Talk:Paul Sabatier (theologian)

Factual error

On the page on Paul Sabatier started with "Paul Sabatier (August 3, 1858 – March 4, 1928), was a French clergyman and historian", the section Works includes two volumes entitled "Bibliorum Sacrorum..." produced by the benedictin monk Pierre Sabatier (1682-1742) and published in 1743 (more than a century before Paul Sabatier was born). Clearly, two different personalities are being confused. I am sorry for not editing, but the task being at the moment entireley new to me, I want to prevent any wrongdoing. All the best, Jperes — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jperes (talk • contribs) 14:18, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 6 January 2017

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. (non-admin closure) JudgeRM (talk to me) 19:44, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

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Paul Sabatier → Paul Sabatier (theologian) – I have moved many wikilinks to this page which are intended for Paul Sabatier (chemist), who is far more famous. This name should be used for a disambiguation page. Chemical Engineer (talk) 12:01, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support per nomination. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 20:33, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support no primarytopic. Dicklyon (talk) 03:40, 12 January 2017 (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.

Dates of birth and death

The dates of birth and death given by Bibliothèque nationale de France are 9 August 1858 – 5 March 1928, whereas the 1989 Britannica (15th ed.) gives 3 August 1858 – 4 March 1928. Not a huge difference, but they can't both be right. --RexxS (talk) 22:34, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

• data.bnf.fr state 9 August 1858. I've changed the ranking at Wikidata to prefer this value, but this does need further investigation. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 00:03, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

• @Mike Peel: The infobox and the article lead now have two different dates of death. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:45, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Sorry, checking back at [1] that was a typo, now fixed. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 00:49, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

As the sources differ no there is no definitive answer, why has one source been given preference over others? We reflect what the sources say, so both should be included, not just a personal preference of one over other. Google searches (including book searches) show both dates being quoted, so we should reflect that. – The Bounder (talk) 11:02, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

• Mike Peel, why does a database have to "prefer" a date when there is no weight of evidence that either is correct? - The Bounder (talk) 11:22, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Because the newer sources seem to prefer 9 August, so it looks as if some old error (3 august) no longer gets repeated in newer sources, apart from Wikipedia of course... Fram (talk) 15:11, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
    • The current Encyclopaedia Britannica page shows the 3rd. Do you have any source that says the 3rd is an "old error"? – The Bounder (talk) 15:19, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
      • No, that's just my impression. The "current" Britannica article is from 1998, and seems to simply repeat the dates already there. Both the BNF page and the Protestant Encyclopedia are more recent. Fram (talk) 10:21, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
        • So there is nothing that gives precedence of one date over the other: no information that disproves or gives extra weight to one over the other. The New Catholic Encyclopedia, published in 2003, gives 3 August too. When even the more recent works cannot agree on the date, we cannot give precende of one or the other - either on here, or on the wikidata database, where there should be no preference to force onto articles on other language wikipedias. - The Bounder (talk) 10:39, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
          • Indeed (I hadn't seen the New Catholic Encyclopedia" on this). Our article now presents both dates side by side without a preference. Could be worse, I have just changed Concha Espina, for whom there are at least 4 diferent dates of birth, varying by 10 years! Wikidata there had two sourced dates, but the infobox only fetched the first of the two, so it didn't accurately represent Wikidata anyway. I changed that one to a local infobox as well (and updated the article of course). On this article as well, it seems as if when Wikidata has multiple values, only one of them is shown here, which would be bad. Fram (talk) 11:02, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
            • That's the question that Mike Peel didn't answer (although I pinged him): why does a database "prefer" one date over another? It looks like he's just checked one source and gone with that, without doing anything more. At least you and I have thrashed out the sources to show there is no clear cut consensus which is deemed more correct. Just choosing one for a database to "prefer" seems odd to me. - The Bounder (talk) 11:07, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
              • Sorry for the slow reply. Wikidata can prefer one date over the other e.g., when one is known to be wrong but has been widely reported in sources (or a piece of information in general has become out of date, e.g., see the populations given at d:Q2). I thought that was the case here, but it sounds like it wasn't. As such I've changed them back to equal preference. Quite why both dates aren't being shown anyway, I'm not sure - but that's a general question for Module talk:WikidataIB. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 22:50, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Employer

At present, the article claims Sabatier was employed by University of Strasbourg, which has only really existed in its current form since 2009. There are two different entries on Wikidata: University of Strasbourg (Q20808141) and University of Strasbourg (Q157575). Should we be making the effort to be accurate about the institution where he worked? --RexxS (talk) 18:54, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

No. This article should match the enwiki article on the University, not the Wikidata ones. 09:07, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry I wasn't clearer. University of Strasbourg was created in 2009. It's obvious that Sabatier wasn't employed by that institution.

The present-day French university traces its history to the earlier German-language Universität Straßburg, which was founded in 1538, and was divided in the 1970s into three separate institutions: Louis Pasteur University, Marc Bloch University, and Robert Schuman University. On 1 January 2009, the fusion of these three universities reconstituted a united University of Strasbourg. - lead of University of Strasbourg

I suppose we can consider our single article covers both Universität Straßburg (1538–1970) and Université de Strasbourg (2009–), but that's only possible because we translate the names of the two institutions to the same thing in English. --RexxS (talk) 14:20, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Even the French article covers both in one, only Wikidata makes a separate article, so I guess Wikidata knows better now than even the home wiki of this university... We don't help readers at all by sending them to that Wikidata page, we only help Wikidata. Please consider what is the most important. Fram (talk) 21:00, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

What is most important is to give accurate information to the reader. That is not best served by telling them that Sabatier was employed at an institution that was created in 2009. --RexxS (talk) 01:53, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Read the fucking articles. University of Strasbourg: established 1538. "In 1970, the university was subdivided into three separate institutions [...] These were, however, reunited in 2009" The same history can be found in the German article about the university, and in the French article about the university. And of course, what does the University has to say about all this?[2] "The University of Strasbourg was founded in the 16th century by Johannes Sturm, a protestant scholar. Sturm created a Protestant Gymnasium in 1538 with the mandate of disseminating knowledge, one of the core values of Humanism. Through the years, the Gymnasium progressively developed into an Academy and a University before it finally became the Royal University in 1631." Doing one of your infamous "fixes" on enwiki won't solve your problem of course, and only results in your fancy name redirecting to the very article you oppose as a target anyway. Fram (talk) 08:28, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

You read all that, as I have, but the difference is that you've understood nothing. The university that Sabatier worked for from 1919 is a different institution from the one today. The only reason we can have a single article is that the earlier institution and the later one both translate into English (and French and German) with the same words. That doesn't make them the same. --RexxS (talk) 13:13, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

And yet, everyone who wrote these articles and even the University itself think they are so much of a continuation that they can and should be treated as one. Only you have a different opinion. I don't believe I have understood "nothing", but it's true that I can't understand your point, or how you believe that pointing readers to a near-empty Wikidata entry which now points back to our enwiki article (and which you couldn't even create without bending our rules significantly and ignoring Wikidata rules completely), is somehow better than just pointing them to our enwiki article directly. Many things have a slightly different scope today than 100 years ago, but we still link people who were born in London in 1919 to the article about London today, and people who were born in the United States in 1805 to the article about the USA today, even though it is much larger. The Strasbourg University after its regrouping isn't identical to the pre-1970 one, but it is generally seen and treated as the continuation of it, with a shared history and name, and therefor are treated as one on Wikipedia (not just enwiki, but fr and de, who should know how it is). You may continue your one-man opposition to this, but don't expect further replies unless you can offer significantly better arguments (like, official relevant sources that support you in this). Fram (talk) 13:53, 30 January 2017 (UTC)