Manual of Style

This page falls within the scope of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style articles This page falls under the contentious topics procedure and is given additional attention, as it closely associated to the English Wikipedia Manual of Style, and the article titles policy. Both areas are subjects of debate. Contributors are urged to review the awareness criteria carefully and exercise caution when editing. For information on Wikipedia's approach to the establishment of new policies and guidelines, refer to WP:PROPOSAL. Additionally, guidance on how to contribute to the development and revision of Wikipedia policies of Wikipedia's policy and guideline documents is available, offering valuable insights and recommendations.

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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)[reply]

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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Intend to respond. HandsomeFella (talk) 06:05, 6 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]
• 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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]

no, omitting it completely removes key context & information for readers. GiantSnowman 15:56, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't if the lede gives place of birth and place of death. SusunW (talk) 17:27, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Introducing 'ethnicity' into bio intros across the board, could be quite messy & create many editing-disputes. GoodDay (talk) 16:58, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is the main reason. GiantSnowman 17:01, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]
• 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

"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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

(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)[reply]

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)[reply]
• 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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]
• 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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

@Colin M: Alright, I'll try to make it clearer. Trillfendi (talk) 20:30, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• 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)[reply]

Discussion

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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]

• 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.[1] 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

One keeps being reverted, when adding the phrase British politician to the intro. GoodDay (talk) 02:29, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

I agree, but Neveselbert keeps reverting. GoodDay (talk) 04:37, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

This seems like a reasonable change. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:29, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Most obituaries for Lee Maracle ([2], [3], [4]) 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Yes, obviously it comes up often ... SusunW (talk) 17:02, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

"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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

What's wrong with Levesque's lead? GoodDay (talk) 16:21, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Truly a great Canadian, eh? Newimpartial (talk) 16:42, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Levesque, Bouchard, Parizeau were/are Canadians, whether they wanted/want to be or not. GoodDay (talk) 17:36, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
• 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]

      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)[reply]

• Support - as it's got Canadian included. GoodDay (talk) 17:44, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seconded. —DocWatson42 (talk) 09:33, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thirded. Not mentioning the nationality at all is not good enough. GiantSnowman 10:49, 14 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      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)[reply]

      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)[reply]

      Sto:lo is not a nationality. Her only nationality is Canadian. GiantSnowman 19:48, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      This blanket assertion is entirely unhelpful. Her obituary indicates otherwise. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 20:17, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      (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.[5] First Nations and their US counterparts, also have separate court systems, which evaluate legal issues under native law.[6] If nationality is the definition of belonging to and relationship with a nation as recognized under international law (per Allan Rosas[7] 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)[reply]

"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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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[reply]

• Comment - We use French Canadian in bio intros, like Lucien Bouchard. -- GoodDay (talk) 19:57, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Which we should not. GiantSnowman 20:03, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Unless RS describe a person as such. SusunW (talk) 21:01, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Not per WP:MOSETHNICITY. GiantSnowman 21:03, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  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)[reply]

  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)[reply]

  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)[reply]

  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)[reply]

  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[reply]

  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)[reply]

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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]

TBH, it's the numbers of editors that decide these disputes. GoodDay (talk) 00:21, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

I disagree with retroactively erasing original names. GoodDay (talk) 01:11, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

This is bordering on Stalinistic. Trillfendi (talk) 01:45, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well… Jughashvilistic perhaps. Blueboar (talk) 01:58, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It’s like I walked into it. Trillfendi (talk) 04:44, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• 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)[reply]
• 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)[reply]

  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)[reply]

  And for the record, I'm trans myself. QoopyQoopy (talk) 19:41, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• 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)[reply]
• 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)[reply]

  For those who did not see, the discussion can be found here. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 17:17, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• 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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]

  The idea of MOS:DEADNAME is that it's a WP:BLPPRIVACY concern, not censoring. QoopyQoopy (talk) 19:26, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]