Talk:George Clinton (Royal Navy officer)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus to make the move requested Mike Cline (talk) 12:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

George Clinton (Royal Navy officer) → George Clinton (naval officer) – Relisted. Consensus seems to be to move. However the current name seems to match most of the exiting articles which are disambiguated. If there is no clear and convincing case for this change to go against the existing norm, then I would close as not moved. I think this should probably be closed and an RFC opened to discuss this across all of the articles. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC) There is no "standard dab" for British naval officers. If there was then every naval officer would have a dab. Disambiguaters are only as detailed as is "necessary to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided". Marcus Qwertyus 03:01, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose Have a look through Category:Royal Navy admirals and find a dab term that is '(naval officer)' and not '(Royal Navy officer)', i.e. not 'service officer'. And of course its not the case that 'every naval officer would have a dab', they only have a dab when it is necessary (i.e. an undisambiguated term is not available), and when it is this form is used. Some examples John Adams (Royal Navy officer), David Allen (Royal Navy officer), William Allen (Royal Navy officer), John Ashby (Royal Navy officer), John Baird (Royal Navy officer), etc, GA articles George Murray (Royal Navy officer), Henry Inman (Royal Navy officer), James Walker (Royal Navy officer), John MacBride (Royal Navy officer). The format is precise (the term is descriptive and there is no chance of confusion with officers of other navies) and concise (including two pieces of information: the service and the commission). Benea (talk) 03:49, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Policy has more weight than the status quo. "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale." It is also more likely that some person a long time ago set up a template with redlinks to First Last (Royal Navy Officer) and it stuck. If there are two Royal Navy officers named Jack Smith and we give them three disambiguators, do we need give three disambiguators to every RNO? Marcus Qwertyus 04:23, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are two disambiguators in each case Marcus. Where are you getting three from? Are you confusing 'word' or 'term' for 'disambiguator'? Benea (talk) 04:27, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I said if there are two Royal Navy officers named Jack Smith we would need three. Are we going to say then that now all articles that had two disambiguators now need three? Marcus Qwertyus 04:37, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, in fact that is a fairly common situation, and can be usually handled with dates, Thomas Fellowes (1778-1853) and Thomas Fellowes (1827-1923), James Richard Dacres (1749–1810) and James Richard Dacres (1788–1853), George Elliot (1784–1863) and George Elliot (1813–1901), etc, or dates and titles, William Hotham, 1st Baron Hotham and William Hotham (1772–1848). How would three disambiguators help if, as often happens, both subjects had the same rank? Both Fellowes were rear-admirals, both Dacres were vice-admirals and both Elliots were admirals. The current system uses a two level disambiguation. The service, and the commission. Your suggestion keeps it at a two-level stage. The service, and the commission. It is not changing the overall level of precision, in the way that John Smith (Canadian politician) would be a more precise term of John Smith (politician). And the hundreds of articles which use the structure cannot be just dismissed as being a limited consensus or the result of some hypothetical template. I'd say it looked more like long standing consensus on a naming convention, that extends beyond articles on Royal Navy officers to other branches, eg Henry Monckton (British Army officer), Harry Atkinson (RAF officer), etc. Benea (talk) 05:02, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. The policy is clear. The articles that don't follow it should be moved. Kauffner (talk) 11:27, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've just been reminded that consistency is a principle of titling listed in WP:TITLE: 'Does the proposed title follow the same pattern as those of similar articles?' (naval officer) would certainly break the existing pattern of titles for these officers. Precision is another titling principle that I feel would be lost in the proposed move. And what is this policy you refer to? Benea (talk) 15:00, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • But as I understand it, sarcasm is not a titling principle. The guideline says to avoid overprecision. As far as consistency goes, there is Nicholas Biddle (naval officer), John Barry (naval officer), David Porter (naval officer), Gail Harris (naval officer), John Manley (naval officer), Charles Read (naval officer), David Conner (naval officer), Samuel Adams (naval officer), Daniel Johnson (naval officer), William Anderson (naval officer), Daniel Turner (naval officer), and John Lawson (Naval officer). (Someone needs to fix the unfortunate capital "N" in that last one). There's plenty more where they came from. Kauffner (talk) 16:14, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Agree about the unfortunate capital "N" but Vegaswikian beat me to it. Andrewa (talk) 00:00, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Royal Naval officer defines the branch of service, naval officer could be an officer in the Merchant Navy. The above examples proves the point they are all US Navy officers (or its predecessor) but there is no way of telling, unless clinking on the link. Its also a wider dispute than just the naval service, as other British forces officers use (Royal Air Force officer), (British Army officer) and (Royal Marine officer), when a disambiguation is required.Jim Sweeney (talk) 09:55, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - George Clinton (admiral) would also work. GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:12, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support -- There is no need to specify which navy unless there is ambiguity. In my view disambiguators should not be longer than necessary. George Clinton (admiral) would certainly work, but I recall seeing a number of admirals whose article I watch being moved from "admiral" to "naval officer", probably because they were officers throughout their career, but only admirals at the end, and frequently when they had ceased to be active. I do not quite understand the reasson for this convention, as articles on peers are normally with the highest title they achieved, excpt in some case where they are better known by anotehr title they enjoyed when a minister. Nevertheless, that seems to be the convention. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:48, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• I am inclined to oppose the request. I believe that over time the likelihood to precisely disambiguate will increase not decrease. Maybe this level of precision is not needed now but for sake of establishing standards this seems to me like a good starting point. MisterBee1966 (talk) 16:43, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. This can be argued both ways in terms of both guidelines and existing practice, but on the balance I think best to stay as it is, and update guidelines, propose other moves etc as needed to support this. Moving in the other direction, and to consistency, is a major exercise and I doubt it can be justified, and doubt also that any consensus to such a change will be achievable; If anyone sees it as a possibility then that should be the proposal. Andrewa (talk) 00:14, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.