating, or condensing) anything else. Once we've established what the guidelines are, then it'll be easier to consolidate and condense them. -sche (talk) 02:52, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

  If you want to draft some points, I'm open to that approach. -- Beland (talk) 08:32, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

First, apologies to SMcCandlish that my comment above, about figuring out what guidelines are before combining them + existing guidelines, forgot to acknowledge that that's what his proposal (unlike those on either side of it) attempted. (As noted in its section above, there are cases where it went beyond or short of what either RfC or existing guideline supported, though.) I envisioned making a bulleted (check)list, unlike his prose, but realized in making it that I was nonetheless duplicating much effort he'd already done, though there's also utility to having two (more) people (beyond the closer) gauge what guidelines the RFCs/closes support.

I pasted the first RFC close, second (quotes) RFC close, and existing guidelines to my sandbox, and then trimmed non-rule verbiage and consolidated each set of guidelines as much as I could, in stages to keep the edit history (starting from each of those links) intelligible diff by diff. I distilled what I read as the operative rules. (In condensing the existing rules I made one change relative to their current text, to recognize that de facto we use a trans person's pronouns in all articles, not just their "main biographical article".)

This is a list of all rules (guidelines) present before the RFCs or in the RFCs (in sections): if you feel I missed or misrepresented any existing rules or rules the RFC closes found consensus for, let me know. I hope this aids with checking that any proposed wording covers/contains all the rules. (If nothing else, you can see—or I can point out—a lot of places where existing sentences can be made shorter e.g. through active voice!) I also used it to draft my own proposed combination of the existing guidelines and RFC results, which I will post shortly, with apologies for doing the xkcd standards thing... -sche (talk) 07:55, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

An admirable effort. I'm glad this bullet list strongly informed draft no. 4. I've made some copyediting suggestions, and indicated how to ensure site-wide consensus on the final version, in the subsection below.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:29, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Fourth proposal

Using the bulleted lists I linked to in the section above, I had a go at a "combined" guideline, consolidating the existing MOS:GENDERID + MOS:DEADNAME + RFCs. This is shorter than either complete proposal above. (Here are the guidelines split by source: RfC 1, RfC 2, or pre-RfC MOS.) -sche (talk) 09:38, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Note: this text was modified around 09:08, 16 March 2021 (UTC) based on feedback below. Because the re-ordering of some paragraphs makes it harder to track wording changes, here is a diff where paragraphs are in the same order so you can track just wording changes. -sche (talk) 09:17, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Note: this text was modified around 01:52, 17 March 2021 (UTC) based on feedback below. Because the re-ordering of some paragraphs makes it harder to track wording changes, here is a diff where paragraphs are in the same order so you can track just wording changes. -sche (talk) 01:57, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Refer to any person whose gender might be questioned with gendered words (e.g. pronouns, "man/woman", "waiter/waitress") that reflect the person's latest expressed gender self-identification as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what is most common in sources. This applies in references to any phase of the person's life, unless they indicated a preference otherwise.

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

• From Laverne Cox, not notable under prior name: Laverne Cox (born May 29, 1972) ...

A living transgender or non-binary person's former name should be included in the lead sentence of their main biographical article only if they were notable under it; introduce it with "born" or "formerly":

• From Chelsea Manning, notable under prior name: Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning; December 17, 1987) ...
• From Elliot Page, notable under prior name: Elliot Page (formerly Ellen Page; born February 21, 1987) ...

Outside the main biography, generally do not go into detail over changes in the person's name or gender presentation unless they are relevant to the passage. When a person's gender may come as a surprise, explain it on first occurrence, without overemphasis. Avoid confusing constructions (Jane Doe fathered a child) by rewriting (e.g., Jane Doe became a parent). In articles on works or other activity by a living trans or non-binary person before transition, use their current name as the primary name (in prose, tables, lists, infoboxes, etc.), unless they prefer their former name be used for past events. If they were notable under the name by which they were credited for the work or other activity, provide it in a parenthetical or footnote on first reference; add more parentheticals or footnotes only if needed.

Paraphrase, elide, or use square brackets to replace portions of quotations to avoid deadnaming or misgendering, except in rare cases where exact wording cannot be avoided, as where there is a pun on the notable former name, etc.

• Critic X said "Juno needs a fine [actor] to play its pregnant teenage star, and [Elliot] Page has shown [himself] to be the perfect [man] for the job." involves many bracketed changes, so is better paraphrased: Critic X argued that portraying the pregnant teenage lead in the film Juno required fine actor, and said that Page had proved perfect for the job.

In source citations, do not remove names of authors, or references to former names in titles of works. If the author is notable, the current name may be given, for example as "X (writing as Y)". Do not replace or supplement a person's former name with a current name if the two names have not been publicly connected and connecting them would out the person.

Does this miss (or misstate) anything? (You can see where I distilled each sentence from—RfC 1, 2, or the pre-RfC MOS—here. I omitted references to "privacy interests" which the existing MOS and RfC closes make, as they seem to be explanations, not rules per se, but I have no objection to putting them [back] in.) The text could have more examples, but following people's comments above I was going for brevity. Trying not to conflate guidelines about distinct groups, e.g. "living trans and nonbinary people" vs "trans and nonbinary people" vs "any person[s] whose gender might be questioned", led to some unwieldy sentences like the one that starts "In articles on works...", which could be made shorter if less specificity were OK. -sche (talk) 09:38, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support as written. GoodCrossing (talk) 12:27, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Pinging everyone who commented in the preceding sections: @Ajd, Beland, Bilorv, Blueboar, Crossroads, Elliot321, Markworthen, Newimpartial, SMcCandlish, SreySros, Tony1, and XOR'easter:. Thoughts on this, as a combination of the two existing guidelines and the two RFCs? -sche (talk) 23:50, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support with or without the following recommended minor changes: remove the Easter egg link in "even if" and change "any article" to "any page" if that was the intention (as categories and templates seem to be included in the scope). — Bilorv (talk) 00:22, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support with Bilorv's proposed changes. I'd also support it as written, but I can't imagine that the changes are at all controversial. The wording seems as tight and concise as is possible, and it seems to implement the RfC results without losing any detail or inserting anything not backed by the RfCs. Srey Sros^talk 00:29, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support: yeah, this seems fine. AJD (talk) 05:01, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
• I can live with it, as far as it goes, but it needs restoration of the part that we do not "inverse out" non-notable authors of cited works by changing their names as-published to what some editor's OR thinks is their current name. And it needs some copyedits: 1) "notable under the name they were credited for the work under" has too much "under" in itl; I think what is meant is "notable under the name by which they were credited for the work". 2) "etc" should be "etc." 3) "explain it without overemphasis on first occurrence" is easy to misread; try "explain it on first occurrence, without overemphasis". 4) "use brackets" should be "use square brackets"; what Americans call "parentheses" and nerds call "round brackets" are just called "brackets" in some dialects; the idea that "brackets" necessarily means "square brackets" is an Americanism. 5) The example of how to rewrite is actually terrible encyclopedic prose. Try: Critic X said "Juno needs a fine [actor] to play its pregnant teenage star, and [Elliot] Page has shown ... to be the perfect [person] for the job." This is more consonant with avoiding confusing constructions. Never mind; I mistook this example text as what was advised rather than what was to be replaced. 6) "Deadname" is slang/jargon, and not how the guideline itself should be written (other than mentioning it one time at the start, so people familiar with the term know they're at the right place). Try replacing with "the former name", "their previous name(s)", "a pre-transition name", or whatever fits the exact sentence best. 7) The material on "works" is missing that we don't treat material about published works differently from other achievements or sources of notability. This can be fixed with "In articles on works, achievements, etc. ... credited for the work or other activity". Without this, what's guaranteed to happen is a shitload of disputation about what constitutes a "work", and in particular a whole lot of attempts to not have this apply to Olympic records and other non-publications. And that would go directly against previous very solid RfCs on the matter, e.g. about Caitlyn Jennings and not censoring the name "Bruce" in a pre-transition sports context.

  On privacy: This draft is okay in not verbally dwelling on privacy matters, but has missed the point that the sole policy basis of this is WP:BLPPRIV, so we need to retain a link to that even if we do not re-explain it in situ. There's a pretty obvious string to use for that link: "living transgender or non-binary person.

  On a more meta note: I don't personally disagree with much of this (in fact, it encapsulates most of what I was getting at but which produced a bunch of kneejerk opposition when it was me who drafted it). However, it subtly departs in various ways from consensuses that have been established earlier in much larger discussions, e.g. at VPPOL in RfCs that ran for multiple months. So, regardless whether we – those participating here and now – agree it's good to go after some final tweaks, there's a fairly high likelihood it will generate blowback and be interpreted as a false consensus that was arrived at only among a comparatively tiny number of editors. I think it would probably be more long-term productive to make final tweaks and, barring any further "local" objections, list it at WP:VPPOL and add it to WP:CENT for a community yea/nay. That would take another month, but it might head off several years of repeat disputes. For better or worse this subject area and how to handle it has produced a tremendous amount of long-term dispute, so it needs to be done right, in a way that the community will actually accept as effectively binding (beyond long-term "consensus can change" process, i.e. if general-English-language practices strongly shift again). PS: I predict that failure of the first sentence of this draft to be limited to living persons is liable to be a sticking point. The entire point of giving any consideration to a subject's preferences is grounded in BLP, and the editorial community is unlikely to accept a "don't follow the sources" alleged-rule that conflicts with basic policy, without another policy backing up such an exception. We have that in BLP but we do not have it for dead subjects and we likely never will.
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:58, 15 March 2021 (UTC); corrected 09:49, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

  • SMcCandlish, MOS:GENDERID, from which the first paragraph derives, is already not limited to living biographical subjects. Do you really think there is a community-wide consensus to restrict its application, compared to the status quo? Newimpartial (talk) 17:24, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

    I think it is highly probable that MOS:GENDERID no longer entirely accurately represents consensus, because it has incrementally wandered (through few-editors discussions like this) away from how it was established and how it was revised after the long (both in time and volume) VPPOL RfCs about this subject. The draft above just makes the nature of the issue clearer than does GENDERID's current wording. In a nutshell, if in 5 years or whatever, the real-world coverage of someone who died 20 years earlier consistently prefers "she" but the subject was using "him" in their final years, WP is not really in a position to contradict the RS on the matter. As more cases of people publicly assuming alleged gender identifies and pronoun preferences as attention-getting mechanisms come to light the disconnect between going with a subject's stated most-recent preference, and following the sources, is going to become clearer. Right now, we're charitably assuming that any claim of gender identify must necessarily be legitimate and honest, and that's perhaps the safest position to take with regard to living subjects, but claims of any sort about the deceased are not something we leave to primary sourcing when secondary sources largely contradict it. Anyway, I'm not saying that the draft above is wrong to be couched in such terms, I'm just predicting that if it is, it increases the likelihood of consensus rejecting it as a "don't follow the sources" overreach. And that possibility might be more likely play out later than today.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:54, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

    For what it's worth, I agree that the community probably needs to clarify the treatment of deceased trans people's biographical articles, both in terms of pronouns/GENDERID and in terms of DEADNAMEs. For example, I have seen efforts to push non-notable birth names into articles pertaining to very recently deceased trans people and also into articles for trans people who died in the last century (or the one before), and it is not clear to me that the principles that should be used to decide these cases are precisely the same in each instance. It does seem likely (to me at least) that the community would probably support the principle of "last reliably known self-identification of the biographical subject" more than it would, say, a raw count of RS pronoun choices, but this will definitely need to go to RfC at some point; I hope a more refined formulation of principles can be proposed at that time. In the meantime, however, we have one status quo framework for pronouns etc. and a different framework for names. Newimpartial (talk) 19:29, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

    Fair enough. As I say, I'm not insistent that this line of the proposed draft change right now; I'm outlining where pushback is likely to originate eventually, because of tension between this wording and long-standing policy/practice. (Change your "raw count of RS pronoun choices" to "count of modern-RS pronoun choices", and you'll probably see clearer what I'm getting at. I.e., it has nothing to do with old sources that pre-date the subject's transition or pre-date the ongoing shift in English usage with regard to TG/NB people.) Anyway, I hope this digression does not derail addressing the other more copyediting-related concerns I raised.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:18, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

    I mean, I wouldn't be opposed to using, say, 5 years after a BLP subject's death and treating that - or 20 years ago, whichever is more recent - as a Jahr Null for determining appropriate names and pronouns for the biographies of people for whom this is an issue. But that would most definitely require new consensus, since right now we just don't have any kind of consensus concerning the encyclopaedic treatment of deceased trans people. Newimpartial (talk) 20:30, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

    because it has incrementally wandered (through few-editors discussions like this). As I said below, by my count something like 100 users contributed to the RFCs that this implements. On top of that, if I understand the RFCs you're referring to correctly - those being the only Village Pump RFCs I could find on Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Gender_identity/Discussions - they were five years ago and had a participation of like 20-ish people. --Aquillion (talk) 19:41, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

    But only very small fraction of that kind of editorial input is being put toward actually implementing guideline wording, and the interpretational and wording disputes about doing so have already been excessive. I think there is no question whatsoever that the result of this (call it draft no. 5 if you like) is going to be pretty well thought-out by some of the editors who care most about the topic area but that it will be a ciphre when comes to whether it actually represents WP-wide consensus. The way to ensure that is to put it up at VPPOL as a proposal for the community to approve (or not). We have a long-standing problem that certain elements of MoS that were drafted by too few people with too much argument are later claimed to be false consensus or a WP:CONLEVEL policy problem. Let's not contribute to that issue just out of a desire for haste.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:18, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

    On a procedural level, I have to agree with Aquillion, we don't need and shouldn't have additional RfCs on implementing the previous RfCs. I know you merely want to ensure this represents a sufficient level of consensus and are not trying to forumshop, but I think the idea that there'd need to be another RfC before the consensus of a previous RfC could be implemented is nonetheless the kind of thing WP:FORUMSHOP doesn't allow, for good reason. The RfCs above had well over a hundred participants and were widely advertised, including on VPPOL an/p>d VPR by you, so I think anyone who were to later suggest the consensuses they found represented an insufficient WP:CONLEVEL could be rebutted on that basis. Anyone who thinks the language they're implemented in doesn't reflect them can make that case. -sche (talk) 02:16, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

    So be it. I'm not going to open an additional RfC on it (though someone else might). But I firmly predict that we're going to have to have another dragged-out discussion like this in 6 months, or 12, or 18. I have learned from long experience that significant changes to MoS that affect many articles across any number of subject categories and which intersect with people's strong preferences about how to write, will inevitably lead to rehashed dispute about the legitimacy of the rule if it was only the subject of a MoS-talk RfC and not at the broader venue. These sometimes drag on for many years, and lead to an F-load of drama, which is why I and others list major ones. It is better to have a complete discussion now, even if it drags on a bit, than have multiple recurrent over a long period amid a continual haze of doubt and resistance.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:57, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

    Oh, I share your expectation that there'll continue to be disputes about what our guidelines should be, I just think that (aside from the "forumshopping" issues it would entail) a VPPOL RfC-confirmation-RfC strikes me as unlikely to prevent that...? (Some people will never accept "catering" to trans people and excluding deadnames etc, some people will never accept deadnaming, so at least one if not both will always want our guidelines to change.) And anyone who'd shut such disputes down with "look, this was decided on in a VPPOL RfC" can already say "look, these principles were decided in well-publicized, high-participation RfCs", and disputers can reply "WP:CCC" in either case. Maybe a VPPOL RfC-RfC would include a moratorium on changes to the guideline(s), but I'm not sure that would actually be desirable, since it's not clear to me that anyone here thinks that even if the RfCs were implemented in exactly the way they want, the result would be perfect and complete guidelines that won't need any future changes — one of the RfCs closed with notes about other issues that need discussing. -sche (talk) 23:18, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

• @SMcCandlish: please remember to assume good faith. There are material differences between your proposal and this one, and dismissing opposition to your proposal as kneejerk opposition when it was me who drafted it is a fairly clear WP:ASPERSION. Srey Sros^talk 18:18, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

  Randomly accusing people, without evidence, of assuming bad faith simply because they don't agree with you is itself an assumption of bad faith. Your logic fault here is in assuming that I characterize every possible objection to everything in my version as a knee-jerk overreaction. Please actually read what I wrote; I'm criticizing as knee-jerk overreaction the objections to the parts of what I drafted which are still present in this version and being accepted in it. Please consider focusing on content instead of contributor. It is not your job to thought-police every commentator on talk pages.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:54, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

  I appreciate your wordsmithing; in particular, I knew the "under the name [...] under" clause was awkward but I couldn't figure out how to word it better! I intend to update the wording above to reflect people's tweaks soon (leaving a comment with a diff when I do, so that anyone looking at the wording can see how it was tweaked relative to what people were initially responding to). However, I'm not sure it'd be appropriate to change "works" to "works, achievements, etc.": I used "works" because AFAICT that is specifically what the RfC at the top of this page dealt with. I can see the concern that people may argue over whether Olympic records are "works", but (a) it's not clear to me the RfCs showed consensus about—and thus, can provide a basis for a guideline about—achievements, Olympic records, etc (I count 10 or 11 people, less than a tenth of the participants, referring to "Olympic"), and (b) if we add "achievements", what is equally guaranteed to happen is a shitload of disputation from people arguing we can no longer say Jane Currentname was born in 1984, or that Currentname served as treasurer for the student government and earned an MBA in business in 2014, etc, but that we have to say "Jane Currentname (as John Deadname)" was treasurer, graduated, etc, which is AFAICT not supported by the current MOS (and RfCs) about trans people and is also not what we do even in non-trans cases like Cher, whose article says things like "Cher was born..." and "When Cher was in fifth grade, she produced a performance of the musical Oklahoma!" (I will think about and comment regarding an anti-"inverse-outing" sentence shortly.) -sche (talk) 02:16, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

  (I wasn't sure where to put a comment on your revised draft, -sche, and this looked like the first likely spot.)

  I like the direction of the changes, particularly the revisions to the sequence of the DEADNAME text. In my view, your draft still needs to specify "living" more often, since the status quo is that only the GENDERID material covers deceased trans etc. persons while the DEADNAME material is specific to living persons.

  Also, I liked my own (!) additions of or any other pre-transition activity and or other achievement in two places in the works paragraph (requiring slight additional adjustments, as you can see below - I didn't want to spam that whole paragraph here but it does offer context). That RfC was always intended to cover other achievements and activity, not works alone, and it ought to be made clear to the reader (as SMcCandlish has pointed out) that works represent an example of implementation rather than a unique case requiring special treatment.

  And I still prefer the Elliot Page lead sentence example to Chelsea Manning, for the reasons I have set out below, but I recognize that some editors would find the more familiar example reassuring... Newimpartial (talk) 16:21, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

  To be more precise, I think In articles on the works and other activity of a trans or non-binary person before transition is a more accurate reflection of the RfC (and its close) than the text you now propose; the passage it is introducing is the use the current name as the primary name unless text, which applies in all cases.

  Likewise, I also think If they were notable under the name by which they were credited for the work or other achievement would be a helpful amendation; I do not understand the shitload of disputation objection, since the paragraph already addresses articles on works of (or, as I propose, articles on the works and other activity of, which is distinct from the main biographical page in either case.

  Also, upon reflection, I still feel that the paragraph beginning If the person was not notable under a former name should precede the one about the lead sentence (which would also mean placing introducing the Cox example first, and some wordsmithing; viz., "If a living transgender or non-binary person..."). My reasons are the following: (1) the exclusion of non-notable deadnames is a more general principle, and more relevant to the editors reading the guideline, than the specification of how to include the deadname in the main biographical article; (2) this would move the BLPPRIV reference closer to the opening of the DEADNAME section, making a key grounding for this principle more evident to the reader.

  Finally (!?), I would suggest that including "redirects" (presumably placed before "disambiguation pages") in the list of examples in that paragraph would close off a particularly important potential exploit. Newimpartial (talk) 16:49, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

  Moving the more general, relevant-policy-containing principle on non-notable deadnames up is a great idea; I'll do that soon, and add "redirects". (I've considered moving the proposal to a WT:Manual of Style/Biography/DEADNAME sandbox so people could edit it and undo edits and see changes via edit history like on a typical page.) Regarding "living", I tried to conserve the scope of each guideline or RfC; the RfC questions didn't mention a limitation to living trans or nonbinary people, but I take it you infer from their being on this page and one saying it was to update MOS:DEADNAME that it was intended to apply only to living people? OK.
  If people want "achievements"/"events"/"activity" to also be covered by the text then it should be, but I think we need to think through the wording and consequences thereof first since the RfC (scoped to "works") didn't. To the extent people think expanding "articles about works..." to include achievements/events/activity would make it cover Olympic records, they seem to(?) think 1976 Summer Olympics is an article about [achievements by] Caitlyn Jenner, yes? Then some people will say an article on e.g. a school, mentioning or listing notable students, is about the students and their achievement/activity of attending or graduating, and they'll insist the person has to be listed as "Jane Currentname (formerly John Deadname)", which (my point is) is not what we do even with non-trans people, e.g. Whitney M. Young Magnet High School lists Michelle Obama as a graduate even though she didn't have that name when she graduated. Can we think of wording that will cover the Olympic (etc) cases people want to cover, without introducing regression to the "X High School#Alumni" cases? (Maybe what name to use in e.g. lists of alumni is already covered by some other guidance and my concerns here, as with my Cher examples, are unnecessary?) -sche (talk) 22:03, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

  Briefly, since the RfC was titled and worded as a modification to DEADNAME (which addresses BLPs), and since the application of DEADNAME to deceased people was not substantively discussed in the RfC, I believe that the "works" provisions are still specific to living Trans and NB people. (I have frequently expressed interest in the policy treatment of names in biographical articles for deceased Trans and NB people, but haven't gained much traction on those issues to date.)

  As far as the other point goes, I am having difficulty seeing a problem with a recommendation to include the former name if notable, even for non-"achievements"; e.g., while Queen Elizabeth High School (Halifax) currently does not include Elliot Page's deadname in his entry in the Alumni list, I would not see it as a problem, much less a shitload of disputation-level of disturbance, if it did. I frankly see more potential problems from people making end-runs around policy in the opposite direction (leaving out post-transition names) if this guidance is not expanded, but I may be missing something. Newimpartial (talk) 22:37, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

• • SMcCandlish, I agree with most of your tweaks, but can you clarify your point #5? It's good that we're saying to replace the quote-with-many-brackets with that prose. We are supposed to avoid awkward constructions like male-named individuals playing a pregnant teenage girl and the like. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:00, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
    • On the 'Critic X" example: You're right! I was suffering a coffee deficiency and mistook that for advised treatment rather than an example of something to replace. Works: It's what one RfC at the top of the page focused on. But both RfCs, plus the original guideline and the consensus behind it have to be merged. RfCs do not exist in a vacuum and are not a magical tail that wags the editorial dog. :-) The outcome of all of this has to make sense both when read in situ and when interpreted in conjunction with all applicable policy and practice. We did not create a mystically different rule for works; we used works as an example of how to approach a problem, because it was a common sort of case. But the underlying problem to solve is much broader. Your "Jane Currentname" cases do not arise, because it is not required to use an older name in a context in which it could apply, it's just permissible to do so when it's important for clarity and (not "or") when that name is within the notability period. Cher: Only some of our articles do that. We have many with early-life sections that use an old name and (outside the lead) don't introduce the professional, common name until it is chronologically relevant. And some other articles, like Cher's, are not written that way. My entire point about this is that it's always, since WP's beginnings, been a matter of editorial judgement, and these RfCs did not nuke that editorial judgment; what's happened is injection of a layer of BLPPRIV-based concern that is particular to TG/NB people, which modifies the extent to which that editorial judgement can range in some cases (and it's not actually tied to whether something under discussion is a published work; again, that's just the kind of case that caused the question to be examined more closely). And it wasn't even these RfCs that add this filter; rather, they just clarified it some (or seek to do so). PS: This may actually tie in a bit with Newimpartial's bit below, about 'my problem is the placement of the "In articles on works by..." sentences before the more general statement ... seems to ... obscure the desired treatment". So does artificially limiting to literally only published works, which is not something the community would ever intend. God did not make them unique circumstance. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:44, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
      • In your defense, re the Page example, I initially used {{xt}} for it, so only the small bit of subsequent prose said it "is better paraphrased"; just prior to your response to Crossroads here (and to me re Cher) I updated it to use {{!xt}} to put it in red and emphasize the "don't!!" aspect. :) -sche (talk) 09:56, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support; this looks good to me and seems to reflect the broad consensuses above. I don't agree that requesting further RFCs before implementing this one is reasonable (assuming it reaches a consensus) - by my count the current series of RFCs has been going since last August, with the recently-closed ones being broken up from that when people objected that it didn't attract enough comments and didn't go into enough depth on what it was changing. The one this one implements ran for three months, was advertised on WP:VPPOL, and had nearly a hundred people commenting on it; it's plainly sufficient consensus to override any prior RFCs, especially since (if people were concerned that the above RFC wouldn't be sufficient to implement some of the things it clearly sought) there was ample time to raise that objection beforehand rather than wasting three months by requesting a... fourth (or fifth at this point?) RFC afterwards. Everyone who wanted a chance to weigh in has had ample opportunity to do so, generally multiple times; on anything this controversial there are always going to be some people who refuse to accept any outcome, but I'm not convinced that any further RFCs are likely to change that number significantly, and as-is, just from the discussions above, this is as firm a consensus as can reasonably be required for something of this nature. If people are still concerned, this RFC could be advertised to various places (it's only a few days old), but unless things change drastically I think we're at the end of the road and this RFC ought to be implemented as soon as it is closed. --Aquillion (talk) 09:35, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

  The very fact that it's taken this much debate to even decide to make a change and what some elements of that change might entail, and then it's taken a tremendous amount of drafting and re-drafting and re-re-redrafting and now re-re-re-re-drafting, after considerable and detailed analysis, are precisely why what emerges from this sausage-making process should more prominently be put up for community consensus assessment. It's actually entirely normal for an RfC focused on agreeing there's an issue and to do something about it to lead in turn to additional, clarifying and decision-making, RfCs. This has been true for as long as WP has been usign RfCs as a dispute-resolution and decision-making process. See also WP:POLICY#Proposals: "Proposals for new guidelines and policies require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy." The more substantive the change, and the more it implicates other policies and guidelines (as this one does) the greater the necessity to ensure the community as a whole, not just watchers of a sub-guideline talk page, is aware of it and comes to a consensus for it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:18, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support - A concise version that includes the essential guidance. Thank you -sche. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 16:59, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
• Query (for -sche) - the third-from-last RfC (this one) provided (what seemed to me to be) the clear result that deadnames under which the subject had not been notable were not only excluded from the lead/lead sentence, but also from article space in general - in particular, they would not be featured in the rest of the main bio article for a BLP or in redirects. This finding was not, AFAICT, overturned in either of the more recent RfCs, so it should be reflected in the new MOS language. There had been difficulty agreeing on language to reflect that RfC outcome, which is why the status quo ante "lead sentence" language was still in MOSBIO, but the actual result of the RfC seemed quite clear - non-notable deadnames should not appear a BLP subject's main article or in redirects. Newimpartial (talk) 17:16, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

  Isn't that handled by this sentence in the proposal above? If the person was not notable under the former name, it should not be included in any article (including lists, disambiguation pages, category names, templates, etc), even in quotations, even if some reliable sourcing exists for it. Srey Sros^talk 18:22, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

  Well, obviously I don't think it is. Perhaps my problem is the placement of the "In articles on works by..." sentences before the more general statement you cite, which seems to me to obscure the desired treatment in the main article (and I've seen a lot of edits out in the wild by people who would prefer the desired treatment to be obscured so they can do something else). Here is a suggested reworking of the DEADNAME part of the proposal:

A living transgender or non-binary person's former name should be included a biographical article only if they were notable under that name. In cases where a redirect exists from it, the notable name should be included in the first sentence of the lede, introduced with "born" or "formerly":

• From Elliot Page, notable under prior name: Elliot Page (formerly Ellen Page; born February 21, 1987) ...

If the person was not notable under the former name, it should not be included in the main biographical article or any other page - including lists, redirects, disambiguation pages, category names, templates, etc. - even in quotations, and even if some reliable sourcing exists for it. This includes the lead sentence (and infobox) of the primary biographical article:

• From Laverne Cox, not notable under prior name: Laverne Cox (born May 29, 1972) ...

In articles discussing works a living trans or non-binary person produced before their transition or any other pre-transition activity, use the person's current name as the primary name (in prose, tables, lists, infoboxes, etc), unless they prefer their former name be used for past events. If they were notable under the name by which they were credited for the work or other achievement, provide it in a parenthetical or footnote on first reference; add more parentheticals or footnotes only if needed. Outside the main biography, generally do not go into detail over changes in the person's name or gender presentation unless they are relevant to the passage. When a person's gender may come as a surprise, explain it on first occurrence, without overemphasis. Avoid confusing constructions (Jane Doe fathered a child) by rewriting (e.g., Jane Doe became a parent).

Paraphrase, elide, or use brackets to replace portions of quotations to avoid deadnaming or misgendering, except in rare cases where exact wording cannot be avoided, as where there is a pun on the notable former name, etc.

• Critic X said "Juno needs a fine [actor] to play its pregnant teenage star, and [Elliot] Page has shown [himself] to be the perfect [man] for the job." involves many bracketed changes, so is better paraphrased: Critic X argued that portraying the pregnant teenage lead in the film Juno required a fine acting talent, and said that Page had proved perfect for the job.

Note that I removed the "don't out people" passage not because I object to it, but because I think it would be better to reintroduce the BLPPRIV link somewhere and didn't know how much to add or where - I would support SMcCandlish's suggestion to reinsert text about non inverse-outing people, and that might be a good place for it.

Also, I don't really think there should be two Elliot Page examples, but would rather see them used as a first sentence example; while I recognize the work that went into the example from Juno, perhaps there would be an example from critical responses to The Wachowskis that would make the same point. Newimpartial (talk) 19:08, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't see that potential ambiguity originally but that makes sense now. I also support this version, although perhaps it would be best to settle on a proposal and then iron out the wording in the article (that may be foolhardy, but I fear that we'll end up with dozens of proposals with all essentially the same meaning). If we don't like having two Elliot Page examples, why not keep the original Chelsea Manning example currently at DEADNAME? Srey Sros^talk 19:45, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

My list of reasons would include (1) I'm not a big fan of the Elliot Page quote example; (2) while the Chelsea Manning name example is fine, I am also not a fan of directing readers to that article as a model for the treatment of trans BLP subjects generally (note the virtual exclusion of Chelsea's first name from that article); (3) given that we won't present many examples, I'd rather give one where the notable former name is not identical to the birth name, so as not to cater unduly to the "birth-name fundamentalists" - I have seen them argue that if any former name is notable, then the legal name at birth should be included in the article even if it is not identical to the notable prior name. I would rather give an example where the name given is not the birth name, since it is a more significant case. (I suspect that is more explanation than you actually wanted, but there it is.) Newimpartial (talk) 19:57, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

The omission of the "RfC: To broaden MOS:Deadname" is an oversight on my part, sorry; Beland opened the initial thread to find wording to implement "the RFCs above"—the two which are still at the top of this page—and those seem to be all anyone was looking at (the first mentions of the "broaden" RfC I see are your and Aquillion's comments from today on this proposal), so those two RfCs and the existing guidelines are all I looked at. However, the existing MOS:DEADNAME already doesn't limit its prohibition on mentioning non-notable deadnames to just the lead sentence, so I already aimed to retain that prohibition. I thought I did so, by saying "any article (including lists, disambiguation pages, category names, templates, etc)" (much the same wording as the existing MOS:DEADNAME and its footnote use), but I see how including it in the same paragraph as "In articles on works..." is confusing. Perhaps simply making "If the person was not..." a new paragraph would clear that up, also possibly addressing EddieHugh's comment below. I will look over your and other editors' proposed wording changes more in a moment. -sche (talk) 00:30, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I included the Elliot Page paraphrasing example since it was in the RfC close and illustrated the finding to paraphrase when many bracketed changes would be needed; I don't object to dropping it and just having a prosaic note like "Paraphrase especially when multiple bracketed changes would be required." Regarding your other Page example, I'm concerned that trying to go beyond summarizing the RfCs and existing guidelines and into providing a new piece of guidance risks "doing too much at once" and derailing implementing the RfCs. (And the existing example of Manning suggests current practice allows the full former/birth name even though Manning was only notable under the first name + last name.) Regarding Chelsea Manning not being a good example due to "virtual exclusion of Chelsea's first name from that article": isn't that going to be the case in any article, trans or not, as a consequence of WP:SURNAME? In fact, her article not only uses bare "Chelsea" in a few places, it also uses her full name more than I would have expected an article to do given WP:SURNAME; what am I missing/misunderstanding? -sche (talk) 04:31, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I like the existing Page example regarding quotes with many brackets and feel it perfectly illustrates how to handle that scenario, which was a huge topic at the RfC. I'm not worried if more than one example is about Page; I see no problem with that. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:00, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

So, -sche, you are right that Chelsea Manning generally follows MOS:SURNAME, with a couple of "Chelsea"s that are not even required. Reflecting on why the article strikes me as a questionable model, I suppose it is the very long sequence of sections after the lead - which are quite detailed, and in which "Chelsea" is never used - that give me that impression. I suppose I have also spent enough time editing mononym cases, and cases where surnames changed along with given names, that this probably more typical case strikes me as atypical.

As far as the birth name issue goes, I don't think I am proposing or even implying a "new piece of guidance". In cases where a trans or nonbinary person was not notable under their birth name, we do not include it, and where they were notable under a pre-transition professional name, we do include that. This is what we already do, and is also what the existing guidance (pre-recent RfCs) already told us to do. I don't believe that silently offering an example that follows what existing policy and practice already require is at all the same as providing a new piece of guidance.

As far as Manning's middle name is concerned, that particular issue was decided a long time ago, and might not reach precisely the same conclusion now. However, my sense based on recent article-level RfCs and other discussions is also that the community might be more accepting of inclusion of the middle name as an insertion to the subject's notable prior name than it is about including a birth surname that differs from the notable professional surname, or including a first name AAB that is not part of the person's notable prior name. So I would still prefer that the example chosen in this instance not cater unduly to the birth name fundamentalists, who will then argue that if any former name is notable then the birth name must be included in the lede even though this view has not met with consensus in any of the discussions about it that I've seen in the last year or so. Newimpartial (talk) 12:47, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

• I like the thought behind saying a "former name should be included a biographical article only if they were notable under that name. In cases where a redirect exists from it, the notable name should be included in the first sentence of the lede". I'm not sure it would currently have a different effect than the shorter wording in the current guideline and in my proposal (?), since if someone is notable under a former name and the lack of redirect is being used to not have the name in the first sentence, someone can/will just create the redirect to justify moving the name up. But if other people also like it, I like it despite the length. I think we should have a talk page/section where we can brainstorm/workshop proposals of other changes to make to our guidelines on this, and one thing I'd like us to discuss later is whether to move some deadnames out of the first sentence or lead e.g. if the name was only notable a long time ago, or was only very borderline notable, since the excessive prominence in the first few words of the lead is a recurring compliant I see from people outside Wikipedia. -sche (talk) 22:45, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

  I didn't really explain that bit, and I don't know how others feel about it, but it came from my attempts to figure out for myself when exactly the included in the first sentence and bolded treatment is a clear benefit (and presumable policy requirement) for the encyclopaedia, and the answer I came to is "when there is a redirect" as in other examples of BOLDSYN. I have long understood the status quo ante as permissive of this treatment rather than mandating it for all deadnames that could be argued to have been notable, but where there is a legit redirect then it seems to me to make the lead sentence treatment normative. Of course some people will create redirects so they can force deadnames in, and others will try to delete redirects so they can keep deadnames out, but at least that would guide the encyclopaedia towards a consistent treatment based on articulated principle rather than whatever editors can get away with. However, I didn't say any of that when I posted my draft, and I am not at all pretending without evidence that people already agree with the idea. I'm just happy that one or two do. Newimpartial (talk) 23:17, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

• I'm confused by the placement and wording of "If the person was not notable under the former name, it should not be included in any article (including lists, disambiguation pages, category names, templates, etc), even in quotations, even if some reliable sourcing exists for it." Is this meant to apply to "articles on works by a trans or non-binary person before transition", as implied by its position in the same paragraph? If so, where is the consensus for this in the RfC closing comments, which highlight primary use and list the merits of including both names in some instances? The sentence could also be interpreted as referring not only to works, so it applying to BLP only should be stated explicitly. EddieHugh (talk) 19:30, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I believe you are looking for the following bullet from the RfC close: As per existing policy, where there is no name mismatch with cited works, when the deadname not notable enough to override the privacy interest of the subject, or when describing works and events after a name has been chosen to match a gender identity, only the chosen name should be used (B) (Emphasis added). Was that it? This also reflects the close of the third-last RfC (which I linked above), which excludes non-notable deadnames from article space in general (except for the inverse-outing case that SMcCandlish has pointed out). Newimpartial (talk) 19:43, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

    No, that doesn't cover it. That explicitly mentions "where there is no name mismatch with cited works" (i.e. don't add names that the person has changed and that weren't in the work), but the latest proposal appears to require editors not to mention a name that was in a work unless a) the person endorses its use, and/or b) the person was notable under that name. And its application only to BLP still needs to be made explicit. EddieHugh (talk) 20:10, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

    Perhaps we are reading the close differently. The passage I italicized is in an "or" relationship with the other two clauses - if any of those conditions applies, the deadname is not to be used. And as the close itself points out, this is the status quo (at least since the RfC I linked above) - non-notable deadnames of living trans people are excluded from "article space". Yes, this is specific to the works of living trans people, but this whole section is about the deadnames of "A living transgender or nonbinary person", so it does not seem ambiguous to me. Newimpartial (talk) 20:20, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

    I think your interpretation – 'A, B, or C' – is correct. I do strongly encourage spelling out that the entirety of MOS:DEADNAME is under WP:BLP (I'm referring to -sche's proposal, which might still be the main one; it's hard to know what each person is discussing!). We acknowledge it here, and we know the difference between policy and guideline, but others on a thousand talk pages won't read this and won't know the difference. The clearer we can make the point, the easier it will be for everyone on those talk pages. EddieHugh (talk) 21:06, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

    I added one more "living" to my proposal variant; I hope that is sufficient. Also, unlike the DEADNAME material, the MOS:GENDERID portion that opens -sche's proposal is not limited to living people - in terms of the status quo, at least - so perhaps this becomes more of an issue of the two pieces of guidance are brought together than it is if they are presented separately. Newimpartial (talk) 21:11, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support: I like the increasing plain clear simplicity but i would put the example article * From Laverne Cox, not notable under prior name: etc after the para that starts If the person was not notable under the former name, it should not be included ... so it is a clear example of that passage. I agree another example to replace one of the Page ones would be good. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 19:37, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
  • That looks like support for my proposal, to be clear. Bodney - if so, would it be alright with you if I redo the proposal to accept your Cox suggestion, before anyone else comments (e.g., while I'm "allowed")? Newimpartial (talk) 19:47, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

    yes ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 20:07, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

    Thanks. Done. Newimpartial (talk) 20:11, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

• I'm confused about what this is recommending for articles about notable works produced by transgender people before they transitioned (remember that not all notable works are by notable authors so there might not be a separate biographical article.). For example in an article about "The Story", a notable novel written by a person known as John Smith at the time it was published but who is now known as Jennifer Jones. If there is a lead image with "John Smith" on the cover of the book it will likely be confusing if the only mention of "John Smith" is in a footnote - if there is an edition which uses "Jennifer Jones" as the author name then using an image of that will obviously be preferable in at least some cases but (images of it) will not always exist. Additionally new editions of a work being published under the deadname cannot be taken as a guarantee that the author prefers that name to be used for past events as publishers do not have to respect authors wishes in every case - additionally some will be OK with using that name for the work but prefer their current name to be used for all events (e.g. "Jennifer Jones visited Tahiti when researching The Story") - this almost certainly belongs elsewhere than this proposal, but I don't know where. I do agree that the proposal should not be limited to just works and that something about not "reverse outing" people should be added. Thryduulf (talk) 21:50, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

  Yeah, a lot of edge cases are going to emerge from this. It's one of the reasons this is such a sprawling discussion. We might have to settle for a "usually mostly sensible" version emerging from these debates for now, with follow-on clarifications as the needs for them more clearly arise. Your specific scenario also speaks strongly to what I was getting at yesterday, above, about it being an obvious WP:NOTAVOTE mistake to suppose that more support, in a generalized and abstracted and context-free way, for "Jennifer Jones (then John Smith)" format can somehow be interpreted as a prohibition of "John Smith (now Jennifer Jones)" format; or to treat a vague preference for footnoting as if it constitutes a rule against parentheticals. Both of these are normal editorial-judgment matters that will depend on the context and on the specific communication-to-the-readers need at hand.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:08, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. Some of it is OK, but overall it's going to cause en.WP a lot of problems. AND the propose text needs a good copy-edit. Tony (talk) 00:27, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Is there another way you would propose to implement the RfCs, then? Newimpartial (talk) 00:39, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

• I've updated the wording above based on feedback. Yesterday, I reordered some paragraphs (without wording changes in this diff) to make "If the person was not notable [...]" its own paragraph (to clarify it applies even outside articles on works), and to move the Laverne Cox example under the guideline it illustrates, then I adjusted the wording to incorporate several wordsmithing suggestions, to restore the existing MOS wording about and link to BLPPRIVACY which editors noted was important, to summarize the RfC close as best I could with regard to author names and book names, and to caution against "reverse outing".
  Today, I reordered some paragraphs (without wording changes in this diff) to move up the more general guideline (on non-notable deadnames) which also now has (retained) the link to BLPPRIVACY which people rightly pointed out was important, and to make the "in articles on works" paragraph part of the "outside the main bio" so people don't think it applies inside the main bio. Then, I adjusted the wording to mention "redirects", to clarify a reference to "lead sentence" that didn't explain "the lead sentence of what articles?", and to clarify that "works" includes other activities and is limited to works/activities by living people. -sche (talk) 01:57, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Since nobody else has done so, I will point out that the newest text looks good, at least from my standpoint. Thanks for your hard work. Newimpartial (talk) 16:51, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

At the risk of throwing a wrench into my own proposal, I want to ask one last question before implementing the wording updates ... what are people's thoughts on leaving GENDERID (since it's about pronouns for anyone living or dead) and DEADNAME (since it deals with names as part of "§Names §Changed names" and ironically for a guideline named DEADNAME covers only living people) on their separate pages, rather than combining them? Just take the paragraph that starts "Refer to any..." and ends "...a preference otherwise." and the half-paragraph that starts "Outside the main..." and ends "...became a parent)." and that's MOS:GENDERID, and the rest is MOS:DEADNAME, i.e. the two guidelines would look like this. (Or, concievably, GENDERID could be left as-is.) I combined them above because that was done in earlier proposals, but leaving them on their separate pages would avoid the minor oddness of guidance about pronouns and "waiter / waitress" being in "§Names §Changed names", and possibly reduce confusion over the two guidelines having different scopes ("any person [living or dead] whose gender might be questioned" vs "a living transgender or nonbinary person"). OTOH, I see the advantage to having all the guidance in one place. -sche (talk) 19:07, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I suggested a while ago (but it seemed to be overlooked) that the material be together but put under a new heading on this page called "gender identity", right after the short "sexuality" section. GENDERID and DEADNAME would both redirect there. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:41, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Ah, that's a good idea (and is, I now recall, what Beland did when editing the page before.) I've updated MOS: and MOS:BIO in the manner discussed above, and updated where MOS:GENDERID and MOS:DEADNAME point. If other pages need to be updated please let me know or update them. I left a note at the former location of GENDERID in the MOS: to assist with what are likely a large number of old / "historical" links to there (and because it's topical to mention this guidance there). (This is without prejudice to the discussion further down this page about the phrase "and often greater than", which is unchanged between the former guidelines and the now-updated guidelines, and which that discussion may or may not decide to change.) -sche (talk) 21:03, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I hope this actually works. As I've said repeatedly, I predict that the avoidance of involving broader community input is going to results in backlash. That would be unfortunate, given the amount of so many editors' efforts on this.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:30, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

General Comments

Trying to participate in the discussion of this policy, it's not clear where I should add this comment without spending too much time reading minutia. I put it here since it may apply to all of the above: Pronouns are more useful when they tell the reader about the subject's body, not whatever he happens to be feeling at a particular moment in time. It is natural to ask what race and sex someone is, and it's contradicting reality to refer to a man (i.e. someone with XY chromosomes) with feminine pronouns, *etc.*; it is even more false than calling Black people White upon request, because race can be mixed... It creates confusion, both among the reader and for others coming to terms with their bodies and society, and ultimately encourages self-mutilating surgery. It pushes away editors with a low tolerance for foolishness who would otherwise participate in adding knowledge to articles. "Preferred pronouns" should only be used when there is legitimate ambiguity about the subject's sex, namely, for intersex people or those who obviously appear to be what they claim. As for deadnaming, it makes sense to use the names that carry legal status in the subject's government, though clarification may be needed with the correct pronoun if a name is chosen that obviously denotes a contrary sex. The current policy of lying about one's sex to try to comfort sexually-troubled people is counterproductive, irresponsible, ridiculous, confusing, contradicts Wikipedia's claims to objectivity, and overall harms Wikipedia's mission to generate and expand human knowledge. -- Newagelink (talk) 13:04, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Pronouns are more useful when they tell the reader about the subject's body, not whatever he happens to be feeling at a particular moment in time - you may believe this, but it isn't the way the English language has ever worked, and it is also not a position that has ever gained any support at RfC even when SEALIONs freely roamed the shores. So your comments are unlikely to encourage anything but people who share the consensus reality embodied in the English language to rise up in reaction to your Comments. Newimpartial (talk) 13:27, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply -- maybe? -- but I don't understand some of it (e.g. what "SEALION" means -- I suppose you are, contrary to Wikipedia's instruction to assume good faith, assuming that I am only pretending to care?). What I recommend was almost universally followed up until ~2012 when journalists started adopting the LGBT ideology. Perhaps your comment serves to underscore that Wikipedia has already gone into its own secular echo-chamber, already having pushed away an entire demographic of society as I suggested above. I can't justify spending more time on this, since past experience here suggests the majority of Wikipedia editors are not interested in hearing another view or changing their political beliefs based on Aristotelian philosophy, biology, or logic. Yet I will repeat, as I think your comment demonstrates, that this policy only serves to polarize politically and push away editors, harming Wikipedia's mission of expanding human knowledge. -- Newagelink (talk) 01:26, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

First of all, I most definitely have AGF and did not compare you to a sealion; rather I pointed to a time in the past where brigading on these topics by POVsters was rather more common than it is now.

As far as pronouns are concerned, grammatical gender and social gender have been linked in all of the indo-European languages for as long as they have existed, and people with unconventional gender identities have used pronouns that differ from your biological presuppositions since at least the late Middle Ages in Europe. By the way, no reliable resources I know of give evidence that LGBT ideology even exists, much less has been adopted by mainstream journalism, but if you decline to participate in consensus reality I am sure there are more specialized wikis that would welcome your contributions. Newimpartial (talk) 02:23, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Proposal for addition to MOS:DEADNAME

While I applaud the policy in general, I don't see any guidance for an important case: how to treat a person's former name within their main biographical article, when the former name is notable.

Motivating case: in the Wendy Carlos article, her birth name is mentioned in the article's lead sentence and in the infobox (as "Birth Name:"). As I will argue below, I think it would be relevant to mention the birth name again in the lead sentence of the Early Life section, but I don't think it belongs in the infobox as is.

Here is the policy at present:

• "A living transgender or non-binary person's former name should be included in the lead sentence of their main biographical article only if they were notable under it."
• "Outside the main biographical article, generally do not discuss in detail changes of a person's name or gender presentation unless pertinent."

But what about the rest of the main biographical article after the lead sentence? (I see that "in the lead sentence" was a late addition to the wording, which may explain this gap.) I suggest that we keep the current guideline for the lead sentence, and add a guideline for the rest of the main biographical article.

Specifically, I propose the following tweaks and additions to the current wording:

• Tweak 1: "A living transgender or non-binary person's former name should only be included in the lead sentence of their main biographical article only if they were notable under it." (Edit for clarity on first reading.)
• Addition 1: "Within the main biographical article, the former name should only be used where it is a relevant biographical detail:
  • From the 'Early life' section of Wendy Carlos, notable under her prior name: Carlos was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, as Walter Carlos, the first of two children born to working-class parents. [This wording can probably be improved.]
  • From the infobox of Wendy Carlos, who was published under her prior name: Other names: Walter Carlos (until 1979)."
• Tweak 2: "Outside the main biographical article, generally do not discuss in detail changes of a person's name or gender presentation unless except where pertinent."

Now, the above guidelines use the words "relevant" and "pertinent." I don't know if either of these words are clearly defined within the context of Wikipedia article writing, but if this would add value, then I further propose:

* Addition 2: "As a litmus test of relevance, consider where other details of the person's early life, such their place of birth and the schools they attended, merit mention."

(Or, if it's worth saying explicitly, something along these lines: a biographical detail is relevant if it provides context to/helps tell the story of how the person came to do the things which make them notable.)

I'll now elaborate on the motivating case of Wendy Carlos. Apologies for the long post, but I did want to be clear in my reasoning. If the above proposals sound good to you, this section is optional; if you disagree with the above proposals, then the following specific case may provide something concrete to discuss.

Carlos published seminal early electronic music under the name Walter Carlos, making her former name relevant with regards to her works (this case in the mentioned in the current policy's "outside the main biographical article" paragraph.") Furthermore, her gender transition in itself is notable: "In 1979, Carlos raised public awareness of transgender issues by disclosing..."; there's an entire section Wendy_Carlos#Gender_transition.

At present, the first line in the infobox is "Birth Name: Walter Carlos." I will throw this to others to suggest what's best here: in terms of communicating information, this seems fine, but I plead my ignorance regarding sensitivity. I do think that changing it to "Other names: Walter Carlos (until 1979)" might be good, in that it shifts the focus from "life details" to "details about the artist". (It's a relevant detail to the reader that this artist was referred to (on LP covers, reviews, etc.) by another name before 1979.)

Finally, the initial reason I looked into this policy: I'd like to see the birth name repeated in the first sentence of the biographical Wendy Carlos#Early Life section. This may seem like a small detail at this point, but it caused me friction as a reader - enough to bring me here.

Just as details of birth (date, location) may be mentioned in both the article lede and the biography section's lede, I'm proposing that the birth name may also be worth repeating, if necessary for the biography section to tell a complete story. I am assuming that we would generally prefer that the biographical section is able to stand alone; that is, that a reader can start reading at Early Life, without having read the article introduction, and not be confused. Please correct me if this is a false assumption.

As it stands, the Wendy Carlos#Early Life includes a photo of a school-age Carlos, dressed in suit and bowtie, with the original caption "Walter Carlos and his project on audionics." This section is thus not self-contained; it requires the reader to have read the article introduction or else to infer the name change. Even if not for the photo caption, it is relevant to the biography whether her early years were lived as Wendy Carlos or Walter Carlos, because in the 1950s, a student with an interest in computers was treated very differently based on gender.

For the above reasons, I think the Early Life section should begin "Carlos was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, as Walter Carlos, the first of two children born to working-class parents."

Generally speaking, the Wendy Carlos case (and any agreement or disagreement over my proposed changes to it) provides a case study for my proposed changes to the policy described above. SSSheridan (talk) 12:20, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Those do not seem like tweaks. That seems like major policy changes that would encourage over-use of the less-relevant name. Slywriter (talk) 12:42, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm proposing an extension to the policy, not a tweak, and not a change. I would encourage you to reread the proposal: the items labeled "Tweak 1/2" are the current policy, slightly reworded for clarity; the items labeled "Addition 1/2" do not conflict with the current policy. Indeed, I made a real effort to maintain the spirit of the current policy, out of respect for the prior consensus (and because I support it). The purpose is to cover an important case on which the current policy is silent. If I am wrong, and there is in fact a policy for the body of a biographical article, then please point me to it so I know how to edit Wendy Carlos's article to conform to the policy, and I will apologize to you and anyone else reading this for taking their time.

My intention is to make the policy better, not to change it. I want to contribute by extending it to cover the gap in scope. Again, if this gap doesn't exist, please correct me. If you don't like my proposal, then please tell me why so that I can improve it. If it's just a matter of being exhausted about this topic, I completely understand that, but this is a discussion that's either going to happen here or in a hundred individual articles' talk pages. SSSheridan (talk) 14:03, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

PS: regarding "over-use of the less-relevant name." In my Tweak 2, I propose removing the words "in detail" because the current policy says (paraphrasing): where the name change is not pertinent, don't discuss it in detail. I hope you would agree that "in detail" should be removed? My point being: I, like you, want a policy that discourages over-use of the less-relevant name. SSSheridan (talk) 14:21, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

What is going on??

Oppose revisionist-history (or rather historical negationist) crediting in articles on works before the name change. Particularly at articles like 80th Academy Awards, where Page was nominated in the gender-specific actress category, this is ridiculous. Who cares what they prefer now? They acted as a woman. Credit them as the woman they were. No, I didn't read this bloated construction above me. Yes, I'm probably a tad insensitive. But this is a compendium of knowledge, not a scrapbook for the rich and famous. So unless some deep intellectual insight is eluding me, this pseudo-liberal idea is embarrassing on intellectual grounds alone. isento (talk) 05:28, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

You can't expect anything to happen when you Oppose-vote a closed RfC. Just saying. Newimpartial (talk) 12:26, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Didn't see it was closed 😅 isento (talk) 22:11, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Ah well, who cares. This pronoun silliness seems mostly relegated to the Hollywood show-biz circus. isento (talk) 22:11, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

@Isento: That logic would necessitate that a man who played the role of a woman would be nominated for best actress. If you don't believe that, you might not be as smart as you seem to think yourself. :) - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 07:59, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Wow. That's the kind of smugness deserving of a Hollywood topic. isento (talk) 12:34, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, since you brought it up, they might as well do that, since they're gendering the categories to begin with rather than judging the performers on the merits alone. Maybe Page should return her Oscar in protest 🤔 isento (talk) 12:40, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

And I'm obviously not that smart if I made these comments after the RfC had been closed. Luckily Wikipedia doesn't discriminate based on intelligence, because that would be another intellectual sinkhole to deal with. isento (talk) 12:44, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

The gender of the character isn't to do with the gender of the actor though. Also, please, do not misgender people. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 04:32, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

Gender is a character to begin with. From a sociological perspective, Page is acting out a role. isento (talk) 13:05, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

In 2007, Page is a woman, by all accounts. The Oscars article is a record of history, not of the present. Why should we mislead readers into thinking a man was nominated for best actress in 2007? isento (talk) 13:13, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Hey man, I get it. I've dressed femme and gotten a little weird myself on some hot lonely nights. I've questioned it all man. But this is less so some all-time cause and more so rank privilege from one side of a world that turns on actually consequential inequalities. I don't want to misgender Page. I don't want to continue dignifying Page in the context of this topic. I feel wrong in that regard. isento (talk) 13:27, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Mate. What is the point of all of this? I generally think that people should be able to have a chat on WP, but this is a sensitive topic. It's not really the best place to be making what seem to be framed as jokes. People have spent a lot of time and effort on this, and it very genuinely can be distressing for some people, so taking the piss here doesn't exactly make you seem like a cool dude. Oh, and super rad move to equate gender identity with whatever you get up to with yourself. --Xurizuri (talk) 04:37, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

• (Also, apologies to anyone that requires the indentation to make sense of conversations. I didn't have a specific one of isento's comments above to respond to, so instead left it at the same level.) --Xurizuri (talk) 04:37, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't remember what the point was. It was a week ago. If it's not cool, don't dignify it. Cheers. isento (talk) 05:10, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Assumed pronouns with no specific evidence

I'm trying to figure out what pronouns should be used for individuals when we don't have evidence either way of what pronouns the individual used. The topic came up when I was reading about Albanian sworn virgins. According to this article, there is a citation showing that most but not all Albanian sworn virgins use masculine pronouns. On the other hand, there are articles about such people which use feminine pronouns. I've corrected one of them but it bring up a problem that I'm not sure has been resolved: what pronouns should be used on Wikipedia when we don't have a statement from the individuals? Hammy (talk) 02:27, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

I cannot find your edit. Since the plural of he and she is the same (they), I don't see how the issue would arise. TFD (talk) 03:00, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

People specifically stating what pronouns others should use is a very recent custom; for the vast majority of people, and pretty much everyone who died before a few years ago, we simply go by what gender the sources use. MOS:GENDERID says to use the person's latest expressed gender self-identification as reported in the most recent reliable sources (emphasis added). Hammy is talking about this edit, which I have reverted. The Guardian and the Seattle Times refer to her with female pronouns in articles from 2016. They would not have engaged in misgendering. This is an error I had to correct somewhat recently and there was a source being misinterpreted (by someone else) that was taking a statement about another individual and applying it to her. Other articles about Albanian sworn virgins should probably be checked. While a few of those individuals may have been what we today call trans men, a great many would just have been women doing what they felt necessary to live under a society that treated them as property - and in some cases, it was done to them by parents. Nobody should be posthumously implying that anyone was transgender when the sources do not say so. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:24, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Changed name not in lead

MOS:MULTINAMES is mostly about appearance of different names in the lead. What about when the alternate name is not mentioned in the lead, but down in some section? Should it or can it appear in boldface? An example is in Rita Hayworth when she was known as Rita Cansino at the start of her acting career. - Jay ^Talk 11:17, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Capitalization of "president"

I don't know if this MoS needs more or better examples, or if I am just bad at explaining it. See Talk:Valdostan Union. Chris the speller ^yack 13:43, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

It's more likely the other editor doesn't want to listen. Your only recourse is probably use of a noticeboard or an RfC. Argument is futile when people have decided how they want text to appear and don't care about policy or guidelines. TFD (talk) 03:15, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Resolved

I think somebody got educated. Chris the speller ^yack 16:23, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

maiden names

If we only have a given and married name for a spouse, how does this MOS recommend making it clear that when we say "John Smith", we're referring to John-having-married-Mike Smith and not that "John Smith" married "Mike Smith"? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 15:27, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

See the article about Jane Pitfield. Even when she ran for mayor Toronto, I could not find any sources for her maiden name. it might be an example of how we should treat this matters. In many cases, women are known by their married names, such as Margaret Thatcher, and few people know their maiden names. TFD (talk) 16:30, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

If the surname is unknown, it’s ok to just leave the first name in that sentence. Trillfendi (talk) 17:41, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

For an article about a city councilor who is not otherwise notable, it's probably not appropriate to include the maiden name or the spouse's surname given WP:BLPPRIVACY, unless they are "widely published by reliable sources". – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 17:47, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:General Roman Calendar § MOS:HON

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:General Roman Calendar § MOS:HON. Elizium23 (talk) 13:19, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Query: does this guideline only apply to biographies, or does it apply to all of Wikipedia? Is the General Roman Calendar biography, or is it exempt from biographical guidelines? Elizium23 (talk) 17:48, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

clarification on birth and death dates guideline

I am trying to figure out what this paragraph (in the project page, here) means:

Beyond the first paragraph of the lead section, birth and death details should only be included after a name if there is special contextual relevance. Abbreviations like b. and d. can be used, if needed, when space is limited (e.g., in a table) and when used repetitively (e.g., in a list of people).

Another editor has apparently interpreted this to mean that birth and death dates of people mentioned in an article should not be included; that editor made this [edit] to remove birth and death dates of the subject's children. I asked them about this, and they agreed that we could use some clarification here.

So: if an article's subject has a non-notable child, should the birth and death dates of the child be given? The MOS paragraph above seems to suggest the the birth and death dates should not be given (though I do not know what "special contextual relevance" means...what does that mean?). I see no reason why the birth and death dates should not be included, as this is useful information not provided in any other way in these articles (and there are many, many articles that do list the birth and death dates of notable peoples' children). Perhaps the issue is the word "details": are birth and death details different from birth and death dates (are dates a possible part of details?)? Is the MOS saying that dates are okay, but more "detail" than dates are not? I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this. Cheers! Doctormatt (talk) 03:01, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

I think children count as "special contextual relevance". I would interpret this clause as meaning birth and death dates should not be included for most people mentioned in an article. Children, spouses, and maybe parents, would be an exception. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:30, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Doctormatt, I won't pass judgement on the diff you cite, because the non-notables in question are deceased and no longer minors. But in general, we do not reproduce the birthdates or exact names of non-notable minor children, in accordance with WP:BLPNAME and WP:CHILDPROTECT. This usually applies to Hollywood celebrities announcing their pregnancy and welcoming their new babies. Elizium23 (talk) 12:32, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

I am still unsure what to do here. Can someone say what the intent of the paragraph referenced in my first post is? Why are birth and death dates not okay to include for most people? If a non-minor person does not have a wikipedia article, but they are mentioned in an article, what is the harm in indicating when they were born and died? This seems like helpful information for specifying persons in the more distant past, especially, since many people have the same names. Further, does anyone else support the claim that "special contextual relevance" applies to children? Should I edit the project page to make that clear? If someone could comment on the specific [edit] mentioned above, that would be awesome. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Doctormatt (talk) 03:51, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Why are birth and death dates not okay to include for most people?: Simply, WP:NOTEVERYTHING. Why would should it be included beyond cases with "special contextual relevance"? As for the diff, have you discussed this with the other editor?—Bagumba (talk) 04:27, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I discussed [[11]] this with the other editor. As to your comment regarding "special contextual relevance", I still have no idea what people think this means: this phrase seems much too vague to be helpful in a MOS. As I wrote above, birth and death dates can be useful, for example, for specifying a historical person since names are not unique (and neither are birth and death years, but they help narrow things down). Doctormatt (talk) 05:03, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

A lot of times it's intentionally vague because 1) some people don't like being over-prescriptive 2) "relevance" can vary by topic and it's left to the individual page editors. The two editors above have said it seems reasonable for adult children. Do you have other areas of concern?—Bagumba (talk) 06:36, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I have updated the paragraph in the MOS to add the following sentence: "For example, it is generally acceptable to give such details after the names of parents, spouses, siblings and adult children of an article's subject.". Cheers! Doctormatt (talk) 03:52, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Sorry but I have reverted because I think it needs further discussion. Just because the subject of the article is "a public figure" and thus (apparently) open season for comment and risk of impersonation, that cannot be assumed to apply equally to the subject's relatives. It cannot be assumed that they have the same level of protection. There are serious cases of fraud where banks have been deceived by well-briefed scammers who have date and place of birth, pet names, etc. Whereas they might be extra careful when dealing with a well-known figure, that is much less likely if the person is not well known. Articles should say that the subject has N children, going into the personal details of those children is mere prurience. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:00, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Birth/death dates for relatives are just trivia and usually not relevant to the topic. "Special contextual relevance" is vague but I suspect if you do not have a special reason to include such dates then then are not relevant. If a child, who would have taken over a company, died before the parent, then there is relevance. But ordinarily not. MB 16:11, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Although years (or full dates) of births and deaths of parents and children appear in many biographies on Wikipedia, I don't see that they contribute significant information about the subjects of the articles. If a death in the family caused a change in career or something similar, that would be worthy of mention beyond just a parenthetical insertion, but I see no point in routine inclusion of such facts.Eddie Blick (talk) 16:47, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Fyodor Dostoevsky lists birth and death years of his children (in the infobox!), as well as those of his siblings. Leo Tolstoy has an impressive bulleted list of 13 of his children, each with birth and death years listed. Patrick Brontë lists birth and death years for all of his children, in the infobox and in the Family section. Leon Trotsky lists birth and death years of his parents and his children. Louise Taft lists the birth and death years of her parents. Am I to understand that some editors think these birth and death details should be removed from these articles, and that this is based on their interpretation of this MOS? I am surprised that this historically useful information is considered not worthy of inclusion in a biography. I am not a historian; I would love to hear from one on these points. Doctormatt (talk) 21:09, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

In the examples you quote, the people concerned are all dead so the question of "right to a private life" doesn't arise. Otherwise, the strictest interpretation of WP:BLP should apply. Maybe people need to recall WP:NOTATABLOID? Even when the subject has displayed poor judgement in releasing the information concerned, we should still show restraint. I can't remember which celebrity it was who admitted that her 15-year old daughter had "banned her from posting any more pictures without her permission". Relatives are not just appendages like a car or a house, they are individual people who have a right to be left alone unless they personally choose the tabloid glare. Wikipedia can hardly deprecate the Daily Mail if we behave like the Daily Mail. If in doubt, leave it out! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 08:21, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, John. The edit ([[12]]) that started this conversation involved dead people as well. So, could we update the MOS to say that birth and death dates may be added for dead children, parents, etc., and add a reminder that, for living people, WP:BLP applies? I think this would be pretty clear guidance. Doctormatt (talk) 18:50, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't see any consensus for a change in this discussion. Most editors are saying such details are rarely relevant and/or that the guideline should remain vague. DrKay (talk) 19:14, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with others that these details are rarely relevant, and I don't think that the MOS should not be updated to suggest this type of information should be routinely included. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 19:35, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Your feedback would be welcome at the James Barry Rfc

There is currently an Rfc going on at Talk:James Barry (surgeon)#Request for comment: Pronouns attempting to determine what pronouns to use for James Barry (surgeon), and for which MOS:GENDERID plays an important role. Your feedback at the discussion would be welcome. Mathglot (talk) 00:04, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Questions about MOS:BIRTHNAME

• Okay, thus I'm recently working on the late Russian Empire/early Soviet Union biographies and I wonder one thing. MOS:BIRTHNAME says "While the article title should generally be the name by which the subject is most commonly known, the subject's full name, if known, should usually be given in the lead sentence (including middle names, if known, or middle initials). Many cultures have a tradition of not using the full name of a person in everyday reference, but the article should start with the complete version in most cases." shouldn't this also apply to the body? MOS:LEAD says "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." Looks important to me why isn't this included in MOS:BIRTHNAME?
• Since I am working on the former Russian Empire-related articles the middle name is replaced with patronymics but does that count as part of their full names? If so does this also applies to ethnic groups like the Mongolians who use clan names? I got confused when I was working on those topics because almost all of the articles at the moment don't mention the patronymic and MOS:BIRTHNAME isn't helping me currently. I hope I can get some answers here. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 08:48, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Just to give an uneducated opinion from the sidelines, I suggest that wp:COMMONNAME also applies. Taking President Putin as a for-example, the article is called Vladimir Putin (as he is generally known), he is introduced in the opening sentence as Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and his patronymic is mentioned just that once in the lead, once more in the first sentence of #Early life, then nowhere else. It seems that this is the norm: his father is mentioned once out of respect then need not be mentioned again (unless disambiguation is needed). So if the Putin example is a good one, you only need to mention the patronymic once more in the body: the childhood section seems ideal. The Joseph Stalin article gives the name Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin just once (in the lead) but then that wasn't really his name at birth. V.I. Lenin is just as complicated. Caution: I write as someone who got hopelessly confused by the multiple names for the same few people in War and Peace and never finished it! So at best this opinion is to help your analysis rather than to give a definitive answer. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:04, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Borderline cases and dead names

I posted this Talk:Laurel Hubbard#Sourcing and pronouns and just wanted to check that my understanding is correct i.e. if it cannot be established that Hubbard is notable under her dead name, whether via GNG of sources prior to her transitioning or a subject specific guideline, the dead name should be excluded?

I also bring this up because it occurred to me while writing that it's probable we will mention some biographical details related to her career for which she is notable i.e. weightlifting such as records she achieved before transitioning and maybe will be using source from before she transitioned but possibly shouldn't be mentioning the name those achievements were under. Hopefully we can find more recent sources, but I'm not sure if this is guaranteed. This is potentially likely to be not uncommon with sports people, but I guess would arise in other cases. E.g. the long discussion above arises mostly from Elliot Page, but it seems we may also have actors who played minor roles prior to transitioning, not enough to make them notable but enough to mention in the article.

The long discussion above is a mess so I can't be bothered looking at it but are we developing guidance on how to handle these cases? AFAICT the above discussion is focused on cases where the subject was notable so we do mention the dead name somewhere in our article. But as indicated earlier, it strikes me with cases where the subject wasn't notable, we could have a situation where we are using sources prior to the subject transitioning which only mention the dead name but which won't be mentioned anywhere in the article. So there may be a risk of some confusion to readers when checking out the sources. (I'm aware that technically there is always going to be some risk since there's no guarantee readers are going to read the whole article carefully. And that part of the reason for the discussion above is how we handle such issues while respecting subjects.)

Also and this is probably less likely to arise with actors or sports people but it strikes me in cases with academics and others of that sort, transitioning may have little or no impact on their career. And especially in cases of WP:GNG rather than WP:PROF or something, it may be there's no clear date when you can say they became notable. Do we have guidance on how to handle these cases?

Nil Einne (talk) 08:05, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

External opinions needed on Augustus

Hi. This very Wikipedia's Manual of Style gives Augustus as an example of article whose first sentence should start with only the one name by which he is most famous: "Augustus (63 BC – 14 AD) was a Roman emperor ....". In the page Augustus, on the other hand, one user insists on adding "Caesar" as the first word of the article. Discussion opened by said user in the talk page has led another user to disagree with him and state that using simply "Augustus" is the best option. As he insists on adding "Caesar", I think third opinions would be very much appreciated on the issue. Thanks in advance. Dan Palraz (talk) 15:38, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Foreign langage

Hi, i wanted to ask since its not specified here, in what case should we use foreign langage for someone's name ? Indira333 (talk) 12:40, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

We use whatever a majority of English language reliable sources use when discussing the person. So, if they use an anglicized version of the name, so do we… but if they use a “foreign language” version, we do too.

Examples: John Cabot, not “Giovanni Caboto”…

but Johan Sebastian Bach, not “John Sebastian Bach”. Blueboar (talk) 12:53, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

For example 'Huda kattan', she was born in the Us but in her lead sentence her name is translated in arab, is it correct or wrong ? Indira333 (talk) 13:04, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

I will rewrite my question. In what cases should we translate someone's name in a foreign langage ? Huda Kattan is American and was born in the Us, but in the lead sentence of her bio, her name is translated in Arab, is it correct ? Should we always do like that ? Indira333 (talk) 13:24, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Name changes in which previous name was considered offensive

I was curious about this stipulation in MOS:CHANGEDNAME:

If a person, or more typically a group, has adopted a new name because they determined the old name to be offensive, generally use the new name for all time periods. Note the old name in the first sentence of the lead, when discussing the naming history, and when citing works published under the old name. Note the other name as "(formerly X)" or "(now Y)" if needed for clarity. Examples: Lady A, The Chicks.

This was added in this edit in February. As far as I can tell from searching the archives of this talk page, it doesn't seem this provision was ever discussed? It seems it may have been related to this RfC on MOS:DEADNAME. Beland who made the addition was also the closer of that RfC and mentioned the Lady A and Chicks examples in their closing statement. But as far as I can tell, this scenario was not mentioned in the RfC statement. Perhaps there was some extensive discussion of it as part of the RfC (there were a lot of comments), though I was not able to find evidence of this.

Does this actually have consensus? And if so, I'm curious what encyclopedic purpose was found to be served by having a different treatment for Puff Daddy or Cat Stevens vs. Dixie Chicks or Lady Antebellum. Colin M (talk) 21:00, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

The previous discussions about deadnaming were so complicated it's probably worth just considering this question on its own merits. For names that are considered offensive (at least by the person or group being named), the purpose of generally following the name change is to avoid distracting readers and fans by repeating the offensive name unnecessarily. For the purpose of presenting facts clearly, it still needs to be explained that the old name and the new name refer to the same entity. For name changes where the old name is not offensive, the only real consideration is clarity. Many editors contributing to the deadnaming RFCs did object to anachronisms. Certainly for corporations and countries and similar entities, it seems clearer to use the name in use at the time, since it's associated with a particular era and a particular governance structure. Arguably, that's somewhat true for recording artists as well, though for the purpose of clarity, it still needs to be noted that e.g. Cat Stevens is also known as Yusuf Islam. -- Beland (talk) 21:26, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for noting this; I have removed it pending discussion. I do not agree with this addition. There was no real discussion of this in the RfC about deadnaming, so it lacks community support. Deadnaming as a concept applies only to individuals, and only to those who have changed gender; there is no such thing as a deadname for a band or other group of people, only a former name. I find it rather unlikely that anyone seriously finds words like "antebellum" or "dixie" to be so offensive that these words should be avoided entirely. And even if they did, WP:NOTCENSORED applies. We need to avoid WP:CREEP, and the fact is that contextually, using the name in use at the time may be the most sensible in many cases. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:39, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

One possible unintended consequence of this change relates to MOS:LDS. A few years ago, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints discontinued the use of common names like "Mormon Church", "Mormons", "LDS Church", effectively saying that it found those terms offensive. The first is already generally disallowed by the topic-specific MOS, but the second and third last have been deemed still acceptable. The argument could be made that the proposed addition to MOS:CHANGEDNAME would support a change of the MOS:LDS to follow the church's requested style guidelines, something that has been quite strongly opposed to this point. Note that MOS:LDS already does allow for the previous names of the church to be used ("Church of Christ", "Church of the Latter Day Saints", etc) when it's associated with a particular era. "LDS Church" is used extensively through WP, especially as a parenthetical disambiguation in article titles. --FyzixFighter (talk) 04:54, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

RfC for CONTEXTBIO and its implications

If a person has expressed they are not a citizen of a country, and that is sourced, should they still be called a citizen in the lead even when they are only a permanent resident? Essentially, should permanent resident be removed from this criteria so as to not confuse anyone? It currently says, The opening paragraph should usually provide context for the activities that made the person notable. In most modern-day cases, this will be the country, region, or territory, where the person is a citizen, national, or permanent resident; or, if the person is notable mainly for past events, where the person was a citizen, national, or permanent resident when the person became notable. Trillfendi (talk) 00:00, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

We shouldn't imply that they are a citizen if they are not. It could be worded that they are a citizen of X but based in Y. For example, a P.R.permanent resident in the U.S. should not be called "American". Is there a specific example you had in mind?—Bagumba (talk) 01:22, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Bagumba, just wanted to note that Puerto Ricans are Americans with United States citizenship from birth. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 01:26, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Oops, I meant PR as in permanent resident. Corrected.—Bagumba (talk) 01:30, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

It seems to be a common refrain especially for British people who moved to America at a young age (or in the case of Gillian Anderson, vice versa) such as Jodie Turner-Smith, 21 Savage and the late MF Doom. I believe British-American is too nebulous for that. Or like Malin Åkerman who was born in Sweden and raised in Canada but was never a citizen there, for a long time her lead said Swedish-Canadian. I think based in [country] avoids any confusion. Trillfendi (talk) 03:03, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

MOS:OPENPARABIO says (my emphasis added): The first sentence should usually state .... It it can't be easily stated in the lead sentence, there is leeway to handle with more than a simple sentence in the lead paragraph.—Bagumba (talk) 07:50, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I think "permanent resident" is useful to have in the guideline for those individuals who are not citizens of a country but are most closely associated with that country because they now live there permanently, such as by using the "based in" wording suggested by Bagumba. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 01:43, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

@Bagumba and Wallyfromdilbert: They asked this with Jodie Turner-Smith in mind. She was born in the UK and immigrated to the US sometime during her childhood (can't find a reliable source giving her age, but she attended high school there), began her career as an actress and model in American projects, and still resides in the US. I think almost all sources refer to her as British or British-born, and she isn't an American citizen. There was some back-and-forth editing on calling her British or American which lead to a short discussion on her article's talk page. Abbyjjjj96 (talk) 03:06, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

So the specific question is whether a person who is British-born and an American permanent resident should be referred to as "British-American" or just "British"? And should this depend on whether they have specifically stated they are "not American"? Dicklyon (talk) 03:23, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Jodie-Turner Smith looks like a situation where simply "British" would be appropriate in the lead sentence since that is how most sources appear to refer to her, and she also says she is "not American" in one of the sources in the article [13]. I think her residence in the United States would still be relevant for the lead paragraph though. However, "British-born" seems a little strange for someone who is still British, especially when it is cited to an article that simply calls her "a British actor" in its actual body copy. I generally favor using citizenship as the country/location before the person's occupations/notable roles in the lead sentence because that is clear guidance that helps avoid these situations, but I think that there are definitely individuals who should have their country of residence in the lead paragraph, even if not in the first sentence (and maybe a very small number who should have it in their first sentence, like MF Doom). I think there is a little confusion with MOS:OPENPARABIO discussing the "first sentence" and MOS:CONTEXTBIO discussing the "opening paragraph". I don't know if the guidance could be adjusted to make this clearer. In MOS:OPENPARABIO, it also has "Context (location, nationality, etc.)", and maybe we should remove "location" from there to make the "first sentence" guidance clearer. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 03:36, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Agree that if a person's home country is relevant to the lead, a Briton should generally be called plain "British" and not "British-born".—Bagumba (talk) 03:54, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

What makes Turner-Smith's home country relevant to the lead? The notes in the code of Mila Kunis and Nina Dobrev's articles say not to include their birth country. And while those two are both citizens of the country they later moved to, mos:contextbio says "citizen, national, or permanent resident". Abbyjjjj96 (talk) 04:07, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Abbyjjjj96, the articles on both Mila Kunis and Nina Dobrev do mention where they were born, and both even do so in the second sentence of the article. The MOS section you mention is about the "opening paragraph" and not just the lead sentence. As for Jodie Turner-Smith, she is a British citizen and not an American citizen, and it seems like the overwhelming amount of sources refer to her as a "British actor" or "British actress", while only a small amount refer to her as "American". She also considers herself British and not American. Mila Kunis and Nina Dobrev are not comparable situations to her. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 04:17, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I meant the first sentence re. Kunis and Dobrev. MOS:OPENPARABIO says the first sentence should usually state: "Context (location, nationality, etc.) for the activities that made the person notable." She became notable in American projects, and it's not like she immigrated to the US as an adult; she has been based there since she was a child. Abbyjjjj96 (talk) 05:39, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Turner-Smith's lead sentence has "based in the United States", which establishes location. I don't see an issue with the guideline.—Bagumba (talk) 07:34, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

What makes Turner-Smith's home country relevant to the lead?: If that was a response to my comment, I have no opinion on that specific bio. My comment was "if a person's home country is relevant ...", which I assumed it was because the lead already had "is a British-born ..."—Bagumba (talk) 07:34, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

For Wikipedia consistency, I think mention of "American" in the lead sentence should be reserved for citizens (or occasionally for those with American heritage—MOS:ETHNICITY: "Ethnicity ... should generally not be in the lead unless it is relevant to the subject's notability). I get calling her an "American actress" in the context of her presumably only doing American movies, but it's at best ambiguous and at worst misleading based on Wikipedia lead convention. Alternatives like "based in the United States", "American movies", etc. are preferable.—Bagumba (talk) 03:49, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

We still also still have the problem which has gone on for years across Wikipedia on nationality when it comes to British citizens due to the fact British citizens articles are treated differently to every other nationality. It is meant to be nationality in the introduction and yet British which is the actual legal nationality, often doesnt get mentioned, with only English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish getting used. It would help if there was a clear policy that British citizens should always be stated as British citizens. This isnt something people can pick and choose on a whim. They are either British citizens or they are not. All British citizens, wherever they live now and what ever part of the UK they are from, should be described as British in the introduction or at the very least in the infobox. RWB2020 (talk) 11:09, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

I think local consensus on which term to use is the most appropriate in those situations, and I wouldn't agree with a strict rule for UK nationalities (or other situations where citizenship and nationality may differ, such as Puerto Rico). – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 17:31, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

The choices being commented in this RfC seem to imply that including people's citizenship/nationality should be a thing that is normally done on articles. I think we need to reconsider that assumption tbh. A lot of people are opposed to the entire concept that people should be classified by government. Especially if their notability has nothing to do with government/citizenship at all. So the clear answer to the specific article that this RfC arises from is to not include citizenship/nationality information for a subject that has stated that they are not of that nationality, as well as to reconsider the inclusion of such info in the lede for others. 06:31, 14 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️

I also think that the American concept (where "X-ian" indicates origin/ethnicity rather than nationality) should prevail over the foreign concept where "X-ian" indicates citizenship/nationality, although I don't think Wikipedia would support that convention. 06:33, 14 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️

I disgree that it is an American English concept. Yao Ming was not referred to as an American basketball player when he played in the United States. In the case of Wikipedia, the de facto convention is that it specifically refers to nationality in the lead sentence.—Bagumba (talk) 07:07, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Yao was never American in either the American sense or non-American sense of the term (i.e. not by nationality and not by origin). 14:23, 15 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️

Then I misunderstood your apparent suggestion to ignore citizenship/nationality, when the RFC was inspired by a British citizen who lives and works in the U.S.—Bagumba (talk) 14:53, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

To clarify, for a subject like J. Smith whose nationality is not relevant to their notability, it does not need to be stated in the lead (Nor does their residence). I would consider nationality relevant only for people such as public officials or if their notability arises from nationality-related issues. 17:51, 15 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️

MOS:OPENPARABIO says to "usually" state one's nationality in the first sentence. When it doesn't make sense, don't include it.—Bagumba (talk) 06:44, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

At this point, it would be jarring for me to find a biography that didn't mention nationality in the usual place, and I expect it would be sufficiently jarring for other editors that they would clamor to put it in. I would say that its near-universal presence establishes consensus for universal inclusion. Elizium23 (talk) 06:52, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Agree that it should be rare to exclude. I don't recall which pages, but the debate is usually a person who holds citizenship in multiple countries and summarizing in one sentence is problematic.—Bagumba (talk) 07:14, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

There are both British and Americans living and working in places all over the world (Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Dubai...take your pick) and no-one would ever think to question that they aren’t still British or American, even if they’ve been there for years. But there does seem to be something mysterious about living and working as an expat in America that has editors suddenly falling over themselves to challenge a lead sentence reference to their nationality. MapReader (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 18:26, 15 June 2021‎ (UTC) I think as others have pointed out we are emphasising the legal/governmental element too much here. For example many, many UK bio articles start with "Welsh/Scottish/English" even though legally none of that exists only "British" does iirc. How do reliable sources describe the person in question, seems more of an article-by-article basis, etc. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 17:55, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Credentials

I seek not to change Wikipedia policy on credentials. However, I am concerned about the addition of the link "Academic or professional titles and degrees 'WP:CREDENTIALS' redirects here. For the use of credentials by Wikipedia editors, see Wikipedia:There is no credential policy." The link takes the reader, probably an editor, to a controversial essay created in 2008 by an editor whose Talk page consists of fatalistic language regarding the perceived hopelessness of Wikipedia, not to mention several grammatical and style errors, all of which make me question the wisdom of linking to the essay from the all-important Wikipedia Manual of Style. (Examples: "...editing Wikipedia is futile." "Wikipedia is a nightmare that is slowly eroding and collapsing in and on itself.") To include a link from the Manual of Style page implies acceptance of the essay and gives its author a cloak of authority. I am not sure most Wikipedia editors would agree to give this author that level of authority, as evidenced by the concerns of Wikipedia editors who, through the edit history and the essay's Talk page, have taken issue with it. It should also be noted that the editor has not contributed to Wikipedia since 2011. My concern is not only with the author, but with the essay. Although Wikipedia Manual of Style/Biography Academic or professional titles and degrees states a clear Wikipedia policy, the essay inaccurately states that there is no Wikipedia policy on academic or professional titles and degrees, saying "In the absence of an official policy, editors are free to make claims regarding their own credentials as they see fit, but there is no official requirement for any other editors to treat credentials in the same manner." Also, I am concerned that although it is an essay and not a guideline or policy, editors still may misconstrue the article to be a Wikipedia guideline or policy. That is an easy mistake to make for all editors, but especially for new or inexperienced editors. For the reasons stated, I am removing the link and recommending that the essay is deleted. If, as the essay states, it is not "one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community," then why are we linking to it from the Manual of Style article? The Manual of Style article is one of the most important articles on Wikipedia. Everything we do on Wikipedia is based on the Manual of Style. I am posting this as a Talk section to allow any editor to post his or her opinion on the removal of the link. Clearly, my opinion is that this essay has no place on the page of the Manual of Style. Thank you for your contribution to Wikipedia and your consideration of my edit. God bless and happy editing! MarydaleEd (talk) 19:25, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Rhododentrites, from our discussion regarding deleting this essay, I understand that the author's point was that the credentials of Wikipedia editors are unverified. I am not sure why that was important enough to warrant an essay, because as editors, we are all equal. An editor's credentials are irrelevant since we cannot publish articles of original work, but every editor has the right to publish an essay. I agree with you that there is no reason to delete the essay and appreciate you clarifying the text for me. However, I still believe this essay should not be linked from the Wikipedia Manual of Style and I am displeased that you reverted my edit. I brought the subject to the Talk page and invited a discussion in the spirit of collaboration so a consensus could be reached. Perhaps I should have initiated the discussion before I deleted the link, and I hope I can be forgiven if I jumped the gun. Whether a consensus is reached to keep it or delete it, I am happy to acquiesce to the will of my colleagues. I remain steadfast in my belief that even though the author is correct, the essay as it stands should not be linked from the heart of Wikipedia's policy page. However, I am open to compromise. If we think the point is important enough to be included in the Manual of Style, is there a better way to incorporate language into the policy and guidelines instead of linking to an essay? I would be happy to submit language to add, but would welcome your recommendation for text to incorporate into the Manual of Style alerting readers that editors' credentials are not verified. Again, thank you for contributing to this conversation. I hope we hear from others. God bless and happy editing. MarydaleEd (talk) 22:41, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

New examples of capitalisation for 'Positions, offices, and occupational titles'

In the table of examples at 'Positions, offices, and occupational titles', there are examples of

• a title modified by a definite article (the)
• a title modified by an indefinite article (a)
• a title modified by a definite article and an ordinal

There is no example of a title modified by an ordinal alone.

I propose adding two new examples. If either of these examples do not accurately reflect the guideline, then please say so.

To the left column headed "Unmodified, denoting a title", add:

Richard Nixon, President of the United States, resigned in 1974.

In the right column headed "Modified or reworded, denoting an office", replace "Nixon was the 37th president of the United States." with:

Richard Nixon, 37th president of the United States, resigned in 1974.

Nurg (talk) 04:10, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

I have had second thoughts about this. I am withdrawing the proposal. Nurg (talk) 21:32, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

I would go with: “richard nixon, 37th PRESIDENT of the united states “… just to be ornery. Blueboar (talk) 01:05, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Don't be a DICK. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 01:37, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

~~RicHarD nIxOn~~ 37th PRESIDENT uwu (😂) -sche (talk) 04:54, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Never mind breaches of style guides, those are capital crimes. Nurg (talk) 05:13, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

I see what you did there... --Jayron32 16:13, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Dutch names in article Des van Jaarsveldt

I was wondering if I could get some assistance with the page Des van Jaarsveldt please. He's a Rhodesian-South African with a Dutch surname and I was wondering would it be correct to refer to him in the article as "van Jaarsveldt" or "Van Jaarsveldt"? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 16:25, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

There is no thread open at the talk page of that article, so I'll address it here. Since Des van Jaarsveldt used that spelling (v not V) and reliable sources generally follow suit, use "van Jaarsveldt", except when captalizing the V at the beginning of a sentence. It's the same for people with names like de Ville and ten Dorf and ap Gruffudd.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:17, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

"Home Secretary" vs "home secretary"

I noticed that on Home Secretary the title has been lowercased. In almost all references in the UK news, and overseas, the title is "Home Secretary" and not "home secretary". Wallnot believes that MOS says it must be in lowercase. I respect their reading of MOS:JOBTITLES, but surely in the case of the Home Secretary of the UK this is not the case? I am bringing the discussion here. - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 20:09, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I honestly don't know what gotten into folks concerning WP:JOBTITLES, in these last few months. See above Infobox RFC. GoodDay (talk) 20:12, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand it either. If you look at all the news reports on the Home Secretary, they capitalise the title. - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 20:18, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Incidentally, the RFC above only deals with infoboxes, shouldn't it be expanded to deal with the lead section? - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 20:22, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I fear the lead sections are now beyond hope. GoodDay (talk) 20:31, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

It’s not just the last few months. If you look at the history, people have been expressing unhappiness with JOBTITLES for years. Blueboar (talk) 21:09, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

This is a straightforward application of a long-standing MOS rule. There is an existing consensus, as I established on the talk page, for lowercasing the title. If you are confused regarding the source of that consensus, you can consult the archived MOS discussion, which I linked on the talk page. If you wish to establish an exception to the rule for Home Secretary, or to change the rule, it is you who must obtain consensus for doing so, not I. Additionally, I don’t see how this discussion belongs at MOS talk biography. Wallnot (talk) 20:24, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

No, not all news sources capitalize "home secretary". The Guardian, BBC, and The Independent, for example, habitually do not.[14] Virtually no academic sources capitalize job titles. Surtsicna (talk) 20:35, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

In fact, Home Secretary should be at Home secretary, or it should be "Home Secretary" everywhere. —El Millo (talk) 20:37, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

So does that mean that every article in Category:Prime ministers by country is wrongly titled? - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 20:48, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

TBH gentlemen, WP:JOBTITLES is a mess & likely needs an overhaul. GoodDay (talk) 20:50, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

This isn't about WP:JOBTITLES, it's about consistency between title and prose. Perhaps JOBTITLES is wrong, but if it's right it definitely shouldn't just apply to prose, it should apply to prose and titles. If it's wrong, then it shouldn't apply anywhere. —El Millo (talk) 21:01, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

At this point, I'm going to bow out. It does appear there is inconsistency, but I feel I am causing more heat than light in the discussion, despite my good intentions. I certainly don't want to make a difficult situation worse! - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 21:25, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

The time is coming when attempts will be made to move articles titles to full lower case. Articles like Governor-General of Australia, for example. GoodDay (talk) 21:32, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

GoodDay, actually, MOS:JOBTITLES would be against such a move. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 21:39, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

For now. GoodDay (talk) 21:40, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Nobody lowercasing anything has gone beyond what JOBTITLES allows. Please stop with the straw man scaremongering. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 21:41, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Actually, I am now on the verge of suggesting that MOS:JOBTITLES be made more in line with other English language style guides by giving far less leeway for capitalization. MOS:JOBTITLES is already a compromise between established academic practice and an upper case fixation, and that compromise is very lenient towards the latter. If that boat is going to be rocked all the time by those to whom such generous concessions were made, we may as well sink it. Any new version of MOS:JOBTITLES can only be more in line with academic and journalistic style guides. Surtsicna (talk) 22:24, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

It should certainly be "Home Secretary"! Johnbod (talk) 21:35, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Oxford and Chicago, among others, are convincing me otherwise. Surtsicna (talk) 22:24, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it should. Unique title held by only one person at a time. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:27, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

According to whom? Which style guide are you citing? Surtsicna (talk) 21:41, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Surtsicna. Lowercase is the clear trend, and is supported by many styleguides and ORs. Tony (talk) 12:39, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Leader of the opposition

Should Leader of the Opposition be capitalised? The page and all its subsidiary pages are mostly unfixed, and an editor on Singapore's page has been persistent in capitalising it, and even went back to capitalise the version on the UK's page. I am taking my cue from Chief of Naval Operations, which I inquired about last year, in which the entire phrase is in small letters. But it would be good to hear the opinions of the community. Seloloving (talk) 23:37, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Would anyone be free to chime in on the matter? Thank you. Seloloving (talk) 23:45, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

With the implementation of lower-casing job titles in article intros, having become the norm? I reckon, lower-casing is the version to adopt for that article. For example: See Prime Minister. -- GoodDay (talk) 23:46, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Would it be a good idea to add Leader of the Opposition to the list of examples in the page, seeing as it's a very widely used title across many countries and nearly equivalent to Prime Minister? I get that it would trigger a deluge of names to add... but it would make citing policy easier. Seloloving (talk) 23:52, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Clarify. Add what article to what article? GoodDay (talk) 00:01, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Just wondering if it would be a good idea to add Leader of the Opposition to the list of examples in MOS:JOBTITLES, as it is a very widely used title. Seloloving (talk) 00:03, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

You choice. GoodDay (talk) 00:05, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

I favour lowercase. Tony (talk) 12:37, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

User:Seloloving For British English situations, perhaps look to DeBrett’s or Who’s Who usage. See perhaps here or here as well, which favor capitalisation. Outside of Anglic uses for the phrase I don’t know. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:07, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Why are article titles NOT in Title Case? Should they be?

This is NOT a formal proposal to change anything… think of it as a very preliminary chat that might (or might not) evolve into a more formal discussion sometime in the future.

Anyway… I have long wondered why our article Titles are not presented in Title Case. Should they be? Could they be. I realize that it would be a massive change, and something that (given the number of existing articles) we could not do by hand… but is it something that bots could achieve? Are their technical issues with the way WP’s programming works that would prevent changing over if there were consensus to do so? Please discuss. Blueboar (talk) 22:38, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, Wikipedia's style guide tends to be based on the principle of not stylizing what there's no need to stylize. That is, do not bold unless necessary, do not italicize unless necessary, do not capitalize unless necessary, or strictly correct. It's basically not to stylize just because we like it or find it aesthetic. WP:SENTENCECASE also justifies using sentence case because the title is simple to link to in other articles than if title case is used. MOS:CAPS first line says: Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization, that's generally why title case is not used. —El Millo (talk) 22:44, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

What's a title case? GoodDay (talk) 22:46, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

See title case. —El Millo (talk) 22:47, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I'll need a visual example, so as to know what's being discussed. GoodDay (talk) 22:49, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Here’s a Visual Example of Title Case. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 22:50, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

This is sentence case, commonly used on Wikipedia. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 22:52, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Why are articles not in title case is sentence case, whereas Why Are Articles Not in Title Case is title case. —El Millo (talk) 22:51, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Baseball vs baseball? Help me out here, by using an article title. GoodDay (talk) 22:54, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't apply to one-word titles. It's exactly what I gave an example of above. Titles of works, e.g. films, are written in title case. That's why it is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and not Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. —El Millo (talk) 22:58, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Cool. GoodDay (talk) 23:00, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Nah - it's old-fashioned, doesn't help clarity, and may create the false impression that many common nouns ought to be capitalized. Popcornfud (talk) 22:52, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I think the ONLY reason is that in the beginning of Wikipedia, editor convenience was highly weighted. For editor convenience, it is easier if article titles can be linked as-is in running text. (The software renders the first letter capitalisation irrelevant).

I think this is a very poor rationale for the decision.

I think a Wikipedia article is a work, and should be titled as a composition title. I think this is achieve better consistency, eg Whac-A-Mole vs Snakes and ladders, Rum and Coke vs Pisco sour. All should be titled like composition titles. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:52, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Well, the thing there is that Wikipedia titles are not really titles of works in the sense of the title of a novel or play. They are instead (hopefully) a concise and disambiguated term representing the article subject. Popcornfud (talk) 23:00, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Well, there is the thing that Wikipedia articles are each standalone scholarly works. SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:04, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Since this is about article titles-in-general & not biographies in particular. Shouldn't this discussion be occurring at WP:Article title. -- GoodDay (talk) 23:02, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Either there or at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters. —El Millo (talk) 23:03, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Or both. GoodDay (talk) 23:07, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I vote Article titles with a notice at CAPS Firefangledfeathers (talk) 23:13, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Same. —El Millo (talk) 23:18, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Concur. GoodDay (talk) 23:26, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks for the feedback. I will ruminate on this some more. And perhaps raise it on a more appropriate page. Blueboar (talk) 12:23, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Are there any other English-language encyclopedias that use Title Case for their lemma's? I sure haven't seen any. Fram (talk) 12:28, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

My first thought was maybe Britannica, but the 1911 edition uses all caps random example, and the 2006 concise edition uses all lowercase other than proper nouns random example. I've not looked at other editions or works. Thryduulf (talk) 12:42, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

It would either mean making wikilinks capitalization insensitive or piping almost everything, or making or writing look like "Lenny Bruce liked to eat Graham Crackers and Apple Pie." And it would also require more disambiguating, as suddenly the pages for the record label Blueberry Pie and for the confection blueberry pie would be at the same address. And I don't see the advantage to doing it. --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:21, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Well redirects would be the way around changing case sensitivity and mass piping, but we would need to move an article to either Blueberry Pie (record label) or Blueberry Pie (dessert) (I'd guess the dessert would take primary topic but I've done exactly no research). It's something that could be done, but it would take advance planning to identify and resolve conflicts, make redirects, etc. and with (according to WP:STATS about a minute before this messages' timestamp) 6,349,578 articles and an average of 598 new articles per day, a *lot* of planning would be needed and even then the transition would be extremely far from instantaneous - even if only 50% of articles need moving (I'd guess an underestimate) it would take nearly 37 days at 1 move per second. So I agree, it's not something that should be done. Thryduulf (talk) 22:30, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be Blueberry Pie (Record Label) and Blueberry Pie (Dessert) (and for me, Blueberry Pie (Breakfast)) in this Title Case World? --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:02, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

It's only intended for actual book titles, not article titles. Some journals do it for article titles; some don't. I don't see why it would apply to encyclopedia article titles or headings. Skyerise (talk) 02:40, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

This is perennial rehash. Please search the talk archives before re-re-re-re-re-re-re-asking the same obvious questions that have been asked again and again. If the question is obvious, then you can be sure that it has been asked and answered many times before it popped into your head.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:45, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

MOS:DEADNAME for non-living people

So like, we really gotta do something to establish a site-wide handling of how deadnaming is handled with deceased people, because it's the wild god damned west on Wikipedia. The lack of any specific guidelines on how to handle deadnaming even lead to a huge to-do about Sophia, where people were adding their deadname before the body was even cold, under the logic that non-notability of a deadname is only a factor in living people. Not only is such an action obviously ghoulish, and not only does such an action drive away certain editors on a website noted for demographic issues, but it still can cause distress to the people who were close to this person in life, as well as readers who are like Sophia, who are made to feel unwelcome on Wikipedia. Something has to be done to address this policy vacuum. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 15:56, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Do you mean Sophie (musician)? GiantSnowman 16:24, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, my b. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 16:27, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Checking around, Sophie's full name was readily published in BLP-compliant sources as early as 2015 (from what I can find). This would not be deadnaming even if Sophie was still living. --Masem (t) 16:38, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Firstly, my point is that it is clear that the deadname was featured in the article specifically because Sophie had no coverage by the BLP guideline anymore. Secondly, it is still definitionally deadnaming, as deadnaming refers to the act of using the name that they had when they presented as the gender assigned at birth. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 17:10, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Masem, I'm not sure whether you realize how MOS:DEADNAME works for living people. For a deadname to appear in a BLP article, it is not sufficient that the former name be reliably sourced: the BLP subject must have used the former name voluntarily to refer to themselves, and have met Notability standards while doing so. It does not seem likely that Sophie! met that standard but even if so, we should all remain clear on what the standard for living (or recently deceased) people is before expanding it to long-dead people. Newimpartial (talk) 17:17, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

As the article on Sophie says "Prior to taking the stage name Sophie, the artist's birth name was used in larger projects. Sophie appeared in promotional photographs of the band Motherland during 2008–2009, sporting a shock of red hair and androgynous facial features. The artist's birth name was credited in the remix of Light Asylum's "A Certain Person" in 2010.[19] The artist began using the Sophie moniker in 2012, but the birth name was listed in the 2013 duo project Sfire." So I think the line for Sophie being notable before using the new name is clearly met including the volume of RS that mention that. I agree that generally the same standards for deadnaming or lack of that should hold true for BRD as it does for BLP in general, but I don't think this applies for Sophie. --Masem (t) 17:30, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

See also: Talk:Billy Tipton § Dead name and other changes to terminology

As it's written, MOS:DEADNAME is primarily designed to protect the privacy of living people covered under the WP:BLP policy, because it's extremely important that those articles are correct. The guideline currently reads:

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.

Obviously, Wikipedia still has a duty to write about all transgender and nonbinary subjects---living or deceased---in a way which is not harmful or stigmatizing, so you're right that more consideration about this policy, as it applies to non-BLP subjects, is necessary.

I think it's reasonable to say that this particular paragraph should, by default, apply to all transgender subjects who were not notable under their former names. i.e. removing "living" from the first sentence. A change like this would probably require an RfC, and I'd be interested to see what other editors have to say about it. RoxySaunders (talk · contribs) 16:37, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

I would agree that deadnaming should apply to the deceased, just with the understanding that sources post-death may be more forthcoming about publishing these earlier details and if this readily available in sources, it should not be omitted from the article. --Masem (t) 16:53, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia obviously should not be the first to publish (ie “out”) a Deadname… because that would be a violation of our WP:No original research policy. However, the extra caution of respecting the subject’s privacy does not apply to the dead. So if reliable sources note a Deadname, so can we. Blueboar (talk) 17:17, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Could we at least agree, then, that if no independent, reliable sources are available for a former name that are published after a subject's death, that WP would not include it either? I'm not sure that this would affect many cases, but it would move the boundary away from the current conceptual free-for-all. Newimpartial (talk) 17:21, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

I would definitely agree that we should only rely on best-quality sourcing for bios of deceased people for any inclusion of deadnaming. (Eg when I was searching for Sophie above, Daily Fail came up a lot and I would not use them at all for even long-dead people). --Masem (t) 17:32, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

The quality of sourcing definitely matters, but I don’t think it matters when it was published. Once a person has died, they no longer need the extra privacy protection we gave them while alive. Noting a historical name change becomes a standard biographical detail. Blueboar (talk) 00:41, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

To paraphrase Gertrud Stein, a reliable source is a reliable source is a reliable source. I do not understand why those that are published after a subject's death should be any different than those published before a subject's death. Peaceray (talk) 04:43, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

I also agree that this rule should be changed to include trans people who are dead, in most cases.

Is it agreed upon policy that respecting the subject's privacy does not apply to the dead? If so, could someone please cite that section of policy? It would seem to me that it is best case in most situations to refer to someone in death as they would have asked in life. In cases of trans people who very clearly stated their desire not to be deadnamed, or if they lived under their new name for many years, I don't see why it would be justifiable in most cases to ignore that wish after death.

Also, deadnaming trans people who are dead does not just affect the subject: it also affects other trans people who are alive and read the article, and enables invasive curiousity around trans people's private lives. This feeds into a narrative that trans people are lying or covering up their identities, which is both disrespectful to the person who has died and harmful to living trans people.

If the rule is that a living or recently deceased trans person's deadname shouldn't be shared unless notable, it would seem that at least in some cases that should apply to dead people as well. Catman6423 (talk) 19:29, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

That seems too wide of a scope to me. None of us want to see trans people harmed, but we are not here to prevent the general public from having "invasive curiosity"—that would be like stopping all gossip. Impossible. Our guideline is worded to protect a single individual and their immediate family and friends. Binksternet (talk) 22:55, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

The Sophie case is interesting because the birth name was used in multiple reliable secondary sources after the artist started using the stage name Sophie, and after the artist became famous. (The earliest published "Sophie" that I found is from January 2012 in Bomb magazine.) Was fame acquired by this person before 2012? Not so much as to satisfy WP:MUSICBIO; the person had been a member of a marginally successful trio called Motherland, and had collaborated without much fanfare in other projects such as Sfire with Jeffrey Sfire, all using the birth name. None of these would have brought independent notability. But with newfound 2015 fame, the birth name was connected to the stage name in the following publications: Pitchfork, NME, Exclaim! all from 2015, and The Times, The Guardian, Red Bull magazine, Queerspace magazine, NOW Toronto, TIU magazine (Spain), The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and AllMusic from 2016. Sources are not lacking. What is lacking is notability prior to the Sophie moniker of 2012.

The majority of posthumous sources don't connect the birth name to the stage name. Perhaps the only one doing so is this obituary in The Herald newspaper of her native Glasgow.

What makes this case interesting is that the media were busily hunting down the connection in 2015–2016, something we would normally summarize for the reader. Usually, Wikipedia follows the example of the media, but in this case we have erected an artificial barrier, a barrier of our own making. So in this case Wikipedia departs from the media. Binksternet (talk) 19:44, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

At least as I read on our deadnaming principles, we're not necessarily applying the WP:N metrics (eg meeting the requirements for a standalone article) when determining if a person was notable before the name change, but simply if they were clearly discussed in some sources at some length - here being a member of Motherland which is not a trivial thing (it would be different if this was some random garage band that went nowhere with no wide releases of their music). And of course, they had a major role within this group, too, this was not like a roadie or the like that didn't make the music or appeared on stage. Here, I think that line is clearly passed for Sophia, in addition to the quality of the sources at the time (2015-ish, rather than at death.) The key is to remember that we're not supposed to be mudracking to mention the deadname and using crap or primary sources like records to do this, and that's definitely not the case happening here. --Masem (t) 20:08, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Also, I'm seeing several obit-type sources from RSes that mention the original name, eg Deadline Hollywood, The Atlantic, MTV, and Billboard, to name a few. --Masem (t) 20:14, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

I think we definitely should not dead name living trans people for the privacy reasons cited above, but if reliable sources cover their name after they have passed away then it should be included. GiantSnowman 20:44, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Again - could you please explain why privacy concerns don't remain after death? Catman6423 (talk) 20:48, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

And again, deadnaming someone after their death affects not only the subject but also other trans people by extension. I don't agree with that. Catman6423 (talk) 20:49, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Masem, I think the second paragraph of the current MOS:DEADNAME is quite clear about this:

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.

The word "notable" links to WP:N in the guideline itself, and Talk page discussions or RfCs I've seen or participated in, prior to and since the latest DEADNAME rewrite, have frequently turned on when the former name was no longer used by the BLP subject and when they became notable. Binksternet's discussion of SOPHIE's career above is a perfect example of how this should be done, regardless of exactly how long DEADNAME applies after death or what precisely the relevant sources are. Newimpartial (talk) 21:19, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

I would still argue that in the specific case of Sophie, which is being called a "stage name" rather than a new identity name (in contrast to something like the Elliot Page case which is a full name change), this is less a deadname issue because it doesn't seem directly connected to specifically coming out as trans - and the sourcing/commentary on identity in the article itself don't see to suggest anything different. That is, is this like not calling (at least at one point) Madonna as her given name. But I will still point out the numerous sources before and after death (and that's just in English) and while before being a solo artist, while there may not be enough for outright notability for a standpoint based on the non-solo career, this is far from being a completely private, poorly-known individual that we do want to protect. --Masem (t) 21:58, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

"could you please explain why privacy concerns don't remain after death" - they do, but not as much, hence why we have WP:BLP, WP:BLPPRIMARY etc. In short, it's because dead people can't sue. GiantSnowman 11:24, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Strong oppose For many historical biographies dealing with transgender identity, the whole reason for notability is that. A completeness requires the birth name. Otherwise we are going beyond respect for living or recently deceased individuals & carving out a whole new class for the transgendered. This fails to align with the WP:CENSOR policy & the WP:RECENTISM explanatory supplement.

If we are going to remove the things that makes a subject notable from an article, then each article should also have a WP:AFD nomination. To me, that is the logical consequence. Peaceray (talk) 20:51, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

This argument strikes me as completely incoherent. For trans people who became Notable because they were trans but whose deadnames (e.g., birth names) were unknown during their lives and who were only known by their chosen names, how on earth can their deadname be an inherent aspect of their Notability? If the article did not mention that they were trans, your argument to "send them all to AfD" might at least be internally consistent. However, I haven't seen any edits that would do that - even deadname removals or changes to "birth sex" language that you have reverted - so, seriously - whuuut? Newimpartial (talk) 21:31, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

I know of no article which contains a birth name in which those names were unknown during their lives. Otherwise, we would have no knowledge of the birth name. The inclusion of their birth name is part of the verification of their birth identity.

Enough with the DEADSHAMING. If everyone treated the transgendered with the respect each human deserves & addressed everyone as they wished to be addressed, there would be no shame about a birth name. It would be just another factoid. Peaceray (talk) 22:35, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

But it is not just another factoid, and they are not always treated with the respect each human deserves. —El Millo (talk) 22:43, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

In a truly neutral world both would be. Do we not strive for neutrality? Peaceray (talk) 23:15, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

In a truly safe world, it would be safe to publish the home addresses and phone numbers of celebrities on Wikipedia. However, because doing so puts the subject at risk, we do not do this. We create a Wikipedia for the world that exists, not the world you wish existed. Also, the word is transgender, not transgendered. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 00:07, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

What you write is true for living people. However, we are discussing here the extension of BLP guidelines to the dead. I fail to see the harm to Billy Tipton or a myriad of other deceased transgender folks (and I write of historical biographies, not recent deaths) if we mention their birth name.

You are right about home addresses and phone numbers: for privacy in the case of the living, & irrelevancy in the case of the dead. Peaceray (talk) 03:57, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Yet we do not include the addresses of the deceased. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 17:22, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

We include countries, some time cities; both the country/city of birth of a person, and any later adopted nationality/residence (in other words, where someone is from by birth, and by choice). The place of death is also noted in articles. All those tend to be relevant to the basic profile of notable persons. The national origins of a person are included neutrally, and independently and non-judgmentally from whether the subject felt identified or not with their national origin. Al83tito (talk) 02:37, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Peaceray, don't be draft. In the case of Billy Tipton, which you know well, his deadname was not published in any independent, reliable secondary sources during his lifetime nor was it used by the subject at any time from his mid-20s until death, nor were any of those who knew him in the last decades of his life aware of it. This is a perfect example where the deadname only became a known fact about the subject in sources published post mortem. And there is no consensus on WP about the verification of the birth identity of trans people, I'm afraid. Once again, assuming the thing that is to be proven. Newimpartial (talk) 23:22, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

From my understanding this part of MOS:DEADNAME (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., does not apply to deaceased persons. If it is noted in RSs it should probably be included in the article. As said above we should not be making an artificial barrier between RSs and Wiki on deceased persons.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 20:58, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

This !vote seems to me to assume exactly the things it intends to prove. Many participants in this discussion are raising the questions (1) for how long after death does a BLPPRIVACY interest in a trans person's deadname continue to apply - like all BLP concerns, it is not extinguished immediately after death - and (2) whether other factors, notably the avoidance of harm to living (in this case, trans) people affect the appropriate treatment of deadnames for people more than, say, 20 years after death. You can pretend that everyone already agrees that the answers to these questions are (1) only for a short time, maybe a year or two and (2) no, but I don't think !votes that refuse to even engage with the real issues here are particularly helpful at this point. Newimpartial (talk) 21:26, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Honestly, there is a lot of trivial things about people, places, and objects that we still do not include, even if mentioned in a reliable source. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 21:45, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

At no point has birth name ever been trivial in an encyclopedia. Binksternet (talk) 22:18, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the WP community supports this statement, when it comes to the deadnames of trans people. Perhaps we should have an RfC. :p. Newimpartial (talk) 23:22, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

If the issue was trivial, we wouldn't be spending so much time discussing it. Birth name is a BFD for those who wish to hide it. Not trivial. Binksternet (talk) 04:14, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

The issue is not trivial, the content being added is. Mainly because that is the only justification I have seen for inclusion in the case of people who were not notable under their deadname: "people may want to know a person's deadname." - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 17:22, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

People want to know because it's critically important to a person's life story. Birth name shapes a person's self-image and others' perception of them.[15][16][17][18][19] "A basic struggle in the human kingdom is one of words: name or be named, define or be defined." "Names distinguish one person from another and help form a sense of self." Every trans person has been affected by their birth name. Binksternet (talk) 18:16, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

But if it critical to a person's life story, we would expect reliable sources to have given the birth date that weight in their reporting. We should not be digging it up just to be a completionist if that's not something backed in quality RSes (for living and deceased). --Masem (t) 18:30, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

From Every trans person has been affected by their birth name (clearly true), one cannot reasonably conclude that At no point has birth name ever been trivial in an encyclopedia (alleged but not proven). Whether my birth name had been Ernie or Bert would be of no encyclopaedic interest if no reliable sources had referred to me as Ernie or Bert, no matter how Notable I turned out to be. Newimpartial (talk) 19:13, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

It's not great that there's no clear guidance on this one way or the other; as editors have linked above, it causes the same issue to be discussed over and over on various articles, wasting time. What options should an RfC propose? One end of the spectrum would be to never include any deadname (even if notable), and some people seem to be suggesting the other extreme, including any dead person's deadname (even if obscure). One obvious intermediate option, discussed above, is to remove "living" any apply the existing notability-based threshold to all trans people. What other options might we consider?
Should we distinguish based on how long ago someone died? For example, "someone killed a trans actress and then updated her Wikipedia page because she's no longer alive" feels like it could be handled differently from "someone died two hundred years ago".
(As a separate issue, another shortcoming of current guidance is what to do if someone is marginally notable enough for a Wikipedia article under their deadname, then transitions, and sources for the next fifty years call them by their post-transition name; it seems wrong to keep the no-longer-notable name in the first ten words of the article just as prominently as it'd be in the article of someone who just transitioned. You may know which specific articles I'm thinking of!)
Something else we should consider is moving deadnames which are present out of the lead, but that might be better left to its own discussion/RFC. -sche (talk) 22:24, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

I think you’ve summarized possible RfC options nicely. It may be worth distinguishing between long-dead and recently deceased subjects. As an alternative to removing “living”, an RfC could also propose “living and recently deceased”. RoxySaunders (talk · contribs) 22:54, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

My proposal would be that for people who are dead we use the following criteria:

1) whether there is a notable reason to include their deadname, such as fame under their deadname

2) continue to respect their privacy, as well as the guidelines around the principle of least astonishment [20], as much as possible. If there is clear and compelling evidence that they did not wish to be addressed by their birth name, such as not going by it for most of their life, we should exercise prudence in including it

3) consider the impacts to other, living trans people of treating dead names as public information, and lean against presenting it unless necessary

This would allow us to be judicious, present the name when needed, and avoid it when not. Catman6423 (talk) 22:46, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

To -sche: other factors I would throw in are: (1) what name did reliable sources (if any) use for the subject while they were alive, both before and after transition? There are more aspects to this worth considering, IMO, than the DEADNAME criterion for BLPs; and,

(2) what name or names do recent, reliable scholarship about the subject (if available) use as their standard "common" name? This criterion would begin to deal with the changing norms among biographers and other scholars where it comes to trans life stories.

My sense is that deadnames that meet the current DEADNAME Notability requirement, and deadnames that were the main names used by reliable sources whole the subject was alive, and deadnames that are frequently used in recent (say the last 15 years) biographies should all be included in our articles. This would be considerably more lenient than MOS:DEADNAME for BLPs but much more nuanced than the current free-for-all, and I think it would capture all the deadnames in which the reader had a reasonable, legitimate interest. Newimpartial (talk) 00:37, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Basically, I would have the mindset that we should not be trying to dig up deadnames - if we are using only one or two sources (even if high quality) with the only mention of the deadname, or that the sources that are being used are poor quality ones, even things like public records/court documents/etc., then we have zero basis to include such names. And this applies across the board for any type of naming issue - pre-marriage names, stage names, names of immigrants before they gained citizenship, etc. Or to flip it around: if we have multiple high-quality RSes repeating the old name in connection to the new name in any of these situations, it makes zero sense not to include it, but this should be taken as a threshold that should be crossed, and treat any case that doesn't meet it as defaulting to omission. Now, in particular for trans individuals, we can talk about minimizing its mention (once is all that is needed) and of course respecting the current name or the name they used when they died in the writing of the rest of the article. But I mean, if its backed by numerous sources (as in the case of Sophie here) omitting it makes us look off. We've not dug anything up - that name is out there, clear as day. Something that can be easily verified by a one minute Google search in good sources should not be something we should be worried about hiding because the privacy / respect aspects simply don't exist when that sourcing is that obvious. --Masem (t) 00:53, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I generally agree with Newimpartial and MASEM here. Those seem like solid guidelines to me - avoid it unless necessary by the criteria mentioned above, and when necessary minimize its usage. Catman6423 (talk) 01:43, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

This comment is not an RfC (don't !vote), but to spitball possible RfC wording, what do people think of: "Under what conditions should pre-transition names of deceased transgender people be included?
A: Do not include pre-transition names.
B: Include a pre-transition name only if the transgender person was notable under that name (i.e. apply MOS:DEADNAME to all trans people, not just living ones).
C: Include a pre-transition name only if it is commonly used mentioned by reliable sources.
D: Include any pre-transition name." What's missing / what should be changed? Should C be "...if it is commonly mentioned by reliable sources", rather than "used"? (Should those both be options?) (Perhaps some people would vote for "B and C", i.e. include the name if either B or C is met.) -sche (talk) 03:08, 19 July 2021 (UTC) tweaked following comments below

To me it seems that B and C are to similar to be different options, if reliable sources commonly use the pre-transition name to refer to the person, then the name is notable (or perhaps the person has explicitly stated they do not find its use offensive, in which case we could also include it). I also think option A shouldn't be included, as there's been ample consensus in that massive RfC not so long ago that it shouldn't be prohibited in every case and that doing so would be detrimental to readers. —El Millo (talk) 03:43, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Good point; I changed C to "commonly mentioned". I think that's more distinct (there are living trans people whose articles exclude a name they weren't notable under and don't identify with even though some sourcing mentions it, so there are surely dead people in that situation). But C was an attempt at summarizing the 'commonly found in sources' criterion talked about by Newimpartial and Masem above (who said there's more to what they're thinking of than just applying the existing guideline for living people to dead people, as in B), so if I've mis-summarized and they can provide better (concise) wording to replace C, that'd be great. -sche (talk) 10:08, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Agreed that A is off the table. That has already been rejected. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:05, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

• You need a time frame for how long after death. Six months, a year, more years... Binksternet (talk) 04:16, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree there's probably a period (but what period?) prior to which someone should be treated one way (but which way?), and after which they should be treated another way (but which way?)... but the fact that different people would answer each of those questions differently makes this tricky; an RfC that tries to ask about all three could end up having too many moving, interacting parts to be intelligible or able to produce a consensus. Maybe we could presume the criteria that should apply to recently deceased people should be the same as for living people, so the first part of the RfC could be How long should MOS:DEADNAME continue to apply to recently deceased people? 1 week, 6 months, 1 year? and the second part could be like After that, under what conditions should a deadname be mentioned? Indicate any you support. 1: include the name if the person was notable under it; 2: include it, regardless of whether they were ever notable under it, as long as it is commonly mentioned by sources; 3: include it, as long as there is any reliable source for it; [etc]"...? -sche (talk) 10:46, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

It is likely the same amount of time that BLP applies to the recently deceased, which is variable, a minimum of 6 months but may be as high as 2 years for a controversial figure where the nature of BLP protection is needed that long after death. There is no hard-fast rule here for all other BLP related aspects, so I'd expect the same principle to apply to deadnaming; some of these may be controversial, some may not. --Masem (t) 13:54, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, I think that if a person's deadname is not notable before they are dead, it would create the most stability to simply never include it. This seems like the solution that would create the least strife. Ie, we don't have to go through a process of arguments over whether it's been long enough to include a deadname or not. Just don't do it at all. Such an action would create a more civil, more stable process, as I can assure you, those who are committed to the inclusion of deadnames full stop are less invested in this than those who oppose them full stop. My views go to extremes — that is, that the Washowski sisters, Elliot Page, etc. should not have their deadnames stated — but I know that this will not fly on Wikipedia. Thus, I aim to minimize the number of people who this applies to. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 17:22, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

But Wikipedia has articles on people who did not clearly meet Wikipedia standards until after death, sometimes long after death. Some of those people were trans, or at least GENDERID would apply to them. So I'm not convinced that a blanket statement that only deadnames that were notable in life should be included actually would work as intended in all cases. Newimpartial (talk) 17:30, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

As an example: James Barry (surgeon). It's debated whether they were trans or not and the article forgoes pronouns as a result. But, clearly a number of people think Barry was a trans man. Barry is only notable for the career as a surgeon, which happened while living as a man. A blanket application of DEADNAME to all persons, not just living ones, would result in people arguing that since Barry could have been trans, Barry's birth name must be purged from the article, even though Barry died 156 years ago, long before any concept of deadnaming existed, and way past the time when the privacy interest of WP:BDP applies. This would be an extreme position and would take Wikipedia away from how the sources treat the topic, which is against the WP:V and WP:NPOV policies. More generally: There are massive differences between the situation of someone who died, say, a couple of years ago, and lived in a cultural context much like 2021's, and someone who died centuries ago. Any proposed changes must account for this. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:02, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Another "moving part": many comments above deal with when to include (mention) a deadname, but it'd be desirable to also have consensus on which name to use as the primary name in the text of the main biography or other articles, right? Obvious options include "do the same as with living people / use the chosen name" or "use the name that's most common in RS written after the name change" (borrowing some language / ideas from WP:COMMONNAME). These might not match if e.g. a person transitions after their main period of notability has passed and gets only a little (but some) attention from RS post-transition. Is this too many moving parts to ask about in one RfC? I mean, the RfCs which updated the guidance about living people were, well, RfCs, plural. -sche (talk) 18:24, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I fully support the layout of the RfC as suggested by -sche above' with the necessary adjustments for time (could this be done by second simple 'poll' rfc with options like after one year, 5 years, 30 years and never). In general I support the change intially suggested by RoxySaunders above, that the beginning of MOS:DEADNAME should be simply changed by replacing "living" from the first sentence with all, so the guidance covers all transgender subjects who were not notable under their former name. I see no reason why folks in death should be treated any differently as in life (especially as soon as they drop) It is that simple. It makes no difference if the most reliable media mention the persons deadname after death, if that person was not notable under the deadname it should not be used, we do have higher standards than the press. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 20:56, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I would oppose removing “living”. Blueboar (talk) 21:05, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Simply why? This rule change relates only to those who were never notable under the Deadname. Why does the fact of their death make it suddenly OK broadcast their Deadname. If the existing rule protects and respects people while they live, it seems logical to me to extend the cover to include the deceased ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 00:01, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I can see how mentioning a living person’s deadname can cause that person emotional (and perhaps even physical) harm, But what harm are we protecting a dead person from? Blueboar (talk) 00:36, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

^{Its goes beyond the very realistic health and real physical assault issues, it is also respecting the person as a human being, plus what about that persons loved ones after death. After all MOS:DEADNAME states Treat the pre-notability name as a privacy interest separate from (and often greater than) the person's current name. And guided by WP:BLPPRIVACY says regards People who are relatively unknown we should include only material that is directly relevant to the person's notability, which a Deadname is highly unlikely to be. ~ BOD ~ TALK 11:28, 21 July 2021 (UTC)} edited ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 12:20, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

The way I would view it (as I mentioned above) is that we don't want to be digging up any old names (not just trans, but pre-marriage, etc.) used by any individual (living or dead) if the quality reliable sourcing is not there for it. WP should not be the "first publisher" of such material, and in such cases, by normalizing it across the board, we should only be repeating that old name if we have a wealth of sources that connect the old name to the new one. Eg in the case of Sophie above, it is very very easy to find the birth name in a wealth of good RSes prior to and after death, and while she may not have been WP:N-notable under that name, its clear that these sources readily make the connection. As a counter example, Dana Simpson before transition went by D.C. Simpson, and while you can hunt and peck for what the D stood for before transitioning, it is very much not wildly published nor connected with the Dana named ("D.C." is only because of previous works published under that). So here's a case that if we strove to include that birth name, we'd be digging up dirt as WP, and that's complete what DEADLINE and other BLP (or even WP:V) policy is meant to stop us doing. The only factor to consider when it comes to dead individuals is that future publications (of quality RS) may be more bold to publish a birth name or other names as more research about the person's life is done. The case around Billy Tipton seems to be such an example. But again, using the same manta that WP should not be the first major publishers of these and should only reflect quality RSes if they publish and connect these names, then we have a nice consistent principle that works great not only for living transgender people, but for deceased ones, and any other situation where one does not keep their birth name for reasons. I know DEADNAME is designed to be tailored around transgender because of sensitivity specifically on bringing up those names, but the principle easily applies across the board. --Masem (t) 00:56, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I think that is a very good and proper starting point for all BLPs. I would still argue for the extension of MOS:DEADNAME to specifically cover "all" Trans folks who were never WP notable under their deadname. And if MOS:DEADNAME currently guides us regards living subjects that we do not include their deadnames even if reliable sourcing exists, I do not see why that rule should not also apply equally to the deceased (especially the recently deceased). ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 11:28, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

As a hypothetical, take the case of a living person who for all purposed never merited any type of news coverage, period; they then had their transition, and sometime after that, they became an important icon in activism or similar, and their life became the subject of review, which included the transition, and thus we have ready publication of their deadname at this point in multiple high quality sources like the NYTimes or BBC. We aren't digging up that name, and if that name is nearly unavoidable in the media, then it seems rather silly for us to hide it (but as I mentioned above, we can be certain to minimize its usage to likely one mention at most). But that determination should be made on a source review for frequently and quality. There are living people that are trans that have kept their deadname out of subsequent media coverage, but where we have internet troll boards like Kiwi Farms and others do all this research to find out the deadname and try to get that picked up in various outlets , and some sources of lesser reliability might fall for that. So while that may be a case where the deadname can be found without little difficulty, the quality of the sources cover it would be something to stay away from. Whenever we are talking about including a deadname or birth name or other similar case, living or dead, we always should approach that there needs to be a minimum threshold of quality sourcing (reliability of the sources and the number reporting it) to support the inclusion, and err to omission if that threshold is not clearly met. --Masem (t) 12:13, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I think it leaves the situation slighly vague, future editors will disagree about quality of sources and whether enough reliable secondary sources cover the deadname etc. Surely the argument about the RSP availability of the person's deadname in the RSPs could have been used in respect of living trans individuals, that is why the rule clearly states that we do not include their deadnames even if reliable sourcing exists. It gives the editor clear unambiguous guidance. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 12:45, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm going to dig my heels in a bit here, partly because I see the discussion polarizing more than I think is useful. I cannot support the extreme position, "just treat all deadnames of dead people the same as living people" because there is a whole category of notable lives - people who became known as Trans, or even became known at all, only through scholarship post mortem - to whom the "only deadnames by which they were Notable at the time" principle doesn't work because there was no "media"-style coverage contributing to their post mortem notability".

On the other hand, I am equally unable to support the other extreme position, that some point (2 years?) after death, DEADNAME ceases to apply at all and all birth names should be included as a matter of encyclopaedic routine. This seems callous to me both in its treatment of the deceased and in its effect on living Trans people. So I think we need some recognition on policy that some of our subjects are notable because of recent, reliable post mortem scholarship. For them, we should follow MOS:GENDERID for their gender identity, as far as the evidence allows, should respect their last chosen name to the extent that we can, but should be able to follow high-quality scholarship in instances where it consistently or prominently features the deadnames of these long-dead individuals (but not do so when high-quality sources do not). That isn't a formal proposal, but it's where I come down. Newimpartial (talk) 13:33, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I think that is where El Millo recommendation below of a fixed year say 1920 or a fixed period that is a respectful period say 100 years from the death of a subject might be a possible compromise for the two sides you present. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 14:20, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree we don't want the case that when the proverbial WP:BRD period is up at 2 years, we should have people swooping in to fill in deadnames just because they can show WP:V-appropriate sourcing. But I completely disagree that talking about waiting over 100 years after dead to include deadnames is beyond the scope of what BLP itself implies. Again, I stress that our approach should start with the default "don't include deadnames" but consider only adding them if the threshold of "notability before transition" (eg the Caitlyn Jenner/Elliot Page situation), or if there is clear support recognizing the deadname in multiple high quality reliable media (the Sophie case here). All this on the basis that if that information can be easily found and confirmed by a a brief, simple Google search in multiple sources , we aren't violating any privacy that wasn't already broken by the high quality media. And this is rule that readily applies to the living and deceased, and with the assumption that if that sourcing doesn't exist at the time of the deceased' passing (including the obits in their wake), its likely not going to appear for several years after the fact, and surpassing the BRD period, and thus effectively meeting the same goal. I'm all for keeping the non-notable or not-well discussed deadnames out of articles, that is core to BLP privacy issues, and the threshold to treat an individual differently must be rather high and stringent based on established sourcing. Just that we shouldn't be fearing privacy issues when that deadname is used frequently in our best quality sources. --Masem (t) 20:15, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree with you regards Jenner and Page, deceased subject who was clearly famous/notable under their Deadname and

MOS:DEADNAME A living transgender or non-binary person's former name should be included in the lead sentence of their main biographical article only if they were notable under it; introduce the name with "born" or "formerly"

If we are talking soley about a deceased transgender or non-binary person who was not notable under a former name (a deadname), i still disagree the argument where "if there is clear support recognizing the deadname in multiple high quality reliable media...information can be easily found and confirmed by a a brief, simple Google search in multiple sources" surely the same argument of a multitude RSPs deadnaming the deceased person could have been aimed at the living transgender or non-binary person (though now against the MOS:Deadme protection), the community decided that it "should not be included in any page" , even if reliable sourcing exists for their deadname. We can discuss what reasonably qualifies a respectful time period when the protection might come to an end. I am simply arguing for consistency with the MOS:Deadname guidance. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 22:56, 21 July 2021 (UTC)edited ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 23:05, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I continue to disagree with this in certain cases. If we have someone from the 17th or the 19th century, who was not Notable at the time under any name but who was studied over the last few decades because of their queer gender expression, I don't think it makes sense then to leave out the deadname "because they weren't Notable with it at the time" - in such a case that seems entirely irrelevant to me. We should follow our own rules for GENDERID and COMMONNAME, but after that I think we should include the deadname as well if it is preponderant in the highest-quality sources for that individual. My argument isn't "it's in other sources so readers can find it anyway"; rather, it is "if the highest-quality sources do this in these cases, where the risk of harm to anyone is minimal and the benefit of suppressing the name uncertain at best, then in those cases it seems the right thing to do." Newimpartial (talk) 23:13, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

What I said above agrees with you regards historically notable persons, the only thing we need to establish is the length of time that reasonably qualifies as a respectful and necessary time period for the protection to cease. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 23:53, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps, if not for every trans person given the James Barry (surgeon) example given by Crossroads, we could set a starting period, instead of having it be a certain time after the person's death, it could be set for people dead before a certain year, e.g. before 1900, before 1920, or something like that. —El Millo (talk) 00:19, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

That would a far easier & clear guidance for editors to understand, better than my simple time intervals I suggestion. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 00:26, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I like this idea. It still leaves us without guidance on people who died before that year, but maybe that's fine, since that's a small percent of cases and handling them case-by-case isn't necessarily a bad idea. Trying to think of how to write an RfC such that the language to be changed in the guideline is obvious (so we don't need umpteen separate discussions like we did with the last RfCs, hah) ... and using "1920" as a cutoff since it was suggested and is approximately a hundred years ago and approximately when the word transsexual was coined and thus a time when the 'modern' era could be considered to start ... what about:

"Under what conditions should pre-transition names of deceased transgender people be included?
A: For any transgender or non-binary person who died after 1920, include a pre-transition name only if the person was notable under that name, i.e. where MOS:DEADNAME currently says "a living transgender or non-binary person", change this to "a living transgender or non-binary person, or one who died after 1920".
B: For any transgender or non-binary person, include a pre-transition name only if the person was notable under that name: where MOS:DEADNAME currently says "a living transgender or non-binary person", change this to "a transgender or non-binary person".
C: For deceased transgender or non-binary people, include a pre-transition name if it is documented by reliable sources."

Do people actually want B to be an option or does A satisfy most people who would want B? Should C be expanded with some guidance on which name to use as the primary name? (I could even foresee splitting it into two options, one for "include deadname, use chosen name as primary" and one for "include deadname, use most common name as primary".) Is any obvious option missing? Does anyone really want "apply the current rules for X number of years after death" as an option separate from "apply the current rules for anyone who died after year X"? Should C incorporate recognition that BLP continues to apply to recently-deceased people for a while, to prevent "ghoulish" immediate edits like the one OP brought up, so changes to articls can be more thought out? -sche (talk) 01:32, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Ummmm, I really do hate to raise complications, but the "C" option above proposes answers to questions - like on what basis former names should be included - that also arise if there is a date cutoff, but which "A" does not address.

Maybe it would be better to ask whether or not to extend the current DEADNAME provisions back to the beginning of time, back to 1920, or not at all, and then as a later step ask how to handle the earlier deadnames: whether to treat the chosen name as the COMMONNAME, whether the threshold for including the deadname is straight-up Verifiability or a higher standard, etc. It seems to me that deciding between 2 and 100 years (and infinity) for the current DEADNAME provisions might be the easiest part, without raising secondary questions: for example, the "ghoulish" provisions are only relevant if people reject any extension of DEADNAME provisions outside BLPs. Newimpartial(talk) 01:43, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Simplifying it for a first Rfc is a good idea. First we decide on this, then on how to treat those not covered by DEADNAME, if any. —El Millo (talk) 02:29, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

That's a tempting idea. (I even considered suggesting it in my comment above.) My concern is that any RfC on this topic seems likely to become big and long and heated, and if it ends in no consensus and then having to run another RfC on a different kind of options, when we could theoretically discuss a full "suite" of options from the start, then that's ... likely to be draining. However, I can see the benefits to splitting the issue into separate, "simpler" questions. -sche (talk) 04:15, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Reply to Newimpartial surely the basis for whether former names may be included - that arise after a cut off period date (A), would be the same as option (C). Currently the mininium requirement for names not prohibited by MOS:DEADNAME is that they are verified by reliable sources. I do however think it would be desireable to have a built in/pre notified second RfC to decide the threshold for including the deceased's deadname once the agreed time period is up, whether it is straight-up Verifiability or a higher standard. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 08:20, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Just to be clear: I was talking about the scenario where there would be a date cutoff (e.g., people who died before 1920), and the threshold for including a deadname in articles for people who died before that date. The lowest possible threshold for inclusion would be Verifiability, but a number of other thresholds have been proposed in this discussion. The draft option C above mentioned one such threshold, but if A were to pass then any votes for C would not play any role in setting the threshold in the guideline. Which is why I think it should be a separate decision - personally, I favor "the practice of the best sources" in these cases, which is a much higher standard than Verifiability, but the question hasn't been put to the community and probably shouldn't be, until there is a decision about the date cutoff. Newimpartial (talk) 14:22, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I think B is desirable out of compleletness, some editors might wish to have that option as others wish for the other extreme of position C. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 08:20, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Seperately would it be too confusing if we had 4th option similar to A but for a shorter length of time. Pre deciding that what that shorter time period might be tricky/contenious, but the is no harm to us for trying. I would suggest a generation 25 years or two generations 50? ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 08:20, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I could support a “not right away” rule… but not one with a set number of years. So much depends on the sources and the specific history of the individual in question. No matter where we draw the line (One year, 10 years, 200 years) there are going to be too many situations where we would have to make an exception… and in both directions (ie situations where it makes sense to mention the deadname before the “cutoff” date… and situations where it makes sense to wait a longer period, or to never mention the deadname at all). It simply has to be done on a case by case basis. Blueboar (talk) 13:26, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I would still recommend that even if treated case by case, a first point of reference should always be WP:BRD here - this would establish that rushing to include the deadname if it wasn't included before as soon as the person's death is confirmed is pretty much against WP's BLP treatment, but that if 2+ years down the road, that deadname is well-backed by sources, then the reasons to exclude start to wane. There could be easily valid reasons to not include after 2 years, such as if the person's trans status was an object of ridicule by darker forums of the Internet, and thus not including the deadname would be a reasonable step, but that's also a factor built into BRD. We don't need a hard timeframe as long as we defer to both the principle of BRD and that we are judging appropriateness of inclusion by the frequently and quality of sources that do provide WP:V-meeting confirmation of the deadname --Masem (t) 13:55, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

For Masem and Blueboar: do we really think the cases are so heterogeneous that a distinction between, as proposed, those who died before 1920 and those who died more recently doesn't capture the main principles? Certainly the problems I had with applying MOS:DEADNAME to the beginning of time are highly concentrated along those who died before 1920, to the extent that I don't have any problem with excluding them from the BLP DEADNAME rule and coming up with new guidance for them. At the same time, I see much benefit and very little harm to be done by extending deadname protections developed for BLPs to those who died since 1920. It really doesn't seem very complicated to me at this point. Newimpartial (talk) 14:29, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm proposing a KISS-style scheme that would apply to any prior name situation, which would include deadnames along with pre-marriage names, etc. and regardless if they are living or deceased. We go by if that prior name is well-established and routinely connected to the current name in the high quality sources we expect for a BLP or any bio - to a point where it is very easy to discover that prior name with simply google searching - then we should include it, as omission of readily-available, WP:V-meeting information from multiple quality sources would look very odd for WP. As I've said, we should be establishing a policy that it should not be up to WP editors to dig up these names from few sources or weak/non-RSes (including all the caveats from primary sources per BLP), and that's generally how the current DEADNAME intent reads, but the situation can be easily kept to a simple concept applying to living/dead and any other name factor by assuring a volume of quality sources exists to back it up, as if that volume does exist, the privacy issues are out the door.

How that name is woven into the article would require a bit of different care depending on the case - for a trans individual, if they weren't notable under that name at all, then very much so its not something to put in the lede but mention once in the body, whereas for your Caitlyn Jenners and Elliot Pages, that former name should be a lede term due to prior notability, and in either case, minimizing its usage as necessary to one or two mentions. --Masem (t) 14:57, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I can’t speak to “we”… but I do think applying a fixed date (any date) would be problematic. A one-size-fits-all approach is not the way to go. I totally agree with the idea of “respect the subject’s privacy”… but that respect has to be tempered by our job as encyclopedists. There are too many variables (sourcing, the history of the individual in question, etc.) for any one-size-fits-all rule on DEADNAMING to work. For some, we should mention their deadname while they live… for others, we should do so soon after they die… for yet others we should wait longer… for yet others we should never mention it. When (and how) depends on a host of complexities that are subject specific. Blueboar (talk) 15:37, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I think maybe some of us are simply arguing for RfC options ahead of the RfC, and i do not think our positions are shifting. Maybe we should proceed to open minedly agreeing to the RfC's wording. I have changed -sche suggested order (apologies but I think it works better) but how about:

Under what conditions should pre-transition names of deceased transgender people be included?

ONE
1A: For deceased transgender or non-binary people, include a pre-transition name if it is documented by reliable sources. (I think this is the current situation but I am also sure (know) that I am missing something in Newimpartial explanation)

1B: For any transgender or non-binary person who died after 1920, include a pre-transition name only if the person was notable under that name, i.e. where MOS:DEADNAME currently says "a living transgender or non-binary person", change this to "a living transgender or non-binary person, or one who died after 1920".

1C: For any transgender or non-binary person, include a pre-transition name only if the person was notable under that name: where MOS:DEADNAME currently says "a living transgender or non-binary person", change this to "a transgender or non-binary person". (A simple continuation of MOS:DEADNAME)

TWO
2A: Where inclusion of the Deadname is permitted under options 1A and 1B above the test for inclusion is the standard RSP Verifiability

2B: Where inclusion of the Deadname is permitted under options 1A and 1B above the test for inclusion is the higher test of "the practice of the best sources" ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 16:08, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Sigh, I could not !vote for ANY of these (my opinion falls somewhere between 1A and 1B… and I don’t see the point of a 1920 cut-off date.) What I could support would be something that extends DEADNAME to the recently deceased (without a firm timeframe)… Yet also says that exceptions can be made on a case by case basis depending on a) the depth and quality of the sources discussing the subject under the pre-transition name, and b) the length of time since they died. Not sure how to word that into a snappy “option” for the RFC. Blueboar (talk) 19:31, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Regards a 'snappy' Option D ~ I strongly believe any time frame in an option ought to be longer than the recently deceased. It about respecting the person as a human being, plus privacy and protection of the subjects family after death. After all MOS:DEADNAME states Treat the pre-notability name as a privacy interest separate from (and often greater than) the person's current name. I would suggest a generation 25 years at a mininium (or two generations 50?) (my personal vote probably differs). I fear that an unclear time frame might lead to endless arguments in articles, plus an equal number of arguments about who qualifies as an exception. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 20:01, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I respect that this is how you feel, but if you don’t include options you disagree with, you are intentionally skewing the RFC. Blueboar (talk) 20:29, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Recently deceased is far too ambiguous. That could easily range from a couple months to ten years depending on who reads it. —El Millo (talk) 20:31, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

"Recently deceased" is specifically defined by WP:BDB - at least 6 months but may be up to two years depending on the nature of the person. --Masem (t) 20:42, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I think you mean WP:BDP, but if it is somewhat clearly defined as six months, one year, two years at the outside there, then it is appropriate as an option to include here. —El Millo (talk) 20:53, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Respectfully hang on :) I have in the proposal added at least one option I strongly disagree with and I am made it clear I am open to fourth option of a fixed period after death. Though I would have gone for a longer period, I am happy to follow a majority decision. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 22:07, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

@Bodney re "I think this is the current situation": as the non-inclusion of such names in some articles (Sophie's was cited above) shows, the current situation is that such names are neither mandated nor forbidden, there's no guidance one way or the other, and people debate it case-by-case, so 1A would respresent a major change to mandating inclusion of such names (seemingly even for very recently deceased people). This doesn't mean it shouldn't be listed—I listed it myself in my earlier drafts—just that it's not the current situation, it's a major change. -sche (talk) 21:55, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Replying to -sche Though the discussion has possibly moved on ...I happy for corrections and improvements. I accept I may be mistaken. I thought 1a reflected the situation were such names are neither mandated nor forbidden. (I personally think the Sophies case is not helpful as it is debateable if she was notable and verified as such in the reliable media before her transition (then mentioning her deadname would be allowed, under the current rule.)) ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 23:47, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

If people want "extend DEADNAME to recently deceased people only" as an option, then it should be listed, but FWIW it's clear from the discussion above that "continue to have no guidance on what to do in almost all cases" ("continue to have no guidance on what to do after 6-24 months") doesn't actually resolve (almost any of) the issue this thread is about. -sche (talk) 22:07, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't disagree with either comment by -sche here, I think, but I would like to make things a bit more painfully clear if I can. Three points.

1) the status quo, as I understand it, is no guidance for deadnames for the standard BLP after death; current DEADNAME provisions apply after the usual BLP period (potentially up to 2 years). I want to nail this down because I see what appears to be confusion about both where the status quo line is and what principle applies on the other side of the line (which is no guidance, "The Wild West", at least as I see it).

2) I think the second barrel of the question (criteria where the current DEADNAME standard does not apply) should be decided only after the community has decided to have, or not to have, a cut-off other than the BLP threshold. This includes any decision to extend the application of the current Notability-based metric, whether using an unmoving date like 1920 or a movable feast like 25 or 50 years after death. I say this because, for me at least, the guidance to offer regarding all deadnames where the subject is more than 10 years dead would be very different from the guidance for all subjects deceased before 1920.

3) Aside from the Notability-based DEADNAME principle, I understand people here to have discussed at least three alternative lower thresholds. From most inclusive to most restrictive, they are: (1) sheer Verifiability of the deadname (2) inclusion of the deadname in (independent) Reliable Sources, and (3) use of the deadname in the best RS available, or as a best practice in those sources more generally. As an example of this last idea, if we have five articles on civil war-era people who adopted a gender expression contrasting with their assigned sex, and the three with recent academic biographies all have their deadnames treated in one way, we might be best off to follow that practice also for the two without sources of the same quality (or recency).

And no, I am not insisting that my preferred option appear in a second !vote (or a first). But I do want anyone trying to draw up a possible RfC to recognize the actual issues that have been raised by participants - and not primarily by me - thus far. Newimpartial (talk) 23:55, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Blunter questions - Deadname after death

If we want to limit the initial question to just three options, then I would suggest:

1. The protections and limitations spelled out in WP:DEADNAME end when the subject dies.
2. The protections and limitations spelled out in WP:DEADNAME continue indefinitely.
3. The protections and limitations spelled out in WP:DEADNAME fade over time (details to be determined as a second phase if this option gains consensus).

I think this captures the essence of the question, without trying to nudge the responders into a predetermined answer. Blueboar (talk) 22:07, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Well, I have some reservations about this formulation. The first option seems misstated, since BLP provisions in general do not end when the subject dies, but some time after.

Also, I don't think everyone with serious reservations about 1) or 2) agrees that the protections should fade over time. In particular, the idea of a fixed cut-off, like 1920, doesn't imply that anything would "fade over time" - older biographies would be treated one way, and newer ones another, but the line would not move. So the idea of "fading over time" is not clearly the one relevant third option, IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 23:06, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

We could do:

1) WP:DEADNAME is treated as anything else regarding BLPs, i.e. continues for the recently deceased

2) WP:DEADNAME continues indefinitely

3) 1) to those dead before X year and 2) for those dead after X year —El Millo (talk) 23:37, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Sigh… I don’t think we are going to be able to hold an RFC… we can’t even agree on what the fundamental question should be. Blueboar (talk) 23:56, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

El Millo, please see what I have written above. I think we have to first answer the question, should the current deadname provisions be extended beyond the recent BLP period, either (1) to the beginning of time, (2) to those who have died since 1920, or (3) not at all. Only then do I think we could meaningfully discuss what guidance to offer (if any) for deadnames of those where the Notability-based rules do not apply. Newimpartial (talk) 00:00, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Why not have four straight options regards the length of time, (wording to be improved) option A4 might lead to another RfC..

Poll A

A1) WP:DEADNAME is treated as anything else regarding BLPs, i.e. continues for the recently deceased

A2) WP:DEADNAME applies in perpetuity

• A3) WP:DEADNAME applies to those who died after 1920
• A4) WP:DEADNAME applies until 25 or 50 years after death

After that maybe have a seperate RfC regards the verifiability of the deadname. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 00:36, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Having 4(-5) options makes it harder for the closer, but I'm ok with that formulation of the question if it reflects what people want to ask. Newimpartial (talk) 00:52, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

I should have made it clear that I am open to any changes, espicially the date in A3 and the length of time in Option 4A. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 01:00, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate Blueboar's insight into what the three basic options under discussion are (even if the phrasing had issues as noted above), and insight that putting off deciding how long to continue applying DEADNAME (past any "recently deceased" period) until a second RfC could allow for a clearer picture of what the general consensus is than running an up/down ~vote on a specific cutoff or running multiple competing cutoffs, even if it means more work/time/RfCs are needed to arrive at guidelines. For wording, might I suggest something like "Should MOS:DEADNAME guidelines about pre-transition names:
A) apply only to living (and, to the extent indicated by WP:BLP, recently deceased) transgender and non-binary people,
B) apply to all transgender and non-binary people (living or deceased),
C) apply to all transgender and non-binary people from the modern era, timeframe to be determined by a later RfC (for example, those who died after 1920, or 1965).
Guidelines for cases not covered by MOS:DEADNAME may be discussed in a later RfC." -sche (talk) 02:30, 23 July 2021 (UTC) tweaked slightly -sche (talk) 05:50, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Support: For my part, I am OK with this. This gradual approach does help us move forward towards a clear decision. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 09:25, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

I still would request a “fades over time” option with no dates. Anyway… ping me when/if this goes live to the community. Blueboar (talk) 12:14, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

To clarify, do you want an option for fading it out after a period greater than the 6-24 month WP:BLP fade-out period of "recently deceased" (as in A), but shorter (or longer?) than C would cover? And/or do you want an option that, even after it's made more precise by the follow-up RfC that your wording (and my option B) calls for, "fades out" as a gradual thing rather than at a defined cutoff? (So editors could discuss for each article whether the guideline had faded out or not...? Is that different from what editors are doing now, discussing for each article whether the practices the guideline prescribes should be applied?) -sche (talk) 06:37, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

No set time… base the fade out on sources not time. Blueboar (talk) 12:09, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

There are things I like about this, but the problem I have with it is that it assumes deadnames will gradually establish themselves in sources over time. But what actually seems to happen is much more aleatoric - sometimes there is a wave of deadname publication in obituaries (which we don't register at the time due to the slow sunset of our BLP rules), and then the deadname may actually be less present in the references that follow. Or in the case if longer-dead people, there may be a wave of publications using (not just mentioning) the deadname in one decade, followed by another wave in which the deadname is scarcely mentioned. So, much love as I have for long-term equilibria, I don't really see how fade out provisions based on the sources would work. Newimpartial (talk) 13:19, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Comment I am in favor of having the MOS:DEADNAME exclusion stop applying after a certain amount of time. I am concerned about carving out a special protection for a certain class of people. Would we never include a birth name for an African-American who has changed her or his name to something other than than the last name inherited from a slave owner who raped a woman ancestor? What about the person who was sexually abused by a parent who changed their last name before fame so as not to be associated with that parent? Or what about partner in an abusive marriage who divorced then later became notable — should we never mention that particular married name? I think that in all cases we should mention a birth name / DEADNAME after a reasonable & respectful amount of time has passed, & that we should grandmother in historical biographies. Peaceray (talk) 04:27, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

The boat for carving out a special protection for a certain class of people sailed some time ago - the names of trans people are treated differently than other changed names. The question is what the scope of this special protection ought to be, not whether it should exist. Newimpartial (talk) 04:35, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

As I wrote, I think that MOS:DEADNAME should cease to apply after a reasonable & respectful amount of time has passed, & that we should grandmother in historical biographies. Peaceray (talk) 05:07, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

This is true, but the reason for that has always had to do with BLP, due to the potential for harm to specific living individuals. To extend this carveout from the threshold for all other information (WP:V+WP:DUE) from living to dead people (beyond the standard WP:BDP period) is entirely novel. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:34, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

I am still in favor (but this would complicate any RFC) of a "past name" policy that incorporates not only deadnames of trans individuals but also pre-marriage names, immigrant name changes, etc. that works equivalently on when we would include a past name, though obviously, the care in how that is presented in context in the case of a trans individual is unique to those situations because of the clear identity issue. I think that when DEADNAME was proposed, the sole focus was entirely on living trans individuals, and there wasn't much thought put to deceased or other cases, but when you look at all aspects combined, it makes a lot of sense. --Masem (t) 13:47, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Forgive me as a latecomer who doesn't want to wade through every point in this, but the main concern that I have with the blanket descriptions here is that they assume that every trans person has the same relationship to their former name, which is not the case. That the name is "dead" may make a fine default assumption, but there are some trans people who are open about and comfortable with discussing their former name -- mentioning it in autobiographical articles, for example. It would seem silly to treat as "private" something that they were not private about, even if it was not a name that they gained any fame under. As such, some unless they expressed comfort with the sharing of their prior name exception may be called for. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:50, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I've only just seen this discussion, and while I've read most of it I may have missed something, but I don't understand why applying MOS:GENDERID to the recently deceased is even being discussed? WP:BDP applies to trans and non-binary people in exactly the same way it applies to cisgender people with no exceptions, so it's already implicit in the policy. Thryduulf (talk) 10:54, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Proposal for language derived from BLP

Apply the same standards BLP applies to all privacy matters: we should just do what we already have a policy telling us to do, not try to make up more WP:CREEP. And we are not in a position to anachronistically impose labelling and standards relating to modern transgender/nonbinary people to persons who pre-date the existence of those social concepts and terms and the expectations that have arisen recently around them. From BLP's lead: "Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." This is clearly applicable (under "questionable") to deadnaming in iffy cases, and in particular whether someone's former name was well-publicized enough in independent reliable sources for inclusion here.

• We can even borrow language directly from WP:BLP1E: "This guideline should be applied only to biographies of living people, or those who have recently died."; and then cross-reference to WP:BDP (§ Recently dead or probably dead).
• If more detail is wanted, the material at WP:BDP can be easily adapted, too, and used as a foonote here, e.g.: "This guideline does not apply to material concerning people who are confirmed dead by reliable sources, or who were not born within the past 115 years (on or after 10 November 1909 []). The only exception would be for people who have recently died, in which case the guideline can extend based on editorial consensus for an indeterminate period beyond the date of death – six months, one year, two years at the outside. Such extensions would only apply particularly to contentious or questionable cases."

No one sensible is going to imply "contention" or "question" about a case like Jenner or Page (very notable under former name), nor imply that former less notable names are not "contentious or questionable" (since they are being contended and questioned, QED), so this translates to an automatic 6-month-to-2-year grace period (determined by editorial consensus on a case-by-case basis – the way we prefer to do things), unless RS reportage of the former name is so overwhelmingly common that WP not including it will be pointless (i.e., it does not trigger the main BLP redflag of "material ... that is unsourced or poorly sourced"). And it rules out mis-applying MOS:DEADNAME to 19th-century subjects. I was here for the entire breadth of the evolution of MOS:DEADNAME and I know that it was not intended to cover such subjects.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:06, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

• This sounds very reasonable. The thread here is quickly becoming very unwieldy, so I'd encourage someone (preferably an admin or another respected editor known for their ability to write neutral RfCs) to put an archive box around everything so far and move to an RfC so we can !vote. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:57, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
• I am not seeing the relevance of this proposal, particularly since many provisions of MOS:GENDERID (the provisions not related to former names from before the "merger" of DEADNAME and GENDERID) are not restricted to BLP subjects, so this change would suddenly reduce the guidance currently given to editors on GENDERID-related issues. Newimpartial (talk) 17:50, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Proposals?

The wall of discussion is all well and good, but could we collect a short list of concise proposals here? Is it as simple as current wording vs taking out "living"? I doubt it. Dicklyon (talk) 17:34, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

RfC Proposal - I believe that at least three options have been promoted here, concerning the scope of the current provisions about the former names of teams people:

A - remove "living" from the existing language; this would extend the current restrictions on including former names to all deceased trans people.

B - add "or trans people who died after 1920" after "living trans people"; this would extend the current provisions back to a fixed point in the past.

C - no change to the current language; this would maintain the status quo where there is no guidance on the inclusion of former names after BLP provisions expire.

If option B or C is chosen at RfC, then there could be a second discussion about whether there should be additional guidance on how and when to include former names of deceased trans people before the cutoff.

Some editors have suggested alternatives that could be a better option B, such as 25 or 50 years after a person's death, but I don't think any have received as much support in the above discussion as the fixed 1920 cutoff (which does have the virtues of clarity and a fairly consistent rationale). Newimpartial (talk) 17:47, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate the potential need for two RFCs, but I think the proposed order is backward. The more general question is "What standard should apply to deadnaming dead people?", with "Extend the same protections developed for living people," being only one possible answer. My concern is that this approach would entrench editors with a general opposition to extending BLP-based guidance beyond the living and recently deceased into supporting option C, and when the second RFC comes around, it will be difficult to get consensus for any kind of guidance at all.--Trystan (talk) 18:52, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Well, I come at this the other way. The editors who launched thus discussion tended to support Option A, more or less. If the community prefers the status quo (option C) when it comes to the application of strict rules from MOS:DEADNAME, participants in the "well then what should we do?" discussion may have more incentive to discuss principles and best practices. The discussion above has tended towards A and C positions, and I think the fundamental approach needs to be hashed out before we can hash out constructive guidance. In other words, I think it would be harder to discuss guidance first, because people at each end of the spectrum may simply feel they are "right". Newimpartial (talk) 19:00, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I favour starting at the more general and then going to the specific. Pity we cant have top two and then elimination, but then we might still be discussing this in 2051. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 20:35, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

• For the sake of completeness, I think we need an option D: Explicitly state that DEADNAME provisions end upon or shortly after death.

Based on the discussions above, I doubt this would gain consensus, but it should be an option. Without it, the RFC appears non-neutrally weighted towards extending the provisions (in some way), and we need an option for those who don’t want them extended (at all). Blueboar (talk) 19:25, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

The addition of Option D seems balanced and reasonable. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 20:35, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I liked the idea (proposed by Blueboar about a somewhat different option, but then discussed also in the context of having a cutoff date) of putting off deciding the specific date for the cutoff until another RfC, going from general to specific; I worry the "sample size" from which we're drawing the conclusion that 1920 had enough support to run with it as the one date may be small, and in a big RfC some editors may feel it's arbitrary ("why not 1919 or 1923?"); OTOH, I appreciate the desire to avoid splitting things any more RfCs than necessary. I think his suggestion of an option explicitly stating that protections end "shortly" (I would make reference to WP:BDP's "recently deceased") is also reasonable to list as an option. Regarding the point someone made further up that a very few trans people aren't opposed to their former names being mentioned: that's not a situation limited to dead people, and so the question of adding "...unless they are/were fine with their former name being mentioned" to the guideline is a separate question from whether the guideline on names should join the guideline on pronouns in covering some dead people, I'd say. -sche (talk) 20:48, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Just on the unless they are/were fine with their former name being mentioned, I would strongly prefer to see this provision decided in a completely separate proposal/RfC. I'm not opposed to some such thing in principle, but I have already seen this argument used to shoehorn in ILIKEIT content even where the preferences of the trans person in question were not clear, and even though the current MOS does not make any such allowances. So I would really hate to see a provision that could be used to undermine the wishes of living Trans people ("but what about that interview they gave in 2012?", I hear some editors saying) sneak into force on the back of an RfC that isn't declaredly about living Trans people at all. Newimpartial (talk) 21:58, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

By the way, we already have a provision for subjects who actually prefer the use of their former name and pronouns in former phases of their lives; I think this is more appropriate than a "being fine with it" provision, which seems readily susceptible to abuse. Newimpartial (talk) 13:43, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

NAME TRANSLATION in a foreign langage.

Hi, In what cases should we translate someone's name in a foreign langage ? Huda Kattan is American and was born in the Us, but in the lead sentence of her bio, her name is translated in Arab, is it correct ? Should we always do like that ? Indira333 (talk) 14:38, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Ah… you are asking about whether we should give a parenthetical translation in the lead sentence. It isn’t “wrong”… but it isn’t always necessary or appropriate. Translations like this are usually given when the subject is primarily known outside the English speaking world (in this case it would be if the subject is primarily known in the Arab speaking world). The idea is to help readers who have come across the name in a non-English script/language know that they have found the correct English language article.

So, the question is: how well known is this person (an American) in the Arabic speaking world? I don’t know the answer to that. Blueboar (talk) 15:15, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes that's what i was asking, thank you ! Indira333 (talk) 15:46, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

There is a tendency on WP to render names in other scripts when there is no useful purpose. I'm not sure whether Πέτρος "Πητ" Σάμπρας speaks or writes in Greek, nor whether any more is written ABOUT him in Greek that any other famous US tennis star. Similarly "علی سنبلی، <روانی> یا <راست افراطی's name was completely unknown in both Iran and Germany till this event, and we have no idea whether he could write his own name in Persian. I've come across other examples in Serbian and just about every script you can think of. As Blueboar implies, likely usefulness should be the criteria. Pincrete (talk) 11:28, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Capitalization of Secretary-general/Secretary-General?

The MoS says "Hyphenation and compounds: When hyphenated and capitalized, e.g. Vice-president (as it is usually spelled in contexts other than US politics), the element after the hyphen is not capitalized." So "Secretary-general" when capitalization is called for, right? But "Secretary-General" outnumbers "Secretary-general" 44 to 1. I hesitate to start fixing 11,000 articles, expecting a lot of pushback. Why is the MoS so out of line with actual usage? Chris the speller ^yack 03:17, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

No idea. But in this instance it is clear that capitalising both elements is the norm, especially when prefixing a name. It would look very weird otherwise (e.g. Lieutenant-general Sir John Smith). However, when not prefixing a name things are not so clear-cut. In the past it was more common to only capitalise the first element than it is today (although even then, very rarely when prefixing a name). -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:50, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

The general rule is to capitalize when it is a title or honorific, but not when it is simply a description - "Major-General John Doe is the commander..." but "John Doe is a major-general in the army..." Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:12, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Location of examples in MOS:DEADNAME

I boldly moved one of the examples in the MOS:DEADNAME section a paragraph down, to place it parallel to two related examples. All of the examples show lead sentences and when and when not to include deadnames, and so are best placed following the wording specific to lead sentences: "A living transgender or non-binary person's former name should be included in the lead sentence of their main biographical article only if they were notable under it.... That "only if" guidance should be reinforced by an example of where the name should not be included, not just where it should.

The edit was undone with the comment "Better to keep each example with the guideline text for the case it exemplifies." But the Cox example doesn't really exemplify the guidance of the previous paragraph, which is essentially "don't include a living person's non-notable deadname in any article, anywhere". There's no way we could provide a useful example for that guidance, given that it is a global prohibition. If anything, the specificity of the example text detracts from the universal application of the preceding guidance.--Trystan (talk) 14:06, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Obviously I don't agree, but would like to hear from other editors on this. Newimpartial (talk) 14:10, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't think we need an additional lead sentence example, and I do think we need a whole article example. I lean slightly toward agreeing with Trystan that using a lead sentence to illustrate the whole article rule is potentially confusing or detracting from the strength of the guidance. Could we try: "For example, Laverne Cox was not notable under her prior name, which should therefore not be used anywhere in her article or any others." Cox is a good example of a high-profile trans person without prior-name-notability. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:07, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I guess I am coming around; I would now support the addition of new Laverne Cox text to follow the first paragraph as an example, and the move of the existing Laverne Cox lead example to where Trystan had proposed. Newimpartial (talk) 15:14, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I think it simply works better to have the example next to the description, easier for the reader to understand. So no to moving bunching the examples together. It is much easier to get the difference across when the example is next to the explanation ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 18:21, 12 August 2021 (UTC) new text in italics ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 18:25, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I like the proposed text as well; it serves as a clearer example of the breadth of the principle expressed.--Trystan (talk) 13:25, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

RfC for use of peerage titles in lists and tables

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Discussion fizzled out a month ago without consensus. I will follow up with a specific proposal based on the discussion. DBD 10:15, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

---

Comment is invited as to whether the following established practice is compatible with guidelines and WP:MOS. Across a number of UK government (especially ministry lists such as First Johnson ministry) and parliament articles, peers are referred to in lists and tables by their full formal style and title, rather than by name. (See Talk:First Johnson ministry#MOS for listing current peers; and abortive RfC attempt at Talk:House of Lords#RfC for use of peerage titles in lists and tables.) DBD 10:27, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

• It would help if you could give an example… because I am not sure that there is an “established practice” - I have looked at articles on several historical ministries, and see multiple (different) stylings. Blueboar (talk) 11:02, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

  Examples: "The Rt Hon The Baroness Evans of Bowes Park PC" in First Johnson ministry (including embedded Template:Boris Johnson cabinet 1 vertical) and other recent ministry and shadow cabinet list articles (say, since 2001); "The Baroness Evans of Bowes Park" [21] DBD 13:29, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

• It's important in a list of cabinet secretaries and ministers to distinguish which are in the Lords and which are in the Commons. I would however change "The Baroness Evans of Bowes Park" to "Natalie Evans, Baroness Evans of Bowes Park" or "Natalie, Baroness Evans" or "Natalie, Lady Evans." Also, drop the "PC." Since everyone on the list is a PC, it makes no sense to include it for peers only. TFD (talk) 13:51, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• No, it is not compatible. MOS:SURNAME only allows nobility to be referred to solely by title on subsequent use, and deprecates that approach entirely for modern persons. We have a detailed guideline, WP:NCBRITPEER, designed to ensure that the titles of articles of British nobility are the most recognizable common name. I can think of no reason why that common name would not be what we use to identify that person on first mention in other articles. Piping the link to remove the name is not at all helpful to the reader. We have no obligation to conform to the official style of the British government for a particular context. This also sometimes comes up with respect to the royals (e.g., referring to the Princess Royal or the Earl of Wessex in an article purely by their titles and not their names). Keeping in mind we are writing for a global audience, and deliberately want to avoid in-group shibboleths, using the common name that forms the article title is almost always the most appropriate choice.--Trystan (talk) 15:38, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

  For one thing, ministers in the United Kingdom can come from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords (though nowadays from the lower house). Ministers drawn from the House of Lords may also have served in the Commons too: an example would be Zac Goldsmith. As we are indeed "writing for a global audience", it would not be clear to the reader that Goldsmith is a minister from the House of Lords: an important distinction. Sdrqaz (talk) 20:26, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

  Even the prime minister can come from the House of Lords. Though, that hasn't happened for quite some time :) GoodDay (talk) 20:44, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

  The last time was in 1963, when the 14th Earl of Home was appointed PM - he renounced his peerage four days later. You need to go right back to the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury to find the last PM who sat in the Lords throughout his term (1895–1902). Several PMs have been elevated to the the peerage, but since 1876 that has only happened after they left office for the last time - the last incumbent PM to be raised to the peerage was Benjamin Disraeli, who became the 1st Earl of Beaconsfield in 1876 and left office in 1880. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:08, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Sdrqaz: Quite right re: Goldsmith and other peers whose biographies are at their names alone. I agree that when it is necessary to make clear that they are a peer, their title should be included after the link. DBD 12:39, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Trystan: Thanks, I appreciate your focus on ease of access for a broad readership. In your last sentence, you touch on what I think is my main concern — that this practice has never been examined outside of a very small group of editors. This is the clear benefit of seeking wider comment. DBD 12:43, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

• Title shown or not, it helps to show the persons actual name. GoodDay (talk) 16:32, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• It is compatible – Titles are names, and always have been names in British society. When the majority of reliable news sources refer to someone as 'Baroness Evans of Bowes Park' without further qualification, then there are no grounds for saying that that is not a common name for that person. MOS:SURNAME only deprecates titles for modern persons in situations where there could be confusion, not completely, and furthermore, the specific instances we are talking about here are tables, not prose, so it is likely that these guidelines do not apply at all. The tables follow customary British style for ministry lists, and unless someone can think of a good reason to deviate from it, as it is found in reliable sources, we should not do so. More importantly, the tables serve to chronicle the style due to a person in the position that they are serving in the British government, and in this context, this is useful information for the reader. Finally, I must express my utmost opposition to the use of Wikipedia-invented styles like 'Natalie, Baroness Evans', the likes of which should not be used anywhere. We must, must follow reliable sources, lest we become the source of the proliferation of styles that do not actually exist. RGloucester — ☎ 20:23, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• Of course it's compatible, per above. Nothing whatsoever makes it incompatible with any guideline. Peers are invariably referred to in the media as Lord, Lady or Baroness So-and-So, not by their first names. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:00, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

  Note (this is included in the linked prior discussions): I had particularly in mind the MOS sections MOS:SURNAME and MOS:HON; as Trystan points out above, WP:NCBRITPEER is also relevant.

  MOS:HON begins "Honorifics and styles of nobility should normally be capitalized, e.g., Her Majesty, His Holiness. They are not usually used in running text, though some may be appropriate in the lead sentence of a biographical article, as detailed below, or in a section about the person's titles and styles."

  MOS:SURNAME para 4: "A member of the nobility may be referred to by title if that form of address would have been the customary way to refer to him or her; for example Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, may become the Earl of Leicester, the Earl, or just Leicester (if the context is clear enough) in subsequent mentions. For modern-day nobility it is better to use name and title; at some time in the future the Prince of Wales will be a different person than Charles, Prince of Wales, and a great many articles risk becoming out of date. Be careful not to give someone a title too soon; for example, one should use Robert Dudley or Dudley when describing events before his elevation to the peerage in 1564."

  In case these help further discussion. DBD 13:17, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

  We are not discussing the use of honorifics, except for in the narrow case of the ministry tables, which as specified are a section 'about a person's titles and styles' as relevant to their participation in the ministry. No one is suggesting using honorifics in running text. Again, on the point of MOS:SURNAME, the relevant section reads 'For modern-day nobility it is better to use name and title; at some time in the future the Prince of Wales will be a different person than Charles, Prince of Wales, and a great many articles risk becoming out of date', and this obviously does not apply to life peers, for whom there is no such possibility of confusion. In any case, as I said above, I do not think that this section, which is about running text, applies to tables, and specifically, to tables that are intended to display the styles and titles as they are accorded to a person who holds a specific position within the British government. RGloucester — ☎ 15:22, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

  I contend that none of the contexts we're talking about are "about a person's titles and styles", but about their rôle(s). You are correct that the guidelines as they stand don't mention tables nor lists; but I have put out this request for comment so that other users might comment. You and I have rehearsed this enough and this is to broaden the discussion. DBD 16:28, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

  What you don't seem to understand is that, in a British governmental context, 'role' can accord one a title or style, and vice-versa. Being made a privy councillor grants one the style of 'The Right Honourable' (and there are indeed occasions when cabinet members are not PCs, contrary to what was stated above), being given a peerage grants one the ability to sit in the government as a minister, &c. One might remember the recent creation of a peerage for Zac Goldsmith, which was noted in the media, given that he had just lost his seat in the Commons, and was made a peer specifically so he could continue to sit in government! Likewise, various titles and styles are awarded to people for their service in government, and these are also worthy of note in this context. This is the reason why British ministry lists, whether those found in Dods or on the British government website, always include titles and styles. This is not a matter of etiquette, courtesy or deference, as you have tried to claim, but rather a matter of informing the reader of a person's role and status within the ministry. I can understand why some contemporary persons have a disdain for noble titles and styles, and indeed, editors here from outwith Britain might view this matter as parochial. However, it is not Wikipedia's job to reform British society by diminishing the role these titles play in actual practice, and furthermore, to nullify them in a way that does not accord with common usage. We should reflect usage in reliable sources. RGloucester — ☎ 16:47, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

  You are trying to discredit me as some kind of iconoclast. That is ad hominem. The question is compatibility of practice with guidelines; and this is a Request for Comment, whose purpose is to gather more editors' insight, not to hear from the same editor many times, thank you. DBD 08:30, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

  I think the contentious issue here isn't about whether titles should be excluded, but about whether names should be included. I agree that titles are relevant to indicate the person's role and status within the ministry, but names are equally important to actually identify who the person is to the reader. For example, to explicitly indicate to the reader that Zac Goldsmith from the First Johnson ministry and The Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park from the Second Johnson ministry are in fact the same person. The ministry articles should convey such information clearly and explicitly to the reader, without requiring specialized knowledge or clicking every link in the article. Listing him as "The Right Honourable Zac Goldsmith, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park PC" achieves both goals, and can hardly be said to convey a revolutionary disdain for nobility. If we want to explicitly convey how he is listed in the official government list but still convey vital information to the reader, "The Right Honourable Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park PC (Zac Goldsmith)" would also work.--Trystan (talk) 14:52, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

  There is nothing inherently wrong with either of your two proposals, and I'm not opposed to using them. My objection is primarily to Wikipedia-invented styles like 'Zac, Lord Goldsmith'. However, I have to admit that I feel your proposal makes the names much longer without fair reason. I don't believe that titles, as commonly used in the media, are 'specialised knowledge'. See The Evening Standard, The Times, BBC. &c. Admittedly, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park is somewhat exceptional, in that he had substantial media coverage before elevation to the peerage, and also, there is another well-known Lord Goldsmith, making use of the short form of his title ambiguous. In the context of a ministry list, however, and specifically a table, I don't really understand the need for adding an additional name appendage, given that Wikipedia is WP:NOTPAPER, and hyperlinks are available. I don't think it is a burden to expect the few people who will be confused to click the hyperlink. RGloucester — ☎ 15:08, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

• It is compatible but shorter forms are usually best, per TFD above. Johnbod (talk) 17:08, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - Makes ya wonder, don't it? Is he Prime Minister Lamb or Prime Minister Melbourne. GoodDay (talk) 14:56, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

  He is 'Viscount Melbourne' in every book I've read on the subject (and definitely not 'Prime Minister Melbourne', which is an Americanised form). RGloucester — ☎ 15:10, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

  My point is though, which is his surname? His family name, or his title? What's best to use, across the 'pedia. GoodDay (talk) 15:19, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

  His common name is 'Viscount Melbourne'/'Lord Melbourne', and he should be referred to as such (he can also be referred to as just 'Melbourne' after he has been first introduced). There is no reason to be so attached to the modern (and 'Americanised') idea of an essentialised surname. As I said above, titles have always, always been used as names in British society. RGloucester — ☎ 15:22, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

  RGlouchester has it correct: use “Lord X” / “Lady Y” / “Viscount Z”, as this is common usage. Blueboar (talk) 16:09, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

• No, it is not compatible. I would support Tristan above and suggest that commonname is generally the way to go, which aligns with the general principles that apply across WP and would put clarity and ease of reading first. In an article about the person in question, their full name including any titles and honorifics is spelled out once, in the lead, with commonname (or just surname) used thereafter, the principle being that the full name is readily accessible for anyone who needs it. On the same basis, tables and lists that include wikilinks to the personal bio page should be based on commonname format; anyone who wants to full gen just needs to click once. Lists and tables benefit from being in a clear, straightforward easy to read format, and clutter from spelling out each individual’s full title is a disbenefit. MapReader (talk) 05:29, 17 July 2021 (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.

Pages unilaterally moved

I've noticed articles have been moved without going through an RM, based on WP:JOBTITLES. An example of this, is Deputy Prime Minister of Canada unilaterally moved to Deputy prime minister of Canada. IMHO, that clause in the WP:JOBTITLES should be repealed, if it's bypassing the RM procedure. GoodDay (talk) 06:11, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

MOS:DEADNAME

I've read MOS:DEADNAME and I think this guideline is troublesome for the purpose and general policies of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not supposed to be picking sides in a culture or in this case gender conflict, we should only be reporting what reliable sources say. Right now MOS:DEADNAME says "gendered words (e.g. pronouns, "man/woman", "waiter/waitress") that reflect the person's latest expressed gender self-identification as reported in the most recent reliable sources, even if it does not match what is most common in sources," This is Wikipedia picking a side on a controversial issue, which violates the NPOV. I think the gendered words in an article should be a reflection of the gendered words used in recent reliable sources. Right now most reliable sources will use the pronouns that the individual prefers; however, lets say in 10yrs from now reliable sources want to call transgender people by the pronouns corresponding to their biological sex, then Wikipedia should follow along with RS and not mess around with what the individual prefers. Under the current guideline, in that example we would continue to use what was recently reported as the persons preference. That would be a violation of the nuetral point of view of Wikipedia, we shouldn't be deciding what gendered words are used based on what we think is respectful or kind, it should be what's used in reliable sources. As for this, "This holds for any phase of the person's life, unless they have indicated a preference otherwise", it should remain except for the 2nd clause as I explained above. It would be too confusing for writers to correspond their old life with their old pronouns. I think the whole article should reflect what is used in the most recent sources. The point that the person's old name shouldn't be used at all unless they were formerly notable with it is not in accordance with Wikipedia's policy under WP:NNC. When deciding whether or not a transgender person's "dead name" should be included we should use normal standards expected under WP:WEIGHT and WP:CONPOL, the decision to include the dead name shouldn't be decided by the Wikipedia communities belief that dead naming is bad, but by weight and coverage in reliable sources. I hope my explanation will help you rationalize some of the propositions below

Proposition A:change "gendered words (e.g. pronouns, "man/woman", "waiter/waitress") that reflect the person's latest expressed gender self-identification as reported in the most recent reliable sources, even if it does not match what is most common in sources," to "gendered words (e.g. pronouns, "man/woman", "waiter/waitress") should reflect what is most commonly used in the most recent reliable sources, regardless of what the person prefers under their expressed gender self-identification." Remove "unless they have indicated a preference otherwise"

Proposition B: change "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." to "When deciding if a living transgender or non-binary person's former name (dead name) should be included in any page (including lists, redirects, disambiguation, category names, templates, etc), it should be established that their are reliable sources that mention the former name and that including the former name is proper under WP:WEIGHT." Change "A living transgender or non-binary person's former name should be included in the lead sentence of their main biographical article only if they were notable under it; introduce the name with "born" or "formerly":" to "A living transgender or non-binary person's former name should be included in the lead sentence of their main biographical article if their birth or former name is in reliable sources and inclusion is appropriate under WP:WEIGHT:"

Proposition C Change "In articles on works or other activity by a living trans or non-binary person before transition, use their current name as the primary name (in prose, tables, lists, infoboxes, etc.), unless they prefer their former name be used for past events." to "In articles on works or other activity by a living trans or non-binary person before transition, use their current name as the primary name (in prose, tables, lists, infoboxes, etc.), unless the most recent reliable sources are using something different and there appears to be an explicit or compelling reason for this."

The rest appears ok, if any of these propositions were passed some examples might need to be changed.

Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 09:25, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Query - Have you read the widely-participated RfCs by which the community established MOS:DEADNAME and MOS:GENDERID in their current form? What on earth leads you to believe there is an appetite to roll back provisions that have, in some cases, been consensus for years and which have been recently reaffirmed with community consensus? If you haven't read those discussions, now might be a good time to do so. Newimpartial (talk) 11:37, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

The current guidelines provide specific guidance consistent with the approach taken in reliable sources, so that contentious issues don't need to be hashed out article by article. For example, reliable sources reflect a person's latest self-identification. In the unlikely event that were to change in 10 years, then I suppose we would have cause to revisit the guideline then. (IIRC, the words "even if it does not match what is most common in sources" were added to clarify that we don't need to wait until the body of new self-identification sources is larger than the body of old self-identification sources.) Similarly, there are a small number of editors that are inclined to hunt down and use Wikipedia to amplify any dead name they can find, and just saying "include it when appropriate" fails to acknowledge that the WP:BLPPRIVACY policy applies to this sort of information.--Trystan (talk) 13:51, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

@Iamreallygoodatcheckers, Newimpartial, and Trystan: May I move this discussion section to a discussion subsection of the RfC per WP:REFACTOR? This talk seems like planning for the RfC, and putting this together would make them more findable together. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:47, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how this section has anything to do with the current RfC. Newimpartial (talk) 13:53, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't. I would oppose such a refactoring. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:04, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't think these proposed changes are consistent with WP:BLP and respecting the gender identity of trans and non-binary folks, thus I oppose them. Nosferattus (talk) 12:30, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Regimes as places of birth or death?

I notice that in the infobox for Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, his birthplace is given as Albi, Tarn, Second French Empire, and his deathplace as Saint-André-du-Bois, French Third Republic. But, of course, he didn't die in a different country from the one he was born in -- it's just that the government of France changed from being an empire to a republic. While Paul Gauguin is listed as being born in the French Second Republic, Edgar Degas is listed as being born and dying both in Paris, France. We don't say Degas was born in Paris, July Monarchy and died in Paris, French Third Republic.

I believe that using the common name for the country (when applicable), as opposed to the regime, is preferable. However, I can't find a guideline that specifically addresses this question. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:20, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Link to the article on the historical period, but use the common historical country name - so for example [[Nazi Germany|Germany]], not [[Nazi Germany]] etc. GiantSnowman 10:12, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

• For the infobox, I would link to the article that best describes the birth/death places in geographic terms, as opposed to historic/political terms. Blueboar (talk) 12:20, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

It's simpler just to say France. Adding the regime overwhelms the info-box. It only makes sense where the actual country has changed, for example someone could be born in a German state such as Bavaria and die in Germany, since Bavaria became a founding state of Germany. TFD (talk) 10:17, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, but it is better to link to the historical entity - so e.g. West Germany prior to reunification... GiantSnowman 10:31, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately German (and Austrian as well) history pre-1871 is so complicated that it can be difficult to correctly track the "country" (and there are many of them!) while it often isn't very important. Mozart was born in the Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg, Beethoven in the Electorate of Cologne, Bach in Saxe-Eisenach. Read Hanau-Münzenberg and then try to determine whether Jacob Grimm was really born in Hesse-Cassel or rather in Hesse-Hanau that just happened to have the same ruler. Applying modern concepts of countries to subdivisions of the HRE tends to get a bit confusing and can be a bit of a distraction in some biographies. —Kusma (talk) 20:42, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

• Thinking about this a bit more… we want to avoid over-linking, even in an infobox. So… I am not sure that it is necessary to link to the regional or National articles at all. The article on the town/city will contain links to the region and nation it is in. So… for Toulouse-Latrec, it should be enough for infobox to link Albi. We can leave “France” un-linked. Blueboar (talk) 12:27, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

• Yep, link the most specific place, do not link historical entities. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:41, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

• We just recently closed a huge discussion on this, which should have been here, but was at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Two_issues_on_the_inconsistent_treatment_of_articles_related_to_the_UK_compared_to_other_countries (with a link to their previous huge discussion). Personally, I would just put "France" and not link it all (it should never be linked to the main article, as I think the MOS says). That discussion started from the extra problems of England/Scotland etc vs "UK" - another issue. Johnbod (talk) 13:08, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah… two separate but overlapping issues (what to list as the birth/death nation vs whether to bluelink it.) Blueboar (talk) 14:38, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

• With Edgar Degas, we'd use Kingdom of France pipe-linked as France, as his birthplace & died in the French Third Republic pipe-linked as France. GoodDay (talk) 15:09, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

  That makes no sense to me. Both will appear as blue links to France (which shouldn't be linked). In actuality, they are WP:EASTEREGGS - wouldn't most readers skip them thinking they just went to France. We shouldn't expect readers to "hover" on a link to see what it really is. If it is really important/relevant for some reason to the convey historic/political place, then it should be visible (e.g. French Third Republic). In most cases, just say France. MB 16:01, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

  Indeed. And as two straw polls at the other discussion showed, that is not what the average French biography actually does - unlinked "France" is more common. Johnbod (talk) 16:05, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

  Well, we correctly use West Germany & East Germany, for those born or died between 1949 & 1990. GoodDay (talk) 16:07, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

  Well, {{citation needed}} on "correctly". For people who were born in the Federal Republic of Germany before 1990 and died in the Federal Republic of Germany after 1990, we often write they were born in "West Germany (now Germany)" and died in "Germany". I.e. we treat the same polity as two different countries, just because it gained five member states. This is quite weird. —Kusma (talk) 19:50, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

No, we don't (and shouldn't) write the 'current' name of the country. Too messy for when politics change and country change name in the future... GiantSnowman 19:54, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

My point is that "West Germany" and "Germany" are the same country (the Federal Republic of Germany), in a not messy way. —Kusma (talk) 20:12, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

But they were separate political entities. GiantSnowman 20:13, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Well, they had the same name, the same constitution, the same head of state, the same parliament and the same laws. They were not as different politically as, say, the United States in 1850 and the United States in 2000. (I went to bed in the Federal Republic of Germany on 2 October 1990 and woke up in the Federal Republic of Germany on 3 October 1990 and find it quite confusing to see them considered as different places). —Kusma (talk) 21:18, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

One can't deny the past existence of the German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany). As we can't deny its past existence? We therefore require naming the Federal Republic of Germany as West Germany, to avoid confusion. GoodDay (talk) 21:28, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Federal Republic of Germany is a redirect to Germany. The five (newly re-founded) states of "East Germany" acceded to "West Germany" in 1990, just like the Saar area did in 1957, so the situation is simply not symmetric, we just pretend it is, leading to weird effects. On confusion: It is impossible to avoid confusion in German history. (The post-WW2 era is tame compared to the HRE era). —Kusma (talk) 21:48, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

It's best we continue to use West Germany & East Germany for birth & death places, between 1949 and 1990. GoodDay (talk) 22:10, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

PS: It's frustrating enough, that there's editors who oppose using UK (a current country) & editors who oppose using USSR (a former country). Let's not start creating confusion among post-1871 German articles. GoodDay (talk) 22:12, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Deputy prime minister of Canada § Requested move 22 August 2021

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Deputy prime minister of Canada § Requested move 22 August 2021. Discussion is relying on different interpretations of MOS:JOBTITLES. Joeyconnick (talk) 20:10, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Some food for thought on MOS:OPENPARABIO

This idea (not intended yet as a direct change, more to test the waters) came about from the close at Talk:Andy Ngo#Request for comment: "Journalist" in lede. Specifically, I found the closing statement discussing the idea of "vocation" being something of a lede sentence aspect to be of key interest. That is, nearly all BLPs and BIOS have a structure like "<Name> (birth-death range) is/was a <nationality> <list of vocations>." There are exceptions to this typically when the person is only known for criminality (eg Tamerlan Tsarnaev) and lack any vocational aspects. This type of wording generally helps to lead the lede off in a neutral, dispassionate tone which OPENPARABIO stresses.

I bring this up because of the long-standing problem we have had with people like Andy Ngo and others on the alt/far right and other extreme viewpoints, that their lede sentences typically are worded in ways that typically incorporate non-vocation terms based on DUE coverage from RSes - commonly things like "conspiracy theorist", "climate change denier", "white supremist", etc. Now, these are likely terms that are appropriate to include in a lede section at some point if the DUE part is there, but because these are not vocational terms, they shouldn't be forced into the lede sentence as they often are. The argument for their inclusion is usually a matter of DUE policy and that that these people are generally most notable (often only notable) for their activities in these areas, but I will point out that both BLP and NPOV do not require DUE/notability to be stressed in a manner greater than maintaining a neutral, dispassionate tone first and foremost. As long as these DUE/notable facets are arrived at by the end of the lede, which could even be the second sentence after the first, then we are covering the non-vocational aspects appropriately.

Also as raised by the RFC above, I can also see how some editors can have problems when BLP/bios are presented with certain vocations that are contested in RSes (such as Ngo being a journalist). Here's again a point that we still need to be neutral and dispassionate, that first sentence cannot at all pass any judgement that's been made even in RSes. There are cases of self-claimed vocations that we should ignore as a lede statement vocation (a person who maybe ran one for a local town office, lost, and never ran again, but then going around claiming they are a politician, we should not be granting that, for example). But even if someone was clearly documented in a job which RSes considered they failed to actually perform in (eg Ngo as a journalist), we should not be trying to hide that job as one of their vocations in the lede statement, though should be clear if their failure to perform was a significant facet of notability or commentary from RSes, it should still be documented in the lede.

Basically, what this comes down to is making sure that for BLPs and bios, the lede sentence, and only the lede sentence, is written in the most objective, nonjudgemental fashion that identifies the same basics we have used nearly across the board. After that lede sentence, what's in the rest of the lede is fair game, with respect to still keeping the tone impartial and dispassionate. Key is that the lede sentence should include any judgement passed from RSes (the inclusion of non-vocational terms or removal of sourced vocational terms) leaving those for later in the lede.

I'm only posing this as an idea for discussion and not as any RFC on the matter yet. It would be helpful to know if there's support for this to consider adding, but I know this concept is somewhat controversial based on numerous BLP/N and NPOV/N discussions. --Masem (t) 18:52, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

The first sentence should focus on what the subject is most notable for. In many cases, that is their vocation, but sometimes it is not. When it is not, it is the thing they are notable for, rather than their vocation, that the lead sentence should state. The vocation can come later. For instance, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist whose day job is working as a bagger at the local supermarket should say in the first sentence that they are a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, not that they are a supermarket bagger. An Olympic athlete in a minor sport who has to support themselves by working at a sporting goods store should say in the first sentence that they are an Olympic athlete, not that they are a sporting goods salesperson. We want to inform readers who don't get farther than that one sentence, about what the main point of the article is; this is more important than conforming to some mechanical stereotype of how our articles should be written. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:06, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

We do not have any expectation that readers will only read one sentence - the lede is designed as the summary of the article for readers who do not have time to read the whole thing, and that lede as a whole should be comprehensive, but that means we still need to take that in a neutral manner. That approach does not require the most notable facet about a person to be in the first sentence (this is not a requirement anywhere on Wikipedia - only that the lede overall must get to why the topic is notable at some point. This usually can be done in the first paragraph but within a second or third sentence of that).

I do agree that we likely won't mention most trivial vocations (things like blue-collar jobs or retail workers), but that's usually because by virtual of notability, people will have other vocations that made them more notable than that. To take the first case, if the person is somehow a notable conspiracy theorist, they must be somehow having an audience to handle, so they might be an activist, a writer, a blogger, a podcaster, etc. that is used for that form of communication, which would be the neutral vocational statement that we would focus on over being a grocery bagger; that then then use their communication vocation to blab off conspiracy theories (a characterization) can follow in the second sentence. I would also argue that in the second case, by virtue of being an Olympic athlete, they'd have some amateur athletics behind them, so yes, we'd lead off calling them an athlete, and likely omit their working class job. --Masem (t) 20:15, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

If we do not have any expectation that readers will only read one sentence, that would seem to nullify the concerns laid out in the original post. And as far as neutral vocational statements go, well, if the article subject is a contentious figure then there's no way to write a description that avoids trouble. Call someone a "blogger" or an "opinion columnist" or a "cultural commentator" instead of a "journalist"? Bias! You're clearly in the tank for the left- or right-wing media. Inventing a mechanical stereotype of how our articles should be written would be instruction creep: at best a solution in search of a problem, and at worst a tool for whitewashing. If all the reliable sources about a person portray them as a Ruritanian separatist, then NPOV means we describe them as a Ruritanian separatist, and if that's the most significant thing about them, MOS:LEDE means that we say it up front. If they fought for the cause of an independent Ruritania first as a journalist, then a member of parliament and then a Twitch streamer, putting "Ruritanian separatist" first would make sense, as it's the overriding factor behind all their choices of profession. Presenting them "neutrally" by listing their nominal vocations and eventually getting around to Ruritanian separatism would violate NPOV. In other words, "neutral" in the sense of reading as flatly as possible is not the same as "neutral" in the policy sense of fairly representing the available good sources. XOR'easter (talk) 21:32, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Except as MOS:LEDE points out in the Biographies section the lede sentence should include "One, or possibly more, noteworthy positions, activities, or roles that the person held, avoiding subjective or contentious terms." -- though also says "The main reason the person is notable (key accomplishment, record, etc.)" as part of that -- though also also says "However, try to not overload the first sentence by describing everything notable about the subject; instead, spread relevant information over the lead section." And given that impartial, dispassionate writing is also a requirement, this might mean that for someone who is more nefarious than notable, we might have to build up to explaining that over the course of the lede to present a neutral wikivoice tone.

And yes, I agree that not all vocations are equal, and we clearly should put the less trivial, more significant vocations up front. But vocations still are objective aspects about a person and should be the key focus of a lede sentence per MOS:LEAD as well as BLP, and the inappropriate focus on subjective or judgement factors in the lede sentence is just not appropriate. Those can go in the second lede sentence, or even after a clause at the back end of the first. But nearly every other topic, in which the person is not at the center of media negativity, anything potentially subjective or judgement or getting away from their vocation is put to this second sentence. EG pick a random US congressperson and you'll find that their party affiliation is nearly always the second sentence of the lede, not the first even though we know that party affiliation is a major weight that media place on them. Same would be true of your example of the "Ruritanian separatist", we'd likely call them a journalist and politician in the lede sentence, and then follow up to say that they supported the separation of Ruritania throughout their career or the like in the second sentence.

The problem when we put anything beyond these vocations in the lede sentence, even when they come from a large body of RSes (keeping WP:SPADE in mind) is that those RS statements are still judgmental and often subjective, compared to the objectiveness of vocations. And leading that early with anything judgemental or subjective (unless that is absolutely the only thing that can be documented about the person, like for criminals) is immediately setting a tone problem for the rest of the lede and the article. Simply by pushing that to a second sentence in the lede, that tone issue can readily be tamed and makes Wikivoice more neutral and dispassionate about the topic, which goes a long way in resolving many issues. I will stress again this is not about whitewashing away pertinent information, but moving from "more objective" to "more subjective" in that information order as to make articles have a more appropriate tone for BLPs. --Masem (t) 13:57, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Application of JOBTITLES

Myself & @IronManCap: seem to disagree on the application of Jobtitles at Imran Khan. Do we capitalise in the intro or decapitalise? GoodDay (talk) 21:37, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

• According to the MOS, since the job title “prime minister” is modified by an ordinal, it should be lower case. Personally, I disagree with this rule… however it is the current rule. Blueboar (talk) 21:44, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

A cursory flick over similar articles about governmental heads—Boris Johnson, Micheál Martin, Leo Varadkar, Michelle O'Neill were the first few I checked—it seems that the relevant positions are treated as proper nouns there (Taoiseach, not taoiseach; First Minister, not first minister, etc). Presumably this is covered by MOS:JOBTITLES, section When a formal title for a specific entity (or conventional translation thereof) is addressed as a title or position in and of itself, is not plural, is not preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article), and is not a reworded description but this will depend on the sentence construction in each given case. The first sentence in Khan's lead does seem to warrant upper case as-is on this basis though. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ● 21:55, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

My read is that "Prime Minister of Pakistan" is preceded by a definite article and a couple of modifiers, and it should therefore be lower case. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:30, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

There were no ordinals involved in the article-in-question. But as I understood WP:JOBTITLES, ordinals or no ordinals, we lowercase in the article content. PS - On a separate & related note - We're still waiting for the ruling of an RFC concerning this topic in infoboxes. GoodDay (talk) 02:34, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

"... is the 22nd and current prime minister of Pakistan" is the current language. Are we evaluating a prior version? Without ordinals, or other modifiers/articles, we might actually capitalize. For this article, "Imran Khan is currently serving as Prime Minister of Pakistan, the 22nd to hold that title" would be properly capitalized. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:48, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Pardon me, I briefly got the Pakistani & Hungarian bios mixed up. So it should be capitalised. I'm asking further, as I've recently lower-cased to president of Hungary & prime minister of Hungary & other Hungarian offices, throughout related bios. GoodDay (talk) 02:52, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Looking at your recent work, you have had some mixed success. At János Áder, you were correct on "the speaker of National Assembly..." but incorrect on "has been president of Hungary" where the p should be capitalized. 'President of Hungary' is:

• ✓a formal title for a specific entity
• ✓addressed as a title or position in and of itself
• ✓not plural
• ✓not preceded by a modifier
• ✓not a reworded description

I'd be happy to look through more of your edits, but "teach a person to fish" etc. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 03:06, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't mind if you review them & revert or change, where required. I'm puttering around the Italian presidents & prime ministers, now. GoodDay (talk) 03:09, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Generic "officer" instead of "police officer"

Is it appropriate to use generic "officer" instead of "police officer"? An example sentence: Around 1:00 p.m., hundreds of Trump supporters clashed with officers and pushed through barriers along the perimeter of the Capitol. The crowd swept past barriers and officers, with some members of the mob spraying officers with chemical agents or hitting them with lead pipes. (article). I don't think it's acceptable to shorten "police officer" to "officer", and have a strong impulse to add the missing "police" everywhere or reword sentences to alleviate the perceived problem, but I can't quite rationally explain why. Do you have any thoughts on this? — Alalch Emis (talk) 12:36, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

I think it is OK, as long as we establish that we are talking about “police officers” in the first sentence. with that established, we can use “officers” in subsequent sentences. Blueboar (talk) 13:11, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

+1 to that, though in this case I think just writing "police" here would be fine, if we wanted to shorten it to one word. Popcornfud (talk) 14:13, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Tx for the responses. Fine as in better than "officer" or mostly the same? — Alalch Emis (talk) 18:43, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

In many countries lower-rank police people are not actually called officers at all. An officer is someone with a certain level of seniority and command authority. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:20, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

This is sort of true. However, I think it is acceptable to translate foreign-language terms for "policeperson" (which isn't an acceptable English word) as "police officer" as that is the standard term in English-speaking countries. There is no real acceptable equivalent in English to, say, "policiers" in French. Once it would have been "policemen", but obviously we can't use that for modern articles. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:26, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Application of JOBTITLES (II)

How do we handle positions called First Vice President of country & Second Vice President of country, that have ordinals concerning the officer holders' bio content? For example "first First vice president of Myanmar" or "second Second vice president of Myanmar", would read rather oddly. GoodDay (talk) 20:22, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

When they have ordinals, as in Tin Aung Myint Oo, we could use (1) "served as the first first vice president of Myanmar", (2) "served as the first first vice president of Myanmar, or (3) "served as the 1st first vice president of Myanmar". Neither MOS:ORDINAL nor Numbers as figures or words offers any guidance, AFAICS, for or against any of these options. Personally, I think prefer the middle one, as the link helps separate the "firsts" between ordinal and position name, but I admit that's no help for non-linked usages. My second (2nd?) choice would be the third option. I think it's a lot easier to parse these things if we don't leave out the "the" before "first", "second", "1st", "83rd", etc. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 21:13, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

I would reword completely. "Serving as the First Vice President of Myanmar, he was the third to hold that position". Incidentally, this is where JOBTITLES really shouldn't be applied; without the capitals, is it not clear that the "First" is part of a title. BilledMammal (talk) 01:40, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

JOBTITLES appears to suggest "first first vice president of Myanmar". -- GoodDay (talk) 01:42, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

It does suggest the lower case for "first vice president of Myanmar" (likely to lead to confusion, but nvm), but I don't see where it requires us to lead with the ordinal. BilledMammal (talk) 02:00, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

I've deleted the ordinals in the bios-in-question. GoodDay (talk) 02:19, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Sounds good. May still lead to some confusion with users interpreting the title as an ordinal, but nothing we can do with that under JOBTITLES, though perhaps WP:IAR applies here? BilledMammal (talk) 02:24, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps. There's other countries with concurrent serving vice presidents. Iran has twelve, but at least only one First Veep. GoodDay (talk) 02:38, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Another option, would be to completely remove the ordinals in the article content. GoodDay (talk) 01:44, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Wholesale removal of military service modules per 2016 Talk:Mel Brooks RfC?

So I noticed that @Binksternet: deleted the embedded {{Infobox military person}} from Steve McQueen, citing this 2016 Rfc on Mel Brooks: Talk:Mel_Brooks/Archive_1#RfC:_Is_a_military_infobox_appropriate? That isn't totally unjustified, but the Mel Brooks RfC is only Local consensus and it's not obvious that it should be applied everywhere. It appears Binksternet recently has deleted these embedded templates from something like 100 biographies. I don't think drive-by deletions like that have sufficient consensus. Has this been discussed broadly?

The rationale for the 2016 RfC was "because his military career does not contribute to his notability" which is highly questionable. Since when is "only facts that contribute to notability" a criterion for inclusion in infoboxes? MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE mentions nothing of the kind, only saying infoboxes are there to summarize the content of the article. A good infobox contains many facts that in of themselves aren't why the subject is notable. Notability after all is a tool to decide whether or not to delete an article, and as WP:NNC says emphatically: "Notability guidelines do not apply to content within articles or lists". It's almost always a misuse of the guideline to apply it to article content.

I haven't looked closely at the other 100 articles, but in the cases of both Brooks and McQueen, their military experiences are a source of key insights into their lives and public careers. Brooks's work skewering fascism has not a little to do with his experiences in World War II. Maybe not so much with Malcolm Forbes but nonetheless, it's a key part of his life.

It could well be said that these military boxes are distracting and grab too much attention. The problem is all the extraneous decoration from the flags and icons, as if we need to see flags to identify what the USA is or what the US Navy is. People are familiar enough t hat they don't really need a picture to help them there. I tried a version of McQueen with the same content but leaving out the icons. I'd suggest going that route rather than nuking them across so many articles. And I don't think anyone should proceed without an RfC that includes the broader community. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:03, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

The presence of extended military career entries in the infobox places WP:UNDUE emphasis on the military career for those people who derived zero notability from their military service. All of the military service details that could be carried in the infobox should be described in prose in the article body for those people who were not famous for their service. The instructions at Help:Infobox tell us that the infobox is intended to "quickly summarize important points in an easy-to-read format." If someone's military service is not critically important, then the details of it should not take up so much of the infobox. The most we should have in those cases is a one-line entry of service branch, the same way we treat college attendance. Binksternet (talk) 04:21, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

As I mentioned, notability has nothing to do with infobox content. I can't find anything in the guidelines on infoboxes that suggests notability is involved. Why are you saying that is a criterion now? As I asked in my edit summary, Steve McQueen is not notable for being born in Beech Grove, Indiana, so is it undue weight to include it?

And why not just tone it down by removing the icons? Featured Articles handle this in several ways, but on John McCain, Thomas White (Australian politician) or Nikita Khrushchev, the module is there without the colorful bling. J. R. R. Tolkien includes it but moves it down the page. Others, like Gough Whitlam, Chester A. Arthur or Rutherford B. Hayes have it all, icons included. Michael Woodruff and Jimi Hendrix have no military module. I don't see any broad consensus either way, and you'd think if it was really an undue weight problem that would have come up during FA reviews. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:36, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

One line saying he is from Beech Grove is not undue emphasis.

A catalyzing development on this issue was that Ldavid1985 has been adding a great many military infobox modules to biographies of people not famous for military service. This activity by Ldavid1985 was reported at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1077#Saturation of bios with military infoboxes by User:Ldavid1985, but the conversation immediately bogged down in the tar pit of a topic ban violation by the reporter. Binksternet (talk) 04:41, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Help:Infobox says "Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article." The guideline that help is based on, MOS:INFOBOXUSE says the same thing. Nothing in the undue weight policy mentions notability. Nothing in that policy mentions what the subject is famous for as a guide for what to include or not. The policy, at WP:PROPORTION, says to give "weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject". This is really the key. If Steve McQueen's biographers give a full account of his military service, we must follow suit.

A good biography of any person is not going to begin on the day they became famous and ignore everything else. A high quality source will tell us the person's whole life, on the obvious presumption that their early life and everything they do until they become notable helps explain who they are and how and why they did what they did. If you really want to argue that this is undue weight, you'd need to show that the best sources on the lives of Brooks or McQueen give little or no space to their years before fame. The truth is, ignoring their earlier life, including military service, would be out of proportion with our sources, and that would be a violation of WP:UNDUE.

Why not just remove the icons? That's what is making these infoboxes look distorted.

In any case, under current guidelines, you should restore the 100+ deletions. It's explicitly clear that these are handled on a case by case basis, and you haven't sought local consensus on all these articles. Before mass removal you need to do an RfC at the MOS or WP:BIO or similar venue. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 05:07, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

As noted, many of these were added en masse - since there was no prior consensus there, reverting that set of changes ought not to require prior consensus either.

On the general point, I agree with Binksternet: where this data is not a key part of the subject's biography, it ought not to be included. In some cases it will be essential, but in many of the examples mentioned, including it just buries the information that is actually key to the subject. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:18, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE says an infobox is to "to summarize key facts" and "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose". If a person isn't notablity for their service, then that is probably NOT key information that belongs in the infobox. MB 14:20, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

The notability guidelines emphatically contradict you. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:12, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

That guideline merely says that subject notability does not apply to all content within an article. If someone was in the military, it certainly can be mentioned in the article. Whether it belongs in the infobox is a different matter, covered by MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. MB 17:20, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Nikkimaria, I decided to check to see if these really were thoughtless drive-by additions, and check to see if the sources give enough weight to the subjects' military service to justify mention alongside other general facts about their life (hometown, education, children, etc). So far from what I can tell, Binksternet did not read any sources before deleting. You can't read *anything* of any depth about Adam Driver without significant discussion of his service. Montel Williams was in the Marines and Navy for 22 years. Seriously?

I don't think any edit made in complete ignorance of sources can be taken seriously. If you have checked the sources and can assert the sources don't give weight to a topic, then you'd at least have some basis for a sound argument for de-emphasizing it in the infobox. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:51, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

I also agree with Binksternet and the Mel Brooks RfC, if the military career is substantial in the subject background then yes, include it, if the mod is added just because it happened, then that is undue. In this case I have no problem treating a military career as Binksternet suggests The most we should have in those cases is a one-line entry of service branch, the same way we treat college attendance, and I think consensus should be sought in the addition and/or removal of the module, including removal of mass additions. - FlightTime (open channel) 17:12, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Dennis, when I was removing military modules yesterday I was looking very closely at the person's career to see whether their military service added to their notability. I left a bunch of modules in place after determining a) the person's military service was part of their notability, or b) the person was famous for government service, which may be seen as an extension of military service. Famous flyer Charles Lindbergh, for instance, was intimately involved with the military, and even shot down enemy aircraft in the Pacific War despite holding civilian status at the time. Politicians should always keep their military service modules, in my opinion, and famous/infamous policemen such as Derek Chauvin. But actor Adam Driver gained no notability for his military service, and Montel Williams became a television personality in 1991 without any remarkable notice coming from his military career. It was only later, after he was famous on TV, that his military career was reported in depth. Binksternet (talk) 18:42, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree that referring to sources in the case of a dispute around inclusion is appropriate. However, the onus is on those seeking to include, not to exclude. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:43, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

WP:ONUS is referring to verifiability. If you're disputing that the person ever was in the military, or that the data is wrong, then the verifiability policy does indeed say the person adding the data has to provide sources. But nobody is raising that dispute, and virtually all of these articles already contain good citations verifying the facts of the subject's military serviced. WP:ONUS isn't relevant to the question of whether the to include the military service facts in the infobox as well as the body of the article. That question is only addressed in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes, where it says clearly there is no set policy, and the decision is handled case by case.

It's clear that Binksternet is committed to the idea that there is a relationship between notability and what belongs in an infobox. If that were so, we would rarely use more than one of the dozens of fields in {{Infobox person}}. Almost every field, birth data, place of birth, nationality, spouse, children, etc etc are not why the person is notable. It's nonsenical to say military service isn't allowed unless they are notable for their military service, unless you're going to say we should blank every other field except the one that tells us why they are famous. Infoboxes are a summary of whatever the content of the article is, and that is far, far more than just why they are notable.

I'm going to utterly ignore these arguments because the notability guidelines Binksternet and other editors here are leaning on say no, do not do that. You're not just misinterpreting a vague rule; you're flatly contradicting a clearly written rule.

Notability isn't relevant to article content. Saying that whether or not something should go in an infobox has to always meet a broad criterion is contradicted by MOS:INFOBOX which tells us no broad criteria apply, and saying that broad criterion is notability is contradicted by WP:NNC.

I suggest those of you who wish it were so need to submit a proposal to make a significant change to these guidelines and policies. Until that happens, it's just wrong.

It's totally legitimate to want to remove the military module from a given article based on the needs of that article, but that's where it ends. Nothing justifies taking a broad brush to every biograhpy. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:04, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Dennis Bratland, I think you're misreading ONUS and misconstruing the applicability of notability. ONUS is about verification, sure, but it's really about whether content that is definitely verified should be included. Nikkimaria is right to cite it, as those looking to included verified military infobox material have the onus of showing that content is due.

Notability is primarily a "should this article exist" concern, but we concern ourselves with notability, and what contributes to it, frequently as we're writing or editing. Consider MOS:BIO, and examine how frequently a fact's contribution to notability is a factor in its inclusion. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 04:14, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

MOS:BIO makes my point exactly. The first paragraph focuses on the aspects of the subject that make them notable. But the lead of a comprehensive article does not stop at one paragraph. It has a second, third, or even fourth paragraph to provide a broader summary of whatever the article's content is. And what is that content? A summary of what is in high quality sources, proportionate to the weight given by those sources. Typically a 300-500 page biography devotes about a chapter to the subject's stint in the military, and typically a good Wikipedia bio has about one section describing their service. We spend about the same amount of space on their hometown, their parents' occupations, their high school, college, and so forth. And that translates into 5-6 lines of the infobox. It's the same if they had an athletic career or an academic career before becoming a famous YouTuber or famous playwright or famous wheelwright.

You need to propose significant changes in these guidelines before saying only people known for their military service should have it included in the infobox. The logic of that means also deleting their alma mater, their spouse, hometown... almost everything? Right?

The reason military service is being singled out, and not hometown or birthdate, is the gaudy flags, badges and icons. That is a valid point, and the solution is simply to remove the colorful bling, keeping the text. Or collapse most of the military infobox. The Tolkien article presents another option: move the military box out of the main infobox entirely. There's a lot of ways to do this but careening through 100 articles nuking every military module ain't it. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:38, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

RfC on non-notable pre-transition names of deceased trans people

The following discussion 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.

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Should MOS:DEADNAME guidelines on pre-transition names ("deadnames") under which a person was not notable

• A) apply to living transgender and non-binary people (and, to the extent indicated by WP:BDP, to "recently deceased" ones) only,
• B) apply to all transgender and non-binary people from the modern era; specific timeframe to be determined by later RfC/discussion (for example: those who died after 1920), or
• C) apply to all transgender and non-binary people (living or deceased)

? -sche (talk) 16:33, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

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Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography/2021 archive#MOS:DEADNAME for non-living people is the discussion which led to this RfC. (As discussed there, trying to ask about all of the things raised there in a single RfC would be unwieldy so the most-discussed question is being posed first.)

Note: I've listed this at WP:CENTRAL in this diff as of August 7th. Ganesha811 (talk) 11:29, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

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Survey (WP:DEADNAME for deceased trans people)

• C, B, A in that preference order C (with B as a second choice). I've yet to see either a good reason why we should be treating living and dead people differently, or an example of a historical figure who was (a) not notable prior to transition and (b) for whom noting their deadname is encyclopaedic. For people notable only before or before and after transition the existing guidelines will work just fine. Thryduulf (talk) 17:09, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
  • After further thinking and seeing some of the comments below I can no longer support option A under any circumstances other than it being the only option other than weakening the status quo, which is not on the table here. B is very much a second choice as it is simply a weaker version of the only option that makes sense to me. Thryduulf (talk) 09:41, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
  • @Thryduulf: I've yet to see either a good reason why we should be treating living and dead people differently This is a pretty bold statement given that WP:BLP is a whole corpus of rules that do exactly that. Just to be clear, you don't think it should exist? Or do you just mean you don't see why they should be treated differently specifically in the context of pre-transition names? Colin M (talk) 20:40, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

    I mean specifically in the context of pre-transition names (i.e. in the context of the single question asked by this RFC), although it wouldn't surprise me if there are aspects of BLP that should be extended more generally too (this is not a proposal). Thryduulf (talk) 20:55, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

• C, B, A, for pretty much exactly the same reason as Thryduulf. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 17:14, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

• C is the correct answer. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:26, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
• Option D, but otherwise Option A (to a degree) in that DEADNAME should apply to any naming issue (due to marriage, immigrant change, etc.), and should equally apply to living or dead. With deceased persons, we have WP:BDP to prevent a short term rush to include (eg six months to two years) if the sources supporting it are not strong, but by generalizing it to all cases to make sure that it is reliable sourcing that identifies the name original name if it wasn't well known before death to the individual after death, this makes it a clean consistent policy about bringing up any prior names that a person is not well known until sources actually acknowledge that (if they ever do). (There is a separate matter specific for transgenders if that well-published deadname should be brought up early in ledes or not, but that's a separate matter). --Masem (t) 18:28, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

There is no 'option D', although one was strongly argued for in a discussion above, to reduce bias. But it looks like we're going ahead anyway. EddieHugh (talk) 18:50, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't know what you think "option D" would have been, since A is the 'status quo' - perhaps some editors have had difficulty understanding that? Newimpartial (talk) 19:05, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

It's in the "Proposals?" subsection above. I wasn't part of the discussions. EddieHugh (talk) 19:13, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

But the explanation/rationale for that supposed "option D" was we need an option for those who don’t want them extended (at all), i.e., status quo. But that's what Option A does. If people want an option to reduce the scope of MOS:DEADNAME from what it currently is, they have to bloody well say so, and while I have seen a couple of editors on this page objecting to MOS:DEADNAME in toto (e.g., Masem's proposal that all former names, trans and otherwise, be treated the same), I haven't seen anyone propose above that the solution should be to declare a free-for-all prior to the expiry of the WP:BDP period. Is that what you're proposing? Newimpartial (talk) 19:23, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not proposing anything. I just pointed out that there was a proposal made earlier that was supported. EddieHugh (talk) 19:34, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Internally incoherent proposals don't count. Newimpartial (talk) 19:38, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I realize that there are only three choices here (and hence my fallback to A) but I am stressing that I think we will get a better solution if we generalize this beyond just transgender individuals, one that is far easier to write down and remember and which shows why A (eg respecting BDP but not beyond) makes a heck of a lot of sense. --Masem (t) 19:31, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Just to be clear, that is different from the "Option D" EddieHugh has brought up. Newimpartial (talk) 19:38, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Also one thing to add to this is that my Option D idea here would strengthen the requirement of sourcing for including any prior name in an article - living or dead. For example, I know we can likely find a married woman's article that mentions her given name. If that's only coming from one source and not frequently mentioned in the RSes, then we probably shouldn't be including it just to include it. eg: We absolutely know Hillary Clinton's given name from extensive bios on here, so obviously we can include. But as a counter example I know I can find what Roberta Williams's maiden name is, but the sources are few and weak and sketchy, so it makes no sense to include since the reliable sourcing covering her make no mention of it. Obviously where the line is crossed will be a matter for consensus, but having that line will protect from rampant inclusion of a deadname or other previous name for BDP just because one found one source that confirms. We need that extensive corroboration in RSes to include. --Masem (t) 20:32, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

• None of the above - I think it is a mistake to take a one-size-fits-all approach. We need to assess the issue on a case by case basis. In some cases, it will be appropriate to mention the deadname almost as soon as the subject dies, in other cases it will be appropriate to wait. How long we wait needs to be based on coverage in good quality sources. Blueboar (talk) 18:31, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
  • I can almost never see a case where as soon as a person dies, things like DEADNAME which is already part of BLP (and thus BDP) goes out the door. I agree there could be a few tiny exemptions here, but given that DEADNAME is established to protect privacy of the trans individual, it would clearly fall under BDP protection for those first six months to two years, even if we have dozens of high quality RSes reporting the original name in obits of the individual. --Masem (t) 18:42, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
• C strongly Like Thryduulf I've yet to see either a good reason why we should be treating living and dead people differently. I more weakly Equally I support *Option B with the hope its following RfC hopefully is talking of a time span of at least one generation. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 19:03, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Richard III of England and the rumor that he murdered children to gain his throne. Catherine the Great and the rumor that she had sex with her horse. Countless other articles about the dead contain scurillous insinuations where if the subjects were alive, we'd remove these in an instant. And yet these are in each case a vital part of history, and so of our articles about them. --GRuban (talk) 13:28, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
• I've yet to see either a good reason why we should be treating living and dead people differently - well we already do, for better or worse, so that's not a viable argument. I'd support B as a compromise, or a version thereof once it has been thought out better. GiantSnowman 19:10, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
• B or C - Certainly not A; that would make no sense, the point of the policy is not to avoid giving offence only to the subjects of specific articles. There are some circumstances where policies can be different between the living and the recently deceased (particularly where we are waiting for the outcome of legal actions that die with the deceased); this situation is not one of them. However I'm not sure enough of how this all plays out on historical articles to make a clear choice between B and C. Where people clearly expressed a preference in previous centuries I believe we should follow it, but the context is very different and the modern categories don't clearly apply. See for instance Chevalier d'Éon where it is really very challenging to work out what gender presentation and form of address they preferred towards the end of their lifetime, and there must be many more examples. The Land (talk) 19:13, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

"Certainly not A; that would make no sense"... but that's the current policy, in place for years!

As Newimpartial suggests, above, the wording of this RfC might not present the suggested changes clearly enough. EddieHugh (talk) 19:19, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

The current policy in place for years can also be something that makes no sense... ;) More seriously. I agree, the current policy is pretty clear that it only applies to living people. However, this creates a very odd situation. If Chelsea Manning died tomorrow, it is obvious (to my mind) that the article should continue as it is because it does a good job of squaring Manning's gender identity with the vast amount of coverage of her as a man. Without this change you'd probably end up with a huge argument about updating the article with different pronouns and names and moving it back to her prior name. I really can't see how that kind of discontinuity would be in anyone's interest (readers, editors, or trans people generally) and I don't believe it's an intentional part of the existing policy. The Land (talk) 19:45, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Most-recent gender pronouns aren't limited to living people presently. Any such attempt to add more weight on the former name would and should be dismissed as POV pushing, since the modern press reporting the death is not going to misgender trans people or do anything beyond perhaps at most mention the deadname once like we already do. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:55, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

This RfC is only about pre-transition names. The parts about pronouns (and all other parts of the guideline) aren't being considered, and will remain as they are now regardless of the outcome. So "Refer to any person whose gender might be questioned with gendered words ... that reflect the person's latest expressed gender self-identification" will remain, so 'Chelsea Manning' after death would stay 'Chelsea Manning' and 'she'. EddieHugh (talk) 20:02, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Crossroads, I strongly agree that the former GENDERID provisions forcefully limit the amount of graveside misgendering editors might otherwise be tempted to perform. This means, The Land, that unless the MOS changes in some other way, articles which include former names already, based on the DEADNAME notability-based standard, are not affected by a choice among these three options. However, figures who were not notable under their former name are currently subject to periodic attempts to insert them, typically beginning in the obituary period and ending when the former-name inclusionists "win". The choice between A, B and C will restructure those contests, although any additional guidance we decide to add later in the process could also affect the eventual outcomes. Newimpartial (talk) 20:10, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

For the record, cases like Chevalier d'Éon represent precisely why I suspect that Option B would cause fewer issues than Option C. Determining the final known gender presentation of an individual typically becomes more and more difficult moving back from the 19th century, and (at least in my view) the practices of the best sources become more and more relevant as a guide to what WP should include. Newimpartial (talk) 19:33, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Regarding "the point of the policy is not to avoid giving offence only to the subjects of specific articles", I mean, isn't it? When it comes to offense to others, WP:NOTCENSORED states, Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive‍—‌even exceedingly so. Attempting to ensure that articles and images will be acceptable to all readers, or will adhere to general social or religious norms, is incompatible with the purposes of an encyclopedia. This doesn't apply only to religious conservatives. If it doesn't apply to editors' own values and social norms, then what good is it? At the same time, we do have WP:GRATUITOUS, which applies to deadnaming too. As with everything else, I see no need to create a carveout from existing policies in this specific matter. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:50, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

• Option A; other options lead to more disputes than they solve, as will be explained. It is vital to WP:Avoid instruction creep and not micromanage our extreme diversity of articles with a top-down, one-size-fits-all, and historically myopic approach. This whole discussion was set off by attempts to add deadnames right after someone died, which is already covered by WP:BDP anyway. DEADNAME has always been based on principles of the BLP policy, such as privacy, that don't apply to long-dead people. A massive expansion in scope is entirely novel. This doesn't mean it's a free-for-all adding obscure birth names to dead persons' articles, since such is already covered by WP:DUE, WP:RS, and WP:NOR.
  Strongly oppose option C. It will lead to numerous and interminable disputes about people from centuries before the modern concepts of transgender, of gender identity as someone's true self, and of stating a former name in any context being something hurtful. There will be debates about whether so and so was really transgender or non-binary, and more debates about what degree of certainty in such justifies excluding the former name. There are many people through history who disobeyed the often highly restrictive gender norms of their era to various degrees, and quite a few of them did so in ways that can be viewed anachronistically as meaning something that they themselves would never have understood or meant. Thus, some modern sources that technically meet WP:RS but may be activistic and/or are not by historians with relevant expertise claim these individuals as trans or non-binary. As an example: James Barry (surgeon). The article forgoes pronouns, although there was recently a failed RfC to use male pronouns. Clearly, a number of people and a few sources think Barry was a trans man. Barry is only notable for the career as a surgeon, which happened while living as a man. A blanket application of DEADNAME to all persons, not just living ones, would result in people arguing that since Barry could have been trans, Barry's birth name must be purged from the article, even though Barry died 156 years ago, long before any concept of deadnaming existed, and way past the time when the privacy interest of BDP applies. This is an extreme position and would take Wikipedia away from how the sources treat the topic, which is against the WP:V and WP:NPOV policies. Option C creates an opening for numerous disputes and even POV pushing about these individuals. There are many such individuals in history; such as those in this list.
  Option B can lead to similar issues depending on the cutoff year. 1920 was mentioned, but this includes people who lived the majority of their lives in the 1800s, and hence the same issues arise as with Barry. The closer the cutoff is to the present, the less this is an issue, so I could see merit in B with a much later cutoff. But I see no need for it, nor any simplification in doing so. V, NPOV, and NOR already cover this. Option B provides another opening for people to say "no cutoff, apply always", as well as for the anachronism issues already explained. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:44, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
  • How does option B provide another opening for people to say "no cutoff, apply always?" Up to now, the discussion of this has ranged between a fixed cutoff of 1920 death date to a moving cutoff of 25-50 years after death. I can't really see anyone going to the mandated later RfC/discussion to argue that the modern era began in Genoa in 1320 so that should be the scope of DEADNAME. Newimpartial (talk) 19:55, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
    • 1320 is thinking small, Behavioral modernity began ~45,000 years ago. /s Obviously no one's going to argue those seriously, but any second RfC will need care not to unfairly give option C two chances to succeed. I'd say if option B's second RfC happens, any "no cutoff; always" votes should be disqualified. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:04, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
      • That's fair. Newimpartial (talk) 20:14, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

  I've seen a couple of people mention WP:BDP in this discussion, and I agree it might cover this situation somewhat. But I think it would be need to be fleshed out what applicability it had to this particular situation. Would that imply only changing existing articles on living trans people who die in the event that post-death sources have a different balance of coverage to those towards the end of their lifetime? Or something else? If someone would like to formulate another option, that could be helpful. The Land (talk) 19:51, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

  I know the preceding discussion was long, but in it I (and others) identified the additional question of what guidance, if any, should the MOS offer for the treatment of deadnames of people who lived prior to the scope of MOS:DEADNAME? That question will not, I believe, be addressed until after the community has decided whether or not to change the scope of DEADNAME. I, for one, am likely to make different arguments about this guidance depending on when the cutoff turns out to be: the considerations for 2000 deaths differ considerably from 1750 deaths, at least in my view, Newimpartial (talk) 20:00, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

• A, but B if it prevents C. Option C – prohibiting the mentioning of a person's original/birth name in an encyclopedia, even a long time after their death – would be an extraordinary change. Extraordinary changes should be supported by extraordinarily strong reasons. We include details that have no relevance to almost any subject's identity or notability – exact places and dates of birth and death, middle names, original/birth name are examples – because they are basic biographical information. Readers are accustomed to seeing such basic information, and routinely see it in reliable sources. For some living people, there is consensus that the right to privacy and the risk of harm to them justifies the omission of some of this information. These justifications don't exist for the dead. The policy CENSOR states that "Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive – even exceedingly so", so potential offensiveness isn't a reason to change this MoS guideline. We include biographies of people who are notable because they were transgender but who didn't want anyone to know, so the 'respect the dead as the living' argument doesn't hold either. So, I see no valid argument supporting C. And I see the presentation of basic biographical information about the long dead that is widely available in reliable sources as something that is expected by the readers, who are the people we write an encyclopedia for. EddieHugh (talk) 21:44, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
• Strongly support C. If people are notable under more than one name, we describe them under multiple names. But the reason we don't generally deadname people is that their deadnames aren't relevant. Why are we debating the inclusion of non-notable details about subjects? Even while deadnaming trans people is an affront to their dignity — and the dignity of trans and non-binary readers and editors — as Newimpartial pointed out, if the deadname isn't notable, why would we include it any more than we'd include other non-notable details about someone (WP:NOTGOSSIP)? — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk; please {{ping}} me in replies) 21:55, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I very much agree with this ... if a deceased persons was never notable under their deadname, then does it have any essential notable encyclopedic value, and yes why would we need to include it any more than we'd include other non-notable details? If a persons deadname is considered not notable in life, how can it suddenly become notable after they died. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 22:24, 4 August 2021 (UTC)(reworded ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 23:21, 4 August 2021 (UTC) )

@OwenBlacker: Precisely the same argument could be used if we replace "deadname" with "name before marriage". Would you support extending the policy in this manner? i.e. something like If a person was not notable under a former name, it should not be included in any page, even in quotations, even if reliable sourcing exists. Colin M (talk) 17:00, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

There's nothing at GOSSIP that's relevant here (it's not Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment, Opinion pieces, Self-promotion, or Advertising, marketing or public relations, which leaves Scandal mongering, promoting things "heard through the grapevine" or gossiping). But if basic factual information is widely reported in reliable sources, it's not "gossiping". And if it's also expected by readers, why would we not include it? Not including it would be counter to the WP:CENSOR policy, which has been quoted a few times already. EddieHugh (talk) 17:52, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

@Colin M: No, it's not precisely the same argument — there is no offence to someone's dignity by talking about their premarital name; the context is very different. For what it's worth, my position on deadnaming trans people is that it should be avoided where possible. Where someone's deadname is notable, then it should be included appropriately (preferably not in the lead). Where their deadname is not notable, I don't see why we should include it. I think I would prefer that deadnames in quotes from reliable sources be elided in square brackets (like the example Ocyrhoe told [her father] his fate from MOS:QUOTE and loosely equivalent to how we handle non-standard emphasis), but I've not thought that position through in detail, so it may well be something I reconsider over time. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk; please {{ping}} me in replies) 19:03, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

​ I read your comment as an argument in the alternative. "Even while deadnaming trans people is an affront to their dignity[...], if the deadname isn't notable, why would we include it". I was responding just to the second prong of this. Also, there's a subtle distinction between "the person wasn't notable under the name" (what the MoS talks about), and "the name isn't notable" (what you're talking about). It could be that the person wasn't notable under name A, but historians analysing their life have subsequently given attention to that time period. e.g. Albert Einstein wasn't notable as a patent clerk, but following his great accomplishments as a physicist, historians have collected information about that part of his life. Colin M (talk) 19:18, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

​ I can see your point, but there's a difference between morally neutral information that informs their later career ("Einstein worked as a patent clerk") and morally-stigmatised information that brings no useful information or insight to a biography ("Laverne Cox was born with the name Foo Bar"). At the moment (ignoring whether or not it is public information, which I don't know), we don't include Laverne Cox's deadname because it's neither relevant nor notable and we consider it an invasion of her privacy. We do include Elliot Page's deadname because he was nominated for (and won) a slew of awards before he changed his name. Once Laverne Cox is dead, by what rationale would we decide her deadname has become an important part of her biography? The notable fact is that she is trans, not the detail of the name she was give at birth. While a privacy BLP concern may not persist after her death, it feels like a lurid piece of gossip to add a name she rejected and under which she made no notable achievements. When we add the concept that deadnaming causes harms to the dignity of trans and non-binary people — including many of our readers and editors — what benefit would it provide? We don't include irrelevant lurid details in other biographies — we don't care about the name of the person to whom Einstein lost his virginity, for example. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk; please {{ping}} me in replies) 19:49, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for using {{Hidden ping}} — nice, I didn't know about that 😊

In Einstein's article, we do give the name of who he fell in love with as a child. There are also several paragraphs on his various love interests. Nothing on his virginity – it probably isn't in reliable sources (unlike for Brooke Shields, where we happily identify the person). If a name is poorly sourced, then including it could be gossipy, but not if it's widely reported in reliable sources. EddieHugh (talk) 20:11, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

​ I don't think it would be correct to add Laverne Cox's birthname to her article if she died. But there will be cases that are different from Cox, where someone's deadname is treated in multiple RS as a noteworthy piece of information about the subject (James Barry (surgeon) is an example that multiple people have brought up here). I am strongly opposed to any kind of all-or-nothing approach here (always include deadname vs. never include deadname). Similarly, it's true that describing Einstein's first sexual encounter would probably be undue and gossipy, and this would be true for most bios, but I would oppose a policy that said a biographical article must never describe the circumstances of the subject's first sexual encounter. Colin M (talk) 20:54, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I know nobody (in this conversation) asked me, but the case that prevents me from "strongly endorsing C" is that where a historical person has died, was not "Notable" with their former name while alive (to the extent that concept even applies in a pre-1850 media environment), and where modern scholarship establishes a plausible Trans identity but typically includes the former name as well. In those cases, I think GENDERID (concerning pronouns etc.) does the work necessary to protect the posthumous dignity of the individual, but the notability-based framework of DEADNAME doesn't really apply - many such figures only achieve Notability posthumously, so the framework "not Notable while using their deadname but Notable while using their chosen name" doesn't apply at all, and that is the whole basis of the framework of DEADNAME. My own view is that this case stops being relevant in the 20th century, which points me to some version of B, but in any event it strikes me as a quite serious objection to C. Newimpartial (talk) 21:19, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

• C. If someone is not notable under their old name, then there's no pressing reason to include it, so we gain more by leaving it out; professional writing standards today, which we should generally try to reflect unless there's a compelling reason otherwise, are clearly leaning towards excluding non-notable deadnames and reflecting last preferred pronouns. As far as B goes, I don't believe it's appropriate to try and dictate how we write articles based on their historical era; whether a bio is from today or a thousand years ago, decisions about whether we write as if they're transgender or what their latest preferred gender was need to be decided based on sources. B effectively trying to make a top-down declaration of whether individuals can be considered transgender when we're writing them based on some (inevitably arbitrary) hard cutoff rather than the sources specific to that individual. A is even worse in that in practice the arguments for it are identical but with "dead" as a proxy for "historical figures", effectively making the argument that historical figures (and dead people?) cannot have been transgender or non-binary and can never be written using the relevant style guidelines. When there is confusion over a subject's last preferred gender or whether a historical figure should be described and treated as transgender, we can just look to the sources for each individual in question, as we do for sexuality and for essentially all other topics where language has changed over time; these are not debates that we can avoid, because they exist in actual coverage over the sources and need to be assessed in order to write a neutral and accurate article. --Aquillion (talk) 23:43, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
• A. The guideline against mentioning a deadname is explicitly grounded in the very strong protections of WP:BLPPRIVACY. We mention a deadname of a person covered by BLP only when absolutely necessary, to identify a name of prior nobility. Based on the privacy concerns, we exclude the deadname even if it is of some relevance. Once BLP ceases to apply, those privacy concerns end as well. James Barry (surgeon), Billy Tipton, and Brandon Teena all currently convey the subject's birth name (the latter indirectly). Whether to do so for non-BLP articles should be based on whether it is relevant, as determined by whether mentioning the name is commonly done in reliable sources discussing the subject.--Trystan (talk) 02:35, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
• A. The long-standing norm. I can see BLP Privacy concern as more important than weight, but after death, BLP concerns no longer apply. cheers, Markbassett (talk) 05:25, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
• Strongly support C: as stated by some before me, I don't see why we should treat deceased people any differently from living people when it comes to this subject. If someone was notable only under their chosen name, and not their deadname, why should we use it? And if their deadname is widely reported by RS, we can always discuss whether it deems a mention in the lede, and nowhere else. Isabelle ^🔔 11:00, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

My preference for deceased people (who were not notable under a deadname) would be to not mention the deadname in the lead (as this highlights the name unnecessarily). Instead we should mention it in historical context somewhere in the body of the text (say in an “Early life” section).

In fact, I would say this should be how we handle all non-notable former names, regardless of the trans issue, or the living/dead question. The only reason to highlight any former name in the lead is if the subject was notable under that name. Blueboar (talk) 11:54, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I'd agree with that, although I'd add an exception for where their former name is directly relevant to their notability (e.g. if one of the people mentioned at Naming law in Sweden#Protest names becomes notable for name-related reasons) and, on a case-by-case basis, where their changing their name is (part of) why they are notable (e.g. if they changed their name to protest something, their former name will be encyclopaedic ally relevant in some cases). Thryduulf (talk) 12:23, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I fully agree that separate to this context, we should have a MOS that recommends deferring names (deadname, pre-marriage, etc.) to a single mention in the body and not in the lede, when these names that are from when a person is not notable but can be readily documented from RSes to just the body and as a single instance, on the basis these will not be searchable terms. But obviously for a person like Caitlyn Jenner, we'd better be clear she was Bruce Jenner as well before transition since that's a searchable name, even if this is considered part of our standard for bios (see, for example Ralph H. Baer, where I'd remove the given name in the lede, just to have 100% consistent policy on this regardless of living/dead, and whatever reason someone may have a name change. --Masem (t) 12:37, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I fear WE are in danger of muddying the waters. This RfC is solely about the application of MOS:DEADNAME guidelines on pre-transition names ("deadnames") under which a person was not notable to deceased persons. This RfC is simply not relevant to non transpeople like Ralph H. Baer or trans folks who were notable prior to their transition like Caitlyn Jenner. If you wish to change their situations living or dead, surely that is a separate RfC .

Regarding " were a transgender or non-binary person was not notable under a former name (a deadname)" MOS:DEADNAME explicitly states 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. So no, the community has decided we do not mention their deadname in the history sections. We are simply deciding if and when that clear guidance should end after someone's death. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 13:51, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I know this has been specifically about trans individuals, but I think we can make a far simpler (in the KISS type way) that makes it easy to apply to any bio (living or dead) and state of previous name rather than looking for the specific carveout for trans individuals' names. That it, using what DEADNAME already has for these names and applying that more stringent standard to all "prior names" regardless of state of the person. --Masem (t) 14:06, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I can see the positive intention of applying more stringent standard to all "prior names" regardless of state of the person, living or dead.

I agree with that. However few of those additional persons (they do exist and need the stringent standard you are suggesting) are in the same level of need of protection as transgender or non-binary persons. I still respectfully think you are discussing proposals for a separate and much wider scoped RfC than this RfC which is solely about the deceased trans or binary folks whose deadnames were never notable. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 14:32, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

• Firmly A and moreover Not C. Why should we treat the deceased differently from the living? Because the dead don't care about the actions of the living. Apart from attenuated effects on surviving family members, which existing biographic guidelines seem to have deemed an acceptable sacrifice, there is no potential, whatsoever, for a dead person to come to harm in any way. I don't believe that the 'not notable under former name' argument holds up either, since plenty of celebrities have their birth names included in their articles, despite never having used those names during their careers. I agree with the point EddieHugh made about WP:CENSOR, that "Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive – even exceedingly so". To implement C would be to say that information that information should be omitted from Wikipedia solely because it is considered offensive. This must be avoided, regardless of whether or not it would be beneficial to a political movement (trans-rights in this case) that many Wikipedians, including myself, wholeheartedly support. Rabbitflyer (talk) 15:41, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Respectfully I must firstly point out we are not discussing celebrities, their experience has simply no comparison.

Regards No harm to deceased trans/binary people, apart from their love ones and family, surely an individual's reputation and dignity does not simply end following their death. A deceased non-binary person deserves post-mortem privacy protection against the unnecessary dissemination of (what we have already agreed in life were non notable personal details) after their death. If we are censoring anything we are merely censoring the non notable aspect of someone's life. (WP:NOTGOSSIP). ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 16:13, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

There is definitely a new emphasis on trans rights and how society treats them, and DEADNAME being a relatively new policy was a right first step to matching that on WP. But the argument on "reputation and dignity" not only extends to trans people, but all people, and that's why carving out a special case for trans when really we should be bringing the case we've established for trans to be equivalent for all individuals, but still within scope of BDP (that well after death, we can start balancing "reputation and dignity" to what's actually being covered in RSes, so that we are not at odds with RSes). --Masem (t) 17:30, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm confused as to how the omission or removal of non-trivial information in the interest of 'reputation' or 'dignity' can be regarded as anything but censorship. Historical instances of censorship have been justified on account of such concepts, in particular the reputations of powerful leaders. If we were to 'zoom-out' socially, we could replace 'reputation' with 'public interest' and 'dignity' with 'tradition'. And, from the point of view of the present day, the deceased do occupy the same category as nations: both are concepts, to which we can only ascribe thought and motive in the sense of our amalgamated individual projections. So I suppose I don't believe that the deceased are entitled to any expectation of privacy, simply because no harm can be done directly to them. While I do agree that Wikipedia shouldn't include slander or speculation in articles, I think that when the ability to document verified historical record collides with our perception of a nonliving person's 'reputation' or 'dignity', it is vitally important that the ability-to-document is not encumbered by a blanket ban of this kind. This should apply to trans deadnames and all non-trivial information regarding the deceased.

Another thing that I think is being missed throughout this discussion is that as per WP:NCC, standards for notability do not dictate what information should appear in articles. Information that is irrelevant to the article is and should be removed, but there is no mandate to refer to the notability standards for this.Rabbitflyer (talk) 00:07, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Just a quick point about what you referred to as WP:NCC(?-that link doesn't seem to go where you think it does). The community has already decided, in previous RfCs, that in the specific case of BLPs of Trans people, standards for Notability (of a person while they had a former name) do dictate the inclusion or exclusion of that former name from article space. In the run-up to this RfC there was no clearly articulated proposal to reverse that principle, which has (to be fair) been repeatedly upheld at RfC in the past. The question here is whether to leave the boundary where it is or to expand its scope, but the idea that there is some kind of absolute principle preventing this treatment has already been rejected by the community, repeatedly. Newimpartial (talk) 00:22, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. (I meant to link to WP:NNC, but it seems you figured that out.) Rabbitflyer (talk) 14:56, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

• C as a first choice, with B as second choice: I don't understand the need to start being disrespectful the second a person dies. BLP standards are generally best practice for dead people as well, and I see no reason to not include all people (from the past and present) into a single set of guidelines. --Jayron32 16:23, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

That's not what C proposes. It proposes to apply different standards to dead trans people than to dead non-trans people. WP:BLP and WP:BDP also ensure that nothing changes the second a person dies. On respect: we don't prohibit articles on people such as Billy Tipton who die non-notable and not wanting people to know that they were trans – if we wanted to respect them, we wouldn't write about them. And, fundamentally, this is an encyclopedia, where information and the reader take priority over notions of respecting the long dead by censoring reliable sources. EddieHugh (talk) 18:09, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

The inclusion of irrelevant, trivial information, is of itself not censoring. There are many things that are both true and sourced that we can include in any given article, but choose not to for the simple reason that it isn't important enough to include. This is doubly true for biographies where there are complicating factors that may affect the reputation of people, both living and the relatives and estates of the recently deceased. Wikipedia is not a random, uncollated, uncritical collection of every single fact we could find a source for. That isn't even true for articles where the random trivia is uncontroversial and has no potential to cause harm, and it should be even more true where it can. Every time an editorial decision is made to not include some piece of irrelevant trivia is NOT censorship. No one is infringing on someone's expression rights because editorial decisions are made. --Jayron32 10:51, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but C would prohibit the inclusion of certain information in any article under any circumstances: no editorial judgement would be permitted. That would clearly be censorship if the information were widely available in reliable sources. EddieHugh (talk) 17:54, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not a "C" supporter, but NOTCENSORED has already been set aside when it comes to the documented but not notable former names of Trans people. Why would it be more of an objection to "C" than to "A", where it has already been repeatedly rejected by consensus as not being the decisive policy? Newimpartial (talk) 17:58, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

(I was hoping to post only one comment today...!) I think you mean "living trans people". I'm not sure if I understand your question, but I address why the reasons for excluding this information about the living – privacy and harm – don't apply to the long dead (see from "For some living people, there is consensus...", above). Others have also addressed this. EddieHugh (talk) 18:27, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

If you mean "except in the case of living people", you have to actually say that. Otherwise it sounds like "NOTCENSORED uber Alles". Newimpartial (talk) 19:17, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

• A. per Markbassett and EddieHugh and Trystan. We would need extraordinarily strong reasons to prohibit a prior name iro a long-dead figure and a name may well be part of the post-mortem narrative of a possibly trans person, even if they were not notable under it during their life, such as James Barry (surgeon). Why would we want to limit the narrative in such cases? No one could possibly be hurt or offended to know that Barry may have had a female life and name. I don't see any strong reasons being presented for such a sweeping 'ban'. A measure of discretion and sensitivity is required in all biogs to present information in a respectful manner and to exclude irrelevancies. This appears to be a rule in search of a justification which proceeds on the assumption that editors are not able to exercise judgement and exclude a name if irrelevant. I also endorse Blueboar's point that 'prior names' are often better introduced within the narrative, rather than the lead. Pincrete (talk) 16:53, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Why would we want to limit the narrative in such cases? Simply because their Deadname has zero relevance to their notability. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 17:14, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

The MOS:DEADNAME standard (notable under the deadname) is a much higher bar for inclusion than whether the deadname is relevant to their notability. For example James Barry (surgeon) (as definitively trans as it is possible to conclude for someone who died prior to the mid 20th century) was never notable under his birth name, so under option C it would need to be removed from the article. However, given the well-sourced discussion in the article of Barry’s pre-transition life and how he transitioned to a male identity, it would be hard to conclude that the birth name is a non-notable personal detail. The entirety of that part of the article would be wholly inappropriate for a BLP, but is clearly now of historical interest. Where a birth name for a historical trans person truly is a non-notable detail (as determined by reliable sources, with a higher bar than mere verifiability), I fully support excluding it, but where it is relevant, it should be mentioned.--Trystan (talk) 18:12, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

The list of things that have zero relevance to notability but which we (and reliable sources) routinely cover is long: date of birth, place of birth, date of death, place of death, cause of death, places lived, partners' names, marriage dates, number of children, children's names, original/birth name... EddieHugh (talk) 18:27, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

There are pieces of information we routinely include, and ones we routinely exclude as trivial or gratuitous. The list isn't fixed, as it is grounded in cultural views about the significance and appropriateness of information, which can shift. The decision should be based on what the majority of reliable sources do. If most sources don't consider it appropriate to include the deadname of a trans person who died 30 years ago, we shouldn't either, rather than automatically siding with the few that do (as a standard of mere verifiability would lead to). However, if most reliable sources do find that information relevant to the biography of a person, we should as well.--Trystan (talk) 13:10, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm all for making the inclusion of birth names (which include deadnames) more than a standard aspect and instead dependent on a sourcing threshold to be passed; further, those names should not be lede material (that is, limited to one or two mentions in body) unless the person under that birth name was notable or that the name has occurred so much in RSes that it would be necessary to resolve the search term/redirection aspect and MOS (eg Hillary Rohdam redirecting and thus mentioned in lede of Hillary Clinton.) This is a single, clearcut policy that would apply to all people, living or dead, with the standard for inclusion set higher for living/BDP if the sourcing is any way questionable. --Masem (t) 13:37, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

BOD, Trystan outlines above how James Barry's 'deadname' was not known, let alone notable during Barry's life, but is nevertheless relevant to Barry's present notability. Indeed, it's difficult to imagine a historical 'trans' person, whose given name is not part of their narrative, if their trans status is itself known. Using a given name is a much more efficient way to relate that narrative than tortuous circumlocutions to avoid using a male/female name. Should a person's death immediately invite insertion into their article of irrelevancies? Certainly not, but we need to leave somethings to local judgement per Colin M below.Pincrete (talk) 13:22, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Barry died over 250 years ago, he achieved the rank of Inspector General of Hospitals (equivalent to Brigadier General) but his notability came from the fact after he died they discovered he was a transgender man, and popular culture has feasted on his corpse/memory. Was he truly notable prior to his Deadname being released to the world I do not know. However it is hard to see why rare few historical examples prevent the general protection of the MOS:DEADNAME applying to the overwealming majority whose deadnames were not notable prior to their fame. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 16:46, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Well we don't actually know whether Barry was trans within the modern meaning do we - it's pure conjecture either way. We know Barry was discovered to be anatomically female after his death and as you say that is probably the main reason he is notable. No Barry's given name is not VITAL, but using it allows easier and more natural phrasing and does no harm to anyone given that he's long dead. Pincrete (talk) 18:33, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

• A. As Trystan says, the curent incarnation of our deadname policy is rooted in WP:BLPPRIVACY. A recurring argument for C seems to be that, if someone wasn't notable under their pre-transition name, then that name is simply not relevant information that's worth including. This may often be the case, but it's not logically entailed. And if this is the only motivation, then I see no reason the policy shouldn't be strengthened even further to apply to all former names (including, for example, names before marriage). As Crossroads says, we have WP:DUE to decide on a case by case basis whether a former name is appropriate to include. (As a sidenote, I do think we currently often give wildly undue prominence to birth names in biographies of all sorts, and would love to see that tamped down across the board. I wrote a little mini-essay about that here). Colin M (talk) 17:16, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Please forgive my probable misunderstanding but are not your last two sentences (and linked mini essay) very sensible supporting arguments for option C. If birth names have undue prominence in other biographies, then it is at least equally true about trans/non binary people who were never notable under their dead(birth)name. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 18:01, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I think that the salience of birth names can range anywhere from pure trivia (for example, if the name is never mentioned in reliable secondary sources, and can only be sourced to official documents - in which case it probably shouldn't be included anywhere in the article), to highly relevant (in which case it should be mentioned early in the article). I think our policy should allow for this range of possibilities - neither mandating that we place the birth name in the most prominent place in the article (which, weirdly, MOS:BIRTHNAME does), nor mandating that it not be placed anywhere in the article. When I say that we currently give excessive weight to birthnames, I mean that in most cases, the subject's birth name is closer to the "trivia" end of the spectrum, and should either not be included, or only be included in the body (probably in the "Early life" section) rather than being the first thing people read. But, per MOS:BIRTHNAME the practice is to place it in the first sentence in every case except for living trans and NB people. Colin M (talk) 19:33, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Definitely agree! It's very telling that when Google harvests articles for its automatically generated summary boxes, it leaves out the parentheticals (e.g., "Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, model, and singer.") One simple sentence, and a reader not familiar with the subject is well on their way. Clearly and concisely conveying the most important information is what the lead is supposed to do, but we muddy it up with inscrutable IPA symbols and birth name. (e.g., While the article should mention that Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson, it's far from the first thing we need to say about her.)--Trystan (talk) 13:27, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

• Masem's Option D, or option C as second choice. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information; non-notable deadnames of people who are notable under their actual name are not encyclopedic. Also I believe WP:GRATUITOUS applies: this information is harmful without adding anything of value. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:23, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
• None of the above, but A is closest This RfC is designed with the incorrect presumption that A is the active default for Wikipedia, which is not the case. I have great respect for MOS:DEADNAME when it applies to a person who actually has a deadname. However, having a deadname is not a universal part of the trans experience in all times or all cultures, and not even for Western society right now. It would be incorrect to apply contemporary Western values to people in other times and places where this practice is not a value. It can happen that the application of MOS:DEADNAME can erase trans experiences from Wikipedia, which is not a desirable outcome. I want improved discourse, and I want promotion of LGBT+ values, but being hasty to universally apply new undiscussed cultural practices at scale to biographies where sourcing is scarce is too much at this time. I support anyone who wants to go to the Wikimedia Foundation and ask them for money to convene a global multilingual discussion about this, because I also have doubt that English Wikipedia alone should make this decision, even if for now we are only talking about English Wikipedia. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:33, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
  • But "A" most certainly is the active default for English Wikipedia, if "active default" means the guideline that has been discussed extensively and has received wide community consensus in multiple RfCs. Any argument that MOS:DEADNAME should only apply where contemporary Western values are demonstrably present is entirely irrelevant to whether A is the current consensus (it is); a proposal to limit the application of DEADNAME to Western societies is entirely out of scope for this RfC. Also, there are no undiscussed cultural practices at work here; MOS:DEADNAME in its current form has emerged from repeated, widely-participated discussions over the last decade or more. Newimpartial (talk) 21:04, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
    • I support MOS:DEADNAME and want its expansion to develop quickly
    • I disagree that option A is adequate as a summary of MOS:DEADNAME
    • I confirm again that the hegemony and imperialism of Western culture is relevant here and oppressive to non-Western culture
    • I disagree that MOS:DEADNAME has an established 10-year history or that it is some established cultural norm. It is the outcome of 0 dollars of Wikimedia Movement investment, has probably had no engagement from LGBT+ organizations whatsoever, has had almost no LGBT+ participation in its development from lower or middle income countries, and has a frenzied development of about 5 years with little administrative support to build it considering its major off-wiki cultural influence.

I feel like I am on the side of the most conventional and mainstream of LGBT+ values here, and my interpretation of the situation is that we lack consensus and discourse for sweeping machine-readable change at scale. I recognize your different interpretation and confirm it as a valid, also mainstream conclusion. Again, MOS:DEADNAME needs development and expansion, but not like this, and I want more conversation and documentation. Undoing problems is much more problematic than talking through the tough issues first and getting things right before big changes. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:25, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

First of all, most of the above comment is irrelevant to Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia does not, and will not. establish bantustans so that LGBT+ participants from lower or middle income countries could elect to have less protection in BLPs from misgendering and deadnaming than others. That simply isn't going to happen. If specific trans or genderdiverse people elect to refer to themselves with multiple names, then WP can reflect their preferences, but not by creating colonialist zones of Western and non-Western culture with different rules attached. There isn't any WP policy that works that way, and trying to insert one specifically into the discussion of deadnames is objectively harmful to trans and nonbinary people, whether that is the intention behind the proposal or not.

Second, nobody is proposing sweeping machine-readable change at scale. Seriously, what? At most, we are talking about a process by which editors would decide, at the Talk page of each and every deceased trans person, whether they were Notable under their pre-transition name. That is neither sweeping nor "at scale"; strictly bespoke, I assure you.

Finally, and after some rabbit-holing on my part, the first version of what became GENDERID was added to MOS:IDENTITY in 2007. As far as I can tell, the question of deadnames was first brought to WT:MOS in 2013, while language to prohibit the inclusion of deadnames in BLP leads (except those by which the subject was previously Notable) was added in 2015. That is the essence of MOS:DEADNAME, in place six years ago, and there have been at least five RfCs on the topic from 2015 until now, engaging hundreds of participants. So your disagreement (denial, maybe?) about this history, and about whether Option A reflects the status quo, isn't really germane to WP policy or, for that matter, to consensus reality. Newimpartial (talk) 22:42, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I hear you on all points. I recognize your position as one of the possible valid conclusions from reviewing the precedent. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:57, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

• Strongly C - I don't see why dead people deserve to be deadnamed. Obviously if they were notable under that deadname it's a different circumstance but that's already been established by MOS:DEADNAME. More importantly, why do we think that A is in any way acceptable? I can see some arguments for B (avoids conflict around people who would not have had the terminology to describe themselves as we are able to nowadays) but A seems frankly just an excuse to allow transphobia. Amekyras (talk) 09:24, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

You said "A seems frankly just an excuse to allow transphobia." Why? Of course A doesn't mean that we should use the deadname to refer to the subject throughout the article content. As I imagine it, it would simply be a single passing reference in the "Early Life" section or the equivalent. Having A wouldn't suddenly destroy our collective ability to have any discretion or judgement. A blanket, non-lifetime-limited ban is a very aggressive thing. Rabbitflyer (talk) 15:08, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

• Strong C as a matter of basic respect. If somebody was not notable under a deadname, it should be omitted. Zudo ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:19, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• A. This is essentially a BLP issue, and should be subject to the usual BLP time frame including a mourning period after death. As has been the case for many years on BLP, our rules are intended to protect individuals and their immediate circles of family and friends. The 'C' option seeks to establish a rule to protect an entire class of people, which extends much farther than BLP. Binksternet (talk) 14:20, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

The Wikipedia community has already repeatedly agreed that living people who were never notable under a previous gendered name are a class of people who deserve protection in BLPs. This RfC is about whether and when do their non notable names become somehow notable after they died. Do we honestly need to mention the unnotable former Deadnames of Gwen Araujo or Brandon Teena, what encyclopedic value do they add. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 16:05, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

" Do we honestly need to mention the unnotable former Deadnames of Gwen Araujo or Brandon Teena? No we don't and I'm glad that we don't in these two cases, since inclusion would add nothing. But 'outlawing' something when there is no demonstrable need and in response to a small number of very emotive cases is not a good idea either. Pincrete (talk) 14:00, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Sadly Brandon Teena's deadname is published in his Wikipedia article, based on a source from the Wikipedia:RSP Playboy it does not add anything to his notability and is exactly why we need a general rule to stop the unnecessary publication of unnotable deadnames even if they come from reliable sources. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 15:09, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Considering other sources, Enc. Brittanica, Out Magazine, Chicago Tribune, The Hollywood Reporer and even in academic sources includes it too. This is the type of situation that us not including the name (albeit briefly and not necessarily in the lead) would make us look at odds with reliable sources, well after BDP applies. --Masem (t) 15:19, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, apologies, I hadn't noticed that Brandon Teena's given name was in the article - though it's fairly buried and I don't have an opinion as to whether it clarifies or adds anything. Not wishing to be too insensitive, but that article necessarily includes a great deal of very intimate detail, and necessarily is substantially about Brandon being trans, details which would rarely be included in ANY article about any person, so limited use of the given name does not seem like the most intrusive aspect of the article. Pincrete (talk) 17:51, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I did choose modern extreme cases, I do not think reprinting Brandon's birth name was necessary improvement for the article even if a few of reliable sources mention it.

Maybe I should have just simply asked would the insetion of the Deadnames make Wikipedia biographies of these deceased tran gender people Holly Woodlawn (1946 – 2015), Leslie Feinberg (1949 – 2014), Sylvia Rivera (1951 – 2002), Greer Lankton (1958-1996), Penny Whetton (1958 – 2019) or Alexander John Goodrum (1960–2002) any better, even if we had a couple of RS to support their birthnames. Are their unknown dead(birth)names so vital necessary to demand insertion. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 22:44, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

To start with Holly Woodlawn, it becomes relatively easy to link the deadname with that identity in RSes : Vogue, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, BBC, WaPost and NYTimes to name a few. I will point these all are from the few days around her death. And to check, there was connect before her death to the deadname The Guardian for one. So this is a case that today, under the fact that BDP has well since passed, that failing to include the deadname shows a failure to align with the RSes that covered her. That said: this is also a case that unless there were as many sources talking about her deadname while she was alive, this is where BDP would be a reasonable point to not include her name in the months immediately after her death out of respect and privacy even with the number of sources that reported th name at the time, but after BDP expires, including the name alignes with RS coverage of it. (I do note that the last inclusion of her deadname at the artilc was based on IMDB which no way is an RS.) --Masem (t) 23:03, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

But would the inclusion, just because the are RSPs actually improve the articles significantly, is it indispensable WP:DUE addition. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 23:28, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

In terms that WP articles should summarize what RSes are saying about a topic, and that we're well outside the period of BDP, the answer is yes. We would look odd to not include such a widely published name that after after death. At the time of death, we'd weigh privacy over completeness but once BDP expires, that privacy aspect is far less significant when outweighed by RSes particularly of this calibar. --Masem (t) 00:05, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

To take the case of Leslie Feinberg, I looked and cannot find the deadname used in the article over the last two years (easily) and even then, I'm finding no RSes that even give what a deadname may have been (And I'm seeing the death come up from the same set of RSes I pointed above for Woodlawn) Here's a case where even if a source or two now gave that name (nowhere near what I pointed out for Woodlawn), we should not include it out of general principle I've been proposing. Same case with Sylvia Rivera - no sourcing that I'm seeing to even include the name. --Masem (t) 23:23, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

• C, it's basic respect, and it doesn't apply when people were notable under their deadname. Jackattack1597 (talk) 15:17, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
• A. Former names are encyclopedic information, as established by the longstanding precedent that we mention maiden names. The remaining question, then, becomes whether or not there is a compelling interest overriding our normal interest in including encyclopedic info. For living people and recently deceased people, BLP provides a privacy interest, which correctly has led to MOS:DEADNAME. For people in the historical past, however, that reasoning does not apply. The C !voters are proposing an unprecedented expansion of BLP considerations way beyond the normal scope of that policy, and I do not see in their arguments policy- or guideline-based justifications for that expansion. We're therefore left with the status quo, which is that MOS:DEADNAME does not apply to historical figures. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:35, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Firstly Respectfully Maiden names are irrelevant. Secondly ... Ah the James Barry Clause, the are less than few/fewer cases were the unnotable irrelevant deadnames are of any real relevance to the subjects notability. WP:NOTEVERYTHING merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 18:23, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

If 'MOS:DEADNAME shouldn't apply to historical figures' is your position then how do you see that differing from B? (Genuine question). The Land (talk) 18:27, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

I was saying that MOS:DEADNAME should apply, the number of rare cases were the a deceased person's unnotable deadname is of any real significance is minuscule. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 18:43, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

The comparison to maiden names is relevant because it refutes the argument you and some have made above that the name an individual was assigned at birth somehow has no encyclopedic relevance. Another way to refute that argument would be by providing contradictory examples—for example, a researcher might be reviewing primary documents and come across information about an individual from early in their life that uses their deadname. A third way would be just appealing to the common sense understanding that names are important, and a name that an individual goes by for an extended period in their early life is therefore going to be significant enough to create an encyclopedic interest in documenting it. What we're discussing here is whether there are other factors weighing against inclusion compelling enough to outweigh the encyclopedic interest, but to argue that the interest doesn't exist is prima facie unreasonable. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:19, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

When has anyone been abused by people because before their marriage they had a different family name. Living or Dead People with maiden names do not need any safeguard. The situation for Non Binary and Trans folk are different. MOS:GENDERED currently states

"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 ... 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." So the community has already cancelled out your arguement regarding the living, the question is does this respectful safeguard continue after death. Being Trans or Non Binary does not end after death. It is reasonable exclude deadnames that have little real relevance to the subjects notability. Wikipedia is neither WP:INDISCRIMINATE nor WP:NOTEVERYTHING collection of information, merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia. The numbers of known modern trans and binary folks vastly out weigh the rare known historical examples; why should deadnames of the deceased be dragged up after they have died: for example, even if reliable sources exist the is no real necessity or value to mention the irrelevant former Deadnames of Gwen Araujo or Brandon Teena, what encyclopedic value do their deadnames add. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 00:35, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

When has anyone been abused by people because before their marriage they had a different family name. Plenty of times. Jews in Spain, expelled, tortured, murdered. Jews in Germany and German-occupied Europe, murdered. Jews in Russia, denied jobs, confined to specific residences, murdered. But those are just my ancestors, I'm sure other cultures have similar stories. There is no shortage of cruelty based on people's names, and those names were changed by every means possible, including marriage. --GRuban (talk) 14:43, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

• B (or possibly C with a modification on the onus for preferences) — Let me say at the outset that I think the DEADNAME policy is a sensible response to a serious issue, and that clearly someone's death is not a critical moment when the problems caused by deadnaming or misgendering them evaporate. Nonetheless, I have two concerns with extending this policy indefinitely backwards in time. First, I think one role of Wikipedia is to facilitate further research on the subjects it covers. Since Wikipedia articles are intended to be read for citations rather than cited themselves, we should (for reasons closely related to our own verifiability) provide readers with the relevant search terms to find records on the people we cover. In cases where the individual's transition was not widely known, or their deadname is widely used exclusively in primary records about them and/or secondary sources on their life, it is in the interest of the encyclopedia to at least mention it.

Second, the social practice of experiencing deadnaming as a personal offense should not be taken as universally applying across all time. While the testimony of people currently living as trans is an important guide, we can't assume that all poeple whose gender identity changed during their lifetime experience the same revulsion towards their former name. Many such individuals may have maintained a close identification with their assigned names. In the case of people living more than lifetime ago (and I'm not sure what the right cutoff is), I would reverse the existing assumption, "This holds for any phase of the person's life, unless they have indicated a preference otherwise." to "This holds for any phase of the person's life, if they have expressed that they have always identified in that way."--Carwil (talk) 21:16, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

• A - Our treatment of the living is different than the deceased, evidenced through e.g. BLP; it makes sense here as much in this case as others. That aside, mos deadname may be a bit too stringent -- this allows that to be remedied eventually. Maintaining non-opaque descriptions of historical topics is very important for our readership, especially regarding subjects outside of their lifetime where they are much more likely to have little context regarding the complex social issues of the time being treated. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 22:54, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
• Option A only. As soon as WP:BLP or WP:BDP no longer apply, there is no legitimate interest in suppressing reliably sourced information that might be relevant or useful to at least some readers (for example, a person searching for information about somebody they only knew under their deadname). Our policy WP:CENSOR applies here: "Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive‍—‌even exceedingly so. Attempting to ensure that articles and images will be acceptable to all readers, or will adhere to general social or religious norms, is incompatible with the purposes of an encyclopedia." We have applied this standard to a lot of content that offends the sensibilities of editors who are not a majority of Wikipedians, such as Muhammad images, freemasonry or Scientology secrets, images of nude people, etc. For consistency, we also have to apply this standard in cases where the sensibilities of a great number of Wikipedians are affected, namely trans people and those who sympathize with their concerns (which includes myself). Sandstein 12:38, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

WP:NOTCENSORED has already been set aside when it comes to reliable sourced but not notable former names of living Trans people. So it is not a universal rule. The inclusion of reduntant, inconsequental information that has zero bareing on a subjects notability, is of itself not censoring. This true for both the living or the dead. There are many things that are both true and reliably sourced that we routinely do not include in any given article for the simple reason that it is simply not essential enough to include. If it is not essential why is the a need to include it. Wikipedia is not a random, uncollated, uncritical collection of every single fact we might find a source for. At most we are merely triming off the truely unnotable fruitless aspect of someone's life. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 13:42, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Bodney, the current rule for living people is not an exception to WP:CENSOR, but a reasonable attempt to reconcile it with WP:BLP. As soon as this need to reconcile two policies no longer exists, WP:CENSOR takes precedence. It is of course true that we should and need not include irrelevant information. But deadnames are always relevant information, in my view, because they are search keys. Their inclusion allows people who only know the deadname to search for information about the person. And as explained, our policies compel us to prioritize our readers' needs, not our subjects' needs, except in cases of WP:BLP. Sandstein 15:38, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

I refer to my comment below, but in this regard, we should only be including the deadname as a redirect/search term if it is routinely reported for the person. If that's still a piece of obscure information, sourced to maybe one or two sources or only reported by weak/non-RSes, we shouldn't include that term or have it searchable even well after BDP. That's not out of privacy, that's just a general principle about what information we include based on what sources give us. If RSes are not frequently using the deadname, that means that readers are unlikely to be searching on it either. --Masem (t) 15:47, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

But WP:BLP considerations are not the only ones that have been put forward in support of the current MOS:DEADNAME provisions, nor are they the only ones being advanced here in favor of B or C. If the community decides that other provisions apply and outweigh WP:CENSOR, then they do so apply. Newimpartial (talk) 16:20, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

But this again, where the line is drawn for "redundant, inconsequential" information is something that should be based on RSes about the person. If a large number of articles from RSes featuring in-depth coverage of a deceased trans person (after death) include their deadname, that tells me that that body of RSes do not consider that "redundant". (Same case if we're talking before death as well). If its clear that the deadname is not routinely attached to the preferred name after death, then that's where, even if we can properly source the DEADNAME, its likely redundant and inconsequential to not include. This is why the sourcing aspect needs to be considered in all this, as that's going to be the part that guides it. --Masem (t) 13:49, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Exactly… there is a HUGE difference between having one single source that uses someone’s deadname in passing, and having multiple sources that use it in some depth. This is an area where our MOS guidance needs to mesh with DUE/UNDUE. One size does not fit all. Blueboar (talk) 14:18, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

When it comes to including redundant and inconsequential detail that maybe found in a large number of articles from RSes featuring in-depth coverage of a deceased trans person or multiple sources that use it in some depth I am interested in guidance on what might be deemed to be a reasonable quantity/quality of RS needed to qualify for inclussion to cross the DUE/UNDUE boundary. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 14:56, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

That's always going to be subjective, but it should based on the quality of the RSes (eg, inclusion is more apt if this is the NYTimes and BBC reporting it rather than TMZ or People magazine), and how many of those sources are stating it (with some quantity more than 1 being a bare minimum). A simple test I've used in this discussion is by searching google for the deadname and the current name simultaneous. If the page of hits I get are filled with RSes (and verifying both names are mentioned), that's a really good sign we should be including it. If I have to click through to a 2nd or 3rd page to find a quality RS that uses both names, that's likely not a time to be using the deadname. But all that would be a matter of discussion on the talk page. --Masem (t) 15:05, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

User:Bodney, if I'm interpreting correctly, you are saying that option "C" is necessary to prevent Wikipedia from turning into an indiscriminate collection of information. This argument can be applied to almost every article on Wikipedia, so why not instead argue for a full removal of WP:NNC, for all biographies of the deceased? Clearly that would be madness; the reason this particular case stands out is offensiveness: you are proposing that deadnames specifically should be more harshly suppressed than other pieces of information, because they are offensive. While it's true that "the [exclusion] of reduntant, inconsequental information that has zero bareing on a subjects notability, is of itself not censoring", the creation of a policy that raises the threshold specifically for offensive content definitely is censoring. I don't think that this frequently-used notability/pruning argument can be used to negate the fact that option "C" is censoring, unless you are willing to extend the same intra-article notability requirements to all statements within biographies of the deceased. Rabbitflyer (talk) 15:26, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

I wonder if people who think it's "censorship" to exclude a non-notable deadname also think all verifiable street addresses need to be included as soon as WP:BLP/WP:BDP prtections are up...? (Someone could [say that they] want that info to find more records with, doncha know.) Not including non-notable information is not censorship, it's routine in situations that haven't become politicized.
As for what Masem, Bluebour and others have said about considering the amount, quality, date, and depth of sourcing available for something: yes, I suspect one of the next steps after this RfC will be to discuss what criteria should apply to anyone this RfC doesn't extend DEADNAME criteria to. I just felt (and my sense of the discussion that preceded this RfC was that others felt) starting with the "simpler" question ("should we extend deadname?") was simpler; figuring out how to write guidelines (to propose in a future discussion / RfC) that'd require a certain number or quality or date of—or depth of focus in—sources, in a way that wouldn't lead to and be circumvented by wikilaywering (a la inconsistent AfD outcomes and debates over what constitutes "significant" coverage, etc), seems daunting and I don't envy whoever takes on that necessary task. -sche (talk) 21:51, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

-sche (talk · contribs), the point you make here is exactly the kind of argument I was complaining about before. Removal of irrelevant and inconsequential information is routine and correct. It also is not enforced by specific, rules spelling out exactly what is and isn't relevant for certain categories of articles. So, why do people wish to implement such enforcement for this particular topic, and not all topics? Because of its offensiveness. The motivation and specificity is what makes this "censoring". Someone who opposes a regulation requiring all beachgoers to retrieve a certain amount of litter, isn't necessarily pro-littering; people who say that "C" is censoring don't want to indiscriminately paste irrelevant deadnames everywhere, either. I also don't think that just because the proposal is censoring means that it should be immediately thrown out for that reason alone, but I don't think it's fair to use this argument to completely reject that label. Rabbitflyer (talk) 22:21, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

None of these options are presenting anything close to censorship. WP does not include every published fact about a topic, we are supposed to summarize sources, and in that summation, the act of omission of some types of information is not censorship but just careful selection of what material we'd want to include. Censorship would be if the WMF came along and said we could never ever include deadnames in articles, no questions asked. --Masem (t) 22:29, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

​The process of omitting non-notable information happens smoothly all across the site, with rather little specific guidance. Please explain to me why such specific guidelines are needed in this particular case. Rabbitflyer (talk) 22:38, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

• Option A. For reasons admirably and succinctly stated by Sandstein above. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:48, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
• Option A. Sandstein puts it best, of course, but here is my humble take. The dead are dead, nothing we do can harm them. Beyond that, if we delete information just because people who identify with the dead consider themselves harmed, no piece of information we have will ever be safe, and our mission as an encyclopedia of facts, rather than pablum which doesn't offend anyone, is meaningless. --GRuban (talk) 13:16, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
• Comment Will leave a more detailed comment at a later date, but currently leaning option A per the reasons outline above.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 17:12, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
• None of the above, but A is closest. When alive, there are BLP considerations. Once the "L" is no longer true, the BLP concerns aren't present either. At that point, it becomes a normal matter for editorial discussion. Is it reliably sourced? (If not, it can't be included anyway as it is unverifiable). Would including it be due or undue weight? So, once BLP is no longer an issue, it should be considered a normal discussion of article content in terms of sourcing, relevance, and so on. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:03, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
• Option A Concur with Sandstein and Seraphimblade here. Pavlor (talk) 08:18, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
• Option A per all above and WP:PRESERVE. The historical encyclopedic information and neutrality should not be sacrificed in this case. Brandmeister^talk 09:29, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
• B first, C second and not A (but for God's sake just choose 1920, let's not have another RFC). Two different conversations are happening here. Crossroads seems almost exclusively concerned with people in historical cultures that did not have a conception of transgenderness or binary gender that makes our deadname approach, in the worst case, a category error. In contrast, I'll go out on a limb that many of those supporting C are picturing people from 1970–2018 Western countries who died more than a couple of years ago (such that WP:BDP has expired, but the people had a similar conception of gender to most of us). I'm thinking of murder victims or people driven to suicide, whose loved ones will certainly care how we write about them; and of celebrities who died in the 2010s and how the number of openly transgender celebrities will surely be much-increasing over the next decade. I'm particularly chilled to read some of the A-supporting comments from yesterday, but I will assume good faith that the writers did not have in mind the families of trans people who were murdered between 2000 and 2018, as I did when reading them.
  Cultural conception of gender seems like the clear dividing line that leads to a different approach being required. Thus we have B, and I think it needs a concrete date for pragmatic reasons. Anything between 1920 and 1980 is good enough to run with IMO. I support C (and oppose A) because I think it is more important not to be insensitive to recent figures than it is to give a minimally-important historical detail for long-dead figures. — Bilorv (talk) 15:33, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
• None of the above but B is the closest, then C. This RFC seems to blur two different issues: whether naming treatment should change after someone dies, and treatment of historical incidents of people with non-conforming gender. I don't see a strong reason for a death to cause a change in how MOS:DEADNAME should apply, so I prefer B/C over A. The one asterisk which this RFC doesn't address is cases where it isn't actually clear if the subject was transgender / non-binary for people who gave mixed signals, so I will say that I don't think post-mortem revelations should change how a subject was viewed on Wikipedia barring all the reliable sources agreeing, but I suspect I'm misreading this RFC if that was the point of contention. For historic people of non-conforming gender, I don't think DEADNAME will be relevant very often anyway, hence mildly preferring B over C. I think DEADNAME could apply rarely to very old cases, but it would need to be on a case-by-case basis, so setting a general rule of not using it pre-1920 / 1940 / whenever would probably be fine as historic views of transgender identity were substantially different than modern ones, so the modern standard should not be assumed to apply. SnowFire (talk) 21:27, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
• I prefer B but am also fine with C. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of trivia; verifiability does not guarantee inclusion, information must be relevant and improve the encyclopedia: a name a person wasn't notable under is not relevant (or due inclusion) when writing an encyclopedia. Such a name does however get used for unencyclopedic ends; one reason some people push to include deadnames is so that they are findable by people who want to deadname trans people and create an environment hostile to trans people, and deadnames create such an environment; the way Wikipedia emphasizes many trans people's deadnames in the first few words of their articles is one of the things Wikipedia does I see non-Wikipedians complain about the most. (The suggestion someone made above, that former names should in general, not just in trans cases, be moved further down in articles definitely merits its own discussion.) Notably, this applies whether an article's subject is alive or died three years ago (outside the scope of WP:BDP). (Consider how we also exclude people's non-notable street addresses, not only in BLPPRIVACY cases, but even after the person has been dead for years. The same weak justifications as get given for including deadnames could be given for [non-notable] street addresses, e.g. interest to researchers, but we just don't include such trivia.) My reason for preferring B is that in the case of very, very long dead people, other factors including lack of certainty over whether the person was trans may come into play; my reason for still being fine with C is that if there's a real lack of certainty that someone from three hundred years ago was trans, then guidelines about trans people don't clearly apply to them anyway. -sche (talk) 21:31, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
• B > A > C. To me, this is about respect both to individuals and to historical accuracy. This is not solely a WP:BLP issue; so long as a trans person has lived in an era where they were free to indicate publicly how they wished to be named, we should respect that choice regardless of whether they are living or dead. Regarding C, while LGBT people have existed forever, the current terminology is a recent phenomenon, and it is not our place to speculate on the preferences of people from a hundred years ago. For historical figures, we should follow reliable sources regarding what name to use, or even whether they should be classified as LGBT at all. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:25, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
• A, which I proposed in considerable detail with exact wording in a section above this RfC. It is simply application of existing BLP policy, while the other options are WP:CREEP and PoV-pushing in a highly socio-politicized argument space. WP is WP:NOTAFORUM and is WP:NOTADVOCACY. Option B is just begging for making WP into an continual forum for grievance about this stuff, and option C is rewriting history through WP:OR about what pre-modern people might have preferred had they been alive today.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:49, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

I think the might be an exaggeration of the number of historic cases. However, MOS:Deadname gives us clear guidance, it states if a transgender or non-binary person was not notable under a former name (a deadname) then we call them by their chosen name this implies that we will still use sources to see if the subject was ever famous/notable under their previous name before they were notable/famous under their chosen name and therefore no one should be using any original research.

Under Option B it states that we will fix a clear modern date after which MOS:Deadname would apply, specific timeframe to be determined by later RfC/discussion, so the would not be a continued forum for grievance. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 09:59, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - If I could have an example of 'each' of the proposed options? I would chose. As of now, I don't exactly understand the RFC questions. GoodDay (talk) 01:45, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
  • A good example is Holly Woodlawn (which was mentioned above). She died in 2015; she wasn't notable under her deadname so prior to 2015 we'd have never mentioned it at all. But after her death things change, as numerous high-quality reliable sources gave that name in her obits and since. Option A would say that after her death, including her deadname would not be appropriate for the ~6 months to 2 years that WP:BDP covers (extending BLP protections for recently deceased), but after that 2 years max window (2017), then as long as the name is reliably sourced, we should include it (or more importantly, DEADNAME would not restrict inclusion, there could still be consensus reasons to exclude). Under option B, because she died well after 1920, we would never include it, though as I read the arguments on Option B, this 1920 year will steadily increase each year (eg always 100 years from the present), so that until 2115, we could not include her deadname. Option C says that we would never give that deadname regardless whatever sourcing is available, DEADNAME being effectively permanent for a person known to be trans. --Masem (t) 01:58, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
    • Just one caveat: Option B actually represents a family of options, which would require a second RfC to select among, given the overall direction provided in this RfC. To pick four examples that have actually been proposed within Option B: there could be a fixed cutoff in 1920, a fixed cutoff in 1980, a rule covering 50 years after death and a rule covering 25 years after death. If one of the first two of these example rules were chosen in the second RfC, the Woodlawn deadname would be excluded "permanently", while if one of the latter two examples were chosen the deadname would no longer be excluded by the guideline in 2065 or in 2040, respectively. Mind you, there is no guarantee that these four would actually be the options to choose among but I hope thget exemplify the ways B could work in practice. Newimpartial (talk) 02:15, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
      • Yes, I was trying to simplify down a bit. Option B is meant as some point between the ~2 years of Option A and the permanency of Option C, though all options suggest we're talking on the order of a few decades to a century ago, and whether it is a moving target or not would need to be figured out. --Masem (t) 02:20, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

These options (of course) are relying on a future generation of editors, to follow the results of this RFC. What may be considered correct now, may not be so in a decade. GoodDay (talk) 02:32, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Beside WP:CCC factors, there may be shifts in external society that stresses more need to protect privacy by excluding deadnames or the like, and so certainly in ten years a new discussion may happen. But it should be pointed out that Option A, and potentially Option B, provide a shifting date for when DEADNAME applies, and thus are "future proof" to a degree to the next generation of editors. --Masem (t) 02:37, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

My take on that is marginally different from Masem's. The reason I used scare quotes for "permanently" is that it really means "until consensus changes". So in practice, the difference between a decision this year to select a fixed cutoff at 1971 or choosing a moving cutoff 50 years in the past is really just that with the second option, editors can look forward to debating possible inclusion of deadnames for people who died in the 70s, on a case by case, year by year basis while in the first option, they could only look forward to the next shift in policy. Newimpartial (talk) 02:46, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

IMHO, we should be using the birth name of the person, in the bio intro, irregardless of notability or lack there of. So, which proposal would cover that? GoodDay (talk) 03:42, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I must not be awake. It took me many readings to parse your question correctly (?). If you are asking about bio articles of deceased Trans people, either A or B would allow for that in all or some cases, respectively (i.e., where it is not forbidden to include them). However, language to provide additional guidance for what to do in cases where their inclusion is not forbidden would be subject to a second RfC, unless C is chosen. So the most basic answer to your question is, "not C".

Strategically, if you're wanting to make an argument for "include them all" guidance at some later stage, the most promising scenario is if the community chooses a highly restrictive version of B: if the cases where editors are most concerned to exclude non-notable deadnames are already covered by a time cutoff, they are more likely to accept inclusionary guidelines for the cases that remain (and I for one have said that "Notability at the time" offers poor guidance for deadname inclusion for lives before roughly 1850, for example). Newimpartial (talk) 11:50, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

• A – per the second letter of BLP. Stifle (talk) 11:41, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
  • If the question is whether we ought extend the scope of this guideline to people not covered under WP:BLP, then the answer, "no, those people are not covered under WP:BLP" seems somewhat circular. RoxySaunders (talk · contribs) 12:36, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
• A as it doesn't censure the birth name. GoodDay (talk) 13:26, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
• Not Option A for the key reasons outlined below. Option B rather than Option C, but only because it seems easier to implement. Option C might be better in the long run, but would force a discussion of the scope of what counts as "notable at the time" (and even what counts as "gender identity") in historical contexts very different from our current global environment. I'm not convinced that the community is ready to have that discussion.
• Not Option A, because of the known desire of a number of editors to insert non-notable (but Verifiable) former names of biographical subjects after death, as soon as they are allowed to do so. Because many of these editors are convinced that all verifiable former names (especially birthnames) should be included on Wikipedia, and see the MOS:DEADNAME restrictions as an inconvenience, Option A mandates the continuation of the current "Wild West" situation and continuing brushfires each time a notable Trans person (who was not notable under their former name) dies. Think of a notable Trans person whose birth name is not currently in their WP article, place yourself two years after their death, and you may be able to imagine the entirely predictable conflict that will ensue among editors.
• For trans people who died in the 21st century so far, and those who will die over the next decade, my own sense of the WP community and the larger socio-cultural environment is that the perceived relevance of their deadnames is less and less, so adopting Option B or Option C will not only reduce article-level conflict, but also postpone the next time the question of dead people's deadnames is taken to RfC.
• Option B does seem more practicable than Option C, so Option B has my overall support, especially if a fixed date, such as 1920 or 1950, is chosen rather than a formula of death plus N years. All of the cases that strike me as needing discussion, or where the question of "what counts as Notability while the person was alive", are concentrated in the period prior to 1950, and so are most of the cases where questions arise like "should this person be considered transgender?" (or even "is this a person whose gender might be questioned?", in the more general language of MOS:GENDERID). For biographical subjects who died in the last 70-100 years we typically have a pretty good idea of when they became Notable in the WP sense, what their gender identity and gender expression were in different phases of their life and what name they went by, and when. The MOS:DEADNAME standard that has been established for living subjects works just fine for these deceased subjects and embodies values that are widely shared both within and outside the WP community.
• As I stated above, the curse and the blessing of option C is that it would force the community pretty much immediately to confront the questions, "what counts as gender and transgender identity in the past?" "What sourcing is required to decide on gender and transgender identities in specific historical cases?" and "For historical people who were never Notable while they were alive, and whom we have decided are 'people whose gender is questioned', how do we decide what names to use?" I think those are important but difficult questions, which I am not convinced the community is ready for, and I think Option B leaves more flexibility for earlier historical periods and gives more time for scholars to make inroads into these questions. Newimpartial (talk) 16:47, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I have changed my vote to B and C equally, the very few old historic cases are difficult, in the end I would rather see more modern individuals protected. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 17:53, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

• A per Sandstein. There's no longer a privacy concern if the person is dead. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 22:47, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
• A per Sandstein. I understand the idea behind proposals B and C but I also see that we only remove such information from living people because of potential real-world implications for these people. WP:BDP already contains rules for BLP to apply to recently deceased people where such real-world considerations might still linger but after that, having all available information should usually take precedence. As for those arguing that non-notable names are not included anyway, we have thousands of articles that contain birth names or pre-marriage names of notable individuals which they never were notable under (e.g. George Orwell, Ayn Rand etc.). This discussion might be about deadnames but as the section below reveals, there is no reason to make a distinction here with people who are dead. And yes, I understand that some people are using deadnames specifically to denigrate trans people and where this happens, these people should be sanctioned for their conduct. But that is neither a content nor a style issue. Regards SoWhy 10:13, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
• C as a matter of basic respect, deceased people shouldn't be treated differently from the living in this context. BristolTreeHouse (talk) 12:43, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
• C or B with a fixed cutoff year. Non-notable birth names are inherently trivial, and for transgender subjects, publishing them is at least somewhat disrespectful, regardless of whether the subject is alive or not. I agree with other editors that deceased subjects do not need have their preferences or privacy respected, but we shouldn't wholly disregard the notion, just as we don't suddenly start misgendering them after death, or publishing their home addresses.

Option A (as well as the proposed version of B with a rolling cutoff) don't adequately protect biographies of the deceased from edits which, during their lifetime we would have considered undue, inappropriate, and unnecessary. In the wild west of "per-article consensus", attempts at inserting deadnames become a perennial dispute, until the article finally succumbs to bludgeoning, or the [six month/two year/fifty year/etc] moratorium has passed, and the deadname stays. The MOS should recommend against including any subject's deadname unless a substantial number of reliable secondary/tertiary sources (i.e. not obituaries) choose to do so. RoxySaunders (talk · contribs) 23:05, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

• A or B, but not C. This should be decided on a case-by-case basis. There may be good reasons why someones deadname becomes notable after they die and there may be reasons it remains trivial. Protecting them while alive is great and a cutoff time is reasonable given the potential for editors to add it straight away for unencyclopeadic reasons, but having a blanket rule is not a a good idea at all. Aircorn (talk) 00:05, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
• A - Case-by-case is going to be better than bright-line rule a vast majority of the time on this website. Furthermore, there are no privacy or dignity concerns in relation to dead people because dead people have no feelings with which to feel intruded upon or indignified. Thus, the arguments for option C can generally be boiled down to "I and others like me will be offended on behalf of the subject." In which case, I would refer you to WP:NOTCENSORED. Mlb96 (talk) 05:25, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
  • I'd like to add that if someone's birth name truly is gratuitous, undue, or otherwise unencyclopedic, then it would already be excluded from their article under preexisting policies and guidelines. Therefore, the only scenario in which option C would change anything from the status quo would be situations in which the person's birth name actually is notable and relevant. Thus, choosing option C would mean that we are choosing to exclude relevant information for the sole reason that it is offensive. This is censorship, plain and simple, and so would require that we change WP:NOTCENSORED. The community is certainly permitted to make radical changes to fundamental policies if there is consensus to do so, but I vehemently oppose doing so here. Mlb96 (talk) 01:19, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
    • Nope, remember WP:NOTCENSORED is not a universal binding guideline, already overriden for living trans/non binary were the existing MOS:Deadname rule applies, because yes their unnotable irrelevant dead names are simply undue trivia, and thus yes unencyclopedic as you say, but for some reason some editors think that the deadnames of any transperson more than 3 months dead are somehow sacrosanct? (So not a radical change but a formalised extension, to guide editors that such details are really not necessary in an encylopedia). ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 16:22, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
      • I really don't think we should be equating DEADNAME to censoring. Policy (WP:V + WP:NOT#IINFO) already establishes that we are not bound to include all verified information on a topic - we're supposed to use discretion when considering other content policies. BLP being as critical as it is, that makes inclusion of a deadname something that needs a really really high sourcing and notability threshold to include, but we still can include them, so these are not censored. Even with Option C, this still means those individuals known and notable under their deadname would still have their deadname given; a discretion made by the community. Censorship - forced surpression of information - would be if there were strict "no deadnames ever" policy, and more specifically if that came from the WMF rather than the choice of the community that we forced to follow. Trying to connect DEADNAME and this RFC to censorship is really really troublesome. That said, I do agree that Options B/C also tend to extend WP:GRATUITOUS too much of considering mentioned deadnames of long long deceased individuals as offensive to them, though I've stated where there must be balance with RS sourcing as to still justify inclusion. --Masem (t) 16:10, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
        • How is it not censoring? The only scenario in which option C would change the status quo is when the individual's deadname does meet that high sourcing and notability standard and is encyclopedic information; otherwise, it would be excluded under the status quo anyway. In this scenario, option C would state that we would exclude the deadname, not because it is unencyclopedic, but because it offends people. WP:NOTCENSORED explicitly prohibits this. Your point about people who were notable under their deadnames is a red herring, as this proposal would not affect those articles. Mlb96 (talk) 00:51, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
      • You've made this point multiple times in this discussion, but it is a complete misinterpretation of MOS:DEADNAME. MOS:DEADNAME is not a standalone exception to WP:NOTCENSORED; it is an extension of the policies on BLPs, which WP:NOTCENSORED already makes an exception for. Option C would create an additional exception to WP:NOTCENSORED which is not already included in the policy. Therefore, we would have to change WP:NOTCENSORED in order to approve option C. The reason I take issue with this is that it is not mentioned in the proposal that option C would alter a preexisting policy, and so many of the above commenters may not have realized the ramifications of their !votes. If we're going to change a preexisting policy, it should be made very clear that that is what we are doing. Mlb96 (talk) 00:51, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
        • I'm afraid you are missing the point of the proposals here. We presently have a Notability-based standard for when to include the former names of living and recently deceased trans people (A). Option B proposes to extend this standard to some trans people who have been deceased longer (which ones, to be determined later), and C proposes to extend it back to all deceased trans people. The only deadnames that would be affected are ones the person was not notable while using. This would therefore be understood as information that is not encyclopedic per WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE, a policy that many editors have cited explicitly in this discussion and which forms one of the natural boundaries of NOTCENSORED. Your argument that options B or C would exclude the deadname, not because it is unencyclopedic, but because it offends people ignores most of the arguments actually put forward by B and C supporters. Can you hear that? Newimpartial (talk) 01:27, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
          • Is there any category of fact that we have declared, categorically, should never be included in an article, no exceptions? WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE does not do so, it merely states that all information must be encyclopedic and gives guidelines for when certain categories of fact may be appropriate or inappropriate. This would be the first time that we have declared a category of fact unencyclopedic in all circumstances. I vehemently disagree with any such categorical rule; determinations like this should always be case-by-case. Mlb96 (talk) 01:34, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
            • The community has decided that about the non-notable former names of living trans people. Did you forget that one? I'm sure there are others, but that one sort of jumps out. Newimpartial (talk) 01:39, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
              • Once again, that is related to BLP policies, not whether or not the information is encyclopedic or unencyclopedic. Mlb96 (talk) 01:46, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
                • I think if you were to look at recent and in-depth discussions on MOS:DEADNAME, like this one, you would see plenty of arguments based on the encyclopaedicity or triviality of information, rather than solely (or even primarily) BLP arguments. Newimpartial (talk) 01:52, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
                  • We do not edit based on the arguments that people made when the policy was written, as most editors would not know where or how to find this information. Rather, we edit based on what the policies themselves say. And what MOS:DEADNAME says is Treat the pre-notability name as a privacy interest. Mlb96 (talk) 02:00, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

But that isn't at all the only thing MOS:DEADNAME says. For example, the RfC I pointed to above was eventually inplemented with the text In articles on works or other activity by a living trans or non-binary person before transition, use their current name as the primary name - that isn't about BLPPRIVACY at all. Newimpartial (talk) 02:51, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: Gregor Mendel was not notable when he went by his birth name, Johann Mendel. So do you think that name should be removed from his article? Colin M (talk) 01:55, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

As a supporter of Option B as a first choice, I am at two removes from that question - the Mendel case has nothing to do with gender, which is the issue here, and it also is placed before contemporary sources become a meaningful way of assessing "notability at the time", so it is the wrong side of the boundary I would place on option B (even if gender were an issue in the Mendel instance). Newimpartial (talk) 02:51, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

The argument of yours which I'm trying to understand does not appear to say anything about gender. You wrote: The only deadnames that would be affected are ones the person was not notable while using. This would therefore be understood as information that is not encyclopedic per WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE. I think what you're saying is that if someone wasn't notable under a name, then that name is unencyclopedic information. If you think this is only true for trans people, I'd be interested in hearing why. Colin M (talk) 03:10, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

In reality, I am agnostic about the treatmwnt of non-notable names that were changed for other reasons. My decision hierarchy is this: if a person was Notable while using a name, that is by definition encyclopaedic information. If a person was not notable while using a name, and the name changed as part of a gender identity announcement (and we are in a historical context where "notability" and "gender ... announcement" make sense), then I don't see an encyclopaedic interest in the information, at least, not one that outweighs the harms to actual people (and also to WP as a project) of arguing this out on a case by case basis. If a person was not notable while using a name, and the name changed for other reasons, I can't articulate a convincing reason to think the name is or is not of encyclopaedic interest. Reply hazy, basically. Newimpartial (talk) 03:39, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

• C per RoxySaunders. —Joeyconnick (talk) 18:54, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
• A. The privacy interest dies with the person. Birth names are standard biographical info, encyclopedic, etc. Yilloslime (talk) 04:14, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
• Option C; I find the obsession with invasive trivia when it comes to trans people utterly puerile, and this RfC seeking to carve out more exemptions from our policies for trans subjects is equally as puerile. Wikipedia has an institutional transphobia problem already; no need to make it worse. Sceptre (talk) 14:09, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Whoa, go easy on the "institutional transphobia problem", bit. GoodDay (talk) 14:47, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Spectre, You have the current situation exactly backwards… option A reflects current policy, and B & C seek to create a “carve out”. Currently, our policy on not mentioning deadnames is in line with every other BLP protection… it ceases to apply shortly after death. That is our normal BLP practice. Options B & C seek to “carve out” an exception to that normal BLP practice by extending the deadname protection well beyond death.

I respect that you think this should be done, but let’s please describe the situation accurately… Option A is policy status quo… B or C would create the policy “carve out”. Blueboar (talk) 15:07, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

This is why I point to what I think is the better solution in my alternate proposal below, where we need to alter the perception that inclusion of alternate names and birthdates and other "trivial" details of any person (alive or dead) that are not well sourced to quality RSes should be strongly discouraged or disallowed - eg effectively bringing the current nature of DEADNAME's requirements for including a deadname for all BLP/bios and all such non-notable biographical details. If RSes haven't spent time documenting these elements though they can be sourced from one source, maybe we shouldn't be including them at all. That reflects, as I read it, Spectre (and many other C !voters) concern that the current status quo is to insert these details whenever they can be found (this is reflected in some of the A !votes, which claim them encyclopedic information). We have a massive disconnect on the perception of these details that is creating the split in !votes here. --Masem (t) 15:14, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

• Option A. We rely on reliable sources to determine if a piece of information is WP:DUE in an article or not. If it appears in reliable sources, the birth name is relevant information and in principle it should be added. We can decide on a case by case basis. For example, we shouldn't include it if only a few of the RSs give it while the vast majority don't. A blanket ban is too blunt an instrument. Vpab15 (talk) 15:30, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
  • While i am a strong supporter of options A & B, I also agree with Masem regards the unnecessary inclusion of all such non-notable biographical details; because some editors will just insert these pointless inconsequential details as soon as they can be found. The are plenty of firm guiding rules in Wikipedia's espicially biographies living or deceased, with guidance we can limit some more unecessary biographic edit disagreements over what are essentially unnotable details. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 16:13, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
• A. MOS:DEADNAME is an exception to WP:CENSORED, but as an exception within the field of WP:BLP, it is not remarkable, with other exceptions such as WP:BLP1E also existing. However, this change would make it exceptional; as far as I can tell there are no existing exceptions to CENSORED outside of BLP, and if we wish to create such exceptions I would prefer a broader discussion about the criteria for these exceptions before we create specific ones. I would also invite those supporting this exception to consider their reasons for it and what other contentious areas those same reasons would fairly apply to - and consider if they want the same result for those areas. BilledMammal (talk) 06:32, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
• A. The dead have no right to privacy. I've seen deadnames described as "trivia" above, which I think can't be right, because a person's name, along with e.g. date and place of birth, are among the most basic encyclopedic facts about a person, and hence least trivial. —Kodiologist (t) 22:54, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
  • But these people were never the least bit notable under their dead names. The is simply very little need to dig them up. This is only partly privacy issue: for instance by publishising notable deceased trans deadnames we are in danger of indicating to the whole trans and non binary community that you are not real, that your chosen names and identies are a veil/guise, a temporary disguise for just a life time. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 00:11, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
    • There's simply very little need for dates of birth, but we dig those up, too. An encyclopedia chooses what to include on the basis of relevance, not necessity. And I really don't see how accurately reporting a transgender person's past adds up to some kind of statement that transgender people are in disguise. To say that Brenda was once named Bob is not to say that "Brenda" was not her real name later in life. Names can change. —Kodiologist (t) 01:08, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
    • I spoke to this in my reply to you above. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:19, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
      • Same here. Rabbitflyer (talk) 19:34, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
• C followed by B per Thryduulf. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. GreenComputer (talk) 00:03, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

WP:INDISCRIMINATE covers four areas – Summary-only descriptions of works, Lyrics databases, Excessive listings of unexplained statistics, Exhaustive logs of software updates – none of which applies to names. EddieHugh (talk) 15:18, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

The lists in WP:NOT should not be read to be exhaustive of what NOT covers. What's given in INDISCRIMINATE are specific parts that have come up over and over again that need calling out but other things (like deadnames) may be considered indiscriminate as well. --Masem (t) 15:41, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Other things, yes, but pointing to a guideline and claiming that it applies to a particular case that isn't even tangentially related to the guideline's contents requires a supporting argument (maybe people really mean WP:ENCYCLOPEDIC?). We have a lengthy MoS section on names in biographies – MOS:NAME – including birth names and changed names, which is a strong indication that names in biographies aren't "indiscriminate". EddieHugh (talk) 10:38, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

The guiding principle at the start of WP:INDISCRIMINATE is that "data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources". The examples given are all fairly clearly examples of context-less data presented in bulk. If an additional type of information is proposed to also be covered, it should be of the same kind. An outright ban on birth names does not fit in the list. By comparison, INDISCRIMINATE does not outright prohibit ever mentioning song lyrics, but in fact provides guidance on when and how to include them where they are relevant. I can see how INDISCRIMINATE might support a proposal to only include a deadname when relevant to the article. But options B & C go far beyond that by pre-determining that there is only one way for a deadname to ever be relevant (if the person met our notability guidelines while using it), regardless of whether the available sources on the subject establish the name as WP:NOTEWORTHY.--Trystan (talk) 15:39, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

• C, or B as fallback - I don't see a good reason to make a distinction here based on whether the person is alive or not. Encyclopedias report what is important and notable about a person, not every detail about their life. And even dead people deserve a small degree of respect and privacy. Nosferattus (talk) 12:46, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
• C, or B with a hard cutoff and specifically not A. People are bringing up the fact that WP:BLP is specifically about living persons, but few people interrogate *why* that is. It's mainly because for most information about a person, the real-world harm of publishing private information about them is much greater while alive. For example, publishing an accusation of serious crime can be very harmful to a living person, but is pretty meaningless after they're dead and therefore beyond the reach of either the legal system or the court of public opinion. We also wouldn't publish the address of a living person, but to maintain that policy forever would mean we couldn't even publish addresses of people whose houses have since been turned into museums, which is obviously absurd.

However, this is not true of *all* information about a person: we wouldn't publish someone's credit card number any amount of time after they died, because it offers almost no encyclopedic value while still presenting some risk of harm no matter how long it's been since their death. We similarly wouldn't publish photos of someone naked after their death if they'd expressed a wish to not have those photos published while alive, because to some extent the memory of a dead person is not just about that person but about all their relatives.

I think that a trans person's deadname is most similar to the "publishing naked photos" situation above. Certain privacy concerns do not stop being privacy concerns after the death of the subject, and neither do they gain any encyclopedic value they didn't previously have (as in the case of some addresses). A trans person's deadname is largely useless to anyone but the family of the subject, for whom it can be used to hurt them, or other trans people, for whom it can again be used to hurt them. This really doesn't seem like the sort of information we ought to have on Wikipedia; it seems to me like the interest in it is more voyeuristic than encyclopedic.

I slightly prefer C over B because I believe that any arbitrary cutoff will have obvious exceptions (I'm thinking here specifically of the Public Universal Friend) and so we should be judging this by intent and not by time. But if we need to judge by time, I'd prefer a hard cutoff, because I don't believe this information should ever be on Wikipedia, regardless of the amount of time that has passed. Loki (talk) 18:44, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

• B or C. The guideline stipulates that the person must a) be transgender (meaning ambiguous cases are left to WP:LOCALCONSENSUS) and b) not have been notable under their prior name (meaning we expect, by default, the name to not have been notable either). If a certain kind of information is expected, by default, to be contentious and non-notable (like a nude photo of the subject, or a personal address), the WP:ONUS is on those arguing for inclusion to show that it is both WP:DUE and not WP:INDISCRIMINATE. That much is just existing policy. In fact, many have used the same logic to argue that we therefore don't need a guideline to specify what we already know. The point of guidelines, however, is to make the general implications of policy easily understandable to a wider variety of editors (who, in this case, might well otherwise end up starting endless and time-consuming debates about every dead trans person). A guideline is a guideline, it says "exceptions may apply" at the top of the page. Saying we can't have a guideline because we should treat a large group of mostly identical cases on a "case by case" basis ignores the fact that we ultimately treat everything on a case by case basis when necessary. That said, historical transgender figures (~pre-20th century) are likely to be more unique, hence why I'm putting B first.

Lastly, articles on transgender people often specify that they changed their name even if they don't say what from and, so, by definition, no substance would be added unless the name has somehow become substantial (and not merely verifiable) in itself after their death. Secondly, WP:BLP is, to a certain extent, separate for legal reasons, and insinuating that contentious and borderline-encyclopedic content magically becomes acceptable two years after someone's death is just kind of odd. If Jennifer Lawrence dies tomorrow, how long should we wait before it's okay to put her leaked nudes in an article? ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 18:24, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Assuming Jennifer has expressed a desire for the photos to not be published, I suspect we would respect her desire while she lives. How long we would continue to do so after she dies would last depend on several things… for example, let’s say the nude photographs were taken by a notable photographer, and he publishes them (disregarding Jennifer’s wishes)… and art critics comment upon them as being good examples of that photographer’s work… In that situation, I could easily see us including them in the article on the photographer … very soon after Jennifer’s death. Blueboar (talk) 19:13, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I actually agree. Likewise, I imagine we would agree to publish a dead trans person's deadname in spite of a general guideline against it if it independently became the subject of similar notoriety. But you can see how that's a higher standard than something just having been dug up by a couple of sources or mentioned in passing. And if it became a perennial problem that every dead celebrity was getting nudes on their page just because they were available (and causing long arguments about censorship), I don't think it would be unreasonable to agree a guideline against it while acknowledging the existence of possible exceptions like the hypothetical Jennifer Lawrence case. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 20:19, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

• A and vehently oppose B and C. The purpose of encyclopedias, including Wikipedia, is report and summarise infomation, knowledge, and facts as published in reliable sources, mostly reliable secondary sources (See WP:5P1 or WP:!, policy). Basic biographical facts for encyclopedias for biographical articles, including Wikipedia, include (providing such infomation is avaliable in reliable secondary sources although sometimes for date of birth primary sources may be allowed per WP:DOB): birth date, birth place, birth name (including former name, etc), death date, death place, cause of death, marriage(s) (if any), children (if any).

Now in the case of living transgender/non binary persons the argument is based around that it may cause active harm to the subject whilst they are alive, if they were non-notable prior to transition under their former name. But remember we are discussing deceased persons, thus the same logic of it causes active damage/harm to does work as they are not living (to put it somewhat bluntly you cannot offend/harm/damage those that are non-living).

Now with this in mind, I see no good reason as why we should create an artificial barrier between reliable secondary sources, (what mostly determines what merits inclusion) and us as an encylopedia. We are not here to carve out our personal beliefs as to whether former names are offensive in our personal opinions. Instead we follow the 'establishment' reliable secondary sources, which continue to publish former names in articles, including obituries (further demonstrating they are worth including). See WP:NOTADVOCACY (policy) Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a battleground, or a vehicle for propaganda, advertising and showcasing. thus we should not be infringing our personal beliefs around the topic into Wikipedia, follow the sources.

In Response to B/C proponents. WP:INDISCRIMINATE does not apply To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources., as to it is a basic biographical infomation expected. Nor is it needless excessive data (nor any of the four listed). Moreover, the fact the former name is routinely included in obituries, published by reliable secondary sources, further shows it is worthy for inclusion and not just useless infomation. In regards to those who argue that persons former name is not notable (regardless of whether or not they are deceased), therefore we should not included as it just unencylopedic, trivia or indiscriminate infomation, I refer back to my previous arguments (including those about obituries).

Also if you are going to attack or insult me for my policy-based arguments (as done in previous gender-related discussions) I will happily take you to ANI. Thanks. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 20:46, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Considering the long discussion above, with at least 55 editors all contributing their own diverse views, has remained entirely civil I find it strange you end your own view with a needless threat. I do not feel it was helpful addition to this deliberation. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 22:13, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

And in a previous RfC with more editors participating I was insulted and attacked not on my arguments but on my percived editor "character" in a gender related discussion. Perhaps it is a bit defensive or kneejerk, but I will deterred from expressing my policy based arguments by those who insult me. You are welcome to argue against my arguments provided they are follow WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, etc. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 15:26, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

• C. I see no constructive purpose for A, no logical cutoff for which B makes sense, and no reason why C should not be the default. Gʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ^ˣ 23:00, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
• A - as noted above, hiding someone's birth name is censorship, and should only be done under special circumstances. I see no reason to hide this information for someone who died, say, 50 years ago. Korny O'Near (talk) 15:03, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
• A I see no justification besides blatant revisionism to not include this information for subjects which are no longer under the purview of BLP (nothing that DEADNAME itself isn't part of BLP but of MOS, so someone should go ahead fixing that). This would especially make no sense with historical people who were both notable under their birth name and their newer name. There is the usual concern with not including names that are not substantiated in sources, but that doesn't excuse removing encyclopedically relevant information, and doesn't need any new instruction creep. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:22, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
• A As has been pointed out by several editors already, DEADNAME is an exception that arises out of BLP concerns and that's why we may omit former names of certain BLPs. Normally, former names are standard encyclopedic detail that can be included where not constrained by other policies or guidelines (such as, in addition to BLP, WP:V/WP:RS). As EddieHugh pointed out above, we include a host of biographical details that are not directly relevant to a person's notability, such as birth date and place, because that's what a good encyclopedia does. Finally, I strongly oppose C per Crossroads. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:24, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
• A. Largely per Sandstein. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:47, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
• C, as there is no reason why MOS:DEADNAME *shouldn't* apply to deceased trans people except if one is loophole searching for ways to reduce trans recognition on Wikipedia. BlackholeWA (talk) 20:34, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
• None of the above, but A if it's obligated in order to avoid political damage. These are all bad, and are focused around erasing information to conform to modern-day activists' views on gender identity. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but far too many highly placed editors here see it as a political weapon and wield it accordingly. It's way past time that if there are any people remaining here who believe in Wikipedia's mission you stand up for it. 98.237.242.206 (talk) 22:27, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
  • In other words, you object to the decade or so of discussion and consensus-building on this topic that produced the current status quo (Option A). That should be helpful for the closer. Newimpartial (talk) 23:25, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
• A following Sandstein. WP:NOTCENSORED applies. If the name appears in reliable sources we include it. The definition of censorship is suppression or prohibition of something "considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security" (OED) or "objectionable matter" "material considered sensitive or harmful" (M-W). Thus MOS:DEADNAME, and by extension WP:BLPPRIVACY, may or may not be considered censorship, depending on one's choice of definition (accepting "security" would surely qualify both as censorship). What is uncontroversial is that if they are censorship, this is considered an acceptable level of censorship by the community, for the reasons given in WP:BLPPRIVACY. None of those reasons apply to the dead. Appeals to "basic respect" are special pleading for censorship. We do not privilege any minority group by affording them censorship denied to others. Cambial foliage❧ 09:43, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
• A, per EddieHugh, and others. Benjamin (talk) 20:01, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
• B. I am hesitant to apply this broadly because, for lack of a better word, our understanding of transgender issues has changed recently. I think it is reasonable to set a gatekeeping date and say that any person born after, or who was alive as of, that date is subject to the restrictive use on deadnames. Conversely, because of the time passed, it could be difficult to accurately say whether a historical person identified as trans and apply the policy. I have a secondary concern about scope creep with this rule, so I think that including a threshold date, especially if that date is linked to an event in gender research or LGTBQ history, makes clear that we recognize that this is a special situation requiring a different ruleset. —C.Fred (talk) 20:42, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
• C is the correct answer. There is no reason to mention a name unless some notability is attached to it. Second choice: B. Skyerise (talk) 21:48, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
• A. As I was reading through this discussion Sandstein's argument appealed to me. I often write about "historical" people though as it happens never, I think, in the context of sexuality or gender. In the 19th cenury and before some people led rather ambiguous lives in terms of gender but they didn't really "transition" and it may not be at all clear whether they were "notable" before such an indefinite point. We should just get on and write about people carefully and sensitively. So, while preferring A, I suppose I don't object too much to option B. Thincat (talk) 16:30, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
• A, for encyclopedic accuracy and thoroughness. Completeness and accuracy are what Wikipedia, like any encyclopedia, strives for. There is no privacy issue with people who are long dead. How could an article on a long-dead person even pretend to be an FA, for instance, if it did not include all of their names? Also, I agree with Sandstein's rationale. Softlavender (talk) 23:34, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

• Comment Intial thoughts, I am glad we are proceeding. Should it not be worded " were a transgender or non-binary person was not notable under a former name (a deadname)" making it more clear that we are dealing with a person who was not notable under their former name, prior to becoming notable under their new name. Maybe it does not matter. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 17:18, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
• Comment. There really seems to be a lack of clarity about what A means in practice. I can see a bunch of !votes/comments which suggest that A is fine because other policies / practices mean that where an article subject dies, there would never (or at least very rarely) be any reasons to substantially change the article, and another bunch (including mine) that suggest B or C is required because exactly that might happen. This isn't to say there aren't any other issues to consider. But it does suggest some level of confusion, to my mind. If A is the 'active community default' then surely there's no problem spelling out what people think its application really is, and then having a discussion about whether anything else is needed? The Land (talk) 18:27, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Pegging it to WP:BLP (option A) would mean DEADNAME would apply to living and recently deceased (which BLP defines as “six months, one year, two years at the outside”). Option B would have us set our own time cap that is separate from that stated at BLP (potentially several decades). Blueboar (talk) 18:54, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

@Blueboar: I interpreted B differently - to me it read that we would pick a fixed date (that would not be moved, e.g. post-1930) after which we would assume readers knew subjects were treated differently. I would not necessarily be opposed to a rolling date that was different as you describe (e.g. 10, 30 years etc.), though I would question its necessity on this issue compared to others which recently also protects (e.g. if it is necessary here, might as well redefine "recently" for everything else it shields). — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 23:02, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

It still comes down to: option A is in sync with WP:BLP, while option B goes beyond BLP. (One potential compromise would be to sync DEADNAME to BLP, but amend BLP to a longer definition of “recent”). Blueboar (talk) 12:30, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

This has been my argument - there's no reason we should be treating transgender as a special case of BLP/BDP --- but important to that, for any bio, we should use similar high levels of scrutiny that DEADNAME givens towards the inclusion of any name (while living/BDP, needs to be a name clearly associated with their notability; after BDP, it should still have high standards of sourcing to include) so that we are effectively making one case that applies to all and nothing that seems like a special carve out. --Masem (t) 13:37, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

• Comment None of the proposed options seem very good, though they are bad in different ways. A presumes that something changes two years after death (and that surviving loved ones have no privacy concerns, for example, or that nobody would be interested in disrupting the biography of a trans person who died a few years ago). C tries to take a solution to a modern problem and stretch it over all recorded history. B kicks the can down the road to the next RfC. I dislike B the least, I suppose. Ultimately, there's no reason why "recent" has to mean the same thing for all applications. It means one thing in the context of copyright law, another when deciding whether WP:PROF is a helpful standard for evaluating an academic at AfD, etc. XOR'easter (talk) 05:51, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't think Option A presumes that nobody would be interested in disrupting trans biographies, or that some guidance on deadnaming the dead isn't warranted. As discussed in an above section, this RFC is about whether the current BLP-based standard in DEADNAME is the appropriate standard to apply to biographies of some or all deceased individuals. If there isn't consensus to extend the current BLP-based deadname provisions, it was proposed that a further discussion would explore what standard should apply.--Trystan (talk) 14:29, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

• Comment Many people arguing for C or B with hard cutoff seem to be claiming that these choices have absolutely nothing censorial about them, and that they simply believe that deadnames for which article subjects were not notable are simply irrelevant or trivial. This last statement may be true in many cases, but that in no way diminishes the censoring nature of these options.

As per WP:NNC, there is a significant difference between article subject notability criteria and article content inclusion criteria.

WP:BLP is an existing exception to WP:CENSOR, and the current incarnation of WP:DEADNAME makes perfect sense in this context. To implement C would be to declare that any deadname that doesn't satisfy the article subject notability criteria, a priori cannot satisfy the article content inclusion criteria.

Without BLP to support it, where would the justification for such a declaration come from? I think it's clear that it comes from the offensiveness of the information in question.

Omitting a deadname because it doesn't satisfy content inclusion criteria isn't censoring at all. It's simply another step in the everyday operation of the encyclopedia.

Omitting a deadname from a BLP as per DEADNAME technically is censoring, but such BLP-related censorship has many precedents and is consistent with Wikipedia policy.

Raising the rigor of content inclusion criteria to that of subject notability criteria, for one specific type of information, based on the offensiveness of that information and when no BLP criteria apply, is censoring, in a manner that does not fit through the 'hole' in CENSOR made by BLP.

If advocates for C think such a change to CENSOR is justified, I think the community should definitely give their arguments a fair hearing, but we shouldn't diminish the consequences and implications of such a change by conflating the application of content inclusion criteria with the creation of a guideline that changes them. Rabbitflyer (talk) 19:34, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

• Comment. I think that the use of the term "deadname" is misleading. According to the article "deadnaming" is the use of the birth/former name, but in most cases where the name appears in a Wikipedia article, we are actually mentioning it - see Use–mention distinction. For example "Eddie Ayres is a musician, music teacher and radio presenter. He was born 'Emma Ayres'." In that sentence we use "Eddie", but mention "Emma". Mitch Ames (talk) 13:27, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

  The deadname is still the deadname whether used or mentioned. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 14:50, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

  That's true, but my point is that the offence is in the use not the mention, and so it is the former we should avoid, not the latter. Mitch Ames (talk) 00:10, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

  I agree with this assessment regarding use/mention. I was thinking something similar to this, but didn't have the right words to express it. I would be much more willing to accept stricter guidelines on this matter if they were only to affect use. Rabbitflyer (talk) 00:21, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

  According to whom? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 00:28, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Alternative proposal covering all former names

In reading the above, I have to ask if we're really approaching this issue the right way. I fully understand the need for things like GENDERID to instruct us to carefully handle the content of BLP/BIOs of trans individuals which do need extra care above other bios. And while I'm aware of the consensus behind DEADNAME as it applies to BLP, as it stands, it is just, for all purposes, the extension of existing policy WP:BLPPRIVACY Wikipedia includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object to the details being made public. If a subject complains about our inclusion of their date of birth, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year, provided that there is a reliable source for it. (I would read the second sentence there also applying to birthnames too).

Why I bring this up is that I really think that getting so hung up on DEADNAMES and deceased people is that this is carving out more exemptions that really should be applying to all people, with the implication that BLPPRIVACY should still be held true for even deceased people. That is, we should not be including birthnames, deadnames, or the like for deceased people unless they "have been widely published by reliable sources". This would mean we need to get editors to get over the fascination of including birthnames and other former names in articles just because they can and not because they can readily back it from reliable sources. We'd only expect far more caution for privacy issues related to BLP/BDP, but even for long-dead people, former names should be readily sourceable to RSes or otherwise should be omitted. What might change after death is that if more sources come out about the person, they may be more forthcoming on former names as to increase the number of sources reporting this. That is, while at death the former name may not be supported by existing sources (including obits), 5-10 years or more down the road, inclusion may become warranted by newer sources that do mention it.

In taking this specifically for trans persons, DEADNAME still effectively applies through BLPPRIVACY, but in a consistent manner for all types of bios; after death, we'd still expect the volume and quality of sources to show that deadname to include.

That is, I would propose that WP:BLPPRIVACY be changed to 1) specifically add in "former names, including deadnames" as part of what that covers to be explicit about it and provide a linkage to DEADNAME, and 2) assert this privacy (based on what appears in RSes) should continue to extend well beyond BLP/BDP, that former names should be included only if they are readily sourced. But we'd also need somewhere to encourage (or discourage?) editors that birthnames and other former names should not be seen as "essential" information to include, and should only be included when backed by sources. That's shift is something that I think we need first; otherwise any carveout that is made for trans bios will always remain at odds with how the rest of the encyclopedia works. --Masem (t) 14:27, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I think this is out of scope for the ongoing RfC, so I am moving it to it's own section of Talk. Changing the treatment of former names other than Trans people's deadnames has been proposed before, and will undoubtedly be proposed again, but let's let the RfC (which has not been particularly hung up on this issue) run its course. Newimpartial (talk) 14:50, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

RFC's typically allow for other options to be discussed; they are not meant as hard "only these options are available". As the discussion has proceeded on it, I really feel the RFC is approaching the problem in the wrong way and ultimately not going to be as useful as looking at the larger problem first. --Masem (t) 14:53, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I agree that this a separate issue, but I may be misinterpreting your view. As I read it, DEADNAME applies even when reliable sources use the former/birth name, making it a protection over and above BLPPRIVACY. You seem to be wanting to strengthen BLPPRIVACY, which I don't oppose, but I don't see how it would affect the MOS. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 14:58, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

That's my point is that MOS here shouldn't need to be changed at all if applied more stringent standards across all bios at the BLP privacy page. DEADNAME (beyond the GENDERID facets) should equate to how BLPPRIVACY is handled, perhaps if only stressing that the name must not only be more than reliably sourced, but that the person had to be notable under that name to be mentioned if a BLP. The reason I'm saying this is because I think trying to change the MOS is targetting the wrong part of the problem, which is the urge many editors have to include any former name of a person (trans or not) if they can source it, and we already have a policy that says not to do this for the living. It would simply make sense to make sure that policy remains strong for deceased persons, which would automatically filter into the MOS for DEADNAME. Once we can set policy that former names should only be backed by reliable sources, that makes many of the concerns in the above comments (particularly those favoring B or C) go away, because that's the root of the problem; the above is only addressing one symptom of it. --Masem (t) 15:05, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Unlike some of your other comments, this one seems to provide support for a !vote for "Option C, and non-notable former names should be excluded from non-trans biographies as well". But I don't see any reason why that argument - if, somewhat miraculously, I happen to be parsing it correctly - needs to monkeywrench the RfC. Newimpartial (talk) 15:11, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

No, that's not at all what I said. Inclusion of names on BLPPRIVACY is based on whether the names are published widely in RSes. The basic idea would be that would also extend to deceased people, perhaps with a bit less of a threshold once BDP passes but still requiring the name to have been published often in quality RSes. That is effectively option A if applied to trans persons. What is important is that this so-called "BDPPRIVACY" should be far stronger than typically what is done now, where many birth names or the like are coming from one-off sources and are not widely reported. Some of above !votes of B and C fear this concern for trans people (rightfully so), that we'd be including deadnames off one weak RS as soon as BLP/BDP expired. But strengthening BLPPRIVACY to include deceased persons would rectify this since inclusion would require that high degree of sourcing to include names. (There are other concerns unrelated to this in the B and C !votes that this can't address). --Masem (t) 15:20, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

This comment is adding to my confusion about your position. How would your proposal handle a living trans person whose former name is published in every reliable source we can find? How would it handle the same person if they had died in 2018? What about 1918? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:24, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

If the trans person is alive, and pretty much every RS (and lets assume they are quality RSes like NYTimes, etc.) include the deadname, then we should include it. I know that DEADNAME right now says they should be WP:N-notable to use that name, and we should always default to exclude, but if that name is so much out there that you are proverbially tripping over it in sources (eg appearing in 40 of 50 sources about the person), exclusion doesn't make sense as it makes us appear inconsistent with reliable sources. But if it is the case where maybe only 10 of 50 quality sources mention the name rather than 40 of 50, then BLPPRIVACY would agree with current DEADNAME to exclude the name. If the person had otherwise died more than 2 years ago (the 2018 or 1918 cases) (BDP no longer applying) then the bar for inclusion may be a bit lower, so that it may be appropriate to include if 10 of 50 sources mention it. Exactly where that line is to be drawn relating to sourcing strongly depending on the quantity and quality of the sources and the coverage given, but I would emphasize this has to be far more than one single mention in a RS, that we should be talking about our best RSes like NYTimes, BBC, and The Guardian with a high journalistic reputation (these tend to know when to respect privacy better than others) as well as works of academics, and that the name should be associated with indepth coverage of the person and not just a passing mention. --Masem (t) 15:39, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

The TL;DR of that version would be, essentially, Apply WP:TNT to MOS:DEADNAME's former name provisions and start again. My reading is that this is where you are at, but not at all where the community is at; I certainly don't see any groundswell to include this in the RfC on former names of dead Trans people. Newimpartial (talk) 15:42, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

That's not at all the goal. The point is to rework how we treat BLPs and bios as a whole (regardless of trans nature) to strengthen the requirements for including former names across the board and getting editors out of the habit of just including names because they can but instead really think about if the sourcing is there to support it. This would still allowing the explicit advice for DEADNAME and notability to stand for living/BDP trans persons as a special case already decided by the community. --Masem (t) 16:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

And just to be clear, my point here is to address what you call the "Wild West" in your "Not Option A" !vote above. I fully agree it is a wild west out there of how editors include former names. And while special care should be made for trans people, there should be an equivalent principle of this for all deceased people across the board. That is, the RFC is addressing one symptom of the problem but not the problem itself. --Masem (t) 16:57, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Masem, this is precisely why I think this proposal is crap (and why I was skeptical when it seemed to parse to something sensible). You are arguing as though BLPPRIVACY concerns, which in your view establish a sourcing-based threshold for the inclusion of former names, could be applied to trans and non-trans BLPs alike without requiring the current norms embedded in MOS:DEADNAME. This is complete bollocks. As I have said repeatedly on this page in recent months, we are talking about (at least) there different possible standards for inclusion: a verifiability-based standard, a "quality-RS" standard, and a Notability-based standard. Your constant shifts between the latter two are immensely confusing, particularly since a change from the Notability-based standard in DEADNAME to your "quality RS" standard for all bios would massively reduce the current MOS:DEADNAME protections, which were expanded twice in the last year. And this effect, whether you have thought it through or not, is precisely why I see your proposal as entirely out of scope for this RfC. Newimpartial (talk) 15:33, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Ultimately the issue here is resolving that WP should be summarizing what reliable sources say about a topic, and respecting the privacy of an individual even if they are long dead. BLPPRIVACY is a strong basis based on V +RS for all articles related to living/BDP people, and I see DEADNAME as a somewhat stronger version (going beyond just sourcing but demonstrated notability under the former name which builds on the V + RS basis) which is fine. (DEADNAME should just be called out in BLPPRIVACY to be clear this higher standard exists). It's just that for deceased people, the current situation around former names throws the balance of sourcing vs privacy out the door, with many editors just including a name because V is met. Inclusion of former names for any deceased person should still be based on a strong V + RS standard, which would immediately apply to trans persons as well. I point out that many of the A support !votes point out the problem of extending privacy concerns to long-dead people, and also have pointed out that many B and C !votes fear the sudden inclusion of a deadname based on weak sourcing as soon as BDP protections go away. This solution mitigates both concerns like that. --Masem (t) 15:51, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

As I have said before, if A or B is chosen, there will need to be a follow-on discussion (and probably RfC) about possible guidance concerning the inclusion of non-notable former names in the cases where they would potentially be permitted. This is when I would see the debate between "mere Verifiability", "quality RS", and "the practice of the best, recent sources" being fought out sagely resolved. Newimpartial (talk) 16:16, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

• I do have to agree with Masem’s take that WP:DEADNAME really does not belong in this guideline. Whether to mention someone’s deadname is a content issue not a style issue… and I so agree that we should consider moving the entire thing to WP:BLP (except for the GENDERID bits on pronouns - which is a style issue). Perhaps this could be proposed as a Followup RFC once we settle the current one. Blueboar (talk) 15:49, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
  • I do think there are some MOS issues related to where a deadname should be mentioned if it is found appropriate to include. If the (deceased) person wasn't notable under the deadname for example but sourcing supports inclusion, then the deadname should be limited to a body section and not the lede or including in the infobox, as one possible MOS piece. --Masem (t) 15:53, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
  • To speak only for myself, I do agree that the final destination of all the MOS:GENDERID and MOS:DEADNAME provisions (including those concerning pronouns) should be in BLP policy rather than the MOS. The only thing that is really a style issue IMO is the format for including notable former names in the lead sentence. But this isn't the time or the place for that discussion. Newimpartial (talk) 16:10, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

• The issue, however, ignores the context here. There is not an issue with the use of former names to bully, misgender, or raise questions of the legitimacy of ALL people, it is ONLY a tactic used to denigrate trans people. It is a specific, deliberate, and targeted tactic used to dehumanize trans people, attack them, or otherwise delegitimize them. As such, it needs a specific, deliberate, and targeted response to stop. Other kinds of name changes are not subject to the same context, and do not need the same response. --Jayron32 16:15, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I would think that if there are editors here out to denigrate trans people and basically here on bad faith, they will try to include this information regardless of any policy or MOS, which then will be of course reverted and possibly revdel'd. That's a behavior problem. So if we're considered those editors working in good faith but believe a deadname should be included on a deceased person just because it meets V like on any other deceased person, which we are clearly stating that this is too low a threshold, then a solution is to make sure that threshold is raised to require thorough sourcing of the name, and make that a policy. I am sure there will still be heated discussions on these cases, it would be naive to pretend this fixes everything, but we're still talking about editors when working in good faith. I think changing the larger mindset away from "we should include any birthname/former name on deceased persons as long as we can source it" would significantly help reduce disputes here related to DEADNAME and deceased individuals. --Masem (t) 16:43, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

discussion of sectioning of this discussion

Masem, while there is nothing wrong with having a "Discussion" section of an RfC, your proposal would be out of scope for such a section, as it addresses an entirely different issue than Option A, Option B and Option C above. Could we please discuss this proposal in a separate section? On the other hand, if you wanted to clarify your !vote above to something like "Too soon to decide, until the issue under discussion below as 'Alternative BLPPRIVACY proposal' has been resolved", that might be helpful. Newimpartial (talk) 15:01, 12 August 2021 (UTC) This is directly connected to the RFC. And its a discussion, not a new !vote about it. It is meant to have editors think about how they have !voted and if there's a better way to be doing this. RFCs are allowed to come to alternate conclusions not originally proposed by the RFC statement. While what I'm suggesting might require a wholly separate RFC over at WP:BLP, it gives a different alternative to how this RFC might resolve. --Masem (t) 15:11, 12 August 2021 (UTC) I'm convinced. I do think discussion on this RfC should continue based on other policies staying at status quo, but other editors might be persuaded to !vote based on the possibility of change elsewhere. Newimpartial, some resectioning is allowed by WP:TPG, but I wouldn't recommend doing so repeatedly over the objections of the initiating editor. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:17, 12 August 2021 (UTC) I hear and obey. Newimpartial (talk) 15:23, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I do think this is a separate more wide ranging issue and should have its own widely notified RfC. I can not support it regarding the existing RfC, and regards both living & deceased trans people, as it blows the protections for unnotable deadnames away. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 18:32, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

• This is a separate issue and, frankly, one that works in the opposite direction. After the 2021 Wimbledon tournament, there was commentary about the plaque/signage within the clubhouse, which listed married female champions under their husbands' names. (When Chris Evert won in 1981, she was listed as Mrs JM Lloyd.) I would argue that it is important to include former/maiden names for females, at least in some circumstances. I would also argue that when indigenous people had names Anglicized by missionaries or colonists, that original names, when reliably sourced, should be listed (q.v. Pocahontas). By contrast, with a trans person, they are specifically saying that the old name no longer applies to them and to refer to them by the new one. In that light, misuse of the deadname of a trans person is the same type of offence as forcing a new name onto an indigenous person. —C.Fred (talk) 20:34, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Preparing to close (RFC on deadname for dead people)

While the RFC still has bit more time to run before we reach 30 days… comments are slowing down. Is it time to line up a few uninvolved admins to act as closers? Comments or concerns? Blueboar (talk) 12:46, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

I do not see a need to close early. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 13:44, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

They're still chiming in, so best to wait until early September. We wouldn't want somebody to challenge the closure. GoodDay (talk) 14:09, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah… wasn’t thinking of closing early… just designating someone TO close. But it can wait a week. Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

• Quite frankly...the entirety of MOSDEADNAME seems to be a NOTCENSORED violation, as long as the RS sourcing is out there. We give people's birth names all the time, even when they don't correspond with the name the person became notable under (Gerald Ford, Patrice Lumumba). I know some people like to be dicks about noy using the name a person wants to go by, but why do trans people get an exception as far as policy is concerned? -Indy beetle (talk) 10:51, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Imagine what this project will look like, in twenty years. GoodDay (talk) 16:25, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
    • Maybe in twenty years this project will no longer need to regularly update List of people killed for being transgender (which probably only contains a fraction of the trans folks murdered internationally i.e. Murdered, Suffocated And Burned Alive – 350 Transgender People Killed In 2020) ... i fear I know this extremely unlikely. Was Gerald Ford ever assaulted when folks learned he had changed his name from Leslie Lynch King Jr.. Name changes, connected to gender I would suggest are far more sensitive than most other changes and I equally suggest need special care.
    • Let's talk about deadnaming trans people and why 'freedom of speech' isn't always the answer (this mostly about IMDb but could apply to Wikipedia).
    • A transgender person's deadname is nobody's business. Not even a reporter's.

~ BOD ~ ^TALK 21:11, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

@Bodney: I think people who are being murdered for being transgender are being murdered because they are transgender, not because they changed their name. If Wikipedia fears its driving a hate crime rate then the naming thing isn't the problem, it would be labeling the people transgender (though many transgender people, especially activists, are not bothered being called trans as they self identify as that). The only direct result of this policy is that we might facilitate slightly easier trolling for transphobes on Twitter. Also, the Ford case is particularly interesting because the man he was originally named after, Leslie Lynch Sr., was his abusive father who hit his mother and reportedly threatened to murder her and him as an infant with a butcher knife...which is why he later changed his name to honor his much more respectable stepfather, Gerald Ford Sr. As far as "using the old name might cause some emotional discomfort to the subject", I think Ford is an excellent case (though he is dead). So why do some people get special treatment? -Indy beetle (talk) 22:46, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

What is this GENDRID, I keep reading about? GoodDay (talk) 22:05, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Gender id ~ MOS:GENDERID is just an alternative link to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography#Gender identity ..but you know this? ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 22:23, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Is that the MOS:BIO rule, that restricts what pronouns one is allowed to use in the talkpages of those bios? I recall being growled at for using "she", in a discussion at Elliot Page. -- GoodDay (talk) 22:29, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

MOS:GENDERID and other polices establish that WP accepts gender transition and refers to BLPs as their preferred gender - thus we expect editors to respect that once clear public statement related to their transition is made. The inadvertent slip up will happen, as well as discussions of what pronouns to us at various times (I'm sure that was a discussion over at Caitlyn Jenner as how to describe Jenner's Olympic career) - but editors flat out refusing to use the new gender and purposely sticking to the old gender - likely as part of POV pushing pattern - should be considered disruptive. --Masem (t) 22:40, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with policing on the talkpages of those bios, concerning that topic. But, all that was already decided, before I was made aware of it. GoodDay (talk) 22:42, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Not so much decided, but there's aspects of BLPTALK here. As I said, if there are legit questions about a transgender person's gender and it may be necessary to refer to a trans woman as "him" to make it clear on the discussion, no one should be dragging editors off to ANI for that. But if one is purposely refusing to accept a trans' new gender, and in a matter to be disruptive, then absolutely yes we will deal with that - but that's again within the context of BLPTALK. --Masem (t) 22:56, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I missed out on the decision being made at BLPTALK, as well. GoodDay (talk) 21:09, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I think your answer may have been provided already, but for the record, MOS:GENDERID and MOS:DEADNAME both link to the same part of the MOS. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 00:04, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

To give some additional context: the provisions about deadnames (MOS:DEADNAME) and those about pronouns and other gendered terms (MOS:GENDERID) developed separately for perhaps half a dozen years, but were consolidated to the same location after the RfCs early this year. Their scope, however, differs: GENDERID has always applied to dead as well as living biographies, while DEADNAME as a separate guideline has been limited to the living, at least until this RfC. Finally, GRINDRID is something entirely different. Newimpartial (talk) 00:25, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Wish I had been aware of those RfCs. Really steams me, being told what pronouns I can & can't use on a bio's talkpage. GoodDay (talk) 00:30, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Imagine, then, how much it would steam you to have the wrong pronoun used about you on purpose. Gʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ^ˣ 00:31, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Wouldn't phase me, at all. GoodDay (talk) 00:52, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

GoodDay, you will find a partial list of your missed opportunities to participate in community discussions on these topics here. Newimpartial (talk) 00:35, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Jeepers & I thought the gradual elimination of userboxes, was bad. GoodDay (talk) 00:54, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

• I have to agree with Indy beetle. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 22:49, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Admins requested for closure

• NOTE - as this RFC is set to expire in a few days, I have left a post at WP:AN requesting a team of uninvolved Admins to assess consensus and close. Blueboar (talk) 14:45, 5 September 2021 (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.

Postulating on eliminating inclusion of non-notable names for any individual

Given the closure of the DEADNAME RFC above as no consensus (see #RfC on non-notable pre-transition names of deceased trans people) I'd like to postulate if there is any type of wider support for the separate idea that I put in as an "alternative proposal".

That is: regardless of whom the person is, living/dead, cis/trans, whatever, should we not include prior names (including pre-marriage names, names prior to immigration, and deadnames, among others) of individuals if the person was not notable under that name or if that name is not well documented by high-quality RSes? Effectively, this is extending the current DEADNAME principle to apply across the board.

The rationale here is that there is a tendency for editors to seek out former names and include them regardless of sourcing or importance, but in light of the discussion of the above RFC, this can be seen as also simply trivia if the person was not known for that name (either via notability or lack of coverage of the original name). If we refocus the idea that these older names are generally trivial unless notability factors or wide coverage of the name comes into play, and that we should not include those names just because we may have one or two sources to support it, then we have a rather clear way to address many of the factors of conflict of the DEADNAME RFC. It's just that we have to get consensus that these older non-notable names are the type of trivia we shouldn't include even if documentable. We'd probably need to be clear what is "notable" or "widely covered" for inclusion purposes but that's less an issue than accepting that non-notable names can be trivial and inappropriate for inclusion.

I'm only proposing this, not yet any formal RFC, but given the above RFC's closure, if this has any prospect of wider support to build an RFC out of. --Masem (t) 16:58, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Would this involve not reporting the father's name of very many women? Would we require reliable sources reporting the time (before or after marriage) when these women became notable? Thincat (talk) 17:17, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this seems likely to lead to erasing any mention of the family background of most women from times when women changed their names on marriage. I think it is a non-starter for this reason. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:26, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

If the person's family is discussed, and by nature the father's full name is given in that biographic information, then yeah, its a bit hard to hide the maiden name. But as I'm pointing out to Blueboar, this should be information pulled from quality biographic articles, not from databases or genealogies, just because we can. Other people should have discussed and documented these names for good reason because just a database for us to include them. --Masem (t) 17:52, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

A newspaper marriage announcement is a perfectly good source for someone's maiden name, but I don't think it would count under your "only high quality sources" bar. If people are using self-sourced genealogy cruft web pages for this information, then the problem is their failure to follow WP:RS; those pages would be equally bad for sourcing parentage for men who don't change their names. So your proposal disproportionately targets information about women while not doing anything about the real problem. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:43, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

As an encyclopedia, we should not be using simple wedding announcements from newspapers to establish family history of a notable person; if no one else has bothered to do this in a more biographical fashion, we shouldn't be the first to do so. The issue is overall, editors want to try to fill in all these details and while they may be using reliable sources, aren't using biographical sources to show that information was really of importance. This is, of essence, a major problem related to the DEADNAME issue, but it is a core problem for any biographical article. --Masem (t) 19:21, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

To add, that would make me think that a staring point would be the elimination of using wedding announcements, short-form obits, and other similar types of announcements as sourcing for biographies, outside of indicating a point of death from an obit. That's part of a larger solution to get editors less focused on this type of information that's not covered in more biographical articles that we should be summarizing. --Masem (t) 19:27, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

@Masem:, to me that blurs the line between notability and verifiability. Wedding announcements and short-form obits may not establish notability, but they usually are the most reliable sources available for family data, thus they do meet the verifiability standard. Montanabw^(talk) 00:24, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

This seems to be taking as a starting point an unstated assumption that we should only have biographies of people well-covered in in-depth biographical sources. That idea is incompatible with some of our notability criteria, particularly WP:PROF, which uses other criteria than celebrity as the basis for inclusion. And again, you are using this push to restrict biographies and biographical information within them as a bludgeon in a selective way that will largely impact our biographical articles on women, with no valid rationale for this selectivity. Further, "we should not be using simple wedding announcements from newspapers to establish family history" is a bare assertion of your opinion, with no justification whatsover. Why not? What's wrong with that kind of source? Do you have some reason to believe that it's less accurate than family stories passed through some chain of recollection years later to a biographer? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:06, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Can you explain more about what you mean by That's part of a larger solution to get editors less focused on this type of information that's not covered in more biographical articles that we should be summarizing? RicDod (talk) 20:22, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

An issue is that many editors see things like birth date, birth place, given name, parents, etc., as fundamental information about a person, and thus we must include it in the articles. But this can lead to use of poor quality or questionable sources just to be able to cite that detail, as well as perhaps having a blind eye to potential privacy matters (such as those that relate to deadnaming). We absolutely should cover this information in general when its clear other good sources, like an indepth bio, have given it to us, but if we're hunting and pecking from primary sources, that's perhaps a bit too much and while not an issue for probably 75% of the bios out there, can raise questions for others. We're supposed to be summarizing information published in reliable sources, not building out information that's only present in less reliable ones. --Masem (t) 21:14, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

We shouldn't make a big deal out of a bit of family history unless others have bothered to do so, but by the same logic, a mention in sources can be enough grounds for a mention here. XOR'easter (talk) 20:41, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

• Mixed opinion on this. Generally, former names are considered routine encyclopedic information (example: giving a married woman’s maiden name). However, I do like the idea that we need high quality sources for such information (If for no other reason than that this better ensures any former name we present is accurate). Blueboar (talk) 17:29, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
  • If its well documented by high quality sources, that's fine. But we often have editors chasing down weak genealogy sources to try to support this, which, while maybe meeting WP:V, doesn't show the merit of including as significant information if not discussed in a biographical context. --Masem (t) 17:52, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
    • But at the top you wrote if the person was not notable under that name or if that name is not well documented by high-quality RSes. Did you mean "and"? Colin M (talk) 18:00, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
      • Yes, that should be an "and" (or, to put it the other way, we should only include if they were notable under that name OR the name is well documented). --Masem (t) 19:18, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• To give a specific example: mathematician Nick Trefethen is the son of two other notable people, Lloyd M. Trefethen and Florence Newman Trefethen. This information is sourced in his article to a who's-who listing which it would be a stretch to call "high-quality". Because Nick Trefethen is male, and did not change his name on marriage, it would not be affected by this proposal. But if a women were in the same situation, changed her name on marriage, and happened not to achieve notability until after the name change, Masem's proposal would forbid us from mentioning her notable parentage. Why selectively censor Wikipedia's articles on women in this way? What problem is being solved by this? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:15, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

  Good point, David Eppstein. Also, when writing bios of women I deliberately seek marriage notices to avoid reusing the biographical dictionary yet another time as the reference for her marriage.--Oronsay (talk) 20:23, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

  What the issue that this is to try to address is to make things like maiden names, pre-immigration names, and deadnames be considered as non-essential information by default for purposes of privacy unless there's clear importance to that name - they were notable under it or there's ties to notability (like family relationships) to it, or that it is a well-discussed aspect of the person. We should be considering that information to require a threshold of evidence through sources to include, rather than the current default of being an essential piece of information that editors seek out weak sourcing to include. This relates to the major concern of the !votes on option B or C of the DEADNAME RFC who are concerned that as soon as the BDP period is up, deadnames would start appearing in articles - which is a completely fair issue given how avid some editors are for including these names. We should be setting a better bar for their inclusion across the board to take more caution on the side of privacy and rely on better quality of sourcing (avoiding trivial things like genealogy sites, wedding announcements, and court documents, and instead relying more on articles that cover people in more biographic depth to make the judgement). But we can debate where the line is to be drawn and that's what I'm trying to open to debate here before suggesting an direct improvement. --Masem (t) 21:09, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

  What the issue is is that you're pushing to reinstate the sexist double standards of the past, in which women's identities were erased into their husbands, by conflating them with the modern push to avoid deadnames. I'm sure you're doing it with good faith and all, but you need to take a step back and consider whether your goals of better sourcing for all Wikipedia biographies are really likely to be achieved by putting obstacles in the way of only the women's articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:30, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

  If a woman's pre-marriage identity is of important, we should expect the reliable sources covering that person to have documented that name somehow. If that's the case, then this idea won't touch those names, all is fine. If we're having to pull from primary sources like geneology sources just to add a maiden name, on the claim this is important when no other sources that discuss the person fail to mention it, that seems to be an issue. That's not creating a sexist double standard, that's reflecting that we're supposed to summarize what RSes say about topics. --Masem (t) 23:49, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

  I didn't say "creating" a double standard, I said "reinstating" one. Or, if you prefer, let's use your verb, "reflecting" a sexist double standard from the past into the present. Your use of conditionals makes it difficult for me to tell: Are you disputing that the erasure of past women's identities was sexist, or are you arguing that because the past was documented in a sexist way we are required to faithfully maintain that sexism in the way that we continue to document it? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:35, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. Routine encyclopedic information, like where born, when born, where went to school, etc. Most of our subjects weren't known for any of these either. --GRuban (talk) 21:04, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Strongest of possible opposes If there is a valid reason to omit a dead name, fine. In the case of most women, it makes no sense, as this type of information is typical for all encyclopedias. Half of women's stories would be eliminated by this proposal. You have someone who was born with name X, married and changed her name to Y, had a career and became notable under Y, she divorced/her husband died and she remarried changing her name to Z. Which part of her life do we eliminate, the first part or the last part, because sources clearly won't call her Z at birth nor during her career? Without the "trail of evidence" asserting X was Y and both X and Y were Z every single article would contain OR or simply leave out any part of her life except a career or any source not calling her Y. And what if she used a pseudonym? Her actual name/name(s) cannot be included? Many women used male or male-sounding names to enable them to have a career. So, we just present them as what? As for well documented by high-quality RSes, the fact remains that most women's history has not been treated by academia and very few of even the most notable women are well-documented. It only became a field of study in the 1970s, thus newspapers and women's journals are typically, for people born prior to the internet age, not only the most reliable sources to document women's lives, but often the only sources. If they are curated and published in reputable media, they meet our RS guides. SusunW (talk) 21:23, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Comment: There seems to be a lack of understanding in this proposal that not using deadnames and using women's (or anyone else's) name variants are both protection and preservation of people's identity. The policy is not inconsistent as it already stands. SusunW (talk) 14:22, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

• No such example exists; proposal is pointless The name of an individual is a basic encyclopaedic part of their biography. There are no non-notable names in any biography, and this is a proposal for a category that is a null set. Cambial foliage❧ 21:49, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Strongest of possible opposes as a +1 to what SusunW said. BTW, she could easily have been describing me and my names changes in the example given. --Rosiestep (talk) 22:20, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Quite strongly Oppose as above. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:27, 14 September 2021 (UTC).
• Oppose Determining when a woman becomes notable would lead to way too many tags and arguments. Name changes and AKAs should be part of an encyclopedia. Genealogy sites are not reliable, so if an editor is including that as a citation, the information can deleted on those grounds. Same with a man who changes his name, or if they change their name. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 22:33, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose A biography should list all a person's details with the sole exception of where that does actual damage to a person. Once a person is notable all the names they used are part of their biography. Either we agree that the source is suitable or it is not, for its purpose. Once we have a suitable source, the detail it can be included, except it causes damage (We don't usually publish email addresses, phone numbers or deadnames). To do otherwise damages the ability to properly cover the biographies of women, non western origin people and anyone with a pseudonym. Moreover to suggest any similarity of a deadname to a woman's name changing due to marital status is offensive. ☕ Antiqueight ^chatter 23:09, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Agree Per weight, if high qualify sources do not report something, then we should not include it. In addition, without rs, we cannot establish the information is correct. It was fairly common for example at one time for children to use the surname of their stepfather or male guardian. Slaves sometimes used the surname of their masters. But in both cases, their legal names might have been different. If relevant reliable sources discuss this, then we can add it to the article. There is an article about Jane Pitfield, a prominent Toronto politician, that does not mention her maiden name or any middle names and I have been unable to find them. Theoretically it should be possible by consulting her university yearbooks. But if it's not in any rs about her, there is no reason to include it. TFD (talk) 23:25, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - If you're going to have a follow-up RFC? best it be limited to two options. More then 'two' nearly always ends up with a 'no consensus' result. GoodDay (talk) 23:35, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - If I have understood this proposal correctly, it is effectively "C" from the above RFC, expanded to all biographies. Given that this doesn't address the primary objections to "C", and that in fact it goes far beyond "C" in a way that would only strengthen the specific objections raised, it doesn't seem like a particularly productive line of discussion. Instead, based on the closing, we should focus on options lying between "A" and "B", as somewhere here is where we are likely to find a consensus. BilledMammal (talk) 00:05, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Strong oppose: per above comments and also the concern that WP is supposed to be WP:NPOV. Erasing a former name can erase people from history. I absolutely oppose a standard of "not notable under that name". That said, "if that name is not well documented by high-quality RSes" has some validity, but is already covered under WP:V, and WP:RS. If not using a deadname appears to be important to a living or recently deceased individual, it doesn't have to be in lede, there is no reason that WP:LEDE or WP:MOS has to defy common sense; we can always ignore all rules. One can bury touchy information in a passing sentence in the body of the article. Montanabw^(talk) 00:22, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per SusunW and others. Johnbod (talk) 01:07, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per SusunW.4meter4 (talk) 01:51, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose — Of course all information in a biography should be based on sources that pass RS. There is no case to impose an even more strict restriction on birth names. David E is quite correct that this would selectively impact women. I don't accept the argument about "not notable under their former name", either. Actually, the fame of an adult makes their childhood notable retrospectively, which is why biographies almost never fail to mention it. Zero^talk 02:18, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose – the WP:DEADNAME policy is for articles not to include obscure deadnames of trans people for no good reason. If listing their birth name wasn't generally considered harmful and disrespectul for trans people, there'd be no reason for WP:DEADNAME to exist. Applying this to everyone would extend the problems expressed with option C above without having any perceivable benefit. —El Millo (talk) 02:55, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - WP:DEADNAME is based on a privacy interest related to gender identity that does not otherwise exist for a maiden name or other previous names. Beccaynr (talk) 07:08, 15 September 2021 (UTC) - comment clarified Beccaynr (talk) 14:18, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Strong oppose - as others have said WP:DEADNAME is an entirely different to the issues that women and their names face. Women can be notable under both their birth and marriage names, so choosing one smacks of trying to remove indications of notability. Lajmmoore (talk) 07:43, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Per WP:N, the concept of notability does not apply to article content. For an FA, what's wanted is completeness. So, in a biography, I would usually expect to put not just the subject's maiden name but the maiden name of their mother too. This information is often not especially interesting but such details of the parentage are conventional and standard biographical data. See also WP:CREEP and WP:NOTLAW. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:28, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose. This is an encyclopaedia! If it's sourced then it's valid. That's all we need to say. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:06, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose And this doesn't affect just women. Gary Hartpence is not a deadname. Leslie Lynch King Jr is not a deadname. Deadnames of living or recently dead trans people are a special case, and we shouldn't be trying to achieve consistency at the expense of common sense. —valereee (talk) 11:46, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Comment This would involve a change of existing guideline MOS:NE: If a subject changed their surname (last name) for whatever reason (e.g., marriage, adoption, personal preference), then their surname at birth should generally also be given in the lead.—Bagumba (talk) 15:45, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Comment There was no consensus to do this for a sub-group of biographies, so applying it to all biographies is a non-starter. Something that might get wider support is reducing the attention paid to full/birth names by changing MOS:FULLNAME and related guidelines so that they aren't (almost) automatically in the first sentence of the lead. EddieHugh (talk) 17:26, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this is an approach I could support. While a prior name should be mentioned in the lead if the subject was notable under that prior name, in other cases prior names do not need to be highlighted like that. Often, they really are better presented as a quick aside in a subsequent section such as “Early Life”. Blueboar (talk) 00:07, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. I appreciate the effort to find firm ground to exclude deadnames but this would throw the baby out with the bathwater. Plenty of people have elucidated that problem so I will just underscore Beccaynr’s point about the distinction between deadnames and maiden names w/r/t privacy, which might point a way forward on the deadname issue. Innisfree987 (talk) 19:09, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose While I applaud Masem for being concerned with deadnaming, we don't need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. This proposal is also erases a lot of history. Many women, like Harriet White Fisher, were well known under multiple married names. Many artists, Prince comes to mind, has several names including a symbol. As an encyclopedia, a person's name is not trivia. Knowing their parent's names often help people looking up that biography make sure they are dealing with the correct person in history. A lot of people have similar names and born around similar time periods and checking that they are the son or daughter of X can help make sure you've got the correct bio. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 23:01, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Unknown forename

Having searched the archive of this page I couldn't find a similar question, so here goes. How would I apply MOS:SURNAME (i.e. refer to individual by forename and surname in first instance) to a page such as Mount House School, Tavistock ("Miss Parker and Miss Tubbs") when I know neither of their names? MIDI (talk) 10:21, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Exactly as the article already does: "Miss Tubbs" on first mention, "Tubbs" on subsequent use. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:00, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Out of interest it is probably "Maria Charlotte Parker 1829-1919" and "Mary Foulger Tubbs 1847-1921". MilborneOne (talk) 13:01, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Mitch Ames. Even if we can find their names, Miss Parker and Miss Tubbs sounds better because that is how they were known. If you can find an rs for MilborneOne's information, it would be best shown in brackets, viz., "Miss Parker and Miss Tubbs (Maria Charlotte Parker (1829-1919) and Mary Foulger Tubbs {1847-1921.) TFD (talk) 23:31, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

If we can find an RS for their full names, then MOS:SURNAME would apply as normal, e.g. "Maria Charlotte Parker" on first mention, then "Parker" thereafter. Mitch Ames (talk) 00:20, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

People with disabilities

Regarding my edits on this page for people with disabilities, I hope there is a community census for these changes. If so, I have tried to propose Wikipedia:Manual of Style/People with disabilities be added to the manual of style (although I don't know the process for doing so). Any help would be appreciated! --Bangalamania (talk) 16:10, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

As it is a project WP:Essay, and not an official MOS page, the need for broad community consensus is less important. Discuss at the project level. If someone disagrees with your edits, they can create a counterpoint essay. Blueboar (talk) 16:19, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

How would I go about making/proposing it to be an official MOS page? --Bangalamania (talk) 16:23, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

This would be the right place do discuss it. Personally, I think it is better as a project level essay. It gives good advice, but promoting it to full guideline status is a bit too much “instruction creep”. We don’t need special MOS guidelines for every interest group. Blueboar (talk) 16:51, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Again, sorry...President/president usage at Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Per a recent change/revert/revert from President changed to president reverted back to President then changed back to president at Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the ensuing discussion on the article's talkpage, and a request to open discussion here:
Am looking for the editorial consensus re: specific sentences when referring to Abraham Lincoln as President in lieu of referring to him by name
Should the possessive form of the noun "president" be capitalized?...or Not.
From the Notes section: Should it be...

• Julius Ulke, who was a boarder at the Petersen House, took this photograph shortly after the President's body was removed

or

• Julius Ulke, who was a boarder at the Petersen House, took this photograph shortly after the president's body was removed

From Booth shoots Lincoln section: Should it be...

• With Crook off duty and Ward Hill Lamon away, policeman John Frederick Parker was assigned to guard the president's box.

or

• With Crook off duty and Ward Hill Lamon away, policeman John Frederick Parker was assigned to guard the President's box.

From Preparations section (this instance is not the possessive but rather similar to "the Queen" or "the queen"): Should it be...

• Booth would have been the only plotter with a plausible chance of gaining access to the President,

or

• Booth would have been the only plotter with a plausible chance of gaining access to the president,

In my opinion, if the name "Lincoln" can be substituted for the noun "President", then the noun should be capitalized. Others may disagree but let's come to a consensus re the usage on this article, especially the possessive.
(I recognize that in the rest of the article, there are the other instances of President/president usage within the article text. The direct quotes of historical text should be left as is, such as "she again seated herself by the President..." and so on.) Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 17:06, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I would support capitalizing in the Booth sentence (gaining access to the President). MOS:JOBTITLES says to capitalize "when a title is used to refer to a specific person as a substitute for their name during their time in office, e.g., the Queen, not the queen".

The other sentences should be reworded. Referring to people by their title as a substitute for their name should be reserved for when the office is of particular relevance, and not at all after their term of office is over (such as after death), so shortly after the Lincoln's body was removed. The box is elsewhere in the article referred to as the Presidential Box, which should be used in the above sentence as well (no comment on whether that phrase should be capitalized or not).--Trystan (talk) 18:22, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Re Presidential Box vs presidential box - usage in the National Park Service website refers to where the Lincolns sat as the State Box, Presidential State Box, presidential state box, and state box (see Ford's Theatre FAQs) and the Theater's website refers to it as the Presidential Box or State Box (see Ford's Theatre website). It seems to me that the State Box/Presidential Box is a specific place just as much as any other proper noun, be that a city/town/building/place/room or box (for instance, we don't call the rooms in the White House the blue room or the oval office, they're the Blue Room or the Oval Office) so for now I've adjusted it accordingly. Shearonink (talk) 00:26, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Over these last two years. I got the impression that we use only "President" if it comes before the individual's name. Examples = President Lincoln or President Abraham Lincoln. How's it done at the assassination articles of Garfield, McKinley & Kennedy? GoodDay (talk) 00:15, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

That's my impression as well. As I said, I'd be happy to be corrected. I'd just like to have a relative degree of consistency. Joefromrandb (talk) 00:36, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

As of now:

• all of the usage of "the President" without the name after it in Assassination of Abraham Lincoln are direct quotes from contemporary sources such as newspaper articles or as rendered in quoted testimony, that usage should stand unchanged.
• All the previous usage of "the President" in the article text where "Lincoln" could be substituted has been converted to last name.
• Instances of "presidential box" have been converted to "Presidential Box" since the name refers to a specific place (keeping in mind similar accepted usage of Oval Office or even Ford's Theatre, etc.)

Is that satisfactory? Shearonink (talk) 21:11, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Of course. I'm just hoping for some guidance as to standard site-wide practice. Joefromrandb (talk) 17:13, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

"Positions, offices, and occupational titles" applies. It should be lower case. Capitalization is often used as a sign of respect and is therefore correct in some cases, but not in Wikipedia articles. Newspapers in Commonwealth countries for example are more likely to write "the Queen" when referring to Elizabeth II than U.S. newspapers. TFD (talk) 23:43, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

MOS:JOBTITLES says to capitalize a title when it "is used to refer to a specific person as a substitute for their name during their time in office, e.g., the Queen, not the queen (referring to Elizabeth II)". I wouldn't object to that exception to the general downstyle approach being removed, but JOBTITLES as currently written clearly says to capitalize in such cases.--Trystan (talk) 13:09, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I think there's near-universal agreement that JOBTITLES indicates "the King" or "the Queen"; what I'm trying to gauge is whether or not this convention calls for "the President". Joefromrandb (talk) 13:36, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Peerage titles and honorifics amendments

Following some recent discussions about the usage of British peers' titles (see Talk:First Johnson ministry#MOS for listing current peers; Talk:House of Lords#RfC for use of peerage titles in lists and tables; and the above RfC), comment is invited on two specific draft proposals: (Changes in bold.)

To the lede paragraph of MOS:HON: "Honorifics and styles of nobility should normally be capitalized, e.g., Her Majesty, His Holiness. They are not usually used in running text, lists, tables, nor templates; though some may be appropriate in the lead sentence of a biographical article, as detailed below, or in a section about the person's titles and styles."

And to paragraph 4 of MOS:SURNAME: "A member of the nobility may be referred to by title if that form of address would have been the customary way to refer to him or her; for example Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, may become the Earl of Leicester, the Earl, or just Leicester (if the context is clear enough) in subsequent mentions. For modern-day nobility it is better to use name and title; at some time in the future the Prince of Wales will be a different person than Charles, Prince of Wales, and a great many articles risk becoming out of date. Be careful not to give someone a title too soon; for example, one should use Robert Dudley or Dudley when describing events before his elevation to the peerage in 1564. Avoid referring to peers (especially recent life peers) by formal style or title alone; for the benefit of our broad readership, be careful not to obscure an individual's personal name. Outside their own biography, a peer's common name (i.e. article title) will usually be appropriate to refer to them; such as Natalie Evans, Baroness Evans of Bowes Park"

DBD 21:06, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

• Strong oppose – In the first place, titles can serve as names, and frequently do so in both historical and modern usage. What this proposal seeks to do is obscure titles in favour of birth names, and this is in no way acceptable, and in contravention of WP:NPOV. There is no good reason why, if someone is commonly referred to as 'Lord Melbourne' in RS or the common press, that Wikipedia editors should not be able to use that name for that person in running text. Secondly, how do we determine what a peer's 'common name' is? I do not think Natalie Evans, Baroness Evans of Bowes Park is Baroness Evans of Bowes Park's common name. More likely, she would be either 'Natalie Evans' or 'Baroness Evans of Bowes Park', depending upon the source and context. The reason both the name and title are frequently included in article titles, per WP:NCBRITPEER, is because hereditary peers are most commonly referred to solely by their titles, but titles are often ambiguous. In the case of life peers, it is often the case that they may be known commonly both by their birth name (before elevation to the peerage) and by their title (after elevation to the peerage), causing a WP:RECOGNISABILITY problem if either were to be excluded in the title.

In other words, it is not obvious that the titles of peers' articles are their 'common name', as other concerns are often dictating the titles of these articles. Certainly there is no good reason to impose such an overly long name in prose, when this is not how anyone normally refers to such people in practice. Furthermore, excluding titles and styles from lists/tables/templates precludes the inclusion of such lists/tables/templates that detail the evolving or appropriate titles/styles used to refer to a person (which are quite common across the encyclopaedia), and this is clearly a nonsense. Let's follow reliable sources (one example from yesterday, for convivence), and oppose this boneheaded proposal. RGloucester — ☎ 21:31, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

I carefully drafted this so as not to propose to "obscure titles in favour of birth names". Would you care to propose a change to my wording? (PS: It's obvious you are frustrated, but please refrain from ad hominem such as "boneheaded".) DBD 13:45, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Given that the common names of the vast majority of life peers are their titles, e.g. 'Baroness Evans of Bowes Park', I would argue that the appropriate wording would suggest to use only 'Baroness Evans of Bowes Park' in contexts post-elevation to the peerage, except for people who are more commonly known by their birth name rather than title in RS. Furthermore, NCBRITPEER should be modified to promote the moving of articles from such artificial titles as Natalie Evans, Baroness Evans of Bowes Park to Baroness Evans of Bowes Park in cases where there is no ambiguity, per WP:CONCISE. RGloucester — ☎ 15:22, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Maybe we could draw a distinction between where the surname and the title differ or are the same. For example, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington and Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson. I would write, "The Duke of Wellington and Horatio Nelson were Britain's greatest heroes of the Napoleonic wars. While Nelson was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar, Wellington would go on to become prime minister." However for current peers, it is normal to use their title in the second reference. For example, Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster. "The Duke of Westminster is a major London landlord....The duke's estate also includes properties throughout the world."

In some cases, such as a formal list of cabinet members or formerly the Law Lords, it makes sense to use their titles because that is how such lists would normally be written.

TFD (talk) 21:58, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to emphasise the point about lists. The standard practice is demonstrated by the official lists of cabinet ministers found on the British government and parliament websites. Why would Wikipedia deviate from RS on this point? RGloucester — ☎ 22:07, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia would deviate from RS on this because we are for a very broad audience. We ought not to presume or require knowledge of which peer was which MP (for example). DBD 13:38, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

The government's list of British government ministers linked above is itself wonderfully inconsistent: it includes Lord Agnew, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Lord Stephen Greenhalgh; we have their articles at the only-slightly-inconsistent Tariq Ahmad, Baron Ahmad of Wimbledon, Theodore Agnew, Baron Agnew of Oulton and Stephen Greenhalgh, Baron Greenhalgh (with Fulham not getting a mention - perhaps because the full title seems to be "of Fulham in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham"?). Possibly personal preferences? PamD 14:27, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

That's because "of Fulham in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham" is what's called a territorial designation, and it doesn't form part of the title. Greenhalgh's title in full is The Lord Greenhalgh.

Anyway, thank you for pointing this out. The Westminster government's own listings ought to be RS, but the form "Lord Stephen Greenhalgh" is completely incorrect according to proper etiquette. DBD 14:32, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Please do not insert the canard of 'etiquette' into this discussion. We are discussing titles, styles, and more importantly, names, not 'etiquette'. As for inconsistency, as I said above, of course there is inconsistency. Different people are known in different ways, and more importantly, different people have different preferences as to how they are referred to. All the more reason why we cannot prohibit one valid way of referring to peers in favour of another potentially valid way. In the specific case of Lord Greenhalgh, I expect that's an inadvertent error, as the parliament website refers to him correctly, as do press releases issued by the British government, and the common press as represented, for example, by the Financial Times. RGloucester — ☎ 14:57, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Also, the government's own listings are not our preferred RS. Wikipedia explicitly prefers secondary sources, and the government's own listings are a primary source. We should follow secondary source usage. Bondegezou (talk) 14:16, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - Is this related to why we say Prime Minister Melbourne, instead of Prime Minister Lamb? GoodDay (talk) 22:05, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

  We don't say either, because the British don't use "Prime Minister Surname"; President Biden is an American usage and PM is not analagous over here. DBD 08:46, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

  But it's called the Melbourne government, rather then the Lamb government. The title is treated as a surname. GoodDay (talk) 13:41, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

  The title is treated as a surname for a 19th-century hereditary peer, yes. Correct. That is not under dispute here. DBD 13:50, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

  Ok. GoodDay (talk) 13:54, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Except that your proposal specifically says 'avoid referring to peers by title alone', seemingly precluding the use of this most common form of address. It is not obvious in the added phrase that there is any exception, and if there were an exception, the whole proposal would collapse, because the vast majority of peers, past and present, are commonly referred to as 'Lord Such and Such' in most RS and the common press. RGloucester — ☎ 14:59, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

As I wrote above, when the surname and title differ, the person is normally referred to by the title (i.e., Melbourne not Lamb; but Disraeli, not Beaconsfield.) But nowadays, that is less frequent. TFD (talk) 15:21, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

It is less frequent primarily because most life peerages are created based on a person's surname these days, but people who have titles that differ from their surname are still commonly referred to as such, as in the case of your Duke of Westminster example. RGloucester — ☎ 15:24, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Which is the example I gave above. In news articles, I notice that he is referred to as the Duke of Westminster at first mention, then as "the duke" in further references. TFD (talk) 15:30, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

A good contemporary example (of a life peer who's title differs from their surname) is Lord Blencathra, who is referred to as such alone in the press. See The Guardian, the Evening Standard, the Independent, the Daily Mail, and the BBC. Despite this, for reasons completely unclear, we have his article at David Maclean. Why, again, should Wikipedia deviate from common usage? It should not, and I would argue that this is just another example of a crusade by some editors to wipe titles out of existence because of their personal disdain for the system. RGloucester — ☎ 15:39, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

It's because of one of the exceptions given at WP:NCPEER: "Peers who are very well known by their personal names and who only received a title after they retired". As David Maclean he was a prominent MP who served as a Minister of State and Conservative Chief Whip. As Lord Blencathra he is a backbencher. Opera hat (talk) 16:00, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I was alerted to this discussion by a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom, but no-one seemed to have told the even-more relevant Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Peerage_and_Baronetage. I've alerted them. PamD 14:33, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks. I was aware of that Project, but was a little hesitant because I wonder whether those members will be able to interrogate current practice objectively. DBD 14:46, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

  A little condescending, I think! -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:21, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

  Argh, I really didn't mean to be. I just have experience of being 'inside' a group myself and not recognising that we had our shibboleths, our internal practices no-one had thought to question from any 'out' perspective. DBD 15:46, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

• Support - I find the proposal acceptable. GoodDay (talk) 15:11, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
• Life peers and judges. It might be helpful to have separate sections for these two categories, for simplicity. Editors working on articles about modern politics and law don't need to read about the complexity of British titles. TFD (talk) 15:46, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

  If only the United Kingdom would abolish their monarchy & become the United Republic. We'd have no more worries about these titles, from that moment forward. Oh well, reckon it'll never happen :) GoodDay (talk) 15:59, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

It is exactly this sort of outrageous politically-charged statement that should lead all upstanding editors, who believe in the principle of WP:NPOV, to quash this proposal. RGloucester — ☎ 16:01, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Fear not. I haven't been using Wikipedia to promote British republicanism, WP:ADVOCATE disallows it. GoodDay (talk) 16:09, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Stop winding up royalists @GoodDay; we are trying to discuss a specific proposal and you've allowed RG to mistakenly raise this spectre of iconclasm again! DBD 16:47, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

I am not a 'royalist', nor do I appreciate the insinuation. I stand by my above statement. RGloucester — ☎ 18:05, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

I support @TFD's suggestion that we might usefully narrow the scope of amendments to life peers and judges. DBD 18:25, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

The suggestion was to create a separate section, which I can perhaps agree with, not to implement your proposed addition. Life peers and judges, as shown above, are usually referred to by their title alone in RS. Perhaps you don't remember two years ago when 'Lady Hale, Lady Hale' was so frequently in the news? RGloucester — ☎ 18:34, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

I dispute RG's repeated assertion that a title is a name. Whether or not that is or can be the case elsewhere, I don't think that it is here on Wikipedia. In my fifteen years editing — and I started on British royal and peerages biographies — I have never come across an example of a one-person biography whose article title lacks a personal name. It is clearly established practice here, if not explicit policy, that a common name must include a personal name (whenever any is known). DBD 08:05, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the established practice here for article titles is encoded at WP:NCBRITPEER, and it suggests using both the personal name and title in most cases. I do not know why this style was adopted, but it is indeed established. However, we are not talking about article titles, we are talking about second or passing mentions in article text, and it is not clear why editors should have to write out a person's long-form name each time they are mentioned in an unnatural manner. The fact remains that titles are used as names. If someone is referred to as Lady Hale exclusively, Lord Blencathra exclusively, in the common press, without any indication of their personal name, as seen in the sources I linked above, are you suggesting that these sources are not using the titles as 'names' for the relevant people? I cannot understand how you can think that is the case. If I say 'Lord Blencathra', that's clearly a name that indicates a specific person. RGloucester — ☎ 12:10, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

• Yes- for an article title we would follow the established convention of full name, full title, but in running text we can use the appropriate shorter styling - as always a lot depends on context. For a passing mention (such as a list of Cabinet members) we can use “Lord X”, or “Baroness Y” with a piped link to the appropriate bio article. Obviously we would use whatever was historically appropriate (So if John Doe, Baron Doe of Puddle on Muck was in one cabinet while still a commoner, and another while a peer… we would use “John Doe” for the first, and “Lord Doe” for the second). Blueboar (talk) 12:54, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose the addition to MOS:SURNAME: some figures, such as Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, and Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, are better known by their titles than by their personal names. In descriptive article titles that mention them, often the best way to achieve WP:CONCISION is to use their titles of nobility: Statue of the Marquis de Lafayette (Washington, D.C.); Equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, Glasgow. Changing those article titles to use the personal names would not be an improvement. Ham II (talk) 13:38, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

"Wellington or no Wellington. I still have a shot left in my locker" -- GoodDay (talk) 19:43, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Other article titles worth noting here, which omit the personal name: Lord Dunsany (moved from Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany in April 2021) and the child article List of works by Lord Dunsany (created as Bibliography of Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany and renamed three times before being moved to its current title in November 2010). Also, these ones where the subject's title is the same as his surname: Lord Byron and the child articles Early life of Lord Byron, Lord Byron in popular culture and Timeline of Lord Byron (but Byron's letters and Byron's Memoirs, which both look questionable to me). All these examples are about writers, so WP:PSEUDONYM (sic) might apply to some extent. But neither of those peers is a recent one – is "Avoid referring to peers (especially recent life peers) by formal style or title alone" intended to be primarily for recent peers, with historical ones being treated differently? If so, it doesn't read that way. Ham II (talk) 08:30, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

• Strong Support for first change (lead paragraph) Opposition to this alteration appears to be based in opposition to the already well-established consensus policy. It’s appropriate to have consistency across running text and lists etc. Ambivalent on change to fourth paragraph. Cambial foliage❧ 07:14, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

@Cambial Yellowing: What if the purpose of a table is to indicate each person's title/style in accordance with the role they have been given in a government, which is what brought about this discussion? No one wants honorifics/styles authorised for normal use on Wikipedia, but surely they can be used when attempting to document who is entitled to what honorifics/styles in the encyclopaedic interest? RGloucester — ☎ 16:48, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

That is not the purpose of the table and list in the two articles linked at the top of the discussion. The purpose of the table and the list is to indicate who is in what post, as indicated by the respective section headings: "List of ministers" and "Government leaders and ministers in the Lords". The titles are not relevant to that information. Were a table such as the one you hypothesise to be created, I would place its encyclopaedic value between negligible and none whatsoever. Cambial foliage❧ 17:06, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

As someone who has worked extensively on the relevant tables, I disagree. Who is in what post directly relates to their title and style. Whether a cabinet member sits in the Lords or Commons is relevant information, as is whether they are a privy counsellor. Both of these are indicated through title and style. You seem to dispute that a person's title and style are encyclopaedic information at all. I disagree, given that titles and styles come with certain entitlements that clearly ought be chronicled in the public interest, and indeed, all RS that record this sort of information follow this principle. RGloucester — ☎ 17:14, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

The honorifics bestowed by the laws of any country are relevant to biographical articles, and that particular case is already covered in the guideline. It is not relevant elsewhere. In the two articles referenced above, this information is not important to the subject it is being presented in relation to: it thus falls under WP:HTRIVIA. WP is not an WP:INDISCRIMINATE collection of information. Unless there were some very specific reason why this information was actually relevant to the list that is being presented and the article it appears in, there's no reason to include it. I know of no instances where it would be relevant; perhaps an exception for articles about honorifics themselves might be added if such instances exist. The same reasoning for not including it in running text applies in lists and tables etc. Cambial foliage❧ 17:48, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. Completely unnecessary, since peers are very commonly referred to using just their titles. As long as it links to their article the first time they're mentioned there's no problem with doing this. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:29, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

What's the status quo?

FWIW, what exactly is the status-quo on these bios, concerning this topic? Is there consistency across the board? GoodDay (talk) 16:55, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Personal names merger complete

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Personal names and place names merger complete.

This merger affected one section of the MOS:BIO page.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:20, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

This introduced the text "if the person is conventionally known by only their first and last names and disambiguation is not required, any middle names should be omitted". Is this meant to refer to the article title and body only? The way it's worded and positioned reads like it applies to the first sentence. Could this be reworded so that it doesn't clash with "The most complete name should appear at the beginning of the article" from the same paragraph and "the subject's full name, if known, should usually be given in the lead sentence" from later? EddieHugh (talk) 21:52, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Government bio infoboxes, should they be decapitalized or not.

The following discussion 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.

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The following discussion 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.

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I'm afraid this will be a contentious close so I will, in advance, invite review of it through the mechanisms that exist to do so.
By straight headcounting, 28 editors opposesupport capitalization in infoboxes, 14 opposesupport, and 3 expressed some alternate opinion.
The first problem that will emerge with this close is that the opposition to no caps consisted largely of WP:VAGUEWAVEs or non-policy arguments like "looks weird" while supporters of no caps consistently argued a guideline, MOS:JOBTITLE, and offered efficient surrebuttals to each rebuttal advanced.
The second problem that will emerge with this close is a lack of clarity as to the status quo. The "pro de-capping" camp seems to be arguing that lowercase job titles are the statutory status quo, just not one we follow in practice. In the "looks weird" argument, the "anti de-capping" camp observes that all the infoboxes currently use capitalized job titles so a change would reverse from some kind-of normative status quo. If this is closed as "no consensus" we should settle on the status quo but it's unclear to me what, precisely, that is.
Addressing the second problem, I believe the status quo is that job titles are capitalized. I base this on the construction of the RfC proposal. No editors objected to the formulation of the proposal ("keep the titles capitalized") which I construe to mean all editors agree that capitalized titles are the status quo.
In WP:NHC, closers are advised the following: "If the discussion shows that some people think one policy is controlling, and some another, the closer is expected to close by judging which view has the predominant number ..." In this case we have twoone-thirds of editors arguing that MOS:JOBTITLE is controlling and, as I noted, onetwo-third making no policy based argument at all. However, the twoone-thirds also argued that JOBTITLE is not controlling. Arguing the non-applicability of a policy is, in my opinion, equivalent to arguing for an alternate policy.
I read that there is no consensus to keep the titles capitalized in the infoboxes. I also read there is no consensus to decapitalize titles in the infoboxes. In the absence of a consensus, the status quo (capitalized titles) should be observed. Chetsford (talk) 15:13, 24 August 2021 (UTC); edited 18:22, 24 August 2021 (UTC); edited 19:04, 24 August 2021 (UTC); edited 19:09, 24 August 2021 (UTC); edited 03:18, 31 August 2021 (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.

Very straight forward & simple question. Should we
A) Keep the titles capitalized in the infoboxes or
B) Decapitalize in the infoboxes.

Examples-A: 46th President of the United States, 23rd Prime Minister of Canada
Examples-B 46th president of the United States, 23rd prime minister of Canada

NOTE: This is about the infoboxes 'only' & naturally, will affect hundreds of bios.
GoodDay (talk) 18:45, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

NOTE: This RfC is only about ordanalized titles, such as those in the above examples, since those are the ones MOS:JOBTITLE would have us lowercase. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 02:45, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Survey

• B: There are compelling reasons why MOS:JOBTITLE was adopted. When these offices are modified by an order, i.e., 45th, the guideline tells us they should not be capitalized. I'm concerned about consistency here. The de facto situation is JOBTITLE is applied inconsistently: we use lowercase for modified offices in short descriptions and article bodies. Why should infoboxes be an exception? Either get rid of JOBTITLE or apply it evenly. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 19:26, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

  Hi Tartan357. Re "[...] the guideline tells us they should not be capitalized", can you please provide the relevant quote from the guideline, to clartify what you are referring to. Thanks. Nurg (talk) 03:20, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

  Nurg, the following is from MOS:JOBTITLES:

[Job titles] are capitalized only in the following cases:

...

• When a formal title for a specific entity (or conventional translation thereof) is addressed as a title or position in and of itself, is not plural, is not preceded by a modifier (emphasis mine) (including a definite or indefinite article), and is not a reworded description:

Richard Nixon was President of the United States.

Nixon was the 37th president of the United States.

― Tartan357 ^Talk 05:08, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

• C - Does not matter. Just don’t edit war about it. Blueboar (talk) 21:16, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

  There's no edit-warring & we all hope that there won't be, after this RFC is closed & a ruling is given :) GoodDay (talk) 06:26, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

• D - put the ordinal someplace else. It's a separate datum and doesn't belong there in the first place. If it were moved, the objection would go away. --Khajidha (talk) 00:37, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
• A - capitalise. JOBTITLES is already stupid, but extending it further would be perverse; infoboxes are clearly different beasts than running text in any case. I note that "D" above, while a good attempt, doesn't help with titles with more than one word like "Prime Minister" or "Secretary of State". Frickeg (talk) 00:44, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

  Frickeg, actually, it would, since the ordinal is the only thing that would trigger lowercase per MOS:JOBTITLE. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 02:43, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

  Tartan357, it doesn't help the issue because you still need to decide whether to capitalise as "Prime Minister" or "Prime minister". Frickeg (talk) 06:11, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

  Frickeg, without the ordinal, it would definitely be Prime Minister per MOS:JOBTITLE. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 06:22, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

  Thus opening up another dispute, keep or remove ordinals. GoodDay (talk) 06:27, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

  GoodDay, only if we entertain option D, which is honestly beyond the scope of this RfC. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 06:34, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

  Options C & D should be ignored, as they're not a part of the RFC questionaire. They only serve to muddy the waters. GoodDay (talk) 06:37, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

  The entire point of option D is that the "problem" only exists because we have adopted a poor design for the infobox. It is designed to fix the real problem. --Khajidha (talk) 12:01, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

  There'd be no problem if the infoboxes were left alone, as they have been for years. Ordinal with capitalized jobtitle. GoodDay (talk) 15:50, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

  That's just silly, like you're saying there'd be no problem if only there was no problem. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 18:27, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

  WP:JOBTITLES has been over-reaching since last year. There comes a point, when enough is enough. GoodDay (talk) 18:34, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

  GoodDay, then the proper course of action is to start an RfC to undo JOBTITLES altogether, not to try to carve out arbitrary exceptions to it. Although I prefer the status quo, my primary concern is respecting consensus. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 18:37, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

• One RFC at a time, please. GoodDay (talk) 18:39, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

  GoodDay, this is your RfC, and you didn't make it about JOBTITLES, you made it about this narrow issue. So "I don't like JOBTITLES" is not a valid argument here. JOBTITLES is a community-established guideline that is not up for debate here. You're proposing an exception to JOBTITLES that only applies to infoboxes, yet you have failed to articulate an infobox-specific justification. As the one proposing an exception, the burden is on you to provide that. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 03:52, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

  The options have been given. Editors involving themselves in this RFC will decide the outcome. GoodDay (talk) 04:13, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• A, uppercase, per Frickeg. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:59, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
• A, uppercase, as we've been doing for years. Honestly, what's next? Lower casing article titles? Gotta draw the line, somewhere. GoodDay (talk) 01:03, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
• C – Does not matter. Not one reader in hundred would notice the difference or care if they did. Find something else in the article that needs improving, that a reader will notice. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:06, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
• B, as per example, but not automatically decap as per "simple question". I see no reason why an infobox should have different treatment than the rest of the encyclopedia. MOS:JOBTITLE applies and should apply consistently everywhere. The comment about "Lower casing article titles" is silly, as GoodDay must know, because lowercasing entire titles is not in keeping with our MOS (and would be surprising to readers expecting a competently written encyclopedia). And of course, we actually do downcase parts of titles appropriately, as at Lieutenant governor (Canada) or Lieutenant governor (United States), for example. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 01:28, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, I'm well aware of those half lowercase article titles, which are usually done without benefit of an RM, like Deputy prime minister of Canada. -- GoodDay (talk) 02:46, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

• A, uppercase; I don't see any convincing reasons to lowercase the titles in the infobox. Some1 (talk) 01:05, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

  Some1, the burden is on those proposing an exception to our existing guideline, not the other way around. WP:JOBTITLES tells us it should be lowercase. If we're going to carve out an exception to that community-established standard for infoboxes, we'll need a reason specific to infoboxes for that. WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT isn't that. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 03:58, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

  The "result" of this RfC can either reaffirm MOS:JOBTITLES or carve out an exception to MOS:JOBTITLES. Some1 (talk) 04:30, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

  Some1, that's correct. And you just voted to carve out an exception. Can you affirmatively explain why you think there should be one? ― Tartan357 ^Talk 04:36, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• A, uppercase, per GoodDay Rexh17 (talk) 04:15, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
• A, uppercase, per the above. Sea Ane (talk) 16:09, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
• Leaning towards A, as I find that having a title being lowercased in the infobox, particularly when it's on its own line and demarcated in a box, looks strange to me. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 17:05, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Tenryuu: that's not a valid argument. It might look weird to most of you because, being native English speakers, you're used to titles being in title case, but as I said below, we have a policy (WP:SENTENCECASE) that states we don't treat titles or infoboxes any different than running text when it comes to capitalization, we use sentence case always. As we can see in the lead section for President of the United States, it is written in lowercase if it's not the beginning of the sentence (The president of the United States (POTUS)...). —El Millo (talk) 18:40, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

  The difference is that it's not being used as prose, which I normally copyedit in lowercase, and what stands by policy still rubs me the wrong way. I've said my piece and I stand by it. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 20:15, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

  Why in the world does Wikipedia have a policy that does not follow what most native English speakers are used to? Seems like that's a pretty strong reason to just chuck that policy out the window. --Khajidha (talk) 11:28, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

• A, uppercase. MOS:JOBTITLE makes (some) sense in prose, but not in infoboxes. KidAd • SPEAK 18:45, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
• B, b-b-because I have not been convinced that offices in infobox headers should be exempted from two reasonable guidelines, namely MOS:JOBTITLES and MOS:HEADCAPS. MOS:JOBTITLES already allows for far, far more capitalization than academic publishers do, and significantly more than the media do. It is only "stupid" for allowing so much leeway. The very least that can be done for Wikipedia to look serious is to capitalize no more than that. If the capitalization is that important, just do away with the ordinal in the infobox. "45th president" is not an office anyway. Surtsicna (talk) 21:04, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
• A, uppercase, MOS:JOBTITLES talks about used generically. So taking about just in the infobox, I don't believe it is being used generically there, you aren't using it in a sentance so makes more sense to be in capitals.— NZFC^(talk)(cont) 22:38, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

  NZFC, MOS:HEADCAPS tells us that infoboxes also use sentence case, so that's not a valid argument. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 22:42, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• Just change it to: “President of the United States (45th)”… then everyone will be happy. Blueboar (talk) 22:48, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

  Novel idea. But, I highly doubt it would catch on :) GoodDay (talk) 22:54, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

  This is what I mentioned above as option D. It's not the exact spot I would choose, but I wouldn't object to that location either. --Khajidha (talk) 11:44, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

• B. Chicago Manual of Style talks about this exact thing, specifying lower case titles when the title itself is being discussed. Caps are reserved for immediately before the name, as in Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Binksternet (talk) 23:59, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
• B – No convincing argument has been offered for capitalizing this in infoboxes when it's not capitalized in prose, nor for capitalizing it when no other infobox items are capitalized. Wikipedia treats infoboxes and prose equally when it comes to capitalization, sentence case is used. —El Millo (talk) 00:03, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
• A as per above explanations. The Drover's Wife (talk) 02:46, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
• B per existing guideline, and example in, MOS:JOBTITLES. The word "president" etc in that context is a common noun. There's no reason for using different style guidelines in an infobox. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:10, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
• A as per Frickeg, KidAd, Tenryuu 🐲 and GoodDay. Having the titles of what are highest offices of state in 'lower case' do look a bit strange. Are not President, Vice President, Prime minister, Grand Duke, Emperor, Chancellor or Chairman all proper nouns and thus should normally be capitalised. Regarding info boxes were the text is not even a sentence, were the title as in an office of state is also effectively a secondary title in an infobox. e.g. Barak Obama, 44th President of the United States; Mike Pence, 48th Vice President of the United States or Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. (Note: I am no grammar expert) ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 16:45, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

  No, Bodney, none of them are proper nouns. They are all common nouns. Wikipedia's MOS:JOBTITLES, The Chicago Manual of Style, AP Stylebook, the Oxford Manual of Style, etc, all clearly state that these words should not be capitalized. Academics and journalists do not reverently capitalize offices and neither should Wikipedia. Surtsicna (talk) 17:32, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

  Where do any of these style guides state to decapitalise in infoboxes as opposed to running prose?  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 17:10, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

  Bodney, MOS:HEADCAPS and MOS:CAPS tell us that infoboxes do use sentence case, though. Why should job titles be the singular exception to this? ― Tartan357 ^Talk 19:33, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

  Bodney, I hear ya. GoodDay (talk) 06:31, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

• A per the arguments already made. Turnagra (talk) 19:19, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
• B Unless we make a guideline that infobox titles don't follow the same capitalization guidelines are other titles and headings. There's nothing unique to the intersection of infoboxes and jobtitle caps. Dicklyon (talk) 19:28, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
• A JOBTITLES makes sense in running prose but in the infobox or other places on a page where sentence fragments would be used - article titles, categories, etc. - the use of capitalization does not infer with running prose. --Masem (t) 20:14, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

  Masem, MOS:HEADCAPS and MOS:CAPS tell us that infoboxes do use sentence case. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 20:55, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

  I read that if we were trying to construct a sentence fragment. I would still argue that a job title, isolated from any other prose, is a unique case that should be capitalized, since we can't tell otherwise in context which other version of caps should be used. --Masem (t) 04:43, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

  Masem, why can't we tell otherwise in context which other version of caps should be used? I'm trying to understand that statement, but am having a hard time. MOS:CAPS says sentence fragments pretty much everywhere, including infoboxes, follow the same capitalization rules as running text. And we have a clear capitalization rule for running text in this case. Why is an exception necessary? ― Tartan357 ^Talk 05:37, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

  If we were captioning a picture with a short phrase like "Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the U.S.", there would still be enough context of a partial sentence to know that we're using the office (rather than title) form prescribed by JOBTITLES to keep that lowercase. In the infobox, just saying "42nd President of the U.S." is not enough context to determine if we're talking the office vs. title, and I would argued that implicit in the infobox that this is nearly always meant to be considered the title form. Mind you, I know one specific example of JOBTITLES says that "<cardinal> <position>" makes that an office, and to that point, I would actually argue that we should be presenting these in infoboxes as "President of the United States (42nd)" as there no official title of "42nd President of the United States". --Masem (t) 13:24, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

  implicit in the infobox that this is nearly always meant to be considered the title form — The infobox on Bill Clinton is {{Infobox officeholder}} which has a field "office", not "title". Mitch Ames (talk) 13:52, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

  That's only obvious if you are reading the wikitext, not the rendered text. --Masem (t) 21:55, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

  As an additional comment here, if the parameter name and expected value is the "office" and editors are entering things like "45th President of the U.S." which is not an office, then its being misused. On the other hand, using "President of the U.S. (45th)" is an office title with the added clarity of which ordinal position held, and that would conform to JOBTITLE without a problem. --Masem (t) 16:33, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

  We must keep in mind, that 46th & President of the United States (in the Biden article) are separate entities from each other, in the infobox. That there's no suggestion of an office called 46th President of the United States. GoodDay (talk) 18:42, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

  Masem, since we are presenting it with the ordinal in front, and JOBTITLES gives us an example of that being lowercase, that's what we should do here. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 22:04, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

  Hello Masem. IMHO, we should continue what we've been doing for years. Keep the jobtitles captalized in the infoboxes-in-question, whether they're accompanied by ordinals or not. GoodDay (talk) 05:46, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

  Once again, a statement of preference with no reasoning to back it up. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 06:12, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

• A The decapitalised version just looks wrong IMO. Number 57 20:52, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

  Number 57, MOS:HEADCAPS and MOS:CAPS tell us that infoboxes use sentence case. Why should job titles be the singular exception? ― Tartan357 ^Talk 20:56, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

  A job title is not a sentence, though. GoodDay (talk) 20:59, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

  MOS:HEADCAPS and MOS:CAPS tell us to use sentence case for things that aren't sentences:

  Wikipedia uses sentence case for sentences, article titles, section titles, table headers, image captions, list entries (in most cases), and entries in infoboxes and similar templates, among other things. Any instructions in MoS about the start of a sentence apply to items using sentence case.

  Also, I know you know better at this point. Please stop misrepresenting our guidelines. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 21:03, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm with ya, Number57. GoodDay (talk) 06:36, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

• A. (1) This particular usage is the "job title" case specified in JOBTITLES, and not the "officeholder" case (Vice President of the United States vs. List of vice presidents of the United States). (2) I view the ordinal as separate from the job title. It could be just as easily be expressed as "Vice President of the United States (47th)", which you can't do in prose, but you can do here because the ordinal is separate. I would support moving the ordinal to an end parenthetical like I have demonstrated if there is truly a JOBTITLES issue here, but I don't think there is. — Goszei (talk) 23:19, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

  Not certain, but I think an attempt (maybe via RM) was made in the past, to move the veep article to Vice president of the United States. Thankfully, it didn't succeed. GoodDay (talk) 23:54, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

  OK, but moving the ordinal to a parenthesis at the end of the office would aesthetically be a hundred times worse than either of the two options of this RfC. PraiseVivec (talk) 16:12, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

  Indeed. GoodDay (talk) 18:37, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

  Another straw man. That RM failed because that would have gone against JOBTITLE as the title is unmodified. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 18:39, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

• A. This seems a decent place to invoke the 5th pillar of Wikipedia (and maybe even WP:IAR) and let common sense prevail over rigid adherence to what are only guidelines after all. We should not forbid lowercase or sentence case where it is appropriate, but neither should we require it. To maintain formal, professional appearances, title case or other creative capitalizations may be warranted. --Animalparty! (talk) 21:43, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
• A JOBTITLES is was created due to the prevelance of decapitalisation by some style guides in prose like Chichago manual, etc. Those manuals say nothing about infoboxes. We should capitialise here becuase to match what the title of the article is. Prose clearly differs from infoboxes. In addition, JOBTITLES has been contested for a long time now and per other reasons noted above.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 22:53, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

  Your argument for special treatment of infobox content on Wikipedia hinges on the fact that CMOS doesn't mention infoboxes? I guess I have to concede that prose clearly differs from infoboxes in the sense that CMOS talks about prose and fails to even mention Wikipedia infoboxes, but holy cow, what a stretch. And your premise that JOBTITLES is a direct result of CMOS, et al., needs some sourcing before I concede that. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 23:53, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

  In all these style guides that we often use evalualate the usage and what we often based our MOS on like for instance, The Chicago Manual of Style, please cite where such capitalisiation for JOBTITLES in relation to infoboxes applies. I am not saying CMOS determined our MOS, I was giving one core example as why such a guideline is often argued for us to have.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 00:42, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

  Spy-cicle, please cite where such capitalisiation for JOBTITLES in relation to infoboxes applies. I can do that. From MOS:CAPS:

  Wikipedia uses sentence case for sentences, article titles, section titles, table headers, image captions, list entries (in most cases), and entries in infoboxes and similar templates, among other things. Any instructions in MoS about the start of a sentence apply to items using sentence case.

  ― Tartan357 ^Talk 00:45, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

  Apologies if I did not make myself clear in my previous comment. What I meant was do you know of any external Manual of Styles (like CMOS) which say to decapitalise job titles in infoboxes, specifically.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 00:54, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

  That's a nonsensical question. Of course no external style manuals say what to do in a Wikipedia-specific feature (and we wouldn't care if they did, since off-site parties don't dictate how WP's community writes its own material). Let's not be silly. But, since you clearly didn't just go look, I can confirm for you that decapitalization of job titles when not directly attached to names is in fact an idea WP's MoS picked up from CMoS (since at least the 16th ed., maybe 15th) and some other major style guides.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:31, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  It seems britannica does. But even if it were true that Wikipedia is the only place to have infoboxes then why should style guides not written for which do not include infoboxes in its consideriation be the determinant of whether we should do something to infoboxes here. As others pointed it this part of the infobox is a sentence fragment so it makes sense to capitalise.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 17:07, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

  Let's not forget that even if A succeeds, everything else in infoboxes will still use sentence case per MOS:CAPS. So, job titles would be the only exception, which would be quite strange. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 23:58, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

  Indeed, Spy-cicle. It's increasingly obvious, that WP:JOBTITLES needs some kinda adjustments. Many editors are against imposing lower-casing in the infoboxes, concerning job titles/offices. GoodDay (talk) 00:49, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

  And many editors are for imposing lower-casing in the infoboxes, concerning job titles/offices. Now, GoodDay, please learn how and when to comment in an RfC. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 04:07, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

  I ain't one for fancy words, youngster. Just call'em as I see'em. GoodDay (talk) 19:01, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

• B as a logical extension of MOS:JOBTITLE. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:46, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
• A as JOBTITLE makes no sense and it looks amateur-ish not to capitalise. GiantSnowman 07:30, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

  GiantSnowman, this is a nonsensical comment and I expect better from someone so experienced. Getting rid of JOBTITLES is out of the scope of this RfC; it will continue to exist regardless of the outcome here. This RfC is about how to correctly apply JOBTITLES to infoboxes. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 01:26, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  I said what I said. GiantSnowman 07:47, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  What is it with experienced editors not wanting to follow-up on debate here? Is it something particular to this specific topic? I've seen many here that when challenged just say things like this, or "I stand by my words" and the like, instead of genuinely trying to provide more or better reasons for the other side. I haven't seen it done in other discussions as it is being done here. —El Millo (talk) 08:05, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  Maybe we're dealing with deeply held religious beliefs. Nobody wants their faith attacked. And lots of folks think Title Case Is The True Path, perhaps 'cause they've been seeing it since their school days. It feels safer to believe what one knows than to think about it or question it. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 09:10, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  What is it with 'some of the B-side editors treating A-side editors as though they (A-side) are idiots. That kinda arrogant approach isn't going to change any on the A-side to switch over to the B-side. Best ya'll read up on WP:BLUDGEON & how it usually gets you the opposite result, that you seek. GoodDay (talk) 14:36, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  GoodDay, please learn how and when to comment in an RfC. Maybe I should have said that earlier. Specifically, read WP:LISTGAP and try to stop changing list type when you reply. I have once again just fixed your replies, after having done so repeatedly earlier, followed by SMcCandlish. Also, to whom are you replying here? The indentation you used doesn't make it clear; I guess it's GiantSnowman (at 07:30, 30 July), because that's the outermost post you commented under, but that doesn't make sense because you seem to agree with them. And finally: WP:BLUDGEON? That's hilarous, as you seem to be intent on doing just that. So I can't tell what serious point you're trying to make, or to whom. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 16:17, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  I don't pester every B-side editor, about the position they've taken in the survey. Wish some of you would show the same respect to those on the A-side. GoodDay (talk) 16:21, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  It's that many on the A side are refusing to provide any reasoning for that position. WP:Polling is not a substitute for discussion, and editors have to put forth reasoning if they want their opinions to count. Replying to people, I and others are just trying to elicit some of that reasoning. WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT arguments are unlikely to be taken seriously, no matter how numerous they are. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 16:29, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  That might be your motive, but it's coming across as browbeating & (so far) you haven't been convincing anybody on the A-side to switch. GoodDay (talk) 16:42, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  Just relax. I only want to see the reasoning. If you care so much, then perhaps you can provide some. For all the comments you've made here, it's astonishing that you still have not explained why you think the titles should be uppercase. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 16:47, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  Already have. 46th President of the United States (in Biden's infobox), is not a sentence. "Biden... is th 46th and current president of the United States..." (in the article's intro), is a sentence. GoodDay (talk) 16:54, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  GoodDay, which has been refuted by multiple editors. Sentence case applies to sentences AND other things, infoboxes included. From MOS:CAPS:

  Wikipedia uses sentence case for sentences, article titles, section titles, table headers, image captions, list entries (in most cases), and entries in infoboxes and similar templates, among other things. Any instructions in MoS about the start of a sentence apply to items using sentence case.

  Please stop trying to WP:GASLIGHT me into thinking that quote from the MOS isn't real. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 17:00, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  If what you say is true, then I would invoke WP:IAR. You're not going to convince me that a jobtitle or office, is a sentence. GoodDay (talk) 17:04, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  GoodDay, it is not a sentence. No one has said it is a sentence. That's a straw man argument. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 17:06, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  I've opted for option A & you haven't convinced me away from that position. GoodDay (talk) 17:08, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  And we're back to the stubborn refusal to explain your position. It's becoming increasingly clear that you're simply not able to, so you won't. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 17:10, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  You & I are at a stalemate. Neither of us are willing to budge. GoodDay (talk) 17:13, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  Then it's good, for the closer, that I've actually laid my reasoning on the table. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 17:15, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  Don't be so certain about how you think the closer will proceed. GoodDay (talk) 17:24, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

• B per WP:JOBTITLES. WWGB (talk) 05:18, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
• A I don't believe that choosing this option carves out an exception to wp: jobtitles because the infobox usage is far from generic. The professional asthetic intended there is better served following the title case guidelines. Aside that, I would support changing the ordinals to appear as a parenthetical extenuation after the title but accept that this is out of this RfCs scope.----John Cline (talk) 10:45, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  John Cline, can you cite what title case guidelines you're referring to? Because the relevant guideline I've found, MOS:CAPS, says infoboxes use sentence case, not title case. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 13:49, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  I never said that mos:title was relivant or that title case was stipulated for use in infoboxes. I said that the professional asthetic intended would be better served if they were. Nevertheless, the usage of the office name as it currently renders in the infobox can hardly be described as a generic mention which mos:jobtitles (as well as other parts of our MOS) require. Furthermore, mos:caps (the relivant guidelines you mentioned above) states here standard or commonly used names of an office are treated as proper names and that means, of course, capitalized.----John Cline (talk) 16:30, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  John Cline, the claim that JOBTITLES only requires lowercase for generic mentions that don't apply to a specific person is incorrect, per this example provided by the guideline: Nixon was the 37th president of the United States. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 16:40, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

• B per MOS:JOBTITLES (except capitalize the leading letter like we do for all infobox line-items, which are treated as if sentences). The supporters of option A are mostly making WP:IDONTLIKEIT arguments about JOBTITLES itself, not arguments for why any exception should be made to it in infoboxes, so the closer needs to de-weight them appropriately.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:21, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  It's not entirely up to you though, as who should or shouldn't be ignored. GoodDay (talk) 14:30, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  They didn't say it's up to them, they said it's up to the closer, which it is, and are encouraging them to give less weight to the WP:IJDLI arguments, which is within the closer's discretion. Again, you need to take a look at WP:NOTVOTE because you seem ill-informed about how the consensus-forming process works on Wikipedia. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 16:11, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

  You need to learn that this isn't a winning at all cost matter. GoodDay (talk) 16:16, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

• B Lowercase, please. Tony (talk) 12:41, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
• A in article titles, section headings, and infobox headings. The clearest analogue for n-th X of Y titles is not in any of the prose examples, but rather in article titles like William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire, whose naming convention is well-established as capitalised. (Note that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography#Positions, offices, and occupational titles does not discriminate on the basis of what powers or privileges come with the position, its rules for succession, how high-ranking it is, or any other reason to distinguish a duke from a president, king, emperor, grand duke, lord mayor, etc.) Adumbrativus (talk) 12:48, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
• A in article titles, section headings and infobox headings - this reflects the status quo currently, looks better, and reflects everyday usage by most of the population, particularly outside of the USA (despite what style guides may suggest). It's not inconsistent with JOBTITLES as that relates to sentences. There should be a clear distinction between a title and generic use - e.g. "When Nixon served as president" and "Nixon was the President of the United States" or "Nixon was the 37th President of the United States" - the first use is generic (so lowercase is acceptable), the second and third relate to the title of the role (which is properly characterised). That's how most people spell it in the real world. And Tartan357 needs to stop WP:BLUDGEONing users that disagree with him. Deus et lex (talk) 13:28, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

  Nixon was the 37th president of the United States. is literally an example of when to use lowercase at MOS:JOBTITLES. Do not falsely represent the guideline to fit your preferences. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 19:04, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

  • More WP:BLUDGEONing from you. "President of the United States" is the title, "37th" is the 37th person to hold that office. It should be capitalised, most people do in practice. Deus et lex (talk) 06:15, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

    Your preference is different from what the guideline states. You falsely stated that JOBTITLES agrees with you on this. Calling out outright falsehoods is always appropriate. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 06:19, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

• A. Apart from "just looking wrong", especially in the infobox, several sound reasons are given above. Or is this another US v rest of the world English spelling convention? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 04:44, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
• A JOBTITLES makes sense in prose but not in the infobox. Besides, it just looks wrong to decapitalise. BristolTreeHouse (talk) 07:03, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
• A - capitalise. Hold the status quo outside of prose at least until the mess otherwise diminishes. The change applied to the proper noun (which is any time the nation is included) already runs contrary to WEIGHT and British English, and has been a bit of a mess in debates and implementing as hundreds of pages flip back and forth or sometimes seem rewritten just to advance having or avoiding capitalisation. That appears still inconsistent in prose and debated, so... Let us not expand the difficulties. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 11:49, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• B. This is what WP:JOBTITLE tells us to do. It is also the style recommended by all the major published stylebooks. Here is the Chicago Manual of Style: "Chicago's preference for the "down" style.... President Obama is capitalized, but the president is not." 99to99 (talk) 04:13, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

99to99 “all” is overreach, hardly that clear or universal. I believe discussions were over both ways were found in style guides, and in particular past guidance in WP did not go to this detail, plus in this context there are style guides that make a distinction between how Capitalisation is done in headline vice prose, or British English vs American. The changed JOBTITLE seems to mean thousands of potential changes still in works, and I’m dubious that this isn’t a different case or at least not worth revisiting all the many many pages. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 12:06, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

What style guide do you think we should follow? There is a list here. 99to99 (talk) 18:06, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

99to99 That list is good for showing “all” was incorrect because that list in ‘other reading’ are not all references for this topic. Guidance simply does vary on what to say and whether it says anything at all, so this seems possibly MOS:STYLEVAR where WP:OR creative inventing of unnecessary rules just Should Not Be Done. (You may Google “Prime Minister” if you wish to see the great many actual variations of usage really do exist.) Besides, this question is specific to infobox styling so it seems possibly more appropriate to focus to the context in question and follow headline-like or title case handling rather than general prose or sentence case handling, see MOS:AT. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:06, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

That's a pointless non-argument to advance. Any given style question is going to be answered with variation across style guides. That has absolutely nothing to do with whether MoS should advise something specific, nor whether what it does advise is what it should advise. Otherwise MoS simply could not exist. There is no style point on which all style guides are unanimous.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:14, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• A. It's existing practice, it "looks wrong" otherwise, and examples of similar use of capitals elsewhere per Adumbrativus and others. SnowFire (talk) 21:08, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
• B. No reason WP:JOBTITLE should not apply within infoboxes. MB 22:41, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
• A - capatalize. It makes sense to say "... is the president of the United States" within a running sentence only, but in the infoboxes, all that is being listed is a title of the office. There's no reason to start with a lowercase letter first in that case anyways. WP:JOBTITLES itself should have been scrapped years ago; it isn't even followed on most articles because it's not something editors agree with and is shaky at best. – ᕼᗩᑎᗪOTO (talk) 21:42, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, JOBTITLES needs an overhaul. GoodDay (talk) 22:01, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Two points for clarification, one in each direction:

(1) You say, There's no reason to start with a lowercase letter first in [the infobox] case (italics mine), and you're right. I agree in that case (I believe everyone here does). But the case under discussion is 37th president of the United States, which changes the situation. I'm not sure you (or everyone else) has noticed that.

(2) Are you saying that WP:JOBTITLES should have been scrapped because WP:JOBTITLES isn't being followed? We should not follow a guideline because we don't all follow the guideline? Do I understand your argument correctly? — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 22:05, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

We have to take into consideration offices within infoboxes that are not numbered. Vladimir Putin is the President of Russia not the 1st President of Russia. This discussion is on where to capatalize or decapatalize titles within infoboxes. Putting president of Russia in Putin's infobox is decapitalizing the first letter which is not something many editors will agree with. Even with numbers in front it still doesn't make sense to decapitalize. If nobody follows a law, is it really a law? If nobody follows a guideline, is it really a guideline? WP:JOBTITLES is a shaky guideline at best. – ᕼᗩᑎᗪOTO (talk) 22:18, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

No, we do not have to take into consideration offices within infoboxes that are not numbered. In fact we should not (here). This RfC is explicitly about only cases like "1st president of Russia". See NOTE: This RfC is only about ordanalized titles... up at the top.

And of course laws and guidelines are still valid even if widely disregarded. Bad laws should be repealed (and governments have processes for that). If it's "shaky" (whatever that means to you), you are free to campaign for its scrapping or overhaul. I suggest waiting until after this RfC is closed, however. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 01:50, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

• B – clearly there should be no infobox exception to MOS:JOBTITLES. All of Wikipedia leans heavily towards sentence case and this should be no different. —Joeyconnick (talk) 02:22, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
• A. Lowercase looks weird in infoboxes. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 03:17, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
• A. Since in infoboxes, they are a standalone title, rather than part of a sentence.2601:241:300:B610:498B:C153:6999:7E8C (talk) 02:51, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
• A. Unique job titles only held by one person at a time should be capitalised. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:09, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

The documentation for Template:Infobox officeholder uses initial caps in its example (...to state that the officeholder is the nth holder of the office, for example "42nd President of the United States".) as does the example at Template:Infobox officeholder/example#General office. Just noting that these might have to be changed depending on the consensus of this RfC. Aoi (青い) (talk) 20:15, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Query - Do any of the WP:RS, particularly reference works, published elsewhere use initial small letters in their boxes and tables? Or would Wikipedia be a first mover in doing this? Newimpartial (talk) 02:10, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Basically, it's a dispute over whether or not a job title in the infobox of a bio, should be decapitalized, merely because it has an ordinal in front of it. GoodDay (talk) 02:54, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Right, but I am wondering how other reference works handle this and similar cases. Newimpartial (talk) 03:05, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Don't know. GoodDay (talk) 03:07, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Newimpartial, see this ODNB entry and, for example, this Britannica entry. Surtsicna (talk) 17:46, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

So could you explain to me what appears to be the inconsistent capitalization in Britannica's infobox? I don't see a box in oxforfdnb so I can't comment on that one. Newimpartial (talk) 13:11, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

The distinction being made by some editors between the infobox and the rest of the article is incorrect per WP:SENTENCECASE. We always use sentence case, even in infoboxes and titles, just as in running text. Whether it should be capitalized or not, being in the infobox can't be part of the argument in favor or against it. —El Millo (talk) 01:12, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

It is being argued concerning the infoboxes, thus the RFC. GoodDay (talk) 02:18, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

We have a policy that says not to treat infoboxes different to running text when it comes to capitalization. Even though Frickeg said that infoboxes are clearly different beasts than running text in any case, it is clear it doesn't apply to capitalization. Those in favor of treating them differently should argue why WP:SENTENCECASE wouldn't apply to this specific case. —El Millo (talk) 03:56, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Facu-el Millo, right. MOS:HEADCAPS tells us that sentence case is used in infoboxes. So the argument that infoboxes are clearly different beasts than running text does not hold water. The only way to capitalize the job titles in infoboxes without creating a glaring conflict with the rest of the MOS guidance on capitalization would be to get rid of JOBTITLES. If infoboxes use sentence case, and sentence case treatment of these titles is lowercase, why should they be uppercase in infoboxes? ― Tartan357 ^Talk 04:19, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

For what it's worth, WP:SENTENCECASE doesn't apply to infoboxes while MOS:HEADCAPS defers to capitalization rules documented elsewhere for proper nouns. So if an RfC were to document that these titles should be treated as proper nouns in tables and infoboxes (which is what I believe most publishers do, now, which as I understand was the main factor cited by JOBTITLES supporters), I don't see why implantation would be a problem. Newimpartial (talk) 16:39, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

We shall see what's implemented & what isn't, when this RFC concludes. GoodDay (talk) 16:56, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: MOS:HEADCAPS states: Use sentence case, not title case, capitalization in all section headings. Capitalize the first letter of the first word, but leave the rest lower case except for proper names and other items that would ordinarily be capitalized in running text. ... The same applies to the titles of articles, table headers and captions, the headers of infoboxes and navigation templates (underlining mine). The first footnote in MOS:CAPS states: Wikipedia uses sentence case for sentences, article titles, section titles, table headers, image captions, list entries (in most cases), and entries in infoboxes and similar templates, among other things (underlining mine). If the consensus of this RfC says we should capitalize this in an infobox, it should also apply to running text, or, at the very least, they should explain why an exception is reasonable. —El Millo (talk) 18:40, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm afraid we are not talking about the headers of infoboxes, and the relevant phrase in the footnote is actually list entries (in most cases), and entries in infoboxes and similar templates. I wouldn't be against an RfC to further nuance the footnote, but it is already somewhat less than imperative. My impression is that the relevant examples from other publishers do actually treat list entries and infobox-equivalents differently than running text when it comes to capitalization, so I don't see why we should be unable to follow suit. Newimpartial (talk) 18:58, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Many many publishers treat titles and headers differently than running text, but Wikipedia doesn't. Those !voting A are in favor of an exception to policies and guidelines, but are arguing as if it wasn't an exception, saying things like infoboxes are clearly different beasts than running text in any case; I don't see any convincing reasons to lowercase the titles in the infobox; and MOS:JOBTITLE makes (some) sense in prose, but not in infoboxes. All of these are already flawed, because they assume something that isn't the case in Wikipedia. You all have to argue for why we should have an exception to the rule of sentence case in this case in particular. Those would be arguments for treating title and header capitalization different across all cases, which is not what this RfC is about. Yet, many keep repeating it, and I think it has to do with what I said earlier of native English speakers being used to seeing title case used for titles, but that's not what Wikipedia does. I honestly think all these should have to be disregarded, and !voters should be asked to give a different, valid argument for the exception, because all of these are basically WP:IDONTLIKEIT and are against the Manual of Style. —El Millo (talk) 19:10, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

"...all these should have to be disregarded, and !voters should be asked to give a different, valid argument...". With all due respect, you don't get to arbitrate the rules of this RFC or its outcome. If there's a consensus to go with option 'A', then that's what we will go with. If there's a consensus to go with option 'B', then that's what we will go with. The editors will decide. GoodDay (talk) 19:21, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

El Millo, you state that many publishers treat titles and headers differently than running text, but Wikipedia doesn't as though it were one of the Pillars, and as though it obviously applied to tables and infobox entries. So far the only evidence that it applies to the latter at all is a weakly-worded footnote to an MOS guideline, and I have no idea when (or if) that footnote was even discussed. Compared to a reasonably well-publicized RfC on a policy page, the footnote doesn't seem to embody a very high WP:CONSENSUSLEVEL. You certainly don't get to argue that all !votes to treat infobox entries differently represent invalid reasoning because it is a given that WP:JOBTITLES applies to all text equally. That is for the community to decide, not a quasi-judicial argument. Newimpartial (talk) 19:34, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

I was answering to GoodDay but an edit conflict came up, so this it kind of an answer to both. I don't care for this particular RfC, I care for valid arguments being put forth by editors, that's why I haven't !voted, so don't worry about WIKILAWYERING because I'm not trying to win, I'm striving for compliance with the rule in the validity of the arguments. In fact, I think it looks good if it's capitalized. But that, as all other arguments offered so far, are just variations of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I just want those in favor of A to come up with something valid. I myself can't think of a good argument for capitalizing it in infoboxes but not in prose right now. There are no exceptions of sentence case already laid out anywhere that generally apply to any type of text, not titles, not section headers, not infobox items, not infobox headers, not image captions. If you want there to be an exception for sentence case that only applies to government titles only in infoboxes, come up with a logical argument for it. With the way the Manual of Style is currently written, you either keep it sentence case in the infobox, or you capitalize it everywhere, including in prose, and it could be justified based on what reliable sources do with government titles or something to that effect. But the way the RfC is being proposed, you have to come up with a specific argument in favor of capitalizing it in the infobox and not in prose, while also not capitalizing every other infobox item everywhere else. I'm worried that if this RfC is accepted with these kinds of arguments, then just any kind of difference in capitalization in infoboxes or in article titles will be justified in the same way ("it looks good", "it looks bad", "it seems weird to me"), using this RfC as precedent. —El Millo (talk) 20:03, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

The MOS-in-question is not a commandment, which can never be amended or rejected, in whole or in part. Editors will decide 'here', how & where the MOS-in-question, gets implemented. How each editor chooses to pick an option (in this RFC), will do so as they wish to. Either they'll pick 'A', 'B' or neither. GoodDay (talk) 20:15, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

See WP:NOTVOTE. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 20:20, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

If the RFC's outcome is 'option A'? That's the option that'll be implemented. 20:22, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Are you willing to ignore WP:NOTVOTE just because you'd like the outcome? —El Millo (talk) 20:34, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Gentlemen, whatever the consensus of this RFC is (A or B), I'll respect it. I hope, you'll both do likewise. GoodDay (talk) 20:39, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, and that consensus will be decided in accordance with WP:NOTVOTE, despite your repeated suggestions to the contrary. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 21:15, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

I haven't suggested anything, accept that I'll respect the consensus of this RFC, whatever that will be. GoodDay (talk) 21:20, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to note that regardless of the outcome of this RfC, MOS:JOBTITLES will continue to exist. So, arguing here that you don't like the guideline is pointless. This is not the place to take out your frustration with that guideline. It exists. It will keep existing. This RfC is about whether to create an exception to the guideline, for which we would need a cogent infobox-specific rationale. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 04:10, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

The consensus reached in this RFC will be respected & carried out, no matter the outcome. GoodDay (talk) 04:15, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

GoodDay, you think this RfC could overturn JOBTITLES altogether? That seems totally out of the scope you set out in the question, and it certainly isn't one of the two options you provided. You said yourself that additional options would muddy the waters. Make up your mind. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 04:22, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Option 'A', is the status quo across many political bios, in terms of ordinal/jobtitle in the infoboxes. GoodDay (talk) 04:24, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

GoodDay, what does that have to do with what I just said? ― Tartan357 ^Talk 04:25, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

I deal with practical matters on this project. Go over to (for example) the bios of the Australian prime ministers & 'remove' the ordinals & lowecase the offices. Then report back, whether or not you were reverted. GoodDay (talk) 04:27, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

GoodDay, I really couldn't care less how many people revert me. We have guidelines, and an RfC is needed to change them. Please stop with these weird appeals to popularity and WP:IJDLI arguments and just focus on the issue at hand, with arguments grounded in our guidelines. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 04:34, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

You're becoming tiresome, tbh. You are free of course, to continue repeating your arguments. But please, direct them towards somebody else. GoodDay (talk) 04:39, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

It should really not be too much to ask that we have logic-based reasons for doing things. In fact, it's required. I'm getting a little tired myself of articulating guideline-based arguments and being met with these non-sequiturs about how the masses disagree with me so I must be wrong. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 04:45, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not really sure if this is the proper place to put this because of all the different threading and outdenting, but if "native English speakers [are] used to seeing title case used for titles" then that's a pretty good argument that Wikipedia needs to do it that way. --Khajidha (talk) 11:50, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I have never understood the logic of capitalizing in: “In January, Smith was inaugurated as the President of the United States”… but not capitalizing in: “In January, Smith was inaugurated as the 49th president of the United States.”

I understand that style guides say that adding an ordinal changes the capitalization of the title… but I don’t understand why they say this. Blueboar (talk) 13:21, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

That some editors actually want to apply it to infoboxes, is perplexing. GoodDay (talk) 14:28, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Furthermore, how (for example) "29th Governor General of Canada" is considered a sentence, is beyond me. Now, if the infobox read, "Julie Payette was the 29th Governor General of Canada"? then that would be a sentence. GoodDay (talk) 14:38, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Nobody is saying it is or should be considered a sentence. People are saying that it should be in sentence case. Sentence case ≠ sentence. Surtsicna (talk) 17:28, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

46th President of the United States on its own (i.e. in the infobox), is not a sentence. The ordinal doesn't modify anything, the office directs to the intended article. GoodDay (talk) 17:32, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Could you please read again what I wrote? Surtsicna (talk) 17:48, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Why then, are you pushing to either delete 46th from the infobox (in the case of Biden) or lower-casing to president of the United States in the infobox? GoodDay (talk) 17:51, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Because text in infoboxes should be in sentence case per WP:SENTENCECASE. Surtsicna (talk) 17:54, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Not in infoboxes. Thus the crux of our disagreement on this topic. GoodDay (talk) 17:58, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

How did you conclude that? Does it say anywhere that it doesn't apply to infoboxes? —El Millo (talk) 18:20, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't specially include infoboxes. Are you (plural) going to start moving article titles next, to lowercase? GoodDay (talk) 18:30, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

If by lowercase you mean sentence case, then that's what is correct and what is done, and it's exactly what WP:SENTENCECASE says, unless of course for titles of works and proper nouns (are you now suggesting article titles should be in title case?). If by lowercase you mean actual full lowercase including the first letter, that's never even been suggested, so obviously no. Asking this doesn't seem particularly well-intentioned or intellectually honest. —El Millo (talk) 19:01, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

In the infobox, the jobtitle with an ordinal, is not a sentence. GoodDay (talk) 19:08, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

You already said that immediately above and it was refuted. Sentence case doesn't mean that whatever it's applied to is or becomes a sentence. We apply sentence case to article titles and that doesn't make them sentences. We apply it to section headings and that doesn't make them sentences. —El Millo (talk) 19:18, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

We're only going in circles here. You & I are never going to agree on this topic. GoodDay (talk) 19:31, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

My apologies; it is not WP:SENTENCECASE that says sentence case should be applied in infoboxes but MOS:HEADCAPS. And once again, nobody is saying that this is a sentence, so there is no point in bringing that up for the umpteenth time. Surtsicna (talk) 20:17, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

At least we agree, that we disagree. GoodDay (talk) 20:41, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

MOS:CAPS states: Wikipedia uses sentence case for sentences, article titles, section titles, table headers, image captions, list entries (in most cases), and entries in infoboxes and similar templates, among other things. Any instructions in MoS about the start of a sentence apply to items using sentence case. That is very clear. You can't just say "we agree to disagree". Sentence case applies to infoboxes. It's in the MOS. There is zero room for interpretation in that quote I just provided. You're starting to veer into disruptive WP:ICANTHEARYOU territory with these comments. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 01:54, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

A jobtitle (i.e. office) within an infobox, 'is not' a sentence. Now, stop arm twisting me. GoodDay (talk) 02:11, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Do you really not understand that sentence case and sentences are separate things or are you just pretending not to understand it? —El Millo (talk) 02:17, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

My read is that they are pretending not to understand because they don't want it to be true. Which may end with them being taken to WP:AE if they continue down this path. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 02:20, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

I've chosen option "A" in this RFC & I'm not going to change my position. Neither of you have convinced me to change that position. GoodDay (talk) 02:23, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

That's fine but not what we're discussing here. You seem to have a habit of changing the subject abruptly like this if you're unable to refute a point. The question of whether infoboxes use sentence case is settled. Per MOS:CAPS, they do. No more of this nonsense, please. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 02:25, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

You & I have nothing more to discuss. GoodDay (talk) 02:36, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Blueboar, according to MOS:JOBTITLES it would be "inaugurated as the president of the United States" because of the definite article, regardless of whether there is an ordinal. Therefore the ordinal does not change anything. Of course, according to virtually every English-language academic style guide in the world, it would be lower case with or without the definite article anyway. Surtsicna (talk) 17:25, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, to the 2 or 3 editors who have been implementing lower-casing in the intros of bio articles, per WP:JOBTITLES? You haven't been very consistent in your implementations. See the bios of Canadian, Australian & New Zealand governors general, for example. Also, you haven't even been consistent with the intros of the bios of the prime ministers of those countries. And that's just a tiny section of such bios across Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 17:08, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I look at the example of the UK's Home Secretary. They are called, across all news media, the Home Secretary. I don't think I've ever once seen them be referred to as the home secretary. - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 20:19, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

For the sake of other participants, I should note here too that this assertion is not true. Surtsicna (talk) 07:43, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Comment - reflecting on this, I would like to (perhaps unhelpfully) observe that there should be a distinction in editors' minds between whether infobox entries are presented in Title Case (they are not, as a rule; they are presented in Sentence case) and whether infobox entries can contain elements presented in Title Case (they can, viz. the uncontroversial example of unmodified titles of offices). People arguing that infoboxes can never contain elements in Title Case are simply wrong. The question then arises whether the rules determining the case to be used should be the same as the rules for subject hearings and article text, or whether external examples should inform the policy for capitalizing table and infobox entries. I still favor the latter approach, and still wonder what various authorities do in the latter cases; I have seen few examples provided, none of which provide a consistent practice to follow. Newimpartial (talk) 15:19, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Also, just for fun I will point out that "President of the United States" as a title is the same in both Title Case and Sentence case. :p So the more important question may be: what authorities, if any, deny any capitalization to titles referred to in tables and boxes. After that, debate could start on "Prime Minister of Australia" vs. "Prime minister of Australia", as needed. Newimpartial (talk) 17:45, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Query re office vs title

The lede for the Prime Minister of New Zealand article says, "Originally the head of government was titled "colonial secretary" or "first minister". This was changed in 1869 to "premier". That title remained in use for more than 30 years, until Richard Seddon informally changed it to "prime minister" in 1901 during his tenure in the office."

The infobox for Richard Seddon says, "15th Prime Minister of New Zealand". He was the 15th person to fill the office of head of government. He was the 1st person to hold the title "Prime Minister".

Does the item in the infobox that this RFC is discussing refer to the office, or to the title of the officeholder? I presume that many supporters of option B in the RFC would say it's referring to the office, so I'm interested in what supporters of option A would say. Nurg (talk) 23:54, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

What do New Zealand sources call him? GoodDay (talk) 23:58, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't know. Nurg (talk) 01:21, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

BLUDGEONING doesn't succeed

I don't know how this RFC will be closed. But I do find it annoying, how 'some' (2 or 3) editors on the B-side, have been habitually jumping on nearly every A-side editor, who's made his/her stance known (i.e. capitalize). You're not convincing anyone to change their stance on the RFC topic, so stop pestering them, for goodness sake. GoodDay (talk) 14:48, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Compare the number and type of edits you've made in this RfC, and then reconsider this subsection. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 16:18, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I did compare. So let the survey continue forward, with no more commenting on either side's survey positions. GoodDay (talk) 16:32, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

This is a discussion, and I will reply to whoever I wish. You can't tell editors not to participate in this discussion that you asked for. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 16:35, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

You're jumping on nearly everyone who disagrees with your own position. That approach isn't going to convince people to switch sides & agree with you. If anything, you'll cause them to dig in their heels against you. GoodDay (talk) 16:37, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Your advice is duly noted. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 16:41, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Please see [22] [23] [24] ― Tartan357 ^Talk 16:23, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Supporting an editors position, isn't bludgeoning. GoodDay (talk) 16:33, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that you've both identified yourselves as 'some' of the editors I was alluding to. From this point on. Let the survey run its course & stop jumping on every A-sider's position. GoodDay (talk) 16:29, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Closing time

When the legobot removes the RFC tag. I'll contact WP:Closure requests, to close the RFC & render a decision. GoodDay (talk) 17:49, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Legobot has removed RFC tag. I've put in the aforementioned request. GoodDay (talk) 19:11, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Now it's more confusing, then ever. What's the status of this RFC? Closed? Not closed? Partially closed? Forgive me, but what a mess. GoodDay (talk) 03:29, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

It's not closed. The status is the same as it was when Legobot removed the RfC tag but before it was closed. Chetsford (talk) 03:37, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

May I restore it, exactly as it was before you closed it. GoodDay (talk) 03:43, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I would ask that you do not. So far, I'm only seeing the downsides of such a move. How would it be beneficial? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 03:57, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I would remove the confused message at the top. Forgive me, but I just can't make out, what it's saying. GoodDay (talk) 04:00, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

You are forgiven! Chetsford, I do think there's a less confusing way to present that info. Maybe we could use an atop template to cover the old close with an updated status presented in the upper right white box (the result= parameter)? GoodDay, I think total removal would cause more confusion. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 04:05, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Alright, I leave it in both your hands. Right now, over at WP:ANI, there's an IP (who's admitted to using another account, which he didn't originally), that's ranting at me. The IP has me more bewildered, then angry. GoodDay (talk) 04:10, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

GoodDay and Firefangledfeathers, I have no objection to modifying, moving, collapsing or deleting it as you feel appropriate. Please feel free to do what you think presents it best. Chetsford (talk) 04:29, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to delete it. Give the panel a clean slate. GoodDay (talk) 04:33, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I made my style tweak. If we delete it entirely, I worry the floodgates will open on RfC participants wondering what happened to their closed discussion. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 04:40, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

The following discussion 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.

---

Thank goodness it's over. GoodDay (talk) 19:10, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

I have challenged this close at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#MoS RfC closure challenge: job title capitalization in infoboxes. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 01:12, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Oh for 'bleep' sakes. WP:DROPTHESTICK already. GoodDay (talk) 01:49, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

GoodDay, Chetsford said themselves in their close that there was room for a challenge here. Let the process play out, please. This is not an appropriate response. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 02:18, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

If you still end up, not getting what you want. Will you then drop the stick & move on? GoodDay (talk) 02:20, 25 August 2021 (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.

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.

Clarity needed regarding MOS:JOBTITLES

I have a question. I'm still confused about when to capitalize and when not to in certain cases. For instance, a judicial office. Now one could say an individual holds a judicial office (as they do) but then also literally calls themselves a judge. So for instance, if you were to say an "Associate Justice of...(insert court)", does that get capitalized or not? Same way with any other state judge, or a federal judge, i.e. a Circuit Judge or District Judge...capitalization or no? I've been reverted when it's capitalized, as I see that's how it's done on hundreds of likeminded articles/ledes, only to be reverted and referred to MOS:JOBTITLES...but it doesn't really provide clarity for me.

Secondly, if an individual has held an office/position like an Assistant United States Attorney, to me, that's a title, as evident by court documents, so it should remain capitalized. However, I've been reverted and had it styled as [[Assistant United States Attorney|assistant United States attorney]] and that just doesn't look grammatically correct to me. Is there any further discussion or guidance somewhere to reference?

Thirdly, if the consensus (assuming) is that District Judge or Circuit Judge or AUSA should be decapitalized, then that would mean any mention of said titles would have to be uniformly, manually altered, or are certain cases grandfathered in? Snickers2686 (talk) 17:36, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Many examples can be found at MOS:JOBTITLES, but the most common thing that I see is a title that's modified by an adjective. Those are lowercase. So I might write about Associate Justice Ginsburg, but I would write that Ginsburg was an associate justice (here "associate justice" as modified by the adjective/article "an"). —Eyer (he/him) If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message. 22:49, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Not sure the “modified by an adjective” lower casing applies when the adjective is PART of the title. We would say “Thurgood Marshal was proud to be the first black associate justice on the Supreme Court” (because the adjective “black” is not part of the title), but “Marshal was appointed an Associate Justice in 1963”. Blueboar (talk) 23:10, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Eyer said that it should be lowercase when modified by either an adjective or an article, and in your second example, it's preceded by "an". So both of those should be lowercase ("black associate justice" and "an associate justice"). Mlb96 (talk) 23:23, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

I lower-cased the office chief justice of the United States in the related bios content, as they were preceded by ordinals. GoodDay (talk) 23:13, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

With an ordinal, yes (I disagree with this, but it does have consensus)… however, we should not lower-case on the grounds that “chief” is modifying “Justice”… since the title is “Chief Justice”. Blueboar (talk) 23:30, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

@Eyer, Blueboar, Mlb96, and GoodDay:: So just so I'm clear, the gist of what I'm getting from this is: Even if used in the first instance in a lede, the title should be lowercase? Snickers2686 (talk)

@Snickers2686:: Most often, yes. MOS:JOBTITLES still applies even on first use, even in the lede, and even when the title is boldface. In the lede, I would say that "The president of the United States is the head of state..." because the title is modified by "The". I would also say "First Lady of Brazil is the title given to..." [capitalized here] because the title is unmodified (there's no "the"). Does that help? —Eyer (he/him) If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message. 17:16, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Lead examples: A) "Joe Biden, 46th president of the United States", B) "Joe Biden, President of the United States", C) "President Joe Biden", D) "United States president, Joe Biden" & E) "United States President Joe Biden or U.S. President Joe Biden". GoodDay (talk) 19:07, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Clarification on MOS:ETHNICITY

There have been years-long discussions at Talk:Nina Dobrev about whether or not she should be described as a Bulgarian-Canadian or simply Canadian in the lead section of the article. My point is that, since she is a dual citizen of both countries, she should be described as both. However, other editors have disagreed, stating that she gained her notability in Canada.

MOS:ETHNICITY states: "In most modern-day cases, this will be the country, region, or territory, where the person is a citizen, national, or permanent resident; or, if the person is notable mainly for past events, where the person was a citizen, national, or permanent resident when the person became notable." There are many other examples of articles which follow this policy: Lupita Nyong'o, Lana Condor, Pedro Pascal, Mischa Barton, Phil Hartman, Antoni Porowski, Anna Paquin, Olga Kurylenko, Christiane Amanpour, Genevieve O'Reilly are really just a few of them. I do not see why it should not be applied to Nina Dobrev, especially since she was a dual citizen at the time she gained notability (in addition to actually being born in the country in question), still is, has mentioned her nationality many times, and numerous sources have also reported on it.

Am I somehow misinterpreting the policy? --Coconutyou3 (talk) 16:10, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Frankly this Manual of Style subject should be thrown out completely (deprecated). All it does is cause more confusion than clarity. For editors to even have to insinuate that Nina Dobrev is not notable as a Bulgarian is lying to the reader. Trillfendi (talk) 17:05, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

@Trillfendi: Seeing as not many editors replied here, would you possibly have any suggestions on how I could follow this up? I am quite honestly clueless as to what actions I should take. --Coconutyou3 (talk) 09:15, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

At best it could be rewritten entirely. Some people really are notable for their ethnic heritage itself. Anya Taylor-Joy is a prime example. For most others it's borders on trivial or basic biographical detail. Trillfendi (talk) 16:36, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Describe her as "Canadian". GiantSnowman 17:05, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

In most modern-day cases offers flexibility in the guideline, which can be decided based on consensus at a given page.—Bagumba (talk) 16:57, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

• One of the hardest issues to combat when “enforcing” WP:ETHNICITY is overcoming the desire of editors (with perhaps an unconscious POV) to claim the subject as being “one of us” (or, in the case of the infamous, “one of them”). This is a function of NPOV. Overcoming the desire to “claim” requires editors to take a step back and examine WHY they think it important to state the subject’s ethnicity. Such self-reflection is hard. And combatting it takes tact and understanding. Go lightly. Blueboar (talk) 17:17, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Name a Bulgarian as famous in modern-day cases as Nina Dobrev. Trillfendi (talk) 02:16, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

I am aware that cases like this one are often POV-pushing, but in this case, the matter is concerned with the subject’s legal nationality that they were appointed at birth, not just simply their heritage/ethnicity (which surely does not belong in the lead section of the article). Additionally, consensus cannot be changed without a discussion, and it doesn’t help that other editors have stopped responding to the discussion at the article’s talk page (on multiple occasions; even following WP:DISCFAIL gave no result), and one of the major opposing editors has declared that they have taken the article off their watchlist. As I said earlier, I do quite frankly feel clueless as to how to proceed; everything regarding this case seems to be leading to a dead end. —Coconutyou3 (talk) 06:59, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

I do quite frankly feel clueless as to how to proceed: Take a look at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, if you haven't already. Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 08:06, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Clergy related question for MOS:HON

The current MOS:HON guidance states that "styles and honorifics related to royalty, clergy, and sainthood, such as Her Majesty, His Holiness, The Reverend, and The Venerable" should not be included. This explicitly mentions "The Reverend" and therefore also includes its variations like "The Right Reverend" and "The Most Reverend". But there are some other clergy-related honorific prefixes that I've recently had disagreement about with another editor. So the question I'd like some help with is do the following honorifics fall under MOS:HON: Monsignor, Father (and its variations like Abbé or Padre), Mother, Sister, Brother? These do not appear to me to be JOBTITLES, like archbishop, bishop, or cardinal, but are true honorific prefixes/styles. IMO, these are similar to the LDS honorific "Elder" for LDS general authorities which is also avoided, and therefore these examples should also be avoided. Thoughts? --FyzixFighter (talk) 13:30, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Question about birthplace

Quick question: for birthplace in a biography, do we use the hospital location or the residence at the time of birth? Ytoyoda (talk) 18:17, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Similar to WP:DOB, the place of birth should be based on what is widely reported in reliable sources. Without sources being provided, there is no way to answer that question. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 19:02, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Okay, so Katie Ledecky: she is reported in reliable sources as both a native of Washington, D.C. and Bethesda, MD native. They're both right, depending on how you choose to define "born in": Ledecky was born at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., less than a quarter mile from the Maryland, and lived her entire childhood in Bethesda. It's pretty common for WP:RS to use the hospital location or the parents' home at the time of birth as their native hometown. So which should we be using for infoboxes and categorization? Ytoyoda (talk) 19:47, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

She can only be born where she was born, i.e. Washington, D.C. "Native of" is often used to indicate where one grew up. I don't see anything wrong with the way it is written in the bio, except the source only indicates her birth in DC. Add the other source and you should be fine. SusunW (talk) 20:02, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

As for your 2nd question she wasn't ever a swimmer from DC, she didn't take up swimming until she lived in Maryland, so again, what's already on the article is fine. SusunW (talk) 20:06, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

The infobox 'place of birth' should reflect - unsurprisingly - the place of birth. If the maternity hospital was in Washington DC, then she was born in Washington DC. GiantSnowman 19:02, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

A question on non-binary pronouns

For Maddy Thorson who had made their transition known (and was notably before transition) we know post transition they call themselves non-binary but have expressed via their twitter [25] that "the correct way to refer to me going forward is by using feminine and/or gender-neutral pronouns." (and specifically using "she/they" in the profile). I don't know if that order necessarily conveys preference, so the question is should we go by the feminine pronouns or by the non-binary ones? Or is this where we should judge by RSes (post-transition, of course, of which there are some, and the ones that use pronouns use "they")? --Masem (t) 18:00, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

In my experience, 'she/they' is an order of preference, so referring to to her as that is fine. As long as it's consistent throughout the article... GiantSnowman 19:05, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

According to this essay about users pronouns; it states For some people, the sets of pronouns may be ordered from "most preferred" to "least preferred"; for others, there may be equal preference.. I think your comment about consistency is the best way to handle it though. BilledMammal (talk) 23:59, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I made some changes to said-article. Removing repetition of the individual's birth name & birth date. GoodDay (talk) 00:09, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I concur that consistency within an article is important. Also, in these cases we should use whichever binary pronoun ("he" or "she") the person accepts. The article is much easier to read that way, especially for those for whom English is a second language. I would think that at least some sources will start using "she" after this, and that the ones using "they" are primarily from the preceding period in which Thorson was "they". Crossroads ^-talk- 00:27, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Update on ongoing research into possible underlying issue behind MOS:JOBTITLES

As I have repeatedly mentioned, I have long suspected that the annoying British propensity for lowercasing job titles (and also the inexplicable dropping of periods in abbreviations) had something to do with the United Kingdom's problems with primary education, but have been stymied in my plans to follow up on that hypothesis because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last night, I finally got into a research university library (Doe Memorial Library) for the first time in two years and briefly looked into that issue, among many others that have been on the back burner for a while.

I still haven't located a source that makes that direct connection (i.e., linking mismanagement of primary education to those two specific changes in British English), but I did find at least two sources which verify one thing I had long suspected: the United Kingdom made a catastrophic turn during the 1960s away from the teaching of grammar in primary education. This has since been recognized as a mistake which contributed to the general decline in the quality of written British English since the 1960s. This helps reinforce my longstanding position that WP's MOS should not be following trends that may be a mere side effect of mismanagement of primary education. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:04, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Phooey! British English features almost all pre-date the 1960s. They are meant to be like that! Most Americans (and others) complain that there is an "annoying British propensity" for uppercasing job titles, where others use lower case. Johnbod (talk) 16:39, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

You're welcome to your hobbies, Coolcaesar, but without a huge swath of plausible evidence I'm disinclined to believe that the United Kingdom made a catastrophic turn during the 1960s away from the teaching of grammar in primary education and the Unites States didn't. Further, I'm surprised at your basic premise, that there is some sort of geographic gap between right-thinking lowercasers (Leftpondians) and wrong-thinking uppercasers (Rightpondians). I thought the difference was just that some people think about what they're doing, and why, while others just capitalise Everything They See Because That's How They Seen it in a Book (or nothing at all if u know what i mean, and i think u do). — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 16:56, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

There's no correct or incorrect version. On Wikipedia, it's what gets a majority, that usually gets adopted. GoodDay (talk) 21:14, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

[26] Scholarly review of President vs president Slywriter (talk) 02:20, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

University professors

"University professor" can mean two things: (1) a professor at a university; or (2) a decorated professor at a university for whom "university professor" is an honorary title indicating a high rank (eg Cheryl Misak). What, if anything, does the ever-debated MOS:JOBTITLE have to say about this? Any way I render it, it seems wrong:

1. … is a University Professor at …
2. … is a university professor at …
3. … is University Professor at …
4. … was named a University Professor at …

Number 2 looks the prettiest to me but has the disadvantage of not distinguishing the generic role from the honorary designation. Thoughts? AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 02:50, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

First of all, it can actually mean at least three things: (1) a professor at a university (always lowercase, "is a university professor"), (2) a title of distinction at some US universities similar in nature to "Distinguished Professor", with the precise meaning individual to each university (at my campus University Professor is a step above Distinguished Professor, which is a step above Chancellor's Professor, but that not at all universal and maybe more bureaucratic than most), (3) a translation of the German-language Universitätsprofessor, a title used to denote certain enumerated ranks of faculty at a step beyond full professor (see Academic ranks in Germany, although I think other German-speaking countries also do this). Second, I can only recall ever seeing the title of distinction and the German translation spelled with capitals, as "University Professor"; the capitalization is needed to make it unambiguous. And third, I've seen it with an indefinite article, with a definite article, or with no article; I'm not sure which is most common and I think all are considered correct. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:51, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

The role described above is a common noun and should be lower case: university professor. It would only be capitalised on the rare occasion that it precedes someone's name as their title: "University Professor Bill Smith said today ... " WWGB (talk) 06:01, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Which of the three roles described above: the one of being employed to teach people at a university, the one of holding a US-based title of distinction, or the one of holding a high-level enumerated position at a German university? Also, your supposed context makes no sense. A sentence like "University professor Bill Smith said today" can only mean that Bill is a professor at a university (not necessarily with a special title), would not capitalize "professor", and would only capitalize "University" because it is the start of a sentence. That's not the sort of context in which titles of distinction are used. Instead, you're more likely to see "Bill Smith is University Professor and professor of hodology at the University of Hackensack", where "University Professor" is the honorific title and "professor of hodology" is the actual description of what he does. Or sometimes it would be combined into a single phrase "University Professor of Hodology", and readers are expected to know that it means he's really just a professor of hodology (lowercase) but that he also holds a special title (capitalized). —David Eppstein (talk) 06:21, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

British peers and judges

I would like to propose adding the following to the Nobility section:

When non-royal British members of the House of Lords or judges entitled to be called Lord or Lady are mentioned to in other articles, they should be referred to by their titles if acting in an official capacity. For men, the titles of marquess, earl, viscount, or baron should be replaced with Lord. The territorial designation should only be used if required to differentiate from another lord or lady with the same name. Subsequent references should use the person's name without rank.

This is currently standard practice in Wikipedia articles, reflecting standard usage. We would say for example, Lord Smith wrote the judgement, spoke in the House of Lords, was appointed to cabinet.

TFD (talk) 11:27, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose mandating this ("should be referred to" …). Of course, this is acceptable, but it should not be required. Such a mandate runs contrary to the spirit of MOS:HONORIFIC (In general, honorific prefixes—styles and honorifics in front of a name—in Wikipedia's own voice should not be included …) and MOS:CREDENTIAL. We should not be mandating the use of honorific titles. Doing so is not consistent with our avoidance of puffery and promotion. It's also unencyclopedic and borders on a WP:NPOV violation: requiring us to say "Lady X" wrote the judgment as opposed to "X wrote the judgment" confers no more information but subtly implies an air of authority and gravitas that is unwarranted. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 13:33, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

• The are not honorifics, they are titles. Honorifics for lords would be His Grace, the Right Honourable, etc. in any case, this is current usage in Wikipedia. See for example, George Mitchell (Chesterhall) Ltd v Finney Lock Seeds Ltd: "Lord Diplock gave the first judgment....Lord Bridge gave the leading judgment. He agreed with Lord Denning....Lord Scarman, Lord Roskill and Lord Brightman concurred." This is how the judges were described in the original judgment.[27] Or take a standard textbook such as Contract Law p. 37: The judge hearing the case is referred to either as Lord Denning or just Denning.

Sure it implies authority, which is what a judge is. Neutrality specifically means reflecting usage in reliable sources.

TFD (talk) 15:11, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Clarification on ranks

Just looking for some clarification on the use of military ranks in the body of article. For example, Gen. William Westmoreland is referred to a handful of times throughout his article as "General Westmoreland" or "General William Westmoreland", rather than surname-only. I occasionally remove "superfluous" mentions of someone's rank when reading. I know it is common to use the rank when mentioning someone for the first time who is not the subject of the article ("He met with Brigadier General John Q. Smith"), but I would like to see some explicit guidance on military ranks (and police ranks) in the MOS alongside royalty and politicians.-Ich (talk) 21:00, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@Ich: I agree, because if military rank is covered by MOS:JOBTITLES (which I interpret it to be since a rank is a position in a graded body or hierarchy) then that ought to be stated clearly and unambiguously in MOS:JOBTITLES. Betterkeks (talk) 02:20, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Special:Diff/1054679037

Neutral about whether this is a style issue or not, but I don't understand what the disputed sentence is supposed to mean. The sentence is

Experts in specific fields of history should provide input to decisions where these must be made or a controversy arises.

By "experts", I assume we mean "reliable sources". Yes? As written, the sentence looks like it's requiring expert Wikipedians to be consulted, which seems inconsistent with what the project is about. So it should presumably read:

Reliable sources on history should be consulted where a decision about naming must be made or a controversy arises.

I don't actually think LoC authorities is a reliable source in general but that may be a topic for another day. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 16:06, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

This seems like a reasonable change. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:29, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Definition of Nationality? Reasoning behind no ethnicity in the lead?

Is nationality speaking strictly in terms of countries and their citizenship or are nations allowed? Some clarification would be nice. TataofTata (talk) 13:09, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Comment: This guideline states that ethnicity should not be in the lead, but suggests nationality. If this is strictly in the country sense then this ends up misrepresenting people in their bios, for example Kurds are a nation, but without a state. Many Kurds have fled their registered countries due to wars relating to the Kurdish struggle or being persecuted and thus settled in other countries, in such cases simply stating their nationality would also mean the very persecution these states commit follows on to Wikipedia. For example instead of being a British Kurd, this guideline suggests to the editors to write them as being British Iranian, even removing and ignoring sources stating the person is Kurdish. One example, is Makwan Amirkhani, he is a Finnish-Kurd, sources say he is a Kurd born in Iran and moved to Finland. Calling him just Finnish is not the full picture to the sources, calling him Iranian is inaccurate. This guideline also means someone can go and erase all leads with Kurdish on many bios on Kurds, see for example List of Kurds.

--TataofTata (talk) 06:00, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

• Nationality is citizenship of sovereign nation; ethnicity is belonging to an ethnic or social group. The former is acceptable, the latter is not. GiantSnowman 13:26, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

GiantSnowman Why? What's the rationale for the guideline? I am genuinely curious, as determining nationality is not as easy as the guideline seems to think it is. We follow sources, those may or may not depict the person's "nationality". SusunW (talk) 13:55, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Currently, the guideline explains that the ethnicity can be mentioned in the lede if it is significant for the activity of the person. Opening a more broad interpretation would immediately open all possible cans of worms: Kim Kardashian will be redefined as "Armenian" (see the comment in the infobox in the article about her), and I can not even thing of what we see in the articles about Indian personalities, which are already sufficiently troublesome. If it is needed, the issue can be explained in the body of the article. Actually in many cases we assume that the person has certain nationality - for example, the article about me calls me Russian even though I only have a Dutch passport and not a Russian passport - and the bet strategy would be to remove all mentions of nationality / ethnicity unless absolutely necessary - like in cases of politicians or international sportspeople.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:30, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

When I created an article on Beatriz Magaloni lest week, I have chosen to defined her as political scientist and professor at Stanford. I have no idea what citizenship she has (probably US and Mexico), and to define her as "Mexican political scientist" would hardly be appropriate.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:34, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks Ymblanter and yes, I assumed it might be to avoid edit warring over "belonging", but wasn't sure. This "in many cases we assume that the person has certain nationality" is absolutely what I think most people do in writing articles. The problem, as I see it, is that drive-by people put an assumed nationality in, even if it was omitted. (When I wrote Wilma Mankiller, for example, editors insisted on putting "American" in the lede. Every time I removed it, someone put it back in, and I gave up. She isn't notable for being an American, but she is notable as the principle chief of the Cherokee nation.) I think the guideline would be clearer if it said to omit any assumed nationality or ethnicity and simply give a place of birth and place of death. SusunW (talk) 14:47, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
• I was under the assumption that Kim Kardashian was of Armenian origin.. Even if there was a problem; if she identifies as an Armenian and sources state this, then so should the online encyclopedia reflect this, anything else seems conjecture on behalf of the editor. Hardly a can of worms in my opinion, more like a mountain out of a molehill. I was going to propose that nationality should also be avoided in the lead also then, but this seems too sweeping of a view also. My edit for calling Makwan Amirkhani a Finish-Kurd was objected because of strict following of this guideline causing an issue. I think if Wilma Mankiller identifies as a Cherokee, so should her lead reflect this. --TataofTata (talk) 15:05, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

• I think the point here TataofTata is that we often don't know what people identify as, particularly historic figures. We follow sources. If a source calls a person X then we call them X. I think Ymblanter makes a great point that it should just be omitted altogether, unless the notability hinges on ethnicity or nationality, as the lede is supposed to establish why a person is notable. Not saying it shouldn't be in the article, but IMO it is probably not needed in the lede, unless it is part of their notability. First African-American to do X is part of their notability as is chief of the Cherokee nation, but Kim Kardashian isn't notable for being either an American or an Armenian. Her notability is based on celebrity. SusunW (talk) 15:44, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

no, omitting it completely removes key context & information for readers. GiantSnowman 15:56, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't if the lede gives place of birth and place of death. SusunW (talk) 17:27, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) :Comment TataofTata Great question. Nationality in the legal sense means belonging to a sovereign nation. Nation in the context you are using it derives from an ideology/ethnicity/identity, i.e. nationalism. But, regardless, the guideline makes little sense for women. Nationality laws in all?/most, (so far this year I have written over 100 of them and have yet to find an exception) countries of the world, required women to have the same nationality as her spouse. Laws did not begin changing for the most part until the mid-twentieth century and in several cases still have not changed. Since 90% of the women in the world have traditionally married, this means that any woman who married a foreigner anywhere in the world lost her nationality. The point is, that for example, a woman who was Mexican and married a German, ceased having Mexican nationality and legally became German. Did she ever identify as German? Probably not, but our guidelines would have us call her that. They also beg the question of what to do about someone who legally becomes stateless, such as Rosika Schwimmer. Calling her Hungarian or American would not paint a complete picture. Typically, I simply ignore the guideline and use whatever descriptors sources do. I cannot figure out why is was written either, but the fact is that it is difficult to apply, as for many historical women it is impossible to ascertain their "nationality". SusunW (talk) 13:51, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Nationality is something very much objective - either they are a citizen of said country or not. Ethnicity is very subjective particularly in some areas of the world (eg like anything dealing with the British Isles). If RSes have clearly identified the ethnicity of the person without any doubt and it is relevant to the person, then it is fair to include it in the lede, but we as editors should not be making guesses at this if sources don't go into such details, just as we should not go into one's religion/faith if that's not covered in sources. Way too many pitfalls in this area. --Masem (t) 16:25, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

As I explained above, nationality is not "very much objective" for women Masem. I have updated our article numerous times on Elena Arizmendi Mejia. Every source previously identified her as Mexican. However, in working on nationality laws, I discovered this source (p 4), in which she clearly stated that under the Mexican Aliens and Naturalization Act of 1886 though she considered herself to be Mexican, because she married a German who naturalized as an American, she was not Mexican. SusunW (talk) 17:20, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

That still objectively makes her nationality as an American (due to fact of the law), but her ethnicity is one of those things that is subjective - here of course we'd should give weight to what she considers first and foremost rather than other sources and DEFINITELY not editors' interpretation. Now, that said, we should definitely be aware when the objective nationality misrepresents how she (or any other person) is commonly represented in sources, then it should be omitted for that reason. But lacking anything to contest the inclusion of nationality, we should still include it; ethnicity should be something that needs sourcing to show it well sourced and important to discuss in the lede. --Masem (t) 17:44, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

I honestly feel as if I am not being heard, so I am going to back out of this discussion. Make note that everywhere I have commented, I have said we follow the sourcing. It is sourcing that assumes women have (or had) a nationality, whether that is accurate or not and often report their ethnicity as if it were their nationality. If the point of the guideline is to provide context, that should be clear. It isn't as it is written. SusunW (talk) 18:16, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Introducing 'ethnicity' into bio intros across the board, could be quite messy & create many editing-disputes. GoodDay (talk) 16:58, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this is the main reason. GiantSnowman 17:01, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

What about if it's as clear as day? As Masem stated, if RSes have clearly identified the ethnicity. Omitting it in the lede is obviously in itself removing key context and information for the reader. Being a bit detailed in the guideline would be helpful. --TataofTata (talk) 17:10, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree with you TataofTata that the guideline needs to be clearer. In the case of Arizmendi her status is clear as day with her explanation, but it would simply be wrong to designate her as German or American. SusunW (talk) 17:41, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

This discussion might benefit from grounding itself in the recollection that WP follows the reliable sources; it isn’t editors’ job to be advancing their own argumentation as to how anyone should be described. We follow the RS. MapReader (talk) 18:16, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

To give a recent example, the lead for Emma Raducanu seems to have settled as "is a British professional tennis player". One might call her "a Canadian-born British professional tennis player of Romanian and Chinese ethnicity", but RSs do not, and these other aspects of her identity are explained and given due weight further down the article. Edwardx (talk) 18:30, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

For international sports connected to the Olympics, a primary nationality is particularly easy to identify (and as usual ethnicity is not): athletes typically compete for a country, and even when they have dual citizenship changing the country they compete for can be very difficult. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:44, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Nice example Edwardx This does indeed show that it can get messy and the guideline some-what makes sense, but as mentioned already that the current guideline text is not very clear and in cases of certain bios there is nothing messy with simply stating Finnish-Kurd for example for Makwan Amirkhani especially when the sources all state he is and doing otherwise is misrepresenting the sources simply because of keeping other peoples bios in order. Same goes for women bios that would be inaccurate if it followed her husband legal nationality rather than her ethnicity or preferred nationality like SusunW mentioned. --TataofTata (talk) 20:00, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

WP:EGRS discusses when and how to state a subject's ethnicity, and when not to. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:32, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Is this not specific for categories only? It would still be good to stay consistent and maintain the same for this guideline also, as it's far better explained. In this case it solves separating ethnicity with national origin, (see ethnicity section). --TataofTata (talk) 20:00, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

TataofTata Yes EGRS is about categories, but I believe it is good advice that could be applied more broadly. "There are two kinds of people, those who can extrapolate..." Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:54, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

The guideline says, "The first sentence should usually state...Context (location, nationality, etc.) for the activities that made the person notable." In my reading, a variety of things could be stated and the criterion should be that it relates to the person's notability. While usually this will be nationality, ethnicity or other factors may be of equal or more importance.

Also, historically, people living in European empires assumed the nationality of the imperialist power. We say for example that Jesus "was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader," not a Roman preacher and religious leader. He was a Roman national, since his country had been annexed to the Roman empire, making its population Roman subjects, although not citizens.

TFD (talk) 21:26, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Mostly MOS:CONTEXTBIO prefaces its examples with In most modern-day cases ... Exceptions are not justification for removing the guideline altogether. Oft-occuring scenarios can be codified, as needed, with the caveat that some always argue against being too prescriptive.—Bagumba (talk) 17:10, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

The current MOS:ETHNICITY guideline will not be clear for every situation, and there can be problems with determining "nationality", such as the case with English/Scottish/Welsh/British, etc., or when dealing ethnic groups or nations or various individuals who are stateless or dispute their relationship with their country of citizenship, such as the Palestinians or Tibetans. However, the guideline is still useful for most people because nationality is a much easier-defined and clearer in almost all cases. People do not have partial nationalities and generally only have one or at most a few nationalities, as opposed to ethnicities that can be far more complicated. Similar to sexuality and religious views, this is also an area that is far too contentious and used too frequently in an inappropriate way when not relevant to the subject's notability in a way that can be reliably sourced. I think it could be argued that nationality may not be relevant at all to the lead in some cases, and there are certainly times when it is more appropriate to discuss the person's nationality or ethnicity in more than just a one-word description. However, I wouldn't see any need to regularly include ethnicity in the lead unless there is some sort of relevance to the subject's notability, as the guideline says. Ethnicity is normally easily found soon after the lead in the first section, and so anyone who is interested can easily locate it (while nationality would not generally be covered in the first paragraph or two of the main body for those who have changed theirs). Maybe the note at the end of the guidance could be updated to be generalized beyond just the British example or even incorporated into the main guideline. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 02:01, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I think I have laid this out in a simliar previous RfC but in short version is: nationality is not simply legal status of soverign states. It is more about the general where a subject most identifies as from. E.g. Peter Sellers we describe as "English" whilst we describe Sean Connery as "Scottish" whilst there is no legal citizenship/nationality recognition of either, only a British citizenship. As a different example we describe Fabian Picardo as "Gibraltarian" and Jackie Chan as "Hong Kong" when they are not soverign states, these being Spain and China respetively.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 14:58, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - I have raised some issues related to this in my recent musings in the section below. The bottom line is, I think the current practice reflected in MOS:ETHNICITY makes assumptions about nationality (e.g., that it is typically better represented by a legal construct than an identity) that don't work as well as its proponents believe. Newimpartial (talk) 19:28, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Margaret Thatcher

At Margaret Thatcher, it's been brought to my attention that having "British politician" in her bios' lead, is wrong. Yet it's applied to other UK prime ministers. Also (for another example), "American politician" is applied to the intros of the bios of many US presidents, vice presidents & other American politicians. Which is correct? Is this an article-by-article basis? or is Maggie a special case. GoodDay (talk) 19:36, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Is anyone actually saying it would be wrong/incorrect, or just saying it's redundant to the description of her as a UK political officeholder? I think it'd be appropriate to describe her as a politician, given that she was a politician before she held the prime minister's office, and it'd also be consistent with other articles. -sche (talk) 02:15, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

One keeps being reverted, when adding the phrase British politician to the intro. GoodDay (talk) 02:29, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

The current lead reads a little awkward to me and would seem less awkward by adding the phrase "a British politician who..." but maybe that's just me. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 03:52, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree, but Neveselbert keeps reverting. GoodDay (talk) 04:37, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Does MOS:DEADNAME apply to people who are not transgender or non-binary?

The MoS states the following:

"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."

This was written with trans/nb people in mind, and by the letter it says it only applies to trans/nb people, but I don't see any reason why this shouldn't apply to cis people who changed their names prior to becoming notable (for example, John Africa). Thoughts? QoopyQoopy (talk) 01:06, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with retroactively erasing original names. GoodDay (talk) 01:11, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree with GoodDay… we shouldn’t erase original names (even for Trans people).

That said… my feeling is that, unless the person was notable under that original name, we really shouldn’t mention it in the first paragraph of the article. Previous names are often nothing more than historical background info, so it is more appropriate to mention them in sections that are focused on the subject’s historical background, not in the lead. Blueboar (talk) 01:28, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

This is bordering on Stalinistic. Trillfendi (talk) 01:45, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Well… Jughashvilistic perhaps. Blueboar (talk) 01:58, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

It’s like I walked into it. Trillfendi (talk) 04:44, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

• It does not apply because deadnaming as a concept only applies to trans people (NB usually is included under the trans umbrella). The previous name indicates a gender different from what is actually theirs, which is why it isn't the same situation as regular name changes, and different rules apply. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:53, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
• Maybe I need more good faith, but I tend to have the impression that some of the people pushing "let's apply deadname rules as widely as possible to cis people and see how they feel about it then" are not really taking the subject seriously, but rather trying to carry out some sort of work-to-rule reductio ad absurdum as a way to protest being forced to be respectful to trans people. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:38, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

  I don't feel strongly one way or the other on applying MOS:DEADNAME to cis people, I was just raising the discussion. QoopyQoopy (talk) 19:22, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

  And for the record, I'm trans myself. QoopyQoopy (talk) 19:41, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

• If such a proposal passes it will make articles on people like Teller (magician), pretty confusing IMHO.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 13:51, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
• I had proposed this idea earlier (back when there was a discussion of how DEADNAME applied to long-dead people) and the community soundly rejected the idea that the principle of DEADNAME would apply to other name-change situations. --Masem (t) 17:13, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

  For those who did not see, the discussion can be found here. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 17:17, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

• Something to remember… the concept of declaring a name “dead” really has little to do with the name. It is really is about declaring an entire persona “dead”. The name is merely a stand-in for the “dead” persona.

I am not a fan of WP:DEADNAME (I deal that we can mention prior persona, as long as we treat it as being “dead” and historical), but I do understand why we have it. I could see extending it to cover non-trans people in those very rare situations when the subject has changed their entire persona, and has declared their old persona “dead”. But that involves much, much more than just a name change. Blueboar (talk) 17:53, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

• The MOS:DEADNAME should be abolished, IMHO. Completely erasing a person's birth-name from their bio article? just seems like a form of censor. GoodDay (talk) 18:45, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

  The idea of MOS:DEADNAME is that it's a WP:BLPPRIVACY concern, not censoring. QoopyQoopy (talk) 19:26, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

RfC on whether and how to cover J. K. Rowling's trans-related views in the lead of her article

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Talk:J. K. Rowling#RFC on how to include her trans-related views (and backlash) in the lead

I am "advertising" this RfC more broadly to relevant pages because someone selectively notified three socio-political wikiprojects that are likely to vote-stack the RfC with a single viewpoint, and the article already has a long history of factional PoV editwarring.

Central matters in this discussion and the threads leading up to it are labeling of Rowling, labeling of commenters on Rowling, why Rowling is notable, what is due or undue in the lead section, and whether quasi-numeric claims like "many", "a few", etc. in this context are legitimate or an OR/WEASEL issue.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:37, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Noting the other WikiProjects that have been contacted. We're likely heading towards a figurative crash up, if all the WikiProjects have conflicting views. GoodDay (talk) 01:47, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

The way it currently is as perfectly neutral. What are they arguing about over there that has led it to the whole Manual of Style/Biography page? Trillfendi (talk) 01:52, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

If you want my personal opinion on what's going on? contact me at my talkpage. GoodDay (talk) 02:05, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

The idea that WikiProject Feminism and WikiProject Women Writers are likely to vote-stack the RfC with a single socio-political viewpoint suggests WP:CIR issues on the part of the one who posted the link, but by all means, we do need fresh eyes on the lead RfC. The article in question has seen far too much whitewashing and FALSEBALANCE POV-based editing already. Newimpartial (talk) 02:11, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm more interested in what's going to happen, because WP:LGBT has been notified. See (now closed, I guess) discussion at Amita Kuttner, for example. GoodDay (talk) 02:28, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

@GoodDay: I've read the only submission to that article's talk page, there is no archive, and while I can understand that you didn't like the outcome of the consensus but the discussion there was entirely civil, with no aspersions or personal attacks at all. Unless you meant a different discussion, I'm not sure what your point is there with respect to WP:LGBT. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:43, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

No longer matters. GoodDay (talk) 03:46, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Gah, it's 4am and you've got me singing Bohemian Rhapsody! Fair enough. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:48, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Is "and American" instead of "-American" the new thing now?

It makes no grammatical sense (to me) and only serves to confuse most people, meanwhile I keep coming across it on BLPs. Trillfendi (talk) 21:40, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

I would use 'and American' if the person is a dual national, but not otherwise. DrKay (talk) 21:55, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Agree completely. and American implies dual nationality, while hyphenated American signals a cultural identity but makes no presumption of a non-American citizenship. Newimpartial (talk) 00:08, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

I also agree. They are both perfectly fine grammatically but they mean different things, so the choice of using one or the other is based on meaning not on style. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:22, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

It's like "running for re-election to a second term". Where it should be "running for election to a second term" or "running for re-election". Grammatical nightmares indeed. GoodDay (talk) 00:12, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Should fashion models' articles have at least one independent source in the infobox to verify agencies?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Closing as no consensus due to low participation and an initially confusing question, with no prejudice against a new RfC. My suggestion is for the OP to write a more concise and clear opening statement, and advertise to WikiProjects that might be interested. (non-admin closure) Isabelle ^🔔 15:08, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

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(Using media as fashion is in the realm of media and arts.) In order to add relevant biographical and career information, models' articles use the infobox model template and for the "agency" parameter, models.com, a New York-based website that tracks all the work a model does, is used as the source because it has all of them in a central location, whereas others (such as Vogue itself, will only list one regional branch in the magazine and it becomes outdated eventually); it doesn't matter if it's Kate Moss or someone with a nascent career, virtually all fashion models' articles of subjects with active careers use it. Should this continue to be the case or should it be removed entirely and have every single branch referenced individually? Do model's agencies need to be cited in the infobox by at least one source? Trillfendi (talk) 17:53, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Survey

• Yes - Such a source should be required. PS: I'm sexy beyond words, but I've no agent. GoodDay (talk) 18:32, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I received a bot notice for this RfC, but I'm not clear what is being asked. Would it be possible to clarify and tighten up the request? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:26, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

@Seraphimblade: In plain English: When a model's article has an infobox (it uses this one) should the agency parameter use one source for all agencies or not. Trillfendi (talk) 20:20, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

• Dissent - such information is not encyclopedic; Wikipedia is not a trade directory to find out who a model's, writer's or artist's agent is. It has no place here. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:46, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
• I agree with SeraphimBlade that the question at issue here is unclear. My best guess is that it's seeking to establish whether models.com is reliable for the purposes of verifying a model's agencies? If so, this would probably be better discussed at WP:RSN. It looks like there has been one previous discussion of models.com there (for verifying magazine covers). My reading of that discussion is that the site is WP:USERGENERATED content, which would make it inappropriate for this purpose. Colin M (talk) 19:59, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

@Orangemike and Colin M: To Orangemike, I don't see how it's any different than each athlete having all the teams they've played for in their infoboxes, even the ones who played in minor leagues in Lithuania, Israel, or what have you. In a model's profession, an agency indicates a modicum of notability because that's how they get work. To Colin M, while I haven't seen any indication that models.com is unreliable in listing who is signed where (they keep track of that stuff. I'll use Storm Management as a random example: it has a list of all women signed on one page and all men on another) they have a staff of people who do that, so it is not user generated. No registered users can alter any information on there, only view. Trillfendi (talk) 20:20, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

@Trillfendi: okay, but could you try to clarify what this RfC is asking? Because so far you've received three responses answering three different questions: 1) Do a model's agencies need to be cited? 2) Should models' agencies be included in the infobox of their article? 3) Is models.com reliable for the purposes of verifying a model's agencies? Colin M (talk) 20:23, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

@Colin M: Alright, I'll try to make it clearer. Trillfendi (talk) 20:30, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

• Why not? As a disclaimer, I freely admit absolutely no interest or expertise in the world of modeling (pinged by feedback service). But looking at this from a strictly encyclopedic perspective, I can't really think of a reason we shouldn't do it this way. It's to models what teams are to sports players (who do use agencies of their own but those are not really notable in that case; they are here, though, because as said before it's how their careers are operated and maintained). It's to models what studios are to movies and games, and publishers to books. Yes to 1, why not to 2, no comment on 3 (Colin M's questions). Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 23:01, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

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.

Clarification needed on MOS:POSTNOM

MOS:POSTNOM says "Post-nominal letters should either be separated from the name by a comma and each set divided by a comma, or no commas should be used at all. If a baronetcy or peerage is held, then commas should always be used for consistency's sake, as the former are separated from the name by a comma."

We also have MOS:COMMA, which says "Don't let other punctuation distract you from the need for a comma, especially when the comma collides with a bracket or parenthesis:".

The "at all" in MOS:POSTNOM is seemingly contradicting MOS:COMMA, because it doesn't consider the need for a paired (or closing) comma for other reasons, such as for instance the presence of a title.

The Joe Bloggs examples are incomplete in the sense that they don't continue past a point where a comma could be needed for another reason:

• With commas: '''Joe Bloggs''', {{post-nominals|size=100%|sep=,|country=GBR|VC|OBE}} gives:  Joe Bloggs, VC, OBE
• Without commas: '''Joe Bloggs''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|VC|OBE}} gives:  Joe Bloggs VC OBE

The same examples, continued past the point where a comma could be needed for another reason:

• With commas: '''Joe Bloggs''', {{post-nominals|size=100%|sep=,|country=GBR|VC|OBE}}, is a British politician. gives:  Joe Bloggs, VC, OBE, is a British politician.
• Without commas: '''Joe Bloggs''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|VC|OBE}} is a British politician. gives:  Joe Bloggs VC OBE is a British politician.

At this point, we can already see the need for the closing comma in the first situation, because without it, it will be OBE is a British politician. The beginning of the sentence will be left dangling due to the leading comma.

If we add a title and life span, it complicates matters further:

• With commas: '''Joe Bloggs, 1st Baron Bloggs''', {{post-nominals|size=100%|sep=,|country=GBR|VC|OBE}} (1777–1850), is a British politician. gives:  Joe Bloggs, 1st Baron Bloggs, VC, OBE (1777–1850), is a British politician.
• Without commas: '''Joe Bloggs, 1st Baron Bloggs''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|VC|OBE}} (1777–1850), is a British politician. gives:  Joe Bloggs, 1st Baron Bloggs VC OBE (1777–1850), is a British politician.

Even in the case without comma separation, the closing comma is needed due to the presence of a title, and – per MOS:COMMA above – one should not be distracted by the "collision" of a bracket or parenthesis.

See also discussion at Talk:Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough#Comma after post-nominals, where a lot of examples missing the closing comma are mentioned.

HandsomeFella (talk) 20:53, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

No closing comma is necessary if dates are included. It looks awful and it isn't normal English. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:23, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

@Necrothesp: I appreciate your opinion, but we're talking about guidelines. You should also refrain from reverting while there is an ongoing discussion.

It is apparently the parentheses that makes this complicated. Let's start over without the titles and the life span:

• '''Joe Bloggs, 1st Baron Bloggs''', is a British politician. gives:  Joe Bloggs, 1st Baron Bloggs, is a British politician.

You agree that the closing comma above is needed, no?

So, if you add the life span, which is obviously placed before the closing comma, why remove the comma? MOS:COMMA states explicitly that it doesn't affect the need for a comma.

• '''Joe Bloggs, 1st Baron Bloggs''' (1777–1850), is a British politician. gives:  Joe Bloggs, 1st Baron Bloggs (1777–1850), is a British politician.

And then, adding the post-nominals, which go before the life span, why would that affect a closing comma that is placed after the life span?

• '''Joe Bloggs, 1st Baron Bloggs''', {{post-nominals|size=100%|sep=,|country=GBR|VC|OBE}} (1777–1850), is a British politician. gives:  Joe Bloggs, 1st Baron Bloggs, VC, OBE (1777–1850), is a British politician.

It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

HandsomeFella (talk) 11:08, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

It makes absolute sense to me. And obviously most other people on Wikipedia given the terminal comma after dates has never been our common style. Or indeed the common style in the English language. As to reverting, you added the comma without discussion, against common practice in thousands of other articles, and it was questioned on the talkpage. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:19, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

The logic I presented is impeccable, and you have made no argument against it – or the guidelines that it's based on – other than you don't like it, and the only reason that this isn't implemented in quite a few articles only means that people are not paying enough attention to punctuation.

Let's see if there are editors who care about punctuation, and are actually able to present arguments.

HandsomeFella (talk) 14:50, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I recommend no comma based on convention. See all the examples I mentioned. Some are high-traffic articles (like Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, The Duke of Wellington, etc.), so they demonstrate consensus. There are only two pages in the list of UK prime ministers that have the comma you're recommending: Anthony Eden and William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne.

But also, if the post-nominals are wrapped in commas, the article preview will exclude the post-nominals and show two commas side-by-side (,,). I started a separate discussion on the post-nominals template page about that, since there are other grammatical situations where it comes up.

— W.andrea (talk) 18:00, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

First: the Bloggs examples may be misleading here because HandsomeFella has made him 1st Baron Bloggs, which gives us an appositive which itself calls for paired commas. That is, the comma that (I, too, like HandsomeFella, believe) is necessary in the ...–1850), is a British pol... part of examples 2 and 3 from 11:08, is there because of the Baron thingy, not because of postnominal commafication. So the logic is somewhat peccable on the basis of coincidence in the examples used. It may help if we don't distract ourselves with extra comma-worthy situations.

So, if we drop the 1st Baron Bloggs bit (sorry, Joe; you're demoted) along with its commas, then we can take a clearer look at what MOS:POSTNOM and MOS:COMMA have to say. At first glance, it seems that MOS:POSTNOM is trying to confuse us with its no commas should be used at all, but MOS:POSTNOM isn't suggesting there be a trailing comma in the first place. That is, in the case where commas are acceptable, MOS:POSTNOM says to add them after the name, and in between the individual honors; there's nothing about them being added after the last postnominal.

It's unfortunate that MOS:POSTNOM doesn't have a sentence in its first "With commas" example, so that we can see whether there should be a comma after the last postnom. But to me, it seems appropriate, not because we separated the previous postnoms with commas, but because we separated the name from the postnoms with a comma. For me, in that case, the postnominals form an appositive (which happens to be a comma-separated list, if there is more than one honor) which need to be set off by commas.

Now we come to the date-span (or other parenthetical). The point made by HandsomeFella about MOS:COMMA's explicit instruction not to let other punctuation distract you from the need for a comma is well-taken; it provides a clear example to follow, with a comma following the parenthetical. That's, of course, only in the case where a comma is appropriate anyway, as in the case where we are setting off an appositive with a pair of commas.

Now, if Joe is once again the 1st Baron Bloggs, or if we are setting off Joe's one or many honors with commas, then we can (and IMO, should) have a comma after the last postnominal. This is the case even when there is a parenthetical date range.

The argument that we don't do that on many of our articles is specious; the fact that we do something wrong or just suboptimally on one or some or many pages is no good reason to do it some more. Necrothesp's assessment that It looks awful and it isn't normal English is unpersuasive for me. I do not find that it looks awful, and, in fact (especially after I think about it), it makes good sense and seems plenty Englishy to me. That is, I think John Gielgud and Richard Attenborough, like Thatcher, Churchill and Wellesley, should be adjusted to match usage according to the logic of the language (not that English is often accused of being logical). I am particularly unmoved by W.andrea's argument regarding the preview functionality. For one thing, that gadget (or function or feature) often excludes items, and if it's wrong to do that, or if it's wrong to leave out postnoms just because the page uses templates for them, then that's just a problem (one of many, I'm sure) in the gadget. The functionality should be fixed in that case; I don't think we need to maim our content because a non-essential gadget was imperfectly coded. More importantly, I think the problem is with the templates, not the commas. Look at Margaret Thatcher in preview; I see a floating semicolon there because of the {{nee}} template, although I don't suffer from that. It's just how the preview works. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 20:58, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm not at all convinced that "Joe Bloggs, 1st Baron Bloggs (1777–1850), is..." is correct. The nesting is wrong. It puts the date range entirely inside the appositive phrase "1st Baron Bloggs" and makes it appear to be describing the range of dates during which he was 1st Baron, and not the range of dates in which he lived. I think that if you want the date range to be unambiguously his birth and death dates, the dates should be outside the appositive, either "Joe Bloggs, 1st Baron Bloggs, (1777–1850) is..." or "Joe Bloggs (1777–1850), 1st Baron Bloggs, is...". Both are awkward but these longwinded titles are generally awkward. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:21, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I agree; you're quite right. I think I was fixated on the parenthetical–comma example in MOS:COMMA, and failed to notice that the relationship in that example ((on beans, fish, and ngardu) with fed by locals) is slightly different from the date-range case we're discussing here. Either of your variations would be correct in my view (and yeah, they're a bit awkward). — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 18:28, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

They are indeed. So why don't we just leave it the way it's been for many years and stop fiddling with things that ain't broke? -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:52, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Intend to respond. HandsomeFella (talk) 05:40, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Clarification requested - MOS:CONTEXTBIO and place linking

MOS:CONTEXTBIO does not seem to specify if relevant placenames should be piped or not-piped in leads and infoboxes of biography articles. My understanding is that the greater MOS guides us to always link less-well-known places like small towns, but what about subjects who are tied to well-known cities? It seems that the norm is to link these places as well (which I agree with- for reader convenience and formatting standardization, if nothing else)... however I have seen editors remove links like these citing Overlinking. It would be helpful to have this issue clarified in black and white in the bio MOS. - Headphase (talk) 10:26, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

It seems to be the de facto practice to link cities in infoboxes, presumably for infobox consistency (perhaps inevitably by drive-by editors). Formalization, if necessary either way, should be at MOS:INFOBOX (or MOS:OVERLINK).—Bagumba (talk) 01:27, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Lee Maracle and MOS:ETHNICITY

Most obituaries for Lee Maracle ([28], [29], [30]) refer to her as a Sto꞉lo writer, not as a Canadian writer. Sto:lo is more than an "ethnicity"; it is a nation. I think referring to her as a Sto:lo writer is preferable, both because it's how sources describe her and because it is a fairer representation of her nationality (i.e. the nation to which she belonged) than "Canadian" is. Moreover, MOS:ETHNICITY refers to the country, region, or territory, where the person is a citizen, national, or permanent resident, not merely to the sovereign state of which they are a citizen. Other editors, including DocWatson42 and GiantSnowman, appear to disagree. Bringing this here as I've encountered this issue on many other articles about Indigenous people in Canada (e.g., Shingoose) and would like to have a clearer sense about what MOS:ETHNICITY actually says in this context. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 15:04, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Given that 1) the Sto:lo are a recognised government with a government-to-government treaty relationship with Canada; 2) Most obituaries recognize this fact by naming her as Sto:lo rather than by the name of the settler state she spent much of her life resisting; and, 3), her clear personal preference, it seems otiose in the extreme to insist on calling her "Canadian."Vizjim (talk) 15:38, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Agree it should read Sto:lo. I've had the same issue with persons from various Native American tribes. Notably, Wilma Mankiller, when drive-by editors insisted upon inserting American. It makes no sense to me. She was the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, not president of the US and since the Cherokee have no nation outside the US adding that descriptor is redundant and incorrect. Their nation isn't the American Cherokee, it is either the Cherokee Nation, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, or the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, etc. (I have the same problem with women, who had their nationality changed numerous times because of the laws requiring them to have the same nationality as their husband, even if they never identified as something other than their nationality of origin.) During the last discussion on this topic, it was clear that the main reason ethnicity is prohibited in the lead sentence of the lede is to prevent edit-warring. That seems like a strange reason upon which to base policy, but changing policy on WP is extremely difficult. SusunW (talk) 16:16, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

SusunW, if it's not too hard to find, could you link to the last discussion? Might be helpful context. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 16:24, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

AleatoryPonderings it's above under Definition of Nationality? Reasoning behind no ethnicity in the lead? I have no clue how to find a permalink, so when it goes to archive, this link won't work anymore. SusunW (talk) 16:28, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I see there are not one but two discussions above: Special:Permalink/1054888581#Definition_of_Nationality?_Reasoning_behind_no_ethnicity_in_the_lead? and Special:Permalink/1054888581#Clarification_on_MOS:ETHNICITY. Hm. Didn't mean to duplicate discussions unnecessarily. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 16:39, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, obviously it comes up often ... SusunW (talk) 17:02, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Another thought: as written, MOS:ETHNICITY is really about notability. So the spirit of the policy is not so much "let's exclude all mention of national identities not linked to independent sovereign states" but rather "let's not include extraneous mentions of nationalities if they are not relevant to a person's notability". If this is the reason behind the policy, there is a vast number of cases in which mentioning non-state-based nationalities is appropriate. However, editors seem to use the policy as a way to exclude lesser-known nationalities. As I read the policy, it doesn't support that kind of blanket usage. Rather, it's just an application of WP:RS and WP:N: we follow reliable sources to establish what aspects of a person's identity are relevant—and if those aspects include nationality not linked to a sovereign state, that's what we write. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 17:27, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Comment - I have been trying to discern how to contribute to this discussion, and in the end I think a new comment is probably my best way forward. I have a few observations that pull in somewhat different directions:

(1) I read MOS:ETHNICITY somewhat differently from AleatoryPonderings. I don't think it is always a direct expression of Notability; the inclusion of the country, region, or territory, where the person is a citizen, national, or permanent resident is assumed to be relevant context in most modern-day cases, without there being a burden of proof. In the case of ethnicity or previous nationalities, there is a higher burden of proof to establish that it is relevant to Notability - apparently a rather high bar, e.g. René Lévesque was a Canadian politician and journalist who served as the 23rd premier of Quebec from 1976 to 1985.

(2) Wikipedia lacks a constructive policy concept of "national identity" that would run parallel to phenomena like gender identity and sexuality that it treats more constructively. If I wanted to be cynical, I would suggest that the main reason for this is that UK-based editors have been at some pains to maintain UK citizenship/Britishness, rather than English, Scottish, etc. nationality, as a dominant feature in articles ('Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a British politician', scarcely Scottish at all) while many US-based editors have been at some pains to avoid what they regard as undue hyphenation 'Samuel R. Delany, nicknamed "Chip", is an American author and literary critic' - the reader might have no idea that Delaney is African-American until leading the Early Life section).

(3) Wikipedia's reluctance to recognize national identity leads to difficulty, IMP, in cases like René Levesque or Juan Miro, where it might make more sense a priori to situate the figure in the context of the national movement and identity the person and their work were part of rather than the state within which they resided and/or held legal citizenship.

(4) As a 21st century, settler Canadian, I understand that the situation of indigenous people in North America - particularly those living and working on unceded land, which may be the vast majority - is different in significant ways from that of people who held a national identity and participated in national movements within the context of European or settler states. However, I am not confident that Wikipedia has a way of recognizing those differences, and am also not sure that a carve-out for indigenous identities that left the rest of Wikipedia's denial of the relevance of national (and "ethnic") identities intact would be either coherent in itself or sustainable within WP as a project towards an encyclopaedia.

(5) As a potentially constructive suggestion, I wonder whether part of the problem is the tendency of many editors from different perspectives to see nationality as either/or: either Spanish or Catalan rather than Spanish and Catalan; either Canadian or Québecois (or Sto:lo)...Newimpartial (talk) 18:12, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Good discussion! Most enrolled tribal members are dual citizens—of their tribe and of a country such as Canada, the United States, Mexico, etc., so it's easy enough to mention both (or more, since some individuals can enroll in more than one tribe). It's important to remember that tribal identity today is, first and foremost, a political identity not an ethnic identity. Many Indigenous ethnic groups span multiple tribes/First Nations today (such as Pomo who I believe are represented by more 20 different federally recognized tribes), and conversely many tribes/First Nations today include more than one ethnic group (such as the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, who include 27 ethnic groups). Yuchitown (talk) 19:50, 12 November 2021 (UTC)Yuchitown

Just a drive-by comment, but I really do think we need a way to acknowledge dual nationality on Wikipedia. For Native American people, tribal sovereignty is a critical doctrine, and in fact was used against them in the past to deny them, the vote and such things. They have thought long and hard both for full American citizenship and to be acknowledged as citizens of sovereign Native nation. Montanabw^(talk) 21:47, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

This is to note that I made this edit (which is the reason I was notified of this discussion) because, at the time, I checked and there was no mention of "Sto:lo" in the article, nor did I know what it meant, so I changed the "Short description" template to match the lede. IMHO the current short description of "Canadian Sto:lo writer and academic" provides enough information to disambiguate the article from others without leaving readers scratching their heads in puzzlement. —DocWatson42 (talk) 08:16, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

"Canadian Sto:lo" is a pleonasm. "Canadian First Nations" would be ok but too unspecific. I think "Canadian and Sto:lo" would be more respectful of the autonomy of the Sto:lo nation. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:30, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

To the average reader, describing somebody as 'Sto:lo' is meaningless; describing them as 'Canadian' provides key information and context. As a compromise, I suggest it is changed to "was a Canadian writer and academic. Born in Vancouver to a Sto:lo family..." or similar. After all there is seemingly no issue having her in categories such as 'Canadian women poets' and 'Canadian women novelists' etc., which the lede does not but should reflect. GiantSnowman 09:10, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, but that is how we get mildly absurd leads like Rene Levesque. I think it is fair to question the practices that lead to such outcomes... Newimpartial (talk) 13:30, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I have to disagree somewhat with the statements above. Every single woman I have written about whose nationality was stolen changed through marriage did not identify as their husband's nationality. Only one that I am aware of, Maymie de Mena, actually was able to use the change to her advantage, (as a light skinned black woman from the US she used a Nicaraguan passport and could pass as Hispanic), but that meant that she was misidentified by scholars as Nicaraguan until 2016 when someone noted her passport said "Nicaraguan by marriage" and verified her true origin. Mislabeling her thwarted research on her and certainly an understanding of the context of her life as a southern black woman. On the other hand, calling Elena Arizmendi Mejía German or American would be wrong, she identified as Mexican and was known for her work on behalf of Mexicans, same as Miriam Soljak, who was born a New Zealander and spent 30 years trying to get her nationality back after she lost her nationality through marriage.

Labeling an indigenous person, ethnic minority, or woman as a national of x, especially in a historic context, tells the reader nothing of their context. It imparts that they experienced life the same as any other national of x would, but no matter what country they were from, based on my wide research, that is not correct. Regardless of whether a person was Sto:lo or Basarwa, or Afro-X, Rohingya, etc., their experiences weren't the same as other people from country x (and pretending they were does nothing to assist the reader). If we must give a nationality for context, identity must also be given, but obviously it goes without saying that we should follow what sources say (until like de Mena, they are proved wrong). SusunW (talk) 14:19, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

What's wrong with Levesque's lead? GoodDay (talk) 16:21, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Truly a great Canadian, eh? Newimpartial (talk) 16:42, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

By contrast, Alex Salmond is actually allowed to be a Scottish politician - no Britishness or UKeity in sight. I wonder how the MOS:ETHNICITY police missed that one... Newimpartial (talk) 17:09, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

If you go through all the post-1707 British bio articles. You'll find that a minority of them use British, instead going with either English, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish or Irish. That's a whole different massive headache. GoodDay (talk) 17:23, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I would much rather have that "headache" than such absurdities as, Jacques Parizeau was French Canadian politician and Québécois economist or the simpler Lucien Bouchard was a French Canadian politician - was he? Really? And for the Parizeau lede, even "Quebecois politician and French Canadian economist" would make more sense than the current ETHNICITY-cop version. Newimpartial (talk) 17:33, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Levesque, Bouchard, Parizeau were/are Canadians, whether they wanted/want to be or not. GoodDay (talk) 17:36, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

That's what MOS:ETHNICITY and its supporters have decided is most important about them, yes. What they thought was most important - and what the RS about them say is most important (which the ETHNICITY folx have largely set aside, in these instances) - is something else. Newimpartial (talk) 17:41, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I can assure you that Miriam Soljak never believed herself to be Austrian or Yugoslavian, even if she legally was. Arizmendi probably ended up stateless, because of legal conflicts, but she never questioned her Mexican identity. Unity Dow's children, who were born in Botswana and had never lived anywhere else, considered themselves to be African, though legally they were American, until Dow took the government to court. I'm with you Newimpartial, what they thought and what sources say is what we should follow, not a policy that denies what sources say their identifying characteristics are. SusunW (talk) 19:34, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Proposal

How about the following. It gives context for both Canadian and Sto:lo and is also relevant to her notability as a writer on pan-Indigenous issues. I borrowed some of the phrasing from Tomson Highway. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 13:40, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Bobbi Lee Maracle OC (July 2, 1950 – November 11, 2021) was an Indigenous Canadian writer and academic of the Sto꞉lo nation.

• Support - I mean, nobody could argue that indigineity isn't essential context for Maracle's Notability. :) Newimpartial (talk) 14:01, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support, but we really need to change this guideline. Clearly the policy is unclear and confusing, or it wouldn't keep coming up for discussion. SusunW (talk) 14:26, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Here is a possible addition to the second paragraph of MOS:ETHNICITY. "Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless it is relevant to the subject's notability or if reliable sources consistently identify the subject using such a descriptor. Similarly, previous nationalities or the place of birth should not be mentioned in the lead unless relevant to the subject's notability. If reliable sources consistently identify a person with a nation, region, or ethnic group that is not associated with a sovereign state, the subject should generally be described as such in the lead sentence unless local consensus determines otherwise." I also think the beginning sentence of MOS:ROLEBIO ("The lead sentence should describe the person as they are commonly described in reliable sources") should be moved to the MOS:ETHNICITY/MOS:CONTEXTBIO section because it is not specific to roles or positions. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 16:03, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
    • Just a quick comment: I'm not convinced that unless local consensus determines otherwise is helpful here; generally is already there to do the necessary work, I think. If someone can specify a good sample rationale for an exception, that would be fine to include here, but arbitrary "local consensus" shouldn't be there as a handwave, IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 16:12, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

      I'd leave out that local consensus bit too. I definitely like the nod to following the sources (after all, they are supposed to determine what we write and policy should acknowledge that) and concur with moving the rolebio bit. SusunW (talk) 17:15, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

• Support - as it's got Canadian included. GoodDay (talk) 17:44, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Seconded. —DocWatson42 (talk) 09:33, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
    • Thirded. Not mentioning the nationality at all is not good enough. GiantSnowman 10:49, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

      The whole reason I started this discussion is because "the nationality" is in question. We shouldn't be assuming that Sto:lo isn't a nationality, and therefore Maracle must be described as Canadian. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 15:28, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

      I agree AleatoryPonderings, we should follow sources. As for "not mentioning the nationality at all", that statement assumes that everyone has one. Statelessness is a huge, global issue, and there are millions of people worldwide who belong to no nation and have no nationality. In addition, there is the whole issue of multiple nationality. We don't just arbitrarily insert information in WP articles. If RS say a person's defining characteristics are X those are the characteristics we report, regardless of our opinions on whether their nationality is or is not relevant. SusunW (talk) 18:38, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

      Sto:lo is not a nationality. Her only nationality is Canadian. GiantSnowman 19:48, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

      This blanket assertion is entirely unhelpful. Her obituary indicates otherwise. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 20:17, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

      (edit conflict)Sto:lo is a sovereign nation, that has the authority to define who belongs and self-governs under a constitution and a legislature.[31] First Nations and their US counterparts, also have separate court systems, which evaluate legal issues under native law.[32] If nationality is the definition of belonging to and relationship with a nation as recognized under international law (per Allan Rosas[33] and Laurie Fransman, an expert on British nationality law,) the fact that the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples oversees and monitors the rights of indigenous people means it is a complex international legal question. We don't need a legal expert, to define the ins and outs of whether indigenous people belong to sovereign nations for a biography, we need RS to give us her defining characteristics. You say, "Her only nationality is Canadian", but I honestly see no source that makes that statement. (For all we know, she had dual nationality.) What we know from sources is that she was reported as being Canadian, Métis and Sto:lo. SusunW (talk) 21:01, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

"Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a national, of a sovereign state". GiantSnowman 21:03, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Providing out of context quotations as if they were authoritative is not particularly helpful, and Wikipedia is not a reliable source. The fact that "nationality", according to the reliable sources off-wiki, is both the term for the legal citizenship of persons and the label for the national identity of groups that do not have a nation-state of their own, suggests that there is something at least arbitrary in the attempt by MOS:ETHNICITY to police the national labels used in biographies to exclude, as much as possible, those that are not found on citizenship cards and, in that respect, to run roughshod over the reliable sources of our articles. Newimpartial (talk) 21:32, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for proving SusanW's point. Maracle is a citizen of the Stó:lō Nation and a citizen of Canada. As a dual citizen, both should be listed in the introductory sentence. Yuchitown (talk) 21:22, 15 November 2021 (UTC)Yuchitown

• Comment - We use French Canadian in bio intros, like Lucien Bouchard. -- GoodDay (talk) 19:57, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

  Which we should not. GiantSnowman 20:03, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

  Unless RS describe a person as such. SusunW (talk) 21:01, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

  Not per WP:MOSETHNICITY. GiantSnowman 21:03, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

  Which given the number of times the topic has come up for discussion on this page alone, is dubious as a guideline and should probably be taken to wider discussion in the community rather than the limited participation on this page by a handful of participants. SusunW (talk) 21:45, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

  No, it means a bunch of people simply don't like it, and insist on pushing ethnic/regional identities. GiantSnowman 21:51, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

  I cannot speak for anyone but myself and don't have a clue what other people's reasons for disliking the guideline are, unless they state why. For me, because I work with international women who often have no nationality at all or are dual nationals, it is problematic to define them other than as sources do. MOSETHNICITY ignores our directive to follow sources. Arguing that nationality gives context belies the fact that in many cases it simply doesn't, especially if the person is stateless. SusunW (talk) 21:58, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

  GiantSnowman, is there some policy-relevant reason outside of ETHNICITY (and besides ILIKEIT) why WP should differ from the BALANCE of available sources against national identies (including ones currently without states) and in favor of legal citizenship? I don't see anyone in this discussion pushing ethnic/regional identities, but I do see people doubling down on (and thus clarifying) the attempt in MOS:ETHNICITY to set a low bar on the inclusion of legal citizenship in the lead and an impracticably high bar for other reliably sourced national identities - and with no (non-circular) rationale that I can detect, aside from some personal aesthetic. But perhaps you could clarify this point for me. Newimpartial (talk) 23:32, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

  I believe there is a misunderstanding by non-Indigenous peoples about the nature of citizenship in an Indigenous nation. It is a politic status, not an ethnic status. For example, Seminole Freedmen are voting citizens of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, whether or not they can prove any Seminole ancestry. Yuchitown (talk) 00:15, 16 November 2021 (UTC)Yuchitown

  It also seems that some editors may think that Westphalian sovereignty is a settled fact of life rather than a political position. Vizjim (talk) 08:46, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Try to adopt British across the board on British bio article intros. It won't be accepted. GoodDay (talk) 23:44, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

• I’m going to show a lack of good faith here, but I think it has to be said… All too often, debates over religious, ethnic (and, yes, even national) labels is due to the desire of an editor (or group of editors) to claim the subject as “one of us” (or, in the case of the negatively infamous, “one of them”).
  Note - I am not saying this is the case in this discussion, just that it is all to common.
  I think back to the endless debates over the ethnicity/nationality of Nicola Tesla as an example. Serbs wanted him labeled “Serbian”, Croats wanted him labeled as “Croatian” (the only thing they agreed on was that he wasn’t to be labeled Austro-Hungarian). Blueboar (talk) 18:23, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

  TBH, it's the numbers of editors that decide these disputes. GoodDay (talk) 00:21, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

  The sole determinant is how reliable sources discuss them. We say for example that Wilfred Laurier, who was prime minister of Canada, "was a Canadian politician." But Laurier was not a Canadian citizen because Canadian citizenship had not yet been established. We do not say however that he was British, which was the actual nationality of people born in Canada, because he is not noramlly referred to as such. TFD (talk) 09:49, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

  Incidentally, the "government-to-government treaty relationship" does not seem to apply to Canada. Also, B.C. aboriginals have never signed treaties. TFD (talk) 10:07, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 01:37, 31 December 2021 (UTC)