Talk:M. J. Coldwell

MJ Coldwell School

FYI, there is a Regina elementary school, M. J. Coldwell School, named for Coldwell. Didn't see this mentioned in the article, my apologies if it is. See http://www.rbe.sk.ca/. BigNate37_T·C 03:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Biography assessment rating comment

The article may be improved by following theWPBiogaphy 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Abebenjoe 18:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

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Requested move 26 May 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Most editors believe that "M. J. Coldwell" is the common name of this individual. — Newslinger talk 21:28, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

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Major James Coldwell → M. J. Coldwell – Per WP:COMMONNAME (the ngram, e.g., shows 0 hits for the existing title). 142.160.89.97 (talk) 04:56, 26 May 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. Steel1943 (talk) 19:27, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Misplaced/improperly bundled discussion ... not properly bundled almost two weeks later. See Talk:Abraham Albert Heaps#Requested move 8 June 2019 for the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 19:27, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
-- Abraham Albert Heaps → A. A. Heaps – Per WP:COMMONNAME (the ngram, e.g., shows 0 hits for the existing title). 142.160.89.97 (talk) 04:54, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:08, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

• @142.160.89.97 and Dicklyon: queried move requests Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:10, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
• The above two don't sound like technicals, but rather opinions of what might be better. Dicklyon (talk) 06:35, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: The request is technical in nature as most users cannot move over a redirect. (The word technical is used in the term technical request at WP:RM with the same meaning as in the term technical barrier at WP:MOVE.) And for the request to be regarded as contested, an objection to the merge would have to be lodged. 142.160.89.97 (talk) 06:47, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

This is me objecting. Dicklyon (talk) 14:39, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: On what basis? 142.160.89.97 (talk) 23:24, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

The n-grams analysis is flawed and does not establish what you say it does ("shows 0 hits for the existing title") since it has a threshold for 3-grams that is not met in this case, and you didn't even consider "Major J. Coldwell", and this kind of change from name to initials always deserves discussion. Similar with Heaps. Dicklyon (talk) 15:35, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

The n-grams analysis is flawed and does not establish what you say it does ("shows 0 hits for the existing title") since it has a threshold for 3-grams that is not met in this case. Could you clarify what you mean here, Dicklyon? Does it pertain to the smoothing of 3? If so, reducing that to zero doesn't appear to affect the result.

and you didn't even consider "Major J. Coldwell". What leads you to believe that I didn't consider that? I merely didn't include it in the ngram because it isn't a name by which the subject has ever been known, as evidenced by the fact that "Major J. Coldwell" receives only 20 Google hits, half of which are false positives.

and this kind of change from name to initials always deserves discussion. I certainly don't object to discussing this if you have concerns (though the idea that changes from a full personal name to initials uniformly require the controversial RM process isn't consonant with the relevant guidelines or the RM instructions). I merely object to your characterization of the initial request as not "technical" in nature (despite the consistent way in which the term is used on Wikipedia in the context of moves) and your having listed the discussion as "contested" without providing any other basis for contestation. 142.160.89.97 (talk) 02:08, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

The point is that absence from the n-grams database does not imply no occurences in books; it just means it's below a cutoff threshold (something like 30 occurrences, or 30 books maybe, I think). And if you search books, you certainly do find him known as "Major J. Coldwell" in some of them, too. And generally, commonname arguments that go against previous title decisions should be discussed, with reasoned arguments and evidence. Dicklyon (talk) 03:02, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

The point is that absence from the n-grams database does not imply no occurences in books; it just means it's below a cutoff threshold (something like 30 occurrences, or 30 books maybe, I think). I haven't suggested that there isn't a number sufficiently insignificant such that it isn't registered by the ngram. Rather, I said that there were 0 hits registered by the ngram.

And if you search books, you certainly do find him known as "Major J. Coldwell" in some of them, too. I was already well aware, despite the suggestion that I hadn't considered this. Google Books does show that name used once in Hansard, once in a footnoted citation in a book, once in a magazine, once in a directory which appears to uniformly use that name format, and once in a reference work listing article abstracts (in addition to one false positive). Of what relevance do you think that is here, given that the proposed title has nearly 12,000 hits in Google Books, Dicklyon?

And generally, commonname arguments that go against previous title decisions should be discussed, with reasoned arguments and evidence. Like I said, I'm happy to discuss the matter, but there is no standard that technical requests are impermissible if they pertain to WP:COMMONNAME. In fact, it's a pretty regular occurrence. And I'm not sure what "previous title decision" you're referring to. 142.160.89.97 (talk) 03:56, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Nobody said it was "impermissible"; just objected to. The presented argument was too weak to accept, imho. Dicklyon (talk) 04:17, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

There is no evidence that "generally, commonname arguments [...] should be discussed" when handling such cases via WP:RM/TR is a common occurrence.

The presented argument was too weak to accept, imho. Well, I trust you'll be engaging with the fleshed out argument now.

But you didn't answer the questions: Of what relevance is everything you're going on about concerning "Major J. Coldwell"? And to what "previous title decision" are you referring? 142.160.89.97 (talk) 04:30, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

15 years ago someone picked a name that has gone unquestioned until now. If you want to change it, make a good case. Your case only barely compared with the pure initials version, and didn't mention any other possibilities. And the suggestion of "0 hits" seemed inconsistent with the kinds of observations that can be made from the n-gram viewer. It didn't sound like an appropriate technical, since it's often controversial to ditch a person's name in favor of a nickname. So now you're presenting a case; good; let's see if editors support it. Dicklyon (talk) 04:23, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Obviously, you cannot expect my support now, after the asshole move you pulled against me in finding a bunch of my old moves to undo. Dicklyon (talk) 04:55, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose until or unless a better case is made for such moves away from names to initials. Dicklyon (talk) 15:35, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Given that the request was initially for a technical move, I didn't make a fleshed out case except to say that WP:COMMONNAME was applicable. For a technical request, that is typically sufficient, as we can see from the fact that Anthony Appleyard moved the article pursuant to the request before noticing your comment. That being said, I believe my below comment should address your concerns. 142.160.89.97 (talk) 02:08, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

• Comment – WP:INITS provides Generally, use the most common format of a name used in reliable sources: if that is with a middle name or initials, make the Wikipedia article title conform to that format. Examples: John F. Kennedy, Thomas John Barnardo, George H. W. Bush, J. P. Morgan. In both cases here, the subject's full name is used rather rarely in the literature, sufficiently infrequently that the full name is little more than a piece of historical trivia. For those unfamiliar with the literature, this can be seen in the ngrams for their respective names (here and here).

Beyond just the naming convention for biographies, we can look at the five WP:NAMINGCRITERIA more broadly:

• Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.
  Most people with a vague familiarity with the history of social democracy on the Canadian prairies will be familiar with both M. J. Coldwell and A. A. Heaps, but many will have never come across their full names.
• Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.
  As mentioned before, many people won't even know the subjects' full names, so that certainly isn't what they would naturally use to search for or refer to the subjects.
  With respect to what one would use to link to the articles, we can look at what is already being used, but we must bear in mind that it is only natural that many people will use one name rather than another solely on the basis of the existing article title (I have done this myself, at times). The numbers will therefore be dramatically skewed in favour of the status quo. That being said, the names' usage in prose on Wikipedia breaks down as follows: M. J. Coldwell – 21; Major James Coldwell – 8; Major Coldwell – 2; A. A. Heaps – 5; Abraham Albert Heaps – 14. These numbers suggest that there can be no question that the proposed title best meets this criterion in the case of Coldwell and, given the natural bias towards the status quo, I would argue that they don't tell us much one way or the other in the case of Heaps.
• Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects.
  With respect to Coldwell, neither title is ambiguous in identifying the subject and distinguishing him from other subjects. With respect to Heaps, it appears that there is some ambiguity in the proposed title because the subject's grandson, Adrian Heaps, shares his initials and is infrequently referred to as A. A. Heaps.
• Conciseness – The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects.
  The proposed titles are substantially shorter than the existing titles.
• Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) as topic-specific naming conventions on article titles, in the box above.
  The applicability of the relevant provision of the naming conventions for biographies, WP:INITS, is discussed above.

Given the arguable potential ambiguity with Adrian Heaps (with whom I was heretofore unfamiliar), I'm open to reconsidering the merits of moving Abraham Albert Heaps to A. A. Heaps. The move of Major James Coldwell to M. J. Coldwell, however, is an open and shut case. 142.160.89.97 (talk) 02:08, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

• Support. Given both their biographies are so titled (and one would imagine their biographers know what they're talking about), I think this is reasonable. The similarity to Adrian Heaps can be resolved with hatnotes. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:06, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Notes

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Due to improper discussion bundling that existed for almost two weeks, the discussion for moving Abraham Albert Heaps has been started/transferred to Talk:Abraham Albert Heaps#Requested move 8 June 2019. Comments above this relist note may refer to that move and not the move of Major James Coldwell.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Steel1943 (talk) 20:24, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support. Subject's WP:COMMONNAME is very definitely "M. J." rather than his full names. Bearcat (talk) 13:35, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

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

Oppose

It’s his proper name, Major James. M.J. Is more a nickname like FDR. Abebenjoe (talk) 06:50, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Hardly, given that was an abbreviation of his entire name. We use WP:COMMONNAME, not necessarily full name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:32, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

If a person is more widely known by a nickname than by his legal name, then Wikipedia uses the nickname. "Bud" wasn't Bud Germa's legal name either, but it's what we use because it's how he was usually known — and the musician whose legal name is Kevin Brereton is located at K-os, not "Kevin Brereton". Bearcat (talk) 13:33, 20 June 2019 (UTC)