But! It assumes that every single one of them deserves a wiki-article. Do you want to create an article just for saying so and so was pretor in 244 BC? I'd rather have something in the style of Caecilius Metellus, creating separate articles only for people w´hich further distinguished themselves. In other words I suggest: keeping all the stubs together in the paged named after the name they share. MvHG 11:26, 18 May 2004 (UTC)
I might suggest that when an Anglicized form is often used (e.g. Livy or Marc/Mark Antony), the original form be the article and the Anglicized form the redirect. If all wikipedias would adopt this it'd make interwiki linking a lot easier -- Antony would be listed under Marcus Antonius everywhere, as he already is on DA, DE, NL, and SV. In fact, the article on en.wikipedia discussing Marcus Antonius refers to him as "Antonius" everywhere except the title, and such a standard would appear to be already in place on the German wikipedia, though it may just be that Germans retain the proper endings on their Romans. We need not be constrained in fact to the constraints of a paper encyclopedia; if people come looking for Mark Antony, they can be directed to Marcus Antonius, unless we wish to start referring to Cicero as Tully; a uniform appearance is a desirable characteristic, even if it makes people undergo a redirect here and there. -- Jeff Anonymous 07:40, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
There's a grammatical error in the first sentence. It should read "...about whom we have...", not "...about which we have..."; Roman citizens are people, not things. I've not made the change myself, since conventions should not be changed without consensus. If another editor seeing this concurs, please make the change. MayerG ( talk) 19:15, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I have taken some of the detailed discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome#Consul disambiguation and implemented them into the convention. Further expansion and clarification is till needed but this appears to clarify the position on disambiguation. -- Labattblueboy ( talk) 08:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Over the past several months there has been contentious debate over aspects of WP:Article Titles policy. That contentiousness has led to efforts to improve the overall effectiveness of the policy and associated processes. An RFC entitled: Wikipedia talk:Article titles/RFC-Article title decision practice has been initiated to assess the communities’ understanding of our title decision making policy. As a project that has created or influenced subject specific naming conventions, participants in this project are encouraged to review and participate in the RFC.-- Mike Cline ( talk) 17:33, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
WP:ROMANS exists because Roman names are confusing. There is an immense series on the gentes, each of which (depending on the size of the gens) is a prosopographical list. These currently follow a consistent naming practice, and to minimize confusion (especially with the names of women in the gens), it's highly desirable to maintain consistency. If the current system doesn't conform to MOS, then any style change would need to offer the same degree of consistency as an aid to title recognition. If a consensus can be achieved, I'd like to codify it here, and have drafted a temporary section toward that end. I seem to be having trouble attracting comment, though. Cynwolfe ( talk) 17:27, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Below I'm copying a discussion on gens article titling. After seeking input at WP:Article titles and WP:Disambiguation, I was unable to get any outside editors to participate in the discussion here or at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. I didn't see a clear consensus emerge from the other two discussions, nor did any editor volunteer to take on the massive job of moving all the gentes. I'm thus assuming that editors tacitly think that it isn't worth the trouble to change the status quo. Cynwolfe ( talk) 16:46, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
Discussion copied from WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome:
In my view, the crucial thing for these titles is that they all follow the same style; Roman nomenclature is confusing enough. Since I see no benefit to readers or editors if only those gens articles that have a title "ambiguity" are allowed to have the parenthetical explanation, I would like to reexamine titling options, in the hope of finding one we could apply consistently.
I don't recall where the original titling discussion took place, so let me summarize the options to the best of my ability:
Thoughts? Cynwolfe ( talk) 15:43, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
end copied discussion
Recently a number of biographical articles on Roman men have been moved from their full names—usually the tria nomina plus or minus a cognomen or two—to whatever collocation of names makes them unique with respect to other article titles, on the grounds that this is required by WP:CONCISE. I think that this misapplies the policy in a way that does a disservice to our readers. I agree that there are some individuals who are so famous by abbreviated versions of their names that the articles should go under those titles, i.e. Cicero, Mark Antony, Tiberius. But for less well-known figures, I think our default policy should be to use the tria nomina plus regularly-used cognomina, and whatever other distinguishing factors are necessary for disambiguation. Some examples:
I think it's a good time to discuss this because of recent moves and move proposals. Today I discovered that Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica—admittedly a mouthful—had been moved to Metellus Scipio, a collocation I wouldn't have thought to look under; if I had remembered the full name I probably would have looked under Scipio Nasica (which, as it turns out, is a disambiguation page). I reverted the move because I didn't think it was a likely search target; I don't know that the full name is that much more likely, but at least it's a predictable title. Note that this proposal wouldn't affect Roman women, who usually were known by just a nomen, occasionally accompanied by a praenomen or cognomen; I don't think articles about them are likely to be moved due to WP:CONCISE. P Aculeius ( talk) 01:52, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I think we've got general consensus, and have gone ahead and revised the middle portion of the article titling section accordingly. But maybe my wording could be improved upon, or maybe there's still disagreement on something—feel free to tweak it, revert it if you think it goes too far, or resume the discussion here. P Aculeius ( talk) 23:49, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
There's been some inconsistency over the years concerning how best to disambiguate Romans using magistracies or other official appointments, and I think perhaps it would be a good time to discuss it and see if we can come to a consensus. The policy currently says that between Romans sharing the same name, when the highest offices held were different, those offices alone should be used to disambiguate them; i.e. Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (praetor) to distinguish him from Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (grammarian) and Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (magister equitum). However, the practice of adding the year of office is long-established and, I think, helpful, particularly when several persons with the same or very similar names held different offices over a span of time. Under the current policy, which is supposedly informed by WP:CONCISE, an article titled Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (consul AD 217) is likely to be moved to Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (consul) as long as none of his homonymous relatives held the consulship, even if Lucius Arcadius Maximus held the consulship in 215, Marcus Arcadius Maximus in 225, and Gnaeus Arcadius Cumulonimbus in 236. I think that this is an overly-strict application of WP:CONCISE. My suggestion is to revise our current policy, and state explicitly that the year of office should be included when an office is used as a disambiguator, and the year of office is known. I think this would be more helpful to readers and editors, as well as making disambiguation between Roman articles more predictable. P Aculeius ( talk) 02:13, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I feel that this needs to be brought out of abeyance at least so that whoever decides to someday clarify the guidelines has a more solid consensus to work on. To sum up my position on this, I can accept the idea that the year should required when using a magistracy to disambiguate individuals. This would especially make sense for non-consuls or any office which doesn't have a complete enumeration (the fasti, for instance) of men who held it. On the topic of suffect consulships, I see no reason why they should be distinguished on the article title, as in Lucius Valerius Flaccus (suffect consul 86 BC) and Publius Cornelius Dolabella (suffect consul 44 BC). Either the 'suffect' should be dropped, or the year (as in Lucius Aurelius Gallus (suffect consul) or Lucius Cornelius Cinna (suffect consul)), but using both makes the title too long. If the year is to become obligatory, then the former alternative is surely preferable.
I do not want to complicate this too much but what is to be made with, for example, Publius Rutilius Lupus (consul) and Lucius Afranius (consul), who seem to lack similarly-named officeholder relatives (and thus, reasons for disambiguation) with Wikipedia pages? Is the year rule to be applied unalterably or do cases like these constitute exceptions? Finally, what should be the order of precedence for offices not within the cursus honorum? Should princeps senatus and dictator come before consul, as in Lucius Valerius Flaccus (princeps senatus 86 BC) (cos. 100), or not, as in Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (consul 115 BC) (princeps senatus) and Titus Manlius Torquatus (consul 235 BC) (dictator)? If so, should the year be used for these offices as well? Avis11 ( talk) 13:59, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm wondering what should we do with family connection, like: Publius Cornelius Scipio (son of Scipio Africanus). T8612 (talk) 23:06, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
I think it might be worthwhile to specify that in text, Romans should be referred to, in the first instance, by disambiguating linked name or with an explanatory phrase instead of the abbreviations common in classical scholarship. What I mean by that is not Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (tr pl 133) but rather Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the plebeian tribune of 133 BC
. Similarly, a link is should be sufficient disambiguation. If the text simply says Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, this is a problem (which one?). If it links to
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (this time the tribune's father), I think that should be noted as okay.
Ifly6 (
talk)
10:08, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
But! It assumes that every single one of them deserves a wiki-article. Do you want to create an article just for saying so and so was pretor in 244 BC? I'd rather have something in the style of Caecilius Metellus, creating separate articles only for people w´hich further distinguished themselves. In other words I suggest: keeping all the stubs together in the paged named after the name they share. MvHG 11:26, 18 May 2004 (UTC)
I might suggest that when an Anglicized form is often used (e.g. Livy or Marc/Mark Antony), the original form be the article and the Anglicized form the redirect. If all wikipedias would adopt this it'd make interwiki linking a lot easier -- Antony would be listed under Marcus Antonius everywhere, as he already is on DA, DE, NL, and SV. In fact, the article on en.wikipedia discussing Marcus Antonius refers to him as "Antonius" everywhere except the title, and such a standard would appear to be already in place on the German wikipedia, though it may just be that Germans retain the proper endings on their Romans. We need not be constrained in fact to the constraints of a paper encyclopedia; if people come looking for Mark Antony, they can be directed to Marcus Antonius, unless we wish to start referring to Cicero as Tully; a uniform appearance is a desirable characteristic, even if it makes people undergo a redirect here and there. -- Jeff Anonymous 07:40, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
There's a grammatical error in the first sentence. It should read "...about whom we have...", not "...about which we have..."; Roman citizens are people, not things. I've not made the change myself, since conventions should not be changed without consensus. If another editor seeing this concurs, please make the change. MayerG ( talk) 19:15, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I have taken some of the detailed discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome#Consul disambiguation and implemented them into the convention. Further expansion and clarification is till needed but this appears to clarify the position on disambiguation. -- Labattblueboy ( talk) 08:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Over the past several months there has been contentious debate over aspects of WP:Article Titles policy. That contentiousness has led to efforts to improve the overall effectiveness of the policy and associated processes. An RFC entitled: Wikipedia talk:Article titles/RFC-Article title decision practice has been initiated to assess the communities’ understanding of our title decision making policy. As a project that has created or influenced subject specific naming conventions, participants in this project are encouraged to review and participate in the RFC.-- Mike Cline ( talk) 17:33, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
WP:ROMANS exists because Roman names are confusing. There is an immense series on the gentes, each of which (depending on the size of the gens) is a prosopographical list. These currently follow a consistent naming practice, and to minimize confusion (especially with the names of women in the gens), it's highly desirable to maintain consistency. If the current system doesn't conform to MOS, then any style change would need to offer the same degree of consistency as an aid to title recognition. If a consensus can be achieved, I'd like to codify it here, and have drafted a temporary section toward that end. I seem to be having trouble attracting comment, though. Cynwolfe ( talk) 17:27, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Below I'm copying a discussion on gens article titling. After seeking input at WP:Article titles and WP:Disambiguation, I was unable to get any outside editors to participate in the discussion here or at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. I didn't see a clear consensus emerge from the other two discussions, nor did any editor volunteer to take on the massive job of moving all the gentes. I'm thus assuming that editors tacitly think that it isn't worth the trouble to change the status quo. Cynwolfe ( talk) 16:46, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
Discussion copied from WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome:
In my view, the crucial thing for these titles is that they all follow the same style; Roman nomenclature is confusing enough. Since I see no benefit to readers or editors if only those gens articles that have a title "ambiguity" are allowed to have the parenthetical explanation, I would like to reexamine titling options, in the hope of finding one we could apply consistently.
I don't recall where the original titling discussion took place, so let me summarize the options to the best of my ability:
Thoughts? Cynwolfe ( talk) 15:43, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
end copied discussion
Recently a number of biographical articles on Roman men have been moved from their full names—usually the tria nomina plus or minus a cognomen or two—to whatever collocation of names makes them unique with respect to other article titles, on the grounds that this is required by WP:CONCISE. I think that this misapplies the policy in a way that does a disservice to our readers. I agree that there are some individuals who are so famous by abbreviated versions of their names that the articles should go under those titles, i.e. Cicero, Mark Antony, Tiberius. But for less well-known figures, I think our default policy should be to use the tria nomina plus regularly-used cognomina, and whatever other distinguishing factors are necessary for disambiguation. Some examples:
I think it's a good time to discuss this because of recent moves and move proposals. Today I discovered that Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica—admittedly a mouthful—had been moved to Metellus Scipio, a collocation I wouldn't have thought to look under; if I had remembered the full name I probably would have looked under Scipio Nasica (which, as it turns out, is a disambiguation page). I reverted the move because I didn't think it was a likely search target; I don't know that the full name is that much more likely, but at least it's a predictable title. Note that this proposal wouldn't affect Roman women, who usually were known by just a nomen, occasionally accompanied by a praenomen or cognomen; I don't think articles about them are likely to be moved due to WP:CONCISE. P Aculeius ( talk) 01:52, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I think we've got general consensus, and have gone ahead and revised the middle portion of the article titling section accordingly. But maybe my wording could be improved upon, or maybe there's still disagreement on something—feel free to tweak it, revert it if you think it goes too far, or resume the discussion here. P Aculeius ( talk) 23:49, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
There's been some inconsistency over the years concerning how best to disambiguate Romans using magistracies or other official appointments, and I think perhaps it would be a good time to discuss it and see if we can come to a consensus. The policy currently says that between Romans sharing the same name, when the highest offices held were different, those offices alone should be used to disambiguate them; i.e. Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (praetor) to distinguish him from Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (grammarian) and Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (magister equitum). However, the practice of adding the year of office is long-established and, I think, helpful, particularly when several persons with the same or very similar names held different offices over a span of time. Under the current policy, which is supposedly informed by WP:CONCISE, an article titled Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (consul AD 217) is likely to be moved to Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (consul) as long as none of his homonymous relatives held the consulship, even if Lucius Arcadius Maximus held the consulship in 215, Marcus Arcadius Maximus in 225, and Gnaeus Arcadius Cumulonimbus in 236. I think that this is an overly-strict application of WP:CONCISE. My suggestion is to revise our current policy, and state explicitly that the year of office should be included when an office is used as a disambiguator, and the year of office is known. I think this would be more helpful to readers and editors, as well as making disambiguation between Roman articles more predictable. P Aculeius ( talk) 02:13, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I feel that this needs to be brought out of abeyance at least so that whoever decides to someday clarify the guidelines has a more solid consensus to work on. To sum up my position on this, I can accept the idea that the year should required when using a magistracy to disambiguate individuals. This would especially make sense for non-consuls or any office which doesn't have a complete enumeration (the fasti, for instance) of men who held it. On the topic of suffect consulships, I see no reason why they should be distinguished on the article title, as in Lucius Valerius Flaccus (suffect consul 86 BC) and Publius Cornelius Dolabella (suffect consul 44 BC). Either the 'suffect' should be dropped, or the year (as in Lucius Aurelius Gallus (suffect consul) or Lucius Cornelius Cinna (suffect consul)), but using both makes the title too long. If the year is to become obligatory, then the former alternative is surely preferable.
I do not want to complicate this too much but what is to be made with, for example, Publius Rutilius Lupus (consul) and Lucius Afranius (consul), who seem to lack similarly-named officeholder relatives (and thus, reasons for disambiguation) with Wikipedia pages? Is the year rule to be applied unalterably or do cases like these constitute exceptions? Finally, what should be the order of precedence for offices not within the cursus honorum? Should princeps senatus and dictator come before consul, as in Lucius Valerius Flaccus (princeps senatus 86 BC) (cos. 100), or not, as in Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (consul 115 BC) (princeps senatus) and Titus Manlius Torquatus (consul 235 BC) (dictator)? If so, should the year be used for these offices as well? Avis11 ( talk) 13:59, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm wondering what should we do with family connection, like: Publius Cornelius Scipio (son of Scipio Africanus). T8612 (talk) 23:06, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
I think it might be worthwhile to specify that in text, Romans should be referred to, in the first instance, by disambiguating linked name or with an explanatory phrase instead of the abbreviations common in classical scholarship. What I mean by that is not Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (tr pl 133) but rather Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the plebeian tribune of 133 BC
. Similarly, a link is should be sufficient disambiguation. If the text simply says Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, this is a problem (which one?). If it links to
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (this time the tribune's father), I think that should be noted as okay.
Ifly6 (
talk)
10:08, 5 June 2023 (UTC)