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William of Orange (disambiguation) → William of Orange. Not only one, but at least two Williams of Orange are widely known under that name, and more or less equally known, wherefore it is POV to redirect that name only to one of them.
This article has been renamed after the result of a move request. As most voters supporting option 1 also supported option 3 (several as a second choice), it is evident that the effective comparison is between options 1 and 2. As such I find that there is a consensus for moving the disambiguation page to William of Orange and have now done so. Dragons flight 18:44, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
Vote concluded 18:56, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
Options 1 to 4 in the same order as above.
1 2 3 4 1. Chardon 1 0 0 0 2. Arrigo 1 0 1 0 3. J.F. 1 1 0 0 4. J.K. 1 0 0 0 5. Jonath. 1 0 0 0 6. Lomed. 1 0 1 0 7. P.B.S. 0 1 0 0 8. Septent. 0 1 0 0 9. AxSkov 0 1 0 0 10. LiamE 0 1 0 0 11. F.S. 0 0 1 0 12. Noel 0 0 0 1 13. Peter 1 0 0 0 14. BV 1 0 1 0 15. Uppland 1 0 1 0 sum 9 5 5 1
60% treshold OK for "move" operation, already operated.
(provisional vote count report produced by
Francis Schonken 07:21, 27 August 2005 (UTC))
(keeping the vote results updated
Francis Schonken 17:54, 27 August 2005 (UTC))
(adding percentages to final vote count report
Francis Schonken 18:56, 28 August 2005 (UTC))
Isn't it in practical terms quite identical (1) to have the disambiguation page at William of Orange and the page William of Orange (disambiguation) redirected to precisely THAT; and (2) to have the page William of Orange redirected to William of Orange (disambiguation), as the page William of Orange (disambiguation) at that situation contains the disambiguation list. 217.140.193.123 07:04, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Doesn't it mean very fatal consequences to the contents of the disambiguation page as it is now, if firstly William of Orange (disambiguation) is moved to William of Orange, and then that William of Orange is edited bo be just a redirect to William III of England. I think that that solution means that the disambiguation will exist nowhere (= its contents are deleted away by that edit). 217.140.193.123 07:08, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Francis Schonken perhapse you are not aware that there is policy page Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles). This is why the vote is not quite as simple as it might be because the no one is suggesting that William III of England should be moved to William of Orange, but the vote is a simple choice: Either this page becomes a disambiguation or it remains a redirect to William III of England. Philip Baird Shearer 11:16, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
And that is precisely the reason why THIS should not be an approval vote. THIS should of course be a vote where one choice excludes the other. I blame Philip of making this as an approval vote. Now he himself has realized that the alternatives are mutually exclusive. 217.140.193.123 11:26, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Approval vote is imo generally good for renaming decisions. BUT, in this particular case, the situation had already crystallized as another sort: here, the additional step of what then is a further redirect or nothing, was one contended option, and the fate of the disambig page another. The vote was originally (before Philip decided to MOVE it - oh the irony) between these two alternatives. Personally, I cannot see any other alternative even remotely possible. Then, regarding proper use of approval vote (if it is used at all), it REQUIRES honesty of voters, no tactics nor manipulation. Voter shall approve those alternatives that are acceptable, and opprove them all. No such nonsense as "I would favor that and that but I know that it is not going to get accepted, therefore I write a compromise and vote only it". Approval voting is same as giving opinions which are acceptable. Not necessarily any of them wins outright, but it clears some air. Helping usually at least to scrap those alternatives that are non-supported. Leding to situation where possibly only two are left. Then, if decision is needed, those two are put against each other and see which of them wins. HERE in this case, we already had two clear-cut alternatives (and no one has suggested anything else that is either viable or not a non-alternative). 217.140.193.123 12:49, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Basically, the expert question is whether (1) William III is so overwhelmingly and justifiedly known as the only "William of Orange" in English-speaking culture that the said title should lead to his article, or (2) William III and William the Silent are both sufficiently much known as "William of Orange" in English-speaking culture and thus that title should be a disambiguation. IMO, Philip has too low requirements for application of the alternative (1). All other alternatives are either non-alternatives (instead they are practical identicals) or they will not win any support to speak of (and we know that in advance). Blank votes are not counted anyway, so that is just the same as to confess "not sufficient knowledge" and remain outside. 217.140.193.123 12:49, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I asked user talk:217.140.193.123 why he/she choose to remove his/her signature from a couple of the paragraphs here including the WP:RM proposal which kicked off this vote. See: history of this talk page. The answer was: "I do not want my signature to be transferred. As someone had done." You will notice that the first signature was a copy of the one on the WP:RM page which is needed because at the end of this vote as the proposal will be removed from the WP:RM page and this becomes the only place where the history of the proposition will remain. The second was an template:unsigned2 which was added by me because user talk:217.140.193.123 had chosen not to sign a contribution. I think this is a little hypocritical of 217.140.193.123 when in the conversation below 217.140.193.123 states: "The above is very difficult to read: one gets an impression of rant and ramble, as writers have not signed." Because I think it important that who said what is recorded , particularly the initial proposal, I have re-added the information as a sentence with my signature attached. Philip Baird Shearer 11:02, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
The dispute present at Talk:William of Orange has gone too long now. Time to see how much support each of these contentions receive.
There is not one William of Orange, there are many. Redirection to the disambiguation page makes that clear. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Chardon ( talk • contribs) 16:12, 19 June 2005 (UTC)
No English nationalism on Wikipedia please. William of Orange is not the same man as William III. Common usage does not justify the link. It only justifies laziness and unwillingness to adjust ones views. Chardon
What is the search line that you put into Google? (If you use -wikipedia you will remove most wikipedia entriees from the search)
Overall the vast majority of pages from the media, Ireland and academia (way in excess of 90%) in English when referring to "William of Orange" are referring to "William III of England".
So the vast majority of people who write in English and use the phrase "William of Orange" are referring to William III of England. It is reasonable to assume that most English Language speakers who put in "William of Orange" expect to go to an article about that man. For the small minority who do not, the first line of the article:
covers it. Given this information I hope you will see that redirecting William of Orange to William III of England is the best solution for wikipedia. I will not change the redirect again until you have had a chance to respond to this information. -- Philip Baird Shearer 10:15, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
[William of orange] without any quotes will return any page with William or orange or both which returns '5,440,000 English pages for William of orange' putting it in double quotes returns '84,000 English pages for "William of orange"'. About 10,000 of those are Wikipedia related: 74,300 English pages for "William of orange" -Wikipedia. So I do not think that your sample is a valid one leaving aside I am not sure how to sample such a mass of pages. We could look at every 100 and see to whom they refer.
Using a reputable UK and US new site (BBC and CNN), all UK and US academic sites, and "ie" for Ireland would seem like a reasonable sample. If you would like to suggest another organisations (eg New York Times) to add to the list then we can check those out as well.
It seems to me that you are trying to impose your views on this page without any evidence to back up the idea that the majority of English speaking people who are looking for "William of Orange" are not looking for information on King Billy. I on the other hand have shown you a reasonable sample of pages from reputable sources which show that the overwhelming use of the name "William of Orange" refer to King Billy. So "Common Usage" dictates that this page name should be directed to it's common usage. Philip Baird Shearer 18:40, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
As I said above I am willing to include other reputable sites -- but you have not suggested any. Nor have you suggested how we can sample the pages of 'Willim of Orange' to see if more than a small minority are for King Billy. Your "lingua franca of academia" is covered by the domains "ac.uk" and ".edu" but to add to the list (which apart from Australia are too small a sample to be useful):
If one puts in a google search ["Peter the Great" -russian] some pages are thrown up about other Peter the greats. Do you think that wikipedia page Peter the Great should point to a disambiguation page because in the first 20 links there are 6 other people/bands who use the title [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]?
I put it to you if a disambiguation is needed for Peter the Great the link to it should be added to the Peter I of Russia in the form used on the William III of England For other meaning of Peter the Great, see [Peter the Great (disambiguation)]. If you agree with this then why not "William of Orange" be treated the same way?
If I had only listed domains which were British (BBC and AC.UK) then your argument " Perhaps people in the UK do as the BBC site shows but England is only a small country." would hold some validity, but I deliberately also choose ".IE" which is Irish, "CNN" and ".EDU" which are American. It may be as you have stated "laziness and unwillingness to adjust ones views" that more than 90% English speakers who write to the domains I choose mean King Billy and probably do not know that there are a small minority of English speaking people who mean someone else, BUT this is an English Language encyclopaedia and the policy page which cover this ( Wikipedia:Naming conventions) state "''Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize," and also Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Page_naming which gives the explicit example of Rome. Why are you so willing to go against Wikipedia policy? Philip Baird Shearer
Funny how others "rant and ramble" but you do not answer a simpe question. Do you use the name User:Arrigo as well as user:217.140.193.123? You state "William the Silent is very known by that name, too. In very many places." Where are these very many places? Further the first line of article William III states: For other men named William of Orange, see William of Orange (disambiguation) Which covers those few instances were someone has the wrong William. I have spent some time laying out the resons with policy justifications as to why why page should redirect to William III. Yet you think it is OK to dismiss a constructive conversation with "we do not need to elaborate our opinions to you further, as it obviously is in vain anyway". This is not the way which adults go about discussing their diffrences (See Mony Pythons Argument Sketch for details) Philip Baird Shearer 18:47, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
You have not yet produced one piece of evidence to suggest that any significant population of English speakers use the term William of Orange meaning anyone other than King Billy. So apart from your opinion that they might, can you provide any evidence that this is true?
As to access. The difference between a this redirect pointing to King Billy and it pointing to the disambiguation is one click of a mouse if someone is searching for "William of Orange" and not looking for King Billy. But at the moment redirecting the link to the disambiguation page breaks the link on 61 articles (not including talk pages) which makes the change little short of vandalism. This is particularly pertinent as there are only 27 direct links to "William III of England" excluding date pages which suggests that the majority of authors of en.wikipedia pages expect William of Orange to link to a page about King Billy. You can not dismiss those authors as lazy as they are writing articles and expecting the link to point to the common English language use of the phrase "William of Orange". Even if we were to edit all 61 pages, and comply with your view of the phrase, the ratio suggests that more than half of new links would point to William of Orange expecting the article to be about King Billy. Philip Baird Shearer 15:16, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
How do you get the German site to give a "top rank to William I" because when I put in the queery they return:
The domains you have picked are not English speaking! Even so the majority of pages are for King Billy! If King Billy had not come to the throne of England then it is likely that in the English language usage would be similar to the Dutch where even the English pages tend to have meanings other than the Engish one.
I notice that that the Dutich wikipedia page nl:Willem van Oranje is set up exactly the way I am suggesting here. Clearly the most common meaning in Dutch of "Willem van Oranje" is "Willem de Zwijger" (William the Silent) and if someone wishes to find another "Willem van Oranje" then there on the first line is it artikel gaat over prins Willem I van Oranje-Nassau. Zie voor informatie over andere Willems van Oranje: nl:Willem van Oranje - Overzicht. As a native English speaker, I would not dream of insisting that the Dutch change their common usage to fit in with my views just because in Engish the common usage is diffrent from Dutch. If the Current Dutch solution is good enough for the Dutch page "Willem van Oranje" is a similar solution for the English page not acceptable to you? If you think the English page should point to a disambiguation why do you not change the Dutch page as well? Philip Baird Shearer 15:57, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
The page "William of Orange" is best to used as disambiguation page between all these Williams of Orange, as at least two of them, William the Silent and William III of England, are widely known as "William of Orange". Accordingly, the present disambiguation page should be moved there, and the redirect now there will be deleted before the move. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.140.193.123 ( talk • contribs) 14:02, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Although I would agree that the most common usage of "William of Orange" is for William III, it is also quite clear that in contexts where it is obvious that William III is not being discussed, this name is used in English for other people. In particular, William the Silent is a notable historical figure who is very frequently called just "William of Orange." I see no compelling reason why this page should not be a disambiguation page. The issue of what Dutch people do is completely separate, since the Dutch may use the term more exclusively for William the Silent than we do for William III. john k 00:43, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
I am unwilling to particularly accept google evidence here. William the Silent is an important enough figure that he is fairly frequently mentioned in English-language historical sources. When he is mentioned, he is frequently called "William of Orange." Obviously, as a King of England, William III is mentioned more in English than a Dutch statesman of a century earlier would be, and his also frequently called "William of Orange." But that doesn't mean that usage of "William of Orange" is unambiguous. There are at least 7 people who've been prominently called "William of Orange" and I see no reason why we should simply give the English king pride of place just because he has more absolute mentions under that name. john k 00:57, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, obviously I'm not going to convince you. But if I were, say, at some place in the Netherlands, and somebody said "this is where William of Orange was born," I would be completely uncertain as to which William of Orange was under discussion. "William of Orange," without modifier, is a common way of referring to William the Silent. "Napoleon," "Bismarck," and "London," at least, are pretty universally understood to have one principal meaning, except in very specific circumstances. Cricket ought to be a disambiguation page. john k 01:21, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
The majority (of references) does not suffice for the page being linked exclusively to the holder of "that majority of references". As is the case with Napoleon and Bismarck, it requires something like "the guy is the origin of all the other referenced things, and an overwhelming majority (=everyone, or almost everyone) understands the name to mean just or primarily that guy". Philip here is making too much of just a majority (if even it is). Please also remember that William III was not the origin of the "concept". Arrigo 07:08, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Originality is a measure, and it determines much of my vote here. Later, it may be included into the policy, as it well deserves it. Wellington should probably be changed into disambig page, when anyone thinks (excluding many NZers), it may as well be the duke as the city. Same possibly with Washington. Your examples are not convincing, as we see that they have not been thoroughly considered anyway. Arrigo 09:59, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Having pondered this for a while, the question, to me, is whether enough people come looking for one of the other "William of Orange"s to make it worth making all those people looking for this WoO go through a disambig page as their first stop (a point made to me recently by User:Niteowlneils here.) To put it more concretely, given that we have a link to William of Orange (disambiguation) at the top of this page, would we rather have:
versus
More bluntly, which group of people are we going to make work a bit harder? Alas, while I don't have hard data on the ratio N:M, I think you can pretty much bet than N >> M. Noel (talk) 21:29, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I don't think that the question of whether M or N is bigger can be dispositive. Because the presumption is that, unless there is compelling reason, we inconvenience N. So N, I think, has to be several orders of magnitude greater than M for William of Orange to redirect to William III of England. Otherwise, this logic dictates that any time we can prove a somewhat greater number of people looking for one meaning than another, the main page has to redirect. I give you, for instance, Georgia. I would imagine that a greater number of English speakers who say "Georgia" mean the US state than the country. It takes a long while (more than I have patience to go through) for a google search on "Georgia" to come up with anything but references to the U.S. state. But that doesn't mean we should make Georgia redirect to Georgia (U.S. state). Obviously, William of Orange is a more difficult case than this. But I don't think this principle is a valid one. The presumption should be that if a person enters a name which can refer to more than one person, they get a disambiguation page. If the name is so famously associated with one person that it is mere pedantry to create a disambiguation page, then it should be redirected. I think in this particular instance it is arguable that William III is much the most famous William of Orange in the English-speaking world. That being said, William the Silent is also quite famous and is also frequently called "William of Orange." I don't think that it is mere pedantry to distinguish William III from all the other Williams of Orange, as it would be to distinguish, say, Abraham Lincoln from others who have borne that name. john k 21:49, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Agreeing with John. Additionally, I see this as a POV item. We should not let POV in favor of England's king prevail, as William the silent is a sufficiently well-known contender of being well-known under same name to those who read English literature. Arrigo 22:41, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Napoleon was practically the original. Show me an earlier notable Napoleon with an own article here - I do not believe that possible person's notability (whoever it was) is even one-thousandth of Nappy the Emperor's. Arrigo 22:41, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
How would one come up with evidence of this, Philip? A google search of "William of Orange" reveals that of the top twenty results, 15 are for William III. But there's also one britannica search results page, one Dutch royal genealogy page that lists all the Williams of Orange, two for William the Silent, one for William III's father, and one for the future William II of the Netherlands. Of the next ten after that, four are for William the Silent, and one is an answers.com wikipedia mirror of the disambiguation page. The next ten google hits (31-40) also show several that refer to William the Silent. While William III definitely gets the majority of google hits, there are also a significant number for others who have that name, particularly William the Silent. I would say that it's at about 70%/30%. Given that, properly speaking, "William of Orange" with no disambiguator could be taken to apply only to William the Silent, that seems like enough to me to keep it at a disambiguation page. Doing a google search for Napoleon is more complicated, because there is the movie Napoleon Dynamite and various Napoleon brand products that mess with the results. But once you weed these out, Napoleon I seems to be much more the most prominent actual person associated with the name. And, at any rate, Google is not a terribly good measure for this, as it's going to tend to downplay historical figures, and upplay current products, and so forth. john k 00:22, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Of the twenty books that come up on Amazon with William of Orange in the title, 5 are clearly about William the Silent, one is about the troubador, and another few it is impossible to tell based on the information amazon provides. john k 00:28, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
John I assumed you used for your general search ["William of Orange" -Wikipedia] with the English flag set. You loose me when you say Given that, properly speaking, "William of Orange" with no disambiguator could be taken to apply only to William the Silent, because I would argue that in English (Not Dutch) as is shown in the internal Wikipedia links a unqualified reference to William of Orange tends to be to King Billy. As you can see from above I also did a lot of searches on different domains, mainly because I do not think that a general search is of much of an indicator as it often brings up wacky sites. In this case however the first 20 seem reasonable (I have not checked further). You will have read the other searches I did above on some major English (language) domains where the hit rate for King Billy is much higher 70%. However the policy in Wikipedia:Naming conventions states: Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. It does not qualify majority with a phrase like "over whelming", so if as you state the percentage is around 70% for King Billy and if you follow Wikipedia guidelines, you ought to change your vote to a redirect to William III of England. Philip Baird Shearer 08:06, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Ignoring the other issues, the key phrase is "a reasonable minimum of ambiguity." I think there is considerable ambiguity in William of Orange. It should also be noted that this is not a matter of naming conventions, which is about where articles should be. This is about redirecting and disambiguation. Is your argument here that any time we can say that one usage is more common than another, we should redirect (or have the main article there) rather than having a disambiguation page? Because that seems to be the import of what you are suggesting. 50%+1, and it can't be a disambiguation page. Personally, I just don't see what's wrong with having William of Orange be a disambiguation page. It is indisputable that William the Silent is frequently called William of Orange, and that he is a major historical figure. That he is less written about in English than his great-grandson is also true, but it remains the case that we have two historical figures who are both quite commonly referred to as "William of Orange". If this is not an instance that requires a disambiguation page, I find it hard to conceive ever having the main article be a disambiguation page. john k 16:26, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
And as there are so few they are easily fixed... Done Philip Baird Shearer 23:20, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
Proposing to put the following *temporarily* on the "William of Orange" page during the proceedings of the vote (see also: User_talk:Philip_Baird_Shearer#WoO):
{{NPOV}}
This is the simplified version of the William of Orange disambiguation page, mentioning only the two most frequent choices when referring to William of Orange:
See William of Orange (disambiguation) for all other persons named William of Orange.
{{disambig}}
if nobody objects, I'll proceed with that ASAP -- Francis Schonken 13:13, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
No no no. We do not need more than one disambiguation page about the topic. Please do not waste time in making different versions of that. Arrigo 20:53, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Whatever we have at William of Orange, it should not be an article, but rather, a redirect. Why? To make it easier to find incorrect links (since that name is ambiguous). The argument is laid out in full at User:Jnc/Disambiguation, but in brief: if William of Orange is a redirect, and all the articles (including the dismabiguation) have other names, then a simple look at Special:Whatlinkshere/William of Orange allows one to quickly find all articles that have linked (ambiguously, and incorrectly) to "William of Orange", and one can quickly fix them all to point to the correct place. That way, when one comes back 6 months later to do it again, one can be certain that all the links to "William of Orange" are new links, which have been incorrectly set to point here.
I'm not sure whether it would be better to point this redirect at William of Orange (disambiguation), or leave it at William III of England; still pondering. But we should absolutely not have an article here. Noel (talk) 16:37, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
What is the functional difference between having this page redirect to the disambiguation page, and having this page be the disambiguation page? Why is one acceptable, and the other not? john k 21:35, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I ought have read more closely. Personally, I don't like Noel's proposal, because it is a proposal designed to make things easier for wikipedia editors, rather than for wikipedia readers. Policies which benefit editors at the expense of readers should only be adopted in cases of utmost need. john k 14:59, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi Francis, as this is an Approval Vote, I sincerely hope that you could ALSO approve the alternative 1 and put one additional vote accordingly. I have observed that it is certainly not your preferred alternative, however from your comments I have drawn implications that you could approve that also (as a sort of secondary choice). Arrigo 11:48, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
OK. I try to understand. I thought, based on your "I can't see the difference it makes for the reader" that it is generally not such a big difference. Apparently it is, despite of what you told John. Arrigo 12:08, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
How did I start a page move war? I moved the page to conform to naming conventions, and you moved it back. It seems to me that the war is begun by the first person to revert. Beyond that fact, I changed all the redirects (as did you) meaning that the main thing that is discouraged, leaving behind orphaned redirects, was not a problem in this case. But at any rate, I completely fail to see how I can be considered the one to start a move war. You moved a page back in complete violation of the naming convention, and then attack me for moving it back? john k 06:08, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, to be fair, Francis didn't accuse me of vandalism. Beyond this, let me note that beyond the fact of provinces getting elevated and numbers repeating, there's also the issue that a title like "Prince of Orange" may be considered more like a noble title than it is like a monarchical one. Thus, just as we have John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough we have William I, Prince of Orange. I will add that before we created the naming policy on sub-king monarchs, there was simply no policy at all, and articles were just put willy nilly wherever the article creator felt like, with no consistency at all. The change proposed did not meet with any notable opposition when I suggested it on the naming policy talk page, and without it, we are back to not having any policy on these people at all. john k 15:39, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes, there is also the sort of problem that readers may confuse William the silent with the 1st king. Hmmm. Arrigo 16:02, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
The problem is very similar to the "first Roman Emperor" problem (if not acquainted, see Roman Emperor#The first Roman Emperor): William the Silent is pretty much considered the "founder" of the Royal dynasty, only very much later leading to the first official "Monarch" in The Netherlands (and then only by accident, because the French invaded and put a king on the throne - after the "Orange-Nassau" heirs had contributed to eliminating Napoleon, they kept the royal title). This all very much coincides with Julius Caesar being the founder of the Roman Imperial monarchy, and historians are still discussing on whether he, or his successor, or the successor of his successor, or only the nth generation after that was really what we call today an "emperor". There appears to be the most scholar consensus about Augustus being the first emperor, but then still at which date he turned into emperor is object of further futile (or not futile!) discussions among historians. Thanks to Napoleon for The Netherlands the picture is clearer, who was the first king (with, not surprisingly, discussions whether the date Napoleon put a king on the throne qualifies as start of the monarchy or not)
The point is: Wikipedia should not take sides in these issues, and certainly not by means of the title of article pages: in the content of such articles there is room enough to give a NPOV approach of these issues, that is: explain the several approaches by scholars. For articles relating to Imperial Rome some sort of an equilibrium developed, those collaborating on that equilibrium know it needs additional support every once and a while, so that it wouldn't tilt to one of the extremes.
Part of the equilibrium is not naming anything that looks like a monarchical title or office in the pages for these Roman civilians that might or might not be monarchs. Besides: one wouldn't know which one to choose from: Augustus, princeps, or Augustus, pontifex maximus, or... just wouldn't work (and then I didn't speak yet of all the possible combinations). For Pharaohs it would be even greater mess to apply J.K.'s new guideline, while for some it would be Tutankhamun without anything behind it, and then suddenly from the moment they were conquered by Rome that would turn into Ptolemy XXXXX, pharaoh of Egypt or would that need to be Ptolemy XXXXX, king of Egypt, or Ptolemy XXXXX, vassal, or weren't they already vassals under the Greeks and the Persians before that, and we're gone again for an endless dispute (not to mention what Cleopatra yes or no would need to get behind her name).
So despite the effort that already went into it, I consider J.K.'s new experimental guideline unworkable:
A minor similar thing was when I thought Plato's writings needed "special rules" to keep the articles on these writings organised: till I found out existing guidelines, though put in very general terms, suffise. The "top down scheme" didn't work (not that I complained occupying myself with it: correct names were better applied, and the whole thing did get organised better).
The fact that initially there was "not much opposition" doesn't mean a thing: there is now, from all sides at the time when it is implemented and proves unworkable for near to 50% of the submonarchs that "could" be hit by it.
The simple rule is that one gives the simplest article name that is unambiguous and easily recognised:
If the title reflects what a person is known by the most: fine, but cut it away if it adds redundant complexity for recognising whom you're talking about.
Indeed wikipedia is not a list of royalty (gee, I should add that to the "what wikipedia is not" page), too many of you, from whatever faction, have been blinded by that. After several months of discussion we know the two are not compatible. Either you go to specialised "who's who in nobility" lists outside wikipedia, or you try to adapt.
Nonetheless, wikipedia has many, many rooms and possibilities: categories, to name one. and lists is yet another, and very appropriate for listing dynastic successions. Or family trees, with a lay-out that makes easy to follow the dynastic line, if you don't know where they are I can point you to some that are really nicely wrought. Another, that is probably still one of the most appropriate for making clear lines in succession of nobility are "navigational templates". Yes, they're a bit more work than snatching article titles, but really much more rewarding.
And, I would revert the name of William the Silent's article page back to what I think it was a very, very, long time ago: "William the Silent", or as only second solution I think only more or less reasonable, "William I of Orange" (but if voting, on second thought I would be voting against this: all in all too problematic).
-- Francis Schonken 18:11, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
See also: Talk:William III of England/Archive 1#redirect from William of Orange
Lame fame: William of Orange (disambiguation), William of Orange (see edit history at [12]) was the name of two important and well-known protestant Heads of State and also of some obscurer individuals in mists of history - or was He just only one King of England and all the others are minor characters. That became the object of a dispute over a redirect. This vital question divided a bunch of eminent readers of history and led to revert war that alternated the redirect almost each hour. Casual viewers were holding their breaths when coming smiling to check what is the current position of that weathervane. As the name's usage in English-speaking cultures was perceived the determining factor, see attempts to almost hand-count English-speakers in New Zealand, South Africa etc - all apparently using the hallowed name in certain way. Extensive and in-depth argumentation in several talk pages and usertalk pages included claims of original primary authorship of a redirect as well as accusations of nationalistic POV, filibusters and "using all the tricks in the box". This teaches us some things about disambiguation pages and potential problems surrounding even such tools. Nothing has been settled yet, and all the time more fallout is generating (comment from 217.140.193.123 13:03, 28 August 2005 (UTC)):
I've sometimes seen William III of England referred to as "William of OranJe", and I created a redirect page for William of Oranje->William III of England. I don't know how to fit it into the bigger picture, but thought I'd just post it here as an FYI JW ( talk) 20:43, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
William of Orange <-> Willem van Oranje
All the same, simply point it to this disamb. page. Daimanta ( talk) 01:01, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
This page seems to be a hybrid of an article and a disambiguation page. It seems to me that William III should be put after a generic one sentence intro and that the TOC should either be after that or suppressed. Does anyone object to making this a more standard dab page? - Rrius ( talk) 04:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
he ruled ireland 4 some time —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.81.224 ( talk) 18:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Disambiguation | ||||
|
William of Orange (disambiguation) → William of Orange. Not only one, but at least two Williams of Orange are widely known under that name, and more or less equally known, wherefore it is POV to redirect that name only to one of them.
This article has been renamed after the result of a move request. As most voters supporting option 1 also supported option 3 (several as a second choice), it is evident that the effective comparison is between options 1 and 2. As such I find that there is a consensus for moving the disambiguation page to William of Orange and have now done so. Dragons flight 18:44, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
Vote concluded 18:56, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
Options 1 to 4 in the same order as above.
1 2 3 4 1. Chardon 1 0 0 0 2. Arrigo 1 0 1 0 3. J.F. 1 1 0 0 4. J.K. 1 0 0 0 5. Jonath. 1 0 0 0 6. Lomed. 1 0 1 0 7. P.B.S. 0 1 0 0 8. Septent. 0 1 0 0 9. AxSkov 0 1 0 0 10. LiamE 0 1 0 0 11. F.S. 0 0 1 0 12. Noel 0 0 0 1 13. Peter 1 0 0 0 14. BV 1 0 1 0 15. Uppland 1 0 1 0 sum 9 5 5 1
60% treshold OK for "move" operation, already operated.
(provisional vote count report produced by
Francis Schonken 07:21, 27 August 2005 (UTC))
(keeping the vote results updated
Francis Schonken 17:54, 27 August 2005 (UTC))
(adding percentages to final vote count report
Francis Schonken 18:56, 28 August 2005 (UTC))
Isn't it in practical terms quite identical (1) to have the disambiguation page at William of Orange and the page William of Orange (disambiguation) redirected to precisely THAT; and (2) to have the page William of Orange redirected to William of Orange (disambiguation), as the page William of Orange (disambiguation) at that situation contains the disambiguation list. 217.140.193.123 07:04, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Doesn't it mean very fatal consequences to the contents of the disambiguation page as it is now, if firstly William of Orange (disambiguation) is moved to William of Orange, and then that William of Orange is edited bo be just a redirect to William III of England. I think that that solution means that the disambiguation will exist nowhere (= its contents are deleted away by that edit). 217.140.193.123 07:08, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Francis Schonken perhapse you are not aware that there is policy page Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles). This is why the vote is not quite as simple as it might be because the no one is suggesting that William III of England should be moved to William of Orange, but the vote is a simple choice: Either this page becomes a disambiguation or it remains a redirect to William III of England. Philip Baird Shearer 11:16, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
And that is precisely the reason why THIS should not be an approval vote. THIS should of course be a vote where one choice excludes the other. I blame Philip of making this as an approval vote. Now he himself has realized that the alternatives are mutually exclusive. 217.140.193.123 11:26, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Approval vote is imo generally good for renaming decisions. BUT, in this particular case, the situation had already crystallized as another sort: here, the additional step of what then is a further redirect or nothing, was one contended option, and the fate of the disambig page another. The vote was originally (before Philip decided to MOVE it - oh the irony) between these two alternatives. Personally, I cannot see any other alternative even remotely possible. Then, regarding proper use of approval vote (if it is used at all), it REQUIRES honesty of voters, no tactics nor manipulation. Voter shall approve those alternatives that are acceptable, and opprove them all. No such nonsense as "I would favor that and that but I know that it is not going to get accepted, therefore I write a compromise and vote only it". Approval voting is same as giving opinions which are acceptable. Not necessarily any of them wins outright, but it clears some air. Helping usually at least to scrap those alternatives that are non-supported. Leding to situation where possibly only two are left. Then, if decision is needed, those two are put against each other and see which of them wins. HERE in this case, we already had two clear-cut alternatives (and no one has suggested anything else that is either viable or not a non-alternative). 217.140.193.123 12:49, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Basically, the expert question is whether (1) William III is so overwhelmingly and justifiedly known as the only "William of Orange" in English-speaking culture that the said title should lead to his article, or (2) William III and William the Silent are both sufficiently much known as "William of Orange" in English-speaking culture and thus that title should be a disambiguation. IMO, Philip has too low requirements for application of the alternative (1). All other alternatives are either non-alternatives (instead they are practical identicals) or they will not win any support to speak of (and we know that in advance). Blank votes are not counted anyway, so that is just the same as to confess "not sufficient knowledge" and remain outside. 217.140.193.123 12:49, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I asked user talk:217.140.193.123 why he/she choose to remove his/her signature from a couple of the paragraphs here including the WP:RM proposal which kicked off this vote. See: history of this talk page. The answer was: "I do not want my signature to be transferred. As someone had done." You will notice that the first signature was a copy of the one on the WP:RM page which is needed because at the end of this vote as the proposal will be removed from the WP:RM page and this becomes the only place where the history of the proposition will remain. The second was an template:unsigned2 which was added by me because user talk:217.140.193.123 had chosen not to sign a contribution. I think this is a little hypocritical of 217.140.193.123 when in the conversation below 217.140.193.123 states: "The above is very difficult to read: one gets an impression of rant and ramble, as writers have not signed." Because I think it important that who said what is recorded , particularly the initial proposal, I have re-added the information as a sentence with my signature attached. Philip Baird Shearer 11:02, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
The dispute present at Talk:William of Orange has gone too long now. Time to see how much support each of these contentions receive.
There is not one William of Orange, there are many. Redirection to the disambiguation page makes that clear. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Chardon ( talk • contribs) 16:12, 19 June 2005 (UTC)
No English nationalism on Wikipedia please. William of Orange is not the same man as William III. Common usage does not justify the link. It only justifies laziness and unwillingness to adjust ones views. Chardon
What is the search line that you put into Google? (If you use -wikipedia you will remove most wikipedia entriees from the search)
Overall the vast majority of pages from the media, Ireland and academia (way in excess of 90%) in English when referring to "William of Orange" are referring to "William III of England".
So the vast majority of people who write in English and use the phrase "William of Orange" are referring to William III of England. It is reasonable to assume that most English Language speakers who put in "William of Orange" expect to go to an article about that man. For the small minority who do not, the first line of the article:
covers it. Given this information I hope you will see that redirecting William of Orange to William III of England is the best solution for wikipedia. I will not change the redirect again until you have had a chance to respond to this information. -- Philip Baird Shearer 10:15, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
[William of orange] without any quotes will return any page with William or orange or both which returns '5,440,000 English pages for William of orange' putting it in double quotes returns '84,000 English pages for "William of orange"'. About 10,000 of those are Wikipedia related: 74,300 English pages for "William of orange" -Wikipedia. So I do not think that your sample is a valid one leaving aside I am not sure how to sample such a mass of pages. We could look at every 100 and see to whom they refer.
Using a reputable UK and US new site (BBC and CNN), all UK and US academic sites, and "ie" for Ireland would seem like a reasonable sample. If you would like to suggest another organisations (eg New York Times) to add to the list then we can check those out as well.
It seems to me that you are trying to impose your views on this page without any evidence to back up the idea that the majority of English speaking people who are looking for "William of Orange" are not looking for information on King Billy. I on the other hand have shown you a reasonable sample of pages from reputable sources which show that the overwhelming use of the name "William of Orange" refer to King Billy. So "Common Usage" dictates that this page name should be directed to it's common usage. Philip Baird Shearer 18:40, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
As I said above I am willing to include other reputable sites -- but you have not suggested any. Nor have you suggested how we can sample the pages of 'Willim of Orange' to see if more than a small minority are for King Billy. Your "lingua franca of academia" is covered by the domains "ac.uk" and ".edu" but to add to the list (which apart from Australia are too small a sample to be useful):
If one puts in a google search ["Peter the Great" -russian] some pages are thrown up about other Peter the greats. Do you think that wikipedia page Peter the Great should point to a disambiguation page because in the first 20 links there are 6 other people/bands who use the title [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]?
I put it to you if a disambiguation is needed for Peter the Great the link to it should be added to the Peter I of Russia in the form used on the William III of England For other meaning of Peter the Great, see [Peter the Great (disambiguation)]. If you agree with this then why not "William of Orange" be treated the same way?
If I had only listed domains which were British (BBC and AC.UK) then your argument " Perhaps people in the UK do as the BBC site shows but England is only a small country." would hold some validity, but I deliberately also choose ".IE" which is Irish, "CNN" and ".EDU" which are American. It may be as you have stated "laziness and unwillingness to adjust ones views" that more than 90% English speakers who write to the domains I choose mean King Billy and probably do not know that there are a small minority of English speaking people who mean someone else, BUT this is an English Language encyclopaedia and the policy page which cover this ( Wikipedia:Naming conventions) state "''Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize," and also Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Page_naming which gives the explicit example of Rome. Why are you so willing to go against Wikipedia policy? Philip Baird Shearer
Funny how others "rant and ramble" but you do not answer a simpe question. Do you use the name User:Arrigo as well as user:217.140.193.123? You state "William the Silent is very known by that name, too. In very many places." Where are these very many places? Further the first line of article William III states: For other men named William of Orange, see William of Orange (disambiguation) Which covers those few instances were someone has the wrong William. I have spent some time laying out the resons with policy justifications as to why why page should redirect to William III. Yet you think it is OK to dismiss a constructive conversation with "we do not need to elaborate our opinions to you further, as it obviously is in vain anyway". This is not the way which adults go about discussing their diffrences (See Mony Pythons Argument Sketch for details) Philip Baird Shearer 18:47, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
You have not yet produced one piece of evidence to suggest that any significant population of English speakers use the term William of Orange meaning anyone other than King Billy. So apart from your opinion that they might, can you provide any evidence that this is true?
As to access. The difference between a this redirect pointing to King Billy and it pointing to the disambiguation is one click of a mouse if someone is searching for "William of Orange" and not looking for King Billy. But at the moment redirecting the link to the disambiguation page breaks the link on 61 articles (not including talk pages) which makes the change little short of vandalism. This is particularly pertinent as there are only 27 direct links to "William III of England" excluding date pages which suggests that the majority of authors of en.wikipedia pages expect William of Orange to link to a page about King Billy. You can not dismiss those authors as lazy as they are writing articles and expecting the link to point to the common English language use of the phrase "William of Orange". Even if we were to edit all 61 pages, and comply with your view of the phrase, the ratio suggests that more than half of new links would point to William of Orange expecting the article to be about King Billy. Philip Baird Shearer 15:16, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
How do you get the German site to give a "top rank to William I" because when I put in the queery they return:
The domains you have picked are not English speaking! Even so the majority of pages are for King Billy! If King Billy had not come to the throne of England then it is likely that in the English language usage would be similar to the Dutch where even the English pages tend to have meanings other than the Engish one.
I notice that that the Dutich wikipedia page nl:Willem van Oranje is set up exactly the way I am suggesting here. Clearly the most common meaning in Dutch of "Willem van Oranje" is "Willem de Zwijger" (William the Silent) and if someone wishes to find another "Willem van Oranje" then there on the first line is it artikel gaat over prins Willem I van Oranje-Nassau. Zie voor informatie over andere Willems van Oranje: nl:Willem van Oranje - Overzicht. As a native English speaker, I would not dream of insisting that the Dutch change their common usage to fit in with my views just because in Engish the common usage is diffrent from Dutch. If the Current Dutch solution is good enough for the Dutch page "Willem van Oranje" is a similar solution for the English page not acceptable to you? If you think the English page should point to a disambiguation why do you not change the Dutch page as well? Philip Baird Shearer 15:57, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
The page "William of Orange" is best to used as disambiguation page between all these Williams of Orange, as at least two of them, William the Silent and William III of England, are widely known as "William of Orange". Accordingly, the present disambiguation page should be moved there, and the redirect now there will be deleted before the move. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.140.193.123 ( talk • contribs) 14:02, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Although I would agree that the most common usage of "William of Orange" is for William III, it is also quite clear that in contexts where it is obvious that William III is not being discussed, this name is used in English for other people. In particular, William the Silent is a notable historical figure who is very frequently called just "William of Orange." I see no compelling reason why this page should not be a disambiguation page. The issue of what Dutch people do is completely separate, since the Dutch may use the term more exclusively for William the Silent than we do for William III. john k 00:43, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
I am unwilling to particularly accept google evidence here. William the Silent is an important enough figure that he is fairly frequently mentioned in English-language historical sources. When he is mentioned, he is frequently called "William of Orange." Obviously, as a King of England, William III is mentioned more in English than a Dutch statesman of a century earlier would be, and his also frequently called "William of Orange." But that doesn't mean that usage of "William of Orange" is unambiguous. There are at least 7 people who've been prominently called "William of Orange" and I see no reason why we should simply give the English king pride of place just because he has more absolute mentions under that name. john k 00:57, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, obviously I'm not going to convince you. But if I were, say, at some place in the Netherlands, and somebody said "this is where William of Orange was born," I would be completely uncertain as to which William of Orange was under discussion. "William of Orange," without modifier, is a common way of referring to William the Silent. "Napoleon," "Bismarck," and "London," at least, are pretty universally understood to have one principal meaning, except in very specific circumstances. Cricket ought to be a disambiguation page. john k 01:21, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
The majority (of references) does not suffice for the page being linked exclusively to the holder of "that majority of references". As is the case with Napoleon and Bismarck, it requires something like "the guy is the origin of all the other referenced things, and an overwhelming majority (=everyone, or almost everyone) understands the name to mean just or primarily that guy". Philip here is making too much of just a majority (if even it is). Please also remember that William III was not the origin of the "concept". Arrigo 07:08, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Originality is a measure, and it determines much of my vote here. Later, it may be included into the policy, as it well deserves it. Wellington should probably be changed into disambig page, when anyone thinks (excluding many NZers), it may as well be the duke as the city. Same possibly with Washington. Your examples are not convincing, as we see that they have not been thoroughly considered anyway. Arrigo 09:59, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Having pondered this for a while, the question, to me, is whether enough people come looking for one of the other "William of Orange"s to make it worth making all those people looking for this WoO go through a disambig page as their first stop (a point made to me recently by User:Niteowlneils here.) To put it more concretely, given that we have a link to William of Orange (disambiguation) at the top of this page, would we rather have:
versus
More bluntly, which group of people are we going to make work a bit harder? Alas, while I don't have hard data on the ratio N:M, I think you can pretty much bet than N >> M. Noel (talk) 21:29, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I don't think that the question of whether M or N is bigger can be dispositive. Because the presumption is that, unless there is compelling reason, we inconvenience N. So N, I think, has to be several orders of magnitude greater than M for William of Orange to redirect to William III of England. Otherwise, this logic dictates that any time we can prove a somewhat greater number of people looking for one meaning than another, the main page has to redirect. I give you, for instance, Georgia. I would imagine that a greater number of English speakers who say "Georgia" mean the US state than the country. It takes a long while (more than I have patience to go through) for a google search on "Georgia" to come up with anything but references to the U.S. state. But that doesn't mean we should make Georgia redirect to Georgia (U.S. state). Obviously, William of Orange is a more difficult case than this. But I don't think this principle is a valid one. The presumption should be that if a person enters a name which can refer to more than one person, they get a disambiguation page. If the name is so famously associated with one person that it is mere pedantry to create a disambiguation page, then it should be redirected. I think in this particular instance it is arguable that William III is much the most famous William of Orange in the English-speaking world. That being said, William the Silent is also quite famous and is also frequently called "William of Orange." I don't think that it is mere pedantry to distinguish William III from all the other Williams of Orange, as it would be to distinguish, say, Abraham Lincoln from others who have borne that name. john k 21:49, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Agreeing with John. Additionally, I see this as a POV item. We should not let POV in favor of England's king prevail, as William the silent is a sufficiently well-known contender of being well-known under same name to those who read English literature. Arrigo 22:41, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Napoleon was practically the original. Show me an earlier notable Napoleon with an own article here - I do not believe that possible person's notability (whoever it was) is even one-thousandth of Nappy the Emperor's. Arrigo 22:41, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
How would one come up with evidence of this, Philip? A google search of "William of Orange" reveals that of the top twenty results, 15 are for William III. But there's also one britannica search results page, one Dutch royal genealogy page that lists all the Williams of Orange, two for William the Silent, one for William III's father, and one for the future William II of the Netherlands. Of the next ten after that, four are for William the Silent, and one is an answers.com wikipedia mirror of the disambiguation page. The next ten google hits (31-40) also show several that refer to William the Silent. While William III definitely gets the majority of google hits, there are also a significant number for others who have that name, particularly William the Silent. I would say that it's at about 70%/30%. Given that, properly speaking, "William of Orange" with no disambiguator could be taken to apply only to William the Silent, that seems like enough to me to keep it at a disambiguation page. Doing a google search for Napoleon is more complicated, because there is the movie Napoleon Dynamite and various Napoleon brand products that mess with the results. But once you weed these out, Napoleon I seems to be much more the most prominent actual person associated with the name. And, at any rate, Google is not a terribly good measure for this, as it's going to tend to downplay historical figures, and upplay current products, and so forth. john k 00:22, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Of the twenty books that come up on Amazon with William of Orange in the title, 5 are clearly about William the Silent, one is about the troubador, and another few it is impossible to tell based on the information amazon provides. john k 00:28, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
John I assumed you used for your general search ["William of Orange" -Wikipedia] with the English flag set. You loose me when you say Given that, properly speaking, "William of Orange" with no disambiguator could be taken to apply only to William the Silent, because I would argue that in English (Not Dutch) as is shown in the internal Wikipedia links a unqualified reference to William of Orange tends to be to King Billy. As you can see from above I also did a lot of searches on different domains, mainly because I do not think that a general search is of much of an indicator as it often brings up wacky sites. In this case however the first 20 seem reasonable (I have not checked further). You will have read the other searches I did above on some major English (language) domains where the hit rate for King Billy is much higher 70%. However the policy in Wikipedia:Naming conventions states: Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. It does not qualify majority with a phrase like "over whelming", so if as you state the percentage is around 70% for King Billy and if you follow Wikipedia guidelines, you ought to change your vote to a redirect to William III of England. Philip Baird Shearer 08:06, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Ignoring the other issues, the key phrase is "a reasonable minimum of ambiguity." I think there is considerable ambiguity in William of Orange. It should also be noted that this is not a matter of naming conventions, which is about where articles should be. This is about redirecting and disambiguation. Is your argument here that any time we can say that one usage is more common than another, we should redirect (or have the main article there) rather than having a disambiguation page? Because that seems to be the import of what you are suggesting. 50%+1, and it can't be a disambiguation page. Personally, I just don't see what's wrong with having William of Orange be a disambiguation page. It is indisputable that William the Silent is frequently called William of Orange, and that he is a major historical figure. That he is less written about in English than his great-grandson is also true, but it remains the case that we have two historical figures who are both quite commonly referred to as "William of Orange". If this is not an instance that requires a disambiguation page, I find it hard to conceive ever having the main article be a disambiguation page. john k 16:26, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
And as there are so few they are easily fixed... Done Philip Baird Shearer 23:20, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
Proposing to put the following *temporarily* on the "William of Orange" page during the proceedings of the vote (see also: User_talk:Philip_Baird_Shearer#WoO):
{{NPOV}}
This is the simplified version of the William of Orange disambiguation page, mentioning only the two most frequent choices when referring to William of Orange:
See William of Orange (disambiguation) for all other persons named William of Orange.
{{disambig}}
if nobody objects, I'll proceed with that ASAP -- Francis Schonken 13:13, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
No no no. We do not need more than one disambiguation page about the topic. Please do not waste time in making different versions of that. Arrigo 20:53, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Whatever we have at William of Orange, it should not be an article, but rather, a redirect. Why? To make it easier to find incorrect links (since that name is ambiguous). The argument is laid out in full at User:Jnc/Disambiguation, but in brief: if William of Orange is a redirect, and all the articles (including the dismabiguation) have other names, then a simple look at Special:Whatlinkshere/William of Orange allows one to quickly find all articles that have linked (ambiguously, and incorrectly) to "William of Orange", and one can quickly fix them all to point to the correct place. That way, when one comes back 6 months later to do it again, one can be certain that all the links to "William of Orange" are new links, which have been incorrectly set to point here.
I'm not sure whether it would be better to point this redirect at William of Orange (disambiguation), or leave it at William III of England; still pondering. But we should absolutely not have an article here. Noel (talk) 16:37, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
What is the functional difference between having this page redirect to the disambiguation page, and having this page be the disambiguation page? Why is one acceptable, and the other not? john k 21:35, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I ought have read more closely. Personally, I don't like Noel's proposal, because it is a proposal designed to make things easier for wikipedia editors, rather than for wikipedia readers. Policies which benefit editors at the expense of readers should only be adopted in cases of utmost need. john k 14:59, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi Francis, as this is an Approval Vote, I sincerely hope that you could ALSO approve the alternative 1 and put one additional vote accordingly. I have observed that it is certainly not your preferred alternative, however from your comments I have drawn implications that you could approve that also (as a sort of secondary choice). Arrigo 11:48, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
OK. I try to understand. I thought, based on your "I can't see the difference it makes for the reader" that it is generally not such a big difference. Apparently it is, despite of what you told John. Arrigo 12:08, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
How did I start a page move war? I moved the page to conform to naming conventions, and you moved it back. It seems to me that the war is begun by the first person to revert. Beyond that fact, I changed all the redirects (as did you) meaning that the main thing that is discouraged, leaving behind orphaned redirects, was not a problem in this case. But at any rate, I completely fail to see how I can be considered the one to start a move war. You moved a page back in complete violation of the naming convention, and then attack me for moving it back? john k 06:08, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, to be fair, Francis didn't accuse me of vandalism. Beyond this, let me note that beyond the fact of provinces getting elevated and numbers repeating, there's also the issue that a title like "Prince of Orange" may be considered more like a noble title than it is like a monarchical one. Thus, just as we have John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough we have William I, Prince of Orange. I will add that before we created the naming policy on sub-king monarchs, there was simply no policy at all, and articles were just put willy nilly wherever the article creator felt like, with no consistency at all. The change proposed did not meet with any notable opposition when I suggested it on the naming policy talk page, and without it, we are back to not having any policy on these people at all. john k 15:39, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes, there is also the sort of problem that readers may confuse William the silent with the 1st king. Hmmm. Arrigo 16:02, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
The problem is very similar to the "first Roman Emperor" problem (if not acquainted, see Roman Emperor#The first Roman Emperor): William the Silent is pretty much considered the "founder" of the Royal dynasty, only very much later leading to the first official "Monarch" in The Netherlands (and then only by accident, because the French invaded and put a king on the throne - after the "Orange-Nassau" heirs had contributed to eliminating Napoleon, they kept the royal title). This all very much coincides with Julius Caesar being the founder of the Roman Imperial monarchy, and historians are still discussing on whether he, or his successor, or the successor of his successor, or only the nth generation after that was really what we call today an "emperor". There appears to be the most scholar consensus about Augustus being the first emperor, but then still at which date he turned into emperor is object of further futile (or not futile!) discussions among historians. Thanks to Napoleon for The Netherlands the picture is clearer, who was the first king (with, not surprisingly, discussions whether the date Napoleon put a king on the throne qualifies as start of the monarchy or not)
The point is: Wikipedia should not take sides in these issues, and certainly not by means of the title of article pages: in the content of such articles there is room enough to give a NPOV approach of these issues, that is: explain the several approaches by scholars. For articles relating to Imperial Rome some sort of an equilibrium developed, those collaborating on that equilibrium know it needs additional support every once and a while, so that it wouldn't tilt to one of the extremes.
Part of the equilibrium is not naming anything that looks like a monarchical title or office in the pages for these Roman civilians that might or might not be monarchs. Besides: one wouldn't know which one to choose from: Augustus, princeps, or Augustus, pontifex maximus, or... just wouldn't work (and then I didn't speak yet of all the possible combinations). For Pharaohs it would be even greater mess to apply J.K.'s new guideline, while for some it would be Tutankhamun without anything behind it, and then suddenly from the moment they were conquered by Rome that would turn into Ptolemy XXXXX, pharaoh of Egypt or would that need to be Ptolemy XXXXX, king of Egypt, or Ptolemy XXXXX, vassal, or weren't they already vassals under the Greeks and the Persians before that, and we're gone again for an endless dispute (not to mention what Cleopatra yes or no would need to get behind her name).
So despite the effort that already went into it, I consider J.K.'s new experimental guideline unworkable:
A minor similar thing was when I thought Plato's writings needed "special rules" to keep the articles on these writings organised: till I found out existing guidelines, though put in very general terms, suffise. The "top down scheme" didn't work (not that I complained occupying myself with it: correct names were better applied, and the whole thing did get organised better).
The fact that initially there was "not much opposition" doesn't mean a thing: there is now, from all sides at the time when it is implemented and proves unworkable for near to 50% of the submonarchs that "could" be hit by it.
The simple rule is that one gives the simplest article name that is unambiguous and easily recognised:
If the title reflects what a person is known by the most: fine, but cut it away if it adds redundant complexity for recognising whom you're talking about.
Indeed wikipedia is not a list of royalty (gee, I should add that to the "what wikipedia is not" page), too many of you, from whatever faction, have been blinded by that. After several months of discussion we know the two are not compatible. Either you go to specialised "who's who in nobility" lists outside wikipedia, or you try to adapt.
Nonetheless, wikipedia has many, many rooms and possibilities: categories, to name one. and lists is yet another, and very appropriate for listing dynastic successions. Or family trees, with a lay-out that makes easy to follow the dynastic line, if you don't know where they are I can point you to some that are really nicely wrought. Another, that is probably still one of the most appropriate for making clear lines in succession of nobility are "navigational templates". Yes, they're a bit more work than snatching article titles, but really much more rewarding.
And, I would revert the name of William the Silent's article page back to what I think it was a very, very, long time ago: "William the Silent", or as only second solution I think only more or less reasonable, "William I of Orange" (but if voting, on second thought I would be voting against this: all in all too problematic).
-- Francis Schonken 18:11, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
See also: Talk:William III of England/Archive 1#redirect from William of Orange
Lame fame: William of Orange (disambiguation), William of Orange (see edit history at [12]) was the name of two important and well-known protestant Heads of State and also of some obscurer individuals in mists of history - or was He just only one King of England and all the others are minor characters. That became the object of a dispute over a redirect. This vital question divided a bunch of eminent readers of history and led to revert war that alternated the redirect almost each hour. Casual viewers were holding their breaths when coming smiling to check what is the current position of that weathervane. As the name's usage in English-speaking cultures was perceived the determining factor, see attempts to almost hand-count English-speakers in New Zealand, South Africa etc - all apparently using the hallowed name in certain way. Extensive and in-depth argumentation in several talk pages and usertalk pages included claims of original primary authorship of a redirect as well as accusations of nationalistic POV, filibusters and "using all the tricks in the box". This teaches us some things about disambiguation pages and potential problems surrounding even such tools. Nothing has been settled yet, and all the time more fallout is generating (comment from 217.140.193.123 13:03, 28 August 2005 (UTC)):
I've sometimes seen William III of England referred to as "William of OranJe", and I created a redirect page for William of Oranje->William III of England. I don't know how to fit it into the bigger picture, but thought I'd just post it here as an FYI JW ( talk) 20:43, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
William of Orange <-> Willem van Oranje
All the same, simply point it to this disamb. page. Daimanta ( talk) 01:01, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
This page seems to be a hybrid of an article and a disambiguation page. It seems to me that William III should be put after a generic one sentence intro and that the TOC should either be after that or suppressed. Does anyone object to making this a more standard dab page? - Rrius ( talk) 04:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
he ruled ireland 4 some time —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.81.224 ( talk) 18:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)