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The following is a closed discussion of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a
move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
It was proposed in this section that multiple pages be
renamed and moved.
– "British Army officer" is insufficient disambiguation as there are other British Army officers of these names.
WP:NCPDAB says that, in situations like these, a more specific disambiguator should be used instead. The form (qualifier + DOB/D) should only be used [w]here the disambiguation can't be resolved in a straightforward manner by such more specific qualifiers; that is not the case here.
Opera hat (
talk) 18:29, 7 January 2020 (UTC) —Relisting.Steel1943 (
talk)
16:06, 28 January 2020 (UTC)reply
Oppose. The DOB form is the standard disambiguator and there is no reason whatsoever to disrupt the system for the sake of a couple of words. --
Necrothesp (
talk)
14:41, 15 January 2020 (UTC)reply
Support per nom and Station1. The DOB form is not the "standard disambiguator", it's explicitly for use as a last resort, as explained in the nom. And rightly so, because for most purposes it does a poor job of disambiguating. —
Amakuru (
talk)
11:40, 17 January 2020 (UTC)reply
Actually, it does a very good job of disambiguating, especially if the individuals have rather different lifetimes. Whereas rank doesn't. Did X reach the rank of colonel or major-general? For the most part, who knows? None of these officers are known as generals. None appear to have had significant commands (i.e. divisions, corps or armies) as generals. They probably received their ranks simply on the basis of seniority, as did many generals of their time. --
Necrothesp (
talk)
14:27, 17 January 2020 (UTC)reply
(British Army officer, born XXXX) is a five-word qualifier of which four words do not actually disambiguate at all. I wouldn't call that "a very good job".
Opera hat (
talk)
09:16, 26 January 2020 (UTC)reply
Better than a final rank that the user will have to guess at, surely? Especially for people not in any way known for being generals, but merely army officers. --
Necrothesp (
talk)
16:40, 27 January 2020 (UTC)reply
Oppose. Disambiguation by courtesy title, especially where it doesn’t properly correspond to his almost as long parliamentarian career. Title is fine as is. —
SmokeyJoe (
talk)
08:55, 1 February 2020 (UTC)reply
However, we try to avoid full dates in disambiguators. Otherwise that would be the standard disambiguator for everyone. We long ago decided it would not be. --
Necrothesp (
talk)
10:56, 10 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Do we? Says who? And why? What's wrong with a standard disambiguator for the long since dead, the one used in the majority of sources? --
SmokeyJoe (
talk)
01:01, 27 February 2020 (UTC)reply
OK,
Necrothesp, I am not following you.
WP:NCPDAB contains the "there is no dominant qualifier" clause, which applies for Boscawen, and advocates for disambiguation by birth or death. Is it the *or* you're getting at? NCPDAB is not plain and direct on that, and gives no rationale for why "born 1712" is preferred to "1712-75". --
SmokeyJoe (
talk)
03:28, 28 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Please read the penultimate paragraph in full. Where do you notice full dates being mentioned? Both Charles Hawtreys are dead, yet only their birth dates are used in the examples. --
Necrothesp (
talk)
08:38, 28 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Support per nomination, Station1, Amakuru and Colin Gerhard. All-inclusive qualifiers such as "(soldier)" or "(officer)" are overly-broad in that a footsoldier or a field marshal can be a soldier and a second lieutenant or a general of the army can be an officer. There is no
Category:Lieutenants or
Category:Colonels, but there is
Category:Generals, thus indicating that the qualifier "(general)" is more apt in its specificity than "(officer)". —
Roman Spinner(talk •
contribs)00:35, 27 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Soldier is overly broad, for a soldier, and he was a parliamentarian. General is overly precise. The typical biography, eg Ref 2, refers to him as
BOSCAWEN, Hon. George (1712-75) (which Wikipedia would style as
George Boscawen (1712-75), loathing titles like "the honorable" that designate parliamentarians). The subject is given the following titles, sequentially:
The Honourable
Ensign
Captain
Deputy-Governor
Colonel
Major-General
Lieutenant-General
The Honourable
Insisting on picking a single occupation to disambiguate biographies of varied careers creates misleading titles. Better to disambiguate by something unambiguous, not single occupation summary, but birth-death. --
SmokeyJoe (
talk)
01:07, 27 February 2020 (UTC)reply
George Boscawen was not just a politician or an MP. The notion that any biography can be reduced to single occupation is flawed. If this is not true for the others, then the RM should not have been bundled. If it is true for the others, than all proposals are to be opposed.
George Boscawen (born 1712) is slightly less useful, and has no advantages over
George Boscawen (1712-75). Adding selected part occupations does not help. --
SmokeyJoe (
talk)
05:47, 27 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Army officer? He was an army officer only about a year less than he was politician. He was a Deputy-Governor for 25 years. It is counting every day including when ranked an Ensign. His only distinguishing description was for when he was a Captain, and that is probably being polite description of the only active thing he ever did. He appears to be a silver-spooned mediocrity, no active service as a (non-full) General is evident, before he was demoted back to service, and all being ceremonial positions. It is OK to characterize him as an "Army officer", but "General", absolutely not. He was not a real General, but a politician given army titles. No more a General than he was a real politician, for which he is distinguished for being undistinguished. The proposed move makes a bad title worse. I think the best title is
George Boscawen (1712-75). --
SmokeyJoe (
talk)
03:46, 28 February 2020 (UTC)reply
And why do you think he was appointed lieutenant-governor? Because he was an army officer! Those jobs were given to army officers! One is indistinguishable from the other. And note I've never proposed the article should be renamed to general. I've specifically opposed it. --
Necrothesp (
talk)
08:38, 28 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Comment. I'm frankly mystified as to the opposition to the long-established conventions at
WP:NCPDAB that are commonly used on many thousands of articles on Wikipedia (i.e. the use of birth date with a professional qualifier). As a "more specific qualifier" would involve a reader having to guess what rank the individual attained, surely the current titles clearly meet the terms of the penultimate paragraph. These arguments do seem to be tending towards
WP:IDONTLIKEIT. --
Necrothesp (
talk)
14:53, 27 February 2020 (UTC)reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this
talk page or in a
move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to
join the project and
contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the
documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a
list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the
full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles
This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
The following is a closed discussion of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a
move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
It was proposed in this section that multiple pages be
renamed and moved.
– "British Army officer" is insufficient disambiguation as there are other British Army officers of these names.
WP:NCPDAB says that, in situations like these, a more specific disambiguator should be used instead. The form (qualifier + DOB/D) should only be used [w]here the disambiguation can't be resolved in a straightforward manner by such more specific qualifiers; that is not the case here.
Opera hat (
talk) 18:29, 7 January 2020 (UTC) —Relisting.Steel1943 (
talk)
16:06, 28 January 2020 (UTC)reply
Oppose. The DOB form is the standard disambiguator and there is no reason whatsoever to disrupt the system for the sake of a couple of words. --
Necrothesp (
talk)
14:41, 15 January 2020 (UTC)reply
Support per nom and Station1. The DOB form is not the "standard disambiguator", it's explicitly for use as a last resort, as explained in the nom. And rightly so, because for most purposes it does a poor job of disambiguating. —
Amakuru (
talk)
11:40, 17 January 2020 (UTC)reply
Actually, it does a very good job of disambiguating, especially if the individuals have rather different lifetimes. Whereas rank doesn't. Did X reach the rank of colonel or major-general? For the most part, who knows? None of these officers are known as generals. None appear to have had significant commands (i.e. divisions, corps or armies) as generals. They probably received their ranks simply on the basis of seniority, as did many generals of their time. --
Necrothesp (
talk)
14:27, 17 January 2020 (UTC)reply
(British Army officer, born XXXX) is a five-word qualifier of which four words do not actually disambiguate at all. I wouldn't call that "a very good job".
Opera hat (
talk)
09:16, 26 January 2020 (UTC)reply
Better than a final rank that the user will have to guess at, surely? Especially for people not in any way known for being generals, but merely army officers. --
Necrothesp (
talk)
16:40, 27 January 2020 (UTC)reply
Oppose. Disambiguation by courtesy title, especially where it doesn’t properly correspond to his almost as long parliamentarian career. Title is fine as is. —
SmokeyJoe (
talk)
08:55, 1 February 2020 (UTC)reply
However, we try to avoid full dates in disambiguators. Otherwise that would be the standard disambiguator for everyone. We long ago decided it would not be. --
Necrothesp (
talk)
10:56, 10 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Do we? Says who? And why? What's wrong with a standard disambiguator for the long since dead, the one used in the majority of sources? --
SmokeyJoe (
talk)
01:01, 27 February 2020 (UTC)reply
OK,
Necrothesp, I am not following you.
WP:NCPDAB contains the "there is no dominant qualifier" clause, which applies for Boscawen, and advocates for disambiguation by birth or death. Is it the *or* you're getting at? NCPDAB is not plain and direct on that, and gives no rationale for why "born 1712" is preferred to "1712-75". --
SmokeyJoe (
talk)
03:28, 28 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Please read the penultimate paragraph in full. Where do you notice full dates being mentioned? Both Charles Hawtreys are dead, yet only their birth dates are used in the examples. --
Necrothesp (
talk)
08:38, 28 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Support per nomination, Station1, Amakuru and Colin Gerhard. All-inclusive qualifiers such as "(soldier)" or "(officer)" are overly-broad in that a footsoldier or a field marshal can be a soldier and a second lieutenant or a general of the army can be an officer. There is no
Category:Lieutenants or
Category:Colonels, but there is
Category:Generals, thus indicating that the qualifier "(general)" is more apt in its specificity than "(officer)". —
Roman Spinner(talk •
contribs)00:35, 27 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Soldier is overly broad, for a soldier, and he was a parliamentarian. General is overly precise. The typical biography, eg Ref 2, refers to him as
BOSCAWEN, Hon. George (1712-75) (which Wikipedia would style as
George Boscawen (1712-75), loathing titles like "the honorable" that designate parliamentarians). The subject is given the following titles, sequentially:
The Honourable
Ensign
Captain
Deputy-Governor
Colonel
Major-General
Lieutenant-General
The Honourable
Insisting on picking a single occupation to disambiguate biographies of varied careers creates misleading titles. Better to disambiguate by something unambiguous, not single occupation summary, but birth-death. --
SmokeyJoe (
talk)
01:07, 27 February 2020 (UTC)reply
George Boscawen was not just a politician or an MP. The notion that any biography can be reduced to single occupation is flawed. If this is not true for the others, then the RM should not have been bundled. If it is true for the others, than all proposals are to be opposed.
George Boscawen (born 1712) is slightly less useful, and has no advantages over
George Boscawen (1712-75). Adding selected part occupations does not help. --
SmokeyJoe (
talk)
05:47, 27 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Army officer? He was an army officer only about a year less than he was politician. He was a Deputy-Governor for 25 years. It is counting every day including when ranked an Ensign. His only distinguishing description was for when he was a Captain, and that is probably being polite description of the only active thing he ever did. He appears to be a silver-spooned mediocrity, no active service as a (non-full) General is evident, before he was demoted back to service, and all being ceremonial positions. It is OK to characterize him as an "Army officer", but "General", absolutely not. He was not a real General, but a politician given army titles. No more a General than he was a real politician, for which he is distinguished for being undistinguished. The proposed move makes a bad title worse. I think the best title is
George Boscawen (1712-75). --
SmokeyJoe (
talk)
03:46, 28 February 2020 (UTC)reply
And why do you think he was appointed lieutenant-governor? Because he was an army officer! Those jobs were given to army officers! One is indistinguishable from the other. And note I've never proposed the article should be renamed to general. I've specifically opposed it. --
Necrothesp (
talk)
08:38, 28 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Comment. I'm frankly mystified as to the opposition to the long-established conventions at
WP:NCPDAB that are commonly used on many thousands of articles on Wikipedia (i.e. the use of birth date with a professional qualifier). As a "more specific qualifier" would involve a reader having to guess what rank the individual attained, surely the current titles clearly meet the terms of the penultimate paragraph. These arguments do seem to be tending towards
WP:IDONTLIKEIT. --
Necrothesp (
talk)
14:53, 27 February 2020 (UTC)reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this
talk page or in a
move review. No further edits should be made to this section.